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Sweat beaded on Kit’s forehead as she watched Jade work and she reflected with dry amusement that this was the last place she’d been expecting to broil. Here where the cold could kill you in minutes on the right day, in the right spot.
“You’re staring,” Jade mumbled, equal parts affectionate and cautionary.
Kit sucked in a long breath through her nose, trying and failing to cool down her flush.
How can I not?
The glitchy heating system, which Jade was currently in the middle of fixing, had coaxed the gorgeous redhead out of her usual long sleeve uniform, so that currently she only had on her tank top. At the moment Jade was on her side, reaching in behind an open wall panel with long, well-muscled- and very bare- arms. The thin shine of sweat on her skin only added to her overall sexiness, leaving Kit burning up from the inside as well as the outside.
Another twelve months of celibacy was surely going to be the end of her. Jade, for her part, was putting up a stoic front, but Kit liked to think she was at least equally tempted. Despite being nicknamed the Machine, by the rest of the team, Jade was after all, still human.
At least when no one was looking, Jade was so, so beautifully human. Like when Kit snuck into her bunk in the middle of the night, closing the curtain just so she could spoon her girlfriend in the safety of darkness. When Jade’s sleep softened body melted into Kit’s like they were two parts of a single being, finally allowed to fuse back together.
Those stolen moments were what Kit held onto during the day, when hiding what they truly were to each other felt as unbearable and stupid as it was necessary. A sacrifice that they’d both agreed was worth it. To be here, together on this grand adventure, it was worth it.
Kit remembered their team’s arrival here, six souls looking out over a desolate wasteland that their bodies were not designed to survive in. A whole world full of possibilities and new discoveries just beyond the glass windows, still unexplored. She’d met Jade’s eyes in that moment and known from the look on Jade’s face and the sparks arcing in her own soul that they were both exactly where they belonged.
On March 14, 1995, they’d taken that first step together, arm in arm as their boots sank into the red martian dust. Now, almost a year later Kit still couldn’t believe they’d actually done it.
Finished with her task, Jade slid out of the wall and stretched her neck to one side as if cracking out a sore spot. When she caught Kit still eyeing her arms, Jade rolled her eyes.
“Twelve more months,” Kit told her, raising her eyebrows as suggestively as she dared.
Kit bit her lips together to keep her face from entirely betraying the thoughts echoing loudly in her head. Thoughts of all the things she planned to do to Jade as soon as they were out of this cramped, crowded base and behind a locked door back on Earth.
“Twelve more months,” Jade agreed, her gaze drifting down for only a few seconds before returning back up to Kit’s face. “In the meantime,” she added, a twinkle in her eyes. “I don’t think I can fix this from in here. Are you up for a walk outside?”
Kit smirked back at her, still filled with that crackling, electric excitement she'd had when she'd taken her first steps onto the red planet. Her lustful thoughts faded, even if they were not entirely forgotten.
“I thought you’d never ask.”
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