You have all been very patient with me as I wandered so far adrift from my usual intense focus on Max and Liz. Believe me, they are still the beating heart of my love for Roswell and this story. But Kyle's story was very important to my ultimate goal for Chameleon, and as you seem to agree, it's a pretty complex story.
HOWEVER . . . we are going to spend this week with our beloved couple. They have some talking to do (what? you want more than talking?
), and I've missed them as much as you have. I hope you enjoy being back with our sweethearts.
(Posted in two posts.)
Part 34
“What’s that about?” Maria frowned.
Liz just stared at the door, still conscious of the wisps of hot air that sliced through the air conditioning after Max stormed out of the apartment. What was that about? She was almost afraid to know the answer to that question. She could only think of one reason he’d be furious to discover Kyle was Zan’s father when his reaction to Tess being Zan’s mother was only unhappy resignation. And that reason stabbed at her heart, opening old wounds she had thought healed long ago.
“I have no idea,” she mumbled through tight lips. She turned to head into their bedroom, wanting only to be alone.
“Liz, aren’t you going after him?” Maria asked incredulously, casting a pleading look for help in Michael’s direction.
“He knows where to find me,” Liz ground out, and slammed the door. Leaning back against it, she heard Maria’s fear undercut what she intended as an order.
“Michael, do something!”
Maria had walked every mile of Liz and Max’s rough times right alongside her friend, and there was no question that she didn’t want to revisit those days.
“Like what?” Michael bit back, a similar undercurrent of uneasiness in his voice.
“Like . . . fix it,” Maria finished lamely.
Liz threw herself on the bed and did what she always did when her emotions took her somewhere she didn’t want to go—she tried to analyze the situation. First, Max was as surprised as anyone that Zan was undoubtedly Tess’s. There was no other explanation for the little boy’s developing powers. But that news had been met with reluctant acceptance and more than a little curiosity about Zan’s origins. Then, when she told him Kyle was the father, his emotions had fairly burst out of his façade of control, even to the point where Liz couldn’t get past the emotional “noise” to understand its cause.
Her first reaction was to assume he was jealous that Kyle had fathered a child with Tess. But did that make sense? Liz was completely sure of Max’s love for her. Still, that didn’t preclude some leftover sense of innate connection to another hybrid with whom he thought he’d fathered a child. Had he grown used to the idea? He had embraced Zan as his son in his mind for months before the baby was even born. Then, during their week together, he had felt the emotional bond of father and son. And for weeks after that, he coped with the painful sacrifice of giving his son up.
Then their honeymoon night, when the truth became clear, there had only been relief and joy and ecstatic union. But what about the trauma of losing that father-son bond? Was it like really losing a son? Did he miss that sense of having brought a piece of himself into the world, in spite of the horrific circumstances? And had it all been easier to accept when he could believe there were loving parents out there grieving for the loss of their human child? As perhaps his own mother—his Antarian mother—grieved for the loss of her son for much the same reason?
What if, in spite of Max’s love for her, a child born of their union would be somehow less? Somehow a compromise when compared to a completely hybrid child—a living testament to a rare and special species? Did Kyle, Zan’s human father, taint Zan’s bloodlines, diminish his value in Max’s eyes?
Liz could feel the anger and fear gripping her heart as her mind spun wildly out of control. What if Max didn’t want a family with her? What if—eventually—he didn’t want her? What if . . .?
The door flew open so hard that it bounced almost closed behind Max as he strode into the room, and he stood staring at her with a stunned expression that was at once angry and disbelieving. She jumped up, startled and defensive. His jaw worked furiously, but no sound came out, until . . .
“What the hell are you thinking? Have you lost your mind? After all we’ve been through, after the connection we’ve formed, how can you be thinking like this? How . . .?”
He searched her face, looking so shocked that Liz felt almost compelled to turn her head just to make sure a second one hadn’t popped out next to her. His ragged breaths seemed disproportionately loud as she gaped back at him, only now beginning to realize that he had heard her thoughts and come running to confront her. And in the midst of her confusion, she found it odd that a detached piece of her should notice how beautiful he looked with his skin glowing with perspiration and his muscular chest heaving under his damp shirt.
“You were so upset about Kyle, like you were jealous . . .”
Her sentence fell into Max’s mouth as he covered hers with a ferocity that shot a thrill down her spine. He kissed her angrily, thoroughly, with such dominance that she felt she had been yelled at, punished, and then forgiven with the sweep of a tongue over bruised lips. By the time he was done, the kiss gentled, and she felt his hands release her arms and slide around her, cinching her tighter and tighter into his body.
“For a smart girl, you sure can be dumb,” he mumbled into her hair.
Liz’s last ember of anger sputtered to life, and she pulled back from him. “Then why don’t you tell me what the hell you’re thinking?”
The tension that had stiffened his body sagged into itself, and he sat heavily on the edge of the bed, pulling her down by the hand to join him.
“I’m sorry, Liz. I felt so angry, and I just had to sort it out. I needed to run some junk out of my system, you know? I’m sorry I left you confused; that was wrong, but . . .” He threw her another disbelieving look. “. . . but I didn’t get far when your thoughts got me even crazier! My god, Liz!”
“You were going to tell me why you were so angry. If it wasn’t jealousy . . .”
Max shook his head and rolled his eyes. “Jealousy.” He chuckled without humor. “What’s the opposite of jealousy, Liz? What word describes the feeling you have when dislike and even loathing turn into a hatred so consuming, you think you may become paralyzed by it? When you realize that you had the power to destroy something so evil that it was like a living poison in your midst, destroying anything good that it touched and leaving nothing but the pain in its wake—what if you could have destroyed it and you didn’t!”
He stood suddenly and went to face himself in the small mirror over the dresser, squinting as if he wasn’t sure he recognized his reflection. Liz gripped the bedspread, tingling with the extreme energy Max was exuding, but she said nothing.
“When I realized Tess had used Kyle, I didn’t feel just anger—just righteous indignation that she had taken another family’s child for her own purposes. It became personal, Liz.” He turned to face her, then, his eyes pleading with her to understand. “It is personal. She took a friend, someone who had become like her family, and robbed him of his free will. She used his body and his mind and his trust to rape him, create a child with him, and then take that child away when he didn’t even know it existed. It was bad enough what she did to me, and I hated her for what she did to you, Liz. But this was the worst—or shall I say, a personal best for her. This was so low, I can’t . . . I can’t even conceive of it.”
Liz opened her mouth to correct him. Kyle hadn’t been mindwarped—at least not during that part. Manipulated, yes. But not mindwarped. Not until after Zan was conceived did she psychically alter his emotions. But Liz didn’t get the chance to speak; Max was on a roll.
“And who knows how long she had him under a warp. Look what happened to Alex! Kyle’s had nothing but grief since he found out about us. Now he has a son? An alien son? What’s he supposed to do about that? He’ll be at Zan’s mercy eventually. How do you discipline a kid who can squash you like a bug before he’s old enough to understand what he’s doing? I mean, come on. Kyle’s got his faults, but he doesn’t deserve that. I swear to God, Liz, if she weren’t already dead, I honestly think I could do it now. And I don’t like feeling that way.”
Max took a deep breath, blowing it out slowly, then wiggled the fingers that had cramped from being curled into fists for so long. He had to calm down. His feet started to wear a path around the room.
“And what about Zan? By telling us he was human, Tess endangered him all the more. I gave him away! I sent him off without any defense against a world that would be waiting to study him like a lab rat. He could have been killed . . . or worse.”
Max knew firsthand that there was something worse than being killed, and the thought that this could have been Zan’s fate sent a wave of nausea through him that hit Liz, too. And it didn’t improve much knowing what they all faced now. Liz tightened her grip on the quilt and tried to breathe deeply, quelling the urge to throw up.
“We have to help raise him, you know, Liz.” He’d stopped his pacing and turned on her, looking with trepidation for her reaction to what had just struck him. “Kyle can’t do it alone. He won’t know how. Now he’s tied to us, when I think what he really wanted was to get to a place where he could escape this insanity and make a life that had nothing to do with us. Can you even imagine what he’s feeling right now? And what about Serena? He was starting to fall for her. This has probably condemned that relationship, even if she’s willing to accept Zan, which I doubt.”
Liz caught Max’s hand as he passed by for the umpteenth time and pulled him down to sit next to her. He didn’t resist but turned to face her with such helplessness on his face and in his voice. “Some of us were born to this, Liz. And some of you signed on, for better or for worse.” He touched her ring, running a fingertip over its smooth metal and rough stone. “But not Kyle. He’s been dragged into this by default, because I changed him and there’s nothing he can do about it.”
He sighed, slumping further into himself, but held her gaze, earnest and emotional. “This may sound odd, Liz, but I’ve been watching Kyle. He’s turning into a . . . a great guy.”
Liz’s eyes widened and her lips fell open in surprise.
“What did you say?”
Max’s mouth twitched at one corner. “I know I don’t usually say nice things about Kyle, but . . .”
“Max, those were Future Max’s almost exact words to me when he was suggesting I get back with Kyle after I made you fall out of love with me.”
“What?”
“You sat on my rooftop while I cried my heart out and told me maybe it was all for the best. That you’d been watching me with Kyle and he was turning into a ‘great guy.’ You said maybe I’d be better off with a human.”
She watched his face change, and then he was reaching for her, sliding his large hand down her jaw line, and tilting her face up to meet his. His lips fluttered lightly over hers, vibrating ever so slightly with one whispered phrase.
“I pray I was wrong about that.”
And then his lips pressed fully into hers, more insistent this time, asking for forgiveness and granting it all at once. She opened to him, mind and body, and they soared to that hidden plane they reached only when they were together like this, and the flashes welcomed them. The dark-haired toddler they had seen once before fell happily into her . . . her? . . . father’s outstretched arms, and he swung her into the air, grinning back at the rapturous face, alight with the rush of flight and the security of loving hands. And as he lowered the child to his chest, the two reached to enfold a third—Liz, smiling with such pure happiness that it fairly shone around them.
They parted, looking for and finding confirmation that the other had seen it, too, and bursting with the knowledge that this joy was part of their future.
“I love you, Liz. I want you and only you and always have. I want your heart and your body and someday, our babies. When you doubt that, it’s like driving a stake into my heart. I don’t know how to make you believe it, but . . .”
Her fingers stilled his words. “I do believe it, Max. I do. Maybe it was shock or the heat or just being afraid of not understanding what you were feeling, but I went a little crazy, that’s all. I’ve gotten so used to feeling you inside me . . .” She halted when his sincere expression faltered into a sexy smirk for an instant, and she couldn’t help but smile back. “I mean feeling your thoughts inside me. It scared me when I felt your violent reaction but couldn’t understand it.”
His concern returned, and she touched the crease between his eyebrows with a fingertip.
“You were wrong, Max. I could never be with anyone but you.”
This time the kiss carried them down into the softness of the quilt, and their hands reached out for the reassuring familiarity of a body that was gradually becoming a part of their own. Words from a song Liz loved popped into her mind when she touched her husband—“muscle and sinew, velvet and stone . . . Make myself translucent to let you in.” And suddenly she wanted nothing more than to let him in. “I am wanting, I am needing you here inside the absence of fear.” That’s what their love was—should always be: the absence of fear. How could she have forgotten that, even for a minute?
The loving caresses gradually filed away the rough edges of their broken connection, and soon the nature of their touches altered, evolving into a familiar need to make their bodies one, as well. Liz felt Max shiver when her fingers ducked under his t-shirt and began to trace the fluctuating hills and valleys of his abdomen—muscle and sinew—and against her hips, pressed firmly into her own, she felt him respond to her—velvet and stone. Whoever wrote that song knew something about love—physical, emotional, spiritual. They knew its feel and its power. The headiness of knowing that she held such power over Max, and his complete willingness to let her wield that power always left her feeling at once invincible and humble. It was the greatest act of love Max could offer—giving her control. And she knew that this power didn’t stop with his body; he was incapable of separating that from his own heart, his very soul.
His hands pushed roughly at her tank top and one breast sprang free, almost leaping into his grateful palm. Matching moans passed between them at the contact, and Liz arched into him, wriggling against the hardness that pressed into her stomach. Max’s mouth left hers and he bent to suckle at her breast, his tongue teasing her nipple to a pebbled peak, leaving her gasping above his ear. Her hand came up to press his head hard into her, and she closed her eyes, head thrown back as the warmth spread quickly through her.
His fingers homed in, confident of their target. He knew the magic combinations now; he knew when and where and how hard. She had wondered more than once as her body sang in response to his talented hands, mouth, cock, whether he consciously studied her responses or whether his instincts had just been honed by the weeks of having her come apart in his arms.
She struggled to swim up from the dazed depths of his ministrations to offer him some of the same sensuous attention. He was peeling her top off now, and the shift in position forced his hips across her bare midriff, leaving an invisible trail of damp warmth. He was already primed for her, and the faint whiff of his juices triggered a primal response from deep within her.
She rolled him backwards and straddled him, nostrils flaring at the way his eyes followed her breasts, and the bulge beneath her twitched and swelled. She parted her lips, needing the oxygen from both nose and mouth to contain the ragged breathing that accompanied her wildly beating heart. She inched his t-shirt off of him, thinking again how he reminded her of an agile cat, muscles working smoothly just beneath the surface—sleek strength, leashed power.
His fingers dove into her hair and fell away, letting the strands cascade over them and down to her shoulders. Then again and again, until she leaned gradually forward, closing the distance between them. As her hair tickled his chest and shoulders, he raised his head to take her mouth, pulling her back down with him, and they both gasped when their nipples touched. The jolt began a wild frenzy of need. Fingers attacked the zippers and buttons that stood in their way, and Liz thrilled to the desperate need in Max that matched her own.
Liz could feel the heat from Max’s erection through the thick denim, and she could smell his juices simmering just beneath the surface. It was igniting her, pushing her to a recklessness she rarely allowed herself. Every time she felt her passion rising, she could feel Max respond in kind. They were driving each other higher, feeding off of each other’s abandon, humming with energy and passion, their explosive potential barely contained.
The final layers of clothing hit the floor, and Liz felt Max’s hands cupping her from behind, urging her up his body, further and further. Without question, she followed his lead, unprepared for the onslaught of sensation that ripped through her when he lifted her up and over his mouth, suckling her heat as he had her breasts. She may have screamed; she wasn’t sure. But this new attack on her senses was unprecedented. In spite of herself, she pressed into him, deeper, deeper, feeling him devour her, penetrate her, tease her clit with his teeth. The coil that tightened within her ached with the anticipation of release.
She wouldn’t go without him! Not this time. This was a union, a healing, and they would get there together. She lifted herself with fierce determination, almost cumming in response to the raw possession and lust in his eyes. She wriggled down his body again, slipping off the side of the bed where his legs still dangled, and brought her mouth to his hard, burning length. It leapt within her lips, seeping profusely.
“Liz!”
A plea, a cry, a prayer. As far as she was aware, that was the first coherent syllable from either of them since they had escalated into this elevated state of sexual abandon. She’d never felt so alive.
Only seconds of laving his sensitive tip and sucking him in deeply, and Liz felt him fly up to pull her away from him.
“Now!”
He pulled her up and onto her back in one smooth motion, and then he took her, plunging in with a cry that came from long-locked depths. Once there, he stilled, as if momentarily stunned at having found what he so desperately sought. His head nestled in the crook of Liz’s neck, and she heard him whisper, so softly and reverently, she felt tears spring to her eyes.
“I was wrong. You’re mine. Just mine.” And with that, he began to move, more gently but no less urgently, until the pressure could no longer be contained and their muscles melted into each other in a shattering release. Even minutes later, when Max’s long, trembling sigh signaled his return to the bonds of earth, Liz couldn’t bring herself to release her twin hold on him, arms and legs only an outward sign of the oneness she still felt with her lover.
“So what did you say?” Max asked.
“Mmmm, what? What did I say to who?”
‘To me, Future me, when I said maybe you’d be better off with a human.”
Liz tightened her grip again, and smiled into his hair.
“I said you were the love of my life, and that anyone else would just be second best.”
And as his tears slid over her shoulder, she kept him enclosed in the protective circle of her body and her heart—inside the absence of fear.
continued in next post