Rebel

Oh, fuck.

Her whole body swam with terror. Her mind juggled fears.

He’s okay. He’s fine.

She swore she repeated the mantra in her head for excruciating minutes before the cluster of observers parted and Wes sat up. But it had to have been seconds, not minutes, because Rubi still hadn’t breathed…and she hadn’t passed out. Now, the air hissed out of her lungs through a tight throat, and the hammering of her heart seemed so much harder. So much faster. So much louder.

Jax helped Wes pull off his helmet, and all that blond hair caught the sun. But only when Wes turned to Jax with a gleaming grin did Rubi’s stomach finally untwist.

He said something that made everyone hovering howl with laughter.

Rubi didn’t find this amusing. But relief uncoiled in her chest, creating a painful ache. She closed her eyes and pressed a hand to the discomfort. “Oh my God.”

She crouched to pick up her notebook but stayed there a moment when her head went light. Residual fear choked her while her senses came back online—the smell of chemicals and smoke, the sound of machinery and voices. That had been too close. Too damned close.

Pushing slowly to her feet so she didn’t topple, Rubi turned, and walked toward the trailer, shaken. She’d watched dozens of stunts over the last month while visiting the set to gather information for these apps. All their stunts were insane. All dangerous. But that…

She’d been fine until the bike tilted sideways. Until Wes had been sliding along the concrete at God only knew what speed. Looked like two hundred fucking miles an hour to her. She might even have continued to be okay if he hadn’t simply thrown himself to the ground. Now, she felt unhinged. Confused over the distress. Terrorized over the fear of something happening to him.

She jogged the trailer’s steps and entered the old piece of shit the guys dragged around with them from jobsite to jobsite. Thanks to Lexi, the trailer was now a remodeled piece of shit. The new secretary, Rachel, a darling little brunette, glanced over the top of her cute tortoiseshell rims with a breezy, “Hey, Rubi.”

Rubi’s best friend, Lexi LaCroix, her long, blonde hair loose, hanging shiny and straight to the middle of her back, turned from the window with a worried frown wrinkling her perfectly smooth forehead. “Everything okay?”

“He made everyone laugh, as usual.” Rubi shrugged, trying to pretend her heart had not just tried to jump into her throat, but the irritation in her voice didn’t fit the facade. “I guess that means he’s not dead.”

She needed a few minutes and turned for the small bathroom at the rear of the trailer.

Rubi closed the bathroom’s thin door, but Rachel’s voice filtered in. “They’re fine. They do this all day, every day. If you fuss, they get all pissy. Pffft. Men.”

She ran the water, dipped her hands under the cool stream, and pressed them to her cheeks. Gripping the sink to hold herself up, Rubi looked in the mirror. Her eyes were dark with residual distress, her face drawn with tension.

She didn’t like this at all. This worry. This fear. She wasn’t made to weather this kind of emotional stress, which was why she lived the way she lived—with very few attachments. But Rachel was right. This was nothing. They did it every day. Had done it every day for years. These guys knew what they were doing. Which was why they were the best in the business.

These feelings were so hypocritical considering her own love of speed. Her own maniacal driving tendencies. Wes was trained. Wes had won championship after championship in international motorcycle races the likes of MotoGP and Isle of Man before entering the world of stunts. Wes was a professional. Rubi was just a rebel—breaking speed limits for the hell of it.

Alarm bells rang in her head. This stunt mishap shouldn’t have disturbed her so deeply. If Troy or Keaton or Duke had been the Renegade bouncing along the viaduct, she’d have been worried. Maybe a touched panicked, but she wouldn’t be unraveling at the seams like this, and that told her Wes wasn’t the only one with emotions pushing the boundaries of their friendship.

The floor shook with footsteps, and the trailer filled with muffled male voices—laughing and chatting, bullshitting over the stunt.

“No, no, no.” Rubi pushed off the sink and shook back her hair, shoving all the erratic feelings aside, then scolded herself in the mirror. “You’re not falling for him, dumb shit. He is way out of your league. He doesn’t do temporary, and you don’t do permanent. Don’t fuck up a good thing.”

The lecture left a strange, painful hollow at the center of her belly, and she exited the bathroom, glad she and Lexi were having lunch together today. They hadn’t gotten any girl time since Jax entered the picture, which, she realized, might be why these feelings, why this…deeper-than-normal friendship had developed between her and Wes.

Yes, a few hours with Lexi would set Rubi straight. That thought helped her pull it together. But only until she walked into the trailer’s common area.

All the Renegades were back, shrinking the trailer to the size of a microchip. Rubi could have choked on the testosterone thickening the air. But she was distracted.

Wes stood at the center of the room, the neoprene suit pulled off his shoulders, hanging low on his hips. She stopped short and pressed an open hand over her heart for the second time in fifteen minutes.

Her fantasies hadn’t come close to the real deal, standing only six feet away. His stormy gray-blue eyes shone with residual excitement from that crazy-ass stunt. With his hands planted at his hips, his muscled pecs and biceps glistened with sweat. The fine line of golden hair low on his abdomen disappeared between his belly button and the waistband of whatever he wore beneath the neoprene.

“Praise the gods of Olympus,” she murmured, a little short of breath.

He was freaking carved.

And he had more ink than the tire treads circling his left bicep and the stylized checkered flag flowing down his right calf. He had something covering his right shoulder too. She narrowed her eyes at the image, taking in the detail, the definition of shadow, its sheer artistic beauty.

“Is that a Terminator tat?” she asked.

“Not exactly, but the same principle.” Wes’s gaze darted to his shoulder. “Like it?”

“What’s a Terminator tat?” Lexi asked from where she stood behind Wes, fitting some type of harness to his hips.

These men had more toys and rigging and gear than God.

“It’s a 3-D rendition,” Troy said from where he’d sprawled his big body on a lounge chair. “A cutaway view of the skin and what’s beneath. But his isn’t a real Terminator tat.”

“Watch it, dude,” Wes said. “It’s nicer than the one you’ve got on your ass.”

“It’s not on my ass, dumb shit. It’s on my hip. And it’s way better than yours.” He pushed to his feet and brought his hands to the button of his jeans. “Let’s let the ladies decide.”

“Troy.” Jax’s voice boomed up the steps and into the trailer. “Keep your goddamned pants on for a change.”

“Hey,” Rachel yelled back. “Mind your own business out there. I want to see.”

Keaton and Duke burst out laughing. Wes chuckled. Rubi couldn’t even manage a smirk, and the fact that she couldn’t shake off this funk only deepened her anxiety.

“We can work out a private showing, Rach,” Troy said, his smoldering black eyes teasing her.

“You know the rules,” Jax called. “Mess with my secretary, I’ll mess with you.”

“And if he doesn’t,” Lexi added, “I will. Rachel keeps Jax sane, which keeps me sane.”

“When Daddy’s happy,” Keaton said, “everyone’s happy.”

“Losers—all of you,” Troy shouted loud enough to make sure Jax heard where he stood at the base of the stairs talking with someone Rubi didn’t know, then dropped back into the chair. “A real Terminator tat, like mine, replaces muscles with gears and gadgets, cyborg-like.”

Rubi didn’t care about Troy’s tattoo. She was inspecting Wes’s. The ink rounded his right shoulder, the outline a double-pivoting bike chain with so much detail and shadow, she swore she could reach out and touch it. Parts of the chain fell away, broken, where a speeding motorcycle ripped from Wes’s body, complete with torn skin and shattered chain links.

“It’s gorgeous,” Rubi said, subdued, but finally had a thought that made her smile. “I should get one showing a motherboard underneath.”

“Oh yeah.” Wes grinned. “That would be so cool. I’ll take you to the guy who did mine if you want. He’s amazing.”

Lexi circled Wes, then lowered to her knees in front of him, tightening Velcro straps around Wes’s hips and thighs. Rubi had seen her friend do this hundreds of times over the years while fitting her couture wedding gowns to clients or measuring for alterations. And over the last two months since she’d been seeing Jax, Lexi had taken on the new role for the Renegades as a seamstress to anything ripped, a designer to any new harness or bodysuit, even occasionally a costume or two.

And while Lexi’s position on her knees in front of Wes was the perfect material for one of Rubi’s typically suggestive, teasing comments, she wasn’t in the mood. She really wanted to get out of this trailer, away from the handsome man who unnerved her—her, a woman rarely ruffled by anything.

She crossed her arms and leaned into one hip. “Almost done there, Lex? I’m ready for lunch.”

Troy reached into the minifridge beside the sofa and popped the top on a Rockstar. “Since when are you so eager to get away from us?”

“You’re not all that,” Rubi teased, “despite what your bed bunnies tell you.”

Keaton whistled through his teeth, the sound imitating a diving plane, then simulated the sound of an explosion. “Crash…and…burn.”

Troy shot Keaton a brotherly glare.

“Actually,” Lexi said, “I want to get a better look at the fit in the back, but the straps keep slipping. Can you come hold these hinges so I can get a better look?”

An absurd chuckle floated from her throat. Talk about sending mixed messages. “Uh, I don’t think so.”

“What’s the problem?” Wes challenged with the rise of one golden brow. “Afraid you might like it?”

Afraid was right—that she’d like it. That he’d like it. That the situation would lead them both down the wrong path. “Don’t goad me, Lawson.”

“Rubi,” Lexi said, “we’re not getting out of here until this is done. Wes is holding the straps.” She let out an exasperated sigh. “Troy…?”

Troy cut her off. “No way, no how am I getting on my knees for Lawson. I’m gonna settle in for the show. Come on, Rubi. We ain’t got all day here.”

“Give it up, Troy,” Wes said, staring into Rubi’s eyes. “She’s backing down.”

“You little troublemaker,” Rubi said.

“Come on, Rubi,” Lexi rounded behind Wes again. “Five minutes, tops.”