Page 16 of Windlass (Seal Cove #3)

Stevie slipped out of her tank top, and Angie squeezed her pen hard enough the plastic creaked.

Jesus Christ .

“Hair up or down?”

Angie had to wet her lips before answering. “Down.”

“Cool.”

“Do people even say cool anymore?” she asked, desperate for anything to cover the immediate, debilitating arousal that followed the rough yank of the hairband freeing Stevie’s slightly wavy hair.

“How would I know?”

“Ask your stable hand.”

“ You ask my stable hand.” As comebacks went, it was not one of Stevie’s best, but Angie wasn’t about to point that out.

Stevie was stepping out of her jeans, balancing on one foot with her hand on the arm of the couch to remove her socks, and words were irrelevant, because holy fuck, this was happening.

“Bra?”

She nodded, then shook her head, and then clarified: “Off.”

Stevie held her gaze as she lifted the hem of her sports bra. Angie squeezed her legs together and prayed for restraint.

The farmhouse lights were soft and warm, casting a yellow glow over Stevie’s body as she pulled her bra over her head and tossed it onto the floor with the rest of her clothes.

Her breasts were tipped with rose, like her cheeks when she blushed, and the perfect size for cupping in one hand.

Angie’s palms ached to feel their weight.

She knew she should say something to break the silence, but she couldn’t speak; give her five minutes, just five minutes with those tits, and she’d die a happy woman.

“Underwear?” Stevie continued, relentlessly.

“For . . . authenticity’s sake . . .” She tore her gaze away from Stevie’s chest and met her eyes. They still held that defiant gleam, daring Angie to push this further, daring her to call their bluff. “But only if you’re comfortable.”

“Sure.” Stevie slipped the simple black—why did she look so good in black?—pair of women’s boxers down her legs, kicking them onto the top of the pile.

Angie wished she could bite something. Oh, she was fucked.

She was so, so, so fucked. It had taken years, but she’d finally pushed Stevie to her limit.

If this was, in fact, the limit. There were parts of Stevie she still didn’t know.

That frustrated her almost more than desire.

She needed to know Stevie down to her atoms. Stevie’s hips were slimmer than Angie’s but still curved, the neatly trimmed triangle of hair between her legs a taunt.

Stevie’s hand in Angie’s hair, pulling Angie’s mouth to her—

This was too close to the fantasy she’d been entertaining recently for anything remotely resembling comfort. The things she would do for Stephanie Ward were shamelessly without limit. All Stevie had to do was ask.

A command wouldn’t hurt, either. At that thought, heat spilled from between her thighs, forcing her to shift yet again, and Stevie damn well knew it—she could see it in the set of her jaw, the muscles as hard as Angie’s clit.

“Perfect,” she said, clearing her throat. “Uh, if you could crouch on the table facing me . . .?”

Stevie cleared the clutter off the coffee table and settled onto the edge, one knee down, face tilted up to Angie. Thick blond hair fell around her shoulders, almost, but not quite, concealing her breasts. It softened her features—except for her eyes. Those dared Angie to take things further.

Angie turned to a blank page in her sketchbook and put the tip of her pen to paper, pulse pounding in her ears.

Stevie wasn’t backing down. If Angie wanted to extricate them from this situation, she’d need to do it herself, but it was precisely Stevie’s determination that made that impossible.

Nothing was as hot as a woman who’d made up her mind.

She swallowed hard, her throat forgetting how to go about its business.

Why did it suddenly feel like Stevie was in control?

Stevie was naked, not Angie. It should have been the other way around.

Right? She’d never had the opportunity to take life drawing classes.

She’d done what she could with YouTube and the internet, but what those shadowy imitations had left out was the power the model had over the observer.

Angie still had clothes on, for Chrissakes.

But the heat between her own thighs was already unbearable.

She anticipated this would only get worse, and while she was prepared to ask Stevie to position herself as necessary for her drawing, she was very aware that Stevie could ask Angie to get into whatever position filled her darkest, filthiest fantasies, and Angie would get to it with a “yes ma’am. ”

“Perfect,” she repeated. “Can you hold that for a few?”

“We’ll see.”

Oh, they would. She sketched a loose series of shapes, capturing the motion of the pose with lines and ovals before diving into the details.

“Draw me like one of your French girls,” said Stevie.

Angie snorted with laughter. The relief it brought did not alleviate the fire at her core, but it did alleviate the tension.

“Nerd.”

“Nerd, Descending a Coffee Table.”

The reference to Duchamp’s Nude Descending a Staircase surprised her. “Wait, what do you know about art history?”

“I saw a meme once.”

“Classic.” Her pen moved independently of her thoughts, which was a godsend, considering the white noise making up most of her brain activity at the moment.

Stevie was shockingly ripped. Wrestling horses had its advantages, apparently.

She threw rough shading around the figure on her sketchpad, isolating the lights and darks and trying not to linger on the hollows above her collarbones.

She wanted to taste those shadows. Bite the thick muscles in her shoulders.

Feel the smooth, taut stretch of skin over her abdominals and sink her nails into Stevie’s hips to see what she would do when provoked.

“This is surprisingly difficult,” said Stevie.

“Do you need a break?”

“No. I just want you to appreciate my heroics.”

“You’re very appreciated.” God, could she sound less like a total simp? “Artistically speaking.”

“Noted.”

“Do you want music or anything? I should have asked.” Angie knew she sounded nervous. That was not part of the plan. There had been no plan. This was—did Stevie really have to have such smoothly corded forearms, promising to deliver precisely what Angie needed?

Minutes passed.

“Okay. Got that pose for now. You can take a break.”

Stevie slid back onto the coffee table, then yelped as her bare ass hit the wood. “Cold.”

“It’s a thousand degrees outside.”

“That’s because you’re wearing clothes.” Stevie flexed her hands, which were no doubt sore from the grip she’d had on the ledge. Angie was prepared to make them even more sore, given the slightest widening of the crack in her own resolve. “Now what?”

Angie tried to think about the other positions she could use a model for, but all she could think about were the positions she wanted Stevie to put her into.

Angie wasn’t a good person. She’d never made any claims to the contrary. She was absolutely going to take advantage of this situation. Her ability to stop herself was limited only to taking advantage of things aesthetically.

“Lean back,” she said. “I won’t make you hold it for long. Yeah, like that.”

Little truly aggravated her as much as not knowing what Stevie was like in bed.

Most of their other friends were open about their preferences or, if they were not open, their partners were.

Stevie was the exception. Angie had begged, bribed, and attempted both stealth and trickery to unearth that information, largely unsuccessfully.

She knew Stevie’s type. She also knew her own type.

Her body might be a traitor, but it had never been wrong on one score: sexual affinity.

Somewhere beneath and alongside Stevie’s cheerful clowning was another face, and the glimpses she’d gotten beneath the jester’s mask had kept her up at night for years.

Stevie’s bright exterior was not on display, now.

The light shining out of her eyes was considerably darker, and Angie made several deliberate strokes, trying to capture that expression.

As if she could forget it. As if she would not be condemned to another sleepless week, wondering if Stevie would knock on her door, willing her to do so even as she screamed at herself to shut this down before she ruined everything.

The problem was that it was hard to convince herself she didn’t deserve Stevie when Stevie looked at her like that.

Her grip on her pen grew damp with sweat. It would be so easy to put her sketchbook aside and kneel before the coffee table, putting herself at Stevie’s mercy.

The tip of her pen snagged on the paper, out of ink.

“Ah, fuck.” Wrong word choice. “Give me a second.”

She dug around in her pencil case for another ballpoint and fumbled it, dropping the cheap plastic implement to the ground. She picked it up hastily and uncapped it with shaking hands.

“What character is this pose for?” Stevie asked.

“Wouldn’t you like to know. Can you look at me like you’re about to tell me to scrub the floor or something?”

God, she was so transparent it was disgusting. Stevie raised an eyebrow. “Seriously?”

“Yeah.”

Stevie sat up a little and rested her arm on her bent knee.

Her hand hung imperiously. Angie wanted to take those fingers into her mouth and suck until Stevie broke, sliding her lips over and down, and teasing the web between forefinger and middle with her tongue.

Her throat was so tight with desire she could barely breathe.

“Has anyone ever told you,” she continued, unable to bring her voice back into normality, “that you’re really fucking hot?”

Stevie’s hand tightened briefly into a fist. Angie wondered if she’d even noticed the reflex.

“It might have come up once or twice.”

“Really?” The thrill of jealousy was better than bondage. “Tell me.”

“My ex. A TA in college. Your mom.”

“A TA?”