Jeannie Holmes - The Mammoth Book of Futuristic Romance

She stopped and turned her head, her arm still deep in the bulkhead. “What?”

He pointed to the wall, and then patted above and below the single sack before batting away a rolled-

up length of rope that floated near his head. “Only one set. Just one plug for a heater, too. I guess we’re supposed to sleep together.” He grinned. “Unless that would bother you, of course.”

It was hard to deny her discomfort with a dozen containers of food and medicine, along with fluid packs, floating around the room. “Hardly. They probably expected the pilot and navigator to sleep in shifts. Someone is normally supposed to watch the position of the ship, after all.”

“But normally the ship isn’t attached to a hunk of ice in space with the power off. If we sleep in shifts, one of us won’t survive the trip. Want to flip coins to see which of us freezes to death?”

It was sad that freezing to death was a viable option to crawling into a heated sleep sack with Rand Miflin. “You sleep first. I’ll get the rest of these supplies stowed and go over the maps again.”

He waggled a finger and kicked off from the wall, keeping a free hand up to protect his head. He wound up inches from her, close enough that her heart started to pound. “Oh, no. You forget – I’m not a pilot. I’m not going to get stuck out here after you freeze, not even knowing how to release the anchor from this rock.

I swear I’ll keep my hands to myself. We can even bundle up back to back. But we are both going to get in that bag. Even if I have to tie you up to do it.”

The amusement had left his eyes. He was dead serious. She’d never met a navigator who truly couldn’t fly. She’d presumed he was just downplaying his skills, but maybe he wasn’t kidding. And, admittedly, she didn’t want to freeze. A quiet, anonymous death wasn’t something she’d ever envisioned. “Fine. But I’ll hold you to your promise.”

Stupidest thing he’d ever agreed to. The sensation of her legs twined around his as she snored softly made him crazy. Yeah, they’d started with their backs touching. But he hadn’t been asleep for twenty minutes before he’d felt her hands all over him. He’d been both aroused and delighted – until he’d discovered she was sound asleep.

Damn it.

Apparently her subconscious mind was the only one willing to act on what she felt. Even helping her into the bag had made her crazy. She would make a low noise at the lightest touch but then deny she had.

He’d presumed she’d give up on the charade once they were zipped in, but all she did was turn her back and not respond to a single thing he said.

If only she could keep her hands to herself. He’d been accused more than once by dates of being all hands. But he had nothing on El. Her hand slipped out of his again to travel toward his belt. He gasped at the sensation. Crap. He grabbed her hand again, and held it tight in sheer self-defense.

Stupid agreement.

Oh, the hell with it. That was it. He let go of her hands, raising his arms until his palms were under his head. One of her hands slipped under his shirt, started lightly scratching nails down his skin. He had to steady his breathing and interlock his fingers to keep from pulling her against him. When her other hand reached around his neck to tickle his ear, he let out a small moan.

He waited, enduring the torture until her hand left his chest, moving down until it was snugly locked over his raging erection.

Now.

“Grayson,” he whispered. When she didn’t respond, he said it louder. “ Grayson !”

She woke with a start but the sack was tight enough against them that her hands didn’t immediately move. “Huh? What?! What’s wrong?”

He moved his head down until he was whispering in her ear. She shivered visibly. “Unless you plan to ravish me, move your hands.”

She froze, consciousness finally arriving as she realized her position. One leg was wrapped around his, her arm around him, finger skimming his ear, other hand fondling him. And he was absolutely innocent of wrongdoing. “This isn’t how it looks.”

He chuckled and she winced. “Oh, don’t worry. I can’t see a thing. But the things I can feel are amazing.”

She struggled to move to a safe position, but there was nowhere to go. He finally turned in the bag until he was facing her, nose to nose. He wormed his hand until he could push the hair away from her panicked eyes. He whispered softly. “Give it up, Grayson. Just let it happen.” He leaned forward, pressed his lips against hers and she let out a little squeak. But she didn’t stop him and he pushed forward, opening her mouth with his, letting their tongues tangle. God, she tasted amazing.

He ate at her mouth, let his hands roam to touch her silky skin. Arm, stomach, soft breast. There was no hope of sex, of course. There simply wasn’t enough room to move. All he wanted to do was break down her barriers. Just a little.

They both came up gasping for air. The chill in the main bay actually felt good against his superheated skin. He grinned at her. “Now maybe we can both get some sleep.”

He closed his eyes, but before they were fully shut he saw the surprise on her face.

How was she supposed to sleep? Her entire body was aching, wanting more than her mind was willing to do. And Miflin was just snoring away.

Why had he kissed her? Worse, why had she let him?

Because you wanted him to, stupid. Since the first day you met him. There had been something about him, even then. A ne’er-do-well rake; that’s what he would have been called in an earlier age. He smiled and women melted. Except her. She was the tough one. The perfect cop who had no emotions. More like the perfect patsy for a brutal overlord.

Miflin had managed to charm her, despite her carefully constructed walls – his black sense of humor, the fire in his eyes when he talked about getting the “product” to its destination. And then she’d found out he was smuggling kids , getting them out of town before the Stovians arrived. She’d been shocked by the stories she’d heard, watched the terrified looks on the kids’ faces when she’d sworn she’d get them back to their families. But they hadn’t wanted to go home. Everybody there was already dead.

That was when she’d made her decision. The world didn’t need more orphans. Order at the cost of lives wasn’t what she wanted for her career.

So, really, it was Miflin who had caused her to defect, to change sides and join the resistance. But he hadn’t followed. He’d stayed a freelance smuggler. And that had annoyed the hell out of her.

It wasn’t easy to get out of the sleep sack without waking him. But the timer in the cockpit had gone off.

It was time to start getting the ship ready to launch. She was sleepy when she slipped into what passed for a bathroom. There was no standing up straight and barely enough room to extend one arm. But at least she could clean off, brush her teeth and relieve herself.

Then it was to the cockpit to start the engines. The planet was massive in the view port. It looked similar to Earth but with rings of thick, dark clouds and far more land mass. It was surrounded by satellites bearing weaponry she didn’t recognize. Damn. How are we going to pull this off?

It was when she was powering up the port thruster that the alarm sounded on the overhead panel. The passive sensor had come in contact with an active scanner.

Damn it. She couldn’t decide whether to fire everything up and risk them showing up on scanners but in position to slip away, or shut everything down and try to pass by unnoticed. The problem was if they went much farther with the asteroid, they’d be right back at square one – waiting until the rock passed by the planet again on the next orbit. Except they didn’t have that much food or water. It had to be now.