Chapter 263: Backshots

Grace opened the door.

She was wearing a fitted light grey t-shirt and dark lounge shorts, the t-shirt sitting close across her chest, the shorts sitting just above mid-thigh.

Her sleek brown bob was clean and sitting exactly right along her jaw, her sharp cheekbones catching the warm light coming from inside the apartment, her brown eyes finding him immediately with that amber quality they had in certain light.

She looked at him standing in her doorway and something in her face settled into warmth, the kind that arrived before a person decided to produce it.

Liam smiled and raised one hand in a small wave.

She stepped back and opened the door wider. "Come in."

He walked in and she closed the door behind him.

The apartment was the same as he remembered it.

Warm and lived in, the couch along the wall, the rug in the center of the main room, the kitchen visible through the open archway.

The smell of something that had been cooking earlier was still sitting in the air, faint and comfortable.

"Good to see you," he said, looking around briefly before looking back at her.

"Good to see you too," she said. She meant it. It sat naturally in her voice without any effort behind it. Then she reached back and pressed one hand against her lower back with a slight wince, her brow pulling together just enough to show it. "My back has been giving me trouble again."

Liam looked at her.

He kept his expression even.

Then he looked up at the space above her head.

Two hearts. Both filled. The third one sitting empty.

’Of course,’ he thought. ’Of course that’s what’s happening here.’

He looked back at her face. She was watching him with the patient expression of someone waiting for a response.

"Okay," he said. "Let’s get started then."

She turned toward the kitchen. "Let me get you something to drink first."

Liam reached for the hem of his shirt and pulled it over his head, dropping it on the arm of the couch. The apartment air was cool against his skin.

Something cold and wet pressed against his hand.

He looked down.

Daisy was sitting at his feet, her golden head tilted upward, her tail sweeping the floor in slow satisfied arcs, looking up at him with the specific patient expectation of a dog who had decided this was the right moment and had been waiting for it.

Liam crouched down and ran both hands through the fur on either side of her head, scratching behind her ears properly. She leaned into it immediately, her whole body shifting toward the pressure, her eyes going soft.

"Hey girl," he said quietly.

She gave his hand one slow deliberate lick and then turned and walked away, her nails clicking against the floor, her tail still moving, satisfied with how that had gone.

Liam straightened up just as Grace came back from the kitchen with a glass of water, holding it out toward him.

He took it and drank.

She stood in front of him with one hand loosely behind her back, watching him with that easy expression, her weight shifted slightly to one side.

The grey t-shirt moved with her breathing.

The apartment light came from the lamp in the corner and it caught the line of her cheekbones and the amber in her eyes and the clean line of her jaw and Liam noticed all of it the way he always noticed it, like something arriving for the first time even though it wasn’t.

His eyes moved from her face downward. Across her collarbone. Down to her chest. He looked at the way the fabric sat across her boobs and stayed there for a moment.

"My eyes are up here," she said.

"I know," he said. No change in his tone. No rush to look anywhere else. Just calm and entirely unbothered about it.

She looked at him for a moment with an expression that had decided not to make more of it than it was. Then she reached out and took the empty glass back and turned to the kitchen.

He watched her go.

When she came back she stood in the center of the room, her hands loosely at her sides, looking at him with the easy patience she carried everywhere. "So what are we doing today," she said.

"Lie on your back," he said.

She looked at him. "What?"

"On the rug. On your back."

Her expression shifted. Not quite reluctance and not quite suspicion but something that lived between the two, sitting on her face while she processed what he had said. "You’ve never asked me to do that before," she said.

"First time for everything," he said. "I know what I’m doing."

She held his gaze for another second, checking it, reading whatever was or wasn’t there.

Then she walked to the rug and lowered herself down carefully, settling onto her back, her arms resting at her sides, her hair spreading slightly against the surface. She looked up at the ceiling and then sideways at him as he came and crouched beside her.

Her t-shirt had ridden up slightly with the movement of lying down, sitting above her waistband, a strip of her stomach visible.

Her boobs sat big and round against the fabric of the shirt, the weight of them resting naturally in this position, her nipples faintly visible through the grey cotton.

Liam moved carefully and settled his weight around her stomach level, his knees on either side of her, his hands on the rug for balance as he got settled.

Grace looked up at him from below.

Her cheeks had gone pink. Not deeply, just enough to be visible, sitting high on her cheekbones in the warm light of the room.

"Liam," she said, her voice carrying the specific quality of someone who was not entirely sure how they felt about what was currently happening but was not moving to stop it either. "What are you doing."

"Helping your back feel better," he said simply.

She looked at him. "By sitting on me."

"By improving circulation," he said. "It’s a technique."

She blinked. Then she looked back at the ceiling and exhaled slowly, the pink in her cheeks deepening slightly. "Okay," she said.

He put both hands on her boobs.

"Liam," she said immediately.

"What," he said, his hands moving slowly, pressing in and releasing in long deliberate motions.

She turned her face to the side, looking at the wall, her lips pressing together. A small sound came from somewhere in her chest that she was clearly not planning to acknowledge.

"I have to make a more drastic effort," he said, his thumbs finding her nipples through the fabric and pressing lightly. "It’s been a while since I helped you properly. The regular approach won’t work this time."

She turned her face further toward the wall.

He kept going, both hands working across her chest in slow unhurried movements, squeezing gently and releasing, feeling her breathing change beneath him with each passing minute.

Her boobs were warm and full in his palms, her nipples hardening under his thumbs through the cotton.

"Or," he said, his tone completely casual, "you could just admit you don’t actually have back pain."

She said nothing.

A beat passed.

"Because this is the second time in three weeks your back has been hurting," he said.

She pressed her lips together harder.

"Grace," he said.

A long pause. She was still looking at the wall. Then, quietly, into the side of the room rather than at him, "What if I just missed you."

He looked at her profile. The pink in her cheeks. The line of her jaw. The way she was absolutely not going to look at him right now.

"Then you don’t need any excuse," he said. "I’m willing either way."

She turned her face back to the ceiling slowly.

Her expression had the specific look of someone who had just said something honest and was deciding what to do with the fact that they had said it. The pink in her cheeks wasn’t going anywhere.

He kept his hands where they were, still moving slowly, and she stayed quiet and let him, her breathing steady now, her eyes on the ceiling above her.

Then he leaned forward.

She understood without being asked, adjusting slightly, and then she was giving him head where he sat, her hands finding his thighs for balance, her brown eyes occasionally finding his face from below before going back to what she was doing.

She worked steadily, her rhythm unhurried and deliberate, her bob swaying slightly with each forward movement. He put one hand loosely on the back of her head, not directing, just resting there, and felt everything build in the slow patient way it built when someone knew what they were doing and wasn’t rushing any of it.

He came.

His jaw tightened, a low sound leaving him, and she took it and then straightened up slowly, her hand going to her mouth.

Cough.

Cough.

She pressed her fingers to her lips and cleared her throat, her eyes watering slightly at the corners, her whole expression carrying the specific dignity of someone refusing to make a scene about something.

Liam sat back on the couch, unhurried, and looked at her.

"Come here," he said.

She looked at him.

Then she stood and reached down and pulled her t-shirt over her head in one clean movement, her boobs coming free, big and round and flushed slightly pink.

She pushed her shorts down and stepped out of them without drama and crossed the room.

She climbed onto his lap slowly, her knees finding the couch cushions on either side of his thighs, her hands going to his shoulders for balance.

She looked at him from this position, close enough that he could see every detail of her face, the amber in her eyes, the line of her mouth.

Then she reached down and positioned herself and sank down onto him slowly.

"Oh," she said quietly. Her eyes closed. Her hands pressed down on his shoulders.

She stayed there without moving for a moment, just adjusting, her head dropping slightly forward.

Then she started to move.