I would have rather swung down the canyon wall than discuss my freaking feelings.
“Yes,” I finally admitted. “Yes, I’m in love with him. I’m sure it makes me the stupidest woman on the planet, seeing what he did last time we were together, but I honestly can’t stop my traitor of a heart. Are you happy now?”
“You’re not stupid,” she said softly. “He loves you. I know it.”
“Well, love didn’t help us last time.”
“But it will this time. You’ll see,” she said with all the faith in the world. “You just have to let go and trust. I know that’s the hardest part for you—the trust—but you two are more meant to be together than anyone I’ve ever seen.”
I sighed at my sappy, trusting, perfect best friend and wished I saw the world through her eyes. “Letting go is the hard part.”
“Not really. You just fall.” She used my earlier words against me.
“Are you ladies ready?” the guide asked.
“I am,” Leah said, her smile a touch devious.
“You did it on purpose,” I said. “You wanted my confession.”
She shrugged. “Maybe. Now let’s fly, shall we?”
I laughed and hugged her. “I’m so glad I have you.”
“Ditto,” she said. “Cut us loose!”
The guide took out an actual knife and started to saw through the white rope that kept us tethered to the base. In a second we’d be swinging by only the cord.
I looked up at Landon and realized that Leah was right. I just had to trust. Maybe it would get me burned. Maybe it would hurt so much this time that I wouldn’t survive it. Or maybe we’d fly. Whether or not I wanted to deny it, my heart knew the truth—I was his, so in love with him that my heart fluttered with the sweetness of the emotion.
I was done fighting it.
The knife cut through the rope, and in one instant, I hung above the canyon.
The next…I let go and fell.
When the ride was over, and we were all gathered at the vans, waiting to return to the ship, I made sure the cameras were on and then walked straight up to Landon, wrapped my arms around his neck, and kissed the hell out of him.
His surprise lasted all of two seconds before he lifted me off my feet and robbed me of every thought. We ignored the catcalls around us as our kiss lasted way longer than publicly acceptable, both reveling in what I’d just done.
Whether we flew or failed, we were public now.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Rachel
Fiji
Crystal-clear water stretched out as far as I could see as we walked the white sand beach. This was truly paradise.
Now if only I could get my thoughts on the same page. Since I’d come to the revelation that I was in this relationship to the hilt, that there was nothing I could do about being in love with Landon, I’d been a freak show. My emotions were all over the place, scrambling to think of a way to tell him, or a way to keep it to myself in case he fucked something up and left me again.
“How did your other midterms go?” Landon asked as a wave gently lapped over our feet. I lifted the hem of my purple maxi dress so it didn’t get uncomfortably soaked for the skiff back to the Athena. He looked like he belonged here in Fiji, his white button-up shirt rolled at the elbows over his blue shorts and tanned skin.
“Good, I think. I turned in my outline for my research paper, and I’m still waiting on my grade from Marine Life. What about you?”
“All A’s,” he said with a little grin.
“Of course.”
“Don’t hate me because I’m smart,” he said, lifting me from the sand for a kiss.
Our lips met, sending a torrent of flutters to my stomach.
“Are you all packed?” he asked against my mouth.
“For the most part. I figured I’d finish tomorrow while we’re on our way into port. We should head back, right? The charter boat will be leaving in about an hour.” The day had been perfect. No classes, no stunts, no stress. Just us.
“We have time. Want to explore with me for a second?” His eyes lit up as he lowered me to the sand.
“Sure, but if you make us miss that boat, I’m going to flip,” I warned.
“Don’t you worry. I’ll have you exactly where you want to be.”
His smile was enough to stop my heart as he took my hand, leading me down the beach to where a wide wooden path began. It stretched out over the crystalline water, supporting bungalows on either side.
“Are we supposed to be here?”
He shrugged. “We’re just exploring. Let’s take a peek and see if it’s somewhere you’d want to come back for vacation after you graduate.”
I slipped my flip-flops on so the wood didn’t burn my feet and followed him onto the boardwalk. “How about I just say yes now?” The bungalows were everything I’d ever imagined about a vacation—serene, beautiful, and somehow sensual with the waves gently reaching them.
But saying yes meant I saw a future for us. Of course I did—I wanted to—but the real world wasn’t anything like what we’d been living the last seven weeks.
“So what do we do over Christmas?” I asked as we passed several of the little rooms. The question had been nagging at me. Two weeks apart. Normally I wouldn’t have freaked, but the last time we were in L.A. together we didn’t do so well.
“I’ll be in L.A. for the first few days for the holidays,” Landon said, wrapping his arm around my shoulder. “I’m hoping you’ll come by and meet my parents, though.”
I paused. “We’re meeting parents?”
“Well, I already know yours,” he said with a mock smile.
“Yeah, they kind of hate you.” I cringed. “Was that a little harsh?”
“Nope, you nailed it. They do hate me.”
“Everything is easier here.” I looked over the water, taking in the exquisite beauty that was like nowhere else on earth. It was hard to believe that we’d seen so many amazing places and people, yet there was still so much more to go. But eventually, it would end. Panic crept in at the edges of my serenity. “I mean, when this is over, we’ll be back in L.A. Well, you will. I still have a year at Dartmouth. And you have competitions and tours. Even if we make it through this program intact, how are we—?”
His mouth covered mine in a deep kiss as his hands framed my face. “We’ll figure it out.”
“But what if we don’t?” I asked, needing a certainty he couldn’t provide me.
He picked me up, carrying me with one of his arms tucked beneath my knees as the other supported my back. “Simple. We agree that we will. We decide not to let it fall apart.”
He walked down the wooden platform without breaking a sweat. His breathing was even and steady, where mine was picking up the more my mind spun. “That’s not how a relationship works.”
“Sure it is.”
Did he seriously think it was that easy?
“It’s not,” I argued. “You aren’t just happy because you say you are. Shit happens, Landon. Look at what happened to us before.”
He stopped at the end of the platform, where there was only one bungalow left. “We crashed and burned. We were hit with a set of circumstances that I wasn’t mature enough to deal with. I made the best decision I could with what I knew at the time, and it was the wrong one. That’s what happened last time.”
“What stops it from happening again?” I asked, my heart thundering in my chest. I felt like I stood at the edge of a huge precipice, and I was asking if he had a parachute…or wings.
He set me on my feet. “We do.”
I shook my head. “That’s not good enough.”
He cupped my face. “That’s all I’ve got. When the problems arise, we’ll take them one at a time.”
“That’s like saying, hey, I know this giant tsunami is headed this way, but don’t worry, we’ll devise a plan when it hits the shore!” The panic had moved from the edges of my mind to fully consuming any serenity I’d tried to keep ahold of.
“Rachel…” His eyes went soft, like he was trying to soothe a wild beast, and I realized I was the wild beast.
And my leg was caught in a trap.
“Why are we worrying about this now?” he asked, being all logical and shit.
“We’re going home in a couple days!” I shouted.
“Yes?”
“I’m going to be in L.A., and you’re going to be in Aspen! I’ll be at home with my parents who hate you and will spend the whole break trying to convince me to leave you, and you’ll be snowboarding and acting all Nova-like.” My chest tightened, the pressure harsh and a little nauseating.
He tugged my hand and walked me into the bungalow.
“So you’re worried that we’ll be apart for two weeks.”
“Yes, but it’s more than that, and— Landon, you can’t just walk into someone’s room.” My eyes swept over the bungalow, and I sucked in a reflexive breath. It looked like it had been stripped out of a vacation magazine—dark hardwood floors with mostly open walls and shades, and a giant four-poster bed sat in the center of the room with netting draped over it.
“It’s not more than that. You and I can make this work anywhere in the world because we’re both incredibly stubborn. We’ll decide not to let the petty shit get to us. We’ll work through the issues that come up, and we’ll make the choice to stay together.”
“Landon, the room. Someone’s going to come back.” Anxiety was reaching a critical level here, but I couldn’t tell if it was from the knowledge that we were trespassing, the thought of spending two weeks without him, or that little unspoken L word in my heart. One thing I did know? I had ten thousand emotions all warring for supremacy.
He put one hand on my hip and cradled my face with the other. “Rachel, the room is ours. I know you’re scared. I know this break is going to be a little test. But I also know that I love you—there’s no one else I want in my life, my heart, my bed. We’re going to be okay.”
I blinked up at him, trying to quiet my slamming heart, to draw a breath through lungs that had forgotten how to work, to process everything he said, and went with the first item because the rest was just too much. “The room is ours?”
“Yes.” He smiled and kissed me lightly. “I got it for us when I realized we’d have an overnight here. The ship doesn’t leave until the morning.”
All of those conflicting emotions felt like a rising tsunami in my chest—barely visible on the surface but powerfully deep and capable of so much damage if I didn’t get myself under control. I took in the details surrounding us as a distraction. The pretty linens, sturdy furniture, the glass area of the floor to see into the water. “This must have cost you a fortune.” He’d made plans for us…not just for tonight, but for a possible future. Even before, when we’d agreed to the apartment in L.A., I’d always been the one to push the plan.
“Yeah, I’m not exactly hurting for it,” he said with a small laugh. “We’ve been with Pax, Leah, Penna, and an entire boat full of people for the last seven weeks. I just wanted to have you to myself for a night. Leah packed you a bag and everything.”
That wave of emotion grew bigger, monstrous, until it threatened to swamp me. He’d had a bag packed. Another plan. He wanted me to meet his parents, to see myself in his future. Maybe…just maybe he wasn’t going to walk away this time. Maybe we could really have everything we’d missed out on before. Maybe this was real.
My throat closed as the wave broke over me, washing away what puny defenses I had left against him. All of my emotions, the fear, the mistrust, the excitement, and even the love flowed over me and then stripped me raw—left me vulnerable in ways I hadn’t been since the last time I’d given my heart to him.
It was too much and yet not enough all in the same moment, because I needed the very words, the promises I was terrified to depend upon again. I needed them with a force that terrified me—the same way I needed him.
The lump in my throat made it almost impossible to breathe, and my nose burned, like my body knew it couldn’t contain this hot mess of emotion any longer without combusting.
Oh, hell no. Don’t you do it. Don’t you dare do it!
Then I started crying, and not just dainty, pretty tears. Oh, no, these were gut-wrenching sobs with the most unattractive noises ever.
“Rach. Baby…” Landon pulled me into his arms, holding me against his chest as I sobbed.
“No,” I said, pushing back to stand on my own. “Don’t. Be. Nice. To me.” Oh, great, now I was hyperventilating, too. “I’m like…psycho over here, petrified that we’ll get home and you’ll leave me, and then you go and do this super-sweet thing. And it’s perfect!” I shouted, like he’d done something wrong.
“Oh God, Rach.” He reached for me, and I retreated until I was standing on the perfect deck that overlooked the perfect water in perfect Fiji that my perfect boyfriend had set up for us.
“I’m so sorry,” I cried, unable to stop. “It’s so nice, and just…everything, and here I am losing my shit because I’m so scared of losing you.”
“You’re not going to lose me,” he promised, grasping my upper arms. “We’re never going down that road again.”
“It’s just that all of this… I’ve tried so hard to block you out, to keep my walls up, but it’s like you Trojan horsed me, because you’ve always been there. I never stood a chance. I’ve hated you so much because it was the only thing to keep me from admitting how very much I loved you.” Holy shit, why couldn’t I stop crying? Every word was yelled, ungraceful and ugly, yet raw and so very real.
“Baby.” His eyes went soft and filled with so much joy, so much love, that I started crying even harder.
“Because I am so in love with you, and I want us to work, Landon. I need us to work, because we’re the only thing that makes sense to me.”
And that sounded like a seal barking. Great.
He laughed. “God, I love you.”
“And I love you!” I shouted. “Now, if I could just stop…crying!” I sucked in another stuttered breath that sounded something like a donkey braying. “Make it stop. Seriously!”
He kissed me, swinging me up into his arms. “I can make it stop.”
Then he jumped off the deck into the water, carrying me with him. I took a deep breath just before the Pacific washed over us in a surprising wave of warmth. His lips were on mine as we sank to the bottom of the shallow lagoon.
My legs slid from his arms to wrap around his hips, my breath held in that perfect moment where the world stopped and there was only us.
Once my lungs burned, we kicked for the surface.
I sputtered with my first breath. “Seriously?”
He grinned, more beautiful than I had ever seen him. “Hey, it stopped.”
I kicked back and splashed him, sending water all over his gorgeous face.
“You can’t be mad,” he said, swimming toward me.
“And why is that?” My sundress billowed around me, caught in the ebb and flow of the water.
“Because you love me.” He pulled me to him as he treaded water.
“I do,” I admitted, my voice steady and sure—like the storm had passed over me and all that remained was love and the freedom that came with it. “What are you going to do with it?”
“Everything,” he answered, then kissed me. He tasted like salt water and Landon, and I gave myself over to him, trusting him to keep me afloat. His arms held me tenderly, but his mouth was open, carnal, and a hot contrast to the water around us.
My arms around his neck, I returned his kiss with abandon, letting go of every worry and fear that had held me back. As if the waters had baptized us, I forgave him of every past transgression and gave us a clean slate—a place to start over fresh.
We kissed hungrily, our bodies moving with each other until I was ready to challenge any public indecency laws Fiji might have. I wanted him—needed him—more than I needed air, more than I needed my next heartbeat.
His hand moved
to my ass, my dress long having abandoned any pretense of cover, and he played with the edge of my bikini bottoms. As his fingers swept under the fabric, he skimmed my center, close enough to bring the barely banked fire of my constant craving for him to life, but too far for me to do anything but rock back into his hands and whimper for more.
“I need you,” he said, his voice carrying a desperate edge.
“Then take me,” I ordered, our breathing harsh.
Balancing me on his front, he moved the short distance to the ladder and then urged me forward. I scrambled up the ladder, the heat of the deck dissipated by the puddle of water I stood in. I undid the buttons on the front of my dress and had it peeled off by the time Landon reached the top. His shirt quickly joined it in a wet heap on the dark wood.
My stomach clenched at the sight of his honed, lean body as he raked his hair out of his eyes, water sluicing down the carved lines of his abs. His skin was as colorful as the setting around us, his tattoos rippling and moving with his motions as he stalked me across the deck.
I was more than willing to be caught.
How was this man mine? How could someone so perfectly built, so intelligent, so reckless and incredibly sexy only want me?
“You’re so fucking beautiful,” he said to me, as if he’d read my mind.
I braced myself against the railing of the deck, and then his mouth was on mine, his hands in my hair and his tongue in my mouth. He felt incredible against me, his stomach tensing as my fingers explored him, his breath slightly shaky as he left my lips in favor of my neck, licking and sucking the drops of salt water from my skin.
His hands ran a path from my shoulders, down the sides of my breasts, over my hips and around, until he grasped my ass and lifted me against him. “As much as I’d love to fuck you out here, I’d rather make love to you in a bed, if you don’t mind,” he whispered against my jaw.
“I don’t care where we are as long as I get you,” I told him.
He groaned, and we were on the move before I could lock my legs around his waist.
I felt the shade of our room, but every other sense was consumed by Landon—his saltwater taste, slick skin, and incredible body were all I could register until my back hit the softness of our bed.
Nova (The Renegades #2) Page 25