Page 104 of Windlass

Damn Lana for calling her on that.

Think she’ll stick around when you step out on her?And worse:Like how you fucking hit and run.

If only she could strike those words from her memory.

Her first two fingers pressed against the bow of Stevie’s upper lip and the curve of the lower. She kissed the back of those fingers. Stevie’s lips parted, and Angie caught the soft, small sound she made in her mouth and swallowed it.

Then, because she was who she was and they were who they were, she slipped her tongue languidly between her fingers and across Stevie’s parted lips.

It took all of a second for Stevie to flip her onto her back, pinning Angie’s hands over her head.

“I have another rule, too,” Stevie said, breathing quickly, her hair tickling Angie’s cheeks and her eyes absolutely stricken with both lust and longing. “Every time you do that I get to do this.”

Happiness swelled from her stomach to her chest at the frustrated restraint in the curve of Stevie’s body above her own.

“What’s ‘this’?”

Stevie showed her.

Chapter Sixteen

Stormy had whipped up a breakfast the likes of which Stevie had only ever experienced in restaurants. She downed a mimosa, poached eggs, savory scones, some sort of baked apple confection, and a sausage she didn’t even care was plant-based.

“Work up an appetite?” Stormy asked, all innocence as she joined them with a plate of her own.

Stevie choked, mouth full of faux meat. Morgan patted her back.

“You had some pretty intense dreams,” Angie agreed, widening her eyes.

Stevie kicked her beneath the table.

“Sabotage,” Stevie said when she could finally swallow. “Attempted murder. Just because you’re going to lose to me at croquet doesn’t mean you need to take out the competition.”

Stormy chuckled darkly. “Oh, I’m not the one taking the competition out—to eat. Another mimosa?”

“No thanks.” Stevie refused to blush, this time.

“I’ll take one,” said Angie. Her face was full of high color this morning, and she looked better rested than Stevie had seen her in some time. She looked, in short, like she’d been thoroughly fucked, and Stormy clearly thought so too.

Whatever. She didn’t care right now. Her hand rested on Angie’s thigh beneath the table, where she gently rubbed her thumb over the bare skin just below Angie’s sleep shorts. She was so unbearably soft.

The tinkle of glass brought everyone’s attention to Lilian, who sat at the head of the table while Ivy lounged to her left, looking effortlessly collected in a navy jumpsuit and wearing a faint smile of suppressed amusement as she watched her girlfriend. Letting Lilian think she was in charge was absolutely the right way to handle her. Stevie nudged Angie subtly, hoping she picked up on it too.

“Good morning,” said Lilian. “Everyone sleep okay?”

“Yes, mom,” said Stevie.

“The beds are great,” said Morgan with a stretch.

“Which I might have gotten to enjoy, if you’d shared ours even a little. Between you and the dogs I had about two feet. A lovely two feet, though.” Emilia’s smile suggested she was joking.

“Forget the beds,” said Stormy. “The view out my window makes me want to take a bulldozer to that stupid boutique across from my shop.”

“Can I drive it?” Stevie reached for more food she couldn’t possibly fit into her stomach as she spoke.

Lilian brought their conversation to heel. “For those of you keeping up with the itinerary this morning is up to you, but there’s a beach picnic and then some croquet, which, yes, you can drink during if that makes it less like, and this is a direct quote, ‘mini golf for rich people with too much lawn.’”

“No idea who you’re quoting,” said Stevie, who had said several variations of those words over the last few days. Ivy’s laugh was a small relief, however; she did not want to offend her. Croquet had been a brilliant idea on Ivy’s part as it played into Lilian’s penchant for Regency romance novels. Angie occasionally read aloud from some of the saucier romance novels on the shelf her books had shared with Lil’s, and croquet featured often.

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