My dear wonderful readers,
If you're reading "Lethal Whispers" you're already aware of this, but tomorrow I'll be traveling to Spain for 7 days of sun and relaxation. Compared to the rest of the world (it seems), Sweden completely missed the heat boom and we had one of the coldest summers ever. So I'm setting out to chase the summer.
Without my laptop.
Which means that I won't be updating until next Monday - at the earliest. I'll still be around the board, since I have my phone and Wi-Fi, and I'm slightly obsessed with this board. But I won't be able to post.
Therefore, there's a double post today, which I hope will sustain you until next week.
Ashley (Morning Dreamgirl)
First off, there wasn't a strong bond like she had (has?) with Max. She searched but didn't feel anything so it stands to reason that whatever he did isn't quite permanent - or at least not as strong as what happened between M/L.
And even if he had, would a bond between Sean and Liz ever be as strong as the one between Max and Liz? The one based on real love, respect, mutual care and protection?
Third, even if he did rape her and then wipe her mind about it why go through the charade of pretending to be all loving the next day if she wasn't going to remember anything? And why even mention that he had said he would pick her up for school if he had wiped her mind?
Yeah, you're probably right about that
Whatever he's done it's like he's planted a seed or installed a radio set into her mind that he can just tap into whenever he's near. That way he doesn't have to do the whole "continued eye contact" like he did during their flirting and part of their "date."
Oh, I just love that analogy!
Max has obviously been told to stay away from Liz. For some reason he's actually listening so my guess is they may have threatened Liz in some way. Even if they threatened him with no punishments but rather death he has to know that if he dies Liz is basically unprotected against Sean. So staying alive for her is as important as keeping her alive.
Plus, Max probably doesn't care that much that he gets punished. As long as Liz isn't hurt. But then, of course, Max is punished whenever he has broken the law - which usually means that he has done something with Liz that indirectly puts her in danger. So that's really a no-win situation for Max. But if it would mean that Liz would live happily ever after, Max would most likely accept all the punishment there is.
Hypothetically could she put her curtain back up so Sean wouldn't be able to access her mind? Then she could pretend that she was being controlled by him without him having access to her mind. He might think something was up but if she was still playing the part he wouldn't necessarily realize that she had broken through his control.
It has not really been explained yet exactly how a mindwarper controls someone's mind. If they have access to their minds like a connection offers, i.e. if they can see inside that person's mind. It's probably not that way, since if it was Sean would've seen Liz's feelings for Max and would've known that they were/had been connected. So it stands to reason that Liz could learn to block her mind and play a part, making Sean think that he was controlling her. The only problem with this is that she wouldn't exactly know what Sean would want her to do, since she can't exactly read
his mind. Which means that it probably wouldn't be long until Sean figured out her bluff. And that would probably have dire consequences...
Oh, and Max and Liz do get to "work on" their "connection" a bit in these chapters
Thank you so much for the feedback! You've given me some things to think about (as usual
)
L-J-L 76
I can't believe Sean the major asshole erased Liz memory. I really hate that guy.
He certainly took his best shot. But he wasn't really successful. Not for it to really stick anyway.
Will Max and Liz talk? Will Max and Liz make out? Will Max and Liz kiss?
They can't really keep their hands (or lips) off each other for too long, I presume.
Thank you for the feedback!
Helen (Roswelllostcause) - That's a great idea! Let's kick Sean all the way to Pluto. It's just even better that it's not really classified as a planet any longer. Sean probably doesn't deserve to be on a real planet. He should get a fake planet
Thank you for the feedback!
Eve (begonia9508)
First, I thought I read it wrong but she was flirting with Sean, at lunch, and couldn't believe it!
Liz's mind was being controlled by Sean. She was forced into believing that she had feelings for Sean and that he meant the world to her. If Liz had had control over her own mind, she wouldn't have done that in a million years!
Thank you for the feedback!
AlysLuv - That's enough
Thank you!
From THIRTY-NINE:
”What did he do?” I asked with strain and looked up into Max’s eyes. His very familiar eyes. My feelings for Max were rushing back to me like a tidal wave and I barely got out, ”What did Sean do?” before I sagged against Max.
One hand was tightly holding onto my arm as the other quickly moved into my hair, cradling my head against his chest. ”Liz?”
He was afraid. He sounded so scared.
I took a deep breath and willed the overwhelming feelings to the background. ”I’m okay. I’m okay.”
I felt his breath in my hair as he whispered hurriedly, hopefully, ”You remember me?”
I took another breath and found myself smiling against his chest. His warm chest. ”Of course I do.”
He let out a breath of relief, brought his arms to my waist and lifted me slightly off the ground as he hugged me to him. ”Thank God.”
”I just forgot for a second,” I mumbled breathlessly, my voice barely audible against his shirt.
____________________________________
FORTY
”When did you write me that note?” Max asked into my hair.
”This morning,” I answered, relieved that I had all my memories back in place. Well, except for whatever happened with Sean the night before.
”So you knew this morning,” Max said. ”When you met me in the hall?”
I scoffed. ”Yeah. Good acting, by the way.”
He pressed a kiss against my hair. ”I didn’t know if you would remember or not. I wasn’t sure how much Sean would tamper with.”
I pulled back and looked up into his dynamic gorgeous face. ”So you know that Sean visited me last night?”
He grimaced with pain as he trailed his fingers down the side of my face. ”Even if I was very cold and mostly out of it at the time, there was no way to miss when you closed the connection. I figured it was because Sean had arrived.”
I swallowed. ”I need you to check.”
His eyes widened. ”Check what?”
”I need you to check if he…” I hesitated and licked my lips, ”If he completed the bond.”
My unspoken hint was so clear that Max’s face immediately paled and he took a step back as his eyes traveled down my body.
Yes, Max. I need you to check if I’ve had sex.
He shook his head slowly and mumbled quietly, ”No… he didn’t call me.”
I frowned. What?
But Max’s discomfort interrupted what I might have been wanting to say before I could even formulate a question. I got the feeling that he wasn’t even aware that he had said the previous words out loud.
”I-” he stuttered, his stance distressed as he let his arms slide away from my waist. ”You should be able to feel if he was in your head. And-” He looked up at me with a frown, ”-you shouldn’t be remembering all the details about Sean or everything that’s happened between us if he had completed the bond. He wouldn’t let you keep those memories.”
”But what about earlier?” I insisted. ”Why couldn’t I remember just now? Maybe it was only an incomplete bond, maybe-” Nausea crept up my throat. What if you needed to have an orgasm to complete the bond or something?
I saw the matching look of horror on Max’s face and wondered if he himself knew the specific details to how a bond is formed through ’copulation’ (as he so neatly had referred to it earlier). There was a flash of insecurity across his features, but it was gone so quickly that I wondered if I had just imagined it.
”Maybe he didn’t finish?” Max filled in, disgust in his voice, and I knew that he had been thinking the same thing as me, even though it could be interpreted in more ways than one.
I worried my bottom lip with my teeth. ”Could you please just check?”
He took another step back, creating more space between us. ”I don’t…”
”There should be some…change, right? Tissue damage?” I tried, not wanting to face his reluctance. Why didn’t he want to help me?
”Maybe,” he mumbled. ”But probably not if it was…consensual.”
Offense exploded in me. ”It wasn’t!”
He shoot me an incredulous look. ”Maybe not intentionally, but…”
My heart clenched. Right. Sean would have coerced me into believing that I wanted to have sex with him.
”What about-” I reddened, heat blazing through me at what I was about to ask him, ”- the hymen? You could tell if it was intact or not, right?”
Max inhaled deeply and his body was tense as a violin string as he brushed his hands through his hair. ”It’s a myth.” His face reddened at my disbelieving expression. ”I really don’t want to go into the specifics, but it’s a medical fact that there’s usually no…breaking of the hymen.”
Right. He would probably know. Considering that his father was training him to be a doctor and all.
His shoulders slumped as he kept his eyes fixed on the floor. ”But I could look for microscopic bleeding and other signs of… someone being there recently.”
’Someone being there.’ I swallowed back a nervous laugh. This wasn’t funny. This. Was. Not. Funny.
But it was ridiculous how I always ended up in these conversations with him.
”Yes,” I whispered instead and looked at him closely as he brought his eyes back to mine. ”Do it. Please.”
He looked the most uncomfortable that I had ever seen him, even shifting his weight from one foot to the other, before automatically scratching behind his ear with his hand.
”What?” I whispered. He didn’t think he could do it?
Please. He had basically brought me back from the dead.
”I don’t want to open the connection again,” he admitted quietly.
His explanation struck me hard, even though we’ve had this conversation. Even though we had both realized that we hadn’t had any other choice but to break the connection. Even though
I had told him that we needed to break the connection.
”Okay…” I mumbled, biting back the rejection.
He searched my face, his eyes contemplative. ”I could do this without connecting, but I would have to touch you…locally.”
My mouth fell open and I stared at him as I watched his pupils dilate before he looked away.
Locally,
locally?
He couldn’t mean…?
”You would have to touch me…” I repeated and every drop of saliva dried out of my mouth as slow desire and longing crawled up my body, pooling in the core of my essence. Pooling where he wanted to touch me ’locally’.
He cleared his throat and then looked back at me. I gasped at his look - raw and carnal - feeling faint.
Don’t faint. Now is not the time to faint.
He nodded slowly, licking his lips equally slowly.
Oh God.
But I needed to know, didn’t I?
I almost laughed at myself.
Yeah, that’s
the reason. Keep telling yourself that, Parker.
”Okay,” I croaked, my voice hoarse and unstable.
His eyes widened and he looked utterly shocked for a second, before he seemed to collect himself and mumbled huskily, ”Okay?”
I shuddered at his bedroom voice and whispered, ”How do you want me? Standing?”
His eyes were burning through me and there were too many emotions on his face for me to be able to discern them. But I didn’t need a connection to feel the sexual tension between us at that moment.
Sean. You’ll never be able to reproduce something like this. Not even in your wildest imagination.
I pushed the thoughts away before they could sadden me. Before they reminded me that Sean would have me back in his control in no time.
”Standing is fine,” Max answered and his voice was a lot more controlled and even than mine.
”Okay,” I mumbled, nervous but also aroused as I looked up at him through my eyelashes.
He put his index finger under my chin, prompting my eyes to look fully into his. ”Tell me to stop if it becomes too much, okay?”
I nodded, slowly. Dazed by the prospect of what was about to happen.
”Promise me,” he demanded, more forcibly when I didn’t respond verbally.
”I promise,” I whispered, and he nodded while letting his finger slide away from my chin and slowly drag down my neck. Goosebumps spread across my skin, the small hairs on my arms rose at attention.
And without further preamble, he grabbed me by my upper arms, lifted me slightly off the ground, physically moving me half a step back to put more room between us. I gasped in surprise at the movement, before my whole body tensed as he placed his right hand on my left hip.
My eyes drifted closed and I could feel his eyes burning through my eyelids. He was watching me, closely, as the tips of his fingers curled into my thin shirt, curling into the skin over my hip.
The heat from his hand was radiating into my hip and my breathing was sharp and harsh in my ears. Was he as nervous as I was?
I opened my eyes to check, and was captured by his eyes. I inhaled shakily, my lips parting, and noted the thin ring of gold around his black, large, and dominating pupils. His free hand grabbed my right hand, weaving our fingers together, eliciting a shudder that vibrated through me.
The air around us was heating up - I was sure of it - and that was
before he eased off on the soft pressure over my hip and slowly moved his hand downwards. Towards the apex of my thighs.
Oh. God.
I watched the rise and fall of his chest escalate as I felt his hand over the zipper to my jeans. Denim was considered to be a thick material, but it wasn’t thick enough to completely remove the feeling of his touch on the mound of my sex.
”You okay?” he whispered breathlessly and I was anticipating my body to ignite with flames any second.
I nodded speechlessly, tightening my fingers around Max’s and focusing on remaining on my feet.
Was it always like this? This intense?
He was barely touching me, for God’s sake!
Then Max took the sensations to a whole new level by sending energy (or at least, that’s what I
hypothesized he was doing - I wasn’t really an healing expert) into that area, causing my skin to tingle, and with a moaned gasp I slowly dipped my head back, tightening my hand further around Max’s.
I stared up at the ceiling, trying to take deep breaths of oxygen into my lungs as the most intimate parts of me heated. And heated. And heated.
And then Max withdrew his hand and my tight back was released, making my head fall forward, softly colliding with his chest. I squeezed my eyes tightly closed as I tried to rein in my feelings and regain the control of my body.
Who needed sex when they could be intimately examined by an alien?
The fingers of our joined hands were still interlaced, but I had relaxed the grip. Max moved the hand he had just used to examine me by to my waist and steadied my swaying body against his.
”Liz?” he whispered into my hair and I warmed at the concern in his voice.
Did he really think that I was feeling badly after how he had just touched me…?
Speaking of touching… My eyes sprung open and coldness washed over me as my attention was drawn to the reason behind the examination. ”Did Sean…?”
I left the question hanging, hoping that Max would have gotten some kind of answer.
Max let out a relieved sigh, pulling me tighter against his body. ”No. I mean, I can’t be 100% sure, but at least…99%. Everything was…intact.”
I shut my eyes again and buried my face into his shirt. Would I ever be able to look him in the eye again? I was embarrassed at the same time as I was grateful that he had done this for me.
”And you didn’t need to connect?” I asked, trying to psych myself up for leaving his arms and facing him again. It was much safer - and more comfortable - to just hide in his tight embrace.
”No. I could see everything I needed to see.”
I flushed again. What exactly did that mean? It was like he had X-ray vision or something. Like he could see straight through my clothes. And I was the one that had asked him to do it.
”Right,” I mumbled, put strength into my legs, squared my shoulders and stepped out of his arms.
I quickly glanced up at his face, noticed the intense darkness in his eyes, the piercing gaze, the redness to his cheeks and the soft curve to his parted lips, before I had to avert my eyes to the very interesting task of swirling my small ring around and around my finger.
”You have recovered, I see,” I whispered, darting my eyes up to his face again.
His eyes crinkled in confusion. ”From…?”
”Your latest run in with the law,” I said thinly, wondering how my mind even for a second could forget the sight of his vulnerable and exposed wounded shivering body, because right then I could remember every breath he had taken, every different shade of blue against his lips and in the marking of his skin.
The flattering redness to his face diminished and the warmness to his eyes was dialed down - drastically. ”Oh, that.”
”Did your father heal you?” I wondered.
”Yes.”
”Good,” I mumbled. At least Dr. Evans could do something right.
”You shouldn’t have been there,” Max said quietly, but not silently enough to disguise the touch of anger.
I looked down at our still connected hands and said softly, ”I didn’t think you’d remember that I was there. You seemed pretty out of it.”
He scoffed, humorlessly. ”Your presence is very strong, Elizabeth. It would be impossible to not notice you.”
I blushed. Again. ”Oh.”
”Yes, ’oh’.” His voice was hard and I figured he was actually angry about that whole thing.
”Why are you suddenly angry with me?” I looked up at him, searching his face for answers. Would I ever get used to his changing mood?
His eyes glinted with annoyance. ”Because you keep on putting yourself in danger.”
Gone was the post-coital bliss - or whatever that thing had been.
I pulled my hand out of his and wrapped my arms across my chest, biting back defensively, ”You’re one to talk!”
His stormy gaze trapped me. ”I don’t deliberately look for trouble.”
”And you think I do?”
His jaw muscles clenched and he hissed, ”Yes!”
His anger was igniting my own, even without a connection to escalate it. ”I ended up in those situations because you wouldn’t tell me the truth, because you kept on getting hurt. I needed to help you, protect you-”
He tensed, if possible, even more and snapped, ”
Protect me? You - a human - against an alien race with mental and physical powers?”
My arms tightened across my chest and a hot tear of anger tumbled down my cheek. ”Stop! Just stop!”
He froze and glared at me. I glared back.
The air sparked around us and in one swift movement Max placed his hands on my ass, hauled my body up against his and crashed our lips together as I wrapped my legs around his waist.
My back impacted hard with the wall as Max pushed our interlocked bodies up against it. Two old, dusty, and forgotten erasers plunged to the floor, and I thrust my hands into his hair as his tongue touched mine. A dark groan from the back of his throat brushed over my lips and I desperately pressed up against him, my legs tightening around his waist.
I moaned into his mouth as he pulled on my bottom lip, before releasing it in favor of deeply and hotly exploring my mouth. His hips pressed up against my center and I gasped as he let that local pressure steady me against the wall while his hands quickly left my behind, ran up the sides of my upper body, causing millions of tingles to explode across my body, and buried them in my hair.
I gasped loudly as he tugged on my hair, breaking the delicious connection between our lips, and exposing my neck to his mouth as he trailed heated kisses down the curve of my neck, nibbling and tasting.
My neck arched as desire pooled and heated where our lower bodies were closely connected and my thighs automatically clenched, tightening around his waist.
He broke away from my neck with a sharp intake, connected pitch dark eyes with mine for the hint of a moment (I shivered with all-consuming lust in response), before he rapidly moved his hands from my hair to cradle my face, and brought our wanting lips back together.
”Max…” I whimpered, my fingers restless at the nape of his neck. Hot. I was so hot. And I needed… I needed more.
His pants were loud in my ears, matching my own. They mixed with the sounds of kissing, of hands moving over clothing, and bounced of the walls in the small room.
My breath hitched as he pulled back from my mouth, pulled my sweater off my shoulder, and kissed along my collarbone. Arching my back, I struggled to keep breathing as I agitatedly moved my hips slowly up and down, my hands sliding down his firm biceps and tightening my grip to keep steady.
Then his hands were back on my ass, hauling me a bit further up his upper body (maybe to move me away from the danger zone?) and his head lifted to look at me.
With strained breathing, I stared at the gorgeous guy in front of me. With his dark thick hair ruffled, his lips swollen, full and red and sensually parted, his cheeks flustered, his eyes blazing, and his expression wild. Untamed.
His appearance made my heart beat faster, my nipples tighten and goosebumps to spread across every inch of my heated body.
”Fuck…” he mumbled breathlessly and pressed his forehead against mine, letting our breaths mingle in the small space between our mouths. ”What are you doing to me?”
I laughed breathlessly.
Me?
”What are
you doing to me?” I whispered and my stomach curled and clenched at his responding soft laughter.
A couple of moments passed, us trying to calm our breathing, bodies still tightly connected, before I became aware of things outside of Max’s breathing, the warmth from his body, his smell and the lingering taste of him on my lips.
That’s when I noticed the small hum at the back of my head.
I froze, my whole body tightening against Max’s.
How long had it been there?
Instantly, he pulled back. In the blink of an eye, his hands were at the sides of my body, just below my armpits, and he was lifting me back to my feet while asking, ”What’s wrong?”
”Can’t you feel it?” I whispered, the desire which had been so overpowering in my body just a second ago quickly draining away.
He distractedly brushed his thumb over my swollen bottom lip as he repeated, ”What?”
I concentrated on the hum, wanting to make sure that it was really there before I said anything else. Maybe I was just imagining it - since Max didn’t seem to be aware of it.
But as I focused on that small warming and comforting presence at the back of my mind, there was an increased pressure in my mind. Like someone was blowing up a balloon.
Next, it popped. And my blockage disintegrated.
In front of me, Max stopped breathing, his eyes widening and his mouth falling open, as I could feel the desire still moving through his body, the concern for my safety and for what had just scared me, the million conflicting feelings about our situation and even the dark feelings about Sean. And from the look on his face, I was pretty sure he could feel just about everything that was happening in my body as well.
”Crap…” he mumbled.
The bond was wide open again.
TBC... (in the next post)
