Her Perfect Stranger

anything.

As she should have been.

She'd nearly managed it when their fingers tangled as they both reached for the same control.

Her eye caught his, and though he was completely into his work, something flickered there, warmed.

It should be against the code of space travel to be so sexy, she thought, and turned away to focus on unloading the cargo.

And when, two minutes later, one of the solar panels malfunctioned during the unfurling, it took her a moment to understand it wasn't her fault, that it had nothing to do with what she was feeling for her pilot.

The broken equipment was only a prototype for the real component, one of three that had been built for exactly these practice missions, but that made it no less of a problem. It required sending hordes of engineers back to the drawing board, soothing freaked-out NASA officials and dealing with the press, who were dying to put a negative spin on the price of the space program.

Hours and hours later, when Corrine finally took a moment to draw a deep breath, she escaped to the staff kitchen.

Mike had gotten there first.

He said nothing, just lifted the milk carton he held as if in a silent toast.

A job well done? Is that what he meant? 'Thanks for your hard work today,' she said.

He took a long swig, then licked his upper lip. 'You worked harder than any of us. Did anyone thank you?'

'No.'

'They should have.' He stayed where he was, which was unlike him, but then again, she'd made it pretty clear that's what she wanted. A lot of space between them. 'Then thank you,' he said simply. 'You've done a great job.'

'For an Ice Queen.'

'What?'

'I've done a good job, for an Ice Queen. Isn't that what you meant?'

He actually looked surprised, then slowly shook his head. 'You still stewing over that?'

Apparently so. How terribly revealing.

'I would have apologized. Should have apologized.' He looked at her for a long second, then let out a hard breath. 'I was mad at you, Corrine. I wanted to break through and see, if only for a moment, the woman beneath the tough veneer, the woman I've laughed with, talked to, made love with. I was frustrated and hot and full of temper, a bad combo on any day.'

'You're saying that was just temper talking?'

'As in do I really think of you as an Ice Queen?' He stepped closer, touched her hair. 'I don't want to. God, I don't want to.'

But he did, she thought.

His voice lowered. Softened. Became irresistible. 'I hurt you. I'm sorry for that, Corrine. So sorry.'

He was sorry, which left her floundering, because without her anger, everything else pushed and shoved its way to the surface. It was that everything else she couldn't handle.

As usual, she slept alone, haunted by dreams of warm, loving arms holding her, pressing her against a long, hard, muscled body that knew exactly how to give and what to take.

She woke up hot, damp and frustrated, and wrapped around her pillow.

A bad start, to say the least, and the day didn't improve from there. A critical communications program, brand-new for this mission, crashed. Another catastrophe, and another rush for the drawing board.

By the end of the day she was tense, tired and maybe more than a tad irritable. Grumbling to herself, she went to the staff room for scalding, black coffee… and ran into Mike.

He wasn't drinking milk this time, wasn't doing anything but standing near the coffeepot. She wondered if maybe he'd been waiting there for her.

'You going to thank me again for a job well done?' she asked, more than a little caustically. She couldn't help it. If ever she'd deserved her Ice Queen title, it had been today. 'After all, I've worked pretty damn hard these past hours, yelling at computer programmers, scaring engineers, terrorizing rogue reporters, etcetera.'

'Yeah, I'm going to thank you.' He smiled at her dare, deflating her anger with nothing more than his presence. 'You saved our butts today.

You saved our butts yesterday, too, and you know what? I think you're magnificent.'

'I…' How did he do that, render her speechless? 'I don't know what to say to you.'

His mouth curved. 'You never do, when it comes to a compliment.'

The way he looked at her made her suddenly long for the simplicity of what they shared only when they were in bed.

His eyes darkened. 'I'd give anything to hear your thought, the one that made your cheeks flush hot.'

'Not a chance.'

'Damn.'

'I figured you were still mad at me.'

'Mad?' He slowly shook his head. 'I've been a lot of things when it comes to you, most of which you don't want to hear, so think good and hard, Corrine, before you open up this can of worms.'

She might have done just that, if her beeper hadn't suddenly gone off. An emergency page, she discovered, which didn't bode well.

What else can go wrong? she wondered, rushing through the maze of hallways.

'Anything,' Mike said grimly, startling her, because she hadn't realized he'd come along or that she'd spoken out loud.

It was the robotic arm, they discovered a few moments later, which was now malfunctioning after Stephen's weight had been on it, while he was working on a relaying function.

'Defunct,' Stephen called down in disgust.

The arm, too, was just a prototype, but a malfunction was a malfunction. Corrine didn't hesitate to climb up, pushing aside all the technicians to get there. Then dug right in, barking suggestions and orders, and more suggestions.

Two hours later, they'd solved the problem. By the time Corrine climbed down, she was exhausted, had a headache and could eat a horse.

Mike wasn't in the kitchen this time as she finally grabbed her things and prepared to go home, but he was in the parking lot, getting into his rental car.

When he saw her, he went still, carefully studying her face for a long moment.

Always uncomfortable with scrutiny, she shifted. 'What? Why are you looking at me like that?'

'Nothing. Forget it.' But he pocketed his keys and moved toward her with that long-legged stride of his. He'd worked all day, too, right by her side, but he didn't look as rumpled as she felt, not at all. His sleeves were still shoved back, and maybe his shirt was a little wrinkled from where he'd been crawling around on the robotic arm alongside her, but he looked…well, unbearably familiar, and unbearably sexy.

Reaching out, he tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear. 'You look beat.'

His voice was low, soft. Gentle. His fingers on her cheek, where they lingered, were tender.

Damn him for all the inconsistencies! And damn him for still, after all this time, being able to melt her with nothing more than a half smile and the touch of a finger on her skin.

'You're an amazing woman, Corrine,' he said quietly, with a different tight in his gaze than she'd ever seen before. Was that…respect she saw there now? Respect and-oh God, he was leaning down to kiss her. Just once, and ever so softly.

It took everything she had not to cling to that soft, yet firm mouth.

Yes, it was respect in his gaze; she could see that now as he pulled back. And even more irresistible, there was heart, too.

Terrifying, that heart and its emotions, because she'd never received that from anyone other than her family before. She couldn't resist. 'Mike.'

Slipping his fingers along her jaw, he skimmed the pad of his thumb over her lips, holding her words in. 'Night,