Read My Lips: Restricted Version

RML: Chapter 30 (R)

Chapter 30

With the dishes done and the rest of the small apartment relatively picked up, there wasn’t much more to do than sit around and stare at each other.  At least until dinner showed up.  Linc was afraid this would happen.  Before Amber shared his bed, there would not have been any uncomfortable silences.  In fact, they would have probably been into their third fight by now.  And the only thing he could think of to say was so lame, he kicked himself even as he said it.

“How was your day?”

Amber rolled her eyes as she reclined back on the arm of her sofa.  Linc sat on the other side and pulled her feet up to his chest.  Absentmindedly, he rubbed on her toes, gently massaging and just touching her.

“Busy,” she said.  “The charity ball is this Saturday.  I am in charge of the new exhibit for the library.  The unveiling is that night.  I have to give a speech.”

“Oh, yeah,” Linc said, “I forgot about the library’s ball.  I buy tickets every year, but I haven’t been since...uh, in a while.”

Amber’s blue eyes captured him.  “Not since Macie died?”

Linc looked away.  Okay...just talk to her about it...  But all he said was, “Yeah.”

“Did you and Macie go to a lot of charity events?”

“Some,” Linc answered vaguely, though his mind was remembering the last time he saw Macie in an evening gown...it had been gun-metal blue, cut low in the back, with these thin silver chains criss-crossing all across her back.  She’d swept her hair up off her neck and twisted it in a clumsy knot with a jeweled hair comb she got as a birthday present.  Linc smiled to himself as he remembered how her hair kept escaping from the comb, tickling her neck and shoulders all night, and how she pulled him into the back of the coat closet after consuming three glasses of champagne.  The comb came completely out of her hair then, and they never found it.

“Tell me about it,” Amber said softly.  Linc looked at her, surprised to find her watching his face as he reminisced about that night long ago.  “What is making you smile like that?”

His gaze dropped down to Amber’s feet in his hands and traveled up her legs, past her hips to her chest and neck.  He saw her laying there on her sofa in that same evening gown, the slit on the side parting to reveal her bare legs, and he roughly shook his head, clearing the image.  It wasn’t right to think it.

“Linc?  What is it?”

“Nothing,” he croaked out and had to clear his throat.  “It’s nothing.”

Her feet left his grasp, and Linc realized he was blowing it here.  He needed to come up with something, other than these one word answers.  Amber lifted up on the couch and crawled over, straddling his thighs.  The look on her face didn’t bode well for his endurance.  She was going to make him talk...and Linc, he was very curious on how she was going to do that.

“I will make a deal with you,” she said in a near-purr, her face lowering to his as her hands braced her body.  “For every answer you give me, I will give you a kiss.”

Linc blinked at her proposition.  “What kind of kiss?”

She smiled slyly.  “Answer my questions and you will find out.”

“And if I don’t answer?”

Her smile evolved...purely naughty.  “Answer the questions, Linc.”

Curiosity, more than anything else, caused him to agree to her stipulations, as vague as they were.  Amber squirmed a little higher on his thighs as she asked, “What was her favorite color?”

Okay...not the question he was expecting, but a safe enough of one.  “It changed,” he answered, waiting for her to kiss him.  She moved her lips closer, but did not kiss him.

“Change is not a color,” she murmured.

Linc licked his lips.  He’d been waiting four days for one of her kisses.  “Sometimes it was green--”

A soft, gentle touch from her mouth.

“Sometimes it was blue--”

Another sweet, barely-there kiss.

“But most of the time, she preferred yellow--”

Amber secured her mouth on his and opened up to touch their tongues, but she pulled away after only a brief lick.  Linc groaned and settled his hands around her hips.

“Her favorite food?” Amber asked, her warm breath tickling his lips, and he needed to kiss her again so frantically, that he automatically said, “Chocolate cake.”

Amber let him tangle tongues for all of two seconds that time.  Then she asked, “How did you propose to her?”

Linc had Macie's favorite movie ready to spurt forth and be rewarded with Amber's sweet lips.  Then her question sunk into his fogged-over brain.  "Wh-what?"

"Tell me how you proposed to her."

Linc pushed slightly on her hip bones.  "No...ask me something else."

Amber arched an eyebrow.  "No?  Are you sure?"

He eyed her carefully.  "Well...not now.  What are you going to do?"

"Do?  I am not going to do anything," she said.  "But when you are ready to answer, tug on my ear."

Linc frown.  What an odd request.  Then he knew what she meant.  Her head dipped to his jaw, lightly rubbing her lips and the tip of her nose along the skin there, moving toward his ear, down the side of his neck, along his collarbone, up his throat, over his chin and back to his lips.  But she didn't kiss him, because she wasn't doing anything at all, except waiting for him to answer her question.

"Jesus, Amber," he growled against her cheek as she began the same path on the other side of his face.  Her eyes were closed, those thick eyelashes of hers resting like feathers against her freckles.

This time when she reached his throat, she lingered on his Adam's Apple, parting her mouth wider, and he could have sworn he felt her tongue there.  His lungs shut down for a moment, stalling the air on its way out.  Amber's pink lips feathered down to the vee of his shirt, her chin dipping between his collar and her warm breath tickling the hair there.

"This isn't fair," he groaned aloud, even though she couldn't see him speaking.  But complain as he might, what she was doing -- or rather, what she wasn't doing -- to him, it felt wonderful.  If she thought this to be punishment...

Silently encouraging her, his palms slid up and down her ribcage as he tilted his head back on the arm of her couch and relaxed into her teasing touch.  She chuckled just as her fingers found the top button on his shirt and undid it.

"I believe you are enjoying this," she whispered with a smile in her voice.  She kept her eyes down, so Linc didn't feel it was necessary to respond...at least, verbally.  Something was responding.  "I am glad...I promised myself I would  not force you to talk about her."  She raised her head.  "Are you mad?"

"I have a beautiful, sexy woman in my lap," he replied.  "Hell, no.  I'm not mad."

She graced him with a grateful smile.  "Sorry...I will refrain from more questions.  I cannot make you do anything you do not want to do, after all."

Linc frowned at her.  “What does that mean?”

She shrugged, “It means you will do things in your own way and on your own time...I cannot rush you.”

“Please, honey,” he rumbled as his palms cupped her derriere, giving those rounded cheeks a squeeze, “Rush me.”

That got a smile out of her, but she shook her head in protest even as her pink mouth curved upward.  “I did not mean it that way.”

“I know what you meant,” he said, sliding his hands along her thighs and back to her rear.  “But we have been through this.  I am doing the best I can, I’ve been thinking about you, wanting to be with you, trying my damnest to not think about Macie, and but you keep asking me to tell you abouther.  Amber, I loved this woman--”

“Yes, I know--”

“I slept with this woman--”

“Yes, you have told me--”

“And now, I’ve slept with you,” he went on, undisturbed by her interruptions.  “We slept together!  We made love three times in one night.  After knowing each other only three weeks.”

“I am well aware of that,” she said patiently while he was gradually getting worked up to a slow simmer over this familiar topic.

“And you’re sitting there, so calmly, so sweetly, with your big blue eyes, asking me to tell you about the times I made love to her.”

She sighed.  “I am not asking you to do that.  I am just trying to--”

“I know what you’re trying to do!  You’re trying to make me to fall boots over stetson in love with you!”

Her face shut down.  A sadness, wounded with hurt pride, crept into her gaze.  And Linc felt like a complete ass.  “Ah, hell...Amber...I’m sorry.  Don’t look at me like that.  I’m trying, I really am, but you’re confusing the crap out of me.  Women aren’t supposed to want to know about these kinds of things.”

She reared back, still straddling his thighs and seared him with an indignant glare.  “Well, excuse me for not knowing the proper etiquette for falling in love with someone!”

He sat there...just sat there, unable to think of anything to say.  There was no proper way of falling in love.  It just happened.  Linc knew that his problem was that he tried very hard not to make it happen again, and now look at where he was...arguing with an intelligent, gorgeous, sassy woman who loved him when he should be kissing her senseless and telling her he did love her.  Only, he still didn’t know for sure, and he couldn’t say the words until he did.

Amber eventually shifted her gaze away from him.  “Maybe this was not a good idea...you still need time to work things out for yourself.  You should...you should go.”

“Amber...”

She astutely avoided looking at him.  He touched her chin, gently pulling her eyes back to him.  “I want to work them out with you.”

She shook her head, not believing him.  “Why?”

“Because I need you, Amber...I’ve never needed anyone before, and...and it scares the life out of me.  Don’t you understand that I do care about you, but I can’t love you and Macie, too.  I’m not wired that way.”

“And I am not wired to love a man who is in love with someone else,” she said tonelessly.

He smiled...a faint, quiet smile.  “And yet, you still do.  Why is that, do you think?”

She shrugged.  “Maybe because I know...I know that somewhere deep inside you, you feel the same for me as I do for you.”

Now it was his turn to look away.  “Do you?”

She took his face in her hands, pulling him back to her.  “I believe in you, Linc...just give us a chance.”

He cradled her hands against his cheeks.  “I’d like to do that, Amber...but I’m working blind here.  I don’t know where to go from here.”

She chewed thoughtfully on her bottom lip, and then smiled.  “We have dinner together.  We talk...about anything you want to talk about,” she added when he started to interrupt, “and we just be together.”

Linc nodded.  “I can do that.”

She bent to give him a soft kiss.  Linc closed his eyes and enjoyed the shot of liquid fire her lips always gave him.  Then she scooted to get off his body, but he clamped a hand around her wrist, panicked that she meant to distance them so soon.

"Where are you going?"  

She pointed behind him.  "Dinner."

Linc glanced over his shoulder.  A small light flickered from a panel by the door.  Amber shuffled quickly over to it and smashed the intercom button, "This is Amber Hayes.  I will be right down."  She fished her wallet from her bag and headed toward the door.  

"Whoa!" Linc shouted as he rolled to his feet and scrambled across the room to her.   His boots slipped on her rug in his rush, since her back was turned on him and throwing something to grab her attention would only get him tossed to the curb.  Reaching her as she stepped into the hallway, he turned her around.  "Hang on there.  How do you know it's the delivery guy?  Or do you go down to everyone who buzzes your place?"

She pursed her lips.  "Who else would it be?"

Who else would it be?  Who else would it be?!

“A madman,” he answered, and she gave him that female look, so he kept on going from there, “Or a lunatic set on raping and killing the first woman he comes across.  Or a psychopath who stalks deaf people until he locks them up in his basement and tortures them to death.  That one crazed ex-boyfriend, tracking you down because you’d been smart enough to get rid of him the first place.  Hell, Amber, it could be an alien in a spaceship, looking for the Dairy Queen!  But no!  You just assume it’s the Chinese delivery guy!”

“That is ridiculous, Linc,” she said, hands on her hips.  “I never had a boyfriend.”

Linc turned completely around and let out a string of curse words so she couldn't see them.  But her neighbor heard him.  A prune-faced woman stuck her head out of a door and said, "Do you mind?  Children live on this floor."

Linc raised a hand, ashamed of himself for losing his cool.  Amber did that to him. Whenever he was around her, all his emotions burst into overdrive...all except one.  "Sorry about that," he told the woman.  "I'll keep it down."

The woman said, "See that you do," and closed her door...only to swing it open again and pop her head out, saying, "And you're right.  Your girlfriend is too gullible for her own good."

"Hey!  I am not!"  Amber was peeking over his shoulder.  Linc ushered her to the elevator.

"I'm coming down with you."

"Fine!" she huffed, "But I am not gullible, and do not think for a second that I will let you pay!"

"It never crossed my mind," he lied.