Las Vegas
My eyes strayed to her ass as she folded herself into the dark black sedan that waited for us outside the Bellagio. I prided myself on not being a misogynistic asshole, but it was right there, all perfectly round and grabbable, encased in those jeans that looked like they’d been stitched with only her body in mind.
“You coming?” she asked from inside the car, slipping into a leather jacket.
Well, this was either the beginning of an epic story or a horror movie. Either way, I was committed.
I slid onto the leather seat, and we were off before I had even clicked my seat belt. A large, bald man glanced back from behind the wheel before turning onto the strip.
“You’re not Patrick.”
“I am not Patrick,” I confirmed as the guy’s eyes widened. Was he her driver? Her bodyguard? Please don’t be a jealous boyfriend.
“Let’s go,” Penelope said, looking out the window. “Patrick was drunk, so I had to lose him.”
“Are you kidding me?” the guy roared.
“Nope. There was zero chance I was putting him in a rig like that.”
The guy’s fingers tapped on the wheel while we waited for a light to turn. “Shit. Okay, well, who is this guy?”
“Little John, this is Cruz. Cruz, this is Little John. He’s our stunt manager and a really close friend,” Penelope explained.
Little John. Like Robin Hood?
“Okay,” I said, trying to go with the flow. Stunt manager…damn, who was this girl?
“And what qualifies him to pull this off? Or did you grab the first good-looking guy from the lobby?”
“It was the bar, actually,” I corrected him as we began driving again, turning down a side street.
“Fuck my life, Penna. What the hell are you thinking? You can’t just throw some stranger into a rig and expect shit to go right. Pax and Landon are going to freak out.”
“They are not my problem,” Penelope answered, but her hand flexed on her thigh.
Maybe those are the jealous boyfriends.
“Right. They’re mine. And so is this guy”—he thumbed in my direction with his free hand—“when you get him killed.”
“He said he can jump,” she argued.
“Oh really?” Little John snapped as we pulled up outside the back of the Linq Casino and Hotel. “Like what? A few tandem jumps with his buddy to cross off his bucket list? You can get him seriously hurt, Penna.”
Okay, that’s enough.
“Look, I have no clue what we’re doing, or who you are, but I have nearly a hundred jumps with the 82nd Airborne. I’m not exactly a rookie here.”
That earned me a surprised look from both of them, but I far more enjoyed seeing Penelope’s blue eyes widen. She struck me as the kind of girl who was hard to impress.
“You’re in the military?” Little John asked.
“I did my three years and got out,” I answered.
“Thank you for your service,” Penelope said in a soft voice. “Now I feel bad for giving you shit about jumping.” Her nose crinkled in the cutest way.
“Don’t worry about it. Now are we just going to sit here all night? Because I remember a beautiful girl promising me something dangerous and a touch illegal.”
“A touch?” Little John snapped at Penelope. “Did you tell him anything?”
“Look, it was kind of an impetuous decision.”
“You? Impetuous? Never,” he said sarcastically.
“Quit being an ass. Are we cleared to go?”
He muttered something that sounded like, “they’re going to fucking kill me,” and then opened his door. We followed suit, meeting at the trunk, where Little John handed us two packs, harnesses and helmets attached. Apparently we were jumping off something, and given that there wasn’t an airport in sight, we had to be BASE jumping…which was illegal as shit.
“Still want to do this?” Penelope asked, slinging her rig over one shoulder and threading her nearly waist-long blond hair through the back of a baseball cap. For being so slight, she handled that pack like it weighed absolutely nothing.
“Since I don’t know exactly what we’re doing, that’s kind of an unfair question.” I took the black cap she offered and slipped it on.
She pointed up, and I followed the direction of her finger to see the High Roller, the tallest Ferris wheel in the world. “Are you kidding? That thing…”
“It’s five hundred and fifty feet at the top,” she supplied, already following Little John toward the back of the building. We passed under the giant metal platform where passengers boarded the ride, and my mind spun a hell of a lot faster than that Ferris wheel. “You don’t have to do it if you’re scared,” she tossed over her shoulder.
Like I was scared? The jump itself didn’t bother me. The repercussions of being caught? That could fuck up everything I’d been working for the last eight years. As gorgeous, enchanting, and utterly intoxicating as this girl was, I couldn’t throw away everything over an illegal jump.
She turned, holding the door open for me. “If we get caught, which we won’t, the biggest penalty we’ll face will probably be trespassing, which is a slap-on-the-wrist misdemeanor. Look, you don’t even have to do it. You can leave now, or you can ride up with me and ride back down, or you can jump.”
She stared up at me, every inch of her body language screaming that she didn’t care what I did. She was going to do whatever she wanted. But her eyes told a different story. There was something damaged there, a desperate plea that tapped into my soul in a way I’d thought I was immune to.
Man, was I wrong.
She wasn’t a damsel. She was in distress, but she wasn’t going to say a word about it, and that set off every alarm bell in my brain and engaged that sense of chivalry Grandma had busted her ass to instill in me.
Shit. Double shit. Fuck.
I wasn’t reckless by nature—far from it. I played life like the chess game it was, more than aware of the consequences of my actions seven moves from now. Maybe it was knowing that I was leaving tomorrow for the next few months, or I could have lied and told myself it was for the thrill. It wasn’t. It was for her—this phenom of a woman I’d met barely an hour ago.
A misdemeanor would be a pain in the ass but wouldn’t shred my plans like a felony. Holy shit, you’re seriously debating the seriousness of different charges?
“I’ll ride with you,” I told her.
The relief in her smile sent a wave of warmth through me. Good decision for her. Bad decision for you.
I told the devil on my shoulder to shut the hell up and followed them into the darkened hallway. We entered at the head of the ticket line, where no one waited, as if the line had momentarily paused.
“I took care of everything,” Little John told Penna. “We’re already past the bag check, so they won’t see the chutes. These are your tickets. Make sure yours is on top. The attendant marked it. He’ll bypass the security on your pod, and the rest is up to you. I’ll be parked right out back. When you land, ditch the chutes—you’re worth more than they are.”
“Got it,” Penelope said, taking the tickets.
“Are you sure about this?” Little John asked her.
“No,” she answered, and my gaze snapped to where she shook her head at him. “But if I want to be me again, this is what I have to do. There’s no toe-dipping, no easing my way back in for the documentary. Either I pull this off, or I don’t deserve to be a Renegade.”
“That’s bullshit.”
“That’s the truth.” She leaned up and kissed his cheek. “Thank you. I know what this cost you with them. I’ll see you at the bottom.”
“Just be safe, and you know…don’t get him killed, either.” He pivoted and left us standing inside the doors that led out to the platform.
Noise coming up the hallway told me that the line was reforming and heading our way. “Let’s go,” I said, placing my hand lightly on her lower back to guide her through the door. It wasn’t anything I hadn’t done on a date, but simply touching the small of her back sent a wake-up message to my dick.
Down boy. There’s no time for that. I promptly removed my hand.
What the hell am I doing? I asked myself that the entire time we approached the attendant, watching him load the pod directly ahead of ours with at least ten people.
Penelope handed our ticket to the attendant, whose eyes widened slightly at the mark in the corner. He nodded, guiding us into the transparent pod that would easily fit twenty or more people. “You’ll note that the exit door is on the opposite side,” he told us. “It’s about a half-hour ride total, so enjoy. Welcome to the High Roller.”
We stepped over the six-inch gap that separated the platform from the pod, and the attendant closed the door, ensconcing us in a darkened, purple-lit sphere. Rocking was nonexistent as we started our ascent.
The television monitors immediately started babbling about the stats of the Ferris wheel. A few quick button-pushes and they were silenced. I put the pack on the floor as Penelope did the same, and then we both stood at the windows, watching the lights of Vegas above us. Soon they’d be beneath us.
“I owe you an explanation,” she said softly, catching me off guard.
“I’d like one, but I made my choice. You don’t owe me anything.” Our shoulders brushed, and that same electricity I’d felt earlier hit me. I didn’t even know who this girl was, but we had some insane chemistry.
“I’ve never done this before.”
“Which part? The BASE jump? The illegal factor? Or asking a random stranger if he’d like to break the law with you?” My lips turned up at the utter absurdity of the situation.
She laughed softly, a gorgeous, light sound that made me instantly want to hear it again. “I’ve never picked up a guy. Let alone a guy in a bar. Add to it that I then asked if you wanted to risk your life with a stranger, and it’s been an evening of firsts.”
“Really? Man, this just happened to me last week in Seattle,” I joked.
That earned me a breathtaking smile and another light laugh. God, the girl was truly a masterpiece. Her face had classic, almost Grecian, features with high cheekbones, a pert nose, and a mouth that begged to be sampled. Those eyes, though—light blue with darker flecks that had me staring way longer than necessary.
“How old are you, anyway?” she asked.
“Twenty-seven. Worried I’m underage?”
“Nawh, just making sure you couldn’t join AARP.”
“Ouch,” I laughed.
Her eyes focused on the buildings as we passed floors, slowly rising into the Vegas skyline. “I can’t believe I did this.” Her phone dinged and then dinged again before she could get it out of her pocket. “Shit,” she muttered, scanning over the text messages.
“Issues?”
She thumbed over the messages as another one came in. “Pax. Leah. Pax. Landon. Rachel. Nick. Shit. They know I’m here.”
Panic crept into her eyes, and her teeth worried her lower lip.
I checked my watch. “Okay, we have about ten minutes until we hit the peak.”
“Right,” she said, still reading the messages.
“And chances are I’m never going to see you again once we land.”
She looked up at me. “We land?”
“If I jump with you,” I clarified. “Point is, you’re up here with someone you just met in a bar an hour ago, when you clearly have people who care about you. It’s none of my business, but there’s something missing in this equation.”
She glanced at me and then to the skyline, turning off her phone and slipping it into her back pocket. “You don’t know the first thing about me.”
“And maybe that’s why I can say that to you.” Was I really going to have to jump with this girl to get her to open up? Something was eating away at her, and it was obvious she wasn’t going to reach out to anyone from those mysterious text messages. I looked back toward the pack on the floor. “How did you stow the lines?” If I was even going to consider jumping off this Ferris wheel, I needed to know there was an actual parachute in there.
“Classic figure-eight pattern.”
“No primary stow?”
“And no slider.” She shrugged.
“Wait. No slider, and no primary stow?”
“Taking off the slider gives us a faster open time, and with five hundred and fifty feet—”
“We need those seconds,” I deduced. We’d be falling for only a few seconds as it was. If Little John was there at the landing, if we could lose the chutes, if the hats had helped us avoid the cameras…we might not get caught.
“And the stow would just add another unnecessary step in deployment,” Penelope finished.
“You’re really good at this, aren’t you?”
A corner of her mouth lifted. “I’m a very well-paid extreme athlete. Or…I used to be, anyway.” She ended on a near whisper.
“And you’re not now?” She shot me a look, and I raised my hands. “Hey, I have one night, just a few minutes in this eternity of ours, to try to understand you.” To try to help you.
“Do you have to understand everyone?”
“Yes. I have a slight control issue.” And a hero complex, according to my grandmother.
I felt her gaze on me but kept mine on the skyline, which we were slowly, finally rising above.
“I got hurt a few months ago,” she said, crossing her arms under her breasts.
With supreme effort, I kept my mouth shut. She needed someone to listen, not talk. My effort was rewarded when she sighed and continued.
“My group—the other athletes—we’re more like family than friends. One of my really good friends, Nick, was paralyzed working on a new trick, and my sister…she loved him, and when he shut everyone out, she broke. We’ve been shooting this documentary, mostly to get Nick a name in stunt design, and things went wrong from the start. Equipment was tampered with, people got hurt, Leah almost died,” she whispered. Shaking it off, she sucked in a breath. “Brooke—my sister—she was trying to hurt Pax, but I was the one she got instead, thank God. Crushed my leg.” She rolled her ankle. “I’ve been cleared for a month now to get back in the saddle, but instead of being excited, I asked for an air cast. I asked to be sidelined.”
“Is that why you’re not with your friends?”
“They’re in Aspen for the X Games. I wanted to get on the plane with them, but I just couldn’t watch and wonder if I’d ever have the balls to do it again. I had to find out, and if I’d let them know, they would have coddled me, told me to ease my way back in.”
“You’re not an ease-in kind of girl?”
She rolled her eyes at the double meaning I hadn’t intended, and I laughed. Apparently my subconscious had ideas of its own, which was understandable, seeing as how her entire body screamed hot, keep-you-coming-until-dawn sex. But it wasn’t the curves of her body that got me on this Ferris wheel in what was potentially the most reckless choice of my life—it was the broken look in her eyes that peeked out when she let her guard down.
“I’m a jump-in-with-both-feet-and-then-measure-the-depth-later kind of girl,” she said. “Ever since I sat on Pax’s first motocross bike and then demanded my own, I’ve never feared flying, or the fall. If I can do this, then maybe that girl is still in here.” She tapped her chest. “If I can do this, I’m one step closer to looking at my bike without my stomach turning over.”
I already knew that if that girl wasn’t still there, she wouldn’t be standing here with me. She’d still be on the ground. But I wasn’t the one who needed to be convinced—she was.
I nodded to myself and took a deep breath. Looks like you’re jumping.
“You’ve got some good lawyers to get us out of this, right, extreme-athlete girl?” I asked, reaching for the pack.
“The best,” she promised. “Besides, like I said, it’s a misdemeanor, and they’re not going to catch us anyway.”
“How sure of that are you?” I asked, examining my pack. I wish I’d had room to roll it out and repack it for my peace of mind. Leap or don’t, but no easing-in, remember? Trust her or don’t. Help her or sit the fuck down.
“A nice bottle of champagne certain,” she said with a smile that stole the air from my lungs.
“I’ll hold you to that.” A few snaps later and I was in the harness, tightening the straps and adjusting the helmet. I rolled down my sleeves to protect my arms the best I could.
The pod rose above most of the casinos around us. “It’s gorgeous,” she said reverently. Her gaze swept the skyline, her lips parted as she braced her hands lightly against the glass.
“Yeah. Beautiful view.” I never once took my eyes from her.
She noticed, glancing my way and blushing.
“It’s about time.” She pointed to the television monitor that showed we were only a minute from the zenith of the rotation.
She headed for the opposite side of the pod, opening the door with a lot less effort than I’d imagined it would take. I quickly wiped her fingerprints off the glass with my sleeve.
The breeze swept in, the January air clearing my head as I stepped to the open doorway next to Penelope to look down over the nearly empty parking lot.
“You have to clear that tree,” she said, pointing.
“You need to watch that lamppost.”
“God, I love this feeling,” she whispered, as if she hadn’t meant to say the thought aloud.
“The rush?” I guessed.
“The anticipation. The war that silently rages in my body between what I want it to do and what it knows isn’t safe. The way my stomach tightens and my heart starts to race. The moment the decision is still mine.”
I knew the exact moment she was describing because I’d lived it—I was in it now. It was the moment you stood on the edge of epic and decided to topple over.
She looked up, snapping her static line hook to the steel rod above the doorframe. I did the same and then stood back, checking the monitor for our location. “It’s time.”
She moved her toes to the very edge of the pod, her black Vans standing out against the metal plate. Then she closed her eyes and lifted her face to the sky, pure joy washing over her features.
Enchanting. That girl she was seeking was closer to her surface than she realized.
“See you at the bottom,” she said over her shoulder with a thousand-megawatt smile and jumped.
She was fucking fearless, and even if I hadn’t been wearing a parachute, I might have jumped just to stay close to her—she was that magnetic.
“Go to Vegas, they said. It will be fun, they said,” I muttered.
I counted two full seconds, watching her chute deploy, then stepped out into nothing.
