Determined not to let him slow them down, Liz wriggled in his arms until he let her slide down his hard body. She looked up and met his dark and hungry eyes, letting him see exactly how desperate she was for him. She felt light-headed and heavy at the same time, desire for this man in front of her making the blood rush through her veins at a dizzying pace. He was holding her by her shoulders with unsteady hands, inadvertently pulling the edges of her half-undone sweater apart. Liz licked her lips, tasting him in her mouth. And wanting so much more.

His eyes were drawn helplessly from her moist mouth to the swell of her breasts, still encased in a lacy bra, when she took a deep breath. She’s pregnant, he repeated to himself even while his fingers found the last buttons of her sweater and ripped them open. He kissed her again, a hard, bruising, deep and desperate kiss that forced her mouth open underneath his. Her tongue met his halfway and he heard his own groan echo in his ears. God, they’ve been married for nearly eight years, and she still drives him insane with lust. He urgently shrugged off his shirt before finding the fastening of her bra, ridding her of that too and bringing her against him. The rubbing together of their bare torsos inflamed him further.

Liz whimpered when her sensitive breasts came in contact with the hard muscles of his chest. Some sane part of her brain was stunned at her wild behavior. Yes, she always wanted Max, she even sometimes got a little out of control while making love with him, but this… She was practically clawing at his back to get him inside her. If she had not lost the ability to talk coherently, she would have begged him to make them one quickly. To do it before she exploded into tiny pieces. She had never felt so out of control in her life.

"You’re pregnant, sweet…" It was a slurred mumble as Max tried one last time to slow down the juggernaut of their passion. The only answer he got was a low moan and another nip at his chest.

He gave up. Let the consequences be on his head, but he couldn’t help himself anymore.

He wrapped Liz in his arms and kissed her with the pent-up hunger of their time apart. Her mouth was as urgent as his and he covered her face with kisses, breathed in the seductive scent of her hair and moved her back against the wall for support as they both trembled with the force of their release from the restriction they’d imposed on themselves.

With his hands free to revel in the soft curves of her femininity, his mouth sought hers again, loving it, caressing it. Her arms were around his neck now, her body arched against his, her fingers curling into his hair, holding him to her, wanting him.

He was painfully hard within the constriction of his pants, desperate for the release only his Liz could give him. And she was burrowing even closer to him, the quiver of her thighs revealing the same feverish desire that gripped him. Their connection consisted only of their desperate desire to consummate, leaving no place for shared visions or flashes.

His hands found the hem of her skirt and pulled it up. The silky scrap of her panties was moved apart easily to give him access to the intimacy he craved. She was wet with need for him and he gloried in the way she shuddered as he stroked her.

"Max, please." It was a soft cry and a gasp all in one.

"Liz… I’m dying for you…"

Still keeping her pinned to the door, he got his own clothes out of the way and slid inside her, hearing her soft relieved sigh.

She lifted her leg, opening herself further, sensuously stroking his leg with it. Only a shallow penetration was possible and the teasing of it was driving him crazy with excitement. He shoved his pants further down his thighs, filled his hands with the soft roundness of her bottom and hoisted her up, the explosive tension inside him demanding the thrust that took him deep inside her, fast and strong and intensely fulfilling.

Liz moaned his name in his ear, his possession of her so incredibly needed and satisfying. She wound her legs around his hips, sinking him even further inside her.

Then there was a moment to die for, a moment of stillness, of exquisite appreciation of how it was to be together like this, so deeply co-joined, owning an inner-world that was uniquely theirs.

Her hands clutched at his shoulders, fingers digging into his flesh as though they, too, would claw inside. Her head was thrown back, exposing her long throat, and there, at the base of it her pulse visibly throbbed. Max kissed it, drew on it, loving the sense of her heart thrumming with his.

He felt her muscles start to spasm around him and abandoned the kiss to ride the gathering storm of sensation, pushing it until the waves of her release rolled through him and tilted him over into his own release. The intensity was blinding and he didn’t even hear himself call her name. Liz. Love. Shani.

She slumped over him, hugging his head and he buried his face in the heaving softness of her breasts. He wrapped her fiercely in his arms to prevent her from slipping away from him, holding onto their intimacy as long as he could. Her fingers stroked his neck as though gentling him and he felt a rush of tenderness for the woman she was, the mother she would be.

Only when she stirred did he become aware of his surroundings again; the bed not a few feet from them, the soft vibration of the ship underneath his feet, the fact that their guards and a very surprised servant girl were probably on the other side of the door.

"Max…" she whispered, her breath warm on his skin, alerting him to the shift that had to be made.

Liz leaned back against the wall. Max lifted his head. Her face was flushed, her eyes glittering, her mouth slightly parted as though her lips were too sensitized to close. She met his gaze intently. "I love you. That is more important than anything else." Telling him indirectly that whatever his past held, she was his present and future.

"I’m sorry for…" He couldn’t even say it. He had taken his pregnant wife against a wall!

She smiled at him crookedly. "Yeah, I can’t believe we just did this."

Alarm ripped through him, making him irrational. "But you wanted it?" he pressed.

"Yes," she answered fiercely. "More than anything."

His fear dissolved into a relieved and happy grin.

"Do you think you could let me stand on my own two feet again?" She sounded unbearably happy and his body reacted to that note in her voice that he had missed so much.

Nodding, he kissed her to make up for the more intimate disconnection. He clenched his jaw when he saw that Liz was still wearing her skirt and was walking unsteadily to the bed. Cursing himself, he kicked off his pants and caught up with her, swinging her into his arms and carrying her the final few paces before depositing her on the mattress. Sinking to his knees next to the bed, he helped her take off the skirt and her underwear, trying not to notice how languidly she stretched as soon as she was naked.

He had more pressing problems than his rapidly returning arousal. Pulling her closer to the edge, he let his hands run over her body, trying to ascertain if he did any damage with his wild behavior.

Liz shivered underneath his light touches, still needing more of him. She could see that he was back to ‘my pregnant wife is made of porcelain’ mode and she reached out to smooth the frown from between his beautiful eyes with her finger. "Max…" her voice was sultry and low. He had just managed to make her feel like the most desirable woman in the universe and she could also feel the vestiges of his desire for her still reverberating through their connection. She licked her lips. She wanted more.

Still valiantly trying to ignore Liz’s attempts at distraction, Max finally let his left hand rest on her belly, exhaling in relief when the glow appeared. Leaning forward, he rained tiny little kisses on her stomach. "Sorry, baby. I’m sorry I was so rough with you and mommy."

Finally giving up on the subtle approach, Liz grabbed his head and pulled it up to her. "Well, mommy isn’t sorry that you loved her like that." She kissed his warm mouth, running her tongue over his lips until he opened them with a small exclamation. The kiss was seductively sweet at first, before it turned fiercely passionate. "Love me some more, Max. Please…"

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

Shilla had hurried out of the suite as soon as the entryway was clear and she fled past James with heated cheeks, not hearing his soft "Thank God". She had never in her life witnessed such raw emotion and it made her feel funny inside. She couldn’t help but wonder if James would ever look at someone the way Max had looked at Liz. She had thought that Antarians were more or less the same than Dendarians. They mated, they had sex, but they never gave in to intense emotions. But watching that scene just now had made a tiny part of her wish that someone would be so intense about her one day.

James, on the other hand, felt like sending a rejoicing message to all the Antarians on the ship. Max and Liz were back to their old ways! They had all watched with trepidation as their royal couple struggled through this rough patch, all silently praying that this would pass. None of them wanted to see either Max or Liz looking as sad and unbalanced as they have for the past couple of days. It affected the group. But only the famed passionate encounters of Max and Liz could send poor Shilla running for cover like that. Emotion like Max and Liz’s were still a rare thing among Antarians, but they had gotten used to seeing it whenever the two visited the camp in the desert. It would be new to the Dendarians though. James grinned to himself, glad he would be there to witness all the shocks that would follow the arrival and stay of the King and Queen of Antar on Dendar!

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

"I can’t believe they have the nerve to come here!" Tess was furiously pacing her room in the Dendarian palace. "They are obviously intent on ruining my life at all costs."

The man lying on her bed watched her progress with dark eyes. He was enjoying her passion. "I have to go soon, it will be light. Come back here."

"Is sex all you care about?" she flung at him. "He will take away my position, I tell you!"

"We won’t let them. This is all part of my big plan." He sounded sure of himself.

"It better be," Tess pouted. "Your position would be in trouble too, you know."

"If my plan works, no one would ever doubt my position again."

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

Max and Liz were finally having the dinner that Shilla had left them hours before. She sat on his lap wearing one of his shirts and he was in a pair of sweatpants. They were trading kisses between eating, incredibly happy to be close like this again. They only had a few nights left on this ship before they would reach Dendar, and Max had an idea that he would be very busy once they were there. So, they had to make the most of their time left here.

He absently rubbed his hand over Liz’s stomach and pressed a kiss to her shoulder. "Tell me the truth, are you really feeling okay?"

Her tinkling laugh lifted his spirits. "Yes, Daddy, I’m fine."

His breath hitched in his throat at the term. Daddy. Emotion suddenly choked him and he pressed his forehead against Liz’s. "If I haven’t told you before… You have made my life complete, Liz Evans."

She hugged him back. "I only ever wanted you. Our baby is a bonus."