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She narrowed her eyes at him, amusement gone from her face. “You don’t own me, Falcon. No one does. And I guess this stupid skydiving thing isn’t actually about facing my fears. It’s about me refusing to let anyone make me play small.” She glared at him. “Again, to reiterate, I don’t appreciate you being so autocratic that I have to jump. If I die on this jump, I will take my irritation with you to the grave.”

Falcon wanted to grin at the same time he wanted to toss her over his shoulder and drag her back to his truck. “Bella,” he said quietly. “I’ll admit I’m a little bit of a control freak, but it’s literally my job to keep you safe. If I’m not strapped to you, I can’t control your flight, and I can’t keep you safe. We’ll find another place.”

She raised her chin and looked him in the eye. Then she turned away and spoke to Ralph, a thirty-something man wholooked annoyingly capable. “How many times have you jumped in tandem?” she asked him.

His gaze flicked to Falcon, and then he grinned with just a little bit of flippancy. “Over a thousand. I’ve been jumping for more than ten years.”

“Great.” She nodded. “And how many times have you crashed?”

His smile widened. “Never.”

“How many times have you come close?”

“Zero.”

“All right. Let’s do it then.”

Ralph shot Falcon a look of full-blown amusement before turning his full attention to Bella. “Great, let’s get started?—”

“Bella.” Falcon touched her arm. “No?—”

She spun to face him. “I appreciate you want to protect me, Falcon. I do. But I need to be unprotected. You can jump with us, or you can wait on the ground. What do you want to do?”

He swore under his breath, but he saw the determination in her eyes. It was the fire he’d seen in her face when she was a gritty teenager refusing to die in the streets. It had been a long time since he’d seen that fire. He’d be a total ass to try to crush it.

She nodded, clearly sensing his capitulation. “You’re jumping with us, then?”

“Yeah.”

“Great. Let’s do this. Can’t wait to find my power.”

THIRTEEN

This waswhy Bella needed a life without men.

Because she was currently in a tiny plane, really high up off the ground, strapped to a stranger, about to jump out of the freaking plane.

All because Falcon had pissed her off.

“You don’t have to do this,” Falcon said, looking rugged, manly, and not at all scared. He was also strapped to an instructor, which was hilarious, but she was too scared to think anything was funny, so not hilarious.

“Seriously?” She looked at him. “If I were strapped to you right now, you’d be encouraging me to do it. And instead you’re trying to treat me like I’m small, just because you’re not the one protecting me.”

He grinned. “Maybe the whole thing was a ploy to get you to jump.”

“What?” Disbelief shot through her. “You manipulated me?”

His smile widened. “No, I didn’t. I’m not that clever.”

“You are that clever. But you’re not that mean. You’re just too much testosterone.”

Ralph leaned over her shoulder. “Five seconds count down.”

“Oh, God.” She closed her eyes. She didn’t want to do this. She didn’t want to do this. She was so stupid. She’d decided to jump out of a plane because a man she was paying to protect her had tried to protect her? She was an idiot. A full idiot. “I take it back. You can be overprotective. I’m not going to jump.” Wait. Was Ralph still counting down? “Wait, Ralph?—”

Suddenly, she was out of the plane, and on her way to her death.

“Holy crap! Oh my God!”