M A K A Y L A
I traced the bare lines of her skin with my lips.
"You know..." Her low voice sent ripples along her throat, "–I think I might start skipping meals more often if this is your idea of eating."
I smiled against her skin and licked a trail of sugar-sweet liquid between her collarbones. Another low moan left her before she took my shoulders and threw me back against the sofa cushions. We hadn't made it that far from bed...
Alex reached across me and plucked a pear off the platter before taking a knife and scoring a slow wedge from it. I watched the metal glint before watching her eyes as she traced the edge of the fruit and ran her tongue along it. Those fire lit eyes met mine.
"Makayla–"
I ignored her words and took the piece in my teeth from her fingers. She smirked slowly as I leaned back and set my hands behind my head. But she kept her eyes on my face, not on my very exposed chest. My woman was nothing if not focused in times when she desired it. So she tossed the pear aside and instead pressed the point of the blade against my stomach.
"That was mine." She murmured, still smirking.
"Oh no, Scorpion. It was mine the moment you touched it..."
I shivered as the cool point of the blade ran up the centre of my body. Between my breasts and up to my neck. She angled her head as she watched a droplet of the juicy fruit leave the corner of my mouth. With the steel still at my throat, she bent forward and took my jaw in her free hand. I sighed low as her lips brushed the corner of my mouth and caught the droplet.
I lost patience. The way our bodies were still bare and pressed together on the cushions drove me past my resolve and I was more than ready to pick up where we left off.
My fingers went through the high plait on her head and drew her lips to mine.
The weapon fell away along with her restraint. She smirked against my lower lip before both her hands ran along my hips and pulled my legs around her waist. I sucked in a deeper breath feeling the hard lines of her stomach against me. She pressed me deep into the soft fabric and kissed me hard. Our tongues moved with the lush taste of fruit and desire. I wanted more. So much more. Always.
I ripped my lips away only to bite down hard on her own. A low growl left her and made my skin ripple. I tightened my legs around her and her movements against my body became more deliberate–more perfect.
"We will–have breakfast–every morning like this–forever." I breathed with a breathless grin.
Her answering smile made me pull her mouth back down to mine before she could find a response. Without warning she pulled back from me and I groaned tugging her neck. She chuckled around my body and made me want so much more...
But she soon reappeared with a stark red strawberry between her lips and amusement dancing in her eyes.
God, could I love her more...
She lowered herself to me slowly until I met her and bit down into the red fruit. The sweet liquid burst across my tongue but I was looking up at something far sweeter. I had barely swallowed my half by the time I felt her tongue glide across my lips and taste it for herself. Her kiss made me dizzy with desire. The flavours... The feel of her body... The way her eyes darkened every time–
"You're–killing me–Alex." I got out, taking in a deeper gulp of air.
The warm softness of her chest pressed flush against mine again and I groaned beneath her.
"C'mon Xavier. It's the best death you've ever had." She murmured, with a wicked glint in her eyes.
"I want. You."
"I know." She deadpanned, "I'm lying between your legs–"
I slapped her ass and she laughed hard into my shoulder. I rolled my eyes and whined her name. It got her attention quickly and she watched me more seriously.
"I do love it when you do that..." She muttered, not letting me answer.
Our kiss deepened along with our movements and it wasn't long before my whines were a lot more enthusiastic. I couldn't decide what I liked more. The taste of Alex tinged with fruit or the taste of her without... Either way our bodies became slick with the heat of the desire between us. Her moans lighting my body on fire. Her skin sending her name from my lips countless times.
Somewhere in the back of my mind I knew the space outside this room needed their leader. But if she ever thought of that–she didn't seem to give a single shit.
Not when she kissed me like this again and again like we had all the time in the world. Not when she whispered my name and made me reach oblivion too many times to count. And not when she told me she loved me again. It had already hit me hard enough last night–but I couldn't get enough of hearing it again from her breathless lips.
"Alex."
Her chest rose and fell quickly but she stilled above me when she heard the tone in my voice. Her eyes tore off my skin and met my blue. She cupped my face in her hands waiting. Breathing.
"Kiss me."
Her breathing slowed slightly as she watched me. Then she slipped both hands through my hair and complied me as soft as a rose. As pure as a lover kisses their first and last. She put all of the unsaid words between us into that kiss.
Then I returned it until my head spun.
When she finally pulled back from me her eyes held the same dazed look for a moment. I smirked watching her focus on me. Despite herself she winked. I grinned wider and shook my head appraising every line of her face. Loving every inch.
"I don't suppose that's joy I see on your face?" She quipped dryly, just as she had in another time and place.
I shook my head slowly.
"Closer to love."
"It's returned more than you know."
"I think I do know... When you kiss me like that."
"I think I forgot my own name when I kissed you like that." She chuckled.
I let a long breath go through me and wound my arms around her neck. She let me pull her down against my body and lay her head against my shoulder–lips against my skin. We lay like that for many minutes, simply content in our own world. The rise and fall of our breathing and the slow relaxing of our muscles. She was everything. I held it all in my arms. And I wouldn't give it up for anything.
"There is nothing I wouldn't do for you..." I whispered, staring up at the ceiling. "Nothing that would keep me away from you." I mumbled, absently drawing the rope cord around my neck into my hand like an anchor.
I felt the warmth of her hand as it closed around my own and the ring.
"Makayla..."
I tilted my head down at the sudden change in her tone. The weight to it and the seriousness. It made my pulse flash in my veins. Those golden eyes could set my body on fire without a word either way. She swallowed.
"I have a habit of leaving things unsaid–of waiting and not saying things to you when I know I should–" She cut herself off and took an unsteady breath as I watched her entire face, frozen in my own anticipation. "–Time is so damn short for all of us. This city takes all of our time in a heartbeat and not everyone gets to find the person that makes them burn and live like you do for me..."
I stared at our hands between us and felt them heat as if the ring was ignited.
"Alex I didn't–I know it didn't mean..."
"But it does." she frowned, staring like she could see through our hands and into the gold. "–you are everything to me and you have what was everything to me. I had left that in a dark place and you drew it back out just like you did when we met."
I watched her silently as she loosened my hand and took the gold band around the necklace in her fingers. It gleamed in warm light. The same warmth in her eyes.
My throat was tight. My blood felt thick and my breathing had stopped at some point.
But she raised her eyes to me all the same as she held that ring in front of me with a more convicted look in her gaze. Why was a blade less threatening than this...
"I know what I want, Makayla. I just need to know it's what you want."
I was staring at the ring again lost in the gleam of the endlessly rare material. All but extinct. So was love like this... Promises and words like these. Surely they didn't exist for people like us? For killers and liars and–
"Alex I–we..." I flickered between her eyes lost. I dragged in a breath and her expression didn't waiver. She wouldn't let go of that ring until I told her point blank that it was not what I wanted for us. That I didn't want the promise of forever with her–but how the hell could I not? Consequences be damned, the world wasn't worth it without her. She knew that.
So did I.
So I pushed aside the Makayla that feared and regretted and reasoned. I had no place for it looking into those golden eyes. I didn't the first time I saw them and I sure as hell didn't now.
I didn't doubt.
"Ask me." I whispered.
Without breaking my gaze she pulled the blade off the table and cut through the necklace without hesitation. The rope fell away from my neck and freed the ring into her fingers. Scorpion wasn't on her knees before me. She was wrapped in the warmth of my body and held like she'd never be let go when she presented that ring of her past to me and saw right into my soul.
"Makayla Xavier..."
The pulse in my head was so loud it threatened to blur my senses. Her eyes so molten gold I could swim in them. The breath stuck in my throat. Her skin burning hotter against my own–
"I never want to know what letting you go feels like. I don't want to let another god damn second go by without saying the words I need to. I am impossibly in love with you–every part of me. So, there's only one thing I need to ask you..." She glanced down at the ring in her finger and drew the final piece of strength deep within her. It took all I had not to interrupt her and kiss her hard enough to make us both forget ourselves–
"Will you marry me, Makayla?"
The words left her lips I was sure of it. But they still didn't seem real.
How could we have got this far and still be alive to say words like those. To have love like this. This was supposed to end so badly for both of us... Hopelessly wrapped in power games between the sectors and doomed by it. I had all of these thoughts in a flash. In a single heartbeat. I could have them because I also knew my answer long before she asked it. I had fantasised it and pictured how it would go in my mind... A woman like Scorpion asking me such a thing. But it never came close to the full intensity of reality.
It never did.
When I remembered how to breathe I found my voice.
And when I found my voice it didn't crack or waver. It didn't stutter and it didn't hesitate. Because none of those things would have done any justice to the woman before me. I took her hand holding the ring in my own and slowly pulled it forward to kiss her hand. Then without breaking her patient gaze I answered her.
"Yes, Alex. A thousand times yes."
A small breath left her lips. Despite it all, it still surprised her. It still stopped her heart and brought a stunned look over her as she and I both realised what we had done. What we had promised. Perhaps it wouldn't end well for us, but we were damn well going to make the moments count before our time ended.
We were all destined to end. All doomed to burn bright and fade eventually. But at least now we were a part of each other for however long that forever was.
That was enough for me.