Page 64 of Windlass

When Angie could finally breathe steadily and they both lay facing each other, she asked, “Can I do anything for you?” Stevie’s arm supported her head and Angie’s thigh lay warm and secure between Stevie’s legs. Dog hair aside, she could happily stay like that forever even if she hardly remembered her own goddamn name.

Stevie gave a breathless laugh. “Are you kidding me? I came twice just watching you.”

“Really?”

“You should have seen yourself.”

Stevie rolled them over, her touch gentle and wet—Jesus Christ, what had Steviedoneto her to get her hand that wet—and looked down at her. The living room lights were off, but the glow from the laundry room was enough to illuminate her features. Awe filled her sweet, flushed face. Her lips were red in this light, and Angie wanted to kiss her more than anything, but she couldn’t move. And the rules. There were the rules.

But Stevie was different.

Stevie, different or otherwise, bent down and kissed her on another set of lips. Her body jerked. Her clit, swollen and, she had to admit, somewhat neglected, slid between Stevie’s teeth. Angie fumbled for Stevie’s hair with one hand and her own with the other. Her fingers were stiff from holding on for dear life, but they tangled well enough in Stevie’s thick, tousled hair and tugged weakly on her own.

She found the shell of Stevie’s ear with her fingertips and stroked it, marveling at the softness of the skin below her earlobe. She wanted to bite it. She wanted to curl up there and go to sleep.

Stevie licked the swollen, tender length of her and wiped that thought away.

“Oh god. I can’t—”

“You can.” Stevie placed her hands on Angie’s slick thighs and spread them. “I need to see you come again.”

She would; she absolutely would.

Stevie kissed her tenderly, easing the raw, hypersensitive skin into a different kind of inflamed state while her thumbs traced the curve of Angie’s ass where it met her hips.

Those hands. She’d watched them for years, guiltily at first and then without shame.

The next orgasm took her quickly. Stevie sucked her clit, flicking with her tongue, pulling, teasing, tumbling her over her climax and leaving her laughing, an arm flung over her face, completely and utterly spent.

“Oh my god, Stephanie.” She wondered if she would need to be scraped from the carpet. “Oh my god.”

Stevie lay down beside her, still half dressed, and stroked her ribs, hips, the curves of her breasts, her cheek.

What broke Angie, however, wasn’t the ache in her cunt or the tears drying on her cheeks or the words hovering on her tongue, words she’d almost said aloud, but the light kiss Stevie planted on her forehead as she settled against her. They fit seamlessly. They always had. But those soft lips against her flushed skin were all she’d ever really wanted. More than she’d known to want, really.

For the moment she let herself pretend this could be hers, whatever this was, forever. She rolled over and let Stevie fold her into her arms. Stevie smelled like sex and hay and, somehow, clean linen. She licked the skin nearest her mouth and tasted salt. Stevie’s hand lightly scratched her back, then smoothed her hair.

“Now can I touch you?” she whispered into Stevie’s collarbone.

“Always.”

Chapter Eleven

Ivy directed Jaq to ride in a loose circle around the orchard. Cognizant of his rider, Freddie stepped carefully, and Stevie leaned against the tree nearest Ivy, watching him pick his path carefully over the grass. There were some ruts, but not many. Jaq held herself well in the saddle, hands loose but steady on the reins and face bright with concentration.

“See if you can feel which hoof hits the ground. When do you feel the front right?”

Stevie tuned out the call and response activity that followed as Ivy taught Jaq how to feel through her seat. Her body hummed with residual pleasure despite a full day of work and lack of sleep as images from the night before replayed in a beautiful loop in her head. Withdrawing her hand from Angie ranked among the most impressive feats of willpower she’d accomplished in her life. That closeness—that aching, fever-dream of longing—filled her again, just as she’d filled Angie: completely and without recourse.

“Maybe this is a terrible idea,” said Ivy in a lower voice than her teaching voice, interrupting Stevie’s daydream.

“Does it feel like one?” Being Ivy’s confidante flattered her, but only half as much as it unsettled her. What did Ivy expect from her, and why did it have to include formal wear?

“Yes? No? I want it to have happened. I’m only scared out of my mind about doing the happening.”

“Doing the happening . . . Do you mean you want her to ask you?”

“What? No. It has to be me. I just can’t screw this up. There’s no do-over on a proposal.”

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