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

by Jennifer Willis

  “This is your answer?” Her voice was a rough whisper.

  Trevor walked her backward, and her knees buckled when she came up against the bed. He was already working the zipper on the front of her jumpsuit as he eased her onto the bed. “It’s the beginning of my answer, anyway.”

  A thrill of anticipation danced over her skin, and she eagerly helped him remove his own jumpsuit. A thought intruded about whether she’d have to start wearing orange instead of her navy UNSC uniform, followed by the sharp realization that she might have just resigned her commission. Eddie was probably furious.

  But Trevor’s mouth was on her skin again, moving across her bare shoulders as he settled onto the mattress next to her, and she found she didn’t care all that much about Eddie Coville or anyone else back on Earth.

  “We’ll have to figure out living arrangements,” she breathed against his scalp as his kisses traveled down her body. She let out a small, laughing sigh as he lifted the fabric of her bra and found her nipple with his teeth. She clutched his thick hair as he teased her with his mouth. She wrapped her legs around his body and felt the movement of his muscles and the rhythm of his breath as she tried to brace him tight against her.

  But he pressed his hands against her knees, easing her hold on him. “Living arrangements? Are you asking me to be your kept man, Commander Kay?”

  “Stop calling me that!” Hogan groaned in frustration at his deliberating baiting, and then in a rush of sensation as he found her other nipple with his mouth. The persistent flicking of his tongue over her stiffening skin sent a quake of pleasure through her.

  Her entire body pulsed with need for him. The heat was building quickly, but he was taking his time, again. She tried pushing his head downward, but he resisted. She tried pulling him up and into her, but he wouldn’t budge. He ran one hand down her body and cupped her mons, applying just enough pressure to make her start to writhe against him.

  She dug her fingers into his shoulders and pushed, trying to flip him onto his back. He chuckled and pressed her firmly into the mattress.

  “I’m afraid we’re going to do things my way this time around.” He lifted his head and smiled wickedly at her. He breathed against her lips. “With your permission, of course. Commander.”

  “Christ! Will you stop that?" But she was laughing.

  Trevor’s eyes danced with mischief. His fingers, still firmly between her legs, stroked with a steady rhythm. Gradually, and agonizingly slowly, he increased his pressure and tempo. All the while, he watched her face, kissing her and sliding his fingers into her in synchronization with his tongue slipping past her lips and then withdrawing again.

  She tried again to climb on top of him, and again he used his body to hold her in place.

  “Your way is driving me crazy,” she growled deep in her throat. She clenched her knees around him, drawing him closer as she started grinding against him.

  “Then it’s working.” He kissed her fully, filling her mouth with his tongue as he continued to tease her, stroking and pinching one erect nipple while sliding his fingers inside of her. She could feel how slick she was. She groaned and clutched at him, her hands traveling over his body and grasping at his back, his glutes, his head. Her body was a singing tangle of need, and she tried desperately to draw him into her.

  “Please!” she gasped as he released her lips after another kiss. “Trevor.”

  She looked into his eyes. The roguish glint was still there, but she saw a deeper tenderness, too, and something else in the mix. Desire? Fear? She didn’t have the focus or patience to figure it out.

  “Your wish,” he kissed her quickly, “is my command.”

  He gripped her hips with both hands as he moved on top of her, pushing into her and filling her at last. She cried out as she felt his pubic bone connect with hers. She wrapped her legs around him and caught his hips in the vice of her hands, locking him in as she rocked against him, controlling the rhythm and bringing him along for the ride—though it was as short one.

  She arched her back and laughed aloud as her orgasm exploded through her body, radiating out into her fingertips and her toes. Trevor followed her, each stroke working him deeper inside until he at last held still with a long, low sigh and a tremor that ran down his spine.

  “Hogan,” he breathed as he lowered his weight onto her. He took a few deep breaths, and she reveled in the expansion and contraction of his lungs as he lay on top of her.

  He propped himself up on his elbows and looked down at her. “Better?”

  “Better.”

  He shifted off of her and rested at her side, pulling the blanket over them both before draping an arm across her waist and resting his head half on her shoulder and half on his own bicep.

  “Now,” he said with a lingering sigh. “Why don’t you try again.”

  Hogan grabbed his hand from her waist and played with his fingers, still slick with her own juices.

  “I . . . My mission is still important to me.” Tears slid down her cheeks and into her hair as she pulled a pillow beneath her head and tried to get comfortable.

  “No one questions that. Or if they do, they can suck it.”

  Hogan laughed. She tilted her head and kissed the tip of his nose. “But I think, for me, the mission is a little different than it has been for others.”

  She looked across the room at the moving poster of Mt. Hood. A wisp of white cloud drifted behind the mountain peak across an almost painfully blue sky.

  “I can’t let anyone die here, not if I can help it.” The tears started rolling again, and she didn’t try to stop them.

  “You’re talking about your friends,” he said.

  She turned to him. His eyes were closed as he nestled against her. She rested back into the pillow.

  “The crew of the Hermes 3.” She intertwined her fingers with his, to keep herself from fidgeting. “You know about the accident.”

  “I think I know enough, so you don’t have to . . . If you don’t want to.”

  “They wanted to take a core sample, farther out than they had planned. The commander, Edward Coville, was back at the base. They asked for his permission, and he told them to use their best judgment.” Hogan shuddered.

  “You think it was his fault?”

  “He wasn’t onsite with them. He wasn’t an expert in geology or geophysics, the way they were. But. Everything that happens under a command is the responsibility of the commander.”

  “Hogan, you can’t take all of that onto—”

  “They’re not sure if there was an actual explosion, though the video feed certainly looked like it. I don’t know how many times I studied that video—we all did, later—trying to figure out what happened. To make sure it wouldn’t happen again.”

  Hogan paused.

  “Al Noguchi died quickly, or we think he did, when the drill blew apart and ripped into his suit.” Hogan couldn’t stop the video replay in her head. The shouts of surprise and pain, the jarring images from Al’s feed as his body twisted and fell to the ground, coming to rest on a lifeless view of the Martian landscape. Hogan swallowed hard.

  “We think they hit a pocket of methane, larger than they expected. And then there was the collapse, some kind of sinkhole, right after. Josef Rostov fell in, and Marla Tombart was trying to save them both.”

  Hogan paused to catch her breath. She heard Marla’s voice over the comms as she called Eddie for help, keeping her cool as Al’s moans tapered to deathly silence, and as her own air leaked out from the shrapnel puncture in her suit. Joe’s camera feed cut to static and then to black within seconds. Marla had checked on Al, quickly giving him up for dead, and then she scrambled to the edge of the sinkhole. She’d called out to Joe and tried to reassure him even though he was far out of reach.

  Hogan remembered the images from Marla’s feed as she patched her own suit and threw a rope to Joe, cracking jokes to keep herself steady and sane. And then the ground beneath her gave way, and she’d flailed and grasped,
trying and failing to find stable handholds. She’d slid into the crevasse, too, landing hard with a painful yelp, her voice steady but weakening as her suit’s patch failed.

  And all the while, Eddie had issued one useless order after another over the comms, ineffective and far removed while three members of his crew lost their lives.

  Trevor pulled Hogan close, and she curved her body to fit against his. He didn’t tell her that her friends’ sacrifice was for a greater cause, that her service was honoring their lives, and that continuing humanity’s exploration of space was the noblest and most meaningful way to ensure that they hadn’t died in vain.

  He didn’t try to rationalize away her thoughts and feelings with empty words. He was steady and strong beside her. He gave her the space to tell her story and bore witness to her grief. A comforting calm settled into her body—more soothing than any utterance or embrace—when she realized Trevor’s gift was precisely what she had needed all along.

  “So, since you’re staying, are you planning to make an honest man out of me?”

  Hogan’s eyes widened, but she didn’t turn toward him. She had all but forgotten about the debate inside Ares City over this same question after Grigori’s unlucky rendezvous with Melissa. As far as she knew, no one had come to any conclusions about marriage on Mars.

  And now, had Trevor just proposed to her?

  She patted his hand. “I need to let the dust settle on everything first, before I start diving in deeper.” She winced at her words. She sounded lame and avoidant. “I don’t mean no, exactly. I just can’t think about that right now. If you could—”

  “Relax.” Trevor kissed her shoulder and stroked her hair. “I’m not going anywhere.”

  Hogan closed her eyes and started to drift off to sleep. After the crises and near-disasters of the previous weeks, she wanted nothing more than a long and blissful nap, lying in Trevor’s arms. An uninterrupted block of time with no new problem or fiasco that required her immediate attention.

  Alas.

  “Trevor!” April shouted from outside his door as she knocked frantically. Without waiting for an answer, she barged in and stopped short when she saw Trevor and Hogan curled up together.

  “Oh, I’m sorry.” She blinked at them.

  Hogan sat up, clutching the blanket to her chest. “You needed something?”

  “Guillermo’s missing.”

  Trevor sat up behind Hogan. “What do you mean, missing?”

  “Missing, as in we can’t find him anywhere.” April looked away as Hogan stood up and started pulling on her clothes. “And his pressure suit is gone, so we’re thinking . . . Well, we’re not sure what to think.”

  After Hogan zipped up the front of her jumpsuit, April turned back around. “But maybe, you know, lock the door next time?”

  “Are the rovers accounted for?” Hogan glanced quickly at Trevor as he pulled on his briefs and then stepped into his jumpsuit. Her eyes traveled over his lean body, admiring the curl of dark hair on his chest and the muscular cut of his things and abdomen.

  April moved back toward the door. “If he went anywhere, he went on foot. Except . . .” April blew out a frustrated sigh and rested her hands on her hips. “Melissa went out after him.”

  Hogan’s eyes widened. “By herself?”

  April nodded. “She took one of the rovers.”

  Hogan glanced again at Trevor, and he waved her forward. “Go. I’m right behind you.”

  13

  Hogan didn’t waste any time organizing the manhunt. A quick call over to Progress Base had Miranda and Yusuf suited up and out the door in one of the UNSC rovers, working their way toward Ares City in hopes that Guillermo had headed in the direction of the UNSC habitat.

  That left two rovers at Ares City—one belonging to the colony and the other being the vehicle Grigori and Hogan had driven over. Grigori took charge of the UNSC rover, with Trent and Leah in the cabin. Mark was at the helm of the colony’s second rover, with Hogan, Trevor, and April riding along with him.

  Lori remained at Ares City, in case Guillermo turned up back at home. And Martin monitored the cameras at Progress Base, hoping to spot a man in a dull orange pressure suit against an expanse of rust-colored dirt.

  And there was also Melissa to run down.

  Hogan would have traded away half her coffee rations for a drone, and the other half for trackers on the colony rovers.

  The footprints and rover tracks leading away from Ares City didn’t indicate that Guillermo had veered off on some wild tear, at least not right away. But neither Melissa nor Guillermo was responding to calls over the comms, and it was anyone’s guess where either of them might be. The good news was Guillermo couldn’t have gone too far on foot.

  But a single trail of bootprints wasn’t as easy to spot as rover tracks.

  “I’ll head toward the monument,” Grigori announced over the comms. “And the other places from your field trip, in case he headed out that way.”

  Mark held his course steady, following the well-worn path that now existed between the two habitats, while Hogan, Trevor, and April kept their eyes open for Guillermo.

  “It’s my fault. I know it’s all my fault.” Melissa’s voice broke in over the comms. She was sobbing. “I’ve been such a stupid idiot. Oh, hell, everybody. I am so sorry. I thought it would be okay.”

  “Melissa?” Mark leaned forward and peered out the window, as though she might be nearby. “Where are you? Do you have Guillermo? Tell us where you are.”

  “I made such a mess of it,” Melissa’s voice crackled over the comms. Hogan didn’t think she could be moving out of range already, but her rover might be losing power if it hadn’t been fully charged. “I’m going to find him. I’ll bring him back. I can still fix this.”

  Hogan leaned over Mark’s shoulder.

  “Melissa? This is Hogan Kay.” She kept her voice even and conversational. “So, here’s the thing. We’ve got three teams out looking for you right now—looking for you and Guillermo. And, to be frank, I’m a little worried about you out there all by yourself right now.”

  Mark shot her a sour look. It was easy to see that he wasn’t pleased by the way she was taking charge. But they exchanged a quick nod, and Mark went back to scanning the horizon for the lost colonists.

  Hogan gripped the back of Mark’s seat as she searched the surrounding landscape. She watched the shadows growing longer outside the rover windows. They were heading into night.

  “I have to do this,” Melissa protested. “I drove him away. I know it was me. I thought I could get by without . . . I thought it would be different on Mars. I was stupid and selfish, and now he’s in danger because of me. I have to do this, Hogan!”

  “I understand that, Melissa. You feel responsible.”

  Hogan felt Trevor’s eyes on her as she spoke. She forced a smile onto her face, so that her voice would sound friendlier and more reassuring. She tensed and released her shoulder muscles to help keep her tone light. But her eyes remained hard.

  “I think the best thing you can do right now to help Guillermo is to head back to Dorito Village,” Hogan said. “And I think you know that, too.”

  “Hey! She said Dorito Village!” Trent joined the conversation from Grigori’s rover. “And she’s right, Melissa. You should totally come right on back—”

  Trent’s voice cut off abruptly. Hogan assumed either Leah or Grigori had temporarily muted their rover’s comms.

  “You think that would help?” Melissa sounded smaller, uncertain but less upset. “I just don’t know what to do anymore.”

  “Absolutely.” Hogan felt Trevor grab her hand and give it a hard squeeze.

  “You’re doing great,” he mouthed to her.

  “Does anyone see her?” Hogan whispered. Mark gave a sharp shake of his head in reply.

  “Melissa, if you can make your way back to the habitat, that means we can all focus our attention on finding Guillermo and making sure he’s safe. Okay? Do you understand?”<
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  “Easier to catch one bear cub than two,” Grigori muttered, back on the line.

  “Yeah, okay. I just, because it’s getting dark out here, you know?” Melissa’s voice was stronger. She sounded more like herself. “This isn’t, I don’t know what I was thinking. I’ve been having some trouble.”

  “Do you know where you are?” Hogan asked. “Can you turn around and follow your tracks back home? And do you know how to turn on your rover’s lights? It’s got headlights—”

  “Yeah, I think so. I’m heading back now. I, I’m really embarrassed.” Melissa almost laughed.

  Hogan lowered her voice. “You people have protocols for handling this kind of recklessness?”

  Mark frowned. “You people?”

  Hogan sucked in her breath. She’d heard the condescension in her own voice. Mark was right to be offended. It was going to take some time for her to take off her commander hat.

  Then Mark laughed. “You’re one of our people now, as I recall.”

  “You probably think I’m the stupidest person on the planet,” Melissa said.

  “We can talk it all out later, okay?” Hogan suggested, stemming Melissa’s public unburdening before it could get started.

  She breathed out a long, slow sigh. That was one colonist found, and another still on the loose. And night was coming on fast.

  It took no small amount of discipline for Trevor not to jump on the rover’s comms and voice the recriminations he felt Melissa surely deserved. He didn’t dislike Melissa, but she had often be an annoyance. And now, with three different search parties on the move, she was an outright burden.

  Hogan had quickly talked her into heading back to Ares City, and it had sounded to Trevor like Melissa just needed someone to take charge and tell her what to do—something Mark hadn’t figured out.

  Now Hogan stood behind Mark’s seat as he steered the rover across the darkening slopes of Mars, looking for their wandering comrade. She helped him find the controls for the rover’s headlights and patted his shoulder in encouragement.