Page 39 of Knot Her Cowboys
“Please don’t be mad,” I said quickly. “I didn’t mean to.”
I felt the realization take hold in her, the awakening to what we had both done. Not anger, exactly, but she definitely wasn’t happy. “How?”
“Your guess is as good as mine.”
“Oh my god.” A bolt of panic shot through her and straight down the bond. “I’d started suppressants so my heat wouldn’t interfere with our move and I usually take them at lunch. I totally forgot with all the chaos of the breakup. Oh god, ohgod.”
I cupped her cheeks. “Hey, it’s okay.”
“Cash,” she hissed, “It’snotokay. We can’t bebonded.”
“But we are.” I squished her cheeks, pushing her lips out in a little fish face. “We canmake itokay. You’re my best friend and I love you. I’m not going to lie and say I wasn’t hoping last night wouldn’t turn into something a little more permanent, that you might stay for a while and explore this thing between us, but?—”
“Cash, if you bit me on purpose, I swear to?—”
Hurt went off like a bomb in my chest, and instant regret blossomed on Riley’s face.
“Kinda offended you would think that. For one,youbit me first, and for two, I love you too much to take that choice away from you.”
Her bottom lip wobbled and I couldn’t stop myself from leaning in for another kiss. Desire bloomed in the bond, her fingers curling against my chest.
“I’m sorry. I love you too. I just freaked out and that’s not fair to you.”
I drew her closer until we were pressed chest to chest, our arms around each other. “You’re gonna have to talk to Cooper.”
“Cash, I won’t even be able to look him in the eye after this.”
“You’ll have to get over that because he kind of lives in the big house with us.”
Riley froze a half second before shoving back. “Excuseme?”
“Um, Cooper is in my pack. Dakota and Levi too.”
Her hands clapped onto the sides of my face, squeezing tight. “You have a fuckingpackand you didn’t tell me?”
“I didn’t want you to panic and leave. You were only going to be here for a couple of days as it was.”
Riley growled, but the sound disappeared when I snatched her back against me.
“You know you would’ve left if I told you Cooper lived and worked at the ranch. Your old alphas wanted to leave anyway, and I don’t believe for one second you wouldn’t have listened if I had told you Cooper could show up at any moment.”
Conflict twisted inside her. “You’re notwrong, but it was still really shitty.”
“I know. Trust me, I fucking know. I was selfish enough I didn’t want to lose what little time we’d have before you were gone again. If Cooper was there this weekend, I’d have said something, but he’s not due back until tomorrow morning. He goes to see Morgan every year for your birthday.”
Her guilt was like a ball of molten lead I struggled to breathe past. If it was that bad for me, how much worse was it for her?
“I hurt him too much. How do I face him?”
“I’ll go first,” I promised. “He can use up most of his crash-out energy on me before we pop you in front of him. I swear he’ll be happy once he gets over the initial shock.”
Riley wrapped every limb around me. “Why are you so good to me when I’m such a disaster?”
“That’s kind of the thing about loving someone.” I stroked a soothing hand down her back. “You love them whether they’re a disaster or not. Plus, I think we both know I’m not exactly a disaster-free zone over here.”
She took a huge breath in and let it out slowly, running her nose up the column of my neck to plant a kiss beneath my jaw. “I guess I should probably get off your cock so we can head back.”
“You could stay on it and we could cross all our fingers and toes we don’t run into the highway patrol.”
