Mark laughed, grateful for the ease of small talk. But then Lori’s expression turned serious.
“So.” She paused for a long, awkward moment. “I guess we need to talk.”
“I’d say so.”
“Well, obviously, you know about Guillermo.”
His smile felt tight on his face. Yes, he knew about Guillermo. But had there been something more behind her coquetry? Maybe she’d been paying Mark back for his supposed indiscretion. Or perhaps she’d used Guillermo’s distress to increase her competitive capital. Somewhere along the way, Lori had started playing the game.
He remained silent.
Lori gestured clumsily toward the walls. “Do you think this is where they were? Trent and Leah?”
“No. There’s no obvious air vent for their . . . voices to have carried through the station.” There wasn’t enough room in the cupboard for the antics required to achieve the audio spectacle they’d all been treated to. And Mark found nothing sexy about being pressed together like two coats of paint.
“But it’s private, at least. No cameras.”
“To get to the point, Lori . . .” His heart pounded in his chest as every breath brought a fresh wave of Lori’s scent. He cleared his throat.
“From the moment I first saw you in your underthings . . .” He cursed his awkwardness and pushed forward. “That is to say, you’ve had my attention from the beginning, Lori Ridgway. That has never wavered.”
“Really?” Her eyes sparkled in the cracks of light seeping in around the cupboard door. “I mean, I thought, but then . . .”
Mark looked up at the ceiling, his mouth dry. “We are in extraordinary circumstances. Extraordinary and unusual. I hadn’t considered what sort of woman I might encounter among the contestants. But as I am coming to know you . . .”
Mark blew out a long breath. He was reverting to formality and to being the uptight prick Lori had no doubt assumed him to be from the start. It’s just what happened to him when sentiment came into play, and when he found himself in the company of this beautiful and exciting woman in particular.
“It’s okay.” Lori’s laugh was light. So was her touch as she rested her palms on his chest. “This hasn’t been easy for any of us. It’s very weird. And probably only going to get weirder.”
“I’m trying to say that I hold you in rather high regard.”
“I know, and I do, too.” Her face broke into a nervous smile, and she pressed her hands more firmly against his pectorals. “I mean, I respect and admire you, too.” She slid her hands up toward his neck. “I think you know I more than just respect you. I just didn’t know if . . . If, well . . .”
“Yes, well.” His hands, of their own accord, had wrapped themselves around her waist. He pulled her against him even though they were already practically on top of each other. “This hasn’t exactly been a normal way to go about a courtship . . .”
And then they were kissing. He didn’t know who had started it, and he didn’t much care. What did interest him was the delightful softness of her lips and the luxury of tangling his fingers in her hair as he pulled it free of the ponytail and left it to float like a mermaid’s mane around her head.
“Mark.” Her lips traveled slowly to his neck, thrilling his skin with light kisses on his pulse points. He closed his eyes and actually moaned when he felt the tip of her tongue trace its way up to his left ear, around the same time that his right hand found her breasts.
Whole books had been written on the subject of sex in microgravity, and Mark had avoided them all. The Mars Ho experts must have assumed the colonists would figure it out for themselves, or the producers expected their experiments would make for riveting television.
Mark scanned the walls and crevices for any sign of a camera, especially one that could operate in low light. But the ISS-5 hadn’t been built or outfitted with Mars Ho in mind.
“We’re safe in here,” Lori murmured against his throat, her fingers tugging on his jumpsuit zipper while her free hand explored his torso, pausing to tease his nipple through the fabric. “They can’t see us.”
He cradled the base of her neck and pulled her more forcefully to him. But he hadn’t calculated on the action-reaction of free fall and let out a pained yelp when his crown smacked against the cupboard ceiling.
“Maybe we should be wearing safety gear.” Lori’s giggle was brief, cut off by Mark’s mouth covering hers. She responded by running her tongue along his lower lip and then probing his mouth, delicately at first.
She succeeded in unzipping the front of his jumpsuit, her hands diving beneath the fabric to push away his lighter under layers. An electric thrill shot across his chest as her fingers found his flesh, and he heard her breath catch as he ran his hand down her spine to cup her backside. He pressed against her so she could feel his need.
She sighed against his throat and started to tug off his jumpsuit. But Mark reached for her hands and stilled them.
“Mark? What’s wrong?”
He felt every movement of her body pressed tightly against his. The softness of her. The scent and taste of her. It was driving him mad. He wanted nothing more than to plunge into her and consummate this promising, frustrating flirtation that had stymied him at every turn. But he knew if he didn’t stop himself now, things would never truly be settled between them.
Still, he held her close. “I want you, Lori. I imagine that’s obvious.”
She wriggled against him. “Plainly.” She laughed but then stopped when she met his eyes.
“So I need know. Is this who you really are? What you really want? Or are you still playing the game?”
Lori’s eyes darkened. “What are you talking about? We’re finalists. We’re going to Mars.” She reached for his hips to pull their bodies against each other. “Together.”
Mark pushed her back. “That’s not what I asked. Forget about the program. Forget about Mars.”
“Mark!” She reached again to tug on his jumpsuit. Again, he stopped her.
“Do you really want me? Or are we just stuck with each other?”
“Mark, what’s come over you?” Lori rested her hands lightly on his chest. “We share the same dream.” She swallowed hard, and in the dim light Mark thought he saw the beginning of tears in her eyes. “There’s nothing to say that we can’t achieve great things while also finding great happiness.”
“That sounds like something Gary would say.” Mark let go of her. With no room to do anything else, he rested his hands on top of his head and hoped he looked less ridiculous than he felt. “It’s been a strange journey, to get where we are, Lori. And I can’t help feeling like I’ve been here before.”
The corners of Lori’s mouth turned down. “I honestly have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Mark nodded. Of course, she didn’t know, because he hadn’t told her. Wasn’t this just Sarah all over again? He’d put his trust in a woman who’d seemed forthright and genuine, and then she’d had to compete. Just how far under her skin had Mars Ho gotten? They were both headed to Mars, but he didn’t yet know the cost.
“Maybe we should take some time and space to reflect on what lies ahead,” Mark said.
She looked away. “Time and space, sure.”
Mark frowned. There simply was’t enough room to get a better sense of her body language. They remained pressed against one another as their uneasiness grew.
“I’m just saying that maybe we don’t have to be in such a hurry.” He wished he could cross his arms or slip his hands into his pockets. “Trust is a delicate thing. As much as I respect you, and as much as I am quite obviously attracted to you, I’m still shaken by . . . things that happened in the course of competition.”
“April was playing the game harder than anybody, and you don’t seem to have a problem with her.”
Mark bristled and hunched his shoulders. “April’s case is entirely different, as you know. She told me about your conversation.” He tried to smile. “And you’ll notice that
April is not the person I’m stuffed into a space closet with right now.”
“Yeah, well.” She turned her face toward the door, and he studied her profile in the dim light.
He took a breath, uncertain if he should continue. This was a conversation better left for bright lights and open spaces, not the cramped confines of a dark storage closet. “Can you say the competition didn’t change you? That you didn’t lose any part of yourself or become someone you’re not?”
Her face turned hard. “You know I was just trying to help Guillermo and—”
“And keep yourself from being eliminated in the process?”
“That’s not fair!” she protested, though Mark could see from her furrowed brow that she understood his comments were entirely fair. She balled her hands into fists, held close against her chest. Tiny globs of tears rimmed her eyes, threatening to obscure her vision without the aid of gravity to draw them down her cheeks.
“Mark.” Her voice was small and vulnerable, and Mark immediately felt like an incredible jackass.
“Everything’s new and disorienting, and will be for some time,” he said. “I’m not certain that any relationship formed under such circumstances would be . . . When you fall into someone’s arms in the midst of a crisis, how real is that connection when the crisis is over?”
Lori shook her head, freeing salty spheres from her eyes to drift into the space between them. Mark watched the tiny prisms as they caught the light from corridor.
“My mother died.” Her voice strangled low in her throat. “She made me promise . . . I promised that I wouldn’t let my ambition overrule my heart. That I would be open to both love and adventure. That I’d try to, that I wouldn’t . . . I promised her, Mark!”
“I know. I’m sorry, I can’t imagine . . .”
He was surprised by her hands resting lightly on his chest again.
“And I wouldn’t have had that last visit with her, if not for what you did. I know that. And I am grateful.”
Mark held his breath as Lori leaned forward and pressed her lips gently against his. He’d expected a slap, and he might have deserved it. But she was kissing him. Mark’s hands found Lori’s shoulders, gripping her tenderly but not pulling at her, not yet.
“Thank you for that,” Lori whispered against his mouth. Then she pushed him against the wall, her eyes flaring again with anger. “But now you’re just being such an asshole!”
Ah. There was the slap. Mark winced as though she had struck him.
“Did you think it was easy? Knowing what a fool I’d made of myself with Guillermo, and knowing you had every reason to reject me? But I came to you anyway.” She started rattling the cupboard door, trying to force it open. “I made an effort to connect with you again, because you’re the best man of the finalists. The best man inside the dome. The best man . . .”
She kicked at the door and ended up knocking her head against the ceiling. More tears shot from her face and into the air. “You’re the best man I’ve ever met!”
She was yelling at him, her anger at odds with her words. It was exactly what he needed to hear from her, but now Mark wasn’t sure if he should take a defensive posture or give into the warming sensation in his chest.
“So now you think you don’t know who I am? Well, maybe I don’t really know who you are, either.” She pounded on the door with her fists, each blow bouncing her back against the wall. “And I was stupid enough to think maybe, if I just took a chance . . . That maybe you felt the same about me!”
“But Lori, that’s what I wanted to talk to you about—”
The cupboard door bust open, unlatched from the outside. Lori spilled out into the corridor and collided with Molly.
“You two okay in there?” Molly’s raised eyebrows were a poor disguise for the judgement in her voice.
Lori followed Molly’s eyes down her body and saw that the front of her jumpsuit was flapping open. With an embarrassed grunt, Lori zipped her suit closed and pushed off from the wall to move down the corridor.
Mark watched her go, then felt Molly’s appraising eyes fall on him. Refusing to look away, he zipped up his jumpsuit and carefully extricated himself from the cupboard.
Molly shook her head. “You must be some kind of contortionists. We have an actual space set aside for private activities, you know.”
Mark glanced down the corridor in the direction of Lori’s exit. He made to move after her, but Molly held up an arm to block his path. “Let her go. From what I heard, you need a little break. Hmm?”
He turned and headed in the opposite direction instead.
Molly called after him. “Ask Trent where to find the Cozy. And remind him to close the vents next time, yeah?”
16
Lori propelled herself into ISS-5’s Bunk 3 with greater force than she’d intended. She managed to catch one of the hanging sleeping bags, and she reeled herself in toward the wall.
“I guess your tête-à-tête with Mark didn’t go so well.” April was on the other side of the cozy compartment, her orientation nearly 180-degrees off from Lori’s as she stowed her personal items in a tiny cupboard near April’s ceiling and Lori’s floor.
“You could say that.” Lori hung onto the sleeping bag and tried to push her free-floating hair out of her face. The olive green bag was a nice contrast to the light yellow walls. The station wasn’t exactly colorful, but it was considerably more dynamic than the biodome.
The sleeping bag felt waxy in Lori’s hands, and she decided not to consider how long ago it had last been cleaned. She pretended to study the velcro tethers that would cinch her body to the wall when she was inside the bag, and the slits that would allow her arms to float free while she slept.
“I’m going to look like a manatee in this thing,” Lori muttered glumly. She was starting to feel congested from the microgravity.
“Or a lumpy mermaid.” April turned herself to match Lori’s orientation. “I imagine we’ll get used to it.” She pulled the wild curls of her silky, dark hair into a tight ponytail, then wound that into an even tighter bun and secured it with a hair tie. She handed a spare tie to Lori. “Want to talk about it?”
“Not particularly.” Lori hooked one arm around the bag and went to work pulling her hair into a ponytail. She felt the sting of tears again. She had cried so much these past few days—in grief, exhaustion, anger and heartbreak—and she was just so damned tired of it. The heart wants what the heart wants, her mother had often said. And sometimes the heart wanted to cry.
April pulled a tissue from a wall dispenser and handed it to Lori. “No one said this trip was going to be easy.”
Lori blew her nose and looked around for a trash receptacle. She gave up and stuffed the tissue into one of the velcro pockets on her sleeve. “But I didn’t think it would be this hard.”
She felt instantly asinine. Of course a colonizing mission to Mars would be demanding! She’d been prepared for the physical toil of real labor and the psychological strain of isolation and hovering on the edge of survival. But when she was crunching the mental numbers, she hadn’t factored in getting her feelings hurt. It was a stupid thing to be upset about.
“He’ll come around.” April offered a sympathetic smile.
“Will he?”
April shrugged, then reached over her head to keep from drifting into the ceiling. “It’s what I’m counting on with Trevor.”
Lori’s eyes widened. “Have you talked to him?”
“Nuh-uh. And I’m not going to either, not until we’re well underway. I’m perfectly happy letting Dina wait for the next flight to Mars.”
Lori scanned every surface of the compartment for signs of surveillance. No one from Mars Ho had made any assurances that they weren’t still on the air as they closed on their launch window.
Lori gestured around the room to ask, silently, if they might have an audience. April shrugged again. She didn’t have the same system-level access here.
“What will you tell him?” Lori as
ked.
“The truth, I guess.”
“Okay?”
“That there will be more colony teams after ours,” April explained. “That if things don’t work out between . . . well, between a supposedly mated pair, there will still be opportunities, you know, to meet someone new.”
Extremely limited opportunities. Was that how things would play out between Lori and Mark, too? Maybe there had been too many false starts and mixed signals and hurt feelings. On Mars, they’d be occupied with the business of settling in and getting the crops started and just generally not dying. There would be little time to nurture a budding relationship, much less repair the damage to a floundering one.
“So about Trent and Leah?” April broke through Lori’s spiral of worry. “Did you hear about their deal with the producers?”
Astonished, Lori let go of the sleeping bag. “Their what?”
“Their handler, some guy named Norman, kind of set them up with each other. Got the ball rolling, so to speak.”
“The producers wanted them to behave like that?”
“It’s not like they were unwilling participants,” April replied. “Leah said they were told it would improve their chances. And spice up the show.”
Lori hissed through her teeth. “Are we any different than prostitutes?”
A klaxon alarm sounded throughout the station, barking every other second and bringing their conversation to an abrupt end. Lori grabbed at the sleeping bag and waited for instructions.
“Attention crew!” Molly’s authoritative voice came over the speakers after the screaming klaxon quieted. “We have incoming debris. Repeat, we have incoming space debris, on direct impact course with the station. Take emergency precautionary measures. For our newly arrived guests, that means get into your EVA suits, pronto.”
The sudden silence was filled by Lori and April’s anxious breathing.
“I thought there weren’t going to be any more challenges,” April whispered.
But Lori was trying to remember the way back to their arrival craft. If something happened to the station, the colonists would need to detach in a hurry.
Mars Ho! (Mars Adventure Romance Series Book 1) Page 22
