“You’re so welcome,” he answered with a soft smile.
I kept my eyes on the city to the side of us, or the shoreline ahead of us, never looking down, never letting go of the wonder in my heart just in case the fear crept in and stole this moment from me.
It was over too quickly and not soon enough, my fear escalating the closer we came to the ground, until Paxton took the brunt of our landing on the soft beach.
You did it! I wanted to shout to the sky that I was victorious—that I’d won this one battle, and it was more than enough. It was a taste of what I’d been before that night, before I knew what it was to watch love die right in front of me. It was freedom, joy, exhilaration, and the ability to simply breathe. And it was all because of Paxton.
He unclipped our parachute and unsnapped our harnesses from the towline, his hands moving quickly with supreme focus. Focus, that for once, I needed on me. My stomach tightened, my heart jumping like it did right before I zip-lined, already knowing that it might be the wrong choice, but I’d made my decision.
“How are you feeling?” he asked when he saw that I stood there, simply watching him.
I didn’t have words, only this overwhelming need buzzing through me, demanding to take another, more dangerous leap. Paxton had given me something priceless, and I didn’t know how to communicate everything that meant to me, what he was starting to mean to me, but I knew I had to.
I’d never wanted something—someone—so badly in my life.
Damn the consequences.
“Leah?” he asked, leaning down slightly to cup my cheeks in his hands, then swiping his tongue across his lower lip—his nervous tell.
My fingers found the warm skin of his biceps, and before I could find the words I wanted to say, I surged on my toes, pressing my mouth to his and kissing him. Our lips clung, the simple pressure lasting far longer than I meant it to.
I hadn’t meant for it to happen at all. Not really.
Oh God. I kissed Paxton. I’m kissing Paxton.
But then I realized he wasn’t kissing me back.
I broke the contact, that pressure in my chest turning nearly sour, my heart pounding not in exhilaration but embarrassment.
“Leah,” he leaned down and whispered against my lips, the sound equal parts discovery and plea. Then he kissed me. His mouth moved gently over mine, his hands cradling my face as if I was something precious and rare, each new caress stripping away another hardened layer of my soul. He didn’t press deeper, even though I was ready to beg him to, just gave me that soft kiss that lingered, made me burn for more.
His tongue caressed my lower lip, and I leaned in to him. It was perfect. He was perfect.
Then he suddenly stopped, stepping back like I’d burned him, his chest heaving.
“Paxton?” I asked, my voice shaking from everything I’d risked, everything I’d stupidly thought I could have.
He met my eyes, and the desire I saw there soothed the raw edges of my nerves. He licked his lips, not in nervousness this time, but as if he could still taste me, and I seriously debated attacking him a second time.
With the simple touch of his lips, he’d awoken something in me I’d thought long dead, and I wanted more.
He shook his head, as if he knew what I was thinking, and that’s when I heard them running toward us, their footsteps heavy in the sand.
“We got some amazing shots!” Bobby said, his breath even where his overweight cameraman was damn near hyperventilating.
“Good,” Paxton said, his voice rough but his touch light as he unbuckled the snaps on my harness so I could step out. How could he function perfectly when I could barely breathe?
“How was your ride?” Bobby asked me, but putting two words together proved impossible.
“Enlightening,” Paxton answered, sparing me.
“What do you think, Leah? You going to do it again?”
I locked eyes with Paxton, and he raised an eyebrow, both of us sensing a second meaning to that question. “I’m not sure.”
A corner of his mouth tilted up into an incredibly sexy smirk. “Yeah, you are. I’m sure enough for the both of us.”
Before I could respond, Paxton looked over my shoulder and swore under his breath.
“What?” I asked, turning to see what upset him.
Standing about fifteen feet away in a well-tailored suit was a man who might have been a clean-cut version of Paxton if he’d had any spark of life in his judgmental eyes. I felt like I was standing there naked or something else equally exposing.
“Paxton. If I could maybe have some of your time?” the man asked, his voice the same deep timbre of Pax’s.
“Who is that?” I asked quietly.
“The angel of death,” he responded as the man walked toward us.
“Very funny,” the man replied, his eyes traveling the length of Paxton’s body before he rolled his eyes. “For fuck’s sake, Paxton, you’re in Barcelona, one of the foremost centers for culture and architecture, and you’d still rather concentrate on stupid antics and getting laid than go to a museum.”
I stepped back, stopping when I came into contact with Paxton’s chest.
“Leah, meet my brother, Brandon. Brandon, this is Leah. Do you want to tell me why the hell you flew halfway around the world?”
“Sure,” Brandon answered, his smirk nearly identical to Paxton’s but for the edge of malice. “I’m here to shut you down.”
Chapter Nine
Paxton
Barcelona
“You have zero authority to shut me down,” I growled at my asshole brother as he put ice cubes into one of the glasses on my bar.
We’d successfully completed three of the stunts, and we hadn’t had a repeat of the zip-line incident. There were zero grounds for him to pull this shit. Hell, I was even beginning to relax.
“So this is what four hundred million dollars will buy you,” he drawled. “You don’t even have a decent bottle of liquor.”
“Settle for a Corona,” I said, pulling one out of the mini-fridge and handing it to him without opening it. He could slice his hand open for all I cared. “Now tell me what the fuck you’re really doing here.”
“Besides attempting to talk you out of your lunacy?” he asked, sitting in the largest armchair like it was his living room…his ship.
“Make your point or get the hell out of my room, Brandon. If you’re interested in seeing the Mediterranean, you can do it from one of Dad’s yachts. There’s one parked in St. Tropez, or I don’t know, maybe visit Mom.”
His eyes hardened. “Unlike you, I work for a living. I’m not off gallivanting, chasing an idiotic dream like I’m five years old on the dirt pile.”
I smirked, letting his comments roll off as always. “Funny, seems like that’s exactly what you’re doing.”
“If you answered emails I wouldn’t have to fly around the world to track you down.”
“Bullshit, you’d fly across the world if you had the craving for gelato.”
He tapped his fingers rhythmically on the glass, the perfect picture of control. “What you’re doing is ludicrous. I’m not going to approve funding this.”
“Well, let me know when you’re in charge of Wilder Enterprises, and then we can have this conversation again. Until then, I have a contract with Dad.”
His eyes widened.
“You didn’t know?” A childish thrill of victory brought a smirk to my face. “I assumed that was how you discovered what we were up to.”
“Your asinine zip-line got posted to YouTube. Once I saw that, all I had to do was inquire as to Bobby’s whereabouts to find you.”
“How many hits do we have?” I asked. Please be over a million. We needed the boost to market the film.
He shook his head. “That’s all you’ve ever cared about. Your stupid fucking tricks, and medals, and video games, and the Renegades.”
“Sorry you don’t have your own video game yet. I’ll let you know when they come up with Corporate
Asshole Three, okay? I know a couple guys who will slip you in.”
“Grow the fuck up. Dad indulged you with every stupid thing you thought would be fun, and he looked the other way with the tattoos, the piercings, the women, even dropping out last year—”
“Hey, it was only one piercing, and I took it out.”
“But now you’re blowing how much money on this project? Risking how many lives? For Christ’s sake, Dad had to buy the ship. You couldn’t finish college like a man, you had to make a movie out of it?”
My fingers dug into the upholstery on the chair, wishing just once I could beat the shit out of my straightlaced, clean-cut, Wharton-Business-graduating older brother. But I loved the asshole, so I kept my shit in check. “Why are you really here, Brandon?”
He leaned back. “Dad is passing the company to me.”
“Bullshit. There’s no way he’s stepping down. He’s given up way too much for that company to walk away.” Things like his marriage.
“The signs are there. He’s shifting assets, buying property.”
I rolled my eyes at him. “You came all the way over here to tell me that there are signs he’s passing the company to you?”
“No, I came because I was already in London,” he said with a slow smile. “And you may be a jackass, but I miss you.”
“You’re not going to fight to shut me down?”
He shook his head. “Not if you have a contract with Dad. That’s beyond even my control. Want to share the terms?”
“A little annoyed that you don’t already know them?” I guessed.
“Yes.” He sighed and loosened his tie, then ran his fingers over his hair, jacking up the professional gel job. Now he looked more like my brother and less the corporate stooge he’d turned into these last few years.
“The boat, getting UCLA to sponsor the Study at Sea program…we had different goals.”
“Dad’s is to get you through college.”
I flinched. “Yeah, I know, and I used that against him to get what I wanted. I’m not proud, but it was the only way I could get the movie made. So we both gave what we didn’t want to get what we needed.”
“So you have learned the art of business,” Brandon said with a salute of his glass. “Why is this movie so important to you? It’s not like you’re hurting for money or fame.”
“Nick is. And it’s not about the fame or the money. It’s about the team, and Nick still being crucial to it.”
Brandon’s breath left in a hiss, and he took a long pull of the beer. “That’s not your fault. It wasn’t your fault when it happened, and it’s not your fault now.”
“Fault and responsibility are two different things.”
He stared at me the same way Dad did when he was making an assessment. “Okay. And your grades?”
“If I fail my classes, he pulls the plug.”
“Harsh.”
“It’s harsher for my tutor. If I fail my classes, her scholarship is yanked.”
“Now there’s responsibility for you. Anyone I know?”
I hesitated. Leah was mine. Not in the possessive sense, but in simply knowing about her. What we had—whatever it was—was ours. The minute I told him who she was, Brandon had something to use against me.
Trust him.
“The girl on the beach,” I answered. “Leah.”
I had to applaud his poker face; he didn’t even blink. “The one I saw you kissing? Do you think it’s smart to fu—”
“Watch it,” I warned softly. Damn it, that’s why you should have kept your lips to yourself. But she’d kissed me, all soft and happy, and that first touch was enough to break me. I’d almost succeeded in keeping that wall between us, but she’d tasted so damn good.
His head tilted slightly. “Okay. Well, is she qualified? I mean to tutor you, not the other stuff.”
“Very. She goes to Dartmouth, and she’s brilliant, stubborn, and driven.” And mine. Damn, that was the second time my brain had gone all primal about Leah in the last five minutes. When had that instinct kicked in?
When you decided to say fuck the consequences and kiss her back. Or maybe when you protected her from the cameras, or when she first agreed to the zip-line.
The only thing I knew for certain was that it didn’t matter when—it only mattered how I was going to convince her to take a chance on us. Us. Yeah, I’d just thought that. Us. I thought it again to try it on for size.
Shit, I was ignoring Brandon.
“—back in Los Angeles until you graduate.”
The door to the suite clicked open, saving me. “Pax?”
“In here,” I called out.
Penna walked in, her gaze darting between Brandon and me. “Oh, hey, Brandon. I didn’t realize you were in Barcelona.”
“I was just leaving,” he said, redoing his tie and standing. “Good to see you, Penelope. Pax, try to stay out of jail, okay? Not all the shit you guys like to pull is legal.”
We said our good-byes and he walked out, my blood pressure immediately dropping with the sound of the door closing behind him.
“Why the hell is he here?” she asked.
I loved Brandon, but he didn’t do anything that didn’t suit his immediate needs. “I don’t know, but it can’t be good. Knowing him, he honestly flew over here to find out what kind of deal I struck with Dad and how to manipulate it.”
“Agreed. Just don’t give him anything he can use against you.”
And now he knew about Leah.
Fuck.
…
“I’ll expect your papers filed in eCampus no later than midnight on Friday,” our World Religion professor said into the bus microphone as we parked at the cruise terminal the next day. We’d seen enough churches that they’d all started to blend in by the afternoon. All except La Sagrada Familia, which might have been the coolest church I’d ever seen in my life.
“Ready?” I asked Leah as I stood in the aisle. She clutched her bag with both hands.
“Yes,” she said, scooting out from the seat.
“One word again? You’re so talkative today. Everything okay?” I asked, ready to poke her in the side to get her to talk to me.
“Yep,” she answered with a fake smile, standing in front of me.
I didn’t know whether to shake her or kiss the shit out of her. My entire body screamed for the second option, especially after spending all day next to her, watching her smile at architecture when I wanted her to smile at me, catching the scent of her perfume and the orange shampoo she used, listening to her laugh at something Hugo said.
I may as well have not existed.
We filed off the bus and headed for the ship. “Hey, Leah, we’re over here,” I said, pointing to the quicker entrance. She looked up at me, those eyes so full of conflict that I couldn’t get a read on her emotions.
Welcome to the club, Leah.
“You know, Hugo and I were going to grab dinner, so I think I’ll just go in the normal way,” she said, her lips pressing together in a flat line.
Fucking ouch.
“Okay, well, then you two kids have fun,” I said, forcing a smile that probably looked more like a gremlin. “Study tonight?”
She wavered. Hell if I was going to let her cancel our plans because she was freaked over what had happened yesterday. “We have that Lit assignment for Epic of Gilgamesh, remember?”
Her eyes closed briefly. “Of course I remember. Yeah, that’s great. Tonight.”
She turned and walked away, and not that I didn’t enjoy the view of her ass in those jeans, but for once I’d love to see her walking toward me.
“I liked it better when she was kissing me,” I mumbled.
“Tell me you didn’t,” Landon said.
I swore under my breath and turned, ignoring his disapproving look. “I did.”
He looked up like he was praying for patience. “Worth the potential of fucking up everything that we’ve worked for?”
“Every second.” My answer was inst
ant.
“And you’re going to let her walk away?” he asked.
When did he switch to Team Leah?
“I don’t have much of a choice.”
He started laughing, and I had the urge to toss him into the water instead of walking up the ramp with him.
“What the fuck is so funny?”
“You, my friend. You.”
We gave our IDs to security for scanning, and then headed on board. “And how the hell am I amusing?”
He turned, clapping me on the shoulder. “You’ve never had to work for a woman that you wanted. They’ve been falling into your lap since you were fifteen.”
“That’s not true!”
“Name one girl you had to work for. And by work for, I mean, say more than, “I’m Paxton Wilder and I have a big pipe.”
“Hey, that was one time, and it was to another skateboarder. She totally got the meaning.”
“Pax.”
I tried to run through my mental Rolodex of women and found that I couldn’t think of any, or remember most of their names. “Okay, point taken.”
“You have two choices. You back away now, ignore whatever happened, and preserve your working relationship—”
“Not an option.” Not when I could still feel her lips moving with mine, hear the tiny rush of air she released when we parted. My hands still itched to feel her skin under my fingertips, my head wouldn’t stop running through things to say, and my dick wouldn’t stop making his opinion known, either.
“Well, time to work, brother.” He gave me a somewhat sympathetic half smile, laced with a flash of pain that sliced through me because I knew I’d helped put it there.
“I don’t know what to do. She’s not like the others.”
“The good ones never are, and they don’t usually give second chances, either, so don’t fuck it up if you’re serious.”
He was right, and he knew from experience. I only had one shot at this, and the fate of our working relationship, my grades, the documentary, and whatever was happening with Leah and me was hanging on my ability to not screw it up, because I was incapable of staying away from her.
No pressure, or anything.
Wilder (The Renegades) Page 11
