FanFic - Crashdown After Hours
"The Way You Love Me"
Part 54
by LivE
Disclaimer: I own nothing Roswell...
Summary: This is the third story in a trilogy that I didn’t intend to write! It started with The Experiment and Finding Our Normal. For the most part, this story is about Max and Liz and how wonderful their relationship is!
Category: After Hours
Rating: NC-17
Authors Note: It is advisable to read The Experiment and FON first, otherwise you're going to be a little lost. Also, if you like Tess, don't read this fic!
"Yes," Max answered without thinking. Then his brain caught up with his heart. "Wait, found who?" Max wondered if he sounded as befuddled as he thought.

"The girl you were dreaming of all your life." Rula answered as they helped her down into a chair. It was eerie, she looked like she was staring right at him. "You used to tell me she had silky hair that fell like a rich waterfall down her back. Eyes that were like that of a doe, dark brown, sparkling and filled with emotion." Everyone was turning to Liz as Rula continued. "You said her voice was husky and called you home. That she was tiny and perfect and fit right under your chin. That her laugh gave you goosebumps and seeing her made your stomach rumble."

Max was slack-jawed. "I-I DREAMT of her? You mean I never actually knew her?"

A small laugh bubbled from Rula’s throat. "No, Zan. You always were a dreamer. At first I thought it was just that, dreams. But then you grew older and you kept on telling me about what you dreamt and it seemed so real. You begged me not to tell anyone, you said she should be your secret until you finally find her. Your Shani, you called her." This elicited a gasp from everyone in the room and Liz’s eyes were misting over.

When Max finally found his voice, all he could manage was: "Liz, this is my nanny." He pulled Liz closer and picked up Rula’s hand. "Rula, this is my Shani. My Liz."

It was a profound and emotional moment for the three of them. Max remembered that this woman in front of him had been like a mother to him, while Rula softly held onto the hand of the girl that had bewitched her prince even before he knew her.

"Do you feel us much for him as he does for you?" she asked of Liz.

"Yes," Liz answered simply.

"That is good then." She touched Liz’s face and slid her hand over her hair, her smile widening when she felt the long silky tresses beneath her fingers. She lingered over Liz’s slightly bulging stomach, saying: "Are you pregnant?"

"Yes," the softness in Liz’s voice said a lot about how she felt about her pregnancy.

Rula’s inspection eventually found Max and Liz’s linked hands. They couldn’t bear letting go of each other, even while they were hearing the most wonderful news.

"Can I speak to Liz alone?" Rula was still holding onto their hands.

"Uhm," Max was reluctant. He still had the vision of that other old woman touching Liz in his head. Who WAS she then?

"It’s okay, Max," Liz smiled up into his worried face.

Everyone watched as Liz led Rula into her and Max’s bedroom. She cast a last glance at Max before closing the door behind them.

Max swung around to locate Nick. "Would you try getting this shoulder healed completely now?"

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

"Tell me about Zan… Max as you call him," Rula invited as they sat down on the bed.

"Okay," Liz wondered where to start. "He is the gentlest person I’ve ever met…" She told Rula about watching him in school, wondering about him, thinking that he was so out of her league. About that day in the Crashdown when he risked all he was to save her. She told Rula how smart he was, that he had a degree in medical research, that he really was the great leader his parents had foreseen. That he was the best husband she could have asked for. That he did little things for her out of the blue. How much he loved their son already. His loyalty to his friends and people.

"You sound just like he did all those years ago," Rula finally interrupted her.

"I do?" Liz was embarrassed.

"Yes." She smiled. "Completely besotted. It worried me at first, because he was so adamant that you were out there somewhere and he just needed to find you. He was living his life in his dreams. And I knew he was meant for another. The day his mother told him he had to bond with Ava, he came to me. He was so distressed. He said you would leave if you knew about her. I told him you were a dream and that he could make his dreams go the way he wanted to. He just looked at me strangely and told me, ‘she’s real and she is going to think I’m betraying her’. I thought he was exaggerating. But then I saw him again after the bonding. He was so sad. ‘She’s gone’, was all he said. And I knew then, that you were his other half. That he would not rest until he found you."

"It was chance, really, that he was sent to earth by his parents." And Liz would thank whatever providence had made that happen until the day she died.

"Was it really chance?" Rula rubbed her hand over Liz’s womb. "Or was it destiny?"

The word made Liz flinch. For a long time, ‘destiny’ meant that Max could not be hers.

"Tell me about the baby."

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Max rubbed his shoulder, which was now more or less completely healed. "Will someone please tell me who this other woman was that talked to Liz?"

James and Shilla glanced at each other and stepped forward as the others silently left the lounge for other parts of the royal suite.

Noticing that James took Shilla’s hand before she started speaking, Max suddenly realized that a romance had apparently bloomed under his nose without him noticing it. He bet Liz knew, though, she always noticed stuff about people around her.

"I was asking around to find someone that could help with what happened in your past life," Shilla informed him. "And Hora, she contacted me. She knew so many things about your life on earth and about your bonding to Tess, that I thought…" Shilla hung her head. "I’m sorry, I should’ve waited for you to come back before telling Liz."

"Yeah," Max sighed, "you should’ve." His voice was mild. "Where is this woman now?"

This time James looked reluctant. "It-it wasn’t a woman. It was… Nacedo."

Max jumped to his feet. "Nacedo?"

"Yes, and we managed to catch him as he was leaving the palace. He’s outside with Nick."

Max was past them before the sentence was finished. He found "Ed Harding" outside and grabbed him by the throat.

"Max!" Nick yelled. "Stay calm."

"Did you do anything to Liz?" Max asked him angrily.

"Oh damn," Nacedo said in a sarcastic voice, "does that mean she’s still around? I thought for sure she would kill herself after seeing her less than sterling past."

"She is stronger than you would ever know, you bastard." Max gripped him tighter, causing him to cough. "I saw you put your hand on her, did you do anything to her?"

"N-no," said with difficulty around the fist gripping his neck. "Only helped her with some memory retrieval."

Max fairly threw the man at Nick. "Take him to join his wonderful Tess. I never want to see him again."

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Rula finally left some hours later after Max had worn a groove in the floor outside his room. "You were right, Zan," she told him as she was leaving. "She was worth waiting for."

He found Liz still sitting on the bed when he rushed inside. "I love you," he blurted out and hauled her against him.

Liz trembled violently as he groaned her name between hungry kisses. She needed to tell him their son had moved, but this moment was for them only. He was holding her so tightly that she suspected she would be slightly bruised, but she didn’t care. She wanted, NEEDED, him to hold her like that tonight. To want her like that, with the same wild intensity that she wanted him.

He kissed her as though he couldn’t get enough of her, memories from those dreams from his previous life dancing through his mind. He remembered wanting her, dying to kiss her and never being able to. His hands shaped her body, quietly taking note of the minute changes his baby has wrought on her as he molded it against his own.

"Oh god, I want you… Shani."

His hands were on her hips. She could feel the hardness of his body as intimately as she could feel the eager swell of her own breasts and the sharp, intense ache low down in the pit of her stomach…

He undressed both of them quickly, allowing Liz only a few moments to assure herself that his shoulder was fine now before laying her down on the bed and following her to pull her into his embrace again.

Familiarity, far from decreasing the intensity of her love and desire, had only fed it, so that now merely the act of running her fingertips caressingly down his spine was enough to stir their bodies into swift arousal.

When she kissed him, tracing the hard line of his collarbone, she heard him moan softly under his breath, his hands sliding up over her body, cupping her breasts gently, caressing them. He gathered her up against him, slowly kissing her breasts, bathing them in moist heat that instantaneously turned her bones to liquid, his hands slid to her thighs stroking shape of the firm outer flesh and then more urgently stroking her soft inner skin.

Her body was eager and waiting for him, her quick moans of pleasure joining the other sounds of their love-making; the silken stroke of skin against skin, the slow suckle of Max’s mouth, the urgency of the low groan of pleasure he gave when she touched him intimately, closing her fingers around his flesh and caressing him. He was so vulnerable to her when he was like this, so much in need, the words he whispered to her, as well a the movement of his body, openly showing the depth and intensity of his love for her.

Something about the way Max watched her when she looked at him and kissed him intimately increased her aching tenderness for him and deepened her love. Now, as she caressed him lovingly with her lips, it was an attempt to show him how much he meant to her. The fulfillment of every male fantasy, she acknowledged: a woman worshipping at the fount of a man’s most essential maleness.

Tears formed in her eyes as she felt the tender way he twined his hands in her hair as soft gasps escaped his lips. What had she ever done to deserve this man’s love?

It was his turn then. Max rolled them over and touched his mouth to her skin, her throat, her breasts, the soft, smooth, slightly swollen skin of her waist and stomach and moved lower.

Liz shuddered as she looked downwards to see his dark head pressed against her body, her fingers reaching out to tighten convulsively in his dark hair as his fingers caressed her moistness. She could feel the warmth of his breath as he touched her gently with his tongue, and her whole body started to shake.

"Max, please…" It felt like ages had passed since they were together last and she needed him desperately. When he gave in to her imploring, she could taste her body in his kiss.

Her back arched and her soft cry of pleasure as he entered her was lost beneath the fierce pressure of a kiss that mimicked the slow thrust of his body within her own.

Her body closed possessively around his, so sensitive to him that every movement he made sent new pleasure spinning through her.

"Look at me," Max had commanded as he’d entered her, the intimacy of the shared eye contact, and the shared sensations of their connection, had heightened their experience.

Their movements increased slowly until it reached an explosion of pleasure and release, so intense that they cried out each other’s names, their eyes filling with emotional tears.

Max stared down at her, seeing her struggle to get her breathing under control, and he knew. This is what he searched for through two lifetimes. His other half. The other part of his soul.

Part 53 | Index | Part 55
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