Chapter Text
The night of the commander’s funeral, Williams had been surprised Liara hadn’t asked to meld with her, and felt bad that she’d been relieved. She had expected Liara to want comfort, in all possible ways, and she had been prepared to give it, even if it did mean showing her own raw vulnerability. No matter how much Ashley could go to trust someone, there was something in her blood that made showing her jugular hard to do. She blamed it at least in part on being the eldest of all her sisters, and often having to take on the role of second mother. When her father had died, Ashley didn’t cry about it until three days after they’d buried him. Not because she hadn’t wanted to - hadn’t needed to - but because it had been the first chance she’d had to be really, truly alone.
But now Ashley couldn’t help but wonder: had a plan been hatched that soon? Was T’Soni already planning, just hours after supposedly putting Shepard to rest, of dragging her back from her pitying grave? And was that why she hadn’t joined with Ashley that night?
Williams felt paranoid looking back on such delicate memories now with such scrutiny, but found the thoughts unavoidable as her transport landed on Illium. Her orders from the Alliance had been uncharacteristically vague. She was given general parameters to follow up on some rumors of illegal, Cerberus-related activity on the asari colony, but she’d understood the subtext: her superiors wanted an update on the current goings-on of her previous commander, and Williams had a pretty good idea of where to start looking for it. She stopped at one of the public computer terminals just inside Nos Astra’s main extraterrestrial docking zone, and pulled up a directory of local businesses, sorted them by their English translation, and scrolled to the very last page.
“You’ve changed, T’Soni,” are the first words out of her mouth when she walked into the small office and leaned casually against the throughway. “There was a time when living someplace like this would’ve given you a heart attack.”
The bustling metropolis reminded Williams of the wards on the Citadel. She had marvelled at the glorious vertical architecture and she’d made her way through the trading floor towards T’Soni’s office. The planet was brutally hot, according to its codex entry, but bearable at high altitudes along the poles. She wondered about the slums in the sweltering heat closer to the planet’s surface, and pitied the squaller its residents no-doubt lived in.
“Ashley, it is good to see you.” said the asari as she closed her datafeeds and got up from her desk. She didn’t bother with the subterfuge of pretending she didn’t know the operations chief was coming, and Williams appreciated that. The least they could do was be honest to each other. They owed one another that much.
Williams pushed off the wall and took a few steps forward to meet in the center of the room. Liara embraced her, and for an instant as she pulled away Ashley thought she might even kiss her. But something stopped her and the doctor took a few meager steps back, putting some superficial space between them.
“It’s good to see you, too,” said Williams.
“I hope you mean that.”
“I do. You know I do.”
“Do I?” T’Soni’s brows knit together in mournful suspicion and she turned to look out at the skyline, stepping forward to rest her hands against the window sill. Ashley would be lying if she said she didn’t take the opportunity to appreciate the figure she kept, or how neatly it fit into her elegant business attire. The dress was modest and long and kept with the traditional fashion Williams often saw donned by asari diplomats on the Citadel or visiting dignitaries making rounds at the colonies before some upcoming election. The doctor carried herself with a confidence not unbecoming, and Ashley felt a fire stoked itself inside her.
“You look good.”
“Thank you. You as well.”
“You’ve been keeping busy?”
Liara turned in profile and eyed the marine. Her expression, though obscured, was unmistakably forlorn. “Please,” she said, tone brief, “I am aware you are here on business. I would prefer to skip any further pleasantries.”
“Ouch.” Williams bristled at such a cold reception. Talk about mixed signals.
She was expecting some sort of backtracking — an apology, perhaps, or an explanation. The way Liara used to in the old days serving on the SR-1 when she’d so often accidentally put her foot in her mouth. But T’Soni just turned back to the window. The sun had set as Ashley’s shuttle had landed, and now the city was well and truly in blue hour. Mournful and melancholy, despite the rushing traffic and bold neon signage. Williams half expected T’Soni to start narrating like some gruff, hardboiled P.I. from the derivative neo-noire trash her youngest sister liked to read.
But no monologue came. Nor the swell of some sombre saxophone solo. And Williams was reminded of an old quote she’d heard somewhere: ‘Sometimes suffering is just suffering. It doesn’t make you stronger; it doesn’t build character. It just hurts.’
“Alright,” Williams said, finally breaking first when the silence grew too much for her to bear. “Yeah, sure, right to business, then.” She cleared her throat and went on. “The Alliance has been keeping its ear to the ground for any word on Commander Shepard and the Collectors—”
“And your superiors want me to tell you what she came to me for when she and her team stopped on Illium.”
“That’s the long and short of it, yeah.”
“I wouldn’t be a very good information broker if I just gave up the secrets of my clients to the first person who asked.”
“Since when is the commander a client of yours?”
“Since she needed my help with some leads and I was able to provide her with them.”
“She paid you?”
“I don’t think the inner workings of my business practices are of any concern to your superiors, and I’ll thank you to tell them as much.”
Williams felt her jaw lock. sh*t , this had not been the interaction she’d been expecting on the transport over! Maybe it was her own fault for being so brief with T’Soni when she’d first pieced it all together about Shepard and Cerberus, but the noteworthy change in the doctor’s demeanor since they’d last been together was nearly surreal. And it caused a deep ache in the hollow of her chest.
“You really have changed.”
“Yes, as I believe you’ve already mentioned.”
“You’re not even going to look at me, are you?”
Slowly, the asari turned. Her expression was bitter, almost on the verge of tears, but otherwise unreadable. “What would you have me do, Chief Williams?” she asked. “Did you expect me to throw myself at your feet and beg you to take me back?”
“ ‘Take you back’ ?” Williams scoffed, “I wasn’t aware that we ever broke up. Or was that just one more thing you decided not to tell me?”
She saw the way her words cut and instantly regretted them. Liara flinched and veered away as if fighting off a physical assault. This had always been Ashley’s problem, though, hadn’t it? How often she would speak without thinking. Me and my big, stupid mouth.
“I’m sorry, Liara, I didn’t mean—”
“No, you’re right.” The doctor turned back towards her and crossed her arms over her chest. Her poker face had returned and Ashley could read nothing from the cold eyes that looked back at her. “I have kept things from you. Perhaps I shouldn’t have. Even if I had my reasons at the time.”
“You could have trusted me.” Ashley spoke quietly and took a tentative step closer. When T’Soni didn’t back away she stepped closer still. “Why didn’t you trust me?”
“Would you have tried to stop me?”
When Williams failed to give her an answer, Liara’s mournful look provided Ashley with hers.
“It was wrong what you did,” Williams told her.
“How can you say that?” T’Soni slammed her curled fist against the window sill. Her biotics flared and Williams startled as a crack appeared along the ledge. “How can you tell me that after seeing her alive again? After everything we saw our friends go through with her loss? After everything we lost?”
It was unsettling to see the doctor raise her voice in anger, let alone her fist. But what cut her most was Ashley’s deep understanding of that anger. She’d carried her own, and knew, personally, that it only came from one of two places: fear or heartache.
Brow knit, voice hollow, the chief replied, “People die, Liara.”
“Perhaps,” the doctor conceded, only after a long and anguished pause, before she again turned away. In a voice that lacked her previous conviction, she added, “But legends should not.”
“Doesn’t Shepard deserve better than us seeing her like that?” Williams closed the gap between them and reached out to place her hand on Liara’s shoulder. She felt the doctor stiffen under the touch. But she did not pull away. “We’re her friends . We have to see her as a person, not just some hero.”
T’Soni’s expression was blank as she slowly moved to look Ashley in the eye. She let out a breath as Williams bit her tongue to not break the silence first. “There’s nothing I can do about it now,” Liara said as she stepped back and returned to her desk. “What’s done is done. For better or for worse, the commander is alive again and she is working with Cerberus to stop the Collector threat.”
“How can you be so sure it's her?”
“I know.”
“But how?”
“I know. ”
“You know, or you hope ?”
Ruefully, she saw the corner of the doctor’s lips flicker with the briefest of smiles. “I’m beginning to wonder if there’s truly much difference.”
Williams sighed as she realized there was just no getting through to her.
“Did she ask you to go with her? To try and stop the Collectors?”
“Yes.”
“And you turned her down?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I have… responsibilities here. Debts to repay. I can’t leave. Not just yet.”
“But do you want to?” When the doctor again fell silent, Williams added, “I’m asking that as your friend, not an Alliance officer. Off the record.”
Again, the doctor smirked, and there was a dull cruelty in her tone as she answered, “I’m afraid your unfamiliarity with Illium does you a disservice, chief; nothing is off the record here.”
This is pointless, Williams told herself. If T’Soni wanted to be like this, then let her. The soldier just shook her head and turned to go.
“Ashley—!” Liara called out right as the operations chief had one foot out the door. She glanced back over her shoulder.
“I… how soon until the Alliance expects you back?”
Williams shrugs, “A few days, at least.”
The asari drummed her fingers against her desk in nervous contemplation. Williams recognized the look of indecision in her furrowed brow.
“T’Soni?” she prompted after a moment.
She chewed at her lip. “Where are you staying?”
Liara scribbled an address and time onto a page of her letterhead which she tore off and pressed into the marine’s hand.
“Meet me here this evening,” she instructed, before being distracted by an incoming call and promptly escorting Ashley to the door of her office, which shut on her only after giving the chief the briefest of glances at the caller, who appeared on the large holo-display in the center of the room. Some local businessman whose ads she’d seen when walking through the trading floor. Seeing the way Liara’s demeanor and posturing changed almost instantly, to something nearly predatory, had unsettled Ashley in a way she hadn’t been prepared for. This place is wicked, she told herself.
Williams had expected the address to lead to an apartment complex. Instead she found herself at the mouth of a small hotel bar and lounge with balcony seating that overlooked the city, where a sea of towering buildings clawed at the sky.
“You’re late,” she heard someone call out and turned to see T’Soni standing by the bar and waving her over. She seemed comfortably in conversation with the bartender, who, as Williams approached, refilled Liara’s glass and added a second for Ashley before walking away to attend to other customers.
“I thought we were going back to your place?”
“We will be. But I thought you might be hungry after your trip in.” She motioned to a small, corner room – remarkably unoccupied – with a private table that offered a stunning view overlooking a large pair of buildings under construction, through which the final swansong of the day’s sunlight clung to the sky. Williams had heard a report over the galactic news terminals that the owner of said towers had recently died under mysterious circ*mstances, along with a great number of her day laborers and hired security force. The news anchor recounted rumors of mysterious assassins and possible spectre involvement. While assassinations were apparently not uncommon enough to so much as warrant coverage by any reputable planetside news sources, the whispers of Council agents operating out here on the fringe of the Terminus systems was much more of note. Nos Astra, in this regard, reminded her a great deal of Noveria.
“You and that bartender seemed friendly.”
“Are you jealous, Williams?” T’Soni teased before she shook her head. “I wouldn’t worry. She is old enough to be my mother, for one thing.”
“She’s a matriarch?”
“Yes. One very… unlike any other I have ever met. I am surprised she always seems to remember me.”
“You come here often?”
“Not particularly. Though I do enjoy the view.”
Despite the statement, T’Soni’s eyes did not waver from Ashley’s, who found her cheeks heating up slightly as she caught her meaning and let out a nervous laugh before she turned to observe the bustling skyline. Been working on your game, doc, she thought, unused to being the one caught fumbling through their flirtation.
“You’re sending me a lot of mixed signals here, T’Soni,” she said, and took a tentative sip of the co*cktail she’d been poured. Not bad. The flavor reminded her of a whiskey sour, though the texture was thicker, and there was a uniquely alien aftertaste. She recognized it as a liquor Liara was fond of, something from Thessia, but could not just then recall its name.
“I know,” T’Soni answered, sounding mournful. “And I’m sorry about earlier. I wanted to tell you more, but it is difficult. This is Illium. There is rarely a time or place where we are free of the threat of being recorded.”
“And a crowded bar is one of those places?”
“Not at all. But I happen to know who the bug under this table was planted by, as well as the fact that she’s been cheating on her bondmate for the past seven months.”
Ashley whistled. “You know, it’s kind of hot when you talk like that.” And then it was Liara’s turn to blush.
“How are you enjoying Nos Astra?”
“It’s been interesting.”
“Oh?”
She nodded. “Crazy who you bump into out here.”
“Such as?”
“Did you know Shiala was in town? The asari who gave me the Cipher?”
“I believe I did hear about that. She was to meet with a representative of Baria Frontiers, if I’m not mistaken. Something about an unlawful clause in a contract signed by the Zhu's Hope colonists.”
“sh*t, you knew that just off the top of your head?”
She smiled. “I am a very good information broker.” A demur pause to sip her drink. “The world of intrigue is not so different from a dig site. Except that the bodies are much more fresh.”
“And you enjoy it?”
When met with a pause, Williams turned her head back to her company, and found Liara staring into her glass with a troubling crease in her brow.
“Everyone needs information, Williams. And there is information I need, as well. It should be about friendship, or trust, but that’s not the way it works on Illium.” After another pause, she added, “And it is good to stay busy.”
Skycars race by the window at blistering speeds and Williams was returned to a time on the Citadel when she and the doctor had been passing through the lower wards. She could not recall the details of which seedy bar or casino they’d been in, but what she did remember was hearing the young asari’s gentle musing, and the way her simple, idle compassion had struck at the heart of the jaded marine: “Everyone always seems so busy, here. So rushed… I wonder if they are happy?”
Ashley watched her now. “Are you happy here, Liara?”
No reply followed.
“Liara?”
“Did you have a chance to see the markets? They are always rather lively in the evenings.”
For a moment, Williams considered invoking a quid pro quo, but ultimately decided against it, figuring there was no use ruining what little headway she had made. “Funny you mention it. I saw a krogan reciting love poetry to some asari outside the transport hub. Poor bastard was lovesick as a newborn kitten.”
“Ah, that would be Charr and Ereba, the merchant who runs the ‘Memories of Illium’ kiosk.”
Of course she knew that, too. “His poems weren’t half bad, actually, though he could use some work on his meter.”
“Perhaps you could give him some suggestions.” When Williams laughed at the idea, she added, “I seem to recall you being a fairly good teacher. I owe my marksmanship to your tutelage.”
“Have you kept up with that?”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
“It has come in handy more times than I care to admit.”
Williams was less thrilled by that part, and wondered what this place had done to the doctor, or if this side of her had always been there, only hidden beneath youthful timidity and practiced poise.
“Listen, T’Soni,” she sat forward and rested her elbows on the table, “About Commander Shepard—” but was cut off as a waitress approached with a meal Williams hadn’t even known had been ordered.
“—Ladies!” said a slim asari with lilac skin and bright orange markings painted along her cheeks and forehead. She placed a plate in front of them each, “Thank you for dining with us this evening. We hope you enjoy! And, Miss T’Soni,” she stopped to set a hand on Liara’s shoulder, “the hostess has sent over a bottle of our house wine.”
“She is too kind. Thank her for me, won’t you?”
“Of course.” The maiden poured them each a glass and left the bottle at the table.
Williams fixed her with a look once they were alone again. “I thought you said you didn’t come here much?”
“I don’t, but I helped the hostess get her cousin out of a delicate financial situation last quarter. And while I may have chosen this venue for my various connections, I had not expected her to comp us the bottle. But I do appreciate the sentiment.”
“Is it any good?” Ashley asked as she picked up her glass and breathed in the aroma.
“Yes, I think you’d like it. It’s an asari honey mead.”
Sipping it, Williams likened the flavor to a sweet and dry red wine, with a strange, slightly sparkling texture. “Tastes like a Lambrusco.”
“I did not realize you were a connoisseur, Williams.”
“Glad to hear I can still surprise you,” she said before she took another sip and set the glass down. “Sarah’s more into it than I am. But Mom, Abby, and Lynn can’t stand wine, so I used to go on tastings with her and Dad.”
“How is your family?”
“Alright,” she shrugged. “Tried convincing them to come to Earth for a while when the Collectors started hitting colonies, but you know how well that went.”
“I recall. I have been listening for any reports about Sirona.”
“Thanks.”
“Of course.”
As the conversation stalled Williams turned to examine for the first time the plate of food in front of her. Ordered for me and everything, she thought to herself, reminded of some of the guys she had dated in her younger years, their heads all full of 22nd Century chivalric code. Opening doors, paying for drinks. As for the food itself, it looked pretty standard: some kind of meat, grilled and served with a light sauce and some vegetables on the side. She didn’t know if it was a traditional asari meal or something native to Illium. The smell reminded her of veal and mushroom sauce. She hadn’t realized just how hungry she was after a day spent traveling and an evening wandering the tourist attractions.
They made conversation as they ate. Williams talked about a recent poetry collection she’d read, a boy Lynn had started dating, and what a damned pain it was setting up those godforsaken laser towers back on Horizon. Liara pointed to buildings of note along the Nos Astra skyline, and shared a few salacious secrets or charming anecdotes about some of their owners and residents.
The wine bottle emptied and another appeared in its place. By the time the replacement was halfway gone the chief had started to feel a pleasant tingle around her ears and behind her eyes, along with that subtle, signature numbness in her fingertips and toes that always came after a drink or two or three. She was pleasantly tipsy as she listened, though failed to understand, as Liara recounted a recent article she’d read in an anthropology journal she was subscribed to, explaining her frustration with some new, horribly under researched theory and the waves it was making in certain academic circles. Williams laughed when T’Soni, in her, also somewhat inebriated, and highly emotionally-reactive state, knocked into her wine glass with a dramatic hand gesture and nearly sent it tumbling off the table’s edge if not for the marine’s quick reflexes and the aid of a (somewhat sloppy) pull from the doctor’s biotics.
“I’m glad you still have time to keep up on all that,” Williams told her as she righted the glass, “I know how much you loved it.”
“I co-authored a paper just last month, actually,” she said with a broad grin, “Some recent findings from the samples we’d taken on Ilos.”
“Jesus, T’Soni, do you ever sleep?”
“Nearly seven hours a night.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“You’re welcome to check for yourself, tonight.”
“Are you inviting me into your bedroom?”
Liara’s cheeks, already flushed, burned a deep violet as she looked away. “Speaking of sleeping,” she said, noticing how Ashley yawned into her fist, “Perhaps we should turn in. You must be rather tired. My apartment is not far from here.”
The brisk night air on the walk back to the cab stand sobered them slightly. Enough for Williams to notice they were walking hand in hand. She knew neither which of them had initiated the gentle act, nor how long they’d been walking with their fingers entwined, only that the other woman’s hand felt warm and familiar and natural in hers.
Liara kissed her in the taxi on the ride back to her flat.
Her apartment was a gorgeous and spacious studio loft, with high, open ceilings and natural light flooding in through the two stories of windows that took up nearly the entire leftside wall. Williams busied herself looking around as Liara set about organizing some files she’d brought with her from her office. To the right of the door was a modest kitchenette, across from which were a couple of glass display cases and a large painting. Williams recognized the scene as of Ilos, though wondered who had been the painter. Possibly a member of the research party they’d been on together? Or had T’Soni had it commissioned?
To the left, a gorgeously furnished seating area, tastefully decorated by a few lamps and a series of comfortable looking couches. Behind a large, winding staircase leading up to the second story, Ashley could see Liara standing in a small study arranging papers on a desk overpopulated with stacks of files, datapads, and books. The wall in front of her was lined with a series of monitors, all with live datafeeds cycling. They cast strange patterns onto the wall behind them, where a row of encyclopedias sat at eye level on a wall shelf. In the far corner, tucked away so as to be hardly noticeable, hung a framed degree. Upon examination, Ashley discovered it was from the University of Serrice, naming Liara a doctor of anthropology of the Prothean Era. “With singular purpose,” the text below her name read, “to continue the pursuit of truth and knowledge to further the asari people.”
She felt a hand on her arm, and turned as T’Soni pressed a soft kiss against the shoulder pad of her body armor. The doctor laced her fingers through hers again and coaxed her tenderly out from the dark corner. “Come,” she said, “I’m sure we’ve each had enough of my work for the day.”
Following up the stairs, Ashley was led into the bedroom area overlooking the first floor, where along the perimeter there was another matching set of couches and ottomans — many of which were also covered in all manner of paperwork, files, folders, books, and looseleaf. The light from a gorgeous wall-mounted fish tank behind the olympic queen bed made its bedspread appear to shimmer and glow like a scene plucked straight from a dream.
“I’m sorry for the mess. I always mean to tidy up, but then I never do.”
So as not to be presumptuous, Williams took to the closest couch, stacking a few books and papers in her way and moving them gingerly to the ottoman nearest her. She set her bag on the floor at her feet and sat down. T’Soni moved to sit beside her. The large nature of the davenport notwithstanding, she sat so close the sides of their legs pressed together.
“Classy place,” she said. “Gorgeous, too.”
“Thank you, Chief Williams.” She placed her hand on Ashley’s knee.
“It suits you.”
In her stomach resided a nervousness Williams hadn’t felt since she was a teenager, messing around in the backseat of some old lemon and hoping her parents wouldn’t somehow find out. She wished for the return of the simple, silly confidence that had visited her as they had sat drinking in the hotel lounge. But with each of them now fairly returned to their own sobriety — Ashley from her standard issue Alliance Infantry genetic enhancements, and Liara thanks to the fast metabolism afforded to all biotics — there was an inescapable weight in the room that accompanied the heat, and she begun to worry herself with fears of somehow screwing up the otherwise wonderful evening they’d shared.
“Would you like to take your armor off? I imagine it gets uncomfortable after you have to keep it on all day,” Liara said, and reached for the zipper of her dress as she rose and approached the barren farside of the room. She pressed her hand against the wall, and a heretofore unseen panel lit before there was a soft click. The concealed bureau popped open and a drawer slid forward, revealing a laundry shoot and a few shelves, one of which housed several sets of clean nighties.
“We don’t have to do anything, you know,” Williams said as she watched the doctor step out of her dress and felt herself growing warm at the sight. “I just appreciate you letting me crash here.” Sure is a hell of a lot nicer than wherever the Brass would’ve stuck me.
“I know,” said the doctor, who scooped up her dress from the floor and deposited it into the laundry. “But … I would like to. That is, if you do.”
“I’m definitely not opposed.”
“Good.” T’Soni approached her, leaned down, and cupped her face sweetly before kissing her breathless. Ashley felt hands go to the tie that kept her regulation military bun in place and reached up to help her remove it. Fingers knotted in her hair, followed by a soft tug that pulled her head back and produced from her a soft grunt as Liara stood over her and brought their lips together again. When she pulled away next, Ashley’s head was spinning and she felt a soft tap against her breastplate. “Now remind me how to get this off.”
“I’ve got a name, you know.”
Liara swatted her playfully and rolled her eyes.
At her host’s insistence, Ashley stood and began devesting herself of her armor. The doctor was impatient, however, and, as the operations chief worked on the various clips and buckles, laid soft endearments up her jawline before nibbling on her ear and several ticklish spots along her neck. Williams struggled to remove her tactical gear without accidentally elbowing her.
“Not helping, T’Soni.”
“ Manage it , Williams,” came the needling reply in a pur against the shell of her ear that lit a fire under the marine. Once the shoulder and chest pieces were unbuckled, she ducked her chin and Liara pulled the body vest up over her head and set it down on the sofa behind them. Liara dropped to her knees as Ashley worked on undoing the adjustable clasps about her upper-arm and elbow guards.
“Coming back to you now?” Williams asked with a teasing lilt as she was separated from her thigh and groin protector, shin guards, and boots all in record time.
“It’s beginning to.”
When T’Soni next took to her feet it was to pull the marine into another searing kiss, and Ashley felt herself being yanked forward towards the bed as soft hands found their way under her padded compression shirt. It was pulled over her head and Williams let out an undignified yelp as she was suddenly jerked off her feet and thrown down on top of the mattress. She felt the tingle of biotics all around her as their crackling, blue glow dissipated from the air and looked up in time to see T’Soni snickering as she stood over the bed.
“No fair.”
“I don’t recall you ever complaining before.”
“Shut up and get over here.”
Before joining her on the bed, T’Soni made quick work of Ashley’s padded girdle and compression pants. Williams gasped when the doctor, one knee against the bed and hands braced on either side of the marine’s torso, pressed her mouth against Ashley’s sex and sucked gently through the thin material of her shorts as a hot tongue dragging against her for a teasing moment. An intolerable heat burst through her and she could feel her heart hammering in her throat as her breath hitched and her hips bucked on reflex. She felt rather than heard the slight chuckle that followed, and grabbed Liara by the arms as she pulled her up to meet her and rolled over on the bed with her in her arms. The kiss that followed was savage and sloppy as she crushed their bodies together and heard her lover moan into her mouth.
f*ck, I missed this! she thought.
But still something dogged her.
She kissed her, chaste, about the face and neck several times while asking, “T’Soni – you’re not – seducing me – just to avoid – talking about things, right?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Ashley… ” the playfulness was gone from her voice for a moment.
“I know.”
“I can’t. Not yet. Not now.”
“Okay.”
“After.”
“Okay.”
“Touch me,” she was instructed.
And she complied.
