Rebel (The Renegades)

by Rebecca Yarros

  I walked over to my rig and tied my hair into a knot to keep it clear.

  “Too bad, I like it down,” Cruz whispered as he walked by.

  A shiver raced down my spine. That smooth, deep voice, coupled with his accent, never failed to affect me in the best ways. It was definitely on the short list for his sexiest features along with his dimples. And those eyes, and every single cut line of his abs. Screw it, the man was simply the embodiment of sex—which ironically was the one thing he was withholding.

  I laid out the wing of my paraglider, which was set up right next to the one Cruz had been assigned, and checked each individual line, making sure the rig was free of any knots. Given that we were about thirty feet from the edge of the bluff, I didn’t exactly have a lot of time to correct if one snagged or bunched. A bunched line meant that side would drag down the wing, and the last thing I wanted to do was spiral down the cliff edge.

  I smiled for the cameras when Bobby shoved them in my face, and explained the nature of the stunt, and then I snapped into my harness as they ran off to interview Wilder.

  “Need a double check?” Cruz asked, walking over to stand in front of me.

  I hiked an eyebrow at him, glancing around us as innocently as I could.

  “We’re set up right next to each other. If you were Wilder, I’d ask him.”

  “Well, aren’t you polite. Go ahead and check me out,” I said, lifting my arms from their sides. God, I even flirted with him when I didn’t mean to.

  “Happy to be of service.” He pulled at my snaps, checked the lock on my carabineer, and then gently tugged at my harness, making sure it was snug.

  I’d been double-checked by just about every Renegade on our team, but it had always been quick and professional, a courtesy to make sure I didn’t get myself killed with loose rigging or a mistake I didn’t catch.

  Cruz’s hands elevated my pulse, quickened my breath, and gave me flashbacks of when there were way fewer clothes between us. But even more than the physical, the way he checked me and then checked again made me feel protected, cared for in a way I never had been before.

  Sure, Pax, Landon, Nick, they all loved me, cared about and for me, but there was something in Cruz’s movements and blatant concern on his face that made me feel cherished.

  God, I had it so bad for this beautiful man.

  “Good to go?” I asked, chancing a look at him.

  “Looks good,” he said softly.

  “Hey, need a check?” Landon asked.

  “Dr. Delgado has me,” I answered.

  “Doc, you need a check?”

  Cruz looked me over one more time and nodded. “Yeah, that would be great.”

  I tuned the radio in my helmet to the right channel and out of the corner of my eye watched Landon check Cruz.

  Ten minutes later, every Renegade was harnessed in, and there was just enough of a breeze to pick up our wings behind us about six inches off the ground. Perfect to make sure every line was where it was supposed to be.

  The engines, huge circles with one giant rotating prop, were warmed up and harnessed to our backs.

  I looked to Cruz, who was examining his handheld brake system.

  “Nervous over there, Doc?” I asked.

  “Only about you sticking the landing.” Cruz’s voice filled my helmet.

  I laughed, the sound brighter than I’d managed in a while. “You just worry about yourself, old man.”

  “Old?”

  I shrugged as Paxton counted us down.

  Cruz muttered something that sounded like, “I’ll show you old.”

  There were ten of us in one giant line, and starting at the right, Paxton ran forward. His wing caught, the sail rising above him, and he took to the air, steadily climbing in altitude.

  Zoe took off next, then Landon and the others until the only ones left were me, Cruz, and the cameraman Bobby had hired in L.A. to keep up with us. Apparently our GoPro footage was great, but he wanted a more professional angle for the stuff we had coming up.

  “See you on deck,” I said to Cruz.

  Then I focused.

  I ran forward, feeling the lines behind me tense, then pull as the wing caught in the breeze. Looking left, then right, I made sure both edges of the canopy were deployed equally and rising at the same rate, and as they rose above my head, my feet were no longer running—I was airborne. Shifting my weight, I sat back in the harness, crossing my feet in front of me as if I was at home watching TV.

  Flying was a pure shot of nitrous to my system, making me feel ethereal and yet all too mortal at the same time. My stomach dropped deliciously as we passed over the stretch of highway that ran between the bottom of the bluff and the beach, and then we were over ocean.

  “You make it okay back there, Doc?” I asked.

  “Right behind you, Rebel,” Cruz answered.

  We followed the beach from an altitude of about five hundred feet—nothing too high considering I’d been up at about six thousand feet in one of these before, but infinitely more fun for sightseeing.

  The wind deafened any other noise as the radio was as quiet as my thoughts. Once again, that blissful silence took over my brain, where nothing existed outside the moment—the stunt.

  Pax broke the radio silence first. “We’ve got about a ten-minute flight to where the ship is in port, so have some fun. Don’t do anything that will have Dr. Delgado up our asses, okay?”

  A few cheers went out over the waves, and that rush I’d been waiting for hit my system. Every nerve in my body woke up, ready and waiting for whatever I decided.

  I chose to go for it.

  Splitting off from the group, I rose in altitude until I hit a little over a thousand feet. Then I adjusted, dipped to the right, and barrel-rolled. The ocean and sky blended into a kaleidoscope of blue as I tumbled, rolling end over end.

  Adrenaline flooded my veins, the taste sweet in my mouth, and everything sharpened. This was my drug, and I was fully, wholeheartedly an addict.

  Leveling out, I laughed.

  “Holy. Shit.” Cruz sounded purely dumbstruck.

  “Still worried about me back there?” I teased him, watching Rachel fly so far beneath me that she was dipping her feet into the waves.

  “A little worried about your sanity, maybe.”

  “What are you pulling back there?” Wilder asked.

  “Just a few barrel rolls,” I answered.

  “Ahhhh, now that’s the Rebel we know and love,” he said with pure affection.

  Just for fun, I rose back up and did another series, letting the world roll with me. Each dip and swing swept another layer of darkness off my heart until I felt as bright and clean as the sun above me.

  The strangest yearning took hold of my heart—I wanted my bike back, needed the freedom that engine and those wheels gave me. Maybe it wasn’t just the bike but the need to reclaim what I’d shoved away when Brooke had come unhinged.

  “I wish you could be here,” I whispered off coms to the sister who wanted nothing to do with me.

  “Okay, we’re coming up on approach. Remember the plan is tackle this airport-style. Everyone circles in a holding pattern so we don’t clog the landing strip. Wind report says we need to come over the bridge area. Coming in from the front is more dangerous than we’d like.”

  The “landing strip” was the small, flat surface that covered the pool toward the front of the ship on the top deck. The production crew had built it for us to specifications, but from here it looked a hell of a lot smaller than what we’d intended.

  “How is Camera Boy doing back there?” I asked.

  “Camera Man is fine,” the guy fired back, and I instantly liked him.

  “Good to know. Don’t die on us, okay? The legal red tape would be a bitch.”

  “Yeah, yeah, got it.”

  The ship was anchored offshore, so at least it wasn’t moving, but that didn’t give me any warm fuzzies considering a gust could take me into the water or I could miss entirely
and smack into the side of the boat. On camera. In front of the entire universe.

  No pressure or anything.

  “Okay everyone, remember to lose your canopies the minute you land. The crew knows to grab them, and you, if you go with it,” Pax instructed. “Nova, you want to lead us in?”

  “You got it,” Landon said, and headed for the landing zone as we all began to circle in a holding pattern. The wind was stronger off the shore, blowing him sideways a few times. He corrected, landing at the edge of the marked zone. His canopy flew back toward the bridge, and the crew caught it.

  “One down,” Rachel said.

  One by one, they started to land, Rachel missing and putting down in the middle of a few deck chairs that ended up sliding with the canopy when she unsnapped.

  Cruz landed perfectly, coming across the bridge deck and dropping down with impressive accuracy. He unhooked from his canopy, turning fast enough to grab the lines himself and pull it in.

  Self-sufficient show-off.

  If we’d had private radio channels, I would have told him as much.

  With only Pax and the cameraman left in the sky with me, it was my turn. I circled until I was at the back of the ship, then came in slow. The wind was too unpredictable to come in without motorized power. I passed over the bridge, but just as I went in for a landing, a gust of wind blew me straight off course.

  “Fuck.”

  “So ladylike,” Landon said.

  “Shut up,” I threw back.

  “Go back around,” Cruz ordered.

  “Yeah, that’s not going to happen.” Pulling a ninety degree turn, I came in from the front of the boat.

  “Shit,” I muttered, lifting my feet over a table in the restaurant section. “Excuse me, coming through,” I said to the students in my way, who ducked, a few of the girls shrieking.

  I hit the landing pad at a run, and the moment I heard the canopy hit the ground behind me, I unhooked the two locks at my waist, setting the wing free. I spun as the chute raced toward me—Pax hadn’t been kidding about the wind report—and I jumped as the wing sped beneath my feet and into the waiting arms of the production staff.

  Turning toward the cheering crowd that had gathered to watch us land, I met the intensely angry eyes of Cruz.

  I took off my helmet and walked toward him, where he’d already removed his helmet and harness.

  “Seriously?”

  I shrugged. “Nailed it.”

  “Death. Of. Me.” He punctuated every word with a finger point in my direction. “I told you to go back around.”

  “And I’ll let you know when I take my orders from you.”

  His nostrils flared as his jaw flexed. “That was unreasonable.”

  “Do you have any idea how many times I’ve landed a motorized paraglider with the wind instead of against it? At least a dozen.”

  “On a ship? Where your landing zone is either dead on or just plain dead?”

  “Did you see me go overboard? I’m more than capable of landing that, because, oh, that’s right…I just did.”

  Something moved to my side, and I immediately caught on to the camera that was close enough to hear every word. Shit. “I’m sorry that as my faculty advisor, you’re upset that I chose to land when you were against it, but being the professional I am, I gauged my ability against the wind and made my choice.”

  His eyes flickered toward the camera, and he sighed. “Next time let’s discuss contingencies. I’d rather this not happen again on my watch.”

  “Noted.”

  The camera left as Pax came in for a landing, and I breathed a sigh of relief but didn’t say anything else. There were still people all around us, and I knew that just like our kisses, the fights would have to wait until we were behind closed doors, too.

  Pax landed perfectly and walked straight to Leah, the documentary crew zooming in on something I knew Pax would make them cut later.

  Cruz and I moved toward the edge of the landing zone as the cameraman came in to land. He cleared the bridge with nearly no room to spare, and I cringed as his foot smacked the railing. That was going to hurt like a bitch later.

  He was lined up to make contact with us, and came down steady toward the landing zone. As he met the surface at a run, another gust of wind knocked him sideways, dragging him across the deck toward the railing. Cruz broke into a run, hurdling over a table and then a set of chairs as the cameraman slammed into the side deck railing, his chute already extended over the port side.

  Cruz reached him just as the cameraman’s feet lifted off the ground, his massive hands slamming into the man’s waist.

  The chute flew free, billowing with the wind into the wild of the Pacific Ocean, while Cruz held the cameraman safely on board.

  “Holy shit,” Pax called out as we ran toward them.

  “You okay?” I asked Cruz and the cameraman.

  “Yeah.”

  “Good to go.”

  “Okay, what’s your name?” I asked the cameraman, who was a shade whiter than the paint on our boat. “Because after that, I kind of feel like I need to know it.”

  “Victor,” he said, collapsing into the nearest deck chair and putting his head between his knees.

  “Well, Victor, that was close.” Pax clapped him on the back. “And, Doc, I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone move that fast. Thank you.”

  “No need to thank me.” He nodded at Pax, shot me a look I couldn’t interpret, and left.

  I smiled through the interviews, talked about my choice to change up my landing instead of doing a second approach, and counted down every second until I could get out of there.

  About an hour later, I walked into our suite and relaxed into the silence. Rachel had made dinner plans with Landon, and I was blissfully alone as we pulled out of Lima, the boat fairly even on the calm seas.

  I kicked off my shoes in the entry hall. If I took a quick shower, I might be able to coordinate sneaking in some time with Cruz.

  My bedroom door opened, and a tan hand attached to a muscular arm gripped my wrist, yanking me inside.

  The door shut milliseconds before I found my back against it. Cruz hovered over me, pinning my hands above my head. Our eyes met in a war without words, stubbornness for stubbornness, both outmatched by the all-consuming desire that neither of us could escape.

  His mouth found mine, and I opened for him, welcoming his kiss. He wasn’t hard or commanding as I expected, but slow, sensual, utterly devastating in his thoroughness.

  “Cruz,” I moaned as his hands slid down my arms, brushing the outer curves of my breasts and ribs to frame my waist. The ability to say his name felt like the greatest privilege, freeing myself to voice the longing I felt for him every minute of the day—the same longing I had to keep secret in public.

  My hands grazed the back of his head as I looped my arms around his neck, and he pulled me against him so our bodies were flush.

  He kissed me a step past breathless, a moment longer than forever, until he had me arching in to him, everything forgotten but the slide of his tongue and the subtle caress of his hands.

  Pulling away, he cupped my cheek with his hand. “You scared me. And before you get all defensive, I am well aware that you can handle yourself. I know that you are the best at what you do, and that your reputation is earned. Logically, I understand that you were fully in control. Common sense tells me that if anyone else had pulled what you did, I wouldn’t be half as mad. But this—” He put my hand over his pounding heart. “This does not speak logic. This stopped working the minute you pulled the turn, and it didn’t begin beating again until I saw you standing safely on the landing deck. This will not listen to reason, because it’s too busy being terrified by how much of it you already own. Do you understand me?”

  If I was a swooning kind of girl, I would have been on the floor. As it was, my knees definitely went a little unsteady. “I scared you.”

  “You scared me. You scare me every day. And after what almost happened
to that Victor guy? Jesus, Penelope, that could have been you.” His eyes went wild, and his grip on my waist tightened.

  I ran a hand through his hair, back down his neck to rest it next to my other near his heart. “No, it couldn’t have. You are right. I am the best at what I do. And yes, sometimes I get hurt. Sometimes I push the envelope too far, and things break—I break. But that’s also how I learn. How I get stronger. A gust could have taken me, and I would have unhooked my rig before it dragged me across the deck, because I’ve been in situations where my chute’s been caught. I started at baby steps, Cruz. I didn’t just wake up one day and decide to run.”

  “You did with me,” he said softly.

  My cheeks warmed, and I ducked my head for a second. “Yeah, well, you seem to be the exception to every rule I’ve ever made for myself.”

  “There’s a lot of that going around,” he answered, wrapping his arms around me. I leaned in, resting my head between my hands on his chest, listening to his heartbeat. I didn’t have to hold him, he held us tight enough for the both of us.

  My chest filled with a sweet ache that was a step beyond infatuation and grew into a realm I wasn’t ready to discuss. It was a feeling that made me ask myself questions like what were we going to do when the boat docked in Miami? Would he still want me when we got back to L.A.? When he left for his new job on the East Coast? Would he decide to be with a woman who didn’t scare him? A woman who would let him protect her?

  “IqueIque,” he said, the sound a rumble in his chest.

  “What about it?”

  He rested his head on top of mine. “It’s our next port.”

  “Right.”

  “We’re there overnight, and I’d like you to spend that night with me,” he said softly. “Off the ship, of course, but just the two of us. Like we’re normal.”