Page 35 of Windlass (Seal Cove #3)

In the end Stevie’s closet did not yield anything appropriate for a cocktail party, and Angie would know, having gone through it herself while Stevie lay on the floor bemoaning her existence.

“I can’t believe you’re finally letting me take you shopping,” Angie said as she pulled into the rundown parking lot of what passed for the nearest mall. Many of the stores were closed, but the remaining holdouts usually had everything Angie needed.

“I can’t either. Be nice to me.” Stevie sat slumped in the passenger seat, baseball cap pulled low over her eyes, her hair in its usual ponytail.

“How nice?”

“I’m allergic to shopping. I might die.”

Twenty minutes—and far more than twenty grumbled complaints—later she opened the door to a changing room, grateful the attendant didn’t seem to give a shit about her job, and ushered Stevie inside.

The fluorescent lights glared down unforgivingly.

Stevie looked good anyway. Her rumpled T-shirt and jeans defied the changing room’s attempts to belittle her into buying more than she’d planned to spend, her golden hair shimmering in the light instead of revealing every single bit of oil, as it did to Angie’s.

Stevie pulled her close as soon as the door shut, pinning her against it despite the armful of clothes between them. Angie bit back a sound. She really, really liked this forceful side of Stevie.

“Nope. You have to try something on first,” she said.

Stevie knocked her forehead gently against Angie’s with a small groan of despair and muttered, “I like you better when you’re tied up.”

“Dammit, Stevie.” Angie shivered. “Don’t say things like that to me.”

Stevie pulled away a fraction, looking first at Angie’s mouth, then her eyes. One of Stevie’s hands slid behind Angie’s neck. “Why not?”

“Put on some clothes.”

“How am I supposed to do that?” Stevie looked at Angie’s mouth once more, the internal struggle writ plainly across her brow, and took a step back. Angie sagged. “I have these clothes on.”

“You ass.” Angie fumbled to hang the clothes on the provided hooks before she dropped them. “Again, I see what you’re doing.”

“And I’d like to see you do it.”

“Fine, but you have to try everything on. No exceptions.”

“Fair.”

“And I get to choose what you wear to the island.”

“Are you going to undress me or what?” The cocky tilt to Stevie’s head, combined with the smirk and the arrogance in the delivery of the words was frankly unfair.

Angie took her hair down. Stevie’s eyes softened as they always did before sharpening again as she met Angie’s gaze. Angie dropped to her knees, looking up at Stevie all the while.

The thing about subbing, about being the one on her knees, was that by relinquishing the illusion of power she took the reins of Stevie’s desire. Stevie might tell her what to do—she desperately hoped she would—but Angie held the power of fulfillment.

“I brought some pants for you to try on. They’re not these.” She trailed a fingernail along the zipper of Stevie’s jeans. It had the desired effects.

“What are you going to do about it?”

“I’m not sure.” Angie dragged her nail down the inner seam. “Something’s in my way.”

“Jesus Christ, Angie,” Stevie said as Angie followed her nails with her teeth.

“Which one? You can’t have us both.”

“Jesus, definitely.”

“Why,” said Angie, “because he was well hung?”

Stevie’s laughter was bright and glorious, and as it had done since their first encounter filled Angie with something like sunshine if sunshine was also dark and fragrant.

“Angie,” Stevie said in a lower voice when she’d finished, “please take my fucking pants off.”

“No need for please.”

She undid the belt with her fingers, looking up at Stevie the whole while. That Stevie appreciated the posture was evident in the sudden heaviness of her eyelids and the color flushing her chest and face as well as the increase in her breathing.

As she went for the button, however, Stevie stopped her with a hand in her hair.

“No.”

“No?”

“I want you to use your teeth.”

Stevie, she reflected, feeling her own breathing quicken, wouldn’t take much training at all. Holding her hands behind her back to illustrate her commitment to the task, she leaned in, letting her breath warm the skin above the waistband.

Undoing a button with one’s teeth wasn’t as simple as it sounded.

Luckily for Stevie, though Angie was fairly certain she would not see it that way, she’d had practice.

The trick was to grab the stiff part of the hem and slowly work it over, using her chin for leverage.

The pressure of her chin against Stevie’s cunt, the heat of which she could feel through the denim, made Stevie’s hand tighten on her hair, an added bonus.

The zipper tasted cold and metallic. That didn’t matter. She slid it down with a slowness she hoped Stevie found agonizing. Then, because Angie knew how to undo Stephanie Ward, she tilted her head back until she could gently nip the skin of Stevie’s forearm and tug insistently.

“Hell yes,” said Stevie, figuring out what Angie wanted.

Angie slid her lips over Stevie’s fingers and took them into her mouth past the first and second knuckle, almost up to the third.

She smelled the ensuing rush of Stevie’s desire; her own body’s reaction was instant and sharp.

She smiled before sliding her lips back, working her tongue in a teasing pattern as she went.

“This doesn’t count, does it?” Stevie asked, though the question was more of a plea. Angie knew what she meant: did this count as sex as far as their agreement was concerned.

“Not if you don’t come.” She left Stevie’s fingertips resting against her lower lip.

“I stand by what I said.” Stevie let the back of her head hit the wall. “You’re the sadist.”

“If you’re good and try on all the outfits, I’ll let you feel how wet I am.” She pulled Stevie’s pants down over her hips and planted a cruelly chaste kiss on the front of her briefs.

Angie teased Stevie through several outfit changes, at last arriving at the final set. “I have one more thing I want you to try on.”

Stevie kissed the side of her neck. There was an unconsciousness to the kiss that shut Angie’s eyes with its sweetness. She untangled herself with reluctance.

“Is that a vest?”

“Very good. Stevie has mastered identification of common objects.” She inflected her tone to sound like a report card.

“Ass. Take this and put it on.” Stevie pulled a dress Angie had seen her grab, thinking it was for herself, and tossed it to her.

She caught it, the silky material slipping over her hands.

Voices sounded from a nearby stall as another pair of shoppers joined them.

The use of the word “mom” suggested it was a mother and daughter.

Angie handed Stevie a pair of linen pants.

“These are wide-legged.” Stevie glanced at the pants, then up at Angie. “I don’t do wide-legged.”

“That’s because you haven’t bought new pants since I’ve met you.”

“Not true.”

“Buying the same pair of jeans over and over again doesn’t count.”

“Why do you get to make the rules?”

“Because I’m currently wearing pants, and you’re not. Try them on.”

Stevie obeyed. The natural linen color contrasted with the golden hue of her skin, settling on the curve of her hip bones like something winged coming in to land. Angie motioned for Stevie to turn. Yes. As expected her ass looked fantastic.

“And then this.” She held out the vest. “No bra.”

“What?”

“Try it without a bra.”

Stevie considered the piece of clothing dubiously. The silk back shimmered in the light.

“I’ll need another incentive.”

Conscious of the other people in the dressing room, Angie said, “I’ll buy you ice cream afterward” as she pulled off her own shirt.

Stevie’s grin was thoroughly pleased with itself. Angie hopped up on the bench to stay out of her reach, shaking her finger as she slid her head through the neck of the halter top cocktail dress. Her leggings could stay on.

“Outfit first,” she said. She let the dress fall over her body.

“How am I supposed to do that when you look like this ?”

Stevie wrapped her arms around Angie’s legs, the top of her head just coming up to her breasts.

Stevie couldn’t bury her face in her cleavage the way she clearly wanted to.

She could, however, nip the skin underneath, especially since the neckline was downright obscene.

She hadn’t seen her tits spill out of an outfit quite like this in years.

She would have laughed if Stevie hadn’t taken advantage of the material’s stretch and pulled the halter top to one side.

Angie didn’t stop Stevie from lifting the hem of her bra. She leaned back against the wall, hands flat on the cool, scratched surface for support. Stevie gripped her hips firmly, which was good as what she was doing with her mouth was undoing Angie’s ability to remain standing.

Historically, Stevie hadn’t talked about her sex life with Angie.

As far as Angie knew, she didn’t talk about it with anyone except maybe Morgan, but she wasn’t even sure about that.

She was oddly private for someone who made that many lewd jokes on a daily basis.

This had driven Angie crazy. What did Stevie like?

What was she like in bed? Did she know what to do with someone like Angie?

She did not need to ask those questions any longer.

Whatever Stevie’s background, she knew what she was doing.

Moreover, as her hands slid up Angie’s waist beneath the dress and then raked her nails down the sides, following the rough gesture with fingers that skimmed lightly back, caressing, brushing each rib before repeating that devastating, burning claim upon her skin, Angie could confirm she was a fast learner.

As Stevie’s tongue teased her cleavage, much in the same way she’d gone down on Angie very recently, Angie had enough sense to realize the danger she was in and disregard it, again.