Make Me Risk It Read Free

around them, blanching when she noticed how far they’d climbed up the jagged rock spill. “Oh, crap.” She reached, clutching desperately at the edge of the opening above them for balance.
    “If it bothers you, stop looking,” Jake said firmly. “Look where you’re going, not where you’ve been.” He pointed up at the sunny opening and put his hand on her back. “Go on.”
    “But . . .”
    “Just do it,” he said, pushing on her back. “It’s not hard to pull yourself out. I’m coming right after you.” When she wavered in the hole, he firmed his resolve. He pushed on her butt hard. She disappeared with a surprised squawk.
    He followed her fleetly through the opening. She was on her hands and knees on the sunny cliff, her head turned, her aquamarine eyes flashing fire.
    “It got you up here,” he stated simply, coming to his feet. He reached for her hand as a form of apology. Her expression of outrage melted to one tinged with wonder. Slowly, she fell back onto her haunches and took his hand. He hauled her up.
    “You were messing with me so that I wouldn’t notice how high we were on those rocks, weren’t you? You really
do
know more than just how to take care of yourself and math. I think my dad would want to meet you,” she said once they stood facing each other, their hands remaining clasped.
    He rolled his eyes to diminish the warmth that rushed through him at her compliment. She smiled at his flash of embarrassment, all her fury forgotten. She glanced to the side.
    “Oh,
shit
.”
    She lurched toward the cliff, jerking him with her. She’d seen the drop-off to the gorge. Her face had gone pale as paper, making the light freckles on her nose appear even more pronounced. She pressed her back to the cliff wall.
    “Harper—”
    “I’m
not
jumping off that ledge,” she declared hotly. “That’s
not
thirty feet!”
    “Yeah, it is,” he reasoned, sensing he was losing her. “The hills and the canyon make a kind of . . . of . . . an optical illusion.”
Yeah, that’s it.
“It fools the brain into thinking the river is farther down than it is.”
    “Really?” She cast a wary glance over his shoulder in the direction of the gorge. He’d guessed she’d be convinced by anything that had to do with the brain and psychology, given the way she seemed to hold her dad up on such a tall pedestal. Jake wasn’t above using that knowledge to convince her.
    “Yeah,” he insisted, tugging on her hand. She straightened, leaving the wall but refusing to move her feet and get closer to the ledge. Unfortunately—or fortunately, depending upon Jake’s frantic, bewildering feelings about her—that meant that she stood very close to him.
    “I can’t jump off that cliff, Jake,” she said solemnly, holding his stare.
    “
You
don’t have to. We’re going to do it together.” He put his hands on her hips. They felt round beneath his hands . . . such an incredible, mesmerizing swell of flesh. How could a girl be so
different
than a boy?
    “Like this?” she asked shakily, putting her hands below his waist, mirroring his hold on her. She stepped closer.
    He nodded, unable to speak for a few seconds.
    “Except tighter. I won’t let go of you, Harper.”
    She glanced soberly to the right. The ledge of the cliff was three feet away.
    “I
promise
,” he added.
    He felt her fear bubbling just beneath the surface.
    “Okay,” she finally said reluctantly.
    He let out a sigh of relief.
    “Wait,”
he said when she started to shuffle cautiously over the ledge, her face pale.
    “What?”
    “We . . . we have to . . . we have to take our clothes off first—or at least some of them,” he said in a desperate burst. “I only had room in the packs to bring us one extra shirt, some socks, and some extra underwear for me, but I didn’t have any for—”
    “For me. I know,” she said, her cheeks coloring. She looked down at his chest. “It’s weird, wearing jeans without