Chapter 14 #2
“Please..” she gasped.
Sloane dipped her head between Catherine’s legs.
The first stroke of her tongue was long and deliberate, a clean pass to learn her shape and taste; the second narrowed the focus; the third sealed her mouth and drew gently.
Catherine’s breath broke on it. Sloane set a pace, small and exact, and held it.
She slid two fingers inside when Catherine was already open for her, slow enough that the body could take her, deep enough that Catherine’s hips rose off the bed without instruction.
Sloane paused for a heartbeat to let her adjust, then curled up and in.
“Don’t—” Catherine began, losing the end of the thought on a sound when Sloane adjusted the angle by a fraction.
“Change nothing,” Sloane said softly, but she meant herself as much as Catherine; she kept the metronome true, tongue and curl, tongue and curl, listening to the feedback in Catherine’s breathing, in the tremor running down Catherine’s thighs, in the helpless, cracked yes that slipped out and hung between them like a prayer.
When Catherine reached to push for faster, Sloane’s free hand slid to her lower belly and anchored her back to the pace, back to the edge.
The crest came clean. Catherine’s thighs clamped and then offered, her body clutching around Sloane’s fingers as the wave broke and the hot wet liquid gush of pleasure flooded into the palm of Sloane’s hand; Sloane didn’t ease off, not at the first tremor, not at the second, keeping pressure until Catherine’s voice thinned and the sound that followed was almost a laugh because it was too much and exactly right at once.
Only then did Sloane become gentler with her mouth—smaller circles, a softer pull, smoothing the aftershocks down to a hum.
“Look at me,” Sloane said, lifting her head. Catherine’s eyes opened, darkest of blue, wet, present. Sloane held that gaze as she slid her fingers out and licked some of Catherine’s orgasm from the palm of her own hand. Catherine blushed and looked away.
“That…. that doesn’t normally happen to me…” Catherine’s voice was uncomfortable.
“It does now,” Sloane said with a smile as she licked some more from her hand. “And it is the most beautiful, sexy thing I can imagine. You are so beautiful, Catherine. You taste so good.”
Catherine pulled her in with both hands until Sloane was lying on top of her and when they kissed Sloane knew Catherine was tasting her own sex on Sloane’s tongue. Sloane pressed her tongue into Catherine’s mouth.
“Inside again,” Catherine said, the words barely formed against Sloane’s lips, and Sloane obliged, hand sliding between them, three fingers sinking into heat that welcomed her without resistance, her thumb finding its place against Catherine’s clitoris.
Sloane began to fuck Catherine once again with her fingers, bringing her back up with every thrust until Catherine was moaning and crying out beneath her.
Sloane held her as she fucked her, she knew Catherine was close.
“Come for me, Beautiful,” Sloane whispered in her ear. “Let go for me, Good Girl.”
And at that very point Catherine exploded into climax once again flooding Sloane’s hand with her pleasure. Sloane felt the tremors of her orgasm pulsing around her fingers and Catherine’s whole body tightening and then relaxing and shuddering beneath her.
After, the sheets were tangled, the room dim with only the streetlight through the window painting shadows along the wall. Catherine’s chest rose and fell beneath Sloane’s arm. Their legs were still entwined.
Neither of them spoke.
Sloane stared up at the ceiling, her fingers gently trailing shapes across Catherine’s stomach.
She tilted her head to look at her.
Catherine’s eyes were open, fixed on the ceiling too. Her mouth was parted slightly, her brow relaxed.
Sloane didn’t need to say anything.
This wasn’t a night of declarations.
Catherine's hand was still resting against Sloane’s chest, her palm warm, open. There was no retreat in her body. No armor clamped down across her spine. Just her, bare in every sense of the word, lying there in the quiet aftermath of something more than desire.
The city moved on outside the windows, horns blaring as people’s lives passed by. But in the quiet of Catherine’s bedroom, something enormous had shifted.
She hadn’t just let Sloane in.
She’d asked to stay.
Sloane felt Catherine’s weight draped half across her body, her breath steady and slow, eyes closed but not asleep.
Her cheek pressed to the space just below Sloane’s collarbone, where her heartbeat thrummed softly.
The room was dark save for the gentle glow of the bedside lamp, casting a gold halo across the sheets and the curve of Catherine’s bare shoulder.
Sloane’s fingers moved absently through her hair, tangling and untangling the dark strands. It should’ve felt perfect, but her chest ached, just a little, with the weight of everything she hadn’t said.
Catherine didn’t ask, but maybe that was why Sloane finally spoke.
“I used to think I loved people too fast,” she said, her voice quiet in the hush of the room. “Like there was something wrong with me. Like needing someone, seeing them too clearly, wanting too much too soon meant I was some kind of warning sign.”
Catherine didn’t move, but Sloane felt the faint press of her fingers against her ribcage as she listened.
“They’d say it like it was this flaw I couldn’t fix. That I was too open. Too intense. Too loud. Too ready to care.”
Her fingers paused, then resumed even softer.
“But with you, it’s not fast,” Sloane whispered. “It’s inevitable.”
The silence that followed wasn’t heavy. It was honest and whole.
Catherine didn’t rush to fill it or shift away.
She simply reached up, cupping Sloane’s face with a hand that still smelled faintly of lavender soap and wine.
Her thumb brushed across her cheekbone. Then, as if pulled by something, she leaned up and pressed a kiss, soft and steady, to the corner of Sloane’s mouth.
When she pulled back, her eyes met Sloane’s. There were no declarations, no dramatic promises. Just the raw sincerity in the way she whispered her name.
And somehow, it was enough.
Sloane let out a breath she didn’t realize she’d been holding and pulled Catherine closer. They lay like that for a long time, wrapped around each other, until the lamplight flickered and finally went dark.
Sloane woke to the sound of quiet, the kind of quiet that only existed just before dawn, when the world was still, the city hadn’t stirred, and time moved like honey.
She blinked slowly, eyes adjusting to the gentle gray light that bled in through the curtains. Catherine was still asleep, her body curled into Sloane’s, one leg tangled lazily with hers, one arm slung across her waist like she didn’t intend to let go.
Sloane didn’t move. She couldn’t have, even if she’d wanted to.
There was something sacred in the moment. The way the morning light curved around the edge of the bed. The way Catherine’s lashes fanned out across her cheeks. The way her breathing made the sheets rise and fall in rhythm with Sloane’s chest.
She stared at the ceiling for a long time, her fingers brushing lightly over Catherine’s spine, not to wake her, just to feel her there. Solid, warm, still here.
I didn’t want her to change, Sloane thought. I just wanted her to stay. And now, maybe…she might.
Catherine stirred against her, mumbling something incoherent as she shifted. Her nose nuzzled against Sloane’s neck, her lips brushing warm skin.
Then, in a voice still thick with sleep, she murmured, “You’re still here.”
Sloane smiled into her hair and whispered back, “So are you.”
They didn’t say anything else. There was no need.
They stayed like that, wrapped in cotton and color and breath and quiet, for just a little longer.