Liam Roberts is an (author) wrote in doorslogs, @ 2012-07-16 22:18:00 |
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Entry tags: | christine daae, raoul de chagny |
Who: Liam and Sam
What: A private reading of 50 Shades of Gray.
Where: The Ranch
When: Recently!
Warnings/Rating: Some language, bad literature.
It was nearly eight in the evening by the time Liam shows up at the Ranch, and for a moment, he simply stared at the building, wondering if Sam had told him wrong as to where she was staying. But no, the woman inside seemed to be expecting him, and there was no questioning looks when he asked to see Samantha Alexander. He had come with booze in hand, despite Sam’s declaration that she had plenty, a bottle of brandy, something sweet and different from the beer he normally drank. And if this evening went anything like he was imagining it might go, the brandy and copious amounts of other liquors would be needed.
Deposited in front of the room he was told she was at, Liam raised his hand to give a knock, stepping back to wait. He was dressed for the Vegas heat in a pair of long shorts and a navy polo on top, a pair of brown sandals on otherwise bare feet. There was no attention paid to what he was wearing, simply that he kept cool in the dry desert warmth that lingered well after the sun went down. A tablet PC was tucked beneath one arm, that wretched book taking up valuable disc space, and he just hoped she didn’t have any intentions on recording this private performance. The book was horrid in as many ways as he had words for, but with a bit of booze, even he could find it amusing.
Sam was in the kitchen of the crowded whorehouse. That time of night, the place was filled with men and women waiting on appointments, and it was impossible to mistake the sounds coming from behind closed doors as anything other than what they were. The walk between the front door and the kitchen was a winding path around bodies - women making dates, and men talking to each other as they drank from the bar in the living room. It was hot and dry, despite the air conditioning, and the entire place looked exactly like a whorehouse in the middle of the desert should.
Amid it all, Sam was sitting on the kitchen counter, a cold beer in her hand, and a pair of indecently ratty denim shorts and a wifebeater on her soft frame in defiance of the heat. The scar that started at her shoulder was visible, red and fresh, but healed, and she had her hair in two messy pigtails. She was laughing with a girl dressed in pink satin undergarments, and she looked up when Liam showed up in the doorway. "Hey, baby," she said, looking for signs of outrage on his features. Oh, she still remembered him pulling the moral high card on her all those months ago, when she'd offered him a fuck, and it showed on her features as she quirked a brow and tipped the beer back, perspiration chasing down the side of the bottle and a droplet of water landing on her bare knee. "Any trouble finding the place?"
If the environment affected Liam at all, it was almost impossible to tell with the pleasant expression he had on his face when Sam called out to him. He was no stranger to things like this, and while he was not a patron of such establishments, he felt no embarrassment in being here. “Sam,” Liam said, the Southern drawl soft that night as he stepped into the kitchen, taking in her appearance with a glance up and down, eyes lingering for a moment on the scar that decorated pale skin, but he said nothing of it. “No problems in the slightest, though I have to admit I’m a little surprised that you’re staying here.” Not judgemental, not Liam, just surprised. He lifted the bottle of brandy he had brought with him, giving a nod towards her beer. “You prefer that? I brought something as a treat, but I’ll take it back if you’d rather.”
"I work for the owner," Sam said, quirking a brow and pinning Liam with a look that said what of it? And she wasn't surprised at his question, not really, just like she wouldn't be surprised to learn he thought she was a working girl. And maybe her marriage was no better than what the girls here did. It was sure more fucking honest, that was for sure, but Sam discounted that particular chapter of her life as not being her choice. She eyed the brandy, and then she set the beer aside, setting it beside her hip on the counter. She leaned forward at the waist, and she held her hand out for the bottle, just as the hooker she was talking to made herself scarce with a glance at Liam that was all come find me later. Sam laughed once they were alone in the kitchen. "I think she'd give you a discount."
Liam made no assumptions about what it was that Sam did here, because frankly, he didn’t know her well enough to make any of those assumptions. So her explanation went past with a nod of his head as he stepped closer, offering her the bottle of brandy. There was no hiding the way his eyes followed the girl who left, all flimsy lingerie and come hither smiles, and after she had left the kitchen, Liam shook his head and let out a laugh, turning his attention back towards Sam. “I try to not make a habit of paying for sex,” Liam said, folding his arms over his chest as he leaned against the counter, fingers drumming against his arm. Not that he was getting a lot of free sex from anyone. “But at least I know that I’m not completely repulsive.”
Sam was mid-sip on the brandy bottle by the time the woman left the kitchen, and she rolled her eyes as she finished her swig. "You're a pain in the fucking ass, Liam, but you aren't bad to look at." She gave him a look over that was intentionally intense, intentionally discomfiting. It felt good having control, especially given the uncomfortably familiar location. Let's just say that Sam had been steering really fucking clear of kitchens in the last month. So, yeah, she took another long swig of the brandy, and then she hopped off the counter and moved past him, a whirl of fire and metal clinging to her hair from her ongoing project, which was currently housed in the backyard of the Ranch like a monolith, something abandoned there and left for dead. It was what she spent most of her times these days, the torch making it easy to shut out all the confusion that came with being alive. "Grab the bottle," she added.
Liam’s response came as a roll of his eyes as she moved past him, close on her heels with the bottle of brandy in hand as he followed after her. “Glad you think so,” Liam called after her, the rear view something he could appreciate though he wasn’t one to actually say anything. Relationships, romance, he wrote enough about them that he didn’t have the inclination to fall into one that so many people seemed to have. If someone came along, great, he wouldn’t argue against it, but when it came down to it, Liam just didn’t need to have someone at his side in order to keep moving forward. Maybe he was jaded when it came to romance, writing too much about it that nothing really lived up to the fantasy, but it was who he was.
“I thought you were living with Neil,” Liam finally said, breaking the silence. “When did you come out here?”
Sam shoved open the door to a room that was unimpressively nondescript. It was utilitarian, the room, probably a working room before it was handed over to Sam by Tiffani, and Sam hadn't done shit to make it personal, making it pretty evident that she didn't intend to call the place home for very long. She didn't close the door behind herself as she walked in and flopped on the bed. Her blonde hair fanned out on the pillow, and she watched the door through heavy eyes. "I'm in and out," she said of her stay at the Ranch. "I work for the Boss, so I crash sometimes," she admitted, and then she pushed herself on her elbows and relented slightly. "Since the fucking hotel shit," she said, and then she nodded at the tablet in his hand. "Fucking read."
Liam didn’t bother to hide how he looked around the room that Sam led them to, pushing the door shut behind him out of habit before setting the bottle of brandy on the table beside the bed, dropping down to sit on the edge of the bed. He wasn’t quite near her, some distance away, but it was a comfortable distance for whatever the hell they were. “You still haven’t said what happened there,” Liam said after a moment, pulling his tablet out and letting it rest in his lap as he thumbed through pages to find where he wanted to go. “You don’t have to say anything, but if you need to talk or anything...” He trailed off, pulling one leg up with him, his sandal slipping off his foot to the floor with a thud. He glanced up through a flop of brown hair, giving her a long look before extending his hand towards the brandy. “I need a drink first. Oblige me.”
She sat up and took a long sip of the brandy herself, before handing it over, and then she lit a clove that was half-burnt out on the nightstand, all without asking his permission. "I don't want to talk about it. I've done nothing but talk about it since it happened, and now I'm just working on forgetting it. Let's just say it wasn't fucking great, and let's leave it at that." She flopped again once she was done with that disclaimer, and she stared at the ceiling as she brought the cigarette to her lips. She fucking hated this guy, and he fucking hated her, and what the hell was she even doing there? Whatever, it's not like she actually liked everyone she hung around with; it wasn't a requirement, right? "Are you going to put out, baby, or are you going to keep stalling?" she asked, motioning at the tablet which, she assumed, had the book on it.
Taking the bottle back in hand, Liam took a long drink from the bottle before setting it down near him, balancing it against his leg to keep it from spilling its precious contents all over the bedding. “As you wish,” he said without pushing the matter, flipping through his tablet for a few more moments. “And I’m not fucking stalling. Just trying to find the damned thing. Believe it or not, it’s not at the top of my reading list. There.” With the words on the page, the section he had chosen for this private performance, Liam cleared his throat twice and straightened his posture, before he launched into reading.
“Kiss me damn it! I implore him, but I can’t move. I’m paralyzed with a strange, unfamiliar need, completely captivated by him. I’m staring at Christian Grey’s exquisitely sculptured mouth, mesmerized, and he’s looking down at me, his gaze hooded, his eyes darkening. He’s breathing harder than usual, and I’ve stopped breathing altogether. I’m in your arms. Kiss me, please. He closes his eyes, takes a deep breath, and gives me a small shake of his head as if in answer to my silent question. When he opens his eyes again, it’s with some new purpose, a steely resolve.
“Anastasia, you should steer clear of me. I’m not the man for you,” he whispers. What? Where is this coming from? Surely I should be the judge of that. I frown up at him, and my head swims with rejection.
“Breathe, Anastasia, breathe. I’m going to stand you up and let you go,” he says quietly, and he gently pushes me away.”
It was read with all of the perceived drama of the book, voices for the two characters, but by the end of it, there was no helping the laugh that bubbled up, his voice cracking on the last few words as he looks up over towards Sam. “I’m sorry. This is just - it’s supremely bad in the worst way I’ve ever seen.”
Sam didn't laugh, which was really something amazing, because fuck was that shit bad. "Why the fuck isn't he the man for her?" she asked, and then she fucking realized she'd actually asked that question. "It's not that I give a shit about the ridiculous story, it's just that it makes no fucking sense. Men do not go around having attacks of fucking conscience or whatever." Maybe priests did, or something, but not the men that Sam knew. She pointed a finger at him. "And don't go getting all moral on me. I know you like to do that shit." He did.
When Sam actually asked about the story, Liam’s brows shot up on his face and there was absolutely no holding back the grin that pulled at his lips, giving her a look that was all ‘I saw what you did there, Sam’. His laugh dying down, he flipped through a few more pages on the tablet, glancing up towards her. “I like to do what kind of shit?” he asked, all innocent and wide eyes wrapped up in a grin that simply wouldn’t die. “And no, it doesn’t make sense. It’s badly written, though the characters, at times, could have promise. Just not in this story, by this author.” His shoulders shrugged up and he reached for the brandy again, taking a long drink and feeling the warmth flood through, offering the bottle back to her a moment later. The air was sweet with the scent of cloves hanging in it, the only kind of cigarette he didn’t really mind.
She took the bottle without arguing, and she took a swig that was too long to be polite, and way too long for brandy, but what the fuck ever. "Oh, shut the fuck up," she said, but she was almost laughing herself, and he was much more tolerable when he was drunk. "You like to be moral, and pretend you're better than all of us wanton and ruined bitches down here on the ground," she said, waving the brandy bottle as she spoke. She handed it back a few seconds later, and she finished off her cigarette and ground it down on the ashtray on the nightstand, and then she flopped back and closed her eyes, tucking an arm beneath her head. "Books are overrated anyway. No offense, baby, but life is about living, not about reading about other people living."
The brandy was for drinking, and drinking was for getting appropriately sloshed, so Liam made no mention of the drink she took, instead taking back the offered bottle and drinking again before he sat it aside, giving her a grin that was as relaxed and open as he ever was. “I do not pretend to be better than everyone else,” he said by means of protest, setting his tablet to the side as he settled himself on his side, propped up on one elbow, letting her command his attention. “Just because I don’t like to do what everyone else seems to do doesn’t mean I’m making myself out to be better than the rest of you.” And truly, he didn’t think that he was. Liam cared little about what other people thought and lived his life the way he felt best. “As for the books? Tell that to the millions of people that buy my books, darling. I’m not on the bestseller list because people don’t enjoy reading what I have to say. You might not, and that’s quite fine.” He cracked a smile and in a move that was absolutely spontaneous, he reached out to give a tug to one long strand of hair that was spread out around her head.
She burst out laughing when he said he didn't pretend to be better than everyone else. "You don't pretend, Liam, you just think you are." She didn't sound pissed, though, she was way too fucking drunk and lazy from the booze to be pissed. "But you're fucking wrong. I'm here to tell you so," she said, with a loudly expansive gesture of her hands toward the ceiling. The ceiling- Hey- "You think they'd put mirrors up there, since this is a whorehouse," she mused, turning her head to look at him. "The people reading that book are so fucking hard up for it. They want to be that chick - Australia, Aurora, Anastasia, Auberdine, whatever her name is. I don't know why people read your books, Liam, but I'd rather walk on an I-beam or dive out of a plane than read any book. No offense to your romantic bullshit." She had closed her eyes in the middle of her speech, and she didn't open then when he tugged the strand of hair, though she could feel him doing it. "It's attached to my head," she said, quirking a brow, even though she didn't open her eyes.
“I do not think I am,” Liam said in a second protest, but he finished it with a laugh, turning his attention to the ceiling as she gestured, his brows arching in response, giving her a look that was filled with incredulity. “Why would people want mirrors on the ceiling? I mean. Sex is all a lot of funny faces and contorted bodies. I really don’t want to see what I look like doing that.” He wrinkled his nose and glanced back towards her, raising a hand as if to say ‘ah well’ to her words. “My books aren’t meant for people like you, sadly. I’m not sure I could make walking on an I-beam sexy or romantic, nor would I want to.” Laying on his back, one hand resting against his stomach, he gave another tug to that strand of hair he had coiled around his fingers. “I’m quite aware it’s attached. I wouldn’t be tugging on it if it weren’t. What would be the fun in that?”
She scoffed when he asked his question about the mirrors, and she did open her eyes then, just to give him a look. "Are you one of those fuckers that only likes soft-core porn sex? You know, where everything is pretty and even assholes look like roses?" she asked, because who the fuck wouldn't want to watch someone they were really into having sex? She was more the wham-bam type, but even she knew people liked to do kinky crap when they were in a relationship. "People like me, huh?" she asked, closing her eyes again. "What are people like me into reading then?" It was a dangerous question, and it was obvious in the way her drunken slur sharpened slightly. But she didn't pull her hair away from him yet, so the verdict was clearly still out. "And you don't get it. You can't make walking on an I-beam sexy or romantic, because it's all about experiencing it, that feeling in the pit of your stomach, thrill, fear, all that and the wind on your face."
Liam didn’t say anything for a moment then, meeting her gaze, his lips pursed, and then he let out a laugh, rolling his eyes towards the heavens. “I don’t watch porn, Sam. I just don’t. Maybe a playboy or two when I was in high school, but. Yeah. No. Not me.” There was no embarrassment in the confession, just the simple honesty and lack of regard for others’ opinions about him. “And I don’t know what kind of stuff you’d like to read. Not romances. Not what I write. I wouldn’t even want to guess. I grew up reading the stuff my mom’s clients read. Romances. Trashy paperbacks that they passed around like gossip. And I can’t see you reading those. Not a bad thing, but I know I don’t write for everyone.” Liam let out a hum as he thought about her words, seeing the point in them but having never experienced anything like that, there was no reference point to even begin to know how it might be. “You’re talking to someone who has both feet firmly on the ground. I’ve never even done rollercoasters let alone anything like that.”
She laughed, and it was a slow laugh, somewhere in the back of her throat, even as her head lolled to the side in an unsteady turn so that she could look at him. "Baby, we so don't speak the same language. I wasn't asking if you watched porn. Fuck, no, I can tell you don't watch porn. I was asking if you only like pretty fucking sex." She couldn't think of how else to phrase that so it was clearer, but there was definitely a difference between pretty sex and the kind of sex she had. "You're a pretentious little shit," she said, but there was some fondness in the ribbing. Sam liked strange people, people that weren't the norm, and Liam was just off-center enough to fit the bill, when she wasn't sober, at least. When she was sober, her own insecurities about being poor and uneducated and entirely fucking immoral trumped all that. But she wasn't sober, and he didn't seem like such a douche just then. "Oh, god, you're just like fucking Neil. What the hell is it with you healthy people and the way you cling to everything safe?"
“I don’t know if you can say I only like pretty sex. I just-” Liam gave a roll of his eyes, shifting onto his side so he could look at her easier, and there was something about this conversation, strange as it was, that told Liam he would only ever have this with Sam. “Let’s put it this way. Last person I had sex with I couldn’t even see, thanks to that lovely hotel we’re all drawn to.” The number of partners he had had could be counted on one hand, so he didn’t feel experienced enough to say what he liked. There wasn’t enough to go on to make that sort of decision. At her poke at him, Liam gave her a grin, fingers tugging that strand of hair once more. “Would you have me any other way?” A laugh and he sat up again, grabbing for the bottle of brandy and taking a long drink from it, tilting the bottle towards her when he was done. “I don’t cling to safe, thank you very much. I’ve just no inclination to tempt death. Which is what you do if you skydive or walk on I-beams god knows how many feet in the air.”
Sex in the hotel wasn't her favorite topic, but she was drunk enough that his mention of it didn't immediately dredge up her own nightmares. "Have you tried to contact her?" she asked of the woman in the dark, and if there was one thing she was absolutely positive about, it was that whatever had happened with Liam in that hotel was entirely fucking consensual. Liam was one of those guys that made absolutely no fucking sense to her, at the end of the day; the ones that were romantics, that opened doors and pulled out chairs and actually sucked on your clit for the hell of it, not because they wanted a blow job in return. She swatted at the hand that tugged her hair, but it was a half-hearted, sulky swat that was more befitting a little girl than the bitch she pretended to be, and she used the same hand to take the brandy bottle and pour some in her mouth, all without sitting up. "You cling to fucking safe," she contradicted.
“I thought about reaching out to her, but I wasn’t entirely sure what to say, to be quite honest with you. That sort of thing was not like me, but trust me when I say I still think of it at times.” Liam let out a breathy laugh, watching as she poured the brandy into her mouth, plucking the bottle from her hand when she was done to set it to the side. That much brandy on a near-empty stomach had left Liam more than a little on the drunk side, but that simply brought down the inhibitions, less thought behind his actions and more instinct guiding them instead. “And what’s wrong with ‘safe’? It’s done me well for thirty years, and I suspect it will do me well for thirty more years in the future.” The fingers that were tugging on her hair released that abused strand, and as he shifted, he moved closer, one sandal slipping off his foot with a thud to the floor beside the bed. “And I’m not always safe, mind you. That’s just what you see when you look at me.” A smile tinged his words, quiet and smug.
"That sort of thing?" Sam asked with a shake of her head. "What kind of thing is that? Sex? Seriously, Liam. People have sex without being married. It's 2012." But she knew some chicks would totally dig that shit, like they'd found some prince from a romance novel. Unfortunately, it just made Sam feel like he was declaring constant moral high-ground, and she was pretty sure he didn't even fucking realize it. "Safe is boring," she declared, way too drunk to even notice the way his sandal fell to the floor, or the way he moved closer. "What have you ever done that wasn't safe?" she challenged instead, a drunken turn of her head, inky blue eyes going widely unfocused when she realized he was closer than she expected. But whatever, it was Liam, no harm in it. The thought crossed her mind that if she wasn't as drunk as she was, she would have already broken his nose for being this close; lucky him.
“Not just sex,” Liam stated. “Sex with people whose name I don’t even know. That’s the sort of thing I don’t do.” Liam gave a roll of his eyes and pushed himself up onto one elbow, the better to watch her from this perch. “And it’s not boring. It’s... I don’t know. It’s something. I like it. There’s variety to be had in it, even if it’s safe.” And then came her challenge, those dark eyes on him, the flush of her cheeks from a bit too much brandy. When had he done something that wasn’t safe. He was sure, even in his alcohol-addled state, that he could list a few things off, but she’d probably discount them as boring. So instead, Liam acted.
Maybe it was his size, maybe it was the fact that he had only started drinking since arriving at the Ranch, maybe it was a lot of things that accounted for his swift movement that was neither clumsy or fumbled, and then his lips were on hers in a kiss that was equal parts fierce and demanding. For all that she might have thought him boring or safe, he had talent in those lips and tongue.
She kissed him back at first, an inexpert mash of lips against his that was sloppy thanks to more than drunkenness; fumbles in the dark and quick fucks in alleys didn't involve a lot of kissing, and it was an intimacy Sam didn't have a whole lot experience with. But she was smashed, and so she kissed him back. But she wasn't completely drugged out of her mind; she wasn't drugged at all, and that layer of reality was still present beneath the booze, the one that made her flinch when someone approached her unexpectedly, and that made her nearly blowtorch two men to death since the hotel. It was only the layer of drugs that let her sleep with Daniel, and even he'd had to spend hours getting her to stop from running scared before he touched her. It came slower, thanks to the booze, but the freakout came.
She shoved at him, and she clambered off the bed, breath coming fast in her chest and one hand clutching the shoulder of the wifebeater as she backed against the wall opposite the bed. Her inky eyes, still unfocused, were wild, and for a second it was obvious that she had no idea who the fuck was in the room with her. Breathe, breathe, yeah, ok, no more being alone with a guy without drugs. Breathe. She paced, hand to her forehead. "Fuck."
The shove backwards took him by surprise, nearly tumbling off the bed as Sam scurried away, because there was no other word for the way she moved and rushed to get away from him. There had been no warning, no way of being able to predict her reaction, and Liam’s instantaneous response was not one of anger or confusion. It was of worry. He could see how she paced, those eyes wide and wild, and as he righted his position on the mattress, he made no further move towards her, the anxiety dripping off of her in waves. “Sam,” Liam said slowly, as soft and gentle as he could make his voice, trying to appear as non-threatening as he could. “Sam, it’s just me. Liam. No one else is in here, okay?” It was difficult to stay on the bed and not move to her side, but he held his position, recognizing that he would only do more harm in approaching her right then.
It was his accent that did it, that made her head snap up, that made recognition slip back into her eyes. "Fuck," she repeated, cheeks going so red that they looked like fever. "Shit. Shit. Shit." That was worse than Jack, worse than Zee, and she had trouble meeting his eyes as she reached for the pack of cloves on the nightstand and lit it. Three long, long drags later, and she dragged a hand through her hair. "Yeah, so, sex is kind of off the fucking table right now if I'm not high, and I'm not high." For Sam, it was a pretty wordy apology. She pointed the cigarette at him. "And don't tell me that wasn't sex. There's no point in fucking kissing if it doesn't lead to sex."
He didn’t say anything for a while, just letting her collect herself as he made his way to the edge of the bed to sit, his legs dangling over the edge, bare feet crossed at the ankles. “I’m not going to tell you anything,” Liam said with a tilt of his head. “And if it’s not going to happen, that’s just how it is. Come here.” He patted the bed beside him, and whatever had pushed him towards her earlier was absent then, just the easy-going, sometimes pretentious, Southern boy. “Unless you’d rather I go. Ball’s in your court right now, Sam.” There were no accusations in Liam’s words, nothing that said he was blaming her for anything that had happened. It simply was and he didn’t see a need to push against the quickly raising walls.
She looked at him for a few long seconds, and then she huffed a breath as she sat down heavily beside him on the bed. "I don't want to fucking talk about it, so don't make me fucking talk about it. Here." She handed the clove over, in case he wanted a drag, and she realized she must be completely fucking wasted to be sitting there with him, having a conversation that could be considered emotional. "You're lucky I wasn't holding a blowtorch or a chisel, or you would have been so fucked. That's my new thing; attacking random people who have dicks." In other words, it wasn't him; it was her. She ground the heels of her palms against her eyes. "Sorry, Liam."
It was a small victory that she sat near him considering what had just happened, and he didn’t take her presence for granted. Liam had his moments of being a grade A asshole, but at his core, that simply wasn’t who he was. He was a mama’s boy through and through, brought up to treat women nice, to hold the door, to be a gentleman. With the offer of the clove, Liam didn’t refuse, instead taking it from her and drawing a lungful of the sweet smoke into his lungs, letting it dangle between his fingers as he exhaled towards the ceiling. “I’m quite fond of keeping myself alive. I think I know better than to approach anyone, let alone you, when there’s fire or sharp things in their hands.” The corner of his mouth lifted in a half-grin, and as she rubbed the heels of her hands against her face, he leaned around her, putting the clove down and dropping his arm around her shoulders, drawing her against his side. “Nothing to apologise for, but accepted nonetheless.”
She tensed when he pulled her against his side, and she wondered when in the fuck that shit was going to stop. She actually groaned, but she refused to pull away, because come on now? He wasn't fucking doing anything. Get it together, Sam. "Yeah, well, raincheck. Just bring some fucking Blues or something to trip on," and she looked over at him as she said it and grinned, letting him know that she was entirely joking; he was too straight-laced for that shit, to need a woman to be fucked up to screw him. She took the clove back from between his fingers, and she took a deep drag, trying to get her shoulders to relax. "No sudden movements, or you might need to explain a cigarette burn on your forehead to your readers, and that would be the opposite of fucking sexy."
Liam chuckled at the thought of a cigarette burn in the middle of his forehead, giving her shoulders a squeeze before his arm loosened slightly, a comfortable drape around her. “At least it’d be a story to tell. People eat that shit up like malt-o-meal for breakfast. The story of how my private reading of Fifty Shades turned into a cigarette shoved at my forehead. Enough vagueness to keep them wondering and I could write a book on it.” Not that he would, and his tone spoke as such, and as she worked at that cigarette, Liam shifted slightly, sliding further back onto the bed as he brought both hands up, and then paused, before they ever touched her. “Can I?” he asked, hands hesitating just inches from her shoulders, ready for retreat at the first sign of refusal.
"Then I get double fucking royalties," she said of his story, because, yeah. "At this rate, I won't need to find a new contract." Because a new contract had been a problem so far, seeing as she'd had a panic attack around the guys on the last two day jobs she'd picked up. She eyed his hands warily. "Liam, if I break your fucking nose, you have no one to blame but yourself," she managed, her shoulders tensing again, but she didn't stop him from whatever he intended to do. He'd been warned, if he wanted to risk it, that was up to him. And, truthfully, the thought of someone touching her still made her fucking freak, even through the booze, and she was trying to fight that down like bile during a hangover. Real fucking romantic.
“Deal,” Liam said, amusement clear in his voice, and as she eyed his hands, he gave her a look that he hoped was something close to trustworthy, honest, because that’s how he felt right then. “If you must break my nose again,” Liam started as his hands came to rest upon her shoulders, just rubbing gently, feeling the knots of tension just beneath the surface of everything, “can you at least attempt to hit me from the left side this time? Perhaps you’ll straighten it.” Liam’s hands weren’t particularly large or strong, long fingers that were flexible from years of typing and writing, but they were sure, and he somehow managed to keep it from edging towards unacceptable in his motives. This was purely for her, not for him.
She closed her eyes, and she tried to concentrate on his words instead of anything else. "I can't control where I punch," she said, but her voice was strangled and, if anything, her shoulders got tenser. She opened her eyes, and she moved off the bed a second later, too quickly for it to be anything than fucking panic. And she knew he wasn't going to believe she was ok after this, not for a fucking second, and Sam hated being vulnerable in any capacity around anyone. If she had it in her to slam him back against the bed and crawl on top of him right then, she would have. Fuck, she even tried to take a few steps forward, intending to do precisely that, but the movements ended up being small, frenetic circles, and she dropped the cigarette along the way and had to stomp it out on the carpet. Yeah, ok, she definitely needed to be fucked up. She dragged up her inky gaze to regard him, and she huffed in frustration. "Ok, so touching is bad. Ok? It's no big fucking deal. It's better than it was. It's just going to take some time when I'm not on something, so, yeah."
His hands jerked away as soon as she pulled away from him, watching as she paced, as the cigarette was crushed against the carpeting, and there was no pity in his blue eyes. There was just worry at seeing someone he had perceived as strong, as sure, acting like a wild cat. “You’re setting the rules here, not me,” Liam said as he dropped his hands back down, but only for a moment, soon reaching to where the brandy had been set aside, taking a drink before offering her the bottle. “You tell me what you want me to do. If it’s leaving, I will. No hard feelings. No offense.” I’m worried about you was left unsaid, though it was there, hanging in the air. No matter the differences between them, Sam was someone Liam considered at least somewhat of a friend. A fucked up relationship with her, yes, but a friendship nonetheless.
Sam just watched him, and it took a few minutes to register the words, like they were on some kind of panic-delay or something. "I feel like I don't set any fucking rules lately, Liam. I tell my mind to do one thing, and it does another, and my body doesn't fucking listen, and I'm really not fucking used to it." And she wasn't; that was the problem. She took the bottle greedily when he offered it, and she downed almost every last drop in one long gulp. "I want to fucking sleep, and I don't want to have a nightmare. That's what I want," she admitted, with candor that even surprised her drunken self. She sighed. "Listen, just, let me sleep. Breakfast, the diner, next week?" When she was sober, and it was daylight, and there wasn't a fucking bed. Yeah, ok, she could do that. She didn't put too much thought into the fact that she was actually willing to see him again, because she wasn't sober enough for it. So she just went with it.
With her words, her wants, Liam nodded his head, getting up to his feet slowly, taking up his tablet and tucking it under one arm as he slipped bare feet into his sandals. “You know how to get ahold of me,” Liam responded, his posture easy despite everything that had happened, where some people might have taken her reaction personally. Liam knew it wasn’t that, not that at all. No matter what happened, this had to be approached with patience and a willingness to be as slow as needed. “So I’m going to leave it up to you to call me when you want to meet. Your rules. So there’s something, right?” He stepped closer to the door, mindful of his proximity to her, but at the door, he paused, turning and extending his free hand in her direction. “You’re stronger than you think, Sam. And I don’t need to know what happened to know that it’ll be better eventually.”
She stared at his hand for a full minute before stepping forward and shaking it, which was something, really. "When the fuck did you stop being a douche?" she asked leaning heavily against the door and giving him a look that was honestly wondering. She was too drunk to really think it through, though, so the musing ended there, and she just held onto his hand a few seconds longer before nodding. "Ok, yeah, I'll call. Don't forget about the royalties, and don't let them bully you into a hooker on the way out." She took a step back, and then she closed the door between them and leaned heavily back against it, trying to get her heartbeat to fucking calm. This shit seriously had to stop.