Chapter 49
She wasn’t entirely prepared for Maxwell’s reaction—not for the sudden tightness of his arms around her, pulling her close, or the heat of his mouth against hers.
There was as much force in his kiss as there had been that first time in the ruined city, but no sense of being claimed this time—only a profound need.
A corresponding fire blazed in her and she threw herself into the embrace, tongue meeting his as she grabbed his shoulders for balance.
The sundress had just been the nicest clothing Hazel had, but she quickly started appreciating its lack of coverage.
Maxwell’s hands swept up over her bare arms and shoulders to cup her face, leaving her skin tingling in their wake, and the thin bodice wasn’t much barrier between his chest and her peaked nipples.
The skirt didn’t do any better—she could almost feel every contour of his swelling erection.
“Mm,” she said, and melted against him some more.
Maxwell pulled back just enough to speak, showing her swollen lips and a half-drunk gaze. “We should go inside. Now.”
Inside was a long way off, though, and it was a warm night. “Or,” said Hazel, kissing him just where his jaw met his neck and smiling as he shivered, “we could not.”
“Oh? Oh.”
Hazel had almost gotten used to Maxwell picking her up by now.
She barely yelped before he set her down on the porch railing, framing her between the post and his body, with one arm behind her back for support.
He slid the other hand down over her breast and cupped it just firmly enough to make her gasp.
Then, when she reached for the post to steady herself, he laughed softly.
“You have so little faith, Miss Lewis.” His hand moved to her other breast. Hazel tried to hold still, despite the growing ache between her legs, but couldn’t help squeezing her thighs together. “I won’t let you fall.”
His voice was velvet and woodsmoke. Hazel wanted to say something witty about falling already, but the words left her head as he bent to kiss her again, sliding his fingers just inside the neckline of her dress. When he lifted his head, all she could think to say was, “Please.”
“Only too happy to oblige,” he said. A moment later he was pushing her skirt up. Her thighs parted readily at the touch of his hand, the stroking exploration that felt wonderful but couldn’t reach its destination quickly enough. “Oh, you are desperate, aren’t you?”
She wasn’t sure what sound she made. It didn’t matter. He wasn’t in a teasing mood that night; he slid her panties to one side and plunged his fingers inside her, hissing as she tightened around them. “God, you could undo a saint.”
“Never…known any,” Hazel panted, rocking her hips up into his hand. “Don’t want to right now.”
He laughed and bent to kiss her again. Their mouths found the same rhythm as his hand, unhurried but steady, unrelenting, like the circles his thumb made over her clit. Forgetting her precarious perch on the railing, Hazel arched back against Maxwell’s arm and whimpered into his mouth.
When she came, it was like gravity stopped working for a second.
She saw stars when her vision cleared, burning bright against the darkness, and Maxwell’s eyes were even brighter as he watched her. “I’ll carry this image until the end of the world,” he said, his voice low and rough. Slipping his fingers out of her, he brought them to his mouth and licked.
“I—” Hazel couldn’t look away from him. Not when his eyes flared at her taste, not when his tongue flicked out to lick his lips, and definitely not when he dropped his hand and started to undo his robe. “I don’t think we can balance—”
“Regrettably, no.” He made short work of the buckles, releasing the thick silver shaft of his cock. “I’m afraid you’ll have to stand up, dear heart, just for a little while.”
“I’ll see if my knees can support me,” she said, and Maxwell’s smile turned justifiably smug. When he helped her off the railing, Hazel leaned into his embrace, circling her hips against him, and savored the groan that resulted—she’d gotten a point back.
Scores didn’t really matter, though, and it wasn’t the night for much teasing.
Maxwell reached beneath her skirt and ran his hands up her thighs before he slipped her underwear off, managing it almost in one smooth motion, and lifted her against him as soon as she’d stepped out of them.
This time he cupped her ass in his hands.
“Wrap your legs around me,” he said, but she was ahead of him on that one.
He laughed low in his throat and spun the two of them around so that Hazel’s back was against the wall.
“Full circle, huh?” she asked, thinking of the ruined city. This time she could watch Maxwell’s face as he guided her onto his cock, pleasure making him close his eyes and clench his jaw. “Only not.”
“This is no time for geometry,” he said, and Hazel giggled. She stopped as they began to move, the solid heat of Maxwell’s erection calling forth renewed desire as he thrust within her, his hands on her ass holding her hard against him.
She knew he was holding back; she could sense it in his taut muscles and the nearly pained sounds he made.
Another time she might have told him not to—she’d already come once, she wanted to feel his orgasm, and he didn’t need to be so controlled—but it was no ordinary night, and Maxwell wasn’t trying to tease her or to prove a point.
He was savoring their union, making the sensation and the closeness last as long as he could.
Hazel wanted that too.
Instead of trying to provoke him into losing control, she wound her arms more tightly around him, gripped his waist with her thighs, and surrendered to the slow, inescapable build toward ecstasy.
At the end, as she reached the limit of her control, the urge to laugh came back—but not from humor.
Despite what waited for them, despite all the horror of the past and the uncertainty of the future, a wild joy took hold of her.
Hazel tipped her head back to see the stars and held on to her lover as she reached her climax, and as she felt Maxwell thrust and then pulse within her, she laughed up at the sky in pure, breathless delight.
The night was theirs.
* * *
“If tomorrow goes badly—”
Hazel’s voice slid through the darkness. She’d curled up against Maxwell, managing to fit the two of them into her narrow bed once again. Pleasure had left her loose-limbed, her eyelids heavy, and hearing her surprised Maxwell, who’d thought she’d fallen asleep.
“Hmm?” He couldn’t tell her not to think about the possibility of disaster or reassure her that all would go well. Both of them knew better than that. He settled for holding her closer.
“I’ll try and find you again.” The strain from before had left her voice.
She didn’t exactly speak with perfect calm—Maxwell doubted anybody human could have done, including himself—but with acceptance of what might be.
“I don’t know what happens if we fail. Not to us.
But I’ve never heard of anything that can destroy a soul completely. ”
“No,” he agreed, after searching his memory, and hesitated before speaking again. Hazel was a grown woman, though, and she deserved the truth. “Destruction could seem merciful in some cases.”
Silky hair slid across his chest as Hazel shook her head. “Where there’s…consciousness, I guess, there’s hope. Even Prometheus got free.”
“It took Hercules to do it,” Maxwell said gently.
“So humanity came through. Or divinity did. Or both. People on the outside do know what we’re going to try and what we’re up against.”
He couldn’t speak, torn between the desire to believe her and the fear of doing so. Hope was a treacherous beast. Maxwell had learned that even during his time as a mortal.
“I know what we’re up against,” Hazel went on, cupping the side of his face with one hand. “I’m not trying to delude myself, or you, and I’m not saying it’ll be puppies and rainbows. I might wish for oblivion in time. But as long as I exist, I have to keep trying, whatever that ends up meaning.”
“Trying to do what?”
“To fix things. And part of that means finding you again, if you haven’t gone onward. Even if that’s just to make sure you’re all right.”
Hope was treacherous. But he hadn’t expected Hazel to track him to a ruined city or to find his true name, and he’d never dreamed of sleeping with her peaceful and trusting against him. He couldn’t keep his guard up forever. “And if I have? Gone on, I mean?”
“Then I’ll hope to find you when I do. I’m no expert, but I don’t think time means much over there.”
“I may not end up where you think,” he said cautiously, the closest he would get to telling her his situation. If she didn’t know already, the knowledge could only make her hesitate. Maxwell would have gone to a thousand versions of hell first.
“That would be wrong,” she said. “Which means some power exists that can set it right. And really, what else will I have to do?”
“If anybody can manage it, you can,” said Maxwell, and kissed her.
And if you can’t, he thought, I’ll still have been more fortunate than I ever could have imagined.