Page 94 of Want Me, Take Me, Haunt Me, Make Me

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. “Wherethere’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 outsidedoknow 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.

“Iknow 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.

Chapter 50

6:30 a.m.

Hazel’s college roommate, a more social girl than she’d ever been, had once said that normal people weren’t awake before eight unless something really good or really bad was happening. In the pale morning light, Hazel gulped coffee and tried not to speculate on which way the mission would go.