Page 61 of Misadventures with a Time Traveler

“Because this can’t continue. We can’t just keep making this a thing. You got it?”

She jerks at me once more. Yet this time, the effort is merely a show. In the writhes of her body, the curls of her fingers, and the thrust of her chest, there is a sweet, savage tension. She needs more—but she is afraid of more.

“A thing.” I nearly touch my lips to hers with the deliberate growl. “That you do not want anymore?”

“Wanting has nothing to do with it. I just don’t need it in my life right now, Max.” Her temple furrows. “Not ever.”

“Then…you do not feel this anymore? All of this, between us?”

Deeper grooves take over her forehead. “Feelings don’t count anymore, okay?”

“Then leave them out.”

The air in her throat snags. “Uh…huh?”

“You heard me.” I force her into stillness by sliding my crotch along hers. “Forget the feelings, Alessandra,” I snarl softly. “I am not asking for those right now.”

“I…I don’t get…”

“Only think of the need.”

“The—the wha—” Her moan is thick and achy as soon as I thrust forward again. With twice my purpose as before. “Oh, God. Oh…wow.”

“And the craving.”

“Stop it.”

“And the calling.” I raise my hands to her face, drilling past the confused glare she fights to form. There, in the deeper realms of her entrancing greens, I confront her deeper truth. “You know what I am talking about now, oui?” I husk. “You feel it—you know it—as completely as I do. But has your mind already killed that certainty in your heart, Alessandra? Has your confusion destroyed your belief before it even had the chance to grow?” She squirms again. I wedge my body tighter between hers. “Am I now simply insane and not the lover who has seen through to your soul? Has given that soul every drop of my passion and desire?”

I push my hands into her hair. Is it strange that I relish the moment she winces? But I would rather have a few seconds of her honest pain than the perpetual wash of her lies. I lift a satisfied smile…

Before the woman grabs again at my hair.

“Oh, Maximillian,” she whispers. “It’s not your sanity I’m worried about.”

Against my scalp, her fingertips turn into tiny trembles. They are not necessary. I know, I see, what she longs to reveal but is terrified to expose. I have met no other person more conflicted. Craving to be seen. Fearing the exact same thing. Even now, she’s still running. Battling to be strong when what she needs is to shatter.

With a god to help her get there.

I succumb to a new smile.

I happen to know just the god for the job.

I start by lowering a new kiss to her mouth. It is tender this time but also solid. Just commanding enough to keep her mind spinning as I push her shift up. Then some more. Then the last few precious inches, until her glorious nudity is revealed to me in full.

Then I stop.

And simply stare.

And utterly worship.

By every saint who ever lived, she is the most stunning woman I have ever seen. In any century. I am pitifully lost, craving to lunge back and fit myself between her thighs—and then to stay there a good long while. To bury myself, heart and soul and cock, into her mesmerizing heat.

But she is lost too—in a vastly different way. She is far from me now, flying in a void of bewilderment and doubt. Silently, I vow to repaint that sky for her. Every damn inch.

“Worrying about your sanity is a fruitless quest, Alessandra Sophia.”

Her gaze flares but quickly narrows. “That so, Maximillian George Jean Valence What’s-Your-Face?”