Thank you so much for your thoughtful fb, so sorry for the long absence.
Chapter five
“You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope. Tell me not that I am too late, that such precious feelings are gone for ever.”
Persuasion
by Jane Austen
Liz felt disoriented, dizzy, nearly faint as she stood shifting nervously from one foot to the other staring at the source of what seemed to have once again triggered a memory, a small bottle of Tabasco sauce.
Max watched idly by caught within the fleeting seconds between what he should do and what he wanted to do.
To mindwarp her, to set her free, or drag her into the past where he lived and breathed alone, isolated in the darkness of a time he could not escape.
To release her, to save her from the pain of the past, or to let her see, to remember all that they were, all that they had.
The decision had already been made, years of sacrifice had left the notion of black and white, right and wrong blurred as he inched closer to her.
Stammering softly, almost hypnotically her words hung in the air, pulling at the tender part of his heart that had long ago turned to stone.
“... who are you?”
It was obvious somewhere in the beautiful far away glint of her dark eyes that she had stepped back into their past.
His voice deepened with urgency, almost hardened by the passage of a life wasted.
“You know who I am…
what I am.”
The words left his mouth so easily, like a truth demanding to be heard.
He was astonished how effortless it was, and as selfish as it might have been there was a part of him that felt it was well deserved, even justly earned.
A stay of execution for a crime that had well served its time.
Tomorrow he could sacrifice it all again, shut it all down, eviscerate his heart, but tonight, this night, he would have what he should’ve never had to let go.
Her stare was focused, insistent, pushing, searching desperately trying to punch a hole into the wall of deceit that he had placed there tragically so long ago.
Tearing himself away from her he grabbed the bottle and calmly placed it back in the door of the fridge biting his time before the cracks in the carefully placed walls began to fall.
Breaking out of her spell she charged towards him not wanting to lose the thoughts that were connecting in her mind.
“No, wait, that… means something. I need to look at it again, maybe if I - “
Blocking her, he towered over her forcing her backwards against the wall.
She hissed softly, shocked by the weight of his stare as his hands ghosted over her skin, cradling her face, edging her gaze up to look into his eyes.
“Stop, just let it come… remember me.”
Gone was the gentle ease of that teenage boy as he released her pressing his palms against the wall, trapping her against him as memories passed between them like live electrical currents leaving them both breathless, shivering bracing in the wake of a reality that refused to be silenced.
Scene’s of their past flickered wildly behind her eyes as she struggled to get past him only to be pushed roughly back, finding all too quickly that the insecure, shy boy she knew was now a hardened man, a man who had nothing left to lose.
“No, there’s no turning back now.”
“T-This … this isn't real.”
Brushing his lips along her neck he was unable to hold back feelings that for an eternity devoured him leaving nothing behind but blood and bones.
Grasping her hand he pressed it against his heart free of all guilt, demanding she feel what was left after the fallout that nearly broke him.
“This, Liz… is very real.”
Tears stung her eyes as she curled her hand recoiling it from his pounding chest.
“This is a trick, you've drugged me!”
Severing the spark of the connection rushing between them she ducked under his arm and ran towards the door.
“You’re working for Dr. Dexton, manipulating my mind, using the information I gave him about the man in my dreams, how else would you have those tapes!“
Panting he rested his forehead against the wall as his fingers turned to fists pushing off the hard plaster.
Desperate to feel her love again, to feel anything, he took off blinded by a taste of a time when he was whole, when he was everything to her.
“Don’t rationalize this into some bullshit fiction that makes it easier for you to swallow, it’s insulting, and honestly we both know you’re smarter than that.”
With four long determined strides he was behind her covering her small frame with his massive muscular body slamming his hand over the door.
A shaky whimper left her parted lips as he slid his hand slowly over the lock melting the steel leaving her cheek hot as the crimson glow lit her face dispelling her theory that this was anything but real.
He wanted to take his time, let her adjust, but it was impossible not to be drawn to her and all that she had become.
No longer a young girl full of innocence and uncertainty, she was graceful, seductive without effort, with every subtle move more alluring than the last. it all hit him like a speeding train, so unexpected it shattered his self control to dust.
Starved, he surrendered to her, breathing her in, molding himself to her, forcing the connection to continue, unwilling to stop, falling, descending deeper into the abyss of the woman she had become.
With lightening speed the moments they shared ripped into her, drifting over her diving threw her, inside her.
Shaking her head she winced stopping his hand as it moved with obvious intent along the curve of her hip.
“Please, I don’t understand what’s happening.”
Gripping her at the waist now he pulled her close as the tips of his fingers skimmed beneath the hem of her sweatpants.
“Yeah, that won’t work. You see, I feel what you’re feeling. It’s all there, right before you, you can’t shut it out any longer, you can’t deny what we were, what we still are.”
His touch was fire, burning a trail along her skin that had long been left unsatisfied, empty, numb to all that dared enter that realm of intimacy with her.
Failed relationships, the end of a marriage, it was all becoming clear, he was the ghost that lingered inside her, holding her hostage, a love that couldn’t be forgotten no matter the strength of the power that held it back.
In a haze she leaned back into him gasping at a body vibrating with energy, carved from years working the land, surviving on his own, striving each day to forget her, the evidence of that failure pressed against her waiting impatiently for permission to take her.
Unfair was the bond that seized her heart as it jumped the timeline throwing her into a whirlwind of emotions.
A reckless leap into a frozen river, a tender first kiss on the balcony of her parent’s home, the echo of a bullet screaming inside her and the unbelievable moments that were to follow.
Her dark eyelashes fluttered as the flashes mercilessly came one after the other only growing in strength, vivid and real, so authentic there was no room to question their truth.
Bright red strawberries falling to the floor, a cool desert floor, a sky full of stars, each kiss, every embrace striking her harder, faster as she heard a quiet ‘yes’ pressed urgently to her ear.
Long lost secrets drifted to the surface evoking feelings that were not in her control as she covered his hand with her’s.
Max shuttered with surprise as she led him between her thighs knocking him from his focus forcing him to release any control over what she would witness.
One touch and he was gone, entirely at her will, helpless to stop what was to come as she rocked against him.
Releasing his hand, allowing him to take over, she braced herself against the door furrowing her brows as the bitter end began to reveal itself.
Dazed, driven to distraction, Max was consumed with her, by her, as he brought her to a place she had only dreamed about so many times.
Pleasure and pain collided within her as she cried out his name in an effort to escape from his grip.
It was ironically that moment of pure elation, of exquisite release that she witnessed her last moments with him.
Splattered with the blood of the many innocents that she now knew led back to them, she could see herself as a third person, a voyeur standing beside them in the desert night.
The horror of that moment seemed to bring the entirety of their time together, solidifying everything that had been ripped away, without her knowledge or consent.
Liz watched her younger self fall away into a darkness full of lies as he mindwarped her against her will, without choice or consent.
Her dream was in reality nothing but a nightmare.
Breathless, Max still spinning from the very depths of her, all velvet soft beneath his fingers, collapsed over her.
“Liz... you have no idea how long I've waited, how many times I've - “
Stifled by a sharp pain across his cheek he stumbled backwards as she approached him once again delivering another punishing slap to his face.
“How could you! You had no right!”
Startled by her reaction his defenses rose up in defiance of her rage.
“I had no choice! I saved you, I gave up everything for you!”
Shaking her head in disbelief, stunned by his blatant arrogance she pounded her fist against the door.
“Get me off this mountain.”