At Sea
“How is she?” Penna asked as we gathered on the deck. It was nearing three o’clock in the morning, but none of us could sleep. Landon leaned back against the railing, his arms folded across his chest, and I stood on the empty side, the three sides of our triangle that used to be a square.
“She’s finally asleep,” I said, running my hands over my hair. “Who the fuck pushed her?”
“I don’t know, but we need to figure it out,” Penna said. “Who else knows she was pushed?”
“Just us,” Landon answered. “She said it pretty quietly.”
“Us and the person who pushed her,” I corrected him. Barely contained rage rolled through my body, stretching through my limbs, begging to be let out to cause destruction, to pulverize the person who had hurt her.
“Right. Okay. I was on the shore, you were in the water, Landon was right next to me,” Penna said, rubbing the skin between her eyes. “I remember Little John yelling for help, and that was behind me. He was next to Brooke, I think. We could ask her, but she’s still pretty shaken up. I think it reminded her too much of when Nick crashed.”
Landon nodded. “Makes sense. Some of the CTDs were back there, too, but I wasn’t paying much attention.”
“Did you pass anyone when you ran up?” I asked.
He nodded. “Some of the camera crew—the ones who’d gone up with us—were about halfway when I reached them, but they’d heard the screaming and were headed back up. I honestly ran right past them.”
“I need their names, even if we have to line them up. Who else do you guys remember?”
Penna’s forehead puckered. “I don’t remember where Zoe was…or Bobby, for that matter, but I know they didn’t make the initial hike up.”
“Bobby called for support,” Landon said. “I heard his voice, but I don’t remember when.”
“Who are we missing?” I asked.
Penna shook her head. “I don’t know. There were so many people there.”
“Whoever pushed her could have hidden off the trail,” Landon said. “I ran so fast that I didn’t look on either side of me. Shit, they probably could have made it back down before Leah hit the water.”
“Okay. Well, that’s way too many people to narrow it down. Fuck. What do you guys want to do? You want to kill the movie?”
“No,” they answered in tandem.
“We said we’d see it through for Nick,” Penna said.
“I’m not letting this take anything else away from him,” Landon added.
I knew that would be their answer and sighed. “Right, but you guys haven’t been the targets. I don’t care about me as much, but they went after Leah. She’s…” I swallowed, trying to get past the lump that formed in my throat. “I can’t let anything happen to her.”
“They used her against you. That’s the only explanation. Leah hasn’t hurt a fly.”
“Yeah,” I answered, unable to get out another word. I knew it the minute she said she’d been pushed.
Landon nodded and looked at Penna. “If they went after Leah to get to Paxton, you need to keep an eye on Brooke. She could be a target to get to you. Everyone knows how close you are.”
A slight panic rose in Penna’s eyes. “Who the hell would want to do this to us?”
“I don’t know,” I answered. “But we’ll run two practice sessions from here on out. CTDs can have their own—we’re closing our practices to everyone but Originals and Little John. Fuck the cameras. Fuck Bobby. We’ll still do the stunts, but everyone handles their own gear, and we keep everything contained as much as possible. And guys, I don’t care how much we love Nick—the next incident and we have to call it. This isn’t worth any of our lives, and he’d be the first to agree.”
They both nodded and headed off to their rooms.
I crawled back into my bed, wrapped a sleeping Leah in my arms, and let her breathing calm me down. She was okay. Her wounds would heal. She would recover.
I wasn’t sure if I would. It was one thing to risk my life, but never hers. Not after I’d found her. I had to keep her safe.
Tell her why she’s really here, and she’ll leave.
My entire body tensed, my stomach rolling at the thought of what her face would look like when she realized what I’d done, what I’d kept from her. But the safest place for her to be was next to me, so I’d have to keep my secret a little longer.
Fear like I’d never known iced my veins, paralyzed my breath. Even if I could keep her safe—and I would—she’d leave eventually. I’d lose this peace, her arms, her love…everything she was.
It was ironic really. I’d finally found the one person I wasn’t willing to risk in my pursuit of landing a trick, and I was going to lose her anyway.
I pulled her closer and breathed in the scent of her hair, tried to infuse her into my lungs, my very being, and practiced every apology I could think of that might keep her with me when everything eventually hit the fan.
But for right now…I just needed to keep her alive.
…
“If you skid out one more time you’re going to lose pieces of your skin,” Penna lectured as I righted the bike again. The South African track was deserted except for a few of us. After the shit in Morocco, I’d gone through with our agreement and banned everyone from the training sessions the Originals were a part of, and I didn’t give a fuck if they were calling me a diva behind my back. Keeping the people I cared about safe was all that mattered.
“I’ve landed most of them,” I argued, ripping off my helmet. Sweat trickled down the back of my neck. It wasn’t too hot in Cape Town, but the protective gear was baking me.
“Most isn’t all,” Landon said, siding with Penna in both words and stance, their arms across their chests.
“Well, this is the last ramp we have before Abu Dhabi, so what the hell do you two recommend?”
“Call it off. Pull a less difficult trick,” Penna answered.
“We need it for the movie.”
“We don’t need another Renegade in a wheelchair,” she snapped, then rubbed her temples.
“All right, what do you guys want to do?” Little John asked as he walked over, Leah by his side. She’d given up a two-day safari to stay with me while I trained during our field time, and I hated that she’d done it as much as I adored her for it.
She put her hand on my arm and looked up at me with concern in those whiskey eyes.
“I don’t know,” I told him. “I’ve got it, but I don’t, and I won’t get another chance to practice until we’re in Abu Dhabi. What do you think?” I asked Leah.
Her lips parted, and she blew out a long, slow breath. “I think that I’m the last person who should be offering you advice on this. But I do know that you’re exhausted, and sleepy people are sloppy people. Seeing that you don’t exactly have the kind of job where sloppy is an option, I think you need to rest.”
“I hate it when you use logic.”
Her smile sped up my heart. “Well, one of us has to.”
“I think she’s right,” Landon said. “You’ve landed enough that the two days of practice we can sneak in at Abu Dhabi should solidify the trick for the show.”
“We still sure about a live broadcast?” Penna asked.
“I am if you are,” I answered. “Look, we’re risking a lot this year. We don’t even know if the program will give us the extra week we need for the X Games in January. We need this to be big. A canned recording of us jumping around isn’t going to do it. We need the synchronized stunts we’ve been practicing, and all the other tricks to make this work. We need the triple front.”
First Landon nodded, then Penna. “Okay,” she said.
“Can you get in any time in Madagascar?” Leah asked.
I shook my head. “The first day is all school trips, and the second is for the skydive. We don’t even have access to the equipment there that we’d need.”
“Then it looks like rest up and don’t break anything on the skydive,” she said with school-teacher seriousness, looking down at her watch. The bandages were off her hands, but there were still healing cuts on her palms from the branches she’d clung to. “Okay, put your toys away. We have to study tonight for the World Religions quiz tomorrow. Plus I need some extra Physics time.”
I internally winced. Having her with me at practice was phenomenal, and I could take the hit, but I hated that I was stealing her time, too—hated the feeling of dragging her down. “Why doesn’t Landon take you back? I need another few minutes here with the bike. That way you can get in your work, too.”
“I don’t need an escort.”
I picked up her hand and kissed one of the pink lines that marked her skin. “I beg to differ. Please give me this? Take Landon?”
She softened. “Fine. Hurry, okay?”
My hands cradled her face, and I kissed her soundly. “Absolutely. Put on something sexy, and I’ll be there even faster.”
She huffed. “Uh-huh, as long as you think yoga pants and a hoodie are sexy. Bye, Pax.” She waved her fingers at me and walked toward the door with Landon.
“I love yoga pants,” I called after her. “Easy to pull off!” Just the thought of sliding them over her ass had me ready to chase after her.
“Only if you study!” she yelled back and disappeared.
A little of my sunshine went with her.
“Does she know?” Penna asked as we walked toward the bikes.
“Know what?”
She rolled her eyes. “You damn well know what.”
“No. She doesn’t. It would ruin everything.” I popped the lid to one of our gear boxes and started packing stuff away.
“So, what, you’re not going to tell her? That’s pretty messed up, even for you.”
I stopped, looking up at her. “She’ll leave me. We both know it. And if she’s not talking to me, I can’t protect her from whatever is out there gunning for us.”
She canted her head. “Pax—”
“No. I don’t want to hear it. I’m aware of the giant fucking mess I’ve made. I’ve only got a couple weeks with her before the shit will most definitely hit the fan, and I’m not giving them up. I don’t care if it makes me more of an asshole, and maybe if I get these weeks with her I can convince her not to kick my ass when it all comes out.”
“Guilt much?” she asked.
“What?”
“First, I wasn’t talking about that. But yes, she’s going to kick your ass, and she should. But she loves you, so you’ve got a fighting chance that you can pull through it.”
“Then what the hell are you talking about?” I asked, running my hands over my hair. The closer we got to second trimester, the more paranoid I was becoming, the more desperate I was to hold on to Leah. “When am I going to tell her what?”
“That you’re in love with her, you stupid ass.”
I blinked, then swallowed. “I’m not…” Wait. Wasn’t I? The incredibly sweet pressure in my chest, the way I couldn’t breathe fully unless I was touching her, the constant longing to make her smile… “Shit.”
“It’s about time you caught up,” Penna said.
I glared at my oldest friend.
“What? The rest of us knew pretty damn quickly. Probably by Barcelona and definitely by Mykonos. There’s a reason you suck at poker. And it’s not our fault that you’re kinda slow on the emotional uptake.” She stared me down.
“What the hell am I supposed to do now?” I asked, lacing my fingers behind my neck. Love. The one emotion I never chased. The one high I’d never wanted to experience. God, it felt great, which would only turn to horrible when I lost her.
“Tell her. Kiss her. Pray to God you can make it through the storm you’re headed for, then marry her and make pretty little Wilder babies.”
“Yeah, and I’ll turn a pumpkin into a carriage and shit while I’m at it.” Fuck, why the hell had I fallen in love with Leah? Love was bullshit. It warped the world, made you promise things like forever and then apologize to everyone around you when forever turned into “well it was a great decade, right?” Love led to lawyers, separate houses, custody agreements, and screwed-up lives. Love was a temporary madness that resulted in lifelong consequences.
“You’re supposed to be the prince, not the fairy godmother. But I bet you’d look stellar in a dress,” Penna joked. When she caught wind of how much I was not joking, she sighed. “It’s love, Pax. It’s what some people spend their whole life searching for. Do you know what a miracle it is to love someone and actually have them love you back? You have a chance at something epic.”
“Not when I’m going to lose her!” I shouted. I rocked forward, covering my eyes with my hands. “I never thought this would happen. I never thought she would be…her, but she is, Penna. She’s so fucking exquisite that I can barely believe that she lets me touch her, lets me share her time, her bed, her heart. What the hell am I going to do?”
I couldn’t tell her. That would only rip her apart more, rip us both apart when it didn’t work out, when she realized what I’d done, when she realized that I lived a life that was fun to hang around for nine months, not a lifetime. No, telling her opened doors I couldn’t close, left them ajar just enough to let in the fire that would ultimately burn my ass to the ground. Love never worked out. Not for my parents, not for Landon, or Brooke, and it definitely wouldn’t stick around for me. She’d already told me how important honesty was to her, and I’d already blown it.
Hell, I’d ruined us before I met her.
Penna gently tugged my arms down and then wrapped hers around me like we were five again. “Tell her. Kiss her. Pray to God you can make it through the storm you’re headed for, then marry her and make pretty little Wilder babies,” she repeated. “The answer to that question will always be the same no matter what stage you’re in. You are the strongest man I have ever known. So you dig in, you take the rain, and you fight like hell, because that’s what you’re about to go through.”
I nodded, but I knew the truth: out of everyone in my life, Leah was the angel…and they didn’t exactly hang around in hell.
…
I loved her. About a billion different swear words went through my head as I opened the door to the suite. Was she going to know when she looked at me? Maybe I should just tell her. Yeah, and then what the hell would I do when she walked out?
No. I was keeping this to myself.
Besides, we didn’t need words for what I had planned.
“Honey, I’m home,” I called out when I saw Landon lounged on the sofa, a copy of Les Miserables in his hand.
“She’s in your room,” he answered without looking up. “Did you finish reading?”
“Yes, Mom,” I said, already headed up the flight of stairs to our room. At least now I wouldn’t have to find an excuse to get her up there.
“Good, because I don’t think CliffsNotes is going to cut it on the final.”
“You, too? I already have one hard-ass riding me.” Or she would be soon.
He laughed. “Just reminding you that your grades affect us all, my man.”
“Yeah, I never forget that,” I tossed back as I opened the door to my room. I threw my equipment bag on the bed after locking our bedroom and walked out the sliding glass door, which was already open to the private balcony.
My chest swelled with that inconvenient love when I saw Leah in the lounge chair, Physics book in her face, her eyes squinting to read in the dying light. “Hey, Firecracker,” I said softly, and she dropped the book.
“Hey, you.” She stretched, her shirt riding up over her smooth stomach. “Man, it feels like I’ve been sitting here for hours. What happened to you?”
“Sorry, I went for a workout,” I said in lame excuse. I had, but it had been more for my tangled mind than my body.
“Okay, well, I brought you takeout from the cafeteria since you missed dinner.” She motioned back inside our room.
I crossed the distance in a few strides, my ass hitting the cushioned lounge chair at the same moment my lips found her belly.
“Hmm…” she hummed, her fingers tangling in my hair as I kissed my way up her rib cage. “I’m guessing you’re not hungry?”
“Not for dinner,” I answered. I raised her shirt over her red lace bra and, just like that, my body screamed for her, the need that had built since I’d realized that I was in love with her finally overtaking every other logical thought in my head.
She arched into my mouth when I ran my tongue over her lace-covered nipple, my name the sweetest whisper on her lips. Damn, I loved when she did that, like it was instinctual. Like to her, my name was synonymous with pleasure.
She raised her arms, and I tugged the shirt off, sending it to the deck. “Pax…we’re outside,” she said as I pulled her yoga pants off her long, beautiful legs.
“Surrounded waist-high by steel on three sides. No one can see us,” I promised. I’d never let anyone see her naked. All of this was mine, and mine alone. Including—fuck me—those matching red lace panties. “Red,” I whispered, nearly swallowing my tongue.
“The closest I could get to a flag,” she said with a sexy smile.
I ripped off my shirt and slid up her body so I could feel her against my skin. She was perfect under me, her knees coming up to cradle my hips. “Noted,” I said with an answering grin, thankful I’d snagged a quick shower at the gym.
Then I kissed her, and she met me full-on, until we were a flurry of roaming hands, tongues, teeth, and soft moans. Everything about her intoxicated me, demanded every ounce of my focus. When I had her in my hands, everything disappeared, and it may as well have only been us on the ship—on the earth.
Her hands slipped into my shorts, and I slid them down my legs, kicking them off until we were both naked. When she reached for me, I took her hands and pinned her wrists over her head. “Let me worship you,” I whispered in her ear before taking the lobe gently between my teeth.
If I couldn’t say that I loved her in words, I would do it with my hands, my mouth, my every single movement. I showed her my love with each kiss, lingering where she gasped, sucking on the sensitive patches of skin under her perfect breasts.
I kissed her mouth softly, then took her deeper, until I couldn’t tell where her mouth began and mine ended. Her legs moved restlessly, locking around my back, and I groaned at the sublime feeling of her, wet and ready against me.
“Paxton,” she moaned as my fingers tested how ready she was. Of course she was already slippery, our bodies were always magically in sync. I loved that about her, too, loved how the sex only got hotter and yet somehow reached me on emotional levels no one else ever had.
I leaned over, taking a condom out of my wallet and, in quick motions, protected us both. “Is out here okay?” I asked. It was hot as hell to have her on our balcony, but there was zero chance I would make her do something she didn’t want 100 percent.
She nodded, her eyes half-lidded and drunk on lust. “I trust you.”
Her words shot through me like nothing else could have.
“You’re everything,” I said with a kiss as I slid inside her. I love you. The words were in my head, my heart, my thrusts as I found a slow, deep rhythm within her perfection. She was heaven, squeezing me tight every time I withdrew and moaning softly when I drove back in.
I love you, I thought, barely stopping the words from tripping out of my mouth as I memorized the way she looked, the way her neck arched as she met each of my movements, drove me to soar with every kiss, every time her fingernails scraped across the skin of my back. I didn’t say it aloud, but it coursed through me all the same, bringing me higher than I’d ever been with no chute to break the inevitable fall. But for just this moment, I let my love for her consume me, move me, drive me—and her—toward the kind of heaven I only knew in her arms.
Even as I felt that pressure—the tingle at the base of my spine—and I knew I was close, I couldn’t stop. I would never get enough of this, of her. There would never be anyone else who fit as perfectly against me, who drove me to the brink of insanity with a simple smile.
She was it.
I moved my hand between us and stroked her clit, pressing where she liked, quickening my thrusts to match my hands and her moans.
“Pax!” she cried out, and I surged forward, capturing her mouth and muffling her next shout when she came, clenching around me so tightly that I couldn’t help but let go and let the waves of my orgasm wash over me.
I pulled the beach towel she’d brought out around us and tucked her into my chest, holding her as close as I could. I understood it now—why people gave up logic for love. If Leah had asked me to quit riding, quit boarding, I would have done it in a heartbeat if it meant keeping her.
She was better than the hit of adrenaline I craved, took me higher than any rush of endorphins at a victory. She’d become more than the thrill, she’d become the air, the only thing I absolutely needed to live.
As she looked up at me with those expressive eyes, sleepy in satisfaction, I’d never felt so alive…or so terrified.
“You sure you don’t want some dinner?” she asked, always thinking about me first.
“I’m good. I’m sorry for missing it. Was it busy?”
She shrugged. “Pretty empty. I think half the students went on the safari trip.”
“I’m sorry you didn’t get to go.”
“I’m not. I don’t regret any of the time I spend with you.”
God, I loved her—and not a little kind of love. My heart was practically glowing. I probably looked like a warped glowworm or something. “I’ll take you sometime,” I promised. “One day, we’ll come back so we can go look at the lions.”
Her eyes widened. “Paxton…”
“Yeah, I know what I said. I implied that we’d be together long after this cruise is over. You need to know that this isn’t a fling to me, or some distraction. I’ve never felt anything this real in my life, and I’m not going to let it go—let you go—just because this trip comes to an end.”
“I go to school on the East Coast—”
I leaned in, kissing her quiet. “I know how to use planes. Look, I’m not saying let’s figure this out tonight. We have months. But I am promising that I will bring you back here, and we’ll look at lions, and elephants—”
“And giraffes?” Her eyes lit up.
“Anything you want.”
As long as you still want me.
