Wilder (The Renegades) Read Online Free Page B

through without laying everything bare and looking like an idiot? Without going into that night…and the following morning? Without seeing the cocky way he looked at me change to the inevitable looks of pity and morbid curiosity?
    How could I ever get past it if I didn’t get on that damn ship? Was it better to stay safe, locked away in myself? Yes.
    But the crew around us? The ones who would lose their jobs?
    I looked up into Paxton’s eyes, and we lingered there, wordlessly exchanging something I hadn’t had in years: trust. He would keep me safe. I somehow knew it with every bone in my pieced-together body.
    “What do you say, Leah? Are you ready for an adventure?” He questioned me softly this time, as if he had somehow realized what he was asking me to risk.
    I gave the one word that I knew would change…everything.
    “Yes.”

Chapter Two
    Paxton
    Miami Port
    She said yes. I didn’t realize how much one word could mean until it slipped past her pursed, pissed-off lips. Lips that had my attention from the first second I saw her. I brought her up to the platform where Landon waited, subtly shaking his head at me.
    I’d had easily a dozen girls beg me to tandem them on this, and he knew it. Instead, I’d told them all, including Zoe, to basically fuck off, and brought my uptight tutor in the hopes that it would win her over. Leah looked anything but won over.
    She’d stiffened even more as I buckled her in.
    Once John secured the rigs, he gave us the lowdown. “Okay, drop zone is marked. Pull the kill strap, and you’ll fall. It’s about ten feet and thickly padded, so don’t worry.”
    “Wait, we’re falling, too?” she squeaked, her hands white-knuckling the harness. “You didn’t say fall. You said safe.”
    “It’s into a huge pad, Leah. It’s either that or we slam into the wall, right? We have brakes, I’ll slow us down, don’t worry.”
    “Don’t worry, he says,” she muttered. “Safe, he says. Asshole.”
    “Hey, I heard that,” I sputtered. It usually took me dumping a girl the morning after I fucked her to get that kind of label. Not that I’d mind fucking Leah—hell, I was already itching to get my hands on her incredibly perfect ass—but that would ruin any chance of me getting through this year with the GPA I needed.
    “Good,” she spat back.
    “Oh, I like her.” Landon laughed.
    “Shut up, Nova,” I threw back with his stage name, knowing the cameras were on us, and reminded myself to warn Leah about how he got that “Casanova” nickname in the first place.
    I buckled in behind Leah and pulled her tight little body back against mine by her harness. The minute she made contact, she nearly sagged against me, and I had the strangest instinct to wrap her in my arms and carry her back to the ship, fuck the stunt, the cameras, all of it. Something told me that all that anger thrown my way was masking another emotion—fear. “Are you sure?” I asked, my lips brushing the shell of her ear.
    “Yeah, I’m okay,” she whispered.
    We moved forward to the edge of the platform the Renegade team had built, and she stiffened again. “I…I don’t do heights.”
    Now she fucking tells me. God, I was an asshole. “Say the word, and I’ll call it off, Leah. We’ll find another way to get you onto the ship.”
    “No.” Tremors ran down the length of her body, but her voice was sure and strong. “I’ll do it. Just…” Her breathing picked up, and I wrapped my arms around her, nearly enveloping her tiny frame. “Just don’t let me fall.”
    She trusted me. An almost unrecognizable feeling unfurled, stretching through my limbs, the need to protect her making me feel simultaneously like a prick for putting her through it and as strong as Superman with her in my arms.
    But why did I suspect this slip of a woman was going to be my kryptonite?
    I shook the stupid thought out of my head. “I won’t let anything happen to you. I swear it.”
    “Okay, then let’s get this