Read My Lips: Restricted Version

RML: Chapter 11 (R)

Chapter Eleven

Why did Chloe have to call him?...of all people, HIM?!  Amber wondered.  And why am I still enrolled in that stupid protection program?  Amber thought for sure her parents took her out of that when she turned twenty-one, but apparently they wanted to keep tabs on her, even now.  The program was designed to help locate handicapped and mentally-incapable persons who got themselves lost or abducted.  And although being deaf, Amber thought she didn’t think she fit either handicapped or the incapable categories.  She wasn’t incompetent or mentally inferior to most, normal humans.  It was pointless.  First thing Monday morning, she was calling the program and un-enrolling herself.

As she entered her entry code at the front door, Amber fumed silently to herself.  She should have been able to leave that police station anytime she wanted, but no!  They’d practically locked her up until a responsible person could come get her.  Oh, the policemen and Kathy, the receptionist at the front desk, were kind to her, and Amber thought that Officer Manor might have eventually asked her out.  He was sweet, searching the whole station for the superglue to piece her bowl back together.

But then Linc showed up.  Standing there like he’d rather be smoldering in the pits of Hell than to come pick her up.  Amber balled her fists up tight as anger took over her emotions.  Well, he could go to Hell, for all she cared!  

Okay, that wasn’t fair.   She relaxed her hands and inhaled a cooling breath.  Once they got in his truck, he’d been rather nice, even saying please and asking about her small nick on her neck.  Maybe he just didn’t like police stations.  Or maybe he just didn’t like the attention she’d been getting.  Thinking back, she recalled how Linc glared at Officer Manor, and that made her smile inside.  Either he had the same mind-frame as her family and thought she couldn’t handle herself, or he’d been jealous.

Nah.  Handsome, brooding Lincoln Martin jealous of cute-as-a-bug Officer Manor?

Amber snorted at that idea and headed toward the elevator with her brooding cowboy in tow.  She waved at the night watchman while punching the up bottom.  Linc came to a stop next to her, looking up at the floor lights above the elevator shaft with his mouth slightly ajar, and Amber risked a small glance at him.  He looked tired.  And scruffy.  There was mud on his boots and dirt on his shirt and a wayward stick of hay stuck in the brim of his hat, and Amber’s lips twitched.  He must have been working out with his horse when he got the call from Chloe.  She stretched up on her tiptoes and plucked the hay out of his hat.  

“Thank you,” he said when she showed it to him.  Amber smiled.  Wow...manners abloom tonight.

Automatically, she made the sign for No problem and tossed the hay in a nearby trashcan.

“Does that mean, ‘You’re welcome’?” he asked as the door slid open.  Amber wrinkled her brow...how to explain?

“No,” she said slowly, stepping into the elevator with him.  She took a deep breath.  Translating the quirks of conversational sign language was going to take all her concentration, since she had to speak it for him to understand it.  “‘You’re welcome’,” she said, making the formal version of the phrase.  “It not said much.  You say, ‘Thank you’; I say...er, ‘No problem’.”  She showed him the motions of that phrase again.  “Or, I say, ‘Any time’, or ‘Happy to help’.”  She demonstrated both of those, and Linc’s gaze studied her swiftly moving hands earnestly.  

Amber repeated them, slowing down the motions for him.  He looked like he was cramming for a history final, and she giggled.  Linc smiled back.  “So, why didn’t you say, ‘Happy to help’?”

“Not like to give wrong impression,” she replied in an off-handed tone.  He tossed back his head and laughed.

The elevator lurched to a stop, and she exited into the corridor.  Her apartment was just across, so she didn’t have to go far before finally getting rid of him.  In all honesty, she was enjoying his company, but letting him into her home might not be the wisest thing she’d ever done.  However, she said he could walk her up, and he did, so he can come in, set her box down and then she’d tell him “Thank you,” and he’d leave.

At her door, she slipped her key into the lock and turned the handle.  She waved him in, told him, “Put on table, please,” and left the door wide open.  He should get the hint.

He came to a dead stop just inside her apartment.  Amber barged into his back, bumping her nose against his shoulder blade.  She peeked around him, thinking maybe she’d been robbed or something, but there was nothing wrong with her place.  Not even a dirty dish left out on the counter.  His jaw was moving, so she scooted around to see what he was saying.

“Wow,” he mouthed and looked at her.  “It sure is...cheerful.”  Why did he look so sarcastic?  She scanned her apartment, saw the vibrant colors on the walls and the mismatched furniture and kooky collection of keepsakes, and realized, to anyone else, she probably seemed like a crazy woman for decorating her home this way.

Amber smacked her fists on her hips.  “You not like?  You leave.”

“No, no,” he said hurriedly.  “I like it fine.  It suits you, actually.”  He set her stuff on the kitchen table and turned in a circle, taking it all in.

His response didn’t make her feel any better.  What was he trying to say?  She was a mixed-up, crazy woman?

“What you mean?” she asked angrily, her hands signing the words automatically.  He studied her moving hands and got a funny look on his face.  Amber took a step back.  Why is he looking like that?

“Can you teach me to do that?”

Huh?  He noticed her confusion and smiled faintly.  “Sign language,” he explained.  “Can you teach me?”

Now? she signed.

He exhaled in a short breath.  “I don’t know what you just did.  But I want to learn.”

“Why?” she spoke.

He cocked a stance that settled his hands loosely on his hips and jutted out a leg.  His hat sat up off his brow, giving her a clear view of those deep brown eyes, and Amber got a butterfly lodged in her stomach.  It fluttered wildly.  Why does he  keep looking at me like that?

“It’s kind of silly,” he said.  “I don’t know how to explain.”

“Try.”

He rubbed a knuckle along the side of his jaw, absently scratching at his two-day-old beard.  Then he blinked, paused and suddenly twisted his hand.  “Does this mean ‘carrot’?”

“Carrot?”

“Yeah, ‘carrot’.”

What was he going on about?  She balled her fingers, like she held a pretend carrot in her fist with her thumb tucked along the outside of her other fingers and made the motion for that word.  “This ‘carrot’.”

“Then what’s the sign for ‘apple’?”

Was he making a salad?  Amber showed apple, repositioning her thumb into a modified version of an X and twisted.  “Apple.”

He frowned.  “What’s the difference?”

Amber huffed.  “Carrot,” she said, presenting her fist like it should be for that word.  Then she poked the knuckle of her forefinger up a bit and said, “Apple.”

“Oh,” he said.  “Then it’s easy to get confused.”

She shrugged.  “I guess.”  This was getting weird.

“What about...um...”  He scratched his head.  “What about ‘saddle’?”

Amber closed her eyes for a moment, not exactly sure who the crazy one was here.  “Saddle?”

“Yeah,” he grinned.  “You know...saddle.”  He galloped in place like a child on a stick horse, and Amber could only stare at him, too afraid to laugh even though that had to be the funniest thing she’d ever seen.  “For a horse.”

“Saddle,” she repeated.  He nodded.  Amber went through the series of signs that basically meant a person riding a horse.  

“Whoa,” he stopped her, holding up his hands.  “Do that again.”

She did.

He shook his head.  “Too complicated.  Isn’t there an easier way?”

Amber clenched her jaw.  “No.”

“Really?”

“Or you spell,” she suggested with impatience and fingerspelled the word rapidly.  Her feet were starting to hurt from standing there for so long.  She toed off her shoes and kicked them across the room.

“Can’t I just do this part?”  He positioned his first two fingers of his right hand around straight side of his left hand, signing the word straddle.

“Sure,” she answered, throwing her hands up, “but that mean straddle.”  She emphasized the str- blend of the word as she said it.  “Not saddle.”

“But a horse might understand, right?” he inquired, a curious light glowing in his gaze.

Amber couldn’t keep the surprise off her face.  A horse?  Linc saw her expression and grinned.  “Yeah...I need to teach my horse sign language.”

A horse?!

“I recently acquired a horse that’s deaf,” he supplied, clearly amused with the situation.  “I figured out that she knows ‘carrot ‘and ‘come here,’ but I need to see what else she knows.  Problem is...I ain’t got a clue where to start.  Think you can teach me the basics?”

Amber needed to sit down.  Not just because her tired feet were aching, but if she didn’t sit down, she might just fall down.  Was he serious?  A deaf horse?  She’d heard about animals that learned some signed commands when she’d been in school -- even got the chance to meet a German Shepard that worked for a drug task force, but she’d never thought that a horse might suffer the same affliction as herself.  Or that this man might want to learn the signs to help the horse.  That gave Amber a deeper insight to Lincoln Martin.  

She walked over to her sofa and plopped down on the cushions, her arms dangling between her knees as she contemplated this man in her apartment.  Linc said, “Here, I have a picture of her on my phone.”  He tugged out the device from his back pocket and fiddled with it a moment.  Sitting down next to her, he showed her a picture of a pure black mare with a long glossy mane and deep, soulful eyes.  Amber took the phone from him, noticed how Linc’s thigh pressed warmly against hers and decided to ignore how great that felt, since that would only remind her of how he’d gotten excited earlier down on the street as he crowded up against her to get her box out of his truck.

She didn’t want to think he got excited about her at all.  Because that was ridiculous.  Instead, she studied the photo of the black mare and smiled.  “Beautiful,” she whispered, circling her fingers, spread wide, around her face.

She glanced at Linc to see his reply, but he was looking at her, and he smiled, too, and said, “Yeah, she is.”

Amber’s skin prickled with goosebumps.  He was too close, too warm, too handsome...and he was getting closer. His breath tickled her cheek, and she almost started to lean back, but then she glanced down at his lips, and she got to thinking that maybe kissing him wouldn’t be such a bad idea, so she stayed right there, waiting for him to come closer.  He’d press those lips on hers, warming her mouth, and she’d opened up to taste him, and his hand would cup her cheek, tilting her head to better fasten their mouths together, and...

“Does it still hurt?”

Amber blinked out of her miniscule daydream about his lips.  “What?”

Linc pointed to her bandaid.  “Does it still hurt?  Where that dead man cut you?”

“Dead man?! I not kill him,” she swore, picturing how the mugger lay on the concrete, unconscious, and how the police had to check him for a pulse.

“He will be, if I ever see him.”

Amber touched the bandage.  It had started peeling away from her skin, so she ripped it off.  A tiny drop of dried blood marred the sterile pad.  Linc sucked in a breath.  His hand did come up to cup her cheek and tilt her head, but not to kiss her.  Dang it.  He studied her cut, going so far as to pull some reading glasses out of his shirt pocket and fasten them on his nose.  Amber blinked at that.  Linc wore glasses?  She smiled at the transformation those wire frames made.  Talk about handsome.  She always liked a scholarly man.

“I okay,” she said, seeing the murderous expression shadowing his face.  She smiled to soften his concern, liking that he felt that way about the guy that mugged her.  It gave her a warm, fuzzy feeling and added more butterflies to her stomach.

“Do you have anything to disinfect it?”

“No need,” she insisted.  “Small cut.”

He raised his eyes to hers.  “Humor me.”

Amber licked her lips.  Yeah, she’d like to humor him.  And it had nothing to do with her neck...well, maybe some humoring of the neck, but mostly on her lips.  “Bathroom,” she said, pointing to the door next to her bed across the loft.

He stood up, looked back, said, “Don’t move,” and headed toward her bathroom.  Amber sat there for a moment, thinking about him going through her stuff in the bathroom, and...Oh, no...did I leave my bra hanging on the doorknob?  Amber was across the room in a flash.  Linc had already found her bottle of hydrogen peroxide and cotton balls, but he stood in her yellow bathroom, rooted to the tile floor and fixing his brown eyes on the pink lace draped over the doorknob.  Amber snatched it up and held it behind her back, knowing without a doubt that her cheeks were flaming brighter than the pink of that bra.

He shifted his gaze to her, halting for a brief second at her breasts as though imagining her wearing the pink bra...and nothing else.  She saw raw desire there in his face.  She didn’t know what to do.  Her bare feet were stuck to the tiles, too.  Linc unscrewed the cap on the bottle, soaked a cotton ball, set the bottle on the vanity behind him, and approached her...slowly.  Amber backed into the door.  His eyes never left her own blue eyes.  “You moved,” he spoke, crowding her against the wooden door.

“Sorry,” she forced through a thick throat, knowing that the word probably only came out as a whisper.

With one gentle fingertip, he tilted her chin up and dabbed at the cut with the cotton ball.  The cold antiseptic sent shivers down her body.  At least, that’s what she was going with.  Not his touch.  Not the steady gaze he kept locked on her eyes.  Not the way his lips curved up in the corners or those adorable glasses still perched on the end of his nose.  Amber could see her reflection in the small lens, and she nearly gasped at how wanton she looked, her eyes wide, her mouth parted prettily, inviting him to kiss her, and to kiss her hard...as hard as she yearned to kiss him.

Finally, he tossed the cotton ball over his shoulder.  It landed in the sink.  His fingertip started tracing the line marking her jaw, right up to her ear.  Then all his fingers threaded through her hair, and he said, “You are so beautiful.”

Amber wanted to dispute that, but his mouth inched forward and softly latched on, and whatever she had to say about her so-called beauty vanished from her mind, like a puff of smoke on a windy autumn day.

She’d only been kissed a few times in her life -- never wanting to get too close to a guy she knew would eventually realize what a burden she was -- and she shouldn’t have let Linc kiss her now.  She barely knew him.  In every reality, tonight was only the third time they’d been together, so it wasn’t like this was the start to a full-blown relationship.  But sweet Baby Jesus!  His mouth was like a gift from Heaven.  He eased himself over her lips, prodding and nibbling just enough to make her want more, so she did the only insane thing to do.  She opened up and touched her tongue to him.  He tasted of salt and male strength and everything bold and dangerous in this universe.

Amber melted.

Why hadn’t she kissed him before now?  The man was a drug.  One taste, and she was already shaking, wanting more, but as soon as she licked at him, he pulled slightly away.  Amber mewed with protest.  They were just getting started.  He’d missed some spots, and she wasn’t nearly done tasting him.  Then, with a dip of his knees, he was back, holding her tightly against his chest, lifting her up to her toes and plunging his tongue into her mouth.  Amber’s hands clutched at his shoulders.  Linc’s hands had managed to find some secure spots to hold onto, as well.  One wrapped around her waist and back, his long, work-rough fingers spread wide and splayed over her ribcage, teasing the underside of her breast.  The other still resided in her hair, almost petting her as his fingers laced through her ponytail and then fisted some handfuls of hair and then massaged her scalp, but ever so gently.  She could feel his heart pounding through his shirt, and his heat surrounded her, frying any common sense right out of her brain. One kiss shouldn’t have this much power over a girl, but this one did.  This one stole away all her independence, but she wasn’t too concerned while Linc kissed her -- he was strength enough for both of them.   Through this one kiss, he gave her the courage to explore him, and he gave her liberty on just how hard and fast, or soft and gentle, she wanted from him.  He took control, and yet he followed her lead.  Amber tried to regain some pretense of prudence, but...Five more seconds of this, and he’d have me naked, she thought, and then he angled in for a tighter fit on her mouth, and Amber threw prudence out the window.  This kiss stripped away her inhibitions.  She slid her hands up to lock around his neck.  

Heavens!  Linc could kiss her anytime he wanted.

Yet, all too soon, he began to end the kiss, finishing with more nibbles and tiny licks over her lips.  Amber opened her eyes as he left her, wanting to see the same confused, maniacal, passion-kindled haze in his eyes...the same haze she stared out of...but he didn’t open his eyes to look at her yet, and he didn’t smile, but he did mouth one word...

“Macie...”

Harsh reality crashed into her.  Amber’s arms fell away from him as her heels dropped to the tiles, jolting her with cold, hard sagacity.  He hadn’t been kissing her.  He’d been reliving a kiss with his precious Macie.  He had closed his eyes, pretended that the hair he fondled and the lips he touched were those of another woman, and a small part of Amber’s heart felt sorry for him, but it was a very, very, very small part.  Mostly she just felt used.  There was no palpable description for the turbulent shame and the agonizing humiliation that cooled her blood in an instant.  Amber wanted to die from disgrace.

Linc blinked open his traitorous eyes.  Amber searched them for something redeeming.  Something worth forgiving.  Anything to save him, but there was no regret there.  There was no remorse or guilt.  She pushed him away.  “Get out!”

His glasses skewed over his nose from the force of her shove against his chest.  “What?  Amber...”

“So, I Amber now?!  Get out.”

He frowned and cocked his head at her.  It took a few ticks, but the confusion finally cleared and understanding dawned in his expression.  “Wait, no...I didn’t mean--”

“I not care!” she shouted.  “Get out!  Leave me alone!”

He righted his glasses and stared angrily at her.  Like he had any reason to be angry.  She hadn’t been leading him on, or anything.  Quite the opposite.  Asshole!

Amber slipped around him, grabbed her cuticle scissors off her bathroom sink and pointed them at him.  “Now.”

He raised his palms up.  “I’m going.”  He executed a perfectly dramatic, pissed-off turn on his boot heels and stormed out of her apartment.  The front door slammed shut, rattling the pictures on her walls.  Amber dropped the scissors and breathed out a silent sob.

*****

Linc managed to get into the elevator and waited for the doors to slide shut before banging his head on the wall.  Shit, shit...shit!  What the hell was wrong with him?  She was right there, in his arms, and he’d kissed her.  It felt so right, so perfect.  She had stood there, wide-eyed and innocent and as sweet as any female could possibly get, and he just had to kiss her.  He had to finally taste those lips, and there wasn’t a whole lot anybody could have done to stop him.  But he knew he shouldn’t have kissed her, and up until his lips touched hers, he was fairly sure he had a very good reason why he shouldn’t be kissing Amber.

There had been a reason he had not kissed her until this point.  A reason...something important, something cardinal to his very soul, something -- or someone -- that stopped every thought of kissing Amber...then he kissed her, and he forgot.

He’d forgotten just about everything but breathing, and that had been a struggle.  His lungs were still aching.  He couldn’t remember why he’d been fighting against this for so long.  Why he didn’t kiss her at the wedding.  Why he didn’t kiss her in the library.  She tasted as sweet as she looked, and her body fit against his in every perfectly possible way, even melting almost.  Then, just as he thought he couldn’t stand in that bathroom any longer, kissing that sweet, beautiful woman without ushering her to her bed and stripping her naked, he slowly kissed his way out of the kiss, and it came him.  The reason.  He remembered what he shouldn’t have forgotten.  

Macie.

He was in love with Macie.  He loved Macie!  She’d been everything to him.  And yet, there he was, kissing Amber in her daisy yellow bathroom, feasting on that sweet mouth and forgetting all about the woman he loved.  Macie might be dead, but she was still the primary owner of his heart.

But God!  He didn’t mean to say her name.  Not there, not coming out of that kiss, with Amber’s taste still on his tongue.  Linc got pissed, alright.  Pissed-off at himself for offending Amber that way.  She didn’t deserve that.  She didn’t deserve to get insulted that way...not Amber.  Not that beautiful, sweet, innocent girl who’d only been driving unwanted feelings out of him since he met her...no, she shouldn’t have been subjugated to such disgrace.  

Now, she could have let him explain, but even so, she’d not been responsible for his anger.  

Stupid, stupid, fucking stupid!  How dumb can one man get?  After forty years, most people had some semblance of intelligence and common sense.  Not Lincoln Martin.  He’d inhaled too many manure fumes in his lifetime.  Been bucked off a spooked horse one too many times.  Gotten drunk enough times that half of his gray matter wasn’t manufacturing resourceful or astute thoughts any more.  The only other more despicable thing he could have done was to call out Macie’s name while in the midst of an orgasm.  And now, thanks for his stupidity, he’d never get a chance to know what an orgasm felt like while making love to Amber.

Not that he was planning on making love to Amber.  It was one kiss.  Not a marriage proposal.  Not a promise for commitment.  Not even an “I like you; let’s go out.”  

Linc lifted his head as the elevator dinged and the doors opened for the lobby.  Was that the real reason she’d gotten angry?  Or part of it?  Did Amber think that because he kissed her, he was staking some kind of claim on her, and then he said Macie’s name, and now she was angry in a jealous, baby-momma kind of way?

Crap.  

Or was he just over-thinking this whole thing?  Could it really be as simple as him insulting her by falsely making her believe that he thought he was kissing Macie?  No drama involved?

Was any woman that simple?

Double crap.  He’d been watching way too much daytime television.  He sounded like a guest on Jerry Springer.  

Well...one thing was for sure.  He was going to have to apologize, to explain.  Find a way to do it so that she couldn’t kick him out again, or make a scene in public, or stab him with scissors, or even do that ninja move which usually landed him on his back.

Flowers.  Girls liked flowers.  Pink ones, just like the blush on her cheeks and the natural stain to her lips...lips so full and plump and sweet, it had been like sucking on ripe strawberry smothered in golden honey.

Gotta stop thinking about that kiss, Linc thought, adjusting his britches as he stepped out of the elevator.   I’m too damn old to be walking around with a hard-on.

Then of course, he thought about Amber’s mouth, and he settled on getting her some I’m Sorry roses.  Yeah, pink flowers...roses.  He’d write out a card.  Say something witty in it, say he was sorry, and hope she didn’t rip up the card before reading it.  

Down on the dark street, he circled around his truck and peered up at where he thought her window might be.  A shadowy figure stood there, behind lace curtains, and he knew it was her.  And he could tell from her stiff shoulders and immobile stance that she was still upset.  

A lot of flowers.