Below Zero (The STEMinist Novellas #3) by Ali Hazelwood

            A choked laugh bubbles out of me. It’s stupidly nice to have someone compare my body to a topographical feature of Mars. Or maybe it’s just nice to have someone who knows the Columbia Hills tugging at my nipples and staring at them like they’re the eighth and ninth wonders of the universe.

            “This,” he murmurs into the skin trailing up to my sternum, “this is the Medusae Fossae. It even has these pretty little freckles.” His teeth close around my right collarbone. It would be hot even if the head of his cock weren’t starting to brush against my pussy. It’s wetness meeting wetness, a lot of mutual eagerness, a mess waiting to happen. I band my arms around Ian’s neck and pull his huge shoulders into myself, like he’s the sun of my very own star system.

            “Hannah. I didn’t think I could want you more, but last year, when I saw you at NASA, I . . .” He is slurring his words. Ian Floyd, always calm, levelheaded, articulate. “I thought I’d die if I couldn’t fuck you.”

            “You can fuck me now,” I whine, impatient, pulling his hair as he moves lower. “You can fuck me however and wherever you want.”

            “I know. I know, you’re going to let me do it all.” He exhales a ticklish trail along my rib cage. “But maybe I want to play with the Herschel Crater first.” His tongue dips inside my belly button, tasting and probing; but when I begin to squirm and pull him up, he follows meekly, as if aware that I can’t take much more. Maybe he can’t take much more, either: his finger parts my swollen labia to slip around my clit, a slow circle with a little too much pressure. Except that it might be just the right amount. I’m dissolving now, in a pool of coiled muscles and sticky pleasure.

            Okay. So sex can be . . . this. Good to know.

            “This one,” Ian pants against my mouth, no pretense of kissing now. My mouth is slack with pleasure and he’s just stealing air from me, sucking bee stings into my lips and groaning his approval into my cheekbone. “This one right here is the Solis Lacus. The Eye of Mars. Getting all worked up during dust storms.”

            He has perfect hands. Perfect touch. I will explode and scatter everywhere, a meteorite shower all over the bed.

            “And the Olympus Mons.” It’s his palm massaging my clit now. His fingers slip into me wherever they find an opening, until the tension inside me is so sweet, I’ll go insane. “I really want to come inside you. Can I?”

            I shut my eyes and moan. It’s a yes, and he must be able to tell. Because he grunts just as soon as the head of his cock begins to nudge inside me, a little too large for comfort, but very determined to make space for itself. I order myself to relax. And then, when he hits a perfect spot inside me, I order myself not to come immediately.

            “Or maybe it’s the Vastitas Borealis.” He’s barely intelligible. Doing those little thrusts that are designed more to open me up than to fuck me properly, and yet we’re both this close to orgasm. It’s a little scary. “The oceans that used to fill it, Hannah.”

            “There is no—” I try to ground myself. To find a place inside of me that is safe from the pleasure. I end up only digging my good heel into his thigh, trying to comprehend how such spectacular friction can exist. “We don’t know that there ever really was an ocean. On Mars.”

            Ian’s eyes lose focus. They widen and hold mine, unseeing. And then he smiles and begins to move for real, with a little whisper in my ear.

            “I bet there was.”

            The pleasure crashes over me like a tidal wave. I close my eyes, hold on to him as tight as I can, and let the ocean wash over me.





Epilogue


            Jet Propulsion Lab, Pasadena, California

            Nine months later

            The control room is silent. Unmoving. A sea of people in dark-blue polo shirts and red JPL lanyards who somehow manage to breathe in unison. Until about five minutes ago, the handful of journalists invited to document this historical event were clearing their throats, shuffling their equipment, asking the occasional whispered question. But that, too, has stopped.

            Now we all wait. Silent.

            “. . . expect only intermittent contact at this time. A dropout as the vehicle switches antennas . . .”

            I glance at Ian, who sits in the chair next to mine. He hasn’t bothered to turn on his monitor. Instead, he’s been watching the progress of the rover on mine, his frown deep and worried. This morning, when I straightened the collar of his shirt and told him how good he looked in blue, he didn’t reply. Honestly, I don’t think he even heard me. He’s been very, very preoccupied for the past week. Which I happen to find . . . kind of cute.