Gary’s priorities were no longer what they had been. Strapped into his crash couch inside the delivery capsule not even a week earlier, what had been foremost in his mind was fulfilling his lifelong dream of heading into space, becoming a pioneer in his own right, and sharing the majesty and wonder of this new frontier with the billions of others whose feet would likely never leave terrestrial ground.
As ridiculously grand as those aspirations sounded to him now, all of that was still important. But those ambitions had been demoted, nudged a rung or two down the ladder to make room for Hannah—a woman who kept putting him off, very likely so she could let him down later when they were in a safer and saner environment.
He was determined to change her mind first.
Gary found himself headed toward the Midden’s docking bay. He pushed himself into the compartment, pretending that he was getting ready to suit up again and head out through the hatch into open space to save the day. But then he laughed at the boyish fantasy.
“I’ve already been Buck Rogers.” He needed to figure out what came next.
He rested a hand on the airlock door, then pushed off from the wall to head back into the corridor on another lap of the ship, but he was startled to find Joey blocking his path.
“Buck Rogers, huh?” Joey hovered in the corridor opening, his arms and legs spread wide to keep Gary from slipping past. “Is that supposed to be funny?”
“Just talking to myself.” Gary grabbed a hand-hold on the wall above his head. “You doing some work in here? Need any help?”
Joey’s smile was tight and dry. “I think you’ve helped quite enough already.”
Gary had no idea what Joey was upset about, but he got the feeling that asking him about it would be a mistake. He waited in uncomfortable silence, Joey eyeing him up and down while Gary tried to figure a way out of the docking bay that didn’t involve going through Joey. But his only other option was the airlock.
Gary glanced toward the airlock door, his laughter sounding nervous to his own ears. “What would you say my chances are?”
Joey chuckled, but the anger in his face remained. “Not too good.”
Gary took a deep breath and let go of his hand-hold. “Okay. Let’s have it.” He closed his eyes and spread his arms, hoping Joey would back down or launch into some kind of preamble about what had gotten him all worked up.
Instead, Gary felt a sudden, sharp strike followed by an explosion of pain in the center of his face as his nose took the full brunt of Joey’s grudge. His eyes flared open. He was spinning in space, arms flailing for a strap or cupboard he might grab onto while his nose sprayed tiny droplets of blood in his spiraling wake.
“That’s for Barbie!” Joey shouted, his words distorted to Gary’s ears by the Doppler effect of his continuing spin. “She’s just a kid, not some space toy for, for Buck Rogers.”
Why the nose? It was still tender and swollen from his epic face-plant on the moon, and now the Midden’s pilot had added both insult and further injury.
Breathing through his mouth, Gary grunted and cursed and tried to stop his whirling about. His nose was surely broken now. Lightning cracks of pain vibrated through his cheekbones and teeth and up into his sinuses, and he felt the familiar rise of hot bile in his throat. For a fraction of a second, he saw the tabloid headline: “Face of Space Tosses Weight, Cookies, on Zero-G Diet.”
“Gary!”
Gary caught sight of Hannah’s face over Joey’s shoulder as he rotated around again. His fingertips grazed one of the walls, slowing his momentum just enough to allow the pain and nausea to catch up.
“What did you do to him!” Hannah shoved Joey out of the way, sending the pilot careening into the corridor as she dove for Gary. He felt her hands gripping his shoulders and pulling him toward the wall. She guided his fingers to the tether straps to hold onto.
“Aargh, Haddah, by dight id shidin ahrmba.” Gary held one hand in front of his face, shielding her from what was surely a grotesque sight. But she pulled his hand away.
“Stop fighting me and let me see.”
The docking bay lights stung Gary’s watering eyes and seemed to come at him from every direction. Squeezing his eyelids shut only made the pain worse. The rational part of his brain was still active and wondered what kind of painkillers the Midden might have onboard, and that helped to keep him from screaming as Hannah delicately prodded Gary’s nose and cheeks.
“Broken,” he mumbled between hisses of pain.
“You’ve got some real shitty timing, Joey.” Hannah held Gary’s face in her hands. Did she have tears in her eyes, or was his own vision clouded? Gary blinked blearily and watched the stray droplets of his blood coil slowly around each other as they were sucked into the air circulators.
“You know we’re going to air in just a couple of hours,” Hannah continued her rebuke. “What if I need him on camera again? And I needed . . .” Her voice trailed off just as Gary came back into focus. He really wanted to know how that sentence was meant to end.
“He had that coming.” Joey was sulking just inside the bulkhead opening. Barbie came down the corridor behind him and gasped when she saw Gary bleeding.
“What happened?!” Barbie shrieked. “Gary!”
Joey caught her arm as she tried to fling herself into the compartment. “He’s so not worth it.”
“So much for the Face of Space.” Hannah sighed. She turned Gary’s head from one side to the other and assessed the damage. “You can’t go in front of the camera looking like this.”
“Thowy.” Gary grimaced at his malformed speech, and new shocks of pain ricocheted through his cheek bones. He was glad there wasn’t a mirror nearby. “You do it.”
“Hold still.” Hannah pressed a cloth against his nostrils, so at least he wasn’t continuing to spray blood everywhere. Then she looked him in the eye and smiled. A genuine, engaged smile.
Gary’s eyes widened. He wondered if he should try to get punched in the nose more often.
“You did this, didn’t you?” Barbie screeched as she lunged at Joey. “After all the times I’ve told you I can take care of myself, and you have to go and do this. Again!”
“You have the absolute worst taste in men,” Joey shot back. “A bunch of cads and losers.”
“How would I even know? You never let me get as far as a first date!” Barbie’s shrill voice reached into the upper registers, and Gary cringed at the sound.
He worried about a new fight erupting between Joey and Barbie, but Hannah muffled a laugh and Gary managed to relax. He’d seen how salvage crews operated like families. Maybe this was some sibling bickering.
“Think you’re okay to move?” Hannah’s hands were warm and firm on his own, and there was a new softness to her voice that set off a tingling in his chest that was a pleasant counterpoint to the throbbing ache of his face.
Gary nodded. There was a brief flare of nausea, but he forced it away through sheer determination. Whatever was happening with Hannah, he’d be damned if he’d let another bout of space sickness get in the way.
He straightened his body. He hadn’t realized he’d curled up in a ball in the corner of the compartment. Clutching the cloth against his tender nose—combined with Hannah’s insistent ministrations and Barbie’s continued shrieking—had Gary feeling decidedly unmanly. But then Hannah turned him to face her, and his world changed in an instant.
“I know what you did,” she said in a low voice as Joey and Barbie continued their squabble.
“What did I do?”
“What you did, what you didn’t do.” Hannah shrugged. “I talked to Dana and Sid, and Olivia dug up that horrible recording.” She held his gaze and took a breath. “Gary, I’m sorry. I’ve been flaky and judgmental and I guess I just never gave you a chance.”
“S’okay.” The whole trip had been a fiasco from the start. He wanted to say as much, but the effort of forming a complete sentence seemed temporarily beyond him. Gary’s eyes were still watering from the
injury and his vision was blurring. He really hoped Hannah wouldn’t think he was crying.
“You’re, uh, you’re my space hunk,” Hannah said softly.
Gary’s breath caught in his throat. Before he could respond, Hannah cradled his head in her hands and—in a more pleasant replay of what had happened on the moon—planted her mouth on his. Her kiss was strong and eager but not forceful, getting her point across while being mindful of his injury.
Sparks of pain lit up every nerve ending in Gary’s face and neck, but he didn’t seem to mind. Instead, he pulled her closer.
“Are you freaking kidding me?!” Barbie’s voice pierced the moment of tender heat. Until her outburst, Gary had forgotten anyone else was present.
He groaned in frustration as Hannah pulled away from him to face Barbie. “Get used to it. There’s a lot more where that came from.”
Barbie stared opened-mouthed next to Joey while Hannah grabbed the front of Gary’s jumpsuit and pulled him toward the corridor.
“We don’t have an infirmary,” Barbie barked as they passed. “So where do you think you’re going?”
Hannah laughed. “To get it on.” She glanced back at Gary and winked. “We’re under orders from Rufus to explore sex in space, right?”
Gary tried to clear his head as she towed him toward her cabin. There was too much happening at once, and he worried that the shock of his injury was messing with his brain. Hannah wasn’t honestly proposing a new television segment, was she? Were they back to their efficient professionalism, but now with some kink? He grabbed the nearest wall tether so he could stop and try to think.
But the look Hannah gave him when she turned around put his fears to rest. Her eyes were dark, her pupils dilated and locked on Gary. Mischief danced at the corners of her mouth. Her face flushed as she smiled. “Something wrong, Gary?”
He took a deep breath through his mouth and tried to ignore the pounding in his head and the rubber pancake sensation that was creeping over most of his face. He let go of the tether. “Lead the way.”
They tumbled into Hannah’s dark cabin, one right on top of the other as they giggled with nervous excitement and tried to get oriented in the microgravity.
Gary soon found himself tangled in Hannah’s sleep sack tethered to the wall and when he yanked one foot loose, he promptly smashed his face into one of the cupboards. His field of vision exploded with white fireworks of spectacular pain.
“Ow,” was all he managed to say as he cupped his hands around his nose.
“We’ll watch the nose.” Hannah closed her cabin door and switched on a low-power reading lamp.
Gary got a decent look at the space—easily twice as large as the tiny cupboards they’d been given on the Churly Flint, with plenty of room to maneuver—right before Hannah pressed him back against the wall, her body covering his. She kissed his ear, her lips aggressive at first and then becoming more shy, before she stopped altogether and rested her head on his shoulder.
“I’m sorry,” she murmured against his neck. “I shouldn’t make assumptions.” She started to push herself away, but Gary caught her arm and pulled her back.
“Really, I don’t mind.” He stroked her hair, delighting in the springy, silky curls that escaped the tight knot high on her head. He wrapped one coil around his finger and laughed. He marveled at his own stupid luck. This trip of a lifetime had given him some epic motion sickness, nearly killed him on the moon, broken his nose (care of a space pirate), and now thrust him into the arms of a woman he probably didn’t deserve. After days of frustrated and sometimes frosty interactions, he wondered what had her turning her deliciously heated attentions his way. But he was afraid to ask.
Mindful of his swollen nose, Gary held her close against his chest and turned his head to kiss her brow.
But Hannah squirmed out of his embrace and reached for the wall. She pulled open one of the drawers, popped a couple of pills out of a foil sheet, and handed them to Gary. “Ibuprofen. I’m afraid it’s the best I can do for you at the moment.”
Gary swallowed the pills without water and willed the pain relief to kick in. He rested a hand on her cheek and turned her face toward him.
“What?” she asked with an embarrassed smile.
“I don’t know what to make of you. You’re cool and all business one minute, then angry and almost spiteful the next.” He laughed, feeling the pain loosening its grip. It was a welcome relief to be able to smile without feeling like he was getting smacked in the face. “Then you bring me in here, practically attack me at first, and then turn shy. So which is the real Hannah?”
“Right now, your guess is as good as mine.” She moved closer to him, fitting her body against his as he wrapped his arms around her. “I like to think of myself as a fairly straightforward person.”
“Nah, you’re complicated and interesting, like me.”
She tilted her head to look up at him, and he kissed her long and deep before she could pull away again. His mouth moved slowly over hers, absent the hurried insistence of the moments before. She let out a small, sighing moan.
He felt her body relax against him, but he was having trouble turning off his brain. He started musing on the mechanics of sex in space, not to mention how to proceed without causing further, painful damage to his face. He wasn’t concerned about the procedures required to fix his appearance once he was back on Earth—so that viewing audiences didn’t feel the immediate urge to vomit whenever the Face of Space appeared on-screen. But he didn’t imagine that additional agony and girlish shrieking on his part would be much of a turn-on to Hannah.
He rested his head back just as Hannah ran her tongue over his lips, and he was immediately sorry for the bad timing. He cleared his throat. “Umm, is there any chance you’ve been in touch with the first wave of Mars colonists?”
Hannah frowned. More of her hair had come loose from her bun and drifted forward to obscure her face and throw her features into shadow. “Actually, I have. Is that really what you want to talk about right now?”
Gary tightened his grip around her waist to underscore his immediate intentions. He was definitely not trying to start a purely intellectual conversation. “I was wondering if you’d, you know, picked up any specific tips . . . ?”
Understanding dawned on Hannah’s face in the form of a playful smile. “Of course!” She rotated around him and pressed her back flat against her sleeping sack. He watched as she hooked one foot in a wall-mounted tether, then reached over her shoulders to grab two more with her hands.
“You just have to anchor yourself . . .” Her smile widened. “Apparently, it’s all about leverage.”
Gary nearly laughed. Even when it came to sex she was somehow still level-headed and direct. She was taking charge, showing Gary his marks, without issuing orders. He very much liked the idea of getting used to this. She waited for his response, her eyes dancing over his face. She didn’t seem put off by his swollen nose or bruises.
Gary grasped her wrists and drew himself closer to her. She was his anchor, holding him steady as they settled against the wall. “They’ve had a lot of time on their hands, to figure this out?”
“Mmm.” Hannah raised one knee and used her free leg to secure him against her. Gary let out an involuntary groan as her soft body moved beneath his. “Lots of experimentation. All in the name of science, of course.”
Gary buried his face in her neck, ignoring the brief flares of pain. “Thank goodness for science.” He pushed away her collar and bit softly at the tender flesh of her shoulder and collarbone, and delighted in her laughter as she freed one of her hands to unzip the front of her own nuclear green jumpsuit before she pulled on his zipper.
The sensation of her fingers exploring his torso—first over the high-tech fabric of the t-shirt, and then finding his skin beneath—sent an electric ripple of excitement directly to his groin. His breath caught in his throat as she reached downward, and he hastily untangled his fingers from her hair and released her waist
so he could shrug out of his jumpsuit.
It wasn’t an elegant maneuver and he got his foot trapped in the suit for an infuriating moment. But Hannah’s laughter warmed his skin. Once free, he balled up the jumpsuit and attempted to throw it to the floor in a dramatic flourish, but the wadded garment instead drifted toward the wall and then hovered in space. He didn’t like the idea of getting snarled up in that thing again.
“Umm, do you I think I should . . . ?”
“Leave it.” Hannah grabbed his chin and turned his face forcefully toward her. She set upon his open mouth with her own, her tongue slipping past his lips as her hand ventured down his midriff again, her fingers toying for a moment with the elastic waistband of his space briefs. “Last chance to abort,” she giggled against his mouth.
“Not a chance in hell.” Gary grabbed her jumpsuit by the shoulders and attempted to tear it away from her body. But the fabric was strong and stubborn and the zippers sturdily made, and his fervent ripping of her clothing turned into a gentler gesture as he eased her jumpsuit off her arms and down her legs. He was pleased by the delicate lace of her teal green bra and panties—instead of the standard issue, military-style undergarments that had been provided to the Mars Ho colonists. He ran his fingers over the dark-colored silk and let his hands stray down over her thighs.
“Oh, umm, about that . . .” Hannah pulled his hands away from her legs and placed them firmly on her breasts. He muttered his approval of the progress.
“I, uh, didn’t exactly have time to go to the salon or anything before we left, and I didn’t think that, you know, so . . .” Her voice was tighter, apologetic.
Gary understood her meaning, but honestly hadn’t noticed any problem. He was about to tell her how much he preferred a more natural woman to the frankly bizarre practices of vajazzling and the like when his brain started working again—sorting out the challenges of personal grooming on long-haul spaceflight, what sorts of sponsorships DayLite Syndicate might have worked out for the colonists once they reached their new home on Mars, and what kind of recipe for body wax might be fed into the food or materials printer . . . He groaned aloud and cursed his intrusive imagination.
Lovers and Lunatics (Mars Adventure Romance Series Book 2) Page 19
