Wilder

“—back in Los Angeles until you graduate.”

The door to the suite clicked open, saving me. “Pax?”

“In here,” I called out.

Penna walked in, her gaze darting between Brandon and me. “Oh, hey, Brandon. I didn’t realize you were in Barcelona.”

“I was just leaving,” he said, redoing his tie and standing. “Good to see you, Penelope. Pax, try to stay out of jail, okay? Not all the shit you guys like to pull is legal.”

We said our good-byes and he walked out, my blood pressure immediately dropping with the sound of the door closing behind him.

“Why the hell is he here?” she asked.

I loved Brandon, but he didn’t do anything that didn’t suit his immediate needs. “I don’t know, but it can’t be good. Knowing him, he honestly flew over here to find out what kind of deal I struck with Dad and how to manipulate it.”

“Agreed. Just don’t give him anything he can use against you.”

And now he knew about Leah.

Fuck.

…

“I’ll expect your papers filed in eCampus no later than midnight on Friday,” our World Religion professor said into the bus microphone as we parked at the cruise terminal the next day. We’d seen enough churches that they’d all started to blend in by the afternoon. All except La Sagrada Familia, which might have been the coolest church I’d ever seen in my life.

“Ready?” I asked Leah as I stood in the aisle. She clutched her bag with both hands.

“Yes,” she said, scooting out from the seat.

“One word again? You’re so talkative today. Everything okay?” I asked, ready to poke her in the side to get her to talk to me.

“Yep,” she answered with a fake smile, standing in front of me.

I didn’t know whether to shake her or kiss the shit out of her. My entire body screamed for the second option, especially after spending all day next to her, watching her smile at architecture when I wanted her to smile at me, catching the scent of her perfume and the orange shampoo she used, listening to her laugh at something Hugo said.

I may as well have not existed.

We filed off the bus and headed for the ship. “Hey, Leah, we’re over here,” I said, pointing to the quicker entrance. She looked up at me, those eyes so full of conflict that I couldn’t get a read on her emotions.

Welcome to the club, Leah.

“You know, Hugo and I were going to grab dinner, so I think I’ll just go in the normal way,” she said, her lips pressing together in a flat line.

Fucking ouch.

“Okay, well, then you two kids have fun,” I said, forcing a smile that probably looked more like a gremlin. “Study tonight?”

She wavered. Hell if I was going to let her cancel our plans because she was freaked over what had happened yesterday. “We have that Lit assignment for Epic of Gilgamesh, remember?”

Her eyes closed briefly. “Of course I remember. Yeah, that’s great. Tonight.”

She turned and walked away, and not that I didn’t enjoy the view of her ass in those jeans, but for once I’d love to see her walking toward me.

“I liked it better when she was kissing me,” I mumbled.

“Tell me you didn’t,” Landon said.

I swore under my breath and turned, ignoring his disapproving look. “I did.”

He looked up like he was praying for patience. “Worth the potential of fucking up everything that we’ve worked for?”

“Every second.” My answer was instant.

“And you’re going to let her walk away?” he asked.

When did he switch to Team Leah?

“I don’t have much of a choice.”

He started laughing, and I had the urge to toss him into the water instead of walking up the ramp with him.

“What the fuck is so funny?”

“You, my friend. You.”

We gave our IDs to security for scanning, and then headed on board. “And how the hell am I amusing?”

He turned, clapping me on the shoulder. “You’ve never had to work for a woman that you wanted. They’ve been falling into your lap since you were fifteen.”

“That’s not true!”

“Name one girl you had to work for. And by work for, I mean, say more than, “I’m Paxton Wilder and I have a big pipe.”

“Hey, that was one time, and it was to another skateboarder. She totally got the meaning.”

“Pax.”

I tried to run through my mental Rolodex of women and found that I couldn’t think of any, or remember most of their names. “Okay, point taken.”

“You have two choices. You back away now, ignore whatever happened, and preserve your working relationship—”

“Not an option.” Not when I could still feel her lips moving with mine, hear the tiny rush of air she released when we parted. My hands still itched to feel her skin under my fingertips, my head wouldn’t stop running through things to say, and my dick wouldn’t stop making his opinion known, either.

“Well, time to work, brother.” He gave me a somewhat sympathetic half smile, laced with a flash of pain that sliced through me because I knew I’d helped put it there.

“I don’t know what to do. She’s not like the others.”

“The good ones never are, and they don’t usually give second chances, either, so don’t fuck it up if you’re serious.”