Read My Lips: Restricted Version

RML: Chapter 32 (R)

Chapter 32

"Chloe!"  Amber scrambled to wrap the towel around her body.  What is it with brothers and sisters?!  First Wil, and now Chloe!  

Oh, crap!  And to be caught like that!  In that position!  What is wrong with me?!  All she could remember was feeling him against her, rearing back to feel more of him, just before turning around to straddle him, but she rose up, and he slipped inside, and he filled her all the way, and man, it felt so good!  So, she stayed like that, and she felt wild and wonderful, though she missed looking into Linc's eyes, but they could do that next time, and then...Chloe.

Chloe hated Linc.

Amber risked a glance at the man she loved and had been caught losing her mind to.  His face was soaked with embarrassment, but instead of hurrying to cover himself, he simply swung his legs off her bed as though nothing out of the ordinary was going on, vaguely tugged his pants up, bent to plant a kiss on Amber's head, sent a scowl toward Chloe, who had frozen with shock, and then disappeared into her bathroom.

'What are you doing here?!' Amber asked her sister in sign, furious beyond the ability to feel sympathy at the sight of Chloe's grief stricken face.  Little Nate cried on and on.  Amber pulled a nightshirt out of her drawer and jerked it over her head.

"Me?!" Chloe hissed, finally finding her voice and not bothering to sign and keep this conversation private from the man in the bathroom.  "What are you doing?!  With him?!"

'None of your damn business,that is what!'  She unbuckled the carrier straps and reached for the baby to calm him with her humming.  It never failed to work.  Linc came out of her bathroom fully dressed then and put back together, smiled tenderly at the sight of Nate against her chest, and tilted her chin up for a brief kiss in that special way of his.  Amber was amazed that he could behave so casually after what happened.

"I am so sorry," she whispered against his mouth.

"Call me when you get a chance," he said, nodded at her sister, "Chloe," and Amber reached out to him, “Linc, wait,” but he shook his head, trailed a knuckle along her jaw and left.

"Seriously?"  Chloe screeched as the door closed behind Linc, "You're screwing him?  He's a drunken asshole!"

Amber eyed Chloe carefully.  "Why are you here?" she asked again aloud now that her hands were full.

"I've been trying to call you all afternoon," Chloe said, fresh tears beginning to flow.  "I hopped on the first plane up here because I just can't do it anymore!"

"Do what?  What is going on?!"

Chloe broke down into a heartbreaking sob.  "I've left him, Amber!  He came home late last night with lipstick and cheap perfume all over him!"

"Daniel?"

"Who else would I mean?!"  Chloe buried her face in her hands with a powerful wail and sank down onto Amber's bed...only to pop back up with a gasp and a scowl at the rumpled quilt. "Eww!  Really, Amber?  Lincoln Martin?"

Amber blushed, but she smiled as shrugged.  "What can I say?  He is irresistible."

Chloe huffed, annoyed, and said, "The whole damn world has gone nuts!  You and Lincoln...and Daniel...I never in a million years would have believed he'd cheat on me."

"What happened?"  

Her sister slumped to the sofa in the living room and spilled out the whole story.  Daniel had been working a lot lately, coming home late, and his boss -- the husband of one of Chloe’s best friends, Emma -- was covering for him, saying it was all legitimate.  Even Emma had been complaining about how hard the two men had been working.  But besides that, other things were weird to Chloe.  There was a one-hundred-thirty dollar charge at a department store on their credit card, and Daniel said it was because a co-worker had been attacked and mugged one night, and she called Daniel because it was the only number she could remember at the time.  Chloe said that he took her out for coffee after the police finished taking her statement, and then stopped to get her a change of clothes because she couldn’t go home to her six-year-old son messed up and dirty like she was after the attack.  Daniel claimed she paid him back.