Page 104 of Knot Your Problem, Cowboy
She’sours. We feel it. We know it. But she hasn’t said the words. Not yet. And maybe that’s what’s holding us back from crossing the line we all keep pretending isn’t there.
So, yeah. Time to stop circling.
I clear my throat, voice dropping. “Sophia. Let’s sit. We need to talk.”
Her eyes narrow, still playful. “That sounds ominous. Are we measuring something else now?”
I smirk, placing a light hand on the small of her back as I guide her toward the living room. “Just honesty.”
The others follow. Sunlight spills in through the wide windows, casting a golden wash across the couch where she settles between Ridge and Cash like it’s the most natural thing in the world. I sit across from her, on the coffee table, needing to see her face. Every reaction. Every flicker of emotion that passes through those gorgeous, guarded eyes.
This isn’t a game anymore.
Not really.
Not for me.
“About last night,” I begin, and I see her stiffen, just slightly. Her gaze flickers to me, then away. “What I said about moving in with us, I meant every word.”
She exhales sharply through her nose. “We’ve talked about this?—”
“Hear me out,” I cut in, leaning forward, elbows on my knees, keeping my voice steady and low. “Your body is already responding to us. The scent matching?—”
Ridge clears his throat.
“All of us,” I amend, glancing at him with a dry look. “Whether certain stubborn Alphas want to admitit or not. You’re fighting something that’s natural. Something that’s meant to be.”
“Just like our Ridge here,” Cash adds, nudging her arm with playful warmth. “Pretending he doesn’t feel the pull too.”
Sophia doesn’t smile. Her arms curl tighter around herself, her legs shifting slightly where she sits between them. She’s retreating, not physically, not yet, but it’s in the way her shoulders rise, how her voice drops low.
“I’ve managed my heats alone for years,” she says quietly.
And just like that, the room shifts.
Something about the way she says it, flat, like a fact, like an apology, has my breath catching in my throat.
“Even when I was rejected during one.”
The air leaves my lungs in a rush. Cash’s hands clench at his sides. Ridge doesn’t move, but his entire body goes rigid—too still, the kind of stillness that feels dangerous.
We knew bits of her past. Enough to piece together her pain. But not the way she says it, like it’s just another detail. Like it didn’t shatter something inside her.
“Sophia,” Ridge murmurs, and his voice is lower than I’ve ever heard it. “That should never have happened to you.”
She tries to brush it off with a forced laugh. “It’s fine. I’m fine. I handled it.”
But her knuckles are white where she grips her thigh. Her shoulders are too square, too still. She’s holding it in like it doesn’t still echo.
“You shouldn’t have had to,” Cash murmurs, the flirt gone from his voice. He turns to her fully now, hand gently settling on her knee. “No Omega should ever go through that. Especially not during her heat. That’s… that’s sacred. That’s when an Alpha should be at his most devoted.”
“It wasn’t that bad—” she starts.
“Stop.” The growl escapes me before I can catch it. “Stop minimizing what he did to you.”
Her eyes snap to mine, wide with surprise.
“You deserved better,” I say, slower now, gentler but no less firm. “You deserved an Alpha who saw you for what you are. Who worshipped you. Who made you feel safe. Protected. Whostayed.”
