posted on 28-Nov-2001 3:13:30 AM by Destinee
Title: Strong, Dangerous, & Undeniable
Author: Destinee
E-Mail:smylee⊕playful.com
Rating: PG-13
Category: M/L, a little Mi/Ma, and a strong focus on Michael
Disclaimer: The characters in this story don't belong to me, but to M. Metz, J. Katims, and The WB- or I guess now it’s UPN. In any case, I'm just gently leading them where I'd like them to go. No infringement intended.

Summary: This story begins with the scene in MITC when Liz does her astral projection thing. It follows along with everything in the show up to that point, and goes on to explore Liz's powers, and to resolve the obstacles in the path of her being together with Max.


Author's Note: *bounce* Oh my gosh! I'm so glad I checked in on the board before I went to bed. I had no idea it was back up, but I'm thrilled! I really, really missed it. Although I discovered another great site- the Bordello ezboard- while this one was down. Some of you guys may have already seen this part over there, but I thought I'd go ahead and post it again here. I've gotten really discouraged in writing this lately, and I'm hoping feedback will get me going again. *happy* Oh, did that sound like a hint? Mm, it could've been maybe. *wink* Jk. I just hope you guys enjoy, and hopefully I can get back into the groove soon.

Oh, and one more thing... I should probably mention that this part gets the teensiest bit more graphic than the love scenes have been so far, and I wasn't sure if the PG-13 rating was strong enough. I'm not really sure of the guidelines for that kind of thing, but it really didn't seem like rated R material to me either. If anyone thinks I should up the rating though, just let me know, and I'll be glad to do it. *happy*

You can catch up on any previous parts here:

viewthread?forum=repost-fan-fiction&id=349




Chapter 53


Max wandered around Liz’s room with quiet aimlessness while waiting for her to join him there. He’d covertly climbed in through her darkened window a short while ago, while she entered the apartment more conventionally through the front entrance so she could put in an appearance for her parents. He’d already done the same thing with his own mom and dad a little earlier, entering the Evans’ house with Isabel, and telling them that he had some homework to do, then he was going to bed early. After killing a little time in his room, he and Liz had left by way of his window to come here, where they were both planning to spend the night.

Restlessly, Max flipped through a science magazine that had been lying out on Liz’s desk, and glanced at the door, wishing she would hurry. He’d been waiting in her room for at least ten minutes, and he was getting antsy at letting her out of his sight for so long. He knew he was being ridiculous for worrying when she was just out there with her parents. He was going to have to get over this need to keep a constant vigil over her before they went to school tomorrow. There wasn’t any way he was going to be able to be with her every second when they had separate classes. But for as long as he could, he wanted to keep her close. Even joined at the hip seemed too far away. After her emotional breakdown in the café earlier, he was feeling particularly protective of her. Not to mention how worried he was over the fact that danger seemed to be constantly following her from only a few steps away.

Whether he was being ridiculous or not, he breathed a little easier when Liz slipped through the door at that precise moment, then eased it closed behind herself.

“Sorry,” she apologized softly. “My mom got all worried because I was going to bed a little early, and kinda gave me the third degree. You know how moms are,” she said ruefully, making a face.

“Yeah,” he agreed. “Don’t worry about it,” he said in easy dismissal. “I was completely engrossed in,” he glanced down and read from the open pages of the magazine he held, “the microarray analysis of pathogens, anyway.” His lips tipped up teasingly.

With wry sheepishness, Liz said defensively, “It’s a good article. They’re making great strides in that field, you know.”

“I’ll take your word for it,” he replied dryly.

They shared a humorous smile, and as it slowly faded away, Liz’s eyes drifted from his, only to be drawn by the sight of her bed a few feet away. Its queen-sized width, covered over with the brightly-colored spread, suddenly seemed to dominate the room in a way it never had before with the prospect of sleeping in it with Max hovering on the horizon.

Max’s eyes followed the same path as hers, and as the silence stretched out between them, Liz shifted her stance a little uncertainly, and tucked her hair behind her ear by force of habit. “So.”

Max’s eyes fell away and he cleared his throat. “So,” he echoed, carefully laying the magazine back where he’d found it, then sliding his hands in his pockets to stand there awkwardly.

“Um, did you want to do something, or-- do you wanna just...?” she left the question dangling and gestured vaguely towards the bed.

Max glanced again at the piece of furniture she referred to, and fleetingly lifted his brows while slightly rounding his lips in what she fondly thought of as his ‘Oh’ expression. “Uh... what did you want to do? Are you- are you sleepy?”

“A little, maybe,” she admitted. “It was a pretty stressful day.”

“Yeah,” Max agreed softly with a nod, his expression empathetic.

“Maybe, um-- maybe we could just talk, you know, u-until we fall asleep,” she suggested.

“In bed,” he stated for the sake of clarification.

“Right,” she agreed with a single nod, her eyes darting a glance at him, then skittering away.

She didn’t know why she suddenly felt so nervous and awkward with him. It wasn’t like they hadn’t shared a bed for the past two nights. But somehow, this felt completely different. At Max’s house the other night, they’d been pleasantly occupied and hadn’t given it any thought when they’d made their way into his bed, and then they’d later just fallen asleep there while talking. And last night at Michael’s, he’d been moving around the apartment getting things settled for the night while they’d gotten ready for bed, and she and Max had been very conscious of his presence behind the bedroom door only yards away when they’d climbed into the old sofa-bed together. It had been a foregone conclusion that nothing beyond maybe a few quiet kisses would take place with Michael making himself so clearly felt between them. Figuratively, if not literally.

But Liz was definitely not feeling the same lack of expectation now. The possibilities seemed alive in the air between them. Getting into bed with Max tonight seemed like an act of deliberation that felt much more intimate than it had on the previous nights. Even though her parents were in the apartment with them, the fact that they were still awake, planted in front of the t.v. in the living room, and completely oblivious to Max’s presence in her room, added a certain element of forbidden secrecy to his being here that only served to heighten her awareness of the fact that they were about to slide under those covers together. With less than the normal amount of clothes between them.

The idea had her feeling a little flustered and shy with him.

“So, I guess I’ll just, um...” she pointed towards the bathroom while stepping in that direction. As Max nodded his understanding, she suddenly stopped and said, “Unless you wanted–“

“No. No,” he assured her. “You go ahead.”

Liz gathered up her night clothes and made her way to the bathroom, and as soon as she’d closed herself inside, Max blew out a long, controlled breath.

It felt so dangerous to be doing this with her parents right outside, and he felt every bit as aware of Liz and of the intimacy of the situation as she was. It was making him feel pretty tense and keyed-up.

He pulled his usual winter night-wear of t-shirt and sweatpants from his backpack where it lay on Liz’s bed, then swiftly pulled his shirt over his head to begin changing. He was desperately trying to ignore the fact that Liz was behind that door, no more than five feet away, taking off her clothes too, but it was utterly impossible to keep the images of a stripping Liz Parker from filling his mind.

Where his movements were efficient and no-nonsense, imagining Liz at the same task was the stuff of erotic fantasy, and it played out in his head in a slow-motion reel-by-reel, keeping all his senses on edge.

He could picture the gentle cascade of her hair as it fell in a waterfall of dark silk from the neck of her shirt when she pulled it over her head. He imagined hearing the rasping sound of her zipper as she slid it down tooth-by-tooth, then went on to hook her fingers inside the loosened waistband of her pants to leisurely slide them off her hips and down the length of her legs to pool at her feet. Would she go bra-less as she had the previous two nights when they’d slept? Max decided she would, and all too easily, he could imagine her craning her arms around behind her back to unhook the clasp of her bra, then letting the straps slip from her shoulders so that it fell to the floor in a small puddle of silky fabric.

Max’s breathing roughened at the picture of a nearly-nude Liz only one thin door away from him, and without realizing it, he’d fallen completely still there by her bed. Dressed in only a light gray pair of sweatpants, his t-shirt hung forgotten in his hand as he stared at the bathroom door with a focused intensity that should have incinerated its paneled wood on the spot.

He started slightly when the door suddenly swung open, and Liz stood there, not naked, but dressed in a pair of plaid flannel pajama bottoms, and a small figure-hugging top. She faltered as she collided head-on with the raw heat that shone out of his amber gaze, and her eyes dropped immediately to take in the sight of his bare chest. Bathed in the warmth of her bedside lamp, its bronzed muscular contours made her breath catch in her throat, and she licked suddenly dry lips as she dragged her eyes from the pure masculine beauty of it to meet the golden intensity of his gaze.

With nothing more than a look, he’d sent an immediate hunger licking at her insides. She couldn’t help being the tiniest bit disconcerted by it too. Exactly why was he looking at her like that? Flicking a glance to the room behind her, she wondered if he’d been imagining her in there undressing while he did the same out here. The thought of him doing that kicked her pulse up another notch in its already-unsteady beat.

Her tongue snaked out to moisten her lips yet again, and the action captured Max’s full attention. That was the second time she’d done that within the space of a single minute, and from the first, it had planted a strong urge to taste deep within him. His eyes narrowed on the sweet curves of her mouth and watched avariciously as they parted to pull in a shuddering breath that he felt all the way down to his toes. Only a heartbeat later, they came together again to shape themselves around a word, and the unsteady sound of his name emerged. The ragged breath of sound sharpened his craving to feel her mouth under his even more.

“M-Max,” Liz said again shakily. “Stop looking at me like that,” she protested faintly.

“Like what?” His voice was like roughened silk, and it sent a shiver skittering up her spine as it stroked across her nerve-endings in a resonant caress. It was like raw seduction grating from his throat, and it literally made her knees feel weak.

Swallowing hard, she answered huskily, “Like... I’m tobasco over ice-cream and you’re absolutely starving.”

Max blinked and tried to reclaim his gaze, but it stubbornly clung to the sight of her petal-pink lips as their moist softness emitted a silent siren’s call. He told himself he was being insensitive standing here lusting after her like this. She’d had an emotionally difficult day. One that had been filled with all kinds of disturbing revelations. She needed petting right now. Maybe a few soothing kisses and some soft words of understanding. But soothing seemed a foreign concept when something inside was demanding that he eradicate the distance between them to crush her softness against himself and claim her lips for his own.

Liz was having a little trouble taming her eyes too, as they raptly gazed at the expanse of his bare torso. Did he have any idea how beautiful he was? The sculpted perfection of his body honestly made her melt. In fact, she could feel the liquid heat coursing inside her as something seemed to be doing exactly that.

Why was he just standing there, she wondered restively. Why were they both just standing here? For all intents and purposes they were alone. So why were they standing five feet apart sharing nothing more than an electric gaze?

They weren’t alone here, Max was sternly reminding himself with a slight shake of his head to clear it. Her parents were in the next room. This was no time to be letting things get crazy. Especially not when he and Liz were about to climb into the intimate confines of her bed together. He had to get himself under control, he thought desperately.

‘I’m sorry, Liz,” he finally replied gruffly. “Maybe, uh- maybe sleeping together isn’t such a good idea.”

The phrase he’d used sent a wave of heated longing washing over her. She knew he’d meant sleeping together in its most literal terms, but the words conjured up all kinds of images in her mind, none of them having anything to do with actual sleep. But wait– had he said sleeping here was a bad idea?

“You want to go?” she asked in foggy-headed disappointment, and not a little trepidation at being left alone.

“What? No,” Max denied emphatically. “I just meant maybe I should sleep on the floor or something. I’m definitely not leaving you alone,” he assured her.

Liz gave a small sigh of relief and nodded. She really didn’t want to be by herself tonight. Too much had happened today that had left shadows of fear and confusion lingering inside her. Not to mention the fact that she felt much safer with Max here. And she would feel even safer if she were in his arms. She’d discovered that there was no better place to sleep in all the world than wrapped in their strong embrace.

But a sense of safety wasn’t all his arms could provide. And if the two of them happened to venture on to do a little more than sleep, there was no Michael here tonight to keep them in check, an insidious little voice whispered inside her head.

Flushing with a strange combination of arousal and shyness, Liz lowered her eyes and said softly, “I really wish you wouldn’t make me sleep alone either, Max. You know– you haven’t even touched me in hours. And you’ve been all the way on the other side of the room ever since we got here,” she gently complained.

Max pulled in a deep breath and admitted in a gravelly tone, “That’s because if I came any closer we’d probably be on that bed so fast you wouldn’t know what hit you.”

Liz felt a shot of molten heat go through her at his words, and their eyes locked in a frozen moment of awareness.

“Oh,” she said faintly.

“Yeah,” Max returned a bit wryly, his eyes continuing in their rebellious roaming, and hungrily consuming the beauty of her freshly-scrubbed face. He did somehow manage to restrain them from wandering down to the tempting curves of her body, though. A miraculous feat, considering he’d already taken note of the fact that they were as bare as he’d imagined underneath that form-fitting little shirt.

“My sleeping bag’s in the hall closet though,” she told him a little breathlessly. “I won’t be able to get it till my parents go to bed. Besides... I-I don’t want you on the floor, Max. I want you in bed– with me,” she dared to confess, looking up at him through lowered lashes.

That look, sexy, yet demure, coupled with the invitation of her words, made Max’s mouth go dry. Did she have any idea what she was doing to him? He was doing his level best to stay in control here. Making bold confessions- looking at him with those eyes- was not helping him at all.

Feelingly, he said, “Believe me, Liz, that’s what I want too, but...” trailing off, he shook his head. It just didn’t seem like a very wise move to get into this bed with her considering the way his body was revved up with arousal right now.

Liz could appreciate his attempt to be cautious. She knew it was the smart thing to do. But it was really hard for her to think of being smart when he kept looking at her the way he was. She wasn’t aware that he’d lost a battle in keeping his eyes from straying, she only knew that their glittering depths kept playing over the length of her body, with each flickering touch seeming to hold the weight of a physical caress. It was setting her skin afire with tingling awareness all over. Her breasts were feeling particularly sensitive, as his eyes kept returning there again and again. She knew he could tell she wasn’t wearing a bra, a decision she was seriously doubting the wisdom of at the moment. She’d debated for long minutes in the bathroom over whether to leave it on or not, taking it off, putting it back on, and finally taking it off again in the interests of comfort. But she was sure that her breasts’ unrestrained state was betraying to him exactly how aroused she was right now.

They were actually doing that and more. Their hardened points were clearly prominent through the thin cotton of her shirt, and they drew Max’s eyes like an alien homing device no matter how he tried to prevent it. He had a stranglehold on his own shirt where it was bunched in his fist, and he had to struggle to keep himself from crossing over to her to find out what they would feel like against his palms. Or better yet.. on his tongue. The thought had him flushing with ruddy color as his head swam with a dizzying heat.

They’d been silent for long moments, held in the grip of the electricity that was zinging back and forth between them, and finally Liz suggested raspily, “What about if- um.. you just stayed on top of the covers, and I’ll- I’ll get under?” It seemed a good solution to her. It would allow them some small amount of the contact her body was positively crying out for, and still offer the barrier of the blankets between them.

Max was a little doubtful that a few measly blankets would offer any protection against this clawing urge to wrap her in his arms and consume her in every way imaginable, but he also didn’t think he could stand here another minute and not touch her. Something in her was calling out to him, and he couldn’t resist it any longer.

“Okay,” he agreed to the plan she’d suggested.

Liz blinked. “Okay,” she repeated inanely.

Despite the fact that they’d just decided on their course of action, and that she was positively aching to have him touch her, she continued to stand there as if unsure what to do next.

Max tore his gaze away from her and made a fidgeting movement as his eyes bounced from the bed, back to Liz, and down to the floor. He seemed to notice the t-shirt in his hand for the first time, and lifted it jerkily to shake it out before donning it.

Realizing what he was doing, Liz fastened her eyes on his bare chest once again and asked wistfully, “Do you have to?”

Max halted with one arm poised at the opening of his sleeve, and looked over at her. His heart thudded heavily in response to the way her dark eyes were avidly eating him, and he suddenly remembered acutely how it had felt to have her hands and mouth all over him at the dance club the other night.

Closing his eyes, he sucked in a shaky breath and released it in a pained gust of laughter. “Liz. You really aren’t making this any easier,” he protested ruefully.

He hadn’t resumed the act of getting dressed, and Liz glanced up at his face before making the first move to close the distance between them. If he was going to cover up all that toned magnificence, the least she was going to do was touch it just once before he did.

“Sorry,” she thought to apologize huskily to his complaint. “It’s just– it seems sorta... criminal,” she ended throatily, by that time having reached the spot where he stood. Max had weakly dropped the hand holding his shirt down to his side as soon as he’d seen her coming towards him with hungry purpose, and now he waited tensely to see what she would do next.

Completely mesmerized by the taut flesh lying bare to her eyes, Liz slowly lifted a hand to lay the tip of an index finger at the center of his chest and trailed it downward to draw a single meandering line down his middle, not stopping until she’d reached the small indentation of his navel. The simple touch seemed to carry an electrical charge that left them both short of breath. Their heads bent close together as they tilted them downward to watch the teasing caress of her finger as it drew a tantalizing circle around his belly button, and then Liz dragged a slumberous gaze up to his face while flattening her palm against his stomach for the return journey upward. Eyes black with passion interlocked with the golden fire of his, as her hand traced a burning path up from the taut hollow of his stomach, over his abdomen, and still further to the gentle bulge of his pec. There, her hand conformed to its rounded firmness and lightly stroked, her palm spreading a warm glow of pleasure wherever it went. She could feel his heart racing beneath her touch, and it matched hers in its pace almost beat for beat.

“Liz,” he said thickly, and lifted his free hand to lie atop hers on his chest.

She didn’t know if he was urging her on, or asking her to stop, and she got the feeling Max wasn’t really sure either.

“I-I guess this isn’t really making it any easier either, huh?” she asked breathily.

Mutely, Max shook his head in reply.

What she was doing was driving him crazy, and he loved the exhilaration of her touch, but he didn’t think it would take much more to tip him over the edge and send him spinning off into passionate oblivion. Even one kiss seemed incredibly risky in the state he was in at the moment. He didn’t want Liz to think his restraint had anything to do with her, or that it was by any means easy, though.

“It’s just– your mom and dad are–“

“I know,” she assured him softly. “And– we have to be careful with the energy thing,” she added to the reasons for caution.

“Right,” he agreed, though the longing in his eyes belied everything he was saying.

Her hand moved slightly beneath his to stroke his skin, and she said, “I understand all that, Max, really- I do, but... being responsible just really sucks.”

Max couldn’t help but chuckle huskily. She’d sounded so much like a petulant child when she’d said that. But the eyes that were once again devouring his torso were definitely all woman. Drawing in a breath to try and calm the heart that was ricocheting in his chest, he said ruefully, “Yeah, I gotta agree with you there.”

His hand rode atop hers as it began to move more fully on his body, gliding in short strokes against his pec muscle. “Soo... we’re gonna get into that bed– with all the covers between us, and we’ll just... talk, until we fall asleep,” she reiterated distractedly while watching in fascination as his eyes darkened in response to her touch. “So– my parents won’t know what’s going on... and, Michael gets a peaceful night’s sleep.”

The dark heat of her gaze was drawing him in completely, and Max could feel all his good intentions threatening to be carried away on the tide of steadily-rising excitement her caress was igniting in him. “

Yeah,” he agreed in a rasping tone, “I-I think that’s the plan.”

Liz nodded slowly.

“Okay,” she reluctantly concurred, eyes emoting her unwillingness as they continued to lock with his.

Absently, Max nodded his head in tandem with hers in unequivocal agreement of her every sentiment, spoken or otherwise.

In the very next instant, as if a signal had been given (and perhaps it had been), they abruptly lurched against each other, and their mouths came crashing together hungrily.

Liz gave a muffled whimper of relief, as their tongues curled together in an avid tangle, and their lips moved on one another’s frenziedly. She slid her hands up his chest to wrap her arms tightly around his neck, and the hand that covered the back of hers followed up to a point, before falling away to join its mate as he mindlessly dropped his t-shirt to the floor and wrapped his arms around her waist to forcefully pull her into his body.

Liz pressed herself up on tiptoes as she leaned into him, and when Max’s lips left hers to lay a scorching trail of kisses down to her throat, she dropped her head back and gasped out, “We’ll just be– really- really quiet, and my parents’ll– never know a thing.”

Max bit gently at the chord of her neck, putting an instant lie to her words as she released a tiny mew of desire, and replied with his mouth still buried in the curve of her neck. “Yeah. Yeah, and– the minute your energy goes haywire, we’ll just– we’ll stop,” he said in further justification, breath heaving.

Her fingers slid through the thickness of his hair to hold him there against her throat as she panted to catch her own breath. “Yeah, okay,” she whispered without really even knowing what she was agreeing to. In the next moment, it ceased to matter, as his mouth closed over hers once more and pleasure overtook her senses.

They lost themselves in the raw heat of the kiss, as if they had to make every second count before they were cut off by the deadline of her charging energy, never stopping to think that the quicker they worked themselves up, the quicker Liz’s energy level would most likely rise.

While their mouths attacked one another’s with greedy fervency, Liz reveled in the amount of flesh that was exposed to her touch, and her hands moved covetously over his body in feather-like strokes of palms and fingertips. Lingeringly, they grazed his back, his shoulders, his arms, they traced up the sides of his torso when he lifted his hands to cradle her face- and each small bit of skin leaped to flaming life in the wake of her every caress.

Max couldn’t catch his breath. He was absolutely on fire. He had the fleeting incoherent thought that the electrified prickling her fingers left behind felt like sparks shooting off the kiss of a butterfly’s wings, and it left him feeling deliriously alive with sensation all over. His lack of air finally forced him to break away from their kiss momentarily, but his own hands were doing their share of touching, never remaining in one spot for long, as they restlessly roamed over her back, combed through her hair, or cupped her neck and jaw within his palms as he rained kisses over her face between each desperate pull of air.

With his mouth gone from hers, Liz took the opportunity to skim her lips over the chiseled plane of his jaw, and worked her way downward on a path leading towards his chest, wanting to find out if it was as exciting and as utterly combustible as she remembered to feel him under her mouth.

Heart thundering in anticipation, Max cupped the back of her head in a gesture of silent encouragement, as eager for a repeat of the experience as she was, if not more so. Caution niggled at his brain at the vague remembrance of the last time they’d done this, but he dismissed it with the silent reassurance to himself that they would stop when Liz’s energy got involved. Then all thought shut down, and he could only feel, when Liz reached her destination and began to bathe his upper body with the warm rain of open-mouthed kisses, punctuated with the occasional gentle lap of her tongue.

His fingers curled into her hair, and her name escaped his lips on an exhaled whisper of sound as she sensitized his skin even further with the play of her mouth over his body. Rather than having the effect of cooling his flesh, the moisture her torrid kisses left behind inflamed with a white-hot intensity that was making his fight for breath even harder.

He wouldn’t have thought it possible, but Liz’s ministrations felt even better now than they had the other night. Maybe because this time he could not only feel what she was doing, but he had the added visual stimulus of watching her movements as well, as she closed in for each nipping taste of him, her hair brushing his skin like the cooling lash of silk against its feverishness. It was a sight that spiked his desire ever higher. And the enthralled look of sensual concentration on her face as she pleasured him made it that much more sexy and compelling to watch.

Liz was wholly focused on rediscovering every sleek muscle in his torso, her mouth charting every plane and hollow of his warm flesh. She caught her breath as a sharp spiral of desire speared through her, and it took her a dazed moment to realize that it had come from Max. She’d been so immersed in the sight, taste, and feel of him that she hadn’t even noticed when the connection had opened between them. But now that she’d become aware of it, she recognized the clamor of emotion inside her as belonging to them both. And as they became distinguishable, the sudden heady knowledge of what her caresses were doing to him added a new dimension to her own excitement, and her kisses became fiercer in response.

Max shuddered at the first gentle rake of her teeth against his collar bone, and his arms tightened around her spasmodically. He bunched the back of her shirt in a tight fist as a wave of pleasure broke over him, hot and intense. The feel of her passion flooding in to fill him, and the rapacious kisses she was scattering over him accosted his senses, and in only a matter of seconds- or maybe it was hours, Max was past the point of knowing- it all became too much. It became not even remotely enough.

Tangling both hands in her hair, he urged her upwards insistently, and Liz tore reluctant lips from the delight of his naked skin, lifting them to be immediately rewarded by the fevered urgency of his mouth covering hers.

They kissed each other ravenously, their heads moving sinuously in a quick and unremitting rhythm as their lips angled for possession of one another’s. Max’s hands swept over her back agitatedly, and moments later he slid his lips from hers to blindly search out the pulse point behind her ear. As he hungrily mouthed the delicate spot, he whispered raggedly, “I need to touch you, Liz.”

Liz shivered, both from the tickle of his breath against her skin, and from the thrill of his impassioned plea. She could have argued that he was touching her, but she knew exactly what he meant. She felt it too. This desperate yearning for a more intimate contact.

Tipping her head to the side as his lips traveled to the juncture of her neck and shoulder, she whispered back feverishly, “I need that too–“ her words were cut off by a sharp gasp as his mouth closed over the sloping curve that had been his destination in a heart-stopping caress of teeth, tongue, and suction.

A feeling of weakness stole over her as he continued to pull strongly on the sensitive skin there, and all sensation seemed to focus on that single point of almost-stinging contact.

He was leaving a mark, she was sure. Branding her as his, the arousing thought came unbidden, quickening her heart, and stirring her need for something more until she felt it to an even keener degree.

Max felt the tiny thrill ripple through her, and the deepening feeling of yearning that immediately followed, and that alone would have been enough to provoke him into instantaneous response. But it was the emotion that came before those that sent a primitive streak of possessiveness arcing though him, and made his pulse roar in his ears. It was somewhat nebulous, as if it had been more an idea passing through her consciousness than an actual feeling he could grasp hold of, and he wasn’t sure he’d gotten it completely, but he thought that, for some reason, she’d been thinking she wanted to belong to him.

The idea roused in him a sudden savage need to claim. To fulfill that desire he felt in her until it was completely met and satisfied. His body reacted with an unmistakable surge of lust at the prospect, and his demands on her flesh grew more urgent. Everything was swept away except for Liz and his effort to take in every aspect of her that his soul and senses would allow, and somehow make them an indisputable part of himself.

While he ravaged the side of her neck with a devouring upward sweep of lips and teeth, his hands, which had found their way underneath her top at her first whispered encouragement, now swept boldly over the expanse of her bare back unimpeded, and pressed her in closer against him.

Liz mindlessly sank into the heat of his body, and a breathy sound of helplessness was wrung from her throat as the force of his desire came crashing in through the connection to overwhelm her. Her head lolled weakly as his lips made their way up underneath her chin, then he angled her face back towards his to take her lips once more in an insistent kiss of devastating thoroughness. There was a raw edginess to his passion that felt almost primal, and the feel of it sent Liz’s blood rushing hotly through her veins, and quickly produced a like response in her. She clung to him tightly as their mouths moved on one another’s with wild abandon and their tongues dueled fiercely.

The broadening sweep of Max’s hands on her naked skin had moved steadily inward from her back so that now they were brushing lightly along her sides in a repetitive up and down motion that was creating a growing restlessness in them both. Each upward pass of his palms brought them fractionally closer to the outside curve of her breasts, leaving them heavy and full with longing.

A charged current that felt both hot and cold at the same time began coursing through Liz’s body on a swiftly moving path that somehow seemed to directly connect her racing heart with a coiled tension lying low in her belly, and she moved against Max anxiously in a silent bid for him to put his hands where she needed them most. She wanted his slightly roughened palms to cover her straining breasts with an aching intensity that crowded out all else, and the strength of it made itself clearly felt through their connection.

The urgent desire seemed to hit Max squarely in the chest, making his heart stutter, then gallop away at full speed, and his hands abruptly halted right where they were. His fingers flexed against her, fingertips pressing into the flesh at the top of her ribcage, while he tore his lips from hers to gasp for breath.

The intimate touch she craved was nothing more than what he, himself desperately wanted. It was only the fact that they’d never been this far before that caused him to hesitate for a fraction of an instant. But he could hardly think of anything else but sliding his hands up the few inches that separated them from the swell of her breasts and discovering everything there was to know about how they would feel cupped in his palms.

Swallowing hard, Max leaned to rest his forehead against hers as his right hand slowly crept upward to the accompaniment of their pounding pulses.

Liz stopped breathing as he inched closer and closer to the spot where all her yearning was centered. Everything hung suspended as she waited for him to reach his destination, and into that expectant stillness came the subtle electrical vibration of her energy as it began moving inside her to draw together towards her center.

But everything in their beings were focused on his hand, her breast, and the distance that lay between them, and the faint warning buzz completely escaped their notice.

Liz lifted her eyes to his face to find him watching her carefully, as if looking for any sign that she wanted him to stop, though she sensed it would be a battle for him to halt himself at the moment. But she had no intentions of stopping him, not when it felt like her next breath depended on his very touch, and the tightening of her fingers on his shoulder, as well as the glowing message in her heavy-lidded gaze urged him on.

His first tentative touch, when it finally closed around the waiting globe of flesh was a revelation. Profoundly relieving, but at the same time, drawing the fine line of arousal more tightly between them, and setting off an explosive assault on their senses unlike anything they’d ever felt together before. Riotous sensation rushed in to replace motionless anticipation, and each of them were swamped with the feelings the delicate caress was conjuring in the other as Max softly stroked the velvety outside curve, then cupped the mound more fully in his palm to test the weight of it there.

Liz’s pent-up breath escaped in a rush and immediately took up a ragged tempo to match Max’s. The feel of his lightly calloused palm moving in an exploratory fashion against this most sensitive flesh was incredible. It sent her emotions flying to uncharted heights to have him touch her this way. She would’ve thought she might feel a little shy to share this intimacy with him for the first time in a soft, but perfectly lit atmosphere. But as they both watched every changing nuance of expression on each other’s face while Max learned the size and shaped of her, Liz realized that she wanted him to know her this way. It felt right in a way that nothing else that had come before it ever had. He already knew her deepest soul, it seemed only fitting that he know her body as well.

Seeing and experiencing Liz’s reaction to his touch was almost as heady as feeling the mystery of her underneath his hand, and the combination of them both had Max lost in an erotic haze of desire he had no wish to escape from. He’d never imagined that skin could feel so soft and pliant, but the texture of her breast against his palm brought enlightenment, and he couldn’t get enough of the feel of it. She felt perfect in his hand. The size, the pendulous weight of her were a perfect fit, just as everything else on her petite frame fit him so well. She was fantasy brought to warm and vibrant life beneath his touch, and Max found himself wishing he could see as well as feel the beauty that he’d only ever beheld in his imagination before.

In spite of the fact that her body was humming with pleasure, or maybe because of it, after only a few brief moments of his stimulating caresses, it once again ceased to be enough, and Liz twisted against him slightly in need. She didn’t think he was doing it deliberately, but he’d somehow managed to miss her nipple almost completely as he palmed her rounded softness, and the small bud had tightened painfully at his teasing inattention.

“Max,” she whimpered softly, her hands moving restlessly on his shoulders.

Unconsciously tightening his hold on her in response, Max bent his head to kiss her in aggressiveness appeasement, while his hand moved more firmly on her breast. That soft, pleading note she got in her voice always managed to reach him on some kind of a primitive level and incited a predatory need to give her what she was asking for and more. This time was no exception, and, as he could easily feel where her need emanated from, he focused all his efforts there. He couldn’t believe he’d been so neglectful of it in the first place, when the sight of the tenderly erect tip had held him so enthralled only moments before.

Liz returned Max’s kiss with a full measure of the intensity he was pouring into it, and in the next moment released a soft aching cry into the interior of his mouth as he answered her need by skimming the flat of his hand over her pebbled nipple. The feathery caress sent a jolt of lightening straight through to her core for all its lightness, and Max felt the electrified charge go through him as well, causing him to swallow down the sound of her voice with his indrawn breath. He immediately repeated the gesture, eliciting the same thrill of reaction in them both, this time sending their hips surging against each other’s as Liz arched into his caress. With a hand at the small of her back, Max kept her where she was and their pelvises ground together in a seeking out of relief for the spiraling need that was prominent there. His other hand shaped itself around the fullness of her breast, nestling its puckered tip in the palm of his hand, and their arms constricted around each other as their mouths moved more frantically together.

Their connection was like a wide-open current between them, transferring their heightened emotions so that each fed the other’s passion and drove it still higher.

It had taken some time to register, but it gradually began to dawn on Max that that wasn’t all they were pushing higher. Somehow, without him realizing it, Liz’s energy had become fully charged and was coursing through her strongly, and his was no more than a step behind. And just as they had at the banquet hall in that club the other night, the two forces were straining towards each other as if trying to find a way to merge together. Even after he’d become aware of what was happening, it still took his desire-fogged brain a few grappling moments to remember what it meant.

It meant stopping. It meant letting her go.

Clutching her close as his body cried out in denial, his hand moved on her breast in rebellious protest, creating another surge in their energy level, as pleasure flooded through them at the erotic caress.

Several blocks away, in a darkened apartment on Arroyo street, Michael jerked his head back as his energy suddenly roared to life, ripping his lips from Maria’s with a dark exclamation.

“You have got to be kiddin’ me! Unbe-freakin-lievable.”

Startled by his angry tone, Maria asked with breathless alarm, “What? What did I do?”

Instantly contrite for distressing her, he said quickly, “Not you.” He dipped his head to place a brief kiss of apology on her lips. “It’s not you, I’m sorry,” he further reassured her.

With a note of irritation, she argued, “Well, I’m the only one here, Michael, who else–?” she broke off as realization hit. “Liz? And Max? Are they...?”

His jaw taut, Michael replied grimly, “Unless they’ve somehow figured out a way to do an energy blast together, I’d say the answer to that would have to be a yes.” As he spoke, he rolled away from Maria, and made his way off the sofa-bed.

“Wait, where are you going?” she asked with a frown, feeling cold at the loss of his body lying atop hers.

“I’m goin’ to break it up,” he answered disgustedly as he sat on the edge of the bed and began pulling on his shoes. “Get up. You’re comin’ with me,” he ordered.

Maria didn’t move any further to obey than to prop herself up on her elbow. “Michael,” she protested, “You can’t just go running off to interfere every time they make out now. That’s insane! Things are already strained enough between you and Max without you trying to butt in every time he gets a chance to kiss Liz, don’t you think?

Clenching his teeth, Michael fought against the pull of his energy, and his movements became more hurried as he tied the laces on his shoes and stood jerkily. He couldn’t believe they were pulling this crap. Especially not after all Liz’s warnings to him about behaving with Maria. Which, of course, he hadn’t exactly been adhering to either, but that was beside the point. He and Maria hadn’t been generating enough energy together to light up the entire town.

“You don’t get it, Maria,” he disputed in annoyance while conducting a hasty search for his jacket. “We’re talkin’ energy levels of major proportions here. I sincerely doubt Maxwell has it in him to get her so hopped up on a simple goodnight kiss,” he said with heavy sarcasm.

With a sour face, Maria said, “Okay, this is like so disturbing. What’s gonna happen if they ever actually do it, Michael? Are you just gonna like, be there right in the middle of it, courtesy of the ‘love connection’?”

Michael scowled darkly. That wasn’t something he even wanted to begin to contemplate. “I don’t know,” he replied edgily. “But I do know tonight is not gonna be when I find out. Come on, would ya?” he urged impatiently, crossing over to the bar for his keys.

Sighing, Maria sat up and scooted to the edge of the bed. Fishing around on the floor for her shoes, she caught Michael’s abrupt halt a few feet from the bar out of the corner of her eye.

Straightening quickly, she asked nervously, “What? What is it?”

Michael breathed a sigh of relief as the pull on his energy was suddenly released, and it died down to a manageable hum. Slumping slightly at the cessation of tension, he turned back to face Maria.

“They must’ve stopped,” he informed her tight-lipped, and forced himself to stand there and wait with his senses turned inward to make sure that was true.

They had indeed stopped, though it hadn’t really been by choice.

It hadn’t been hard for Max and Liz to convince one another in the heat of passion that they didn’t have to call a halt as long as they could get their energy level under control. But before they’d had much of a chance to try and harness it, they’d been interrupted by the ringing of Liz’s phone.

Liz hadn’t said a word since she’d answered it. Between attempting to clear the haze of pleasure from her head, reigning in her raging energy, and slowing her breathing back to a normal pace, it was difficult to focus on what was being said on the other end. But Kyle’s words soon brought a halt to all her efforts to bring herself under control, and sent panic slicing through her.

Max was having the same struggle Liz was in pulling himself together. It probably wasn’t helping that he still had a hand on her back, under the pretext of soothing her while he gently stroked her shoulder-blade. It was mostly there because he couldn’t bring himself to stop touching her, even though it was keeping their connection alive. After she’d stood listening to who ever was on the other end of the phone for a few silent moments, Max was alarmed to feel the heavy wave of dread that pumped into him through their link, and all the color drained from her face as she dropped limply to the edge of the bed.

“What is it?” he asked with quiet urgency, dropping to sit beside her, and automatically putting an arm around her to comfort her. “Liz, who is it? What’s going on?”

Liz turned her head to look at him, her eyes wide and dark with horror.

“It’s Kyle,” she rasped hoarsely in answer. “He says Tess is leaving Roswell.”


[ edited 2 time(s), last at 29-Nov-2001 12:37:28 AM ]
posted on 29-Nov-2001 12:50:04 AM by Destinee
Thanks so much for the great feedback you guys. You're all are just the best. (where's that heart smiley when you need it?)

I don't know why I'm having such a hard time getting into it lately, but the writing just isn't happening for some reason. I'm determined that I'm not going to give up on it until I finish though, and you guys are the reason for that. Thanks for all your encouragement. *happy*

ER I just may take you up on that PM. Thanks for the offer. *happy*

mia sorry about that. I'm not exactly sure where part 52 got off to on this board, but I just updated on the Repost board and you can find it there. I put a link at the beginning of this chapter that'll take you there. *happy*

Thanks again for all the kind words, guys!
posted on 2-Dec-2001 4:58:55 PM by Destinee
Tas! *bounce* It's so great to hear from you! Thanks a bunch for the feedback. You didn't sound incoherent at all to me. *happy* I so appreciate all your comments on the love scene, and can't help but be gratified that the part about Sara made you feel so emotional. *big* I absolutely agree on all those things you said I 'need' to do, it's just the getting there that seems to be so hard at the moment. LOL.

Still suffering from that cursed writer's block, but I think you're right Evid. I thought the same thing, that I need to go back and reread what I've already written to try to get back on track. I was really flattered by all you went through to find my recent updates. Thanks so much for the compliment. *happy* And by all means, I'm always up for any ideas you might have, so feel free to post here or PM me. It just might get the creative flow going again to get your take on things.

I really appreciate all your feedback guys, and I honestly am doing my best to get the next part out, but I really can't say when that might be. I hope you all can be patient with me, and I'll try to make it worth your wait. *happy*
posted on 8-Dec-2001 5:52:54 PM by Destinee
Thanks for the bump angeleyes! I appreciate the encouragement. *happy*

Yeah, it's still coming pretty slowly LTL. Thanks for asking. *happy* I'm pluggin' on, though, and I'm determined I'm gonna get the next part up before the weekend is out. It may be Sunday night, and it may not be concluded, but it WILL be up, by golly. LOL.

Thanks for your suggestions. That's really a good idea about Michael talking to her. I have to say I'm pretty much just moving on with this blindly. I had no idea before it happened that the situation with Tess was going to come to a head like this. Not at this moment anyway. I'm not at all sure that I'm even liking the chapter I'm working on, but, like I said, I'm pluggin' on with it. *big*