Author's Note - This part contains a mature/adult scene which could be disturbing to some of you - exercise caution and read at your own risk!
Part 6
Michael awoke from his nap, his heart thumping madly in his chest, and he pounded his fist against the mattress in frustration. What was going on with him? he wondered, once again unable to recall the events in the nightmare, only remembering the feeling of fear that accompanied it.
He had to get a grip on these nightmares before they drove him crazy. He rolled over on his back and stared at the ceiling for several minutes before finally getting up so he could get dressed. He shook his head as he laced his boots up, unable to shake the irritating sensation of discomfort that seemed to be lingering longer and longer after each of the disturbing nightmares.
"You need to get laid," he muttered as he grabbed his leather jacket. He paused in front of the mirror and studied his appearance, nodding in satisfaction when he found nothing to change.
In the lobby he stopped by the front desk to remind the idiot behind the desk that he didn't want housekeeping in his room before going out to his motorcycle. He ignored the parking lot attendants as he walked into the valet parking lot, locating the motorcycle right where he had left it. He didn't trust anyone else to drive it and a little intimidation went a long way when it came to being allowed to park wherever he wanted to.
He checked the motorcycle to make sure no one had damaged it overnight and once he was satisfied he threw his right leg over the seat and settled into it. He was inserting the key when movement in the mirror caught his attention and he leaned back to get a better look. His eyebrows lifted above his sunglasses in interest when a tall blond in a thong bikini bent over the open trunk of a Jaguar and reached inside.
"See something you like?" she asked as she stood and turned around.
Michael shifted to look at her, carefully masking his expression as he met her knowing gaze. "Maybe." She knew she was hot and she didn't bother acting demure and coy, something that had his dick standing at attention within seconds. His eyes followed her as she walked up to him, enjoying the sway of her perfect hips as she moved. Everything about her screamed wealth and he wondered if she'd be willing to just move that thong aside and let him take her right there in the parking lot.
She removed her sunglasses as she came up next to him, boldly reaching down to scrape her fingernails over the denim covering his obvious erection. "Maybe?" she mocked with a teasing smile.
Oh, yeah, she wanted him. He wasn't even gonna have to work for this one. He leaned back and let her look him over, enjoying it when her deep blue eyes came to rest on his face.
"I'll bet with just the slightest bit of creativity you could take me for a ride I wouldn't soon forget."
Was she suggesting…? Michael glanced down at the motorcycle and his dick got impossibly harder at the visual image that quickly sprang to mind. He could easily picture the blonde draped over the bike in front of him while he pounded into her from behind. "A ride you wouldn't soon forget? I'll take you for a ride you'll never forget."
She smiled at his cocky tone and applied just the right amount of pressure to his erection to make his hips jerk in response. "You're very sure of yourself."
His grin was conceited as he pressed his erection into her palm. "I have every reason to be sure of myself."
"Then I suppose it's time someone brought you down a notch or two." She withdrew her hand and slapped him hard across the face. "Women do not appreciate being treated as sexual objects."
Michael's mind was racing as he tried to make sense of what had just happened. "What the fuck is wrong with you?" he snarled.
"You are what's wrong with me. Men like you see an attractive woman and you automatically think they're just gonna drop to their knees for you."
"Hell, if that's what you're pissed about you can just put the bitch away; I wasn't waitin' for you to get on your knees. I'm more interested in fucking right now." He shrugged carelessly. "But, hey, if you wanna gimme a blowjob later that's cool too."
"So, what, you thought I'd just mount you right here in the parking lot?" She shook her head when he simply smirked. "You're completely disgusting,"
"Hey, I had all intentions of bein' the one doin' the mounting; all you've gotta do is enjoy the ride."
"Does this type of come-on typically get you laid?"
Michael smiled proudly. "It's never failed."
"Well, consider this your first failure, you cocky bastard."
"Psychotic bitch," he muttered, watching her walk away. He glanced down at his crotch and shook his head; he was so hard it was getting painful and he shifted uncomfortably. "Now you wanna act the way you're supposed to." He raised his head in time to see her toss a venomous look over her shoulder. He flipped her off and started the motorcycle, mentally willing his erection to disappear. He was still feeling off and it was probably because of the damn nightmares that hadn't stopped. That was the only way to explain why he had just been turned down by… No. His pride refused to accept that. He hadn't been turned down. No, that wasn't it at all. She had to be a lesbian. Yeah, that was it - that had to be it. There was no other reason for a woman who looked like that to turn down what he was offering. Now he had a mission - to nail her before he left Santa Fe.
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Maria settled down at one of the computers in the Roswell Public Library and quickly set about searching the archives for the local newspaper. She started with the day of the shooting, doing everything she could to control her emotions as she read the article covering the death of her best friend.
Why hadn't Max saved her? What could have stopped him from taking the risk that had brought them all together?
She worked her way backwards, slowly scanning the headlines for anything involving her friends. She paused when she ran across an article about the sheriff, the headline reading: Sheriff Valenti Resigns. She read the short article detailing Sheriff Valenti's decision to resign and relocate to Denver, Colorado with his wife of seventeen years and their three sons.
The sheriff was still married? And had three boys?
She scanned through another year's worth of articles when Alex's name jumped out at her: Local Boy Genius Accepted at Prestigious School on East Coast. The article contained interviews with his parents and the reporter had done a good job of capturing their pride at their son's accomplishments. He had closed with a brief overview of the couples' plans to move back east with their son.
A paper from ten years earlier explained why Max hadn't healed Liz when the shooting had taken place. At nine years old he and Isabel had died in a car accident with their parents while coming home from visiting relatives out of state.
What the hell was going on?
She carefully searched the archives for any information about Michael and was surprised that there was no mention of him anywhere. She hadn't expected to find much, maybe just a few notices where he had been picked up by the sheriff for getting into trouble or maybe some mention of his foster father, Hank, but there was nothing.
She tried searching for information by typing his name in the search bar at the top of the web page but couldn't find anything on him. This was just weird… everything was different and she didn't know why. She leaned back in the chair and stared at the screen, her gaze locked on the cursor blinking cheerfully in the search box. After staring at it for a few minutes she leaned forward and typed her own name in and hit the enter button.
She frowned when a page popped up on the screen and prompted her to enter another section of the archives. She clicked on the button and her breath lodged in her throat when she read the bold typeface at the top of the page: Obituaries.
Maria DeLuca, daughter of Amy and Richard
DeLuca passed away on Wednesday afternoon
due to complications from a staph infection…
Whoa! How could she be dead? It wasn't possible, she was sitting right there, reading… reading her own obituary, she realized. Her eyes widened as understanding suddenly dawned on her and she slumped down in the chair. Oh my God. The Granolith hadn't sent her back in time; it had sent her to a completely different universe. It was the only thing that made sense in this crazy place and it explained why everything was different.
She had to go back to the Granolith; it had to fix the mistake it had made. She hadn't asked it to send her to an alternate universe, she had asked it to fix things so that Michael wouldn't fall from the cliff and die.
You have been given the power to affect the events of the past, present, and future. The Granolith's words echoed in her mind even as something within her rebelled at the thought of going back to her own universe where Michael was no longer alive. What could she possibly do here that would affect the events of the past, present, and future in her reality? she wondered.
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Indigo Jeffries opened his front door when the rumbling engine of the motorcycle got closer, indicating that his company had arrived. He shook his head when he recognized the angry expression on the other man's face. Someone or something had pissed Guerin off big time, he thought as he walked along the sidewalk to the driveway.
"Took you long enough to get here, you self-centered bastard," he called out in greeting.
Michael looked up at the man who had spoken, unable to stop the grin that surfaced when he saw Indigo. They had saved each other's lives on more than one occasion and the man was probably the one person on this crappy planet that he could honestly call a friend.
Indigo was a couple of inches taller than Michael, African-American, and he was always ready for a good time. He had retired from the company a couple of years earlier after losing his left hand in an explosion; he had settled outside of Santa Fe with a financial settlement that ensured he would never have to work again, but he wasn't the type of man who could be idle for very long so he had started his own charter business.
"Who're you callin' a self-centered bastard, you one-handed sonofabitch?"
Indigo laughed boisterously and raised his right hand to shoot the finger at his old friend. Michael was the only one who had treated him normally after he had lost his hand and he appreciated that more than words could ever say. Which was good, he mused, because the last thing Guerin would want would be some mushy declaration of gratitude. He lifted his left hand, extending the prosthetic attachment in the other man's direction. "I keep tellin' 'em the damn thing needs five prongs; it's just not quite the same flippin' people off when there's only three mechanical fingers."
"You finally getting the hang of that thing?"
"Yup, the doctors have released me from therapy." He frowned, thinking. "Course, that could have more to do with the fact that I got caught screwin' the therapist when she was supposed to be teaching me how to pick up a ball." He motioned for Michael to follow him inside the house. "I told her I'm right handed and I didn't need to know how to pick up a ball anyway. Hell, now that I'm outta the company the only thing I need to know is how to pick up a piece of ass when the mood strikes, and I've known how to do that since I was old enough to know what to do with my dick. She disagreed, so I had to prove her wrong."
"Uh-huh," Michael mumbled, certain there was more to the story. "So you got kicked outta therapy for screwin' the therapist?"
"Well, she might've been married to one of my doctors, or engaged." He shrugged carelessly. "I heard they're not together anymore."
"I'm guessin' he's the one who caught you screwin' her?"
"Man, she was so into it she didn't even know he was standin' right there while she was screamin' an' comin' so hard she almost blacked out." He pulled a couple of beers out of the refrigerator and turned to look at Michael. "She made therapy very… therapeutic." He held the first bottle in the crook of his left arm and popped the top off of the bottle before offering it to Michael.
"And you're not seein' her anymore?"
"Nah, she was a little too attached to the claw." He held his left 'hand' up and stared at it for a minute. "She was a good distraction while it lasted though." A wolfish grin graced Indigo's face. "You'd be surprised how many times I get offered a pity fuck because women feel sorry for me."
Michael snorted and took a long drink from the bottle in his hand. "If they're hot I hope you're takin' 'em up on their offers."
"Fuck yeah! Speakin' of fuckin', I invited a few women over later; figured I'll barbeque, we'll drink, screw a couple of 'em, and drink some more. Unless you'd rather go out, cuz we can do that too."
"Doesn't matter. They're hot, right? Cuz I'm not handin' out pity fucks to ugly chicks."
Indigo roared with laughter. "Man, you never change. No, they're all hot, trust me."
"And you ain't fucked none of 'em right? I don't want your sloppy seconds, Indigo."
"I've screwed a couple of 'em, but I'll let you know which ones." He nodded at the window that faced the acres of open land behind his house. "Feel like shootin' somethin'?" he asked, dark eyes shining brightly at the prospect of picking up a gun.
Michael leaned back in his chair a couple of hours later, the high-powered rifle cradled comfortably in his arms as he stared at the shredded targets in the distance. They hadn't talked while they were taking aim at the targets, focusing their concentration on besting each other. They had settled down at one of the tables on the deck a little while ago, talking about old missions and reminiscing over fallen comrades. Indigo had a tendency to mellow out as the alcohol began to seep into his bloodstream and he had stumbled slightly as he went back into the house to answer the door when the doorbell chimed.
He looked up when half a dozen women stepped out onto the back deck, followed by Indigo who was doing his best to appear as if he hadn't been drinking.
"Told you they were hot," he muttered, slurring slightly. He dropped down in the chair next to the one Michael had chosen and leaned in close to him as he pointed at three of the women standing at the opposite end of the deck. "Okay, those three there… those are mine."
Michael's eyebrows rose, he was impressed. "You've already had all three?"
"Not had, Guerin, have." He stressed the words as he turned his head to grin drunkenly at the women. "As in I am currently screwin' all three."
"You're fuckin' all three of 'em?"
He sat up straighter, feeling smug when he heard the impressed tone in Michael's voice. "Oh, yeah. I'm tellin' you, Guerin, the right woman - or women, in my case - will make all the difference. Don't jump to conclusions," he warned when he saw the speculative gleam in his friend's dark eyes. "I'm not gonna marry any of 'em or anything, but hell, it's a wild ride."
"Not interested in anything that requires more than a night, Indigo."
"You don't know what you're missin'." He shook his head but knew he wasn't gonna change the man's mind. He had known Michael for almost eight years now and the man hadn't once formed any kind of attachment to any of the women he'd been with. It was a rare occasion for him to even hook up with the same woman more than once and he didn't think that was ever going to change. There was something about him that made him keep everyone at a distance and he avoided relationships like the plague. "Hey, the blonde in the corner over there," he nodded at the far end of the deck where one of the women had taken up residence, paying no attention to the others as they talked. "She's waitin' for you to make a move." He shook his head in confusion when Michael turned to look at her. Since when did Guerin wait for an invitation from a woman? He knew Michael never drank anything but non-alcoholic beer because he didn't like losing control to anything, so why was it taking so long for him to make a move?
"Come on, Indy," a feminine voice whispered throatily. He turned to look up at the woman leaning over him and he abandoned his friend for a romp with his ladies.
Michael was barely aware of Indigo's disappearance as he stared at the blonde who was staring at him. It wasn't until her gaze lowered to his crotch and she shifted restlessly in her chair that he realized he was hard. Something was seriously wrong with him. He shook his head in irritation and decided to ignore whatever it was inside of him that was making him feel like he was being pulled in two different directions.
He leaned the rifle up against the house and stood, making a follow me motion with his head as he stepped back inside the house. As soon as she joined him his arm snaked around her waist and he pulled her up against his body. The moment her body came into contact with his she started to grind herself against his erection and he rolled his eyes as she whimpered and her eyes slid closed.
"Oh, God," she whispered raggedly. "I'm gonna… oh, God…"
She was gonna be so easy, he thought to himself. Hell, she was already wet and frantic; the way she was humping him she was gonna come before he even touched her. She stiffened in his arms, making a guttural sound low in her throat before slumping against him limply. Oh, yeah, she had a hair trigger. He was gonna be able to make her hit her peak multiple times and she was gonna think he was a sex god.
"Ready for Round Two?" he asked when he felt her fingers tugging on his belt.
"Fuck yeah, baby."
He glanced around as he picked her up, nodding in satisfaction when she locked her legs around his waist. He cursed his lack of attention when Indigo had given him a tour of the house but he was ready to blow so he settled for the bathroom. He kicked the door shut behind him and sat her on the counter, leaning back enough to grab a foil packet out of his back pocket, rip it open, shove his jeans down, and roll the condom on. He made it a point to never fuck without a condom because caution was better than a bothersome STD.
He didn't bother to strip her panties from her shapely hips, simply shoved her skirt up, pushed the lacy panties out of the way and entered her in one smooth thrust. It barely took any time at all before she was coming again and he gritted his teeth in frustration when he didn't follow her over that edge.
Fuck! His balls felt like they were gonna explode but it was like something was holding him back. He could feel sweat trickling along his spine, the itchy sensation distracting him momentarily. His entire body felt overly-sensitized and he didn't understand what was happening to him. He could feel the woman's body clamping down on his dick as another orgasm was ripped from her, pulling him from his thoughts and bringing him back to what he was doing. Thankfully his body was familiar with the routine and had continued while his mind had been taking a short self-examination, but despite his need for release it wasn't happening.
He glanced at himself in the mirror behind her and for a fleeting moment he felt as if he were staring at a stranger. His rhythm stuttered when he thought he saw disgust in his own eyes and he looked away, focusing on the woman he was fucking. He pulled out, ignoring her sounds of protest and quickly turned her around so he could enter her from behind. He just wanted to come and get this over with and he couldn't remember ever having to work so hard to get off.
Tell her to say your name. Michael rebelled at that thought even as he wondered where it had come from. He didn't like for women to say his name while he was fucking them, he didn't want even that much of a connection with them.
"Oh, God, you're amazing," she moaned as she pushed back against him, meeting him thrust for thrust. "I've never come so many times!"
Fuck, he'd be happy if he could just come once! Michael grunted and kept up the rapid pace, dropping his forehead down to rest against her shoulder as he fought against the voice in his head. Tell her to say your name, it repeated insistently. He ignored the words being whispered inside his head, up until the point where he felt his legs start to tremble. "Say my name," he growled.
"What is it?" she hissed when his big hands left her breasts to grip her shoulders.
"Michael." Please, God, let this do the trick. He wasn't a religious man by any means, but he was willing to try anything at this point.
"Oh, God, keep it up, Michael."
Oh, fuck, that was it! He could feel it building and his hips slammed into hers once, twice, three more times before he came, leaving him feeling drained instead of sated.
"Indigo said you were wild, but he underestimated your stamina," she purred as they straightened their clothes up. "Think you'll be up for another performance later?"
Another performance? Was she kidding? Michael didn't bother to respond to her, he just shoved her out of the bathroom and locked the door behind her. He turned to lean against it, ignoring the shaking in his body as he tried to make sense of what was happening to him. His abused dick felt like it had been ridden raw and he doubted he was going to be interested in sex for a couple of days.
He stumbled over to the shower and his hand shook as he reached out to turn the faucet on. He felt dirty somehow and he needed to wash that feeling away as quickly as possible.