Barcelona
“Oh God, Rachel, I kissed him. I don’t know what I was thinking, but I kissed him!” I didn’t even say hello, just word vomited from another continent on my best friend.
“Leah?” Rachel’s voice came through the phone, and for a second, it felt like I was home, safe. “You kissed who? The hot guy you’re tutoring?”
“Yeah.” I sighed. “But we were on a beach, and we’d just gone parasailing, and he’s so beautiful and has this edge that makes me feel insane.”
“Back up. You went parasailing? Is this Eleanor Baxter?”
“Right? He makes me do crazy things!”
“Well, I’m all for he-who-cannot-be-named,” she cheered.
“I’m so sorry that I can’t tell you his name.” Stupid NDA. All I wanted to do was spew my guts to my best friend, and I was legally bound to keep it all to myself.
“It’s okay. Makes it more of a mystery for when I get there.”
I laid my head on the back of the couch. “I can’t wait. Seriously. These people, the things they do—the things I do around them…” I trailed off, unable to explain what it was about Paxton that had me zip-lining, and parasailing, and kissing him on the beach. There were no words for the effect he had on me, the way my skin flushed the minute he walked into the room, every nerve waking up and coming to life.
“It’s not drugs, is it? Oh God. Leah, you’re not getting mixed up with that, are you?” Her worry was palpable from 3,600 miles away.
“What? No. Nothing like that.”
“Okay, well, then I say enjoy yourself. Kiss the guy!”
“But I’m his tutor! And I’ve only known him for a little over two weeks!”
She full-out laughed, and I rolled my eyes while I waited for her to stop.
“It took Romeo and Juliet one night,” she argued.
“Yeah, and look how that turned out.”
She sighed. “What made you go on this trip?”
“You, duh,” I scoffed.
“Yeah, I know we applied together, and I know that I was a huge factor in the choice when the acceptance came in—when the scholarship was offered—but what made you go when I couldn’t make it?”
“Besides the experience for grad school? I wanted to live.” Not just fake it like I had been since that night. Not in the routine monotony I’d used as my safety net, but to breathe free where my chest didn’t hurt when I took in too much air—too much light. The grief, the healing, the fear…it had ruled me for so long, and I was desperate for a change. Instead I got a complete revolution.
“Then live. Kiss the guy. Or kiss a different guy if you want. Go on a trip. Sleep in, or get up early and watch the sun rise. Stop thinking about what you should be doing and for once in your damned life do what you want to do.”
“When did you get so smart?” I asked, my eyes prickling.
“I’m not. I just know a thing or two about liking reckless boys. A lot of reckless boys.”
“I wish you were here,” I said, repeating myself because I couldn’t help it.
“Yeah, me too, but maybe this is good for you. I’ve let you hide for two years too long, missy.”
I rubbed my forehead. “I didn’t think about Brian. When I was kissing…him, I didn’t think about Brian. Is that good? Does it make me awful?”
She paused, and I knew she was thinking of what to say. Rachel was impulsive with everyone in her life except me, but that was because we’d had to put each other back together before. “That’s good. You deserve great things, new things, untainted feelings. Don’t feel guilty.”
Impossible.
A knock sounded at my door. “Hey, Rachel, I’ll call you at the next port, okay? There’s someone at the door. Oh God, what if it’s him? He never said what he wanted, just that he knew. What if he’s ditching me as his tutor?”
“Kiss the guy, Leah!” she shouted, smacking me a kiss through the phone line and disconnecting.
My stomach hung suspended as I opened the door. “Well, you’re not the Wilder I was expecting,” I said to Paxton’s brother. “Brandon, right?”
He nodded, his cursory sweep of my pajamas making me wish I’d put on a robe or something. “And you’re Paxton’s tutor. Mind if I come in?”
“My mother taught me never to invite strange men into my room after eleven p.m., Mr. Wilder.”
His eyebrows rose. “Fair enough.” He glanced down the hall toward Paxton’s room before handing me a card. “This is for when he fucks up.”
“I’m sorry?” I backed away from the card.
“Take it,” he urged. “Paxton fucks up. It’s what he does. He’s going to break a bone, break a law, or break you. When he needs to be bailed out, call me. I’ve been cleaning up after him his entire life.”
If I’d had hackles, they would have raised. “He might surprise you,” I said softly.
“He already did. You’re not the type of girl he usually pursues.”
Oh yeah, hackles up, and now my teeth were ready to bare. “And why is that?”
“Because you’re smart. Let’s hope that you’re smart enough not to get involved with my little brother. Only the strong survive in his little troop of lost boys. The weak ones leave mangled.” He shook the card at me. “Take it.”
“No.” I stepped back, ready to slam the door in his face, but he thrust his other arm out, holding the door open.
“Miss Baxter, one day something will happen that you won’t know how to handle. Maybe he’ll be in a Turkish jail, maybe his parachute won’t open, maybe someone will have gotten sick of his shit and pushed him before he was ready to jump. One day you will need this. Please take it. I don’t have anyone else with eyes on him.”
It was the plea in his eyes—so similar to Paxton’s—that made me finally reach for the card. “I won’t call you. He has an entire team of producers and a group of friends here with him.”
“Yes, you will,” he promised. “Because I’m telling you right now that there are few people who are loyal to Paxton. They’re there as long as the getting is good, but when the shit hits the fan, they’ll scatter in the fallout. And he may be a selfish, arrogant little shit, but there’s nothing I wouldn’t do for him. That’s why you’ll call me. Understand?”
I nodded slowly. “What will it cost him if I do?”
An ironic smile lifted the corner of his mouth. “That’s between us brothers. Always has been.”
“I’d like you to leave now,” I said, unable to mince words.
“I like you,” he said with a nod. “It’s a shame he’s not a one-girl kind of guy, because you’d be good for him.”
“Good-bye, Brandon,” I said, shutting the door as soon as he removed his hand.
The card was black with his name and phone number engraved with his title of Vice President of Operations at Wilder Enterprises. It felt heavy in my hand, but then again, it wasn’t just a piece of paper. It was a promise, a reassurance, a warning, and a threat all in one.
Maybe Paxton was a daredevil because he’d grown up swimming with sharks.
I tucked the card into my bedside table and debated sleeping, but I wasn’t tired enough. The suite felt empty without Penna, so I walked onto the back balcony. The railing was smooth under my hands as I looked out over the lights of Barcelona, careful not to look down.
Two weeks. I’d only been gone two weeks, and yet it felt like months—as if I was already changing. Even Hugo had noticed that I was stepping outside my shell when we met up for dinner with some of his friends. It had been nice, getting out with someone who wasn’t a part of the Renegades, who saw life outside Paxton’s vortex of chaos.
I knew why everyone got sucked in.
He was magnetic, hypnotizing. It wasn’t just the body, the face, or the tattoos. He made me feel anything was possible, like there was a whole shiny world waiting for me to step inside and explore.
He was everything I wasn’t, but he made me feel like I could be.
He was…standing on his balcony, too, staring up at the stars as if they held some kind of answer he was searching for. The same weight I saw him carrying that first day was back on his shoulders, and damn if that didn’t draw me to him even more, because now I knew some of the burdens he bore. The documentary, his grades, his Renegades…what more could he possibly hold together?
As if he could read my thoughts, he turned and saw me. The tension between us was palpable, holding us together from dozens of feet away.
But he crossed the distance, and the tension didn’t dissipate, just grew until I thought my chest might burst.
“Leah.” He said my name like a prayer, a plea for something I didn’t know if I was capable of giving. And, after that exchange with his brother, I wasn’t sure I was even worthy of the tone, not when I’d accepted the card.
“Hey,” I answered, turning my back to the railing as he stood in front of me. “Look, I just had—”
“Wait,” he interrupted. “Can I go first? You got to talk last time.”
I nodded.
He stepped forward and caged me in his arms with one hand on either side of my body. “I told you that I know what I want, and that I’d let you think. But it’s not fair for you to make choices without knowing all the facts.”
“Okay,” I answered, my voice barely a whisper. God, did he have to smell so good? All saltwater and sand, and sandalwood and Paxton. They should bottle it and sell it. Scratch that. The female population would have been way too disadvantaged.
His eyes locked on mine, the moon reflecting in the blue depths, the intensity there as fierce as on the half-pipe, or when I’d seen him above me after I fell. “You said you took advantage of me, that you forced me into kissing you back because you’re my tutor, like that puts you in a position of power.”
“Maybe,” I answered, my cheeks heating.
“Well, I’m here on my own feet, chasing you, pursuing you. Not vice versa. I don’t know what’s happening between us, but I’m also not stupid enough to dismiss it without exploration.” One of his hands palmed my cheek, both soothing and electrifying me in one motion. “If we’d been alone on that beach when you kissed me, I wouldn’t have held back, wouldn’t have had to think about what you wouldn’t want in the public eye.”
He dragged his thumb across my lower lip, and I kissed it lightly, unable to stop myself.
He sucked in a breath. “I would have kissed you exactly as I’ve been fantasizing about since the first second I saw you standing on this balcony, all wide-eyed and beautiful.”
“Paxton,” I whispered, leaning in to him. His words melted me, made me want things like his mouth, his hands—things I couldn’t have, like his heart.
“I would have kissed you like this.” His mouth took mine, open and hungry, his tongue—sweet mercy, his tongue—slipping past my lips to stroke, explore, and savor, igniting a fire within me. I pressed at the same time he pulled, bringing our bodies flush against each other, and the fit was electrifying.
He tasted better than I imagined, all dark chocolate and mint.
His empty hand tunneled through my hair to the back of my head while mine wound around his neck, desperate to get closer, to take this one chance I had to not only taste but experience him. Over and over, he brought our mouths together, one moment gently sucking on my lower lip and the next sliding his tongue along mine. He’d caress my mouth gently, then plunge in possession, a blatant ownership that made my thighs clench, my stomach burn.
The man kissed like he rode—with a single-minded focus that made everything else in the world pale in comparison—and I could only go along for the ride.
He made me feel consumed yet empty, desperate yet sated all in one moment. Screw the sports documentary, he should make one on how to properly kiss a woman and save millions of clueless men.
My fingers dug into the muscles of his shoulders as his hands moved to my ass, squeezing and lifting me against his impossibly hard stomach with a groan. “Fuck, Leah. You have the most incredible ass,” he groaned against my mouth, sending bolts of pure, dizzying lust spiraling through me. “All soft curves and perfect in my hands.”
I whimpered when our mouths met again, the kiss taking on an edge that had me arching against him, exploring the ridges of his teeth with my tongue before he sucked it in. In that moment I was Paxton’s, and it was glorious.
He broke the kiss, leaning his forehead against mine as his breath came in hot blasts against my swollen lips. My breathing was just as ragged. He lowered me to the ground, my belly grazing his erection. He hissed and put a few precious inches between our bodies.
Paxton Wilder wanted me.
That fact was just as consuming as his kiss. Imagine sleeping with him. Or don’t. No. Not yet.
His hands were gentle on my face as he kissed me sweetly. “That’s how I wanted to kiss you, Firecracker. That’s how I plan on kissing you from now on if you tell me yes. I want this. I want you—us.”
Say yes! Yes! Yes! My sex-starved body screamed at me, demanding I acknowledge that basic need I’d slammed in a box and shoved under my bed two years ago.
But starting a relationship meant letting him see…everything, exposing myself in a way I wasn’t sure I was ready for.
“I need…” Time? To think? To jump him and test the thickness of the walls in my bedroom?
“Okay.” He answered the demand I hadn’t made. “I can give you that. I just wanted to make sure that was the kiss keeping you company in that head of yours. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
He kissed me one last time and left me standing on the balcony, wondering what price I would pay for stealing whatever time I could with him. I knew he was a shooting star—too hot, too intense, too reckless for me.
He’d burn me alive, then consume the ashes—the kiss had shown me that.
But it didn’t stop me from wanting him.
And that was the scariest part of being around him. Not what he did to me, or how he made me feel, but the way I abandoned all sense of the caution that had kept me functioning these last couple of years.
He made me think there was a possibility I could live again outside the carefully constructed walls I’d built.
I just wasn’t sure I could survive when he inevitably left.
