April #2
Liam pressed her forward slightly so her hands braced against the glass. The cold surface bit into her palms. Behind her, he was a wall of heat and expensive fabric.
"Watch," he said, his voice rough but somehow still gentle. "I want you to see what happens when you let yourself want something."
One hand cupped her breast, testing the weight, learning the shape. His thumb circled her nipple with deliberate pressure. It peaked under his touch and April arched into his hand, a soft gasp escaping.
"God, you're responsive," he murmured.
Her breasts were heavy and oversensitive. Every nerve ending felt raw.
He increased the pressure, rolling the sensitive peak between his fingers, and April's hips rolled involuntarily. Behind her, Liam groaned, caught between pleasure and restraint.
“That's it," he encouraged.
His other hand slid down her stomach, beneath the waistband of her panties. He groaned when he found her already wet.
"Fuck, April. You're soaked." His voice dropped lower, strained, his fingers trembling against her. The tremor undid her more than the touching. "I've been trying so hard to hold back, and you're—" He didn't finish. She didn't need him to.
His fingers slid to her clit, circling with maddening precision.
This was wrong. This was Chad's brother's fingers inside her panties and his mouth against her neck and his heartbeat slamming against her spine.
This was wrong and it was the most right anything had felt in three years. She stopped trying to reconcile it and let it be true.
Her core clenched empty and desperate.
"Is this the right pressure?" he murmured against her neck. "Or do you need more?"
"More," she whimpered.
He adjusted immediately, touch more insistent, and April's hips rolled after the sensation.
"Good," Liam breathed. "You're allowed to take what you need."
His fingers slid lower, teasing her entrance with feather-light touches that had her sobbing.
"Please—"
"Please what? Use your words."
The woman in the mirror knew. April could see it in her face—flushed, undone, no apology anywhere in her expression. That woman would say it. Would ask for exactly what she needed without filing it under things she wasn't allowed to want.
April watched her mouth open.
Heard her own voice say it half a second later, as if she was following stage directions written by someone braver.
"Inside," April managed. "I need—"
He slid two fingers inside her. The sound she made echoed off three walls of mirror at once.
"Look, please.” His free hand cupped her jaw, guiding her gaze back to the mirror.
She forced her eyes open and watched—watched her own expression, desperate and undone; watched the way Liam's hand moved beneath the black lace; watched the desire on his face tempered by something softer, more careful.
“Incredible," Liam groaned against her ear, breath hot and uneven.
His fingers curled inside her, finding a spot that had her gasping. "Here?"
"Yes—God, yes—"
His thumb found her clit, circling in time with the thrust of his fingers. His other arm wrapped around her waist, holding her steady as she grabbed his arm and leaned her full weight back into him.
She could feel every breath he took, the tension in his arm, him hard and straining against her back.
"That's it," Liam encouraged, his voice rough now, control fraying at the edges. "Let go. I've got you."
The pressure built, overwhelming and inevitable. Her thighs trembled, inner muscles fluttering around his fingers.
"Let go for me," he said against her ear. "I want to watch."
She came with a broken cry, her reflection fracturing across three walls of mirror—the same woman from three angles, all of them undone, none of them the version Chad had approved.
Her body clenched around his fingers in long, rhythmic pulses that she could see in her own face. She couldn't look away.
Liam held her through it, his hand still moving until she went boneless against him. When the aftershocks finally faded, he withdrew his fingers with aching slowness. His face was pained, nothing careful about him now, his mouth pressed against her hair as he said her name once, quietly.
April stood there, forehead pressed to cool glass, her thighs still trembling, the ghost of his fingers still pulsing between her legs. Deliberately not thinking. Not about what she'd just done. Not about whose hands had been on her.
Breathing.
Counting inhales.
That was Chad's brother. The thought flickered through her mind—not guilt, just awareness. This changes things. This doesn't change anything.
April turned and reached for him, needing his solid warmth, needing to be held while everything stopped vibrating.
Liam caught her in his arms and pulled her against his chest, wrapping around her like he'd been waiting for permission. April pressed her face against his shirt, felt his heartbeat through expensive fabric, anchored herself in the steady rhythm.
Liam's arms tightened fractionally, lips brushing her temple. "You were incredible," he murmured against her hair. They stood like that for a long moment, April catching her breath, Liam holding her steady.
“You don’t owe this a name. Or me one.” His hand moved slowly down her spine. “But thank you for trusting me with it. I want it to be more than—”
She flinched.
He stopped.
April wasn't ready to think about what had just happened.
Just that it had.
She pulled back to her own space.
Liam's arms loosened fractionally, then he stepped back slowly, gave her space to breathe.
He moved toward the rack of gowns, focus shifting to the dresses like he was giving her a moment he could tell she needed.
His hands moved over silk and tulle with casual precision.
Not browsing, exactly. More like giving himself something to do while she came back to herself.
He pulled a champagne silk wrap from a nearby hook and brought to her.
She wrapped it around herself. Cool silk against overheated skin. Barely there, but enough. A line drawn.
Her pulse was slowing, breathing evening out, the heat fading to a warm hum under her skin.
The weight would come later. The thinking. The what-does-this-mean.
Right now she felt satisfied. Settled in her own skin in a way she couldn't remember feeling in months. She turned toward him.
Liam noticed immediately, gaze flicking to her in the mirror, reading the shift. He held it a moment longer, checking. Then he turned back to the rack.
"We still need to find you a gown," he said, tone shifting back toward practical. He pulled a dress from the rack and held it up. “Here.”
Emerald green silk. Backless. Held up by nothing but thin gold chains that would cross over bare skin like jewelry.
April stared at it.
It was nothing like anything she'd ever worn. Nothing like the modest sheaths Chad picked. Nothing like the careful neutral tones and appropriate hemlines.
This dress wasn't trying to blend in. It wasn't apologizing for taking up space.
"Chad dressed you like an assistant he wanted to keep small," Liam said, like he could see exactly what she was thinking.
He held the dress out toward her.
She raised her arms, dropping the wrap.
He slid the dress over her head with a gentleness that didn't match the hunger she'd just seen in his face. SThe emerald silk whispered down her body, cool against skin that still felt warm. The thin gold chains settled over her bare shoulders.
Liam's hands went to the gold chains, settling them over her collarbones like jewelry. Like an offering. His fingers brushed her shoulder, accidental, unavoidable, and April's breath caught like her body hadn't gotten the memo that they were done.
"That," Liam said, his voice steady now, "is what it looks like to be presented properly."
April stared at herself in the mirror, trying to reconcile the woman in emerald silk with the woman who'd been pinned under tulle twenty minutes ago begging for help. Trying to understand how both could be true.
The woman looking back at her was flushed and undone.
Beautiful. The emerald silk caught the light and made her skin glow, turned her into someone who belonged in rooms like this.
Chad's clothes were always apologizing on her behalf, but in this gown, she looked like someone who could walk into a room and not check to see if she was allowed to be there first. She wasn’t sure she was that woman.
He must have seen something shift in her expression because he stepped back, turned toward the rack again. “You can’t wear that on the sidewalk,” he said. “And you’re not going back to the office in it.”
He pulled out an outfit that looked effortlessly expensive: slim black trousers, a champagne silk blouse. Designer casual. Quietly certain. An outfit that said I belong without needing to shout it. Liam handed them to her.
"The gown stays here. We'll have it delivered to your apartment before the gala."
April took the clothes, hugged them to her chest.
"Liam—"
"You deserve better than what you were wearing when you walked in," he said. Eyes flicking to her face, her mouth, away again.
It was practical. It was a claim. It was both.
It was also… aftercare, dressed up as logistics.
April disappeared behind the curtain and changed, careful with her own body like she'd been reminded she lived in it.
When she emerged, Liam was waiting by the door, perfectly composed. Hair in place, posture straight, expression unreadable. His composure mostly returned, armor sliding back into place, but his eyes still held that dark want, banked now but not gone.
He didn’t look untouched.
He cleared his throat. "Ready?"
April nodded.
He offered his arm and they stepped back out onto the street, into noise and sunlight and strangers.