Bermuda
The Bermuda sun soaked into my shoulders as I rubbed on another coat of sunscreen, avoiding the straps of my halter top. The beach was crowded with students enjoying our last day on shore before the trek across the Atlantic.
A shadow came over me, and I lowered my sunglasses to see Brooke standing above me in a bikini and sarong. “Wilder said I could find you here,” she said with an open smile.
“Hey, Brooke.” I checked my watch. “I’m supposed to meet him in fifteen minutes.”
“I think he was scared you wouldn’t show,” she admitted, taking the lounge chair next to me and dropping an enormous beach bag. “He still feels pretty guilty about the stunt with the zip-line.”
“I already told Penna, I’m okay. Seriously. He didn’t know that I’m scared of heights.” He didn’t know what it took for me to climb onto that platform, either, or that I’d taken the entire ride with my eyes shut until he asked if I could swim.
“You okay with water?”
“Yeah. I grew up in southern California. The ocean and I are well acquainted.” In fact, the lack of Pacific blue was the only drawback to living in New Hampshire. Well, besides the cold, and snow, and generally dismal springs.
“Good, because we’re supposed meet Wilder on the dock.”
Dock. Water. Swimming suit? I swallowed the momentary blast of panic that tightened in my throat and gathered up my things. “Then let’s get to him.”
It was a short walk down the beach to the picturesque dock where a large yacht was tied. My jaw dropped when Paxton jumped from the boat to the dock, wearing only a pair of dark blue board shorts and a smile.
Damn, his abs just… Eyes up, Leah.
“How did you get a yacht?” I asked when he met us halfway down the pier.
“Borrowed it,” he said with a grin.
“It’s his dad’s,” Brooke answered.
Paxton shot her a disgruntled look.
“What? It is,” she repeated.
Close your mouth, you must look like a fish. My lips clamped together with a smack. “Oh, that’s nice,” I managed. That thing would have paid for my college tuition, grad school, hell, probably my entire life.
“He owns bigger ones,” Brooke said with a shrug.
“Bigger? Like what? The QE2?” I knew Paxton had money, how else was he paying for his suite—and mine—but there was money and there was…this.
“Actually—”
Paxton shot Brooke another look. “Let’s get you on board,” he said to me, and then took us to the stairs that connected the dock to the yacht. Stairs. Seriously.
“Are you ready, Mr. Wilder?” A uniformed captain walked from the bridge area.
“We are, Mac. Is everything else in order?”
“We’re ready to go, but if you could keep the camera crews off the bridge?”
Right on cue, Bobby came onto the deck, clipboard and all, followed by two cameras and more crew. Fantastic.
“Bobby, keep the cameras off the bridge and out of the crew’s hair,” Paxton ordered as the captain smiled his thanks and headed back to the bridge.
“Firecracker!” Little John said with a giant smile as he came from belowdeck. “You lived! I’m glad to see you’ve made it this far.”
“Hey! How did you…?” The last time I’d seen him was on the tower before Paxton had zipped me on board.
“I’m the advance party. I’m always one step behind, cleaning up the stunt, and then I fly one step ahead to set up the next one.”
“Well, it’s good to see you.”
“You probably want to sit,” Paxton said to me, pointing to one of the oversized chairs that looked like they belonged more in a Pottery Barn catalog than a boat.
I took the seat, and he lounged in the one next to mine, pulling his sunglasses over his eyes as the boat began to move away from shore.
“Okay, what are we doing?” I asked, unable to hold it in one more minute, despite a camera being two feet off my shoulder.
“You didn’t tell her?” Brooke asked from Paxton’s other side.
His grin was slow and incredibly sexy. “Don’t worry, Firecracker. It’ll be worth your while.”
Heat flamed in my cheeks, and I ducked my head, knowing my face was probably as red as Brooke’s bikini top.
“Are we swimming?” I asked, running my hands down my white linen pants, brushing off imaginary sand. They were my favorite pair, light and airy, and I wasn’t in a hurry to remove them.
“In a way,” Paxton answered and pointed over his shoulder. “We’re almost there.”
I looked over the starboard side and my breath abandoned me. “What are they doing?” I asked.
“Flyboards,” he said in my ear. I felt his warmth against my back and called on every piece of my self-control to keep from leaning in to him. Paxton might not be able to help that he was naturally seductive, but I could sure as hell not help him along. “The water is sucked in through the WaveRunner, and then forced out through the hoses under the board. See Nova?”
Landon’s Renegade name was enough to remind me that we were on camera, and I moved away from Paxton as the boat slowed to a stop outside a circle of WaveRunners. “How high is he?”
“About fifty feet.”
“Holy shit.”
“We’re going to get them higher.”
I walked to the deck railing. “Why would you want to?”
“Because it’s never been done.” His face was set in determined lines, but his eyes were bright with excitement. “At least not how we’re going to do it.”
“Who is this ‘we’?” My stomach dropped at the same rate Landon did as he dove under the water, only to pop back up like a dolphin twenty feet away.
“You don’t even want to try?” He had the nerve to look wounded.
“Did you forget the part where I told you I don’t do heights?” I asked, a knot already forming in my chest, tightening with each breath at the thought of doing…that.
“Yeah, but you did the zip-line, so I thought maybe…”
“No.” I shook my head so hard my scalp hurt from where my bun tugged. “There’s zero chance in hell.”
“Oh, come on. I went down into your cave.”
Bobby snorted behind me, and I knew exactly what meaning he was taking out of that…what the cameras just heard.
“Crystal Cave. Bermuda, jackass,” Paxton immediately corrected his production manager, as if he couldn’t stand to have them thinking he’d…well…explored me. I couldn’t decide if I was flattered or pissed off.
Pissed won. “There was nothing dangerous about that.”
“I’ll teach you. It’ll be fun. I brought you a wet suit and everything.”
Great, now he sounded like I’d Grinched his Christmas presents. “Well, I’m sure it will fit Brooke.”
“Oh hell no, I’m not going out there,” she said from her lounge chair, already relaxed with a Kindle in her hand.
“She has the right idea.”
“Don’t you want to conquer your fears?” Paxton asked me, undeterred. He turned me around to face him, pops of electricity rushing from where his hands held my upper arms to stutter my heart.
My eyes darted to the cameras, and he sighed but got the point. He took my hand and led me through a door to go below the deck and into a sumptuous bedroom. I wasn’t done gawking at the ornate woodwork or luscious fabrics before he lit into me. “Are you going to be afraid your whole life? You’re about to pass on a once-in-a-lifetime experience over what? A little anxiety about height? You control the height; you don’t have to do what we’re doing.”
A little anxiety? God, just the thought of being that high had me ready to vomit on this pristine carpet. There wasn’t even anything to hold on to.
“Afraid my whole life? Newsflash, Paxton, you don’t fucking know me. You have no clue what I think or feel, but you might if you so much as asked before you tried to shove me at insane things I would never consider.” Can’t consider.
“Forgive me for trying to bring you out of your shell a little, Leah.”
Wait. How did he get off looking hurt?
“You’re not bringing me out, you’re breaking me. If you had any idea—” My throat closed as the images broke past my carefully constructed walls and assaulted me. The sight of the canyon beneath me, the steady drip of blood, the nauseating sound of metal against rock…it was all there, as fresh as it had been two years ago. When I looked up, Paxton’s blue eyes had somehow morphed into Brian’s brown ones, my own hallucination more punishing to my soul than the zip-line had ever dreamed of being. My eyes slammed shut, and I forced air into my lungs with a gross sucking sound.
“Leah.” Paxton’s whisper sounded strangled, and he pulled me against his chest, wrapping his arms around me.
For a second, I almost gave in and let him hold me. It felt so good, his heartbeat so steady…so alive.
No. I had not come this far to suddenly become one of those girls who needed a guy to prop her up. Using both hands, I shoved off his chest, breaking his hold on me. “You can’t fix something you don’t understand. I’m not one of your stunts, Pax. I’m not your project.” I said it as gently as I could without wavering.
His shoulders fell, and his tongue swiped across his lower lip. “You know, you’re right.” He grasped the back of his neck. “This is totally up to you, but I at least hope you’ll stay and watch. I want to take you somewhere after, if you’ll trust me not to force you into something you don’t want.”
I rubbed my upper arms, concentrating on the friction to force my neat little compartmentalized walls back up. “I can leave if I want?”
He cupped my face, those blue eyes of his wide and earnest. “Of course. I’ll have someone take you back to the beach if you want. I meant it, I won’t force you into anything ever again. Not like I did with the zip-line, and I won’t ambush you again. It was a bad choice on my part, but I’m glad we’re having this conversation.”
His hand was warm on my cheek, thrumming with life, scented with sand and ocean and Paxton.
Maybe I couldn’t get onto one of those things and catapult myself into the air, but I could watch him do what he loved. “Okay,” I said quietly.
His smile was soft and mine followed. “Thank you.”
We stood there for a moment, absorbed in each other, something intangible passing between us. My heart sparked to life, reminding me that I wasn’t just a patient, a student, a daughter, a tutor—I was a woman, who was stupidly, ridiculously, unavoidably attracted to the man standing in front of me.
Shit.
Was I even allowed to feel that? It had been two years. Surely he wouldn’t have wanted—
A knock sounded on the door, saving me from doing something entirely foolish. Like finding out if Paxton’s lips are as soft as they look.
“Hey, Wilder?” Zoe’s voice slapped some sense into me, and I stepped out of Paxton’s reach.
“Zoe,” he said, his tone resigned as I retreated.
“If she doesn’t want to go, I’m suited up and ready,” she sang.
“Noted.” His eyebrows rose in my direction.
I shook my head, unable to fathom going out there, putting myself in a position to fall. I’d probably lock up the minute I went ten feet in the air, and then what the hell would I do. “I can’t.”
“Okay,” he said softly. “Zoe, we need a tenth, anyway, so go wave Landon over and have him get you to a Flyboard.”
Her squeal grated on every exposed nerve—and there were a lot of them right now—but I managed a nod of my head. “Good choice.”
He swallowed. “Yeah, well, your wet suit is hanging there in the closet. You can change here. You are down with swimming, right?”
“Yeah, of course.” Water I could handle. Water you could swim in, control your movements, propel yourself up. Air was the traitorous bitch that let you go without a moment of consideration.
“I’ll see you up there,” he said, and left.
I opened the closet to see the wet suit Paxton had left for me. Maybe if I got into the water quickly he wouldn’t see—
Whoa.
My heart jumped sweetly, and my smile was immediate. He’d gotten me a full-length wet suit. Either it was a stroke of luck…or he actually paid attention to me—noticed that I only wore pants.
Either way, it meant I could swim without an ounce of self-consciousness.
About ten minutes later, I’d wiggled into the wet suit and headed up to the deck. “I told him that the water was eighty degrees, and you wouldn’t need a wet suit to swim, but he insisted,” Brooke said as she zipped me up.
“Did he say why?”
“He said if you’re so modest that he’s never seen you in a pair of shorts, he doubted you’d willingly strut around in a swimsuit.”
He’d noticed. “Oh,” I said, trying to sound casual. “That’s thoughtful of him.”
“Uncharacteristic, is what it is, but I like this side of him.” She mirrored me, leaning against the railing at my side. “Thank God they took the cameras with them.” She pointed to a speedboat that lingered near the WaveRunners.
“It’s nice,” I agreed.
“Don’t relax too much, the helicopter will be here in a minute. That’s all they’re waiting on.”
“Helicopter?” As if on cue, the sound of rotors reached us, and as the helicopter came from the island, Paxton and the others took to the sky.
They were giants rising from the water, their legs long and powerful as they flexed. Paxton rose a little higher than the others, then dipped back to the water only to skyrocket again. Then they all started to experiment, the water-powered hoverboards allowing them to flip, turn, and even dive beneath the water as Landon had earlier.
I held my breath as Paxton soared again, then pulled a double backflip as he fell to the water, catching himself right before impact. He’d broken his fifty-foot goal. Then he did it again, and again, just because he could.
I found myself grinning, enjoying the show as I’m sure Paxton was loving putting it on. He raised his arm, and they all dropped back down to the water. “What are they doing?” I asked.
“Running over the game plan before they perform.”
“There are a lot of them.”
“Yeah, there’s Penna.” She pointed to the left. “Then Landon and Paxton, then a few regulars, and the CTDs.”
“CTDs?” I asked. I hadn’t realized the Renegade crew was this big.
“Crash Test Dummies,” she answered. “Groupies who hang around hoping that the four Originals will make them regulars on the Renegade Channel.”
“Like Zoe.”
“She’s the worst of them. I’ve never minded the ones who are here for the stunts, or even the fame. They’re as reckless as Penna or Pax. But Zoe? She’s trying to sleep her way in, and it annoys the shit out of me.”
“Which ones are Originals?” I asked, trying to make out the faces I didn’t recognize and wishing I’d spent more time in Paxton’s suite this last week.
“Paxton, of course. He’s the Pied Piper of daredevils, I swear. Then Penna, Landon, and N—” Her voice died suddenly, and she rubbed her hand across the bridge of her nose, moving her sunglasses, but not enough to reveal her eyes.
“Nick?” I guessed.
“Did your research, huh?” she asked with a wry smile.
“No, he kind of came up in discussion yesterday, and Paxton clammed right up.”
“Yeah, he doesn’t talk about Nick. Ever. No one does. Oh, look!”
All ten of them rose again, but this time they squared off, five against five. Paxton backed away, then raised something over his head.
“You have got to be kidding me,” I muttered as he tossed the football.
I laughed at the sheer lunacy of it, and then watched the craziest football game I’d ever seen play out fifty feet above the water.
“This is much more my speed,” I said, treading the crystal blue water next to Paxton. “How did you manage to get away from the cameras?”
“I may have insinuated that we’d be naked.”
“You did not!”
“No, I didn’t. Then they really would have insisted they come with.” He pulled his snorkel mask down over his eyes and nose. “Shall we?” he asked in a nasal tone before popping in his mouthpiece.
I did the same and nodded. Then I took a deep breath, and we descended into paradise. The water was perfect, the color, the clarity, the temperature—everything. Colorful fish swam in schools along the reef, lingering on the shipwreck Paxton had brought us here to see.
My lungs subtly protested their lack of oxygen, and I swam back up, taking a breath before heading back down. Paxton kept pace with me, pointing to certain pieces of the wreckage, lingering when I did, breathing when I needed to.
This was incredible.
I’d always loved the water. Even…after, when it had become more of a prescription than an enjoyment, it had always welcomed me home with open arms. There was something about being infinitely weightless, of living in a world without walls, that was simply blissful.
We swam through the fish, across the wreck, explored the shallower shorelines, and seemed to find a perfect harmony together without uttering a word.
After over an hour, when we broke the surface for the last time, we both removed our mouthpieces and masks, facing each other as we treaded water about thirty feet from the boat.
“Worth it?” Paxton asked.
“Every second. This is amazing—seriously one of the coolest things I’ve ever done. Thank you.”
The smile he gave me was more beautiful than the scenery around us and more intimate than a kiss. It was soft, open, with a touch of vulnerability that was sexier than any of his performances. “I’m glad that you enjoyed it. You know, if you’re stuck with me the next nine months, you may as well get perks. If there’s something you want that’s not on the excursion list in any port we come to, just tell me. I know it’s going to suck for you at times, and that you got yanked into my world without having a fair choice, but I swear I won’t let you regret it.”
“And what about you?” I asked. “I’m your tutor. You’re stuck with me for study sessions and test prep and papers. None of this was what you agreed to. You don’t have to spend your free shore time entertaining me. I know there are a lot of…demands on you.”
The brief internet search I’d done on him hadn’t only turned up his X Games medals, but pages of party pictures with tons of different women. Add that to the mug shots from the few times he’d been arrested for jumping off things he shouldn’t have, and it painted a different picture of Paxton from the one swimming in front of me.
He tilted his head, making the tattoo along his neck flex and ripple. “No bullshit?”
My chest tightened in a way I knew had nothing to do with the workout I’d just had. “No bullshit.”
He moved closer, until only a couple of feet separated us, until I could imagine crossing the distance and finding out how a saltwater kiss tasted. He took a deep breath, like he was trying to decide how much to say. “I like being around you. I can’t explain it any better than that.”
As much as I wanted to analyze that comment, decipher what he meant, the immediate fear that slid into my peaceful afternoon stole the show. “Don’t play games with me, Paxton.”
“No games,” he promised. “Just my…friendship. Nine months is a long time not to get to know someone.”
That pause meant nothing, right? That pause is everything.
“Right.” I silenced the joyful thirteen-year-old girl who was dancing around in my stomach with the reminder that Zoe had come out of his room a few days ago. “I’d like to be friends,” I admitted. But no further. No deeper. No chance for him to rip through my scars.
Then he led me back to our ride, helping me up the ladder onto the smaller ski boat. As we headed toward the dock, he gave me that smile again—the one that felt like it was only for me—and those damn butterflies were back. Why did he have to have such different sides to him?
Wilder I could shut out. He was a pompous, reckless ass who would no doubt get me hurt in more ways than one.
But Paxton? Yeah. I was defenseless against him, and that was even more dangerous.
