Page 28 of Rough Ride with the Grumpy Cowboy
By some miracle, I’m able to pry his arm from around me without waking him up. I sit up quietly, my eyes on him the whole time, holding my breath, afraid that if I exhale too loudly, I’ll wake him up.
He looks so peaceful in his sleep, like a tamed monster, unlike the ferocious savage that is always terrorizing me during the day. His hair is overgrown and falling over his face, brushing against his eyebrows. I reach out to push the strands away when I catch myself and stop.
What is wrong with me? Now is not the time to be admiring the sleeping beast over here. I should be running for my life.
Pushing the covers off me, I manage to get one leg off the bed, then the next. I’m about to get to my feet when the one thing I was afraid of happening happens.
“Going somewhere, Miss Diva?” a raspy voice demands behind me.
Run, run, Ava, and don’t look back!
Oh, how I wish I could. Instead, I find myself frozen in place, waiting for yet another scolding. My whole body is tense, breathing ragged, waiting for it, and nothing...
Somehow, I manage to muster the energy to turn just enough to face him. He’s sitting up in bed, leaning against the headboard, one of his hands supporting the back of his head while the other is casually tossed over his stomach.
Something about his casual pose stirs a feeling in me—one that should be buried deep, deep down and has no place in this current situation. But how can I not, when he looks so irresistibly sexy, pulling me in with a single gaze?
Focus, Ava, focus!
I bow my head in shame, unable to meet his eyes. “I’m sorry.”
He tilts his head to the side, questioningly staring at me. “Are you emotionally attached to that word?”
My brows furrow in confusion. “Huh?”
“You say it a lot, that word—sorry,” he expounds.
“Because I always have a reason to be around you.”
“It seems so,” he grunts as if annoyed by me.
“I’m—“
“Sorry?”
I nod, refusing to meet his eyes. “Yes.”
He sighs and shuffles forward, bridging the gap between us. “If you really are sorry, how about you tell me the...”
Before he can complete that statement, the bedroom door slams open and in barges Ella. She gets one good look at our position, stalks toward us, grabs my arm, and pulls me to my feet.
“I am so sorry about this,” she apologizes to Zane.
Without another word, she pulls me out of his bedroom, across his cabin—that I have yet to explore even if I’ve been here twice already—and out the front door.
When we’re a good distance away, Ella stops in the middle of the backyard and turns to me. She drops my arm and places hers on her hips, gazing at me like a disappointed mother would to her child.
“What the hell, Ava?” she exclaims.
I flinch and wrap my arms around myself. “I’m sorry.”
Zane is right—I do tend to say that a lot, but it’s only because I always find myself constantly offending people.
She sighs, drops her arms, and pulls me in for a hug. “I was so worried. Are you okay? Did Zane do anything to you?”
I shake my head and pull back. “No, I’m okay. How did you find me?”
“I found your bedroom door open when I went there earlier. You weren’t in bed or in the bathroom, so I went downstairs thinking that maybe you decided to get up early, but no one had seen or heard from you. My mind went dark, and I thought you’d snuck out in the middle of the night after Zane was mean to you yesterday, but your phone and clothes are still in your room. That’s when Jace suggested we check the security cameras. We saw you go into Zane’s cabin in the middle of the night and not come out. That’s when I realized you must have sleepwalked in there,” she explains.
