A/N: This is a sort of sequel to Your Mess Is Mine, but could be read as a stand-alone. Hope you enjoy it!
It's early morning, not that it matters in space. Miranda stares at the woman lying in bed next to her. They are lying close to each other, but they aren't touching. Jack is sprawled out on her belly, the fingers of her left hand almost reaching Miranda, but not quite.
Jack has never stayed the night. Nor has Miranda, but obviously neither of them expect her to sleep next to Jack on her small cot in engineering.
Jack's face looks so young when she's sleeping. She looks more like a girl than the hardened criminal she is so desperate to portray. Miranda is mesmerized by Jack's beauty. Of course she's noticed before that the younger woman is beautiful, but she would never have admitted it. Besides, it's not as if Jack would have accepted a compliment from her.
She lets her hand trace a surgical scar on the side of the other woman's neck and shudders. Her fingers are pale on Jack's darker skin. She remembers the operations her father forced her to undergo as a child. To enhance her biotics, to correct flaws in her design. Back then she accepted it, as means to an end. But now it seems so senseless to cut into healthy flesh. She wonders how old Jack was when they cut her open for the first time.
Jack starts to stir when Miranda fingers the scar again. She mumbles something in her sleep, but does not wake up.
'Ssh,' Miranda soothes. 'It's okay, you can sleep a little longer.'
It's affectionate and the words feel foreign on her tongue. She's not the type of person to be affectionate with anyone. Plus, she despises the convict lying next to her. She's undisciplined, unpredictable and dangerous. They have sex and she has apologized for Pragia, but that doesn't mean she has to like Jack. Right?
Except she does.
Miranda's always been comfortable with casual sex. A way to relieve tension without getting tangled up in emotions. But when Jack rolls towards her and presses her face in the junction of Miranda's chest and arm, she can't prevent herself from stroking the younger woman's head.
She wonders what Jack would look like with longer hair. Or with, well, any hair. The bald look suits her, but she's still curious. An image flashes through her head: her and Jack walking across a beach. Bondi Beach maybe. Wearing bikini's, their hair blowing in the wind.
She stiffens and tries to push the image away. She admonishes herself for seriously thinking about taking Jack on a holiday to Australia. As a castigation she imagines having to tell the Illusive Man that she's started a relationship with Subject Zero. She almost snorts, it's hard to imagine what he would say. It's so out of character for her to do something so reckless and unpredictable. Obviously the Illusive Man wouldn't understand the idiocies of love.
She gasps. Her heart starts to beat impossibly fast. Tachycardia, she self-diagnoses.
No, she tells herself sternly. This is not love. She pushes the word very far away. She considers pushing Jack away too, waking her up and telling her to go back to her hidey hole.
It would feel good to change her fear into anger and let it out. To tell Jack to get the hell out of her room. She can hear herself saying it. 'What the hell where you thinking, staying here for the night? You're a bloody idiot if you think I'd ever let you sleep in my bed, convict.' But all of it dissipates when she looks at Jack. Her naked body hidden under the sheets.
Desperately she reminds herself of all of Jack's flaws. Her recklessness, her rigid stubornness. Her hate for Cerberus. The name-calling. The way she yells stupid remarks at their enemies. Her disdain for authority, the fact that she crashed a space station into a hanar moon. Her potty mouth. Her childishness. Her victim mentality. But it's too late now. When did all of that become so bloody endearing?
Jack stirs again and she feels something wet on her naked chest. It's saliva, she establishes after a few seconds; the convict is drooling on her.
Miranda sighs.
She strokes the younger biotic's back. Her fingertips slide from the base of Jack's neck until the end of her spine. Jack's body is lean and hard. She squeezes Jack's left buttock.
'Ya like feeling girls up in their sleep?'
Miranda stiffens and pulls her hand up to rest on her own hip.
The other woman takes it and places it back on her ass. ''s okay, cheerleader...' she slurs. Her voice is still hoarse with sleep and muffled by Miranda's shoulder. ''m not 'ffended.'
She sinks her teeth in the skin around Miranda's clavicle.
Miranda's noticed that she seems to like that. Biting. Not so hard that it hurts or breaks skin, but she does leave marks. It's kind of feral and she supposes that suits Jack. It should be a turn-off, but those little love bites only get her wet.
She doesn't have time for more reflection because Jack pushes her down and kisses her. Their tongues battle for dominance. She squeezes Jack's buttocks again and manages to surprise the convict enough to roll her onto her back.
She spends some time sucking the convict's nipples into stiff, hard points. They're proudly standing up from her small, perky, tattooed breasts. It leaves the other woman shivering with need.
Then she starts kissing her way down Jack's body. She traces the lines of her tattoos with her tongue, avoiding the place where Jack needs her most.
After some minutes of torture, the convict groans in frustration. 'C'mon, cheerleader.'
Miranda looks up at her. 'Say my name. My real name.' She licks the outside of Jack's hairless labia and the other woman whimpers.
'Just say my name, Jack.'
'Fuck you.'
'I won't fuck you until you say my name.'
A stream of expletives flows out of the convict's mouth.
Jack's pussy is lying open for her. Hot, wet, pink and delicious and Miranda can't resist circling the younger woman's opening with her finger. She's so wet, the fluid is liable to drip down and seep into the sheets.
'Fucking cheerleader,' Jack angrily complains. 'Stop fucking around with me. I'll fucking do it myself, you stupid-' She tries to lower her hand to touch herself, but Miranda grabs it and interlaces their fingers. Jack moans when Miranda twists her right nipple with her other hand.
'-Say my name, Jack.'
But Jack won't give in. 'Fuck you cheerleader!'
Miranda smiles and moves down. She flattens her tongue and takes a long lick across the length of Jack's pussy. The convict moans when she encounters her clit. And then she stops and moves up again. She presses a kiss to Jack's cheek.
Jack is almost crying with pent-up frustration.
'Just say it, Jack.'
'Fine,' Jack sobs. 'Miranda! Fuck me, Miranda.'
And Miranda does. She sinks two fingers into Jack's pussy and the convict lets out a long moan. She curves her fingers and finds the rough patch where Jack likes to be touched so much. She establishes a quick rhythm, but Jack is desperate already.
'Fuck. I won't last... I'm going to...'
Miranda starts moving her fingers in and out even faster and then presses her thumb down to massage Jack's clit.
'It's okay. Come for me, sweet girl,' she whispers. She doesn't even have time to wonder how that slipped out, because Jack's muscles are contracting around her fingers and a gush of wetness runs down her hand and underarm and it just feels so good. Jack's panting and too dazed to move when Miranda slips her fingers out and sucks them clean.
She's so turned on by the younger woman's orgasm that she can't wait until Jack regains some control over her body to return the favor. Instead she lowers her own pussy on Jack's thigh and spreads her labia. She starts to slide across the other woman's upper leg, coating it with her wetness. Jack tenses her thigh muscle and Miranda rocks her hips harder and faster. It doesn't take long for her to come as well.
She moans and slumps down on top of Jack after her orgasm, hiding her face in the crook of the other biotic's neck. Her cheeks are red with excitement and embarrasment over her sudden unrestrained display of lust, and the wetness that has smeared all over Jack's thigh.
Jack doesn't seem to mind though. She rubs Miranda's back and kisses her hard. 'Shit Miri, that was so fucking hot.'
Miri. She repeats the word in her head and decides she likes it. It sounds like a term of endearment.
A few moments later she's sitting up against the headboard, a pillow stuffed behind her back. Jack is lying on her side next to her.
'Miri?' she asks, staring at her hands. 'Do you... Uhm, you wanna...?'
Miranda giggles at her nervousness. It's endearing.
Jack stomps her hand against her thigh. 'Shut up, cheerleader.'
Miranda giggles again. She feels giddy.
The other woman sits up as well and shakes her head. 'Jeez, what has gotten into you, cheerleader? I've never seen you smile this much.'
It stings a little. She knows she takes her job very serious. And she's not the most social person in the universe, preferring to work by herself without being bothered, but still... She makes a mental note to spend more time with the crew. The people working under her in Project Lazarus called her the ice queen behind her back, she doesn't want the Normandy's crew to do the same.
'What did you want to ask?' she asks Jack, a smile still plastered on her face because apparently she's turned into some lovesick Barbie.
'I was wondering if you... You know...'
'Use your words, Jack.'
'Asshole.' Jack takes a deep breath. 'Maybe we can have dinner on the Citadel when we get there. You know. Together. The two of us.'
A dozen cruel responses come up in her head to tease Jack, but she takes pity on the convict.
'I'd like that.'
'Great,' Jack murmurs, seemingly relieved. She smirks. 'Don't think I'm gonna pay for you though, cheerleader.'
'I wouldn't dream of it.' But secretly she does.