Bachelor on Mars

by Leigh Wyndfield

  “Ouch.” That meant NASA would not need to buy rovers from her in the future. They could make their own, cutting out her ability to sell her design to a manufacturer and make a large amount of money.

  “Not really. The knowledge I’ll gain is going to set my research so far ahead, they’ll struggle to catch up when I give it to them. I made my delivery date much further out than I needed to.”

  “I’m surprised they let you.”

  “They didn’t have a choice. I know my worth.”

  It was nice, really, to talk to someone who understood what his world was like. They finished their meal and recycled their meal packs, then the hunt was on again for the password. It had to be here somewhere and with food in their bellies, they were focused and on top of their game.

  Jack wasn’t a person to give up, but time was running out and he needed to get into the computer. It was already dark outside, the atmosphere through the portholes fading to the dusky red that signaled the end of the day. Too bad he wasn’t some sort of hacker. But computers had never held the allure like rocks had.

  Goldie sat nearby, going through a stack of what looked like daily logbooks that were handwritten. Which was odd. He would have thought they would either be computerized or taken back to Earth when the team left. Perhaps they’d been too ill to pack properly.

  Margaret Carson was an interesting woman, one he hoped to get to know better. What he liked most was that she understood the trials of his world and she respected his research. She didn’t question why he would be on Mars. Sure, it sounded sexy at first, but the reality was, he was camping out here, living a rustic existence, and he would live like this for as long as he could. Mars had always been his first priority and no significant other would come first. He’d never met a woman before who understood his devotion to the red planet.

  Until now.

  Margaret had made her own sacrifices. Six months ago, he would have looked down on her for them, but now he understood. Hell, he’d jumped on the chance to have Hank Carson film at Station 7.

  The more he thought of it, the more he admired her for taking the opportunity to come, even if it meant she had to be on a reality TV show.

  As he stared at her, an odd thought filtered through his mind. What if he wasn’t alone at Station 7? What if someone else was there with him? Someone doing their own experiments? Someone like Margaret Carson?

  Thoughts of what it would be like to have another person in his living space didn’t repel him as they usually did. In fact, they were… pleasant.

  “What about this?” Margaret asked, pointing at a page in the journal.

  He leaned down close to her to look. She smelled like machine oil, Mars dust, and vaguely like herbal shampoo. He wanted to move closer for a deeper sniff.

  “There,” she said, pointing to the top corner, where Spac3junky3! was written.

  “Looks like a password for sure.” Feeling oddly reluctant to stop sniffing her, he went to the console. “You have the honors,” he said, holding out a chair.

  She sat, letting him roll her a bit closer. Then she typed it in.

  They waited, wondering if it would work.

  The monitor flashed off, then on again, and for a second he thought they’d blown it, but then it read, WELCOME TO STATION 3.

  “We’re in,” she cried, victorious, leaping to her feet.

  He grabbed her arm and swung her to his chest, planting a kiss on her lips. It was closed mouthed and chaste, but he felt the shiver of need for the first time in so very, very long.

  He knew she felt it too, as her arms threaded around his neck, their kiss deepening as her lips parted.

  CHAPTER TEN

  And then the computer beeped.

  They sprung apart, and she said, “We’re in.” A pretty blush rose across her cheeks.

  “Yeah,” he said, trying to remember what they were doing. The simple kiss had thrown him for a loop. Maybe he was getting old. When he was younger, he wouldn’t have been so flustered. But now pressing his lips to another person’s had him flummoxed on a deep level. Because all he could think was that he wanted to kiss her again, keep on kissing her for a long time, forgetting all their troubles and worries.

  So he did.

  He framed her face in his hands and traced the seam of her lips with his tongue. She caught her breath in a gasp, putting her hands on top of his. But not to pull them away.

  After a long moment, he rested his forehead on hers, trying to catch his breath. Kissing Goldie might be better than sex.

  But not sex with her, a little voice said inside his head. He’d bet sex with her would be amazing.

  “Russians,” he said, to remind himself.

  “Right,” she said, breathless.

  He focused on the Russians and warning the shuttle, reluctantly stepping away to take the seat she’d vacated. She dragged over the kitchen chair he’d given her earlier.

  It was a simple process to send messages out. The program already had most of the people he wanted to contact in the address book. He retyped the same message he’d composed before and hit send. Then they stared at it, side by side, silent. She grasped his hand and he clasped hers back, enjoying the touch. For a long time, they stayed that way, waiting for it to error like the last one had.

  “Nothing,” she said, breaking the silence.

  Reluctantly, he dropped her hand to click to the outbox, making sure it wasn’t still there, his brain slow and sluggish as he tried to think about their situation and not how much he might like her. He couldn’t believe he had what amounted to an infatuation building inside him, his whole body tingling with a need he hadn’t known was possible.

  “It looks like it sent,” he agreed. He clicked around a few more times, refreshing, before he gave in to the hope that he’d gotten the message out.

  “Should we call Station 7? Let them know?”

  “Good idea,” he said, glad she, at least, was thinking of something besides their kiss. And sex. He tapped around, a little lost in the new system, which was almost, but not quite, like his own.

  Then he located the coms application and stared at it for a few moments, wondering how to reach his station, which hadn’t been in operation when this station was running and therefore hadn’t had a channel already set up between them. He tried to remember how he’d set up the com to Haxley.

  He pondered for long, agonizing seconds, then managed to reach out to someone. If it turned out to be Haxley, who was hopefully still alive, he’d have the older man patch him through.

  But instead of Haxley, Russ’ face filled the screen. “Whoa, wasn’t expecting to see you two,” the cameraman said, his voice filled with relief.

  “Everything okay there?” Margaret asked.

  “Well, Lynette had them go on individual dates today and is now doing a cocktail party and rose ceremony.”

  “You’re kidding,” Jack said before he thought better of it. But come on! They were in the middle of an emergency here.

  Russ shrugged. “It’s kept everyone calm and under control.”

  “That’s a good idea, actually,” Margaret said.

  “She is totally miffed you aren’t here, Margo. She said when you get back, she’s making you do extra shots so they can slide you in digitally.”

  Margaret shrugged off the punishment. “Okay.”

  Her easy capitulation had Jack shaking his head, but he’d spent what? An hour debating letting them film at the station? “We were able to send out warnings,” Jack said, bringing them back to the important stuff, like how they were going to survive.

  “Awesome,” Russ fist pumped the air. “I knew you’d do it, Boyle.”

  Jack was oddly pleased at the compliment. “Yeah, well we’ve done all we can. We’ll get some sleep, then leave for Station 7 at first light. Remember, if we don’t make it back for some reason, you must get everyone on the shuttle and out of here as fast as you can. You can’t wait for us.”

  Russ’ face fell. “That doesn’
t seem right.”

  “Whoever’s blowing up our vehicles will kill you too if you aren’t out of here as fast as possible. Promise me you’ll make that happen.”

  Russ shook his head, but said, “I promise. Well, if I don’t see you, good luck.”

  “You too,” Jack said, signing off.

  They’d done what they could. He and Margaret sat staring at the blank console screen.

  “I wish we could start back. Missing the shuttle sounds pretty ominous.”

  “Sadly, we can’t travel in the dark.” He stood. “We should sleep while we can.” It had been a long day. But he really didn’t want to sleep. He wanted to kiss her again. Maybe do more than kissing. He stomped down on his imagination as it conjured what else they could do.

  She glanced to a viewport. “How long until morning?”

  Mars’ rotation was slightly less than an hour longer than Earth’s. “Eight hours at least, maybe a little more.” He wouldn’t kiss her, though, because they both needed sleep. “They had six people living here. There should be multiple beds to choose from in the back of the building. Maybe we could each get our own space,” he said, secretly hoping he was wrong.

  Because he didn’t want to have his own space. He wanted to strip off her clothes and run his tongue along all that pretty skin of hers.

  Where had that come from? He wasn’t the kind of guy who ran around lusting. Or maybe he hadn’t been, but he was now that he’d met Goldie.

  Or maybe this was the beginning of Red Meningitis. The first sign was altered mental status. Like doing things that were clearly not in the person’s best interest. For example, having an affair with a contestant from the Mars Bachelor.

  They located the bedroom quickly, since besides the bath and what had obviously been a lab, it was the only other room in the building. Three sets of bunk beds, slightly smaller than the ones he and his brother had shared as kids, filled the room, along with six small dressers.

  The walls were covered with pictures from home. Goldie stepped near to study one group still taped to the wall behind the closest bunk. “They all lived, right?”

  “Yeah.” He leaned on the doorframe, oddly reluctant to enter the room.

  “Why does it feel like they all died horrible deaths?”

  “I don’t know, but it does.” He didn’t want to sleep here, he realized. Wouldn’t sleep here, with all those family members staring down at him.

  “They got some sort of sickness, didn’t they?”

  “Red Meningitis. It’s a bacterial infection.”

  “Did they all get it?”

  “No. Only a few of them. The doctors think it affects only twenty percent of space travelers, but three of them had it. They all lived, though,” he added, trying to console them both.

  She looked up. “I don’t want to stay in here.”

  Relief flooded through him. “Me either.”

  She let out a breath. “What other options do we have?” she asked, passing him as she hustled out the door.

  They returned to the main room and studied the two overstuffed chairs and the sofa, which looked ancient, but he knew it was most likely less than three years old. “You take the couch and I’ll push these chairs together and sleep there.”

  “I should take the chairs. You’re bigger than I am.”

  “We’re close to the same height,” he said, realizing it was true. She must be somewhere around five-ten. “You’ll be more comfortable on the couch.”

  “You’re being awfully nice to me, Jack Boyle,” she said, digging in one of their packs for a couple of thin blankets.

  He took one and gave her a roguish grin. “Maybe because I like you,” he said, wincing in surprise at his own words.

  She raised her eyebrows. “Wow.”

  “Don’t let it go to your head.”

  “I’ll try not to.” She stared at the sofa. “Does this lay flat?”

  He realized they’d brought the flimsy furniture here to save weight and the back did, indeed, lower down flat. “I think you’re right.”

  She flipped a hidden lever on her side and suddenly they had a bed. “Sleep here together?”

  It would be more comfortable than the chair by miles, although he wondered how much sleep he’d get so close to her. Fuck it. “I’m game.”

  While she used the bathroom, he rearranged the throw pillows a couple times unnecessarily. Then caught himself and stopped. But it had been a long day.

  When he returned from the bathroom, she was already lying down on one edge.

  He took his assigned spot, fighting the urge to slide in next to her instead. And they lay there silently for a moment, neither sleeping.

  “I’m exhausted but can’t sleep,” she murmured.

  “Me either.” He couldn’t sleep because she was right beside him and he wanted to run his hands all over her and maybe follow that with his mouth. “Where did you go to school?” he asked, grasping for something to talk about.

  She answered with relief, laughing as he made fun of their mascot and questioning their geology department, as if that mattered to anyone who wasn’t a geologist.

  They talked about everything and nothing for a long time, comparing their experiences, from grad school nightmares, research woes, and the constant pressure of remaining relevant in the scientific community, to family, friends, and everything in between. He liked the sound of her voice, liked how interested she was in his work and how he found what she did fascinating. Laughing at some old story he told, she rolled toward him and his pulse quickened.

  Down boy, he told his libido. “You shouldn’t get too close to me. I won’t be held responsible for my actions if you cross into my zone,” he warned, his voice suddenly rough with desire, but deadly serious.

  Without warning, she climbed on top of him, pressing her stomach against his full erection, which he’d been trying to ignore. “You like me, hmm?” she asked, her voice a purr.

  Of course now he couldn’t ignore it with her body weight pressing into him.

  “Looks like I’m not the only one in the mood,” she whispered, the words husky in the darkness, only the computer screen still blinking in the far left corner for light.

  “I didn’t want to presume.”

  “When we get back to Station 7, best case scenario is that we have an audience. Worst case, we die.” She ran a hand down his chest. “I really think we should take this moment while we can.”

  He kissed her, not having to think twice. The need that he’d been trying so hard to keep in check exploded over him, and he entwined his legs with hers.

  She struggled back and he released her immediately. “Whoa, whoa there cowboy. We have some terms to set first.”

  “Terms?” he asked, trying to call his brain back from wherever it had gone.

  “We can’t have sex.”

  “We can’t?” he asked, knowing he sounded like an idiot, but really his brain had flipped off completely the moment she’d climbed on top of him.

  “Not unless you have a condom?” she asked hopefully.

  His libido deflated, but sadly not enough. “No.”

  “I figured. Then we’re going to have to get creative about this.”

  His excitement level climbed back up again. “Yeah?”

  “Are you open to that?”

  “I am,” he agreed, so quickly she laughed, a deep throat, sexy laugh that had him kissing her again.

  He’d never been big on intimate sexual conversations, but he stroked her pulse point with one finger while she laid out her plan. Anything that didn’t involve penetration was fair game. She was open to any of his wildest fantasies, but he hoped he wouldn’t disappoint her, since adventure wasn’t in his most wanted sex list. It had been so long, what he really needed was to come, and since it wouldn’t be inside her, it would have to be some other way, preferably with her coming too at the same time.

  Slowly, trying to make it as good for her as it was for him, he ran his hands along her body, helping
lift off her shirt. He rolled her under him and skimmed her jeans free, leaving her socks on, since it was chilly inside the living space, despite the chugging sound of the heater they’d turned on.

  She reached for the button on his pants, but he blocked her hand. “Best to keep things battened down so we don’t have any mistakes.”

  “Good idea.” She laughed again, the sound so sexual, he shivered in response.

  Then he kissed her, inching along her beautiful body, until he could suck gently on a nipple as she arched below him.

  Slow down, he advised himself. He licked from her stomach to her hip, biting gently along the edge. He spent some time there, pressing his palm onto the apex of her thighs, loving the twist of her body as she squirmed closer.

  “God,” she whispered. “I want you so badly.”

  He hummed into her flesh, loving her in that moment.

  Then he parted the lips of her sex and ran his tongue along her, enjoying her taste and smell, reveling in the fact that he was so lucky, way out on Mars, to have this beautiful woman below him.

  He set a pace, working her to climax, keeping things light and slow until her hand twisted in his hair and she demanded, “Faster.”

  He obliged, working as hard as he’d ever worked in his life, because nothing had ever meant so much to him than making this woman happy.

  “Oh God,” she whispered when she came.

  He couldn’t help but grin, knowing he’d pleased her. He might have found a new type of crystal today, and that had been glorious, but pleasing Goldie had been better.

  She lay there panting and he snuggled next to her, pulling the blankets around them.

  “God that was good, Jack Boyle.”

  “Yeah it was.”

  She laughed but shook her head. “It’s about to get better for you,” she promised. “Take off your shirt,” she ordered, putting it on when he handed it to her. “Sadly, it’s too cold to be naked for long.”

  Then she helped him with his pants and proceeded to do exactly what he’d done to her, slowly teasing along his chest. Licking his nipples, which felt amazing, before following the line of his hair down, down, down until she veered to the left and bit the edge of his hip, making him writhe and murmur what could have been “please,” but he hoped he hadn’t start begging so soon when she’d barely started touching him.