Winter

by Michelle Love

“And I may lose my husband to it!”

  I watch his Adam’s apple bob in his throat. I watch his eyes open wide. I watch him turn into a man I’ve never seen before. “You may.”

  “So, now you’re a soldier, Ryker? I didn’t marry a soldier. I married a very intelligent man. Not a mindless robot for the powers that be, to control. I want to be with you when you first step foot on that planet. I want to be with you when you take your first breath of Martian air. I want to be with you when you first lay eyes on the planet. You’re stealing my dreams if you go without me.”

  “You’re stealing mine, if you don’t allow me to go, with your blessing, Gia.”

  I don’t know what to think. All of what I thought has been turned upside down. My one, true love, my husband wants to go. Leave me. Maybe forever.

  “I’m afraid.” I bat back the tears, I’ve managed to reign in.

  His arms close me in a circle and I feel the warmth of his body and wonder how I can possibly live without him for that length of time. Or maybe even forever. “So am I. But fears must be faced or nothing would ever happen.”

  “I hate your bravery.” I run my hands up and down his muscled back. “I hate your need to conquer new worlds.”

  “But you knew I had those things when you married me,” he says with a chuckle that pisses me off.

  “Yesterday.” I let him go and glare at him. “Yesterday, I married you. Yesterday, the plans were still the same. I would go with you on the first mission! And now look what’s happened!”

  “Would you not have married me if this would’ve come up one day sooner?”

  I lie back on the bed and put my hands behind my head, which feels as if it might explode. Would I have married him? Would I have put myself in this boat? Would a day earlier of knowing this make a difference?

  “Ryker, what if I get pregnant? Will you still leave?”

  He and I both know I’m in a fertile state. He and I planned it that way. Our plan was to get pregnant right away. And now he wants to leave.

  “I trust you to take excellent care of our child until you can come to me.”

  “And if that time never comes? What happens if you’re killed by whatever is there, hiding under the ground?”

  He stops, looking as if that’s not occurred to him. “I suppose they’ll give us weapons.”

  “Are you going to kill them all?”

  He looks a bit unsure and sits on the bed. “Gia, help me. Help us to figure things out. I need your help, baby. I need it. You’re brilliant. You think of things others don’t. Help us all.”

  I cross my arms over my chest. “What if I don’t want to help you go to a dangerous situation?”

  “What if I need you too?”

  I stare at him and wonder what the hell he’s gotten us into. “I’m pissed right now.”

  “I know.”

  “Fuck! Ryker! Fuck! Everything has changed! God, damn it all to hell!”

  “Gia, please don’t say that.” He takes me in his arms and holds me tightly against his chest. “Baby, I need you in my corner. Like never before, I need you. You said it before. You might be more help from Earth. I need you to be my help from here. Tell me you’ll do it for me. For us all.”

  I have no idea of what I should say or do. I could get an annulment. I could move on with my life. I could try my best to forget Ryker Crawford. All of these options are mine.

  “For better or worse,” he murmurs as he kisses the place he loves to kiss, just behind my left ear.

  “Till death do us part.”

  RYKER

  The first meeting of the team going to Mars is over. The plans are set and the information NASA retrieved has been given to us. Damien and I walk out of the conference room together. “She’s taking it badly, isn’t she?” he asks me.

  I shove my hands in my pockets with a huff. “Badly isn’t even strong enough for what she is. Gia is a mixture of disappointed, pissed, and scared to death. It makes for a shaky, cranky, erratic woman who cries, throws things, and screams like a banshee over things that don’t amount to a hill of beans.”

  “Svetlana is unhappy as well. To make matters worse, I’ve had to issue her funds through a bank account my family knows nothing about. If she blows through the money, I don’t know what she’ll do.” He looks worried and I feel bad for him for some damn reason.

  “Thank God Gia can take care of herself. Now can you see how important it is to let your woman have her independence?”

  “Do you think she’d look out for Svetlana and my son for me, while I’m gone?”

  I stop walking and stare at the man. “Are you kidding?”

  “So, you think there’s no way she’d help them out if they find themselves running out of money?”

  Taking off again, I shake my head. “I don’t know what she’d do. That’s your deal to take care of, Damien. Gia is in no mood to be asked such a thing. She’d likely bite your head off if you did ask.”

  The glass doors slide open and we walk out into the bright sunshine. Both of us pull out sunglasses and put them on as we go to our cars. “Maybe I can find someone else to watch over them.” Damien looks away as he heads toward his rental car. “You want to grab some lunch?”

  “I’ve got to get back to my office. Gia asked me to meet her there after the meeting. She wants to know every little detail.”

  He stops and pulls his glasses down to look at me. “Except the one we were told not to disclose.”

  “Of course. I think she’d hog tie me and hide me away if she knew about that.” Getting to my car I give him a wave and get in.

  The secret we have to keep will be hard to do. Gia can be tenacious. But she can’t know about this. No one can!

  GIA

  The three months have passed far too quickly. In five days, the mission to Mars will leave, taking my husband away for God only knows how long. I lay on our bed, watching Ryker as he comes out of the bathroom, rubbing his head with a towel to dry his dark hair. “You look cozy.” He tosses the towel away and it lands on the floor.

  “Don’t just leave that there,” I snap at him.

  I’ve been snapping at him a lot since he told me he was leaving. I feel a tiny bit of guilt as he goes to pick up the towel and places it on the back of a chair. “Sorry.”

  I hate how sad he’s looked lately. But I also hate how sad I’ve been feeling. “When are you going to talk to me, Ryker?”

  “I do talk to you, Gia.” He climbs into the bed, pulling the blanket up then fluffing his pillows before he lies back on them.

  “No, you don’t.” I huff then turn over on my side.

  The fact is, I have something to tell him but I can’t seem to make myself say it. It wouldn’t change a thing if he knew it, anyway. I’m just so mad at him for going on this damn mission that it consumes me.

  I feel his hand running over my shoulder. “Can’t we get along these last few days, Gia? Can you pretend I’m not leaving?”

  Flipping over, I look at him as tears trickle down my cheeks. “No, I can’t pretend that. This is hard enough as it is, without adding in denial to this recipe for disaster. You’ve been dreaming lately. Talking in your sleep.”

  He wipes my tears away. “I have?”

  “You have. You’re hiding something from me. I deserve to know. I should know.”

  He looks at me for a while then says, “I am hiding something. And I’m not at liberty to discuss it with anyone, other than my team and our supervisors. If I could tell you about it, I would.”

  “It’s dangerous. More dangerous than most people are aware of. And you want to walk right into it. Why?”

  “Someone has to do it, Gia.”

  “They’re training you all for battle. A battle cannot be won by six men. So, tell me why you’d go on a suicide mission. I don’t understand.”

  “It’s not a suicide mission. We’re all being trained and given what we need to win the battle. If there is one. No one knows for certain if there will be one.”r />
  Sitting up in the bed, I cross my arms over my chest. “If there is one, how will you be able to retreat if necessary? No one has made any plan for that.”

  “Because you know there’s no retreating. I wish you wouldn’t worry. We do have plans in place and some things no one knows about. I feel confident in our training and our gear. Can’t that be enough for you?”

  “No.”

  My stomach growls and he looks at it. “Hungry? Did you eat anything at all today?”

  I shake my head. “Food isn’t sitting right with me, lately. I do take the capsules, though. I’m being nourished. As if you care.” I huff and lay back down, pulling the blanket up.

  “I do care, Gia.” His hand moves through my hair. “I’m not going because I don’t care about you. You know that.”

  “I don’t know anything except you’re leaving me and I may never see you again. That’s all I know for sure.” The urge to spit out what I should tell him fills my head as he runs his hands through my hair.

  “I’m not really leaving you. You don’t know you’ll never see me again. For all you know, you may be following me sometime next year.”

  “I may be following you before that,” I let him know. “You see, I’ve signed up for a mission too. I’m in the second group.”

  When his hand freezes, I know I’ve surprised him and he’s not pleasantly surprised, either. “The second group? I wasn’t aware there was going to be one. And how long have you been keeping this from me?”

  “A week. I was approached a week ago. And you’re not aware of it because a private company is funding the project. There will be twenty of us.”

  “You can’t go, Gia. That private company isn’t privy to the information we have from NASA. You can’t go.” He pulls me over, so I have to look at him. “There’s more to Mars than others are aware of.”

  “I am going. If you’re going, then I’m going too. I’ll be right behind you, baby.”

  “I have to make a call,” he says then gets out of bed. “No missions, other than ours can be sent.”

  “There is no governmental control over this, Ryker.” I sit back up and watch him as he takes his cell and leaves the room.

  I suppose he can’t talk in front of me. I suppose there’s a huge cover-up or secret about Mars that only a select few can know. And that tells me more about the danger that’s lurking there.

  My stomach goes tense and I jump out of bed and run to the bathroom. My nerves have gotten the best of me, lately. I’ve thrown up so many times in the last week, it seems at times like I have a virus.

  I hear the bedroom door close as he comes back in then I hear him come into the bathroom. “Baby, are you sick?”

  Flushing the toilet, I shake my head. “Nerves. This shit is getting to me. I’m having a hard time keeping myself together.”

  Wetting a washcloth in the sink, he brings it to me and helps me up off the floor where I ended up as I feel weak. Gently, he wipes my face then picks me up into his arms and carries me back to bed. “I’m sorry about all of this. I am.”

  Wrapping my arms around his neck, I bury my face in his chest as a sob escapes me. “Ryker, I can’t take this. I can’t.”

  “Shh, baby. It’s going to be alright. You’ll see. Everything is going to be alright. I’m going to make sure it is.” Sitting on the edge of the bed, he cradles me on his lap.

  “It’s not going to be alright. You may stop me from following you with that mission but you can’t stop me forever. If you go, so do I.”

  “Gia, it may be dangerous. You can come when we’ve found out if it’s safe or not.”

  “Let someone else do that, Ryker. Let someone who doesn’t have a wife do that. I’m begging you.”

  His hand moves up my arm then he takes my face in it and makes me look at him. “If I tell you what the secret is, can you keep it a secret?”

  All I can do is look at him. I know I’ll feel compelled to do something to stop the mission if it’s really bad. But I have to keep that fact to myself and utter a lie, “I can keep it a secret, Ryker.”

  The way he looks into my eyes has my heart pounding. I wait and wait for him to tell me the big, dangerous secret. When his cell rings, I look away from him, finding the word, abort, blazing across the screen. “I’ll be right back.” He gets up, still holding me, then places me on the bed. Grabbing the phone, he walks out of the room.

  I can’t stand it any longer. I sneak out after him to hear what he has to say to the odd call. Just as I open the door, he’s coming back in and gives me a look that tells me he’s not happy about catching me coming after him. “What are you doing, Gia?”

  “What are you doing?” I turn the question back on him. “Tell me what that’s about.”

  “I can’t. And I can’t let you in on the secret, either. I had no idea the extent they’ve gone to, to make sure no one talks. The room must be bugged or my phone or something. They knew I was about to tell you the secret.”

  I step back into the bedroom, more than a bit shocked. “Ryker, do they have you over a barrel? Do you have to go on this mission or they’ll do something to you?”

  He just stares at me then blinks once, slowly. I can see they are using something to make him go on this mission. Taking his hand, I pull him back to the bed.

  I’ve been so upset with this whole thing, I’ve hardly been intimate with him at all. He’s been in training for hours every single day. And one weekend they kept them at the training facility for two nights. When he came back home, he was kind of stiff-necked.

  I run my hands up his arms after I climb onto his lap as he sits on the bed. “Make love to me.” Moving my hands over his shoulders, I send them on a path to check the back of his neck. When he reaches up, taking my hands in his to stop me, I know he must have some type of implant back there I’m not supposed to find.

  “Baby, you don’t know how good it is to hear you say that.” His lips brush mine, sending sparks through me. “It’s been so damn long since you’ve let me touch you.”

  “I’m not going to fight you about this anymore.” I know now that he’s pretty much at the mercy of the men who’ve set this whole thing up. I’m not about to put any more pressure on him about it. I’m going to stop them, though. I’m not sure how I’m going to do it but I am going to stop it.

  He moves me off his lap and onto the bed. Unbuttoning my pajama shirt, he moves it off me as he looks at my breasts. His hands move over them then he leans over and takes one into his mouth. When he makes a gentle suck, it hurts like hell. I hold back a yelp and grit my teeth.

  Trying to send him on to better places, I reach out and grab the bottom of his T-shirt and pull it off, over his head, making him leave my tender breasts alone.

  He smiles as he pulls my pajama bottoms off then gets rid of his too. My pink satin panties are all that’s left between us and he grins at me as he rips them off me. I shudder with the action. It’s been three months since he and I have done a thing.

  “You’ve lost weight, Gia.” He runs his hand over my flat stomach then over my hip bones which are jutting out. “You must eat.”

  “I will. I promise.” I bite my lip as I’ve let things go as I’ve done little else, other than worry about him leaving.

  Slowly, he moves his hands up my sides as he moves to cover my body with his. His lips meet mine and he gives me his sweet kiss. Desire rips through me and an instant need for him fills me.

  His kiss grows intense in no time and our bodies grind together as they fight to get to the good stuff. I move my legs all over his then spread them wide for him. When he eases his hard cock into me, I groan with how good it feels and so does he. “Gia, my God.”

  “Ryker,” I moan his name and run my nails over his back.

  He moves in a slow rhythm, making my body heat and shiver at the same time. His lips press against my neck then he bites it with a softness that sends another set of chills over my body.

  Every touch, every movement, further c
ements the idea in my mind that I have to do something to stop the mission he’s seemed to be so down to go on.

  Arching up to him, I spur him on until he’s raging with an animal-like need for me. My hands move all over him, rubbing, clawing, raking. Then I move one of them in a circular pattern while the other moves up to the back of his neck.

  I only get the smallest touch before he takes my hand and holds it down. But I felt something. A tiny bump, but he’s trying his best to hide it. I know it’s some kind of a device to track him or maybe even run him.

  There’s no reason to ask him a thing about it. I know now that he can’t tell me or anyone else a thing. I begin to feel tremendous guilt over how I’ve treated him.

  When I haven’t been cold and distant, I’ve been bitchy and vindictive. A thing I’m ashamed of myself for now. I should’ve known there had to be extenuating circumstances for him going.

  “Gia, baby, I love you so much,” he whispers in my ear then bites my earlobe.

  “Ryker, I’m so sorry.” Tears flow like rivers as remorse tortures me. I have to do something to help him!

  All the money in the world isn’t helping him to do what he really wants. It seems maybe my mind, the thing he always saw as my best attribute, is about the only thing that can save him from this thing.

  The waves of pleasure rumble through me and I’m shouting his name over and over with each surge. With a groan, he joins me, letting our bodies reconnect in the way they love to but I’ve denied them.

  “Ryker, I love you.”

  “I love you, Gia.”

  Now I have to figure out what I have to do to save him.

  RYKER

  “You tell me how in the hell we’re supposed to do this thing,” I shout at the man in charge of our team, Captain Smithfield.

  He looks at me with a frown so deep, his wrinkles have wrinkles. “Crawford, you know this mission is important to mankind. You were all in, up until a couple of weeks ago.”

  “After the implant was placed in us, I lost faith in this whole thing. I’ve felt weird since that moment. I’ve felt unlike myself. I want it removed. I want out of this. I think there’s a lot of lying that’s happening and I think we’ve been chosen to man this mission based on the fact the six of us are the top people who’ve made the discoveries that are needed to make life on Mars a reality. Get rid of us, get rid of the idea of going there.”