Amazing banner made by DreamerLaure. Thank you so much. I love it!!
Winner Round Four for Best Early Admission at RoswellChronicles
Title: Steamy night at the Crash.
Category: Max and Liz. AU. No aliens.
Rating: ADULT
Disclaimer: As much as I wished Max Evans and Jason Behr could be mine, we all know that’s not true… so don’t sue, you wouldn’t like the little you’d gain
Summary: At twenty-one now, Liz Parker is ready to take on the world… and when you know that her whole world has always been Max Evans, is it honestly any wonder if things spin pretty fast out of control?
AN: Hey,
It’s been a long time since I’ve done this, but hopefully I still know how to do it more or less right
I know I haven’t been around for a very long time, but I’ve been working on this fic for a while now and thought that maybe it was time to get it really out there… My original plan was to finish it first before posting, but I’ve been stuck in the same place for a while now, and so I thought that maybe getting feedbacks, comments, etc would help me get some inspiration back 
Not sure it’s the wisest thing to do with my posting track record 
but I only have one and a half part left to write, so maybe by the time we get there (in about four weeks since I plan to update every Sunday) I’ll finally be un-stuck and done with it Let’s pray for that In the meantime, any comment is welcome of course… and if anyone feels like making a banner for this fic, feel free to contact me, I’ll be happy to have one since I don’t as of yet!
Anyway, enough talking… here goes (*cross fingers and hope I still have it in me to write something more or less worth reading
* ) Prologue: Of the risks of what you wear, you should always be aware.
~ * ~
Elizabeth Parker was a woman on a mission and she was definitely dressed to look the part. The tight leather suit she was wearing was clearly having the effect she had been going for and she couldn’t help but smile as she noticed how many heads she turned on her way, as she walked to the bar at the back of the club, displaying more confidence than she was truly feeling.
Entering the Crash Down and passing the two bulky bouncers at the front door had been a mere formality for her, much to the dismay of the many young people all too ready to party who had been waiting for hours outside, but you couldn’t be the sister of one of the main owners of the most prestigious nightclub the town had ever known and not take advantage of the situation from time to time if you could.
She knew well that Michael didn’t especially appreciate to see her coming to the club, but Liz also knew that for once he wouldn’t be able to lecture her on the fact that he thought that this kind of scene was no place for a woman like her. She couldn’t even remember how many times she had heard him say so in actual fact, but she probably had every time she had come and seen him alone while he was working.
He didn’t like to see his little sister in there with men half drunk if not completely, behaving like pigs around her, or ogling her shamelessly, or so Maria, Michael’s girlfriend who she had known for a few years now and had become a close friend to her as well with time, had told her when she had complained about Michael’s over-protectiveness one too many times.
Tonight would be different however, and nothing, least of all her dear brother, would come between her and what she had coveted now for years. She had planned everything to the last detail and had had no shame or remorse whatsoever enlisting Maria’s help, making sure she would keep Michael far away from here, just so she would actually have a night at the club without him hovering around and preventing her from getting what she wanted and desired most in the world. She had waited long enough for that and tonight, hopefully, would be the night all of her dreams came true.
Expelling a small trembling sigh despite how sure of herself she had seemed to be until that second, she took a seat at the far left end of the long bar counter and waited until one of the many bartenders that worked at the moment spotted her there.
Of course, she knew perfectly well which one she wished to notice her first, but he was serving customers at the opposite side she had deliberately chosen to sit at herself and she knew that she would have to be patient, at least for a while, until that happened.
She would need a moment to work up the nerve to do what she really wanted to do anyway, therefore that was probably not a bad thing right now.
Being spotted where she was was no problem either, the way all the guys seated by the counter turned to her with their tongues nearly rolling out of their mouths the second she planted herself at the bar, immediately alerted the bartender near her that something was going on and that a potential hottie had just walked in the place.
At first, Aidan didn’t even recognize his boss’s sister, not with the way she was dressed at least, but as she smiled at him as he approached her, he had to swallow back the pick-up line he had been all too ready to feed the beautiful creature that stood just in front of him.
“Liz?” he uttered quite incredulously, not quite believing that the woman sitting there could really be the same he had seen with Michael so many times before.
He had always thought her beautiful, but tonight she had really gone all out and didn’t look in any way like the sweet and innocent girl he was so used to.
“Hey, Aidan!” Liz answered back, pleased to see that her outfit was apparently having quite an effect on the handsome brown haired, blue-eyed bartender who normally wouldn’t have looked at her twice.
“Looking good tonight…” Aidan said appreciatively, unable to stop his eyes from traveling down the length of her leather clad body, stopping probably more than necessary on the obvious cleavage he had barely noticed before this day but could surely not miss now. “What are you doing here?”
“The same as everyone else here I guess…” Liz ignored his obvious approving look for now, in the end not so sure about how she felt about the quite disturbing way he was suddenly looking at her, and instead she tried to act as casually as she could. “Looking for some fun.”
“Fun, huh?” Aidan repeated with an eyebrow raised, briefly wondering if there was more behind her words than what it looked like, but then he quickly pushed the thoughts that were crossing his mind far, far away, when he remembered who she was. Michael would surely kill him if he only suspected that he had just spent the last few seconds trying to picture what his sister could look like naked and what kind of ‘fun’ they could have together. “Why don’t we start with something to drink? What would you like?” he amended quickly, trying to come back to a safer topic.
“A Cuba Libre, please.” Liz demanded, already predicting of course what his reaction would be at hearing her ask for the coca cola, lime juice and more importantly white rum mixed drink, and she couldn’t help rolling her eyes as Aidan not surprisingly frowned at her.
“Actually I was more thinking about offering you something non-alcoholic…” Aidan replied, sure that Michael wouldn’t appreciate either if he served alcohol to his sister.
“Ah, no, see… alcohol is exactly what I need and what I asked for…” Liz threw back with a huge smile, knowing that he wouldn’t be able to refuse to serve her once she would have divulged her next piece of information. “Don’t worry, I turned 21 just two days ago, you can serve me!”
“You did?” Aidan still said a little skeptically, as he prepared a martini for another customer, after the man had managed to pull his attention away from the gorgeous brunette the bartender was talking to.
Aidan wanted to believe her of course, but he was sure that there would be hell to pay if she was lying to him and he did give her an even just slightly alcoholic beverage. His bosses didn’t joke about that, and they would even less if Liz was involved.
Usually, it was actually easy to separate those who could drink from those who weren’t old enough to legally doing it yet, the first ones being stamped with a temporary ink tattoo of a spaceship on one of their hands when they presented their ID at the front doors, while the seconds were marked with a small alien head. Liz unfortunately didn’t wear any of those, since they all knew her and she had probably not stopped longer at the doors than the two seconds it had most likely taken her to greet the bouncers at the front.
“Oh, so little faith… I’m crushed, really…” Liz shook her head and pouted, even if she had seen it coming, and almost at the same time, she reached for her purse, handing him her ID only a few seconds later.
She raised an eyebrow at him then, as if to say ‘see, and now what are you going to say to that?’ and then put the document back in her tiny purse when he had indeed verified that her 21rst birthday had been a couple of days earlier and that she could now legally drink with the best of them.
“Are you sure about this?” the bartender insisted one more time nonetheless, as he would clearly prefer if he wasn’t the one having to contribute to his boss’s sister getting drunk in his bar. He could be wrong, but something told him that she would probably not stop at only one single glass.
“Absolutely!” Liz rejoined, before adding nonetheless, if only for his peace of mind, “Don’t worry about me, I’m a big girl… I know what I am doing!”
Aidan wasn’t so sure about that, truthfully, but who was he to tell her otherwise? Yet, as he served her her drink at last, he couldn’t help thinking that maybe he should warn his other boss that Michael’s sister was there tonight, dressed to kill and apparently all too ready to have some fun, like she had said.
The second she had it in front of her, Liz took a long swig of her drink and Aidan couldn’t help but cast a worried look to the other end of the bar where Max Evans was mixing drinks as well, like he was a mere bartender there himself and didn’t own more than half of the place.
From what other people had told him when he had started working here, Max had inherited the ‘Crash 47’ from one of his uncles when this one had decided to retire a few years ago. After some thinking, Max had realized that he would probably not be able to take care of the place on his own, not if he wanted to do with it what he had in mind, and so he had offered his best friend, Michael Parker, a partnership. Michael, who with some help from his parents, had bought him 49% of the affair as soon as he had been able to and was certainly working as hard as Max to make it thrive now.
Since then, the ‘Crash 47’ had been renamed the ‘Crash Down, After Hours’ after Michael’s parents’ own restaurant, one of the most famous dining places in little Roswell, and four years later no one could deny that it had become a very praised and successful nightclub instead of the simple bar it had once been, people often leaving the first place to go and finish their night at the second.
At twenty six years old now, Max was well known and respected for his accomplishment, and that all around Roswell, as was Michael, and even when they didn’t always agree on everything, they had remained best friends, the two guys even sharing the large duplex apartment they had entirely renovated before moving in and that was situated just above the club.
What Aidan also knew was that Max himself considered Elizabeth Parker like his own sister, being at times and much to everyone’s surprise, even more protective of her than even her real brother could be and he was sure that Max wouldn’t be more thrilled to see her sitting there than Michael would have been himself, had he been the one working tonight.
Aidan was actually hoping he would be able to have a word with his boss before he spotted Liz on his own and they engaged in one of those battles of wills they were all too famous for. As far as he remembered, every time Liz had set foot in the club, alone, Max and Michael had been on her case, reminding her that she shouldn’t go out and come to such a place without Maria, or any other of her friends to accompany her. And every time she would remind them in turn that she wasn’t really alone since they were there to play almost constant chaperones, even if it didn’t seem to have much effect on the two men.
Unfortunately, before Aidan could move to Max this time, he saw him giving his spot behind the bar to another bartender and moving away, probably to take care of some business in the front.
The place, like any other Friday night, was completely packed and Aidan knew well that on nights like this, Max was almost constantly solicited for one thing or another, but that didn’t mean that he wouldn’t have a chance to talk to him later, or that he couldn’t do something himself in the meantime. Until he could have that talk with Max, he would make sure that Liz was alright at his end of the bar and that she didn’t get herself into trouble.
Liz herself was hardly paying any attention to him now, she was too nervous trying to figure out how she could make this work without looking like a fool in the end. She had been so sure earlier that a few glasses of alcohol would be enough to help her calm some down, but now that she had almost emptied the first one, she wasn’t feeling so confident anymore.
Seeing Max Evans, even if only for a few minutes and from afar, had made her heart triple hammer in her chest like it always did whenever she saw him or she just knew he was close by, and she could feel how clammy her hands had become all of a sudden.
She knew she was being ridiculous, after all, what was the worst that could happen to her if she tried what she had in mind and it didn’t have the result she was hoping for? Max would probably think that she was joking anyway, or he could take her seriously but tell her that as much as he cared for her -and she knew he did, of that at least there had never been the slightest doubt in her mind- he couldn’t see her the way she wanted him to see her.
And what if that did happen and he rejected her, huh? She wouldn’t die because of it, right? She would certainly wish she had, pretty much on the spot, but she would survive the shame and humiliation, wouldn’t she?
So, no, there was no reason for her to be nervous, she thought as she finished her drink, no reason at all… but that didn’t stop her from ordering another one almost right away. She could tell that Aidan didn’t approve that much, but for now she chose to pay him no heed, ignoring the way he was looking at her as he did what she asked. After all, she knew he wouldn’t understand her, even if she tried to explain to him what was really going on.
No one here would, because no one knew just how much she had been hiding and for how long.
*
As he walked back from the stockroom with a case of bottles of whisky in his arms, Max Evans found himself smiling once more at how much he loved Friday nights. How much he actually loved this life.
A few years ago, he had had no idea of what he was going to do with his life, where he wanted it to go, the law studies he had started actually leaving him quite unsatisfied with his choice of a career, the only time he actually found himself more or less happy and content with what he was doing, being when he was mixing drinks at his uncle’s bar when the old man let him on the few weekends he was around.
Max had taken it as a sign then so, when his uncle had offered him the Crash 47’ when he had decided that he was too old to handle the bar any longer, as much as he still loved the job himself, and Max had started to dream again then. Dream of what could become of such a place and what he could do to make it even more thriving than it had already been when Adrian Evans had been the sole owner of one of the only escape places Roswell had held.
When he had been younger, Max had always lamented the fact that while there were lots and lots of young people his age who were just asking to have some fun, there had barely been any choice of place for them to go to and do so.
He and Michael had alternatively spent their weekends between staying scooped up at his uncle’s bar and playing pool almost all night, and driving to the nearest good club that was still a good forty miles away in Artesia.
There was no need to say then that it hadn’t taken Max more than a few minutes to figure out what he wanted to do with his inheritance and it hadn’t taken him long either to convince his uncle that it was not only the right, but the best thing to do as well.
Michael had been as excited about the prospect as he had been himself once things had been decided, and so it had only been natural for Max to choose him when he had thought of taking on a partner. He hadn’t even needed to think about it twice, or even considered, even for just a mere second, taking anyone else, and he had surely never regretted his decision since.
They had done good work together, Max thought once more as he took a look all around him and noticed that the club looked even more packed than it usually already did on Fridays. People were everywhere, enjoying a cool drink at one of the many tables and booths that ran all along the walls of the club, or having a blast on the dance floor, Kyle, their weekend DJ definitely setting the floor on fire tonight. But then, when did he not?
The bar was crowded as well, but that still didn’t stop Max from spotting the hot brunette sitting at its left extremity when he came back to it from the other side he had exited it about half an hour ago, when he had been informed that there was some trouble at the front doors.
Having made a quick stop by the stockroom before coming back, so they wouldn’t have to do it later on, Max nearly regretted it when he almost dropped the expensive case he still had in hands the second his eyes settled on probably the finest piece of ass he had ever seen.
He wasn’t usually one to have such crude thoughts, but damn if that weren’t the only thing his mind could come up with at that instant.
The girl was dressed in a tight leather suit that not only didn’t leave anything to the imagination, but molded her behind in a way that nearly made him swallow his tongue as he wondered if she was wearing anything at all under that thing, and Max found his eyes traveling up her curves, hoping to see more of the girl’s attributes.
She had her back to him yet, but the dark curtain of slightly curled hair that cascaded down the length of her back was enough for him to want to know even more about her. If her front was anything like what he had seen so far, he was sure he would find himself drooling all over her before he could even stop himself.
As embarrassing as that would clearly be, Max almost welcomed the possibility, hoping that maybe a night of innocent flirting with such a creature would be enough to make him forget, even if just for a short while, about another brunette who, too often lately, had taken hold of his thoughts and consumed them.
Passing her without saying a word, his back to her for now, Max deposited the many bottles of alcohol he carried behind the bar… and nearly had a heart attack when he eventually turned around and came face to face with the object of his obsession.
For months now, he had tried to get the beauty in front of him out of his mind, without much success unfortunately, and Max was comprehensibly even more frustrated now to see that the first girl he had really noticed since he had realized that his feelings and thoughts were slowly but surely getting out of control, was actually the same and only one he hadn’t been able to stop thinking about.
Talk about some fucking irony, huh?
Max had actually known Elizabeth Parker since she was a day old baby, which probably explained why he had fought so hard when he had started realizing that he had been starting to develop some insane infatuation for his best friend’s little sister, but seeing her now, he guessed that no honest red-blooded guy would be able to hold it against him.
She was truly a vision to behold, his eyes caressing the length of her body before he could convince himself he really shouldn’t let himself do so and take such risk.
Those perfect doe eyes he had lost himself in one too many times lately were heavily made up tonight, her hair was shining even more than it normally did, looking even softer, only curled instead of the normal straight do she usually preferred, her lips were painted a dark raspberry color he would have most likely found a little too vulgar on anyone else, but it only actually made Max want to kiss her even more than he had every time he had seen her these last months, and that leather outfit… god, that outfit should really have been labeled illegal before it even left the factory, Max thought as he followed the long zipper at her front. Zipper that disappeared from his view and under the counter and made his blood boil as he wondered just where the hell it stopped. All that combined and not so surprisingly so, Max found himself in a trance, unable to take his eyes off of her.
Liz sucked in a breath herself as Max kept looking at her, mouth hanging open, like he couldn’t quite believe what he was seeing, and if only to give herself some much needed composure before she said or did something really stupid, something that would completely ruin her chances before she had even tried anything tonight, she gulped half of her second Cuba Libre in barely one swig.
“Parker?” Max blurted after a while and before he could stop himself, briefly wondering if he hadn’t indeed been drooling. Now drooling over a girl he was sure he wouldn’t see after tonight was one thing, but getting caught doing so over this particular girl was something else entirely. He just couldn’t afford it. “Does you mother know you escaped dressed like that?” his next sentence was just as impulsive and he almost regretted it when he saw Liz’s expressive eyes cloud over almost instantly.
“Cute, Evans… real cute…” Liz retorted, trying to hide as best as she could how much it actually hurt to realize that once more, even dressed like this, he was still treating her like she was just some kid he knew, instead of the woman she had become long ago. But could she really have expected anything else, or did she think that he would just take one single look at her tonight and finally fall in love on the spot, huh? Of course not, she had known that she would have her work cut out for her and that she would have to work for it, she just needed to remind herself that things had not even really started yet, and that she just couldn’t give up at the first hurdle. “My mother hasn’t been helping me dress for a while now, in case you haven’t noticed!” she continued, maybe a little more curtly than she had intended to, clearly disappointed, even if she knew she should have known better.
Max noticed her reaction however, and it almost instantly made him feel bad, hurting her or making her feel uncomfortable being the very last thing he had meant to do.
It was not her fault after all he was so frustrated. And had actually been for a while now.
“Sorry… it’s just… uh… that thing…” he stuttered uncharacteristically, unable to form a coherent sentence while he looked at what she was wearing. That outfit was simply mind-boggling and could make any guy lose his freaking mind. “Ah, nevermind… anyway… what are you doing here?” he asked then, after having shaken his head long enough to clear his thoughts some.
As long as he managed to keep his eyes north of her cleavage, everything would be okay. Yeah, as long as he managed that, he would be alright, even if it was clearly easier said than done.
“What does it look like I’m doing here?” Liz replied with a shrug, as if to say it was quite evident and he shouldn’t even have needed to ask.
“Did you come alone?” Max inquired next when he realized that she was right. This was a club after all and he knew well what people came there for.
“Yep… alone and on my own… like the big girl I am.” Liz answered, the pointed look she gave him then seeming to say that she was in no way ready to hear another one of his lectures and that it would be in his best interest to not say a word on the matter.
“Oh-kay… message received…” Max threw back, holding his hands up in surrender, the last thing he wanted being to pick up a fight with her now.
With the way he felt at that second, chances were too great anyway that he would just throw her over the counter if she argued too much with him, and he would settle their disagreement and shut her up the only way that seemed right: by fucking her senseless just where they were. Angry sex had never looked so tempting or appealing, but that… that was really not something he should give too much thought right now. If any at all.
Besides, as long as she stayed at the bar anyway, at least he could keep an eye on her, but he could only do that if he made sure he didn’t make her run away from him and where she was sitting.
Liz didn’t even answer him this time, occupying herself with picking at the napkin Aidan had given her with her first drink, but she couldn’t help following Max with her eyes and frowning slightly when Aidan stopped him from going back to where he had been when she had first arrived.
As she observed them, she couldn’t help but notice how Aidan’s eyes kept coming back to settle on her while he talked to Max and she braced herself for what she knew his reaction would be, once Aidan would have told him just what exactly she was drinking instead of the simple and usual coke he had most likely thought she had been having.
And she had no doubt that was exactly what Aidan was telling him about, they were all so sure she needed protection or whatever, and needed to be monitored like a child whenever she came here. It was totally ridiculous as far as she was concerned, and what was more, it was seriously starting to get on her nerves.
When Aidan and Max were done talking, she saw the latter move a few more feet away to go and talk to another bartender, but Liz was really no more surprised than that to see him come back her way the second he was apparently done giving Andy, or whatever his name was, some directives.
Max smiled at her as he approached, but Liz knew from experience that she really shouldn’t let herself be fooled by the sweet gesture. She was proven right not a second later, when Max took her glass out of her hand when she was bringing it back to her lips again, and polished its content before she could utter a word of protest, his eyes boring into her as he drank.
“ ‘Una mentirita’, huh?” Max questioned as he licked his lips and put the empty glass back down in front of her.
“What?” Liz replied, a little distracted by the glimpse of his tongue she had just gotten. And not even a second did she even think about scolding him for having finished her drink.
“ ‘Una mentirita’… ‘a small lie’… that’s how some people call a Cuba Libre, because they think Cuba was never really free anyway…” Max explained as he prepared a drink for the client sitting only two bar stools from her, referring to the meaning of Cuba Libre. ‘Free Cuba’. “Didn’t know you liked them…”
“Oh, right…” Liz stuttered, a little confused with his behavior and the fact that he didn’t even look mad, like she had been so sure he would be.
Something was definitely not right with that picture.
“You sure didn’t waste any time…” he continued with the same tone, and though Liz caught the clear meaning behind the words, she didn’t know what to make of the too gentle way they were delivered.
“Max, god… don’t start…” Liz still growled before she could stop herself, seeing where this was going, even if she had believed just for a few seconds that she could be off the hook for once.
She wanted to tell him that she was doing nothing wrong, and nothing they hadn’t all done before, whether it were him, Michael or any of her older friends, but she didn’t even have time to say as much that Max was addressing her again.
“I’m just saying… that and that I don’t think Michael would approve…” Max replied, the way he said so leaving the ‘and I don’t either’ part unsaid, but still quite clear for Liz to hear.
“Michael’s my brother, Max… not my father…” Liz reminded him, pushing her glass almost defiantly towards him. “… and I’m not only paying for this, but old enough to drink now, too… so hit me again… that’s what you are paid for, right?” she pursued, daring him to refuse her what she was asking for, and although they both knew that Max wasn’t really paid to serve people here, but only did so still because that was how he had started and he simply still loved being behind the bar, Max didn’t even bother contradicting her.
Instead he looked at her without saying a word for a long moment. So long in fact that it had Liz all but squirming on her seat from the intensity of his gaze.
Liz was actually considering asking him what was wrong with him, when he suddenly seemed to snap out of it and with a shrug, reached for the rum bottle under the bar with one hand, and her empty glass with the other, handing it back to her once he was done adding the rest of the ingredients.
“It’s your ass, Parker!” he told her at last, clearly insinuating that Michael would certainly not be happy with this if he heard about it, but that she would be the one having to deal with him then.
She was right anyway. His job was to make sure that every customer was satisfied with the service they provided, and no matter what he felt for her, tonight she was a customer like just any other. He had already come to that conclusion earlier when Aidan had first informed him that Liz had been heading more and more quickly towards her third drink of the night and he had realized that he would have no valid reason to not serve her if she asked him to.
As she had said, she was old enough to have alcohol now and he had definitely not enough influence on her to stop her from doing so if that was what she wanted. Beside, it was probably better she did this here, under his watch, if she had set her mind on getting drunk for the first time in her life now that she could, than somewhere else where anything could happen to her.
Helping her not get there too fast, was also his job however, and that was why he had made sure Aidan knew not to pour more rum in her drinks than what was necessary for her to just feel the taste if he served her again, and why he had just done so himself, without her being any the wiser.
Max was in fact quite satisfied with what he had come up with to slow her some down, but he only realized that that would probably be the least of his worries for the night when he heard the comment coming from the man who took the seat just next to Liz, seat that had barely been vacated a few seconds.
“And what a nice ass it is!” the guy, a thirty something man, shamelessly said, oblivious to the daggers the bartender in front of him was throwing at him.
Liz herself was too stunned at the moment to even formulate an answer and let the guy know how inappropriate she thought his comment was, and she didn’t even have the opportunity to answer him a few seconds later either, when the stranger asked her if he could buy her another drink and Max was the one to do so for her.
“She hasn’t finished this one yet!” Max remarked almost in a growl, looking at the other man like he was only seconds away from actually hurting him.
“Dude, mind your own business, I wasn’t talking to you!” the other man threw back, barely giving Max a second glance, too busy he was undressing Liz with his eyes, which of course only infuriated Max even more.
“She is my business, dude!” Max groaned through clenched teeth, ready to beat that idiot to a pulp, if he didn’t scurry away and fast.
He knew those guys, and though he had barely done anything yet beside addressing Liz, Max knew his kind and what exactly they were looking for all too well, to not be ready to blow a fuse. That guy would be dead before he could lay a finger on Liz.
“What are you? Her father?” the other guy growled as well now, making Liz look from one man to the other, her mouth hanging open, as they watched each other like they were ready to kill each other if someone didn’t intervene and stopped them.
Max actually looked like he was ready to jump over the counter and smash the other man’s face and Liz, despite what her head was telling her, and how inappropriate she knew it was to have such thoughts in such a moment, couldn’t help being a little bit thrilled at his reaction, hoping that he was reacting in such a way because he was, even if just slightly, jealous.
“Her father would definitely not like what’s going on here… but I will be the one kicking your ass if you don’t get out of here… now…” Max threatened him, only lamenting that their little scene was attracting one too many people’s attention.
He absolutely hated to have to create such scene in fact, but there was no way he was letting this go.
“Max, it’s okay…” Liz barely breathed out, the last thing she actually wanted being for Max to get into a brawl because of her, as sweet as she actually thought it was that he was ready to defend and protect her for once.
“See, you heard the lady… it’s okay… so now go back to handling your bar, and let me handle the girl…” the stranger returned with a triumphant smile, but that smile quickly slipped off his face when Max grabbed him by the collar of his shirt and brought his face inches from his.
“You get out of my club now, or you will be missing a few body parts once I’m done with you!” Max promised in a hiss, not the least intimidated by the way the other guy was trying to look at him. “Now get lost, loser!”
Said loser was actually ready to answer him and give him a piece of his own mind, but he was prevented from doing so when a pat on his shoulder made him turn around and come face to face with two of the club bouncers someone had obviously called. Bouncers who didn’t think twice about escorting him on his way out, even despite his protest that he had done nothing wrong and that it was that stupid bartender who had started it all, messing with him and the hot little number he had tried to pick up and take back home.
He actually only regretted his words and his attitude when he was informed that that stupid bartender was actually the club’s owner, fact that had apparently not registered with him even when Max had told him so, and that he should have really known better than to try anything with that particular girl, considering who she was to their boss. All he had accomplished with that was making sure that they would never let him set foot in the club ever again after that.
The second the troublesome drinker was out of the way, Liz looked back at Max and wasn’t more surprised than that to see him still seething. She watched as he mixed a drink for himself, then barely stopped to breathe before finishing it, and she couldn’t help biting her lip in worry.
Apparently coming dressed like that had not been such a good idea after all, if that was the kind of weirdos she was going to attract all night. She wasn’t even sure it had had any effect on the one man it had been meant to attract in the first place, Max having not made any comment, or shown any particular reaction beside that fleeting moment he had seemed too stunned to speak when he had first seen her, and that first sentence he had thrown at her about what her mother would probably think of her dressed like that.
Fortunately, her mother had no idea she had bought such an outfit, or she would certainly have locked her up in her room before she could have had any chance to escape to Maria’s and change there. But that was really beside the point right now.
“Sorry, Max… I didn’t mean…” Liz started to apologize, but Max didn’t even give her the opportunity to finish her sentence and let him know that she had never meant to get him into any trouble.
“Whatever…” he cut her off, making Liz wonder who he was really mad at: that guy for being another one of those pigs who unfortunately were legions around Roswell and seemed to naturally congregate at the club on weekends, or her for just having been there and being the cause of this. “Just be careful who you talk to while you are here!” he added as what seemed to be an afterthought, and then he moved away, making his way back to where he had previously been, before Liz could even utter another word, or thank him for having come to her rescue, even if she hadn’t asked him to.
On his way, he just stopped to have a few words with Aidan once more, and Liz understood that he was probably asking him to keep a close eye on her. She wanted to scream at him for that, but after what had just happened, she guessed that she was lucky he wasn’t forcing her out and sending her back home, and therefore, for once she held her tongue, knowing that she was in no position to argue.
Max was probably disgusted with her now anyway, and that surely wouldn’t help her accomplish what she had set her mind on.
Seducing Max Evans tonight could definitely prove harder than what she had clearly already predicted.
The truth however, couldn’t be further from that. Max wasn’t disgusted with her, he was too busy being disgusted with himself. The way he had reacted just then had, to some extent, even scared himself if it hadn’t completely scared that other guy and Max had known that he couldn’t stay near Liz for now, not if he didn’t want to risk doing or saying something he would surely regret later on.
Max had never been what you could call a possessive man, and if he had had several more or less serious relationships in his life, he couldn’t remember having ever been so jealous as he had felt minutes ago when that guy had been all but drooling into Liz’s displayed cleavage.
The urge to punch his face and order him to stay away from what was his had been nearly overwhelming and it had only been the knowledge that he had no rights to Liz, that had stopped him from staking such claim.
She wasn’t his, she never was and she would never be. She couldn’t be, for so many reasons, he just had to get that through his thick head once and for all, and everything would go back to normal. Back to how things were before all those crazy thoughts of making her his forever had started to invade his mind.
And in the meantime, or at least until he calmed some down, he would just have to stay away from her. It was the only thing he could think of that would stop him from throwing her over his shoulder and taking her back up to his room, where he would lock her up and keep her prisoner, until she succumbed to him and he made sure she was as crazy about him as it unfortunately seemed more and more, he was of her.
~ * ~
TBC…Soooo?
like Max could stay away from her much longer 
he would probably self-combust if he did 
!
so hopefully, she won’t 
thanks for the feedback!
hope you’ll like the rest as well! 
the chapter is so long that I thought I could give you something nonetheless but just didn't find time to type what I wanted to include in this piece until this morning