This mission is out of control...

Astronaut Isabelle Wolsten fought like hell to be one of the final candidates for the CRONUS mission to space. She can’t afford to be distracted by teammate Antonio “Playboy” Curzon’s broad shoulders, dark, sexy eyes and hot-as-hell Spanish accent. But one searing kiss from Antonio and Izzy knows she’s definitely hit mission critical.

When the two astronauts are put in direct competition for a top spot on the mission, they’ll be tested beyond their limits. Getting involved with Antonio is dangerous—but not nearly as dangerous as the feelings Izzy’s starting to have for him. With everything she’s fought for on the line, falling for this space cowboy might just ground Izzy’s dreams for good...

“What are you doing, Antonio?”

“Taking a chance that you are as unhappy with the just friends thing as I am,” Antonio said, keeping his hand on her hip. He could feel Izzy’s body heat and wanted to be closer. Wanted to lift the skirt on that flouncy dress of hers and slip his hand up underneath it.

“I am,” she said, whispering the words so he had to strain to hear them. “I’m so torn right now. I can’t stop thinking about you, Playboy. I can’t figure out if being lovers would fix the problem.”

“It can’t hurt,” he said.

“I hope you’re right,” she said, looking up into his eyes.

He was taking a risk. Hell, so was she. But he knew that denying himself Izzy wasn’t helping his chances. He wasn’t making rookie mistakes, but only because he had been lucky.

She distracted him, and he couldn’t let her continue to do so...

Dear Reader,

I can’t believe that this is the last book in the Space Cowboys series! It feels as if we were just getting started with Ace and Molly. This book is particularly close to my heart because Izzy Wolsten—female astronaut—gets to live out my dream of going into space.

When I was growing up we had these School Years books that included a spot for your yearly school photo, a chance for you write in who your friends were and which classes you liked best, and on the back of the page there were little check boxes separated into a column for boys and girls. In the boys section there were things like doctor, astronaut and firefighter, and on the girls section there was mom, teacher or secretary. The selection was limited for both genders but I always crossed off the word boy and wrote girl over it and checked astronaut. :)

Izzy and Antonio are both competing to be a part of the CRONUS mission, and more than that they want to be named to a crew that they know will be going to space. That first mission is very important to them because despite all of their training, not all astronauts make it into a final mission to space.

Thank you for reading this series and coming along with me on my own space odyssey.

Happy reading!

Katherine

Beyond the Limits

Katherine Garbera

www.millsandboon.co.uk

USA TODAY bestselling author KATHERINE GARBERA is a two-time Maggie Award winner who has written more than seventy books. A Florida native who grew up to travel the globe, Katherine now makes her home in the Midlands of the UK with her husband, two children and a very spoiled miniature dachshund. Visit Katherine on the web at katherinegarbera.com, or catch up with her on Facebook and Twitter.

Nothing in life is possible without a really sturdy foundation, and I am so blessed to have been given that by my parents, so this one is for Charlotte and David Smith for always encouraging me to dream big and reach for the stars.

Acknowledgments

Special thanks to Dana Hopkins for guest editing the last two books in this series.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Introduction

Dear Reader

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Extract

Extract

Copyright

1

AT SIX FOOT ONE, Antonio “Playboy” Curzon immediately drew the eye. Isabelle Wolsten tried to look at him objectively. His muscles rippled and bulged with each upward motion of the weight bar he was bench-pressing, while a low, gravelly grunt captured way more than just her gaze. His short, spiky hair was drenched with sweat and stood up away from a perfectly formed scalp. He had a day’s worth of stubble on his jaw and his dark brown eyes were intense as he continued his workout.

Aggravated with herself for even noticing, she pushed the button on the AlterG treadmill she was working out on to increase her bone density. She was one of eight women in the Cronus candidate class, and she was determined not lose her head over a pretty face.

But, damn, Playboy was more than a pretty face. He was a sexy, muscled, rock-hard body with a drawling Spanish accent. He was all the things her mother had warned her to watch out for and everything that her secret self wanted.

But could she really want him as much as she wanted to go to space?

Her snarky inner voice had been her guiding star all these years. Getting into NASA had been hard. At five foot two she was at the bottom end of the height requirement. She was wicked smart—no sense in denying it—and had been determined to make her mom’s sacrifices count. Her mom had been sure that Izzy was meant for great things. She’d worked hard—an administrative assistant by day and an exotic dancer by night—and she’d saved every penny. Made sure they lived in the right neighborhoods and that Izzy went to the best schools. Her mom had endured all kinds of snide remarks so Izzy could be where she was today.

One of an elite class of sixteen who were in the final running to fill out the last three spots on the first long-term Cronus mission. She was proud of that. Really, she was. Which was why she wasn’t going to let that hot body bench-pressing 250 pounds distract her.

It didn’t matter that he smelled good. That his aftershave—probably something custom-made—had her thinking of long, sultry summer nights. She hit the off button before she lost her concentration and tripped over her own feet on the treadmill. She didn’t look his way as she walked to the refrigerator that was packed with water and electrolyte-heavy beverages. Everything at the Mick Tanner Cronus Training Facility was to enhance an astronaut’s ability to stay longer in space. They worked out for twice the amount of time the astronauts heading to the International Space Station did. They ate a diet that was rich in vitamins to enhance bone density, and they were monitored for the development of kidney stones.

Music was blaring through the speakers, some kind of death metal that their second-in-command, Thor, had put on to get the blood pumping. Izzy had just missed out on that position, but, despite that, she still wasn’t a shoe-in for the first mission. Izzy finished her drink and moved over to the punching bags in the corner. She wrapped her hands and then put on the gloves, slowly finding her balance again. She wasn’t going to let Antonio rattle her, even if he’d earned his moniker honestly. They’d been in the same candidate training class more than eight years ago. He’d been this born-with-a-silver-spoon guy who had too much charm and had bought his way in, while she’d gone to the academy on a merit scholarship and a recommendation from her senator.

She wasn’t being fair—she knew that. He’d always been a hard worker, but he’d had an easier path and she resented it. He’d left NASA and gone into the private sector to join Space Now, a company owned by a billionaire who was innovating outside of NASA. She’d thought she’d seen the last of him.

Yeah, sometimes that chip on her shoulder showed itself a little more than she’d like. But she couldn’t help it. She’d worked for everything she had. Rich guys like Playboy seemed to just waltz through life like it was nothing at all.

“Want me to hold the bag?”

That voice. He spoke English way better than she’d ever be able to master Spanish. And his accent—well, damned if it didn’t undo all the resolve she’d just spent the last fifteen minutes shoring back up. She wasn’t going to fall for him. She’d been strong when she’d gone through basic training. Ignored his flirting then, and she’d do it again now.

Except this time it was harder. She was more mature. Not as angry at the world as she’d once been, and Antonio...it seemed like experience had taught him a few things, too.

“Sure,” she said.

She didn’t say another word, instead picturing his strong jaw and dark brown eyes right in the center of the punching bag, and just went for it. Punched down the desire for him. Made herself believe there was nothing between them but sweat and—oh, hell, why did sweat smell so good on him?

This wasn’t working. She dropped back and let her arms, which felt like noodles from the pummeling she’d just given the bag, drop to her sides. He watched her the way he always did.

The intensity in his stare made her feel that he could see past all her barriers. Past the workout clothes and the prickly exterior she used to keep everyone at arm’s length.

“Why do you do that?” he asked.

“Do what?”

“Look at me like I’m your enemy,” he said.

She shook her head, dropped her gaze and cursed herself inwardly. She turned away from him and used her teeth to loosen her boxing gloves. “Don’t flatter yourself, Playboy, the only thing you see in my eyes when I look at you is a desire to make sure I stay one step ahead of you.”

Yeah, right, and not a desire to see if his potent sexuality was the real deal or just another one of those things that looked better in the window. She walked over to the tablet mounted in the wall as she got first one and then the other glove off. Congratulating herself for leaving the encounter relatively unscathed, she entered her workout information, not paying attention to the fact that Antonio had followed her. He put his hand on the wall next to the tablet.

Even his forearm was too muscled and masculine. She doubted this man was going to have any problems with bone density. He was six feet one inch of Grade A prime male.

“It’s not flattery, Bombshell. I know you keep watching me,” he said. “Deny it all you want.”

* * *

ISABELLE WOLSTEN HAD haunted his dreams for more than eight years. Her icy gray eyes and platinum-blond hair just caught his attention. Wherever he was. But he hadn’t set his sights on outer space just to be derailed by Izzy. She’d always been a distraction for him, probably because of the no-trespassing signs she kept firmly in place. So when she gave him her not interested glare, he’d respected it.

Their careers had taken them in different directions. She’d stayed within NASA and completed her training, and she’d been up to the ISS once. Antonio had taken a job with a private space firm, one that had allowed him to progress nicely and qualify for the Cronus missions. But he’d never been to space.

The Cronus missions and the later Mars missions would all be joint programs combining astronauts from NASA, international programs and privately funded programs. Antonio suspected that the Cronus training facilities around the world would be as rigorous as this one, to ensure all of the astronauts were at the same high skill level.

He kept his body in top physical form at all times. He knew how demanding living in microgravity could be. Normally he had no problems keeping his eye on the end game, but Izzy... It was hard to think of her as Bombshell, which was her official call sign, or Ice Queen, which was what the men called her behind her back. He only thought of her as Izzy. The girl he’d first met when he’d arrived in Houston and been a little bit overwhelmed by everything. His English hadn’t been as good back then, and the few conversational words she’d shared with him in Spanish those first weeks of basic training had been a balm.

It was only as they’d both continued to progress through the program and lust had reared its head that things had changed. He’d flirted and she’d diverted his attention. He’d dated other astronaut candidates and a few of the staff, and everyone had called him a playboy. He hadn’t minded because the other guys said it with a kind of awe in their voices and the women... Well, it seemed to turn them on. But not Izzy.

She’d always kept her distance, which made him even more aware of her. She seemed not to notice him. And though he was a grown man, a part of him wanted to do some crazy attention-grabbing stunt to make her react to him.

As much as he lifted weights to keep his body in top condition, he also did it because he knew she watched him. Ignoring her at twenty had been one thing, ignoring her now...well, he didn’t want to do it anymore.

If everything went as planned, he would be spending most of his life outside of Earth’s gravity. If she were interested, it would be counterproductive to ignore their sexual chemistry.

But she wasn’t interested.

Still.

Even after eight years, she didn’t want him. He knew he needed to let it go.

Which he totally would, if she didn’t look at him sometimes with fire lurking just beneath the surface of those gray eyes of hers.

He turned away from her and walked back to the bench where he’d been working out. Better to concentrate on things he could control. Like the 250-pound weight bar and his reps.

He straddled the bench, refusing to look at the corner where he’d left Izzy, and leaned back. He closed his eyes as he took the smooth metal bar in his hands and inhaled before lifting it off the rack and over his head.

His muscles strained and he counted to ten in his mind before slowly lowering the bar to his chest. Again he did a ten count and lifted.

“I’m not denying anything, Antonio,” she said. Her nearness, her voice, startled him and the bar started to shift in his grip.

She straddled his chest and put her hands in the center of the bar, helping him to steady it.

“I didn’t mean to distract you.”

He groaned. She was high on his chest to help him with the bar and that meant that his gaze naturally went straight between her legs. Where the fabric of her workout shorts was pulled tight and he imagined he could smell her feminine sweetness.

He closed his eyes for a moment, lifted the bar and set it back in the rack. When he opened his eyes, Izzy had stepped over his body and stood next to the bench. Her shorts hugged the curves of her hips and the tops of her thighs. His fingers tingled—dammit, actually effing tingled—with the need to reach out and touch her. To put his hand on her thigh and draw her back toward him.

Closing his eyes had been a mistake. Instead of clearing his mind, he was assaulted with images of a topless Izzy on his lap on the bench.

He groaned.

“Did you hurt yourself?” she asked. She came closer. The scent of her flowery perfume and natural body musk was stronger now, and when he looked up at her he saw concern in those gray eyes.

Not ice.

“No. Not unless you count lust as a medical condition.”

She bit her lower lip and took a step backward. For the first time it occurred to him that Izzy wasn’t running because she didn’t want him—maybe she wanted him too much.

“Do you?” he asked, swinging his legs toward her and sitting up on the bench. “Is that why you watch me?”

“Do I what?” she asked, putting her hands on her hips, which only served to draw his gaze to her breasts and her tiny waist. “Lust is for people who don’t know what they want.”

“Really?”

“Yes,” she said. “I’m not denying there is a certain...attractive quality about you, Playboy, but I know how to control myself around pretty boys.”

He stood up, taking the towel from where he’d draped it next to his bench, wiping his face and putting it around his neck. She watched him and didn’t say anything else. He couldn’t take his eyes from her mouth as he walked toward her. It was full and pert looking, with that little indentation in her top lip and the full lower lip. Her mouth looked lush. The kind of mouth he could spend a long time kissing.

“You keep saying boy but, in your eyes, Isabelle, I can tell that you see me as a man. One that you want,” he said.

“Only someone without discipline would be governed by—”

He stepped closer and put his finger on her lip. That tingle was back, spreading from his fingertip throughout his entire body. Damn.

“I know you aren’t going to say I have no discipline.”

She arched one eyebrow at him and nipped at the tip of his finger—which sent a sexual shock right to his groin—before stepping back.

“I didn’t think it really had to be said. I mean, I’ve been trying to get a good workout in and you seem to be distracted.”

Distracted?

The woman had no idea. All she had to do was walk into the same room as him.

He was about to rise to the bait when he saw the sparkle in her eye. She was teasing. Ah, that explained so much and at the same time made him want her all the more.

“I’m a team player. One of the philosophies of this training facility. You just went over to help me for your own good.”

She shook her head. “Okay, if that’s the way you want to play it.”

“Are we playing?” he asked, but he knew they were. Maybe it was the fact that they were alone. Or even that they had been at the top of the class of candidates during the last training program. Everyone knew the two of them were going to be competing for the top spot. That one spot as payload specialist. Though there were two other spots, there was only room for one payload specialist which meant either Izzy or Antonio.

He took a step toward her and this time, instead of retreating, she closed the gap between them. Put her hand on his chest and held him there. “From the moment we met you’ve been flirting and acting like you were the bomb, and I let you because—”

“Because you knew I was, but you needed to focus on your training and on beating me,” he said.

“Beating you? Playboy, I left you in the dust.”

He leaned in closer, put his mouth next to her ear. “You only call me Playboy when I get too close to the truth.”

She turned her head and he felt the minute exhalation of her breath across his cheek. She smelled like oranges and the first signs of spring, and this close, he saw her eyes were so much warmer than gray. They had blue and green flecks around the irises. Her lashes were thick and dark, and she had the tiniest mole under her left eye.

“What truth? That you’re a man and I’m a woman?” she asked. “I thought you were smarter than that.”

He laughed.

He couldn’t help it. Every time he thought he had her figured out, she surprised him. He wasn’t just drawn to her looks, which always made him catch his breath, but also her wit and her intelligence. She was the kind of person NASA wanted in command because she was the total package.

She made him want to be better. Not to best her but so he could stand shoulder to shoulder with her.

His laugh had surprised her and she turned her head back again so that their foreheads brushed and their noses were touching, and then her eyelids dropped to half-mast—and then he thought to hell with it.

What could one kiss hurt?

But as their lips brushed, that damned tingle moved through his body with all the precision and intensity of lightning on a dry field. He knew that he’d opened Pandora’s box. He pushed aside the warning bells and moved his mouth more completely over hers. Her fingers knotted in his shirt and tugged him closer, and then her lips parted under his. His tongue slid into her mouth, the taste of citrus so strong now.

Lightly he ran his fingers down the side of her neck and wrapped his hand around her shoulder, pulling her closer to him as she deepened the kiss, tilting her head, her grip on his shirt tightening. As if she’d never let go.

As if he’d never want her to let go, he thought. His mind screamed at him, this is Izzy.

Izzy.

Isabelle, who’d been one step ahead of him from the day they’d met. The truth dawned slowly as he realized that kissing her might be the biggest mistake he’d ever made. He’d thought not knowing how she tasted and felt in his arms was torture, but knowing and not being able to kiss her all the time was going to be even worse.

2

ANTONIO TASTED BETTER than chocolate cake on her birthday. He was forbidden and not good for her but, damn, he knew how to use his mouth. His body moved with the symmetry and precision of a well-oiled machine. She knew it had to be the result of all those hours he spent in the gym and on horseback.

He smelled...like a man. Not only of expensive cologne and whatever high-end retailers thought was masculine. Antonio was the real deal. He didn’t hesitate when he kissed her, thrusting his tongue into her mouth and taking her completely. He gripped her butt, pulling her close, maneuvering his leg between hers until they were pressed together from the waist up. His chest moved against hers as he angled his head and pushed his hands into her hair. He held her head, positioning her for a kiss that left her completely under his spell.

She couldn’t breathe or think. She saw stars as she closed her eyes and her hands went to his waist, clinging to his sides as he thrust his tongue into her mouth, mirroring the movement with his hips, rubbing his growing erection against her center and making her feel hotter than a rocket flying too close to the sun.

His lips were soft and supple as he moved them over hers. He took his time, seducing her, and she had to admit she liked it. Too often the guys she dated were aggressive, thinking they had to be because of her tough exterior. But not Antonio. He held her like he had all the time in the world.

She had to admit that scared her more than the fire burning through her body. Her breasts felt fuller and heavy, her skin sensitive even to her own clothes. She felt sensual, full of desire, and she couldn’t help arching her back and feeling his hand on her backside as he tightened his fingers.

A meteor shower of sensation spread throughout her body and she tangled her tongue with his, sucking his tongue deeper into her mouth as she felt that need, that ache between her legs. She rubbed herself over him, but it wasn’t enough. She wanted more.

She sucked harder on his tongue, trying to take control. Lifting her arms, she held his face, feeling his soft skin even as his stubble abraded her fingers. She rubbed her fingertips over it and then moved her hands slowly to his back, looping them around his neck.

Antonio kissed like he did everything else, with skill and accuracy, mastering her. And she was caught up in the maelstrom. Caught up in Antonio.

Suddenly she pulled back, breaking the kiss. This was the reason she’d stayed away from him. Not because of his reputation or the damage he could do to hers, but because of this. The overwhelming way he consumed her body and—if she wasn’t very careful—her soul.

She tried to slip away but he held her with one hand at the small of her back and the other tangled in her hair. “I never figured you for someone who would back down.”

His voice was sexy, his Spanish accent and the low husky timbre making her nipples harden and her center soften. She wanted him. Everything about Antonio was seductive, and now that she was in his arms, her willpower was gone.

But she had to own this. Couldn’t let Antonio know how much power he had over her. She had to up the ante, press her advantage. Could she do it?

She had no choice because she knew if she walked away now, he’d always have beaten her. And that wasn’t something she was willing to live with.

Maybe it only felt different with Antonio because he was tender yet dominant. There was no doubt that he was in complete control. And that was where her struggle lay.

She wanted to take control, but it felt good to just be in his arms, kissing him, not trying to prove she had the lady balls to own this moment. His hand trailed along the side of her neck, feathering his fingers against her until gooseflesh spread down her arm, making her nipples tighten even more.

“Querida, your kisses promise greater pleasure than I have ever known,” he said, leaning in to whisper. She felt the brush of his lips against her neck, and then he moved his mouth lower, biting so gently that she barely felt the edge of his teeth against the point where her neck and collarbone met. It was erotic and made her want to rip off first her clothes and then his.

She buried her fingers in the thick richness of his hair and closed her eyes. She wouldn’t deny herself this moment with Antonio. It had been risky of her to challenge him physically, and now it was clear she wasn’t as immune to him as she’d thought.

* * *

ANTONIO NEVER LET himself lose control. His seductions were practiced and he always kept his cool. But not with Izzy. He shouldn’t have been surprised by his reaction—from the first moment they’d met he hadn’t been able to get her out of his mind.

But a gym—an open gym—wasn’t the place he’d have chosen for their first encounter. He wanted time to explore every one of her curves and to learn the details of how soft her skin was. She rocked against him and he hardened even more. His gym shorts were starting to feel too tight and he knew that no matter what his rational mind wanted, if he didn’t move soon, he was going to push her ridiculously short shorts down her long legs and find his way into her body.

He looked around the room and saw the door that led to the private workout room. It wasn’t monitored and it would give them a modicum of privacy.

“Wrap your legs around me,” he said, hardly recognizing the guttural sound of his own voice. He was further gone than he wanted to admit.

She did as he asked and he crossed the room in record time, holding her against him with one arm while he fumbled to open the door with the other. Once inside, he pressed her against the closing door.

Izzy looked up at him, and in her eyes he read a tangle of emotions. Sex was complicated. Even when he thought it wouldn’t be, it was. It was hard to get naked with someone and then go back to business as usual.

Was this a mistake he shouldn’t make?

“Antonio,” she said.

A shiver of pure desire snaked down his spine and his balls tightened. She hardly ever called him by his given name and he’d never realized what a difference it would make. There had been a note of longing in the way she’d said it.

He couldn’t think anymore. He had to act. He lowered his head once again and rubbed his lips over hers. They were soft and full, slightly swollen from their earlier kiss, and she parted them for him. Her tongue thrust into his mouth and tangled with his as she grasped his shoulders like she didn’t want to let him go.

He certainly wouldn’t let her go. This might come back to haunt him, but right now he had his arms full of the woman who’d inhabited his dreams for almost a decade.

He loved the way she felt in his arms, undulating against him as the kiss deepened. He felt the fullness of her breasts against his chest and fumbled for the hem of her T-shirt, pulling it up over her head and tossing it on the floor. He skimmed his gaze down her torso, taking in her narrow shoulders, defined arms and her black sports bra. He saw the small marks that sweat had left under her breasts as he traced the scooped neck that minimized her fullness.

She unwrapped her legs from his waist and slid down his body to stand in front of him. She pulled him away from the door and reached behind him to lock it.

The room had yoga mats stacked in one corner and a weight bench in another. He drew her across the room to the weight bench and sat down on it. He spanned her waist with his hands and lifted her onto his lap.

“I believe this is where I was,” she said, straddling him.

“Seems almost right,” he said. Her skin was a creamy white alabaster that contrasted with his darker, olive tone.

She sighed and he glanced up. Their eyes met and again he couldn’t read what she was thinking.

He started to speak, but she put her finger over his mouth, hushing him. She tugged his shirt over his head and tossed it aside and then pulled off her sports bra. Her breasts fell free, bouncing against her chest, and he reached up to cup them as she shifted against him. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders as he leaned forward, burying his face between her breasts and using his hands to lift them toward his mouth. He tongued first one nipple and then the other as she scraped her nails down his back. She rocked against him.

The fabric of his boxer briefs and gym shorts was too confining. He needed to feel her pressed against him with no barrier, so he lifted his hips, reaching between their bodies to free himself.

He pulled the inner seam of her shorts and panties away from her delicate flesh so he could reach up and caress her warmth.

He stroked along her most intimate flesh and then let the tip of one finger dip inside her. She arched her back and thrust her breasts toward his face. He suckled her nipple as he thrust one finger inside her before slowly drawing it back out again.

She rocked her hips against him again, reaching between their bodies to find his cock and stroke it. She held him, moving her hand up and down until he felt he could go crazy from the pleasure. He tore his mouth from her breast as he realized...

“Izzy,” he said, kissing the valley between her breasts and running his hands up and down her back.

“Yes?”

“I don’t have a condom. Are you on the pill?”

* * *

SHE COULD USE this as an excuse to stop, but she didn’t want to. She was on the pill, and this thing with Antonio was overdue. She was going to enjoy a hot afternoon of sex and then put it in a box and never visit it again.

“Yes. Don’t worry about it,” she said. She knew they were both clean because they went through a barrage of tests almost daily. And right now the one thing that was on her mind was getting naked and getting back on his lap. His cock was so big and full and it had been far too long since she’d had sex.

He said something in Spanish, which she didn’t understand, but she saw the gratitude on his face and nipped at his bottom lip. She stood up and shucked off her shorts and underwear.

She felt his fingers between her legs and looked down to see him parting her and stroking her. Her legs went weak and she reached for his shoulder to steady herself. He wrapped one arm around her waist and lifted her onto his lap.

His tip was at her entrance, and as she looked down into those large brown eyes, she wondered how she could ever have thought that he was off-limits.

He pushed her. He always had, and for once she didn’t think that was a bad thing.

She shifted again and felt him stretching the entrance of her body. He replaced his tip with a finger, pushing inside of her, and she tightened herself around it. Stars burst behind her eyes. She hadn’t felt this good in a long time.

She leaned forward, her arms on his shoulders as she found his mouth and thrust her tongue deep inside.

She felt him add a second finger, stretching her. Sensations pulsed through her. Izzy wanted to be detached, to focus on the physical sensations and not who was touching her. But she couldn’t. This was Antonio making her feel she was going to shatter into a hundred pieces. Antonio who controlled her every move.

She moaned and felt her inner muscles start to clench around him, riding his fingers as an orgasm rolled through her.

She took her mouth from his and reached between them, drawing his hand away and positioning his cock where she needed him. She shifted her weight, felt his hands on her butt, clenching her cheeks as she slowly lowered herself onto him. When he was fully embedded inside her, he groaned and held her tightly to him.

He kissed her deeply as she started to ride him. His tongue plunged in and out of her mouth following the rhythm his body set. He urged her to go faster, driving them both higher and higher.

She wanted this to last but knew that it couldn’t. They’d waited too long for this moment, and both of them were desperate. They needed each other so urgently.

His hold on her became fiercer as he moved underneath her, urging her to ride him harder and faster still, thrusting up inside of her with determination. She arched her back as she felt her climax building again, his mouth on the fullness of her breast, then latching on to her nipple and sucking her deep into his mouth.

Everything inside her clenched and stars danced behind her eyelids as the sensation spread throughout her body and a second orgasm rolled through her. She dug her nails into his shoulders as he continued to pound into her.

He threw his head back and groaned as she felt him empty himself inside her. She ran her hands up and down his back as he thrust into her a few more times, and then he slowed, wrapping his arms around her waist and resting his head on her shoulder.

She held him, too, her fingers toying with the hair at the nape of his neck and her heartbeat slowly settling down.

She hoped that this would be enough and she could go back to comfortably ignoring him. She wasn’t ready to deal with Antonio and the consequences this might have on her emotions.

Of course this had been a mistake. It couldn’t happen again, even though her body was still pulsing, still wanting him. She wanted to curl closer to him, so, instead, she pushed him away.

“Izzy, baby, that was something else. I guess this just proves that good things are worth the wait,” he said. There was a softness in his tone that made her want to stay, to lower her guard, but she knew she couldn’t.

It wasn’t like they could date. The powers that be weren’t going to put a newly dating couple in space for eighteen months.

“Maybe,” she said. She didn’t want to discuss this. She climbed off him and turned her back to him as she dressed, pulling on her panties and shorts and then trying to put on her sports bra. It got tangled as she drew it over her head and she felt his hands on her back, unrolling the fabric and slipping the bra into place.

“Thank you,” she said, not looking at Antonio. She had scanned the room for her shirt before she noticed it in his hands.

He held it out to her. She took it without a word and put it on.

“So...”

“So,” she said. “I don’t know what to say.”

“Me, either,” he admitted. “I wasn’t expecting this, but it’s more than just an itch that I wanted to scratch... What about you?”

She held her breath. She could say it was curiosity that had led her to have sex with him, or she could be honest, the way he’d been, and admit that he had always fascinated her. Even when they’d first become friends and then rivals, there was something about this tall, dark Argentinian that made her pulse race.

An alarm sounded and the emergency lighting kicked on before she could answer. A shaft of fear and relief surged through her. She’d much rather face a real-life emergency than the emotions that Antonio brought out in her. She and Antonio both raced for the door.

3

ANTONIO WAS OUT the door right behind Izzy. The gym was empty, but when they entered the hallway they saw a lot of the candidates spilling from the different training rooms. Everyone looked dazed. A smoky haze in the hallway made him worry about fire. The alarm was loud, and there was the sound of something crashing in the distance.

“Someone needs to take the lead,” Izzy said. “And then we need to sweep the rooms to make sure everyone is out.”

“I’ll take care of this group,” Antonio said. “You have more medical training than I do—why don’t you go see if anyone is injured.”

“Sounds good,” Izzy said.

“Listen up, everyone,” Antonio said. “We are going to stay together and leave the building. Bombshell is going to sweep the rooms to make sure everyone is out.”

“Is she nuts? We should all just get out of here,” one of the candidates from the NASA team said. Antonio wasn’t sure his name.

“There are only—” he broke off as he scanned the faces “—eight of us here. We know there are twenty-four candidates who could be in this building at any time.”

“I’ll help Bombshell,” Velocity said. He was one of the senior astronauts in the program and Antonio had a lot of respect for him.

“Sounds good. Be safe.”

Antonio looked at Izzy’s heart-shaped face for just a moment too long. He wanted to grab her and take her out of the facility, but she was well trained and would be fine. She gave him a nod before heading into the room closest to them. She was doing her job; it was time for him to do his.

“Let’s go. Follow me,” Antonio said in a loud voice to command their attention. “Everyone move out.”

He led the way down the corridor, keeping the group moving. He wished he could help Izzy check the rooms, but his focus had to be on getting the candidates to safety first.

“Cover your noses and mouths,” he said, pulling his own shirt up to do so. The smoke was thicker as they proceeded down the hall. The scent was odd, more chemical than woody.

He tucked that fact away in the back of his mind to analyze later. One of the candidates from Space Now made a sort of panicked moaning sound and started to run. Antonio stopped the man with a hand on his arm. He had to think for a minute to remember the candidate’s name.

Peter Jensen. He was from the UK and had trained with their space program before joining Space Now two years ago.

“Jensen, stay centered. This is nothing to worry about. We are going to get out of here,” Antonio said.

“I know... I know, man, but fire... It’s one thing I have nightmares about. I’m not sure I can—”

“You can. We’re all right here with you. And if we do this calmly and sensibly we can all get out of here together. There’s no reason to panic. I won’t leave you,” Antonio said.

Jensen nodded, causing the shirt he had tied around his face to slip. Antonio stopped walking and gestured for the rest of the group to keep moving as he retied the shirt on the kid’s head. “Let’s go.”

Everyone had stopped around the corner, and Antonio made his way to the front of the group to find debris that had fallen from the ceiling blocking their path. Three of their group were already working to shift it, and he and Jensen joined them. Antonio had a lot of training in working with people in emergency situations at home on the ranch in his native Argentina. And he knew from experience that giving people a task made them feel more in control of the situation.

So he gave a task to everyone who had hung back, getting the team to shift the pile of rubble and debris until they could all safely move through the hallway. Once again he found himself at the front of the pack, and as they neared the exit, he noticed that the smoke was getting thicker.

“Everyone down on the floor. We need to crawl,” he said.

Everyone reacted quickly, following Antonio’s lead. The smoke was thinner on the floor and he moved with as much speed as he dared, constantly monitoring the team by looking back over his shoulder and keeping a close eye on the floor ahead of them for new dangers.

They reached the exit and he touched the door with the back of his hand to see if it was hot.

It wasn’t.

He slowly lifted himself into a standing position and opened the door. Fresh air rushed in as the smoke billowed out, and Antonio motioned for the candidates to leave the building. He stood by the door, counting to make sure the six people he’d had with him at the beginning of the journey were all here.

Though Antonio had expected to see emergency vehicles, there were none, just the open Texas landscape under the early-evening sky. He scanned the area again and noticed Jessie Odell, the survival instructor, standing to one side with Ace, the commander, and Thor, Ace’s lieutenant for the mission.

He had a feeling this was a test and could only hope that he’d done enough to pass. Getting on the first Cronus mission was his goal. But he realized he was also worried about Izzy. He knew she could hold her own but if this were a test, who knew what might be waiting for her in the facility.

* * *

IZZY HAD TRAINED with Velosi, aka Velocity, for the last six months at this facility. They’d both been close to winning the second-in-command position that had ultimately gone to Thor. A part of her was glad for the screaming alarms and smoke filling the hallway, because it was much easier to deal with an emergency than to worry about the aftermath of making love with Antonio.

His call sign was Playboy.

That should have been enough for her to have stayed away. Sleeping with him might jeopardize her chances of making the Cronus mission, but that didn’t stop her from remembering the way he’d felt inside of her with a delighted shiver.

“Want to split up?” Velosi asked. “You take the left and I’ll take the right.”

Focus, girl. This was what she was good at. She’d come so close the last time.

“Yes. Call out when you enter and leave a room,” she said. “Velocity in. Velocity out. Room clear. Does that work for you?”

“Sounds good, Bombshell. Let’s do this. I don’t think my wife will be too happy if I end up getting hurt while I’m training in Texas.”

Nor did she want to be injured and out of the game before they were even named for a mission. “I agree. We need to be quick and get moving.”

There were three rooms on either side of the hallway that led to the back of the gym. The smoke was getting a little bit thicker and Izzy took off her shirt and tied it over the bottom half of her face. She carefully touched the door to check for heat before she reached for the handle. Only after she was sure it was cool did she call out that she was entering the room, turn the handle and go in. She scanned the room first, just as she’d been taught in her first emergency training class and then walked the perimeter, confirming it was empty.

She exited and called out, then waited for Velosi. He rejoined her soon after, and they confirmed their rooms were clear. They cleared the other two rooms before returning to the gym and starting toward the exit.

They worked efficiently. The third room she entered was different. As soon as she stepped inside she saw the smoke was thick in one corner. She dropped to her hands and knees and slowly worked her way around the perimeter, finding someone slumped near the back.

She rolled the person over; surprised to find it was Molly—Ace McCoy’s fiancée and one of the people who liaised between the ranch and the training facility. The facility had been built on the Bar T ranch in the town of Cole’s Hill, Texas a little over forty-five minutes from Houston. Out here they had the space to do the training. She leaned over Molly to see if she was breathing and felt a reassuring exhalation. She ran her hands along Molly’s sides to make sure that there were no injuries or protruding bones.

Nothing broken, but she was unconscious.

She heard Velosi calling that he was clear.

“Woman down in here,” she yelled. “Lots of smoke, so you’ll have to crawl.”

She shook Molly’s shoulder, but she only made a moaning sound and didn’t wake up. There were first-aid kits in all of the rooms, and as soon as Velosi announced that he was in the room she instructed him to bring the kit.

She continued to try to rouse Molly, relaying the other woman’s condition to Velosi as soon as he reached her. She used the flashlight on her phone and found the smelling salts in the first-aid kit.

When she waved them under Molly’s nose, the other woman jerked upright. “What’s going on?”

Thank God. She had been scared for her friend. “You were unconscious. We don’t know if it was due to the smoke or something else. Do you think you can walk?” Izzy asked her.

Velosi had checked the room for anyone else. “Were you alone in here?”

“Yes. Just finishing up my paperwork. I should be able to walk,” Molly said.

“Good. Until we are out of this room you should crawl,” Izzy told her.

“Follow Bombshell,” Velosi said. “I’ll be behind you.”

Together they inched through the room and into the hallway. Izzy handed a bottle of distilled water from the first-aid kit to Molly while Velosi scouted up the hallway.

“There is a pile of debris that has been shifted and two more rooms. I don’t like the idea of either of us being left alone in the building. Molly, are you okay to move slowly with us as we clear the last two rooms?”

“Yes. I’ll be fine,” Molly said.

They walked past the debris, and then Izzy waited with Molly while Velosi checked out the room on the right and then he waited with Molly while she checked the right. The rooms were both clear and as they got closer to the door, they felt fresh air. Izzy guessed that Antonio had already gotten the rest of the candidates out.

She shouldn’t have been surprised so many of them were in the building on a Sunday evening. Even though some of the candidates would be enjoying time off in the neighboring town of Cole’s Hill, Izzy wasn’t the only workaholic in the group.

Izzy put her arm around Molly’s waist and Velosi flanked them as they stepped outside. She had expected to see an emergency team waiting but they were greeted only by the candidates and facility staff.

As soon as Ace saw Molly he ran over to put his arms around her. “What the hell were you doing in there?”

“Catching up on paperwork,” she said.

Realization flared in Izzy, and so did her anger. “Good thing your people are so well trained,” Izzy remarked. “Otherwise this training exercise could have ended in unforeseen tragedy.”

* * *

ACE AND DR. TOMLIN took Molly to the side to examine her. The smoke had affected her, and some of the other candidates, too. Thor called for all of them to meet in an hour for a post mortem in the common room in Bunkhouse 1, which was where Antonio’s rooms were located.

The candidates dispersed, but Izzy headed toward Thor with Velocity behind her. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that the alarm was a test. Antonio noticed Jessie Odell making notes and he followed behind the other two to confront Thor.

“This is our day off,” Izzy said. “I don’t mind tests—I think they keep us all sharp—but on our day off? That’s not right.”

“Normally I’d agree,” Thor said as Antonio joined the threesome. “But Cronus isn’t like other missions. There are so many variables to be considered. Emergencies in a long-term mission might happen on your downtime.”

Izzy put her hands on her hips and shook her head. “I get what you’re saying, but that means that we can never let our guard down. That we are all effectively training 24/7.”

“That’s a big ask, Thor,” Velocity said.

“I don’t agree,” Antonio added. “Some of the candidates are fresh recruits who have never been on a mission before. This test shook some of them and it’s better to find out on the ground if someone can’t cut it.”

Izzy gave Antonio a hard stare over her shoulder. He had forgotten how fierce she could be when she was challenged.

“That’s exactly why we are running these tests. You three are more experienced, but there are some candidates here who, frankly, are a gamble. We don’t know yet what they are made of. They all passed rigorous qualifying tests, but stuff happens. Things go wrong. We need to know how each person will react. You three showed your mettle today,” Thor said. “Now go and clean up and meet the team in the main area of Bunkhouse 1 at 1600 hours.”

Thor walked away from the group and they all turned to head to the bunkhouses together. Velosi was in Bunkhouse 3, a new addition to the facility now that there were more candidates coming in. Velosi and Izzy had been on the Bar T Ranch for over six months. He’d volunteered to switch to the new bunkhouse in order to mentor a few of the newer mechanical-engineering candidates.

Antonio wanted to touch her and make sure she was okay. Pull her away from the others and hold her for a few moments. The emergency hadn’t given them a chance to regroup after they’d made love.

“Izzy—”

“Don’t. I am not ready to talk about anything,” she said. “Except, why didn’t you have my back when we were talking to Thor?”

What had happened between them had been hotter and more rare than a comet snaking past Earth, and she wanted to discuss a difference of opinion? Fine. He could do that.

“One of the guys in my group freaked a bit as we were leaving. It made me realize how inexperienced some of these candidates are. We were lucky to have our training before coming to this program,” Antonio said. “Which is exactly what I said to Thor.”

“Sorry. Finding Molly like that put me on edge. She was slumped over on the floor. That was so scary,” Izzy said. She stopped walking and turned to face him, her gray eyes full of conflicting emotions. He reached for her, but she shook her head.

“No. We can’t do the personal thing. We had sex. That’s it,” she said. “We’ve seen how intense it is here, and I’m pretty sure they aren’t going to be too happy if we start something.”

“That’s it? Don’t I get a say in this?” he asked.

“Sure,” she said. “But I don’t think you want to risk your chances of going on this mission. You know there are no guarantees for who will be chosen. And no matter how incredible we are together, we’ve both worked our entire lives to be on a mission like this.”

She was stubborn, but he’d already known that. And she made a good point. The hot sex they’d shared had served to whet his appetite for her, but maybe it had cooled hers for him. Maybe that one time was all she needed.

It didn’t seem possible that she could feel nothing for him when he wanted her so much. “I think Ace was freaked, too,” Antonio said at last, following her change of subject. Retreat wasn’t really his style, but if she needed time to process things he’d give it to her. He put his doubts aside. One time wasn’t going to be enough...for either of them. And work was easier to discuss.

“He was,” Izzy admitted. “She’s not a candidate and doesn’t have the training we do. I’m glad we got to her when we did.”

“I agree,” Antonio said. “I think it proves Thor’s point that you can never be prepared for anything. They planned this drill but didn’t know she’d get caught in the middle of it.”

“Probably. It’s just that we follow so many procedures and regulations with the program,” she said. “We’re in the same bunkhouse, right?”

“Yes.”

She gave him a sideways look. “Why haven’t I seen you in the common room?”

“That answer is complicated,” Antonio said.

4

A SECRET.

She wasn’t sure she wanted to know any more of Antonio’s secrets. She already knew the way his body felt pressed next to hers and the sound he made when he came inside her. The way the scent of his aftershave mingled with sweat on his body and how easily he rattled her self-control.

The smart thing to do would be to walk away. But she was still on edge. Finding Molly had rattled her. The risks associated with space missions had always been high, though sometimes Izzy felt that modern innovation had made spaceflight safer.

But the explosion of the test rocket a few months ago had reminded her that those risks hadn’t lessened. The stakes were high, so maybe, just for the moment, she could do something fun with Antonio.

Still, she wasn’t sure if what he was offering was fun.

She had her guard up now. She had thought that it would be like blowing off steam, but it had been more—just like everything with Antonio was. Which was why she found herself back in front of the bunkhouse after showering and changing into jeans and a T-shirt.

“What’s this secret?” she asked as he walked over to join her.

He’d changed, too, and looked like the cowboy he was. He had on a pair of faded denim jeans that clung to his thighs and rode low on his hips. His boots were worn but good quality and he had on a button-down ranch shirt. He held a straw cowboy hat loosely in one hand and a bandanna was tied around his neck.

“Come with me and find out,” he invited. He held his hand out to her and led her not toward the bunkhouses but away from the Mick Tanner facility and onto the path that led to the Bar T.

“Why are we going toward the ranch?”

“So I can show you why I haven’t been hanging out in the common room,” he said.

“And it’s on the ranch?”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said.

She smiled to herself. He sounded like the ranch hands on the Bar T. They all had good Southern manners, and it was sort of amusing to hear Antonio talking like them in his Spanish accent.

“I think I’m seeing the vaquero side of you,” she said.

He gave her a half grin over his shoulder. “You might be. As much as I always wanted to be in the space program, there is also a part of me that loves the land and ranching. So when I have some downtime I’ve been working with the hands.”

She was a step behind him and couldn’t help noticing the way his jeans hugged his butt. She caught herself and blushed. “So what’s the secret?” she asked.

He led her to the barn and down the aisle that was bordered with stalls on each side. He stopped in front of a stall that was labeled Arabella.

“Is this your horse?”

“Yes. I had her brought up here from my family’s estancia,” he said. “My brothers like to tease me about her name, but I picked it for a very specific reason. Can you guess?”

She walked into the stall with Antonio as he started running a brush over the sides of his horse. She was beautiful—even Izzy could see that and she wasn’t really familiar with horses. Arabella. She ran the name through her mind, trying to come up with a connection that made sense. Then she remembered the two spiders that were part of early NASA experiments, spinning webs while weightless in space during the Skylab project in 1973. Anita...and Arabella.

“Skylab ’73,” she said.

“Very good,” he said with a wink.

“So this is your secret?” she asked. “I think some of the other candidates that have ranching backgrounds have brought their horses.”

“They have,” Antonio said, putting the brush down as he walked around behind the horse to a pile of blankets in the corner. “This is my secret.”

She came closer and noticed a small dog nestled in the blankets. The dog bounded to her feet as Antonio came closer, dancing around his legs as he bent to pet her.

“Who is this?”

“Carly. Near as I can tell she’s a mix of dachshund and corgi. She just showed up during one of my morning rides and followed me back here. I’m waiting to hear back from Jeb about her staying on the ranch—do you know the foreman?—so I’ve been letting her bunk in with Arabella. But I have the feeling she was a house dog and not a ranch dog. She pretty much stays in the stall.”

“So you are going for morning rides and you have a secret dog named Carly. Why did you pick that?” she asked. She wanted to keep Antonio at arm’s length and this certainly wasn’t helping. But realizing there was so much more to Playboy than she’d expected also helped distract her from her thoughts about the risks of spaceflight.

“It’s short for Carletta, which means manly. I figured with such a silly little dog I needed something strong,” Antonio said.

But the dog wasn’t silly, Izzy thought as she watched Antonio stroke her. She’d only ever seen him as the competition or as someone to be avoided. But now she had a glimpse into the man...the man she’d made love with, and she realized that this might be more dangerous than fighting a fire.

* * *

ANTONIO HAD PLACED a quick call to his boss at Space Now while he’d been getting cleaned up. Unlike Izzy, he’d never been up on a mission, despite the fact that he’d been assigned to two and had been training for the better part of ten years. In the US only forty-eight astronauts had gone on long-term missions, and working within NASA, Antonio had quickly realized his chances of making it to space were minimal.

He’d used his family connections to the tech billionaire Malcolm Pennington to get himself a role as a senior astronaut with Space Now. He had the same training and skills as many of the NASA candidates; the field was simply smaller at Space Now.

Mal had been informed of the smoke test from Antonio and was en route to Texas to oversee this last phase of training and selection. He wanted to make sure as many of the Space Now candidates as possible were named to the Cronus missions.

Antonio was very aware of the fact that he and Izzy were going for the same role on the mission. And he thought that his employment with Space Now gave him an edge. After all, NASA had placed two of their candidates already on the team with Ace and Thor. The agencies outside of NASA who were equal partners in the financing and development of the mission wanted to have the same number of astronauts on the missions.

He glanced at his watch and realized they had twenty minutes before they were due back at the training facility for the debriefing.

“Want to help me groom Arabella?” he asked.

“I have been avoiding as much of the ranch chores as possible,” Izzy admitted, pushing a strand of her platinum-blond hair behind her ear. “But grooming the horses is one that I don’t mind.”

He handed her one of the grooming brushes and went to fetch a second one for himself. She worked on one side, he on the other.

“Why is that?” Antonio asked after a few minutes had passed. He loved the sounds of the barn. As a child he’d spent many hours grooming his horse, thinking of the future and dreaming of being in space.

“I could name the physical benefits of working out with one arm, but that’s not why I do it. There is something so soothing about standing here and looking after horses. I like the smell of the barn, all leather and hay—”

“And other scents,” Antonio reminded her. But he liked it, as well. As soon as he stepped into the barn, his other worries left. He was grounded here as much as he was when he got into the simulator at Space Now.

“Sometimes,” she admitted. “But most of the time it’s so solitary. Just me and the horse and the sound of the brush as I move it over her coat. And it gives me time to think and analyze whatever problems we’ve been dealing with at the facility. Working this way helps to soothe me.”

“Me, too,” he admitted. “Sometimes I think you and I have a lot in common.”

She looked over at him with those wide gray eyes of hers. “Some things. But when the trainees for the NASA program swelled in number, you were able to leave to go to a smaller private company...”

“Are you jealous?”

“Sure. Who wouldn’t be? I want to log as many hours in space as I can,” she said.

“You don’t think you’re a shoo-in?” he asked. Honestly, he did feel at a disadvantage that he was just joining the Cronus training program here in Texas. He was pretty sure that many of the other new candidates felt the same way.

“No one is. I think today just proved how high the bar is being set. What if that alarm had gone off ten minutes sooner?” she asked. “We both would have been...”

“In a very delicate position,” he said. He didn’t regret his intimate time with Izzy—how could he? He’d spent years dreaming of having her in his arms. And if today had proved anything, it was that the bond between them was a strong one. At least physically.

“Exactly. I don’t want to take a chance on screwing up. Even though I do feel like you took the easier path—” she held up her hand to stop him from responding “—we both have worked too hard to jeopardize our shot at getting on this mission.”

“I agree. We have worked hard. What are you trying to say?” he asked.

“That we keep our distance. Work together as we have to in the training sessions, but no more—” She gestured to the two of them, her hand going back and forth.

“I don’t know what that means,” he said, curious that a woman who was truly one of the boldest, bravest people he knew was trying to avoiding saying anything intimate.

“It means no more hooking up,” she said.

He bit the inside of his cheek to keep from smiling. “Fair enough. You know, you came on to me.”

She put her hands on her hips and gave him a hard glare, and then she threw back her head and laughed. “I did, didn’t I? I thought that if we cleared the air we’d be able to work better together. I never expected it to go so far.”

“I did,” he admitted. From the moment he’d seen her, she’d been a fire in his blood, and nothing had changed that. “But from now on, we can keep our distance.”

“Yes,” she said. “I think I’m done grooming this horse.”

“Vaquero, you in here?”

“Sí, I’m back here,” Antonio answered.

Jeb, the ranch foreman, poked his head around the stall and leaned in. “Ma’am. Antonio, I could use a hand with some fence repair if you have the time. And I talked to Ace—you can keep Carly in your room at the bunkhouse for now. We are looking around in town to find her owners.”

“I have a meeting at 1900, but I think I could help out for a little while,” Antonio said.

He glanced over at Izzy, who was simply watching him and Jeb. “Wanna help?”

* * *

“NO” WOULD HAVE been a perfectly acceptable answer, Izzy reminded herself as she held a length of fencing in place as Antonio hammered a nail to fix it. The setting sun shone brightly and it felt good doing something instead of being back in her room remembering that scary moment when she’d found Molly.

She kept getting flashes in her mind of finding her friend’s slumped body in the corner of the room. And the acrid smoke that she’d breathed in seemed to burn the inside of her nostrils every once in a while.

“Izzy?”

“Yes?” she asked, glancing toward Antonio. His hands were on his hips and he was watching her. He looked good dressed as a cowboy. Some of the other candidates looked like they were playing dress-up, but he wore the clothes with a natural air that made him seem a part of this landscape.

“I said that’s it. Are you ready to head back?” he asked.

She nodded and turned toward her horse but stopped. “I keep thinking about Molly. What if something like that had happened in space?”

She didn’t hear Antonio move and jumped when he put his hand on her shoulder. “We’d cope with it, same as we did today. But it is scary. We have to be able to rely on the team completely.”

“Exactly. I mean I know Velocity really well, so I’m happy to have him at my back, but some of these people...how are they going to make us into a team?”

“With a lot of hard work,” Antonio said.

“Do you know the people from Space Now well?” she asked. She’d worked with everyone who had come through NASA, or else she knew them by their reputations. She’d read the dossiers on all of the new candidates, as she assumed they’d done with her, but she’d worked with very few of them and hadn’t even heard of some of them.

Antonio echoed her thoughts. “Some of the Space Now candidates are new, people I haven’t worked with, but most of them I know. They were rigorously vetted before being sent here.”

She put her hand up. “I wasn’t judging them. I was thinking more from my own perspective. It’s hard to build trust. I imagine that’s what Thor and Ace are going to be trying to get us to do while we learn how to use the equipment that we will need to build the way station.”

“It will work out,” he said.

She turned to face him, caught between him and her horse. She looked up at his tanned face, hidden from the sun under the brim of his straw cowboy hat. He had deep laugh lines around his eyes, and his eyelashes were thick. His eyes as he watched her seemed cautious. But then, maybe she was projecting that onto him since she wanted to be watchful around him. Careful not to let him slip past her guard again.

What if it doesn’t work? But she didn’t ask him. Instead, she just closed her eyes, which was a mistake. The sun disappeared and she flashed to the hallway filling with smoke, hearing echoes of the alarm. Her eyes popped open and she saw that Antonio was studying her.

He put his hand under her chin and looked down at her with an expression she’d never seen on his face before. It was tender and almost sweet, and it made her realize that she’d made more than a basic mistake in letting him in. She’d made a critical error. The kind that could cost lives in space and, if she wasn’t very careful, possibly her place on the Cronus mission.

She pulled back, turning away from him and trying to mount up. She got her foot in the stirrup, and the ranch-trained horse stood still as she tried to use her arms and a hop to get up in the saddle.

He cursed under his breath in Spanish, which somehow sounded more elegant than it did in English. He put his hand on her butt and gave her a boost up into the saddle. She swung her leg over and seated herself before turning to thank him. He’d already sauntered over to his horse.

Arabella.

The horse named after one of the spiders NASA had sent into space. She realized the stakes were high for Antonio, as well. She had to remember that. Sleeping with him hadn’t just affected her. Antonio was going to have to deal with the fallout, too, and if the way he clicked his heels and started galloping across the open field was any indication, he was as frustrated as she was with the attraction that was still there between them.

5

“THANK YOU ALL for meeting back here. Ace is with Molly, who will be fine, but he didn’t want to leave her alone. She suffered some low-level smoke inhalation,” Thor said as he addressed all of the candidates.

Izzy stood in the back next to Velosi and some of the others who’d been here since the beginning. She and Velosi had been at the Mick Tanner Training Facility since day one and they were familiar with the program. But today the stakes had been raised. Sundays were downtime. Everyone knew that.

Not anymore.

The smoke hadn’t been an accident. It had been a test. And while Izzy had no problem participating in tests and honing skills, she did think it was a little sneaky of Thor, Ace and program director Dennis Locke to have implemented this one the way they had.

Dennis stepped up next to Thor. Dennis was in his fifties but was fit and looked younger. His hair was graying at the temples but his gaze was still as sharp as his early mission photos when he’d been in his twenties. Izzy respected him and felt fortunate to be included in a program that he was heading up.

“I know that some of you have raised concerns about the test happening on your day off, and I’ve addressed most of you privately. But I do want to say publicly that from this point forward every day—even your down ones—will be some sort of training,” Dennis said.

“They could have mentioned that earlier,” Velosi said under his breath. “But let’s face it, we know you don’t get a day off in space.”

“So true,” Izzy said.

“Many of you have met the candidates who have joined us from the international and privately funded space programs like Space Now, but until today you didn’t have the chance to see each other in action. While the emergency situations occurred at the three locations where we had staff—the training facility, bunkhouses and the ranch pasture—you all were challenged in different ways.”

Thor stepped forward. “We felt it was necessary to see if you all could function as a team without us making you into a team first. These exercises were very successful and we have identified the candidates who have already made a strong impression.”

Dennis spoke again. “As you know, you are all qualified and have unique skills, but the first mission will be the one where we anticipate the most unforeseen problems, and that is why we have been training, testing and slowly building that first crew. The subsequent missions will be built on new knowledge.”

“We are going to divide you into two teams of twelve and each of you will be challenging yourselves within the group and against the other team,” Thor continued. “You will select a leader for yourselves and you will start to work completely with that team. You will eat together, do the ranch chores together, train together... In effect, you will be a unit.”

“Dr. Tomlin has a bowl with twelve red and twelve blue markers. Please come forward and select one to determine your team,” Dennis said. “Blue team, you will be rotating to the ranch for two weeks for intense team building, muscle building and general skills. Red team, you will be in the facility for two weeks in the new rocket simulator that has just been installed.”

Izzy felt a tingling in her stomach. The mission was becoming more real. From the moment she’d arrived in Cole’s Hill, she knew that the end goal was the way station in orbit halfway between Earth and Mars, but it had seemed so far away. Now that they had the rocket simulator that would mirror the actual vessel that would take them to the location where they would assemble the way station...she was getting excited.

She looked around for Antonio and noticed he stood with a group of astronauts from the EU. He caught her gaze and winked at her. She just shook her head. She was glad that she’d had her little lapse in control where he was concerned before this announcement. She hadn’t had time to change when they’d come back from their ride, but she was determined to keep her distance from him.

She was happily going to tuck Antonio back into the box marked off-limits and focus on the Cronus missions. Not that she hadn’t been before, but now that the missions were getting closer, she knew there was no room for error. And sleeping with Playboy had definitely been an error.

But it was in the past. Maybe they’d be on different teams and they’d hardly see each other.

Please let us be on different teams, Izzy thought as she walked up to the bowl behind Velosi and drew out her marker. It was blue. Velocity’s was red. He shrugged and walked over to the red group. Izzy did the same, joining the other blues.

She chatted with the candidates on her team, trying to appear as if she wasn’t paying attention as Antonio moved closer and closer to the bowl to make his selection. She looked deliberately away from the selection line and yet couldn’t help glancing back as his big hand reached into the bowl and pulled out the blue marker.

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