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This is a stand-alone story following the events of Max Allan Collins' DARK ANGEL novels SKIN GAME and AFTER THE DARK, and incorporating information revealed in D.A. Stern's THE EYES ONLY DOSSIER. -- author's note

Photo courtesy of Jensen Ackles Museum

"Please?" She was begging now. "Please, if not for yourself, then for me? Alec, I can't face this alone. You're all I have left. If they take you from me ... kill you or worse ... what am I supposed to do?"

Alec's mind was in overdrive, extrapolating his choices. Death didn't seem to be one of them, at least not for himself, although if he was any kind of man he probably should end Max's agony. Still ... he knew damn well he couldn't. The thought of extinguishing the life of the woman he'd secretly loved for so long was a place he couldn't go. But the alternative was nauseating. Max didn't love him, or want him in that way."

"Friends can have sex, Alec," Max said, as if reading his thoughts. Her eyes were clear, and she was looking directly at him as she said that. "And it will save both our lives. Then, maybe someday, things will change for us. But you have to be alive for that to happen, and preferably still in one piece. Please, I've never asked a lot from you -- but I'm asking you for this. Call it your gift to me ... payment for all those times I've saved your ass."

"No." He forced the word out, tempted, but shaking his head and turning away.

"Yes," Max hissed, grabbing his arm in a grip of steel, her fingers digging into skin again. "You could do it before, Alec -- back at Manticore the first time you came into my cell. You were under orders, and you had no problem telling me to take off my clothes." She took a deep shaky breath and reached up behind herself, untying the hospital gown. "Well, I'm following those orders now." She loosened the string and the flimsy garment slipped to the floor leaving her standing completely nude.

Alec knew damn well what she was doing. Max was counting on the sight of her gorgeous naked body being more than his maleness could endure.

And she's right.

"Max?" Her name came out strangled as he reached out and lightly touched her firm taut breast. "Don't do this," he pleaded even as he swept her into his arms, enveloping her in his own heat. He'd wanted this for so long ... "Stop it," he whispered in her ear as her hands began to roam. "Stop seducin' me."

Her hand found his hardness, and Alec knew he was lost. He'd do literally anything for Max at this moment, including sacrificing his soul.

"Take me, you idiot," Max growled low in his ear, drawing him to her as she lay down on the bunk. "Take me and live."

As his lips plundered hers she yanked off the top of his hospital scrubs, and then her hands were down the back of his pants, first caressing his ass then sliding the waistband along his thighs to his knees. A kick and he was free, as naked as the day he was born between Max's legs.

This is wrong, a little voice chided inside Alec's mind. Stop it!

But he couldn't stop what he was doing any more than he could stop himself from burying his erection deep inside her warm inviting liquid tightness.

*****

Colonel Donald Lydecker, with a wistful smile on his face, watched the copulating pair of X5s on the monitor in his office. She'd done it, by God. Max had saved the boy's life, and at the same time probably saved his own career. The way 494 was taking his mate left no doubt in the colonel's mind that there would soon be a pregnancy to report. And, if all went well, many more after that.

At least two of his kids were now safe from the ruthless cruelty of The Committee -- Max because of her precious immunity factors, and Alec because he would be the sire of her children, the hope of mankind for many generations to come.

"You can't touch him now, you bastards," Lydecker said out loud to no one in particular, but referring to his superiors. "You can't so much as harm a hair on that handsome transgenic head of his."

Max's own head was thrown back on the pillow now, eyes closed, her face contorted with ecstasy as her hands cupped 494's bare ass, animalistic, riding his frantic thrusts like a she-cat mating with a tom. Alec, holding himself above her on corded arms, also had his eyes closed as he drank in her scent and concentrated on the job at hand -- giving Max pleasure and his semen.

Lydecker watched, waited, holding his breath, hardening himself. It was almost done. They couldn't hold out much longer. Max was practically hyperventilating; Alec trembling. He wondered which X5 would be the first to break. And then suddenly 494 gave a little cry, throwing his head back as his whole body spasmed with a pleasure that the colonel very much envied. Simultaneously, Max screamed, not with pain or fear, but with what almost sounded like joy. Oh God, Alec! she cried, the words and her heavy breathing picked up by the mic in the cell.

They orgasmed together for almost half a minute -- and then it was done. Holding one another, shaking, probably still joined, the two X5s curled up together on the bunk, 494 protecting his mate even as he shot an evil look directly into the monitor and Lydecker's eyes. Fuck you, Alec silently mouthed the words to his unseen watcher while his arms tightened around Max.

"I wish," Lydecker chuckled and turned off the screen.

THE END