The kiss turned into something more, their movements growing bolder as they surrendered. Sloane’s hands moved with purpose, sliding down Catherine’s arms, her touch leaving trails of heat in its wake. Catherine’s typically pristine shirt wassmeared with paint as Sloane pulled her closer, their bodies pressing together in a synchronous rhythm.
The room around them faded, the scattered brushes and canvases, the strings of fairy lights casting soft glows on the walls—all of it became background to the urgency.
Sloane guided Catherine backward, her lips trailing along her jawline and down the column of her neck. Catherine’s breath hitched, her fingers clutching at Sloane’s shirt as though it were the only thing keeping her grounded.
“Catherine,” Sloane murmured, her voice husky and low, “you don’t have to hold back. Not with me.”
Something inside Catherine broke free at those words. She pulled Sloane closer, her lips capturing hers in a kiss that was hungrier, needier. Her hands roamed, her touch uncharacteristically unrestrained as she let herself feel everything, the softness of Sloane’s skin, the heat of her body, the way their breaths mingled as they moved in sync.
They stumbled together, their breathing mingling with gasps as Sloane led them to the corner of the studio, where a drop cloth lay crumpled on the floor. Catherine sank onto it, pulling Sloane with her, their bodies tangling as they gave in to the pull that had been building between them since the moment they’d met.
Catherine lost sight of time, of what was happening, there was paint on her clothes and they were being removed from her body and she was fine with that. More than fine.
Paint smudged onto their skin as they moved, their hands exploring, their kisses deepening. Catherine felt the last of her walls shatter, replaced by something she didn’t entirely recognize, something raw, vulnerable, and achingly real.
She didn’t know when it happened, when the need became too much, when she stopped fighting. But as Sloane’s lips moved against hers, her touch both firm and reverent, all Catherine could think was how badly she didn’t want it to end.
Catherine had only ever known control. She’d been with women before when the pressure built and she needed release, but it was always on her terms—scheduled, contained, purchased if necessary so it could be functional without the hangover of guilt. Want in, want out. No one got close enough to touch the part of her that might come undone.
This wasn’t that. Sloane didn’t ask for room; she took it. She didn’t negotiate inch by inch; she set the terms by touch alone. Catherine felt it in the weight of Sloane’s palm at her sternum holding her to the drop cloth, in the sure way Sloane slid her knee between Catherine’s thighs and widened them, in the deliberate press of an open mouth at her throat that stole the sound from Catherine’s chest and replaced it with a rough, helpless exhale.
“Stay,” Sloane murmured, not loud, just certain, and Catherine stayed.
Pressure and release. Direction and control. Sloane’s hand skimmed down Catherine’s ribs, caught the underside of her breast, and lifted; her thumb circled until the nipple peaked and then she took it into her mouth, sucking slow and deep while her other hand palmed Catherine’s hip to keep her from chasing. When Catherine arched anyway, Sloane flattened her palm and pinned her there, changing the angle of her mouth by a measured fraction that turned heat into a live wire low in Catherine’s belly.
Then the hand left Catherine’s hip and traced lower. Fingers hooked the elastic, pushed her panties down and off without fanfare, and came back. She felt Sloane’s hand moving between her legs and she felt her legs parting to allow her access. She felt the delicious slide of Sloane’s fingers through her wetness.
God, I’m so wet.
Then she felt them pressing up and in, steady and unhurried until Catherine’s body opened to welcome them inside her.
Sloane’s fingers felt like they were opening her up. Catherine moaned loudly with a sound she never imagined would come from her lips, deep and raw in its intensity.
“Please,” she murmured. She wanted it. Wanted her. Sloane. Inside her. Opening her up.
“I’ve got you, Beautiful,” Sloane’ s voice was deep and earthy and more sexy than anything Catherine could imagine. Catherine felt Sloane’s fingers curling and pressing deep inside of her.
“Oh my god,” Catherine gasped.
Catherine’s breath broke. Sloane’s thumb found her clit and set a tight, even circle that didn’t change no matter how Catherine tried to grind for more.
“Eyes on me, Beautiful,” Sloane said, lifting her head. Catherine met her gaze and felt the floor tilt. Sloane held the stare while her fingers stroked in and curled on the drag back, again, again, the kind of practiced rhythm that made thinking irrelevant. When Catherine started to climb too fast, Sloane stilled the circles and pressed slightly firmer, pulling a thin, high sound from her throat; when Catherine tried to twist away from the intensity, Sloane’s forearm barred her hip and kept her exactly where she wanted her.
Catherine felt desperate beneath Sloane’s body and hands. She desperately wanted release but she was so enjoying every torturous moment of Sloane’s very skilled fingers fucking her with a deep slow repetitive thrust.
“This feels so…”
It hit fast and clean. Catherine’s orgasm ripped through her before she could prepare for it, hips jerking, thighs shaking, a shocked cry punched into the back of her wrist where Sloane had guided her mouth so the sound wouldn’t carry. Sloane didn’t let go; she rode it with her, easing the pressure only whenCatherine’s body started to flinch from the sensitivity, then gentling the circle until the aftershocks melted into shivers.
Catherine lay sprawled on the floor, naked and spent.
Embarrassment would have followed, but Sloane left no space for it. She kissed Catherine’s knee, the inside of her thigh, the damp crease of her hip as if everything she found there pleased her, then sat back and stripped her own jeans down her legs, underwear after.
“Here,” Sloane said, guiding Catherine’s hand between her thighs. “Tongue, slow. Then two fingers. Curl up, not back. Keep the same pace unless I say.”
The instruction didn’t land like a rebuke; it felt like being handed a method. Catherine followed it obediently. She moved to Sloane with her mouth, wondering momentarily how long it had been since she had tasted a woman like this and would she like it? She opened her mouth and reached for Sloane’s wetness with her tongue, the taste of her overwhelming and hot as it hit her tongue. It was hot being told to lick her, Catherine thought to herself. She tasted good. Catherine felt her mouth and tongue moving more naturally suddenly, like it was something she had always done, even though it wasn’t. She licked slowly, flat and deliberate, learning the path by taste and sound, how Sloane’s breath shortened when Catherine flattened her tongue, how her hips rolled when Catherine focused just to the left, how her hand tightened in Catherine’s hair when the rhythm hit the right frequency. When Sloane said, “now, fingers,” Catherine slid two fingers inside and curled up as instructed.
“Now, fuck me with them,” Sloane growled and Catherine obeyed beginning to thrust in and out with her fingers.
