A Matter of Trust (22 page)

“I’m so sorry,” Michael said in a hushed tone.
How confused you must have been—and how terrified. How could anyone do that to you?

“It’s okay.”

Sloan saw no reason to tell her of the deep sense of loss and self-doubt she had suffered when she had realized that the woman she loved, whom she trusted with all her soul, had abandoned her in such a heartless way. Worse, perhaps, along with losing her dignity, she had lost faith in her own judgment during those seventy-two interminable hours. Knowing that she had been partly responsible for what had happened every time she had let her lover deny her in public and lie to her in private only added to her self-loathing. She was ashamed, and worse, she didn’t even trust herself.

“By Monday morning, my attorney had talked to the Justice Department, and when it became clear that there was no evidence to indict me, they apologized, expunged the record, and offered me a transfer. I didn’t resign until a few weeks later, just after I heard what had happened to Jason with the sexual harassment suit. We both left, and six months later we started the business here.”

“And there’s been no one serious since her?”

“No.” She couldn’t imagine being that vulnerable to anyone again. With love came too much potential for pain, and she could not pay that price more than once.

Michael was silent, wondering if Sloan still loved this woman. That would explain her affairs, and her unwillingness to make a commitment. She did not ask; she was afraid of how she would feel if Sloan admitted it was true.

Finally, Sloan broke the silence. “Would you like me to take you back to your hotel?”

“No,” Michael said very quietly. “I would like you to take me into the bedroom.”

“Michael,” Sloan began, “I don’t thi—”

“Wait,” Michael interrupted. “I don’t need you to explain or make promises or reassure me. I know what I’m saying. I’ve been going out of my mind today. I just need to feel you. Tonight, right now. Tomorrow is another lifetime away.” As she spoke, Michael moved the few feet to stand in front of Sloan. “Please.”

Sloan rose, put her hands on Michael’s waist, and held her tenderly. She was instantly aware of the fine trembling in Michael’s slender body as she rested her head against Sloan’s shoulder with a soft sigh. Pressing her face gently to Michael’s hair, breathing in that faint spring scent she remembered from the night in Michael’s hotel, Sloan whispered hoarsely, “I want you...so much.”

Michael turned her cheek, pressing her lips to Sloan’s neck. “Yes.”

Sloan took Michael’s hand and led her gently into the bedroom. Moonlight streamed through the windows, illuminating them in its soft pale glow. They stood by the bed, faces highlighted in the silvery luster, the air around them as still and filled with promise as a bird about to take flight. Her eyes never leaving Michael’s, Sloan slowly and carefully worked each button free on Michael’s blouse. Her hands were shaking, and as she parted the fabric, she heard Michael catch her breath sharply. Instantly, she stopped.

“Are you afraid?” Sloan whispered, knowing how new this was for her.
New for me, too, but in a different way.
She dared not consider all the ways that being with Michael was extraordinary.

“No,” Michael answered immediately and smiled. “Are you?”

“Terrified.” The corner of Sloan’s mouth lifted in a faint echo of her usual grin.

“Please don’t be, and please...” Michael pressed her palm lightly to Sloan’s face, her fingers playing softly down her cheek. “Don’t stop.”

“I can’t remember ever wanting anyone like this. I...I’m...practically paralyzed,” Sloan confessed. She was afraid to go too quickly, afraid her passion would explode, afraid of frightening Michael, afraid of losing her chance to savor each precious second. These were moments she wanted to burn indelibly into her memory, knowing they might very well be the most exquisite of her life.

She contented herself with watching Michael’s eyes deepen with desire as she lightly traced her fingers along the faint ridge of collarbone, dipping into the small hollow above, then running her fingertips down the soft slope of Michael’s chest. The other woman’s small sounds of pleasure and the fine tremor flickering through her muscles fired Sloan’s blood. She heard the rasping sounds of her own ragged breathing loud in the hushed space.

“You have wonderful hands,” Michael murmured, feeling as if her bones were melting with each gentle caress. She rested her palm on Sloan’s waist, content to let Sloan undress her. “I’ve never been so...never felt like...this...before.”

“Are you sure?” Sloan asked, wondering how she would stop now if Michael asked her to.

“I’ve never been more certain of anything in my life.”

They stood only inches apart, both of them resisting the urge to press closer. Time hung suspended—each second might have been an hour, filled to overflowing with wonder. Each sensation was miraculous, unique and singular, yet as familiar as coming home.

“You are so beautiful,” Sloan whispered, her voice unsteady.

She was trembling with the effort it took to contain herself, her vision narrowed until all she knew were Michael’s eyes and Michael’s mouth. She was no longer conscious of anything beyond the heat deep inside, the pounding in her head, and the ache in her chest. Still, she moved carefully, sliding her hands under the edges of Michael’s blouse, parting the cloth as if unveiling a priceless treasure, lifting the material away and letting it drop to the floor. Only then did she lower her gaze.

“Oh God.” The muscles in Sloan’s abdomen clenched and desire spiraled along her spine. If there had ever been anything to equal what she saw now, she could not remember. A light sheen of perspiration covered Michael’s skin, accentuating its pale perfection, highlighting her full breasts and taut nipples in shimmering moonlight. “Perfect,” she breathed, still not touching her.

“I’m dying for you to touch me,” Michael urged breathlessly, reaching for Sloan’s hands and drawing them to her. She swayed slightly as all in one quick, possessive motion, Sloan lifted her breasts, captured her nipples, and squeezed lightly. Michael moaned, her eyelids fluttering closed. It was too much, too
good.

“Michael,” Sloan gasped, thirsting for Michael’s passion, “let me see your eyes.”

With effort, Michael opened her eyes and met Sloan’s, stunned by what she saw in those depths—a ferocious intensity, as if Sloan’s entire being was focused on her. “No one has ever looked at me like you do,” she said brokenly, cascades of need rippling through her. “You make me weak, I want you so much.”

“I have to see you...all of you,” Sloan insisted. Still fully clothed, she stepped closer and, with one hand, reached between them to open Michael’s jeans. She pushed them down while supporting Michael with an arm around her waist, and the other woman stepped free.

For a long moment, Sloan’s gaze roamed over Michael’s body, memorizing each wondrous curve and contour. Then she pulled her close, chest pressing tightly against Michael’s breasts, stroking her back and buttocks and the outsides of her thighs—all the while kissing her lips, the underside of her jaw, the base of her throat. She wanted to devour her, to satisfy her consuming hunger with the sight and sound and feel of her.

“I’m going to fall,” Michael warned desperately. Even with both hands clutching Sloan’s shoulders, she was shaking too much to stand. A fearful pressure was building between her legs, a pleasure so intense she doubted she could contain it for long. “I need to lie down. I need you to touch me. I’m afraid I’ll co—”

“Easy,” Sloan whispered soothingly against her skin, stilling her caresses. Ever so gently, she nuzzled her face between Michael’s breasts, closing her eyes, breathing her in. Then she turned her cheek, carefully running her tongue over Michael’s tightened nipple. Michael uttered a strangled cry and jerked in Sloan’s arms. Holding her firmly, Sloan guided their bodies together in a slow sensuous dance. “I want to go slowly. I
need
to go slowly. I want this night to last a lifetime.”

“Please...I don’t think I can wait,” Michael pleaded. Her head was spinning, and every drop of blood in her body seemed to be pulsating between her legs. She had never felt such urgency, had never sensed such longing, had never needed another’s touch so badly. “I’m going to come apart if you don’t do something soon.”

Sloan laughed, a wild victorious laugh, and half carried Michael to the bed. “Sit down on the edge,” she urged, kneeling on the floor in front of her. Then, throwing off restraint at last, she cupped Michael’s breasts, raised them to her lips, and drank of her—sucking and biting, one to the other, back and forth, guided only by Michael’s sharp cries of pleasure. Michael’s hands were in her hair, pressing her face into the hot yielding flesh.

“Sloan, Sloan, Sloan,” Michael intoned, her neck arched, head flung back, hips thrusting forward against Sloan’s body. She tugged at Sloan’s shirt, crazed for the feel of her skin. She gasped at the first unfamiliar, yet oh-so-familiar, softness of smooth skin over tight muscles, awed by the tender strength under her fingers. Dimly, she heard her lover groan.

Sloan stood, pushed Michael back onto the bed, and hurriedly lay beside her, leaning on one elbow so that she could look down the length of her. She ran her hands and then her tongue over the curves, the prominences, the flesh and muscle and bone of her. It was a landscape as known to her as her own body, and yet a world so new she felt the wonder of first discovery all over again.

“I could touch you forever,” she said with a sigh.

Indeed, she might have been happy simply with caresses, at least until the hunger rose again, if it hadn’t been for Michael’s escalating whimpers in response to each stroke of her fingers. Those sounds—Michael’s need—inflamed her and drove the last shred of reason from her mind. When Michael’s fingers went to her fly, pulling at the buttons, searching relentlessly for her clitoris through the wear-softened material, she twitched, dangerously close to explosion.

“Careful,” Sloan warned through gritted teeth, pulling her hips back. “Not yet.”

“Touch
me, then
,” Michael begged, grasping Sloan’s hand, her pupils so large her eyes seemed to be dark lakes of molten fire. She drew Sloan’s fingers down between her thighs, to the place she most desperately needed her, crying out at the first light contact. “Yesohyes.”

Sloan convulsed with a low, deep groan, the sweet wet warmth of Michael’s welcome so intense that her heart nearly stopped. That simple sign of Michael’s desire was more precious than anything she had ever felt. All she knew was the need to please her, and in an instant the flame in her stilled to pure crimson embers, all the more hot for its containment. With gentle fingers, she parted swollen tissues, stroking along, beside, and under the pulsating prominence, never quite touching the heart of the fire.

“Inside, please inside,” Michael begged, her fingers boring into Sloan’s shoulders as every muscle strained toward release. The terrible sweet tension strummed through her limbs, making her shiver helplessly.

Gasping, Sloan lowered her forehead to Michael’s, her eyes closed. She drew Michael close to her chest with one arm around her back and eased into her. She withdrew almost completely only to return, deeper, again and again, until she filled her. Then she remained motionless and let Michael lead.

Hips thrusting, Michael rocked in time to the surge of her blood and the hum of her nerves and the coiling ache in her belly. Devouring Sloan’s mouth, alternately kissing and sucking at her lower lip, she rode Sloan’s fingers ever faster, following the primal rhythm thundering through her soul.

Sloan’s arm ached from holding back. Barely managing to contain the wild urge to drive into her, she ignored the pain of her rigid muscles and clenched her jaws against the thundering pressure moving relentlessly through her own body, demanding satisfaction. This was for Michael, and she would follow her wherever she needed to go.

“Almostalmost,” Michael whimpered frantically, her movements erratic—shorter and harder—her hips jerking wildly. “Need...your fingers...on me.”

“Soon...soon, love,” Sloan murmured, sensing Michael’s muscles tightening for the final surge. As she waited for the peak, she circled the flat of her hand over Michael’s clitoris. When she felt Michael’s breath stop and body poise on that timeless edge of abandon, she stroked the shaft once, twice, and drove her over.

Michael cried out and gripped Sloan so hard that there would be bruises in the morning. The force of the contractions drew her body bowstring-tight, and she arched in Sloan’s arms, shuddering.

“Michael,” Sloan gasped, completely lost.
Too beautiful, you are too beautiful to bear.

Beyond words, Michael floated somewhere, deaf and blind, reduced to only quivering flesh and spasming muscle. How long she hung suspended on that crest of sensation escaped her, but eventually she was aware of her body again—the air moving in her lungs, her heart pounding in her chest, her blood coursing beneath her skin. She felt more alive than she ever had before and more supremely content than she had ever thought possible.

Releasing her hold on Sloan’s shoulders, she collapsed back against the pillows. With effort, she opened her eyes and found Sloan’s face, discovering there a look of tenderness, wonder, and something else. Something feral seethed in her hazy eyes and flickered just beneath the surface.