Page 26 of Windlass (Seal Cove #3)

Angie took a deep breath, as if preparing to say something she didn’t want to admit. In a low rush, she exhaled. “I can’t date you.”

“Ouch,” said Stevie, pretending like that hadn’t been a slap. No, not a slap. A knife slid between her ribs and into the beating muscle of her heart. At least, she told herself, trying to keep her face from crumpling, she’d been right to suggest only friends with benefits.

“Not that I don’t want to—”

The knife slid out an inch or two. Hope flooded in. If Angie wanted her, even a little, she’d be there. Self-respect was overrated. She’d take whatever Angie gave her. “So you want to then? I’m not just an object for your art?”

“Shut up. I’m being serious.”

“Okay. Be serious. I’m listening.” And dying a little. Surely Angie could see how serious she was beneath the lame attempt at humor. All she’d have to do was take Stevie’s pulse.

Instead, Angie took another steadying breath and wrung her hands together in what looked like an unconscious motion.

“Every important relationship I’ve ever had has ended horribly.

Look at my family. Literally nobody there wants to talk to me except, apparently, dead Great-aunt Flannel.

My exes all think I’m crazy. I’m the common denominator, and now I run before anything starts to feel real because—” Angie cut herself off and took a heaving breath.

“I am not going to lose another best friend.”

Stevie wished, in that moment, for several tons of hot lead to fall on Angie’s biological family members, none of whom deserved to speak to her ever again.

Telling that to Angie right now, though, wouldn’t help matters.

She’d already tried more times than she could count, but apparently trauma wasn’t something you could logic away.

As for Angie’s gaslighting exes, they made dog shit look appetizing.

Again, though, explaining that wouldn’t score her any points right now.

Besides, it was the running part that scared her.

In a voice as level as she could manage, which meant it shook only a little, she said, “You know how I feel about those people. They didn’t deserve you . And I don’t exactly want to lose you, either, Angie. So we won’t.”

They wouldn’t. They couldn’t. And if Angie ran, as Stevie had seen her do before over lesser things, once vanishing for days after a run-in with one of her aunts, Stevie would have to get over her dislike of jogging and buy some running shoes.

“Have you ever tried friends with benefits?” asked Angie with a skeptical twist to her lips.

“Have you ever tried friends without benefits? Oh wait. Yes we have. Let’s go back to that; it was so much fun,” Stevie said in a flat tone.

She was so close to winning Angie over. Close with Angie, though, was like almost catching yourself before falling off a cliff. She couldn’t afford to fail. If she did, it would kill a part of her she wasn’t sure she could get back.

“I could get you a vibrator.” Angie softened. “If you don’t have one.”

“Or I could tie you back up.”

“Don’t get cocky.”

“You’d like it if I did.” Stevie made a suggestive motion with her hips.

Angie reacted with an alacrity that took her by surprise. Straddling Stevie, she leaned back, hands running through her gloriously tangled hair, and ground her hips into Stevie’s. This elicited an embarrassingly high-pitched moan from Stevie’s lips.

“I think you’d like it more,” said Angie, slowing down.

“Fuck you.”

“Isn’t that what we’re talking about?” Angie didn’t grind into her again, which was a tragedy.

Instead, she settled back, letting the heat of her burn against Stevie without any hope of satisfaction.

If Stevie moved, seeking any relief, she’d give away how desperate she was to have her again—not that it was much of a secret. She held herself rigidly still.

“Friends with benefits,” Stevie repeated to reorient her mind. Then, foolishly, she asked, “Yes or no?”

This was the moment Angie could pull away. This was the moment—

“Say we do this. Do we need rules?” Angie interrupted Stevie’s rising panic.

“Probably.” Angie had said yes. Angie had said yes , if in different words, and Stevie wasn’t dreaming.

Did she sound as relieved as she felt? Would it undermine her case if she pulled Angie down on top of her?

She’d had some rules made up and ready, but it was exceedingly difficult to think with Angie on her like this.

Focus. She needed to focus.

“Like what?” Angie tilted her hips slightly.

Damn her. Angie knew exactly how difficult she was making things.

Her hand trailed along Stevie’s belt, pausing to tap the buckle thoughtfully.

The vibrations were exquisite torture. Stevie gritted her teeth.

“I think we should each come up with some and reconvene.” Was there an award for withstanding this kind of teasing? Was it against the Geneva conventions?

“Reconvene? Is this a business meeting?” Angie shifted her seat very intentionally again. “Are you suggesting a merger?”

“Nice one.” Yes. Merging would be good. Merging would be great.

“Thanks.” Angie preened, tossing her tangled hair over one shoulder in an exaggerated show of self-satisfaction. She needed to stop moving her hips or Stevie was going to lose her shit. “When would you like to reconvene ?”

The merciless friction and a languid arch of Angie’s spine were too much.

Stevie sat up, silently thanking her own core strength, and flipped Angie onto the stone, careful to cushion her head with one hand.

Angie now lay beneath her, legs wrapped around her hips, and if this wasn’t going to kill Stevie she didn’t know what would.

“Tomorrow.” She thrust her hips into Angie at last.

Nothing should be allowed to feel that good.

She managed to stop herself from continuing, but only barely.

Angie had less restraint. She gasped, head tilting back, breasts pressing into Stevie.

Stevie tightened her hand in the hair at the back of Angie’s neck and watched, entranced, as Angie’s eyelids fluttered. She looked so damn fuckable.

“Come to bed with me,” said Angie, breathless.

Universe , Stevie thought, you’re one serious motherfucker . She knew what she needed to do, and it was very different from what her body thought it needed to do, which was defile the sanctity of Lilian’s greenhouse immediately.

Slowly she stood, extending a hand.

Angie looked positively pornographic kneeling on the floor, one hand tangled in her own hair, chest heaving. The pleading in her eyes would have broken Stevie if the stakes had been any lower.

“Rules first,” Stevie said, waving her hand.

Angie took it and rose to her feet with a scowl. “You’re an asshole.”

Stevie took the compliment and tugged Angie toward the house. “Let’s smoke some weed and play Mortal Kombat . Will that make you feel better?”

“Going to my room and getting off will make me feel better,” Angie grumbled.

“Think of me.” Stevie said it lightly, mockingly.

Angie stopped her with a slight tug and reached up to touch Stevie’s cheek gently. Looking her straight in the eye, her tone dead serious, she said, “I always do.”

Stevie had never gotten so wet so fast in her life.

“Actually,” she said, her voice strangled, “I like your idea better.”

Angie cut in front of her and walked slowly to the door, hips swaying in that way she had, not manufactured or intentionally suggestive, but still sexy as fucking hell. Stevie watched her disappear upstairs.

Stevie made it to her room without breaking her resolve and collapsed to the floor. Down the hall, and damn her for it, she heard Angie’s voice rise as she got off, loudly, finishing with an escalating series of moans that sent Stevie over the edge with her.

Friends with benefits indeed.

“We should talk outside,” said Stevie at the end of the next excruciatingly long day, pulling her work polo off over her head and tossing it toward the laundry room door on the other side of the kitchen.

If she was nervous, she didn’t look it. Angie, meanwhile, was experiencing an unpleasant combination of nausea and arousal.

She set her water glass down on the counter with a thud.

Stevie looked up, pausing with a clean T-shirt halfway to her head.

That shirt belonged on the floor with the others.

“You could leave that off,” Angie suggested. Stevie’s abdominal muscles featured prominently in several of her daydreams.

“What about mosquitos?”

“You don’t like getting bitten?” asked Angie.

Stevie threw her shirt. Angie caught it and held it behind her back.

“Since we know you do,” Stevie’s gaze landed hot on Angie’s skin, “what are you taking off? Fair is fair.”

Angie shrugged. “That’s your choice.”

Stevie grinned and took a step toward her, saying, “Maybe that should be rule number one. My choice.”

“You wish.” Angie took a step back. Stevie pursued, and there was something leonine, almost predatory, about her fluid step forward that made sitting down to talk seem like a waste. She needed Stevie to pounce. Now.

“The problem,” said Stevie, coming closer, “is that if you take anything off, we won’t be talking, even if we are outside.”

“I fail to see how that is a problem.” Angie toyed with the button of her jeans, dragging Stevie’s eyes down, then back up.

“Angie . . .” Stevie was close enough to touch now, and Angie’s back bumped into the kitchen counter. She leaned back, aware that this displayed her assets, and aware, too, of how easy it would be to curl her fingers underneath Stevie’s sports bra and tug her close.

“If we are going to do this, we are going to do this right.” Stevie reached around Angie without touching her, which was somehow sexier than if she’d leaned into her the way she had in the barn, and plucked her shirt from Angie’s hands.

The way Stevie’s abdomen tightened as she shoved her head through the neck of the shirt was distracting. She wanted to make the muscles between Stevie’s hips clench like that.