Page 48 of Windlass

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,knewher, 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 fuckingname, 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 behers.

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 fuckinghotlike 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 shewasthe 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 thefuckhad 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 Steviepresentwas. What had she thought would happen when she followed Stevie into the barn?

She hadn’t thought. Therein lay most of her mistakes historically. But this was Stevie. Goofy, bright-eyed Stevie, always ready with an immature joke to lighten the mood because the realities of existence were too much for maturity. Stevie hadn’t been goofy just now, or bright-eyed, though ambient starlight had glittered off her pupils. She’d been—incredible, her mind supplied unhelpfully.

We knew it, sang the part of her that had hoped she’d been reading the signs correctly.We knew there was something there. Unless Stevie had faked—no. Actions could be faked, as could expressions. Angie had been with enough people to understand that acutely, usually from the other side of the equation. She’d never counted the number of orgasms she’d faked, but it was high. Some of those had been with people she cared about, some with people she’d just wanted to use to drive out the other thoughts in her head. Angie did not come easily for other people, but she did not blame them for her own shortcomings. Once an ex had told her, frustrated by Angie’s body’s lack of cooperation, to practice on her own. She had, but what she’d practiced had been acting. She’d always been able to get herself off easily; it was not a skill that transferred.

It had taken telling that story to Stormy for Angie to realize what a fucked-up thing that had been to say, but her ex had been fucked up, like all the people she’d been with for any length of time were in some way. How else could she relate to them?

That look of absolute starvation in Stevie’s eyes, however, and the smile, small and sharp, that had ridden her lips as Angie had ridden her—

Yes, her body was ready for another round. And yes, that had been real. Stephanie Ward had thoroughly enjoyed topping her.

She had not intended to come. She’d even warned Stevie, which in retrospect might have been instigating, rather than quelling. Her body had staged a coup either way. The horses had shifted in their stalls. What had they thought of this mess?

And Stevie had had the temerity to just leave her here. The arrogance. The sheer nerve. Angie had loved every second of it.

As residual pleasure faded, however, and before she could succumb to the memory of Stevie’s hand on her belt, tugging with just the right pressure, or the feel of Stevie’s tongue on her shoulder, a more familiar specter demanded her attention: shame.

Years,years,of denying herself, of rationalizing all the reasons why nothing could ever happen between them, and it had taken all of, what, three weeks after Morgan’s departure for her to end up bound in the barn? Did she really value Stevie so little? Possess so little self-control?

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