Thank you teegs for the betaring.
Chapter Nineteen
Alec glanced with resignation at his watch. Fuck, at this rate he'd be even more tired when he got up than he'd been when he went to bed. He usually had no trouble sleeping but the urgency of making TC safe was weighing heavy on him and he couldn't still his thoughts enough to go to sleep. At least Max was sleeping.* Affectionately as he nuzzled his face into the warm curve of her neck and her sweet familiar scent surrounded him.
He started thinking about how upset she'd been when she'd thought she wasn't pregnant. She really wanted their baby and he was beginning to feel hope that she wanted more from their mating than just the easiest way to best care for the baby.
Initially, when she had told him she was pregnant, most of his pleasure had been because it increased the likelihood that she would chose him for her mate. Now, for the first time, he was thinking about the baby itself. His baby that Max wanted, that they both wanted. Carefully he eased her onto her back and pulled the covers back.
Gently, possessively, he curved his hand around her stomach, inside her was a combination of Max and himself, tiny and defenceless, his to protect. Boy or girl, whatever he'd fathered, he would keep them safe. He or she would have a good childhood, full of love and the things children should have nothing like his or Max's, he vowed silently, stroking her stomach.
Max, cold and missing Alec's warm body, woke slowly up. She felt his hand on her stomach and watched his intent preoccupation as he moved his hand on her.
"Yours, Alec."
It came unbidden to her lips, she didn't know where it came from but she knew it was right.
"Yes, " his deep voiced agreed immediately, his eyes moving slowly off her abdomen to meet hers.
'My eyes aren't human, Max, and sometimes when I'm operating on my instincts its more apparent than at other times.' His words flashed through her brain. His eyes always so changeable glowed green and gold at her. So beautiful she thought, as she gazed mesmerized into their depths. He watched her hesitant swallow before his gaze moved back up to mesh with her dark, wild eyes as they glowed back at him.
"You are too. Mine," he reiterated, his eyes locked with hers.
"Yes," she agreed. She felt his hand on her throat as he turned her face and he rubbed his cheek on hers.
Something had passed between them she didn't know what, but something. Her instincts are reawakening, Alec thought, knowing exactly what had passed between them.
Her eyes fluttering languorously, she felt the velvety friction of his cheek rubbing against hers and the liquid heat of desire for him strong and flowing through her body. Like her heat, she thought, bemused.
"Alec, " she turned her face toward him her lips moving across his cheek seeking his mouth with hers. Running her hands through his hair, as she held his mouth on hers, she plundered it, her tongue moving frantically in his. Squirming, she wriggled herself underneath him as she pulled him over the top of her. "It feels like heat Alec," she moaned in his ear.
"Yeah, I know, Max, it's the same for me," he groaned against her throat. She parted her thighs for him and he settled between her legs.
"Why?" she panted, her tongue frantic in his ear.
"I think it's because of what just happened. Our instinct reached back when that happens all your senses are heightened. Your body is on hyper alert, super aware of everything. That's probably why," he murmured, biting her earlobe.
She felt his hands slide under her and lift her buttocks as he ground himself against her. Her eyes locked with his she watched him drag his tongue down her body, over her breastbone, across her stomach, through the soft curls at the apex of her legs and she felt his warm breath as his tongue moved through her moist soft folds.
She could feel her own heart beating frantically as she looked down her body to where he knelt between her legs. Her shoulders were still on the bed and he slid his hands under her and lifted her up to his mouth. Everything receded except Alec. She arched in anticipation when she felt his hot breath and the gentle scrape and suck of is teeth as he explored her and she could feel the strength in his hands under her as they tightened, pulling her closer to him.
Her scent was intoxicating and her hot, wet, heat surrounded him. He could feel her rocking in his hands while she panted and moaned as he continued to tease her, but kept his mouth from her clit.
"Please…"
He pulled away. "Please what, Max?" He watched her thrashing head still, and her sultry languorous eyes found his. She looked up at him and read what he wanted in his intense green eyes.
"I want your mouth on me, Alec. Now."
She saw the wild flare in his eyes before he dipped his head and his mouth closed over her.
His tongue teased and tormented her. Her whole focus became its next stroke across her engorged, sensitive flesh. She could feel tension starting to build. Sensation after sensation hit her as he teased, suckled and tasted her, pushing her on. Wiping everything from consciousness but the pleasure of his tongue.
She had started to buck and wither the minute his tongue touched her clit, the heady scent of her invaded his senses as he heard her soft gasps. Her feet were planted on the bed and every time he stroked his tongue across her she rocked up into his mouth. Shifting his grip on her, he slid first one finger and then two inside her. She moaned his name as he thrust inside her and his tongue drove her on. The tension unbearable Max felt her muscles grip and spasm around his fingers as her body shuddered into her release.
Kneeling between her legs, he could still feel her body trembling as he smoothed his hands over her stomach and up to cup her breasts. His eyes were intent on her flushed face and her still glazed and unfocused eyes.
She moaned his name as she slid her hands up his arms and grabbing his head she pulled him close enough to kiss. Her hands playing with the hair at the nape of his neck while her tongue duelled with his. He was his own seductive taste, plus a blend of her. She kissed him long and lingeringly. Finally breaking the kiss she pulled back for air. Brown eyes captured green, her breathing heavy as she took air back into her lungs.
"I want you inside me now."
Holding her gaze he gently rolled her nipple between his thumb and forefinger as he watched her eyes flutter. She moaned as he rubbed the pad of his thumb across the rigid tip, dipping his head, he nibbled and sucked her soft fullness before closing his mouth over her swollen nipple.
"Now, Alec," she demanded. Reaching down between them, her hand closed around him. He lifted off her and looked down between their bodies as she impatiently stroked him. "Now," she insisted, biting his shoulder as she thrust her pelvis at him and wriggled to manoeuvre him inside her.
"Yeah, Max," he grunted. Sliding his hands under her he rose to his knees and lifted her up to him. Her feet anchored to the bed she thrust her hips up to him.
She could feel the tip of him probing and she thrust up to meet him as he surged into her. He set the rhythm, hard and fast, familiar, and she arched into him meeting his every thrust and countering with one of her own while she watched his rapt face. The sweat formed on him as she felt it dewing damply on herself. She knew he was close and she watched droplets of sweat fly off him as he threw his head back and plunged wildly into her, his breathing heavy and strained. Her release hit her hard and she heard herself screaming his name as her muscles clenched and spasmed around him. Close behind her he grunted low in his throat as he spilled into her.
Max's arms closed around him as he collapsed on top of her. Wrapping his arms around her, keeping her close, he rolled onto his side. His breathing still laboured, she sucked the sweat from his neck as her hands roamed his sweat slick back. She could feel him nuzzling her neck as his body calmed. It wasn't long before she could tell from the even pattern of his breathing that he'd fallen asleep.
Gently she rolled him off her. Disentangling herself from him she smiled as he spread himself untidily across the bed. Tonight, he'd looked absolutely exhausted it was hardly surprising he'd fallen asleep so quickly she worried. Since her heat started, he'd hardly had any unbroken sleep plus he was still recovering from the shoulder injury. He needed sleep. He wasn't like her, needing very little.
Although her sleep pattern had changed since she'd started sleeping with him. She knew it was the safety factor. On some level, her primal instincts recognised it was safe to shut down when she slept with him and consequently she slept deeper and felt better when she woke up. Tonight, she'd realized that his instincts also felt safe enough to shut down in her presence. When she touched him, he didn't wake either. For someone whose instincts were as honed as Alec's, she knew that meant something and it made her feel closer to him, more intimately connected.
Max lay there looking at him as he slept sprawled on his back, his arm flung across the bed. It was only a week and a half since her heat, but so much had changed for her in that time. Never in her life had she ever thought she would be grateful for her heat. But she was. If it hadn't been for heat, she would never have hooked up with Alec. She wouldn't be here now; she'd still be trying to tell herself she wasn't attracted to him.
Her life would still be lived amongst ordinaries and revolving around Logan and his Eyes Only missions. Her eyes widened as her mind finely realized what her subconscious had been trying to tell her for a very long time. She had been deeply unhappy trying to fit herself around Logan and his world. When Alec had come into her life, so alive and so familiar, he'd flushed her discontent and previously unconscious yearning out off her subconscious and into her conscious mind. She'd certainly punished him for that, she reflected uncomfortably.
Who would have thought that so many things would change so quickly for her and that she would find herself so happy in such a small space of time? She couldn't ever remember feeling this happy. He'd changed so many things for her. So many things she was still unsure, about and still needed to clarify, but one thing she was sure of was the passion and attraction between them. She'd never felt passion like that with anybody else. She didn't care were they lived, she realized, gazing around their shabby apartment as long as she was with him it didn't matter.
With a heartfelt sigh, she moved under his outstretched arm until she could feel the warm hard strength of him pressed against the length of her body. Propping her head on her hand, her eyes lingered on the lush darkness of his lashes, his full sensuous lips, and his peaceful face, so innocent and cute when he was asleep.
But he wasn't innocent she reflected dryly and he was much more dangerous than cute, she ran her eyes down his powerful frame. Her mind flashed with disquiet to the talk she'd heard about an offensive. She'd wanted to talk to him about it, she needed to know what he was planning, but every time she broached the subject they seemed to get sidetracked making love. But it was Sunday tomorrow and when he woke up she was going to keep him here until he had told her what he was planning. She may not like it, but she liked not knowing, even less.
Her back to him, she lay her head on his outstretched arm and snuggled backwards. Still asleep, he rolled onto his side and curved his body around hers. She smiled happily to herself as his arms closed around her, pulling her back against him.
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Alec snapped into instant consciousness. It was dark outside, early morning daylight was just starting to seep into the room. Yawning, he turned his cold cheek into Max's hair, pulled her closer into the warmth of his body, closed his eyes and tried to go back to sleep. He didn't have to get up this early and he was still tired.
Ten minutes later he was still wide-awake and he realized he wasn't going to be able to go back to sleep. He needed the time to think anyway. Resigned he started to run everything through his head.
He had no problem with the military aspects. Everything was more or less sorted and ready for implementation, barring a little fine-tuning here and there. It was all the other problems the ones outside the scope of his military training that were causing him the most headaches. First there was the nightmare of deciding whether to keep women in the fighting Units. Not to mention what he was supposed to do after the fighting, when he'd secured Seattle and made it safe. Then what? He had no real experience of government and in fact he had very little experience of relating to ordinaries. On the surface, he'd integrated, but he still often found himself out of his depth and unknowing of what sort of a response or action was expected of him.
His Manticore trained response to threat was to kill it, eliminate it. His instinctual response was, for the most part, the same. In the outside world of ordinaries he'd discovered that frequently neither were appropriate so he'd often found himself out of his depth, unable to decide what to do. The combination of the instinctual and the reasoning of ordinaries were still relatively new to him and this was where he had needed Max's help in the past, this was where she was strong. By watching what she did or listening to her complain when he got it wrong, he had learned, but he knew it wouldn't be enough.
He had the military skills required, but he knew he lacked the skills that would be needed after the fighting. Max had those skills she had spent ten years on the outside, tempering her instinct with the human. If she agreed to help him, he could do what he'd planned. But before that could happen, she would have to trust him enough to let him do his job.
He could feel her start to stir and moving closer into her back, he whispered soothingly in her ear. His arms comforted her, hoping she would settle back down again. It was too early to get up yet, they had at least another couple of hours they could sleep.
Max, drowsily realizing he was awake snuggled back against him. "You should be still asleep, Alec, it's early yet and I know how tired you were."
"Hmm." he agreed distractedly.
"God it's freezing in here."
"Hmm," he agreed again.
Smiling to herself, she turned around and settled herself on her back beside him. Their gazes caught and she smiled at him as he gazed absently back at her, his mind again on his earlier thoughts.
Watching his eyes as he gazed distractedly at her, Max saw the play of emotion across them and knew that whatever his thought were, they were worrying him. Her eyes fell to his bottom lip as he chewed it with his teeth. He only ever does that when he can't figure something out.*
"So this mated thing, Transgenic style, Alec, what are the benefits besides the sexual? Do I get to know what's going on in your head? Is that part of the deal?" Her face serious now her eyes held his.
"Yeah, of course," he answered, smiling blandly as he leaned over her and started to kiss her neck.
"Don't do that," she pushed him roughly off her, onto his back.
"What, kiss you?" he asked disbelievingly.
"No, smile at me in that empty faced way and then try and distract me with sex. Is that all you want from me, Alec?"
She watched his face close down.
"I was just getting ready to get up anyway, Max. I've got a hellva lot to do today and was going to get an early start." Better to get out of here than to end up fighting with her. He didn't feel up to explaining and justifying himself, he was just too tired. The longer he could put this conversation of the better as far as he was concerned.
"Don't be ridiculous, Alec," she fumed, "It's 6 o'clock in the morning, and its Sunday there is no reason for you to get up this early. It's freezing outside, you aren't going any where." As he sat up, she grabbed his shoulder and jerked him back down. Angrily she slung her leg and her arm across him, anchoring him to the bed.
Alec lay there immobile. *Okay.* Blinking, he looked down at her tense angry body spread across him.
"Nobody, else will be up yet," she ground out through gritted teeth. She was right it was Sunday and his first meeting with Steve wasn't until 9.30. He really didn't want to get up and go to his office when all he really had to do was think anyway. He would much prefer to do that here in comfort. Warm Max spread across him was infinitely preferable, even if she was rigid and fuming. Now if she would just let it rest and maybe go back to sleep, he thought hopefully. She was quiet for a long time. Cautiously, he closed his eyes.
"I only wanted to know what you're worried about." She whispered miserably.
He opened his eyes.
"What's so wrong about that? Everybody else knows what's going on. When were you going to tell me? Never?" She heard the quaver in her voice and if made her angry.
She could feel his body tense under hers and suddenly all she wanted to do was get up and go home, back to OC's. He would rather get up in the freezing cold and go to his office than stay here and talk to her. She knew none of the other mated males would be up and prowling around headquarters at this ridiculous hour.
"I'm gonna get off you, Alec, don't you dare get out of this bed."
She spun herself off him to the far edge of the bed. He looked across at the back of her head and her stiff back. Laying stiffly beside him her anger gone, Max felt a tight pain in her chest and a lump in her throat as she fought to hold back her tears. She wasn't going to cry over this. If he didn't trust her that was his problem, if all he thought she was good for was sex that was his problem too.
What was so wrong with wanting to help? With caring about what was worrying him? What was so wrong with that? There was already so much she didn't know. Did he expect that to continue? Did he expect to share nothing with her? To keep her in the dark like she didn't matter? She felt her throat tighten and the tears streamed soundlessly down her face.
"Max."
*Fuck* he knew that scent from her heat. He couldn't hear her but he knew she was crying again.
Feeling numb, trying to swallow her tears and feeling the familiar ache of loneliness seeping back into her heart, she lay there hoping he would just let it go.
"I'm sorry, Max."
She didn't want to hear it. What was there to apologise for? Sorry for what? He didn't have to talk to her if he didn't want to, nor did he have to trust her. And why wouldn't he expect sex from her? After all that was the relationship they had. They were good together sexually, he'd told her that during her heat.
"Sorry fo…"
"Don't say it, Alec. You have nothing to be sorry for. It doesn't matter. I'm just going to go back to sleep for a couple of hours."
Miserably, she wept silently into the pillow. Maybe if he told her and they talked about it, he wouldn't be so worried and he would start sleeping better. He was no use to anyone exhausted like he'd been yesterday. All this brooding he did about things wasn't going to solve anything and usually ended up getting him into trouble of some sort.
He didn't want to leave it like this, but he could sense she didn't want him to touch her. During her heat, when she'd been upset, it had been sufficient to just, soothe her and make love to her. He looked longingly at her back, maybe he should try it, and maybe it would work again. Other than leave her to cry herself to sleep, what else could he do?
It can't be good for the baby for her to be distressed like this he thought guiltily. Moving close behind her, he touched his lips to her ear.
"Max."
His body was now pressing against hers and his deep husky voice was in her ear. He felt her go rigid. "I don't want to do that now, Alec." He wasn't the only one, who could blur, he was reminded, as he blinked at her standing in the middle of the room, pulling his tee shirt over her head.
"I'm awake now, I think I'll have a shower and get up."
Max stood hugging herself forlorn and freezing in the middle of the bathroom. She didn't want to fight with him and nor, she now realized, her eyes on the door, did she really want to go to OC's.
Waiting for her to come out of the shower he thought about what to do. He knew he couldn't keep avoiding her questions and in fact what she wanted to know would soon be common knowledge across the whole of TC. But she had only been his for such a short time, and he loved this closeness they had. He liked the expectation that when he went to bed at night it would be with her and when he woke up in the morning it would also be with her. He hadn't wanted to do anything that might jeopardise that, so he'd avoided her questions, hoping that the more time they spent together and the closer she felt to him, the more likely she would be to trust him once everything started coming together.
But it looked like his avoidance tactic had backfired. She was not only angry with him but he'd made her cry as well. He was used to her anger and had developed ways to protect himself if it was unjustly directed at him. He had also learned to enjoy it if it was over something he'd deliberately done or said just to piss her off just so he could watch the sparks fly. And he'd also learned to apologise if he was in the wrong and had made her justifiably angry.
But since her heat he seemed to have developed this new talent for upsetting her and making her cry. He hated it. It was the exact opposite of how he wanted her to feel when she was with him. He had only avoided talking to her because he hadn't wanted to fight with her. He hadn't wanted anything to upset the delicate new understanding he hoped they were developing. Now it seemed he'd not only done that but he had also managed to hurt her feelings and make her cry.
When she came out of the shower he was still in bed. She didn't really think he would have gone off to Headquarters without showering but she still felt relieved he was still here. While she'd cried herself into exhaustion in the shower, it had given her time to think. If at the moment, he only saw her as someone he had good sex with, she would have to accept that. She couldn't make him talk to her, if he didn't want to, neither could she make him trust her.
She'd been thinking about how he'd admitted he'd wanted her for his mate before her heat and she'd been remembering all the things he'd done for her, all the times he'd been there for her, all the things he'd put up with from her. He did care about her, she knew that, it was apparent in everything he did for her. If sex was the only way they could connect, then it would have to do. It wasn't as if she had anything to complain about, she didn't. Sex with Alec was hardly a hardship and when he did make love to her, she knew that he cared about her.
My tee-shirts always look so much better on her, he thought, as he watched her come out of the bathroom. She came over to the bed and perched awkwardly on the edge. She's going to let me fix it he realized relief flooding through him. She was facing away from him and he could only see her profile but she had her bottom lip between her teeth and he'd only ever seen her do that when she was nervous, or unsure, and he'd only ever seen her unsure of herself, since her heat.
He felt a momentary flush of panic, she was so different now, it was so easy to upset her and he didn't want to fuck it up again. Tentatively he stroked the back of his hand down her arm.
"I'm sorry for hurting your feelings, Max, for making you fee…"
"Alec?" she interrupted him, stopping his apology with her kiss. "I didn't want to fight," she whispered, into his mouth. "I don't like you worried, I only wanted to help."
"Yeah, Max, I'm sorry. Returning her sweet kiss he pulled her back into bed with him. He felt a rush of emotion for her. She didn't like him worried; she was worried about him. When she said things like that it made him feel so close to her. It gave him hope that it wasn't just his wishful thinking, but that she was coming to care for him, like he cared for her.
His heart full, he hugged her happily. "I was thinking about our baby and all the other pregnancies in TC at the moment."
"Were you?" she asked, surprised.
"Yeah," lying on his side, he settled his hand on the warm, round softness of her stomach. "There are quite a few pregnant women now. In the old Manticore days, no matter what your physical state, if ordered to fight, you fought. Out here, we have a choice. There is a really strong feeling that women should be taken out of fighting units."
"Pregnant women?"
"Yeah, it started with that," warily his eyes moved off hers. "But male opinion across the board is that because of the 3:1 ratio we should take them all out, not risk loosing any more."
That wasn't the only reason, the instinctive feeling was that no male wanted his mate fighting unless there was no other choice. Manticore had given them no choice. Out here, it was different. They had enough males now to form the fighting units they would need and more were arriving daily there was no need for women to fight. But he wasn't telling Max that and nor, he guessed, would any of the other males be telling their mates. They'd all had enough experience to realize that when male instinct collided with female instincts, theirs usually took the battering.
"Female opinion?" she asked, sadly, thinking this was something else she'd missed.
Alec laughed. "Don't know Max. So far, you're it. We've only talked about it amongst ourselves. No one's been game enough to actually ask the women. They're trying to force me into deciding at a command level. What do you think?" he asked cautiously.
"Cowards." Max giggled.
"Yeah," he agreed laughing. Surprised at her reaction.
"So what do you think?" he asked again, kissing her shoulder. She studied his serious face. If he was fighting, she wanted to be there at his back, was her first instinctive reaction, but she knew the issue was bigger than that and so did he. Their survival didn't just depend on what happened on the battlefield, it would also depended on how many of them survived to breed.
"What do you think, Alec?" she batted back.
"Hey, I asked you first."
"Yeah, but you're the Commander."
"So you think it's my call, then?" He watched her think about it. She never ceased to surprise him. He'd thought she would tell him, in no uncertain terms, that he had no right to be making decisions for her or any of the women.
"Yeah, I do. I think that if two thirds of us want it then you have to take it seriously. But you can't force it on the women either."
"No" he agreed sighing. "Instinct tells me to take them out of the Units, Manticore training tells me to leave them in but…" his eyes moved off hers for a minute and he shrugged. The politics of it all were nightmarish, his instincts were with every other male in TC. He didn't want Max fighting, the whole point of making their stand here was to make it safe for their families. What was the point if their women and their children were endangered in the process?
He knew that the only sensible decision had to be to take the women out of the fighting units, but how the hell was he supposed to do that in a manner that would be acceptable to their women?
"You don't really know what to do? Do you?"
She remembered what Kat had said about him sometimes not knowing what to do if he doubted his instinctive response or he couldn't fit it within his Manticore training. She thought about some of his screw-ups and some of the basic things she'd had to explain to him when Manticore first burned. She remembered how impatient and scornful she had been and once again felt the now familiar feelings of shame and regret. No wonder he was reluctant to tell her what was bothering him.
"Nah, not really," he admitted, his eyes fixed on a spot past her shoulder.
"Hmm… you could let each woman decide for herself."
"Yeah, that's what I was thinking," he agreed. This was probably what he would have to do and just hope like fuck that their mates would be able to talk them round. But where did that leave him with the unmated females? And there were more of them?
"But if you do that, then most, if not all, will probably decide to fight. Because they wouldn't want to be seen to be disloyal if other women are fighting and also because they won't want to let their units down."
"Yeah," he agreed. He hadn't even thought of that.
"You could let the males put their concerns to us and then we women could all decide as a group what our rolls will be. But we would need to be very clear on the plan. We would need to know you have the numbers and the strategy to handle the fighting without us." Not that it mattered to her cause no matter what she'd be with him.
"When does this need to be decided?"
"Now, I've been putting it off but we have to start training so I need to know how we're going to reform the fighting units. The planning is mostly done, it's just this that was holding me up."
This was what he's been worried about. He's okay with the military stuff, just not as comfortable with this kind of decision. Its like Kat said he does need me. Feeling a lot more confident, she wondered if she should ask if he wanted her to talk to the women. Immediately, she felt the flush of embarrassment she always felt when she thought about the debacle of her heat and what could have happened. Her newly felt confidence faded as she thought about what Cece had said about her not knowing how to be transgenic. Maybe she'd be more of a hindrance than a help to him, she thought sadly, so she said nothing.
He wanted to ask her if she would speak to the women for him, but he didn't want to push his luck, so he said nothing. Although she seemed to have tacitly accepted that there was going to be fighting, he still wasn't sure if she realized he didn't intend to continue the half arsed, rear guard, action that had served as their defence up until now.
He looked down at her pensive face as she gnawed her lip. What was most amazing to Alec was that Max and him had not only talked without fighting, but he now had a solution for something that had been worrying him. She had given her help freely, without even being asked, he felt a wave of gratitude and love for her. He brought his hand up and gently stroked his thumb across her cheek. Lowering his head he brushed his lips softly over hers "Thanks for that, Max." he whispered, his breath warm against her lips.
Putting her arms around his neck, she pulled him closer. Her chin on his shoulder, she hid her grinning face from his sight. It wasn't just sex he did need her. She could help him and through him she could help her own kind. The sense of floundering disorientation that she had felt since she had started to realize how wrong her perceptions and judgements had been about a lot of important things in her life replaced by a sense of hope and optimism she had never felt before.
TBC
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