"Caught in a Storm"

"What am I doing here?" I asked myself as I was sitting on a rock overlooking the dark ocean. Fang and the others had gone ahead of me to the house and I wanted sometime alone, although I knew I wasn't alone. Fang wouldn't let me go anywhere without him because of what had happened the last time at the beach.

"You're being a leader, a mother, a survivor. You know that the kids need you. You know that they love you and would give anything for you Max. Don't doubt yourself." I heard Fang's soft still voice say from behind me.

I turned around to see a very tall, dark and handsome Fang leaning against a very tall rock looming over him. I gave him a sad smile secretly telling him of my pain. I turned back around and could feel Fang move closer to me. When Fang's big strong arms came around me I flinched.

"You know that I am not going to hurt you." Fang whispered by my ear

"I know Fang, but you know that I never relax. It's a habit-fight or flight. I've always had it on and I have never been able to turn it off. Just like not being able to love someone. I have the fear that I am going to lose them so I don't love them-I deny my feelings, even though that they are alive and true." I replied

Fang and I had talked about our feelings for each other about a week ago when we were looking for a place to live, we were alone and we talked about it. Fang knew how I felt; he knew that although he may love me I may never be able to admit to anyone else besides him that I loved him.

Fang walked around so he could look me in the eyes and I could face him. His long dark bangs covered his lovely chocolate brown eyes. At that moment I was surprised with what he did, Fang leaned in very close to me and whispered "I will always love you Max. Don't ever forget that." Then he put his warm rough hand on under my chin, titled it up and kissed me.

Our lips intertwined for a while. The sweet bliss continued as he angled his head so that he could kiss me better. His lips were warm and soft, something I didn't except. As our lips caressed I was sent into a sweet and peaceful bliss. When we finally broke to take a breath Fang and I looked at each other in complete and utter shock.

Fang leaned in to kiss me again but I moved back and tackled him on the sand. He started tickling me and making me laugh really, really hard.

"Stop it Fang…that tickles." I said in a high girly voice. If any of the Flock had heard that they would have thought something else was going on, thankfully no one else was there.

When he finally stopped tickling me, he pulled me up off the sand and held me completely against his body. The moment was so awesome and completely fine until it started raining. See I like the rain but when it's raining and you have a white shirt on and the guy you love is standing in front of you, well it makes some problems. Not to mention it wasn't raining lightly it was down pouring so by the time we got into shelter my shirt was completely see-through and drenched. Fang noticed it and smiled. He was wet so he couldn't give me his shirt so he took off his shirt and laid it against a make-shift drying rack made out of branches.

"Once me shirt is dry I'll give it to you. But if you don't want to catch cold you're going to need to get out of that." Fang said sounding matter-of-factly

"Well what are you suggesting? Me stripping! I have no other clothes, what am I supposed to wear?" I asked sounding offended

"Well you know that one time that we had to leave the house and everyone said they were missing one pair of clothes when they got back. Yea well that was me. In case of emergency I took one pair of everyone's clothes so that if something happened and they needed clothes we had them here. Fang said pushing away a stone from the corner to show six separate sets of clothes.

"What outfit did you pick for me?" I asked teasingly

"This one." Fang said as he picked up a pair of my light blue sweatpants with my light blue matching cami. Wow would he have fun looking at me in this outfit. The cami was decent but came down enough to show some cleavage.

"Fine, let me change though. No peeking-well I don't think there is anything that you want to see anyways but still NO PEEKING!" Fang stifled a laugh as I finished what I was saying. He came over to me putting his arms around my waist rather low.

"You will always be gorgeous in my eyes." Fang said looking as if he wanted to kiss me again but decided that it might be best if he let me change.

After we had both changed and there was a small fire going Fang took me into his arms making me lean against him. He turned my head at an awkward angle for another kiss, though to accommodate the kiss I needed to straddle his legs, we both smirked into the kiss and were glad to be in each other's arms.

"Fang, I …..Love….you." My voice was soft but sweet, knowing how hard it was for me to say that to him he beamed at me, letting my see his radiant smile and gorgeous eyes.

"Why don't we get some sleep, before the Flock comes looking for us." Fang suggested. We stayed in our current position using each other as a pillow we never figured we would wake up late.

"Oh. MY. FREAKING. GOSH." Nudge's voice came to our ears as we stirred, not knowing what time it was we found that Iggy, Nudge, Gazzy and Angel were all looking at us. Fang's arm was around my wait my head was on his bare chest and I was still straddling his legs.

"Nudge, sweetie, can you take Angel and Gazzy inside I need to have a talk with these two." Iggy's voice was serious and he looked blindly at us. Quickly Nudge gave him a kiss on the cheek before turning around with Gazzy and Angel heading inside. "What on earth were you two thinking? We figured you would wait out the storm, but to find you like this? Where are your other clothes anyways? Fang I swear if you hurt her you're a dead man." Iggy's voice was tense and cold, I had never seen him this protective of me before.

"Max go inside, I think Fangie and I need to talk." Iggy said sarcastically

"Alright, that's fine I need to have a talk with Nudge anyways." My voice wasn't harsh but it was stern. Giving Fang a quick kiss as I stood up, he reluctantly let go of me.

"What are you going to talk to Nudge about?" Iggy asked concerned

"What are you going to talk to Fang about?" I asked back, knowing Iggy would understand.
"No hurting her now. I love her." Iggy's voice was soft, almost submissive.

"You think I would hurt my own child? Please, it's Nudge, we just need to have a talk like you are going to be talking to Fang, that's all." My voice kept the same flat level.

I walked into the house seeing Nudge, Gazzy and Angel all in the living room watching TV. I stopped for a minute taking in the scene, they were acting civilized, like people, they weren't fighting over the remote or what TV program to watch, but they were there being civilized.

"Okay guys, what do you want." I asked with my hands on my hips, suddenly there was a rush of words coming from the three, all I could get out was something about sleeping out in the woods tonight. "Guys! Calm down, I can only understand you one at a time." My voice was louder than theirs so they quieted down.

"Can we have a sleepover?" Nudge asked

"With whom?" My voice was flat not revealing any emotion

"On the lake silly, we want to sleep out by the lake tonight, only if Iggy comes he has to stay away from Nudge." Angel's voice still sounded so young but she was eleven almost twelve now.

"Why can't Ig come?" I asked playfully

"Because he and Nudge," Angel paused getting really close to me and in a really quiet voice whispered, "kiss." This of course sent her into a fit of giggles.

"Well that's have a talk Nudge, and maybe we can work something out." My voice sounded fair. "Come on Nudge; let's go talk in my room."

Nudge and I walked into my room as Gazzy and Angel fought over the remote, something I would let them take care of.

"What do you want to talk about Max?" Nudge asked when I had shut my door and we had been seated on the bed.

"Honey I think you know what I want to talk about. I want to talk about you and Ig, that kind of stuff." My voice was all of the sudden girly and young again. "Do you love him?" I asked point black. Nudge's face went impassive for a moment before a very large smile covered her face.

"Do you love Fang?" Her innocent voice asked the question and I knew why she had smiled. Like me she couldn't describe how I felt for the man that I loved. We both had so much love, for one person that we didn't know what to do with it all. Fang was the centre of my world and there was nothing keeping me from him right now except Iggy.

"When you love someone Nudge; it's very important that you're honest with them, that you don't hide anything and that you are yourself." My voice kept low incase Gazzy or Angel decided to eavesdrop on us.

"Max, we both know that this talk isn't necessary, let's go get our men and have a day where it's just on the beach." Nudge's suggestion surprised me but I liked it. Walking out to the living room we told Gazzy and Angel that the house was there for the afternoon. Nudge and I walked out of the house and to our spot where we had left Iggy and Fang, finding them almost at each other's throats in a fighting position.

"Well this is amusing." My voice floated to their ears and they both blushed. Nudge walked to Iggy wrapping her arms around his waist and placing a chaste kiss on his mouth, doing just about the same to Fang, though as I was pulling away he caught my lips again pulling me in fro another kiss.

"So what was all the fighting about?" I asked leaning against Fang

"Oh, boy stuff you don't want to know." They both answered quickly

"Well in that case then we have plans. Nudge and I told the kids that they would have the house to themselves, so we have the beach to ourselves." I answered playfully knowing that both of the boys would take the hint they started chasing us. Fang tackled me first but I let him, I wanted him to catch me. What ensued for the rest of the day was kisses and playing in the water. Later in the afternoon as the sun was setting, we sat together Nudge was leaning against Iggy as he was planting soft kisses on her neck making her laugh. Fang was distracted with me too much to be paying attention the sunset. Fang was kissing my neck, finally being unsatisfied he turned my head by pushing me back and angling my torso, lowering his lips to mine. I let my eyes flutter shut as I felt his hand steady me. The soft sweet kisses seemed like it never ended but finally I was tired and wanted to go to bed. The boys carried us in the house, Nudge was already asleep in Iggy's arms but I was awake, kissing Fang as he walked into the house and set me down in my room. I shut the door behind me and let Fang stay with me.