THIRTY-FIVE
It was the only way to protect Max. To keep us both alive.
His head snapped to mine and in two large steps, he had grabbed me by the shoulders, his pupils large and blazing with anger. But his voice was low and even as he decided, "Hell no."
"You said so yourself, just a second ago," I whispered, my cheeks feeling oddly tight from the drying tears. "It's meant to be. I was never supposed to be yours."
"I didn't want you to agree with my options," he snapped and added with a grumble, "We'll come up with something else."
"There is nothing else!" I cried in frustration. I pulled out of his grip to pull at my hair and started pacing the desert ground. "How bad can it be really? My mom was mostly left alone, wasn't she? And she lived a-" I found myself struggling to say, "-fairly long life. She would have continued doing that if Sean wouldn't have snapped. And maybe, if I just keep my mouth shut, be complacent and agreeable, and let him control me, he won't hurt me."
Max's eyes were tracing my distressing pace. Back and forth. Back and forth. "He might not hurt you. But he'll kill you. He'll kill Liz Parker."
I stopped and spun around to face him. "But you would live."
He groaned. "Don't be ridiculous. This is not some kind of romance novel. There's no such thing as sacrificing yourself for someone else-"
Then how do you explain all the times you've accepted abuse because you were protecting me?
He flung his hands out to the sides with a cry of, "This is our lives! This is it. Do you really want to live it out like a puppet?"
"No!" I cried. "I really want to live it out normally. Maybe get married. Maybe have children." I kicked angrily at a stone. "Of course I don't want to be raped, mind-raped and every other kind of rape there might be in your world!"
"I'm sorry," Max gasped without warning, abruptly squashing my anger.
I looked at him as he took a deep breath, lengthening his body, every muscle in his body tensing. As if he was trying not to fall apart. Or erupt like a volcano.
I bit my bottom lip and watched him silently as he struggled to regain control over himself, my own body trembling with the aftershock of overwhelming emotions.
"Please…" I whispered as he seemed to have regained the control of his breathing at least. "Let me do this. I'm not trying to make it into a big gesture or anything. No romance novel, I promise. I'm just trying to find the best option out of two worthless miserable alternatives."
"He was sitting outside of your apartment after you returned from the hospital," Max said quietly, changing topics and once again increasing my heart rate. "That's why I didn't come to get you until so late. Once he left, I waited for another hour to make sure that he wouldn't return."
He looked over at me. "He won't wait; he's already keeping close tabs on you. He has figured out that we're connected, but he also learned today that he can get through it. Or he thinks that he's the one that got through it. He doesn't know that you were the one to shut it off." He scoffed. "Because that's not even supposed to be possible for you to do." His jaw muscles rippled. "This doesn't necessarily make him any less dangerous." He swallowed, looking almost green with disgust. "And the only way he can bond with you is through sex."
"I remember," I whispered, trying not to think of the fact that I would be losing my virginity against my will. That I would perhaps never share a sexual experience with anyone else but Sean and that it might never be voluntary on my part.
Was this really my future?
I jumped as Max cried out in frustration, the scream echoing against the caves, and I felt the conflict eating away at him.
We were helpless. Backed into a corner.
I slowly wet my lips, letting the air completely remove Max's scream before I asked carefully, "So how do we do it? How do we remove the connection?"
"I can't," Max admitted, his eyes flickering with an emotion I didn't recognize. "You'll have to do it."
A wistful bittersweet smile settled on my lips as I realized that he wasn't just talking about a practical inability to remove the connection, but that he was emotionally unable to.
I walked up to him, watching his eyes turn dark with emotion as I cradled his cheek in my hand. Whispering, I said, "And you say that you don't have feelings for me."
His hand came up to cover mine and he squeezed around the back of my small hand. He was quiet. Solemn. "I never claimed that."
Right. He had only accused me of not having any real feelings for him.
My heart hiccuped with sorrow. "And soon it won't even matter."
His gaze burned into my soul, so deeply and intimately that I imagined I could feel him in every cell of my body. A familiar fire in the pit of my belly ignited and blazed through my body with lust.
"Are you sure?" he whispered, and I knew that he could feel my desire. I knew that he could read my thoughts as our joined hands had flared the connection bright open. But he didn't comment on it.
Instead he opened the connection both ways and let me feel not only his emotions but also read his mind.
I gasped as his feelings rushed over me. His thoughts were jumbled; all over the place. He was thinking about the softness and smallness of my hand in his, of the sensation of my palm against unshaven cheek, of the tears on my cheeks, of the sacrifice I was about to make, of the things he would do to Sean if (when) he touched me (they were not pretty things), of how much he wanted to kiss me, kiss the curve of my neck, run his fingers through my hair, remove all of my clothes and forget about everything. Everything.
I pulled back, tugging my hand out of his grip.
It was too much. Too intimate. Too raw.
His mind had hinted at a love I'd never felt before. A love that went beyond any stupid connection. A love that had started years ago, ignited out of the need to protect a girl of the same age as him during nightly experiments performed by his race.
I saw how much he hated himself. How much he hated who he was. How he just wanted to be normal and human. So that he could be with whoever he wanted.
Me.
He wanted me.
In every humanly (and alien) way possible.
The ground wobbled under my feet.
He grimaced. "Too much?"
The craziness of the situation coupled with the proof of his requited love, bubbled up in me and I laughed. "A bit overwhelming, yes."
"And you're still sure?" he asked.
He wasn't playing fair, which was frustrating. First he told me the only (lousy) options available to us and when I agreed to one of them, he did what he just had done. Showed me how a future with him could be like. A future that wasn't even possible.
And he did that…why?
Dousing my irritation, I took a deep breath and - even though I didn't really understand it - I said, "I see what you're trying to do here, but this is how it has to be."
He watched me quietly and after being inside his head, I could visualize myself out of his eyes. I could see how beautiful he saw me. How brave he considered me to be, and how he would never stop watching over me. Not even when I had been handed over to someone else.
"Can I at least have the night?" he whispered and my heart stopped.
My mouth went dry and I must have looked to be in shock as I stared at him wide-eyed. Thoughts of his naked body brushing against mine were already running through my head by the time Max tensed with realization.
"I mean-" He cleared his throat. "I just want to spend time with you, okay? Nothing more needs to happen."
"Oh," I mumbled and mortification spread up my cheeks as I heard the disappointment in my own voice, betraying what I really wished that he meant.
Oh, God. I wished the earth would just swallow me up. How did I always find myself in these conversations with Max Evans?
"Let's stay for awhile," I wheezed before coughing.
I had the pleasure of glaring at him as he grinned at my obvious mortification, but I was relieved that he hadn't delivered his earlier request in the arrogant manner of the Public Max Evans.
"You look cold," he said and before I had a chance to answer, he shrugged out of his jacket.
He draped it over my shoulders. It was like a tent on me, but it was incredibly warm and smelled like Max.
"Has it something to do with your alien metabolism?" I asked curiously, unconsciously sticking my nose into the collar of the jacket and taking a deep breath.
If he had noticed, he didn't comment.
"My alien metabolism?" he inquired.
"You're always so warm."
"A steady 102.4 degrees," he answered, almost proudly.
"Oh," I mumbled, taken back. I hadn't expected there to actually be such a difference to the normal temperature of humans. "Why is that?"
He reached out and took my hand, tugging me towards him, interlocking our fingers, before pulling us down on the - now chilled - blanket.
"We have a higher metabolism and we crave extra spicy food, which heats up our bodies. Also, we use a lot more energy - which ties in with the metabolism, I guess." His eyes turned dark as he added, "Which is why humans normally can't handle too much of our pull on their energies. Our energy requirements far exceed that of humans."
His fingers were still entwined with mine as we settled cross-legged in front of each other, our knees touching.
I could hear my pulse throb in my ears; anticipated nervousness fluttering and embracing every inch of me. I was acutely aware of his presence, of his proximity.
I wondered if he was holding my hand simply because he wanted to hold my hand or if it was to keep the connection open, so that he could eavesdrop on my emotions and thoughts. I wasn't really sure how it worked; where the borders were. I understood that physical touch strengthened the connection considerably, allowing us to hear each others thoughts.
But I was pretty sure that he couldn't speak to me telepathically unless he was concentrating and looking into my eyes. With 'mere' physical touch, we were only inactive observers of the other's emotions.
Well… Max had masked himself in the connection again. I couldn't read him at the moment.
As he distractedly played with my fingers, I thought about how to go about blocking him back. It seemed highly unfair that he was able to hear my innermost speculations - particularly about him - and I wasn't privy to the same courtesy. As the thought process magnified, I saw the silent smile spread across his lips on his downturned face.
"Stop listening," I mumbled, but couldn't keep the smile out of my voice. He just smiled in return, his gaze still on our entwined hands.
At the moment, we were in a bubble. I was ignoring all of our other problems and just focusing on solving the problem of blocking Max while his fingers slowly slid back and forth over the back of my hand and the heat from his knees warmed through my jeans covering my own knees.
In blocking him from reading me, I didn't want to accidentally turn off the connection again-
"Yes, please don't," Max mumbled, and glanced up at me through his impossibly long dark eyelashes.
I rolled my eyes at him before closing my eyes and conjuring up an image in my head of a large soft red velvet curtain flowing down around my brain, hiding it.
His hand tensed in mine and my eyes flew open, the mental image of the fake curtain fixed in place.
He was looking at me curiously and wordlessly reached for my other hand, resting in my lap. Holding both of my hands in his, his look turned more intense, almost prodding.
"Is it working?" I asked breathlessly.
He couldn't read me?
"How…" he mumbled, let go off my hands and placed his hands on the sides of my neck, his thumbs curling up over my jawbone. He leaned in closer and fascinated I watched his eyes turn darker and could feel the buzz intensify.
The buzz. Which meant that I had not turned the connection off, but still managed to hide myself from him.
"You're not supposed to be able to do that," he whispered, awed. "It takes us years to figure that out." He shook his head slowly. "I can't get in."
I practically smirked at him. Ha. I had mastered the alien.
"How about now?" he said softly, his eyes turning dangerously teasing as he in one swift movement leaned forward and touched his mouth to mine.
And yes. Of course. My self-control was immediately broken and my beautiful velvet curtain billowed to the ground, letting all my emotions and thoughts rush towards Max.
"There you are," he mumbled, satisfied, against my lips. But he didn't stop kissing me. This time, his kiss didn't have any means to an end. This time he wasn't trying to bring me back from dangerous fatigue syndromes. This time, he was just kissing me.
Which was a big thing in itself.
I moaned as he gently angled my head with his hands, so that he could gain full access to my mouth, his tongue brushing mine.
My fingers were in his hair, threading through it, tugging on it, as my behind restlessly lifted from the blanket and my weight shifted more onto my knees as I attempted to get closer to him.
Our positions were putting us too far apart.
Having a complete view of the inner workings of my mind again, Max let his hands slide down my neck - tantalizingly slowly. His hands worked their way inside the jacket he had put over my shoulders, to get closer to my arms, even though there was still a hoodie preventing him from touching my bare, goose-bumped skin. I could feel the trembles in his hands as he brushed up along the sides of my ribcage.
I gasped at the sensation (how could I feel it so much even through the thick material of my sweater?) and he captured my gasp with his kisses.
The heels of his hands touched the sides of my breasts as he hooked his hands into my armpits and with a smooth upward lift moved me to sit on his lap.
I sighed with satisfaction as I placed my legs around his waist and wrapped my arms around his shoulders.
"Better?" he asked, his one-worded question causing his lips to brush mine like a feather.
"Mm-hmm," I happily agreed and melted our lips together again.
So this was what making out felt like?
This was what it felt like to, in a synchronized soft fluid motion, taste someone's soft lips.
This was what it felt like to have someone kiss you and a deep burning heat to start to develop in the pit of your stomach.
This was what it felt like when you realized where the phrase 'making your toes curl' came from and how you heart could be 'beating out of your chest'.
This was what it felt like when you wanted someone so badly that you wanted to crawl inside of them, when you wanted them to kiss you everywhere, when you wanted to kiss them everywhere.
This was what it felt like when kissing made you breathless, made your brain starved for oxygen, but you would gladly ignore the instinct for air. When it was more important for you to continue tasting him than to breathe.
This was what it felt like to be kissed by someone who you loved, someone who loved you.
He separated from my lips with a breathless gasp and we came to stare at each other, desperately inhaling oxygen, our hearts beating fast and our breaths rapid.
He leaned in, took my bottom lip between his teeth and lightly tugged. I pressed the insides of my thighs into his waist as the desire rocked me.
Pulling back, releasing my swollen lip, he mumbled, with his hands in my hair and the heels of his palms below my ears, "You make me completely lose control, Liz Parker."
A quiet and breathless laugh rolled over my lips, interrupted by the unmistakable rumbling vibrations from a mobile phone set to 'silent' against the inside of my knee, which was pressed up against his back pocket.
My eyes flew to his face, noticed him paling (because someone calling you in the middle of the night was never a good sign when you were having a secret meeting, was it?) and my heart sank as he barely seemed to notice me slide off him, to give him space to answer his phone.
He rose to his knees and fumbled for his phone, shooting a worried look on my face before he pressed the phone to his ear and stated, "Dad."
I swallowed, fear automatically gripping me, as I tried to make out the words on the other side of the line. But even in the silence of the desert night, Max didn't have the volume on the speakers loud enough for me to eavesdrop.
"Out," Max answered shortly, his hand wrapping around my knee, making my breath hitch.
I looked up at his face in surprise, but his eyes were fixed on my knee and his mind seemed 100% occupied with his father.
"I'll be home soon," Max said, sounding like the perfect impatient teenagers even though his hand tightened nervously around my knee.
Then his eyes flickered to my face and his fear was so strong through the connection that a sharp surge of adrenaline threatened to bump my heart out of my chest.
"With a friend," Max replied tensely.
Why did I get the feeling that Max's father already knew where Max was and with whom…? How could he possibly know that?
Max sighed, squeezing his eyes closed as he mumbled, "I'll leave right away."
He pulled the phone from his ear, pressed 'disconnect' and met my worried eyes.
"What did he say?" I whispered.
He shook his head, almost looking surprised at his father's obvious knowledge of his whereabouts. "I haven't been home all day, so naturally he needed to investigate." He diverted his eyes to the phone in his hand. "It was stupid. I shouldn't have stayed away. I made it seem suspicious."
Fear tightened in my stomach and I put my hand over his on my knee, squeezing it, "You can't go back. He'll…"
Max looked up, his voice devoid of emotions as he stated, "I've broken the law. With Sean. With you, tonight."
"But, he can't just-" I started, but he silenced me by pressing his index finger gently against my upper lip.
"Let's go home," he said quietly, resignation vibrating through his body and our connection.
His hand released my knee and I could do nothing but follow as he rose and started to pack up the blanket.
Our alone time was over. For now. Maybe forever.