Love Me Or Let Me Go

by Kelly Lucille

  "No, you just said nothing at all. But I could feel your restlessness grow every day you were with me. Even when you were there you were always thinking about going again. And I could feel all of it."

  "You left me," he gritted out. His anger surging at the memory. He took a step toward her without realizing it and had to grit his teeth when she stepped back from him. Again.

  There was silence for so long he wondered if she was going to say anything else. Then she sighed and he watched the tension leak out of her. Leaving a sadness he liked even less. "I gave you an ultimatum. It was not my finest moment, but I knew you would choose to leave, even knowing it would mean we were over. I might not have done it had I known you were literally saving the world, but I did, and you gave me the answer I expected. You left. And now today, six years later, I find out why." She smiled, but there was no happiness in it. "It's almost a relief to know the world as we know it is in danger, and you are all that stands between the rest of us ignorant masses and the alien threat that is coming."

  "What," he growled out, knowing sarcasm when he heard it, and not liking what he was hearing, out loud or otherwise from Mira. "Is that supposed to mean?"

  "You could have told me," she said quietly. All bitterness seeping away. When he started to speak she interrupted him. "Did you think I wouldn't believe you?"

  "Maybe in the beginning," he finally said matching her tone. All the anger seeping right back out of him again. But then she had always managed to make him feel...everything. "How do I tell a woman, my woman, that the world is going to end if I can't find a way to stop it?"

  "Right," she said after a few moments of just staring at him. Then he felt her kick him out of her head. He staggered a moment confused by the sensation, but he did not need to be an empath to know she was angry. It was written in her flashing eyes and taut mouth.

  When had she learned how to do that? He had not known she could do that.

  "So you pursue me, make me fall so much in love with you that I can't breathe without you near. Marry me, and then make this grand decision to spare me the burden you carry? You just leave me in the dark, when you weren't leaving me literally, that is. Knowing that it was hurting me, you decided to keep what was basically your life mission to yourself? All to spare me?" The way she bit the word 'spare' out made him flinch.

  "God damn it," he growled. Moving forward until he could catch her arms and hold her. He had to touch her, because it felt like she was slipping through his fingers. Again. "You did not need to know what was coming. I didn't want to know what was fucking coming." He fought the need to shake her. "I wanted a life for you free of this shit."

  She shook her head at him, her blazing eyes losing none of their rage. "This is why you wouldn't talk about having children isn't it?"

  He sucked in a breath, feeling that like a punch to the gut. "Mira," he started, but she shook her head at him again.

  "You don't have to explain it," she said, that damn sadness peeking through the anger. "I get it. I really do. I feel the longing and fear you try to bury when I bring it up. I get it now."

  The relief he felt at her words would have lasted longer if she had not continued. "And that just makes all of this worse."

  "What does that mean?" he asked trying to read her eyes when she did not go on right away. He could see her struggle for words, but she was successfully hiding from his other senses. "You know the truth now. You know why I did what I did. I hate that you have to worry about this, but it is done. You know my secrets. That's no longer between us."

  She pushed his hands off her arms and stepped away from him, her chin lifting in resolve. He did not need to be able to read her mind to know he was not going to like what she was about to say. "What is between us McAlister? What could be, when you have spent every moment of our life together keeping me at arm’s length. Did you never once think that I would want to share your burden?"

  "I didn't want that for you..." he started, but she laughed bitterly, stepping farther from him as she did.

  "No, and you made that decision, just like all the other decisions you made without including me in the discussion. Never thinking that I might have something to add. That I might want a say in our lives together. That I might be able to help you."

  She held up a hand when he would have spoken, though truthfully, he had fuck all idea of what he would have said to that.

  "What if it was the other way around?" she asked her voice lowering, making him listen, as only she could. "What if I had this great quest, and all this dangerous knowledge, and you were the one on the outside, with a wife who did not trust or respect you enough to tell you why she kept disappearing? Why she did not want to even talk about having your children? Why she was restless and always thinking about going again, even on the rare occasions when she was with you? What if it was you who found out what I found out today? The reason why." She raised her chin and fired her final shot, her voice breaking, and her eyes shiny with anger and pain. "Would it make it all better, hearing what I heard today, and knowing finally the truth? That she did not, for one minute, trust you enough to share those burdens? To contribute to what was supposed to be a partnership? Would that make it all better Mac? Or, would it make it worse?"

  And while Mac stood there with all the air kicked out of his lungs the only woman he had ever loved walked to the doors and opened them. She stepped back and made it clear even without words that she wanted him gone, a-fucking-gain.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Mira stood at the door waiting for Mac to leave. At the same time dreading it. She could feel his emotions, but there were so many quickly changing, that it was impossible to know what he was really feeling. She only knew that as much as it hurt, she was not ready to jump back into a relationship when it was clear she had never been considered an equal partner. Knowing just how little she had been a part of his life, when she felt like her own had revolved around him, made starting again impossible. She wasn't going back to that, and she had no idea if he had anything else to give.

  He held her eyes as he walked closer to her, and she thought for a moment he was going to walk right out the door and that would be that. But he stopped. Took the door out of her hold, and pressed it closed moving so close at the same time she was surrounded in his heat.

  A breath between them Mira licked her lips and told herself that she would hold strong. She was not a weak simpering female who needed a man to cushion her from the trials of life. She was a partner damn it, and if he could not respect her as one she did not want him anyway. All of that she stalwartly said to herself, lifting her chin and doing her best to look more determined that she actually felt when he was so close.

  "You are right," he finally said. She sucked in a breath and tried to read him through his eyes. He was not lying, that was about all she knew. "I fucked up, keeping you in the dark and if you had done that to me, I would have been just as angry as you are." Then he went and ruined it by continuing. "But you are going to forgive me now."

  "Oh, really?" she knew her voice said clearly what she thought of his orders. "You think it's that easy?"

  "Yes, I think it's that fucking easy, and I will tell you why," he stepped that breath closer and she could feel every inch of him pressed along her length. She fought the feel of him, not wanting him to see exactly how much he affected her. "Because no matter how hard it will be for me to gain your trust after everything I did, and did not do while we were together, it has to be easier than the last six years of hell we spent apart."

  Mira forced herself to swallow but had absolutely no answer that would refute that statement. His eyes went to her lips, and then back to her eyes, as he continued to demolish her resistance with each word. "I thought when you left me you didn't feel for me what I felt for you. You couldn't have and still have left, but I was wrong. It took me five minutes in your presence to understand that, and if I had been a little less of a self-centered prick I would have come for you sooner and to hell with my pride. Because
you never got over me, no matter what you might have hoped, and I sure as fuck never got over you leaving. So yes, I know it will be that easy for you to forgive me, because you feel what I feel, and I would forgive you anything.”

  "That's not..." she started but he covered her mouth gently with a wide warm hand and kept going.

  “But even if you don’t let me back in, I won't watch you walk away from me again. So I will make you a deal. I will never again keep anything from you.” He said and watched her eyes widen over the top of his hands at his words. “If I need to go you will come with me, or I won't go."

  He went on before she could speak. "You know the threat we face. It was always somewhere in the future. A future I did not want to raise kids to face when I was gone. That has changed. The threat is now. I can feel it coming for us, and I know in my gut that you are going to be in the danger I tried to keep you out of all this time. I don't like it, but I will do everything in my power to protect you from it, and if we survive..."

  She took a breath to speak again, but he shook his head and left his hand where it was. "If we survive," he repeated. "And we somehow end this threat. I will give you as many children as you can stand."

  Mira felt with that final blow the last of her walls come tumbling down. She yanked his hand off her mouth and glared at him. Fighting with all of her strength to keep a level head. "Don't promise me things you don't really want. I can feel what you feel when you talk about having children remember?"

  His eyes flashed and he gave her more truth. "I'm scared out of my fucking mind that I won't be any better at being a father than mine was, or that I can't protect you or our children when it really matters. That does not mean I don't want to see you pregnant with my child." He lowered his head and rested his forehead on hers. His hand going to the back of her neck to hold her in place against him. "Forgive me. Take me back. Don't leave me again, and I will give you everything you want."

  Mira closed her eyes as the anger drained out of her. It took her a bit to form the words, but she got it out. "You ever keep anything important from me, for my own good, or otherwise, I will walk away from you and never look back."

  She felt his relief like a tidal wave of emotion crashing over her. He knew, just as she did, that he was right. No matter what they had to face in the future, it would be better than the last six years without him.

  He understood that, and how flimsy her threat really was, because the cocky bastard smiled and growled, "fucking liar," right before his lips took hers in what could not be mistaken for anything less than a full on claiming.

  Then his hands were all over her, and it was all she could do to hang on as his desire, and her own, crashed over them both. The walls she had been keeping between their minds came down like it had been hit by a boulder and he was back in her thoughts. His emotions nearly as seductive as the touch of his hand. A touch she knew well but had missed for the last six years. A touch she did not think she would ever feel again outside of her dreams.

  He wrapped his arms around her waist, and she was lifted and carried back. A moment later he had found her bed with no help from her, and she was pressed down into the mattress with McAlister Weer pressed between her thighs. She was divested of her clothes with yanks and tugs while he continued to kiss her. He pulled back, growled at the sight of her, and threw off his own clothes as if they had become his mortal enemies.

  When she saw all that was revealed, the small hiccup of embarrassment her thoughts had made when she realized she was naked and spread out before his eyes, was forgotten. There was room for nothing else in her mind when Mac Weer was stripping before her. The growl and molten looks he caressed over her did not hurt either.

  Unfortunately, she barely got a good look at all that hard male before he was finished and came back down over her on the bed. At the feel of his hot skin and hard muscles she stopped worrying about anything but getting as close as she could. He seemed to be having the same thought because when she wrapped her arms and legs around him. He groaned and shoved his face into the side of her neck.

  Mira shivered at the feel of his beard scruff and knew he noticed because he pulled back just enough to meet her eyes in question. What he saw there must have reassured him because he grinned, and then took her lips again.

  "I'm not going to be able to make the first time last," he warned.

  Since she was gasping for breath and already hurting for the feel of him, she reared up and bit his lip lightly. Then met his eyes with her own, she was sure, flaring hot. "It's been six years Mac. I don't need slow and sweet. I just need you, now."

  He growled again and then shifted to lie more firmly between her legs. The heat of him hitting the wetness there like a brand. He kissed her hard, still growling. "I'll make it up to you.”

  She felt him shift, a hand going between them and he was pushing himself inside her. So hard and big and hot, the velvety friction of him was enough to have her head falling back and her eyes closing as she struggled just to accept every inch of him. It was glorious.

  When he had forced himself inside her to the limits of both of them, she felt his hands on her face as he brought her eyes back to his. She opened hers to find his like blue fire branding her. She could feel his desire, satisfaction, and even more, a completeness that she herself was feeling at that moment. But she had no time to dwell on it, because as soon as he had her eyes, he held them and began to move.

  As he had warned, he did not give her soft and slow. No, this first time after so long between them was nothing short of a full on plunder as he held her eyes. He claimed her body with a few tentative forays until he found that spot deep inside of her he had never failed to find, and then he struck hard, again and again, as her body struggled to accept the rising tension and foreign feeling of being completely invaded. And all the while he held her eyes. His feelings there as much as in her head. He would not let her look away. Even as his body claimed hers in no uncertain terms, even as he demanded a surrender she was incapable of not giving. Even when she went over the edge and screamed his name, and he whispered how much he loved her. Even then his eyes held her. The promise in them a vow.

  All of it, every movement and look and feeling she caught from him, all of it claimed, and promised and threatened. He would never let her go again. And when he came, she watched him reach for the pleasure between them. She watched him growl and tighten everywhere until the pleasure crashed over him too, and the look of him above her, the feel of him pulsing inside her, brought her a second time.

  Arguing his claim never even occurred to her. All Mira could think when they lay in each other’s arms right before she drifted off, was how this was the first time in six years that she was falling asleep without missing him.

  "Never again," she heard him say and knew he was in her mind, just as she was wallowing in his feelings. Satisfaction and love and a hundred other things all good. But on top of that was a fierce determination. She had a feeling if she ever did decide they were through he would not accept it the way he had the first time. "Not for a fucking minute," he growled in answer to her thoughts.

  Mira smiled against the hot damp skin of his neck and then licked him just there. She sighed when he growled and then snuggled closer, content to be where she was. Then she was flipped over onto her back and Mac stared down at her, once again laying between her legs.

  "Do you actually think we're done?" he asked that gruff tone to his voice making her shiver. Before she could form a response, he was kissing her hard and hot and with clear intent. She forgot about the call of drowsy sleep. Which was good because it would not be until the small hours of the morning before either of them would find it.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Blood gushed from the cut as the woman sagged slowly toward the floor. She did not even bother to clutch at her throat. Surprise and pain were all she knew, until even that faded away. Those exotic green eyes faded and closed, as she swooned, like in a slow-motion movie, so graceful in all her motions. Even
her death.

  He clutched the knife close to his chest like a treasured friend, uncaring of the blood still coating it when all his attention was for the dying woman. When she twitched her last, all that bright light gone out forever, he smiled.

  Mac awoke in a state of near panic, nearly knocking Mira out of her own bed as he reflexively jerked up. Adrenaline pumping, his heart was racing so loud he barely heard Miranda when she asked him what was wrong. He just looked at her blindly for a minute as he came to grips with what had happened. Then, as soon as he could convince himself there was nothing in the room to battle, he grabbed Miranda and pulled her into his chest tightly, fighting the need to pull back the covers and check her for injuries. He could plainly see that her throat was as smooth and unblemished as before the dream. But it did little to reassure him.

  "Mac what is it?" she asked softly. Not even berating him for holding her what he knew had to be too tight.

  "A dream," he finally said. It was not as reassuring an answer as it should have been. Not when she could feel his emotions, the panic and fear eating at the corners of his mind. And not when she knew that his dreams were never just dreams.

  "What did you see?" she asked after a moment, her voice still soft. Her hand running soothing circles across his chest as he fought to hold her even closer as he stared at the ceiling above him.

  "Nothing you need to worry about tonight," he finally forced himself to say in the mildest tone of voice he could manage.

  She bit him.

  "Ow," he growled completely distracted by the unexpected sting to his chest. He looked down with a glare to find an unhappy look in her eyes.

  "You promised not to do that," she reminded him with that stubborn tilt to her chin he both loved and hated. "You are not alone in your worries, and don't tell me it's nothing, not when I can feel you are definitely not alright."

  He opened his mouth to argue but this time she was the one who growled. "You aren't alone. You don't have to carry the burdens alone. If that isn't the case, then get out of my bed. I don't do casual sex."