“Absolutely,” Paxton answered.

“Are you sure? I saw this show where the line snapped, and this father and son, well, stepson, went flying into the jungle and crashed into a tree and then the stepdad died.” One of the techs stifled his laughter as he snapped my harness in place.

Paxton’s eyes narrowed. “Wasn’t that one of the Jurassic Park movies?”

“Yeah? So? It’s still parasailing.”

“Well, if I remember correctly, the line was snapped because a dinosaur bit it.”

“So?”

He cupped my chin, and I about melted. “There are no dinosaurs in Barcelona. We’ll be okay, Leah.” His eyes dropped to my lips, and they automatically parted, more than ready for everything my head stubbornly refused.

What would happen if he kissed me? If we crossed the line—and he broke my already pieced-together heart? I didn’t know if I’d be able to tutor him if I became just another one of his notches. But the closer he came, the louder my heart cried out that it was healed enough to try.

That was the thing about hearts, though—they jumped and then it was always up to the brain to put them back together, and Paxton had the power to shred me if I wasn’t careful.

“Ready, Wilder?” Bobby asked, the cameras aimed in our direction. I hated that we hadn’t been able to shake them, but there hadn’t been a good enough reason to ditch them.

“Are you ready for an adventure, Leah?” Pax asked me softly, where the cameras couldn’t hear.

“Don’t let me get hurt.”

All trace of kidding fell from his face. “I will never hurt you, and I won’t let anything else, either. Understand?”

I nodded, wishing he’d answered the question I was too chicken to ask. We listened to the instructions from the boat crew, and thanks to my Paxton distraction, before I knew it, we launched into the air.

I closed my eyes as a shriek ripped from my throat, and I bit my lower lip to silence the sound. Paxton took my hand from the harness, lacing our fingers. There was nothing but wind beneath my feet, just air that would be only too happy to let me fall.

But Paxton…he wouldn’t.

“You can close your eyes the whole time, but you’ll never see this view again.” His thumb stroked the palm of my hand.

I slowly opened my lids and gasped. “How high are we?” High enough to feel surreal, which is oddly more comforting.

“Don’t think about it,” he urged. “Look, you can see La Sagrada Familia.”

“What?” My eyes darted to the cityscape and found the world-renowned church. “That’s amazing!”

“I wonder if we could get extra credit in World Religion for this,” he joked. “And there’s the Park Guell.” He pointed with his empty hand. “Where we were riding earlier today.”

The city was beautiful from here, divided from the Mediterranean by a strip of beach. “This is…I don’t have words,” I said.

He squeezed my hands. “I know.”

“Is this how you feel when you’re doing a trick?” It was exhilarating, pure joy flooding my bloodstream, infusing every cell in my body with an incomparable high.

“Not usually.”

I looked over at him. “Why?”

“Because tricks I have to work for, practice on. They take every ounce of my concentration, my body, my mind, all of me is in it.”

“And this is just fun,” I guessed.

“Usually.”

That pressure was back in my chest. “But not this time.”

He shook his head. “This time I used everything, my concentration, my body, my mind, all of me, to get you up here, and seeing you smile feels better than landing any trick.”

Up here there was nothing to distract me from his words, his eyes, or the tenderness in either of them. “Thank you,” I said.

“You’re so welcome,” he answered with a soft smile.

I kept my eyes on the city to the side of us, or the shoreline ahead of us, never looking down, never letting go of the wonder in my heart just in case the fear crept in and stole this moment from me.

It was over too quickly and not soon enough, my fear escalating the closer we came to the ground, until Paxton took the brunt of our landing on the soft beach.

You did it! I wanted to shout to the sky that I was victorious—that I’d won this one battle, and it was more than enough. It was a taste of what I’d been before that night, before I knew what it was to watch love die right in front of me. It was freedom, joy, exhilaration, and the ability to simply breathe. And it was all because of Paxton.

He unclipped our parachute and unsnapped our harnesses from the towline, his hands moving quickly with supreme focus. Focus, that for once, I needed on me. My stomach tightened, my heart jumping like it did right before I zip-lined, already knowing that it might be the wrong choice, but I’d made my decision.

“How are you feeling?” he asked when he saw that I stood there, simply watching him.

I didn’t have words, only this overwhelming need buzzing through me, demanding to take another, more dangerous leap. Paxton had given me something priceless, and I didn’t know how to communicate everything that meant to me, what he was starting to mean to me, but I knew I had to.

I’d never wanted something—someone—so badly in my life.

Damn the consequences.

“Leah?” he asked, leaning down slightly to cup my cheeks in his hands, then swiping his tongue across his lower lip—his nervous tell.