Page 103 of Knot Your Problem, Cowboy
That’s when a soft creak comes from the hallway. We all freeze, heads whipping toward the open doorway.
Sophia stands there, hands in the pockets of her denim shorts, smirking so wide her face might split. Her red hair is pulled up in a messy bun with tendrils framing her face, and she looks absolutely delicious.
More importantly, she looks like she’s been standing there for a while.
“Don’t let me interrupt. Please, continue with your… measurement party.” Her voice drips with amusement.
Cash still has the measuring tape extended. Ridge’s hands are frozen on his belt buckle. I’m pretty sure my face is red enough to brand cattle.
She bursts out laughing. Not a polite giggle or a shocked gasp. Full-bodied, bent-over, tears-streaming-down-her-face laughter. She has to grab the doorframe to stay upright, and the sound fills the room, warm and rich and completely uninhibited.
“I KNEW IT!” she gasps between breaths. “Oh my God, you actually… you were going to—” She dissolves into giggles again, one hand pressed to her stomach.
“How long have you been standing there?” Cash demands, his face matching mine in color.
“Long enough to witness the Great Dick Duel of Wild Hearts Ranch,” Sophia says. “I know you’ve been reading my blog.”
Ridge freezes. Cash pauses mid-step. I don’t move. I just watch her, waiting to see how she plays it.
Sophia stands in the doorway like she owns the damn room, eyes sharp, lips twitching, fire in her posture. “Don’t blame me,” she says sweetly. “Blame your fragile egos. You read my recent blog posts and then, over dinner, tried to bait me with those not-so-subtle questions about how I’ve been sleeping, waking up, dreaming…”
I grin because of course she knew what we were doing. Hard not to, after she wrote about waking up mid-orgasm from dreams about us.
She lifts a brow, cocking her hip. “So, naturally, I followed up with a little blog post to teach you a lesson… and found you all about to measure yourselves like teenage boys in a locker room.”
I shrug. “You drop something that spicy online, you’re gonna start a fire. That’s just how it works.”
Sophia blinks, mock-serious. “And? The verdict?”
“Still pending,” Ridge mutters.
Cash leans in slightly, eyes gleaming. “Unless you want to be the final judge.”
Sophia bursts out laughing. That sharp, wicked sound of hers. Her grin turns downright dangerous. “Oh, I cannot wait to write the follow-up: ‘Why Men Shouldn’t Own Tape Measures.’?”
Cash circles her like a wolf scenting a challenge. “Tell you what, sugar. We’ll make it worth your while. A proper demonstration. All three of us. Line up for inspection.”
She gasps, but the sound is laced with laughter.
“Imagine the traffic to your blog,” I add, stepping closer, drawn in without even trying to resist. “Local Omega Reviews Three Alpha Cowboys.You’d break the internet.”
“Stop it!” She laughs again, biting her lower lip,flushed and glowing from the attention. “You’re all absolutely terrible.”
“For what it’s worth,” Ridge adds, “we could always settle it another way.”
Sophia turns to him, still catching her breath. “What do you mean?”
“You could just admit you were playing us on your blog,” he says, meeting her gaze. “That post? Those comments last night? You knew we’d read it. You were waiting to see what we’d do.”
She lifts her chin, unbothered. “Guess that’s one option.”
The smile on her lips is still spirited, but something in the air shifts.
And just like that, we’re standing on a fault line.
It would be so easy to keep going with this game, teasing, circling like it means nothing. We’re all good at it. Too good, maybe. But I can feel it, deeper than the banter, under the surface, tension pulsing like a second heartbeat. And we’re all thinking the same thing. This thing between us? It’s not a joke.
We’re walking a tightrope, and if we don’t start grounding this in something real, it’s going to burn us.
