CHAPTER 13: THE SECOND COMING (DON’T BE WEIRD ABOUT IT)
Mira opened the door as soon as Harper reached it, and welcomed her in with a small smile, the kind that held warmth without needing any words.
Harper stepped inside cautiously, and the hush of the apartment closed in around her as Mira shut the door.
This place always got to her. It felt like Mira—composed, magnetic, too elegant to be entirely real. Warm linen drapes stirred at a breath of early fall air drifting in from the open balcony. Beyond, the city shimmered in deepening blue, the skyline winking gold in the last light.
A few pendant lamps cast small pools of glow across dark stone counters and the inviting sweep of the reading nook. Everything glowed dimly, as if the space had been designed for secrets.
Harper had taken her shoes off before she even noticed she’d done it—an unconscious habit. She moved quietly through the space, trailing her fingers over the curved island and velvet chair as if confirming it was real.
She’d pulled on a soft green midi skirt that moved easily with her hips, a white silk camisole, and an unbuttoned denim shirt knotted at her waist. The fabric swayed lightly against her calves.
Then Mira’s voice came from behind her, low and amused. “You’re exactly on time.”
Harper turned, smiling. Mira was standing in the archway, one hand resting lightly on her hip. She wore soft black cashmere lounge pants and a sleeveless wrap top tied at the waist. Her hair was in a half ponytail, glossy and dark, and slightly tousled. And her eyes—God, her eyes. Green, bright, and piercing.
Harper gave a sheepish laugh. “Is it weird that your place makes me want to confess things to you?”
Mira’s lips curved. She stepped forward, slow and certain, and reached for Harper’s collar, wanting to touch her.
Their height difference wasn’t so marked when Mira wasn’t wearing her heels, and Harper found herself near eye-level with her.
Mira’s fingers trailed down her arm, featherlight. “You can confess anything to me, ḥabībtī.” She murmured, low with the rich hush of her accent.
Harper’s breath caught. Her chest rose and fell, and her eyes settled, helplessly fixed on Mira’s mouth. She couldn’t help herself—she stepped in and kissed her.
There was no hesitation. It was heat and hunger. It was breathy and unfiltered. It was a kiss without manners. Mira gasped at the force of it, surprised, and then delighted. Her laugh spilled into Harper’s mouth, warm and wicked, as if she’d been caught off guard and enjoyed it immensely.
And then Mira kissed her back.
One hand slid up, steady and sure, settling around the base of Harper’s neck, and the change was immediate. Mira slowed their kiss, claiming the pace and deepening it until it felt vast and decadent. What Harper had rushed into, Mira took hold of and shaped, turning urgency into something rich and unhurried.
And in that simple shift, and beneath Mira’s quiet hand, Harper was reminded exactly who she was dealing with. That it was Mira who decided how far, how fast, and how deep things were allowed to go. And Harper melted into how perfectly, and devastatingly right it felt to yield fully to her.
Harper’s hands were holding Mira’s hips, pulling her in like she couldn’t stand the notion of even a millimeter of space between them. Their mouths moved with certainty—there was no rushing—only hunger and desire.
When they finally broke apart to breathe, their foreheads touched, and Harper hummed in deep satisfaction.
“I missed you,” Harper whispered, voice raw.
Mira’s lips were parted, and her eyes still closed, but for a moment it looked like she might say something serious. But then she opened her eyes and smiled, that quiet, devastating smile Harper now lived for, and tilted her head, gaze sweeping across Harper’s face like she was committing every detail to memory.
“You arrive. Just you,” she murmured, voice low and unguarded. “And I’m already undone.”
Harper laughed softly, flushed and dazed. “Yeah, well,” she said, brushing her knuckles against Mira’s cheek, “you make me feel like I’m walking around on fire.”
Mira didn’t answer. She leaned in, slow and deliberate, and let her lips hover just beneath Harper’s jaw.
Then, in a low, amused whisper, said, “Then I suppose I’ll just have to watch you burn.”
There was a pause. And then they both laughed. Harper’s was bright and breathless, Mira’s quieter, laced with the disbelief of someone who’d just realized what they had said out loud.
Harper nudged her, nose to nose, grinning. “I’m glad you can be ridiculous, too.” She leaned in until their lips were brushing again, her eyes full of wonder. “I want to kiss you until I forget about time.”
Mira sighed, pulling back gently. Her full lips curved, and she gently slid her hand into Harper’s and led her further inside.
=====
After dinner, they migrated to the couch. Wine glasses refilled, and the music low and warm—something slow and wordless—that threaded through the space like smoke.
Harper leaned into the couch’s arm, limbs languid, her legs stretched across Mira’s lap, bare and glowing faintly in the warm spill of light.
Mira cradled her wine in one hand, and with the other, she inched Harper’s skirt higher and higher until the linen pooled at her hips. Giving her a glimpse of Harper’s pale blue lace panties. And then proceeded to trace slow, deliberate lines along Harper’s thigh.
At first, Harper had held her ground and kept the conversation going animatedly. She had already told Mira about a bizarre client email. And now was halfway through her theory that elevators had personalities and judged you if you hit the wrong button too confidently.
But Mira’s hand never stopped moving.
And somewhere between “judgmental elevators” and “overconfident button pushes,” Harper’s voice began to drop. Her words slowed, and her breath shortened. Her fingers clung to the glass stem like a tether.
She was trying. She really was. But her body was betraying her. There was a sudden twitch in her thigh, and then goosebumps began to rise. And finally, her words began collapsing under the tension that bloomed across her skin.
“And, I said mmm-maybe the algorithm should factor in emotional timing too,” she murmured. “Like, hummm…if someone’s having a really bad day, maybe the elevator—”
Mira didn’t interrupt. She just let her hand slip higher along the soft inner line of Harper’s thigh, skirting her panties, and enjoying the feel of the little goosebumps she was creating on Harper’s skin.
Harper, who hadn’t realized she stopped mid-sentence, blinked hard at her wine glass.
“Mmm, umm.” She sighed. “What were we talking about again?”
Mira leaned in just enough for her breath to warm Harper’s temple.
“Elevator judgment,” she murmured, punctuating the reminder with the lightest graze of her lips to Harper’s ear. “Emotional timing.” She added with the tiniest, warm, wet touch of her tongue.
Harper let out a quiet, helpless sound—half laugh, half surrender.
“Your hands and that… everything, are making it really hard for my brain to—”
Her voice broke into the barest whimper as Mira’s finger hooked beneath the hem at the gusset of her panties, dragging them slowly. Harper’s eyes swam, unfocused, and Mira’s smile betrayed the joy her power gave her.
“I like it,” Mira said, her voice low. “I touch you,” she murmured, “and everything inside you falls quiet.”
Slow and assured, she slid her hand deeper under the elastic, like it had every right to be there. And what she found throbbed with invitation, hot and soaked. And all hers.
Her fingers explored Harper’s slippery ache with purpose, while her eyes returned to Harper’s and locked onto them. Harper’s breath hitched at Mira’s gaze. And then it was as though she simply surrendered. Her legs parted, and her eyes fluttered closed as her head tipped backward. Her whole body letting Mira in.
Harper wasn’t thinking anymore. And Mira, in complete control, never once looked away. Her hand moved with intention, and every pass drew out a new sound, as if Harper were being rewritten one moan at a time.
“Open your eyes, ma tendre,” Mira murmured. “Look at me.”
It took effort, but Harper obeyed. Her hips arching, subtle at first, then higher, chasing the flick of Mira’s touch. Her hands roamed without anchor— the couch cushion, Mira’s shoulder, then through her own hair. Her mouth had fallen open, her breath was uneven, and once again Mira’s bright eyes captured hers.
Mira leaned closer. “You’re soaked for me,” her voice full of possession.
A broken sound escaped Harper as one of Mira’s fingers brushed her clit. She nodded without meaning to, her breath fracturing as Mira circled her, slow and devastatingly precise.
A kiss at her cheekbone, her jaw, and then the long column of her throat came next.
Then, “Not on the couch, mon cœur,” Mira said softly against her skin. “I want to undo you properly, where we sleep.”
She withdrew her hand, and Harper whimpered at the loss. Mira’s gaze didn’t leave her as she licked her fingers clean, humming at her taste.
“Get up.”
Harper let out a choked, dazed laugh. “I don’t think I can feel my legs.”
“Come,” Mira insisted, offering her other hand.
Harper rose slowly, and Mira steadied her, fingers firm at her waist, guiding Harper toward her bedroom.
The bedroom was quiet and hushed in linen and low amber light. Mira turned to face her.
“Undress for me. Slowly.”
Harper swallowed, the room pressed in around them, and then she nodded. She peeled her clothes away in silence—skirt, camisole, then her bra, and panties—each one falling to the floor under Mira’s gaze. When she stood nude before her, chest rising and falling, Mira’s eyes darkened.
Mira let her eyes trace every curve, her hunger sharpening by what lay before her.
Harper’s breasts were full and tender, softly rounded yet carrying a natural weight that made Mira’s palms ache to cup them. Her skin flushed so easily; that fair, living warmth seemed to call Mira closer, daring her to taste. Harper’s nipples tightened the moment the air shifted, betraying Harper’s inner tide as surely as her wide, ocean-blue eyes did.
To Mira, they were not simply breasts—they were the embodiment of Harper’s unguarded sensuality—honest, and achingly vulnerable. She imagined the press of them against her lips, the way Harper’s breath would catch when her tongue traced slow circles around her nipples, the way Harper’s body would bow instinctively into her hands. And Mira felt the pulse of possession in her chest—Harper’s breasts, as with the rest of her delicious body, were hers to claim.
But she didn’t touch her yet. She lifted her chin, voice calm and commanding in her discipline.
“Now, undress me.”
Harper stilled for just a breath, then nodded, another shiver running through her. Her fingers brushed the lapel of Mira’s silk wrap top. She hesitated and glanced up.
“You may,” Mira said.
Harper exhaled and slipped the tie free. The silk loosened with a whisper, parting to reveal warm golden skin and the curve of one breast beneath black lace.
“Keep going,” Mira murmured.
Harper eased the fabric from her shoulders. It slid down her arms like water and pooled at her feet.
“Go on.”
Harper looked into her eyes for a moment, and then sank to her knees, placing her hands on Mira’s hips just above the waistband of her pants. Her thumbs traced the line of bare skin.
Mira didn’t need to speak. Her stillness drew obedience like gravity.
Harper pressed a kiss above the fabric, then another. With trembling fingers, she unfastened the pants and slid them over Mira’s hips and down the elegant lines of her thighs. The black, high-cut lace panties that remained made her pause, a helpless sound emitting from deep within her.
Still kneeling, she looked up. Mira stood before her, barefoot and imperious, as if Harper’s worship—anyone’s worship, man or woman—were her birthright.
“You—” Harper began, but the words failed.
“Say it.” Mira’s voice was calm heat.
Harper swallowed and tried again. “You could strip me bare, Mira. And then rebuild me in your name, and I’d thank you.”
Harper took a shaky breath, examining the words she had just spoken. And then she gave a slight nod and continued. “I want to be yours, Mira, not just my body. All of me.”
Mira’s mouth curved faintly strained. “Putain.” The word was torn out of her.
“Stay on your knees,” she breathed. “Show me what devotion feels like. Kiss every part of me that your hands have just touched.”
Something inside Harper seemed to unlock at Mira’s barely controlled command, and she nodded again, eager to obey.
Her lips traced the inside of Mira’s wrist, the first place she’d touched, then followed the path up her arm. A brush at the elbow. She stood and pressed them just below the shoulder. Then bent back down to her ribs, and along her waist. Her breath was trembling as she returned to her knees and nosed at the skin above Mira’s underwear. She breathed in deeply. Mira’s scent shifted something fundamental in her, loosening Harper’s thoughts until only one remained steady enough to hold. Mira.
She tried to gather herself because Mira had told her she wanted things slow, and Harper wanted so badly to get it right. Slow, she whispered to herself, already failing.
She kissed the hollow of Mira’s hip, then the sweep of her thigh, and the inside of her knee. Lower still, Mira’s calves and ankles, until her lips found the top of Mira’s foot.
She paused, startled by the ache the gesture stirred in her, the surrender of it. The submission.
Mira’s foot was warm from the day. A faint trace of sweat still lingered along the inside of her arch. Her foot held the scent of expensive shoes and long hours of command. And Harper revelled in it.
She lifted Mira’s foot and kissed it. First, the instep. Then the ball. Then lower, slower, to the elegant bones of her ankle. Reverence poured into each press of her mouth.
Mira didn’t speak. She simply let it happen—let herself be tended to And Harper’s devotion seeped into her. And, when Harper’s mouth lingered at the base of her arch again, Mira’s throat caught on a breath. Her gaze drank in the woman kneeling before her. And there, with parted lips and eyes that grew soft and tender, something shifted. She had never been more seen, or felt more possessive.
At last, she bent to cup Harper’s jaw. “Ma douce petite, even your kisses kneel for me.”
Harper couldn’t speak. She only breathed, continuing to nuzzle Mira’s foot gently.
Mira offered her hand then, and Harper accepted it and rose and followed.
At the edge of her bed, Mira turned. “Look at me.”
Harper did, her will laid bare.
“I’m not used to this,” Mira said at last, voice thick and hushed. “No one has ever undone me the way you just did.”
She paused, her thumb grazing Harper’s cheekbone.
“And what you gave me… the way you knelt, the way you offered yourself—”
She exhaled, a breath that carried more truth than she meant to reveal. “It brought me to my knees, too. You just couldn’t see it.”
The words rang in the quiet, and Mira kissed her. When she pulled back, her voice was silk once more.
“Lie back for me, mon trésor.”
Harper obeyed without thought, melting into the cool linen, gaze hazy again with anticipation.
Mira knelt between her thighs, her hand hovering just above the softest part of them.
“May I touch you here?”
Harper’s breath hitched. Her legs parted instinctively, her voice raw. “Yes… please.”
Mira’s gaze softened. “Bonne fille.”
She leaned in, lips brushing the skin just beneath Harper’s navel, inhaling her. Already, she could taste her scent, which hung in the air—warm and singular. Her hand slid lower, fingers trailing through the golden brown curls at her mound, finding the heat that pulsed beneath.
Harper gasped, legs shifting wider and her hips tilting in welcome.
And Mira lowered herself, eyes never leaving Harper’s face. Her mouth came to the slick seam of her velvet folds, glistening with heat, and she moaned low against her.
Mira began slowly, her tongue mapping Harper, tracing every part of her—along the outer lips, down to the dripping edge where her entrance throbbed, and up again—until Harper’s breath became broken.
Mira pressed a hand to Harper’s lower belly, anchoring her. The other, gently parting her lower lips, revealing her tender, humid core.
Mira didn’t rush. She circled the swollen peak of her clit with the flat of her tongue, slow and languid. Then flicked and sucked on it.
And Harper moaned her name again, and again. And Mira hummed into her, sending trembling vibrations through Harper’s delicate tissues, her tongue slick with Harper’s need.
Mira moved between long, coaxing strokes and tighter spirals, listening to every shift in Harper’s breath, and then adjusting. Her nose brushed her mound as she inhaled and drank in her scent.
Harper was gone to it—arching into Mira’s mouth and hands, gasping, and whispering broken things. The sheets clenched in her fists. Then released again.
And when her climax came—like a wave pulled to the shore—Mira didn’t pull away. She softened her mouth against her, easing into gentle laps and kisses, coaxing Harper through the last of it. Her face was damp, and her lips glistened with Harper’s pleasure.
At last, she drew back slightly—cheek resting against the inside of Harper’s trembling thigh. Her lips brushed the damp skin with each shallow breath.
She stayed there, quiet and still, not for her own sake, but to hold the weight of what they’d just shared. To linger in that most intimate space that now belonged to them.
There was an incredible beauty in this vantage. Harper had just enough freckles to suggest a hidden sky. And Mira wanted to memorize something only she was meant to know. She followed the faint trace of a vein, delicate and blue, just beneath the surface. The soft imprint of her own fingers still visible beside it. A memory pressed into flesh.
Mira exhaled slowly, steadying herself there. She had touched this skin. Opened it and held it while Harper trembled beneath her mouth. And now she lingered, cheek to thigh, with a foreign and beautiful ache blooming in her chest. This was Harper—undone and radiant—her marked lover.
“I have you,” she whispered.
And Harper believed it, and that claim nestled between her ribs, threatening to feel like something permanent.
=====
Movement woke Mira deep in the night. The quiet rearranging of a body.
Harper, even in sleep, moved restlessly. One leg peeked from under the sheets, bare, and loose, with the kind of grace she didn’t know she had.
Then she heard Harper sigh and mumble something under her breath. Mira caught only the end of it.
“—and the goat laughed at me. And my sandwich.”
A breath of laughter escaped Mira before she could stop it. In the dark, she reached for the discreet remote beside the bed, touching the drape control. The linen sheers whispered shut, softening the moonlight that fell across the bed.
The little that still slipped through was enough to light Harper. Mira turned onto her side and drank in the sight.
Harper glowed in silver and shadow, and Mira’s eyes traced the lines of her body—the slow curve of her spine, the slow rise and fall of her ribs as she breathed, and the slow, soft shape of her hips. Mira sighed.
Then Maurice surfaced, crooked and loyal, from the folds of the blanket. Harper’s ridiculous boob guardian.
Mira reached out and touched him with a fingertip. He was absurd, endearing, and completely Harper. Mira wanted to laugh and kiss it. Instead, she looked on with tender eyes.
Harper mumbled again, something about tide pools and logic, and Mira stilled, gripped by something uninvited and undeniable. How could someone be this open, even in sleep? How could she feel so much for her so quickly?
Maybe, she thought, it’s simply because it’s Harper. And Harper had a way of slipping past every wall Mira had built with that unfiltered heart of hers. And, Mira decided in that moment, that she would let her continue doing so.
She took a long, deciding breath and then reached out and gathered Harper in, quiet and careful, like cradling a dream.
Harper sighed and settled obediently into Mira’s body—fitting into her like she’d been made for her.
CHAPTER 14: THE CITY WITH YOU
The rest of the week slipped past in a blur.
At Calridge, Mira moved like an undercurrent —smooth on the surface, powerful and dangerous beneath.
Her presence was felt in negotiations and strategy sessions, a quiet force behind closed doors. She rarely spoke, but when she did, her voice cut through the room, composed and final.
Even those with decades on her bent, sometimes grudgingly, to the clarity of her insight.
She was young in that world. But she’d been proving from the beginning that she was formidable.
Camille flanked her with easy silence, alert to every small shift in the room. She’d worked alongside senior consultants before. Some brilliant. Some ruthless. A few who managed to be both. But none of them carried what Mira did.
It wasn’t just intelligence. Mira had something else, something harder to name. She didn’t take up space by pushing for it. She stepped in, and the room adjusted around her. She was the calm and storm at once. People leaned toward her without quite realising they were doing it, or they found themselves giving her a wide berth.
Camille had seen this very quality surface in Mira elsewhere, too. In quieter settings where conversations were hushed. Discretion was critical. And prying eyes were guarded against.
And yes, Camille knew Mira was beautiful. Anyone could see that. But working this close to her made it clear there was nothing accidental in it. Nothing decorative. The lines of her, the stillness, the way she held herself. All of it felt chosen. As though beauty, for Mira, was simply another tool she understood how to use.
But lately, Camille had begun to see signs pointing to a potential fracture: the way Harper’s name seemed to live at the edge of Mira’s thoughts. It didn’t distract her—but Camille noticed how, in the space between meetings, something warmer moved behind her eyes.
=====
Meanwhile, across the city, Harper was all velocity. At Nudge, she ricocheted between back-to-back pitches, a maddening code regression mystery that refused to resolve, and an “absolutely chill” investor call that Jules had promised her, which ended up being nothing of the sort.
She kept Mira’s last voice message pinned to her home screen. She played it once a day like a charm.
“Ma brillante… You’re not disorder. You’re the kind of motion that changes everything.”
Harper didn’t know exactly what that meant, but she loved the sound of it. It made her feel as if her restlessness were something deliberate, something purposeful.
They didn’t manage to see each other for nearly a week, but their phones never stayed silent for long.
•••
Midweek, Mira received a video call just before midnight.
She answered from bed, bare-faced and luminous in the lamplight, her dark hair falling in loose waves over one shoulder. The light caught the golden undertones of her skin. Her camisole was nearly translucent and her expression soft.
Harper’s voice came through the speaker, already grinning:
“I just needed to see you. My brain’s melting. Say something in Egyptian.”
Mira smiled, slow and feline. “You mean Arabic?”
“Yes,” Harper sighed dreamily. “That’s what I said.”
•••
Another night, it was Mira who messaged first.
A single line:
Turn your camera on. I need your face.
Harper, halfway through a skincare experiment, froze in place.
Give me five minutes. I’m in a hoodie and a mud mask.
Mira: Perfect. I like you strange.
Harper sent a selfie with one eye mask sliding off and a mug of tea balanced on her head.
Mira laughed, surprised, and pleased in that deep, specific way Harper always earned.
•••
The weekend finally arrived, but then Mira had broken the news to her that she had a late-night international call on Friday.
1 New Message
Mira:
Forgive me. I promise, tomorrow is yours. Entirely.
•••
So, Saturday morning, Harper showed up at Mira’s, unannounced.
She arrived at her building just after nine, a brown paper bag tucked under her arm, with a still-warm brunch inside: flaky pastries, citrus-bright fruit salad, and two dangerously strong lattes.
Her blonde hair was swept into a loose high bun, though half of it had already escaped and her soft waves were curling around her temples and jaw in a way that felt entirely accidental and completely disarming.
The dress was cut close and clean—a minimalist slash of black just shy of indecent. Beneath it, her legs shimmered through sheer, thigh-clinging nylon. And a light cardigan hung open across her shoulders. One delicate gold chain glinted at her collarbone, subtle and warm.
Her expression was unguarded, eyes wide and ocean-bright with anticipation. A faint flush bloomed across her cheeks.
Her mouth was pink with slightly too much lip gloss, and she was breathless. Not from the walk, but from whatever this was, that was growing slowly, but intensely between them.
She knocked softly, and the door opened a few moments later.
Mira stood in the doorway like sunrise had wrapped itself in silk and answered the door.
…and Harper’s brain short-circuited in five different languages. She only knew one. Which probably says enough about how bad it was.
Mira stood bare-legged and impossibly composed, even in sleep-soft disarray.
Her ribbed camisole clung to her like a second skin, the fabric fine enough to hint at the lines beneath—the soft weight of her breasts, the elegant taper of her waist. Her panties were lacey, pale and minimal. The kind of simple luxury that could break Harper’s brain.
But it was the braid that undid her.
Thick and slightly mussed from sleep, it fell over one shoulder like a dark, silken rope—strands slipping loose to frame her face and collarbone. The intimacy and quiet power of the woman left Harper reeling.
Mira looked like she’d been carved from every soft thing Harper had ever wanted to worship. And she wanted to be beneath that braid.
And Mira was just there—as if she wasn’t just dismantling Harper’s entire nervous system—blinking at the morning light, while one hand adjusted the fall of her braid.
This wasn’t the Mira the world got to see: cool, composed, and immaculately dressed.
This was Mira as Harper knew her. Sleepy and warm. Wearing lace, and skin that held faint lines that her sheets had left behind. And God, she was beautiful. Harper didn’t move. Didn’t speak.
She looked like a dream Harper wasn’t sure she deserved. And she was just… standing there. Like this was normal. Like Harper was supposed to function.
She wasn’t functioning. She was staring.
And the only thought that managed to survive the internal combustion of her brain was, I get to be with this woman. I get to touch her again.
Then Harper squeaked.
“Oh my God!“ she nearly dropped the coffee, fumbling for the counter. “You can’t answer the door looking like this!”
Mira blinked. Then smiled knowingly.
“Looking like what?”
Harper didn’t answer. She lunged.
Hands framed Mira’s jaw, mouth finding hers with no preamble — hungry and reverent. Mira gasped into it, startled by another surprise-attack-kiss, but only for a heartbeat before she melted forward, kissing Harper back with that signature, elegant control. Her hands found Harper’s waist, sliding beneath the cardigan, her fingers curling possessively at the small of her back.
They kissed like it was the only thing that made sense, and still, it wasn’t enough.
When they finally pulled apart, Harper leaned back just enough to breathe.
“Good morning, Bright Eyes.”
Then, squinting up at her with a wrinkled nose and a dreamy look, she murmured,
“You taste like morning. And maybe lust. I like it.”
Mira laughed, low and rich in her throat, without any embarrassment about her morning breath. “You’re strange.”
Harper nodded solemnly. “You like me strange. Remember?”
=====
They ate on the balcony—Mira now wrapped in her robe, Harper half in her lap, legs curled sideways across hers. The city hummed softly below, the air crisp with the first true chill of fall, but sunlight still poured across their skin.
Mira fed Harper berries one by one. Harper stole bites of her croissant and kissed Mira’s jaw whenever she could get away with it.
By late morning, the sun had risen high enough to warm the stone beneath their bare feet. They’d shifted and Harper’s head now rested in Mira’s lap, her coffee forgotten on the small table beside them. Mira was brushing soft curls from her forehead, her fingers slow, thoughtful.
“I should get dressed,” Mira murmured.
Harper groaned. “No. You should lie down here with me, and let me make out with your perfect breasts and feed me berries all day. That should be the plan.”
Mira smiled. “Very tempting. But I owe you a day out. I want to show you something.”
Harper blinked up at her. “Like… outside?”
Mira tilted her head. “I do occasionally leave the apartment.”
“Do you, though? Don’t you just sit here enthroned above the world, as we mere mortals battle for your attention and the chance to kiss your delicious toes?”
Mira raised one, lush, perfectly sculpted brow.
Harper grinned and kissed it, as though that eyebrow just proved her point.
“Fine, I’ll let you put clothes on… but only if you promise to keep looking at me like silk isn’t the softest thing you’ve touched today.”
=====
They left Mira’s building just before eleven. The Upper West Side was bathed in late-morning light, warm enough to coax color back into the trees.
Harper’s dress fluttered around her thighs as she walked, her cardigan slipping off one shoulder. She tried to pin her blonde curls up in a lazy twist, but it looked like it had been redone three times in the elevator. She carried Mira’s hand like her very own secret.
Mira was wearing a long, fluid black silk skirt that caught the light with each step, its single slit offering fleeting, maddening glimpses of her leg.
The cut was modern, but the delicate gold embroidery along the hem hinted at patterns from antique Egyptian textiles—a quiet lineage stitched into motion. She paired it with a fine cream knit tucked in with casual precision, the drape at her waist intentional yet effortless.
Her hair was redone into a side-swept French braid. She wore large, dark sunglasses, and flat heels chosen for comfort.
They walked side by side to the 86th Street station—Mira a moving portrait of grace, and Harper narrating a chaotic internal war with her calendar.
“Honestly, Mira,” Harper said as they descended the stairs, waving one hand, “Google Calendar is either sentient or cursed. I blink, and suddenly I’m triple-booked with a dentist, a pitch, and a reminder to water the plant I already murdered.”
Mira didn’t laugh, but her mouth curved. “A tragic tale.”
“It was a cactus.”
The C train slid in with a long, hydraulic sigh. They stepped aboard, claiming a patch of space near the door.
Mira stood with easy poise, one hand curled around the overhead bar, her balance unshakable. Harper shifted between gripping the pole and brushing against Mira’s shoulder, until she gave in and leaned into both.
“You always look like everything belongs to you,” Harper murmured, eyes on her. “Even the MTA.”
Mira tilted her head, “And you,” she said softly, “have that look again—the one that suggests you might forget we’re in public.”
“I think I might.” Harper’s voice dropped as she leaned in to Mira’s ear. “Be careful of tunnels. I get impulsive in tunnels.”
A breath of laughter escaped Mira as she angled toward her, nudging Harper’s nose with her own in a gesture both playful and tender.
At 59th, the train jolted sharply. Harper swayed and Mira’s hand found her waist in an instant, steadying her.
Mira didn’t let go.
=====
They stepped out at West 4th as sunlight spilled down the stairwell, dust motes turning in the air.
Washington Square Park spread wide before them, vivid and restless. Leaves danced across the pavement, jazz curled up from under the arch, and dogs wove between café tables.
The park pulsed around them: chess pieces clicking under the trees, NYU students sprawled in the grass with iced espresso, and a violinist testing a note by the fountain.
Mira wove through the park with the unhurried elegance that made people step aside.
Harper barely noticed the passing glances. She was too busy narrating squirrel dramas under her breath.
“See that one? That’s Roderick. He’s deep in debt to the bird mafia.”
Mira let it wash over her as Harper continued narrating squirrel crime syndicates, eyes bright with mischief as she gestured toward a nearby tree. It was completely ridiculous. And Mira adored her for it.
Sometimes, Harper made her laugh out loud, unexpected, and full-bodied. More often, she just made Mira ache with fondness in places that were slowly softening.
At one point, without thinking, Mira reached out and ran her fingers slowly down the length of Harper’s spine, a quiet stroke, possessive and tender. Harper barely paused, just leaned back into the touch slightly, still mid-story about Roderick and his seed laundering operation.
Mira smiled to herself. God help her, she was smitten.
They wandered deeper into the Village until Mira guided them quietly to a tucked-away bookstore she hadn’t visited in years. It was a narrow, wood-shelved labyrinthine, the air rich with paper and dust.
Harper vanished into the poetry section like she’d just found church. And Mira’s hand skimmed the spines of classic editions.
Eventually, she found Harper again—sitting cross-legged on the worn wood floor with her back straight. Her glasses were on, and a precarious stack of books towered beside her. She was mumbling stanzas under her breath as she read.
“You’re going to knock something over,” Mira said, crouching beside her.
“I already did,” Harper replied without looking up. “But I fixed it. I think.”
Mira plucked a stray curl from Harper’s forehead and, without thinking, kissed it.
Harper froze, blinking up at her. “You can’t just kiss my forehead curl and expect me not to imprint on you like a duckling.”
Mira’s voice was low and certain. “Then imprint, mon trésor. I intend to keep you.”
Something in Harper’s breath caught. Her grin softened at the edges.
“Okay. Well… now you’ve made me the Mira-bian form of the melty.”
One elegant brow lifted. “That’s not a real thing.”
“It is now,” Harper murmured, eyes locked on her.
“She’s melting—” Harper continued, “I’m melting. She’s me. I’m her. And you…”
Her voice faltered, thinned by awe and want. “You’re our shared, hot deity.”
How was this real? Harper thought to herself as she gazed at her. How was she here, with her? Mira was elemental. Beauty and poise made flesh. A woman sculpted from dusk and firelight. Harper’s brain folded in on itself, helpless.
The playful air between them tightened into something molten, and Mira smiled dangerously as she brushed her knuckles down Harper’s cheek.
Her fingers drifted to the side of Harper’s neck, resting there with a quiet, claiming pressure, feeling her pulse, steady beneath her touch.
Mira had always moved through the world with certainty. She was beautiful, highly intelligent, and successful. She understood how most men looked at her—not with curiosity, but ambition. As though she were a prize, an acquisition, a way to feel larger by possessing something refined and exotic.
Women, too, rarely looked without calculation. Some with envy, others with caution. A few with hunger, yes— but even then, there was often something sharpened beneath it. A sense of rivalry cloaked in desire.
But Harper had never looked at her that way. She had looked, and then simply… drawn closer. As if compelled. As if warmth and worship were instinct, not strategy. She hadn’t tried to take Mira or become her. She’d just wanted to be near her. To bask in her.
And Mira Laurent, so rarely affected, had felt it. She had enjoyed it, of course. The pull of Harper’s attention, the glow of her awe toward her. But it ran deeper than enjoyment. She wanted to step into that gaze and let it wrap around her. She wanted to press Harper further, not to diminish her, but to draw more out. To claim the fullness of that devotion and see what Harper became beneath it.
And this… this did not diminish what she felt. Quite the opposite.
Because as Mira searched the shape of her own heart—which she had done—she knew that even if their dynamic had taken a different form—something simpler, more conventional— she would still have fallen for Her Harper. Completely.
But like this, Harper’s reverence and surrender to her, and her heart held openly in her hands—it all just felt inevitable.
“I accept your worship,” she murmured after a moment, “but only if it comes with full surrender.”
Harper’s answer came breathless and instinctive—she arched into Mira’s touch, pressing her throat more firmly into Mira’s palm.
“Take it,” she whispered. “Take all of me.”
Silence bloomed, full and reverent.
Mira’s smile deepened. Her heart, usually so disciplined, lifted in quiet triumph.
Yes, she thought. She would take it—all of it. Every trembling ounce Harper gave. And in return, she would offer what she had never given freely to anyone ever before. Because even as she led, it was Harper who had gathered her loyalty like silk between her fingers and had claimed Mira quietly and fully and irreversibly.
Mira hadn’t just allowed it. She had opened herself to it. Ached for it. And had let it wind around her like something sacred.
And Mira had discovered something she hadn’t expected.
She wanted to be claimed.
=====
Their next stop was Thistle & Bloom just after the lunch rush. The café was tucked neatly at the seam between SoHo and the Village.
It smelled of orange peel and toasted spice, green vines curling along the windows, and warm bread cooling behind the glass.
Harper paused in the doorway, sunlight pouring over her, then turned to Mira with a hopeful grin.
“Okay. If we just moved in here and let the rest of the world burn, I’d be good with that.”
The hostess, Lina, had the air of someone who’d worked SoHo lunch rushes long enough to know her clientele. Her eyes swept over them, professional and poised, but when they reached Harper, something in her smile softened. Her look verged on the familiar, without actually doing so.
But Mira knew that subtle shift all too well. She knew the way people responded to Harper’s openness— her ease, and her chaos—wrapped in charm. She stepped a fraction closer to Harper.
Lina led them to a table by the window. Mira took the seat facing the street, and Harper curled into her chair opposite without a trace of self-consciousness. Her cardigan slipping off one shoulder again, her legs folded, and her blue eyes alight with curiosity.
They ordered with the ease of two people who belonged in each other’s orbit—Mira choosing the grilled rye with whipped feta and pomegranate molasses, Harper a pistachio rose croissant and cold brew.
When Lina came back with their drinks, she set them down with an easy smile, but this time aimed more at Harper than past her.
“Sugar’s on the table. Chaos is in the cup.” She chimed.
Harper lit up. “Finally. Someone gets me.”
“Plenty of people think they do, mon bijou,” Mira said softly, eyes fixed on her.
Lina glanced between them briefly, then away, her smile cooling slightly.
The silence that followed was easy, but there was a new current beneath it. Mira traced the rim of her glass. Harper twirled her straw, hyper-aware of the sunlight spilling across Mira’s lap and the way the slit in her skirt shifted with every movement, offering more glimpse of long leg.
Every time it happened, Harper felt it—low, insistent—and wondered if Mira knew exactly what she was doing to her. No. Of course she did.
“Can I say something dumb?” Harper asked out loud.
Mira’s gaze didn’t waver. “Always.”
“You’re too beautiful for this table. I keep expecting you to be recruited by a passing spy network.”
Mira’s smile was indulgent. “So I’m being seduced by international espionage?”
Harper’s mouth quirked. “No.” She sighed and changed tact. “You’re the reason I Googled how to act normal around intimidatingly hot women.”
She paused for a moment. “Spoiler: I didn’t get past the captcha.”
Mira was about to respond when Lina reappeared.
“Everything alright here?” she asked, her smile perfectly polite, but still carrying a slight extra note when she looked at Harper.
This time, Mira didn’t even look at Lina. But her hand rose slowly, her fingers landing and then gliding along Harper’s jaw, her thumb tugging gently at her bottom lip before coming to rest beneath her chin.
It was a silent, intimate gesture—assured, and unmistakably possessive. It needed no words. And It told Lina precisely who was permitted to touch Harper, and who was allowed to let their gazes linger on her.
“She’s perfect,” Mira said simply.
Harper’s breath stuttered, and Lina stilled. She nodded once, almost respectfully, and left them to it.
Mira began to withdraw her hand, but Harper caught it, and then slowly, she brought it to her lips.
She turned Mira’s hand palm-up and kissed it as if in offering. Her eyes closed. Her posture reflecting something deeper than affection. Something like surrender.
“Thank you,” she whispered. “For sharing the world with me today.”
Mira’s expression softened—pride and devotion flickering in her gaze. She let her fingers close gently around Harper’s, voice dusky and low.
“You’re welcome, My Harper. It’s so much better with you in it.”
Outside, the world still moved to the pulses of traffic and chatter. But here, at this table, it was only them.
CHAPTER 15 – “COOLCOOLCOOL SO YOU REMEMBER THE ’90s”
They held hands all the way back to Mira’s place.
Her bedroom was still warm from the light of the day, the filtered sun pooling across linen sheets like honey. Harper stood barefoot at the foot of the bed, fingers curled loosely at her sides.
Mira crossed the room with unhurried grace. Her hips swayed in a measured rhythm; a silent, deliberate warning that Harper would come undone long before she was touched.
Harper’s eyes followed Mira helplessly, tracing every step, the slow, inevitable closing of distance.
When Mira was only a breath away, Harper’s body responded instinctively—chin tipping up, shoulders relaxing, throat bared in quiet offering.
Mira’s gaze sharpened. A faint smile touched her mouth. She stepped close enough for Harper to feel her heat, the scent of jasmine and something darker wrapping around them.
Then Mira’s hand slid to the back of her neck, firm and sure, pulling her forward with unspoken command. She leaned in and down and kissed Harper’s throat with an open mouth, her tongue gliding over skin that pebbled under its touch. And, when it passed over the rapid thrum of Harper’s pulse, Mira hummed against it and sucked on it.
“Anti lee,” Mira murmured, her voice velvet and satisfied.
Harper’s breath caught, and she shivered.
“Yours,” she whispered, as though the word had always lived inside her.
Harper’s hands moved now, and found Mira’s waist, then her face, then her hair.
“You’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen,” she said, the words slipping out like a confession she hadn’t meant to speak aloud. Her voice was hushed.
Mira, her hand still resting at Harper’s throat, answered, her hand tightening slightly, and then she kissed her slow and consuming, as their bodies met and melted together.
“Good,” she murmured between kisses.
And then, as if to herself, alone, “Parfait. C’est à moi.” Perfect. That belongs to me now.
=====
Much later, the room had shifted to shadow, lit only by the soft glow of a single lamp. The air was thick with warmth and the aftermath of passion.
They were tangled together in the kind of intimacy that didn’t demand motion, only presence.
Harper lay stretched out, her head toward the foot of Mira’s bed, kissing the soft skin of Mira’s inner thigh, and breathing in the scent of her skin with a careful, almost wondering devotion. There was an awe to it, quiet and unguarded, as if she were touching something she still hadn’t been able to convince herself was actually real.
She couldn’t understand why Mira had chosen her. Genuinely. The thought kept drifting back, soft and persistent. Why her, of all people? Why had she been allowed this closeness, this intimacy? Not just Mira’s body. Not just sharing her bed. But the possibility of sharing mornings, and days, like they’d just done. The possibility of a life unfolding beyond the bed. The question lived in her touch, in the way she lingered, as though she were afraid that certainty might make it vanish.
Giving up for the moment, she rested her cheek there, eyes closed. Mira’s skin was warm and impossibly soft. Her cheek pressed into the warmth, and she felt the life and energy Mira had flowing through her body. She shifted a little and gazed at the line she had just licked—that tender crease where thigh meets pelvis. It was meant to be kissed on Mira. Kissed by her. Worshipped and pressed into by her. It was a sacred space, tender and curved, meant for devotion—her devotion. Harper was sure of those things, at least.
Mira reclined against the pillows, eyes half-lidded, and quiet. She let Harper wander—her kisses, and her hands, showing her soft devotion.
Harper was lower now, her touches were slow and thoughtful, stroking Mira’s calves, and then cradling the arches of her feet. Occasionally, she muttered something absurd—some random fun fact that Harper’s chaotic brain had latched on to and kept safe: she murmured something about octopus intelligence, and then mentioned a bit of graffiti she’d read downtown that had made her giggle and look around to see if anyone else noticed it, too.
And, then, catching Mira off guard, Harper’s voice became more attentive. “Hey,” she murmured suddenly into the warm smoothness of her leg, voice full of mischief.
“When’s your birthday?”
Mira’s gaze sharpened, the question landing heavier than expected.
“Why?”
Harper kissed just above her ankle, inhaling Mira’s scent, there and revelling in it.
“Because I want to know when I’m supposed to spoil you.” She giggled as she bit her arch playfully.
That made Mira gasp and then smile down at her. Then she breathed in carefully and fully, and exhaled, giving the date in French. Nerves rising, and heart beginning to race.
Harper blinked. “Okay, that was hot as hell coming from the mouth that just made me cum,” she muttered, “but also, not helpful.”
“February eighth,” Mira translated, hesitantly injecting some amusement into her voice, before continuing, “Nineteen eighty-nine.”
The air shifted. Harper stilled. The math hit before she could stop it. She sat up slowly, twisting to face Mira while one hand still lay cradling Mira’s foot. She was still flushed, but suddenly alert.
“Nine years.” Her voice was soft, curious. “You’re nine years older than me.”
Mira’s face gave nothing away, but Harper saw the flicker beneath it.
“I mean… God, Mira.” Her eyes swept over her again. “I knew you were older than me. I mean, you’re is powerful.” She began rambling, her words picking up speed. “But really, you’re so beautiful I never even thought about your age. I mean, you’re so elegant and self-possessed. And terrifyingly successful. You’re…” she was suddenly at a loss, and she gestured weakly, “You’re you.”
There was a pause. And, then, more quietly, her eyes intent on Mira’s face: “You’ve known since the start, haven’t you?”
“Yes,” Mira said after a moment’s hesitation.
“How long?”
“Since I received the Nudge Engine file,” she said. “Your basic information was in it.”
Harper nodded, absorbing it.
“Why didn’t you say anything?”
There was another beat, and Mira’s voice dropped, tinged with reluctance. Her accent thickening, “Because I didn’t want it to matter to you. And I was afraid,” her gaze softened, “that it might.”
Harper’s lips parted. She stared. Mira Laurent, immaculate, composed, and elemental, had just admitted fear?
“You were scared?”
“Yes,” Mira said simply. “I thought about it. But the truth is, the age difference doesn’t matter to me. Not at all. And if it does for you—” her tone changed and took on her quiet command, firm beneath the warmth, “then I will prove it to you. As often as you need. In as many ways as you need. Until you believe, down to your bones, that it doesn’t.”
Whatever Harper had been about to say evaporated, burned away by the steady challenge in Mira’s eyes. She blinked, scrambling for something lighter, something teasing to soften the moment. Not because the age gap mattered to her. It didn’t. It never could.
Mira could be decades older than her, and Harper knew she’d still want to live beneath her gaze, under the weight of her voice. She knew she would still have given Mira her deepest devotion, even then.
She smiled then, small and sincere, and a little stunned by the depth of what Mira was offering without flinching.
But, because she was Harper, her mouth curved—she looked down at Mira’s perfect body, and then back up to her bright gaze— and a sense of recklessness danced behind her eyes. “Then prove it,” she murmured.
Mira looked at her, the challenge in her eyes flaring for a moment, then a smile unfurled slowly and sure, and already victorious as she recognized Harper’s playfulness.
She rose to her knees, gloriously naked. Her body moved with the same lithe, unhurried grace that always exploded Harper’s soul—all long, honey-gold limbs and dark, peaked nipples that swayed on her breasts as she shifted. Her hair spilled over one shoulder, thick and tousled from sex.
Harper’s breath hitched, and her whole world narrowed to this. Mira.
Mira’s hands bracketed Harper’s face, thumbs brushing lightly over cheekbones in both command and caress. Her eyes locked onto Harper’s with burning intent.
“Dis-le,” she murmured roughly. “À moi.” She licked Harper’s lips, “Who is your queen?”
Harper moaned and leaned in. She shivered visibly at Mira’s tone. “You,” she said instantly, breathless.
Mira’s smile deepened. Her thumb brushed Harper’s lip; her tone wasn’t softened by Harper’s admission, but rather, becoming stronger.
“And who is your goddess?”
Harper’s voice was almost joyful, now, filled with willing surrender.
“You, Mira. Always, and only you.”
Mira moved in, hands still holding Harper in place, and kissed her temple, like a sealing or a benediction.
“Ma sou— ” A pause, a flicker of emotion. Then: “Mon bijou.”
Harper wondered briefly what she’d nearly said. But then Mira shifted her, laying her back against the pillows, and followed, slow, purposeful.
She straddled Harper and let her hands roam freely over Harper’s body, caressing her shoulders, her breasts, and tracing her stomach.
And then, one hand moved to spread softly but firmly over Harper’s racing heart, and Mira smirked at the rapid pulse there. While her other hand rose and curled back around Harper’s neck, settling there in a tight, controlled grip.
Her eyes locked onto Harper’s, bright and consuming. “Say it again,” she murmured.
Harper gazed up at her, flushed and yielding. “You’re my queen, Mira. My goddess. Always.”
“And you, mon trésor…” Her thumb traced Harper’s bottom lip, slow. “You belong to me. Body, mind, and soul. Every year between us fades the moment I touch you.”
Harper was thrilled at her words. “Yes, Mira. All yours. Only yours.”
Mira smirked, triumphant, hovering above Harper as her thumb slid along her jaw; the pressure was unmistakably claiming, but she didn’t bother to hide any of the tenderness that lay beneath it, either.
