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Miranda laughed, the trill of her voice echoing through the living room. “Good to know you don’t cheat.”

“Always a good trait, don’t you think?”

“Yes.” Miranda moved in closer, their shoulders brushing before she stretched out her arm along the back of the couch, nearly cradling Tori in the move. She stayed there, closer than ever before. “But what else?”

“Tall, dark, and handsome?”

Miranda wrinkled her nose, her cheeks flushed from the alcohol. “What does that mean for you?”

“I love a woman who knows her worth and value. Someone who knows where she stands in the world and has already gone through the tides of figuring out who she is.”

“So you like older women.” Miranda didn’t make it a question, her voice falling flat.

Tori swallowed hard around the sudden lump in her throat. “Y-yes.” She’d never quite thought about it like that, but she did like women who acted mature, and if that came with age, it never came up as a second thought to her. “I don’t like to screw around with the chaos of not knowing.”

“I can understand that.”

“What do you look for? In a soulmate, that is.”

Miranda wryly laughed, moving even closer to Tori. “I don’t believe in soulmates, and I’m not looking for love.”

“I know that, but if you were, what would you look for?” Tori wanted to know, desperately, what Miranda would say. Who was she under that icy veneer?

“My ex-fiancé was tall, dark, and handsome.” Miranda sighed into her drink. “We were very young when we got engaged. I had only just started working at the funeral home at the time. Hadn’t been to school yet.”

“But like you wouldn’t let me get away with it, what else is there for you? You can’t be attracted solely by looks?”

“Rarely from looks.” Miranda locked her eyes on Tori. “Kind hearts. Bleeding hearts. I learned quickly that I can’t be with someone who doesn’t have compassion for another person.”

“That’s deep.” Tori bit her tongue. She shouldn’t have said that, but the vodka was pushing its way into her brain and making it hard to hold her tongue. “I mean…I don’t mean anything bad by that. I just mean that it’s hard to find someone without compassion.”

“It’s really not.” Miranda leaned forward and set her empty glass on the table, but when she came back she was in the same position as before. “In my line of work, we have to balance compassion with professionalism.”

“Mine too.” Tori winked, putting her half-full glass down. When she leaned back against Miranda’s side, little sparks of electricity moved through her. What were they doing? Because this dance was drastically different from what she’d expected when she’d come over here tonight. “What else?”

“I love a woman who is confident in herself. And I won’t be too deep and not say that I also enjoy a woman’s body.” Miranda’s voice dropped at the end. “Her curves, her softness, her understated strength.”

Tori’s heart rate kicked up a notch. Miranda wasn’t looking into her eyes anymore but dropping her gaze all down her body. She wanted to twitch and move, but she held as still as possible, afraid to break the spell.

“But I don’t believe in soulmates,” Miranda whispered, drawing Tori back to her lips. Those beautiful, half-full lips.

“But do you believe in love?” Tori couldn’t tear her gaze away.

“Sometimes. I’ve seen many people grieve over lost love.”

Tori’s heart was in her throat, pounding away and making it so hard to speak. “Do you want to test something?”

Miranda’s lips curled upward. “Test what?”

Tori took two seconds before she found that confidence Miranda had been speaking of. Moving swiftly, she pushed up on her knee and turned, straddling Miranda on the couch. She left enough space between them that Miranda could tell her to stop, to back away, get off, whatever she needed. But she didn’t. Tori gazed down into her honeyed eyes, Miranda’s lips parted as if surprised, but her gaze held an entirely different look. She’d expected this. Maybe even wanted it.

“Let’s see if we’re soulmates or not.”

“I know we’re not.”

Tori canted her head to the side, reaching forward and curling a long strand of hair around her fingers. “But what if I can prove you wrong.”

“You can’t.”