Wilder (The Renegades)

by Rebecca Yarros

  She closed her eyes and sighed as if she was kissing her plans for tomorrow good-bye. “Fine.”

  “Okay, then let’s go.” Victory! I rose to my feet and moved toward where she stood tugging on that long braid she had running along the side of her face. Her eyes drifted down the line of my chest, following my tattoos to my abs, and then she squeezed her eyes shut. I could have crowed with satisfaction that she’d been looking and, by her reaction, liked what she saw. “Problem?”

  “Nope. Just do the world a favor and put on a shirt.” She spun, leaving me alone in my room.

  “Chicken,” I muttered under my breath, but I knew the truth. She was simply stronger than I was. There was zero chance I’d be able to back away if she was half dressed.

  Twenty minutes later, after showing Leah the VIP disembarkation point on the ship, we barely made it to our excursion. There looked to be about sixty of us corralled together like cattle in front of two passenger buses.

  “You owe me,” I whispered to the top of her head.

  Her smile was gorgeous. “You’ll thank me later.”

  As we were ready to load the cattle cars—uh, buses—I heard my name called and turned to see Bobby and a cameraman sprinting toward us.

  Shit. We’d almost made it without Big Brother tagging along. The see-everything cameras were getting old, and it was only our first port.

  Two extras and a cranky professor later, we were off. “Aren’t you going to be hot?” I asked Leah as she adjusted, looking for a seat belt.

  She looked at her leggings and tilted her head. “Probably.”

  I waited for her to say something else, but she didn’t, and I didn’t push. I glanced around at the other girls on the bus, none of whom were in anything longer than their knees. Huh. Come to think of it, I hadn’t seen Leah in anything but pants.

  About thirty minutes later, we parked and all filed out of the bus. “Where are we?”

  “St. Peter’s Church,” Leah answered, leading me up the stone steps to the bright chapel with green shutters. “It’s the oldest Christian church in the western hemisphere.”

  We listened as the professor gave us the history of the church—from the front, which had been brought with the settlers, to the graveyards that had been segregated between the white Christians and African slaves. Then he turned us loose to explore.

  “Isn’t it magnificent?” Leah asked, running her fingers across the dark wood of the boxed church pews. “Think of everything that’s happened here. All the people who have been through these doors.”

  “Think of all the sins confessed,” I whispered.

  She smacked my stomach with her notebook. “No appreciation of history.”

  I shrugged. “I like history. I’d just rather be making it than observing it.”

  “There’s something exquisite about this, though,” she said, taking in every detail of the church. “Hurricanes came and went, and they simply rebuilt. They didn’t tear it down and start new. They fixed what was broken because it meant something to them. It’s beautiful.”

  Doesn’t our marriage mean anything to you?

  You can’t fix what’s irreparable.

  I blinked. Where the hell had that come from? I hadn’t thought about that fight—the one where I finally realized my parents were going to divorce—in the last ten years.

  “Are you ready to go?” she asked, looking up at me with bright, honest eyes. How long had it been since I’d been around a girl who didn’t have an agenda? Who wasn’t looking for five minutes in the spotlight, or to say she’d fucked me?

  But Leah, she was none of that. Hell, she barely wanted to be around me as it was. Instead, the tables had been flipped, and I was the one constantly angling for a minute of her time.

  “Yeah, let’s go.”

  She pointed to a white van in the parking lot. “That’s our ride this time.”

  “We’re not going back to the ship?” I asked, trying to keep the disappointment out of my voice. I needed to inspect those rigs, make sure that nothing went wrong tomorrow.

  “Not yet. Don’t worry, Cinderella, I’ll get you home by midnight.” She led me over to the van and gave our names to the driver.

  “Where are we going?”

  She laughed, scooting over so I could sit next to her as another half-dozen students filed in behind us. “Didn’t you bother to look at your itinerary?”

  “Nope. I saw your excursion list and had the registrar match it.”

  “You’re entirely too trusting.”

  If you only knew the truth. “I didn’t do it until after I’d met you. I decided you weren’t half bad to be around and, given that you’d agreed to stay on as my tutor, you had good taste.”

  “Unbelievable.”

  The van started to roll, and when I looked in the rearview mirror, I started to laugh.

  “What?”

  I pointed behind us. “Bobby didn’t make it.”

  She turned to see and then she giggled. Fucking giggled. It was the most entrancing sound I’d ever heard, light, playful, and sexy as hell.

  “Oh my God, now he’s running.” She laughed full-out, and I joined her, watching him try his best to catch the van. “Want to stop for him?” She arched an eyebrow, and I recognized the challenge when I saw it.

  “Nope. It’s just you, me, and these other fine seagoers.”

  Her smile was well worth what I knew would be a shitstorm later. Wherever we were going, it had to be somewhere worthwhile, and I’d cut out the documentary team. Too damn bad.

  The water was a spectacular sight as we wound our way down the island. It was hard to believe that we had nine whole months of this ahead of us—that as amazing as it was here, there was so much more amazing waiting to happen.

  When we hit a pothole, Leah bumped against my shoulder, and then inched toward the window, as if touching me wasn’t acceptable. I swallowed, knowing that my stupid physical craving to get my hands on her would only screw over my trip, my GPA, and her life. Hell, my life, too. She was too important to even think about that way.

  Besides, I’d always wanted what I couldn’t have, and that had to be it. She was in the center of my radar because I already knew she was untouchable.

  Ten minutes later we stood outside next to a large sign that read pedestrian path to the crystal caves of bermuda.

  “Spelunking?” I asked hopefully.

  “Sightseeing. Come on.” She smiled over her shoulder, and I followed after her, enjoying the slight sway of her curved hips ahead of me.

  We passed rows of palm trees, a botanical garden, and finally made it to a curved archway that started a ramped descent. The stone walls rose around us, becoming a tunnel and, though the walkway wasn’t steep, I didn’t miss the way Leah’s fingers tightened on the banister.

  “Why don’t you let me go first?” I asked, sliding to the side. She shot me a curious look, and I shrugged. “That way if you stumble, I’ll catch you.”

  “Catch me?”

  “Well, it would be more like you catching yourself on my back, but you can use me.”

  Her eyebrows shot sky-high.

  “My back. You can use my back.” And any other part of me you want. “You know what? I’m going first just to make this conversation stop.”

  I took the lead behind the tour guide, shaking my head as he rambled on about the history of the cave. Where the hell was my game? Not that I was trying to hook up with Leah, but it would have been nice to put two words together correctly.

  We made it out of the tunnel, and I sucked in a breath. “Whoa.” Stalactites hung from every square foot of the ceiling, all pointing to the clearest, bluest water I’d ever seen.

  Leah’s cheek brushed my shoulder as she leaned around to see. “Told you it would be worth it.”

  I turned to her, my lips brushing across the crown of her head. Her hair smelled like oranges, and damn if I didn’t like it. “It’s beautiful.”

  She pulled back enough to look into my eyes.
“And you’re thinking of how fast you could skateboard down the ramp, aren’t you?”

  Actually, it hadn’t even occurred to me. I’d been too focused on her. You’re slipping. I glanced back up the ramp, past the remainder of our tour. “I could probably get a ton of speed, but I’d need something to bank me through this turn.”

  The two girls behind us giggled, and the hot blond one gave me the smile I’d become accustomed to in the last three years I’d made a name for myself. The one that usually ended with a phone number I didn’t use because I’d already moved on.

  “Do you ever stop to think that you’re moving too fast to savor anything around you before it’s gone?” Leah asked.

  I jolted, my entire body snapping to face hers. Had she been in my head? No. She was leaned over the railing of the outcropping, absorbing everything around us, experiencing it in a way I didn’t, because she was right—I was always moving too fast.

  I leaned next to her, her bare shoulder rubbing against mine, and simply watched, not only the incredible scene around us but the play of emotion on her face, as she did the same. “This was worth slowing down for,” I admitted.

  She turned those eyes on me, and I realized that I meant that in more than one way. It would be so easy to run my fingers into her hair, tip her face to mine, and kiss her, to see if she tasted as sweet as she looked. Maybe then I could be satisfied, the challenge over, the curiosity appeased.

  You know better.

  “Hey…um…aren’t you Wilder?” a guy asked from behind me, and I could have hit him for cock-blocking me and thanked him at the same time.

  I turned around, but Leah didn’t. “Yeah,” I answered.

  “Whoa!” The guy high fived his Abercrombie-styled buddy, the hot blonde tucked under his arm. “I knew you were on board but didn’t expect to get to meet you!”

  “Well, hi.” I gave them a nod.

  “Hi,” his girl said with a smile and a once-over that let me know she’d be all too happy to take a private tour of my room later.

  Oddly enough, that didn’t sound too appealing.

  “Dude, we saw you at the Summer X Games year before last. The Big Air finals were crazy! You nailed it!”

  A sliver of apprehension cracked the peaceful veneer I’d had since we left the ship. “Thanks. It was…a night.” What would you give to have changed it?

  “How did it feel?” Abercrombie asked.

  “Winning?” I clarified, reaching for the railing behind me. Don’t do it. Don’t ask.

  “Beating your best friend. Everyone figured Nitro was going to take gold that year, and then you owned it!”

  My fingers dug into the railing. Beating Nick had never been in the plans and had sucked almost every ounce of joy from the moment they hung that medal around my neck. It had been the start of a spiral I hadn’t been able to stop.

  No one had.

  “Where is he, anyway?” the other one asked before it got too apparent that I wasn’t going to answer the first question. “I haven’t seen him on the Renegade Channel in forever.”

  “He’s taking some time off,” I said easily, the way I’d been coached by my publicist. “Working on some new tricks.”

  “So he can beat your ass, huh? The guy has to be dying to get back on top now that you’ve been there the last couple years.”

  I forced a tight smile.

  Fingers tentatively brushed over my knuckles. Leah.

  “Hey, Paxton, we’d better catch up with the guide. I know you want to get back to the ship,” she said quietly.

  The blonde narrowed her eyes at who she obviously viewed as competition. I almost laughed. If Leah had shown one ounce of actual, actionable interest, there would be no contest.

  Hell, the idea of getting Leah’s curves under me was miles ahead of a nameless fuck. Take it back. Right now. You’re not interested in sleeping with Leah.

  Liar.

  “I’m Elyse,” the blonde said to Leah. “Who are you?”

  “No one you have to worry about,” Leah answered with a laugh in her voice. “Pax, you ready?”

  She tugged on my fingers, prying them loose from the railing. Then she slipped her hand into mine, and my stomach flipped like a thirteen-year-old girl.

  “Yeah,” I answered. “Nice to meet you guys. See you on board sometime.”

  She led me away from the other students, down the railway over the fifty-foot-deep lake beneath us, her thumb rubbing circles into my palm, taking away a piece of my stress with each motion.

  “Are you going to ask me?”

  “About what?” she asked over her shoulder, her thick, loose braid sliding against her skin.

  “The X Games? Nitro? Any of it?”

  She paused, then turned until we faced each other, as alone as we’d been since we met. “Do you want to tell me?”

  “No. Not yet.”

  Her eyes were soft and deep as the corner of her mouth turned up. “Then I’m not going to pry. It’s not any of my business, anyway.”

  She turned away, dropping her hand, and I couldn’t help but feel off, like I’d pulled a half when I meant to turn a full—as if I’d just fallen short of whatever the possibility could have been.

  …

  “You busy?” I asked Landon from his doorway.

  “What does it look like?” he said from behind a book.

  “Looks like you need to be distracted.”

  He lowered the book and snorted. “Some of us enjoy reading, Pax. You should try it sometime. Then maybe you wouldn’t have to harass your timid little tutor so much.”

  “She’s not timid.” I crossed my arms over my chest and leaned against his doorframe.

  “Compared to your normal scores, she’s a church mouse.” He put his hands up when I stepped into the room. “Look, I honestly think she’s great. She’s really nice, and she might pull you through this year, but I see the way you look at her.”

  “I’m not fucking looking at her,” I argued.

  “Au contraire. You’re looking like you’d love to fuck her.”

  My eyes narrowed. If he wasn’t some heartbroken sap, I’d have laid into him about his own self-destructive sexual habits—there was a reason we called him Casanova—but that only would have made me more of an asshole than I already was. It wasn’t like I didn’t play a role in that heartbreak…and the way he’d changed afterward. “I’m not going to touch her.”

  “Good.” He picked up the book again.

  “Wait. Aren’t you my friend? Aren’t you supposed to be my wingman if I wanted to actually be with Leah?”

  He sighed and put the book down on his stomach. “First, I’ll wingman you through anything you want. Say the word. Even if it’s the stupidest decision you’ve ever made, you know I’ll have your back. Second, do you realize what you just said?”

  I rubbed my fingers over my forehead. “My head hurts from studying all evening. Enlighten me.”

  “You said be with Leah. Not hook up, or score, or fuck, like you have ever been with anyone. And I can tell you that as your best friend, she’s not the kind of girl you screw, drop for the next hot piece of ass, and expect her to tutor you after. Keep your hands in your pockets and your dick in your pants, because if you fuck this up we’re all screwed.” He raised the book and waved me off. “If you need to get laid, call Zoe. Leave the tutor alone.”

  “So I guess this means you don’t approve of me bringing her out with us tomorrow.”

  His sigh was hard enough to move the pages, but he didn’t put the book down. “If you’re hell-bent on screwing this up, I won’t stop you. Hell, I’ll find her a wetsuit.”

  “Thank you, she’ll need one. And for the record, I’m not screwing this up, or screwing Leah. I’m more than capable of controlling my dick, and I know my grades are more important than any hookup.” The word tasted like shit in my mouth.

  I closed his door and found Penna leaning against the wall. “He’s right,” she said with a shrug.

  “No
t you, too.” I passed her, shaking my head as she followed me down the stairs in the suite. Thank God the camera crews weren’t here right now. “What the hell have I done to deserve you two launching into me?”

  She tilted her head. “Do you honestly want me to list every female we’ve had to replace because you don’t specialize in morning afters? What, two camera women? Your physical therapist? My twenty-first birthday party planner?”

  Way to drive it home. “I get the fucking point. Don’t touch Leah. Don’t risk my tutor, my grades, our future. Got it. I’ve known the girl for a week. She’s not under my skin or anything, so chill the hell out. It’s an infatuation.”

  Penna arched a perfectly sculpted eyebrow. “Don’t get an attitude with me. I’m well aware that you have control over your”—her hands pointed to my general groin area—“manly parts. But you know what I’ve realized over the last week?”

  “What?”

  “This is a small ship, Pax. There’s nowhere to go, and that makes everything just a little more intense, a little more…intimate, especially when you’re spending almost every waking minute with her. That’s more than enough time for her to get under your skin. This girl is at the center of your universe because you need her, which is fine, but remember that you’re at the center of hers, too, because your grades keep her on board.”

  “Right?” I didn’t see the fucking problem. Leah and I had already come to terms with our symbiotic relationship.

  Penna sighed, and her shoulders drooped. “Just… I really like her. She’s funny, honest, smart…but there’s some damage there, too. She’s in your orbit because she has to be, but you’ve got some ridiculously strong gravity. Be careful around her.”

  “I’m only trying to keep her happy. She’s got three months until her roommate shows up, and I don’t want her to be lonely. What if she hates me and quits? Leaves? Everything we spent the last year setting up will be down the drain.”

  “I think there’s a line between keeping her happy and making her fall for you. You’re so used to doing the second with every potential hookup, I’m not sure you’d even recognize it.”