Chapter 176: Night At Liam’s Place. PT.1! *
The drive back to Liam’s apartment was thick with a tension that felt almost tactile, a heavy, electric current humming between them in the confined space of the car. As the city lights blurred into streaks of neon gold and white against the glass, Vanessa leaned back into the leather seat, her mind drifting. The silence wasn’t empty; it was loaded.
As they turned the corner onto his street, a sudden, sharp memory flickered through her mind—a flashback to the first time she had come here to get Liam under her thumb.
Back then, the air had been different. It had been tainted by a secret, a hidden agenda. She remembered the cold, calculating voice of Mrs. Harriet, the woman who had essentially ordered her to get him to lose face.
Harriet had wanted Liam under a certain kind of influence, and Vanessa had been the chosen instrument. She recalled the way she had carefully curated her movements back then, the calculated tilts of her head and the rehearsed softness of her voice, all designed to lure him in.
But none of this could compare to her exposing her breasts to him in a bid to make him lose his composure.
Now, as she looked at Liam’s profile—the sharp line of his jaw, the steady grip of his hands on the wheel—she felt a wave of retrospective absurdity. Why the fuck had she even tried? Why had she played that game for someone else when the attraction she felt now was raw, authentic, and entirely her own? There had been no reason to perform, no need for a script. The desire she felt now wasn’t a task to be completed; it was a hunger that had been simmering for weeks, and the fact that it was finally boiling over made the memory of Mrs. Harriet’s orders feel pathetic and distant.
When the car finally came to a halt, Liam didn’t just unlock the doors; he stepped out and circled around to open the door for her. It was a gesture of old-school gallantry that felt pointed, a signal that the professional boundaries they had maintained for so long were officially dissolved.
As Vanessa stepped out onto the pavement, her eyes scanned the perimeter of his property. She paused, noticing something odd. The lawns—the grass surrounding her entrance—were significantly lower than she remembered. They had been trimmed with precision, a subtle change that suggested a level of care or intervention she hadn’t paid much attention to before.
She turned to Liam, a playful, knowing smirk tugging at the corners of her mouth. She didn’t say a word, but the look in her eyes was loud. Liam caught her gaze, his eyes darkening as he read her expression. He could see it clearly: she wasn’t just following him into his home; she was glad she was here. She was thrilled.
Vanessa couldn’t stop smiling. The victory of finally breaking through his unreadable exterior felt like a drug. For her part, she was radiating a quiet, feminine triumph.
Liam, however, remained the master of his own composure, though his mind was racing. As he watched her walk toward the door, the sway of her hips in that green dress sending a jolt of heat straight to his groin, one singular, primal thought occupied his head: The underwear.
He knew the game. He knew that a woman like Vanessa didn’t just wear a dress like that by accident. The lace, the silk, or perhaps the daring absence of anything at all—that was the variable. Her choice of lingerie would be the ultimate tell, the final confirmation of whether she had prepared for this night as meticulously as he had.
Despite the fire in his blood, Liam remained cool. He played the long game. The moment they stepped inside, he didn’t pounce. Instead, he moved with a calm, predatory grace, heading straight for the kitchen while Vanessa settled onto the couch, her heart hammering against her ribs. He didn’t ask; he simply acted, pouring her a glass of chilled water. He walked back and placed it on the table beside her with a soft clink.
Vanessa chuckled, the sound low and throaty. She looked up at him, her eyes dancing.
"Water? Really? I thought a man like you would have brought a bottle of vintage wine to celebrate a ’productive meeting’."
Liam shrugged, a small, teasing smile playing on his lips. He leaned over her, invading her personal space just enough to make her breath hitch. His voice dropped an octave, becoming a velvet rasp that vibrated in the air between them.
"The things I’m about to do to you... I need you sober," he said.
The words hit her like a typhoon. Butterflies didn’t just flutter in her stomach; they erupted into a storm. It was the directness of it—the sheer, unapologetic confidence.
For weeks, she had been the one testing the waters, throwing out lures and waiting for him to bite. This was the validation she had craved, a reward for her patience and her persistence. The fact that he had held back until this exact moment made the admission feel like a prize she had finally won.
Vanessa reached for the glass, her fingers trembling slightly. She took a slow sip, her eyes locked onto his over the rim of the glass. She was flirting back now, her movements deliberate and slow. As she drank, a few stray droplets of water escaped, slipping past her full, plush lips.
Liam’s gaze tracked the moisture with an intensity that felt like a touch. He stared at her lips—naturally large, pillowy, and glistening. They were the kind of lips that made people assume she’d had fillers, but he knew better; they were purely, genetically her own, and they looked invitingly soft. One droplet escaped the curve of her lower lip, tracing a slow, shimmering path down her chin and disappearing into the valley of her cleavage.
The water clung to her skin, a glistening bead resting against the pale swell of her large chest, highlighted by the plunging neckline of the green dress. The sight of that single drop of water against her skin was the final straw for Liam’s restraint.
He didn’t ask for permission. He moved.
Liam leaned in, his hand sliding behind her neck to tilt her head back, and crashed his lips against hers. It wasn’t a tentative kiss; it was a claim. It was the culmination of every lingering look and every unspoken word they had exchanged in the office. Vanessa let out a muffled gasp of surprise that quickly melted into a moan of surrender, her arms winding around his neck to pull him closer, her body arching instinctively toward his.
As their tongues clashed in a hungry, desperate rhythm, Liam’s hand migrated. He slid his palm down the smooth fabric of her dress, bypassing the waist and diving straight into the deep V of her neckline. His fingers found the warm, soft weight of her breast, his palm cupping her fully as he squeezed.
He groped her firmly, his thumb brushing over the peak of her nipple through the thin material, kneading the flesh with a possessive grip. Vanessa let out a loud, shuddering moan right into his mouth, her head tossing back as the sensation of his hand on her chest sent a surge of electricity straight to her core. She was completely undone, lost in the heat of him, as he continued to devour her lips and claim her body.