“Even better!” Hank said, a smile spreading across his face.
“That’s kind of cruel, Hank,” Margaret said, wishing she hadn’t eaten the whole second bar.
“Misty won’t let that happen. She’s a woman on a mission. She wants Chad and she’ll keep him,” Lynette predicted.
Margaret wondered if it could be that easy. Maybe if the guy was equally as committed. Was Jack committed to her? He wouldn’t have offered her this opportunity if he wasn’t. She should stay. Live on Mars with Jack.
Maybe she was drunk on sugar and would regret it, but she realized she was going to throw caution to the wind. She was going to do it. She was going to risk everything for love.
“Let’s set this up,” Hank said, because he was Hank and therefore he would make her insane idea work. “Margo, we can’t bring home your rover if we have to fly home the crew members,” he said, already turning away, as if that was an afterthought.
“Wait, what?” Margaret said, waking up from her sugar coma.
“We won’t have the weight. Maybe Boyle can send it home on his next quarterly shuttle.”
They would leave her rover here, which meant she would be screwed at work anyway. How could she work on the finishing pieces of the rover if she had no rover?
Don’t grab onto that so quickly, Margaret. You have plenty of things to work on in the lab. If you want Jack, be honest about it.
The man she’d been agonizing over walked in.
“Hank, are you sure about this plan?” Lynette asked, her tone doubtful.
“I’m sure,” Hank said. “Let’s do this.” And out he walked to change the whole game.
Jack stood above her. “Hungry?” he asked, taking in the wrappers and, she realized from his intense study of her face, a chocolate smear on her cheek.
She rubbed at it. “I’m thinking.”
“By eating chocolate?”
“That’s the best way to do it.”
“I just need to tell you one more time…you might be leaving, but we’re not done,” Jack said again.
That was good. He wasn’t giving up and he shouldn’t. They were worth a chance. And for once, she was doing exactly what the hell she wanted. She brushed off the wrappers.
Jack offered his hand.
“Thank you,” she said as he pulled her to her feet. “You’re right, Jack. We aren’t done, because I’m staying.”
He blinked. “You are?”
“My rover and I don’t make the weight requirements for the return shuttle.”
“What?”
“Well, I could go without it, but I don’t want to. I’m staying to try to see if this thing between us is as wonderful as I think it is.”
Jack stood still, as if he struggled with her hundred-eighty degree turn. “You’re staying?”
“Yes,” she said, never feeling so sure in her life. “And I came up with an idea to get rid of the cast.”
Jack grabbed her shoulders. “You did?”
“Yep.”
“My God, you’re amazing,” he said and kissed her.
She leaned into the kiss, twining her arms around his neck. He was worth a risk, the biggest risk of her life. And that scared her, but she wouldn’t get everything she ever wanted if she didn’t risk it all.
“What’s going on here, Boyle?” Hank asked behind them.
She reluctantly pulled her lips from Jack’s and discovered her brother watching. He didn’t look pleased.
“I’m kissing your sister, Hank,” Jack said, grinning at her.
She smiled back. Wow, she was falling for this famous geologist and she was running off to Mars to be with him. She tingled with anticipation and fear. “I’m staying here, Hank,” she announced.
“Excuse us for a second, Boyle,” Hank said, grabbing her arm and dragging her across the room.
“Hank calm down,” she said, trying to pry his fingers off her arm where they were digging into her flesh.
“You’re acting very un-Margaret-like here, and I want you to snap out of it.”
Jack started to move toward them, but stopped when she shook her head. It was her brother, and she’d deal with him. She pinched Hank’s wrist.
“Ouch,” he said, jerking his hand back.
She rubbed her arm. “I’m taking a risk, I know, but I would have thought you of all people would celebrate that.”
“I take risks, it’s true, but you do not, and you need to understand what you’re getting into here. Boyle is a major asshole.”
“He’s not an asshole, Hank. He’s too alpha for you to charm or bully, so you don’t like him.” She loved her brother, but she also understood his failings. “But I like him. We have an amazing amount in common.”
Hank stared at Jack as if he spied a mountain lion in the grass. “Like what?”
“We’re both scientists, we’re both introverts, both driven and focused, both at the top of our fields and focused on the same topic, even if we have different areas of expertise on Mars, and we’re sexually compatible.”
Her brother’s gaze jerked back to hers. “What?”
“You heard me. I may be your sister, but I’m still a woman.” She patted her brother’s arm, knowing she was freaking him out, but wanting him to understand. “I’m going to stay on Mars and finish my research here—where better to do it? You should know by now that this is the place I’ve always wanted to be.”
“Well, yes, Mars has always been a fixation for you, but Margaret,” his gaze turned deeply worried, “I don’t want you to get hurt.”
Margaret smiled at him, knowing her brother loved her. “I might. I’m taking a big chance that this relationship will work out. But so what if it doesn’t? I won’t be any worse off than before. I can always go back to Earth and spend my nights alone in a lab somewhere.” Of course, she’d have to find a new lab, but she wasn’t going to tell Hank that. He’d just use it to argue with her. But the time for arguments was over.
“I don’t like this. And neither will Mom and Dad,” Hank said, pulling out the big guns.
Margaret blinked at Hank invoking their parents. While she loved them, Margaret hadn’t had anything but vague support from them for any goal she’d set. “I know you don’t like it. But I let you do all kinds of nutty things without interfering, so I know you’ll have the respect for me to do the same.” She had a firm policy of only judging her brother quietly inside her own mind.
Hank sighed and shrugged his shoulders. “You’re right. I need to let you do this. Hell, it might not even be a mistake.”
Margaret snorted. “Gee, thanks.” She left the “let you do this” comment alone for now. She could save her feminist lecture for when he was back on Earth.
“Okay, you and your rover are staying. That means I can fit everyone in the return shuttle if we leave all our supplies and equipment here.” Hank gave another disgruntled look at Jack. “Boyle said we had to take all our equipment and garbage back off with us. The man is obsessed with trash removal.”
“I’m sure he’ll understand if you have to leave it all here,” she said, making the executive decision that Jack would rather have the people gone and the items here than vice versa.
“I doubt it,” Hank said. “But I’ll tell him you said so when he throws a fit.”
“Go ahead and tell him that.” Because Margaret knew to get rid of them, Jack would do almost anything.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Jack stood watching the shuttle take off, filled with all the contestants, crew and poor Walter Haxley, who would be spending some time in a psych ward back on Earth. Jack had never been so relieved in his life.
“I had to make a deal with Hank so all the people could fit weight wise,” Margaret told him from where she stood by his side.
“He left all his garbage didn’t he?” Jack guessed, giving a small wave in his sheer happiness to be rid of them all.
“Yes.”
“How much?”
“Unfortunately all of it.”
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Jack turned to her. “All?”
“To fit the people, they had to abandon all their equipment and supplies, including the ones the shuttle brought here for the second part of filming.”
Jack eyes grew huge. “No,” he said, running to his living room. He’d been busy programming the robot to haul their rocket back out to the launch site and hadn’t seen the unloading.
When she caught up, she found boxes upon boxes of supplies, dumped among the rows upon rows of camp beds the women had slept on.
“Holy mother of God,” Jack whispered, leaning close to read a nearby box, which was labeled SPAGHETTI NOODLES. “It will take us months to eat this.”
“On the bright side, you won’t have to bring more food here for a long time.”
Jack scanned the boxes, seeing crap he’d never use like boxes of makeup and clothes, and things he would, like toilet paper. Lots of it. “You know, if I cancel the quarterly shuttle for next time, I will save a massive amount of money.” Enough money to last another six months. And after that, it might be time to go home. The idea held such appeal, he let out a small laugh in celebration.
He grinned, thinking how lucky he was to have found a woman so right for him, who had moved in with months of free supplies.
“We’ll need to do an inventory, but you won’t need basic supplies again for a long time,” she said, leaning over to read another label.
He caught her hand and swung her into his arms. “So, now that we’re alone, can I show you our room?”
She rose up on tiptoes to kiss him and he deepened it immediately, all lips and tongue and exploration. Heat poured through him, the need so deep and strong and right. And they were finally, finally alone. He reveled in the feel of the softness of her lips, digging his hands in her hair, pulling out her ponytail and running his fingers through her blond strands.
Somehow, he’d found the perfect partner 140 million miles away from Earth. He wasn’t even sure how he’d been this lucky. She was smart, gorgeous, and understood him completely.
When they came up for air, he swept her up into his arms and carried her sideways through the boxes, while she laughed.
“Wait,” she said. He stopped and she pointed to a small box sitting on top of another stack. The side read CONDOMS in big letters.
“Why did they need a big box like this? Not that I’m complaining.”
“The night before the final rose ceremony, the last three contestants have sexy time with the bachelor.”
“That’s one hell of a lot of sexy time. And kind of gross.”
“It’s worked out for us. Let me grab that.”
He dipped her down to reach it.
They stumbled without a hint of grace from the living room and into his bedroom, where he tried to gently put her down, but dropped her instead. “My shoulder isn’t working like it should,” he said, falling onto the bed beside her, careful to land on his good side.
“Poor thing,” she said, smiling at him. “We’ll have to figure out a place to stack all that.”
“Luckily I have space out in the mechanical shed to put things we’ll never use.” He’d have to pay to haul all Hank’s crap back off the planet, but he supposed that was the price for peace and quiet.
“You’re assuming Hank didn’t put stuff out there too,” she said.
“God, your brother,” he said, realizing that Hank would not be a distant nightmare if he stayed with Margaret, but rather someone he saw at holidays and family get-togethers.
“I know he’s exhausting, but he’ll grow on you.” She rolled on top of him. “Now that we’re alone…”
He switched their positions. “My turn to be on top I think.”
“Oh good, I’m ready for someone else to do the work.”
They kissed, slow and leisurely, not rushing because they didn’t have to. This was the start to a long, enforced cohabitation and they had time to get it right.
She helped him work his shirt off so he didn’t hurt his shoulder, spending time after to kiss along the duct tape. “You poor thing,” she said, running her tongue along the edge of his bruise.
“Strangely, I can’t even feel it right now,” he said, stripping off her shirt so he could explore every inch of her perfect breasts.
When they’d touched and kissed every bit of exposed flesh, they both shed their pants, then she rolled on top of him, straddling his hips. “I guess technically I’ve won the game,” she said, in between kisses.
“You didn’t end up with Chad.”
“No, I ended up with someone better.” Someone who matched her on every level. Someone she could grow old talking to about anything and everything under the sun, including Mars.
For a bit she was distracted, arching her hips in rhythm to his, as his large cock slid in her wetness. Then she remembered herself. “Wait a second, cowboy,” she said, bracing an arm on his good shoulder, because somehow she was now under him and they were mere inches away from penetration.
He blinked at her as if he were coming out of a sex induced haze, which she figured he was.
“Unless you want to create the first human on Mars...”
“What are you talking about?” he asked.
“Condoms, get a condom,” she gasped, hating to break their stride, but really safety first had always been her motto. Of course, she’d forgotten it for a moment there, but it was hard to think, she was so turned on.
“Oh,” he said, looking adorably panicked as he picked up the box and wrestled with the packaging, stripping pieces of the tape off and prying off the box top.
Although, when she thought of having a child, instead of her usual caution, for the first time in her life it made her happy. After all, she wasn’t getting any younger. She really wouldn’t mind having her own little Martian running around the lab. One thing was certain, any child of theirs would be brilliant.
But that thought would have to be saved for a later time, because Jack had a condom finally freed.
“Now we have to start all over again since we lost the mood,” he said, but not like he was disappointed more like he was excited to further explore their passion.
“Speak for yourself,” she said breathlessly, “but if you need a do over, start here,” she said, offering him her breasts to explore, which he did, with the detailed attention of a true scientist.
And just like that, their passion flared to life again. She ran her hands along his muscled abs, the feel of the hardness under the soft skin making her shiver. He had such an amazing body. She wasn’t even sure she’d paid attention to how men were put together in the past, but she was pretty sure he was perfect.
When he stopped fumbling with the foil packet, she took the condom from him and spent some time running her mouth over his head, tasting him and enjoying the shiver of need that went through him at her touch.
“Goldie,” he growled, obviously growing tired of her teasing, his voice full of need.
She laughed, the sound so full of feminine power, she almost didn’t recognize it as her own. But she relented and rolled on the condom.
Then he was inside her, hilting deep, hitting a spot that felt like heaven.
“There,” she said.
And with a groan, he repeated the motion, his face a mask of concentration as he attempted to put aside his own need to give her exactly what she wanted.
“Yes,” she said, her climax building with an intensity so great it almost frightened her. She’d never felt this way before, even when she’d pleased herself. This was a deep, primal feeling building inside her, one of an impending explosion that she felt might engulf her. And then she was coming, tipping over the edge, taking him with her if his shout of triumph was any indication. Satisfaction and contentment flowed through her body like she had never experienced before. It had been everything she never knew she’d always wanted and more.
They collapsed in a sweaty heap, breathing as if they’d run for hours.
“I’m so glad you decided to stay.
Being on Mars just became amazing again,” he said, rolling beside her and pulling her close.
“I’m glad you didn’t give up when I said no.” She draped her body across his and he ran a leisurely hand down her back to brush along her buttocks. She shivered with goosebumps.
He smiled. “I don’t ever give up. If I did, I wouldn’t have Mars and I wouldn’t have you.”
THE END
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Leigh Wyndfield lives in rural Virginia with her fat cat Ayra, two lovable rescue puppies, four chickens, and the best guy in the world. A city girl at heart, she’s embracing the mysteries of growing things and watching deer race from hunters through her yard. Traveling and driving an ambulance round out her time. She writes romance fiction that is out of this world.
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