The True Cowboy of Sunset Ridge (Gold Valley #14)(21)

But when she got in the driver’s seat, and he got in the passenger seat, suddenly everything around her seemed far too full of his particular brand of masculine energy. She just... She couldn’t really breathe around it.

So much for telling herself that this was part of her lesson. Her body seemed to feel a slightly different wavelength than her brain.

She had never experienced anything quite like this. Her attraction to Jared was... Different. Yes, she had thought that he was beautiful, but there had been something else to it. Something that had made her feel validated.

She had constantly been seeking, searching for his approval. For him to give her the crux of his attention. Something about that had become addicting. It was gross, and she didn’t like it. In fact, in hindsight it made her feel downright ashamed. But she hadn’t been able to see it at the time. Not been able to untangle the many bonds that had held her to him, like a spiderweb with thin tendrils. On their own, not terribly strong, but they were a network, and there were so many of them—every time one broke there seemed to be more.

Until he’d broken them all.

The bonds that held her to Colt were simple. They were made of lust and desire. And they were... Well, they were strong.

And thinking about Colt and bonds in the same train of thought was...that didn’t make things any more comfortable.

It made her sweaty.

“Which way do I go?” she asked.

“Just back out here,” he said, and she did. “All right, now go this way.” He pointed at the copse of trees that lined an extremely narrow-looking road that she might have called a deer trail if it hadn’t been clear he expected her to drive on it.

“This seems cruel and unusual.”

“You can make it.”

So she did, nosing her car through the trees and gasping when she went right down into a pothole.

“You’re fine,” he said.

“Don’t laugh at me.” She was sweaty now, but not because she was thinking about Colt and the potential of bonds and being tied up. Because this was scary.

She kept on driving, and then when they came around the corner, the trees to her right faded away and there was a sheer cliff face on her side.

She hit the brakes. And the back tire skidded.

“Dammit,” Colt said, raising his hand against the dashboard. “Are you trying to kill us both?”

“I don’t want to drive,” she said.

“You’ll have to eventually,” he said.

“I don’t want to do it now.” She scrunched her eyes shut.

“You said you did.”

“But I don’t. A woman has the right to change her mind, Colt. Drive the car.”

She turned the engine off and sat there, waiting for him. He sighed heavily, then got out of the passenger side, which was thankfully the side that was on the rocky cliff face. She got out of the driver’s side. She looked over at the other side and decided that she was not getting in. She climbed into the backseat still on the left-hand side.

“You’re fine,” he said. “And if you would’ve gone over there to get in the car you would’ve seen how much clearance you had.”

“I have no clearance. A guardrail. You need to build me a guardrail.”

“Do I look like the Oregon Department of Transportation to you?”

“You look like a man who’s enjoying my suffering.”

“Mallory,” he said. “I only enjoy one particular way of making a woman suffer.” He looked over his shoulders, those blue eyes connecting with hers and sending shivers straight through the center of her thighs. “This isn’t it.”

Heat prickled her scalp and she found herself breathless. “Fine.”

She closed her eyes as they bumped and slid up the gravel road for what seemed like at least fifteen minutes.

“It was two minutes,” he said.

“Oh,” she said. “Well, I wasn’t aware that I had given my estimation out loud.”

“You don’t like heights, do you?”

“I very don’t.”

You couldn’t control a fall from any sort of height. Mallory liked control.

“I guess we should’ve gone through that on the rental listing.”

“There are many things that I wish we had shared on this rental information.”

“What do you think of the house?”

She got out of the car, and she was shocked to see that the house was... Not awful.

“I’ve been working on it. And as openly stated in the listing, there is a little bit more work to do. But I just bought this place.”

It was small, but there were cute little flower planters out in front of the cabin, and the steps looks freshly replaced and stained. The little porch had chairs on it, which were lovely. Just the place you might want to sit and take in the view all around.

It was so much better than she could’ve anticipated, and for a moment she forgot about the awkwardness of the situation. Forgot about the fact that this wasn’t going wholly according to plan. That she had just traversed a precipice to get here...

Well, it seemed like the journey to the top of a mountain now. Which it had been, literally.

But it felt like a spiritual journey.

“It’s really beautiful.”

“Get out.”