Page 6 of Wild Fated Mate
But now my personal dark cloud pulled me along, my much shorter legs barely keeping up as we entered the sun-dappled forest that surrounded the festival fields.
I’d had enough of staring at Gavin’s back, and let’s be honest, that amazing ass was not enough to keep me hustling along behind him at this pace.
The handfasting string was tied securely around my wrist and his, but with enough length between us that we weren’t forced to be side-by-side.
“Stop.”
He surprised me by instantly stopping. I couldn’t slow my own momentum and slammed right into him.
It was like walking face first into a brick wall, and I grabbed his waist to steady myself.
He audibly inhaled, and his arms fisted at his sides.
“Sorry,” I muttered. “I didn’t know you would actually listen.” I stepped back and held my hands up.
He glanced over his shoulder at me, his dark brows pulled together.
“You okay?”
“You care?”
He grunted in response.
“Just … can you dial it back a notch?” I hated asking him to slow down for me. It probably only confirmed my inferiority in his eyes.
He started looking around the forest. The rough path we were on was marked with flags for the scavenger hunt. He took a few steps toward a large log bench carved out of a fallen tree and sat down, pulling me on the bench next to him.
“Um, thank you,” I said. I checked out the path as far as I could see, but the only flags left to grab were the ones for us.
We were all alone.
I couldn’t even hear the hundreds of festival attendees less than a mile away.
My heart raced, my breath rushed in and out, and not just from the pace Gavin set.
He was still turned away from me, even now.
I’d had enough of this cold-shoulder act. It didn’t match up with how he took care of his sister and his nieces. Carrigan and Carissa thought he hung the moon, and I knew how much he helped Olivia at the bakery. No one in town would ever describe him as warm or sweet, but no one said he was this rude, either.
It was just me he didn’t like.
“What is your problem?”
He grunted at me again.
“You know, if you didn’t want to risk being paired with me, you shouldn’t have volunteered.”
“It wasn’t my idea.”
“No one can make anyone do anything they don’t really want to do.”
Hmm. I swallowed my own self-realization, as I leaned into a rare moment of anger.
“You’re a hotshot! You make fire bend to your will.” A new thought occurred to me, an ugly one that made me feel like crying through the mad.
“Why won’t you turn around and talk to me? Is this some sort of game for you? Tease the fat girl? See how long it takes to make me hate you the way you hate me?”
“Hate you?” He choked out the question, his broad back still turned away from me. “Woman, you make me crazy.”
