Catherine dipped the brush into a soft gold, then reached out, brushing a single, shimmering line along the ridge of Sloane’s collarbone. Her touch was delicate, almost reverent.
Sloane’s breath caught. She hadn’t expected that.
“Gold suits you,” Catherine murmured, her voice low.
Sloane tilted her head. “Are you seducing me with my own paint?”
Catherine gave her a look that was somehow both innocent and completely predatory. “Maybe.”
Sloane leaned in, brushing her lips near Catherine’s ear. “Good.”
It spiraled quickly after that.
Sloane grabbed another brush, this one loaded with cobalt blue, and painted a swooping arc across Catherine’s stomach. Catherine laughed—a rare, unrestrained sound—and retaliated with a streak of silver up Sloane’s thigh.
Paint smeared. Colors blended. Brushes clattered to the floor as fingers took over, dragging pigments across bare skin, mixing with heat and sweat and the unmistakable hum of something electric building between them.
Sloane straddled her, knees bracketing Catherine’s hips, their bodies already flushed with exertion and laughter. Her hands, slick with reds and violets, slid up Catherine’s torso, leaving a streaked trail that made her shudder.
Catherine’s hands gripped her waist in return, her nails digging slightly into her skin as she pulled Sloane down. Their lips met again, hot and open, mouths sliding together like they couldn’t quite get close enough.
It was messy and perfect.
At some point, they fell sideways, laughing into each other’s mouths, tangled in the sheets Sloane had pulled down from the bed and the canvas drop cloths that littered the floor beneath them.
The gallery upstairs would open in a few hours. There were emails Sloane was supposed to respond to, paintings to finish, and calls to return.
None of it mattered.
All she could think about was the smear of red across Catherine’s throat, the way her chest rose and fell beneath streaks of blue and gold, the gleam of paint clinging to the line of her collarbone.
Sloane kissed her again—slow, deep, reverent.
And Catherine didn’t resist. She pulled Sloane closer with surprising urgency, her hands now trembling slightly with whatever she was feeling and refusing to say.
Sloane slowed.
She shifted, hovering above Catherine, her breathing shallow but steadying as she looked down at her. Catherine’s dark lashes were still damp from sweat, her cheeks flushed in a way Sloane wanted to memorize. The woman who usually wore her restraint like armor was here, beneath her, breathless and real, and so breathtaking Sloane forgot everything else.
She didn’t kiss her hard. She didn’t claim.
She explored.
The path of her lips traced where her fingers had gone, along the edge of Catherine’s collarbone, down the hollow between her breasts, tasting the salt of her skin and the metallic sweetness of pigment as she went.
Catherine gasped, and the sound lit something electric inside Sloane.
“You okay?” Sloane whispered, her voice low and rough.
Catherine’s eyes opened, glazed with something softer than lust. “Don’t stop.”
God, she didn’t plan to.
Sloane’s hands settled on Catherine’s hips, her thumbs brushing slow circles against her painted skin. Her body moved like a tide, rising and pressing, rocking and slipping into every space Catherine gave her. Every motion was deliberate. Every second stretched thin with meaning.
Catherine arched beneath her, one hand tangling in Sloane’s hair as her other grasped at the twisted sheet beneath them. Her breath hitched again, short, helpless. Her nails dug in.
There was no pretense left.
