Rebel (The Renegades)

by Rebecca Yarros

  “Right,” I said, forcing a smile. “And thank you for today. It felt great being back out there.” The rush, the fall, the moment I’d wondered if the chute would work, followed by the snap and jerk of the canopy deploying…it was all part of it—why I loved being a Renegade even when I wasn’t sure I could pull off the name anymore.

  There was still that damned bike to deal with.

  “It’s just nice to have you back,” Landon said.

  “Yeah,” I agreed quietly as I got up to leave. “Back.”

  I retreated to my room, closed my door, and leaned against it, a thousand emotions battling for prominence. Sure, I was pissed that Cruz felt the need to do exactly what Landon said and put us in our place. Sure I was pissed that we had someone we were held accountable to, but not nearly as much as I hated the fact that my actions would come back on him if anything went wrong—both in stunts and whatever wasn’t happening with us.

  Like getting him arrested in Vegas hadn’t been enough.

  But stronger than the anger was a burning need in my chest that wouldn’t go away. No matter how much I pushed it down, it simply came back brighter and hotter, growing every time he kissed me, every time I so much as thought about him.

  It was glowing so hard I glanced in the mirror to make sure I didn’t look like a damn glowworm, that my feelings about him weren’t out there for everyone to see.

  I wanted him—it was as simple and as overly complicated as that. I wanted what Pax and Leah had, that kind of complete devotion to each other. I wanted what Landon and Rachel had, chemistry so hot, so fated, that they couldn’t stay away from the other even when they tried.

  But I wanted something more—to have someone who truly knew me, and not just the face I put on for the rest of the world, and I had that with him.

  We’d proven we were powerless to stay away from each other, even when we both knew the situation we were in made it wrong. He already knew me on a level even Pax and Landon didn’t. And damn it, I liked him.

  I wanted to be with him—the guy who slept just beneath me.

  My eyes were drawn to the floor, like X-ray vision would suddenly develop and I’d be able to see if he were there or still in his classroom.

  I knew the signs—hell, I’d seen them with my friends—I was heartsick. Me, Penelope Carstairs, Rebel, the girl who never let a man own her, dictate to her, or even claim her, wanted to belong to Cruz.

  But what was I willing to risk for it? What was I willing to go through to be able to claim him in the same way he had already branded me?

  Everything.

  The answer didn’t soothe me like I’d hoped—it brought that fire in my chest to a nearly painful roar, a determination that summoned up every instinct in my body to fight, to fly.

  Now I just had to convince Cruz.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Cruz

  At Sea

  I spread the Renegade documents out on the small table in my bedroom and then put them in order of the ports. Then I pulled the last one out and read it thoroughly.

  They were planning the live expo in Cuba.

  Just like I’d suggested to Penelope.

  I hated using her like that, but it was my only chance to get to Elisa. I trusted Penelope with my career, hell, my very life, but I couldn’t risk letting her know about my plans. Even the most inadvertent slip could jeopardize everything—and Elisa’s life was too steep a price to pay. Everything would have to be planned to the smallest detail, but it was possible now. I could get her out.

  Firing up my laptop, I took advantage of the free wifi for teachers and sent her an email with two words. April 24th.

  I jumped at a knock at my sliding glass balcony door.

  Who the…? I sighed, already knowing the answer. Penelope.

  I opened the door and stepped out into the night where, sure enough, the girl currently owning my dreams leaned back against my railing. Her legs were fifty-million miles long under those shorts, and her tank top hid next to nothing, but I knew she wasn’t trying to be sexy—she simply was. She pushed her hair out of her face from the ocean breeze and gave me a grin that could have powered the ship.

  “Hiya.”

  I didn’t bother saying anything when I knew she could read the emotion on my face. How glad I was to see her—how I wished she wasn’t here.

  I held up my finger and then walked back inside my bedroom to lock the door from the other teacher I shared the suite with. Westwick barely spoke to me anyway, since he was pretty sure I was too young and inexperienced to be where I was. He was probably right, but Dr. Messina hadn’t thought so, and that was all that mattered.

  Then I crooked my finger at her, and she walked in, immediately looking around the room. The walls were thin, so I put on some music through my wireless speakers before I spoke. God, it was like being back in the barracks again.

  “How the hell did you manage that?” I asked, motioning to the slider.

  “Rope attached to my balcony. Don’t worry, I wore a harness, and it’s hardly the most dangerous thing I’ve done this week.”

  I flashed back to that damn ATV jump and nodded. “Which is saying something.”

  She shrugged, looking at the papers on my table. “It’s not like you didn’t know what you were getting into with me. You had a pretty accurate overview in those few hours in Vegas.”

  Vegas. How the hell was it possible for a word to stir my dick? Easy. It made me think of her under me, her soft gasps, delicate moans, questing hands. As much as I tried to shut off the vision, she wasn’t helping with the way she leaned over that table.

  “What are you doing down here, Penelope?” I asked.

  She swallowed nervously. “Who’s your roommate?”

  I crossed my arms at her stalling technique. “Westwick.”

  Her eyes widened. “You’re roommates with that asshat?”

  “Not a fan?”

  She shook her head. “He was a jerk to Pax and Leah our first term when they missed the ship in Istanbul.” A smile played at her lips. “I may have gotten him back a little, though.”

  “Oh?” Now my curiosity was piqued.

  “I removed him from the manifest a couple times as we were coming into ports. They wouldn’t let him off without a major get-the-dean hassle, and once I changed it while he was off the ship so he couldn’t get back on.” She shrugged.

  I stifled my laugh as I pictured my uptight roommate blustering. “You hold a grudge.”

  “Yep.”

  “How do you even know how to do that?”

  “Brooke did it with me the first time. She’s really good at tech stuff and handles a bunch of coding with our website. Well, handled. She’s way better than I am with computers, but the system on board is pretty simple.”

  “So you can just add people to the manifest?” A major piece of the Elisa puzzle clicked into place in my brain, landing with a mixed sense of excitement and guilt for even considering using Penelope in my plan—or carelessly risking her safety if it was discovered.

  “Sure, not that it would do them any good without a ship ID, but yeah.”

  I mentally added another task to my to-do list and then changed the subject to something safer. “So what has you rappelling to my balcony tonight?”

  “I want you,” she said as if it was the simplest truth in the universe. Then she turned around and sat on the edge of the table.

  “I’m sorry?” I nearly choked. Definitely not a safer subject. There were different levels of sainthood. I wasn’t sure turning down Penelope—if she was asking for sex—was one I was capable of.

  “I. Want. You.” She pronounced each word clearly, then her eyes flew wide, like she realized what had come out. “Oh my God. Not like that. I mean, yes, like that, too, but not what I was going for.”

  “You’re going to need to clarify that.” I backed the hell away from her, putting as much distance as I could between us in the small confines of my bedroom. Right now a dip in the Pacific Ocean
was looking pretty good.

  “Okay, you know the moment in a romantic comedy where one person goes out on a limb, and they put it all out there? Where you’re holding your breath, waiting to see what the other person does? If she’ll forgive him for potentially running her bookstore into the ground, or if she could really be a girl standing in front of a boy…”

  “The grand gesture,” I supplied, failing to stop the small grin on my face.

  “Right. Whatever. This is mine.”

  Oh. Shit.

  I tried to steel myself against whatever she was about to say. I told myself not to care that she bit her lip in nervousness, or that her breathing had accelerated. But if the last month had taught me anything, it was that nothing could prepare me for whatever Penelope did.

  “I want you,” she said.

  “You mentioned that.” Now stop saying it before you’re naked on my bed and I’ve taken this to a point we can’t come back from.

  “Shut up,” she snapped. “This is my grand gesture. If you want one of your own you’ll have to wait your turn.”

  “And climb the balcony on a moving cruise ship?”

  “Oh, come on, that was the easy part!”

  Laughter shook my shoulders until she shot me a look that said she didn’t appreciate the humor of the moment. I cleared my throat and gestured for her to continue. “You want me.”

  “Well, you don’t have to be so cocky about it.”

  The woman was going to be the death of me. “I can guarantee you that any way you use that phrase, I want you more.” You shouldn’t have said that.

  “Not your turn, so keep your swoony phrases to yourself.” She pointed at me.

  I put my hands up like I was under arrest.

  “Right. Okay. I want you, and I mean all of you. I can’t stop thinking that what we have, what we could develop into, is extraordinary. From the moment I saw you in Vegas, I was attracted to you. I mean, come on…what’s not to like? But when you listened to me on the High Roller, and then you jumped, and you put your hands on me…” She blushed the most becoming shade of pink I’d ever seen, and I fought back every urge to cross the distance between us. “Well, we know we’re pretty sexually compatible, unless it wasn’t…you know…for you.”

  I somehow found my voice. “It was very for me.”

  “Right,” she whispered. “And I know I’m not supposed to want you like I do. I’m not supposed to think about you, dream about you, wonder what you’re doing or who you’re with. But I do.”

  She’d just spoken every thought inside my own head.

  “I know you’re my teacher. I know I’m your student. I know that on an ethical level, this is wrong. But I’ve never felt right on any other level with anyone besides you.”

  My heart pounded and emotion clogged my throat. God, we were so on the same fucking page…but in different books.

  “I don’t do this. I don’t chase boys. I don’t make out with boys. I don’t risk my reputation for a guy, or for some fling, and I sure as hell don’t open myself up for rejection. I’m not a normal girl, and I know that. But I think that you’re the only man strong enough to handle every facet of the woman I am. You’re everything I want, everything I need, and I just want the chance to be what you need, too.”

  My eyes shut, the longing so strong that I was afraid she’d see it if she looked too closely. I was strong enough for her. I could be exactly what she needed, and we could be extraordinary.

  In another time, another place, another situation.

  “So I’m telling you. Look at me,” she begged.

  I met her level gaze, the plea in the blue depths breaking me down like nothing else could. “Penelope,” I whispered.

  “I’m telling you that I’ll do this on your terms. If you say yes, I’ll keep it a secret from everyone I know. I will climb down to your balcony. I will keep my eyes off you in class. I will avoid you in the halls…and I’ll be yours when we’re alone, if you’ll just be mine here in this room. Please…just be mine, because this is real.”

  My common sense disappeared, and I was across the room before my better sense could stop me. My hands tunneled through her soft blond hair, her lower body collided with mine, and my gaze dropped to her lips. I’d never wanted to kiss a woman, or claim one, so badly in my entire life.

  “There are things you don’t know about me,” I told her, my voice a low, gravelly mess.

  “I’ll learn.”

  But would she stay once she knew why I was really here?

  “There are reasons we can’t do this.”

  “We can find a way.”

  “Penelope,” I whispered, leaning my forehead against hers, inhaling the citrus and strawberry scent of her hair. Everything in my body, even the very rhythm of my heart, reached for her, begged my sense of honor to give in. It would take one kiss, one word, one touch, and Penelope would be mine. Even if it was only in this room, I could end the torment we were both feeling.

  But it could throw us into an even deeper hell.

  One slip, and I would be fired. I’d miss my only chance to get to Elisa.

  God, would Penelope get expelled? Would the media find out and drag her through the hell of public exposure?

  And what kind of man agreed to keep his woman a secret—like she was something to be ashamed of?

  “Say yes, Cruz,” she whispered, her breath sweet and tinged with mint.

  A knock on the door brought reality crashing back in.

  “Delgado. Lindsay Gibson is at the door for you,” Westwick said through the door. He was older by at least a decade and spent most of his time in the ship’s library.

  My eyes narrowed slightly. “At nine p.m.?”

  “Apparently,” Westwick answered, like I’d asked him.

  “Give me a second,” I called out, and sighed in relief when I heard him head back down the hallway.

  Penelope backed away slowly, and my hands felt empty for the loss of her. “Go ahead,” she whispered in challenge, tilting her head toward the door. “But whatever it is she wants to ask you at nine at night, your answer will be no.”

  “What makes you so certain?”

  “Because you want me as badly as I want you—whether or not you’re ready to admit it. And one thing I know about you is that you never settle. What did you tell me? You want something bad enough, you’ll find every opportunity to get it. I’m offering you an opportunity. I know what you’d be risking, and that I’m wrong to even ask you to do it, but I’d never forgive myself if I never told you what I wanted—how I felt.”

  Take it. Just once, I could have something—someone of my own. I could grasp this lone moment of happiness and the chance to unravel the complicated nature of Penelope Carstairs.

  “I have to get the door. Wait here for me?”

  She gave me a sad smile. “Don’t answer the question yet.”

  “What?”

  “Don’t answer yet because you haven’t decided. And I’m not the kind of girl to ask twice, Cruz. I don’t do vulnerable, and I’m not a masochist. If you tell me no, I won’t ask again.” Her chin tilted up, and I saw the fire in her that had bewitched me in the first place.

  Knowing that a woman that fierce was willing to risk it all to ask in the first place nearly took me to my knees. Everything about Penelope was my undoing. It was like she’d been created specifically to torment, tease, and utterly enthrall me.

  “Just wait here?” I asked again, knowing it would do me no good to order her around.

  I opened the door only wide enough to slide out and found Lindsay waiting for me in the living room of our suite. She looked nervous as hell, her hands folded together as she shifted her weight from one foot to the other. She had on a green dress that flattered her shape, but nothing about her grabbed my interest. It’s hard to see a star when the full Aurora Borealis shimmers in front of you.

  Aurora. That was a good way to look at Penelope, really. You were lucky if you ever got to see her—ever-changing, c
olorful, impossible to guess her next move, and simply breathtaking to watch.

  Maybe focus on the woman in front of you.

  “Hey, Lindsay,” I said. “Everything okay?”

  “Yeah. Absolutely!” Oh yeah, that smile was forced. “I was wondering if you wanted to go down to the bar and maybe grab a drink with me?”

  Shit. I searched deep for some desire, yearning, or simple want and came up with nothing. Why the hell couldn’t I want someone like her? Someone who wouldn’t get me fired?

  Because she isn’t Penelope.

  And the truth was, I would have rather been in my room fighting with Penelope than hanging at the bar with Lindsay.

  “I’m so sorry, but I was actually heading to bed,” I told her.

  Her face fell, and guilt settled in my stomach, low and sour. I couldn’t lead her on. Even if she was the more sensible choice for me, there was no way I’d be able to focus on anyone when Penelope was near.

  Because she was the only one I really wanted. It was like I’d taken a hit of whatever drug she was, and it didn’t matter if I was standing in front of Lindsay—Penelope was still racing through my veins.

  Shit. Shit. Double, triple, quadruple shit.

  “Of course, right. It’s late. What was I thinking?” She rubbed her fingers over her eyebrows.

  “I really appreciate the offer. Truly. I don’t have many friends here yet, and you’re doing a great job of being one. Maybe we could grab some of the other faculty and have lunch tomorrow?” I did my best to let her down easily and firmly close that door.

  She blinked, but she managed a shaky smile. “Yeah, that sounds great. I’ll…um…just be going.”

  I walked her out, thanked her again, and shut the door behind her. The click resonated through me, like I’d shut the door on any other choice but Penelope…who wasn’t really a choice.

  She was an inevitability.

  I opened my door to find my room was empty, but there was a note on my bed.

  I told you so.

  Laughter softly shook my shoulders as I tucked the note into my nightstand drawer.

  If I pushed aside every ethical and contractual barrier to a relationship with Penelope, could her suggestion really work? No one ever barged in here without knocking. I had a lock on the door. Other than the off chance of someone seeing one of us pulling a Tarzan routine from the side of the ship, there was almost no way we’d get caught if we kept our relationship confined to this room.