Mars Heat (Mars Adventure Romance Series (MARS) Book 3)

by Jennifer Willis

  “Isn’t this what you want?” Her words moved through him as she pressed her lips to his sternum and eased his jumpsuit down over his shoulders. “Oh, my god, you taste so good.”

  Then she giggled, and the vibration tickled him in the most delightful way. He felt himself harden already, throbbing with excitement. He literally ached for her touch. And with Hogan in charge, he knew he wouldn’t have to wait long.

  “Of course the chef would taste good.” She took his nipple gently between her teeth, and the electric sensation went straight to his crotch. Trevor threw his head back and gasped aloud. It had been too long since he’d been touched like this. His mind churned and tried to remind him of something—something he was supposed to do or say—but the only need he could pay attention to was the growing craving he felt for the comfort of her body.

  Her hands were on his chest, pushing him onto his back. He allowed it, for the moment. As she loomed over him, he grasped her waist and flipped her over. He laughed at the surprised delight that lit up her face. She lifted her face to meet his, drawing him down onto her with her kiss, her tongue dancing over his lips and then plunging past them, inviting him in.

  He tugged at her jumpsuit and found her hands on his, opening her clothing and shucking it aside. In the space of what seemed like a single, excited breath, Trevor was down to nothing but his performance briefs as Hogan lay beneath him in her underwear.

  She snapped his waistband and chuckled. “‘UnderCare: Durable tenderness for your tender bits.’ At least Mars Ho got some of the branding right.”

  Her tablet buzzed, and Trevor stilled. She glanced toward her device, just out of reach, and he watched the decision play out on her face. She wanted that data update from the rover. She wanted to know whether or not they were getting fried with enough radiation to do real damage.

  She gripped his hips with her hands. Decision made. “Where were we?”

  Trevor kissed her softly, slowly, resisting the urgency of moments before. He wanted to taste every part of her. He wanted to know precisely what Hogan Kay was made of. On her lips he tasted the salt and the sesame of the rice crackers, but there was a more subtle element beneath that. He explored with his tongue, trying to identify the flavor. There was a spiciness to her, but it was almost fruit-like. Each time he thought he had it, the identification eluded him again.

  Hogan ran her hands up his back, digging into his muscles as her fingers ranged over his body. She broke away from his kiss and bit at his neck. He felt her legs open beneath him as she wrapped herself around his body. He slid one arm under her waist and used his free hand to cup her breast, stroking her nipple through the fabric of her bra. He liked the way she gasped with each brush, and her hips began to grind against him. His own breath came faster and he moaned with every rocking movement of her body.

  So much for his idea of slowing down.

  Hogan tugged off his briefs and then freed herself of her own garments. He liked the way she took charge, even as she lay beneath him. Was this her way of allowing him to feel some control, or to keep her authority from carrying over into lovemaking? He didn’t get the sense that Hogan was someone who liked to be dominated in or out of the bedroom but instead of demanding what she wanted from him, she seemed to welcome him as an equal partner.

  Trevor was naked and lying on top of this beautiful, strong woman who writhed beneath him. She moved her hips against him, seeking to pull him inside. He started to push away.

  “Um, Hogan? Do you think, in the provisions boxes might there be . . . ?”

  She laughed with her mouth at the base of his throat, and the vibration moved through him like warm, cinnamon chocolate. “All the astronauts are on hormonal birth control.”

  “So we don’t need . . . .?”

  “No, we don’t need.” She grabbed his buttocks to hold him still and tilted her pelvis to draw him in.

  Trevor closed his eyes, and all the air rushed out of his body. He was moving with her, his nostrils full of her salty, sweet scent. He dipped his head and buried his face in her neck. He sucked on her skin as though he could breathe her in. The sound of her panting and light moaning was in his ears, and the delicious feel of her body in rhythm with his own pushed him quickly to the edge. He thrust into her, driving deeper, trying to find her core as her groans deepened.

  Her fingers dug into the muscles of his back as she whispered his name, her body tensing and shuddering with her orgasm, her throbbing hold on him quickly sending him over his own cliff into full-throated release.

  His body went limp over hers, and then he felt her laughter moving through him again.

  “I never would have pegged you for a screamer.” Hogan curled his hair in her fingers. She rolled to her side and pressed back against him, wrapping his arms around her curves as she nestled into him. Trevor pulled their jumpsuits over them for warmth. He brushed her hair out of his face and fitted his body around hers, then fell immediately to sleep.

  Hogan rested her hand on Trevor’s shoulder and said his name. No response. She shook him lightly, and Trevor groaned something unintelligible and shifted one arm over his head.

  Waking people gently had never been her strong suit. With lovers, it was even harder. She wasn’t used to having anyone share her bed for an entire night—though they were still inside the rover, only a few hours had elapsed, and the solar particle event was still raging silently outside.

  But waking up with someone wasn’t an experience she’d had in a long time. Back on Earth, she engaged more in “friends with benefits” relationships than actual romance, and many of those pairings didn’t have much actual friendship underpinning them.

  She grabbed his shoulder firmly and jostled him so that he rocked back and forth on the rover’s high-tech flooring. He grumbled and struck his arms out, flailing at nothing, and finally opened his eyes. He lay still and looked up at Hogan. He smiled.

  Her breath caught in her throat as his dark gaze traveled over her face. What would it be like to wake up to these same eyes and face every morning? She pushed the thought down deep. There was no point entertaining silly fantasies about what she could never have.

  He yawned and stretched his magnificent, long arms over his head. “Is it morning?”

  “Not quite. We’re about seven hours in. Middle of the night, if you want to get technical about it.”

  His smile soured into a frown as his gaze traveled down her body. He tugged at the leg of her jumpsuit. “You got dressed.”

  Hogan sat cross-legged on the floor and tried to adopt an air of informal authority. She clasped her hands in her lap. Trevor narrowed his eyes.

  “You’ve got something on your mind.” He sat up and slowly pulled on his underwear. “Something you don’t want to talk about naked.”

  Hogan looked away and pretended to study her tablet screen. The numbers hadn’t changed—the radiation outside was worse than the computer had forecast, but the rover’s shielding was holding. They’d still need a thorough checkup from Martin once they were back at the base.

  But Trevor was right. She did have a serious topic to broach, and it was one that required her authority as the commander of Progress Base. It both irked and warmed her that he’d read her so well.

  He zipped up his jumpsuit and started rummaging around in one of the provisions boxes. He pulled out two bottles of water and unwrapped a protein bar. He held it out to her.

  “I’ve already eaten,” she said.

  He shrugged and bit into the bar. Hogan wondered what the standard-issue emergency provisions must taste like to someone with a palate as sensitive as his.

  “So, let’s have it,” he said around a mouthful of sticky granola and nuts.

  “I’ve got some bad news.”

  “I assumed as much.” Trevor sat across from her, close enough for her to reach out and stroke his cheek—which she was tempted to do, to feel the black stubble of beard that was coming in—but far enough to grant her the command space she required. She not
ed the courtesy.

  “There’s significant concern about the viability of the Mars colony.” She paused. “Well, about this particular group of colonists.”

  Trevor swallowed the last bit of protein bar and washed it down with some water. “That can’t be your news. We’ve been over this.”

  He laid a hand on her knee, and Hogan was jolted by an electric thrill that quickly mellowed to a warm comfort.

  “Hogan, just talk to me. You don’t have to be official or in command in here, not with me.”

  She waited for the familiar bristle across her shoulders at having her authority questioned, but it didn’t come. Because he wasn’t challenging her command. He wasn’t talking back, either. He was simply asking her to talk to him, instead of giving a presentation.

  “They can’t recall all of the colonists,” she said at last. “Not all at once.”

  Trevor’s frown deepened. He put down his water bottle.

  “I haven’t gotten the official word yet from the Hermes Program Director, but I know we can take three of you back with us when we launch next month.”

  “Three.”

  “That means someone has to choose who comes with us to Earth, and who stays on Mars.”

  Trevor sat up straight. “You mean, who has to remain here and die. In your estimation.”

  Hogan swallowed hard. He was taking this better than she’d hoped, but she didn’t like the grit in his voice.

  “It would be a tight squeeze on the ship. It would be uncomfortable, but we’ve got the space and the provisions. We’d be on strict rations for the trip. But if anyone can make that a more palatable experience, you sure could.” She put on a tight smile.

  “You’re assuming any of the colonists would want to get on that ship with you.”

  Hogan tried to suss out his meaning, but his face was impassive. Maybe he didn’t understand what she was offering him.

  “As the commander, I have some pull.” She chuckled, but he didn’t join in. “I can get you off this rock. You don’t have to stay here and perish in this fiasco.”

  Now Trevor laughed, and it was bitter. “You honestly think after going through that ridiculous farce of a reality competition, not to mention the flight here and all the crap since we’ve landed, that any of the residents of Ares City would be so eager to abandon what we’ve barely begun to build?”

  “Dorito Village,” Hogan suggested with a smile.

  “Why would we give up Mars?!”

  Hogan blinked, stunned by his sudden combativeness. She kept her voice calm and measured. “It’s not about giving up, not really. Look, you know what a mess they made of the colonist selection process, and how the colony was left critically unprepared. And that’s no reflection on you or your team.”

  Trevor folded his arms over his chest. “I don’t see how it’s not.”

  “It’s not your fault. Mistakes were made and huge corners were cut by people who should have done better. And the people at the UN . . . I don’t know what they were doing but there was obviously a massive failure in oversight. And the Mars Colony Program isn’t going away.” She gestured vaguely in the direction of Ares City. “Helmut Brandon said so himself. It just needs to be retooled and then they—you—will try again.”

  Trevor worked his jaw back and forth and gazed at something on the wall behind her. “They’re sending supply ships. There will be more colonists. Why shouldn’t we just wait it out?”

  “Because you can’t do it!” Hogan was surprised by her own volume as she shouted at him. “You don’t have a real doctor! You barely have a pair of engineers. The leader you elected doesn’t have any training. You’ve got a colony populated by marketing specialists and gossip columnists, for Christ’s sake.”

  “And chefs,” he added. “Don’t forget that part.”

  Hogan tapped her water bottle on the floor in an angry pattern. “We’re leaving. Do you get that? We’re not going to be here to look after you.”

  Trevor’s mouth curved into a cold smile. Hogan felt a dark shiver run up her spine.

  “No, that’s not what I meant.”

  “For better or for worse, Commander Kay, I will not abandon my own people. I think you’ll be hard pressed to find a single colonist who would be willing to do so.”

  Hogan winced at the sound of her title on his lips, spoken with such bitterness. Her tablet pinged and the screen lit up with an “all clear” message.

  “Saved by the bell.” Trevor stood and stared down at her. “Do we have to wait, or can we start taking down the radiation tent?”

  “No, we can start dismantling . . .”

  He was tugging at the tent’s closures before she could finish her sentence.

  “Trevor, wait!”

  He turned to look at her.

  “No, I mean, yes, the storm is over, we’re okay. It’s just . . .” She took a breath and was grateful when he didn’t immediately go back to yanking down the tent. “I made a mess of this. I was trying to offer you another option, a way out of a potentially very bad situation. You’re not stuck here, if you don’t want to be. You don’t have to become a permanent relic of Mars’s first ghost town.”

  Trevor offered a respectful nod, and Hogan felt a sigh of relief escape her body. But his shoulders didn’t loosen, and his gaze was full of disappointment and maybe even a little hurt. He went back to the tear-down.

  “You’re forgetting, commander, about the thrill of dangerous adventure,” he said, his voice straining as he worked. “Did you become an astronaut, or come all the way to Mars, only after you were guaranteed survival and success?”

  Hogan’s mouth dropped open. At least he had his back to her and couldn’t see her reaction. She scrambled for something she could say to communicate both respect and concern, with a little apology and coercion, but she was distracted by a chirping noise coming from somewhere nearby. She pushed her way out of the radiation tent and sat at rover’s dashboard. Her team was back online.

  “Say again?” Hogan turned up the comms volume. “Repeat, please.”

  “Oh, hey! There you are,” Miranda’s cheerful voice sounded over the comms. “I was just saying that we’re ready to come out of the shelter now, but we ran through our suits’ air supply more quickly than we’d anticipated, before the storm.”

  Hogan stared at Trevor’s back. He was angry with her. Or she thought he was. And now he’d cooled into a hard iciness she didn’t know how to breach. She was afraid that if she touched him she’d find her fingers covered in frost.

  “And the batteries are pretty low, so we’re having trouble recharging our suits from the shelter’s air recyclers.” Miranda was still talking, and Hogan pulled herself back into focus. “We’ll have to check that out. But on a later foray.”

  Miranda’s laugh was light, but Hogan felt her chest tighten. Outside the rover, the radiation shutters retracted with a noisy clackety-clack.

  “Because I’d really like to get back to civilization, or the nearest approximation,” Miranda said.

  “Okay, yeah.” Hogan was still watching Trevor and still working out how to repair the damage she’d done. Didn’t he understand that she was offering him a chance at life? With her?

  “So, um, that means you need to bring us some air?” Miranda’s voice broke into Hogan’s thoughts again. “Hogan? Are you there? Are you okay?”

  “I’m here,” Hogan barked over the comms. Trevor glanced over his shoulder at her, then pulled down the last of the protective material and started to pack the tent back into its storage bag. “Just sit tight. I’ll bring you your air reserve.”

  She got up and reached for her pressure suit. She slid into it with practiced efficiency and checked the seals on her boots and gloves. She stood in the middle of the cabin, waiting for Trevor to turn to her and say something. Daring him to say something.

  “Okay,” she announced. “I’m heading out to go get Trent and Miranda now.” She waited. “You okay in here?”

  “You tell me.”
He stood in profile against the Martian night outside the rover’s windows. “You think I can survive a few minutes on my own, or do I need a trained astronaut to look after me?”

  Hogan sighed. Not knowing what else to do, she stamped her foot. Trevor turned away, but she thought she caught the beginning of an eye roll.

  She marched straight for the airlock door. She pulled on the lever and yanked open the inner door. If she’d been any angrier, she might have pulled the thing right off its hinges. She stomped inside the airlock and started to close the door.

  “Oh, commander?” Trevor’s voice was artificially light. She turned to glare at him, but then she flushed with embarrassed indignation when she saw what was in his hands.

  “I think you might need this.” He strode toward the airlock and handed Hogan her helmet. “Of course, your the real astronaut here, so maybe I don’t know what I’m talking about.”

  “Just shut up!” she spat at him. “Shut the hell up. Just sit down and keep quiet and make yourself useful.”

  The smirk on his face grew. The wider it got, the more she felt the need to punch something.

  “Which is it?” he asked. “Sit down, or make myself useful?”

  Hogan had some choice words she wanted to hurl his way. But she wouldn’t mend any fences by cussing him out. She settled her helmet over her head, sealed it into place, and cycled the airlock.

  11

  The kitchen was steamy and hot. Trevor had all four of his stockpots over high heat, boiling the hell out of every ounce of water the colonists would consume

  They had scrubbed Ares City’s water filtration system and the bioreactors and every pipe and tube inside the habitat. But no one was taking the chance on getting sick again. So Trevor had been boiling water for days.

  And even with the bacterial culprit identified, the colonists were relying on vacuum-sealed dinners because Trevor was hesitant to start cooking again. At least the post-storm medical check-up showed he was clean of long-term radiation damage, but he was shaken all the same.