Chapter 21 #2
Sloane didn’t flinch. “I want what we had, but healthier. Real. I want dinners like this. Arguments we work through. Silence that isn’t distance. I want to wake up next to you and not wonder if you’ll be gone by morning.”
“I want that too,” Catherine said, almost too quietly to hear. “But I don’t know how to be good at it.”
“You don’t have to be good at it,” Sloane said. “You just have to keep trying.”
Catherine turned then, really turned, and looked at her. “I’m trying,” she said.
Sloane gave her a smile that was all warmth and gravity. “Then we’re already better than we were before.”
They stayed there on the couch, fingers entwined, tea gone cold beside them. The city glowed beyond the glass, a soft pulse of light and life outside the haven they were slowly building.
Trust, Catherine realized, wasn’t built in grand declarations or passionate nights. It was built here—in quiet, careful evenings where someone stayed, and someone chose to let them.
The condo was quiet, their tea mugs still sitting abandoned on the coffee table, shadows of steam long faded. Outside, the city exhaled softly, lights blinking across distant high-rises, but inside, time had slowed into something sacred.
Sloane stood first, her hand outstretched. “Come with me?”
Catherine looked up, her heart in her throat.
But she nodded, sliding her fingers into Sloane’s and letting herself be led.
It wasn’t the first time they’d touched, not even the first time they’d crossed this threshold together, but it felt different.
Like this time, she wasn’t just surrendering her body, but everything else too.
They reached the bedroom in a hush, the space dim and warm from the low bedside lamp. Sloane let go of her hand only long enough to pull the covers back then turned, standing still, waiting.
Catherine moved first.
Her hands found the hem of her shirt and pulled it off slowly. Sloane’s eyes softened with reverence.
“You’re beautiful,” she murmured.
Catherine didn’t look away. “You always say that.”
“Because it’s always true.”
Sloane stepped forward then, cupping Catherine’s jaw gently, brushing her thumb along her cheek. “You don’t have to be anything tonight,” she whispered. “Not strong. Not perfect. Just here.”
Catherine’s breath hitched, her lips parting. “You make me feel like I don’t have to earn love.”
Sloane kissed her then, soft, steady, a question answered with the way Catherine leaned in. She opened under her slowly, like pages unfolding in a book no one else had ever been allowed to read.
Their clothes came off in pieces, scattered quietly across the room.
No urgency. No performance. Just skin meeting skin, breath finding breath.
Catherine sat on the edge of the bed and let Sloane kneel in front of her, pressing kisses along her thighs, up her hips, across the lines of surgical scars and hidden freckled skin.
Each kiss was an act of worship.
When Catherine guided herself onto the bed, Sloane followed willingly, letting their bodies align, foreheads touching, arms curled around waists, legs tangling beneath soft sheets.
They kissed again, deeper this time, slower. Catherine’s hands moved carefully, tracing Sloane’s back like she was learning it all over again. Like she wanted to memorize the way her ribs expanded with each breath, the shiver beneath her skin when fingers grazed her spine.
Sloane exhaled against her lips. “You never had to earn mine.”
“I know,” Catherine whispered. “But I didn’t believe it. Until now.”
Their mouths met again, open and tender, and Catherine rolled gently over, moving atop Sloane with careful intention. Her hair fell around them like a curtain, her lips brushing the line of Sloane’s jaw, her breath shaking.
Sloane reached up, threading her fingers into Catherine’s hair, holding her close but not tight. “You’re okay?”
“I am,” Catherine said. “Because you stayed.”
And then they moved together, no script, no rush. Just breath and feeling. Just presence.
Catherine moved like she wasn’t afraid to be seen. Like she wanted Sloane to see everything. And Sloane did—every tremble, every whisper, every time her name slipped past Catherine’s lips like a plea.
They reached for each other’s hands mid-movement, fingers locking tightly, as if that small gesture could tether them to something steadier than the flood rising between them.
Catherine's palm fit against Sloane's like it had always belonged there, her grip tightening when their rhythm stuttered, breath caught between their open mouths.
Sloane's eyes fluttered closed, forehead tilting up until it met Catherine's in a soft press, skin-to-skin, breath-to-breath.
“Look at me,” Sloane whispered.
Catherine did, eyes blown, mouth open, no walls, no masks. She was trembling from being watched while Sloane worked her open.
Sloane’s hand cupped the back of her neck to hold her there, and the other slid straight between Catherine’s legs, finding heat. She pressed her thumb on her clit, hard and tight, and two fingers pushed into her pussy in one slow stroke that made Catherine’s breath hitch.
Catherine’s hips rolled down to meet every grind of Sloane’s thumb, every curl of those fingers.
The rhythm turned frantic: press, curl, draw; press, curl, draw, Sloane keeping her pinned when she tried to chase, changing the angle by a hair until Catherine’s thighs shook and she started making those broken little sounds she couldn’t swallow.
The orgasm slammed through her body, no poetry, just heat and mess.
Catherine’s walls clenched around Sloane’s fingers in fast, greedy pulses; she cried out, half-choked on it, hips jerking while Sloane held her there and milked every last spasm.
When Catherine tried to squirm away from the sensitivity, Sloane eased only a fraction, dragging her thumb in smaller circles that kept her whining and twitching.
After, Sloane wiped her hand on Catherine’s thigh, then hooked a leg over Catherine’s and spread her again, as though just to look at the wreck she’d made.
Catherine didn’t flinch when Sloane’s palm ran the length of her spine.
She didn’t reach for clothes or haul the blankets up like armor.
She stayed open, flushed, and shaking, exactly how Sloane wanted her.
Catherine curled into Sloane’s side, one leg draped over hers, her cheek resting above the steady beat of Sloane’s heart. Her fingers moved absently, brushing the soft dip just beneath Sloane’s collarbone, slow strokes like a lullaby played on skin.
They didn’t speak, but the silence wasn’t awkward; it was humming with something unspoken but understood. Outside, the world moved on, cars whispered down the avenue, a siren cried in the distance, but here, in the hush of sheets and shared breath, they were utterly still.
Sloane turned her face into Catherine’s hair, pressing a kiss to her temple. Her lips lingered.
“Still with me?” she asked, her voice low, velvety, unsure.
Catherine inhaled slowly, deeply, letting the scent of Sloane—the faint trace of lavender soap and sweat and something impossibly warm—fill her lungs.
Her voice was hushed when it came. “Always.”
She had chosen to stay. Not out of obligation.
But because she wanted to.
Because she was ready.
Because love, finally, didn’t feel like something she had to earn.
“I love you,” Catherine whispered.
“I love you, too.” Sloane’s hazel eyes were full of warmth and Catherine felt the squeeze of Sloane’s hand on her hip.
Catherine stirred just after dawn. Not with urgency, not startled by a nightmare or a restless memory, but slowly, softly, as if her body had finally remembered what it meant to rest.
The condo was still. The first hint of sunlight slipped through the edge of the curtains, painting the bedroom in a quiet gradient of amber and gold. In that light, everything looked softer, less like a space built for solitude, and more like something lived in. Something shared.
Sloane was still there.
Lying on her side, bare shoulders rising and falling in a slow, even rhythm. Her hair was tousled, one arm curled under the pillow, the other draped across Catherine’s hip like it had always belonged there.
Catherine didn’t move.
She didn’t want to break whatever spell had settled between them. She just lay there, her forehead against Sloane’s chest, listening to the heartbeat beneath her cheek.
For a moment, she tried to remember the last time she'd woken up beside someone and felt peace rather than panic. She couldn’t. Maybe it had never happened. Maybe this was the first time she’d allowed it to.
She shifted slightly, just enough to look up.
Sloane’s lashes fluttered, and then she blinked awake. Her lips curved into the smallest, sleep-heavy smile.
They stayed like that for a while, no rush, no fear. Just two women tangled together in sheets and something beginning to feel like hope.
Eventually, Sloane shifted to prop herself on one elbow, her eyes scanning Catherine’s face.
“How do you feel?”
Catherine considered the question. Her body still ached, and her heart was still healing. Her mind, always so full, so sharp, was quieter now. Not silent, but still.
“Lighter,” she said finally. “Like I stopped running, even if it’s just for a while.”
Sloane reached down and tangled their fingers together.
“You don’t have to run anymore.”
Catherine looked at her, really looked at her. She thought about all the walls she’d built, all the armor she’d carried, and how, in the end, it hadn’t protected her. It had only kept her from love.
“No,” Catherine said. “I don’t.”
There was a pause.
And then Catherine did something she hadn’t done since childhood, not with real intention, not with softness.
She smiled.
Small, tired, but true. She leaned forward and kissed Sloane gently.
And when she pulled back, she tucked herself into Sloane’s arms again and whispered, “Let’s stay like this. Just for a little longer.”
Sloane nodded against her hair.
“Forever if you want.”