Last time: Alec put some money on the table and then without further reservation, jumped up and started running, Max, hot on his heels.
6 Months Ago
And so it went, day after day. Once spotted, the transgenics would tear out into the street or the woods or the residential areas and lead the transhuman kids fifteen or twenty miles in a direction, hearts pounding in their chests, barely working up a sweat. The kids would either stop chasing them, or Alec would lead Max into a hiding spot and they'd wait in silence a few minutes for the young soldiers to pass and move on to another zone.
They'd spend their walk back to the boat talking and arguing playfully and joking around, sometimes challenging one another to quick games or tricks, and return to the makeshift table below deck and mark the map to indicate where they'd been and where the kids stopped following them.
Lydecker typically waited twenty miles from their starting point, ready to trail the mini-troops back to their base. He'd show up a couple of hours later, tired from the day, and mark the map where he lost them, or where they stopped and turned back, or where they realized they'd lost Max and Alec.
But the trio still hadn't been able to ascertain the new Manticore base. After several weeks of running around the city, all roads seemed to keep leading out, or back to their starting point. The colonel and two X-Series soldiers gathered around the map, checking their various routes against one another's, all to no avail.
"Well, you know what this suggests," Lydecker started, "is that we either need to go up or down."
Adding buildings and sewers into their routine presented a whole new level of difficulty to their strategy, not to mention the sheer number of man hours.
"Also," the white-haired man said, "you're not going to like this idea, but you may consider splitting up so we can cover more ground."
Max nodded, staring at the little lines of the map, starting to create her first route. Her brown eyes shifted over different parts where she knew there were buildings. "I'll go down – maybe underneath one of these empty buildings."
"Absolutely not," Alec deadpanned.
Lydecker breathed out of his nose in a scoff, thin lips pressed in a firm line.
Bristling, Max said, "It's not like we can't take care of ourselves, Alec."
"True. But let's say best case scenario: one of us finds their base. How do we tell each other before they realize what we've found and cauterize their own site? Or, and this is more likely, they chase only you, Max." He turned to see Lydecker's assenting reaction, and then snapped his head back to the brunette. "You're basically their map to this prophesy, and I'm not willing to risk that text just to save us time."
Max's mouth fell open in an instant. Alec realized his mistake as soon as her jaw set to grind and hurt flashed through her like lightning. "Thanks for not making me feel like any more of a freak," she said. She blazed past Lydecker and into the back bedroom, slamming the door behind her.
Alec rolled his eyes, wondering why the hell he just said that, and flinched to go after her.
"Let her cool down," Lydecker stopped him. "You're right. She'll realize that."
But even the colonel's outstretched hand couldn't stop Alec. Lydecker wasn't great at interpersonal relationships, which made him a great military man, but a terrible mentor when it came to matters of the heart. He passed Lydecker and headed toward the bedroom.
"A billion dollars of R and D, and I'm stuck in a goddamn soap opera," Lydecker mumbled, making his way up the stairs and onto the deck.
The door wasn't locked when Alec tried it; he hoped that it meant Max wanted him to follow her. In the room, he found her leaning against the railing, back to him, arms folding in front of her. He approached warily.
"I know," she broke the silence, but still refused to look at him. "I know I'm a frickin' textbook with these little ink spots all over my body, runes that tell a prophesy that seems to be coming true, that tell a story in some foreign language about cataclysmic events, little markings that someone else coded into my frickin' DNA to show up near the end of days, but you…"
He already felt terrible. He knew what she was going to do. She'd ask what they were doing if all he could see when he looked at her was some kind of secret in the mysterious rune-riddle of this stupid prophesy, but he didn't see that when he looked at her. Not at all.
She finally turned, and his heart broke at the sorrowed look on her face, brows turned as if in pain, eyes glassy wit unshed tears. "You never treated me like I was an object."
He breathed out, understanding. "Max, I'm sorry." He took two steps forward, watching her body language to see if she was open to his apology. She didn't move at all, which was neither good nor bad, but when they locked eyes, he could see the hope she carried for the two of them, and he took the remaining steps. He slid his palm along her jaw. "You know I don't see you that way. And don't give me that 'I can take care of myself' crap," he paused while she gave her patented eye roll, because she could take care of herself and was not shy about stating it as fact, before continuing, "because this is not about your self-reliance to them. They don't care what you think, they don't care what I think, they don't care what happens on the journey to stopping this prophesy, but I do." He slid his hand over her shoulder and down her arm. "And not just because you play a prophesied and pivotal role in this thing, but because I'm a greedy bastard who wants you all to myself. I want you, all parts of you, rune or otherwise. You're the most amazing woman I've known." This sentiment earned him a watery-eyed lopsided smile. "Besides, I already know what all these mean."
Max raised her arm, and halfway up, Alec captured her hand with his and brought it to his lips. He kissed her knuckles and turned her palm upwards, revealing a couple of her first runes. She remained quiet, waiting, their conversation shifting to a more intimate tone.
"For example," he started. "This one right here," he suggested with a quick dart of his eyes. He pressed an open-mouthed kiss to her wrist. "This one means 'compassionate.'"
He picked a random rune, halfway up her forearm, and kissed it softly, reverently. "This one means 'powerful.'" He stared into her eyes, trying to find any words at all that could convey everything she meant to him. There simply wouldn't be enough runes, and as he realized that, he caught the way her pupils dilated.
She watched, lazy lids sagging with the weight of her lust, as his bottom lip dragged along the underside of her forearm, arguably the least sexy part of her, yet he made it feel like this fire was consuming her, spreading out from each location his lips touched.
He skipped over her sleeve-clad bicep, circling his thumb over the top of her collarbone, and pulled the neck of her shirt over her shoulder. He pressed his lips in a pucker at another rune there, and Max closed her eyes, tilting her head back to let the sensation wash over her. "This one means 'grace,'" he spoke against her soft skin.
Her hands drifted up, one around his shoulder and neck, the other scraping into his scalp to hold his head against her chest. He buried his face in the crook of her neck, tonguing at runes and non-runes alike. His warm hands circled around her and up under the back of her shirt.
Max released his head at his suggestion to lift her shirt from her body, along the length of her torso and arms, and up overhead, baring the top majority of her runes to him. He dropped her shirt to the bed next to them, grasped her hips and knelt down, focusing on one rune to the right of her belly button. She held each side of his head in her hands, her head tilted and lips parted slightly as she watched him. His attention stayed on that one rune, his determination sending rippling vibrations through her. "What about that one?" she asked, barely above a whisper.
Alec tilted his head and ghosted over the rune with his lips, then the flat of his tongue, eliciting a pleasured hum from deep inside Max's body. "Promise," he answered, kissing it again. His voice pulled a rush of anticipation to her core.
He brought his hands back between them and unbuttoned her jeans. Curling his fingertips around the denim, and cotton underneath, he pulled the material down, exposing her lower abdomen, her bare hips, her sex, peppering kisses downward as those little symbols became available. 'Beauty,' 'Soul,' and 'Fighter' among the runes he found there.
Heady with desire, Max nearly panted at his poetry-making, feeling the wetness pool at her center. God, the things this man said with his mouth – did with his mouth. She was sure her irises were completely eclipsed by now.
He gently pushed at her hips to sit her on the bed and peeled her clothes down her legs, slipping off her shoes when they became obstacles.
He hinted for her to scoot backward on the bed, which she did, her heartbeat increasing rapidly as he shed his shirt and shoes, and knelt on the bed. He crawled forward until his hungry intention became clear and she parted her knees. Alec fixated on another rune on her inner thigh, dragging the tip of his tongue on her skin, slowly writing the rune with his taste buds. "Irresistible," he decoded.
Overwhelmed by this man, Max felt the little puffs of air against her opposite thigh, getting closer and closer to his target. She longed to reach out and pull him by the hair toward her lower lips, for him to mimic their long, sensual kisses with his tongue and nose buried inside her. The image alone made her muscles clench. She pleaded his name.
He paused his ministrations at the top of her thigh and smiled lazily. "Bossy," he smiled. "This one means bossy." He chuckled at her insistent, desperate half-smile half-glare when she swatted at him playfully, and lowered his head again. Without warning, he nudged her outer lips with his nose and swiped his tongue the length of her slit. Wasting no more time, Alec plunged his tongue into her, curled it to rub at the spot inside, and groaned at the wetness coating his tongue.
Her back arched off the bed, the motion squeezing his tongue inside her, and she gave a surprised yawp at the pleasure piercing her from the core out. "Alec," she commanded, more persistently, more aggressively.
He strained against his own pants, now, and her whine was going to do him in. He understood by the fact that she was positively dripping all over his tongue, and by her begging tone, that she wanted nothing more than for him to ravage her now, as quickly as possible. Which meant, he decided, he needed to slow things down a little. He lapped between her folds once more and then raised up onto his arms.
She breathed heavily, holding his stare. She hadn't even bothered to remove her bra – an action she quickly remedied.
"We need something," he said, aching against his pants, aching to be inside of her, aching to make her scream so loud the vibrations disrupted marine life below them.
Max pulled at the waist of his pants, enough to pick the button from its hole and pull his zipper down. She needed him to be as naked, as vulnerable and completely insatiable, as she was. That meant his pants didn't even make it all the way off, and she didn't care.
With the barest presence of mind, Alec crawled up between her legs and reached into the nightstand for a condom. His movements were the epitome of precision and speed, and good thing they were, too, because as soon as it was rolled on all the way, Max pulled him down to her mouth and he pushed into her core.
"Yes," she mouthed when he started to move. Her hands posted at the slopes of his back, up and down, up and down while he mirrored those same movements with the snap and pullback of his hips. The look of sheer ecstasy on her face had him burying his face at her chest, focused on keeping the rhythm, but her hands reached further down to pull and hold the base of him against the cradle of her hips. She needed the friction.
He kissed her again, tongue sweeping into her open mouth, tangling with hers for dominance. He felt her teeth pinching his bottom lip almost painfully, making him twitch inside of her. He felt the challenge in her bite and thrust into her punishingly. He felt the clutch of her muscles, her labia holding him deep, the warmth of her juices heating him; it spurred him on, made him so desperate for her cry that he dug himself in, thrust after thrust, until he hit that spot way at the top of her cervix – the one that made her mewl absentmindedly, the one that called out to her baser needs and made her chest shake from the anticipation of impending orgasm.
Absolutely lit up inside, Max writhed under him, answering Alec's pace and thrust to match her quick-beating heart. Their pleasure compounded exponentially, the force of his hips causing her to brace her hands against the headboard. Fortunately for him, this meant he could watch unabashedly as her breasts bounced while he pounded into her.
"I'm gonna come." He meant it as an explanation for his intention to slow down, but her eyes flicked open and her muscles started to contract.
"Oh my god, Alec!" Her breathing hitched. She held her breath as her orgasm came on, her walls fluttering around him like a thousand little strokes, and he followed her with his own groaning climax, pumping into her while she moaned and screamed and cried out, and slowed down as their pleasures started to fade like the outer rings of a ripple.
She kissed him slowly, then, lovingly.
He stayed inside her, moving his mouth over hers, down her chin, down her neck. He stopped just above her breast, kissing gently at a rune there. "This one is 'love.'"
Max ruffled his hair and cupped his jaw. "I love you, too."
He cast a glance downward, feeling like the luckiest transgenic on the planet. He held the base of the condom and backed out of her, an instant look of worry overtaking his features.
"What?" Max sat up on her elbows, alerted to his wide-eyed expression.
"Uh, Max," he said, looking down and then back up to her.
"What?"
"The condom broke."
