Nice and quick, part 4. Posted early in celebration of how hot Meryl looked at the Golden Globes this weekend.
As I have explained this is a second draft of my first rather hastily written fanfic. There is only so much a new set of clothes can do to a body, so I can't see this continuing for more than a chapter or two. I am aware it is lacking somewhat.
All mistakes are mine and I own absolutely nothing.
Honest reviews are most welcome.
If her hands are not sufficient enough to keep me pinned against her door, her unwavering stabby glare that pierces me in all my delicate areas is. I try so hard to give as good as I'm getting, because I don't want her to be under any misguided impression that I don't want this.
The heavy prominence of this moment rests like a brick in my chest. Although she has just pushed me backwards with all the force of a freight train, Miranda is now resolutely still, as though waiting for me to make a move. Her breath fills her whole body, her shoulders heave mannishly despite their infinite fragility.
Miranda is on the cusp of an emotion I cannot depict, though I know if I break eye contact she will drop me straight to the floor and shimmy away to the kitchen with her fluffy white slippers, muttering a soft dismissal as she went, and all of this will be forgotten.
Miranda is good at forgetting the things that matter.
So I frown and she raises her brow and I lick my lip and she purses hers, but she keeps on staring me right in the eye.
I have witnessed that look on her face a million times before, it's there behind the defeat, a challenge for me to provide her with explanation as to why this is happening, along with an efficient summary of what should be done to fix it.
Though I would never consider it a cry for help, her silent request wells up behind her eyes to make them turn glassy, and I panic that she might be about to cry, and then I will definitely be fired.
She wants me to speak, but I have no idea why this is happening, why she kissed me, why she even cushioned my fall in the ballroom in the first place, and so my chances at getting this right boil down to pure guesswork.
I'm stalling, but that mouth does not look like it's about to move, so I take my chance. I tell her what I want.
"Please." I flick my eyes to her mouth.
And there again, her viscous and delicious mouth on mine.
It's square-on this time, leaving no opportunity for us to claim it an embarrassing failure of co-ordination, this is definitely a kiss of magnificent beauty. It is expressed with a greater force than before that traps me fast against the front door, and although my stupid knees give way again, my position prevents me from falling and this time I place both of my hands on her hips to keep her close. You live and learn.
Miranda moans and pinches my shoulders whilst her mouth grates against mine in perfect chaos, despite the brief clash of noses which we both choose to ignore, I could not hope for anything more than this.
My fingers twitch against her dress and she inhales through her nose, the sound shoots straight through me and I push my mouth harder against hers. It's powerful and unyielding, but it is Miranda and it is her mouth, and it is her that initiated this, and so I focus on the minor discomfort and try to capture every sensation she carves into me.
Her hands provoke my sensitive skin as she grates them around my neck before stilling, her thumbs press against my collarbone and I feel light headed.
There is definitely a flutter of nerves now, a slight uncertainty of whether she is in fact planning to kill me, and whether it would be all that tragic to die whilst the mouth of the woman I love is on my own.
I am vulnerable. She could strangle me if she wanted. I don't think I have the ability to stop her.
I feel her trembling now that she is on more delicate skin, though her pressure remains steadfast on my neck and on my mouth.
Do what you want. Do what you want, I ask her only in my head, because there's no way I'm going to risk speaking out loud. If I do that she's going to stop kissing me, because she'll realise this is a ridiculous idea, because I'm stupid and I'm a coward and I am just her employee and she has a husband with whom she is trying to make it work.
Stephen.
No. The feeling of wrong is sharp, unpleasant but indisputable. I cannot ignore it.
I turn my head sharply to the left, her mouth follows as far as it can before dragging across my check and away, leaving me colder than I have ever felt in my entire life.
Once when I was little I got locked out of my own home during a blizzard. Something to do with my sister and a key and a snowball fight down the way. Anyway, I had lost my gloves at school, and I sat on our step for a whole lifetime before my father came home and took me inside to defrost. My fingers wouldn't move when I tried to unbutton my coat and I thought i'd be stuck like that, star-fish shaped in my new coat and boots in the middle of the living room forever.
And now, now the feeling repeats itself. I can barely move, I hurt with a regret so profound I find it hard to breathe, my fingers are petrified in two star-fish shapes against her hips and Miranda is pressing her chest into mine like it's me who is keeping her upright.
"What is it?" She breathes.
"We can't." I shake my head just a little, because I can't do anything else with her so close and so on me like she is, and the feeling of being an ice-cube has not waned.
"Why?"
Her hand comes up to the left side of my head and she yanks me in her direction, so I am facing her, but I do not react at all, not even when she leans her mouth on mine again, not even when she makes a noise that I had only ever heard before in my dreams.
My thinking time is severely restricted, but I'm supposed to be good at fixing disasters, and I'm supposed to know what to do when it all goes wrong, like now.
Like when I am in love with a married woman who is married but is kissing me anyway.
So here is my plan: Let her get on with it.
I will not move and I will not push her away. I will wait for her to step away and then I will leave the town-house.
I plan to do this, rather than push her away right this very second, because I will never experience this sort of crescendo of feeling ever again, and although it's wrong it is also full and it's lightning in my veins, it is stronger than my morals, and that will remain the case until she lets me go, when I will get a grip.
I will.
I'll be able to walk away when she stops pressing her mouth on mine.
But this isn't just kissing, we are communicating a desire, it's an impression. This is unlike any Kiss Nate ever gave me, it feels suspiciously like forever, like I could just stand here and do this for the rest of my life. I can't imagine it ever stopping.
It feels right and urgent, like she's actually wanted to do this for a long time, like she can't hold back, and that feeling swells inside me like sweet and sticky and soft marshmallow, and it is all for me.
I don't know how I ever got so lucky, and even though i'm probably fired and even though I probably will be blacklisted, it doesn't prevent me from wanting this with all of my heart.
This kiss is going to cause me a lot of problems in the future.
I can see it even now, looming over me like my very own marshmallow-shaped rain cloud during every interview and every first date from here on in.
I can imagine it keeping me awake at night and when I fall asleep it will be in my dreams too.
In my dreams Miranda had the ability to kiss me tenderly, and I wonder now whether she is actually capable of doing anything without full on conviction and determination. Maybe I need to re-do my fantasies. Her mouth is hard and bruising.
I will fix this, and I will survive this. Nobody died from a kiss, right? Right.
Her hand is still on my face and our bodies are knitted from nose to knees. Whilst I'm no expert in this particular type of kiss, it doesn't feel like I'm going to be released anytime soon. My head is starting to swim. Our breathing is laboured, and there is her dress getting wrinkled, and there is her husband to think of. Her children. Family.
I can't believe I'm thinking what I'm thinking. I am such an idiot.
"Um, Miranda?"
"Why?" she mumbles back, still pressing into my mouth.
I place my hands on her shoulders and firmly pull her away and, oh, the look on her face is just...indescribable.
"You don't want this."
There's the Paris look again. No, no, no.
"No, no Miranda. No, that's not the point." No, I do, I do.
"You don't," she grits through her teeth as she begins to claw her nails into my cheek. "Is this a game?"
"Stephen."
Her hand is gone from my cheek and it now rests on her stomach as it had done on mine not half an hour ago.
"Stephen?" She says his name like he's a stranger.
"Stephen," I repeat in the absence of anything else that could more clearly convey the reasons why she should not be kissing me. I consider mentioning her children too, but I don't like the thought of what that would do to her.
Her eyes have turned glassy and wide, her face has paled and her mouth, her mouth with our mixed lipstick on, is open and her tongue is wet and thrumming.
I can't believe she fed me a cheese cube. Oh my God.
"My God Andrea, you're..." She inhales deeply and I wait for whatever is going to happen next. "We're not together."
So, she does remember him. At least that's one point taken care of. Now, as for them not being together..."But you are Miranda," I fumble, grasping a sentence that is clear enough without making her sound like an idiot. "You asked me to book you that table with the eggs, and there's four pairs of Wellington boots, and at the party you were asking after him..."
Nothing. Her face is blank. I mean, really, surely she can't have forgotten she's married. She's still wearing her wedding ring, I heard it chinking whilst...no.
No she isn't.
I check both hands, just to be sure, but no. Perfect and bare. No ring.
It was definitely on her hand earlier, I heard it chinking against her champagne flute as she created a fake smile for Irv whilst I was stood behind her trying not to stare at the ass I've still not touched.
Wow do I regret not doing that while I had the opportunity. Would she let me touch her ass now? Could I get away with running my hand over her and holding her to me and have her thrust herself into me? Would she grind herself into my body like I turn her on? Will I...Stephen. Right.
Miranda shakes her head like she did when I conquered Harry Potter. "Darling."
Wow.
Stephen.
Goddam him, but, fucking wow.
Her eyes glint with a fondness I've only ever seen when she speaks about her girls and I can't decide whether I want that to be for me or for him.
Either way, I'm fucked.
"Darling, it's all a show. I guarantee you we are not together. It's just until we decide how best to tell the girls." Her words are fast and tumbling like a brick wall right towards my head.
"So, when you asked for that table with the eggs..."
"For the girls. For them to see us together and for them to be happy. Same for tonight, for the press. He barely comes home anymore and when he does he's drunk and abusive and tells me I'm... he sleeps in the spare room." She fluffs her hand in the direction of the stairs. "The papers for the...ah.. .they are in the bedside table. You can check, you can..."
I can kiss her. I pull her to me and plant my mouth on hers, and this time it is her knees that let her down and not my own. I wrap a tight arm around her waist and try not to squeal.
"Please believe me," she whispers as she beats her fingertips into my hips.
"I believe you."
I'm not entirely sure that's true, but under the circumstances I'll give her the benefit of the doubt.
"Good," she replies, "that's good." And her kiss is suddenly softer, like in my dream, it strokes my mouth. Her tongue trips over my bottom lip. "I've wanted you for a long time."
"Since Paris?" I squeak.
"Since Paris," she drawls.
"And before?" I take a risk, knowing her mood is as permanent as smoke.
"Does it matter?"
No, not right at this particular moment. Right now what matters are her hands, because they seem to have negotiated themselves underneath my dress and are presently stroking against the stitching of the panties I stole from the closet.