511. Chapter 511

Alex says she’s in pain because Maggie doesn’t want her.

Alex Danvers is a lot of things.

Loyal. Intelligent. Fierce. Compassionate. Badass.

Alex Danvers is also wrong. Completely wrong.

Because Maggie wants her. Badly.

So. Damn. Badly.

But she can’t – they can’t – because Alex is too new at this, and Maggie is too terrible at this.

This love… thing.

Because she can always find a girlfriend. She can always find someone to sleep with.

But Alex deserves better than her damage. Alex deserves better than her broken.

Alex deserves better than her. Period.

So she fights for her – just two minutes of her time. She cares about her. A lot. She doesn’t want to imagine her life without Alex in it.

And Alex thinks and Alex fears and Alex almost says nothing, almost says no, but then Alex says pool tomorrow night, and Maggie feels like she can finally breathe again.

Because she wants her. God, fuck, she wants her.

But she needs her more.

So friends. Just friends.

Just friends who slowly, steadily, awkwardly but surely, fall back into their old rhythm. Fall back into the rhythm of loose laughter and casual flirting, of deep conversations and intimate sharing.

Of fighting back to back against the world; of protecting each other and bonding even closer over beers and pool afterwards.

Friends. Just friends.

Just friends, and Maggie is happy. Happy because it’s better to have Alex’s friendship and nothing more than to have… well… nothing.

But she’s a detective. And even under the most casual of situations, she detects. And Alex Danvers? Is anything but a casual situation.

Alex Danvers lights her every sense on fire, so when Alex’s friendship mask slips and she stares at Maggie for a little too long?

Maggie notices.

When they’re laughing together and Alex’s eyes fall to her lips?

Maggie notices.

When she’s lost her third game of pool that night and Alex takes pity on her – or the alcohol starts talking through her body, or both – she feels the way Alex presses her body unnecessarily close to hers, her front flush against back, as she shows her, finally, a more effective way to hold the cue.

Maggie notices the way Alex’s fingertips scald her skin, the way Alex’s breath feels on her neck; the way Alex’s breath hitches when Maggie turns her face to look up at her and their lips are so, so, so close.

She notices, and she remembers.

Remembers how soft Alex’s lips were, how insistent. How desperate and how eager and how headily balanced between aggression and pure, sweet tenderness.

How she tasted like mouthwash and something so very Alex that no mint could ever mask.

How she tasted like everything Maggie’s ever wanted.

So when Maggie gets home that night – that night with the pool cue, that night with Alex’s closeness, that night when her resolve almost broke – she chuckles wryly to herself.

Secret Agent Alex Danvers.

So damn good at her job. Yet so damn bad at reading the raw want flowing off the woman she’s convinced isn’t into her.

How very wrong she is.

She tries a freezing shower and she tries reading decidedly unsexy case reports.

She tries watching Law and Order reruns and she tries just plain falling asleep.

But all she can feel is Alex’s breath on her neck, lips on hers; all she can hear is Alex’s laughter, the way her name sounds rolling off of Alex’s lips, that husk in her voice when she’s had a little too much to drink; she can see when she closes her eyes is that body, that smile, the way she holds her beer bottle, the way she looks bent over that pool table…

Maggie groans and she tells herself that thoughts aren’t wrong. Thoughts aren’t disrespectful. Thoughts are all she can have of Alex Danvers, because Alex Danvers is too good for her.

Because all she deserves is her own hand.

But god, does she wish her hand was Alex’s as she slips it down the waistband of her shorts.

Of course she’s already wet.

Of fucking course she is.

Dammit, Danvers.

Of its own accord, a small gasp slips out of her mouth as her fingers rub down, hard, into her clit. Because tonight isn’t the gentle kind of night.

She brings her other hand roughly, recklessly, under her own tank top, tugging the material up, up, until her fingers find her breasts. Until her fingers do to her own nipples what she wants so desperately to do to Alex’s, with her hands, with her tongue; what she do desperately wants Alex to do to hers.

Her head tosses back into her pillow and she grits her teeth hard enough to hurt, eyes squeezed shut as the rhythmic sound of her fingers working hard against her clit fill her studio apartment.

Alex’s laughter. The way she says Maggie’s name like it’s a prayer. The way her lips felt, god, the way her lips felt. The way her body looks when she’s lining up a shot on the pool table. God, what Maggie could do to her bent over that pool table.

The way she looks on her motorcycle.

The way she kisses, the way she smells, the way she so fiercely protects the people she loves, the way she –

“Fuck,” Maggie hisses, needing more pressure. Needing… more.

She groans irritably as she flips over onto her stomach, as she brings both her hands, now, down to her clit, needing as much pressure as she can get, needing…

“Fuck… Danvers.”

She doesn’t mean to say her name.

She doesn’t mean to slam her hips down harder into her fingers when she hears that name rolling off of her lips.

She doesn’t mean to push inside of herself just as she’s starting to come, just as she’s starting to convulse for her.

For Alex.

She doesn’t mean to wish it was Alex’s body she was inside, that it was Alex pulsing this way for her, tight around her fingers and so damn wet for her; she doesn’t mean to wish it was Alex’s fingers getting coated with Maggie’s raw need, Alex’s fingers feeling the strength of Maggie’s want for her.

But she does.

God, she does.

“Alex,” she whispers as she comes down from her high, her voice wrecked and her voice breathless and her voice thick with the tears she didn’t know she was shedding.

She almost doesn’t notice her phone vibrating on her bedside table.

Almost.

She wipes her fingers off on her tank top as she glances at it.

And promptly groans.

Of course it’s Alex. Of fucking course it is.

“Danvers, it’s late, everything okay?” she answers, praying that Alex can’t hear the sex in her voice. Praying that Alex can’t hear the pained desire in her every muscle fiber.

“Yeah, Maggie, I’m sorry – were you asleep?”

“I – no. Nope, not – no. What’s up, Danvers?”

“I just… I had a really great time tonight. I wanted to… to thank you. For fighting to keep us in each other’s lives. I… thank you.”

Her chest seizes and her eyes sting and her heart… her heart hopes.

“No, Danvers. Thank you. Thank you. Alex.”

She can practically hear Alex smile at the use of her first name, and it makes her swoon.

“Okay, well. See you tomorrow, Maggie. Sleep well.”

“You too, Danvers. You too.”