The room fell to a hush, and all eyes swung toward me. I had zero clue what the hell Paxton was talking about, but I managed a shaky smile and wave for the camera. “Hi.”

Smooth, Leah.

“Wilder, we’re all set up for single on left, tandem on right,” Little John said from across the room, where a single glass door was open to the balcony.

Paxton led me through the crowd until we stood on the grated metal balcony. Holy shit. How many stories up were we? How far apart were the metal slats? For the love of God, I could see the sidewalk through the space between my feet and the small crowd that had gathered there.

My vision narrowed, blackening at the edges, and what had been the grate seconds earlier now looked like a steep canyon wall with nothing between me and the ground hundreds of feet below. I blinked rapidly until the grate returned.

“I think I’ll go inside,” I whispered, backing up slowly until I bumped into Little John’s belly, my breath accelerating.

“This is for you, Bambi,” he said, handing me the harness he’d been carrying.

“What?” I squeaked. Don’t look down. Focus on him.

“Bambi, you know…because you look like a deer in the headlights,” he answered.

“Bambi is a boy, and what the hell would I need a harness for?”

“That.” Landon pointed toward two thick wires Paxton was inspecting, which led from the top of the tower to—no fucking way—a wall at the end of the pool. On the ship. Our ship. The one in port at least six stories beneath us. “We’re zip-lining into the set-sail party,” he said with a grin, as if I’d been given some kind of gift.

“No. Nope. Not happening,” I said, shaking my head, trying to back into the tower.

“Wilder, we’ve got a no-go,” Little John called out.

Paxton looked over from where it appeared he was securing whatever contraption wanted to kill me. He took me gently by the arm to the side of the tower where the cameras weren’t pointing and, for once, my thoughts weren’t on how hot he was but rather how quickly I could kill him and bury the body.

“There’s no chance I’m doing that.” My words ran together. “I don’t even know how to do that, nor would I ever want to. It’s insane.” And dangerous. And so high.

“It’s fun,” he promised and knelt in front of me. “Step here,” he said, guiding my feet.

“It’s not fun, it’s death, and I want no part of it.”

“It’s perfectly safe. Step again.”

My legs acted on autopilot, my eyes firmly focused on the zip line. “Why the hell would you even do something like this?”

“Because no one has,” he answered, as if that was reason enough.

“Did you ever stop to think there’s a reason no one has done it? Maybe it’s dangerous? Or illegal?”

He laughed and stood, pulling something up my legs and fastening it around my waist. “It’s actually safe, I promise. I’ve done it hundreds of times. Never onto a cruise ship, but through jungles, off a parasail, that kind of thing. Zip-lining is one of the tamer things that I do.”

“Then you’re mad.”

“So I’ve been told. Arm?”

I thrust it out. “Well, I’m saying no. I’m going to walk down this deathtrap tower and get on the ship.”

“You can’t.”

“Excuse me?” I fired back as he snapped the clasp over my chest. Holy shit, I was in the harness. “I am a fully grown woman, I most certainly can say no.”

“Oh, that you can. But they’ve already shut the doors and begun the launch, see?” He motioned behind him.

I leaned around his massive shoulders, my fingers digging into his taut, inked skin to avoid falling over the railing. He was telling the truth. The hatches had all shut, the ramps were down, and the engines were on.

“You have got to be kidding me.”

“I’m not,” he said, his nose wrinkled in apology. “Look, Leah, I made a wrong assumption. I never thought you wouldn’t want to do this. I figured the minute you agreed to come with me, you knew what you were getting into.”

“What?” My head snapped back. “Because I should automatically assume someone is going to zip-line onto our cruise ship?”

“Well, I’m not just anyone,” he said. “Don’t you know who I am?”

“Oh my God, could you be any more arrogant?”

“Yes.”

I scoffed. “Hard to believe. What am I supposed to do?”

“Ride tandem with me,” he answered with a dimple-deepened grin. Asshole. “It’ll be fun. Plus, it’s the only way to get on the ship, because it leaves the minute we land and they cut the line.”

“Wilder, we’ve got to go!” Landon called out, already latched on to his wire.

“So my options are I slide down the death-wire with you, or I go home?”

“You could always meet us at the next port. I think it’s four days away, right?”

“I’d miss a whole week of class!”

“Well, there is that.” He shrugged.

“I. Do. Not. Like. You.” I spat out every word at Paxton as Little John came over with two helmets. Hold on to the anger, it’s safer than fear.

“Well, I actually kinda like you, so that’s enough for me. Then again, I’ve always liked firecrackers.”