Read My Lips: Restricted Version

RML: Chapter 22 (R)

Chapter 22

Amber almost expected him to push her away again, but as soon as her mouth latched onto his, the only thing he was pushing was his tongue between her lips and pulling her legs around his waist.  She thought the last kiss, the one in her bathroom, had been full of raw need...but what he was doing now!  Feeding her with his lips and tongue, breathing into her...a dark, sensual desire of one man for one woman, as old as time itself, and as potent as a super nova in the starry heavens.  One hand held onto her rear, securing her around his body, while the other hand curled around the back of her neck, holding her head still while he feasted and devoured and inhaled her.  Amber felt a rush of heat go from her lips to her toes and right back up to settle between her legs.  

The earth began to spin with them, drawing out a dizzying sensation as she kissed him back with as much fervor as her inexperienced mouth could provide.  Then when the prickling of hay against her back through her shirt registered in her mind, she blinked open her eyes for only a moment, and saw the ceiling of the stable.  Linc had laid her down on a stack of hay bales and his lips had yet to break away from hers.  

He can drop me on a pile of horse manure...Amber thought as she closed her eyes again and fell deeper into his kiss...as long as he doesn’t stop kissing me.

Then his lips left hers, but only to travel down her chin and jaw to her neck and collarbone.  She sighed as every touch of his mouth seared her with wild heat.  His fingers were at her buttons, releasing more of them, and pushing her shirt wider, while his mouth followed the path down the center of her chest, between her breasts, to her navel and back up again.

In a rush, his fingers released the clasp on the front of her bra, and his mouth was on an awakened nipple, sucking with raw need, yet not painfully.  His tongue swirled around and around the tip while one hand teased the neglected nipple with his thumb and another hand tucked into the waist band of her jeans, searching for another part of her he needed.  

“Linc,’ she sighed his name and tightened her legs more firmly around his hips.  A vibration tickled her calf, and it didn’t stop...just pulsed and pulsed.  “What is that?”

Linc leaned up a little to reach into his back pocket.  He pulled out his cell phone...and sat completely up, letting Amber’s legs fall from his body.  Dammit!  

His chest rapidly fell and rose as he scanned his cell phone.  “It’s a text from Wil,” he said, looking at Amber with a guilty flush.

Double dammit!  She sat up and crossed her legs under her, pulling her shirt together with one hand.  Things were going so well...and then his dumb brother had to go and ruin the mood.  Breathing out unsteadily, she smoothed her hair down and picked some hay out from the layers in the back.

“He’s taking Lucy home,” Linc added, tucking his cell phone away and gazing at where her fingers clutched the two halves of her shirt, the yellow lace of her bra bunched up and peeking out from a small gap.

Amber moaned.  “Lucy...I forgot...”

Then her cell phone vibrated from her back pocket.  She retreived it.  “Amber, Wil is giving me a ride home...have fun tonight...I’ll call you tomorrow.”

Linc peered around to read her message and smirked.  “I think we’ve been set up.”

Amber nodded.  He had no idea.  But that didn’t matter right now.  The moment was lost...because two do-gooders decided to leave them alone.  Ironic, how that worked out.  She glanced at Linc.  He was staring at her.  But he wasn’t moving toward her, or moving in any way to finish what she started.

She turned on the bale, fastened her bra back togther and started buttoning her shirt with shaky fingers.  Closing her eyes because she just couldn’t face him, even from the corner of her eyes, she said, “I guess it is good we stopped.  We might have done something you would have regretted.”

She felt him move toward her finally, and then her legs were captured, swung around and she fell backward on the hay bale again, blinking her surprise at him.  She looked into his brown eyes and saw a hint of that desire she tasted on his lips.  He searched her gaze, almost crazily.  

“What about you?  Will you regret?”

Instead of answering, she raised her fingertips to his mouth again, caressing the mobile softness of them.  His lips parted slightly and his tongue darted out to lick her finger.  She left her finger there, resting against his lower lip as he licked and nibbled on the tip.  Funny sensations sizzled down her arm and sparked along her spine, sending warmth and yearning through her veins.

“Amber...” he eventually said, “Tell me you understand...do you realize what could happen right tonight?  I want you, I need you...I want to bury myself into you, right here, right now, taking your sweet body and make you scream my name all night, if that is what you want, too...but I will not tell you I love you when morning comes...I can’t...I won’t...”

She understood.  He was explaining to her that she might wake up with regret of her own, because he didn’t love her.  He wanted her...her body, her kisses, her lovemaking, but not her heart.  Could she continue with this?  She had to look at all the possibilities.

If she did sleep with him today, then he might be cured of his desire for her, never wanting her again and she’d never get another chance to hold him like this again.  Or...he might want her again and again, and she would get to hold him like this and make love to him over and over, but it would only be physical love, and he would be loving on her, while she loved him, and her heart would break a little more each time because he couldn’t love her the way she loved him.

Either way, she wouldn’t force a declaration out of him.  That wasn’t right.  He was telling her that all he could give her was this moment right here...and it was up to her whether to seize it, or let it slip away, fearing what might happen afterward.

Looking up into his chocolaty eyes, Amber knew that he feared enough for both of them.  Afraid to let Macie go...afraid that loving Amber would mean more pain...afraid of allowing his heart to become so exposed again.  Amber’s only fear was that one day, he might lose his fears...and he would find someone else to spend the rest of his life with...not her, because he never truly cared enough...

“Amber?”

She focused on him and gave him a soft smile.  “When morning comes, I will have no regrets, and you...you won’t have to say a word if you don’t want to...”  She pulled him down to kiss her again, and he groaned and crushed her to him.

She might regret tomorrow, but she’d have a hell of a memory to carry her through tomorrow.

*****

God, I hope she knows what she’s doing, he thought as he tasted her over and over.  The shell around his heart cracked a little as she moved languidly and sensually under him, but he forced himself to harden that shell.  He couldn’t fall in love with her.  He could only give her the love of his body, but nothing else.  He explained that to her.  She accepted it.  

Because she trusted him.

When she shouldn’t.

Yet, that did not stop him from picking her up as they shared a very long kiss and carrying her out of the stable, across the yard and into his house.  He ached by the time the door slammed shut behind him.  Not from the exercise of carrying extra weight, but because her breasts pressed against his chest, her mouth nibbled on his own mouth, and her hands feathered through his hair, her fingernails scratching at his scalp in that way women knew how to do, driving him mad with desire.

Macie had loved doing that...scratching him while he loved on her...drawing her sharp nails up and down his back and chest, marking him with her wild desire.

Amber might not know how to seduce a man, but she obviously got the memo on some of the basics.  Her legs were clenching tight around him, rocking her into him, and as he made his way to the stairs, she had lost her shirt and was undoing his, her fingers flying down the buttons in her eagerness to rid him of that article of clothing.

He shrugged out of the sleeves as he pivoted to open the door to his bedroom, and she started nipping at his neck and jaw, taking his earlobe between her teeth and biting down gently.  Linc groaned.  Ribbons of fire shot down his body, hardening his groin painfully against the fly of his jeans.  He had to get those off...soon.  He deposited her on his large, four-poster bed...the same bed that had been his parents and his grandparents, with the same blue patchwork quilt that his Grandma Lynn made many years ago.  Amber’s body bounced, but she was kicking off her boots and working on the zipper of her own jeans as she settled into the down mattress topper under the quilt.

Linc started on his belt and jeans as he watched her fumble around on top of that quilt.  A memory came back to him, of another woman...long, dark hair, blue eyes, a sexy smile...crawling toward him naked across the expanse of his king-size bed, laughing deep in her throat as she pulled his belt free of his pants...  

No.

“Hang on a minute,” he murmured to Amber as he pulled her off of the quilt.  Her jeans were seperated at the zipper, showing off a stretch of yellow panty, as she eyed him curiously.  Once she stood next to him, he curled his fingers into the blue squares of the handmade quilt and yanked, pulling it completely off the mattress.  He tossed it in a corner.

“Why did you do that?”

“You don’t want to know,” he said, turning back to her.  So beautiful...  “Amber, if you...”

“Do not say it,” she said, touching a finger to his lips.  Then she raised up on her tiptoes and kissed him softly.  

She was warned, he assured himself as he started kissing her all over again.  Together, they tumbled onto the soft sheets, tugging off the remainder of their clothes.  Then he came to her, stretching out along her lovely naked flesh gazing amazed into her beautiful eyes.

"It hurts the first time, Amber...are you sure you want to do this?"

Please say no...please say yes...no...yes...

"It is okay," she said with  brave smile.  "That part of me...it was removed by my doctor a long time ago."

His head jerked back.  She gigged and brought him back down for a kiss.  "I was having problems with my, um, female cycle, so I have been probed and tested and put on three-month shots to regulate me."  Another kiss and another, as her hips wiggled seductively under him.  "It helps with birth control, too...if I ever found myself like this."

Birth control.  Protection.  Shit.  Linc dropped his head and groaned.  He never thought about that.  He had not been with a woman since Macie, so any condoms in his bedside drawer would be expired by now.

He did not think this through, that was for sure.  Something was thinking, making all the decisions, for him, but it wasn't the brain in his head.

"Linc?" Amber called to him, cradling his face between her hands lifting it to peer sweetly at him.  "What is it?  Do not worry about me.  I will be fine.  I want to do this."

"Why?  Why me, Amber?"

She frowned.  "Do you not want me?"

He brushed a strand of hair back from her cheek, tucking it behind her ear.  "Yes, I want you.  I want you so bad it’s killing me to lay here like this and not take you."

A very slow grin spread across her perfect mouth.  "Then take me, Linc.  I am waiting."

Linc didn't miss the hint of trepidation in her words.  Despite her naked position under him, she was still an innocent lady.  When he and Macie started having sex, she already came to him experienced in the ways of loving a man.  She had not been innocent, but he had loved her anyway, despite the numerous lovers before him.  With Amber...he didn’t want to disappoint her, yet he had his worries for her.  Why me?  Why now?  Those questions circled in his mind as he began at her mouth again -- he just couldn’t get enough of it -- feasting there for an eternity before moving down to cup a breast in his palm and tickle the tip with his tongue.

She moaned and arched, pushing herself closer to him.  There was just something about the sweet way she offered more to him, curling a thigh around his hip and pressing him tighter to her center.  Her hands massaged his shoulders as he moved lower and lower, planting soft kissed on her smooth belly until he found himself above a thatch of soft, dark curls, the heat of her womanhood radiating up into his nostrils and driving him wild.  But he had to control it.  He couldn’t just dive into her, take her with abandon, as he did with Macie so many times...even that first time.  He had to go slow...prepare her, despite her assurance that her hymen was no longer intact.

His fingers traced a path down the insides of her thighs, his knuckles teasing the folds of her center while his mouth nuzzled the downy softness.  He could smell a honeyed fragrance that was all her and he needed to taste her...see if she was as sweet there as everywhere else.  His tongue swept across the bud there, and her hands clamped down around his head.

“Oh!...yes...again!”

Linc smiled to himself.  Thank goodness he knew how to please a woman down here.  If they had both been inexperienced, this might have ended a lot sooner, and he wasn’t ready to be finished.  He wanted to taste every inch of her, from her toes to her ears, and lick her all over again, just to make sure he didn’t miss a spot.  He dipped his tongue to her again, this time allowing himself to envelop all of that sweet bud, feel her pulse pounding against his lips and draw the flavor of her womanhood into his mouth, drinking her, intoxicating himself on her.  His thumb found that dewy haven just under her bud and pushed gently into her.

Sweet heavens!  She was luscious and succulent.  A muscle contracted, pulling his thumb deeper into her and he could hear her breath panting hotly above him.

“Linc...” she mewed.  “Do not tease me...”

Linc groaned under his breath.  He had to tease her.  He had to go slow...or right now, he’d be plowing into her like a wild hog rutting in an apple orchard, doing nothing more than grunting and slaking his own appetite.

At their current positions, his manhood pressed against her lower leg, a rod of aching granite lying alongside the silky skin of her calf, and it was sheer martyrdom that caused him to ignore it.  But then her leg moved, sliding purposefully along his groin until he felt her toes tickling those brain-dead boys of his, and his tightly-fisted control slipped for just a millisecond.

No!  Slow!

He raised his head and looked into her eyes.  “Amber...stop that.”

A sexy smile curved her beautiful, pink lips.  “Then stop teasing me.”

Locked onto her bold gaze, he wiggled a finger into her -- her eyes widened and her smile broadened -- and he slid in another finger, watching her, measuring her expression as he stroked her gently and slowly at first...then a little faster, finding that one spot in the back that would be her undoing.  Suddenly she blinked dazedly and her mouth parted, and her eyelids slid shut, and her pelvis arched higher as she panted raggedly.  So close now...  Determined to give her the first of many orgasms, he ducked his head and lapped at her while his fingers continued their rhythmic loving...and then it happened.

Her body responded as if it knew exactly what it was doing, even though it had never felt a man’s touch down here.  Muscles pulsed uncontrollably around his fingers.  Sweet, sultry liquid spilled across his tongue, and a low, graceful yet feral sound escaped her throat.

“Linc?!...Oh, God!  Linc...”

He left his hand where it was, still caressing her insides, and moved up her body to wrap his other hand around her and pull her close.  She clung to him while her body shook and orgasmed.  Linc buried his nose into her hair and breathed her in.  Her scent changed, growing warmer and more womanly as she gasped against his neck.

Then she slapped him playfully across the chest.  “No more teasing, Linc,” she demanded in a breathless tone.  He laughed and hugged her tighter.  Heavens, she was so sweet.  He knew this was just the act of loving, and that he couldn’t allow the emotion to become involved, but as he rocked her in his arms while she floated down from her high, he was having a difficult time remembering why he couldn’t fall in love with her.

Eventually, she lifted her face to him.  It was flushed prettily and his heart squeezed, begging to be released.  For just a moment, he considered it.  But only for a moment, then he shoved his threatening emotions out of the way.

“Are we done?” she asked, a hint of unease growing in her blue eyes.

He gave her a gentle smile and a leisurely kiss on her lips.  “Not by a long shot.  But right now you are swollen and sensitive.  Rest for a moment.  I don’t want to hurt you.”

She licked her lips and glanced down at their entwined bodies.  “I do not want to be selfish.”

Amber, selfish?  He chuckled and bent down to kiss her again, but she slithered away from him, moving southward, touching her lips and tongue to his chest...and down his chest.  Linc’s muscles solidified.  Is she going where I think she’s going?

He tilted her chin up to look at him.  “What are you doing, sweetheart?”

She flashed an impish grin.  “I told you.  I do not want to be selfish.”  Then she wriggled her chin out of his hold and kept on sliding down.  Linc couldn’t move.  Afraid to move.  If she so much as touched him with her perfect, pink lips, he was going to explode.

But...she didn’t want to be selfish, after all...