Heat
Shepard woke up to the most beautiful sight in the galaxy. His beautiful angel lying right next to him. She was looking at him with her bright, beautiful blue eyes. It was like she was observing him or something. She scanned him with her eyes and then locked them to his eyes. She had the cutest smile on her face. He responded with a smile and stared back into her eyes. They stared each other for a brief moment. It was their way of telling what the other one was thinking. They had grown so close that they shared a special bond between them. In her eyes he could see her love for him. There was a look of something naughty too in there. But he could sense a slight worry in her.
"Morning" Shepard murmured as he stood up a bit.
"Morning, sleepyhead" Liara said affectionately.
"Were you just checking that I was still alive, Liara?" Shepard asked teasingly and leaned in to give her a kiss.
"Maybe" Liara answered shyly after her lips had separated his.
"I made you a promise, I will always come back to you. And I have kept that promise. And I'm not planning to leave you any time soon." Shepard said to her affectionately.
"I know, I know. But losing you is my greatest fear and I don't ever want to live through it again." Liara said quietly and hugged him.
"And I kinda like to watch you sleep. You looks so calm and peaceful. And you are quite adorable when you sleep, you know" Liara said with her head on his shoulder.
One of the perks of having an assari for a girlfriend was the fact that in the asari culture it was common to sleep completely naked. To Shepard's great, but silent enjoyment Liara followed tis custom. Shepard admired the view when Liara stood up from the bed and stretched. God, she was magnificent.
Liara knew that Shepard was looking. She out on an extra effort to look as sensual as possible. She took a peak behind her shoulder and saw her bondmate admiring her. She took a few seductive steps towards the bathroom and stopped. She turned around and gave him a demanding look.
"I'm gonna take a shower and you'd better join me, commander." Liara said sultry and walked towards the bathroom. In an instant she could hear him jumping from the bed and rushing after her. She had an exited smile on her face.
Shepard and Liara joined their friends at the breakfast buffet back at the dining hall. Everybody was there, exempt the two krogan whom had left to sort out some incident involving the krogan and the salarians. Ashley and James were also absent. Kasumi confirmed Shepard's suspicion about them when she told him that they had left the bar together. Shepard and Liara took seats at the table. They sat next to each other and held their hands on the table. They didn't really notice this public sign of affection, but the others certainly did. Those two rarely showed their affection for each other in public, except for this was odd behavior on their part.
"Whats with the hand holding?" Garrus was the first to speak up about the oddness.
"What do you mean?" Shepard asked.
"You and Liara never hold hands" Garrus said.
"So?"
"What Garrus is trying to say is that its odd to see you two so affectionate in public. You are usually quite reserved and you tend to keep your relationship private, well except when you two are at a party" Tali stepped in.
"We decided that we should fully enjoy our relationship. There is no reapers or any other threat over there, so we can now focus more on each other. Simply put we now have the time to be an actual couple" Liara said as she filled her plate with all kinds of food.
"Plus, I'm not on duty right now" Shepard added as he poured coffee to himself.
"What does that have to do with anything?" Garrus asked.
"It means that while on duty I'm in command and I'm not supposed to have relations with my crew. While Liara isn't exactly part of the crew on official level, its still an issue. I'm supposed to treat all of my crew the same and I'm not quite fond of performing some things with everyone that I do with Liara in private." Shepard educated Garrus.
"What he means is that he likes to kiss me in private so you wont get jealous" Liara joked innocently and made Shepard spit out his coffee in laughter. Garrus didn't look as amused.
Shepard was just about to finish his breakfast when Ashley and James entered the dining hall suspiciously enough together. Shepard noted the particular smile on both their faces and whispered about his observations to Liara. It was like Shepard and Liara were an old married couple who liked to pair their friends up with each other. They were both sure that Ashley and James were together, or at least hooking up. At this point it was common knowledge, though.
Liara watched as Ashley and James sat on the table. Next to each other. Liara noticed the smile on their faces that Shepard had just whispered to her about. Liara knew that smile. It was the smile what you get from satisfaction. Those two were definitely at least hooking up. Liara thought about if there was more to it. Were they in a relationship, or was this just for fun. Liaras doubted the fact that Ashley would settle for a man like James. Liara liked James, but only when he wasn't making those ambiguous sexual jokes of his. Liara always thought that Ashley would end up with someone little more...maturity and honor. Someone more like Shepard. Although...there might be a hole other side to James Vega that Liara wasn't aware of…
"So, what's up with you two?" Liara asked teasingly over her teacup. She smiled as the two startled up and their eyes widened. They looked adorably uncomfortable, Liara thought.
"What?" Ashley said trying to sound normal but coming out with a higher pitch.
"Whats going on with you and James?" Liara clarified sounding amused.
"What do you mean going on with me and James?" Ashley said while James moved around uncomfortably.
"Come on! You walk in here together with huge grins on your faces. And what I remember Shepard telling me you two were enjoying each others company a little more than usual." Liara said and smiled.
"Plus there's the little thing of you two making out in the booth back at the bar last night" Shepard added as he filled his class with orange juice.
"You saw that?" James asked and unintentionally confirmed that it was indeed them making out there.
"Well I thought I saw you and Ashley, but thanks for confirming it." Shepard said and leaned back in his chair. James buried his face and muttered in Spanish how dumb he was.
The breakfast lasted a little bit longer than Liara had originally thought. Now everyone was teasing Ashley and James about their hook ups. She could see in Ashley's eyes how uncountable she was when asked about the seriousness of their relationship. Clearly they hadn't had that talk yet. Liara decided to ease of her and not bombard her with questions anymore. In couple of minutes the subject was dropped and new conversations began. She, Shepard ,Garrus Tali, Samantha and Kelly started a conversation among themselves.
They talked about everything ranging from the reconstruction of the Citadel to their own relationships. Kelly was maybe a little too curious on how Tali and Garrus worked out their relationship. Especially regarding the intimate side of a relationship. Tali was surprisingly open about her relationship with him and eagerly shared some experiences. Most of her story contained a fair amount of Garrus acting like Garrus, acting clueless and adorable. But some aspects of her story went way too deep into details. Liara learned just how good of a lover Garrus was and how romantic he was when given the right push. Tali gave a rather detailed "performance review",witch Liara could have done well without.
At some point the conversation changed and Liara and Shepard were now being interrogated. Kelly and Sam wanted them to tell the story of how they first met. Liara had to remind them that they all knew the story, but it didnt change their minds as they wanted the hole story from Liara's perspective, as Shepard's version had been told so many times before. And with that Liara started to tell her story. She told a somewhat detailed story of her first meeting with the handsome human solider. Compared to Shepard's version of the story, hers sounded more like a fairy tale. But her version was less mission report like and way more personal. Her version focused more on the emotions of the situation. Liara had to admit, it did make a sweet story. Maybe a great story to tell to her kids one day…
After finishing her story Liara noticed that She was holding Shepard's hand. She looked up to his blue eyes and stared at them for a moment. For a moment in silence they exchanged feelings through their eyes, not wanting or needing to express them out loud. With his eyes Shepard told her that he loved her and her story was beautiful. The others looked at them and wondered what they were doing. Eventually Garrus just had to speak up and break the silence and their spiritual bond. Liara told the other about their connection. After explaining that it was not some asari thing, but more of a "I can see into my lovers soul" kinda thing, the other understood it. Exept for Garrus, who had trouble understanding the hole spiritual connection thing.
"Don't worry your pretty little head about it" Shepard said and patted Garrus on the back. The turian didn't even notice the joke.
"If its not some weird asari or human mind reading thing, I have no clue what you are talking about." Garrus said scratching his head.
"Okay, let's have an example. You and Tali know each other pretty well, yes?" Shepard said after a brief moment of thought.
"Yes"
"You spend a lot of time with her?"
"Yes, but I fail to see your point here"
"You know , when you know someone so well that you can tell what someone is thinking just by looking at them. Its like that for the most part." Shepard explained using his hands to aid in his explanation.
"Okay, I think I got it" Garrus responded.
"Finally" Tali said sarcastically and patted Garrus on the shoulder.
Liara and Shepard and their friends were now sitting in the beautiful hotel gardens with their friends. It was was way too hot to go back to the beach so they decided to stay in the hotel. They were all sitting and drinking and talking. Liara sat on a patio sofa leaning on Shepard's shoulder and drinking wine. She and Shepard were talking with Miranda and Joker about whatever. It was a lazy, lazy afternoon. It was hot in the sun, so everybody flocked in to the shade. It was so hot that Liara was constantly falling asleep but barely managed to open her yes. Miranda was talking about something...something Liara was too lazy to listen about. Other than lazy and tired she was in a good mood. She was relaxed and she had wonderful company. Best of all, no talking about work! That ha been the commanders orders from the moment they had arrived in Brazil.
It just got hotter by the minute! Eventually it was so hot that it was almost unbearable. So the gand moved over to the pool area where Liara immediately dipped into the large pool. She was followed by Shepard and Miranda and Steve. The others headed in to the shade at the pool bar. Liara enjoyed the coolness of the water. She took a few measure laps on the pool and then looked for Shepard. She didn't see him anywhere, witch was odd since he had just swam past her. Then something touched her thigh. Liara screamed and jumped up frightened. Then she saw Shepard rising from the water. He was smiling and laughing at her. Liara was kinda mad so she splashed him with water. In retaliation Shepard lunged towards Liara who was trying to escape. He grabbed her and held her at place as he splashed her with water. She screamed and giggled. Then the splashing ended and Liara gave him a quick kiss, before pushing him back under the water.
The rest of the day pretty much contained Liar and Shepard teasing each other. While sunbathing Shepard had fallen asleep and Liara had drawn a heart on his back with the text "Shepard&Vakarian" in the middle of the heart with sun lotion. Of course it had left a tan line! Shepard got his revenge when he sneaked up on Liara when she was talking with Ashley and grabbed her from behind and thrown her in to the ice water pool. The two were now running around with the furious Liara trying to catch him. Eventually Liara did manage catch him by using a stasis field. Liara tried to throw him in the ice water pool, but he managed to grab her and pull her with him. After that the two dried themselves up and decide to bury the war axe and stop teasing each other, for a while.
Before going to dinner Liara and Shepard retreated to their room for couple of hours. They ended up sitting on the Jacuzzi and relax. Thank god the water could be set to cold as the room was quite hot. The air conditioning was apparently inefficient to cool down their sweet. Shepard gave Liara a relaxing back massage. His massage was quite bold one, Liara thought as his hands "slipped" to other places on her body. He whispered all kinds of suggestive things to her ear. And Liara definitely liked what she was hearing. She found it difficult to contain herself anymore. Before she knew it she was all over him and their relaxing cold bath changed into a hot and steamy night of pure passion.
After taking a shower together Liara was standing in front of a mirror picking out a dress for dinner. Shepard had it easy as he was dressed in simple but well fitting black dress shirt and in a pair of dress pants and shoes. Liara on the other hand had dozens of options on the dresses alone, not to mention the shoes. Well, at least she was giving Shepard a good show as she paraded around the room in her underwear gathering her clothes. He wasn't much of a help when it game to pick out the right dress. Everything she wore got praises from Shepard. He commented how beautiful she was, every time. She was sure that he was speaking honestly, but it wasn't really helpful. At some point Shepard tried to sneak up on her. He failed as Lira could clearly see him from the mirror. She turned around to face him.
"Busted!" Liara called and laughed.
"Damn it!" Shepard complained and stomped his leg like a child.
"Well, that didn't go as planned" He muttered and took something out of his pocket.
"I have a small gift for you" He said shyly and handed a small wooden box to Liara.
Liara opened the box and looked what was inside. It was a beautiful thin necklace made out of silver. It had a small heart as its centerpiece. Liara took the necklace to her palm and examined it closely. There was an inscription on the heart, "My heart is yours, my love is yours, my life is yours, I am yours."
While reading the inscription tears formed on Liara's eyes. This was once again one of those moments when the battle hardened commander showed his more romantic side.
"I had it made just for you. I hope it tells how I feel about you every day." Shepard said semi quietly. Liara knew that he felt awkward.
"Its beautiful, Logan. Thank you." Liara said and wiped her eyes. She when over to Shepard and gave him a kiss. Then she handed him the necklace and turned around. Shepard gently placed the necklace to Liara's neck. Then Liara gave him a small peck on the cheek and left to dress herself.
Liara now knew what dress to wear. Now she just had to test it on Shepard before finally selecting it. She walked over to Shepard's view. Based on his reaction Liara just knew she it was the dress she was going to wear. Shepard was practically drooling over her. She wore a yellow dress that complimented her figure perfectly. It had a deep cleavage and a long slit on the side letting her thigh exposed. Liara stood with her leg slightly extended, giving him a good look of her leg. She watched how his eyes traveled along her leg all the way up to her eyes. He swallowed and opened his mouth.
"Honey, you look absolutely stunning. I almost think its criminal to look that beautiful." He said sounding slightly out of breath.
"Thank you" Liara said and walked over him. She planted a kiss to his cheek and teasingly whispered in ro his ear:
"I'm gonna go finish up my outfit but if the commander wants to arrest me and do a strip search on me you better do it now"
Shepard and Liara arrived to the restaurant late. Damn! Murmured as Liara giggled next to him. She knew he hated being late. He had been raised by the alliance military and trained to be punctual whenever it was possible. Liara enjoyed how he was willing to broke his own rules for her. He always thought it was rude to let people waiting. But for Liara he would do anything. By the goddess, he had already saved the galaxy for her. If that doesn't prove his love for her then nothing can.
When arriving at their table Liara's well selected dress got the appreciation it deserved. Liara was in no way a vain person, but it was nice to get compliments on the rare occasions she actually got to wear a dress. Her new necklace got its fair share of notice too. Liara could see how uncomfortable and embarrassed Shepard got as she told about his romantic gesture to the others. Of course Garrus went on and teased him about for a while. Though Garrus was soon shut up by Tali, who noted that Garrus at this point.
"My heart is yours. That is so sweet!" Steve quoted the inscription and looked over at Liara and Shepard.
"I had no idea you were such a romantic, Shepard" Steve said and smiled.
"Careful, he just might try seducing you." Ashley said as she arrived to the table.
"Don't worry Liara, I know to who he belongs to." Steve laughed and took a sip of wine.
"You'd better!" Liara laughed and clinked glasses with Steve.
The dinner was wonderful. The food was wonderful and the company even better. Liara had so much fun. She and Tali teamed up to tease Shepard and Garrus, when the two were again acting like an old married couple. Tali mentioned that if Liara didn't know Shepard so well she might have been jealous of Garrus. A joke of course, but very funny one at that. It was clear that Garrus didn't appreciate his role in all of Tali's jokes. He was always the "girlfriend", while Shepard was just Shepard basically.
"Don't worry Garrus. We all know you are all man" Liara said to Garrus as he pouted a little bit.
"Except when you pout like that. You look like a little girl." Tali teased and leaned on his side.
"I do not look like a girl. And I do not pout." Garrus said and crossed his arms.
"I was only joking" Tali said and hugged his arm.
"You are all man, Vakarian. Why do you think I'm with you?. You might be a little clueless at times, but your still my man, turian, whatever." Tali said and looked into his eyes.
Liara laughed as she watched her friends picker. They were so good for each other. To be hones both of them were adorably clueless at times. Garrus lacked experience in romance and in cultural things while Tali was still sometimes very awkward in social interactions.
After everybody had eaten the group move to the hotel bar. Zaeed and Jack were already there as they had skipped dinner for a more liquid diet. Jack was still going strong but Liara could see Zaeed was about to pass out. She was wrong. As soon as she stepped in to the old mercenary field of view he stoop up and looked nearly sober. He glanced at her, examining her entire body.
"Well, well! Where did this pretty little blue bird come from?" Zaeed said clearly too drunk to recognizance her.
"Knock it off, Zaeed. She's way out of your league." Shepard said clearly amused by the incident.
"Out of my league? I may be old, but I got hell of a lot of charisma!" Zaeed said and took another look at Liara's face.
"Oh! Its you! Sorry. I didn't recognize you T'Soni." Zaeed said and scratched his neck awkwardly.
"It's alright. Nice to see you Zaeed." Liara said politely as the mercenary returned to his drink.
The evening went on nicely as Liara had fun fit her friends over some drinks. Liara and Shepard participated in a drinking game with Kelly, Miranda, James and Ashley. Kelly had asked Sam to join, but she declined saying that she wasn't much of drinker. To witch Kelly replayed by saying that it was the hole point of the game. Eventually Kelly managed to get her on board.
Apparently this game was of James's design. The rules were quite simple. Whenever somebody was drinking the others had to drink too. The last one to drink had to strip one piece of clothing at a time. This rule was of course changed, so the last one to drink had to answer a single question from the first drinker, no matter what the question was. Liara felt strangely exited about this game. She could ask them anything and they just had to answer!
Rather surprisingly Sam was the first to drink. Everybody was slow to react but Shepard was the last one drinking. So, the first question got to Shepard. Sam wanted to know at what age Shepard had lost his virginity. The answer was 15.
Next time Miranda was the first and James the last. Miranda wanted to know if James was serious with Ashley. His answer was just a coy "maybe". That's it.
Next time it was James who got to ask a question from Miranda. He wanted to know if she had ever used her "talents" to further her career. Miranda's answer was "Of course". In her line of work every advantage should be used to achieve her goals.
Now everybody was getting more or less drunk. Accordingly the questions got way more personal and dirty, even. In some cases the question were disgusting, mostly when James got to ask the question. Liara had already revealed her measurements and favorite position. Liara had become rather slow to react. She had never drank this much alcohol in her life.
"With who did you lost your virginity" Kelly asked Liara.
"With the commander over here" Liara answered and ran her hand on his face drunkenly.
"What?! No way!" James yelled out in disbelieve.
"Yes, that's completely true. I never had sex nor did I ever had melded with anyone before I met Shepard" Liara said with a slight slur in her voice.
"Come on! Have you seen yourself?! You could have banged anyone you ever wanted!" James said and spilled his bear on to his shirt.
"That's the thing. I never wanted to...do it with anyone...until I met him and fell in love" Liara said and held his hand.
Liara noticed how Sam was about to drink. She was prepared. Ashley ended up as the poor bastard who had to answer the question. Everybody had learned that Sam asked rather personal and dirty questions.
"Have you ever had it in your bum?" Sam asked ang giggled.
"You mean like anal? Yeah! I love it!" Ashley answered clearly drunk.
It took a moment for her to realize just how personal the question had been and how fast she had answered it. She noticed how everybody in hearing range had went quiet and were staring at her. James had raised an eyebrow. Liara saw how red her face turned. Even if her answer was meant as a joke she clearly didn't mean to answer the question so quite so openly, it must have slipped out. Liara kinda felt a little embarrassed for her.
After a moment of silence Ashley just pushed trough the awkward moment and demanded that the game continued. And with that Kelly was again asking the questions and Liara was forced to answer.
"What was your and Shepard's first date like?" Kelly asked curiously.
"I don't think we ever got on a real date" Liara answered after a moment of thinking.
"What? Are you serious?"Kelly asked surprised.
"I'm afraid so. We were always too busy to go on a date. When we fist met we were after Saren, so we fell in love in between missions. Then there was the business with the collectors and the hole him being dead thing and then there was the war." Liara explained.
"Okay, but why hasn't he taken you to a date yet. The war is over and he is on vacation. We have been here for almost a week now." Miranda said and looked over to Shepard judgingly.
"What?" Shepard said as he notice how Miranda stared at him.
"Why haven't you taken me to a date yet Shepard?" Liara asked drunkenly.
"Well, do you want to go out on a date on me, Liara?" The equally drunk Shepard asked and staggered as he stood up from his chair.
"I'd love to" Liara said and started to walk over him.
She was quite intoxicated at this point and she had trouble keeping her balance. She grabbed his shirt for support and leaned herself into him to kissed him. She might have leaned in a little bit too heavily as they both fell down to the floor.
"I'm alright" Liara said as she laidon top of him.
"Good for you" Shepard said and massaged the back of his head that had just hit the floor.
"I'm lucky that I have you to protect me" Liara said and kissed him.
"Yes you are" Shepard smiled.
