Beyond the Limits. Katherine Garbera
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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