Part 26
"So be it." Miranda's words, coming as breaths against Andy's lips, leaves her trembling.
Andy kisses Miranda again, now slower, taking her time to revel in each caress, each sound, and to memorize how those elegant, strong hands feel against the skin on her back. There is something linger, searching, in the way Miranda moves her fingertips as if each new trail is part of a grid search. Knowing she's fantasizing, Andy imagines being able to distinguish each swirl of Miranda's fingerprints against her. Blunt nails draw patterns and Andy arches against them, as they don't sting enough. "It's like you're painting me," Andy says, her voice barely audible even to herself.
"In a way I am." Miranda doesn't stray from Andy's back, seeming content, for now, to map out every muscle group, every square inch of her skin. "I think I'm drawing you in my mind."
To not forget her? Andy draws a quick breath. "I have sketched you…on paper, I mean. From memory." She didn't mean to say that.
"May I see? Later?" Miranda nips at Andy's lips, making it impossible to answer until she lets go, but by then, Andy has forgotten what she asked.
"May I?" Miranda repeats.
"Yes." Who am Andy to deny Miranda anything? She won't even be able to deny Miranda the option to leave Andy, should she choose to follow that horrible Amaranthine law.
They're still by the wall, but now Miranda pivots them slowly, pressing Andy gently against the forest green wallpaper. She slides her hands along Andy's sides, tickling her some before she pulls her hands out from under her shirt. "May I?" She tugs at one of the buttons in the front of Andy's shirt.
"Yes." Again. No denying. More than that, Andy's ready to urge Miranda to go much further, to do anything she wants with Andy because she wants it all. Not one to remain inactive, Andy doesn't even ask but undoes the top four buttons in Miranda's shirt. Miranda's wearing a thin tank top underneath and as the shirt falls open to her waist, Andy can see she's not wearing a bra. Small nipples, mouthwatering hard, poke at the fabric.
"Beautiful," Miranda says, making Andy raise her gaze to Miranda's face. Miranda in turn has unbuttoned all of Andy's shirts and now hooks her index finger around her bra, tugging gently. "There's so much I want with you. So much I need."
"Same," Andy manages weakly, thinking she sounds entirely inadequate. "I want all of you. For hours. Days. For a long time." For her entire life. Andy's throat closes around the unspoken words and to her dread, her eyes well up.
"Darling?" Miranda flinches and lets go of Andy's bra.
"No, it's fine. It is. It's just me being silly." She tries to will the tears back into their ducts by blinking, but they roll down her cheeks, fat and seemingly never-ending as they made wet spots on her shirt. Furious at herself, Andy wipes at her cheeks.
"You are never silly." Miranda takes over and uses her thumbs to stroke away Andy's tears. "You are anything but. I can tell that I've already started on the journey of hurting you, and we have barely done more than embrace and kiss. If this causes the tears of a woman like you, so strong and independent, to fall, then what if we let it go further? What if we attempted to start something that is bound to fail? That is doomed to cause us unimaginable grief if we let it? Do you think so little of me?"
"What do you mean?" Andy sobs quietly, wanting to stop the horrible words from Miranda's lips, but at the same time, needing to know.
"You don't know what's in store, but I do. I have lived through something similar to this, though I would argue that this," Miranda says, flicking her fingers back and forth between them, "is far beyond that. And knowing that—it would be an act of unspeakable cruelty on my part not to follow the law. It was written for a reason, by the ones among us who actually possessed some resemblance of a conscience."
Andy is about to object, frustration and sorrow warring inside her at not being given an equal chance to decide when Miranda pales and takes two steps back. There are now two feet between them and there might as well be the entire city of Geneva. "What?" Andy feels the last tears cool the skin on her face as they evaporate. Miranda is white now. "What's wrong? I mean, what did you just think of?" Andy thinks back, trying to remember Miranda's exact words, which is nearly impossible as Andy was busy being rejected, again. "Something about the law being written by people with a conscience."
"Yes." Miranda nods. "There were two among us who weren't all that big on conscience, but…but they're dead."
A chill runs up Andy's spine. "And, you girls being immortal and all, how can you be sure?"
Miranda's eyes express nothing, but the shade has gone from icy blue to dark navy. "Because they were executed."
xxxxx
Continued in part 27