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Shepard withdrew into herself. The resulting silence stretched, thinning until Liara felt edgy. The glassy vacancy that shone in Shepard's eyes, as the commander processed her own confession, ripped away the anchors of calm that Specialist Traynor's kindness had put in place. Memories of panic surged in Liara's mind, leaving her adrift once more.
Liara touched her cheek. Instead of a shaky hand, she felt chunks of rock spattering her face as the bullet partially obliterated her cover. She sat next to a live grenade thinking how pretty its glowing indicator lights had been.
Liara had been consumed by fear.
Safe with the deck of the Normandy firmly beneath her feet, Liara couldn't completely ground herself. She needed to feel connected to someone. Traynor had offered a buoy of friendship, but Liara had not reached for it and Shepard's arrival had cut the tenuous line.
Liara's hand moved to her throat, feeling clammy skin beneath her fingertips. Recognition of the contact solidified the notion that she was alive, but it wasn't enough. It might never be enough again. She wondered if that was how Shepard had felt when she had awoken, cold and alone after having been dead for two years.
"Shepard," Liara whispered tremulously.
Saying the commander's name unleashed yearning within the asari. It was then that Liara knew without a doubt what she needed: absolute possession. Shepard's scorching touch could wipe every thought from her mind. There would be no more doubt, no more fear.
It would be a willing indoctrination, resulting in the total annihilation of Liara.
Liara thoughtlessly shed the warmth of the blanket Traynor had given her. It slipped off her shoulders and pooled at her feet as her fingers found the clips that secured the collar of her jacket. Moving methodically, she unfastened them.
Shepard's attention riveted to the asari and her demeanor shifted. Judging by the quizzical look on her face, the commander had not yet connected to what was happening. But as Liara's fingers worked, Shepard's expression transformed from curious, detached observation into something Liara couldn't identify.
Liara shrugged out of her long coat, exposing a gray Alliance compression shirt that hugged every curve of her lithe body. She watched as Shepard's eyes flicked covetously over her. Emboldened, Liara crossed her arms over her chest, hands trailing slowly from her shoulders, over her breasts and down the muscled planes of her stomach, coming to a stop at the button of her pants. Using the pad of her thumb, Liara flicked open the button and deliberately spread the fly, revealing the barest hint of matching gray underclothes. She wiggled a little to help push the stiff blue and white pants down over her hips.
Once completely divested of her light armour, Liara pushed the pile aside with her foot and stood statuesque for Shepard, clad in nothing but her underclothes, hoping the commander would take an active role in removing the rest. The red blaze of the commander's irises flared and her lips parted slightly, but the rest of her features had reassembled into an unreadable mask.
Liara, not wanting to entertain the notion that she might have made a grave mistake, repositioned herself closer to the human and brushed an errant lock of auburn away from her face by sliding her fingers along Shepard's cheek. The commander's initial reaction was instantaneous. Her shoulders twitched back as her spine straightened, followed by a momentary stiffening of her limbs.
Liara barely managed to blink before powerful fingers clamped around her delicate wrists and forced them down until they were pinned to her thighs, immobilized.
"What are you doing?" Shepard's voice was husky. The question was rhetorical, although laced with a thin current of tension. The commander was visibly uncomfortable.
Liara couldn't speak. The strength of Shepard's grip had tripped a switch in her mind, causing thrilled fear to stress her senses. It was a fear she could handle, representative of Shepard's ownership over her. She separated her suddenly parched lips, wetting them with a delicate swipe of her tongue. Eyes narrowing again, Shepard watched the motion.
Liara heard a definitive hitch in the commander's breathing moments before the woman stirred. Shepard walked them backwards until Liara felt the edge of the desk bump her backside. Slapping Traynor's cold tea away to clear space, the human then used her hold on Liara to flip the asari around; bending Liara over the desk before fitting her body over her. Pinning her down with her own weight, Shepard stretched Liara's arms out in front of her, forcing the asari into a position where she could only be comfortable by resting her cheek against the cold surface. Her wrists were gathered in one of Shepard's fists. The knuckles of Shepard's other hand pressed unpleasantly into the small of her back, curling under the waistband of her panties. Liara felt her cheeks suffuse with heat as the human's breath played against the side of her neck. Shepard inhaled deeply, making Liara wonder if she could smell arousal mingled with her fear.
"I can't—You can't touch me."
"Shepard, please."
She shifted her hips beneath the human, attempting to create enough space between them so that she could turn to look at Shepard. Squirming only pressed her ass more firmly into Shepard's pelvis and the movement had an immediate effect on the commander. She went rigid.
"Stop. Moving."
Liara liked that Shepard's voice strained, liked that she was struggling to maintain her composure. The words had been meant as a warning that Liara would not like the consequences if she didn't follow Shepard's orders. In truth, they gave Liara power over her; power she intended on wielding, because it was all the dominance she would ever have over the commander.
Purposely writhing again, she pulled her captured hands toward herself and attempted to raise her torso off the desk. As expected, she failed, but Shepard's fragile control snapped. The woman growled, a decidedly inhuman sound, and let go of Liara's wrists so that she could grasp the back of the asari's neck. She pushed Liara's face more firmly into the surface of the desk.
"Fuck." Shepard exhaled the word slowly, causing muscles Liara didn't even know existed to tighten viscerally.
With a shove, Shepard abandoned her hold on Liara, using both of her hands to rip away the asari's panties. Liara shouted, jerking against Shepard to combat the excruciating friction. Skin around her legs burned uncomfortably where the material and elastic had strained before giving way to Shepard's brute strength. The human reached around and pressed her palms to Liara's thighs, just below the burning flesh, to ease the sting.
"What do you want from me?"
Shepard sounded tortured. She was poised to do something she clearly wanted—needed—yet seemed to know that pursuing her desires would mean the destruction of not only Liara, but herself as well.
"Oblivion."
The single word was all the permission Shepard needed. Lifting her hands so only the tips of her fingers touched Liara's skin, the commander drew gentle lines up her inner thighs. Without warning, Shepard leaned back, relieving Liara of most of her weight and robbing her of her touch. A nearly inaudible sigh of loss escaped Liara, before Shepard kicked her legs further apart. Then Shepard's hands were there, grasping Liara's ass and digging possessively into the flesh. Pain shot vulgar pleasure through her. Though Liara was expecting Shepard's coarse approach to sex, the brow-beaten romantic in her almost wished it were happening in another, more symbiotic way.
Every thought was abruptly terminated as one of Shepard's hands slipped heavily over the shapely muscle of her backside to rest between her legs. Her fingers ran lightly through the moisture pooled there, before crudely entering her. Liara's head jerked back, an indelicate grunt escaping her. Vigorous heat burned its way through every nerve over her entire body.
The way Shepard moved—fingers filling, stirring within her—was gentler than Liara expected, feeling less like a provoked violation and more like an approximation of genuine intimacy.
"I didn't want it to be like this."
Shepard's whispered confession startled Liara. Tears pooled in her eyes at the sincerity of the commander's words. Liara believed in that instant, more than ever before, that Shepard regretted her initial rejection of Liara years ago. The human wished the dynamic between them were different. Squeezing her eyes shut, forcing tears to leak down her cheeks, Liara pushed against the commander, roughening the experience even as Shepard sought tenderness that Liara would refuse to accept. It had no place in her quest to create a void within herself.
Blunt fingernails scratched up her back through the material of Liara's shirt, causing her to arch into the desk, to settle once more on her neck. Few knew that the asari had an erogenous zone at the base of their skull, tucked discreetly beneath the cartilage of their crest. Shepard brushed the pad of her finger lightly over the verge. Liara whimpered while driving more fervently against the fingers buried in her core.
A second swipe caused Liara to nearly lose the ability for coherent thought. She had to shove her hand into her mouth and clamp down with her teeth to prevent herself from initiating an unwanted meld with the commander.
Shepard slowly withdrew her fingers from Liara, eliciting a frustrated whimper from the asari. Tender humiliation tempered her need to beg the human not to stop. Instead, Liara clung to the desk, panting. She felt Shepard's fingers on her neck, holding her down as an ache grew between her legs and a profound sense of loss suffused her body.
Too much time passed with no movement from Shepard. Liara, growing increasingly self-conscious, shifted slightly.
"What did I tell you about moving? Now you're going to have to beg. I can see you want to." Liara heard a vague tremor in Shepard's words, as though she were concealing underlying fears with artificial confidence.
"Shepard…"
"Beg, Liara!"
A purple blush of embarrassment crept up Liara's neck and settled high on her cheekbones as the words escaped her mouth, "Shepard, please… Oh, Goddess—Shepard, I want to—please!"
Shepard mercilessly plunged her fingers into Liara again as she simultaneously teased the sensitive spot beneath her crest. Liara snapped rigid, her muscles bunching tightly, crying out hoarsely as the unbearable, aching pressure was nearly relieved. But Shepard eased away again before Liara completely crested, leaving the asari hanging at a disturbing midpoint. In the end, residual sensations pushed her over the edge.
In the wake of pleasure, Liara's body relaxed and she was barely able to support herself on weak legs. She was too languorous to realize that Shepard had actually retreated some distance away to stand partially obscured by darkness. As her heartbeat settled into a more stable rhythm, Liara composed herself enough to stand and turn around.
The commander was leaning against the wall, watching Liara as she gathered her clothes and slipped into them. Shepard held Liara's ruined panties in her hands.
"I didn't want it to be like that," Shepard repeated, turning the fabric over in her fingers.
"I have never asked you to be anything other than what you are, Shepard."
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Author's Note: I want to thank these people for lending me their assistance: ccryder, Midnight Lion and RevolvingAbyss. As always, I'd also like to acknowledge the_subverter, Midnight Lion, PMC65, LogicalPremise and Huntington's Bride for being incredible, inspiring writers.
