Loe raamatut: «Beyond the Limits»

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.