Page 39 of Knot Your Problem, Cowboy
Ridge pulls the horse to a stop, finally looking at me. Cash goes still in that dangerous way of his.
“What about her?” Ridge’s voice is carefully neutral, but I see his knuckles white on the lead rope.
“She’s my scent match.”
The words hang in the air like a challenge. Like a confession.
“Fuck yeah,” Cash mutters.
Ridge hands off the horse to Miguel, who’d been hanging back near the fence. He’s smart enough not to ask questions, just leads the gelding out of the round pen with a glance over his shoulder.
“You sure?” Ridge snaps.
“Sure as a man can be when his insides are trying to claw out of his skin.” I rub the back of my neck, jaw clenched. I haven’t been right since leaving her side. Since I held her. Since I caught her scent and everything in me lit up like someone dropped a match in a dry field. I still feel it tight in my chest, low in my gut, wrapped around my damn cock like a vise.
Sophia.
“Hit me like a freight train,” I say. “Couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think. Just needed…”
“To claim,” Cash mutters, voice rough though he’s smiling like a damn fool. “I fucking knew it!”
There’s silence. A heavy one.
Then I add, “She’s our scent match.”
“Ours?” Ridge scoffs. “Pretty sure scent matches don’t come in group packages.”
I step toward him, pointing a finger. “Don’t play dumb. You’ve been acting off since the second you met her. Don’t need working scent glands to know your instincts are screaming.”
Ridge’s mouth tightens. “I told you, mine got damaged in that rodeo accident. Nothing has screamed at me in years. And without that connection, what Omega wants a nonexistent binding?”
“But your body knows,” I say. “You shift closer when she talks. You track her movements even when you think no one’s watching. Don’t act like that means nothing.”
He stays silent, but that flicker in his eyes is answer enough.
I swing toward Cash. “And you—you practically orbit her.”
He shrugs, trying to play it off. “What can I say? Girl’s got great tits.”
I give him a look that could cut steel.
He rolls his eyes. “Fine, fuck. You want the truth?”
“That’d be a first,” Ridge mutters.
Cash glares, then sighs and pulls a folded sheet from his back pocket—half wrinkled and smudged. “Idid some digging. After she mentioned Nolan. Didn’t sit right.”
“She told us he was dead,” I remind them, trying not to growl the words.
“Yeah, but dead is just the final chapter. You want the rest?” He holds up the paper. “Arranged mating. Old-school-Alpha bonding contract. Her father handed her over like she was nothing but leverage in a business deal. Nolan Martinez, CEO, power-hungry bastard, real poster boy for toxic dominance.”
My hands curl into fists.
Cash goes on. “She was twenty. He was thirty-five when they mated. Known for being ruthless. Controlling. Hated by damn near everyone who ever worked with him. There are court records, sealed, mostly, but what’s public paints a dark picture. Rumors of aggression. Emotional abuse. Bond manipulation.”
“And no one helped her?” Ridge asks, voice low, jaw tight.
Cash shrugs. “Hard to know. No social media. No public appearances. Then he dies, and she resurfaces. Quiet, alone, out from under his thumb.”
