Diana
I wake up in a cold sweat.
I was dreaming again.
This time, the cage was different, but the bad guys were the same. Boss Man was there, and he was hurting me. Boss Man was punishing me for something I didn’t even know I’d done wrong. I’m well aware of the fact that it was a dream, but even now that I’m awake, I feel scared.
“Deep breaths,” I say to myself. “Deep breaths. In and out.”
Max and Blake have been gone for two days, which really isn’t so long. They’re going to be back soon. Just one more day, and I’ll be able to wrap my arms around Max. One more day, and we’ll be together.
I know I won’t be able to fall back to sleep, so I take a shower and head over to the medical unit. I’m not using my cane anymore, which is a relief. My pain is almost completely gone, and my bruises have healed.
Sarah is already awake and working on paperwork when I come in.
“Hey,” she turns to me. She’s obviously surprised to see me. “Everything okay?”
“Another nightmare,” I say. “I couldn’t fall back to sleep.”
“Want to talk about it?”
“Not really,” I shrug. “I knew I would have them, especially with Max gone. I’m okay now that I’m awake. It’s just that they always seem so realistic.”
“Of course they do,” she says. “That’s why they’re called nightmares.”
“I miss him,” I tell her.
“Because he comforts you? You’re always welcome to stay here. I mean, I can’t comfort you in the same way Max can,” Sarah winks. “But I can provide a hug when you need one.”
“That’s not why I miss him,” I say. “I mean, I love having him comfort me, of course, but it’s more than that. It’s just that I feel like part of me is missing when he’s away.”
“That’s the whole ‘mates’ thing in action.”
“We talked about it,” I tell her.
“Being mates?”
“Yeah. He told me he loved me, Sarah, and the crazy thing is that I love him, too. I shouldn’t, but I do, and it’s incredible. Fantastic. I feel like I could fly.”
“That’s what it’s supposed to feel like. Love is supposed to be so incredible that you can’t imagine a time when you weren’t with the person. I’m happy you’ve found that.”
“I am, too.”
We spend another half hour together talking, and then I head back to the living unit I share with Max. I make the bed and tidy up, and then I start baking. My mother and I used to bake together when I was very small. She died when I was just a kid, but we had so many lovely times together.
Now when I bake, I think of her, and I think of my father, and I think of the life that I had.
There’s still a part of me that mourns my former life. I was so innocent, so naïve, so full of hope. I was so determined to make a difference in the world, so certain I could have fun and be brave and impact the people around me.
Now things are darker, harder, but they aren’t impossible.
I think if Max hadn’t found me, I wouldn’t have this much hope.
I bake for the rest of the day, and when I fall asleep that night, it’s with the knowledge that Max is going to come back to me soon.
He’ll always come back to me.
***
“Princess,” he whispers, and my eyes open immediately.
“Max? You’re back!” I wrap my arms around him, happier than I should be to see him again. “I missed you so much.”
“I missed you, too,” he says, and he climbs under the blankets with me. He’s a little wet, and I can see that he showered before he woke me up.
“How did the mission go?”
“We got the bad guy,” he says with a smile, and he kisses me over and over again. “I missed you so much, Diana.”
“It felt like forever.”
“I know,” he says. “And I’ve realized something, sweetheart.”
“What’s that?”
“I want to spend the rest of my life with you. You’re my mate, Diana. I know that. You know that. You are my stars and my moon. You are the sun in my sky. You are everything to me.”
“You’re everything to me, too,” I say, and I start to cry because I can’t quite believe this is happening.
I can’t believe something so sweet, so magical, so special, is happening to me. I’m just a normal, ordinary human girl who had something bad happen to her. I haven’t accomplished any great feats or made a difference in the world, but none of that matters because I’ve made a difference in Max’s world.
I’ve made a difference to him.
I’ve changed him.
“I love you,” I tell him. “Always and forever.”
“I want to have a mating ceremony,” he says. His voice is determined, and I know he’s been thinking about this for awhile.
“I don’t know what a mating ceremony is,” I tell him, a little embarrassed. “But if it makes you happy, then of course we can do it.”
“It’s like a human wedding,” he explains. “But with more drinking, and more promises.”
“You had me at ‘drinking,’” I say, and he laughs. Then he kisses me, and soon neither one of us is laughing. Soon we’re entwined with one another. Soon we’ve forgotten everything except how this feels.
He kisses me and pushes me back on the bed. He hovers over me, but he’s careful not to press his entire body on me. I know he doesn’t want me to feel trapped, and I appreciate that. He’s always so careful, so cautious, but not in a way that makes me feel babied.
Somehow, Max helps me to feel special and strong, but he’s still gentle with me.
He’s incredible.
He peels off my clothes layer-by-layer, and I reach for his clothes, too. We toss everything to the floor, and then Max begins to kiss his way down my body. He starts at my neck and kisses along my collar bone before moving carefully to my breasts. There he kisses one, and then the other over and over again.
My mind goes blank, filled only with one thing: longing.
I want more of this, more.
I want to feel him kissing every inch of my skin, want to feel him licking and sucking and touching every part of me.
I want to feel him everywhere.
As if reading my mind, Max sucks one nipple into his mouth and bites down gently. While he’s teasing one breast with his tongue, he twirls my opposite nipple between his fingers. The feeling is euphoric, and it’s one I won’t soon forget.
All too soon, he stops playing with my breasts and kisses me on the mouth again. He steals my breath away over and over. How did I get so lucky to find him? He kisses me, and I feel like my heart is going to stop beating or explode. I can’t tell. I just need more of him.
He pushes my legs apart with his knee and then makes a place for himself between my spread thighs.
“I love you, Diana,” he murmurs, and then he thrusts into me. I groan as he fills me. It’s only been a few days since we were intimate, but it feels like forever.
It feels like it’s been years since we were together this way: not days.
“I love you, Max,” I groan, and as he thrusts into me, I can’t help but melt into his touch. He makes love to my body like he’s an expert. He moves in ways that make me feeler hotter and needier with each second. Each thrust brings me closer and closer to orgasm, and then it hits me, and I explode with pleasure.
He comes at the same time, filling me with his seed, and I groan as I feel him pulsing inside of me.
Beautiful.
Max makes me feel beautiful.
He makes me feel like I’m the most incredible woman in the whole damn universe.
He makes me feel like I am magic.
Max climbs off of me and snuggles up beside me. He wraps his arms around me and holds me close to himself.
“How was that, princess?” He whispers.
“Incredible. I think you missed me.”
“I did,” he says. “So much, Diana. You have no idea.”
“On the contrary,” I smile. “I think I know exactly how much you missed me because I missed you, too, Max.”
“I was worried about you.”
“That I’d get scared?”
He nods, and I’m touched he would feel so concerned about me. Max explained that when he goes out on a mission, he has limited contact with the ship, and he can’t always make personal hologram calls. While I would have loved to have had the chance to talk to him while he was gone, I understand why we couldn’t chat.
The lack of communication made getting through the time he was gone very difficult, but now that he’s back, everything is fine.
“I did have a couple of nightmares,” I confess. “But I thought of you, and that helped so much.”
“What did you think?”
“I thought that if you were here, you’d remind me I’m special, and sweet, and that the past is in the past.”
“That’s right.”
“And I thought of the way you rescued me, of the way you made sure Boss Man was dead. You did that for me so I could have peace, and now I owe it to you to seek out that peace.”
“You don’t owe me anything, Diana. What I gave you was given freely.”
“On the contrary,” I tell him. “I owe you everything I am, Max. Without you, I would have rotted away in that cell. Each day, a little bit of my humanity was chipped away. Each day, I died, just the smallest bit. If you hadn’t found me, he would have won.”
“I wouldn’t have let that happen,” Max says fiercely. “And I will never let anything like that happen again, Diana. I will protect you until the day I die, and I will love you with everything I am.”
He wraps his arms around me even tighter, and in that moment, I know that no matter what happens, I will always have Max. No matter what battles I face, no matter how hard my life gets, I will always have him by my side.
Forever and always.