Over the Moon (Star-Crossed Book 1) (8 page)

Patrick felt her hands on his hips, pulling the suit down over them, and he groaned. Her touch was like fire on his skin. All he could think about was how much he wanted to feel her body against him.

Clang!

The sound of metal on metal jarred him back to reality with a cold splash of reality. More clanging noises, and the Hopper shook gently around them.

“What the hell is that?” Carmen asked. She sounded as breathless as he felt. Her arms were still draped around him, both her hands still dangerously deep into his pants. God damn it, this was the worst timing ever!

“It’s the shuttle,” he said, fighting to keep his voice under control. He was shaking with desire for her, even now, even knowing they were about to lose their moment of privacy. “They’re picking us up.”

“So soon?” she asked, sounding petulant. She jerked her hands out of his pants and wrapped them around herself.

He didn’t laugh. It would have hurt her feelings, and besides – he felt the same. Amy was their other certified pilot. She must have fired up the shuttle the instant radiation levels were low enough to be safe, and burned on maximum thrust all the way here. He knew he ought to be grateful. If they’d been caught out in the full brunt of a bad solar flare, they’d have needed medical attention right away. But he was pretty sure they hadn’t taken much of a dose at all, not tucked away as much as they were.

Which just left him feeling frustrated. But they didn’t have much time left. Amy was lifting them into the air even now, and she’d use maximum burn all the way back to base.

“We’d better get dressed,” he said. Did he sound as sulky as she did? He thought he probably did, and the thought made him grin ruefully. He pulled the top of his ship-suit back over his shoulders and zipped himself back up.

Then he crouched down to open the bottom of their cocoon. She flinched away from him when he did, which surprised and hurt him. A few minutes ago, hadn’t they just been…? Why would she back away now?

“Are you OK?” he asked.

“Sure. Fine.”

She didn’t sound fine, but he didn’t have time for this right now. Amy would expect him to radio her. She knew it would take a minute to get out of the shelter, but if he didn’t call her soon, she’d assume he was unable to, and it would be a mess explaining why he wasn’t dead or dying.

“I’ve got to radio the shuttle,” he said. He opened the bottom of the shelter and light spilled into their hidden spot. Carmen yelped.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“It’s cold out there!” she said, chuckling a little. It was good to hear her laugh again. He was worried that she was mad at him for the bad timing of their rescue. Ha! He would’ve done just about anything to have the shuttle come just fifteen minutes later.

He lifted the bottom of the shelter a bit and slipped out. He went over to his console and sat down in the control seat, checking his gauges. Shit, they’d been in there for half an hour. How had that much time gone by? It had felt more like ten minutes. Maybe he was wrong – he would have needed the shuttle to be slower by more than just another half hour…

“Shuttle, this is Hopper One, thanks for the rescue,” he said drily.

“Glad to be of service,” Amy replied. “You two OK?”

Patrick glanced down at the dosimeter tucked into his pocket. All of the long-term staff wore them up here, because…shit happened, and you never knew when you’d want to know how many rads you’d been getting lately. But his hadn’t budged. The crater wall, the Hopper hull, the shelter – that trifecta had probably been overkill, if none of the solar flare had leaked through at all.

But he couldn’t regret using a little overkill, in this case. He smiled.

“We’re clear, Amy. Nothing got in.”

“Awesome sauce,” she replied. “The doc still wants his daughter in medical right pronto for a checkup.”

Patrick sighed. How could he have forgotten that little bit of complexity? That Carmen’s father was basically his default boss, at least for the time being? That he might not take kindly to someone dragging his daughter off, putting her in danger, and then…

Yeah. He might not appreciate it overly much. He winced. If she talked to her dad, the fallout could be explosive. He’d need to play it very cool for a bit, or he was liable to be ordered back to Earth and replaced with someone less interested in sleeping with the doctor’s precious daughter. And he was, if he was being honest with himself. The memory of their time together in the radiation shelter still burned in his mind like a brand. If Amy hadn’t shown up, he’d still be in there with her. And damned if they wouldn’t have bared even more skin by now. Standing up in a tiny space wasn’t the easiest way in the world to manage, but he was pretty sure she’d have been game to try.

Carmen slipped out of the shelter and slid back into her seat. He glanced over at her. She looked a little rumpled, but otherwise more or less composed. Her cheeks were the faintest bit pink, though, and he could see little dots of perspiration at her temples, and in the hollows of her clavicles.

He flashed her a smile, and she returned one, if a bit wavering. It was something. He was feeling a little shell-shocked, himself. She had to be much the same. Patrick lost himself for just a moment in her eyes. What the hell was he going to do? Here was this incredible woman. And he wanted her – wanted to show her how good they could be together, and not just in the sack. He wanted to see her smile at him, to enjoy those flashes of her brilliance. Not to mention her daring.

But how the hell was he supposed to manage that without being kicked back to Earth and stuck into some hellish corner of the planet as punishment? He turned his face back to his controls. He had a lot to think about, once they were back at the base.

C
ARMEN SETTLED HERSELF
into her seat to mask her shaking. She was probably blushing crimson, too. And there was Patrick, looking all proper and done up… And she was a mess. It simply wasn’t fair. He grinned over at her, and she gave him a shaky smile in return.

She looked outside, but the ground was rocketing past with dizzying speed. She could see the shuttle above them. It had picked them up with a clamp, and was carrying the Hopper like an egg nestled against the bottom of the ship. It was flying really fast though – far more swiftly than Patrick had flown them out here. She guessed Amy must be trying to make the best possible time back to the lunar base. But the effect was that looking out the front window was a nauseating experience.

Carmen closed her eyes to give them relief from the view, but with her eyes closed all she could think about was her skin bare to the waist, Patrick’s chest pressed up against hers, his mouth on her mouth and everywhere else he could think to put it.

She opened her eyes again before the memories made her make some truly embarrassing noises.

“We’ll be back in a few minutes,” Patrick said.

“Making excellent time,” she replied drily.

“Sorry about that,” he replied, frowning.

What was he sorry about? Sorry about the speed with which they were returning? Sorry they were interrupted? Or sorry about the entire thing? Carmen tried to sort through her own feelings. Stuck in a small dark space with a hot guy, things had seemed so much simpler. But now they were out again, and dressed, and… Patrick moved a hand to touch a control on his console, and all she could think about was him putting his hands on her again.

She took a deep breath, let it out, and took another. She wasn’t a teenager anymore. She wasn’t about to let her hormones control her.

“Back to the grind, when we get in there,” she said, keeping her voice light. “I hope the data we grabbed from your site helps you in your research.”

“It’s your research that I hope goes well!” he replied. “Of the two of us, your work is a lot more time sensitive than mine.”

Carmen suddenly wasn’t quite so sure. After all, they had a good test for the virus, didn’t they? And how hard would it be to set up more domes up here? If it came down to it, find enough water on the moon somewhere, and you could probably move a bunch of people up from the surface and build a city of uninfected human beings out here. She wondered if anyone else was already thinking along those lines. Hadn’t Patrick mentioned something about getting shipped a bunch of extra materials for new domes, instead of the supplies he’d actually asked for? She wasn’t positive. And somehow, it didn’t seem like the right time to ask.

The shuttle was already setting down, settling to the ground near the domes. Off toward the habitats, Carmen could see people rushing to extend the long airlock tube.

“Honestly,” Patrick said, exasperated. He keyed the radio. “Stand down. No radiation injuries were sustained. I’ll dock the Hopper and we’ll proceed to medical just to be sure, but we’re OK, people.”

“You kids had some folks mighty worried,” Fred’s voice came back to them over the radio.

“Sorry about that,” Patrick replied, trying not to chuckle. “Occupational hazard.”

There was a clunking sound as the shuttle released their Hopper from its clamps, and they dropped softly about two feet to the ground. Patrick eased on the thrusters, and took them slowly out from underneath the shuttle.

“Listen, we should talk,” he said. Carmen looked over at him, her face heating up all over again. He looked worried, to her. Worried about what?

“About…?” she asked, waggling her eyebrows at him. Hey, he ought to be made to feel at least as uncomfortable as she was. But he just chuckled.

“It’ll have to wait, I suppose. We’ve already got company waiting for us in the lab.”

Carmen looked over to where he was taking the small craft, and there were indeed a group of people standing in the hall just inside where they’d be docking. She winced. One of them was her father.

“I am about to get so much crap,” she muttered.

“I’ll take the heat for it,” Patrick said. “No way anyone could have known about the solar flare. They just happen. But maybe I shouldn’t have taken you out so far.”

He settled the Hopper back into its docking cradle. Carmen exhaled, inhaled. She had to say something to him, something that mattered. But what?

“I wouldn’t have missed it for the world,” she said at last.

“Not…any of it?” Patrick asked hesitantly.

“Not a bit,” she said, smiling as she unbuckled from her seat. She bounced up and pressed the panel to cycle the door open. That would do, she thought.

The Hopper door opened up, and the buzz of voices hit her like a wave. Two guys in blue ship-suits had a stretcher with them, for crying out loud. A man and a woman who looked like some sort of grease monkeys were standing off to the side a little, but they were practically bouncing from one foot to the other waiting to get to do whatever it was they had come to do. Probably had to do with either the Hopper, or the data Patrick had brought back. Hell, maybe both.

And there was her father in the middle of it all. He was like an island of calm, standing there, arms crossed, staring – past her shoulder?

Carmen looked back over her shoulder. The Hopper was there. Patrick was still inside shutting the systems down. But her father wasn’t looking at him. She realized that he was looking at the radiation shelter. They’d left it hanging there from the roof of the Hopper. It hadn’t occurred to either of them to take it down. Up close, the thing might look like alien air ducts. But from this distance, it looked more like a sleeping bag hung up to dry.

She turned back to her father, who flicked his stare from the shelter back to her face.

He cocked an eyebrow at her. A question.

She flushed and looked down. An answer, and not the one she’d meant to give.

When she looked back up, he’d already walked away.

Carmen sighed. That would be all sorts of fun to deal with, later on. Her father had very old school ideas about relationships. The idea of his daughter stuck in very close confines with some man was enough to upset him. And then she’d blushed, which no doubt had given him all sorts of ideas.

Ideas which were probably not too far from what had actually happened. Why the hell had she blushed?

The medics swooped in about then. “Just lie down, Carmen. We’ll get you checked out.”

“I’m totally OK to walk,” she protested, but they slide the stretcher over and looked up at her with such earnest eyes that it was hard to resist them. She sighed and sat down on the stretcher. They brought the head up, and rolled her away.

“What about Patrick?” she asked.

“Him? We try to put him on a stretcher, he’ll tell us to take a walk outside,” one of the medics said.

“Without a suit,” the other one added, chuckling.

“Don’t worry. Sounds like you’re fine, but they want to check you out in medical just to make sure. That was a big storm, and if you’d been exposed, even in the Hopper…” His voice trailed off.

His partner picked up the thread. “Well, let’s just say you’re glad you weren’t.”

Carmen shivered. They’d been in serious danger. And then they’d…what? Ignored the danger and just gone for it? Were the sexy times just their way of ignoring the dangerous storm hammering down on the moon just outside their fragile bubble? If that was all they were, did it mean anything at all? Or was it just two people who needed someone to touch in a tough moment?

She didn’t know. And she wanted to know. Carmen surprised herself, realizing that she actually wanted it to be more than that. She’d go talk to Patrick. Feel him out. See if she could figure out how he was feeling about their little interlude together. If he felt the way she did, or not.

* * *

I
t took far longer
than she’d expected to get through the medical process. They wanted to make absolutely sure she hadn’t soaked too much radiation out there. Blood tests, mostly. And then the wait for the results.

“Can’t I go back to work while I wait?” she asked.

Doc MacInness frowned at her. “Well, you could… But I would prefer you stay here and rest, just in case.”

She didn’t know him very well. Her free time since arriving here had been pretty limited, and didn’t extend to chatting with balding men her father’s age. But she did know that her dear dad had been having coffee with him some mornings. So that was the end of that. If she reported back to her father without a clean bill of health, he’d turn her right back around and she’d be back in the medical bay bed anyway. No sense fighting the inevitable. She smiled, nodded her assent, opened her tablet and got back to reading for a little bit.

Her alarm chimed just before the lab tests on potential viral cures were due to be done. It was time and past to get back to work. Which meant she’d been sitting here on her duff reading for over an hour. She hopped out of bed and slipped her shoes back on. Then she left the small room where she’d been parked and went to find the doctor, or a medic, or somebody who could release her back to her job.

That took another half hour. She was tapping her foot on the floor by the time they were done with her paperwork, but at last it was complete. The blood tests were negative. She’d picked up more radiation on the shuttle trip out to the moon than she had in the last day.

With a deep sigh, she headed out of the medical bay back out into the hall. She was late. They’d already have the test results, and she’d missed the big reveal. There would be a heap of work to do, and the entire team would be in there hammering away at it without her.

Lost in thought, she rounded the corner into the hall and slammed face on into someone trying to come in to medical.

“Sorry!” she said, extracting her nose from the chest in front of her. She’d lost her balance a bit, but the person she collided with had both her arms in a strong grip. A strong and familiar grip.

“That’s OK,” Patrick said to her. “I was hoping we might bump into each other, anyway.” He smiled down at her and slowly released her arms.

She felt warmth creep back into her cheeks at the look on his face. His touch on her arms brought back oh-so-recent memories of his touch in other places, and she felt lost for a moment, staring up at him.

“Me too,” she said, finally taking back control of her voice, with some effort. “But the lab – I’m late already. Got to go.”

Patrick nodded to her. “Go do, then. I’ll see you.”

She nodded back and then hurried away. God, that was awkward! She was going to have to sit down and have a chat with the man, that’s all. They couldn’t keep having moments like that. It was a small base. They’d run into each other all the time, and she’d be a blushing, bumbling mess all day.

Carmen got her breathing back under control as she continued toward her father’s lab. Her strides grew longer and more even. The pink left her cheeks – she could feel the heat draining away. She smiled at the silliness of it all. She was behaving like a school-girl with her first crush. But that wasn’t her. She was so much more than that.

Sure, Patrick had turned out to be much more than he seemed at first, too. And she’d more than enjoyed their time together in the Hopper. And not just the part after they’d gotten into the storm shelter! He was deep, and thoughtful, and also good in a crisis. All things she admired.

But this wasn’t her life. This time out here on the moon, it was hopefully an interlude for her. They’d solve the viral crisis and be back on Earth before too long, a vaccine in hand. She’d go on to her next assignment someplace. With luck, this experience would net her enough credibility in the field to get some plum assignments once she was back.

And Patrick? She shook her head, still smiling. His heart was out here. She could tell that from the conversation on their ride. He loved this place. She could understand that love. The moon was beautiful, for all that it was also stark and dangerous. He’d made his home here. She didn’t know how long he’d continue his work here, but he was clearly happy in it. Their lives were very different, and moving in very different directions. Chance had happened to bring them together for a moment, but she doubted that it would last.