Chapter 40

She couldn't stop looking at him. He was beautiful. His emotions had been so raw, so visible to her, as he had, almost apprehensively, reached out and touched her. She knew that it was wrong. Her mind was constantly reminding her that they had moved too quickly, but it couldn't dim the smile of her heart nor lessen the shine in her eyes.

His naked skin was warm underneath her body and the gentle steady movement of his chest ignited a sense of security inside of her. It was a feeling that had been foreign to her a few hours earlier. She had felt many new, strong, passionate, intense, draining emotions tonight and at times she hadn't been sure if she was deliriously happy about it or just wanted it to disappear.

Her index finger gently traced the curves of his well-defined chest, feeling the desire spreading through her fingers at the softness of his skin. He had been so open to her; frighteningly vulnerable. Her leg moved by its own force to cover his and her heart started to beat faster as she brought her body closer to his; fitting every corner of his body with hers.

"Can't sleep?"
His voice made her jump and her eyes moved up to his face. "I didn't know you were awake."
He opened his eyes and looked at her. It was the first look in his eyes that made her heart leap with fear, but it was quickly replaced by a newfound warmness and the corners of his mouth slowly moved upwards.
"I'm afraid to go to sleep," he answered softly.
"Why?" she asked, alarm threading through her mind, afraid that he was worried about possible nightmares.
His smile dimmed and a look of admiration and awe softened his features. Her intake of breath whispered through the calmness of the room when his hand came into contact with her back and ever so slowly moved upwards, following the curvature of her spine. His hand was barely touching her, but she had to struggle to remain in control to stop herself from kissing him. Her breathing quickened as his hand moved over the curve of her shoulder and as his hand stopped for a second her eyes drifted close. He was looking at her; she could feel the intensity of his eyes like a heat lamp on her face. The heat was caressing her skin, running over her nose, brushing against her eyelashes, kissing her lips, stroking her cheeks, and the ghost of an impatient sigh softly drifted over her lips.

She shivered with relief and anticipation when he brushed his fingers over her collarbone to travel from there up her throat. He gently pressed his thumb against the skin of her cheek while the rest of his hand encircled the side of her neck, tempting her to open her eyes.
"I'm afraid that you will go away if I do," he answered.
The guilt that hit her was so unexpected that she didn't have time to shield him from the expression in her eyes. She could practically feel how the air changed around them. There was a moment of silence and she could hear her heart beating in her ear, feel his heart beating under her fingertips resting on his chest.
"What are you thinking about?"
His request was barely a whisper, drowning in the cracking texture of fear soaking his voice. She didn't want to tell him, but there was something in her heart that let the words spread over her lips before she could stop them.
"Were you thinking about her?"
She had expected to be met by silence, but still it felt as if it would suffocate her as it draped itself over them and she looked up to meet his eyes. Her breath hitched in her throat as she saw the expression on his face.

"You healed me tonight. I never thought that I would be able to be happy again. I never thought that I would be able to love again or have someone loving me, but you've proven to me over and over again that I was wrong. You're amazing, Elizabeth Parker. You were what kept me alive until I found the will to live again. I couldn't have done it without you."
Warm tears slowly ran down her cheeks and she nodded slowly, trying to show him that she knew what he meant.
"There was no room for anyone else but you in my heart tonight, Liz."
She sniffled, nodding, and the only word she could get over her lips was: "Okay."
He smiled at her, brushing her tears away with the pad of his thumb. "Okay?"
She laughed softly, her smile shining through the veil of tears. "Okay."
"Are you happy?"
The insecurity of his question painfully squeezed her heart and she felt like pulling him inside her soul and protect him from the harsh reality. She slowly moved her upper body over his chest and gently captured his lips with hers. His hand moved from her cheek into her thick hair pulling her closer. His lips were warm and inviting and her eyes drifted close as he responded to her kiss.
"Is that a 'yes'?" he whispered against her lips.
She smiled and started kissing down his throat. His satisfied sigh disappeared in her hair as he kissed the crown of her head.

Ten hours earlier

Lately it felt as though it always came down to her. Liz. It came down to her smile, her shining warm eyes, her sparkling laughter, the way her head would turn slightly towards his voice when he said something behind her. But he didn't really say much. He let the world speak around him, and he watched and listened. He felt his eyes being drawn to her on more than one occasion but he lacked the complete control not to let his eyes breathe in her soft essence. He wasn't completely unaware of the others around him. He could feel their eyes on him, observing his every move, partly afraid that he would break down again while partly anticipating what would happen next.

"Uncle Maaaax!"
It took a while, but he finally forced himself to look away from her and looked down at the small angle standing in front of him. Michelle's hair was standing in all different directions and if he wasn't mistaking she had dirt on her cheek.
Max smiled and ruffled her hair. "Hello princess."
A line of annoyance came to taint her smooth forehead and her hands moved down to her hips, and for a moment there Max had to reassure himself that he was talking to his niece and not Isabel herself.
"Uncle Max! You mess up my hair!"
Max resisted the temptation of telling her that her hair was already very messed up and that he might've actually put it more back into order by ruffling it.
"Oh, sorry darling. I remember now that you girls need to have perfect hair."
"And don't you foget it!"
Max laughed softly. "What's up, beautiful?"
Michelle's eyes grew big and round as she was reminded of what she wanted to show Max. Excited, with certain bounce in her small body, she grabbed his hand and pulled him towards one of the bowling lanes.
"Sit!" she commanded, pointing at one of the blue plastic chairs.
Max remained serious until the little girl turned her back towards him and his face cracked into a smile and he softly laughed under his breath. God, he loved that girl.

Small nets, about ten centimeters high, had been placed on each sides of the lane, to prevent the bowling ball from rolling down into the gutter. An arrangement that was usually made for kids. Michelle bent down to lift one of the bowling balls up and Max automatically started to rise as she started to struggle, afraid that she would drop it on her toes, but a hand pushed him down. He looked up to find Liz standing there, giving him a pointed look.
Max felt the immediate need to defend himself. "I was just going to stand up to get a better view."
Liz smiled at him. "Of course you were." She sat down next to him and Max had to fight the urge to continue looking at her as her natural scent enveloped him and her thigh brushed against his.
"Look at me! Look at me!" Michelle called from the bowling lane.
"I'm looking," Max answered, trying to keep his concentration on what his niece was doing.
As Michelle proceeded to position herself in front of the lane, bend her legs and with both her hands on the ball swing it back between her legs and then forward to let it hit the lane with a dull thud, Max felt Liz take his hand in his. He felt his heart speeding up, but his eyes remained trained on the bowling ball that Michelle had let loose on the lane. It was rolling from one side to the next, bouncing off one net only to go in a sixty degrees angle to meet up with the net on the other side of the lane. It finally ended in the middle of the lane, perfectly timed to hit the pins in the center. How the ball was able to make all the ten pins fall with the minor speed it was going at remained a mystery for everyone who was observing. The ball itself only made three pins fall, the rest kind of fell over each other due to something of a domino effect.

"Yay! Yay! Look at me!" Michelle exclaimed, jumping with her arms up over her head.
"Honey, that was excellent!" Isabel burst out from the left, making Max turn his head towards his sister, surprise spreading over his face. He hadn't noticed her arrival.
"Did you see did you see did you see!"
Max laughed and caught the excited little body as she flung herself at him.
"That was absolutely beautiful, spunk," Max whispered in her ear.
Michelle's face lightened up even more and she turned to Liz.
"Did you see me?"
Liz bent forward and gave Michelle a peck on the cheek. "You're a natural."
Michelle's smile got, if possible, even wider and before Max knew what was happening she had hopped off his lap and was on her way over to her parents.

Present time

She was asleep. She was lying on her stomach with her elbows tucked under her body. Worried that she was feeling cold, he pulled the sheet further up her body, regretfully covering her fair skin. He still remembered with sharp clarity how afraid he had been that she would be having problems with her heart, because his thoughts had often wandered to that subject lately as their relationship had progressed and they've gotten closer. Could her heart manage making love? He had been blushing when he had asked her earlier that evening, but she hadn't laughed at him, just told him calmly that he had to be a mighty good lover to put her heart in danger during lovemaking, which had made him laugh.

He was still worried about her and would probably always worry about her. It had always been part of his nature and it had probably gotten worse after Tess and Joshua's death. His eyes closed at that thought and he rolled onto his back, trying to force the dark thoughts from entering his mind. He tried to concentrate on the soft sound of Liz's breaths, but the memories were strong and the darkness was acidic, spreading through his mind with the dangerous intent on making him regret what they had just done. Wanting to make him feel like he was betraying Tess, or at least the memory of her.

Nine hours earlier

"… so he moved the whole refrigerator to block the front door."
Liz was laughing so hard that she could hardly walk through the front door. "What!"
"Well, she would be able to open the door if there was only a chair in front of it and the refrigerator was the closest object."
Liz tried to dry her tears at the same time as she removed her jacket. "Didn't he think about locking the door?"
Max looked at her incredulously. "What's the fun in that?"
Liz managed to roll her eyes before starting to giggle again. "What happened next?"
Max took her jacket and hung it up and walked in front of her into the kitchen, switching on the lights as he continued talking. "So Jo comes up to the door and tries to open it. She manages to open about two inches, before the door won't give anymore. At this point she realizes that someone is messing with her and it's not difficult to figure out who it is. So she asks him to open the door to which he only grins at her through the crack. Then this other guy that lived with us opens the refrigerator door and puts some milk into the shelf in the door, as if nothing is different. Mind you, these sorts of things happened on a regular basis."
"I'm starting to realize that."
"Jo sees the white door as it opens up in front of the little opening she managed to get when trying to open the door and realizes that it is the refrigerator, which makes her start laughing and so he just shakes his head and moves the refrigerator back."
Liz looked at Max in disbelief. "And you lived with this guy?"
"Well, yeah."

"Oh my God." Liz frantically tried to picture Max, calm quiet Max, with a guy that went to the extent of moving a refrigerator to stop someone from entering an apartment and hanging their curtains in the tree outside the building.
"We got along really well, actually," Max said, easily seeing what Liz was trying to picture. "I think we kinda complimented each other. He needed a calm person around that got him to calm down and I needed to have someone that forced me to take risks and do things I normally wouldn't even think of doing."
Liz nodded, taking out two wineglasses from the cabinet. "Do you still keep in touch?"
A shadow passed over Max's face and he turned his back towards her, opening the refrigerator door to retrieve a wine bottle and juice. "We kept in contact for a long time, but after…" He cleared his throat and placed the wine and juice on the counter. "I couldn't talk to anyone anymore. All of my previous friends disappeared. It wasn't really their fault. Some I probably lost forever, but some really tried to get in contact with me, I just wouldn't let them."
"You should call him someday," Liz suggested after some hesitation. She wasn't sure if it was her place to make suggestions like that, but Max only nodded.
"Yeah, I should. Someday."
She gave him an encouraging smile. "So… Do we have any cheese?"
Max seemed relieved for the change of topic and nodded. "Yep, bought some today."

Present time

"Max?"
He broke out of his train of thought and looked down to meet her big doe eyes looking straight into his soul.
"Mmm?"
"Are you okay?"
His nod was contemplative and her eyes narrowed, knowing instinctively that something was not right.
"Are you regretting it?"
"Regretting what?" His voice was inquisitive, but she was certain he knew what she meant.
"I've been thinking."
"Uh-uh, that can't be good," Max said, trying to lighten the suddenly very heavy mood.
Liz made a poor attempt at rolling her eyes, but the act was quickly erased when she soon thereafter moved away from his body. She felt the cold hit her immediately at the loss of contact with his body, but she knew that the true depth of the coldness came from the fear of not being wanted.
"Maybe this wasn't right."

The lack of an instant response made the coldness close even tighter around her heart and it was not the words, but the lack of conviction in his answer that awoke the feeling that the walls were closing in on her.
"Don't say that. You know that's not true."
"Do I?" Liz asked, fighting to prevent any emotion from showing through.
"Liz, please don't-"
She moved even further away from him, putting only coldness and sheets between them. "Don't lie to me, Max. If you think that this wasn't right, then tell me. Just tell me what's in your heart."
"I don't want to hurt you."
"You can't prevent that from happening. You're hurting me right now by not being honest."
"I…I…"
Liz looked at him with apprehension when he sat up and turned to sit on the edge of the bed, with his back turned towards her.
"I can't do this. I can't…"
"Max, we made love tonight. It's a major step and maybe we took it too soon. Please talk to me."
"I can't do this. Don't make me do this."

Liz watched him reach for his boxers and her heart sank as seconds of silence ticked by when he pulled on his boxers and stood up. Without being able to meet her eyes he threaded his fingers through his hair, his hand shaking.
"Can we talk about this later?"
She was fighting with herself to not cry or scream at him in frustration. "Why?"
"It was not a mistake. It was not a mistake." He was looking straight into her eyes now, his voice firm and unyielding. "Don't ever think it was a mistake, Liz. I just can't talk about this right now, but it was not a mistake."
Liz wasn't sure how she should feel about that. Should she be relieved, happy, sad, disappointed? All she felt was guilt mixed with confusion. She should have stopped this from happening. She should've known this was going to be the consequence of it all. But she didn't. She didn't stop it. For once, she followed her heart to see where it brought her.

Eight hours earlier

They had just naturally aligned themselves in that position. It wasn't planned or intentional; they had just curled up together. Liz was acutely aware of his arm around her waist; of the warmth radiating from his palm against the naked skin of her stomach. It hadn't taken long before his hand around her waist had crept underneath her shirt to feel the texture of her skin as if it would bring him more comfort and security than just holding her did. She could feel his hipbone against her bottom and their feet were entangled in the most intimate way possible. His breathing was steady and rhythmic against her ear but she knew that he was still awake. She wondered if he was concentrating as little on the TV as she was. She wondered if he was as aware of the feeling of her body pressed up against his as she was of him. Was he also thinking about them and where they should go from there? Were they still only friends, with a twist, or was there something else there?

No sooner had the thought flown through her mind before she felt his lips against the side her neck. Her breathing quickened, but since she wasn't sure how to respond she didn't move a muscle, waiting to see what he would do next. His lips slowly left her neck again and just as she thought that it had just been a small innocent kiss, he placed another kiss further up and continued to slowly kiss up her neck.
"Max?" she whispered.
"Mhmm," he answered, slightly halting in his gentle assault of her skin.
"What are you doing?"
"I just… I couldn't not kiss you any longer. I needed to."
She smiled into the empty room and a shiver of anticipation trailed down her spine when his hand under her shirt moved further north, towards the edge of her bra. Somewhere at the back of her mind something was trying to get her attention, warning her that this might escalate beyond their control. But she didn't want to listen to her mind right now. She had been waiting for him to touch her for too long. Waiting for him to touch her in any other way than just to receive comfort from bad dreams.

He slowly pushed her hair away and kissed the skin behind her ear, eliciting a mixture of a tickling sensation and sensuality. She wanted to give him space to do what he wanted at his own pace. She didn't want to stress him or unconsciously force him to do something he wasn't ready for yet, but it was really difficult not to turn around and kiss him right then. Instead, she moved her hand under her own shirt to touch his hand. Their fingers entwined and she slowly moved their linked hands upwards over her lace-covered breast. The sound of his breathing got stronger and faster in her ear, which made her even warmer. She was heating up from the inside and she felt as if she would catch fire if she couldn't touch him.

His hand gently squeezed her breast and Liz couldn't stand it any longer. She turned in his arms and captured his lips with hers. Her kiss was heated and demanding, being the result of weeks of built up waiting and wantonness.
"God Liz," Max murmured, before running his tongue over her bottom lip, tasting all of her. She rolled on top of him, straddling his waist, with his hands buried in her hair as it fell down around him like a curtain, all the while making love to his mouth.
His hands moved quickly from her hair, his movements picking up more impatience with the exponential increase of his desire, and moved underneath her sweater bringing it upwards as he moved his hands upwards. Liz automatically lifted her arms above her head to facilitate the removal of her sweater.

The sight of more exposed skin made him halt in his movements and he just stared at her for a couple of seconds, his mouth going dry, before he cradled the back of her neck in his hand and brought her mouth back to his. Her hands crept underneath his shirt and the heat of his skin radiated into the surface of her palms.
"Too many clothes," she murmured, pushing his shirt upwards. Max reluctantly let go of her lips to get the shirt over his head, but went back to adoring her mouth as soon as possible. The shirt fell forgotten to the floor.
"Wait, wait," Max murmured, struggling to get what he needed to say through the mist of desire clouding his mind.
"What…what's wrong?" Liz looked at him, worry penetrating the dazed look in her eyes.
"Uhm… This is probably a very stupid question…"
As his voice trailed off into silence, she reassuringly pressed her hand over his heart. "What is it, Max?"
"Do you… does us… does this…"
His cheeks took on a deeper crimson quality than just the consequence of the induced prior desire and the color of embarrassment sneaked up to the tips of his ears.
"Does us making love hurt your heart? I mean, can your heart handle this?"
She wanted to smile at him and kiss him senseless for the adorable expression on his face at that moment, but she knew the rawness of the worry behind the question and she knew exactly the way to tackle it.
Looking at him with a completely straight face, she calmly stated, "Sweetie, you have to be a mighty darn good lover to put my heart in any medical danger."
The worry drained off his face like water and his soft laughter was decorated with relief.
"I love you," he said simply.
The happiness shone through her eyes and it was that expression on her face that told his heart the same truth, even though she didn't say it out loud. Her response was filled with pure joy. "I know." And she let her soul sink into his.

Present time

She could still taste his skin on her lips. She could still feel the heat that had been simmering between their moving bodies. She could remember with clear intensity what it felt like to be embraced by him, body and soul, to be in the center of his focus. To have him fall apart in her arms, crying out her name in ecstasy.

She could still remember what it felt like to have Max Evans loving her. Caressing every millimeter of her body; kissing, adoring, admiring, loving it. She could still remember the waves of love that repeatedly floated through her during their lovemaking. She loved him so much that it almost hurt. She didn't know where to go or how to dampen it. It was overwhelming. Everything he made her feel was filling up her heart to the brink of its destruction.

And now it had crossed the border and the pieces of her heart were floating around in her circulation, piercing through every organ of her body as she watched him walk away from her. However, it wasn't that much due to the fact that he was walking away from her. It was that he couldn't share his fears with her. She didn't want to push him. She didn't want to suffocate him and force him to tell her everything. She didn't want to expect too much of him. She was so afraid of scaring him away because she was afraid that she wouldn't be able to live without him now that she had finally got him.

But it hurt nevertheless.

With fresh tears running down her cheeks, she turned on her side and pulled the sheet up to her ears, covering her quickly cooling naked body. When was it supposed to get easier?

TBC...