Chapter 45
Chapter forty-five
She lifted the mat and her excitement rose another notch when she saw the key shining in the moonlight.
Picking it up, she felt almost as though she were moving through a dream.
Her body was exhausted, the shift at the bar had been a busy one and she’d been on her feet all night, yet her mind was racing with the possibilities that lay ahead.
She couldn’t remember a time when she’d been this turned on by anyone.
Pushing the key into the lock, she turned it slowly, feeling it catch and unlock. She pressed her hip against the wood, the door easing open after a gentle shove.
As quietly as possible, she closed it and slipped off her shoes, dropping her bag down next to them. There was nothing in it she would need right now.
Each step was slow and deliberate as she crept up, trying not to make a sound. The last thing she wanted was to wake Gloria and cause any further delay.
It felt like an age before reaching the top of the stairs.
She stopped on the last one, wincing as a floorboard creaked beneath her, tensing up and waiting to see if Gloria heard.
When nothing happened after about ten seconds, she moved on and crossed the small hall.
And then she was there, outside Sloan’s bedroom door.
She flicked the hall light off, then pushed the handle, opening the door a crack. A small bedside lamp lit the area around the bed, and she could see Sloan, lying on her side, watching her.
They smiled and whispered their hellos, Sloan propping herself up on one elbow.
“I thought you’d be another thirty minutes,” Sloan whispered.
“Got a lift,” Matty answered, moving forward.
“Stop,” Sloan said, raising a palm. “Take it all off for me.”
“I need a shower.”
Sloan smirked. “Then you’ll still need to take it all off for me, won’t you?”
Matty stood still. She tilted her head slightly, considering the…
request? Order? Her instinct had been to get her clothes off as fast as possible and dive straight into bed so Sloan could finally do something about the state she’d been left in all day.
But now, seeing the way Sloan was looking at her, feeling how her own body reacted to those words, made her badly want to do exactly as she was told.
Only then did she realise she hadn’t taken her jacket off and left it downstairs with the rest of her things.
One by one, her clothes slid from her body and landed in a heap on the floor. When she was down to her bra and knickers, she paused. She didn’t move again straight away, instead just standing there and letting Sloan take her in.
“Keep going...I want to see you.”
Matty smiled. “You’ve already seen me...what I want is to see you.”
Sloan took a slow breath, then with one hand gripped the duvet and pulled it up and over to the side, baring herself to Matty’s gaze. Sloan was a vision—all tanned skin, stark against the white sheet.
Matty’s gaze dropped from Sloan’s face to her bare breasts, nipples taut in the suddenly cooler air. She took in the dip of her waist, the rise of her hip, the sparse, neatly trimmed hair between her legs.
“All of it. Off. Now.”
Matty reached behind her back first, fingers less steady than she wanted them to be. The clasp gave, and Sloan’s eyes stayed on her as she slid the straps from her shoulders and let the bra fall to the floor.
Her knickers took longer—not because they were difficult, but because she could feel Sloan watching every second of it.
Some stubborn, reckless part of her wanted to make that waiting and watching last a little longer.
When she finally pushed the knickers down and stepped out of them, the room seemed to go even quieter.
For a moment, neither of them spoke.
Matty stood there, bare under the low lamplight, her skin hot, her pulse beating wildly.
Sloan didn’t rush her, observing her with that same steady focus, like she had all the time in the world and expected to be obeyed properly.
Then Sloan lifted her chin towards the bathroom. “Shower,” she said softly. “And don’t keep me waiting too long.”
Matty let out a breath that was almost a laugh, almost a groan, and reached for the doorframe to steady herself before turning away. “Joining me?”
“No. You can wait a moment longer for my touch.”
“Cruel,” Matty muttered.
Sloan’s mouth curved at the gentle accusation as she blinked the tiredness away. “Yes.”
***
Matty all but flew through the shower.
She barely paid attention to the temperature, or to anything beyond getting clean and getting back to Sloan. Her whole body still felt coiled, humming with the promise of what was waiting on the other side of the bathroom door.
Sloan’s voice. Sloan’s eyes on her. Sloan telling her what to do in that low, steady tone that made her feel hot all over.
Hadn’t she already imagined how this would play out, her fantasies taking over whenever she allowed them to? Images of spreading herself over Sloan’s face, her waiting mouth, eager to taste more of her, riding it out until she could hold back no longer.
And somewhere in the middle of all that want was something else.
She liked her.
Not just the chemistry. Not just the thrill of being looked at like Sloan had at her, or the ache Sloan seemed able to summon with a glance and a few quiet words.
She liked Sloan—the intensity of her, the control, the rare little cracks in her armour that allowed Matty to see her.
And she liked the fact that underneath all that polish and authority was someone so emotionally available.
Her pulse kicked back up as she opened the bathroom door, already fantasising. Minutes. Hours. However long it took for Sloan's hands and mouth to take her apart completely.
Matty crossed the hall and pushed the bedroom door open with a small, anticipatory smile still on her face.
“Quick enough?”
She stopped cold.
Sloan was asleep.
Not pretending, not lying there waiting to catch Matty out, but properly asleep, still on her side, with one arm tucked beneath the pillow, and the bedside lamp casting a soft pool of light over the bed. Her face looked different like this—younger, almost. Less guarded.
Matty just stood there for a second, staring.
“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me,” she whispered.
The words came with no real heat behind them, more disbelief than annoyance.
Her body, however, had not yet caught up.
It still throbbed with all the expectation she’d carried out of the shower, and for one ridiculous moment, she could only stand there, naked and feeling thoroughly betrayed by the universe.
She huffed out a breath and crossed to the bed.
“Hey,” she said softly, climbing on the edge of the mattress. “Sloan.”
Nothing.
Matty leaned over and carefully touched her shoulder, not wanting to startle her. “Come on. You can’t order me about like that and then fall asleep before I get back.”
Sloan made a small sound, somewhere between a breath and a murmur, but didn’t open her eyes.
Matty smiled despite herself. “Seriously?”
She tried again, gentler this time, brushing her fingers over Sloan’s upper arm.
Sloan shifted a fraction, her brow tightening for a second before it smoothed again, but that was all.
Up close, Matty could now see the exhaustion, plain as anything.
It wasn’t just ordinary tiredness, but bone-deep weariness—the kind that sat in the face even in sleep.
And just like that, the last of Matty’s disbelief gave way to understanding.
Of course Sloan was exhausted.
Her whole life seemed to be one long act of endurance: Work. Gloria. The constant vigilance of being needed by everyone and properly held by no one. Even tonight, after all that charged looking and teasing and want, Sloan had still been running on whatever scraps she had left.
Matty’s chest tightened.
She sat beside her for a moment, looking down at her, desire still there but changed, softened at the edges by something warmer; something that asked for less and noticed more.
“All right,” she murmured.
She reached over and switched off the lamp, then paused, letting her eyes adjust to the dark.
After a second, she eased herself properly onto the bed, careful not to jostle Sloan too much.
If Sloan woke, she woke. If not, Matty wasn’t going to drag her back out of sleep just to satisfy her own frustration.
She pulled the duvet up around them both and lay there in the quiet, listening to Sloan breathe.
It wasn’t what she’d expected. Not even close.
But when Sloan shifted in her sleep a minute later and drifted almost instinctively towards her warmth, Matty felt something inside her give all the same.
Maybe this was intimacy, too.
Just not the version she’d imagined.