Chapter 9: Jasmine Confessions
The reception hummed with a tipsy, golden energy under strings of warm lights. Zara’s laughter had grown freer with each glass of champagne, her curls escaping their pins. While a pulsing remix filled the dance floor, she swayed back to their table, her eyes gleaming.
She bypassed her chair entirely, settling with a sudden, decisive weight onto Liam’s lap. She wrapped an arm around his neck and kissed him, full and slow, the taste of honey and champagne on her tongue. He steadied her, his hands instinctively settling at her hips beneath the emerald silk as she pulled back with a smile that was all promise.
“I need some Liam time,” she breathed, her voice low but not quiet, her gaze locked on his, “if you know what I mean.” The phrase landed like a stone in a pond, rippling out to the two couples still seated at the table with them.
Liam’s face, already warm from the night, flushed a deeper red. He gently squeezed her waist, his voice low. “Careful.”
She caught herself, biting her lip before a laugh escaped. He subtly guided her off his lap and onto the chair beside him, lacing his fingers tightly with hers under the table. An older cousin named Sheila, her eyes twinkling over her wine glass, leaned in. “So,” she began, her voice carrying easily, “how did you two meet then?”
Zara took a quick sip of champagne, her fingers tightening around Liam’s under the tablecloth.
“Well,” she started, her gaze soft and distant for a moment, “we actually met online, playing games together years ago.” She glanced at Liam, her smile broadening. “We’ve known each other forever, really.”
Liam watched her, his thumb stroking the back of her hand as she spoke, grounding her.
“So it was a real-life quest for love, was it?” the cousin’s husband, Dave, chuckled, leaning back in his chair.
“Sort of,” Zara laughed, the sound light and genuine. “I flew to New Zealand to meet him for the first time.” She squeezed Liam’s hand. “I’d had this huge crush on him forever, so… I guess I pursued him.”
She paused, her expression turning more vulnerable. “When we finally got together, I insisted we were just friends for a while.” Her voice dropped a little. “I was so scared he’d say no if I asked for more.”
Liam remained quiet, letting her have the moment, his focus entirely on her face.
“He didn’t want to stay friends, though,” she finished, looking directly at him now, her eyes bright. “He asked me to be his girlfriend.” A joyful shrug lifted her shoulders. “We only just started dating before we flew here, honestly. It’s been… so great.”
The table burst into approving murmurs and knowing smiles. Liam felt a hot, complex rush at her words—pride, vulnerability, a sharp longing to get her alone. He brought her hand to his lips, pressing a quiet kiss to her knuckles.
“Yeah,” he said, his voice rough but clear. “It has been.”
The cousin, Sheila, sighed happily. “That’s just lovely,” she said, dabbing at her eye. The music shifted to a slower song, its melody weaving through the night air.
The music shifted to a slower song, its melody weaving through the night air. Dave, the cousin’s husband, swirled his beer with a thoughtful frown. “All this modern dating,” he mused, his voice taking on a paternal tone. “You two seem sensible, though.” He leaned forward, his expression turning conspiratorial. “Whatever you do, make sure you get married first before you know…” His hand waved vaguely, but the implication was clear as he glanced towards Chloe’s parents across the garden.
Zara and Liam’s eyes met in a silent, dizzying collision of shared understanding. “Yeah, of course,” Zara said instantly, her voice a little too bright. She looked back at Dave with wide, earnest eyes. “We haven’t done that with one another yet.” A tiny, breathless hiccup of a laugh escaped her lips before she managed to shape her mouth into a solemn line.
“We’re waiting until marriage,” she declared, squeezing Liam’s hand under the table in a desperate, secret signal. He felt the tremor in her grip, a stark contrast to her firm tone.
Liam slowly turned his gaze from Dave to Zara, his brown eyes holding hers with an unreadable intensity. “Are we now?” he asked, his voice a low, quiet rumble that was for her alone, though the whole table heard it. The question hung in the fragrant air, a delicate trap.
Zara’s cheeks flushed a deep, beautiful pink. “Well, I am,” she insisted, playing along but suddenly feeling the ground shift beneath their shared joke. She tilted her chin up in mock defiance. “Aren’t you?”
“I’m just waiting for you to catch up,” he replied, a faint, challenging smile finally touching his lips. He lifted their joined hands onto the table, his thumb stroking her wrist, a gentle but undeniable contradiction to their chaste fiction.
The table erupted in laughter and good-natured teasing, but the sound felt distant, muffled. He leaned close, his lips brushing the shell of her ear as the conversation swirled around them. “Come with me,” he murmured, his breath warm against her skin. “Right now.”
He didn’t wait for an answer, standing smoothly and pulling her with him.
He didn’t wait for an answer, standing smoothly and pulling her with him. His grip on her wrist was electric, a current pulling her away from the glittering tables and into the cooling, dark embrace of the garden’s deeper shadows.
The music and laughter receded as they stumbled past hedges, her heels sinking into damp earth. “Where are we going?” she gasped, a thrill coursing through her as he pressed her against the jasmine-covered trellis, its sweet scent engulfing them.
“You said you needed Liam time,” he murmured, his hands framing her face, thumbs tracing her jaw.
She laughed, breathless, tilting her head back. “Did you see their faces? ‘We’re waiting for marriage’.”
A low chuckle vibrated through his chest as he leaned his forehead against hers. “Yeah, I saw.” He kissed her, a quick, hard press of his lips. “That makes the sofa bed in my old factory apartment a real cathedral, then.”
Zara burst out laughing against his mouth, the sound swallowed by the night. “The pokey little gamer chair was our altar,” she whispered, her fingers finding the buttons of his dress shirt.
“Exactly,” he breathed, kissing her neck, his own laugh mingling with hers as her hands worked his shirt open. The crisp cotton gave way to warm skin. “We’re such heathens.”
Zara’s fingers stilled on the third button. “It’s pretty real for them, you know,” she said, her voice softer. She looked towards the distant reception lights. “Chloe’s family is very traditional. Like, very.” She met his eyes, her expression earnest now. “Chloe is a virgin. She will be getting laid for the first time tonight with her husband.”
Liam processed this, his hands resting loosely on her hips. “Huh.”
“I just… could never,” she continued, her laugh a warm puff of air against his throat. “Waiting until marriage to have sex with someone?” She shook her head, her curls brushing his chin. “What if you’re terrible for each other?” Her gaze turned curious, a flicker of mischief returning. “How was your first time having sex?”
He let out a short, surprised laugh. “A disappointing disaster in the back of a Ford Laser.” He studied her face in the dappled dark. “Yours?”
“Fast, on a uni mate’s scratchy dorm room carpet.” Her nose wrinkled at the memory. “We were both just… impatient. Not good.”
Zara’s laughter was a soft, delighted sound in the quiet dark. “That makes me jealous,” she breathed, her lips brushing the corner of his mouth. “Just the thought of you with some other girl in the back of a car, doing all that.” Her curiosity glinted in the faint light filtering through the jasmine. “How old was she?”
His fingers traced a slow line down her spine. “We were both nineteen,” he said, his voice a low rumble of memory. “She was a neighbor. We were young, and stupid, and just curious.”
“So it was her idea?” Zara asked, pulling back slightly to see his face. She hooked a finger in the waistband of his trousers.
“I wouldn’t say that,” Liam admitted, a faint, wry smile on his lips as he remembered the clumsy desperation. “It was a mutual idea for a bad idea.”
Zara let out a quiet huff of laughter. “And where is she now?” she murmured, settling her arms fully around his neck again.
Liam’s gaze drifted beyond her shoulder into the tangled dark of the garden. “She married an accountant, I think. Two kids somewhere in the Waikato.” His focus returned to Zara’s face, his hands tightening at the small of her back, pulling her flush against him. “She’s a speck in the rearview,” he murmured, his voice dropping to something private and rough. “Ask me a better question.”
Zara’s breath caught. “Do you ever think about it?” she whispered, her voice barely audible over the distant thump of bass.
“About Karen with the Ford Laser?” He brushed his lips against her temple. “No.”
“Not her,” Zara said, her fingertips tracing the line of his jaw. “That night, on my doorstep in the rain, when you told me to stay.” Her brown eyes searched his in the dimness. “When you pulled me inside, finally.” She hesitated. “Did you have a plan?”
“A plan?” He huffed a soft laugh, his breath warm on her skin. “I had a lot of plans.” He slid one hand up her spine, beneath the fall of her hair. “Thirty different ways to ask you to leave, actually.” His thumb stroked the nape of her neck. “Forty ways to be polite and distant when you came to the factory.”
“And?” she pressed, her heart hammering against his chest.
“And then you kissed me in front of Mark and Dave and the whole fucking plant.” His other hand came up to cradle her face, his touch impossibly gentle. “And every plan dissolved.” He searched her eyes, his own stark with honesty. “It was just… you. It was only ever going to be you.”
Zara melted into the kiss, her lips parting beneath his with a soft sigh that tasted like champagne and relief.
Zara melted into the kiss, her lips parting beneath his with a soft sigh that tasted like champagne and relief. His mouth was warm and insistent, erasing the ghost of past neighbors and old regrets, anchoring them both firmly in the damp, sweet-smelling now. A sudden burst of raucous laughter sliced through the garden from the reception, far too close.
They froze, lips still a breath apart.
“Zara? Liam?” A male voice, light and teasing—it was Chloe’s brother, James—carried through the foliage. “You guys out here?” A torch beam swept erratically across the path a few meters away, illuminating dripping leaves.
Liam’s body went rigid against hers. Without a word, he gripped her hand and pulled her deeper into the garden’s black heart, away from the searching light. Her heel caught on a tree root and she stumbled, a gasp tearing from her throat.
He caught her, his arm snapping around her waist to keep her upright. They plunged through a final curtain of weeping willow branches, the world outside disappearing.
The torchlight and voices faded completely. They stood in a small, silent clearing dominated by an old stone birdbath, the only sound their ragged breathing. Moonlight painted everything in silver and deep blue. Liam turned to face her, his chest rising and falling rapidly, his dress shirt hanging open.
“Sorry,” he breathed, his voice thick. “That was close.”
Zara stared at him, her own breath coming in short pants. The fear of being found, the thrill of the escape, the raw admission he’d just given her—it all coalesced into a sharp, white-hot point in her chest. She didn’t answer with words.
Instead, she closed the distance and kissed him again, hard and desperate, her fingers threading into his hair to pull him down to her. Her other hand slid boldly inside his open shirt, palm flat against the rapid beat of his heart. He made a low, hungry sound in the back of his throat, his hands gripping her hips and walking her backwards until her shoulder blades met the cool, rough trunk of a massive fig tree.
The bark scraped through the thin silk of her dress. He broke the kiss, his lips trailing down her jaw to her neck, his teeth grazing the sensitive skin just below her ear. “Tell me you still want Liam time,” he growled against her throat, his voice all gravel and heat.
“Yes,” she gasped, her head falling back against the tree. She arched into him, the evidence of his own desire a firm pressure against her stomach. “Don’t stop.”
His hand slid from her hip, slowly gathering the soft green fabric of her dress. The night air whispered against her bare thigh as he pushed the silk upwards. His fingertips traced a burning path along her skin, higher, until they brushed the edge of her lace underwear. He paused there, his breathing harsh in the quiet clearing.
“Here?” he asked, the single word a dark, rough promise laced with a final thread of caution.
Her answer was her hips tilting forward, a sharp, silent press into his waiting hand. "Don't you dare stop," she breathed, her voice ragged against his ear, and the last thread of caution snapped.
He hooked a finger into the delicate lace and pulled, the sound of the fabric tearing sharp and final in the quiet clearing. The cool night air brushed her skin, a shocking contrast to the heat of his palm as he cupped her, his touch deliberate and searching. "Quiet," he murmured, a command and a plea as his mouth found hers again, swallowing her gasp.
He shifted, his free hand working his own trousers open, the rasp of his zipper loud against the backdrop of distant music and crickets.
He entered her in one smooth, urgent motion, pinning her against the ancient tree. The bark bit into her shoulders through the silk, a sharp, grounding pain. He stilled for a heartbeat, buried deep, his forehead pressed to hers, their shared breath mingling in the humid air.
“Look at me,” he whispered, his voice strained.
Her eyes flew open, finding his in the fractured moonlight. What she saw there—a raw, unguarded hunger—stole the air from her lungs. He began to move then, a slow, deep rhythm that felt less like passion and more like a claim. Each thrust was a silent, physical answer to every unspoken question that had hung between them since the rainy night on her doorstep.
She matched his rhythm, her fingers digging into the hard muscles of his back, anchoring herself. The world narrowed to the sound of their breathing, the rustle of leaves above, the slick, wet friction between them. He caught her lower lip between his teeth, a gentle bite that made her whole body shudder. “You’re mine,” he breathed into her mouth, the words not a question but a dark, satisfied realization.
A climax built low in her belly, swift and shocking in its intensity. It crested and broke, a silent, violent wave that clenched around him, her cry muffled against the solid plane of his chest. He followed a moment later, his own release a stifled groan against her neck, his body shuddering against hers as he drove home one final, desperate time.
They slumped together, tangled and spent, the only sound their ragged breathing slowly returning to normal. The distant music had faded, leaving only the indifferent hum of the night. He softened inside her but didn’t pull away, his weight a comforting heaviness. After a long minute, he rested his forehead against the rough bark beside her head, his breathing still uneven.
“I don’t have any bloody tissues,” he finally muttered, the ordinary absurdity of it slicing through the charged air. A short, breathless laugh escaped her, shaking them both. He carefully eased back, his hands immediately going to the ruin of her underwear. “This is done for,” he said, holding up the torn lace before stuffing it into his trouser pocket.
He used his own folded handkerchief, pulled from his back pocket, to gently clean her thighs, his touch now tender, almost reverent. He then straightened his own clothes with quick, efficient movements. The moonlight caught the sweat on his temple as he reached for her hand, his fingers lacing with hers, solid and sure. “We need to get back,” he said quietly, his thumb stroking her knuckle, his voice already shifting from lover back to guardian.
From the dark path beyond the willow branches, they heard Chloe's bright, tipsy laugh searching for them, calling their names.
The sound of her name cut through the post-coital haze like a splash of cold water. Liam’s head jerked up, his hands still fumbling with his belt. Zara’s eyes went wide with a sudden, sharp panic as she hastily smoothed down her crumpled dress. “Shit,” she whispered, the word swallowed by the rustling leaves as she frantically ran her fingers through her tangled hair.
“We’re over here!” Liam called back, his voice convincingly even as he tucked in his shirt. He shot Zara a look that was both a warning and a question, his brow raised. She gave a jerky nod, taking a deep, steadying breath that smelled of jasmine and sex.
Chloe’s silhouette appeared, backlit by the distant fairy lights, her auburn curls haloed. “There you are!” she slurred happily, weaving slightly on the path. “You’re missing the cake!” Her gaze swept over them, lingering on Zara’s flushed face and Liam’s open collar. “Get lost, did you?”
“Just needed some air,” Zara said, stepping forward and linking her arm through Liam’s with a forced brightness. “It was getting a bit warm.” She could feel the torn lace tucked in his pocket pressed against her thigh, a secret, thrilling weight.
“Well, come on then,” Chloe laughed, oblivious, turning to lead them back. “Mum’s doing a speech.” Liam’s hand found the small of Zara’s back, his touch a brand through the silk as they followed. The cool night air felt different on her skin now, charged and intimate.
She leaned into him as they walked, her mouth close to his ear. “My underwear is in your pocket,” she murmured, a low, private thrill in her voice. He didn’t look at her, but the faint, suppressed smirk that touched his lips was everything.
The reception hall glowed with spent energy, champagne flutes abandoned on tables littered with petals. Chloe was weeping happily on her new husband’s shoulder near the empty dance floor while her mother began a slow, precise cleanup of the head table. Liam held Zara’s chair as she sat, his hand lingering for a second on the bare skin of her shoulder.
“You okay?” he asked, his voice a low murmur meant only for her as he took his own seat.
“I’m perfect,” she whispered back, shifting slightly on the chair, a secret ache blooming where the torn lace had been. The physical memory was a live wire inside her, buzzing beneath her skin every time his knee brushed hers under the table.
Dave, the cousin, wandered over with a fresh beer, his gaze sliding between them with renewed interest. “Get some fresh air, you two?” he asked, a knowing glint in his eye.
“Loads,” Zara replied smoothly, reaching for a half-empty water glass. “The jasmine out there is incredible.”
“Could smell it from here,” Dave chuckled before ambling off. Liam’s hand found hers again beneath the tablecloth, his grip tightening momentarily. The simple contact felt different now, charged with a fresh, exhausting intimacy.
Across the room, Chloe’s father caught Liam’s eye, his expression unreadable behind his glasses before he turned back to gathering gift bags. The guestbook sat open on a nearby easel, a flurry of well-wishes ending in their own joint signature, “Zara & Liam,” the ink still dark.