Roswell Fanatics

Chapter Nineteen

“Do you want a drink?” Max asked lamely when they entered the house an hour later.

Liz had cried the entire ride home and Max had fought very hard not to. He had learned that while his father had him pinned against the wall, Liz’s father had cornered her in similar fashion. She, too, had been threatened with disownment and ruin if she dissolved their marriage. But Max knew that right now that wasn’t what Liz found most devastating. She was mourning the loss of her father and the relationship they had shared. The bitter way Jeff Parker had treated her tonight had utterly shattered her.

Presently, she drifted into the living room on gelatin like legs and dropped onto the sofa in a dejected heap. Staring off blankly into space, she licked at the tears collecting at the corners of her mouth and asked almost dully, “Did…did that really just happen?”

Max settled down beside her and pulled her into his arms. “He didn’t mean it,” he whispered into her hair, “I know he didn’t mean it.”

“It’s like he couldn’t stand the sight of me,” Liz whimpered into his shoulder, “I can’t understand why he was so hateful. He called me a…a whore, Max.” She started to shake with renewed sobs.

“He didn’t mean it, Liz,” Max said again, but he didn’t sound any more convinced than he had the first time.

“I don’t care,” Liz cried into his chest pitifully, “I don’t ever want to see him again.”

“Don’t say that,” Max admonished gently, “You don’t mean it.”

“Yes, I do! I’ll never forgive him for what he did to me in there…what he let your father do to you.”

As if on cue the telephone began to ring insistently. Liz gazed up at Max with an expectant look, her heart suspended. Their minds converged in the mutual thought that it might be their parents. “Let it ring,” he said softly, unwilling to relinquish the small gift of holding her against him. A moment later their answering machine blared to life.

“This is Max and Liz’s place. We’re unavailable for your call right now…leave your name, leave your number, leave a message…who knows, we might call you back.” Both Liz and Max chuckled over their silly message, both thinking back to the day when they’d made it. The first day of their married life, when they had actually been naïve enough to believe that this situation could somehow work out.

A second later the machine beeped and both Max and Liz waited with bated breaths to discover who was calling. They were only mildly surprised when Tess’ voice exploded through the speaker. “Max, are you there?” she asked impatiently, “God, do you know how much I hate this message of yours? If you’re there pick up the phone.”

Max and Liz continued staring at one another, very quiet and still. “Maybe you should get that,” Liz suggested gently. But Max didn’t move, didn’t breath. He only continued staring at her as if she was the only thing in the world he could see or wanted to see. “Max, she’s expecting you,” Liz prodded.

With a disgruntled sigh Max reached over the arm of the sofa and swept up the phone. “Hey, Tess,” he said in greeting.

“Hey, Tess?” she exploded, more than a little irate, “That’s all you have to say to me? You were supposed to be here half an hour ago! I’ve been waiting for you to call and nothing!”

“Don’t get mad,” he soothed calmly, “I got caught up with my dad. We had a really bad blowout, okay. Liz is really upset.”

“Liz?” Tess said, her tone suddenly tense and suspicious, “What does Liz have to do with you and your father getting into a fight.”

“She was there,” Max explained, “Her dad laid into her pretty good, too.”

“Where are you now?” Tess asked him carefully.

Max never took his eyes from Liz as he spoke. “I’m with Liz right now,” he told Tess, “We’re home. She doesn’t need to be alone tonight.”

“I’ll come over then,” Tess interjected quickly.

“That’s not a good idea,” Max protested, “Listen, I need to be here with Liz right now. Please try and understand.”

“You said you were spending time with me tonight…you promised.”

“Tess, she’s had a rough night. God!” Max exploded, having reached the limits of his patience, “Have a little compassion!”

“Oh, so now I don’t have any compassion?”

Max closed his eyes, stifling the long-suffering sigh that threatened at his lips. She was doing this on purpose, trying to provoke a fight with him so that she could put him on the defensive. Max was not in the mood. After the hell he and Liz had endured that night, first before their meeting with their fathers and then the actual meeting itself Max was in no shape to deal with more drama.

Determined to maintain his patience as well as his temper Max said evenly, “I won’t be able to come over tonight, okay. We’ll just reschedule for later.”

“You’re choosing her over me?” Tess demanded in affront.

“I just told you Liz was in a bad way,” Max retorted shortly.

“Then let her call her brother!” Tess snapped in return, “Or Isabel. She’s got several people she could call to come over and hold her hand so why do you have to stay?”

“I want to stay.”

Just those four softly spoken words caused Liz to jerk her eyes to his face in surprise. Though she could only hear half of the conversation Liz could tell that with each moment that progressed Max was growing more and more aggravated. Liz didn’t need to hear Tess’ side of the conversation to know that she was unhappy with Max’s decision. But her heart was warmed when she realized that Max was determined to stay despite Tess’ displeasure. She smiled at him gently as he and Tess continued to verbally duke it out.

“You want to stay with her?” Tess parroted, aghast, “That’s your decision?”

“She’s my friend,” Max argued.

“I’m your girlfriend,” Tess returned tartly.

“And she’s my wife!” Max finally exploded impatiently. And that was the end of the conversation. Tess hung up on him. Max held the receiver to his ear for a few moments more, somewhat shocked that she’d actually hung up on him before slowly replacing the phone in its cradle.

Liz noted the dumbfounded expression on his face with rising agitation. She felt a tremor of guilt, but couldn’t quite suppress her delight at how Max had yelled, “And she’s my wife!” “I don’t guess that went well,” she prompted gingerly.

“She’s pissed at me,” Max confirmed stiffly. He snorted a bitter laugh. “I guess she needs to take a number cuz she’s not the only one!”

“Maybe you should go to her,” Liz suggested softly. She actually wanted to kick herself for saying anything at all, but she knew that her conscience would just eat away at her if she didn’t say something. “I can call A--,”

“No,” Max interrupted, pressing his finger against her lips to quiet her, “I’m staying here with you tonight. If Tess can’t understand that then…fuck her.”

“Fuck her?” Liz repeated in astonishment. She’d never heard him speak that way about his beloved Tess before. Liz had to admit that she kinda liked it.

“Yeah, fuck her,” Max said again, more forcefully the second time, “You’ve been there when I needed you every single time, Liz…I can’t say I’ve done the same for you. I want to make that up.” He cupped her jaw, stroking his thumb over the ridge of her cheekbone. “So my offer for a drink still stands.”

Liz rolled her eyes in mock exasperation. “Oh yeah, Max,” she laughed sarcastically, “a Coca Cola’s going to make all the difference tonight.”

“Actually, I had something a little stronger in mind.”

When he left for the kitchen Liz settled back against the sofa as the evening’s events began to play over again in her mind. First there was the terrible fight they’d had in the car before going over to her parents. She’d actually told him she hated him, hated him of all things and yet here he was risking a major rift with Tess just to be at her side. And he thought that he hadn’t been there for her when she needed him? But Liz knew the reason he felt that way. She was the reason.

All this time Max had been struggling to do the right thing, not only for Tess, but for her and for their parents as well. He’d done the best he had been able to do in a situation that was near impossible and how had she repaid him? By threatening to take away her friendship if he couldn’t love her. When Liz thought about it now she was surprised Max didn’t hate her. What had been so different about her attempt at emotional blackmail and their parents’ emotional manipulation of their lives? Just the thought alone made Liz shudder with self-disgust.

But now here she was on one of the most awful days of her life and Max had chosen to stick by her side. She had been nothing but an emotional train wreck for the last three weeks, but he hadn’t deserted her when she needed him. Even dealing with his own emotional upheaval, made worse by the blowout he’d had with Tess, Max was managing to put her needs before his own. But instead of treating him with gratitude and respect for being honorable enough to stick along side her she had been punishing him. And for what? Because he couldn’t love her? Considering the petulant way she’d been acting lately Liz supposed that she hadn’t been all that lovable. Perhaps that was the reason her father had taken to hating her, too…

Max emerged from the kitchen a few minutes later, startling Liz from her thoughts. However, her morose feelings were dispelled entirely when she realized what he had in his arms. Her mouth fell open. “Where did you get all that?”

“I swiped it from my old man’s liquor cabinet,” he said with an irreverent grin, depositing the four bottles onto the glass coffee table: coconut rum, Jack Daniels, Stoli vodka and a two-liter Coke. “So what do you think?”

“The moral Max Evans reduced to stealing and underage drinking,” Liz gasped in mock affront, “I do believe I shall faint on the spot from the very thought.” Just for flare she swooned back against the sofa, which only earned her a bop on the head with a plastic cup. It rebounded off her forehead before rolling to the floor. Liz rubbed the spot, frowning up at Max. “That hurt, you know.”

“It did not, you wuss,” Max replied without a hint of remorse, “So are you into it or not?”

Liz tossed him an incredulous smile. “I know you’re not proposing we drink all this!”

Max flopped down beside her, already wrestling with the cap on the vodka. “That,” he said as he finally twisted the top free, “is exactly what I’m suggesting.” He scooped up the felled cup from the floor and set it along side the identical one he’d brought in along with the liquor. Max then proceeded to fill both cups with a liberal amount of vodka. He passed one to Liz. “Let’s get blind, stinking drunk.” And then he did something unbelievable. He downed the cup of vodka in one gulp.

For a moment Liz was absolutely sure that the liquor would come back up again. Max’s eyes watered and he sputtered several coughs before he managed to regain control. “Arghh, that was good,” he choked and for added effect he thumped his chest in manly achievement. “I’m ready for another.”

“Yeah…” Liz observed with a grimace, “You looked like you really enjoyed that first one a whole lot.” Her eyes widened in amazement as Max proceeded to down another shot of vodka straight up.

Shaking off the wave of dizziness that suddenly assailed him Max asked Liz, “Well, aren’t you gonna drink yours?”

“I think I’ll just watch you,” Liz replied cautiously.

“Aww, come on, Liz!” Max cajoled, his words only slightly slurred, “Our lives are completely fucked up! I mean, how much worse can it possibly get? We’re entitled to get shitfaced just on principle!” He gulped down his third shot of vodka.

“Max, maybe you’re doing that too fast,” Liz admonished in concern.

Max favored her with a sour look. “Are you planning to mother me all night or are you gonna drink?”

Liz decided to forgo the responsible route then. Max was the eldest here. If he wasn’t preaching prudence why the hell should she? She gulped down her vodka, trying to mimic Max’s earlier move and nearly choked. Liz was unprepared for the fiery burn the liquid made as it slid down her throat and into her belly. She gagged and coughed for several minutes while Max whacked her unhelpfully on the back. “Okay, okay!” she gasped when Max had thumped her one too many times, “I think I’m recovered enough. You’re gonna beat my lung right outta my chest! Good God!”

“Maybe you should try the Jack,” Max suggested soothingly.

“Okay,” Liz agreed, “but mix it with something.” Already she was beginning to feel a pleasant buzz, a warm, boneless tendril seeping through her limbs. She tapped her cup on the coffee table. “Hit me again.”

Chapter Twenty

“Ya look like a demented elf when ya grin like that,” Liz observed in a drunken slur more than an hour later.

“I do?”

“Yeah…but it kinda turns me on,” she replied offhand.

“Hmm…good to know,” was Max’s only response as he flopped over onto his back atop their leather chaise lounge. “I am sooo smashed.”

It hadn’t taken them long to polish off the entire bottle of Jack and the two liter. They had left the rum alone completely and instead had focused their attention on finishing off the Stoli. Most of the night had been spent laughing over times they had shared as children, swimming naked in the pond, digging for worms after a hard rain, hunting for fireflies in the fierce summer heat. Both lamented why life couldn’t have remained that simple and carefree. The more they reflected on how much had changed the more they drank until both were so plastered they could hardly stand.

Max rolled onto his side with a grunt, the bottle of Stoli hanging from his limp fingers. He would occasionally bring the rim to his mouth for a clumsy swig. The vodka didn’t burn nearly as much as it had at first. He grinned up at Liz, who was dancing to imaginary music across the room. “There’s two of you,” he mused happily, “Two lil’ Lizzies. Yay for me.” He clapped his hands together in giddy applause.

Liz looked about the room for her double, whirling around in drunken circles. “There’s two of me?” she asked in amazement, “Where…where is she? I have a twin!” Liz announced the last of this as if she’d just discovered the cure for the common cold, throwing one finger up into the air as if she‘d had a “eureka” moment. She stumbled over to Max and collapsed down beside him, fanning herself. “You know, Max, it’s gettin’ hot in here…”

“…so take off all your clothes,” Max sang in a drunken finish. And then together they chorused, “I am gettin’ so hot I wanna take my clothes off!” They fell into a fit of laughter, giggling and snorting in the most undignified fashion. Abruptly, Max sobered and began plucking at the buttons on Liz’s sensible blouse. “Hey, why don’tcha?” he suggested in a hot whisper.

“Why don’t I what?” Liz wondered dully, grabbing the vodka bottle from him and taking her own gulp. She laughed over how the liquor trickled from the corners of her mouth. When she looked down at Max again his eyes were darkened with unconcealed hunger. Her smile gradually faded from her lips. “What?” she asked again, swiping the back of her hand across her mouth.

“Take off your clothes,” Max urged with a sexy half grin.

For a moment Liz regarded him in blank stupor and then she playfully slapped at his shoulder. “Yer not serious,” Liz slurred incredulously.

“I wanna see ya naked,” Max insisted, already tugging her blouse from the waistband of her short black skirt.

“Naw, you can’t see me naked.”

“Whasa big deal?” Max wondered, fingering the fevered skin of her back beneath her blouse, “I’ve seen ya naked before. Yer beautiful, Liz…yer body is a wonderland.” He laughed to himself, as if he’d made his own private joke.

“Oh whatever,” Liz intoned haughtily with a roll of her eyes, “Ya haven’t seen me naked since I was nine and had no breasts!” She favored him with a look down the length of her nose. “I’m a woman now, Max Evans.” However, she spoiled her affronted tone by bursting into giggles right after.

“Yeah, yer definitely a woman,” Max agreed with a hungry once over down the length of her body, “And I have seen ya naked with breasts. I saw ya naked on our honeymoon, ‘member?”

Liz stopped laughing long enough to think a moment. “Oh yeah, I remember,” she said loudly, but her wide grin of pride faltered a bit when she added, “Ya din’t want me that night. Ya din’t kerr that I was naked…tried to cover me up.” She took another swig of the vodka. “It hurt.”

The defeated tone in her voice made Max’s heart contract with painful emotion. He lifted his hand to brush her disheveled hair back from her face. “I did want ya that night, Liz,” he confessed in a whisper, “I still do.”

“You do?” Liz prodded, her eyes positively round.

“Errybody wants us to have sex,” Max reasoned blearily, his fingers trailing from her hair down to her shoulder. He stroked her skin suggestively through the thin material of her linen blouse. “Why don’t we just do it?”

Liz reared back, the sudden motion making her momentarily woozy. “Max, no,” she protested weakly, “we shouldn’t--,” Logic came and went in her mind. She knew they shouldn’t be contemplating physical intimacy, but she couldn’t remember why. Weren’t they married, after all?

He deftly undid to of her buttons before she could stop him. “Don’tcha wanna,” he cajoled sweetly. Max didn’t wait for her answer, but leaned up on his elbow to place warm, wet kisses along the column of her throat.

“M-Max,” Liz moaned, overwhelmed by the sensation he was creating with his gentle, nibbling kisses.

“Lemme touch you all over,” Max muttered against her skin. He hastily fumbled with the remaining buttons on her blouse. Liz could do little more than watch through bleary eyes as he clumsily undressed her. She marveled over how strong and tanned his fingers seemed as his knuckles brushed across her skin.

Closing his eyes, Max pushed the material from Liz’s shoulders and began reverently strumming his fingers over the smooth ridge of her shoulders. He played indecisively at the delicate straps of her bra. When he opened his eyes again they were mellow with the liquor he’d imbibed and full of naked longing. He whispered her name in question. Liz met his eyes in a long, languid stare. That was all it took.

Their mouths fused together in a torrid kiss full of the hunger and undeniable passion that had been building between them for the last three weeks. Max angled Liz so that she was gathered beneath him on the limited confines of the chaise lounge, her legs dangling over the edge. Neither were overly concerned with the awkward position. Max continued to plunder her mouth, his tongue sweeping the warm recesses inside as his fingers busily worked at removing the remainder of Liz’s clothing.

Somehow he managed to free her of her skirt without ever breaking from their kiss. The vodka bottle fell from her fingers unheeded. It rolled across the carpet, spilling its contents into the cream colored fabric. Neither Liz nor Max cared. Liz wrapped her arms about Max’s neck, gave herself over to his kiss as freely as she gave her body. She spread her thighs and he moved between them as if he’d always belonged there. Maybe he had. His hands were everywhere. Her hair, her shoulders, her breasts.

Max pushed up the cups of her bra over the quivering globes of her breasts, fastening his mouth to one rigid nipple. Curling her fingers into his hair, Liz arched into him as he nibbled, he bit, he sucked. Against her thigh Liz felt Max begin a slow, seductive undulating. His arousal pressed into her hip, driving her crazy with want. She reached down between their straining bodies to flip back the button to his khakis.

Impatient to be closer, Max helped her. Their fingers tangled together in their mutual urgency to release his throbbing erection. When he was free, his khakis and boxers bunched down around his hips Max flipped their positions again so that he was sitting upright and Liz was straddling him. With quick, deft movements Liz shimmied out of her panties while Max frantically tore free of his shirt.

A moment later they were kissing once more and Max was pressing the tip of his erection into her moist opening. The feel of her tight, warm passage closing around his rigid length sobered Max somewhat and his eyes flew open. Liz’s face was contorted in pain. She bit her lip to keep from crying out. “Does it hurt?” Max whispered hesitantly. Liz managed a stiff nod. “Do you want me to stop?”

Liz buried her face into the crook of his neck. “Go deeper, Max,” she panted, rocking against him, “Please…”

Her wanton plea was his undoing. He lifted his hips and with one, hard thrust breeched her thin, virginal membrane. Her groan of pain coincided with his grunt of pleasure. Max remained absolutely still, not even breathing as he allowed Liz to adjust to the length and size of him. And then he bracketed her hips with his hands to pull her down against him as he began to scoop into her body with slow, penetrating thrusts.

“Max…Max…” Liz gasped as she felt him pierce her again and again, “please…please…don’t stop…don’t ever….”

Max had no intention of stopping. If he could thrust into her body forever and ever he’d consider it heaven. He chanted her name, gasped it in jerky moans of pleasure. Max knotted his fist into her hair, pulling her back so that he could seal his mouth with hers once more. It was the most erotic experience of his life, thrusting his tongue into Liz Parker’s mouth just as he was thrusting his cock into her body. And she fit him so well. Her body conformed around him like a tight, warm glove, as if it had been specially made to fit him alone. “Perfect,” he groaned into her mouth, “You feel so perfect. Mine…my Lizzie…my girl.”

He thrust his hand between them, his fingers seeking the swollen nub of sensitivity between her wet folds. “Come for me, baby,” he gasped against her throat, “Come…come…”

“Max!” Liz cried, her fingers biting into his shoulders as her world suddenly focused on that one point of pleasure where he was stroking so insistently, outside and inside. She threw her head back with the ecstasy his touch created. She cried out his name again as the speed of his thrusts increased. Faster and faster, pushing her to the edge, rocking her hard. “Max…God, Max! I love you!” She lost complete control then. It only took one hard thrust to send her over the edge. Max felt the warm, sweet rush of her orgasm bathe the sensitive head of his erection right before he hardened even more…and exploded.

Liz collapsed back against him, her body limp and boneless with exhaustion. “Is it always like this?” she murmured breathlessly against his shoulder.

Max tipped her head back, feeling like his heart was going to burst right from his chest, and brushed the sweaty tendrils of hair back from her face. “It’s never like this,” he whispered solemnly, “Never.” His eyes were shining with so much emotion at that moment that Liz found it extremely difficult to hold his gaze. He pressed a gentle kiss to her forehead. “Let’s go to my room.”

Blushing with the implications of his languid suggestion, Liz ducked shyly and buried her face back against his neck, inclining her head in a small nod of consent. Max gathered her against him and slid from the chaise, his khakis still slung low around his hips as he swept Liz into his arms and carried her off to his bedroom.

He laid her on his bed carefully, as if she were a precious and fine treasure. When he was finished Max removed his trousers and boxers and then stretched out along side Liz, completely nude. He leaned up on his elbow so that he regard her in the dim lamp light. Liz couldn’t help but blush a little under his scrutiny. But she made no move to cover herself as he began to trail his fingers over her collarbone. “You have freckles here,” he marveled, tracing over each enchanting dot with inebriated wonder, “God…you’re so beautiful.” He lowered his head to nuzzle against her skin. “And you feel so soft.”

Liz slid her fingers into his silky dark hair and then took hold of his hand and brought it down to cover her breast. She didn’t have to wait long for his response. He rubbed the tips of his fingers back and forth her rigid nipple before following a nibbling path with his lips and replacing his hand with his tongue.

“What are we doing, Max?” Liz moaned as he shifted between her legs once more.

“Don’t know,” he mumbled against her skin, inching his kisses ever lower, “Don’t care…just feel me…like I feel you…”

Just feel. It was her last coherent thought before she felt Max plunge inside her body once more.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Liz woke up not knowing where she was. Her first realization was that she was pinned. She could move neither her arms nor her legs. Something heavy was weighing her down, the pressure localized across her chest and thighs. And then she recognized what the weight was. Max was sprawled against her in a dead sleep, his cheek cushioned against her naked breast.

Her naked breast?

Liz’s eyes flew open wide and with the reaction came a tremendous pain in her head. The pain and shock were enough to momentarily paralyze her. Her entire body trembling, Liz lifted the covers for a surreptitious peek, confirming her suspicions that Max was naked as well. Liz factored in the tingling soreness between her thighs and was quickly poised on the edge of hysteria. She could only lie there as an encompassing panic like she’d never experienced began to fill her chest.

She’d slept with Max? But how…when? She couldn’t remember anything beyond crying herself stupid in the car after that horrible confrontation with her father. Had they gone to a bar instead of coming straight home? Liz groaned at the thought. So not only had she gotten so drunk she’d gone to bed with her husband, non-husband, but apparently she’d done so in a public place as well. If her father believed she was a whore before she cringed to think of what his reaction might be when he learned about this.

God, what had possessed her? What on earth had possessed her to go to bed with Max? She tried hard to gather the details from the night, but only managed to hit a blank wall. Liz couldn’t remember a single thing. She might have even been inclined to convince herself that nothing had happened at all were it not for the burning ache between her thighs… Hot tears of humiliation and regret stung the backs of her eyes. Liz lay pinned beneath Max for a few minutes more, wallowing in self-disgust, before attempting any movement.

Ignoring the jagged pain in her head, Liz gingerly removed Max’s arm from around her chest. She carefully avoided looking in his face as she did so. At the moment Liz firmly believed that if she looked at him she would puke right on the spot. How could she have been so cheap to have sex with a guy she knew was in love with another woman? Liz bit down against the reflex to hurl. She wanted to gain the privacy of her own bedroom before being sick because the last thing she wanted was for Max to wake up.

After she had successfully removed his arm Liz began working at pushing his heavy thigh from hers. She never expected for Max to help her with that task. He grunted, rolled over then continued in his soft snoring. Liz waited for a moment, just to make certain he was still asleep, before slipping from beneath the covers with a relieved sigh.

Chapter Twenty-One

He was alone in his bed. Max recognized that fact only a split second before he groaned and rolled over to ralph out his guts in the wastebasket beside his bed. When his retching had finally passed Max pressed back into his pillow, shivering and aching and feeling like general shit. But all that seemed secondary to the fact that Liz was no longer in his bed, almost as if she’d never been there at all.

Liz. Max closed his eyes with the thought of her. She had slept beside him last night, her gorgeous hair spilled over his pillow like a silk cascade. As he lay on his back, his stomach gurgling, his head pounding, Max couldn’t help but smile over the memory of her warm, petite body curled against his. It didn’t even enter his mind to feel remotely guilty…he was much too happy.

Not even his spotty memory of the night’s events was enough to douse his contentment. Max had no idea how they had ended up in his bed, when his last coherent memory was being in the living room on the chaise lounge. And even then he couldn’t remember the details of what happened, but Max did know one pertinent fact: he and Liz had made love last night and it had been one of the most beautiful experiences of his life…at least, what he could remember of it...

And Max wanted to tell her that. He wanted to tell her a lot of things. The main admission being that he loved her and he was sorry that it had taken him so long to realize it and that he wanted to be with her…if she still wanted him. In fact, he was burning to tell her the words. But that was proving to be a problem because his sweet, little Lizzie had vanished. Max rolled over in the bed and caressed the spot where she had lain, long since grown cold.

It didn’t make any sense that she had gone anywhere. Today was Saturday and there was no school. Liz usually slept in on Saturdays. Which made him wonder all the more why she hadn’t slept in with him. Given the awkwardness of last night he supposed he understood her initial embarrassment, but to leave altogether just seemed a bit extreme.

“Liz?” Max called out to his empty room. There was no way in hell she’d possibly heard him and he knew it. He’d barely spoken above a whisper for the awful pain in his head. Groaning against the pain movement caused him, Max eased his nude and aching body from his bed and padded off for Liz’s bedroom.

He knocked at the slightly ajar door before pushing it open completely. Her room was empty, even her bed had been made (probably because she hadn’t slept in it.) Still, the sight was jarring for Max because it reminded him again that Liz had spent the night in his bed. Smiling to himself faintly, Max listened carefully for the running of the shower. That was curiously silent as well. The burgeoning apprehension Max was feeling quickly became a sick feeling of panic as he realized Liz hadn’t just left his bed…she’d left the house.

Impervious to his nakedness, Max went tripping through the house, calling for Liz the entire time. She was nowhere to be found. The living room was a shambles, their clothes and empty liquor bottles littered the floor where they’d left them the night before. She had gone, without a note, without a kiss good-bye, without anything. Max stooped down to tug Liz’s bra from the cushions of the chaise lounge. He brought it to his nose, inhaling the sweet, clean scent that belonged to Liz alone, feeling ridiculously close to her through that one small gesture.

Where the heck had she gone, he wondered. Why had she gone? For weeks she had been telling him that she wanted a real marriage, that she wanted him. And the night after they make love she runs away? Max supposed she hadn’t gone far. She was probably totally undone by the fact she’d woken up in his bed that morning with a hangover and was now presently freaking out. Knowing Liz, she had run straight for Alex to lay it all on him. Max’s considered calling over there just to be sure, but the possibility that he would get Tess instead of Alex was too great. He’d give Liz time to get a better handle on her emotions…then they would talk.

In the meantime, he tried to puzzle out the reasons she had run. Although Max knew that she was probably freaking over losing her virginity in a drunken binge running away had never been Liz’s forte. She always faced what life tossed her, good or bad. Max had always admired that about her. Look how she had faced him down again and again in the last few weeks. And now, after slowly wearing away at him, he finally gave into her and she ran away?

Okay, so they hadn’t really come together under the most ideal circumstances, Max realized glumly, settling down onto the floor with his back against the chaise lounge. Making love while drunk was not exactly his idea of a romance filled evening either. In fact, it had been damned irresponsible…but Max didn’t want to think about that now. He only wanted to focus on the good things, like how good it had felt being inside Liz and how wonderful it had been waking up to her scent first thing in the morning.

But again the memories of the night before were hazy and what he did remember, struck him as graphic rather than sweet. Max only vaguely remembered the heated murmurings he’d made to her in the dark, but still the memory was enough to make him blush. Feeling slightly mortified and definitely chagrined, Max palmed his forehead. God, he hadn’t taken her like a virgin. Her first time should have been delicate and sweet and slow. But instead he’d given it to her hard and fast and deep. Just thinking about it now made him groan, half in embarrassment, half in desire.

However, he couldn’t bring himself to regret it. He was glad it had happened. Making love with Liz last night had been like being washed over and made new. He had finally woken from the dreamlike state that had been surrounding him for over a month, years really, and seen what was right in front of him.

Max Evans finally knew for certain what he wanted: his wife. It had taken him a moment to decide, but now that he had he wasn’t going back. Max grinned over the realization. Even being hung over with the worst headache of his life couldn’t dampen Max’s happiness. He was in love, truly, deeply, madly in love. After fighting for so long he had surrendered to his heart and in his defeat he actually became the victor. He would spend the rest of his life in happily, married bliss. What on earth had taken him so long to accept that miracle in the first place?

The moment the thought entered his mind Max knew the answer to that question. He knew exactly what had taken him so long to recognize that he loved Liz. Tess. He had been so blinded by his feelings of guilt concerning the miscarriage that he had let that dictate his every action and feeling. But then hadn’t Tess blamed him for the miscarriage, hadn’t she accused him of ruining her life?

They had been fighting, actually physically grappling with each other, the day of the miscarriage and they’d both been so angry. Tess had been beyond hysterical and Max had tried, really tried to maintain his patience, but then Tess had slapped him just one too many times… Max snapped his thoughts away from that day, still unable to bear the memory of how he’d reacted. He could still remember his initial horror when she’d doubled over in pain…

So it was his fault that she’d gotten pregnant and it was his fault that she had to consider the agony of an abortion and it was his fault that she’d suffered the miscarriage and it was his fault that she had fallen into depression. Max had felt like he was paying penance ever since, not overtly at first, but his feelings of guilt were always there, always driving him.

Their relationship was never the same after that and, truthfully, neither were Max’s feelings. His feelings of infatuated love for Tess gradually gave over to feelings of obligation and guilt. Max still loved her, still cared about her deeply, but she didn’t make his heart pump like before…but then Max had to wonder if she ever really had. His first thoughts of ending it had begun to surface not too long after Tess fell into depression, which had only served to make him feel guiltier.

After all, what kind of man would he have been if he abandoned his girlfriend so soon after she miscarried their child, especially when he knew he’d been responsible. And yet, that was exactly what Max had wanted to do. Worse than that, he had felt relieved, genuinely relieved when she had miscarried. Max hadn’t wanted the abortion and he had been willing to live up to his responsibilities as a father and a potential husband for Tess. Yet, in the back of his mind, he couldn’t help but think he’d never have a life with a baby…he’d never have Liz. The entire time he had felt like he was in a choke hold that was gradually growing tighter and tighter. And then Tess had lost the baby and it was like Fate telling him that he and Tess weren’t meant to be.

He might have worked up the courage to go to Liz then if Tess’ depression hadn’t been so great. So, instead, he tried to do the right thing. He tried to stick by Tess and see her through the difficult times. But as time went on he began to feel more and more obligated to Tess until it seemed that he would never manage to untangle himself. Finally, he just gave in. At the time, it seemed easier to commit himself to a relationship with Tess than break her heart to pieces all over again.

However, his marriage to Liz had changed all that and Max couldn’t lie to himself any longer. He could no longer put off his feelings, he decided as he pushed to his feet. Liz didn’t deserve it, Tess didn’t deserve it and neither did he.

Max crept off to the bathroom for a long, steamy shower, replaying over and over in his mind the snatches he remembered from the night before. By the time he was finished, he was beyond anxious to see Liz again. His headache was still present, but he didn’t feel as sticky or achy as he had before. He padded off for his bedroom to dress and tidy up, trying to think of the gentlest means to go about breaking up with Tess. It was as he was straightening up his bed that he noticed the small streaks of dried blood staining the sheets.

He smiled to himself and bent to run his fingers lightly over the stain. This time had been for real, unlike the mockery of their honeymoon. He had really taken Liz’s virginity last night. She had given it too him freely, opened up just like a flower and given him the most precious gift a woman could. Of course, she had been blind drunk, a niggling voice reminded Max, but he steadfastly ignored it. Drunk or not, he had known that Liz wanted him, had wanted him for some time, and last night she proved that in the ultimate way. Just the thought alone caused Max’s stomach to do tiny flips of joy. He wanted to hold onto that feeling. He’d need it to see him through what he expected would be a very emotional confrontation with Tess.

Max was just starting to strip away his bed sheets to toss them into the washing machine when the doorbell rang. His heart thudding with the possibility that it might be Liz, Max raced for the front door and yanked it open. He winced against the brilliant sunlight that flooded into the foyer as he did and reflexively shielded his eyes.

Isabel and Michael shoved past him brusquely, not even waiting for the invitation to enter. “So we’ve been trying to call you two all night,” Isabel informed her disheveled brother tartly, “All we got was a busy signal.”

“We took the phone off the hook,” Max explained mildly as he closed the door, flinching at the pain all this sudden noise was causing him. He tunneled his fingers through his damp hair and clutched at his scalp. Why did Isabel have to shout everything she said?

Michael surveyed his friend, noting his sallow complexion and deep sunken eyes. “You look like crap, Maxwell.”

“Thanks for the kind words,” Max croaked in a sarcastic retort, “I can feel how much you care, Mikey.” And then he frowned, stunned to see them both together. “I thought you two weren’t speaking,” he commented, “And oh yeah,” Max added, leveling Michael with a glare of distaste, “I’m supposed to be kicking your ass!”

Michael punched his index finger in the middle of Max’s chest. “That’s ditto for me, son!”

“Oh, will you two cut the big brother crap!” Isabel snapped out impatiently, “Michael and I heard what happened in his dad’s study the other night.”

“What? Did you have your ear to the door or something!” Max cried out in exasperation, immediately wishing he hadn’t. He winced with the piercing pain that went slicing through his temples.

“We didn’t need to,” Michael returned blandly, “You guys were yelling pretty loud.”

“We came over because we’re were worried,” Isabel interjected gently, “Where’s Liz? I wanted to know if she’s okay.”

“She’s not here,” Max tried to tell her, but Isabel was already off for the living room with Max hot on her heels. “Isabel, wait!”

She did, brought up short by the disastrous mess in the living room. The sofa cushions were haphazard and strewn all over the floor, along with several empty liquor bottles, a couple of plastic cups and several articles of clothing. Isabel pivoted around to face her brother with a dubious expression. “What happened in here?”

Michael strolled up behind Max and twittered a low whistle when he surveyed the damage for himself. “Did you and Liz have a fight or something,” he asked with a frown.

Isabel bent down to retrieve the empty Jack Daniel’s bottle. “No, they just got stupid drunk,” she contradicted tonelessly, “God, Max, no wonder you look like hell! How could you be so juvenile?”

“You got my baby sister drunk!” Michael exploded in disgust, his expression veering from amused to one of gathering rage.

Max wisely backed away from the gathering fury manifesting itself on Michael’s features. “It wasn’t like that!” he cried out in defense, holding out his hands to stave Michael off.

“Then what was it like,” Michael demanded, taking several menacing steps toward his best friend, “Where’s Liz! Is she passed out in the bed or something?”

“Yeah…and whose bed?” Isabel interjected drolly, “Hers or yours?” When Michael and Max swiveled around to face her they found Isabel dangling Liz’s bra from the tips of her fingers. “How’d this get on the floor?”

Michael’s world went absolutely red. He dived across the room straight at Max, tackling him to the sofa. “You fucked my little sister, you bastard!” he roared, grappling with Max so that they rolled off onto the floor with a hard thud. He took a swing at Max that Max managed to block before Isabel was suddenly tugging at Michael’s jacket and yanking him off her brother. He was cursing and flailing the entire way, his elbow glancing across Max’s lip in the scuffle.

“Stop it!” she yelled, pelting Michael with her fists, “What the hell are you thinking?”

Max rolled upright, fingering his bloodied lip gingerly. “Was that really necessary?”

“You got my sister drunk and took advantage of her!” Michael accused, stabbing his finger at Max irately.

“And you cheated on mine!” Max yelled back, flinching with every word.

“I never slept with Isabel, okay!”

“Stop it,” Isabel cried again, “Both of you! Why is it so bad for Max and Liz to sleep together? They are married, after all and it’s not like they haven’t done it before.”

“We hadn’t,” Max admitted somewhat shamefully.

“Yeah, the night of their honeymoon was all a sham,” Michael confirmed tightly, “Max and I cooked up the entire thing.” He raked Max with betrayed eyes. “You promised me you wouldn’t touch Lizzie. I trusted you and you took advantage of her!”

“I didn’t,” Max insisted, “I didn’t take advantage, alright. I want to be with Liz…I want this marriage to work for us.”

“You want to make it work?” Michael and Isabel repeated simultaneously and then from Isabel alone, “Are you in love with her?”

“Yeah…,” Max confessed, pushing to his feet painfully, “I’m in love with her and I plan on telling her that as soon as she comes home.”

“She’s not here?” Michael exploded softly.

“No. I woke up this morning and she was already gone.” He plucked up a tissue to apply pressure to his bleeding lip. “I think she must have freaked over last night or something.”

“You don’t know where she is,” Isabel charged.

“Not exactly.”

She threw up her hands in exasperation. “God, Max you can be such an idiot!”

“What?”

“That girl has wanted you for, like, half her life!” Isabel admonished him in disgust, “And you turn your first time together into a drunken grope.”

“I wasn’t intending to sleep with her,” Max snapped in defense, “It just sorta happened.”

“It sorta happened?” Isabel bleated.

“And what about Tess,” Michael inquired softly, coming to stand before Max with narrowed eyes, “How does she fit into this whole perfect plan of yours? Or do you plan to go on like you have up until now, but now you’ll be screwing my sister as well as Tess?”

Max jerked as if he’d been slapped. He shoved Michael backwards, his own anger boiling over at that point. “Not that it’s any of your business, but I was on my way over to break up with Tess when you two arrived,” he retorted, “And frankly I don’t appreciate you barging into my house and attacking me. None of this involves you.”

“If it involves Liz, it involves me,” Michael replied tonelessly.

“Whatever,” Max sneered in return, “Just get out.”

“Max, we just came over because we were concerned,” Isabel soothed.

“No, you came over to run all over us!” Max shouted irately, “You’re no different from Dad, trying to tell me what to do and how to live my life! Maybe if you all just stopped interfering Liz and I could actually be happy!” He stalked over to the front door and yanked it open, intending the order them the hell out, but the words lodged in his throat.

Liz stood on the front porch, her door key dangling from her fingers.

Chapter Twenty-Two

“What happened to your lip?” It was the first thing Liz could think to ask him.

Max favored her with a lopsided grin and touched his tingling cut. “I ran into the door,” he lied irreverently, “Where have you been?”

What a loaded question that was and Liz couldn’t answer him directly. One look in his eyes told her that he didn’t have the same problem she had. He knew exactly what had gone on between them and he wanted to talk about it.

She tried to smile at him, to mimic his same easy manner but she didn’t quite make it. Frankly, Liz had hoped that she could creep back into the house without his ever realizing she’d been gone at all. However, that hope died in her breast when the front door suddenly swung open and Liz found herself face to face with Max. The moment she saw him all the awkwardness and mortification she had felt earlier that morning came flooding back in a rush. Her eyes skittered away from his intense gaze. “I didn’t think you’d be awake already,” she murmured softly.

“Obviously,” Max whispered back, “Is that why you snuck away before I woke up?” He stepped aside and allowed her to brush past him. “I’m glad you decided to come home,” he said against her temple as he closed the door, “We need to talk.”

“Yeah,” Liz agreed gruffly, “we do need to talk.” Liz shuffled into the living room, stopping short when she found Michael and Isabel standing there. “Uh…um…hi,” she said lamely, caught off guard by their unexpected presence.

“Michael and Isabel were just leaving,” Max intoned, coming around to stand alongside Liz. He leveled both his sister and friend with a meaningful glare.

Michael ignored it. “I wasn’t going anywhere,” he said, stepping forward to give his sister a dutiful kiss on the cheek, “Are you alright?”

“I’m fine,” Liz insisted, her eyes downcast.

“You look pale,” Michael went on solicitously.

“I’m fine,” Liz said again, more stridently this time.

“I’ll be sure to take good care of her,” Max interrupted deliberately, coming to stand between the two of them, “Maybe you should be on your way. I know you have things to do this morning.”

The look on his face made it perfectly clear that Michael didn’t intend on going anywhere, but Isabel came forward and took old of his arm, dragging him off towards the front door. “Let them talk,” she ordered him firmly.

“I’ll call later,” Michael tossed out right before he disappeared into the foyer.

Max didn’t speak again until he heard the front door close behind him. Only then did he turn to face Liz. He bracketed her shoulders, his entire body slumping with relief. “Thank God you’re back,” he whispered with a sweet smile, “I was starting to worry. Where did you go?”

Where did she go? Such a simple question for a complicated answer. When she had left the house that morning she’d had no clear destination in mind. She had been so overwhelmed by finding herself in Max’s bed that morning that she’d had no clear determination of what she planned to do. Liz had rushed to her bedroom to hastily wash up, throw on some clothes and then take to the streets.

The enormity of the situation didn’t hit her completely until she made it to the car. She had given her virginity to Max last night…and she didn’t remember a moment of it. If that realization hadn’t been enough to fill her with sick disgust, the fact that Max was still very much involved with Tess was. She knew already that he’d treat their night together as something distasteful. She knew already that he would regret it. That understanding caused her more pain than anything else.

After nearly half an hour of trying to drive and cry at the same time Liz decided to head over to Kyle’s apartment. He had taken one look at her disheveled person and forlorn expression and had pulled her into his arms for a tight hug. She had sobbed out all her misery to him in a matter of moments. Kyle had been abundantly sweet, totally free of judgment as held her in the middle of his foyer and tenderly stroked her hair. He’d been stunned at first when Liz told him what happened, then speechless and then he’d gently led her over into the den and asked what she planned to do next.

“I don’t have any idea,” Liz had confessed tearfully, “When I get home Max will probably be waiting for me with a prepared speech about what a big mistake he made and how he wished it had never happened.”

“Is that what you really think he’ll do,” Kyle had prodded.

Liz emitted a tearful snort. “Max can’t see past his precious girlfriend,” she sniffled, “He’ll drop me so fast I won’t know what happened.” She frowned at the bitter edge she heard in her tone. “He loves her…she’s who he wants to be with.”

“Then why is he sleeping with you?”

“He was drunk,” Liz said by way of excuse, “And hurt, too, probably. They had a fight right before.”

“So what are you going to do now?”

Liz shrugged. “Don’t know,” she murmured, “I know he’s probably waiting at home, already poised with his ‘let her down easy’ speech. I’ve heard it before and I don’t think I can take hearing it again…not after last night. God, Kyle…I gave him my virginity,” she moaned tearfully, “and it won’t even mean anything to him.”

Kyle had pulled her into his arms once more, feeling helpless to see her in such pain and confusion. “I hate seeing you like this,” he whispered into her hair.

“And I hate being like this,” she sniffled in return, “But that’s Max…he does this to me every time. He’s just twisting me in knots.”

“Then why don’t you twist him for a change?”

Liz jerked up her head in surprise. “What?”

“If Max is planning to tell you what a mistake the two of you were together then why don’t you beat him to the punch?” Kyle clarified succinctly, “You give him the brush off this time.”

By the time she had left him Liz and Kyle had devised a plan that would save her pride as well as Max’s kiss off speech. With her plan swirling in the back of her head, Liz shrugged off Max’s touch and turned her back to him. “I didn’t think you’d notice I was gone,” she replied casually. She removed her jacket and tossed it onto a nearby chair.

Max frowned over her indifferent tone. “Of course I noticed,” he murmured, coming up behind her, “I woke up in bed alone.”

“Yeah, well, I thought I’d save us an awkward moment,” Liz muttered under her breath.

There was something in the way she was acting, just the nonchalant drawl to her voice that was making Max apprehensive. He tried again to penetrate the invisible wall that seemed to be separating them. “How’s your head,” he asked her gently, “Mine’s aching like a mutha.”

“It’s okay,” Liz replied, coming around to face him with a shrug, “Kyle gave me something for the pain. Worked like a charm.”

A hard, dry lump of pain formed in Max’s throat as the mere mention of his rival’s name. He stumbled back a step in hurt surprise. “You were with Kyle?” He’d expected that she would run to Alex, go driving, go to the gym, a whole manner of things, but it had never once entered his mind that she would go to Kyle. The revelation hurt.

“Yeah,” Liz confirmed, “I met him for breakfast. We had a date.” She breezed off for the kitchen, hoping that her shaking legs didn’t betray her. Her entire body was trembling as she reached into the refrigerator for a bottled water. She didn’t expect for Max to be standing directly behind her when she straightened. “What is it?” she asked him brusquely, trying to sidle around him but unable to because he was blocking her path.

“You left my bed and went straight to Kyle?”

“I told you we had a date,” Liz insisted with an air of impatience, “What’s the big deal. I thought you’d be scampering off for Tess’ before long anyway.”

“Do you not remember what happened with our fathers last night,” Max asked her in an anguished whisper, “That’s not exactly wise, okay.”

Again Liz shrugged. She could see what he was concerned about, not that she had gone out with Kyle, but that she had possibly drawn the attention of their fathers and brought down more heat upon them. “Don’t worry,” she assured him woodenly, “I was careful…no one saw me go over to his place.”

“Over to his place?” Max repeated brokenly, “You went to his apartment alone!”

“Max, I can take care of myself,” Liz retorted, mistaking the reason for his strident tone, “I trust Kyle. He wouldn’t do anything to hurt me.”

“And so you just went to him?” Max accused in disbelief, “You just left this morning without saying a word to me and just went straight to him? What about last night, huh? Were we not going to talk about that?”

“Last night was a mistake,” Liz intoned dully. It was what he was thinking anyway, she reasoned painfully, better she be the one to say it first. “Look, you have Tess and I have Kyle…we both know nothing would have happened between us if we hadn’t been drunk. It was just a stupid mistake,” she said again.

“A stupid mistake,” Max repeated bleakly.

“Yeah,” Liz agreed with feigned indifference, “We had sex…there’s no need to make a big deal about it.” Her heart felt like it was cracking with each word. She wanted to take back all she had said and beg him to love her right then, but she couldn’t. She had been begging him for weeks now with no results. Now she was done. “Listen, I’m gonna go lie down for a while, okay,” she told him quietly, “This hangover is suddenly killing me again. I’ll see you later.”

Max watched her leave the kitchen, feeling as if he’d taken one to the gut. He crumpled down onto one of the kitchen barstools, his breath coming in hitching gasps. Although he didn’t have a clear recollection of what had transpired between him and Liz the night before Max had been certain that she had wanted for their marriage to work. Despite their unorthodox lovemaking he’d imagined her desire to do so would eventually override her initial mortification. He’d expected her to be embarrassed over how they ended up in bed together, even angry, but he had never expected for her to shrug it off like it hadn’t even happened.

It hit him then how colossally fucked up the situation was. Liz didn’t want him anymore. All this time he had been on a high over making love with her, thinking that their night together would be the start of something more and Liz thought it was nothing. Just sex. Max groaned inwardly, as tears of anguish and humiliation stung his eyes. God, it hadn’t even been responsible sex. His body evidenced a night of some vigorous lovemaking, two times he could actually remember, and neither with a condom.

“Fuck!” Max hissed to himself. So much for thinking he’d put so much distance between the man he was now and the eighteen-year-old idiot he had been. His general entire lack of responsibility crushed Max almost as much Liz’s nonchalant reaction to their lovemaking. Before he hadn’t let the realization bother him but in the wake of Liz’s reaction Max felt reality closing in. Now he couldn’t help but consider the repercussions of last night and the complications that would spin off from it.

But even the possibility of pregnancy didn’t seem as agonizing to Max as the casual way Liz had blown him off. She had given him her innocence, had begged him to be inside her. Max could remember that moment vividly, could still feel the way her nails had dug into his skin. And that was it? Today it was over, it was nothing? Today that chaotic intimacy between them had been reduced to nothing more than stupid mistake. Today, Liz had gone running to Kyle Valenti straight from his bed. His battered ego aside, the fact that she’d had gone to Kyle Valenti, not even bothering to talk to him first, devastated Max.

Yes, he knew he hadn’t been exactly fair to her. He’d kissed her then backed away, told her he wanted her and then backed away again. Max shouldn’t be at all surprised that she was the one backing away now. But in his heart he couldn’t help but feel that this was different. This time they had made love. Made love. The joining hadn’t been so much about the physical for Max as it had been emotional. Sometime last night in his drunken stupor his brain had finally recognized what his heart had known all along. He was in love with Liz.

Which was why the way she’d reacted just now had nearly killed him. How could it not mean as much to her as it had to him? Hadn’t her skin tingled at his nearness just as his had tingled at hers? Didn’t her heart leap into her throat just the way his did whenever she walked into a room? That morning when he had seen her standing out on the porch, looking flustered and ill, Max had never felt such joy in his life because he realized, for the first time really, that he was going to spend the rest of his life with this woman, the woman who owned his heart. And she didn’t want it…

Max blinked back the hot tears of humiliation and anguish burning in his eyes. He couldn’t blame anyone but himself. He’d spent weeks trying to be the perfect boyfriend to Tess, trying to be everything she needed him to be that he’d neglected Liz…and now he’d lost her. Max tried to be happy that she’d found someone to give her the happiness that he couldn’t, but it was impossible. The knowledge hurt too much.

Pushing to his feet, Max brushed away the tears that had been unconsciously falling on his cheeks. He shuffled off to the living room and began the sobering task of cleaning the mess they had made, wiping free any memory of what happened between them. Almost like an automaton Max straightened the cushions, tossed away the trash and debris, scrubbed and vacuumed out the carpet. Inside, however, he just felt utterly dead.

As he gathered up the remnants of Liz’s clothing piece by piece Max tried to figure what his next move would be. First, he knew he had to end things with Tess. Max realized now that their relationship had been over in his heart for a long time now. And when he slept with Liz he had ended it in the physical sense as well. Max wouldn’t keep Tess dangling. It wasn’t fair. He was in love with another woman and whether that woman reciprocated his feelings or not Max couldn’t stay with Tess a moment longer.

Having made his decision, Max trudged off for Liz’s room in a dejected slump, her clothes from the night before piled in his arms. He only tapped on her door once before she cracked it open. Her eyes were bloodshot. Max figured her hangover was probably a hell of a lot worse than she’d let on.

He dropped his eyes, finding it difficult to look at her right then. Max wanted to push through her door and take her in his arms, wanted to beg her to give him another chance. He wanted to kiss her breathless until she forgot about Kyle what’s his name and why she had run to him in the first place. Max wanted to do a lot of things, none of which he felt privileged to see through.

Left with little choice he thrust forward the pile of clothes in his arms. “I brought you these,” Max whispered, still unable to bear looking at her.

If he had he might have noticed the devastated look on Liz’s face as she took her clothes from his fingers. While Max couldn’t look at her for the raw pain in his heart Liz believed his inability to meet her eyes was due to guilt and remorse over what had happened between them. The thought that he was sorry for what they’d shared was enough to make Liz physically ill.

She reached forward to gather her bundle of clothing from his arms. “Thanks,” she croaked, silently pleading with him to look at her, but he wouldn’t.

“So are you okay?” Max asked a moment later, his gaze still glued to the ground and his shuffling feet. “I mean…is your head better,” he whispered.

“A little,” Liz conceded softly, “and yours?”

Max shrugged. “I can deal.” There was another yawning silence of tension between them. “Um…Liz,” he ventured after a lengthy pause, finally mustering the courage to look her in the eye, “…about last night--,”

“It was a mistake, right?” Her words were more a question than a statement. Her eyes desperately begged him to say otherwise, but Max kept his head bent so she couldn’t see his eyes or the tears she’d caused with her words, “I’m not holding it against you, Max.”

Max swallowed as he felt tears leap into his eyes once more over her casual dismissal. He lowered his eyes quickly so she couldn’t see just how much he was hurting. “Yeah…uh thanks,” he mumbled thickly, “…but I was thinking about…um…what I wanted to know was…um…”

“What is it, Max?” Liz prodded gently, reaching forward to splay her fingers over his shaking hand. The moment she touched him it was like a current of electricity shafting through them. Their eyes met in a cataclysmic stare.

“Did I hurt you?” Max uttered in a groan, “Last night…was I too…too rough with you? I mean…you were a virgin…”

Liz blushed at the question, ducking her head. “No, no, Max,” she reassured him faintly, “You weren’t too rough.” Honestly, Liz didn’t have a clear recollection of what had happened between them and the idea of admitting that fact aloud was singularly distasteful. But if the delicious ache she was experiencing all over her body was any indication she and Max had enjoyed each other thoroughly. “I think you were fine,” she finished gruffly.

Max cleared his throat. “Good…” Another pause fell between them and it finally penetrated Max’s senses that he was standing out in the hallway with absolutely nothing to say. He didn’t think he could form the words even if he had. His throat was suddenly closing up with emotion. “Well, I’d better go,” he announced hoarsely.

“You’re going out?” Liz inquired, desperately trying to keep her tone neutral. But her heart was crying out, “please don’t go to Tess, please don’t go to Tess.” She could take his indifference, his avoidance, but if he went to Tess after what had happened between them just the night before she would die. Surely Fate wouldn’t be that cruel…

But obviously Fate didn’t give a damn about her because a second later Max was confirming her heartbreaking denial. “There are some things I need to talk over with Tess today,” Max answered vaguely. He didn’t see any point in telling her he was going over to break up with Tess. It’s not like Liz would give a damn either way.

To her utter and supreme humiliation Liz found herself asking, “Will you be gone long?”

“It’ll probably be a while.”

God, if he’d ripped her heart out of her chest and stopped on it right there in the hallway he couldn’t have hurt Liz more. But she masked her pain behind a flare of indifferent bravado. “I don’t guess I’ll be here when you get back,” she told him casually.

Max stabbed her with a look of bitter hatred before he quickly neutralized his feelings. “You hanging with Kyle this afternoon?” he inquired dully.

“Yeah, we’ll probably find something to do to amuse ourselves.” Her reply was deliberately catty. She searched his face for a reaction, but he only continued to stare down at his shoes with a mournful expression.

Max tried not to wince over how cool she sounded, even though he felt like his heart was bleeding all over the floor. “Well, have fun,” he forced out, pushing himself away from her door and starting down the hall.

“You, too,” Liz called after him.

Neither one had any way of knowing they were breaking each other’s hearts into dust.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Max didn’t go straight to Tess’ house, instead he drove the streets of Roswell in aimless pursuit and he cried. Definitely not the manliest thing in the world, but definitely needed. He and Liz were through. Not that they had ever begun, Max mocked himself acidly. She didn’t want him, plain and simple. And Max didn’t know what hurt more, the fact that he’d been discarded so easily after the intimate night they’d shared or the fact that Liz actually wanted someone more than him.

Now he knew how she felt, night after night when he’d gone to Tess knowing that Liz had wanted him to stay with her. God, it was an agony he’d never imagined. He blocked out the image of her now, laughing and smiling and he didn’t want to think about what else with her new friend Kyle Valenti. Kyle, Max scoffed mentally, what the fuck kind of name was Kyle anyway? Some pansy ass name!

Max choked out a bitter laugh, ironic because there were actually tears running down his cheeks at the moment. At the moment, he wasn’t presenting the most masculine picture himself. Max hadn’t felt so disgusted with himself since Tess’ miscarriage. He had naively believed that last night would change everything between him and Liz and…it had. Last night Max realized he had been in love with Liz all along. Last night Max realized he’d been a fool for the better part of four years. Last night had been his friggin’ dream come true. But then the morning came and Max discovered that last night had been nothing more to Liz than a drunken mistake.

For Max that was a blow more than anything. He had never treated sex casually before. Until last night Tess had been the one and only girl he’d ever slept with. That very fact was one of the reasons he’d been so very determined to stay with her. To Max sex was a big deal, a monumental commitment and something not to be entered into lightly. It hadn’t mattered how drunk he was, the very fact that he’d obviously come on to Liz the night before told Max that he’d already made up his mind that she was the one for him.

Evidently, however, he wasn’t the one for her. He’d hurt her too much while trying to sort out his feelings about Tess and in the process he was sure he’d lost her for good. Now the tables had turned in his marriage. It would continue to be loveless, however, now he would be the one to sit at home alone and pine. He would be the one to spend his nights lonely and cold…but it was infinitely worse because he had shared the ultimate intimacy with Liz. He knew what being with her felt like and what he’d be missing. He’d tasted the joy of being held in her arms, of touching her warm, lithe body and that joy had been all too fleeting. Now all he would have left of that stunning night would be a hazy, drunken memory.

He wasn’t going to feel sorry for himself, Max decided as he pulled onto Tess’ road. He had made his bed and now he’d lie in it. If Liz wanted to be with Kyle Valenti then he would stand back and let her be happy. Liz had stood by and allowed him to break her heart again and again for the sake of his happiness and Max could do the same for her. He would do the same for her. He owed her that much.

Max had barely pulled into the long, winding drive of Edward Harding’s three-story estate when Tess came running out to greet him, the phone in her hand. She stopped short just as he climbed from the car. “I was just about to call you,” she said with a tentative smile, holding up the phone. She noticed his appearance then, the dark bruises beneath his red-rimmed eyes, the sallow appearance of his complexion. He looked awful and…heartbroken. Her tentative smile became a frown of concern. “You look bad,” she observed softly.

“I feel worse,” Max returned humorlessly.

Thinking that Max’s dejected demeanor was due to the fight they’d had the night before Tess stepped forward to enfold him in a tender hug. “I’m so sorry about last night,” she sighed, clutching him about his waist, “I reacted terribly…I know that now.”

Max didn’t return her embrace, but instead stood stiff in her arms. “Tess, I need to talk to you,” he began woodenly.

“No, you listen first,” she said, lifting her head and pressing her fingers to his lips to keep him quiet, “Last night I was in a terrible mood,” she explained quickly, “I was at the mall earlier and I saw this woman with her newborn baby and…well…it made me think of our baby and how he or she would only be a few months old now--,” His gut twisted at the mere mention of their lost child. Max tried to interrupt by gently saying her name but she cut him off once again. “Let me finish please,” she urged, “Then after I got home my father called and told me that he’s booked me, my cousin and himself on a three week cruise so that we can all get to know one another better.”

Max found himself momentarily sidetracked by her revelation. He gaped at her in dubious shock. “But what about school,” he burst out, “I know Spring Break is coming up but we’re only out for a week and a half.”

Tess reached up to brush his hair back from his drawn brows. “I know that,” she sighed, “Apparently, Daddy has pulled a few strings with our teachers and we can go without it affecting our grades.”

“And you’re going to do this?” Max whispered incredulously, pushing her arms down from around him, “You’re just going to go off on a three week vacation with your dad even after all the things he’s done to keep us apart?”

It was the last offense in a long line of offenses that finally left Max completely fed up. He’d done all he could to be the best boyfriend to her he could be. He’d dealt when she blew him off over her dad time and time again in the past, but after what had happened in the last few weeks Max had expected something different. He’d basically turned his life upside down to make her happy. He’d lost his best friend over her, but Tess hadn’t made a solitary change. As usual she allowed her father to walk all over her without a single word of protest. “Don’t you realize that by going on this trip with your dad you’re basically telling him that what he did to you the night of my rehearsal dinner is okay?” he charged bitterly, “Don’t you care about that? He humiliated us both!”

“Max, you know how my father feels about you,” Tess placated calmly.

“And what about how you’re supposed to feel about me?” Max exploded.

Tess jumped at his sharpness, stunned by the vehement tone of his voice. “Max, why are you being this way?” she cried, “I told you I was sorry about last night. I know you didn’t come all this way just to fight with me.” She tried to touch his face but he jerked from her reach. “It’s just a stupid trip,” she pouted, “I don’t understand why you’re freaking out like this! Is this really what you want to do with the little time we have together?”

“No, it’s not,” Max agreed quietly, “I didn’t come here to fight with you at all. I came here to tell you that this isn’t working out anymore.”

The cajoling grin that had been pulling at the corners of Tess’ mouth fell away completely as she regarded Max in dumbfounded shock. She scoffed a brief, trilling laugh. “Wait…what are you trying to say to me, Max?”

He averted his gaze, his eyes glistening with the pain he felt and the pain he knew he was about to inflict. Max didn’t want to hurt her. Even with her selfishness, her self-centeredness and sometimes mean spirited ways Tess managed to remain alluring. Her underlying vulnerability beneath the hard exterior she presented was intriguing. There was a charming, fun loving side to her that hardly anyone ever saw. She could be witty and daring and so damned provocative. She was a paradox, a beautiful mystery, illusive and yet attainable all at once. Tessa Harding could almost be described as the perfect woman…but Max Evans didn’t love her anymore.

It was that pretty little package of perfection that she presented which had caused Max to fall for her in the first place. He’d been only fourteen. At the time, he couldn’t believe that his soulmate could actually be the girl who went exploring with him in the woods and who played touch football as well as any boy. He couldn’t believe that she’d have braces and a flat chest and possess only a simple beauty. Max realized now that he’d been a complete idiot. He hadn’t known the first thing about love and he hadn’t really learned until he married Liz.

Tessa Harding might be seemingly perfect, but she wasn’t the girl for him. She never had been. No, the girl of his dreams, his soulmate, had been a freckled face tomboy with knobby knees and elbows, the woman who had shared his bed only last night. The woman who didn’t want him anymore.

Max could now clearly see that it had been over for him and Tess before it had even begun. Liz had always owned his heart…Tess had never had a chance. Ducking his head with burgeoning remorse, Max took a step back from Tess. “I don’t think we should stay together, Tess.”

He could see plainly what a blow his words dealt her. She stumbled backwards as her breath whooshed from her lungs in a pitiful, little gasp. “God,” she uttered, wrapping her arms about her middle, “was our fight last night really that bad, Max?”

“This isn’t about our fight last night, Tess,” Max argued softly, “I…I just don’t feel the same about you.”

“You don’t feel the same?” Tess parroted in a breathless sob, “What exactly does that mean…you don’t feel the same? Last night you loved me and today you want to end it?”

Max lifted his hands to her in supplication, but then dropped them back at his sides when she just stared at him like he was some foreign creature that disgusted her. “Tess, I’m married,” he explained gently, “You have to see that this isn’t working between us anymore, okay.”

“No, I don’t see it,” Tess protested, wildly shaking her head, “Your marriage is a joke! Everyone knows that! Last night everything was fine. You were coming over and we were good. And then something went down with your father and Liz and…” She trailed off her eyes suddenly widening with understanding. “Oh my God,” she rasped, her blue eyes swimming with tears, “You fucked her, didn’t you? You fucked Liz last night!” Max didn’t answer, but the blush creeping up his neck was answer enough. Tess’ tears ran freely down her face. “I’m right, aren’t I?”

“I never wanted to hurt you,” Max mumbled in anguish.

“How could you do this to me?” Tess accused him in an agonized whisper, “How could you betray me this way? I asked you to come to me! But you wanted to stay with her!” She pitched herself at him, pummeling his chest with her fists. “Damn you, why did you stay? Why, Max…why?” She wilted against him then, weeping bitterly into his chest.

Feeling helpless, Max stroked his hands up and down the length of her spine soothingly, alternately fingering her buoyant blond curls. “I…I’m so sorry,” he said, his throat constricted with emotion, “I didn’t want it to turn out this way, Tess.”

“We made a baby together, Max,” she wept brokenly, “How can you do this?”

“Tess, please…I’m so sorry.”

Tess stared up at him then, her blue eyes large, luminous, desperate. “You love me, Max,” she said hoarsely, “I know you do.”

“Not the way I used to,” Max intoned sadly.

Tess squared her shoulders and stepped away from him, the anguish in her gaze abruptly replaced with cold, hard resolve. “This is your guilt talking,” she stated firmly, “I know you don’t mean any of this.”

“Tess--,”

“No, Max,” she interrupted sharply, “We’ve been together for four years…we conceived a child together. I know you. Something happened with your dad and you got overwhelmed. I’ve seen how he gets to you. You were just confused and hurt and…and that’s why you turned to her. This is just guilt.”

The fact that she mentioned their baby now and how well she knew him and his emotions ate away at Max like acid. He couldn’t rightly claim that Tess had never been there for him because she had…just not all the time. But she loved him…he’d have to be blind not to see it.

Again Max felt a wave of guilt and regret sweep through his body, but not over sleeping with Liz. No, Max regretted that he’d ever been careless enough to impregnate Tess in the first place. They had not been ready for a baby, no more ready than he and Liz were now. Tess hadn’t been emotionally prepared for the loss and Max wasn’t prepared to deal with the part he’d played. Max fully understood now that Tess would never let go of the pain and she would make sure that he never did either.

“What I’m telling you now has nothing to do with guilt,” he denied weakly, “I haven’t been happy for a long time, Tess, and I know you haven’t either. Let’s just spare ourselves more pain.”

“The only pain would come from living without you,” Tess wept pitifully, “I love you, Max! I love you! I’ll die if you leave me!”

To see her so anguished and broken was ripping at his heart. Max had to close his eyes and turn away, unable to bear the open display of her heartbreak. “Tess, please don’t make this harder,” he pleaded.

She was back against him then, framing his face in her hands and forcing his gaze to hers. “I know you don’t mean this, Max,” she said again in agitated denial, “You slept with Liz. It was one time…big deal. I can get over it…I will get over it.”

“Tess, please don’t--,”

“Shh,” she begged, pressing her lips to his in a desperate kiss that Max refused to return. Her tears mingled with his, pooling into the corners of the meshed lips. “Shh…shh…” Tess murmured once more, skimming her fingers over his cheekbones. “Listen to me, okay. You’re hurt and so am I. Don’t make a hasty decision. You just need space and I can give you that, alright. I’ll give you space.”

“Tess, I don’t need space,” Max replied gently, firmly thrusting her away from him, “I don’t love you anymore. I…I’m sorry…I just don’t.”

“And you love Liz?” Tess spat out angrily.

“Yeah…I do.”

She actually laughed at that, a derisive, grating laugh. “You don’t know who the hell you love, Max,” she retorted tiredly, “You don’t know.”

“Tess, I’m trying to tell you--,”

“It will be different when I come back from my trip,” she stated wearily, skipping backwards several steps, “You’ll feel differently when I get back.” She pivoted on her heel then and fled into the house, deliberately giving him no opportunity to respond.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Max lay on his bed, pondering his bedroom ceiling. His psychology book lay along side him, completely forgotten. Instead, he engrossed himself completely in his perusal of the ceiling. He had never really studied it before. He noted that it was sort of bumpy, like uneven paint drops. Max tried to occupy his time counting those teeny, tiny bumps. Anything to distract himself from the painful fact that Liz was having popcorn with one Kyle Valenti in their living room at that very moment.

Two weeks. It had been two agonizing, painful weeks since he and Liz had made love. In that time he had been formally introduced to Kyle Valenti, his nemesis, and Max had hated him on sight. He had hated the preppy boy flip of his blond hair, had hated his mischievous blue eyes, had hated the lazy manner with which he would touch Liz. More than once Max had to restrain himself from cracking him one to the jaw.

Max heard another trill of laughter sound from the living room. Growling in frustration and burning jealousy, Max flopped over onto his stomach and buried his face in his pillow. Could life get any more hateful, he mourned. First of all, he was very nearly flunking all his courses. Since he got married he’d been so preoccupied with making the Liz/Tess situation work that his grades had slipped to all be damned. And now that he actually had the time to improve the situation he couldn’t because he was too distracted with Liz and what was and was not happening between them.

To make matters worse, Tess had called him nearly everyday since leaving on her trip with her father. Every time Max spoke to her he felt more and more weighed down with guilt. She was always crying, veering back and forth between begging him to reconsider and cursing him for being a “lying, fucking son of a bitch.” Factor into the situation his heartbreak over Liz and her newfound relationship with preppy boy and Max was starting to feel the first tendrils of depression.

He tried not to care, tried to concentrate on his studies, but the situation was slowly killing him an inch at a time. Fuck! How could she do this? How could she just sit in the living room with that guy, giggling with him as if nothing had happened? Didn’t she care, Max wondered plaintively. Didn’t their night together haunt her like it haunted him? God, he’d washed the fucking sheets and his bed still smelled like her!

Max beat his fist into the pillow. He wasn’t going to do this, he told himself firmly, rolling over and snatching up his psychology book. She wanted to be with Valenti…he made her happy…it was no skin off Max’s nose. He didn’t care. He didn’t. But he did. He loved her so damned much and she couldn’t see it. Or maybe she did and just didn’t care anymore. Maybe she decided he wasn’t worth the effort…maybe he wasn’t.

Another chorus of raucous giggles floated over to him through his closed door and Max slammed his book shut in mounting frustration. Before he had a clear cut plan what he would do he was already stalking form his bedroom straight for the living room. He hadn’t taken three steps out of the hallway before stopping short.

Liz and Kyle were on the sofa together. They were dressed casually, Kyle in sweats and a t-shirt and Liz in only a tank top and shorts. Max tried not to groan at the creamy display of her soft thighs. She had her legs stretched across Kyle’s lap while he absently fiddled with her bare toes. They were both completely absorbed in the movie they had rented, sharing a bowl of buttered popcorn between them. Max ground his teeth in suppressed anguish, fisting his hands at his sides.

He must have made some slight movement because Liz glanced up and suddenly saw him standing in the hallway. Her mouth formed a surprised “o.” “Max!” she squeaked, “Why are you just standing there?”

That’s when Max realized he’d been frozen in the hallway, simply staring at them together. “I…I was gonna get a glass of water,” he stammered.

As he started to head off for the kitchen Liz said, “Kyle and I were going to order a pizza later. Did you want some?”

“No, I’m good,” Max mumbled, not meeting her eyes, “Thanks though.” He tried to leave again, simply desperate to get out of the room so that he could fall apart, but Kyle’s voice stopped him this time.

“So how’s the studying going?” Kyle inquired casually.

“It’s work,” was Max’s terse reply.

“So you’re taking Seligman for psych, huh,” Kyle commented, “He’s a real hard ass is what I’ve heard.”

Truthfully, the description of his psych professor was a serious understatement, but Max wasn’t about to give Valenti the satisfaction of a civil conversation. “He’s alright,” he replied unanswerably, “I gotta go.”

Liz and Kyle watched him disappear into the kitchen, their brows drawn into bewildered frowns. “I don’t think he likes me,” Kyle said thoughtfully, popping a handful of popcorn into his mouth.

“Of course he likes you,” Liz reassured him lightly, but she honestly wasn’t so sure. The last two weeks Max had been beyond cold and when Kyle was around his demeanor dropped another ten degrees. She didn’t know what was wrong. Liz had anticipated he would be feeling some residual guilt concerning their drunken night and she had taken care to keep out of his way since then. She had hoped that her efforts would help to smooth the awkward tension between them. Liz just wanted her friend back and she was beyond weary with being at odds with him all the time. But instead of improving with time, their relationship seemed to deteriorate more and more every day.

Liz looked over at Kyle and shrugged. “I think he’s just nervous about his mid-terms,” she said, “He’s been really stressed about his grades lately.”

“And that’s all it is?” Kyle prodded.

Liz glanced at him in surprise. “Yeah. What else would it be?”

“I thought he might still be upset over what happened between you two.”

Liz’s heart lurched at the mere mention of that night. She still had no clear recollection of what had happened between them, but from her brief conversations with Max she had gleaned that it had been unprotected. He’d been really gracious about it afterwards, assuring her that he had no STD’s and even agreeing to an HIV test just for her peace of mind. They hadn’t even broached the possibility of pregnancy. Liz couldn’t even think about that otherwise she would have gone over the edge for sure.

But that brief time had been the extent of their interaction. After accompanying her to the clinic she and Max hadn’t really talked much since then. Liz had made a point of avoiding Isabel just so she didn’t have to talk about the subject and doing so hadn’t been easy. And she couldn’t run to Alex for clarity because he was out of town.

But while Liz was struggling to adjust to what had happened between them, Max seemed to deal with it and move on just fine. He threw himself into his schoolwork and when he wasn’t home Liz assumed he was with Tess. Liz knew that Tess had called nearly every day since she and Max slept together so she could only assume Max had told his girlfriend the truth. The assumption made sense given Max’s penchant for honesty as well as his recent moods. Liz could only guess that Tess hadn’t been too happy with the revelation.

Her thoughts playing through her mind at a dizzying rate, Liz forced herself to focus and answer Kyle’s question. “I think he might have told Tess what happened between us,” she whispered.

“Seriously?” Kyle asked, rather surprised and dumbfounded by the thought.

“Max doesn’t like to lie,” Liz explained gingerly, “Keeping what happened from Tess would have eaten him alive.”

“But he has no problem getting his sixteen year old wife drunk and then having sex with her,” Kyle pointed out acerbically.

“It wasn’t like that,” Liz protested weakly.

“Then what was it like,” Kyle demanded, turning to face Liz fully, the movie playing on the television screen completely forgotten, “I’ve been with you for weeks, Liz. I’ve seen how this has been eating you up. You lost your virginity, for crying out loud, and you can’t even remember!” he continued in a furious whisper, “What right does he have to go moping around here like he’s the victim?”

Liz squeezed his hand in gratitude. “Kyle…I know you’re trying to be on my side here,” she sighed, “but Max isn’t some evil ogre who took advantage of me. I made the decision to get drunk and I made the decision to sleep with him. Those were my choices and no one else’s.”

“You have feelings for him, Liz,” Kyle said with understanding, “Of course, your judgment would be clouded.”

Liz shook her head sadly. “I can’t use that as an excuse,” she argued stubbornly, “It takes two to tango and I have to take responsibility for my actions.” An awkward silence yawned between them as Kyle continued to regard her with unconcealed sorrow. Liz nudged his shoulder playfully. “Don’t look at me like that!” she admonished, “It happened. It’s over and now I just want to forget about it.”

“Can you do that?” Kyle countered softly.

Liz lowered her eyes. “I’m trying,” she confessed quietly, “It gets a little easier every day.” She smiled at the way he unconsciously massaged her bare knee, peeking up at him shyly through her lashes. “You make it a lot easier.”

Kyle tucked a strand of hair back behind her ear. “I just hate seeing you in pain, Liz,” he murmured gently, “I wish I could make it all go away.”

“You’re doing a fine job already,” Liz whispered, smiling at him, “You bring me chocolate everyday…how can that not make it better?”

“I want to do more,” Kyle insisted softly, rubbing her soft, silky tendrils between his fingers. “Just tell me…I’ll do anything.”

“You’ve done enough,” Liz told him.

“Doesn’t feel like it,” Kyle grumbled. He scooted closer, skimming his fingers down the curve of her cheek. “You deserve better than the hand you’ve been dealt,” he whispered gruffly, “I hate that there are people who have made you feel insignificant, Liz. I hate that people have hurt you.”

“You’ve never hurt me,” Liz said softly, mesmerized by the compelling look in his blue eyes, “You’ve never made me feel insignificant.”

“And I never will,” Kyle promised right before settling his mouth against hers in a tender kiss.

Liz’s eyes fluttered closed in response as Kyle gradually increased the pressure against her lips. And then he opened his mouth, his tongue making quick, darting forays against her own. Liz kissed him back, slid her fingers into his hair and gave herself over…but she didn’t feel anything. She couldn’t help but compare Kyle’s kiss to the one Max had given her in the mall parking lot that day. Kissing Kyle only further reminded Liz that he, and no one else for that matter, would never replace Max in her heart.

Max came striding out the kitchen and stopped cold at the sight of Liz and Kyle making out on his living room sofa. The glass in his hand began to shake uncontrollably as he felt the tentative grip he’d been holding on his emotions for the last two weeks slip away. Bitch!, he thought in a flash of angry pain. In those few seconds the fragmented remains of his heart broke into a thousand more pieces. And then he quickly squelched the feeling, his expression becoming stony with bitterness. He moved through the living room quickly, keeping his eyes carefully averted. They never even noticed him.

Kyle pulled back slightly, smiling in chagrin when Liz opened her eyes and regarded him in quiet expectation. “Did you feel anything?” he murmured, fingering her cheek gently.

“It was a very nice kiss,” Liz hedged carefully.

“But did you feel it,” Kyle insisted. He laid his hand directly above her heart. “In here,” he indicated, and then he lifted his fingers to her mouth, “and here.”

Liz swallowed, feeling suddenly like she wanted to burst into tears. “Kyle, you’ve been such a good friend to me--,” she croaked in response. Kyle dropped his hand from her face.

“Just as I suspected,” Kyle sighed expansively, leaning back into the cushions, “I’m stuck in the friend zone now, aren’t I?”

He sounded so comically disgruntled that Liz couldn’t quite bite back her answering smile. “It’s not such a bad place to be,” she rallied with laugh.

“Not if a guy wants to get in your pants,” Kyle returned without rancor. He rolled his head to face her, smiling wistfully. “But I guess I can deal with just being your friend. You’re lucky I like you.”

“Thank you,” Liz whispered solemnly.

“I’m here if you need me,” Kyle reassured teasingly, “For anything.” He wiggled his brows at her lasciviously. “Midnight cuddling, an itch you can’t scratch…you name it and I’ll provide. Use me, Liz.”

Liz laughed outright at his ribald teasing. “I think I’ve had enough one night stands to last me a lifetime, thank you very much.”

Chapter Twenty-Five

The moment Kyle was gone, Liz stomped off to Max’s room, her temper simmering. Not long after their uneventful kiss she and Kyle had settled back against the sofa to watch the remainder of their movie. However, they had been unable to glean a single thing because Max had begun blasting his stereo at an obnoxious volume. After Liz had several repeated and unheeded attempts to get him to turn it down Kyle had opted to leave. Liz had seen Kyle on his way graciously, but inside she was poised for explosion. Presently, she pounded her fist against Max’s door with enough force to rattle the frame, but even that was barely registered above the blaring volume of his stereo.

“Max! Max!” she yelled, following her bellows by another round of pounding. She tried the doorknob but it was, expectedly, locked. “Max! Open the damned door!” Liz ordered angrily. But her screaming was drowned out by the reverberating bass. With an enraged huff, Liz went stomping off for the kitchen for something with which to pick the lock.

She was back a few minutes later with a tiny screwdriver. It only took a couple of quick flicks of her wrist and the door was unlocked. When she swung it open, Max was so into the music that he didn’t even here her entrance. He was sprawled across his bed, bopping his head in time to the beat while seemingly studying the book spread out before him.

It’s the remix to ignition, hot and fresh out the kitchen,” Max sang loudly, “Mama rolling that body, got every man in here wishing. Sipping on coke and rum, I’m like so what I’m drunk. It’s the freakin’ weekend, baby, I’m about to have me so fun!” Liz turned off the stereo just as he was about to begin another chorus.

Max jerked up his head in surprise, his eyes becoming downright flinty when he beheld her. “What are you doing in here,” he demanded stonily, “I locked the door.”

“And I picked the lock,” Liz answered unrepentantly, holding up the little screwdriver, “I shouldn’t have had to go that far. Why didn’t you just answer the fucking door, Max?” She tossed the screwdriver onto his computer desk in disgust.

“Cuz I didn’t fucking want to,” Max retorted caustically, returning his attention back to his psychology book.

“How can you be so completely rude?”

Max fixed her with a hard stare. “What?”

“You don’t think about anyone but yourself, do you?” Liz demanded in a whisper.

He didn’t even dignify her with an answer, but simply rolled his eyes and stared back down at his book. “Turn my stereo back on when you leave,” he ordered flatly.

But Liz wasn’t about to be dismissed so easily. Maybe it was the knowledge that she’d given him her virginity and then he’d crawled back to his girlfriend like it never happened. Or maybe it was the fact that he’d been acting petulant for the last two weeks, like his life had shattered, and not a damned thing had changed for him. Or, yet still, maybe Liz was just damned tired of walking on eggshells around him. She was sick of the stress, weary of the drama and growing generally tired of crying. Whatever the catalyst was Liz stomped over to Max’s bed and yanked his book from his lap and tossed it halfway across his room. It thudded against the wall hard enough to dent the sheetrock before crashing to the ground.

Max glared up at her in furious incredulity. “What the fuck is your problem?” he snapped out in a furious hiss.

“What’s my problem?” Liz scoffed bitterly, “What’s my problem? You were the one in here blasting music to all be damned while I was having company.”

Max’s eyes became slits of unconcealed hatred as he pushed himself upright. “What? Did I interrupt your little make out session on the sofa?” he jeered, “You sure are giving it up rather easy these days.”

Liz went cold all over at the thread of loathing she heard in his words. She stumbled back a step. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“What do you think?” Max countered, rolling from the bed to retrieve his book. “Did I get you all hot and bothered or something…cuz suddenly you can’t wait to spread ‘em for any guy that crosses your path!”

Liz couldn’t believe what he was saying to her, could hardly fathom that this person was the Max Evans she had known all her life. His unjustified answer, his general callousness sparked a blaze of fury within Liz. She plunked her hands on her hips and regarded him with a chilly expression. “Maybe you just didn’t satisfy me the first time around,” Liz tossed out sharply, taking refuge in her anger and ignoring the pain his angry words caused her.

“Is that so?” Max snorted as he headed back towards his bed, “Well, I seem to remember you begging me to fuck you so I guess I did something right!”

Liz seriously believed she hated him in that second. His blatant disregard for what happened or the mortification Liz felt over it was her undoing. She was absolutely blinded with rage and hurt, just determined to hurt him back just as much.

He was wholly unprepared for Liz’s running attack. One minute she was standing across the room, her eyes brimming over with tears of fury and pain, and the next she was launching herself at him with an outraged cry. She managed to get in two vicious punches to his face before he got her flailing arms under control. And still she bucked against him with pitiful cries of anguish, her fingernails curled into claws as if she meant to dig out his eyes. Max didn’t doubt for she would. Even holding her as tightly as he was Liz still managed to draw blood.

They continued to grapple with each other and, in the process, tumbled to the bed in a struggling heap. Liz took advantage of Max’s lack of preparation as they went down to bring her knee up into his groin. Max avoided her blow just narrowly, his anger pushed beyond its limits that she’d even tried, and in a reflexive action he raised his fist as if he meant to hit her.

Max came to his senses right then. Liz was beneath him, cowering and crying, shielding her face with her hands because she believed he would hit her. And then he just felt sick…horrifically ill in that moment. His body began to shake all over with the realization of what he’d been seconds away from doing and he rolled away from her and began to jerk with regretful sobs. “Get out,” he whispered to her tearfully, unable to even look at her in that moment. All he could think about was what he’d nearly done and he felt nauseated with self-disgust. When Liz made no attempt to move Max pleaded again hoarsely, “Please just leave, Liz.” He drew his knees up against his chest and began to weep in harsh, broken sobs.

Liz slowly gathered herself together and left. She didn’t know what else she could do, her body was so numbed with shock. She wasn’t reeling over the blow Max had nearly given her. Her cowering had been more a reflex than anything else. She had known that he wouldn’t hit her, but in that second Liz realized she’d provoked him enough to want to do it. She suppressed a frightened shudder as she drifted into her bedroom and closed the door. Liz didn’t understand what was happening between her and Max, but this marriage, whatever it was, was slowly tearing them apart. Not just ruining their friendship, but ruining them as well…

She curled herself down onto her bed, trying not to relive all the hateful, vicious things Max had said to her or the hateful, vicious things she had said back. But despite her resolve to block the horrible confrontation from her mind the words continued to play back in her head. She couldn’t stop thinking about it. Not just the shocking realization that Max had come so close to hitting her, but that she had actually hit him!

Liz had kicked and bitten and punched him like some common street thug. Max, at least, had maintained the wherewithal to restrain himself while Liz had wailed on him with every ounce of fury she had. He had checked his temper admirably until she finally pushed him over the edge when she tried to knee him in the crotch. She had missed his manhood by only inches and instead connected rather painfully with his inner thigh. The fury that had darkened his features in that split second would never leave Liz’s memory. She didn’t think she’d ever seen him so angry, not in the entire time she’d known him.

With a regretful moan, Liz rolled over onto her back and threw her forearm across her eyes. Her body trembled uncontrollably in the aftermath. God, how had they come to be at this point, Liz wondered morosely. How had they gone from being such close friends to fisticuffs?

Just the idea seemed completely ludicrous to Liz. She didn’t hate Max. The fact was she loved him so much that it scared her. The emotion just seemed so big, so wild, so very beyond her control. Only Max could drive her to the heights of ecstasy and plunge her into the dark pits of despair. No one got to her the way he did. And now that they had slept together and he seemed to still be holding onto his relationship with Tess, Liz felt her emotions spiral completely out of control. When she had been hitting him back in his room it hadn’t just been for the hateful words he thrown in her face, but for the weeks of hell he’d put her through, for taking her virginity and then not giving a damn.

Suddenly, Liz had grown tired of being the good one, the sensible one, the mature one. When was it Max’s turn to be mature? So his perfect relationship had been rocked because of their night together but what about her. Had he ever once stopped to consider how she felt? Did he think that knowing she had given her virginity away during a drunken binge did anything to heighten her self-esteem? And then he’d all but called her a slut a few moments before… Maybe her father was right about her, Liz considered as she curled into a tiny ball of anguish, maybe she was a whore.

Liz didn’t know how long she lay there, just sobbing brokenly into the crook of her arm, before she felt a hand against her shoulder. When she looked up she found Max staring down at her with a haunted expression. Liz didn’t understand what happened next. She expected when she saw him again she would explode with burning fury, but instead she pitched herself into his arms with renewed sobs of anguish.

Max held her tight in his arms, breaking down to tears right along with her. “Please forgive me, Liz. I…I won’t say I’m sorry,” he sobbed into her neck, “that doesn’t begin to make up for what I did…what I said to you.”

“Y-You think I…I’m a-a slut,” Liz wept in agony, “but I…I’m not, Max! Really, I’m not!”

“Shh,” Max soothed gently, moving his lips across her cheeks, her nose, brushing her lips, “I don’t think you’re a slut…I don’t.”

“You h-hate me b-because of what h-happened,” Liz surmised tearfully.

“No, never,” Max groaned against her neck.

“Then why are you treating me this way, Max…like you can’t stand the sight of me,” she whispered brokenly, “What did I do?”

Max slid his fingers into her hair, cradling her tear-streaked face between his hands. He forced her watery gaze to his. “I want to ask you the same thing,” he murmured hoarsely, “What did I do, Liz?”

But Liz barely heard his question. She was too busy processing the damage she’d done to his face. Massive amounts of shame rolled through her body. “Oh god,” she gasped in self-revulsion, “Did I do this to you?” She skated her fingers over the small, bleeding cuts that peppered his face, as well as the black eye she’d given him. Liz collapsed into renewed sobs of guilt and remorse. “Oh god…oh, Max…I didn’t mean it…I didn’t…”

“I know…I know…”

“What’s happening to us?” Liz sobbed in near hysteria, “I don’t understand, Max…”

“Shh, it’s okay,” Max whispered, caressing her cheek, her hair, her lower lip, “I deserved everything I got. It’s just a few scratches…they’ll heal.”

“I didn’t mean to hurt you, Max,” Liz sniffled, “You’re the last person in the world I would ever want to hurt.”

“We’re hurting each other,” Max replied quietly, “And we need to stop, Liz…we need to stop before it destroys us.”

“I don’t know what I can do,” Liz whimpered, “I’ve been trying to make you happy…”

“Make me happy?” he exploded in soft surprise.

Liz gave him a pointed look, her brown eyes glistening with tears of pain. “Yes, make you happy,” she insisted fervently, “I’ve been trying to step out of the way so that you can be with Tess…and it’s been killing me! I didn’t want to pretend like nothing happened between us, but I thought that was what you wanted. Then you turn around and treat me like crap and--,”

“Whoa, whoa,” Max uttered, pressing his finger against her lips, “You tried to step out of the way so that I could be happy with Tess? What does that mean, Liz?” But God help him he already knew. He knew and that meant they had endured the last two weeks of misery and the pain of that last horrific confrontation for nothing. Max groaned inwardly, closing his eyes in immense regret. “You lied to me that day, didn’t you?” Max predicted wearily, “All that stuff about that night being a mistake and wanting to be with Kyle…you didn’t mean any of it?”

“I…I thought I was telling you what you wanted to hear,” Liz whispered sadly. Max inhaled a soundless gasp, clearly agonized by her admission. “I knew you were just going to go back to Tess. I didn’t want to be hurt anymore.”

“But I didn’t go back to Tess,” Max denied quietly.

Liz’s surprised gaze ricocheted to his face. “You said you were going to see her,” she reminded him incredulously, “I thought I’d die right then when you said it.”

“I was going over to break up with her, Liz. And I did break up with her,” Max confessed with a grim, regretful smile, “The only person I planned on professing my undying love to that day was you.”

“Me?” Liz echoed in surprise.

“Yes…you,” Max emphasized, pressing his forehead against hers so that their eyes were locked together, “I love you. I love you, Liz.” He nuzzled against her lips, his tears falling freely once more. “I’m sorry I’ve been such a coward about telling you.”

“You love me?” Liz croaked in disbelief, “You love me?”

“I’ve always loved you,” Max murmured solemnly, “I was just afraid to tell you…afraid I’d lose you in the end.” She whimpered his name, overwhelmed with joy and sorrow by his quiet revelation. He nuzzled the tip of his nose against hers, sighing with relief as the pain that had gripped his heart like a vise gradually eased. “When I saw you with Kyle tonight…when I saw you kissing him…it nearly killed me, Liz…I just lost it…I’m so…so sorry…”

“Oh my god,” was all she could utter.

“I would have never hit you, Liz,” he vowed tearfully, “Never. I was angry…no, I was furious…but I never would have laid a finger on you…I promise.”

“I know that,” Liz mumbled painfully, “but I can’t say the same now, can I?”

Chapter Twenty-Six

When he opened his eyes the next morning it was to find Liz curled up in his arms, her cheek rested against his chest as she stared up at him with luminous eyes. Blinking away the last vestiges of sleep, Max smiled down at her, caressing her luxuriant hair back from her downy cheek. “What time is it?” he murmured huskily.

“A little after two in the morning,” Liz answered softly, “I’ve been watching you sleep.”

“I fell asleep,” Max asked with a bewildered frown. The last he’d remembered they had been talking.

“You were exhausted,” Liz told him, “We were talking and you fell asleep mid-sentence.”

As Max stretched his body languidly the last tendrils of sleep cleared from his mind. His glimmering smile widened when he thought back to how he and Liz had talked most of the night away. He was still reeling from the depth of the misunderstandings between them. After their lengthy conversation Max had learned that there was nothing beyond friendship going on between Liz and Kyle Valenti and yet for weeks the relationship between them had been twisting him up.

Upon learning that blessed information Max had been horrified and overjoyed all at once. Overjoyed that Liz was still his and his alone, but horrified at the way he’d treated her in the preceding weeks. He cringed all the more when he recalled the callous remarks he’d made during their fight. But when he’d tried to apologize she had shushed him, telling him that those times were all over, in the past. Just like that, Liz had put all the old hurts behind her and was only looking to the future. Max felt overwhelmed with humble gratitude by the depth of her loving kindness.

He shifted onto his side now so that he could look directly into her beautiful face. He wanted her to see his eyes, wanted her to be able to plainly read just how much he cared for her. “I didn’t think I would ever have this with you,” he murmured softly, “I thought you didn’t love me anymore.”

“Silly boy,” Liz teased with a soft smile, “Don’t you know that my heart has belonged to you for most of our lives?”

“Has it?”

“Since I was nine years old,” Liz whispered. They shared a gentle kiss, a mere exchange of breath.

“That long, huh?” Max whispered against her mouth, “Wish I’d known…I wouldn’t have tormented you so much.” He settled his lips against hers once more, his tongue slipping easily into her mouth. Max sampled her taste, nibbled at her lips in a deep, languid kiss. “Hmm,” he moaned, splaying his hand over her hip, “You taste sweet.”

Liz shuddered a groan as he inched his lips along the underside of her jaw. She rubbed her body against his sensuously, enjoyed the gentle rustling their clothing made together. “Max,” she whispered in a gasp, “Tell me what it was like…that night with us…”

He didn’t need to ask what she was referring to. Max had thought of little else since it had happened. His eyes met her darting gaze in a melting stare. “What do you want to know?” he whispered sweetly.

“How did it happen?”

Max smiled. “I asked you to take your clothes off,” he confessed wryly.

“And?” Liz prodded huskily.

“You did.”

Liz emitted a low groan of mock horror. “I am a slut,” she muttered.

Max chucked her beneath the chin, forcing her eyes back to his. “No, you’re not,” he contradicted firmly, “You’re sweet and sexy and the most responsive woman I’ve ever known.” Liz rolled her eyes in disbelief. “I’m serious,” he insisted with a smile, “You were hot.”

“Hotter than Tess?” The words flew from Liz’s mouth without any thought. She wanted to bite her tongue in two the moment they left her lips.

Max’s smile faltered in response to her unexpected question, his expression suddenly wiped clean of teasing. “Liz, there’s absolutely no comparison between the two of you,” he told her somberly, “I have never felt for anyone what I feel for you…what I’ve always felt for you.”

“But you were in love with her, Max,” Liz protested.

“I thought I was in love with her,” Max agreed freely.

“You spent all your time with her, stayed over at her house, Max,” Liz persisted thickly, “You were hardly ever here at all. And let’s not forget the numerous times you told me…”

“I get it,” Max laughed, covering her mouth with his hand to staunch her flow of words, “I admit it to you right now…I was confused and I didn’t know what the hell I was doing.”

“And now you do?” Liz asked uncertainly, “Max, you were with Tess for a little over four years. I don’t believe your feelings for her could just go away over night.”

“Liz, I’m not going to lie to you,” Max began candidly, “I still care about Tess. I didn’t want to hurt her and I still don’t. Tess isn’t strong like you. She’s very fragile emotionally. It’s hard for her to deal with stressful situations and most times she’ll just shut down.”

“Is that what she did when you broke up with her?” Liz asked carefully, “She just shut down on you.”

Max nibbled at the corner of his lower lip pensively. “She didn’t want to hear what I had to say,” he said, regret evident in his tone, “This whole time I just wanted to avoid hurting her. It’s why I spent so much time with her after we were married. I thought if I was with her then she wouldn’t freak out so much about you being my wife. I also thought I wouldn’t freak out so much about you being my wife.” They both laughed a little at his wry admission.

“So you just went over to comfort her?” Max nodded. “And nothing ever happened between you?” Another nod. Liz snorted in disbelief. “Yeah, right! Max, you can tell me. It’s over between you two…I promise I won’t get jealous.”

“I’m telling you the truth, Liz,” Max insisted solemnly, “I haven’t had sex with Tess in nearly a year.”

“Are you serious?” Liz burst out in a dubious whisper.

His eyes skittering away in self-conscious chagrin, Max jerked his head against the pillow in a nod. “The last time I was with her that way was in the beginning of our senior year,” he told her.

“But you guys made out, like, all the time,” Liz protested, “Believe me…I know. I was usually the unfortunate witness to your disgusting PDA’s.”

Max couldn’t help but chuckle over her exasperated tone. “But that’s all we did…just make out.” He had a difficult time meeting her incredulous gaze right then as he began to feel the first stirrings of unease over their conversation. Of course her next question would be why. Why would he and Tess end their sexual relationship so abruptly? Max knew he would have to tell her, but he didn’t know if he wanted to. Admitting to her the truth behind Tess’ miscarriage might very well destroy any feeling she had for him. Especially after their fight tonight, she might lose respect for him entirely. But as Max peeked up into her soft, brown eyes he knew he couldn’t keep the truth from her indefinitely.

Having made up his mind, Max heaved a shuddering sigh and said, “Liz, there’s something I haven’t told you…about me and Tess.”

Liz stiffened against him. Just the somber tone of his voice told her that whatever he had to say would not be good. However, when she tried to sit upright Max held her down against him, all but wrapping his body about hers. “No,” he protested softly, “I want you to stay in my arms when I tell you this.”

“Will it be bad?” Liz wondered.

“Depends…”

“On what?”

“On how you feel about me afterwards,” Max whispered.

Liz wilted a little when she realized that the apprehension he was displaying was due, not to what he was about to divulge, but to fear over how she might react to it. He was afraid of losing her. The thought warmed her heart. She pressed her lips to his in a reassuring kiss. “I will always love you, Max,” she vowed, “Nothing will ever change that. You can tell me anything. We were friends first, remember?”

“I remember,” Max said with a fond smile. He snuggled down deeper into the pillows, forcing himself to lock eyes with her. And then he began his story with a heavy sigh. “Mid-way through my junior year in high school I got Tess pregnant.” He paused, studying Liz closely for her reaction.

To say she was stunned would not have adequately described her feelings. She stared at him in mute shock, her eyes round as saucers and blinking rapidly. Right then she couldn’t even process how his confession made her feel she was so overcome with quiet incredulity. “Oh my god,” she uttered, “Tess was pregnant? What happened…did she have an abortion or something?”

“She miscarried,” Max revealed miserably, “…and it was my fault.”

Liz felt a rush of relief. So this was it? This was his deep, dark secret? This was why he’d felt so obligated to Tess? Liz was suddenly flooded with pity. Max had endured one of the most traumatic experiences a teenaged boy could go through, only to have his girlfriend miscarry in the end. Of course, he would have feelings of unreasonable guilt especially because, if Liz knew Max and his ambitions for the future, he’d felt an underlying relief when it happened. Offering him a shaky smile, Liz brushed away the remorseful tears that had begun to trickle over the bridge of his nose. “Max, it wasn’t your fault,” she whispered, “Women have miscarriages all the time. It’s no one’s fault…not yours and not Tess’ either. It was just a horrible tragedy.”

“No, you don’t understand,” Max insisted hoarsely, “It was my fault because…because I’m the one that caused it.”

“Max?” Liz questioned with a bewildered frown.

“We had been fighting that day,” Max said, a far off look coming to his eyes as he spoke. Liz knew that he was no longer lying in bed with her right then, but again in that moment that had been torturing him with guilt all this time. “Tess had been freaking out the entire week. I did everything I could to put her at ease, promised over and over that I would stand by her. I even asked her to marry me that day and she just snapped. She started going on and on about how I had ruined her life…ruined her future. She said she hated me and she wanted our baby to die, that she just wished it would die.

“I lost it then and started screaming, calling her a selfish bitch and…it was just unbelievable…I don’t think I’ve ever been that furious…not even today,” Max muttered in recollection, “And then she started slapping me, telling me I was a pussy and I was a weak-willed boy pretending to be a man and…I don’t know…she just slapped me one time too many and…and I knocked her down.”

“Knocked her down?” Liz repeated carefully.

“I pushed her, Liz,” Max clarified in disgust, “I just wanted her to stop hitting me and I just shoved her. I pushed her so hard she smacked into the side of the car.” His face crumpled in tearful regret. “Ahh, god,” he groaned out in a sob, “I can still remember the thudding sound she made when she hit. When she started bleeding I was horrified but…but she didn’t want me to take her to the hospital…so I took her home and that was it. The baby was gone and it was my fault. I killed my own child.”

Liz could do little more than hold him in her arms while he sobbed brokenly. Now so much made sense to her now. Liz remembered the devastated expression on Max’s face earlier that night when they’d been fighting. Very likely, he’d had that night with Tess in his mind at that very moment. No wonder he seemed to possess this mentality that he didn’t deserve to be happy…no wonder he felt like he owed Tess this great debt.

She nuzzled against his forehead, inching her way down his face until she found his lips. “It still wasn’t your fault, baby,” she whispered into his mouth, “It wasn’t.”

“Didn’t you hear what I just told you?” Max sobbed.

“Max, listen to me,” Liz said firmly, capturing his face between her hands so that he couldn’t look away, “You are NOT responsible for Tess’ miscarriage. You pushed her, you didn’t kick her in the belly or beat her unmercifully. You had a fight and it just got out of hand, okay.”

“Like our fight got out of hand tonight?” he murmured.

“I should have never laid a finger on you,” Liz whispered mournfully, “And had I known what happened with Tess I would have shown greater restraint.” She fingered the blue-black flesh underneath his eye. “Tonight must have been like a horrible flashback. I don’t blame you for what happened with Tess and I don’t blame you for what happened tonight. I played my part, too.”

Max traced her lips, her eyes, rendered speechless by the devotion she showed him, the unconditional love she freely gave. “So where do we go from here?” he asked her, tenderly brushing back sticking tendrils of hair from her cheek.

“Can you just hold me tonight?” Liz implored, snuggling against his chest, “Just hold me all night.”

Chapter Twenty-Seven

“There’s nothing to eat,” Liz announced, shutting the cupboard with an echoing thump. She whipped around to face Max in exasperation. “How can there be nothing in this house to eat?” she demanded, “You were supposed to do the shopping this week.”

Max only yawned broadly as he stumbled into the kitchen after her, still rubbing the sleep from his eyes. “I was going to go today,” he lied transparently. They had slept nearly until half past eleven and now that they had finally left the bed both he and Liz were starving. Unfortunately, aside from a carton of milk and half a package of stale Oreos, there was no food in the house to be had. But despite Liz’s disgruntled tone Max knew that she wasn’t really annoyed with him. For the first time, in a really long time, they had talked like friends. Neither of them were holding any residual feelings of animosity or bitterness, although they were hazy about just what direction their relationship should head in next.

They were in love. That much was obvious now. But it was also equally obvious that they shouldn’t jump head first into a relationship. Max mentally shook his head at the thought. The idea sounded ridiculous considering the fact that they were already married, however, talking with Liz last night had alerted Max to the hundred and one things they still had to work on. Though he’d spent the night in her bed all they had done was talk and sleep. Max thought it for the best. Neither of them were ready for sex at this point.

He walked up against Liz, dipping his head to give her neck a nuzzling kiss. “I’ll go today,” he placated sweetly, slipping his arms around her waist in order to pull her closer.

“No, don’t leave,” Liz pouted. She rubbed her cheek against his chest, inhaling his scent through his t-shirt. “I want you to stay here with me.”

“Come with me,” he invited huskily, “It will be better that way…you know how I always forget stuff. Besides I’ll probably be gone awhile. I’ve got a few errands to run.”

Liz tipped up her head to regard him with piqued interest. “What kind of errands?”

“Well, first off I thought I might get a surprise for my girl,” Max suggested with an affectionate smile.

She wrinkled her nose prettily. “Don’t think it will be much of a surprise with me there.”

Max considered her point. “That’s true,” he conceded, “but I think the desire to have you with me is just too great.” He met her lips in a feather light kiss, but when she tried to deepen it he turned his head away. “Haven’t brushed yet,” he mumbled in explanation.

Liz chuckled softly and pulled out of his arms. “Why don’t you go take care of that then?” she said, rolling her eyes in laughing exasperation, “You’ll just obsess if you don’t.”

“You know me so well,” he crooned, his smile playful, “I’ll be back in five minutes.” He thought a moment, running his tongue along the face of his teeth. “Make that ten,” he amended, “And then I’ll give you a proper kiss.”

Liz watched as he disappeared from the kitchen, a grin of pure happiness spreading across her face. Was this really happening, she wondered giddily. Had she and Max finally moved past their problems and misunderstandings enough to finally be friends again? She had thought after their fight last night that they would never recover. Liz had imagined that their friendship was over for good. And then Max had come to her room with his heart in his eyes…

However, now that last night’s anguish was behind them, Liz was somewhat unsure as to how they should precede. The week’s last few events had taught her, if nothing else, that she and Max had serious communication issues. Liz couldn’t understand how two people who had once been such good friends should have such a difficult time sharing their feelings with one another. It seemed premature to jump head first into a relationship when they were still learning how to talk to each other.

Liz was still pondering over that fact and searching through the cabinets for scraps of food when Max returned. He crept up behind her, encircling her waist and burying his face into her bounty of fragrant hair. Smiling, Liz rolled her head to face him so that their lips could meet in a long, languid kiss.

“Better?” Max murmured a few moments later when they came up for air.

“Mmm…very minty.” She favored him with a pensive frown. “I thought you only liked to use that awful gold flavor.”

“First of all,” Max admonished with a laugh, “gold is not a flavor and second, I just wanted to try something new. You like?”

Liz nuzzled his nose in approval. “I like.” She turned in his arms, unable to wipe the grin of drowsy contentment from her face. “So what are we doing today,” she asked.

“Weeell,” Max drawled, grinning, “First I’ve got to take the Vette to the shop because it’s stalling on me again and then we need to go grocery shopping before we both starve. And then,” he finished with a gusty sigh, “I’ve got a job interview at 5:30.”

“A job interview?” Liz gaped, clearly taken aback by his revelation, “You’ve got to be kidding me. Doing what?”

“Waiting tables,” Max answered. Liz continued to gape. “What?” Max asked with feigned innocence, “I’ve got a good work ethic.” Liz just looked at him as if he’d just admitted to having a third eye. Max pinched her buttock playfully, eliciting a sharp laughing yelp.

“Stop that!” she giggled helplessly.

He rubbed the tender spot. “You don’t look like you believe me.”

“I don’t,” Liz admitted baldly, “You’ve never worked a day in your life, Max Evans. You’re the world’s most spoiled, pampered rich boy.”

“Things change.”

“Oh yeah…since when?” Liz challenged with a roll of her eyes.

“Since our dads cornered us in the study that day,” Max whispered solemnly. All the laughter drained from Liz’s face when she realized that he was completely serious. “I’ll never forget the look on your face that night, Liz. You were devastated.” His eyes skated over her face, darkened with remorseful resolve. “My Dad and me…that’s just our thing. We’ve never gotten along, but it’s different with you and your dad. I know he ripped your heart out that night.”

“Max, it’s okay--,”

“No, it’s not,” he interrupted gently, “I don’t want us to be indebted to them for anything. I want them to know that our decision to stay together has nothing to do with their strong-arm tactics. We’re going to be together, baby, but we’re going to be together on our terms.”

Liz had to look away quickly, her eyes suddenly flooded with tears. But Max caught sight of the glistening and promptly forced her gaze back to his. “What?” he asked gently, “What did I say?”

“You called me baby,” Liz admitted in a low sniffle, “I don’t think you ever have.”

“Well, that’s what you are,” he told her, smiling, “You’re my baby.”

Liz smiled through her tears. “I really am, huh?” she said in near wonder.

“And I’m yours,” Max added with gentle firmness, “I always will be.”

Liz nibbled at her lip thoughtfully. “You must love me a whole lot if you’re willing to get a job for my sake.”

“I love you more than you’ll ever realize,” Max whispered sweetly, “There isn’t anything I wouldn’t do for you, Liz.”

They spent the next hour between kisses and soft caresses trying to finish dressing for their morning errands. Liz couldn’t remember the last time she’d had such a delightful morning. The pure simple joy of having Max pad around in her bedroom in only his boxer shorts was beyond expression. And, of course, the view wasn’t so bad either. She watched him from the bed as he carefully groomed himself in the in the dresser mirror. Every time he lifted his arms to comb through his thick, dark hair the muscles in his back would flex invitingly. Liz swallowed her audible moan.

“Anyone who says that girls waste precious time primping doesn’t know a thing about you, Max Evans,” Liz observed with a smirk.

He tossed a look of mock affront at her over his shoulder. “Hey, I like to be presentable.”

“You should be more like me,” Liz advised, “Just throw on a pair of sweats and go.”

Liz spied his answering look of exasperation in his mirror reflection. “Not everyone is like you, Liz,” he said glibly, “I can’t just roll out of bed, brush my hair back and be perfect. My look takes effort.”

“What are you saying?” she asked softly, a little surprised and shocked that Max had actually just paid her a compliment. “You think I roll out of bed beautiful?”

He turned to face her, propping his buttocks back against the edge of the dresser. “Essentially…yes,” he sighed, “I’ve never seen anyone look so gorgeous first thing in the morning. You know how guys are always fawning all over Isabel…well, she looks absolutely hideous in the morning. I thought it would be the same with you…”

“But?” Liz prodded.

“You’ve got to be the most breathtaking thing I’ve ever seen,” he told her with a dreamy smile. No wonder Tess had been so adamant about holding onto him, Liz reasoned in her heart, he’s got to be the most perfect boyfriend on the face of the planet.

Liz was still thinking that an hour and a half later when they sat together in Jim’s Auto Body and Repair, munching on snacks from the vending machine and sipping Coca Colas. It didn’t even cross her mind to be impatient even though they’d already been there an hour and Max’s car still hadn’t been put on the rack. She was much too preoccupied with the joy of having her best friend back.

“So what do you think is wrong with it?” Liz asked him, filching one of his Doritos and popping it into her mouth.

“I’ve been having some trouble with the fuel injectors lately,” Max explained, somewhat surprised that she was even interested. Most girls would be pitching a fit by now. “I had one replaced a couple of months ago, but I’m thinking I’ll have to buy a whole new fuel system.”

“Why don’t you just trade in the car?”

“The Vette?” Max bleated, “I could never trade in the Vette. She’s my baby.”

Liz fixed him with a childish pout. “I thought I was your baby.”

“Well, she’s my second baby,” Max amended with a kiss.

It turned out that Max knew his car pretty well. The entire fuel system did need to be replaced and it was for a grand total of $1447.00. Max whipped out his credit card while favoring Liz with a flashy wink. “We’ll let dear old dad pay for this one,” he said wryly.

By the time they reached the grocery store it was already fifteen after three. They pushed through the isles, bickering like an old married couple as they picked out their groceries. Liz tried to be the sensible one, including all the fruits and vegetables she could manage while Max just loaded the cart down with junk. It was when he pitched two bags of Chocolate Chunk Chips Ahoy cookies into the basket that Liz finally put her foot down.

“You’re not getting those,” she declared firmly.

“Why not?” Max pouted, “They’re on sale. See? Two for five dollars,” he read diligently.

“Max,” Liz began with a reasonable sigh, “You have HoHo’s, Oreos, Twinkies, Mountain Dew, and economy pack of Snickers, and ice cream. You do not need those cookies. I don’t know how you’ve managed not to rot every tooth in your mouth,” she finished in a mutter.

“That’s because I brush religiously,” Max retorted, sticking out his tongue, “And don’t try to pull this ‘Miss Perfect’ act with me. I know you have a bag of cheese puffs hidden under your bed.”

Liz flushed guiltily. “Those are just for emergencies,” she said in weak defense.

They were still ribbing each other a few minutes later when Liz’s cell phone rang. Max ran to grab some other items while she answered the call. “Hello?”

“Where the hell are you?” Isabel demanded crossly.

“Isabel?”

“And don’t tell me you’re busy or that you have to go because I swear I will explode!”

“Isabel, calm down a minute.”

“Don’t tell me to calm down,” Isabel burst out furiously, “You’ve been avoiding me for the last week and a half and I want you to open this door and tell me why!”

“Open the door,” Liz repeated blankly, “Isabel, are you at the house?”

“You mean my round of pounding didn’t give it away?” she interjected sarcastically.

Liz palmed her forehead in mild frustration. “Isabel, I’m not at home.”

“How coincidental,” Isabel jeered, “because your car’s sitting right here in the drive.” And then she heard Isabel mutter a curse. “Oh, I know now…you’re with that guy, aren’t you…the one Max told me you’re seeing? How could you do this to him, Liz? Don’t you know how much my brother loves you?”

“Yes, I do know,” Liz informed her quietly, “which is the exact reason I’m with him right now.” As if on cue Max came striding up to the basket with the milk, eggs and orange juice she’d sent him to retrieve as well as two large bags of Cool Ranch Doritos that she hadn’t sanctioned at all. Liz narrowed her eyes in disapproval, but Max only offered her a toothy grin.

“You’re with Max right now,” Isabel repeated shakily after a moment of stunned silence.

“We’re doing our grocery shopping together,” Liz confirmed, a small grin playing at the corners of her mouth as she imagined her friend’s flabbergasted expression.

“Well, what happened?” Isabel asked dazedly.

“Max told me he loved me,” Liz replied simply, staring up into her boyfriend’s beautiful amber eyes. The two shared a soft kiss right in the middle of the grocery aisle. “Do you want to speak to him?” she asked Isabel.

“Yeah, put him on.”

Liz handed Max the phone and as he began chattering away with his sister, hastily explaining to her what had happened between them, she became aware of the aisle they were pushing past. On one side was a row of feminine products; on the other side were the condoms and pregnancy tests. Liz’s mind began working at a furious rate.

“Hey, Max,” she said, momentarily diverting his attention, “Why don’t you head on up into the line? There’s something I need to get.”

Holding his hand over the mouthpiece of the cell phone, Max favored her with a bewildered frown. “Why, what did we forget?” And then he noticed where they were standing. He rolled his eyes in exasperation. “Liz, I have a sister,” he told her mildly, “I’m not gonna freak if you buy tampons.”

Trying not to wilt with relief over his assumption, Liz brazened, “Well, maybe I’m the one who’s gonna freak if you’re standing here.” Max just stared at her, disbelieving. “Come on,” she wheedled, “I can’t buy them with you standing right here.”

Max conceded defeat with a sigh. “I’ll see you in line,” he said, bending forward to give her a quick kiss.

When he was gone Liz rushed down towards the end of the aisle to eye the pregnancy tests. There were so many to choose from she almost didn’t know how to pick. It wasn’t that she’d had any symptoms or anything, her period wasn’t due for another few days, but still Liz wanted to be certain. She quickly chose the E.P.T test simply because she liked the name and the purple box. And then, on the spur of the moment, she grabbed up an economy pack of Trojan condoms as well. Just in case… She was already half way to the checkouts when she remembered that she’d forgotten the tampons and doubled back.

In the end, Liz bought her purchases in a separate check out line, a hot red blush brightening her cheeks. Liz ignored the clerk’s bewildered glance when he noted that she was buying condoms, tampons and a pregnancy test, and then rushed out to the car to hide the evidence. She didn’t want Max to know she was thinking about the possibility of pregnancy, especially after all she’d learned about Tess and the miscarriage. Max was not ready to have a child and if he even suspected she was thinking she might be pregnant he’d mad cow for sure.

A few minutes later she reentered the store and breathlessly joined Max in line. He eyed her with curious suspicion. “I thought you were getting tampons.”

Liz shrugged. “I forgot I already had some,” she lied dismissively, “So did you have a nice talk with Isabel?”

“Yeah…she wants us all to go to the movies tonight.”

“Sounds great.”

Max leveled her with a tight smile. “Might be a problem for you,” he countered, passing her back her cell phone, “Kyle called while you were gone. He wants to know if you’re free tonight. His sister is in town and he wants you to meet her.”

“Oh,” Liz chirped brightly, “I’ll just call him back later.”

“Are you going to tell him about us?” Max asked stiffly.

Belatedly realizing that he was jealous Liz crooned, “Aww…my widdle Smoochie,” and wrapped her arms about his neck to pull his head down for a long, thorough kiss. Breathless minutes later she murmured against his mouth, “You don’t have any reason to be jealous…you’re the only one I want.”

“No-ted,” Max whispered in reply already meshing his mouth to hers for another languid kiss. They kissed on and on, impervious to the moving line or the amused stares they were drawing. Impervious to the private investigator standing at the far corner of the store, hurriedly snapping their picture.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

“See? No one’s here,” Liz announced crossly as she and Max pulled into the parking lot of the movie theater nearly forty-five minutes prior to the start time. “What are we gonna do with all this time?” she moaned.

“I can think of a few things,” Max suggested, wiggling his brows at her lasciviously. But when he tried to lean in for a kiss Liz staved him off.

“Oh, no you don’t,” she laughed, “First tell me how your interview went. I’ve been dying to know since you got home.”

He had just made it home barely in time to change for the movies. Liz was already on the sofa waiting for him when he got home. They had shared a few, quick drive by kisses before he made a beeline straight for her bedroom to shower. Liz couldn’t help but smirk over that. Ever since she and Max had made up he’d not used the guest bathroom once. When he was finally dressed he whisked them out of the house so quickly that Liz didn’t have time to question him. Liz would never understand why he always rushed like that…he was never late to the movies. But now she was starting to have suspicions…

Max’s expression suddenly became completely unreadable. That didn’t bode well. Liz was pretty sure it meant that he didn’t get the job and he was obviously disappointed. No wonder he had dodged all her inquiries on the way to the movies. Maybe he thought she would be disappointed by his misfortune.

Presently, Max folded his wrists across the top of the steering wheel, as if he were reluctant to begin. Seeing him appear so dejected made Liz ache with pity. “I start Thursday night,” he whispered just as she slid her fingers across the back of his neck to comfort him.

Liz froze. “You start Thurs--,” she began and then her eyes widened, “You got the job?” His excited nod matched her excited tone. The gentle caress she’d intended became a playful punch to the shoulder. “You idiot! You did that on purpose. If you got the job then why is your jaw in your lap?”

“It’s serving people, Liz,” Max answered as if that were the most obvious thing in the world, “I don’t even serve myself, okay.” It was true. Max would rather starve than go through the effort of fixing himself a meal. “I’m gonna seriously bomb.”

Liz played at his sensitive ear lobe. “You will not bomb,” she told him laughingly.

“It’s a recipe for disaster,” Max muttered.

“That’s the same thing you said about me,” Liz reminded him softly, “Was it a disaster?”

Max rolled his head against the headrest to regard her with honey eyes made dark with contented joy. “It was the most grueling thing I’ve ever been through,” he answered solemnly, “but I’d gladly do it again if it meant that I’d have you when it was over.”

Liz leaned across the seat and offered him a whisper soft kiss. “I think that’s the sweetest thing you’ve ever said to me,” she crooned.

Max fluttered the pads of his fingers over her hair, her eyes, her cheekbones. “It’s completely true,” he replied quietly. In the dim confines of the car, his eyes positively glowed, penetrating her with mesmerizing intensity. “I almost can’t believe I’m here with you,” Max whispered in wonder.

“We’ve gone to the movies plenty of times,” was Liz’s shaky reply.

“But never as a couple,” Max murmured, his breath brushing warmly against her lips as he spoke, “Never like this…”

When they kissed again the moment was wholly different from anything they had experienced before. The previous kisses between them had been born out of the desire for reconciliation, an effort to establish their newfound relationship. They had been pleasurable, even arousing, but neutral in a certain regard, always with the knowledge that they would not go further. This kiss, however, was tempered with underlying hunger, the desire to taste more, go further, explore…

Max swept his hand into the silky hair at the base of Liz’s neck and brought her fully into the kiss. Liz’s own hands came to rest against his shoulders as she came half out of her seat to take in his facile tongue and to give him her own. Max ran his hands down the ridges of her spine, pulling her closer for his oral exploration when his elbow accidentally came into contact with the car horn. The sudden blaring sound startled them apart. Both regarded one another in panting rhapsody, their gazes clouded with desire.

“Maybe I should move the car,” Max offered thickly.

“Yeah,” Liz agreed in a murmur, her heated gaze deliberately sliding to his swollen, pink lips before returning to his eyes, “Maybe you should.”

He wasted no time pulling the car into drive and circling around the theater parking lot until he found a space in the far back, suitably dark. Max pulled the car in and cut the engine. He looked at Liz. She looked right back. And then they were crashing their lips together once more, their caresses hungry, grasping, skating over each other’s bodies in no discernible direction.

Never once breaking their steamy kiss, Max reached beneath the driver’s seat for the lever, pulling it so that the seat slid back as far as possible. Once that was done he pulled Liz over into his lap so that she straddled him. A few seconds later they were veering back together as Max reclined the seat. However, the moment Liz found herself sprawled atop Max and felt his arousal pressing so intimately between the sensitive juncture of her thighs she tore away from him with a gasp of uncertainty. She stammered out his name in shaky confusion.

It wasn’t that Liz didn’t want him. She really did. Last night when he’d slept beside her in bed the restraint she exerted not to touch him had been excruciating. But Liz didn’t think she was ready for sex. After the disastrous results of their first time she wanted their next intimate encounter to be special and memorable. Not some quickie in the front seat of her car.

Amazingly enough, Liz didn’t need to voice her thoughts to Max. He could read her emotions plainly on her face as she regarded him in the dimness. “Liz, that’s not what this is about,” he reassured her quietly, “I just wanted to be closer and I thought if you were in my lap you wouldn’t be at such an awkward angle.”

Liz slumped with relief and then promptly felt like an idiot for jumping to the wrong conclusion. “I’m sorry for freaking out on you,” she muttered.

“Don’t apologize,” Max whispered reassuringly, “I know that it’s touchy subject for you.” He smiled and brushed a gentle kiss across her forehead. “You’re well within your rights to have a spaz attack.” Liz giggled, a giggle that quickly became a contented sigh when Max framed her face between his hands and said solemnly, “The next time we make love, Liz, it WILL be special…with flowers and music and candlelight. I want to love every inch of your body…kiss and touch you in all the places I’ve only dreamed about. I wanna lose myself in you.”

His every word was like a tiny pinprick of desire, flaming her, making her tingle. Liz buried her overheated face against his shoulder. She moaned out his name. “Do you have any idea how perfect you are?” she whispered into his neck.

Max stroked his fingers over her silky hair. “Oh, I’m a long way from perfect,” he contradicted gruffly, “but I’m glad you think so.”

Liz lifted her head so that she could look deep into his eyes when she said, “God, I love you, Max.”

“I love you, too,” he whispered back reverently, “In fact,” he added, shifting underneath her so that he could dig down into his jacket pocket, “I bought you something today to show you just how much I do.” Pushing himself upright, and taking Liz with him as he did, Max produced a small, velvet box and presented it to Liz on his palm. “For you,” he said simply.

Liz felt her heart do a little flip. Not necessarily for the present, but for the overwhelming look of love in his eyes right then. She swallowed hard, plucking the box from his hand with shaky fingers. “I knew your interview didn’t run that long,” Liz accused him thickly. She stared down at the black case in her hands, feeling as if she were going to cry.

“There’s actually something inside,” Max teased shakily, “The box isn’t the gift, baby.”

She pinched his forearm. “I know that, you idiot,” Liz retorted with a tremulous smile. Unable to stand the suspense any longer, Liz slowly flipped back the lid to the case to reveal a stunning, platinum engagement ring. The stone, a marquis cut, was at least a carat. Liz’s sucked in a soundless gasp.

“See…my taste has improved a lot in the last two months,” he quipped with an uncertain smile, “That’s a long way from that bracelet I gave you for your birthday.”

“I love my bracelet!” Liz protested hoarsely, “I never take it off!” She held up her wrist so that he could see the silver glinting in the moonlight. And then she stared back down at the ring he’d given her, her tears flowing opening down her flawless cheeks. “You didn’t have to do this,” she wept, her heart brimming over with joy and love.

“Yes I did,” Max argued, pulling the ring from its velvet setting and taking hold of Liz’s hand so that he could slide it onto her finger. Once he was done he lifted her hand to his lips and pressed a worshipful kiss to its back. “We never had the chance to do this right,” he whispered huskily, “Our choices were taken away from us…and then….well, I was just too blind to see what was right in front of me…

“I know this seems fast,” he continued softly, “We just only admitted how we feel to each other and all that stuff with Tess still has to be fresh in your mind…” Max sighed deeply, his throat becoming clogged with emotion. “I just wanted you to know that I’m proud to have you as my wife…that I don’t regret marrying you. I don’t regret us.”

“Neither do I,” Liz murmured sweetly, brushing his face all over with tiny kisses, “I never have, Max…never.” She nuzzled against his cheek, his nose, her mouth only breathless inches from his own. Max quickened against her, his lips grazing across her soft skin in subtle response to her light caresses.

“I want to kiss you, Liz,” he went on in an aching whisper, “Can I? Can I, please?”

Liz nodded a split second before their mouths crashed together again in a burning kiss. This time she gave herself over to him completely. Liz returned his questing kiss without hesitation, reservation or fear. And suddenly all her reasons for wanting to wait to make love scattered to the four winds. Max had vowed that the next time they made love would be perfect, with flowers and music and candlelight. But for Liz that perfect moment was right then. After having him declare his love for her and then express his feelings in such an awesome way Liz didn’t think she could choose a more perfect moment. She could think of no other way to transmit the depth of her feelings to him other than return his kiss measure for measure, moment for moment.

His hands came to rest against her hips, bringing her into vibrant contact with his awakening arousal as their kiss gradually changed from something sweet and tentative into something hot and primal and possessive. Max devoured Liz’s lips hungrily, sucking the pouty flesh into his mouth, caressing the sensitive softness with his tongue. Their harsh, staccato breathing cut into the silence filling the car, interspersed only with the rustling of their clothing as they strained to be closer. The heat generated from the straining young bodies fogged up the windows, steamed up the interior of the car.

Max dragged his lips down the curve of Liz’s chin, nipping at her fevered skin before fastening his lips against her neck to suck. Liz rocked against him, soft gurgling moans of pleasure escaping her throat. As she felt him bury his face in the valley between her breasts Liz could only pray that the sensations he was creating would never end.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“They should have been here by now,” Isabel muttered to Michael as they stood outside the movie theater in the drizzling rain searching for Liz’s silver Lexus sedan. Isabel consulted her watch in unconcealed agitation. “The movie starts in five minutes.”

“Maybe they decided to blow us off,” Michael considered with an indifferent shrug.

“Max would never do that,” she retorted, “He wouldn’t just NOT show up. He’d call or something…”

“Who knows what he would do,” Michael muttered in return, “I don’t even know who the hell he is anymore.”

Honestly, Michael’s world hadn’t been right since he learned that his former best friend was having sex with his little sister. From the very beginning of their sham marriage Michael had committed Max to a single promise; that he not have sex with Liz. And what does Max do at his earliest opportunity? He has sex with Liz. And inevitably, as Michael suspected he would, Max had turned Liz’s life upside down.

He hadn’t spoken to Liz in nearly a week. Every single time he called her she would blow him off with one transparent excuse after another. And then when his frustration won out and he confronted Max over what was happening Max informed him, rather succinctly, that he and Liz were over. It had taken every ounce of self-restraint Michael had not to snap Max Evans’ neck then and there. Michael had always tolerated Max’s queer sense of humor when it came to Liz, but breaking her heart…that was something totally unacceptable. Which was why he’d nearly wigged out totally when Isabel called him that afternoon to invite him out to the movies along with Max and Liz. Because, as Isabel informed him in giddy tones, his sister and her brother had gotten back together.

La-dee-friggin’-dah, Michael thought. It was only a matter of time before Max broke Liz’s heart all over again. He’d seen firsthand Max’s relationship with Tess Harding. The guy had doted on her hand and foot. He had been in her back pocket, for crying out loud, and then suddenly she goes out of town and Max realizes his undying love for Liz? Michael snorted mentally. More Max had an itch and since Tess wasn’t there to scratch it he’d turned to Liz. Just the thought made Michael seethe with rage.

Michael watched as Isabel glanced at her watch yet again. “Have you tried calling his cell phone?” he asked tightly.

“All I get is voice mail,” she answered, trying hard not to fidget with worry, “Where could they be? Max would never risk missing the previews.”

Michael tried not to roll his eyes over that one. “Did you call Liz?” he asked practically.

Isabel slapped her forehead in disbelief. “No duh!” she groaned in self-admonishment, whipping out her cell phone so that she could call her friend, “Why didn’t I think of that?”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Max gradually inched Liz’s shirt from her shoulders, his lips following the line of bared skin. Liz shuddered in response, as she felt his tongue play over her naked flesh lightly. He began placing small, nibbling kisses along her collarbone. Liz ground against his lap in answering need. He groaned, his lips descending lower over her silky skin. He hooked his fingers into the straps of her bra and started to drag those straps down her shoulders as well. A sudden, low rumbling sound interrupted the moment.

Max and Liz jerked away from each other in guilty surprise, their bodies flaming. Their eyes met in a timeless stare. Both ignored the noise, trying to reason out if it was best that they continue what they had started.

Finally, Max broke the intense moment by joking in a breathless laugh, “Is your ass vibrating or are you just really horny?” That seemed to break the spell between them and Max was glad. He didn’t want to make love to Liz in the front seat of her car. She deserved a bed; she deserved to have every inch of her beautiful body explored thoroughly… He had every intention of giving that to her.

“Hardy-har-har…you know it’s my phone,” Liz grouched, reaching into her back pocket to retrieve the cellular. “You’re such a moron sometimes,” she added, grinning as she proceeded to click the call through. “Hello?”

“You’re just making a habit of disappearing, aren’t you?” came Isabel’s tart response, “I thought you guys learned to tell time in the second grade.”

“Huh?”

“The movie, Liz,” Isabel clarified crisply, “It’s started already. You and Max were supposed to meet us here, remember?”

“Oh my god!” Liz exclaimed, twisting around in Max’s lap to pull back the key and revive the battery. The glowing green digital numbers on the dashboard clock revealed that she and Max had been making out for nearly an hour. “Oh my god,” she muttered again, this time with a slow blush creeping up her cheeks. She turned to face Max again to discover he was regarding her with a sheepish blush. She blushed even harder.

“So are you coming or what?” Isabel demanded.