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The full attention from Miranda was always nothing short of dizzying.
Ever since they both stopped pretending that circling around the topic was sustainable, Miranda started looking at Andy more. More and for longer, letting her gaze linger, deliberately dipping down and then back up, to settle on Andy’s lips. Andy, in turn, found out that blushing under Miranda’s attention was painfully easy which was, frankly, unfair. Because Miranda had a way to look at her that made Andy forget the rest of the world existed, sometimes with that damned smirk that appeared only when the two of them were alone, after hours, and nobody could interrupt them.
Case in point, except for the impending interruption.
Miranda was already dressed up, her makeup perfectly done, hair styled, body hugged by one of those gowns with deep necklines that Andy secretly adored. Andy herself was pacing around the room, anxiety buzzing beneath her skin as they were going through the plan for the evening: make an appearance for the Dior dinner, smile at the guests (Andy), look at the masses (Miranda), go back to the hotel, spend the night together. Andy was very much looking forward to the night together.
“You’re staring,” she said at last, turning around to look at Miranda.
“You’re worth staring at,” Miranda replied, unconcerned. A strand of her hair fell across her forehead, the only thing belying her ice queen persona if Andy was willing to ignore the look on her face. “Come here.”
Andy did so without hesitation, sitting down next to her girlfriend on the bed. “We could skip,” she offered, though they both knew she didn’t mean it. “Say that you got, I don’t know, sick, or something.”
“Mm.” Miranda smiled, just slightly, and Andy’s heart fluttered at the sight. “And miss out on seeing you attend the dinner in the dress I specifically picked out?” she asked, to which Andy shrugged with a face that she hoped conveyed yes. “Though to be fair, when I was deciding, I was mostly considering how it would look on the floor—”
Andy’s hand covered Miranda’s lips before she got to finish the sentence. Her cheeks were burning.
“Christ, Miranda,” she snapped, only after a second realising what she’d just done. Even after this time touching Miranda so carelessly, something she had never allowed herself to dare to hope for, still made her heart stop.
She tried to pull her hand back, already starting to stand up to pretend that there was at least some semblance of appropriate behaviour between the two of them, but Miranda’s hand shot out, gently grabbing it before she could do it fully. She was always so unnervingly gentle with her, compared with how she behaved in public towards others. She was gentle now, too, already examining the stain left by her lipstick with way more attention than such a thing required and a smirk starting to bloom on her lips.
Andy pulled a bit harder, not enough to actually take the hand out of Miranda’s grasp but enough to signalise her intentions. Miranda only looked at her, completely unimpressed, tutting quietly.
“It will come off,” Andy huffed out, just a little bit self-aware as her gaze fell to the lipstick mark. She reached out to the stain with her free hand, but Miranda flicked her fingers with her other hand, still looking at the red staining Andy’s palm.
“I’d rather if it didn’t,” Miranda replied at last, quieter than Andy had ever heard her. She could feel warmness blooming on her cheeks once again, traitorous thing, all while Miranda seemed unaffected if not for the smallest tremble that Andy could feel where her skin met Miranda’s.
She slowly turned Andy’s hand in hers, lifting it to her lips with care, kissing her knuckles with the tender fondness Andy had lately come to associate with her. She lifted her eyes to meet Andy’s, something molten within them, and Andy felt her lashes flutter as all of the air left her lungs in surprise. She laughed breathlessly, pulling her hand out of Miranda’s hold, this time for real.
“What are you—” she choked out, incredulity overshadowing exasperation in her voice. That wasn’t something she expected from Miranda. Not such intimate contact, not outside of the night’s embrace. “Why would you—”
“Tell me you don’t like it.”
Andy’s cheeks went redder, pursing her lips together, but she didn’t say no. Didn’t want to say no, if she were honest with herself.
Miranda clearly took the lack of response as permission, judging by the way her eyes glistened. She reached behind herself and when she brought her hand back, there was a rectangular black case in it. Dior for the Dior dinner. Of course.
Andy’s mouth went dry as she watched Miranda open it, one handed (God, the dexterity, the flexibility of her fingers, ones she knew too well from their nights together) and amused. She kept her eyes fixed on Andy as she lifted the bullet to her lips and reapplied the lipstick. Slowly. Andy couldn’t for the love of God look away from Miranda’s lips, not even as she capped the lipstick back and lifted an eyebrow, making her stomach drop with that swoopy feeling she recognised.
Miranda took her hand again, gracing Andy with a smile (a smile!) that grew more predatory than she expected, one that made Miranda’s features into something even more stunning than they were usually. Sharp, so self-assured it was almost painful to look at, simply beautiful.
She was beautiful.
Her heart sped up its pace as Miranda pressed her lips onto her wrist, leaving an open-mouthed kiss there, directly on her pulse point. Andy barely stopped herself from making a sound, closing her eyes to somehow keep her composure.
She felt a bit dizzy from the attention and yet, judging by the small quirk of Miranda’s lips, they were only starting.
“Are you sure this is necessary?” she managed to ask, eternally grateful her voice didn’t shake. Miranda leaned back instead of answering, her fingers still keeping Andy’s hand close to her body—in her lap, really, arranged in such a way that Andy’s fingers rested high up on Miranda’s thighs making something curl low in Andy’s stomach as she remembered that the door to their hotel room wasn’t locked, that somebody could walk in on them, that Emily could be looking for them if they were late for the dinner.
Christ, they also had a dinner to attend, and yet—
Miranda pressed another kiss, this time to Andy’s forearm, this one thankfully quicker. It made Andy relax slightly in hopes that this was it, that Miranda would just get it over with quickly, so that they wouldn’t be late, but then Miranda’s hand was brushing a stray lock of hair away from Andy’s face and all coherent thoughts escaped her mind in an instant. Miranda’s cold fingers lingered on her temple for a longer moment, until she replaced them with the warmness of her lips, kissing her there, longer again. The sensation made Andy’s head spin a bit, and she closed her eyes, sucking in a breath. She let the air slowly out; it came out shaky.
“Indulge me,” muttered Miranda, her warm breath tingling Andy’s skin. Andy’s breath hitched again, the quiet intimacy mixing with the fact that this was such a new territory for her—one Miranda seemed to thrive in. Miranda’s fingers pressed against the pulse point in her wrist where it lay, still in her lap. Her heart was hammering in her chest, probably hard enough for it to be visible on her neck, she realised. “You don’t look too displeased, Andrea.”
Andy’s eyes snapped open at the use of her name in this tone, this low Andrea that Miranda knew how to use perfectly, only to be greeted with the sight of Miranda’s proud smirk.
Okay. Deep breath. She could do it.
“Perhaps I’m not.”
It seemed to land well, judging by how Miranda’s eyes lit up with genuine delight. She slowly leaned forward, moving to Andy’s jaw, staying there for a moment just to breathe before she placed a deliberate kiss on it. Andy’s fingers immediately twitched, itching to touch it, to smear it, maybe to push Miranda away as her attention was so intense it was almost unbearable, but she somehow managed to keep still.
Another layer of lipstick, applied with such lack of hurry that Andrea started to wonder if Miranda simply forgot about the dinner.
“Miranda—?” she asked quietly and oh fuck, her voice was rough. Miranda pressed a finger against Andy’s lips, effectively shutting her down, and then her mouth was on Andy again. The next kisses landed on her neck, one on its side, the other one in the hollow of Andy’s throat. The third—longer, wetter, Christ—got placed where her ear met her neck, making Andy moan.
She wasn’t particularly proud of herself in that moment.
Miranda chuckled against her, a low sound. She started gracing Andy’s collarbones and sternum with kisses; these ones were quicker, more chaste, but there were enough of them that by the time Miranda pulled back up, her lips were completely bare. She reapplied the lipstick, did a double-take, her eyes flickering to meet Andy’s, and then pressed one more kiss, exactly in the centre of her sternum.
Andy’s breath grew even more unsteady as Miranda kissed the skin exposed by the deep neckline of her dress. The dress Miranda had chosen for her. Fuck, had she planned all of this?
She was completely positive she was red as Miranda’s lipstick by now, her whole face feeling awfully hot, a feeling she was unpleasantly aware of.
But the smile, the really-proud-with-herself smile that was gracing Miranda’s face now, one that appeared there so rarely, was more than worth it.
“You’re awfully quiet,” Miranda noticed gently as she tilted Andy’s chin up with two fingers, her touch feather-light yet made of steel. Their gazes met again and Andy’s breath hitched once more, shocked with the tenderness visible there. She was aware of her body to an uncomfortable degree, her mind was spinning, and Miranda still had the audacity to sit there and look at her and look perfect, if a bit flushed? It was unfair. “You were saying?”
Miranda leaned closer, as if to kiss her, and Andy’s heart jolted abruptly in her chest, heat flooding downward, and she tried to lean forward to meet Miranda’s lips—
Miranda placed the final kiss in the corner of Andy’s mouth, perfectly chaste. Andy whimpered at the loss, a sound she would never admit to making, staring at Miranda with betrayal.
“Ask me to kiss you properly.”
It was too much. It was way too much, with the heart pounding in her chest and the way her lips were tingling with phantom touch, and the way her chest and neck were on fire, and—
“Please, Miranda,” Andy choked out, “please kiss me properly.”
Miranda’s eyes flashed with that godawful, beautiful delight again and she moved back, her fingers falling from Andy’s chin. She felt the loss viscerally, her skin immediately cold where the air now brushed against it.
“Later,” she muttered, standing up. “I’d ruin your makeup if I did what I wanted to do with you now. And I want you to look forward to tonight the whole evening.”
Andy stood up too, unsteady on her legs even as she tried to be mad at Miranda through the heat coursing through her. Her gaze flickered to the side of the room and she caught her reflection in a wall mirror, and fuck, she looked ravished with the kisses and the way her cheeks were burning, redness spreading down her neck. The marks Miranda left on her were vivid, demanding attention, utterly inappropriate for an official dinner; she had to get rid of them, right now, she couldn’t show up to the Dior event like this with Miranda on her side, she was so done—
Miranda grabbed her hand before she managed to touch any of the marks to scrub them off. Her eyes were molten, tender in a way that stole Andy’s breath away.
“Leave them,” she said, almost vulnerable. “You’ve been wanting a hard launch of our relationship anyway.”