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 my body, 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.
“Heading directly for the target. The rover is about fifteen meters off the surface, and . . . we’re getting some signals from MRO. The UHF looks good.”
I reach out to brush my fingers against his under the table. It’s meant to be just a fleeting, reassuring touch, but his hand closes around mine, and I decide to stay.
With Ian, I always decide to stay.
“Touchdown confirmed! Serendipity has safely landed on the surface of Mars!”
The room erupts into cheers. Everyone explodes out of their seats, cheering, clapping, laughing, jumping, hugging. And within the delightful, triumphant, radiant chaos of mission control, I turn to Ian, and he turns to me with the widest, most brilliant of smiles.
The following day, our kiss is on the front page of the New York Times.
Bonus
Chapter
Sometime later
LIAM
If Liam were asked to compile a list of the most momentous days of his life—the ones that’ll surely flash before his eyes when he’s death adjacent, even though in the meantime he’ll have to stash them in a corner of his heart, hidden and secure, because dwelling on the feelings they elicit is overwhelming, unmanageable, and just plain dangerous—today would make it to the very top.
Not number five, like that Tuesday two years ago when he tried to propose and Mara didn’t quite let him, bursting out with a “Yes, yes, yes!” after he barely managed a “Will you m—” （It allowed him to spend the following week pretending that he’d only wanted to ask her to mail out the census form: amusing for him; less so for her.）
And not number three, like the day Mara announced that she was planning to move into his bedroom, and to convert her own into a “The Bachelor blogging studio.” Approximately twenty minutes later, Liam’s walls were full of pictures of two girls he’d never even met in person yet, and his serviceable gray comforter had been replaced with a chevron rainbow quilt that should have given him a headache but instead had him craving cake pops for the first time in his life.
Today . . . today is number one. The most perfect day of his life. Mara in his arms, the words she just said in the air between them, and the promise of what’s to come.
It could be a boy. Or a girl. Or both, or neither. It doesn’t matter. Liam couldn’t care less. All he hopes for is carrot-red, curly hair and freckles. The baby should have Mara’s looks. And her understanding of numbers. And her temperament. Her love for broccoli, her ability to fix things, and Liam’s . . .
Okay. Ideally, the baby will take exclusively after Mara. Liam would be perfectly okay if none of his alleles made it into its karyotype. Liam is taller, which is useful when it comes to reaching for higher shelves, but legroom on planes is a bitch and a half, and he really wouldn’t wish the cramps on anyone, let alone his progeny—