by Nora Lane
No man had ever affected me like this. It was terrifying. Like I didn't have control of my own body.
Undress me?
Did he think he could just take me? Right here? Without so much as a handshake and a how-do-you-do?
What an arrogant ass!
“You overstep, Mr. Sinclair. You’ve made a grave mistake if you think I’m just going to jump into bed with you. If you think a smile is enough to open my legs.”
I said it. And it almost came out convincing.
His smile was so enough to open my legs.
“Out of the suit, I meant,” he said with a grin. That gorgeous grin. The one that ignited on his lips and exploded on mine.
My pink ones.
Down there.
He unfastened the last restraint and immediately my body floated up off the seat. The crocodile in my belly went into overdrive.
Noah pushed me back into the seat and clicked the seal on my helmet. He rotated it a fraction and my ears popped as the pressure in the cabin leaked in. He lifted my helmet off and let it float off to the side.
I was catatonic. Rebuffing his crude—and wonderful!—suggestion took it all out of me. I had no more reserves.
He lifted me gently so our eyes were level. His sparked a low yellow fire.
“Welcome to Orbital One, Ms. Gabarro. I've been waiting to meet you for a long time.”
I tried to be normal. To say the normal thing you'd say in a situation like that. Like “Nice to meet you” or “Thanks for inviting me”.
But that didn't happen.
I opened my mouth and a geyser of vomit shot out.
All over his face.
Nice to meet you, Noah Sinclair.
CHAPTER FOUR
The contents of my belly smacked him in the face and then splashed off, drifting through the air in ropey globs.
The horror.
A month seemed far too long to live. I could've died that second and been happy.
He swiped the gray shiny fabric of his arm across his face. It's soaked up the yuck better than a roll of Bounty paper towels. He finished cleaning his face and wiped my lips.
“Perhaps I've been gone too long,” he said, “but I expected a handshake or a hello.”
My skin blushed pink. My heart hammered in my ears.
This was not the professional introduction I’d imagined. Did TV reporters throw up on the president before they began an interview?
“I’m, uhh, sorry, Mr. Sinclair. This is all so disorienting.”
Of course half of that was this stunning Apollo figure in front of me, but I wasn't going to tell him that.
“I should've expected it,” he said. “I apologize. I should've been better prepared. Had a mop and bucket ready.”
He flashed a mocking smile and my heart almost exploded. The heat between my legs did.
The crocodile in my belly decided it had one last spin left in it. My stomach cramped and I fought to keep it down.
Noah grabbed my floating helmet out of the air and whipped it over just as another heave ripped through me. My twisting belly filled the helmet. Noah yanked a clipboard off the ceiling and sealed it before any of my yuk could escape. He strapped it in the corner.
“Astro!” he called.
A few seconds later, the strangest thing I'd ever seen floated through the hatch toward us. Which was really saying something at this point. It was a mishmash of gears and circuit boards and tubes. It whirred and clicked as it glided closer.
It looked like an evil robotic, Lego abomination. There was no question it wanted to probe and dissect me. And then probe me again.
I squealed.
Confident women didn't squeal. They may yell or scream or shriek. They didn't squeal. I wasn't happy that I did, but I wasn't feeling especially confident at the moment. I’d have to take that into account if I was going to forgive myself later.
I jumped on Noah and clung to him like a palm tree in a hurricane. His arm wrapped under me. I peeked over his shoulder as the thing drifted closer. Its eyes glowed red. It was definitely evil. And definitely out to do terrible things to my private parts.
It sailed into Noah's outstretched other hand.
“What is that horrific thing?” I asked.
The thing growled at me.
I ducked my head into Noah's broad shoulder.
He laughed and stroked the monster.
“Don’t be scared, Ms. Gabarro.”
Me? Scared? I wasn’t scared. I was apprehensively confident. I was negligibly assured. But I wasn’t scared.
Who did this billionaire, space playboy think he was?
I popped my head back out. The thing’s eyes flashed red. It wanted to get me. First with the probing and then with the dissecting. I knew how these stories went. I squeezed into Noah’s body tighter. Partly from fear, and partly because it felt so good. The gray fabric melted away between us. His muscles molded shapes into me.
If it were up to me, I would’ve stayed there clinging to him forever. Until the day I died.
It wasn’t up to me because my butt was yelling that Noah’s large hand had a firm grip on it.
He was trying to land a home run and we’d just met. I was not that kind of girl!
I picked my head up, all thought of the metallic beast swept aside, and looked into the most gorgeous eyes that had ever been, since eyes came into being.
I needed to say something.
What?
Oh yea.
“Mr. Sinclair, your hand seems to be on my buttocks.”
He looked down, as if it was news to him. “So it is.”
“Could you do something about that?”
“Sure,” he said, “Want me to add the other?”
As much as I wanted nothing more than both his hands gripping my bottom, pulling me close—
“Mr. Sinclair, please remove your hand.”
He let go of the metal monster.
“Your other hand, Mr. Sinclair.”
He grinned. “Oh, of course.” He gave my rump a little squeeze and let go.”
With as much dignity as I could muster, which was next to none, I dismounted him and tried to put my feet on the floor.
Lord, he was huge. He didn't look this big in the broadcast I remembered from my youth. Or in all of the images I searched online.
Noah held me in place and grabbed the robot thing with his other hand. He held us apart, facing each other. It growled at me again.
“Ms. Gabarro, this is Astro.”
I nodded at the robotic scrapheap. “Is he like a dog?”
Astro growled again. This dogbot had a seriously bad attitude.
Noah laughed. “She is like a dog, only better.” He looked around the small cockpit, at the globs of my yuk floating by.
“She's a great cuddler and she keeps this station squeaky clean.”
Cuddle that beast? Not gonna happen. It would be like if you blasted a computer with a shotgun and then took all the pieces and glued them back together in any old, random order. Who in their right mind would cuddle that?
Maybe Noah wasn't in his right mind. Maybe ten years in space makes you want to cuddle a cactus.
“Astro,” Noah said, “this is Ms. Gabarro.”
She growled again. Talk about making a terrible first impression. I hadn’t said more than a handful of words and already this dogbot had it in for me.
The sound faded as she looked up and around the cockpit. She pushed off of Noah's arm toward the biggest glob wobbling in the upper corner. She drifted over and anchored to the wall. A tube extended from what I assumed was her mouth. A gurgling sucking sound accompanied a clean up job on aisle sicks.
She finished that wavering glob and pushed off toward another.
Maybe I’d have to give her another chance. My apartment back home desperately needed an Astro of its own. Keeping up with housework wasn't my thing.
“Thanks girl,” Noah said. He looked at me. “She's not used to meeting new people. Be nice to her
and she'll warm up.”
I nodded. I didn't know what to think about having to act nice too that thing. To a moving computer program. Like it was judging me.
As long as it wasn't probing me, I’d try the olive branch.
“Astro will take care of that. Let’s get you out of this suit.”
The shock of the dogbot made me completely forget the acid taste in my mouth, which I now remembered. It was nasty. It takes years to forget what vomit tastes like.
“Yes please.”
He snapped off my gloves and let them drift away. Astro immediately broke away from cleaning and launched at a glove. She grabbed it in her mouth and shook it back and forth.
“No Astro!” Noah shouted.
Astro spit it out and hung her head, which was actually lifting it because she was drifting upside down above my head.
“She has a few bad habits. I’m not the best trainer.”
He rotated my torso piece and snapped it free. It drifted up over my hands. I looked down and panicked.
The undersuit wasn’t much more than a tight pair of hi-tech thermal underwear. They clung to me with embarrassing clarity.
He tugged my boots off. Thank god the thermals had footies attached. I hadn’t painted my nails in a week. They were a chipped, craggy mess.
He picked me up and flipped me around. His strength combined with the microgravity made me pliable as a sex doll.
“Bend over,” he said.
What?
He was just going to bang me? Take me rough and ready? Fuck me in the ass because all his bimbos back on Earth swore it was their favorite?
“In your dreams, Mr. Sinclair!”
“Spread your legs.”
“How dare you! I’m here to interview you, not be your personal sex slave.”
I so wanted to be his personal sex slave.
He chuckled. “I meant to get the suit legs off. It helps to bend over and wiggle out.”
He wanted me to wiggle? With my backside in clear view?
Fine.
I bent over, grabbed the chair, and wiggled my butt out of the last of the suit. I looked over my shoulder and happily noted Noah’s chest pumping air faster than it had been a moment ago. The bulge in his pants was noticeably bigger too.
I tried to turn around, accidentally pushed myself up and cracked my head on an overhanging bar.
“Owww! Shit!”
So much for sexy suave.
He brought me back down and pulled me close. His massive arms surrounded me in a protective cocoon. Something unbelievably big and hard jutted into my stomach.
“Moving in microgravity is tough until you get the hang of it,” he said. “I don't want you to crack your melon on a bulkhead or a truss. So I'll hang on to you for now.”
He paused to wait for my agreement.
“That sounds good,” I said.
And immediately wished I hadn't.
“I meant the not cracking my head, not the hanging on.”
He grinned, obviously pleased with my discomfort. He whirled me around and settled my smaller form into the protective shell of his much larger one. I fit perfectly. I wanted more than anything to be like this forever. My backside warmed by his hard body. By a particular bit of hardness.
He held me with one arm and pushed off for the open hatch.We glided through the air like Superman and Lois Lane.
I wondered if we’d have super sex.
CHAPTER FIVE
We wouldn’t, of course.
Because this was an interview.
And I was a professional, or at least determined to act like one.
Still, it was hard not to imagine it with his body cupped around me. His warmth seeped through the thin fabric of my thermals.
His arm wrapped around me, under my breasts. For the first time in my adult life, my chest didn't feel like an anchor dragging me down.
Microgravity. That's what he called it.
I wondered what it would be like having super sex in microgravity.
We floated through a wide corridor. His outstretched arm pulling us forward and protecting my head from the bars and beams that jutted out at odd angles. He pulled us along thick cables that ran down the hall.
“This is a service corridor,” he said. “It's the only access to the docking bay in the central hub. I've been meaning to clean it up, but priorities are a hard fact of life on a space station. In an emergency, there is another docking bay, but it isn’t pressurized so you’d need to be suited up to survive it. Normally, it’s used for supply drops.”
“Are you expecting an emergency?”
“Always. It’s the only way to survive out here.”
As we moved further along the corridor, passed a number of bulkheads, I noticed the sensation of weight returning. Noah tucked us through a final bulkhead and spun us around so his feet were facing forward, or down, or the direction we were going. Directions became a bit blurry when there was effectively no down.
He held me with one arm and mounted a ladder built into the wall. We slid down the ladder at first without effort.
Halfway down, I noticed his feet were using the rungs. We went the rest of the way and he sat me on my feet. I infinitely preferred floating through the air in his embrace.
He held my shoulders a moment as I adjusted to the feeling of standing again. Of having a down again. Of a floor that I didn't float off of. It was like gravity back home. I took a step, and tripped. Noah caught me before I ate steel. Or aluminum. Or whatever the dark metal was.
I looked back up at him, shocked and uncertain.
“This feels like gravity. Like regular earth stuff,” I said.
“That's because it is,” he said. “As close as we can get it. Cosmo, what's the equivalency?”
A speaker hidden somewhere nearby chirped to life.
“The outer ring’s rotation produces a gravitational equivalent of 1.0176839 at zero feet, Earth mean sea level. My attempts to bring it closer have been unsuccessful.”
That program was seriously type A.
“Keep working on it, Cos,” Noah said. He whispered, “Got to keep his circuits busy so he doesn't get bored. Like hiding bananas for monkeys at the zoo.”
A monkey ran the vitals for this entire space station. A bored monkey was all that stood between me and the death freeze of space.
I was not reassured.
I took a step and it felt just like walking back home.
“How does this work?”
“In simple terms, Orbital One is like a spinning bicycle tire. We are walking on the inner surface of the wheel. Centrifugal force at this speed simulates gravity on earth.”
So we were riding a bicycle tire in the sky, watched over by a bored monkey.
Great.
Noah led me by the hand. We walked down a hallway. It didn’t have pictures of family or favorite vacations. The walls were sleek gray with black lines tracing through them. Like circuits. I looked around noting the conspicuously absent mishmash of gear and raw infrastructure. It was like all the guts were hidden in the service corridors.
“Nice place,” I said. I could at least be friendly, after I vomited in his face and insulted his dog.
“I like to think so,” he said. “ I prefer simple elegance.” He dabbed at something on my chin. “Before you get cleaned up, I'd like to show you something.”
What did he want to show me? Maybe how to peel off that synthetic grey skin he was wearing? I didn’t notice any zippers.
What was happening to me? I’d never been the lustiest babe on the block. The thought of a man seeing me naked was just too uncomfortable. Maybe after I hit the cardio later this summer. Then I’d be more confident.
But there wasn’t going to be a later this summer. Not now. It was amazing how easily you could forget a death sentence. Just long enough that remembering felt like a slap to the face.
He led me down the smooth gray corridor. Like a tunnel bored out of solid rock and polished smooth.
We
arrived at a long window, as big as a car. I thought it was a hole at first, but when we came closer, Noah’s reflection caught in the glass.
His gorgeous reflection.
Now that we weren’t moving and I wasn’t in obvious and immediate danger of falling over, it seemed awkward holding his hand. I released my grip and his eyes caught mine in the reflection. He let go.
It felt like a punch to the gut. A sickness deep in my belly. To disconnect from him. The feeling itself reminded me how confused I was. I needed personal space. A barrier of impersonal air that could diminish his intoxicating proximity.
I’d make certain to sit several feet away during the interview.
He looked out the window into the vast, inky blackness of space. At the stars that shone pure like laser diamonds. I’d never heard of laser diamonds, but it looked like a good bet you’d find them on those stars out there. Probably make a fortune with them in Hollywood.
A trophy wife’s two best friends.
“Any minute now,” he said.
I waited and saw nothing more than the slow arcs of the stars as they traced across the glass.
Something changed.
A subtle difference crept into the corner of the window. It spread. A lightening of the velvet darkness.
And there it was. Sweeping into view.
Like a precious marble forgotten in the depths of a dark closet. Alone and beautiful. Terrifying in its blue splendor.
Earth.
Home.
Out there. Away from me. Everything I’d ever known happened there.
There. Not here.
My throat choked up. Tears pooled in my eyes, gathered courage together, and leapt down my face.
Into the unknown.
Just as I did.
CHAPTER SIX
Noah saw my tears in the glass. He wrapped his arm around me and pulled me close.
“I feel the same way,” he said.
We watched in quiet reverence as the mother of our everything arced by. She seemed so fragile from this perspective. An impossibly thin layer of gauzy atmosphere armored her from the ravages of space. It seemed the slightest puncture would pierce the veil and bring her beauty to ruin.
