Page 74 of Windlass

“Protect me from what?”

When Angie didn’t answer and held her gaze, however, she knew. Angie had lied about things like this before they’d started not-dating. Where Angie was at night, what she did, what she let Lana and people like Lana do to her.

“Me, obviously.” Angie’s hands slid up Stevie’s thighs with the words. “Every time I didn’t touch you when I wanted to.”

Or . . . that.

She wrapped her legs around Angie and drew her closer, not caring suddenly that Lana had touched Angie. Right now, in this moment, Angie was hers.

Chapter Twelve

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.”

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