Wilder (The Renegades Book 1)

Mykonos

I messed with my hair for the hundredth time and finally settled on leaving it down. Down said I hadn’t messed with it that many times, right? It said that I wasn’t nervous. Was I seriously depending on my hair to lie for me?

The minute Paxton had told me to be ready at five o’clock, I’d broken into a sweat. Thank God I’d picked up deodorant, makeup, and a few new outfits to tide me over until the ship came in a few days.

His mom had been amazing, the perfect amount of distance and intrusion—enough to let me know she was interested in me, but not enough to make me feel like I was being inspected. Plus, she had great taste in clothing.

My gaze darted to the white halter dress that hung from the closet door. It was tight on top with spaghetti straps around the neck and then flared out to just above my knees in a breezy flow of fabric. It felt like freedom, flirtation, sex appeal, and Greece, so I bought it on impulse after I tried it on. But it left my legs bare.

He already knows.

I sighed. If I was going to try to be anything real with Paxton, he was inevitably going to see the train wreck of scars down my legs. He said he wouldn’t care, and I trusted him. For God’s sake, he’d brought me home and introduced me to his mother. If he could open up a piece of his soul, I could handle a couple awkward looks from strangers.

Five minutes later, I’d traded my linen pants for the sundress, slipping into the little wedge heels his mom had insisted on. I backed up enough to see my full reflection in the dresser mirror. The scars were straight, thick lines that ran from my knee to my ankle along the front of my shin, with smaller marks that ran along both sides. Maybe they wouldn’t have been that thick if that infection hadn’t set in…or if I’d gotten out of the car sooner…

If. If. If.

I shook my head and blew out a long breath. None of that mattered—not anymore.

A quick touch of lip gloss and then I walked out of the bedroom and down the hallway to the kitchen, where I heard Paxton laughing at something his mother said. He was different here—lighter, all Paxton and no Wilder.

All mine. My jaw nearly dropped when I saw him casually leaning up over the counters to put away groceries for his mom. It wasn’t just the cut of his button-up shirt, or the way it was loosely rolled on his arms to reveal his colorful tattoos, or even the way his cargo shorts hung on him. It was the domesticity of the moment, seeing him truly relaxed and at peace.

It made my heart lurch, reaching for a future where he’d put the cereal into the cabinet, or sneak in way too much junk food. A future where we shared a kitchen, a home…a life. It was a dream I had no right to even think about, and one I didn’t realize how desperately I wanted until this moment.

I was falling for Paxton so fast that I wasn’t sure even one of his parachutes could save me.

“Hey, you ready?” I asked, my voice shakier than I intended.

He glanced over and then did a double-take, his mouth slack-jawed. My heart pounded as he came closer, his quick strides eating the distance between us. His eyes drifted from head to toe and back up again, and the air stilled in my chest as the world paused.

“You look amazing,” he told me, but it was his eyes that let me breathe again. They darkened with want as he leaned in, his mouth brushing my ear. “You make that dress sexy as hell, and if my mother wasn’t across the room, my hands would already be under it.”

My eyes fluttered shut, relief washing over me with the same force as the desire pounding through me at the mention of his hands. I knew what they could do, how they could set my body on fire, and I wanted it again—wanted him. “You look good, too.”

Lame compliment compared to what the sight of him did to me, but it earned me a smile as he backed up a step.

“You two have fun. I have plans for the evening,” his mom called, rattling her keys as she walked out the front door.

“You ready to say yes yet?” he asked, his eyes bright.

“Yes to what? To sex? To being official? To what…going steady?” Nerves crept up my spine, sending chills down my limbs.

“Yes to all,” he answered, tucking his thumbs in his pockets. “I mean, sex is optional, but given the pretty insane chemistry between us, I’d say it’s a safe bet that it would follow pretty shortly after the other yeses. As for going steady, I’m sure I could find my letterman jacket from high school or something if you want it.”

“This isn’t funny,” I said, panic pitching my voice higher. I felt like we were on the edge of something, and I was either going to gloriously fly or die in the fall.

“I’m not laughing.”

“What’s the purpose? We’ll go our separate ways in eight more months, if we can even last that long. You’re not exactly known as Mr. Long-term Relationship.”

“Do you always skip to the last page of the book, Leah? Feel us. Feel what we can be like together. I do, and it’s nothing like I’ve ever known. You’re right. I’ve never been a relationship guy, but I’m ready to take that risk.”

He reached for me, but I backed away, knowing what those hands, those lips, could do to me. He took risks for a living, of course he was ready to jump headfirst. “Maybe I do skip to the last page. It’s safer to know how it ends.”

He was merciless, backing me against the wall and threading his fingers through my hair as he lowered his lips to hover above mine. “Well then, maybe it’s time you realized that the best part isn’t the end. It’s what happens in between.”

“We’d better get going,” I said, chickening out. Heat rushed my cheeks.

His thumbs caressed my cheekbones. “As long as you know that I’m going to keep asking. I’ll try to wait another few minutes before giving another run at the gauntlet. You’re worth it.” He pressed a kiss to my forehead.

I melted, sagging against the wall, relieved and annoyed with myself at the same time.

“You coming?” he asked, offering me his outstretched hand.

“I wish,” I muttered, thinking that we were wasting a perfectly empty house. He was right. My head might be holding my heart back to the best of its ability, but my body was fully on the Paxton-train.

“I heard that,” he said as he walked me to the Jeep.

The sun caressed my skin, warming it through the open top as we drove off the property and back onto the main road.

He squeezed my knee, then moved his hand up my leg until it rested under the fabric of my dress. Maybe it was that no one had touched me there in years, but it felt incredible. “I like you in dresses,” he said, tossing me a grin. “Easy access.”

“Neanderthal,” I joked.

“Only for you,” he replied, and I actually believed him.

“No other girls?” I asked, needing to hear the words.

“Not since we boarded. You thinking of turning that maybe into a yes?” He glanced at me quickly, trying to keep his attention on the road.

“Maybe,” I said softly, but he heard me.

“Making progress. I’ll take it.”

“Where are we headed anyway?”

He picked up my hand and kissed the back of it. “You’ll see.”

“You know, normally that would drive me insane.”

He glanced over in mock surprise. “No. Not you, Miss Control Freak. No way.”

I thought about my file folder back on board, the itinerary I kept meticulously noted and scheduled, and then I laughed. “Of everything I planned for this trip, I can tell you this is not how I pictured things going.”

“Disappointed?” he asked as we turned down another road that led to the bluest water I’d ever seen.

I reached over and ran my fingers through his hair as we wound down the hillside. He leaned in to my touch, and everything in me, body and soul, seemed to wake up and stretch, to take notice of how perfect this moment was. “It’s even better.”

He turned into a parking lot, parked in the first spot he saw, and killed the engine. Then he twisted, and before I could think, his mouth was on mine, taking me in the kind of kiss fairy tales were made of. And his tongue—okay, maybe it was a dirty fairy tale—moved against mine in ways that screamed sex, and passion, and warm nights. Warm nights like this one.

He pulled away before I was ready, then kissed me lightly. “I’ve been dying for that since I saw you in this dress.”

“Me, too,” I admitted. I looked through the windshield and found a gorgeous beach dotted with umbrellas to our left, and bare except for a few swimmers directly in front of us. The sun glinted off the water, which met the sand with gentle waves. “Is this…?”

“Kalafatis Beach,” he answered. “I remembered you said that you wanted to see it, right?”

I’d thought the moment was perfect before, but this…there were no words for this. Paxton helped me down from the Jeep, and we walked onto the beach. “It’s exactly like I imagined it. Just like their pictures.” I couldn’t look enough, memorize enough, take in enough detail from the pebbled sand under my shoes to the various colors in the water where the blues faded to greens.

“Whose pictures?” he asked.

“My parents’. This is where they got engaged.” I pulled my wallet from the bag I’d brought and tugged the worn picture free from the credit-card slot I’d jammed it into. In the photo, my father had lifted my mother above his head, her hair falling to one side so their smiles were revealed, love tangible in every line of their bodies, their eyes. I held it out so Paxton could see, trying to match it with the shoreline.

“That’s incredible. My mother grew up here.”

“Talk about coincidence,” I joked.

“Or fate,” he said, taking the picture from my fingers. He walked us down the beach a ways, stopping toward the middle and tilting his head, his narrowed eyes examining the space. “There,” he said, pointing directly in front of us as he held up the picture. “They were standing there.”

Waves of emotion washed over me in rhythm with the water. “I’ve always loved that picture,” I said, looking at it matched with our surroundings. “My parents have this amazing marriage, and every time I look at this picture I feel how much they love each other. Like I can touch love itself, feel that kind of happiness. It gave me faith that one day I would be able to let someone love me like that.” I caught him staring at me. I shook my head. “Insane, I know. I just wanted to be here once, to stand where they stood.” I wanted to see if I could let go of fear and touch love.

“It’s not insane. It’s beautiful,” he said. “Stay here.”

He walked over to one of the beachgoers and spoke in rapid Greek, motioning from the picture to me and then pulling a camera—of course he had one—from his pocket. The young woman nodded and followed him back to where I stood.

“Okay, let’s go,” he said with a smile and led me near the water.

The woman motioned us to the right, and we moved a little until she held up her hand.

“Oh, one thing.” Paxton dropped to his knees in front of me, his fingers deftly undoing the straps of my shoes. “Hers were off.”

He was recreating the photograph. How could I defend myself against him? Steel my heart when he was everything I never knew I’d needed? I expected to hear warning bells in my brain, some kind of mechanism to snap me out of the rabbit hole I was eagerly jumping into, but there was nothing but a feeling of peace, of rightness.

He took off my shoes one at a time, the moment so surreal that I could barely breathe, yet I’d never felt more awake—more alive.

Leaning forward, he placed a reverent kiss on one of my scars, then gave the same attention to my other leg, and my heart threatened to burst. Too much—he was too perfect, too gentle, too close, and yet not close enough. He rose before me and filled every one of my senses until the world around me narrowed to just him. Then he swept my hair behind my neck and over my shoulder.

“Ready?”

I couldn’t speak, only nod.

“You are incredible, Leah,” he said, and kissed me, the soft caress of his lips breaking past the last of my barriers until I was left bare, my emotions stripped raw in the best way.

Joy filled every ounce of my body, radiating through my smile as he lifted me above his head. He never looked away, his grin playful, sexy, intense, and a touch wicked…just like he was.

In that breath of eternity, it didn’t matter that our time was limited, or that our close quarters were intensifying every emotion. It didn’t matter that he was everything I swore I’d never want, or that he took risks on a daily basis that scared the shit out of me. And it didn’t matter that I’d only known him for five weeks. Anything that could have mattered had fled with all logic and reason, leaving the purest of feelings coursing through my veins, singing along every nerve.

In that moment, I fell in love with Paxton Wilder.

I cupped his face in my hands, savoring the slight scratch of scruff against my palms, and said the only thing I could. “Yes. I’m saying yes.”

His grin morphed into the most beautiful smile I could have ever imagined, and the air of possibility charged between us, held us in an electric current more powerful than any I’d ever experienced. “You won’t be sorry.”

I was too high on love to look past this moment, to look further into our future, or question it. I’d taken the leap and was already mid-fall, too far gone to wonder if he’d catch me, but already knowing he would. Under the sun of Mykonos, with the sand of Kalafatis Beach under us, I gave in to the adventure of my life.

What a way to fall.