Page 175 of His Virgin Romance Series

CHAPTER11

Ryder

“Ryder?”

I looked up. Red, Smith, and Justin were staring at me as though they were trying to figure out what was wrong.

“What?” I asked.

“We’ve been speaking to you for the last ten minutes, and you didn’t seem to be listening.”

“I wasn’t.”

“Well, that was clear,” Red nodded. “Is something up?”

“Nothing’s up,” I snapped. “I was just… thinking.”

“Worried about Godwin, huh?” Justin asked.

Obviously, they would assume the rival MC club preoccupied my mind. And any other day, it would have, but all I could focus on was that morning in the training ring with Abby.

She had disappeared into her room for the rest of the day, and she hadn’t even come out for lunch. We had all congregated in the living room for dinner, and there was still no sign of her. The obvious chemistry between us had sparked and burned, and I was certain that we would end up fucking in the middle of the boxing ring.

Then something had turned on in Abby’s brain, and the desire I had seen in her eyes had been replaced by… fear? I wasn’t quite sure. She had high tailed it out of there faster than I could have imagined, and I had sat in the boxing ring looking after her, wondering what the hell had gone so wrong so fast. It wasn’t that she wasn’t into me because her own answers this morning had confirmed that that was not true, so it had to be something else.

“Ryder?”

“What?” I barked.

I turned to Lonny, who had just walked in. He raised his eyebrows at my harsh reaction. “I brought burgers for everyone. You interested?”

“No,” I said shortly, before getting up and walking upstairs.

I could hear the guys resume their conversation once I cleared the room. I stared at the wall between my room and Abby’s, contemplating whether I should just leave her well enough alone or barge in on her and demand to know what had gone wrong this morning.

I had never been so conflicted before. Nor had I spent this much time worrying about a woman or her feelings. I usually stayed clear of shit like this. I wasn’t interested in long-term relationships. Any time one of the guys came with news of a steady girlfriend or an engagement, I mourned the loss of their freedom. So why was I pursuing something that was bound to lead nowhere?

As much as I’d disliked Devon trying to warn me about staying away from Abby, he had a point. She was wrong for me. My lifestyle scared her, and my behavior repelled her… most of the time. Was I just reading too much into a purely physical connection? Maybe that’s all it really was: lust. But if that was the case, then why did Abby run from me?

I went into my room and shut the door. I collapsed onto my bed and stared up at the ceiling. “Fuck,” I said, unable to get Abby out of my head.

As strange and unsettling as her reaction had been that morning, I kept thinking about the moments leading up to it, and every time, I got an erection so painful that it made my head spin. I hadn’t had sex since Abby had arrived and that was starting to bother me too. The day I had told Abby I was going to go out and fuck some random girl had never actually come to pass. If I was being honest, I had just been trying to make her jealous. She certainly seemed to be for two seconds there.

I had actually gone so far as to head into town to one of my favorite bars. There’d been a couple of girls who’d caught my eye, all of whom seemed willing to come home with me if I’d approached them. But every time I thought about going over and making my move, Abby’s face popped into my head and my mood shifted so far that I’d come home alone and gone to bed horny.

I thought about the little game we had played this morning during training. It had started out as a good idea, and then Abby had derailed the whole thing with her question. I hadn’t been expecting that, and despite my insistence on honesty, I had lied, and I suspected that Abby knew as much too.

I sat up as I heard a noise coming from Abby’s room. We shared a wall, and that meant that I could hear what was happening in her room if I paid close attention. She seemed to be pacing, and I wondered if she was obsessing about this morning like I was.

“Fuck it,” I said, standing up and walking over to Abby’s door. I knocked hard and waited for her to reply.

First, there was silence, and I knew she knew who was at the door. “Abby,” I said, taking care that I didn’t speak too loudly so that the boys downstairs didn’t hear. “Open the door.”

“No,” she replied immediately, and her voice was slightly muffled. “Go away.”

“No,” I shot back. “We need to talk.”

“About what?”

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