Coupling: M/L
Rating: ADULT
Disclaimer: I don’t own Roswell and so on and so on and so on.
Summary: Read Elisabetta and Massimiliano first. If you haven’t, get thee to the previous story post haste. Find it here: http://www.roswellfanatics.net/viewtopic.php?t=5959. As for those of you who have read the previous story… Liz’s parents come to visit.
Chapter 1
“I am going to scream!”
When his wife follows that soft pronouncement with a colorful string of Italian curses Max wisely ducks back around the corner from whence he came. Unfortunately, he is not quick enough in his getaway to be missed by Liz’s hawk-like eye.
“Don’t you dare take another step,” she orders him sharply, “Massimiliano Ricci! Vieni qui adesso! Get in here right now.”
Max pops back around the corner and slinks into the study, wide-eyed with innocence. However, he wisely hovers in the doorframe, not daring to venture closer. “Tesoro, you don’t sound so happy.”
“You could say that,” Liz replies with exaggerated calm, “Do you know what just happened?” Max shakes his head slowly. “I just hung up the phone with my mother. She and my father want to come visit this weekend. They’ve already bought the plane tickets. We can expect them tomorrow afternoon. Can you believe it? Tomorrow afternoon!” Max isn’t surprised when she makes good on her earlier threat and screams at the top of her lungs.
Normally, such a pronouncement would not throw a person into a quandary but Liz’s situation is unique. She hasn’t had a conversation with her parents in nearly six months and the last one she did have was barely civil. However, now that they are about to become grandparents, Jeff and Nancy Parker seem eager to mend the rift they have created with their daughter. And Liz, despite all her protestations to the contrary, wants to mend the rift as well. Her impending parenthood has given her a unique perspective on her parents but her knowledge does little to lessen her anger towards them.
“What was I thinking?” she moans, collapsing heavily the nearby desk chair and burying her face into her hands, “This is going to be a disaster, Max! They can’t come this weekend. Why did I tell them yes? Perchè?”
Max knows better than to even attempt answering those rhetorical questions. He has learned through rather painful trial and error to stand aside and nod agreeably when his wife finds herself in one of these moods. There is no need to point out to her that her desire to see her parents again is natural and something she should not regret. She will only itemize the laundry list of their bad behavior towards her. And, far be it from Max, to point out those very things to her himself because then she would accuse him of belittling her parents. He will not win either way. Better to stand mute and nod. Yes, Max decides wisely, nodding is very good.
However, Liz fixes him with flashing brown eyes, evidently not finding the nodding good at all. “Well, aren’t you going to say something?” she snips, “Are you just going to stand there and stare or what?”
He rolls his shoulders in a shrug, taking no offense at her snappy tone. “Segui il tuo cuore, Lisa,” he replies sagely, “Go with your instincts, tesoro. I cannot tell you what to do.”
“My instincts are all out of whack,” she sniffles and then her voice lowers to a bare whisper, “Despite everything they’ve done…I just really want to see them again, Max.”
He goes to kneel before her then, framing her rotund girth between his hands. “You must not worry yourself this way, Lisa,” Max murmurs in concern, “It is not good for you or the baby.” Max turns his face into Liz’s belly and kisses the spot where her navel protrudes through her sundress. He can’t suppress his delighted chuckle when his daughter shifts beneath his lips. “Va tutto bene qui dentro, piccola?” he murmurs laughingly. As if she understands, the baby does one more rolling shift and Max laughs in response. “She’s learning Italian already.”
Liz relaxes under Max’s easy demeanor and her daughter’s thudding kicks. A weary smile flutters over her lips as she tangles one hand into Max’s hair, cradling his face against her belly, and the other she rests at the top of her belly. “I know I’m probably overreacting,” she considers in sighing agreement, “I’ve gotten myself much too worked up over it. So they’re visiting…big deal…”
Max glances up at her, his eyes soft with love and devotion. “Is it really not a big deal to you, Lisa?” he wonders softly.
“God…it’s the biggest,” she admits in a miserable mumble, “This is what I’ve wanted for a year now, if for no other reason than to tell them off to their faces.”
“But you have enough to deal with as it is, Lisa,” he counters logically, “You already take the responsibility for the anniversary party all on your own shoulders. You do not need this as well.”
Liz pulls her lower lip between her teeth, considering her husband’s wise words and knowing that he is right. “Should I call them back then?” she wonders in uncertainty.
“No,” Max replies, shaking his head though his instincts call for another answer, “You have told them to come. Don’t complicate matters by taking it back. We should not put this meeting off any longer.”
Max is not eager to meet his in-laws. It is true that they have been less than gracious towards him since he and Liz married but that is not the reason Max harbors such hostility. On the contrary, he does not like the way they treat Liz and how they are so controlling of her. When she asserts her independence and refuses to live her life according to their standards they cut her out, as if she never existed for them at all. He does not want Liz to endure any more pain but simultaneously he knows if she does not see them this time she will regret it for the rest of her life.
“They will stay here,” Max pronounces wearily, “We will make up the guest room.”
“Are you sure?” she queries, “I don’t want you to feel put out in your own house, Max.” He assures her to the contrary yet Liz realizes how much the assent costs him. He does not want her parents there. She can see the truth in his eyes, but he loves her more than his own personal comfort. Max will endure her parents’ visit if it means she will be happy. Liz loves him all the more for his unselfish spirit. “You don’t think they’ll ruin your parents’ anniversary party?”
She asks this as if he’s the one who has put all the plans into motion when, in reality, Liz has worked herself into the ground to make sure his parents’ 35th wedding anniversary party goes off without a hitch. Liz has overseen the theme, the decorations, the invitations and entertainment. The only hardship Max has had is keeping up the pretense that his parents have no clue what she is planning. Liz has yet to learn that NO ONE surprises Diana Ricci. Many have attempted and failed miserably. Even his sister has bought into the idea and she should know better.
However, Max does not have the heart to tell either of them. Both Liz and Isabella have put so much work into sending out the invitations to both sides of his, planning the menu and organizing the festivities that Max feels sick with guilt when he watches them work so tirelessly. It is an awesome and pitiable thing to watch the two of them waddle about heavily as they set their plans into motion when they should be resting their swollen ankles instead. Max does not see the harm in letting them believe that their surprise is still in tact and, considering this latest drama with Liz’s parents, it seems his wife needs to hold onto that illusion.
“Tesoro, nothing will ruin the party,” he assures her, “Because you and Isabella have planned it. Mamma and Papà will love it just for that reason.”
“Volesse il cielo! From your lips to God’s ears,” Liz murmurs theatrically. It is an Italian oath she has heard Diana say many times and now she has made a habit of it as well.
“You should rest,” Max tells her, “I am sure you have not left this room all day. It is not healthy for you.”
“There’s still so much to do,” she argues, “The seating arrangement has to be just right otherwise all our hard work could end in disaster. I have to be sure to keep your mother away from Maria and Maria away from Michele and his new girlfriend.”
Max heaves an inward sigh of chagrin. His family has known more controversy and drama in the past year they’ve known Maria DeLuca than in the preceding decade. The petite blonde has rightly earned her nickname: Hurricane DeLuca indeed.
She and Michele shared a brief but torrid romance before Michele’s refusal to move to America and Maria’s refusal to relocate to Tuscany broke the couple apart. There had been no give between them. Consequently, they burned out just as abruptly as they began. The fact that Diana hated Maria thoroughly only managed to exacerbate the situation. Now Michele has a new girlfriend and she and Maria will inevitably come face to face that weekend. No wonder Liz feels the need to scream. Despite his reassurances, Max suspects the weekend will be a volatile one. All the more reason for Liz to lie down and rest.
He rises to his feet and tugs her from the chair. “You need a nap,” he declares, making a sweeping gesture over her many stacks of correspondence, “This will all wait until tomorrow. I will help you then.”
“But, Max…” she protests half-heartedly as he pulls her from the study and down the hallway towards their bedroom, “I really should finish… I still have more invitations to send out. I can’t afford to procrastinate.”
“Piu tardi, amore mio,” Max insists, ushering her towards the bed, “You will take a nap. I will not argue with you about this.”
With a timid nod of acquiesce, Liz obediently curls up onto the bed and allows Max to remove her sandals. However, she pouts when he starts to head from the bedroom after tucking her beneath the covers. “Aren’t you going to stay with me?” she asks.
“I don’t want to disturb you.”
Liz whips back the covers in invitation. “You won’t,” she maintains sweetly, “Get in.”
Max wastes little time climbing in beside her and snuggling close. They huddle together awkwardly for Liz’s distended abdomen between them. “I’ll only stay until you fall asleep,” he tells her, but after a few moments it becomes apparent that his wife has other plans for him. Her fingers drift up and down his chest in a languid trail. She glances them over his nipples, fanning them into hardness through the thin material of his shirt. “Lisa,” Max groans, trapping her hand against his body, “You’re supposed to be relaxing, remember?”
Liz shifts over onto her back so that Max is leaned above her. She cups the back of his head with her free hand to bring him close for a very slow, very thorough kiss. “I can’t think of a better way to relax…can you?” she murmurs against his ear provocatively, “Ti voglio dentro di mi. Voglio sentire le tue mani sul mio corpo.” She pulls her hand from beneath his and then brings his fingers to her lips, sucking each tip with sensual deliberateness. “Qui, tesoro, toccami qui,” she whispers, before dragging his palm down her body to cover her breast. “Accarezzami, Max.”
Max groans again, his body flaring with need at her softly murmured words in his native tongue. “Lisa…” he moans as she leans up to kiss him again, her tongue skating lightly over his lower lip, “…you promised to rest…”
“Uh-uh,” Liz murmurs with a shake of her head and a cheeky smile, “I never promised anything.”
But she needn’t have said a word because Max has already swung them upright and his fingers are hurriedly unfastening the buttons on the front of her sundress. He eagerly bares her supple flesh to his eyes, pushing the spaghetti straps of her dress from her shoulders with a small sigh of satisfaction. His breath catches as he cups the heavy fullness of her breasts in his palms. “Dio…tu sei bellissima,” he whispers, watching her nipples hardened beneath his glancing touch.
Liz arches into his hands, whimpering in pleasure-pain when he pinches her lightly. It has been some time since they last made love. As her due date approaches Max grows more and more wary of doing so. They have kissed and caressed, as passionate with one another as always, but Max never lets their loveplay go too far. However, now his body is outrageously starved after such a long period of self-contained abstinence and Max knows if he continues to touch her this way he will be unable to hold off any longer.
Reluctantly, he removes his hands from her breasts and rolls away, clenching his fists into the bed sheets. His wife does not make it easy for him though. She crawls up behind him and begins an insistent nibbling to the back of his neck. “I don’t want to stop,” she murmurs thickly, “Max…I need you…” Her hands slide down the front of his chest, towards his aching groin where his cock is begging to be touched. Max captures her hand mid-descent.
“I do not think this idea is so good,” he gulps.
“Why?”
“Lisa…” he moans, “I do not want to hurt you…or the baby…”
“You won’t hurt us,” Liz whispers, plunging her tongue into his ear, “My doctor said it’s perfectly fine for use to make love right up until my due date.” She nuzzles against his lobe. “Don’t you want to be inside me, Max?” He groans at the question. “Don’t you miss it?”
“Please don’t do this…” he begs, his eyes already drifting shut in mute ecstasy as she continues her seductive caresses, “We can do…other things…”
“I don’t want to feel your fingers inside me this time, Max,” she continues in a relentless whisper, “I want it to be you…scopami… sbattimi …”
Max shudders with lust at her terminology, turned on by her boldness. “Dio…why did I teach you these words?” he groans, “You know you can't say that to any man except me?”
“Well, duh…Max…” Liz grins against his cheek. “Besides you knew I’d put them to good use,” she teases, “So what do you say, tesoro…”
She knows she has won the battle even before Max whips around to capture her lips in a ravenous kiss. He bears her back to the bed, plundering her mouth and simultaneously pushing aside her sundress so that her torso is left bare. He surges his tongue deep, tangling it with hers, and they work together to free Liz of her panties. “Do not mention this to my mamma,” he warns as he frantically shrugs out of his own clothing before easing down onto the bed so Liz can straddle him, “She will kill me…”
Liz grasps his bouncing cock in her eager hands and slides him inside her moist folds. “Don’t worry,” she whispers, “Your secret is safe with me.”
Translations: (You should know some of this stuff from last time. Here’s the new stuff.)
Perchè = Why?
Segui il tuo cuore = Do what your heart tells you (loosely)
Va tutto bene qui dentro, piccola = Is everything fine in there, baby?
Volesse il cielo = Could it be Heaven’s Will
Ti voglio dentro di mi. Voglio sentire le tue mani sul mio corpo = I need you inside me. I need to feel your hands on my body
Accarezzami = stroke/caress me
scopami… sbattimi = Do we really need to go there? You’re going to have to use your imagination for this one.
