Chapter 17

F or the first time in almost a week, Jasmine was comfortable. She'd been cramp-free for a couple of days, was no longer bursting into tears with no reason, and was wearing her favorite pale pink leggings—which, apparently, was a huge deal, post-period.

Liam was just relieved she was no longer in pain. He could handle the crying when it was over cute videos on TikTok or the end of her favorite chocolate bar (even though she knew he'd stockpiled them for her.) Honestly, Liam found it fucking adorable. She claimed to be an ugly crier, but he'd never seen anyone more gorgeous. What he couldn't handle was her crying in pain. Every one of those cries had felt like a knife in his chest.

Now, she was lying on her stomach, her heels crossed in the air, and her eyes glued on the TV. Liam had his Kindle in his lap, but it had gone to sleep a while ago. His ability to read plummeted whenever Jasmine was around—how the hell was he supposed to look at his book when she was right there ?

"Are you watching me again?" she asked, without looking over her shoulder.

Liam busied himself with his Kindle, turning it on just in case she looked back. "No. I'm reading."

"Sure you are, baby," she replied, with a knowing glance at him. She winked and Liam slapped her ass, but pulled his hand back quickly, because he knew he would crumble if he didn't.

It had been more than a week since they'd touched beyond cuddles and chaste kisses. And as torturous as it had been, it was proof that they didn't need sex to spend time together; they were just happy to be in each other's presence. But now that Jasmine was better, they were both ready to end the torture.

She'd warned him she would be ridiculously horny on day five, and that she would try to tempt him, but he shouldn't give in because she would be too tired. And oh boy, had she tried. By lunchtime, Liam had shut himself away in his guest bedroom and made up an excuse for a virtual meeting just so he could breathe.

He knew the leggings were just another temptation, but she was full of energy today. There should've been nothing holding him back, but there was. A throwaway sentence that had stuck in his head on the way to dinner with her parents: Don't bother trying. I gave up when I was twenty .

Ten years ago. Which, by Liam's calculation, was roughly when she'd stopped being able to come. Between that and the knowledge that Jasmine had been running on false confidence for the past decade, Liam had a hunch about why she couldn't let go. He also had a good idea of what they needed to do to get her there, but he knew Jasmine well enough to know she wouldn't be happy about it: they had to talk.

She'd made it clear that she'd gotten closer with him than she had with anyone else, and Liam suspected that had more to do with how much she trusted him than what they were actually doing. Sure, he prided himself on knowing how to make people come, but Jasmine telling him she felt safe with him made him happier than any number of orgasms ever could. He just needed to break through the last of her defenses and help her open up.

He waited for the episode she was watching to finish before speaking. Jasmine had spent most of the episode scrolling through her phone, so it would've been easy to assume she wasn't paying attention to the show, but she had an uncanny (and impressive) ability to pay attention to ten things at once.

He set his Kindle aside and tapped his lap. "Come here."

Jasmine turned the TV off and obliged, though she snuggled in beside him, rather than on his lap. Which was just as well, really. He was only human, and it was already bordering on too warm in the penthouse. He tightened his arm around her and breathed her in; Liam had yet to figure out how she always seemed to smell like the most perfect slushy on the hottest summer day, but he wanted to devour her. Later. "I wanted to talk to you about something."

Jasmine's face barely changed, but Liam caught the uncertain glint in her eyes before she forced it out. "We could talk," she agreed, snuggling in so close she was practically on top of him, "or we could take full advantage of the fact I'm better."

So. Fucking. Tempting.

Liam gritted his teeth. "Both great options, but I'm going to go with talking."

"Ugh." Jasmine pouted, and Liam fought the urge to bite her lip.

"I tell you what: we talk first, and then we can do whatever you want."

That piqued her interest. She raised her brows. "Whatever I want?" Liam nodded, wondering if he'd just dug his own damn grave. "What I want," she continued, punctuating the words by dragging her finger down his chest, "is you inside me. In my mouth, in my pussy, in my?—"

"Then I guess we'd better get to talking then," Liam interrupted, because he couldn't be held responsible for his actions if she finished that sentence. He hadn't been inside her since India and Bart's wedding, and he wanted it just as badly as she did.

"Fine," she said with a smirk, well aware of how much she was tempting him. "What do you want to talk about?"

"Your family."

Her smirk slipped. "That's one way to make me less horny." She sighed, looking away, like she couldn't stand the thought of him seeing her looking vulnerable. " There's not much to talk about it. Like I said the other night, you saw them for yourself at dinner."

"Sure, but I don't actually give a shit about your family." That might have been a little harsh—Xander and Rose seemed fine, if stuck under their parents' thumbs too much. "All I care about is how they make you feel."

"They don't make me feel anything," Jasmine protested. "I like who I am and they don't. But I don't care what anyone thinks of me."

"That's a nice sentiment. It's also complete bullshit," Liam pointed out, trying to keep his voice gentle despite the blunt words.

Jasmine's jaw dropped, her eyes flashing with ire. "I don't… That's not… Fuck this. You have no idea what you're talking about. You barely know me, for fuck's sake."

She turned away from him, but Liam held onto her wrist. He was holding her so lightly that it would take no effort to pull away, but she didn't.

"No. We're not doing that. You don't want to talk about your feelings? Reasonable, talking shit out sucks, but you don't get to pull away just because you're scared. I know you, and I'm not going anywhere."

Jasmine's shoulders seemed to fold in on themselves as she sat back against him. "You're right. I'm sorry. I didn't mean that." Her voice shook. "I'm the fun friend. I'm not used to talking about anything serious, and no one has ever called me on it before."

"Not even Maggie?" Liam asked, surprised. Though Maggie was a recovering people pleaser, he didn't think those tendencies had applied to her relationship with Jasmine.

"Yeah, but that doesn't count. Maggie and I have been calling each other out on our shit since we were teenagers, but neither of us ever actually did anything about it, so we just kind of canceled each other out. It was easier to ignore before she grew up and started going to therapy."

He was taken aback by how bitter she sounded, but that was a conversation for another time. They couldn't tackle everything in one night. "Okay, well keeping shit bottled up for thirty years never did anyone any good, so let's talk."

"I don't know where to start," Jasmine said quietly, wringing her hands. "It all feels so fucking trivial. My parents have lofty expectations. So what? They made sure I had everything I needed, I graduated college debt free, I never had to worry about going without. They weren't abusive or neglectful. They weren't like Maggie's parents."

"Did you really have everything you needed? It doesn't sound like they were particularly nurturing or loving."

"No, but isn't that just what parents are like? Yours are the exception. My parents aren't bad people. I'm just not what they want. They love Xander and Rose. Xan is the perfect mini-me for my dad to turn into a businessman, and Rosie never so much as put a toe out of line growing up." The words streamed from her like water, like now she'd started, she couldn't stop them .

"Xan is the serious one, the innovator, the perfect son. Rose is the younger and prettier one who somehow got the brains, too. And I'm… me. And I'm not saying that to be self-deprecating. I really do like who I am. Mostly. I just don't have a thing , like Xan and Rose do. I don't want what they do out of life."

"What do you want out of life?" Liam asked.

"I just want to be happy." Tears rolled silently down her cheeks, damn near shattering him. "I want a family I can feel like myself in. My job is exactly what I've always wanted—challenging, but not stressful. My apartment is shitty, but I like it. I don't need anything fancy. I just want to be content. What do you want out of life?" She returned the question like she needed a break from thinking about herself.

Liam was still reeling from her answer—it sounded so fucking simple. Fuck anyone who had made her think it was unachievable. He would stop at nothing to make sure she was more than content.

He cleared his throat, threading his fingers through hers. What did he want out of life? Her . It probably wasn't the time to drop that in, though. "Honestly? I'm pretty content these days," he said, instead, squeezing her hand.

The tension in Jasmine's shoulder melted a fraction, and Liam felt like he could take a full breath for the first time since they'd started talking about this.

"What about long term?"

"I don't know," Liam said with a nonchalant shrug, like he hadn't been falling asleep to visions of a future with her since they'd first met. "I want to be a dad. Maybe have a house with a backyard for the kids to run around in. And I guess I look at my dad and Maggie, my moms, my grandparents, and I want that, you know?"

"Yeah," she agreed, laying her head on his shoulder. "Me too. But if anyone else asks, I'll lie about it."

He chuckled. "I'd expect nothing less." He wound his arms around her shoulders and tucked her in close to him.

"You have to tell me something at least a little shitty about your parents now to balance this out."

Liam didn't even have to think to know there was nothing to add. "As you've pointed out, my parents are great."

"Come on. They must have done something to piss you off when you were a teenager on the brink of rebellion."

"What kind of teenager do you think I was?" he asked, sounding more affronted than intended. "I never even got grounded, thank you very much."

"Of course not."

Liam hummed, trying to think of a time when he'd been mad at his parents. Something light enough to lift some of Jasmine's tension "Okay, when I was a kid, I was super obsessed with Snoopy. I'm talking bedding, posters, t-shirts, everything was Snoopy."

Jasmine relaxed at the change of subject, and Liam took the chance to wipe her cheeks in case more tears fell. "I was wondering about the Snoopy figurine on the bookshelf," she replied, nodding to the bookshelf in question. Most of his collection was in boxes in his moms' basement, but that figurine had followed him to college and beyond.

"I was so obsessed that I desperately wanted a dog. Not a beagle, like Snoopy, because I did my research and they're a shit ton of work, but I just wanted a dog. My parents said no. They worked all day, and I was at school, so there was no one to stay home with a dog. It makes sense as an adult, but I was pretty pissed about it for a long time."

It was nothing compared to what she'd told him about her parents, but Jasmine smiled at the story, and he couldn't ask for anything more.

"That's adorable. You should get one now. You can take it to the office with you, and it would be dad-practice."

Liam hadn't considered that he could finally get a dog, now that he didn't have to go to the museum every day. "I could. We should look into that. Thank you for talking to me, darling. I really think it's going to help, and I like getting inside that beautiful brain of yours."

"You're going to make me do this more, aren't you?" Jasmine grumbled, sighing when he nodded. "I miss when everything felt simpler. Do you ever wish you could just go to sleep and wake up twenty again?"

"Definitely not. I didn't know you when I was twenty," he said, simply, and Jasmine looked a little stunned. She recovered quickly, wiggling her eyebrows.

"And if you had? What then?"

"Well, you would have been thirteen, so… I guess I could have ba bysat you?"

"Shut up. If we'd both met at twenty. What then?"

"Then we'd probably be married with a bunch of babies, living happily ever after with no idea what broken hearts and decades of fake orgasms felt like."

"Sounds like a nice life," Jasmine said, a little wistfully. It sounded like the perfect life.

"We still have time," he promised, and Jasmine laughed like he was joking. Now he just had to make it happen.