Page 18 of Possessive Alpha

My spending so long to get ready is a rarity, and so is her not pushing for details. She must notice my nerves and be waiting for after this thing with Ty before she pounces on me for details.

Yep. That sounds about right.

I’ve been on a couple of dates—nothing serious—on the rare occasions Clara and I would stay somewhere a little longer than our usual week or two. Usually, those places would be near a beach. It felt like we were on vacation, so it was easier to relax.

Ty blows every single one of those guys out of the water.

I dug out my nicest dress, spent a little longer brushing my hair, and even borrowed some of Clara’s strawberry lip gloss because this isn’t a date, but it kind of feels like it is.

And it felt like even more of one when Ty, standing in the hallway in black jeans and a white T-shirt, raked his eyes over me as I came down the stairs. “Sweetheart, did you wear this for me?”

I continue down the staircase, my fingers running down the balustrade. All the while, Ty stares at me as if he wants to eat me alive.

“Don’t be ridiculous. Of course not,” I lie.

Within a second of my feet touching the entryway, he has me pinned to the wall beside the staircase, a smile lurking in his eyes.

He lowers his head.

I hold my breath, my gaze bouncing from his eyes to his mouth.

“Liar,” he whispers, still smiling as he angles my head up, not seeming to care that we’re in the entryway and people are coming and going with their breakfast. “You look beautiful. But then you always do.”

I hadn’t believed I had a jealous bone in my body.

Until now.

Now I look up at Ty, who’s making no effort to hide his desire, and I hope to hell this isn’t something he’s said to any other woman but me.

I’m trying to figure out how to ask in a way that won’t make it sound like I’m jealous when he retreats a step and snags my right hand, lacing our fingers together. “Come on. I fixed you a plate with all your favorites.”

“And how do you know my favorites?” I ask as he leads the way to the dining room.

Clara, now that I don’t have a big, handsome alpha pinning me to the entryway, is standing at the top of the staircase, smirking at me in a clear sign she saw and heard everything.

I look away.

I needn’t have asked if Ty knew my favorites. The second I step foot in the dining room, I clock the plate waiting for me in my usual seat.

Scrambled eggs, sausage, no bacon because I’ve never been a big fan, and three pancakes.

Everything I’d have chosen for myself. He even remembered to add a generous helping of maple syrup over my pancakes and filled a glass with orange juice.

“You have paid altogether too much attention to what I eat,” I say.

He drags my knuckles along his mouth in a brief kiss and flashes me a boyish grin. “I don’t spend nearly enough. Eat, sweetheart, and I’ll take you out on this forest walk.”

Ty said we’d be doing a forest walk.

He said nothing about stripping the shirt off his body, picking up a spade propped against a tree, and giving me an absolutely obscene amount of muscled chest.

“What are you doing?” I ask as I desperately hope he forgets to put that shirt back on when he’s through doing whatever the hell he’s doing now. Or that a squirrel runs off with it.

And then I realize he’s talking.

Not the squirrel stealing Ty’s shirt. That hasn’t happened yet, though I really wish it would.

Ty is speaking.

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