Well, you can’t have too much of that this high off the ground.

Lifting my arms so he can fasten the thing on me, I turn my attention back to Levi, ready to tear into him. “Does your father know you’re doing this?” He’s going to kill him, and I plan to be there handing him the weapon.

“What?” Levi motions to his ears.

Great, he can’t hear me.

I lean in, raising my voice until I can hear myself speaking in my own ears. “Does your father know—ahhh!”

That son of a bitch! Levi snatches me up by the straps on my shoulders and my body pitches off balance as he yanks me up hard against his chest. Then...

We’re plummeting through the air. Racing toward the clouds...through them...Seeing the ground rushing up to meet us, I scream and grapple for Levi. I’m fighting the force of gravity as I struggle to climb his body, to wrap myself around him. My heart is in my throat, beating like a drum. Chaos is racing through my head, my life flashing before my eyes as I clutch Levi’s shoulders and bury my face in the side of his neck.

He certainly hadn’t lied when he said I’d be using my fingers a lot today. They’re currently embedded in his shoulders. If I had it my way, they’d be clawing his eyes out, but I’m too busy hanging on for my life.

“I’ve got you!” Levi yells.

Surprisingly, that does make me feel better, but only marginally. I can feel my breakfast climbing higher up my throat. It’ll serve him right if I throw up on him.

The wind whips around us, flattening our bodies together as we hurdle through the air. I hate him. I hate him so much right now. I want to punch him. I want to cry. I want to wake up and find that I never left Chicago. That I’m still in my bed, safe and warm, miles away from this madness.

Just when I think I might actually have a heart attack, we’re jerked backward violently and then...everything grows calmer. We’re still in the air, wind whipping around us, but we’re no longer speeding like a bullet to our deaths. We’re sailing, coasting along on the air currents. That’s when I realize Levi’s pulled the cord on his pack, releasing his parachute.

“Look, Vista,” Levi says softly into my ear. “You don’t want to miss this.”

I shake my head, trying to catch my breath, to calm my frantic pulse, but I’m curious. I’m also freaked the hell out. I like my feet on the ground, and we’re so far from it.

“Come on, princess. The hard part is over. Don’t puss out on me now. Just look.”

I sneer at his remark. I’m not a chicken, and I’m entitled to have fears. It’s natural. Everyone has at least one and this is mine. Still...

I find myself following his command. Lifting my head, I catch his blue eyes first, my stomach finally beginning to calm as I hold onto his gaze. The skin around his eyes crinkles, giving me silent encouragement, and I take it. Peering cautiously over my shoulder, I can’t help but to gasp at the sight surrounding us.

Blue conifers. Rolling green hills. Houses that resemble Monopoly pieces, they’re so small. Farther out, I see a group of horses grazing and a thin stream cutting a winding path through the landscape. It’s so picturesque. I never knew nature could be like this.

“Levi,” I breathe, struggling to take it all in.

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”

I nod, because I can’t find words eloquent enough to express what I’m feeling. Beautiful doesn’t begin to cover it.

Shifting my weight, I twist my head around to take in every angle of the view. Levi’s strong arms cinch tighter around my waist, holding me securely against him, reminding me that he’s got me and he’s not letting go. And that’s when I realize...I trust him.

Why? I don’t know, but for some reason, way up here, I feel safer than I ever have with anyone else. Levi’s hold on me is powerful, and I don’t just mean that in the physical sense. He’s held me since day one, and despite the time and distance that’s passed between us, here we are again.

I can’t believe it took jumping out of an airplane to finally see it, but I do now, and I know I can’t go back. I can’t pretend that this month doesn’t mean something. I can’t continue pretending that Levi doesn’t matter. Because he does. Maybe too much.

Of course, all of this is inappropriate. Our parents are married, which means there’s no hope for us. Even if Levi returned the feelings, we could never work. But this arrangement? It has to. Like it or not, my mother has given me an opportunity to excel. If I walk away now, it would be disrespectful, not to mention embarrassing. No doubt, Levi would think it was because I can’t handle being with him, and I’m not about to give him the satisfaction of proving him right. I’ll do what I have to do and stick this month out, but Levi was right. I might as well live while I’m here. So, I’ll take what I want from Levi, and when time is up, I’ll go. I buried these feelings before, and I can damn well do it again.

As Levi brings us safely back to earth, his smile is so wide and filled with joy that I can’t help feeling it, too. He has this infectious quality about him that makes it impossible not to empathize with his moods.

“So, what did you think?”

“I think you’re crazy and I never want to do that again,” I tell him as I peel my fingers from his shoulders and feel the solid ground beneath my feet again. “But I’m also glad I went. I can cross skydiving off my bucket list.”

“You have a bucket list?”

“Yep. I made it when I was a kid.” I used to be a dreamer before I became an adult and realized that everything takes money and time, neither of which I have much of.

Escorting me back to the hangar where we started this crazy journey, Levi asks, “How much of it have you checked off?”

“This is the first.”

Stopping in his tracks, Levi stares at me like I’ve sprouted a second head. “Are you serious?”

“Yes, why?”

Shaking his head, he continues on. “I just figured with someone as ambitious as you, you would have at least half of it done. I had mine almost done, but with all the traveling, I’ve been adding to it.”

“You have a list?” I ask, looking up at him.

“Doesn’t everybody?”

I don’t know, but we do, and I feel strangely happy knowing that we share that common thread. Having something in common with Levi gives me a warm feeling in my chest that isn’t entirely uncomfortable but is completely worrisome.

I can tell by the way he avoids eye contact that Levi can sense something has changed, too. Thankfully, he doesn’t look any more eager than I feel to talk about it. He helps me strip out of my pack, letting his hands linger a little longer than necessary before removing his own, and then we’re back in the car, speeding back to his penthouse.

13

“Dig in deep, princess. Oh, yeah, right there.”

I’m laid out on the chaise lounge in the middle of the living room receiving the best massage of my life. Vista’s fingers are magic. They press down in all the right places, like they know exactly where the aches have formed and are on a mission to eliminate them. Ever since the skydiving stunt I pulled, she’s been quiet. Stiff. Reserved in a way that makes me want to draw out some of that fire I know she has inside of her.

She thinks I didn’t notice the change in her, but I did. Something happened up there among the clouds. Something that makes her even more uncomfortable to be around me than she was when she first arrived, and I know exactly what it is.

She hasn’t been able to take her eyes off me. I know, because I haven’t been able to take my eyes off her. Having sex with her wasn’t my brightest idea. Instead of working out years’ long frustrations, it’s only complicated things further. I can’t stop thinking about how it felt to be inside her and, God help me, once wasn’t enough. So, to distract myself from throwing her down on the floor and crawling back inside her, I’ve decided to put her to work doing exactly what she came here to do: keep my muscles loose. I don’t know if it’s due to the talk we had or that she’s looking for any excuse to touch me, but I’ve somehow managed to talk her into a full-body massage, citing the aches and pains that require medicinal intervention most days. And it’s not a lie. My body is sore, just maybe not as much as I claimed.