this first encounter with her. He forced himself to pull back. She followed him. But he tipped her chin up and looked down into her eyes.
“I need to be inside of you,” he said.
She nodded. “I want that, too.”
She reached under her dress and removed her panties. Then she looked at him. He put the condom on with one hand and then drew her closer until she straddled his lap. His hands under her dress, he felt the warmth of her body in contrast to the cool fabric.
He ran his hands down her spine; she arched over him and brought her mouth down hard on his. She took one of his hands and brought it to her breast. He cupped it and then pushed the fabric out of his way.
She reached behind her, pulled the dress over her head and tossed it away. Then, she slowly undid the buttons on the front of his shirt. She pushed it aside and leaned down to kiss him. One of his hands tangled in her hair as their mouths met again and he shifted his hips so that the tip of his cock was poised at the entrance of her body.
She hovered over him and then slowly lowered herself down his length. He sucked her tongue deeper into his mouth. She stopped, letting her body adjust to his size, and then she rocked up until he was almost completely out of her before plunging back down on him.
She tore her mouth from his, tipping her head back as she rode him hard. He pushed the fabric of her bra out of his way and found her nipple with his mouth. He sucked on her and felt her moving faster and more forcefully against him. But it wasn’t enough. He needed more.
He grabbed her hips, clutching at her ass, as he drove himself up into her and pulled her down against him. The fire of sex engulfed them both as they drove themselves harder and harder until she screamed his name and he felt her tightening around him. He held her hips tight against him as he continued to thrust up into her, sucking her nipple deeper into his mouth until he felt his balls tighten and he came. Emptying himself, he continued to thrust into her until he was spent.
She collapsed against him, her head on his shoulder. He held her loosely, but he wanted to clutch her to him. Wanted to remember this moment, her pressed against him like a warm blanket, when he was back in the coldness of space.
“Well, you showed me the stars tonight,” she said, her voice breathless and her tone, he suspected, deliberately light.
“And you showed me how little I know of the universe. That there are still so many mysteries I have yet to understand.”
He drew her dress over her and held her in his arms. He wanted to pretend that this had changed nothing, but instead it seemed that everything was different now. He held her so close that it was impossible to deny it.
She’d become important to him.
She’d made a place inside his soul.
JASON TOLD HER about the night sky as he held her in his arms. In the distance there was nothing but endless inky darkness. They were too far from town to see the flickering streetlights and too far from the buildings on the ranch to see their lights, either. It was as if they were the only two people on the planet at this moment.
“Is that the appeal of traveling to Mars or another far-off planet?” she asked. “Being the only person there...well, apart from the rest of the crew, of course.”
“Some of it,” he said. “Part of it is that when I’m up there I don’t have the worries I do on Earth. I just have to do my job. And everything is mission critical. I can’t stop to worry about anything else.”
“I wouldn’t mind getting away from my worries here,” she said. “But I’d miss the ranch.”
He tightened his arms around her and smoothed her hair absently. He was mellow. Hell, she was, too. It was as if sex had reset something inside of her that she hadn’t realized was askew.
“What would you run away from?” he asked.
She thought about it for a moment. She could tell him anything. That was what it felt like tonight. He was warm and comforting as he held her.
“Just all the doubts that I have,” she said. “I get so tired of wondering if I’m doing what Dad wanted. I hate that he’s not here. I wish... I almost wish he’d been sick for a little while so I could have had some warning, been able to say good-bye, but that’s selfish. He would have hated being stuck in bed, unable to take care of things around the ranch. Still, it would have been easier for me.”
He rubbed her arm up and down.
“I wish I’d been here. As much as I like being up there...I wish I’d been here for you when Mick had his accident. I wish I’d told him at least once how grateful I am for what he did for me,” Jason said.
She squeezed his wrist. “He knew.”
“Really?”
“Yes. He was very proud of you. He told everyone who came to the ranch, didn’t matter if they were delivering feed or a new stud. Dad would tell them about his ‘son’ the astronaut.”
Jason squeezed her tight and she heard his breath catch. She turned to look at him, but he’d tipped his head up toward the sky and she gave him a moment. Gave him the time he needed to get his emotions under control.
That was the thing about grief, she thought—it wasn’t just over and done. It kept sweeping along and hitting her when she least expected it. But talking about Dad tonight felt right. Felt like they both needed to get some sort of closure in regard to the man who’d meant the world to both of them and had left them so unexpectedly.
She knew that if it hadn’t been for Mick’s death, she and Jason wouldn’t be here. They would both be living their ordinary lives.
“I miss him,” she said.
“I know. What do you think he’d say about us turning part of the ranch into a training facility?”
“I have no idea,” she said. “It’s different. Is this your way of staying with NASA even if you don’t pass the medical?”
He shrugged. She noticed he did that a lot when he didn’t want to answer a question. She got it. It was easier for her to talk about him than to examine herself.
“Sort of,” he said. “Ever feel like you were born at the wrong time?”
“Not really. I’m pretty happy right where I am.”
“Yeah, I can see that. That’s probably why everything has hit you so hard with your dad,” he said. “I mean...”
She reached up and touched his face. “I get it. Why do you wish you were born in a different time?”
“Well, if I was born thirty years earlier, I could have been part of the moon landing and those missions. Twenty years later and I’d be the perfect age to land on Mars one day. Instead...”
“You are doing the work to enable others to go to Mars. To allow us to see if there is other life in the universe,” she said. “This facility—the missions
