Arashi ("Storm"): A NOIR fic (4 of ?)
4: MIREILLE
The rains began while Mireille slept. The heavens opened and enveloped all of Paris in a quick but violent storm.
Mireille woke with a start as a terrific blast of thunder shook the room. A window flew open, banging hard against the frame. The dark sky beyond showed that the easy afternoon spent with Kirika had turned into a stormy evening.
She rubbed her eyes sleepily as a sporadic arc of lightning threw everything into silhouette. She knew, even without looking, that Kirika was not in bed with her.
Unlike that other night.
***
More than two years ago - three nights before she’d sent Kirika away - there had been a storm just like this, the violent kind that shook Paris sometimes, and she had woken to Kirika embracing her tightly, her dark head buried in Mireille’s shoulder.
In retrospect, it had been strange. They had fought in conditions such as this. They had run on slippery, treacherous rooftops while shooting at masked men and dodging bullets in the hard, driving rain. Why should Kirika be shaken now, when they were indoors and safe?
But she undoubtedly was. Mireille’s arm wrapped around the shivering form. Her hand trailed upwards until it was running soothingly through short, silky tresses. “What’s wrong?”
Kirika’s answer was the briefest of whispers. “Arashi.”
“The storm? But...” Mireille checked herself. Kirika rarely spoke Japanese to her, knowing that her familiarity with the language was limited. That in itself hinted at some inner turmoil. Surely this wasn’t the time to remind her that they’d been through worse. “It’s okay. It’ll stop soon.”
“Not this storm. The - the other one. I was dreaming. I was on the roof, and then running through the cemetery and you were...I was telling you to…” In the dark, the woman could sense Kirika lifting her head, craning her neck to look up at her.
How could Mireille forget the soft words etched into her brain from that bloody night? “We had a promise, didn’t we? That you would kill me when it all became clear…please do it.”
Mireille shivered, remembering the way Kirika had closed her eyes and the serene acceptance on her face as she waited for her to shoot. Mireille turned so that even in the half-dark she could look into those deep brown eyes. “It’s over.”
She could not explain what happened next. They had slept together in the same bed dozens of times before. Maybe it was the embrace and the storm, the memories that lay thick between them, and everything they had been through in the past year. Or maybe it was the way Kirika was shivering, how she seemed so badly in need of comfort.
For whatever reason, Mireille craned her head just enough to kiss the girl who trembled in her arms.
She could be forgiven for thinking that it was the right thing to do. Kirika’s lean arms tightened around her even as she opened her mouth in a whimper, and Mireille, emboldened, took advantage of the invitation.
The blond woman found out quickly that she could become addicted to this, the little sounds and shivers that wracked the perfect assassin’s lithe body as her mouth left those intriguing lips to begin charting the rest of her. The taste of Kirika’s mouth, her skin, the way her body was wiry-hard and yieldingly soft in just the right places... Mireille was soon frantic to know every inch of her.
Then Kirika’s shoulders were bare, and Mireille’s lips were on her collarbone, left hand on the tight bud of a small, firm breast under threadbare cotton, starting to press, when another flash of lighting illuminated the girl’s face.
She was in tears.
The hot blood pounding in Mireille’s head turned to ashes. What am I doing? Hands and lips withdrew quickly as she stammered, “Sorry, I - ” She couldn’t go on. Shakily, she got to her feet. She walked barefoot to the windows and stared out at the pouring rain.
She felt, rather than saw, Kirika stumbling from the bed. “No, Mireille, don’t stop. It’s just…I owe you so much...”
The words hit Mireille like a blow. She took a swift breath against the unexpected pain. In that second, she knew two things: she loved Kirika, and because she did, Kirika could not stay. Mireille didn’t trust herself that much.
“No, it’s okay,” she managed somehow. “Let’s just go back to sleep.”
The next day, she began making arrangements for Kirika to complete her schooling in Lyon.
It took her months to get used to sleeping in the same bed alone.
***
Now Kirika was here again and it was frighteningly easy, letting things slip back into having the girl with her. Mireille had lived alone for a long time, and she liked it that way. But for some reason having Kirika around made the small flat more of a home instead of the other way around.
She sighed. It had been excruciatingly hard to send Kirika away the last time. She wasn’t sure she could do it again, even if it might be the right thing to do.
There was a scuff in the darkness. Quick as lightning, the cold polymer-and-steel of Mireille’s Walther was in her hand and pointed steadily in the direction of the noise.
“It’s just me.”
“Kirika?” Mireille lowered the pistol, automatically decocking the striker as she put it away. “What…?” Her eyes widened as the shadows resolved into a lissome figure that seemed to be dripping water.
“I wanted to get some wine for dinner. I got caught in the rain.” The girl stepped into a wayward beam of light as she placed the bottle down. She was soaked, and everything she wore clung to her like a second skin.
The sight of her made Mireille’s throat run dry. “You went out in that,” she waved towards the pouring rain visible through the window, “just to get a bottle of wine?” The phrase “are you crazy?” hung in the air between them. “And why are you in your uniform?”
“It wasn’t raining when I left,” Kirika answered readily, “and my other clothes are in the laundry.” Eyes steadily returning Mireille’s skeptical stare, she shrugged off her blazer.
Every inch of Kirika was wet from the rain, and underneath the blazer her white, sodden blouse was a sheer veil molded to every curve of her body. She slowly pulled at the knot of her tie, loosening it but not taking it off completely. When she caught Mireille’s reflexive swallow, it took all of her discipline not to smile. So she likes that.
“You must be cold,” Mireille managed to say. For the life of her, she couldn’t tear her eyes away. The body revealed as much as covered by the drenched clothes was no longer the spare, almost painfully thin form of a girl forced to live an ascetic life, but a healthy young woman’s. “You shouldn’t stay in those clothes. Why don’t you change and take a shower?”
“Alright,” Kirika agreed softly. She approached the bed, hands flicking first one and then another button open on her blouse, though the tie still hung askew from her collar. She climbed on the bed until she was practically straddling the half-seated Mireille, her skirt riding high as her knees bent and braced on each side of the woman’s outstretched legs. Her heart was beating hard in her chest. Was she right about this? Would she succeed?
Kirika leaned forward until her tie was dangling inches away from the slim hand that had just pointed a gun at her. “Will you help me?”
Mireille was a woman hypnotized. Gaze riveted on the young assassin’s face, she found herself wrapping her hand in the proffered tie. Gradually, but with increasing force, she pulled the girl forward until they were a handbreadth apart. “You’re playing with fire.” Her warning was a hoarse whisper in the dark.
Kirika was staring at the lips inches away from her own. She knew it was the only warning she was going to get. God, so close now. “I want to.”
“Show me.” Mireille wasn’t sure if her rough words were a demand or a plea.
Kirika swallowed nervously. This wasn’t in the plan. She had offered; in her mind this was the part where Mireille should either take or refuse. Instead she seemed to be waiting.
What was she expecting? A kiss? But except for a sudden kiss stolen by Chloe and the achingly brief exchange with Mireille that had resulted in her exile, Kirika wasn't too proud to admit her inexperience. An assassin did not employ a technique she wasn’t familiar with, not for something as vital as this. So she took Mireille’s words literally instead.
Holding Mireille’s gaze, she loosened the remaining buttons of her blouse open until only three were left. She shivered as a breeze from the half-open window found her drenched skin. She was wearing a bra, but she knew that the thin, damp material would hide nothing of her reaction to the rain and to Mireille’s proximity.
Intense cerulean eyes watched her every move. They traced her face and the slim column of her neck like a physical touch, followed her movements until they were riveted on the increasingly bare expanse of skin. “Kirika...” Another warning.
“Mireille, please.” Eyes the color of molten chocolate beseeched her.
The two simple words broke her resistance. Mireille surged forward and pulled hard on the tie that was still in her hand. Kirika nearly fell against her, surprised by the force of it. But in the flash of a second Mireille’s other hand was in her hair, cupping the back of her neck and holding them both in balance as her lips claimed Kirika’s hungrily.
It started hard. Mireille was too experienced an assassin and a woman not to realize that this was an ambush. She was angry at being caught unawares and being pushed like this, and frankly more than a little embarrassed. Obviously Kirika was aware of her attraction and had decided to act on it. ‘But why like this?’ she couldn’t help thinking. Why the hell couldn’t they approach this like two normal, sane people?
Then it didn’t matter anymore, because she was murmuring Kirika’s name against those impossibly soft, uptilted lips, and Kirika’s hands were almost painfully tight on her arms as she hung on for balance and maybe for sanity as well. The way Kirika returned her kiss was so open and so giving that it was impossible to stay angry. Mireille’s grasp fell from the mangled tie.
Kirika was learning that there were things no extent of planning could account for. Like the intensity of her response to Mireille’s touch - it was as if someone had flipped a switch and a million new nerve centers she hadn’t even known existed were cascading all over her. She shivered as the possessive caress of Mireille’s mouth found her throat and began to suck on the skin. “Oh.”
“Mon trésor.” Mireille was almost light-headed. Was this really happening? It had been years since she had touched anyone, and for it to be Kirika, the only one who really mattered... With a hint of apology, she returned for a gentler kiss, lips moving to tease and caress, a tongue flicking out to taste and ask permission.
Kirika’s heart pounded at the endearment. Didn’t she know that I can’t refuse her anything? Specially not now. The way Mireille held her, strongly but carefully, fair hands sliding down her body to touch but also to support - this wasn’t just about desire. And Kirika wanted so badly for this to be so much more.
So she did as Mireille asked, feeling silly and a little chagrined that she didn’t know how to do this properly. But that lasted for the three seconds it took for Mireille’s lips to claim hers again, and then there were more important things to concentrate on.
Mireille’s tongue danced lightly across lips and teeth to explore the warmth of Kirika’s mouth. When Kirika’s tongue peeked out to meet hers in a shy dance, she broke away with a gasp. “Maybe we should…”
Kirika twined her hands in the golden tresses of Mireille’s hair and drew her back. “I want more,” she demanded, raining kisses on that beautiful face.
“But -”
“I dare you.”
Blue eyes flashed. With a near-growl, Mireille moved from her seated position until she too was partly kneeling on the bed, with legs bent beneath her. She pulled Kirika closer until the girl was straddling her more firmly, and shoved impatiently at the short skirt until there was nothing between Kirika’s center and the tensile strength of fair-skinned thighs except a slip of silk.
She grinned at Kirika’s sudden intake of breath…only to groan a moment later as small, strong hands tugged urgently at the buttons of the shirt she’d worn to bed. They slipped nimbly into the newly created opening to span, tentative but impatient, against the warm flesh of her stomach.
I’m in so much trouble. A few minutes more of this and there would be no turning back.
Kirika was warm and open in her arms, and Mireille was drowning in sensation as the girl clung to her. When a palm and fingers, roughened by years of unrelenting training, shyly found the curve of her left breast, she frantically led the kiss deeper.
In the end it was only the need for air that forced Mireille to cede the contact. She opened her eyes, and read in an instant the desire on Kirika’s face...and the guilt.
Always guilt. Bordel de merde!
With an effort, she broke away and scrambled to the edge of the bed.
“Mireille, what…?” Kirika was looking at her with an expression that was still heavy-lidded with desire.
“Button your shirt.” The heavy disappointment turned Mireille’s voice ice-cold. She clenched her fists against the urge to continue. Still beguilingly and messily half-clothed, Kirika was only inches away, and so very hard to resist.
“But why?” It was almost a cry. The rejection, coming on the heels of a display of passion from Mireille that Kirika had hardly dared dreamed about, was almost more than she could bear.
“Shouldn’t that be my line?” Mireille ground out, as anger and disappointment surged. Once more Kirika was offering her what she wanted, but for all the wrong reasons. And in this case, she cared enough for the reasons to be important, dammit!
“Why are you doing this, Kirika?” she demanded. “Because you owe me?” Pain turned to resentment and she lashed out. “Every time I look into your eyes all I see is guilt. I’m sick of it!”
“No!” Kirika denied instantly. How could she think that? “But what I did to you…oh Mireille, I killed your family. And when you came to take me from Altena, I tried to kill you!” The doubts that had been haunting her for years swelled inside her and burst out into words. “How can you forgive me?”
So it was guilt. When Mireille spoke again, the anger in her voice was a dull, tired throb. “You said it yourself. We are Noir. You’ve washed your hands in blood, as have I. Neither of us is an innocent, Kirika. Shall we count off debts and payments?” she scoffed. “The shots that killed my family staked against the number of times you saved me? It doesn’t work that way. This is life and it’s messy, our lives especially. There’s no balance sheet where things conveniently add up.”
Kirika was incredulous. They had both killed, yes, but couldn’t Mireille see the difference? “You make it sound so simple, but we both know I can never atone…”
“Enough!” Mireille cut her off as Kirika found herself being grabbed roughly by the shoulders until she was staring into two furiously blazing eyes. “God help me, if you’re here, half-naked on my bed, for any reason other than the fact that you want to fuck, and especially if it’s because of some misbegotten sense of guilt or gratitude, I will strangle you!”
“Mireille?” The dark-haired girl stared at her, wide-eyed.
“Forget it.” Abruptly the hands let her go. “Go take your shower, Kirika.” In a second Mireille was off the bed and moving to stalk away.
Kirika quickly caught the hem of the woman’s long-sleeved shirt, effectively stopping her. “I didn’t approach you tonight to...fuck.” The word felt alien in her mouth. She didn’t swear much, not even at the people who tried to kill her, and strangely enough she had never associated that word with what she wanted from Mireille. But this, she was beginning to understand, could not be done without words.
Mireille stiffened. “Then -”
“What I want is to...love you. I've missed you so much.” Even in the dark it was easy to see that Kirika was trembling. “If you'll let me, and before you tell me to leave again, I want this. But it’s also okay if all you want is to f-“ She stopped as a finger briefly touched her lips, silencing her more effectively than a dozen gunshots ringing in the dark.
“Don’t say that,” Mireille admonished. She sighed. “I mean, don’t just say things like that.“ Don’t say it if you don’t mean it, because it might just kill me if this is the guilt talking, too. “Fucking is…” she was about to say easier, safer. Only fucking had never described what she wanted with Kirika “…complicated enough. But love? Haven’t you learned by now that love is the most dangerous thing in the world?”
For a second, Kirika’s thoughts flew to Chloe and the man she’d met by the Seine, both destroyed by what they’d felt for her. But this was Mireille, and no one was better prepared for the risks that they faced. So she answered as honestly as she could. “It’s too late. Your warning,” she clarified with a wan smile, “it’s a couple of years too late.”
Mireille sighed. “Kirika…” At this distance it was impossible not to touch her, and her hands curved to tenderly cup the girl’s face. Absolutely, deeply in trouble. “I won’t tell you to leave again. I can’t.” Even to her ears, it sounded dangerously like a confession. “But we can’t keep going on like this. I was hoping we could leave it alone, that in time things would go back to the way they were before…”
“Before Chloe returned my memories,” Kirika continued softly.
Mireille nodded. She took a deep breath and steeled herself. “Maybe we should settle this tonight.”
“How?”
Suddenly the eyes locking with Kirika’s were as sharp as blades of ice. “Tell me how my family died.”
***
A/N #2: Though I'm writing this mainly for love of Noir (before they turn it into a sucky movie/TV show), people, if you like this please feed the muse. :) Trust me, it makes a difference.
The rains began while Mireille slept. The heavens opened and enveloped all of Paris in a quick but violent storm.
Mireille woke with a start as a terrific blast of thunder shook the room. A window flew open, banging hard against the frame. The dark sky beyond showed that the easy afternoon spent with Kirika had turned into a stormy evening.
She rubbed her eyes sleepily as a sporadic arc of lightning threw everything into silhouette. She knew, even without looking, that Kirika was not in bed with her.
Unlike that other night.
***
More than two years ago - three nights before she’d sent Kirika away - there had been a storm just like this, the violent kind that shook Paris sometimes, and she had woken to Kirika embracing her tightly, her dark head buried in Mireille’s shoulder.
In retrospect, it had been strange. They had fought in conditions such as this. They had run on slippery, treacherous rooftops while shooting at masked men and dodging bullets in the hard, driving rain. Why should Kirika be shaken now, when they were indoors and safe?
But she undoubtedly was. Mireille’s arm wrapped around the shivering form. Her hand trailed upwards until it was running soothingly through short, silky tresses. “What’s wrong?”
Kirika’s answer was the briefest of whispers. “Arashi.”
“The storm? But...” Mireille checked herself. Kirika rarely spoke Japanese to her, knowing that her familiarity with the language was limited. That in itself hinted at some inner turmoil. Surely this wasn’t the time to remind her that they’d been through worse. “It’s okay. It’ll stop soon.”
“Not this storm. The - the other one. I was dreaming. I was on the roof, and then running through the cemetery and you were...I was telling you to…” In the dark, the woman could sense Kirika lifting her head, craning her neck to look up at her.
How could Mireille forget the soft words etched into her brain from that bloody night? “We had a promise, didn’t we? That you would kill me when it all became clear…please do it.”
Mireille shivered, remembering the way Kirika had closed her eyes and the serene acceptance on her face as she waited for her to shoot. Mireille turned so that even in the half-dark she could look into those deep brown eyes. “It’s over.”
She could not explain what happened next. They had slept together in the same bed dozens of times before. Maybe it was the embrace and the storm, the memories that lay thick between them, and everything they had been through in the past year. Or maybe it was the way Kirika was shivering, how she seemed so badly in need of comfort.
For whatever reason, Mireille craned her head just enough to kiss the girl who trembled in her arms.
She could be forgiven for thinking that it was the right thing to do. Kirika’s lean arms tightened around her even as she opened her mouth in a whimper, and Mireille, emboldened, took advantage of the invitation.
The blond woman found out quickly that she could become addicted to this, the little sounds and shivers that wracked the perfect assassin’s lithe body as her mouth left those intriguing lips to begin charting the rest of her. The taste of Kirika’s mouth, her skin, the way her body was wiry-hard and yieldingly soft in just the right places... Mireille was soon frantic to know every inch of her.
Then Kirika’s shoulders were bare, and Mireille’s lips were on her collarbone, left hand on the tight bud of a small, firm breast under threadbare cotton, starting to press, when another flash of lighting illuminated the girl’s face.
She was in tears.
The hot blood pounding in Mireille’s head turned to ashes. What am I doing? Hands and lips withdrew quickly as she stammered, “Sorry, I - ” She couldn’t go on. Shakily, she got to her feet. She walked barefoot to the windows and stared out at the pouring rain.
She felt, rather than saw, Kirika stumbling from the bed. “No, Mireille, don’t stop. It’s just…I owe you so much...”
The words hit Mireille like a blow. She took a swift breath against the unexpected pain. In that second, she knew two things: she loved Kirika, and because she did, Kirika could not stay. Mireille didn’t trust herself that much.
“No, it’s okay,” she managed somehow. “Let’s just go back to sleep.”
The next day, she began making arrangements for Kirika to complete her schooling in Lyon.
It took her months to get used to sleeping in the same bed alone.
***
Now Kirika was here again and it was frighteningly easy, letting things slip back into having the girl with her. Mireille had lived alone for a long time, and she liked it that way. But for some reason having Kirika around made the small flat more of a home instead of the other way around.
She sighed. It had been excruciatingly hard to send Kirika away the last time. She wasn’t sure she could do it again, even if it might be the right thing to do.
There was a scuff in the darkness. Quick as lightning, the cold polymer-and-steel of Mireille’s Walther was in her hand and pointed steadily in the direction of the noise.
“It’s just me.”
“Kirika?” Mireille lowered the pistol, automatically decocking the striker as she put it away. “What…?” Her eyes widened as the shadows resolved into a lissome figure that seemed to be dripping water.
“I wanted to get some wine for dinner. I got caught in the rain.” The girl stepped into a wayward beam of light as she placed the bottle down. She was soaked, and everything she wore clung to her like a second skin.
The sight of her made Mireille’s throat run dry. “You went out in that,” she waved towards the pouring rain visible through the window, “just to get a bottle of wine?” The phrase “are you crazy?” hung in the air between them. “And why are you in your uniform?”
“It wasn’t raining when I left,” Kirika answered readily, “and my other clothes are in the laundry.” Eyes steadily returning Mireille’s skeptical stare, she shrugged off her blazer.
Every inch of Kirika was wet from the rain, and underneath the blazer her white, sodden blouse was a sheer veil molded to every curve of her body. She slowly pulled at the knot of her tie, loosening it but not taking it off completely. When she caught Mireille’s reflexive swallow, it took all of her discipline not to smile. So she likes that.
“You must be cold,” Mireille managed to say. For the life of her, she couldn’t tear her eyes away. The body revealed as much as covered by the drenched clothes was no longer the spare, almost painfully thin form of a girl forced to live an ascetic life, but a healthy young woman’s. “You shouldn’t stay in those clothes. Why don’t you change and take a shower?”
“Alright,” Kirika agreed softly. She approached the bed, hands flicking first one and then another button open on her blouse, though the tie still hung askew from her collar. She climbed on the bed until she was practically straddling the half-seated Mireille, her skirt riding high as her knees bent and braced on each side of the woman’s outstretched legs. Her heart was beating hard in her chest. Was she right about this? Would she succeed?
Kirika leaned forward until her tie was dangling inches away from the slim hand that had just pointed a gun at her. “Will you help me?”
Mireille was a woman hypnotized. Gaze riveted on the young assassin’s face, she found herself wrapping her hand in the proffered tie. Gradually, but with increasing force, she pulled the girl forward until they were a handbreadth apart. “You’re playing with fire.” Her warning was a hoarse whisper in the dark.
Kirika was staring at the lips inches away from her own. She knew it was the only warning she was going to get. God, so close now. “I want to.”
“Show me.” Mireille wasn’t sure if her rough words were a demand or a plea.
Kirika swallowed nervously. This wasn’t in the plan. She had offered; in her mind this was the part where Mireille should either take or refuse. Instead she seemed to be waiting.
What was she expecting? A kiss? But except for a sudden kiss stolen by Chloe and the achingly brief exchange with Mireille that had resulted in her exile, Kirika wasn't too proud to admit her inexperience. An assassin did not employ a technique she wasn’t familiar with, not for something as vital as this. So she took Mireille’s words literally instead.
Holding Mireille’s gaze, she loosened the remaining buttons of her blouse open until only three were left. She shivered as a breeze from the half-open window found her drenched skin. She was wearing a bra, but she knew that the thin, damp material would hide nothing of her reaction to the rain and to Mireille’s proximity.
Intense cerulean eyes watched her every move. They traced her face and the slim column of her neck like a physical touch, followed her movements until they were riveted on the increasingly bare expanse of skin. “Kirika...” Another warning.
“Mireille, please.” Eyes the color of molten chocolate beseeched her.
The two simple words broke her resistance. Mireille surged forward and pulled hard on the tie that was still in her hand. Kirika nearly fell against her, surprised by the force of it. But in the flash of a second Mireille’s other hand was in her hair, cupping the back of her neck and holding them both in balance as her lips claimed Kirika’s hungrily.
It started hard. Mireille was too experienced an assassin and a woman not to realize that this was an ambush. She was angry at being caught unawares and being pushed like this, and frankly more than a little embarrassed. Obviously Kirika was aware of her attraction and had decided to act on it. ‘But why like this?’ she couldn’t help thinking. Why the hell couldn’t they approach this like two normal, sane people?
Then it didn’t matter anymore, because she was murmuring Kirika’s name against those impossibly soft, uptilted lips, and Kirika’s hands were almost painfully tight on her arms as she hung on for balance and maybe for sanity as well. The way Kirika returned her kiss was so open and so giving that it was impossible to stay angry. Mireille’s grasp fell from the mangled tie.
Kirika was learning that there were things no extent of planning could account for. Like the intensity of her response to Mireille’s touch - it was as if someone had flipped a switch and a million new nerve centers she hadn’t even known existed were cascading all over her. She shivered as the possessive caress of Mireille’s mouth found her throat and began to suck on the skin. “Oh.”
“Mon trésor.” Mireille was almost light-headed. Was this really happening? It had been years since she had touched anyone, and for it to be Kirika, the only one who really mattered... With a hint of apology, she returned for a gentler kiss, lips moving to tease and caress, a tongue flicking out to taste and ask permission.
Kirika’s heart pounded at the endearment. Didn’t she know that I can’t refuse her anything? Specially not now. The way Mireille held her, strongly but carefully, fair hands sliding down her body to touch but also to support - this wasn’t just about desire. And Kirika wanted so badly for this to be so much more.
So she did as Mireille asked, feeling silly and a little chagrined that she didn’t know how to do this properly. But that lasted for the three seconds it took for Mireille’s lips to claim hers again, and then there were more important things to concentrate on.
Mireille’s tongue danced lightly across lips and teeth to explore the warmth of Kirika’s mouth. When Kirika’s tongue peeked out to meet hers in a shy dance, she broke away with a gasp. “Maybe we should…”
Kirika twined her hands in the golden tresses of Mireille’s hair and drew her back. “I want more,” she demanded, raining kisses on that beautiful face.
“But -”
“I dare you.”
Blue eyes flashed. With a near-growl, Mireille moved from her seated position until she too was partly kneeling on the bed, with legs bent beneath her. She pulled Kirika closer until the girl was straddling her more firmly, and shoved impatiently at the short skirt until there was nothing between Kirika’s center and the tensile strength of fair-skinned thighs except a slip of silk.
She grinned at Kirika’s sudden intake of breath…only to groan a moment later as small, strong hands tugged urgently at the buttons of the shirt she’d worn to bed. They slipped nimbly into the newly created opening to span, tentative but impatient, against the warm flesh of her stomach.
I’m in so much trouble. A few minutes more of this and there would be no turning back.
Kirika was warm and open in her arms, and Mireille was drowning in sensation as the girl clung to her. When a palm and fingers, roughened by years of unrelenting training, shyly found the curve of her left breast, she frantically led the kiss deeper.
In the end it was only the need for air that forced Mireille to cede the contact. She opened her eyes, and read in an instant the desire on Kirika’s face...and the guilt.
Always guilt. Bordel de merde!
With an effort, she broke away and scrambled to the edge of the bed.
“Mireille, what…?” Kirika was looking at her with an expression that was still heavy-lidded with desire.
“Button your shirt.” The heavy disappointment turned Mireille’s voice ice-cold. She clenched her fists against the urge to continue. Still beguilingly and messily half-clothed, Kirika was only inches away, and so very hard to resist.
“But why?” It was almost a cry. The rejection, coming on the heels of a display of passion from Mireille that Kirika had hardly dared dreamed about, was almost more than she could bear.
“Shouldn’t that be my line?” Mireille ground out, as anger and disappointment surged. Once more Kirika was offering her what she wanted, but for all the wrong reasons. And in this case, she cared enough for the reasons to be important, dammit!
“Why are you doing this, Kirika?” she demanded. “Because you owe me?” Pain turned to resentment and she lashed out. “Every time I look into your eyes all I see is guilt. I’m sick of it!”
“No!” Kirika denied instantly. How could she think that? “But what I did to you…oh Mireille, I killed your family. And when you came to take me from Altena, I tried to kill you!” The doubts that had been haunting her for years swelled inside her and burst out into words. “How can you forgive me?”
So it was guilt. When Mireille spoke again, the anger in her voice was a dull, tired throb. “You said it yourself. We are Noir. You’ve washed your hands in blood, as have I. Neither of us is an innocent, Kirika. Shall we count off debts and payments?” she scoffed. “The shots that killed my family staked against the number of times you saved me? It doesn’t work that way. This is life and it’s messy, our lives especially. There’s no balance sheet where things conveniently add up.”
Kirika was incredulous. They had both killed, yes, but couldn’t Mireille see the difference? “You make it sound so simple, but we both know I can never atone…”
“Enough!” Mireille cut her off as Kirika found herself being grabbed roughly by the shoulders until she was staring into two furiously blazing eyes. “God help me, if you’re here, half-naked on my bed, for any reason other than the fact that you want to fuck, and especially if it’s because of some misbegotten sense of guilt or gratitude, I will strangle you!”
“Mireille?” The dark-haired girl stared at her, wide-eyed.
“Forget it.” Abruptly the hands let her go. “Go take your shower, Kirika.” In a second Mireille was off the bed and moving to stalk away.
Kirika quickly caught the hem of the woman’s long-sleeved shirt, effectively stopping her. “I didn’t approach you tonight to...fuck.” The word felt alien in her mouth. She didn’t swear much, not even at the people who tried to kill her, and strangely enough she had never associated that word with what she wanted from Mireille. But this, she was beginning to understand, could not be done without words.
Mireille stiffened. “Then -”
“What I want is to...love you. I've missed you so much.” Even in the dark it was easy to see that Kirika was trembling. “If you'll let me, and before you tell me to leave again, I want this. But it’s also okay if all you want is to f-“ She stopped as a finger briefly touched her lips, silencing her more effectively than a dozen gunshots ringing in the dark.
“Don’t say that,” Mireille admonished. She sighed. “I mean, don’t just say things like that.“ Don’t say it if you don’t mean it, because it might just kill me if this is the guilt talking, too. “Fucking is…” she was about to say easier, safer. Only fucking had never described what she wanted with Kirika “…complicated enough. But love? Haven’t you learned by now that love is the most dangerous thing in the world?”
For a second, Kirika’s thoughts flew to Chloe and the man she’d met by the Seine, both destroyed by what they’d felt for her. But this was Mireille, and no one was better prepared for the risks that they faced. So she answered as honestly as she could. “It’s too late. Your warning,” she clarified with a wan smile, “it’s a couple of years too late.”
Mireille sighed. “Kirika…” At this distance it was impossible not to touch her, and her hands curved to tenderly cup the girl’s face. Absolutely, deeply in trouble. “I won’t tell you to leave again. I can’t.” Even to her ears, it sounded dangerously like a confession. “But we can’t keep going on like this. I was hoping we could leave it alone, that in time things would go back to the way they were before…”
“Before Chloe returned my memories,” Kirika continued softly.
Mireille nodded. She took a deep breath and steeled herself. “Maybe we should settle this tonight.”
“How?”
Suddenly the eyes locking with Kirika’s were as sharp as blades of ice. “Tell me how my family died.”
***
A/N #2: Though I'm writing this mainly for love of Noir (before they turn it into a sucky movie/TV show), people, if you like this please feed the muse. :) Trust me, it makes a difference.