Read My Lips: Restricted Version

RML: Chapter 17 (R)

Chapter 17

Linc opened up Amber’s door on her side of the truck and caught her right as she spilled out, laughing and smiling and drunk off her ass.  But she was a fun, lovable drunk, Linc amended cheerfully as he tried to get her to stand up on the sidewalk.  Right before they left Willy’s Place, he didn’t know who had been more surprised -- him or Willy -- when Amber crawled across the bar, grabbed Willy’s beard in both her hands, and laid a sloppy, fat kiss on the man.  “Big Papa Bear,” she said afterward, grinning and giggling and almost falling off the wooden bar to the floor.

Right now, her big blue eyes were gazing at him with affection, and if she decided to call him a Papa Bear, he wouldn’t mind a bit.  

“Alright, let’s get you inside,” Linc said, more to himself than to her as he guided her toward the door to her apartment building.  There, he propped her up against the brick wall and asked, “What’s your code?”  She was spurting random giggles out of her chest and smiling so happily.  Linc couldn’t help it.  He grinned at her, too.  It wasn’t everyday that a man came across a woman who was even sweeter when she was drunk, than when not.  He always thought that you could tell a lot about a person by the way they behaved while inebriated.  And Amber had about a pound of sugar in her soul.

“Honey, your code?” he asked again, holding her chin so she looked into his face while he spoke.

“My lucky number,” she said, still smiling softly at him.  Her eyes were bright in that one certain way, only attainable through lots of drinking or lots of great sex, and Linc was drowning in her gaze.  Her cheeks were flushed and her body was soft, warm and malleable under his hands.  If he was a less-honorable man, he might take advantage of this situation, but as it was, and them being only “friends”...

“And what is your lucky number?” he asked.  She pinned him with a look that most women gave a man just before said-women began seducing said-man.  But Amber wouldn’t know anything about that.  All night, she been fun-loving and best-friend-ish, never once attempting to come on to him or any other guy in the room.  Linc was the one have trouble keeping his mind out of the gutter and his hands to himself.  When he held her as they danced, he thought about slyly guiding her into the dark corner behind the jukebox and stealing a kiss.  When he taught her how to spin while still two-stepping, her skirt fluttered up above her knees, and he thought about hiking that skirt all the way up, touching the soft skin under there while he stole a kiss.

In fact, stealing a kiss had been on his mind ever since she wrangled him into that one and only stint of dirty dancing.  In order to gain control of himself, he had to leave her on a bar stool, hightail it to the back and slip out the service door.  There, in the alley between the bar and an old strip mall, he inhaled the nighttime air and walked off his erection.  Then he slipped back in through the front door and forced himself to behave for the rest of the night.

It’d been the hardest damn thing he had ever done...no pun intended.

“Amber, your lucky number?” he asked her again, remembering the hours behind him and how he had already learned so much about her.   She rotated on the wall, her shoulder keeping her anchored, until her nose was right there on the keypad of the door.  Squinting and swaying, she punched in 0 - 0 - 5 - 2.

As he held her upright, walking slowly toward the elevator, he wondered why fifty-two was her lucky number.  It seemed like an unusual one.  He’d have to ask her one day.  Glancing at her flushed face and bright smile, he chuckled and knew today was not that day.  He needed to get her inside her apartment and into bed...preferably without him.  Though God, Satan and every immortal being in-between knew he wanted to crawl beneath those covers with her.  Damn, he hadn’t been this sexually frustrated since Macie died.  Amber just had to look at him and his body stirred for her.  But he figured too long without sex of any kind would do that to a man.  He had barely even touched another female in the past few years, much less had to keep himself from not touching one.  This one.

Linc sighed with regret.  Tomorrow, she had to work, and he kept her out too late tonight.  Inside the elevator, she leaned against a corner, her eyes half-closed and her body waving from side to side as though still in the midst of a dance, and Linc released her for just a moment so he could punch the fourth floor button.  But she started sliding down the wall, and he had to hold her tightly in his arms to keep her off the floor.  

Amber just smiled.  “Dance with me, Linc,” she said.

“I think you’ve danced enough tonight,” he replied, but her eyes were closing again, so he might as well have been talking to himself.  

The ride up to the fourth floor seemed to take an eternity.  Her body was clutched up against his, and her face was tilted back just enough for him to bend down and steal that kiss he’d been wanting all night.  But he didn’t.  He smoothed the hair off her forehead and marveled at how beautiful she was.

Just friends.

Amber said it herself.  “He love Macie.”

Yes, I love Macie, he affirmed, telling his heart that very fact, in case it was starting to get confused.  

With some difficulty, because she was starting to drop off to sleep, he managed to get her inside her apartment and onto her bed.  He helped her take off her boots, and he planned to just let her crawl under the covers fully clothed, but Amber had other ideas.

Swaying precariously on her bare feet, she unzipped her skirt and let it fall to the floor.  Linc caught a glimpse of bright blue panties before he grabbed hold of his principles and turned away from her.  The next thing he knew her white t-shirt and black tank top was flying over his shoulder, followed quickly by that same pink lace bra he’d seen hanging from her bathroom doorknob on Saturday.  Sweet Jesus, she’s naked, he groaned, squeezing his eyelids shut.  Her bed squeaked, and he hoped she was hidden under the quilt, but when he peeked, his hope wasn’t answered.

Sprawled face-down--on top of the quilt! --  and cross ways with her feet dangling, she lay on the bed.  Smooth, bare back, dotted with freckles, led down to a cute, pear-shaped bottom, covered in those blue briefs and down further to her shapely legs.  And she was snoring.

“Just friends, just friends,” he chanted as he kept his gaze averted as much as possible and moved body parts until she was laying under her blankets and hugging a pillow.  She never woke up.

A small smile curved her lips as she snuggled further down into her bed.  Linc reached over to brush the back of his hand across her cheek.  The skin there was so smooth, so soft, he could only imagine that the rest of her would feel the same way.  Taking liberties, he might never get again, his fingertips trailed along her jaw and down her throat to that little hollow where her pulse pushed against his finger.  She was so sweet, so innocent, so feisty when she wanted to be and so not deserving of his bad moods and broken heart.  He wished he could give her more than just friendship, but he couldn’t.  He didn’t have anything else inside of him.  

When he found his hand straying along her collarbone and her head drifting over to nuzzle the inside of his palm, he moved away from her.  She was going to have a hell of a headache in the morning.  Linc remembered that she wanted this, she wanted to get drunk, experience that, so he hoped she dealt with the morning after better than he did.  Going back to the cork board over her desk, he marked off Get Drunk -- Just Once with a pen and added a footnote under it, Have a Hangover.  Then he looked at the rest of the list.  So many things.  So much she should have already done.

Hastily, he wrote down as many as he could on a scrap piece of paper and stuck it in his pocket.  As a friend, he should help her with these things.  It was the only kind thing to do.  He’d hate for her to go through life wondering “What if...”

But he couldn’t do anything about Fall In Love.  That one seemed written down as an afterthought and he wondered about it.  Too much pain came from loving someone.  He should know.  And he didn’t wish for Amber to feel any pain.

Finally, he figured he should go.  But first...

He found a bottle of aspirin in her bathroom and filled a glass of water, setting both on the side table next to her bed, under the vase of roses she kept.  She was going to need them in the morning.  He looked down at her one last time.  Her eyes drifted open.  She smiled at him and went back to sleep.  Even sleeping off a night of drinking, she was still the sweetest thing he’d ever seen.  He stood there, trying like hell to make his feet move toward the door, but he just couldn’t.

One last kiss...she’d never know.

No.  Don’t do it.  You’ll abuse her fragile trust.

Then she snored again, delicately mewing and bringing a smile to his own lips, and he thought, Shit, I’m not a freaking saint.  He lowered, barely touched his mouth to hers, and like a dream, she responded.  Her lips parted and she sighed, billowing lime-scented breath across his face.  Even her lips still tasted like the limes from the tequila shots she did earlier.  There was nothing foul about her, not even her breath after a long night of alcohol and peanuts.  Just the sweet tang of limes and her.  

“Just friends, just friends, just two platonic friends,” he mumbled, as he rushed out of her apartment and away from temptation.  He made sure he locked her door, and he wrote a mental note to call her tomorrow to see how her head was feeling.

Curiously, Linc had only the one beer that night...and he didn’t even finish it.  When was the last time that had happened?

*****

She was having the most wonderful dream...she was dancing in the shadows with a man dressed only in a pair of jeans, her arms around his neck as they swayed enchantingly together to a distant melody.  Amber never questioned the fact that she could hear music or voices in her dreams.  They were just always there.  

She couldn’t see the man, but she could feel him and she could smell his deliciously masculine scent, and that was enough.  She rested her cheek against his bare shoulder and he touched his lips to her forehead and her hair and whispered wonderful sweet nothings...telling her how beautiful he thought she was, saying how sweet she was, and she closed her eyes and relished in the sound of his voice...letting it rumble through her whole body, wanting to hold onto the sound forever because she knew it wouldn’t last.

They held each other like that for long moments, him caressing her back and her filtering her fingers through his dark hair, sighing in the pleasure of just being together.  Nothing but the two of them.  Nothing keeping them apart.  Just her and her dream man, moving to a beat only the two of them could hear.  Amber desperately wanted to know who he was, but she couldn’t make herself touch his shadowed features with her hands, for fear that she’d be disappointed.  She didn’t dare compare him with someone she knew, since she knew of only one man she wanted to dance with...and if this was not him?  The longing in her wouldn’t allow her to face the reality of what she knew she’d never get to have.

“Amber,” he whispered,”My sweet Amber.”  She sighed with joy, to hear his voice.  To feel the wash of his warm breath over her temples as his lips tickled her skin.  She didn’t want to fall in love with a dream, but she was helpless to prevent it.  Her heart blossomed like the petals of a rose, and with that thought, the darkness around them shimmied into a field of pink blooms, embracing them with the delicate scent, loose petals floating down like a gentle snowfall around them, landing on their shoulders and seducing their skin with light kisses of exquisite euphoria.

A dull light blinked in the distance, but she ignored it.  If she saw it, that was the end to her dream.  That was the end to this dance, and this man holding her as though he would never let her go, as though he felt the same budding love in his heart.  But their dance moved them toward the light...or the light moved toward them.  Amber’s eyes welled with heart-rending tears, and she frantically clutched at him, but he showed no signs of recognizing her panic.  He only murmured words of worship and ran his fingertips along her spine.  

And suddenly, a woman stood in the light, a woman with dark, long hair flying around her form, a woman with a face so familiar to her, though she knew she’d never seen her before in her life.  Amber screamed at her to go away.  The man circled his arms around Amber’s waist and nuzzled her neck while the awful woman pulled on his arm, forcing him to let Amber go.  She reared back and punched the woman’s face, but neither she nor the man responded.  The woman continued to pull him away from her, his arms stretching to touch her one last time before leaving.  Amber clawed to hold him back, but he only sighed, brushed a gentle kiss over her lips, said, “I’m sorry,” and allowed himself to be taken away.  Amber clenched her jaw with determination, racing toward them, coming into the light, tripping over her own feet and hitting her head...pain exploded as she blinked at the glaring light...

It wasn’t just any light.  It was her alarm clock flashing her bedside lamp, and she sat up, holding her head.  Oh, the pain!  It was the biggest headache she’d ever had in her entire life, and it wasn’t because of her dream.  The night before flooded back with glaring awareness.  So, this was a hangover.  

Amber moaned.  Never again.

She smacked her alarm clock, making the bedside lamp stop blinking, and she fell back against her pillows, thinking about the dream which was already fading from her mind.  That’s when she realized she was practically naked, and she astutely recalled Linc being with her when she acquired her naked state.  Now, she moaned for another reason.  Did he see me?  Surely, he would have been a gentleman about it.  She slapped her hands over her face with embarrassment.  She would die of shame the next time she saw him.

She knew that some people couldn’t recall their hours of drunkenness, but Amber wasn’t blessed with that brain function.  She remembered every freaking, tiny detail, right up until she passed out in her bed in only her panties.  The beer, the dancing with Linc, the tequila shots with Joanie and Buck, kissing Willy, falling out of Linc’s truck, and thinking that if he kissed her again, she’d let him.

But the kiss only happened in her dream.  Gingerly, she traced her lips, still feeling that ghost of a kiss, feeling that somehow it had been more than a dream, but she had to have faith that Linc would never take advantage of her while intoxicated and asleep.

After a few minutes, her snooze alarm blinked at her and she urged her body to get out of bed, amidst a series of groans.  In her bathroom, she searched for her aspirin, but couldn’t find it.  That was strange.  She had a habit of keeping her medicines in one spot, and yet, the bottle was not in the plastic container under her sink.  Standing there in the doorway between bathroom and bedroom, clothed in nothing but a pair of underwear, she began to get perturbed.  Her brain was pounding against her skull at this point.

Then she saw it, on her night stand with a glass of water, waiting for her.  And she smiled.  Linc.  How sweet!  First the flowers, then the dance lessons, now the aspirin.

If she didn’t know any better, she’d swear he actually cared for her.

She downed some pills, drank every drop of water, and practically skipped into the bathroom to take a shower.  The next time she decided to drink herself silly, she’d have to make sure he was with her.

*****

For the next two days, Amber and Lucy were swamped with work.  They had to decipher the files for the exhibit, fill orders from other departments, and begin making arrangements for the charity ball at the end of the month, which was only ten days away.  Jimmie had really made a mess of things, but neither woman let that deter them.  

But the day after Amber’s experience with a honky tonk, two amazing things happened.  One:  Brian called Lucy back, and they set up a date to go out.  Lucy walked in a state of daze for the rest of the afternoon.  And two:  Linc showed up at the library to see how Amber felt.  She didn’t expect that.  She was walking through the microfilm section with Lucy, making notes on what needed to be done and fixed.

‘Didn’t that dumbass follow any kind of filing system?’ she fumed.  Lucy flicked her hand off her forehead, saying ‘I don’t know,’ as she jotted down a note with her other.  But Amber only saw the man standing at the doorway, leaning there with a smirk and his arms crossed over his chest.

Her breath caught.  Her cheeks flooded with color as she imagined him in her apartment, standing there as she undressed in front of him.  And her lips started tingling with that ghostly kiss from her dream.  Linc.  Was he the man from her dream?  She didn’t want to hope.  She couldn’t.  He said so himself, he had nothing more than friendship to offer her.  For now, it was enough.

Finally, she smiled and walked over to him.  “How you get in here?” she asked him.  The archives were not opened to the general public.  A person had to have a key code to enter the basement.

He shrugged, his shoulder still anchored to the wall.  “I’m a regular around here.  They know me.”

Lucy came over to them with a surprised expression, and Amber waited for him to recognize her and explode into his dark mood.  “Hello, Linc,” Lucy said.  “How are you?”

Linc looked at Lucy for a moment.  “I’m sorry,” he said, “I’m bad with names.  Who are you?”

Lucy didn’t seem the least bit annoyed by that.  “I’m Lucy, Macie’s cousin.”

Amber inhaled sharply, watching his face carefully, but he only smiled politely and said, “How could I forget?”  He held out his hand for a shake.  “I’m doing good.  How are you?”

Lucy made a like comment as she shook his hand in greeting and said something about checking the messages.  She wagged her eyebrows at Amber as she scooted around Linc back to the office.  Linc turned back to Amber with a curious grin.  “Ironic, ain’t it?”

“What ironic?”

“That you work with Macie’s cousin,” he said, apparently in a very good mood, so Amber relaxed.

“It must be fate,” she replied.

“I’m sure she’s been telling you all kinds of stories,” he said, pushing away from his casual stance.

“Some,” Amber said with a half-grin.  “Thank you for last night.  I had fun.”

“Yes, you did,” he said.  “How’s your head?”

Amber touched her temple, which was still aching a little.  “Okay.  Now I know not drink too much.”

He chuckled.  “Now you know,” he agreed.  “So, tell me something.”

“What?” she asked warily.

“Why fifty-two?”

Amber knew what he was asking.  She recalled how she told him fifty-two was her lucky number, and she didn’t know if she wanted to share something like with him.  It seemed like such a personal tidbit of knowledge, but as much as she wanted to share it with him, she wasn’t ready to expose the darkest moment of her life.

With a hitch of her shoulders, she said, “Same number in deck of cards.”

“Bull-honky,” he said with a grin.  “What’s the real reason?”

She couldn’t help it.  She grinned back.  “Okay...five plus two equal seven, a lucky number, too.  Mom and Dad, both born 1952.  My birthday May 2nd.  Fifty-two weeks in year...number of white keys on piano...five and two, both prime numbers...”  She trailed off, not coming with any other explanations.  And certainly not giving him the real reason.  How could she tell him that fifty-two was lucky for her because it was the first number she saw after Chloe rescued her from those jocks in high school?  It had been on a championship banner over the basketball court, and the number stuck in her head.  The rest of that stuff was just coincidental, leading her to think that her life was guided by fate...the same ironic fate she spoke of just a few minutes ago.

Linc wasn’t impressed with her answer.  He leaned down and said, “You know, I’ll get the real answer out of you one of these days, right?”

Amber swallowed.

Linc straighted and asked, “Whatcha doing for lunch?”

She planned to work through lunch, since she had a lot of Jimmie’s messes to clean up, but she couldn’t resist his jolly mood.  “I not know yet.  You have idea?”

“I have an idea,” he said, staring softly, warmly, down at her, but then he jerked himself upright and gave her his very-charming grin.  “How about I take you two ladies out?  I know a great place just down the street.  Pied Pipers?  Ever heard of it?”

Amber felt a rush of warmth in her.  “Yes.  It favorite place.”

“Great,” he said, clapping his palms together.  “How about I meet you upstairs in fifteen minutes?”

Amber glanced around at the piles of boxes she had yet to go through and the giant white board of things to do over the next two weeks, and then she looked at Linc, who was looking at her, his dark eyes daring her to turn him down.  Her spirited temper jolted through her.  She’d not felt this alive over the prospect of lunch in...well, never.  “Okay, fifteen minutes,” she agreed.  

“I’ll see you then,” he said, turning to go, but he looked back at her and added, “And the signing rule begins then, too.  Lucy signs, too, doesn’t she?”

Amber nodded with a small smirk.  “Then I get a two-fer,” he said, happiness conveyed on his face.  She watched him walk back to the elevator, her eyes drifting down to his rear in those tight jeans of his and the powerful thighs that had ground against her last night while dancing, and a shaky sigh escaped.  Lucy came around the corner, saw Amber’s expression, and started laughing.

It had been a wonderful day, despite the headache that thumped along her temples for most of it.

So, when Wednesday night came, she felt great.  Her new job was wonderful, she had two wonderful friends, and she knew she looked wonderful, too, with her hair falling freely in those loose curls and a soft flush to her cheeks.  And she could still feel the dream kiss on her lips, even in the bright hours of the day.  It just wouldn’t go away.  But she didn’t want it to.  She hoped it stayed there for a long time.

Promptly at 6:30, she stepped out of her apartment building to see Caleb waiting for her.  He smiled and gave her a small hug.  Amber chose to wear her pink sweater, the same from Linc’s brother’s wedding, a pair of time-worn jeans and her hip bag.  Normally, she would have dressed up a little more for a date, but they were going to a carnival.  However, she did take the time to fix her hair and put on a little make-up.  

“You look beautiful,” Caleb said as he took her hand and led her to his Jeep.  Amber noticed the absence of a tingle in his touch -- that tingle she got every time Linc touched her -- and she knew right off that there would never be anything more between her and Caleb than this right here.  She only hoped he didn’t expect more.  With a shake of her head, she figured she would cross that bridge when she got to it and determined to have a good time tonight despite her reservations.

He helped her into his vehicle and walked around to the other side to drive away.  Neither saw the man in the truck sitting down the street, watching them.