Chapter 30
Chapter thirty
At the top of the stairs, Sloan paused. The house was silent, but she knew Matty was downstairs, waiting.
Patient. Kind. Desirable.
The alcohol had worn off. The wanting hadn’t.
She’d brought Matty back, this time not for sex, but to sleep beside her, in that big, lonely bed.
It was a first.
Something she'd never done here. Something she hadn't had to think about before. She'd lived her own life, had her own place, and hadn't had to consider anyone else in terms of privacy and space. She had a sudden attack of nerves. Of doubt.
An image of Matty came to mind, then flashes of moments between them.
The look on her face when Sloan had exploded at her over the coffee spill.
The way she’d stopped and stared when Sloan had grasped her wrist in Art the first time.
The way she’d leaned into the kiss as if she’d been waiting for it.
Sloan closed her eyes and breathed deeply.
“Sloan?” Matty’s voice broke through the fog. Sloan opened her eyes and found softness staring back up at her. “Everything okay?”
“Yes, I just... Let’s go to bed. It’s late.”
Matty smiled, took one step, and then the next. Before Sloan knew it, she was in front of her. Face to face, toe to toe. “I wasn’t sure if—”
“I thought I’d been clear,” Sloan answered.
“You were. I think it’s my own self-doubt creeping in.”
Something in Sloan eased. “Why would you have self-doubt?”
Matty shrugged. “You know… Life.”
“I want to know about that… Your life.”
Matty chuckled and took Sloan’s hand.
“I’m serious,” Sloan said, leading her towards the bedroom door. They paused outside it. “I’ve not done this before.”
Matty frowned. “Slept with a woman?”
“No, I’ve done that, obviously.” Her free hand closed around the door handle. “I’ve not brought anyone home since moving back in here with Mother. This is a first for me.”
“Then I’m even more honoured,” Matty said, her eyes holding Sloan’s gaze.
Sloan pushed the door open and stood aside as Matty entered the room and looked around, just like she’d done the last time she’d stepped inside here.
Once she was in the centre of the room, Matty spun around and waited until Sloan closed the door and met her there.
“So, earlier we were coming here to do very inadvisable things,” Matty said, smiling beneath her blush. “And now...”
Sloan swallowed. Even exhausted, she wanted to do unspeakable things with this woman.
“Now, it’s three in the morning and I’ll be up in five hours dealing with Her Highness,” Sloan said, smirking as her fingers laced with Matty’s again.
“I still want to do things we shouldn’t, but.
..I think the time has passed and now I just want to sleep.
” She raised her free hand, the backs of her knuckles gently grazing against Matty’s cheek. “Next to you.”
“That might be the most intimate invitation I’ve ever had,” Matty said. “But I have one issue.”
“Oh?” Sloan said, stepping back before she could stop herself.
Matty stepped forward, closing the space. “I don’t have anything to sleep in.”
“Ah, yes.” Sloan cleared her throat. “That might have been easier earlier.” The thought sent a ricochet of sensation straight between her legs.
“I’ll just—” She turned quickly, pulled open one drawer, then the one below it, searching for spare sleepwear, grabbing striped cotton bottoms with a matching button-up top, all neatly folded and pressed. “Will this work?”
Matty took it from her, leaned in, and said, “I’d have slept naked, but yes, this will work.” She sauntered away and out of the room, leaving Sloan to contemplate her choices.
She grinned and quickly undressed, pulling her robe around herself. She pulled back the covers and grabbed her nightwear, then thought better of it and tossed it into the laundry basket.
Tonight was supposed to have ended very differently. Looking back on it now, Sloan was almost glad it hadn’t. She didn’t want to need alcohol to sleep with someone, especially not with Matty.
What unsettled her was the fact she still wanted her. Sober now. Tired. Clear-headed enough to know that if this went wrong, Gloria would lose the best carer she’d ever had.
When the door opened, Sloan looked up.
Matty stood in the doorway, her voice low, “Do you have a preference?”
Sloan hugged the material of her robe to her chest, thrown for a second. “Preference?” She barely got the question out, her voice faltering at the sight of Matty in her own pyjamas.
“Side of the bed,” Matty said. “I usually sleep on the right, but I’m not fussed if you want it.”
“Oh. No, that’s fine.” Sloan glanced at the mattress. “I’ll just get changed, and then we can get some sleep.”
“Okay.” Matty smiled and walked across the room to the bed and perched on the edge, one striped leg crossed over the other as she sat back on her hands. “I’ll see you in a minute then.”
***
When Sloan returned, she paused in the doorway. Black silk clung to her frame–thin straps, lace skimming halfway down her thighs.
“I thought we were going to sleep.” Matty smiled and lifted the duvet, making space for her.
Sloan closed the door behind her. “We are.” She removed her earrings one at a time as she walked towards the bed.
“So, you’re showing me what I can’t have?” Matty’s grin widened.
Sloan’s mouth twitched. “Possibly.”
“Is that what being with you is going to be like?” Matty asked, turning onto her side, her head propped on one hand.
Sloan looked at her as she smoothly slid under the covers. “I suppose that depends on what you bring out in me.”
Matty smiled to herself and fell back against the pillow. “That might be part of the appeal, actually.”
Sloan finished straightening the duvet, her thigh settling against Matty’s. “What do you mean?”
Matty rolled back again, settling into the pillow as she looked at Sloan.
“You’re very...contained,” she said, “even when you’re not trying to be.
” Her mouth curved. “That first time in your office…the way you spoke to me, barely looked at me...I felt it for hours afterwards. Then in the bar, when you snapped at me for touching your glass...” She shook her head slightly.
“That stayed with me too.” Matty looked faintly embarrassed but didn’t turn away.
“It turned me on. I didn’t really know what to do with that. ”
“And you like that?” Sloan asked.
Matty shook her head slightly. “Not exactly. I just know it does something to me.”
Her gaze stayed on Sloan’s. “You make me feel as if you notice everything. As if you expect something from me. And somehow, I want to give it.” She swallowed. “And then you go and say something honest, or look at me like you’re not as sure of yourself as you sound, and that gets me too.”
Sloan was quiet for a moment, her expression unreadable. “That’s quite an assessment.”
Matty’s mouth smiled slowly. “I’m only telling you what it feels like from where I’m lying.”
Sloan’s gaze stayed on hers. “I’m used to being the one who holds things together,” she said quietly. “At work. At home. Most of the time, there isn’t room for me to be anything else.”
She shifted closer, one hand sliding lightly over Matty’s waist before settling there. “So yes, I like control. But not for the reasons you probably think.”
Matty’s breath caught. “Then why?”
Sloan looked at her mouth, then back to her eyes. “Because I like knowing exactly what I’m doing to someone.”
The silence that followed felt suddenly smaller, tighter.
Matty swallowed. “And do you know what you’re doing to me?”
Sloan’s thumb moved once against her side. “Yes.”
“Getting me all worked up and then…”
“Denying you?” Sloan said, and then answered her own question, “Yes.”
Matty’s eyes dropped briefly to Sloan’s mouth. “I really want you to kiss me.”
Sloan exhaled through her nose, almost a laugh, but not quite. “I know.”
“I wouldn’t stop you.”
“That’s part of the problem, too.”
“In what way?”
Sloan considered the question. “Because I like deciding when you might…find release. And right now, we’re both exhausted and tomorrow will be here before we know it.”
She touched Matty’s face then, just once, fingertips at her jaw—light enough to be almost nothing, intimate enough to feel like far too much.
“Try to sleep,” she murmured. Before Matty could answer, Sloan leaned in and pressed a kiss to her forehead instead.
“What if I wanted to touch myself?”
“I’d say…no, I want you to resist.”
Then she drew her in, close and warm beneath the duvet, leaving Matty to lie there awake with all that wanting still alive in her body.