“I'm heading out in a few. Just making sure you're alright. If you need a ride, I can drop you somewhere.”
Somewhere. He hadn't said home. The earlier version of Liam would have wanted to see her home.
“Um, sure. If... it's not too much of a bother, do you think you can button up the back of this dress for me first? I want to see how it falls when its hanging like its meant to.”
Perilous, she knew, but she was being sincere. She wasn't going to buy this number if the top had a strange cut once everything was bound up according to its original design. Clearing his throat, Liam was a moment before answering.
“Uh, yeah.”
“You'd have to, um, turn around to do that.”
“Right.”
Jackie almost giggled at how uncomfortable he looked. It wasn't funny, of course. It was just... a very different version of Liam than she was accustomed to seeing. Waving him over like he was a shy pup, Jackie slipped back into the dressing room, presenting her back to him when he stepped halfway into it.
He didn't say a word, but whatever ice they'd developed between them thawed almost instantly when a familiar zag of electricity ignited her skin feeling his fingertips grazing her back as he fumbled with her buttons.
“Sorry.”
“Don't be.”
Falling quiet, he buttoned the rest of the trail up her back before stepping away, and Jackie tugged his arm before he could leave entirely.
“Wait. How does it look?”
Her stomach did a flip at the strange expression taking over his face, like he was experiencing some mild form of torture and poorly attempting to veil it. She felt it, too, but she was trying to be friendly and work her way past it. In time everything would balance out and fall into place, right? They'd eventually get past the impossible sexual tension, right? And one day be like brother and sister...
Suppressing a frown, she forced herself to smile pleasantly.
“Well, I like it. Can you unbutton me. I'm gonna take it.”
Clearing his throat, Liam stepped back into the dressing room, his jaw clenching visibly before she turned around and presented the row of buttons that would slowly unveil her tawny skin beneath the dress. He started slowly, still not saying a word, but something had markedly changed in the air, and Jackie's skin prickled feeling it.
When his fingertips brushed her skin again, she tilted her head, her eyes slipping closed as she tried with all of her might to be a good girl. When his fingertips brushed her again, she realized his hands had now slipped over her shoulders, and when he turned her, she lifted her eyes to him slowly, breathless.
“I've gotta go.”
He said it firmly, and by all appearances, it looked like he meant it, but his hands were still on her shoulders, and he didn't seem to be having an easy time disconnecting himself.
Stomach flipping, Jackie's alarms blared in her internal ear when she realized that she was edging closer to him, that her body was taking control well before her mind had even caught up with it.
“Jackie, I don't want to play games with you...”
“Then don't.”
Her voice had apparently taken the lead, too, speaking before her mind had a chance to approve the script.
“Jackie..."
“Kiss me.”
What was she doing? Heart beating rapidly, “sane Jackie” sat back watching aghast, unsure what to expect of the alter ego taking over her body. The diva. She'd gained autonomy. Jackie was thrilled and horrified in the same turn. There really was no turning back now. Not after this. This... was the green light.
Liam was a moment before answering her, but when he did, his kiss was soft and searching, a kiss that had his heart firmly at its center, radiating their orbit.
He was in love with her. She realized it in a burst of butterflies that broke free from the cage of her repression and flew freely in her belly. This wasn't the kiss of someone who was simply lusting after her. This was the kiss of someone who wanted to claim her for his own.
Succumbing to the heat of his unspoken claim, Jackie gasped breathily in his ear when he slid the expensive dress down, causing it to pool at her stomach as he lifted her up and turned her around, bending her against the wall.
Nipping her lip when he slid her panties down over her thighs like he was unwrapping an exquisite gift, she shuddered at the feel of his fingers slipping inside of her. Gasping when she felt the warmth of his own thighs pressed against her ass next, her sex answered him with wet.
Without skipping a beat, he eased his fingers from her, and slowly, achingly inched the hard length of him inside of her. The walls of her sex closing around him, she panted as the speed of his strokes accelerated, subduing her moans to throaty mews as his thighs smacked against her ass.
Gentle at first, his inner animal slowly began to take the wheel, his hands holding her hips with a commanding grip. Then he gestured her up, near-crushing her breasts against the foam-green wall of the dressing room as he pressed his chest against her back and pounded her from behind.
Seizing, Jackie strained against the burst of pleasure climbing her limbs, until she couldn't withstand another second, her pleasure point throbbing with release with every thrust. And then the ecstasy of his claim tumbled out of her, raining down over him as she half-whimpered, half moaned, her sex clamping around him with each wave of electricity shaking her against him.
He came then, too, ramming her with fevered thrusts until he burst, painting the inside of her with strings of seed that quickly changed course and glazed her thigh. Sweaty and panting, he fell against her, nipping her skin lustily as he regained himself.
It was a minute before their consciousness returned to the dressing room they'd just marked with their union, and an even longer minute before he spoke.
“There's no turning back now, babe.”
Literally.
A strange feeling circled Jackie's belly. Not one of regret or even fear, just... something new, maybe a sense of realization that this demi-god of a man, whom she thought she needed to keep at arms length had no intentions of letting her go. There was really no point in running. No point in the inner diva prevailing over her ability to detach.
All that was left was acceptance.
Liam
That was... unexpected. So much so, it was all Liam could do to maintain his bearings when he finally drove her home. He'd thought he'd lost her, but apparently that wasn't the case. Maybe there was something to the old saying about letting something go to see if it came back to you. Because he had. Let her go, that is. And in the end, she'd surrendered her butterfly wings to him. Let him mark her with an animal lust he'd never given so heartily to any woman before. Ever.
He hadn't wanted to give in, certain she'd play some sort of game, or that she was only giving in to momentary lust that she'd surely wind up shying away from after the fact. But when he'd walked her to her door, she'd stood up on her tippy toes and given him a meaningful kiss that ensured him something had changed in her. That she'd actually accepted what was really going on between them.
His head was reeling after that, but it soon settled into a warm glow when he took a left on the fairway back towards the studio.
Still no call from his agent, yet, but he wasn't losing hope. He'd get the part. His shop alone would ensure that. Still didn't stop him from sitting at the edge of his seat about the whole thing. He'd never been a particularly patient person. Determined, sure. But waiting for anything had always been painful for him.
Pulling onto the freeway, he cranked up the volume on Soul Cry, singing along with a cracking voice as his fingers kept the beat on the steering wheel.