Amber: Read My Lips (F&L Story #5)

Read My Lips: Chapter 31

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.

Growling, she shoved hard at his chest and sent him flying backward.  His butt hit the carpet and his elbow barked against the leg of her coffee table, but he was enjoying himself too much to mind.  “That is not funny,” she said.  “I am trying to help you, you jerk!  And give me that!”  She wrestled the fortune cookie out of his hand while he lay there laughing, his groin aching in his jeans, and she cracked open his fortune.

“‘Help! I’m being held hostage in a Chinese bakery!’”  She read it aloud, fast and furiously...then blinked...read it again to herself...then burst out laughing.  She fell across his chest, giggling uncontrollably, reading the fortune again, and Linc liked her there.  He curled his arms around her back, holding her in place as he kissed the top of her head.

Linc let her laugh out her anger at him.  When she started hiccuping, he tipped her chin up with his thumb, looked straight into her eyes and said, “Valentine’s Day...I asked Macie to marry me on Valentine’s Day...a typical, unimaginative cliche.”

Amber softened as she searched his expression.  “That is unimagi--unimagina--you know what I mean.”

Linc smirked.  “She told me no.”

And Amber reared back with surprise.  “Really?”

"Yup...then I kissed her senseless until she agreed," he said.  Amber rolled her eyes and quirked up the corner of her mouth.  

"Well, your kisses are pretty persuasive," she said without humor.  There was a spark of something undefined in her eyes.  Envy?  Regret?  

"Shall I tell you what we did after I kissed her into agreement?"

"No."  Her pink lips turned down in a twist of discomfort and she looked away, blushing.  Ah, so she is jealous...

"But I wantto, Amber."  He shifted to get in her sight and even though she didn't look directly at him, he knew she saw the words and the playful inflection of them.

"You are making fun of me," she returned hotly.  "You know I do not wish to discuss you and Macie in that way."

"I know you don’t," he sighed seriously.  "And I'm making fun of the situation.  It's the only way I can talk about her and do this for you."

She shook her head and sat up, clearing away their dinner.  "Do not do it for me."

He knelt next to her and took her hands away from distraction.  Making her look at him, he said, “Then who should I do it for?  Hmm?  If not for you, I wouldn’t do anything at all.  If not for you I'd be passed out under my tree by now with an empty nottle of Jim Bean by my side...everything I want to do now is for you.”

It took a moment, but finally, she grinned.  “Really?  For little ol’ me?”

Linc cupped his hands around her face, seeing the sun-tanned skin of his calloused fingers against the porcelain, freckled cheeks, and he wondered why he’d fought against this feeling inside him for so long.  She was everything soft and sweet and sassy in his world of harsh, bitter, rough days.  He’d fallen in love with Macie because she’d been so much like him...the female version to his mule-headed character.  Amber was nothing like that.  Oh, she was just as stubborn, but not in the way of opposing everything that irritated her.  Her personality led her to battle though those aggravations until they no longer bothered her.  That was Amber.  Not fighting against...but fighting through...fighting for him.

And because of that, he’d flip the moon over on its side for her.

“For you,” he said almost soundlessly because his throat still refused to voice the words, “I am...a man...trying to...love...a woman.”

Amber curled her fingers around his wrists and whispered, “Oh, Linc...”

“I want to kiss you now, Amber,” he moaned.  “I need to...please?  May I?”

She nodded and rose up a little to press her soft lips to his.  It was the sweetest kiss he’d ever experienced, even better than the first one with her in that yellow bathroom of  hers.  The kiss deepened, and her tongue slid into his mouth, and it deepened further, and her breasts pushed against his chest, and she began rubbing them from side to side, moaning deep in her throat.  “Linc,” she breathed between kisses, allowing them both to gather air into their lungs, “Linc...kiss me.”

“I am,” he said against her lips, though she had her eyes closed, and he could have been spouting the national anthem, and she wouldn’t have known.   

“I missed you,” she told him.  “I need you...I ache, Linc...touch me.”

He did, against his good-conscience.  He slid his hands under her shirt, and touched the soft flesh of her stomach, and she arched into him.  “I didn’t come here for this,” he said aloud, mostly to himself, because she wasn’t paying a lick of attention to him speaking to her.  Her hands went to his belt buckle, and instantly, he drew back, stalling those wicked fingers of hers.

“I didn’t come here for this,” he repeated, making sure she saw him say it.

“And I did not invite you up here for this,” she purred, going back in for another kiss.  “But I want you.”  Linc sat her back away from him while he still could.

“Amber...I thought you said we were going take this slow.”

She blinked at him.  “You do not want to make love to me?”

“Yes, I do!  But--”

“But what?  Do I need to strap you to my bed?”

Linc actually grinned at that.  “Maybe one day...”

“Oh, Linc!” she cried out, not in a very happy tone, and her hands began sighing along with her words, a sign she was frustrated.  “What exactly do you want from me?  You kiss me like a man starved, and make love to me for an entire night, turn me on with a single glance...tease me relentlessly!  And then you push me away again!  And because of that, I want to rip your clothes off every time you turn that sexy grin on me!  Please!  Just tell me what you want from me!  I cannot make you love me back, but God!  I cannot stay away from you either!  I will do anything for you, except forsake my pride!  You make me want to beg, Linc!”

He opened his mouth several times, trying to get a word in, but she overrode every chance to say something.  She made him want to beg, too.  Even now, with her eyes bright and her cheeks flushed, and her chest heaving from her rush of words, he wanted her.  He wanted her when she walked across the room.  He wanted her when she kicked his boots out from under him.  He wanted her when she was spitting fire at him and making him feel like a jackass for not giving her the one true thing she wanted from him.

“Amber,” he started, but then shook his head.  “No...come with me, I’ll show you.”  And with the agility of a leaping mountain lion, he was on his feet, pulling her toward that yellow bathroom, and pushed her against the door there.  She questioned him with her gaze, confused at the sudden change in scenery.  “You make me want to beg, too  I’ve been having wet dreams about you, ever since that first kiss...right here, the first time I could not control myself,” he explained hastily, before wrapping her up in his arms and shamelessly assaulted her mouth with a kiss meant to ease the torrent of need inside him...need for her, need to have her, love her, needing only her in his arms and life forever.  Begging her to feel what his body felt for her, what his mind knew but his heart hadn’t heard yet.

She clung to his neck as he pressed her to the door and tasted her and touched her and inhaled her, collecting her moans and stampeding heartbeat in his ears, a violent shudder rocking her body along his while she fastened herself closer, her lips, her teeth, her tongue, all working in harmony to whack him out of balance.  She’d been doing that from day one...knocking him off his feet, kicking the world out from under him, everything he’d become in the past three years didn’t matter anymore because he’d not been walking on solid ground, and Amber had known that, thumping some sense into him all this time.  

And yet, at the same time, he still didn’t know where to go from here.  Spending the night with her, making love to her for endless hours, sounded like a freaking great way to wake up in the morning, but he also didn’t want to base this vague, uncertain relationship of theirs on sexual desire.  It couldn’t be about sex, although the sex was pretty damn wonderful.

“Linc,” she breathed, biting at his lower lip, “What you do to me...”  She started lifting his shirt out of his jeans, but he had to stop her while he still could.

“I’d love to do a lot more,” he said, backing away and removing her clawing fingers from his waistband.  “But I honestly didn’t come here to jump into bed with you.”

“Can I make you change your mind?” she asked with a smart-ass grin, pulling her own shirt up over her belly, revealing that smooth skin of her navel and the lavender lace of her bra, and Linc swallowed hard, making himself look away.

“Probably,” he admitted, quickly forgetting his motives for why he did stop by this evening.  “I did miss you, but I missed you, Amber, not the sex.”  He saw her raise an eyebrow at that, her shirt coming completely off her body, and he cleared his throat, “What I mean is, uh, crap, I, uh...”  Down slid her pants, revealing a matching pair of panties in that same pale purple lace and satin, and Linc blinked and took another step back.

“Amber, are you sure you want to do this?”

“Do what?” she asked sweetly, and glided past him, trailing her finger over his belt buckle on her way to her tub.  “I am just doing what my fortune said.”  And she bent over to run water into the bathtub.  Two hooks came undone and a shimmy of hips, and there she stood, naked and as beautiful as a lone bloom on a rose bush.  She grabbed a jar from a shelf and poured pale pink granules into the water.  The scent of a spring morning permeated the air in that tiny bathroom.  Linc hadn’t budged.  He couldn’t.  If he so much as twitched a pinky finger, he’d be crawling into that tub with her, not even bothering to shuck his boots, and that small basin of scented water wasn’t big enough for both of them.

So, there he rooted, on her tiled floor, watching as she lowered body parts into the shimmering water, steam rising up around her, making the hairs at her temples curl and her skin flush a pretty pink.  The tub filled to near overflowing, and she raised a dainty foot to turn off the stream of water. Then she took a bottle of body wash, a fluffy green sponge thingy, and began to soap up her body.  All without looking at him once.

“You don’t play fair,” he muttered, and forced himself to move.  He stepped over to the toilet, sat on the lid and propped his elbows on his knees and his chin on his fists and enjoyed the show.

First she lifted a leg and scrubbed from her thigh to her foot, slowing circling the suds around every inch.  Then she switched legs, and Linc grinned at how her breasts bobbed in the water as she shifted.  She moved from her legs to her arms, to her shoulders and chest, her belly, her neck, rising up from the water to soap places that normally stayed submerged, and then she’d slide down to rinse.  Linc couldn’t wait for the rub part of this fortune.  He was two ticks from hauling her wet, dripping body out of that tub as it was.  Then her knees came up and her head went under, and Linc cocked his head to the side to get a better look at the delicately trimmed vee of hair as her hips lifted up to accommodate her submerged upper body.

He stood then, no longer able to sit calmly by while she teased him -- and she thought he teased her?  His shirt ripped open and he dragged it off his shoulders.  Amber’s head came out of the water, her hair slicked down her neck and her blue eyes widening at the sight of Linc’s bare chest.  She smiled slowly.  Linc dropped to his kneecaps next to the tub, reached in to pull the plug, and she opened her arms to be lifted.

Linc shook his head as he returned her smile, a cocky grin meant to raise red flags in her.  Amber’s eyes now narrowed, but she didn’t say anything.  Linc held her gaze as he retrieved the hand-held showerhead, flipping it on and tweaking the water until it sprayed warm through the nozzle.  When it came to her that he intended to wash her hair, an eager, welcome light flickered like a birthday candle in her gaze.  Linc discovered how much she enjoyed a good hair washing the night she stayed with him.  He could still hear her moans and sighs of pleasure and satisfaction, the same sounds she made now as he gently kneaded shampoo into her silky ribbons of hair and massaged her scalp.  He took his time, making sure none of the suds dripped into her eyes, and she sat with her back to the side of the tub and her knees drawn up to her chest...and the showerhead tucked against her tummy where he placed it for her to hold, water pointed down to warm and stimulate the sensitive skin between her thighs.

He rinsed her, turning on the pulsating jet function of the showerhead as he did, sprinkling water all over his chest, but he didn’t care.  Because when he replaced the showerhead against her navel without changing the vibrating water spray, she jerked once and then squirmed from the extra stimulation on her sweet spot and that perky little bud of arousal which so loved Linc's undivided attention.  Linc grinned as he began folding conditioner into her wet hair.  It wasn’t easy because Amber wouldn’t sit still.  Her moans got louder, and her heartbeat grew to the point where it pulsed violently against his fingertips on her scalp, but she kept the showerhead right where he placed it.

Needing to wash away the conditioner in her hair, he took the spray nozzle, and she whimpered, “Oh!  You are a beast.”

Linc held his reply inside himself, but he chuckled, rinsed from her skin any residue bathing products and shut off the water.  Turning her in his arms, he kissed her hungrily, pulled back just as she started latching onto him, and said, “Now...about that rub...”

“Yes,” she breathed and bent her head to lick a drop of water off his chest.  “Let me touch you.”

Linc lifted her chin with his finger.  “Not me...you,” he said.  “It is your fortune after all.”

“Linc...please,” she begged, dipping her fingers into the back of his jeans.  “You teased me long enough.”

“Oh, honey,” he cooed, enjoying the torture he gave himself, “Just let me please you, and then we can talk about the rest.”

Ignoring any further protests, he picked her up in his arms, snatched a towel from behind her door, and laid her body on the towel on her bed, stretched out deliciously like a feast on a buffet table.  Quickly, he raced back to her bathroom, grabbed a bottle of lotion from her shelf, sniffed it, smiled at the pleasant scent of honeysuckles, and went back to her.  She laid on her stomach, her head turned to the side, her eyes closed, and when he placed his knee on the bed beside her, the mattress dipped and she smiled.

Drawing out the backrub for as long as he could, he spent long moments, tracing the patterns of freckles on her back, especially the splatter that spread out on both butt cheeks.  At first, he was afraid his rough hands would scratch and abrade her beautiful skin, but she moaned, “Harder,” as he rubbed across her shoulder and down the middle of her back.  He squeezed and manipulated the soft flesh of her rear, and she parted her legs a little more when he dipped down to the insides of her thighs.  By now she was panting and making the cutest, deepest growls of pleasure in her throat.

“Please, Linc,” she wailed, hugging a pillow to her chest and lifting her hips in his directions.  “Touch me!”

He did; he couldn’t help it, couldn’t stop himself.  Linc dipped his finger between the folds of her womanhood, felt her slick with dew, and her muscles contracted instantly, pulling that probing digit further inside her.  And she arched and thrust against him, whimpering, “Linc...please...take me, Linc...love me...”

His control snapped at that point.  

I didn’t come here for this, he chanted in his head, but he unbuckled his belt with one shaking hand anyway, pushed his jeans down just far enough to give him some breathing room, and he hauled her hips up against him, intent on flipping her over, but then their sexes touched, and it felt so damn good that he had to rub against her for just a few seconds.  “Yes!” she cried when she felt him nudging her.  Amber’s knees spread further.  She came up off the bed on all fours and thrust backward, impaling herself on him.  Linc’s heart stopped.

No!  Wait!  Can’t do it this way!   Though this particular position planted his erection completely inside Amber, it had never been a favorite of his.  Too impersonal.  Too much like he was only f*cking her, rather than loving her.  But Amber didn’t slow down.  Her body rocked back onto him, shoving him inch by inch off her bed if he didn’t grab hold of her hips and hang on.

“Amber!  Stop!”  

She couldn’t hear him, couldn’t see him.  He clenched his teeth, because every surge of her body onto his manhood weakened the domination over his own orgasm.  She was tight and wet and soft and warm, and she was making him come to a release faster than he liked.  

Then a key rattled in the front door just before it opened, a light switched flickered on and off in an odd pattern, and both Linc and Amber froze.  “My sister!” Amber hissed, just as Chloe Jeffreys, eyes puffy like she’d been sobbing and her baby in a carrier, rounded the corner, saw them and shouted, “Oh, my God!”

The baby started crying, and Linc thought he might, too.