There was sunlight shafting through the window at the far end of the bedroom when Miranda opened her eyes; soft yellow beams, cutting through the morning air, landing atop the bed beside her to paint the sleeping, naked, figure of Jack in pretty, gilded, lines. Miranda smiled, rolled onto her back, and stretched her arms wide out to her sides before leaning over and planting a tender kiss on Jack's brow. The slightest of moans escaped Jack's lips, but her eyes remained shut, and her breasts continued the slow, steady, rise and fall of deep sleep. Miranda watched her nipples as they entered the sunlight on inhales and fell back to shadow on exhales. The sight was both sexy and comforting, and reminded Miranda at once of the previous night. They'd drank quite a bit, and she could barely remember getting them into bed, but she recalled their time had been pleasurable and wonderful.

"Jack," she whispered, laying a hand on the soft flesh of Jack's ribcage and giving a little shake. When Jack went on sleeping (she was quite a heavy sleeper), Miranda tickled at her side a bit, trailing her index finger up along Jack's ribs, onto her belly, up over her breasts, and tracing the line of her collarbone. Jack stirred a bit again, sounding a mildly-agitated groan before rolling onto her side and groping blindly for covers to bundle up in. Miranda stifled laughter and quickly tugged them away so Jack's grasping fingers continuously found nothing. After awhile, Jack, apparently, settled for 'nothing' anyway, and simply tucked her knees up to her belly and cradled them to go on sleeping.

Miranda tittered, kissed at the back of her neck, and slid off the bed to let her 'sleeping beauty' sleep. She sauntered into the bathroom, turned on the hot water of the shower, let it run till it steamed, and climbed in when it had. She dipped her face beneath the water and let it run through her hair, over her shoulders, her breasts, her back, her ass, her legs, and pooled at her feet. She stood that way awhile, moving her face side to side so the hot water could kiss at her cheeks, and reflected on how wonderful her life had been since Jack became a part of it. She could find joy now in even the most menial of tasks or occurrences; a hot shower; a good meal; a heavy storm on a warm night; the fragrance of flowers; the melody of a song on the extranet radio. Having Jack in her life had, somehow, brought more meaning and appreciation for everything else, and Miranda was infinitely thankful for that.

She washed up and dried off, but by the time her bare feet moved from the cool linoleum tiling of the bathroom to the soft plush carpeting of the bedroom, Jack was still sleeping the day away; though by then, she'd found the covers that had been so cruelly denied to her earlier and had wrapped herself tightly in their warmth. Watching, Miranda was momentarily overtaken with the urge to rip the covers loose, crawl atop Jack's skinny little body, and have her way with her, but the moment passed and Miranda could only smile as she began contemplating what to do as 'punishment' for Jack's determined slumbering later.

She made for the closet, pulled on a black bra and matching panties, ducked into a loose-fit shirt, tugged some capri-styled shorts up around her hips, and slipped her feet into a pair of flats before heading out to the kitchen to make breakfast.

Her plans were derailed when, in the first few steps entering the living room, she spotted Kasumi, bound tightly to a chair in the room's center with a bandana wedged between her teeth, gagging her.

"Kasumi?" Miranda was helpless but to stammer as she laid a hand on her brow, gaping at the immobilized thief seated in her living room.

"Merampha! Geph me oupham imph MOW!" Kasumi growled into the gag. The sneaking suit she'd been wearing the previous day was peeled down to her hips, revealing a pair of medium-sized and firm-looking breasts laying bare and helpless between crossing intersections of cotton rope. Her arms were angled behind her as well, which helped lift her chest forward. Her knees and ankles were both strapped securely to the chair's legs.

As Miranda approached, still a bit uncertain as to what had even happened, she saw Kasumi's face (for once, not hidden beneath her suit's hood) was quite pretty, despite the indignant flush of red coloring her cheeks, and the scowl permanently affixing her brow in harsh lines. Most every human was some kind of genetic 'mutt' these days (or an engineered mutt, as Miranda knew all-too-well), but Kasumi was one of the few who still had a pure bloodline; one that could be traced back to Earth's island nation of Japan. It showed. The woman's features were exotic, sharp, angled, and her hair was a silky black that Miranda couldn't help but gawk at as she crossed the room. Kasumi watched her approach, her lips (with a characteristic strip of dark paint parting their center) moved impatiently around the thick bandana keeping them quiet.

"What happened to you?" Miranda asked, but the answer came surfacing in her memory almost before she'd finished the question. She could suddenly see Jack and herself late the night before, quite drunk by then, sitting around the—equally drunk—Kasumi after she'd passed out on the living room sofa. Jack and herself had shared some utterly inebriated conversation about what Kasumi might do when she woke up, and someone (she thought likely Jack) had suggested tying her up so she couldn't go running off to Shepard to blow their little 'hideout's' location first thing in the morning.

"Mmf!" Kasumi protested, writhing against her binds again and glaring up at Miranda.

Miranda had to cover her mouth to stifle laughter. "Oh, God, Kasumi," she began when she'd gotten herself under control, "I'm so sorry. You must've spent all night like this. Jack and I… we were fairly drunk last night. We just… well, we didn't want you to wake up and go hurrying off to tell Shepard-"

"MMF!" Kasumi grunted again, moving her eyes impatiently to her gagged mouth.

"Oh, right. Sorry." Miranda circled behind the chair, loosened the gag's knot, and pried it gently from between the thief's lips.

When she'd circled back around the front of the chair, Kasumi was licking at her lips and working her jaw about, but some of the woman's anger seemed to be conciliated now that her mouth had been liberated from the gag. Hey eyes moved to Miranda's and softened a bit. "Thank you, Miranda."

"I really am sorry, Kasumi. It was… incredibly irresponsible to leave you like this all night. Especially with this on," she added, dangling the knotted bandana emphatically.

"Well, that, actually, is a recent addition," Kasumi explained, and when Miranda lifted a brow, went on, "I woke up about an hour ago and started shouting for someone to let me out of this chair when I realized you two had… bound me to it. Unfortunately, I woke Jack instead of you, and all she did was stomp out here, asked me if I felt hungover or nauseous, and when I said I didn't, shut me up with that gag and went right back to sleep!"

Again, Miranda had to cover her mouth to hide her amusement. That sounded very much like something Jack would do.

Kasumi sighed. "Now would you please untie me, Miranda."

Miranda laid her hands on her hips and sighed herself as she looked the woman over, trying not to linger her eyes on Kasumi's exposed breasts to prevent any awkwardness between them. "Well… what are you going to do when you're free?"

Kasumi's eyes widened. "What does that matter?"

"To Jack and I? It matters quite a bit, Kasumi. We like it here. We're happy here. We want it to stay this way for… a while longer."

"Miranda! You can't- you can't just keep me here against my will to stop me from doing something you don't like! That's kidnapping! You can't kidnap me!"

Miranda laughed. "I never thought I'd see the day I had the law explained to me by a thief. No offense."

The woman's expression darkened. "You have to untie me."

"Promise me you won't go running back to Shepard about Jack and I?"

"Sure."

"Kasumi?"

The thief jerked at her ropes. "Come on! Untie me, Miranda!"

Miranda studied her a moment before asking, "How about some breakfast? You like eggs?"

"Miranda!"

But by then, Miranda had already turned and began the short trek into the kitchen, divided from the living room by only an oblong marble countertop and a dangling string of lights. Kasumi shouted her indignant protests after her for a few little while longer, but by the time Miranda had gotten the frying pan atop the stove and the butter inside melting, the thief had, apparently, realized she was going to have to wait one way or another for a second chance at freedom and quieted down.

A few minutes later, the kitchen filled with the pleasant aroma of cooked eggs. Miranda had gotten a few glasses of orange juice ready and was preparing to work her spatula under their soon-to-be breakfast when hands slipped around her hips and squeezed, and Jack breathed warm arm against her neck and ear before kissing softly at both. Miranda smiled and turned her head partially back around so their lips could meet.

"Morning," she greeted.

Jack's arms hugged at her waist and her chin laid gently atop her shoulder. "Smells fucking good in here. I hope you're making food for all of us and not just…" She laughed. "Our unwilling 'guest' in there."

"You hate breakfast, Jack," Miranda said as her neck was dappled with Jack's kissing. "I've never even seen you eat more than a bowl of cereal in the morning… when you actually ever decide to pull yourself out of bed, that is."

Jack's nose rubbed at her neck. "I've eaten your pussy for breakfast."

Miranda chortled. "Well, I guess that's true." She thought back to the day she was awoken with Jack's head between her legs. That had been a good morning.

Jack nibbled gently at her ear and added through clenched teeth. "I'll eat it now if you want."

"Jack, just go sit down. You're going to make me overcook the eggs."

"And what if I don't want to sit down?"

Miranda couldn't help a smirk. "Then you'll be tied down like Kasumi in there."

"Here's a hint, cheerleader: if you want me to do something, don't make not doing it the more attractive option."

"Jack…"

She sighed. "Fine." Her arms came untangled from Miranda's waist, and Miranda was free once again to finish cooking breakfast.

When she had, three steaming plates and three glasses of juice were laid out atop the counter, and she worked together with Jack to drag Kasumi and the chair she was bound to before it.

When the chair legs were laid flat on the kitchen tiling again, Kasumi glowered at both of them in turn. "This is ridiculous."

"Nice tits," Jack said, seating herself beside the woman and stabbing her eggs with a fork.

Kasumi's cheeks flushed with chagrin. She appeared searching for some rebuttal, but didn't look to find one, and instead resoled to timidly asking, "What are you two going to do with me?"

Jack snorted and swallowed a mouthful of eggs before countering, "Who knows? Let's see… what did you do to me last night? Finger-fucked my pussy? Sucked my clit dry? Shoved a buttplug up my ass and spanked me?"

The color in the thief's cheeks brightened and she averted her eyes at once by lowering her chin to her chest. After a moment's struggle, she said, "I was… very drunk. Miranda, you… you kept putting glass after glass of that wine in my hand, and-"

"And what?" Jack interjected. "No one forced you to drink, Goto."

"You-!?" Kasumi stammered, twisting a bit against her ropes. "You… you two are terrible people."

Miranda smiled. "We're not that bad. Here. I made you breakfast."

"I don't want breakfast. I want to be untied."

Miranda sighed and glanced at Jack. Jack chewed her food, raised a brow, shrugged. "We turn her loose, the fun's over, Miri. She'll tell Shepard we're laying low, then it's back to the Normandy and back to getting our asses almost shot off every other day." She shook her head. "I don't know about you, but I would rather stay here and eat your pussy every day than go back to that."

Miranda considered it. When no easy answer presented itself, she lifted one of the glasses of juice and brought it toward's Kasumi's mouth. "Here. Would you at least drink something?"

Kasumi squinted. "You sure you didn't spike it to trick me into another crazy orgy or-" The woman's words were cut short when Miranda, impatiently, tucked the rim of the glass between her lips. Kasumi hesitated only briefly before drinking.

Jack watched, a smirk tugging at the corner of her mouth. "We can keep her as a sex slave."

Kasumi nearly choked on the juice.

Miranda frowned, pulling the glass away and drying the thief's chin with a cloth. "Jack, don't try to scare her," she reprimanded. "And, besides, the house doesn't need a sex slave, that's what I have you for."

Jack bit at her lip amorously. "Oh, right."

"Speaking of which, I've been thinking about punishing you for your stubborn refusal to ever get up in the morning."

"Hey! You can't blame me for that! I can't help it if I'm not conscious, Miri!"

"Is that back talk I'm hearing?" Miranda asked with a playful grin. "Does someone need a gag?"

Jack raised a brow defiantly. "You'll have to catch me first to put it on me."

"And hold you down?"

"Yep."

"Overpower you?"

"Mm-hm."

"Take control?"

"Entirely."

"Hello!?" Kasumi interjected, flicking her scowl between the two of them. "Can someone please untie me before you start in on your… 'games' or whatever they are!?"

"Is there anyway I can convince you to just lie to Shepard, Kasumi?" Miranda questioned. "Just… just tell him you couldn't find us."

Kasumi frowned. "Don't assume because I'm a 'thief' that I have no moral integrity. I steal from bad people. Occasionally, I even help good people. I'm not some low-life pickpocket, Miranda."

"I wasn't suggesting you were."

"Look, you want to negotiate? Untie me first," Kasumi said. She glanced at her bare breasts and squirmed a bit uncomfortably. "So I can at least cover up and not be treated like a damned prisoner. Alright?"

Miranda exchanged a look with Jack. The two of them were getting more and more efficient at having tacit conversations with just the use of a few subtle expressions. So, Jack was quick to heave an exaggerated sigh and roll her eyes before scooting off the counter stool and plucking a knife from a stand of them beside the sink. She sauntered up to Kasumi, dangling the blade before her just enough to tease the poor woman before slipping around the back of the chair and cutting her wrists and chest free with one, long, swipe. Grace and suppleness returned to her posture at once, and Kasumi relaxed briefly in the chair before tucking her breasts back into the folds of her sneaking suit and zipping it closed. "Thank you."

"Thank her," Jack said with a nod to Miranda, sliding the knife onto the counter and perching back on the stool beside the thief between them. "I would have kept your ass locked up in a closet or something if I was in charge."

Kasumi shot a reproachful look Jack's way, but was quick to focus on working the rest of herself free from the chair she'd been strapped in for the last few hours.

When the last of the ropes fell free, Kasumi stood and graciously stretched her arms up over head. "God, that feels good."

"Alright, we let you go," Miranda began," now will you keep your end of the bargain? Can we talk about this?"

"There's no need," Kasumi said with a shrug. "I know what I want. I was thinking about it just now."

"Oh?"

The thief nodded. "I want… control."

Miranda frowned. "Control? …what do you mean? Like last night?"

"Yes," Kasumi said, and rocked tentatively on the heels of her boots a moment before adding, "But I want… complete control. Not just over Jack… but over you."

"No," Jack interjected immediately. She hopped off her stool and stomped across the kitchen, her bare feet slapping defiantly against the tiling. In front of of Kasumi, she jabbed a finger up at the woman's nose. "You just want to fuck Miranda! I knew it!"

"Jack!" Miranda called.

"No, she's… she's right," Kasumi admitted.

"Ha!" Jack exclaimed.

Miranda turned a bemused look on the Japanese woman. "R-Really?"

Kasumi lowered her gaze and shuffled her feet.

Jack was filled with righteous vehemence. She stomped around the thief to cross back to Miranda and stood between the two of them defensively. "Of course she wants to fuck you. I told you, cheerleader, everyone wants to fuck you. Man, woman, gay, straight, turian, krogan, fucking robot, it doesn't matter. You are the most fuckable thing in the galaxy!"

"Thing?" Miranda echoed with a lift of her brow.

"Well not 'thing' to me," Jack protested, seating herself between Miranda's thighs and taking her by the wrists to drape her arms around Jack's thin frame. "I'm in fucking love with you and shit, Miranda. But everyone else? They want to fuck you. I told you this a long time ago."

In Jack's own way, she was being sweet, and Miranda kissed her cheek for it before facing the red-cheeked thief once teetering in their kitchen once again. "Is this really true, Kasumi? You… you want to have sex with me?"

Kasumi sighed. "Once, aboard the Normandy, I remember Commander Shepard had called a meeting in the comm room. You must have been showering, Miranda, because your hair was still wet and dripping onto your shoulders when you entered. You sat yourself beside me, and I looked over to see, in your apparent hurry, you'd failed to fully zip up your suit. Your… your breast and the side of your nipple were showing from my vantage point. …I didn't say anything. I… I kept looking back to you, in fact. I couldn't stop. And then a bead of water dripped from your collarbone down over the curve of your breast and I… well I enjoyed that. I enjoyed it very much." She lifted her eyes and held them on Miranda's own. "I've often thought of that moment since, and… well, a poor, curious, Japanese girl like me often desires her curiosity be satiated."

"You saw all of me last night, Kasumi."

"Seeing is not experiencing."

Miranda squeezed Jack between her arms. The more people she spoke with, the more Jack's words held true: most people, regardless of species or gender, really were attracted to her in some way.

"I knew it," Jack repeated with a shake of her head. "Well you can't have her! She's mine and I'm hers and that's all there is to it."

Miranda leaned around Jack's bare, tattooed, shoulder to fix her with a shrewd look. "Hey, now, wait a second. What about last night? Remember? When you had Kasumi's fingers and mouth all over every orifice on your naked little skinny body? You didn't seem so 'I'm with her' then, Jack. Why should you be up for grabs, while I'm off the market? This should be a two-way street if we're going to be… adventurous in our sex life."

"That was different!" Jack protested.

"How!?"

"It… fuck you, it just was." Jack focused her attention back on Kasumi. "You're not getting her, bitch. She's mine. I earned her. You don't even-" Miranda reached around and clamped her hand over Jack's mouth, and when Jack squirmed to free herself, pinned her tattooed arms in place with one of her own. "Mmmph!"

"Shhh," Miranda hushed her and tightened her grip on her mouth. She looked back to Kasumi. "Just what, exactly, are you proposing here, Kasumi?"

"I want complete control over the house," the woman explained. "And everything in it. That means… the two of you."

Miranda could feel Jack's lips working at her palm and preemptively squeezed to keep her silent. "For how long?"

Kasumi bit her lip, her eyes flittering between the two of them a moment before saying, "As long as I want."

"MMMmmm!" Jack protested.

Miranda held her squirming captive in place but otherwise ignored her. "That could be a long time."

"It could," Kasumi admitted.

"One has to wonder… what would you do with all that time and all that… control?"

The slightest smirk twitched the thief's lips. "Whatever I want, I suppose."

Miranda mulled it over. "If I agree to this, you can do what you want with me, but… Jack has to be under a sort of 'special protection'."

"Protection?"

"I don't want you doing anything to her she wouldn't like," Miranda explained. "That's my only stipulation. Agree to it, and… and we have a deal."

Kasumi folded her arms across her chest. "Miranda, there's a great deal of things Jack, clearly, wouldn't 'like'. Me touching you, for one."

"Anything she wouldn't like within reason, is what I meant," Miranda corrected. "And I won't budge on that. I have to have your guarantee she's protected. She's… very important to me."

Jack's fidgeting waned away and she grew complacent held in Miranda's arms.

Kasumi nodded. "Alright, Ms. Miranda Lawson. You have yourself a deal. I'll try to keep bigmouth there happy. And you… you will be under my complete control?" The woman's painted lips lifted into a brief smirk again.

"If this keeps you quiet about us to Shepard? I'm all yours." Jack groaned and stirred and Miranda craned her neck around to kiss at her cheek before narrowing her eyes onto Kasumi's. "So… when, exactly, do you plan on assuming this direct control?"

"Oh, right away," Kasumi said.

"In fact, right now."