Read My Lips: Restricted Version

RML: Chapter 31 (R)

Chapter 31

Over a dinner of pork fried rice, pot stickers, and spring rolls, Amber told him about her week, how she managed to receive a promotion after only a few weeks and why she chose library sciences as her career.  She explained that she’d have to give a speech at the charity ball on Saturday, and she was scared because she still didn’t feel confident in her speaking abilities to do it.  Linc assured her that she would do fine, and if she messed up, then all she’d have to do was smile her pretty pink smile and the whole world wouldn’t notice if she spoke Greek.  He’d gotten a spring roll in his face for that.  But for an hour, she talked almost nonstop between mouthfuls, and Linc let her.  He felt that somehow she needed to chatter about herself in order to keep from pursuing their earlier conversation about Macie.  Together, they sat on her floor on opposite sides of her small coffee table, Linc leaning against her reading chair, and Amber sat on a brown suede floor pillow, her legs stretched out so that her toes rested next to his thigh.  Linc managed to eat with only one hand, while the other continuous caressed her ankles, the tops of her feet, the smooth skin of her leg just below her calves.

And as he watched her, listened to her, played with her...her eyes grew dark with restrained passion, and her gaze traveled over him more than it should, and she licked her lips too often...and he realized that sometimes a man had to take a blind leap.  She said they could go slow.  But did he honestly want that?  Did he relish the thought of going so slowly forward that they were actually backing up?  He couldn’t love them both, but he also couldn’t forget Macie, the one thing he thought might work for them.  Maybe Amber had a point.  If he talked about it, then all those painful memories would be out in the open...shared with her, and not so agonizing anymore.  Then could he finally let Macie go?

"Ask me again," he blurted out while she held out a fortune cookie for him.  Her pansy blue eyes locked onto his.  She tossed the plastic-wrapped cookie in his lap and sat back on her pillow.  Without replying to his request, she cracked open her own cookie and smirked as she read the fortune.

"'A tub and a rub will alter your day.'"

Linc grinned.  “That sounds...intriguing.”

“What does yours say?”

Without opening his fortune, he fisted the cookie in his hands and crawled around the table to get to her.  He had a goal.  Sharing was always a good thing, after all.  “I’ll tell you, if you ask me again.”  His head hovered in front of hers, and her lips parted as though to receive a kiss.  

“Do you want me to ask?” she said breathlessly, her gaze caressing his mouth.  He grinned wickedly.  So...turnabout for the couch-kissing episode.

“Oh, yes...I want.”

Her chest rose and fell with heavy, solid breaths.  He could see her breasts straining against the fabric of her shirt.  “What, exactly, do you want, Linc?”

Sweet Lord, he loved that husky, breathless voice of hers when she was turned on.  His erection tightened against his fly, making him wonder that if he asked...would she let him stay the night with her?  He missed touching her so badly, his palms were throbbing from deficiency.  He missed kissing her, tasting her, hearing her moans of pleasure as her body slid over top of his.

But no...he didn’t come here tonight for that.  He came to see her, be with her, look at her, not make love to her.  And to share with her.

“Ask me...” he murmured, holding himself back from kissing her.  “Ask me, ‘How did you propose to Macie?’”

“How did you...”  She swallowed and licked her lips.  “How did you propose to her?”

“I don’t remember,” he replied, and she looked away from his mouth and at his eyes with hints of scorn.  Linc chuckled.  “When I am with you, I can barely remember my name,” he explained and moved closer to tease her with a kiss he shouldn’t deliver.