Page 23 of Windlass (Seal Cove #3)

Stevie wanted to swear. Her whole body shook with the effort of restraint, with the effort of not ripping off Angie’s shirt, of not sliding her pants over her glorious hips and kissing her way down until she could take Angie in her mouth and end them both.

Would that really be such a bad idea? It seemed worth the risks right now.

She slid her hands beneath Angie’s shirt, this time unable to suppress a groan of her own.

Angie’s skin was so fucking soft. Her thumbs traced the scars along her belt line, evidence of a past Stevie wished she could undo, and dug into the hollow of her hips.

Angie’s knees softened. She fell slack, her breath catching on a whimper, only the binding holding her up.

Stevie traced a line up Angie’s spine next, her other hand curled around Angie’s belt buckle and pulling her toward her as she lightly counted the vertebrae, barely touching her skin.

She was rewarded by Angie’s shudder. She twisted the belt as she whispered her fingers across the small of Angie’s back, drawing quick, tight circles and lazy spirals while Angie writhed, lower lip between her teeth, arms straining against the rope.

“Careful,” Angie said, her voice breathless and high, “or you’ll make me come.”

A phrase that absolutely murdered her.

“I’m not even touching you.”

“You don’t need to.” A sharp inhale finished Angie’s sentence as Stevie tugged upward on her belt, aware of the friction this created against Angie’s clit. “Stevie—”

She slid her palm up Angie’s back, this time allowing herself the luxury of contact. Angie’s muscles contracted beneath her touch.

So little separated their lips. She’d intended, in a half-formed mockery of a plan, to leave Angie tied like this and walk away, just as she’d left her in the living room.

Angie could get herself out of the binding easily.

By the time this happened, however, Stevie could be safely someplace else, away from temptation.

That ship, as they said, had sailed. Instinct obliterated fear.

She jerked Angie’s belt, bringing them together nearly hard enough to bruise her hand. Angie needed to wear belts more often, even if leggings showed off her ass. The little gasp she made each time Stevie jerked her was narcotic. If she kissed her now—

Angie used the crosstie to leverage herself into the air and wrap her legs around Stevie’s waist.

Stevie had been going to do something. She’d had a plan.

She’d been . . . she didn’t know what she’d been.

Angie’s legs around her waist grounded her fully in her body.

Desire filled her up to her pores. There was no room left over for thought, only the certainty that they’d always been going to end up here no matter how hard Stevie tried.

She was done with denial. Pushing Angie up against the beam was the only option.

She didn’t care that this crushed her other hand.

There was still enough room for her to rip it out, splinters be damned, and tangle it in the hair at the nape of Angie’s neck.

Angie pushed against her with her hips. Stevie pushed back, pressing their foreheads together, watching, transfixed, as Angie bit back a scream.

This was what she’d wanted. This was what she’d been missing her whole life.

Angie’s thighs trembled as they squeezed Stevie tight enough to bruise.

She hoped it did. She ground Angie against the beam, the trembling in her wrapped legs turning into a full body shudder.

The hand not wrapped in Angie’s soft waves stroked her ass—clawed really, no artistry, just need.

She slid both hands down Angie’s thighs, abandoning her hair for the thrill of ravaging those curves.

The way Angie filled her hands was pure decadence.

Her lips were right there. God, Stevie wanted to kiss her.

Not yet. Not like this .

She didn’t know where the thought had come from or how it had snuck its way in. Holding it still enough to process was difficult with Angie pulling herself with the rope, arching her back, breasts rising to the level of Stevie’s face. She nipped one through Angie’s shirt.

If she kissed Angie, that would be it.

She’d take her to bed. They’d fuck all night, and it would be heaven, and in the morning . . . in the morning Angie would slip out of the room before Stevie woke up, and nothing in her life could ever hurt like the possibility of Angie leaving. Better not to have ever had her at all.

But she wanted to have her. So badly. Lust was the smallest fraction of that wild longing.

She needed to melt every particle between them until they lay atom to atom.

She pinned Angie hard against the wood. Her forehead now leaned against Angie’s collarbone, and her lips grazed the plunge of cleavage.

“Stevie—”

The need in that word. In her name. Stevie hitched Angie higher on her hips and let her own hips do what they’d been dying to do for years: show Angie what it felt like to be loved by someone who respected her, knew her, and wanted her because, not despite, of that.

“Wait, Stevie— Stephanie—” Angie did not finish whatever she’d been going to say. Her whole body shuddered, and her legs trembled as if the bones themselves ached to be free.

Stevie couldn’t wait. Angie hadn’t asked her to stop.

She’d said her name, her fucking name , like it meant something, and so Stevie raised her head and bit the muscle between Angie’s neck and shoulder.

Angie bucked, hard. Stevie bore down, her hips finishing Angie like they’d done it a hundred times before, teeth raking over her skin and tongue desperate to taste more.

The sound Angie made would follow Stevie for the rest of her life. She bucked again, and Stevie released her shoulder so that she could see the moment Angie went over.

Angie coming was the most erotic thing Stevie had ever seen in her life.

Her gasp rose to the rafters and her eyes flew open, staring at Stevie in astonishment.

Stevie released Angie’s ass with a reluctant hand and tangled it again in Angie’s hair, steadying her, pulling just hard enough for Angie’s hips to move again.

Holding her like that carried a terrible tenderness.

Angie’s jaw clenched and unclenched. Stevie could feel the heat of Angie’s skin against her knuckles.

Her own desire was unbearable; she didn’t care.

She could fuck Angie like this all day until Angie’s shoulders ached from restraint and she begged Stevie to relent.

Stevie would touch her anyway, slowly pulling off her jeans and taking her into her mouth to kiss it all better until Angie came again.

At the friction of their hips, Angie cried out, another shudder coursing through her body. Stevie watched the flutter of her eyelids, the hard swallow as she gasped for air, the almost pained line of her brows. She wanted to kiss them all. She wanted—

Angie softened around her, relying on Stevie and the rope to hold her up. A whimper escaped her with the diminishing aftershocks.

She met Stevie’s eyes again.

Once, when she was younger, Stevie had fallen from a tree.

The impact had knocked the wind out of her, but she hadn’t known the term, or that wind could even be lost. She’d only felt the paralyzing breathlessness as her ribcage spasmed around her lungs.

This hurt like that. The look in Angie’s eyes broke her open.

She didn’t know what it was or what it meant. She only knew her plan had failed.

It didn’t matter if it was the house or the barn or the grass in the orchard.

Angie looking at her like that changed everything.

She’d never get enough of her. No amount of false boundary setting could protect Stevie now.

She wanted Angie with a fierceness that terrified her. She wanted Angie to be hers .

Angie couldn’t be allowed to know this. She’d shy away and bolt, running back to Lana or someone new, leaving Stevie to fall alone. She was also just so fucking hot like this, spent and soft, the surprise still hovering around her mouth the evidence she hadn’t thought Stevie had it in her.

She grinned despite the turmoil. Angie was not the first person to make assumptions about what Stevie wanted based on appearances. No, Angie did not know what Stevie had in her, which wasn’t new, but she was the first who’d made Stevie feel comfortable enough to find out.

A new boldness unfurled in her breast. Abruptly, without preamble or precedence, she knew what to do.

Angie’s breathing was taking a long time to steady. Stevie didn’t wait. Stepping away and leaving Angie to sag in her restraints, she walked backward toward the door, surveying her handiwork and trying not to let Angie see her hands shake.

“You wouldn’t dare,” said Angie, her voice still breathless with want.

“Watch me.”

Angie stood in the barn as the sounds of night swelled around her. Her legs shook. The rope looped around her wrists supported a significant percentage of her weight, though her shoulders objected to the strain of the prolonged position. She concentrated on the discomfort to clear her head.

What the fuck had that been? Her body hummed with satisfaction even as her heart beat unsteadily—metaphorically speaking. Her actual heartbeat was already pumping blood for round two, which was frankly presumptuous.

Stevie had just tied her up and fucked her without direct touch or even so much as a kiss.

Those were only the logistics, however. She’d just come for Stevie, and while that wasn’t new, having Stevie present was. What had she thought would happen when she followed Stevie into the barn?