There were few things in the Galaxy that could make Shepard feel awkward, but Liara T'Soni was one those things. It wasn't that she didn't like Liara, far be it actually, but the last time she saw her it was definitely uncomfortable. Athena hadn't known that Liara had harbored such feelings for her since her attention had been zoned in on a very different alien aboard her SR-1 and when they had reunited on Illium she had greeted her with a very deep kiss that had shocked the shit out of her.

She hadn't known what to think except be confused and when she tried to ask about it, Liara changed the subject which just added to the confusion. Then after (finally!) killing Vasir, Liara had angrily brought up the fact that she was painfully aware that Garrus was doing more than "calibrating the Normandy's guns" which had taken her aback. First off, how the fuck did she know what went on the Normandy? And second, why the hell did it matter? There was never a spoken agreement that there was anything deeper between them other than sex and Athena had made sure of that, but apparently she hadn't been clear enough on the subject.

She leaned her elbows forward onto her knees, rubbing her temples as she felt the headache creeping up on her and groaned. The conversation that they'd had after Shepard had returned back to the ship after recruiting Thane and Samara had been messy at best.

"Look Shepard, about that kiss… we had just defeated the Shadow Broker and our emotions were heightened. Goddess! You were gone for two years," she said, her eyes glistening. Athena stared at her. Jesus. She thought… oh no, no, no, no. Before Liara could continue Athena held up her hands and gave her a strained smile.

"What about it? It was just a kiss. You also kissed me on Illium, which was completely unexpected by the way. And I think it scared Grunt," she added as an afterthought remembering the look of absolute horror on his face after the bizarre greeting. That had been fucking hilarious. She could only imagine the look on his face if he ever walked in on her and Garrus in the gun battery. She heard Liara speaking so she turned her attention back to her.

"—thing between Feron and me. It was always you," she said, stepping forward and tentatively touched Athena's arm with her blue hand. Shepard looked at it and suppressed the urge to pull back and run a hand through her hair, a nervous gesture that gave her away every time she played poker. Instead she slid her eyes back to the azure ones that held emotions in them that promised things that Athena could never reciprocate and she had no idea what to say to her. "Perhaps I could come aboard the Normandy and we can discuss this more, maybe over drinks?" The absolute come-hither and hopeful look that Liara had was heartbreaking at best.

Fuck. How the hell was she going to handle this? Before she could even think about it, her mouth was already speaking for her. Dammit, she really needed to learn to control her mouth. "Liara I- maybe we should just keep this professional?" She thought she had meant to sound sure of herself, but it ended up coming out high pitched, squeaky almost and ended in a question. Not good. Fuck. Shit. The look on Liara's face made her want to toss herself out the nearest airlock.

"I- but Shepard… we, I thought we had something. All the talk about being interested…" she trailed off, bring a light blue hand up to her forehead and rubbing it. Her eyes snapped back to Athena's, anger flickering in them. "Was I wrong? Or maybe it's because Garrus has moved into my territory?" Shepard jerked at that and clenched her fist by her side, trying to contain her biotics.

"Territory? I am no one's territory, let's be clear on that. Yes, I was interested but we, I," she corrected, seeing the indignant look that erupted on Liara's face. "never made any promises."

"So you lied to me?" Her voice rose by a fraction of an octave and Athena's eyebrows flew up past her bangs.

"I never lied to you. Not once did I ever say I wanted to be anything more than friends. We fucked and it was fantastic, I won't deny that, but never," she hissed, raising her hand and sliced it through the air. "did I fucking lie to you. You know that I slept with Kaidan too and you said you were fine with that. It's not my goddamned problem if you believed there was more to us then friendship."

Given all of that, there were definitely more than a few reasons as to why she was bringing Garrus to Hagalaz with her. Tali had questioned her judgment since Athena had gone into the engineering deck in a blaze of fury, barking at Donnelly and Daniels to find somewhere else to go so she could rant to her about Liara, but Shepard, being the stubborn woman that she was (and let's be honest, sometimes spiteful) she had told Tali to go fuck with the drive core, which earned her an eye rolling and an under the breath, "Bosh'tet" which had given Athena cause to smirk at her audacity; she had taught the young woman well, a true Padawan, not that any of the crew, except perhaps Joker, would understand the meaning and/or reference.

She sighed. She was definitely dreading this little reunion, but it had to be done. She had invested money into smear campaigns, mining and other things so she was forced to return to see if her investments paid off. The pilot slowly landed and she and Garrus hoped out, quickly making their way through the stupid, crazy fucking wind to the door.

Once inside Shepard palmed the panel and the door slid open. Liara turned from her position at the console to look at them. Athena tried to ignore the cool greeting that Garrus and Liara exchanged as she made her way towards the shipment pick up console, but it wasn't easy; especially when they had to speak loudly across the room.

"Garrus," Liara said, a sour note in her voice as she crossed her arms over her chest, shifting her weight to her left foot and popping out her left hip.

"Liara," Garrus responded, heading towards the console that had everyone's dossier's, including Shepard's, but she didn't pay attention. In retrospect she should have, as it came back to bite her right in the center of her fucking ass.

"Shepard!" she chimed in under breath, missing the small smirked from both the Asari and Turian who both shook their heads.

"I hope you're doing well," Liara called across the room. Shepard could almost hear the smile in Garrus' dual vocalizations.

"More than you could know, T'Soni." Athena finally tuned them out, accepting her shipments and reading over the notes that accompanied them before sidling past Liara to check on the new vids and back down the stairs to see if her jobs had come back with positive results.

She was so absorbed in her mail that she didn't hear Garrus come up, a dark look gracing his handsome features, until he spoke quietly behind her, his voice deep with an angry lilt to his sub-harmonics. "Athena, we need to talk." She both hated and loved that tone of his voice. It half turned her on, making her instantly wet and it half scared her. It was rare than Garrus sounded angry, but when he did it was something serious so she turned around and met his eyes, instantly regretting it.

He was formidable. She certainly didn't want to go head-to-head with him in combat.

"About?" Of course the idea that he had see what was on the console with the dossiers didn't manage to wind through her brain at the time; stupid fucking piece of shit mind, she thought later. He jerked his head toward the door.

"Out of earshot." She nodded mutely, casting a glance towards Liara's back before heading off, Garrus hot on her heels. Once safely behind the door Garrus rounded on her, looking down at her, his body seeming to grow to a height of unfathomable heights. "Did you know what was on that console?" he asked, jerking his thumb towards the offending portal. She tried to put on her best innocent face.

"What console?" He raised a brow at her, clearly not buying the act. She sighed in resignation; no point in lying to him. "Yes, but I wasn't going to ask or say anything until I felt you were ready to talk about it." She reached out a placating hand but he ignored it to pace instead, one hand rubbing over his brow plates in sheer frustration and the other one curling around the air in anger, as if he could squeeze the life out of the air. "Garrus I-I'm sorry. I should have told you." He threw her an angry look.

"Damn right." He paused for a moment. "You didn't have to have Liara go through my shit to find out about what I did on Omega or find information on my mother. All you had to do was but too ask."

"Excuse me? Ididn't have Liara do a damned fucking thing. I said that I knew what was on it, but not how it got there. I also learned that Grunt has a penchant for dinosaurs and sharks, which, I'll have you know, Vakarian, I didn't have Liara dig up." He stopped at her usage of surname and she couldn't (goddammit) suppress the smug look on her face. In an instant he was close to her, his body pressing against hers, his three fingers wrapped around her throat.

She gasped, terrified but more than a little turned on, if her fingers itching to dig into his waist was any indication. His eyes narrowed, his left eye flickering to his visor for a moment.

"You're not lying," he stated. It wasn't a question.

"No," she whispered, ignoring the warning bells going off in her head as her fingers grasped at the flesh under his fringe, digging her nails in. His eyes closed, he groaned and slid his hand from her throat down her body in slow, torturous movements earning him a quick hip buck from her when he dug his talons into her hip.

Eagerly, she pulled his head down to hers, her tongue meeting his in a fierce battle and she was only slightly aware that he had hiked up her dress to her waist until she felt his fingers ghost over her already wet, swollen clit.

"Liara is in the other room," she panted against his ear, as he ran his tongue alone the curve of her ear, down her throat to lick and nip at the muscle near the base of her neck.

"Never stopped you before." His voice rumbled out, tumbling over her already heated body. Jesus Christ. "You like the idea of getting caught, Athena. It makes you," he nipped at her jaw. "so wet for me." She moaned and lifted her hips towards his hand, hooking a leg over his spur. She heard the zipper being pulled down, felt the heat of his erection pressed against her.

He slid inside of her, his palm covering her mouth as she cried out, bringing her legs up around his waist. "Shh. I want to fuck you right here, with Liara behind that door." He grunted, his cock swelling inside of her as her muscles clamped around him at his voice, his deep, sexy, throaty, rumbling voice against her ear.

She loved it when he took her against a wall or door, demonstrating his strength as he held her up, his palms cupping her ass as he worked himself in and out of her. He slid out until just the head of his cock was inside her before sliding back in, stretching her to fit him and let out a low pitched moan when she rubbed her hips against him, clenching her eyes tight against the pleasure of her swollen clit rubbing against his plates.

It was hard for to believe that he had never fucked an alien before. He knew, just knew, where to touch, to rub, to lick, to suck and he couldn't have known all of that unless he had fucked an asari or human before, but she let it go as he slammed into her, hitting the back of her pussy with his swollen head and panting her name in her ear, occasionally his tongue darting out to lick up the sweat that glistened on her skin.

"Fuck," she whispered, digging her nails into his fringe as hard as she could. His pace wavered for a second, but he sped up, his eyes boring into hers.

"Come for me." Her eyes fluttered shut at his command and focused on the amazing feeling his plates were causing her. Soon she felt herself climbing that ladder into unbearable ecstasy and her eyes flew open, locking with his and when he mouth touched hers she lost; she tore her mouth away, letting vent to a well deserved scream as her orgasm ripped through her, tearing her asunder.

It started in the tips of her fingers and soon spiraled out of control, snaking down her back, over her hips, shooting through her legs down to her toes and back up to her clit. As her pussy clenched, spasming around his large cock, he let go inside of her, groaning her name into her neck, his hips thrusting at an uneven pace as she milked him for all he was worth.

They leaned against the hull of the ship for a few moments, catching their breath before she reluctantly removed her legs from his hip and placed her feet on the ground. The righted their clothing in silence, stealing glances at each other.

"Do you think Liara heard?" He turned towards her, his mandibles flared out in a smile.

"Honestly, I don't give a damn."