Page 19 of Pack: Posy 3

She tilted her head as she stared up at me.

"You didn't realize any of this, did you? Why did you think girls avoided you?"

"I live in a freaking orphanage, Per." I rolled my eyes. "I don't have the money to buy the right clothes or shoes, and I'm—"

Broken, is what I was going to say before my brain caught up to my mouth. I didn't want her to know that yet, would have done anything to keep her fromeverknowing that, so I improvised.

"Not 'gorgeous' or whatever." I put air quotes around the word.

"If you don't know how good-looking you are, I can't explain it to you. And clothes and shoes don't make a difference. At least not to me."

Once again, her sunshine smile stole my breath.

"Ty?"

"Yeah?"

"What do I smell like to you? You smell like lilacs to me." She giggled and covered her mouth with one hand.

I gently took her wrist in my hand and pulled it away, then linked our fingers together.

"Don't cover your smile, sunshine," I whispered. "It's so beautiful."

"Oh!" Her cheeks glowed dull pink. "Thank you. I've always been self-conscious ever since Cole teased me when I was ten or eleven. He said my cheeks puff out like a chipmunk's when I smile. I mean, my face is naturally round, and I've struggled with a few extra pounds ever since puberty hit, so yeah, my cheeksarechubby and smiling makes them—"

Shaking my head, I laid the fingers of my free hand over her lips.

"Don't worry about what your dumb brother said when you were a kid," I told her. "And round and chubby cheeks are sexy as hell."

Her lovely brown eyes widened and red flared across those cheeks, and I realized she had no idea - no idea at all - of how beautiful she was to me.

"Peri, you are adorable." Dropping my fingers from her lips, I grabbed her other hand and held it, too. "And to answer your question, butterscotch."

"Okay." She took a deep breath, then said, "Ty, I'm afraid I'm going to wake up and this will all have been a dream."

"Me, too," I murmured, "but maybe this will make it seem more real for both of us."

Leaning down, I touched my lips to hers and delighted in the mate sparks that erupted between us.

"Oh, my," she breathed when I lifted my head.

"Yeah." I gently squeezed our interlaced fingers. "Listen, Peri, I don't have a big bank account, and I'm still dealing with some issues from my childhood, but I have a good-paying job and I swear I will work hard to provide you with the life you deserve."

"I don't even have a bank account or a job, but I know we're going to be fine." Her eyes grew wet as they locked with mine. "You know how I know that? Because we'll be together. So long as we're together, we can face anything, right?"

"Right. And we'll be together forever, sunshine, because I ain't letting you go any sooner than that."

She loosened her hands from mine so she could wrap her arms around my waist, then she squeezed me hard enough to make the breath huff out of me. Folding my arms around her shoulders, I held her just as tight.

"I love you, Ty," she whispered into my chest.

"I love you, too, so much." I kissed the top of her head. "My beautiful mate. My sunshine. My Peri."

#

We came back from our walk just in time to dig into hamburgers and hot dogs with everyone, then the alphas carried out an enormous cake and buckets of ice cream.

River was in heaven and made me look like a pig, but Peri laughed and said to let him have his fill as it was his birthday, too.

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