Chapter Five
Caleb’s wedding was like something out of a chick flick, designed to make men gag and women swoon. Jane was beautiful, the vows made Hunter tear up, and there was even a damn rainbow in the sky.
He loved every minute of it.
That had been yesterday. This morning, he’d driven Jane and Caleb to the airport. Now he was in Waikiki for one last hurrah, because tomorrow he was going inside a two-room Martian habitat for eight months, with seven other people for company.
Forty-eight hours ago he’d celebrated Caleb’s last night of freedom. Tonight it was his turn.
People asked him all the time how he would handle living in isolation for so long, eating freeze-dried food and drinking recycled urine and only going outdoors in a Mars suit. The truth was, he looked forward to it.
Well, maybe not the recycled urine part. But the rest would be okay.
He wasn’t claustrophobic. He could get along with just about anyone. And as long as he had a mission to focus on, one that was a stepping stone to his goal of walking on Mars, he could put up with anything.
What he couldn’t handle was being aimless. He couldn’t take being a useless no-load with nothing to work toward. Going to Mars was the kind of goal he could sink his teeth into, and being part of the first manned mission would be worth any sacrifice.
Humanity’s future lay in space exploration. And to be there at the beginning of that journey was all he’d ever wanted.
Even so, spending eight months in a sealed biosphere was a hell of a thing. He deserved to give himself a sendoff. So here he was in Waikiki, footloose and fancy-free and ready to make the most of the next several hours.
He couldn’t go too crazy, of course. The helicopter taking him to the Big Island was leaving at six o’clock in the morning. He’d given himself a midnight curfew and a one-drink limit, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t enjoy himself.
Caleb and Jane were on their honeymoon. Stu was off God knew where with a girl he’d met at the wedding. There were a few other people on Oahu he could have partied with, but since both solitude and strangers would be in short supply for the next eight months, he decided to go out on his own.
He parked in the Halekulani garage and started walking. He didn’t have a particular destination in mind; he just wanted to people watch and take in the sights.
After a while, he recognized the block he was on. This was where he and Caleb and Stu had ended up two nights ago. Another few minutes brought him to Leilani’s, the bar where he’d met—
Airin.
He stopped short in front of the window. There she was, sitting on the same bar stool, having an animated discussion with the bartender.
She was dressed very differently tonight. It looked like she’d gone shopping in her hotel’s boutique for resort wear or island wear or whatever they called it. She was wearing a gauzy floral dress with spaghetti straps and no back, and when he realized that probably meant she was wearing no bra, something happened in his body.
Shit. He’d been telling himself to stop thinking about Airin for forty-eight hours now, and he hadn’t had much success until this afternoon, when thoughts about his upcoming mission had finally taken their rightful place at the forefront of his brain. And now here she was in that dress.
He swallowed hard. Blood was rushing to his groin, and every nerve ending in his body was on fire. Why the hell had he come back here? Why had she come back here?
The only thing to do was turn his ass around and go somewhere else. Anywhere else. A last night of freedom before an eight-month mission was one thing, but going inside that bar and talking to that woman was something else.
If he got pulled into her like he had two nights ago, it wouldn’t be good for his state of mind. What you wanted before a mission was a palate cleanser. A pleasant and forgettable distraction.
There was nothing forgettable about Airin. His mystery woman had managed to get under his skin with one kiss, and spending time with her tonight was the last thing he should do.
So why wasn’t he turning around? Why was he still standing here, staring through the window like a lovesick teenager?
Danger, Will Robinson.
Airin leaned forward to say something to Kaleo, and a lock of that satiny black hair fell forward across her face. She lifted a hand and tucked the strand behind her ear, and everything about that one simple movement mesmerized him.
Her unconscious sensuality went straight to his cock. He remembered the way she’d responded to him two nights ago, as though their kiss really had been her first.
He still wasn’t sure that was the truth. But standing here staring at her, unable to make his feet take him in the other direction, he knew he wanted her next kiss to come from him, too.
Bad idea. Terrible idea. Get the hell out of here.
But he would never know how that internal struggle might have played out. Because at that moment, something made Airin turn her head. She saw him, and her face lit up, and the sight went straight to another part of his body.
His heart.
She wasn’t even trying to play it cool. She was surprised and happy to see him, and both emotions showed on her face. And even though the smart move might still be to turn around and walk away, he just didn’t have it in him to do that.
He went to the door and pushed it open.
Airin swiveled on her stool to face him, her back to the bar, as he closed the distance between them.
Now that he was seeing her up close instead of through a window, he became fully aware of how much of a mistake this was.
It was funny. All day yesterday, thinking about Airin even when he tried not to, he’d had trouble remembering exactly what she looked like. Even though he’d spent so much time staring at her—he hoped she hadn’t realized how much—what he’d been left with was more an impression than a memory: black hair, brown eyes, lush body.
What he did remember was what it felt like to look at her, to talk to her . . . and to kiss her. The feeling had been soft and electric at the same time, and it was like nothing else he’d ever experienced.
Now he was feeling it again.
“Hunter!” Airin said, surprise and delight in her eyes and her smile.
“Hey,” he said, sliding his hands into the pockets of his jeans to stifle the ridiculous impulse to touch her hair or cup the side of her face.
“I thought you’d be on the Big Island by now. Don’t you go into the biosphere tomorrow?”
“Yeah. I’m taking a helicopter over in the morning. We leave at six a.m.”
“Oh.”
Neither of them said anything for a minute after that. They just looked at each other, her sitting on the bar stool and him standing a foot away.
Her eyes were like polished teak, the kind you found on really beautiful boats. Or like chestnuts or chocolate or cinnamon.
He’d never felt such a pull toward another human being. The urge to touch her, to take her hand, was like the urge to drink when he was thirsty.
What the hell was going on? Was this some kind of reaction to the mission tomorrow? Some kind of internal rebellion, a need for distraction?
He was a guy who liked sex, after all. And while it wasn’t explicitly forbidden in the biosphere—there were two married couples participating in the project, and he was pretty sure they’d be getting it on at some point—the idea of starting a relationship under those circumstances seemed nuts. Hunter fully expected to be celibate for the next eight months.
Maybe that’s what this was. His libido, annoyed at the prospect of a long abstinence, was making itself felt in a big way.
But what an object for his desire. If Airin had been telling the truth two nights ago, she was a virgin. If you wanted a wild last night of debauchery before a long haul of celibacy, a virgin was the very last sexual partner you’d pick.
“I’m sorry,” Airin said suddenly, reminding him of how much he liked her voice. It was low and sweet, the kind of voice he’d never get sick of hearing.
“Sorry for what?”
“For just sitting here staring at you. You must think I’m very strange. The truth is, I’ve been thinking about you for two days even though I tried not to. And just now, seeing you through the window, I felt like I finally understood why women make such stupid decisions when it comes to men.”
He stepped in closer, parking himself between her stool and the one beside it and leaning against the bar. She swiveled a quarter turn and tipped her face up to meet his eyes.
“What do you mean?” he asked. “What kind of stupid decisions?”
She shrugged, and the movement made him aware that she was, indeed, going braless under that dress.
“My mother works with someone whose daughter got into Princeton. I met her a few times, and she seemed so smart and so excited about her future. But then, a week before her first day of classes, she decided to run off with some guy to Arizona. I thought she was crazy. Absolutely nuts. I couldn’t understand why she would do such a thing.” She smiled at him. “But if you asked me to run off with you to Arizona, I might do it. And I don’t even know you.”
Normally if a woman said something like that—especially a woman who was a virtual stranger—all his warning bells would go off and he would run, not walk, in the opposite direction. But hearing Airin say it didn’t scare him.
Although, come to think of it, that fact should have scared him even more.
She frowned a little. “I don’t mean I’m hoping you’ll ask me to run away with you to Arizona,” she said. “That would, of course, be insane.”
“Of course,” he echoed, and then, unable to resist any longer, he reached out and slid a hand into her hair.
He knew right away he’d made a huge mistake.
God, it’s so soft.
And then it got worse. Because Airin closed her eyes and leaned into his caress, and he saw her nipples harden beneath the thin material of her dress.
Shit.
She opened her eyes. “I can see it now,” she said, her voice a little breathless. “I can see why a woman would give up anything to have this feeling. It’s extraordinary. Although,” she added thoughtfully, “I have to remember it’s extraordinary for me because I’ve never experienced it before. I mean, I assume you’re not feeling anything unusual. You’re not, are you? Feeling anything you haven’t felt before?”
If she were another woman, he would have suspected her of fishing for compliments. But that didn’t seem Airin’s style, somehow. She was just looking for information. That’s what was so unusual about her: the combination of an instinctive sensuality with a scientific approach to the world.
Just the way he’d expect an alien anthropologist to act.
In a sexy sci-fi movie, anyway.
He pulled his hand from the silken waves of her hair and slid it back into his pocket.
“Where are you from?” he asked, partly to avoid answering her question and partly because he really wanted to know. “What do you do? Are you a student? A scientist? A musician? What?”
She tilted her head to the side. “Does this mean we’re going to talk instead of kiss? Because, to be absolutely honest, I really, really want to kiss you again.”
Jesus.
He swallowed. “Right back at you, angel. But here’s the thing. I’ve got a pretty big day tomorrow, as you know, and I don’t want to go too wild. I’m not saying kissing is totally off the table, you understand. But I think it’ll be best for both of us if we pace ourselves. So how about we start by talking and see where things go?”
In his experience, wanting to have a conversation with a woman was usually a selling point. It often led to the bedroom part of the evening being even hotter.
But Airin actually looked disappointed.
“I guess we could do that,” she said slowly. “But I don’t really like to talk about myself. If there are some questions I don’t want to answer, will that be all right?”
“Sure,” he said, wondering if this was a new psychological warfare thing women had figured out. A way to intrigue a man to the point of fascination.
Because he was fucking fascinated.
Airin glanced over his shoulder. “He left,” she said.
“Who left?”
“The man who was sitting behind you. You can sit down, if you want. Then we could do the talking thing. Especially if I can ask you more questions than you ask me.”
He thought for a moment.
“Tell you what,” he said. “I set myself a one-drink limit for tonight, and I’d like to save that for later. How about we stroll around town for a while and then sit down for a drink?” He nodded toward the glass in front of her, which was empty. “It’s good timing for a break, since you just finished one.”
In answer, Airin slid off her bar stool. She stumbled a little when her feet hit the ground, and he caught her by the upper arm, and then it was like two nights ago but worse. A hundred times worse.
She put her palms flat against his chest and met his eyes. She wasn’t looking as far up tonight, which meant she was wearing heels. Maybe that was why she’d stumbled.
He still had a hand on her upper arm, and his other hand, without his even realizing it, had gone to her hip. As they stood staring at each other, Airin’s hands curled into the material of his T-shirt.
“Jesus,” he said, not even realizing he’d spoken out loud until Airin’s eyes widened.
“You feel it, too?”
What use was there in pretending?
“Yeah, I feel it. Let’s get moving before I do something about it.”
“But I want to do something about it. I want to—”
“Talk,” he said firmly, stepping back. “We’re just going to talk. At least for the next hour or so,” he amended.
Airin nodded reluctantly. “All right.”
“Can I tell you something?” he asked as the two of them left the bar and joined the throngs of tourists and locals out on the sidewalk. Figuring the crowds made it sort of necessary, he reached for Airin’s hand and held it firmly.
“Yes,” she said. “You can tell me something.”
At the next crosswalk he took a left onto a less crowded street, but he kept hold of her hand.
“Women usually like a man who wants to talk. They think it means he wants more than sex.”
“It’s not that I object to talking,” she said, pausing at a lei stand. “I just want to kiss you so much it’s hard to focus on anything else.”
He wished she would stop staying shit like that. How was a guy supposed to hang on to his self-control under these circumstances?
“Do you want a lei?” he asked, wincing at the unintended double entendre.
She shook her head. “I just wanted to smell them. I’m in love with plumeria,” she added as they started walking again. “That’s the lei I was wearing when we met.”
He doubted he’d ever forget the scent. “Yeah, that was nice.”
For a moment they walked in silence. There were more boutiques on this street than restaurants or bars, and most of them were closed for the night. It was quieter and less crowded here.
“I thought you wanted to talk,” Airin said finally. “May I start by asking you some questions?”
He smiled at the hint of formality. “Sure.”
“What made you want to do this biosphere project? What would make you willing to give up your freedom for eight months?”
He glanced down at her. “That’s a big question.”
“I don’t have anywhere else to be.”
“Fair enough. Okay. Well, I don’t love the idea of going into a sealed environment with seven other people as my only company. But I do love the idea of going to Mars—or at least furthering the research that will get someone to Mars—and I’m willing to make sacrifices to achieve that goal.”
Airin was quiet, and after a moment he looked down at her again. Her expression was thoughtful.
“You look like you’re mulling something over,” he said. “What is it?”
“I was thinking that you remind me of my mother,” she said. “She’s a very, um, driven person. And she would sacrifice anything to achieve her goals.”
That intrigued him. “Including you?”
She looked up at him, startled. “Oh, no. In fact, there have been several times I got in the way of a project. She put me first every time.”
“What does your mother—”
“I have another question,” she said quickly. “Why do you care so much about getting to Mars?”
He shook his head. “That one would take a lifetime to answer.”
“Well, make a start, anyway. What’s wrong with Earth?”
“Nothing at all. But there wasn’t anything wrong with dry land when explorers went out to sea. There wasn’t anything wrong with the valleys when people decided to climb mountains. Exploring is part of who we are.”
Airin was quiet again. Then, after a moment, she spoke.
“May I make an observation?”
He really got a kick out of the way she talked. “Go for it.”
“That’s kind of a philosophical explanation for wanting to go to Mars.”
“Yeah?”
She hesitated. “I hope this doesn’t sound rude,” she began.
“Won’t know till you try.”
“Well . . . it’s just that you don’t seem like a very philosophical person to me.” She went on in a rush. “I don’t mean you’re stupid or selfish or not very deep or anything like that. But you seem like someone who would have to have a personal reason for doing something. I mean, did you want to be an astronaut when you were younger?”
“For as long as I can remember.”
“Well, what made you want to travel into space back then?”
People didn’t usually press him after his first answer to this question, which of course he got all the damn time. Why would you subject yourself to years of isolation and confinement and all the untold dangers of a Mars mission?
For the good of humanity was a true answer, as well as one he believed in, and it usually satisfied anyone who asked him why he wanted to go into space.
But it was his last night of freedom, and he was with a beautiful, mysterious, completely adorable woman. Maybe if he opened up a little he could get her to do the same.
“We’re heading makai,” he said, shifting his hand to thread their fingers together. “What do you say we keep going and walk along the beach? I’ll tell you all about my childhood dreams of space travel then.”
“That sounds lovely. I don’t think I’ve ever been on the beach at night.” She paused. “Makai. Is that Hawaiian for ‘south’?”
“Not exactly. It means ‘toward the ocean.’ Mauka is the other word you’ll hear; that means ‘inland.’ It makes sense, if you think about it. Seaward and inland are more useful points of reference on an island than north, south, east, and west.”
“I like that,” Airin said. “I mean, it’s really interesting, don’t you think? I wonder if that correlates with any differences in the way Hawaiians conceive of space and geography. It’s such a different scheme from the four points of the compass and latitude and longitude, which lead to a kind of grid thinking, right? Whereas conceiving of directions as going in toward the center of the island or out toward the sea might lead to a different orientation.”
There she went, thinking like a scientist again. She’d fit right in at NASA.
He almost stopped walking as a thought occurred to him. Was it possible she did fit in at NASA? Could she be one of their scientists?
No, that didn’t make sense. During the last year he’d met everyone who worked in the Hawaiian field offices, and if there’d been a new hire—especially a hire like this woman—he’d have heard about it. And why would she hide a NASA job, especially once she’d learned who he was?
Whatever her mystery was, it wasn’t that.
He refocused on their conversation.
“I suppose that’s possible. I’m used to thinking of direction and space differently than other people do, from training as a pilot. You have to deal with an extra dimension. On land you can go forward or backward, left or right, but up and down aren’t really an option. It’s different when you’re flying.”
“Like being in free fall,” she said as they reached the end of the street and made their way down the sandy path that led to the beach. “Or in the water,” she added, looking out at the moon-silvered ocean.
“Yeah.”
The path came to an end, and rippling sand lay before them. This part of the beach was well lit, close as it was to the hotels and nightlife of Waikiki, but out toward the ocean it was much darker.
He looked down at Airin’s feet. The high heels she wore—white leather sandals—looked brand-new. She hadn’t given any indication of it, but he wondered if they were hurting her.
“Do you want—”
“Yes,” she said, smiling up at him. “I do want.”
She let go of his hand and bent down to undo the straps. A moment later and three inches shorter, she straightened up again with her shoes in one hand.
They started forward. He’d kicked off his flip-flops, too, and the soft sand felt great on his bare feet.
Sand always felt better at night. But then, everything did.
When they reached the water’s edge, he pointed up at the sky.
“That’s why,” he said.
Airin followed his gaze. “That’s why what?”
He took off his jacket and laid it down on the sand. “Care to sit, my lady?”
She did, and he dropped down beside her.
“But now you’re getting all sandy,” she objected. “There’s room on your jacket for both of us.”
“I’m happy to get sandy. I’m going into a biosphere for a year. The messier I can get tonight, the better.”
More unintended innuendo, but Airin didn’t react to it. Instead, she leaned against him as they watched the gentle lapping of waves on the shore. The moon made a path of silver toward the horizon, and he remembered the first time he’d ever seen that phenomenon. It had been on a lake, not an ocean, but the effect on his imagination had been the same.
He’d wanted to run along that path until he could leap off the edge of the earth.
“You pointed at the sky and said, ‘That’s why,’” she reminded him. “That’s why what?”
With his jacket off, the bare skin of his arm was against the bare skin of hers.
“That’s why I wanted to be an astronaut,” he said. “Because of the way I felt every time I looked up at the night sky.”
“You wanted to be up there?”
“Yeah. To be honest, I don’t understand how anyone can look up and not feel that way. Don’t you want to see what’s out there? To experience being in space? To stand on another planet? To explore?”
Airin was quiet for a moment. In the silence, the sound of the ocean was like music.
“My father loved the idea of space travel,” she said finally. “He used to tell me bedtime stories about a little girl who stowed away on a rocket ship and went to Mars.”
He chuckled. “Sounds like the kind of stories I’d tell if I was a parent. But your dad didn’t inspire you in that direction? You never wanted to be an astronaut yourself?”
“I actually did, for a while. But my mother . . .”
She trailed off.
“Your mother what?” he prompted after a moment.
“Nothing. Tell me about your parents. They must be so proud of you.”
He wondered if he’d ever reach a point where a question about his parents didn’t feel like a gut punch.
“Not exactly,” he said. “What do you say we rule our parents out of bounds for tonight?”
There was a short silence. Then: “With pleasure.”