Liara

Serena smiled, a new sort of light sparking in her silver eyes. In spite of the stitches marring her face, in spite of the missing part of her ear, I did not think that anyone, anything, could look more beautiful than she did in this moment. I had lingered too long, trapped in a pocket universe of my fear and my anger, blinded to the woman who loved me in spite of my flaws. All that I feared she would never forgive had been forgiven. All that I dreaded her knowing was known.

It did not matter to her, and she proved that when she touched me. Her fingers trailed up my arm and her eyes were filled with awe, the wonder of a child seeing the stars for the first time. Her hand cupped the back of my neck and she leaned in, guiding me into a kiss.

Unlike the kisses we had given each other previously, this one had no weight, no burden, no hesitation. I felt free in this touch, free in this moment, free to give her the heart that she had never stopped loving.

I will sing, I remembered a line of poetry from a book Ashley Williams had let me borrow aboard the first Normandy, weaving latitude longitude into a web to hang from the stars, a celestial hammock, where my only companion is you.

I returned Serena's ardor, feeling tears in my eyes for a completely different reason than I had known in years. I wept for joy, for the feeling of her skin against mine, for the knowledge that my heart had a safe place to rest. I knew from the surety of her touch that when I needed her, she would be present. I knew, in a way that no other race or species could know, that Serena truly accepted every existent part of me.

"God, you're beautiful." she whispered against my lips, her voice ragged and breathy, dark with desire.

I pulled away the slightest bit, wanting nothing more than to take in the expression on her face. Her dancing eyes, the wicked grin spread across her lips, the tousled look of her fiery hair hanging around her face. The tears fell at last from my eyes, streaming down my cheeks as I savored the calm, the innate sense of peace that I felt with her.

Her hand reached up and she stroked away the tears with the rough pad of her thumb. I waited for her to ask why I wept, but she did not do so, and I understood why when I saw tears shimmering in her eyes as well. Without words, our lips collided in another kiss and I felt a knot of desire, hot and ferocious, beginning to burn in my spirit.

I reached out and pulled her body closer, my fingertips grazing the edge of the bandage on her back. My heart swelled and ached at the thought of her earning that wound in fighting by my side…fighting for me because she loved me. I did not know how I had denied her love for as long as I had, how I had struggled against it and attempted to hurt her. How I had succeded in hurting her. I would not become that asari again.

To know that I was forgiven, without even asking for it, made my heart pound in my chest. Serena's lips drew away and she moved around me, holding me from behind, gathering me to the stronghold of her chest where dwelt her beating, powerful heart. I felt her lips like a fire at the back of my neck, her tongue swiping across the ridges of my crest.

Shivering sensations rippled across my nerves, spreading over my shoulders, paralyzing me in her arms. My lips parted as my breathing became heavier, as I felt need and want echoing to a devastating crescendo in my heart and soul. The hands that held me so secure, so strong, smoothed across my chest and rested on the tops of my breasts, touching me intimately, fingers whispering across my nipples, making the flesh rise and the nerves shriek with joy.

"Goddess." I breathed, but I did not know if I were praying to the asari deity or to the woman who loved me.

I cried out when I felt Serena's teeth on my neck. She bit down, gentle, kneading the flesh between her teeth, soothing it with her tongue, making me shiver and twitch in her grasp. Her hands continued to torment my breasts as she ran the edge of her fingernail around the pebbled skin of my areola at the same time as her other hand moved down across my abdomen, coming to rest between my legs, taunting me with the thought of her moving lower.

I hissed my pleasure between my teeth at the thought of her strong, hot fingers stroking through my sex, finding my entrance, piercing me and claiming me both again and anew. I whimpered as I felt my blood pound and my azure rise, the stiff, deep blue ridge of flesh begging to be touched and teased and sated. Asari purposefully spread the myth that we could not climax without the Joining, so that our partners would be more willing, for it was, in truth, more pleasurable for both parties. However, it was more than possible to bring an asari to climax through physical touch alone, and I was grateful for it, because it was what I needed.

"Serena." I panted, thinking my voice might steal her attentions.

Instead, it heightened them. Her treacherous hand slipped between my legs, cupping me, squeezing, applying a delicious pressure that made me whimper. Her other hand kept up its torturously divine attentions between both of my breasts and I knew there were more words that I needed to say, if only I could remain coherent enough to speak them.

"Serena." I gasped her name again as she nibbled at the tips of my crest.

"Yes?" she said, her voice innocent, though her actions were anything but.

"I need to see you." I gasped as she flexed her fingers across my sex. "I need your mouth…goddess!" I cried out as she trailed a firm fingertip up the ridge of my azure.

"As you wish, álainn anam." I shivered at the intent in her voice and I quivered with anticipation of what was to come.

Serena moved out from behind me, insinuating her arm around my back, guiding me down onto the pillows. She hovered above me, her eyes spitting sparks of want and pure lust, behind it burning the fires of love. She lay down alongside me and propped herself up on an elbow, leaning in to kiss me. I could taste her hunger, feel her beauty; her passion gnawed at me as our mouths opened and our tongues danced and intertwined, connecting us.

The need for air forced me to break the kiss, my body cried out for release…for release at her touch. I needed her hands on me, her mouth in intimate places. I needed her to light the fires that burned in her eyes, to spread them through my body and soul. I reached up, lacing my fingers through her hair, pulling that delightful mouth to my breasts.

A low chuckle reverberated through Serena's chest as she parted her lips and took my nipple into her mouth. I moaned as she swirled her tongue around the areola, and cried out when her teeth savaged the nipple, holding it in place while her tongue danced across and around it. My hips bucked and it infuriated me when her hand moved with them, denying me the pressure and satiation that I craved.

Serena released my nipple with a 'pop' and I dug into the sheets with my fingers, reveling in her attentions. Her hand at my sex squeezed yet again and I lifted my hips to meet her touch, hoping to prolong it, but she teased me again, removing her hand, running her fingernails down my outer thigh, sending ripples of sensation along my side and back.

Please, Serena. I begged her inside my mind, for she had torn away my breath when her mouth enclosed over the nipple of my right breast. Please…please do not delay. I need you. My spirit and my heart needed you and you were there. My body needs you now.

"Lover," I gasped out the endearment, drawing her attention, pulling her lips from the sweet torment of my breasts. "Please. I need…that exquisite mouth…lower."

The uninjured side of her mouth curved up in a smile that would haunt me until the end of my days, I was certain. It held beauty and content, promise and passion, the entire sum of the woman herself in a single expression. An expression that many, had they lived her life and endured her pain, would never let visit her features again. Not so, with Serena.

"I love you." I breathed the all-important words, and her eyes began to glow.

Gentle, she pressed a tender kiss to my breast, over my beating heart. She looked up, locking my eyes with hers.

"I love you too, Liara T'Soni." she told me, and I felt the truth of her words down to my very soul.

She began trailing kisses down, between my breasts, placing a lingering, reverent one to the scar tissue beneath my left breast, where I had taken a bullet for her.

"I love you so much." I heard her whisper, and I felt the tears of joy once more slipping down my cheeks.

The path of kisses continued, the fever-heat of her mouth sending shockwaves through my body, making me crave her touch, her time, her heart…all of her. Suddenly, her tongue was slipping across the juncture of my hip and my abdomen, tracing a path of fire and lightning down, closer to where I needed her, closer…closer…almost there.

She lay between my legs, her hair shielding a face and eyes that gazed at my sex in the manner an archaeologist would look at an artifact that would change history. I could feel her gaze, its weight, its heat, and a sob left my throat as I felt her hair tickling my inner thighs. My core ached with need, the muscles clenching and pulsing in spasms of pleasure that did nothing but make the need for release unrelenting.

"Don't…make me…beg." I pleaded with her, answered by a cool stream of air across my rigid azure and swollen folds.

"Sere…ah!" I screamed out as the heat of her mouth closed over me.

Her tongue sliced through my folds, bringing a maelstrom of pleasure in its wake. My hips bucked up into her touch, primal urge, hungering for more of her, for all of her. Her tongue continued its divine ministrations, covering every centimeter of intimate flesh with the purposeful skill that belonged only to Serena.

I love you, in my thoughts the words were a triumphant shout. I love you, and I am not afraid, and I want you!

Her tongue plunged into my core and I cried out in bliss, my back arching as my center continued to pulse beneath her lips. Her hands gripped my hips, stilling them, keeping them from twitching upward, from bucking in sheer ecstasy as she pushed her tongue into me as far as she could reach. She flexed the muscle and I cried out again as my body began to tremor uncontrollably in anticipation.

Please please pleasepleasepleaseplease…I could not form a coherent thought beyond that word. I could not think of anything but the need shuddering through my body, demanding to be sated, calmed by this woman. This lover. My lover. Mine.

Her hand moved from my thigh and I continued shivering, hoping, begging, needing. Her mouth moved and her lips closed over my azure as her fingers entered my core. My back arched, my hips rose, and I screamed as she drove me to a thunderous release. I remained frozen as pleasure shocked through me, pulsing, driving, burning in a sacrosanct crescendo of perfection.

I collapsed back onto the bed, my body limp, sated, and indescribably happy. Serena continued pressing gentle kisses against my azure, guiding me through the aftershocks as my inner muscles continued pulsing around her fingers.

After a few moments more, she removed her fingers and rose to her knees, coming to lay alongside me. Her hand, slick with my fluids, rested against my cheek and I kissed her, tasting myself on her lips, feeling desire kindle in my spirit once again. This had been what I needed. She had mended my soul and now my body. I felt complete, and replete inside the strength of her love.

"You are…that was…magnificent." I breathed against her lips, kissing her again, eyes widening as I tasted copper and salt.

I pulled back and looked at her face, saw the lines of tears, as well as a few lines of blood trailing from her stitches down to her jaw. In shock, upset, I touched the healing skin and frowned.

"Did I…"

"I wouldn't have it any other way." Serena comforted me, taking my hand in her own. "They didn't rip out, so I don't care. What's a little blood in the heat of passion anyway?"

"As long as you are all right." I said, my brow furrowed with concern.

"Well…my face is fine." Serena grinned. "But I'm not all right."

I propped myself up, feeling worry overtake me. My eyes roved over her body, seeking for any sign of injury. I pressed the back of my hand to her forehead, checking for a fever. Her fingers closed around my wrist.

"That's not where I need your hand." she murmured, guiding it between her legs, pressing my palm against her sex and groaning in the pain that was the anticipation of intimate touch and its resolution.

I slid my fingers through slick, swollen heat, touching her arousal made manifest, feeling the rock hard bundle of nerves at the apex of her sex. Her silver eyes were bright, but they fluttered closed as I cupped her. They flared wide again when I pushed myself into her, letting her velvet fire envelop me.

"Oh god yes." she began to move her hips in the rhythm I knew all too well, and I knew that what had been missing within me had been recovered.

We are one once more, I thought as Serena rose to her knees, rested her hands on my shoulders, and began to grind against my hand in earnest. All is as it should be…all is well in my soul.