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

Read My Lips: Chapter 32

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.

“This is the same woman who has been flirting shamelessly with Daniel ever since he started working for Michael,” Chloe said through a wash of tears.  Nate cuddled against Amber, searching for a breast to feed from, and Chloe burst into new sobs.  “I can’t even feed my baby because I’m so upset!  My milk won’t come down.”

“It will be okay,” Amber assured her sister and went to dig through the diaper bag.  There were several bottles of milk in a cold bag.  She put all but one in her refrigerator and warmed the other.  

“How will it be okay?” Chloe asked when Amber came back to feed Nate.  “I can’t even trust my own husband anymore.”

“What did Daniel say?”

“He said it was a big mistake,” Chloe explained with an expelled breath.  “He said they finished a big job and went out to celebrate.  He said he called me and left a message, but I never got it.  He said Margaret got drunk, started remembering the night she’d been attacked and then hung onto Daniel all night because he’d been the one who came after her.  He said it was all harmless, and that he drove Margaret home, made sure she got safely inside and then came home.”

Amber watched Chloe’s lips and facial features as she told the story.  A month ago, she would have been gathering up torches and pitchforks to go after her sister’s husband, but she’d learned a few things about a man in that time.  Thinking back to all the times she’d seen Daniel and Chloe together, Amber couldn’t recall a single time when he hadn’t looked at his wife with devotion and love.  He might be a bit of an idiot in Amber’s book, but he loved Chloe to a fault, and he would never hurt her.

“Do you think he told you the truth?” she asked Chloe, glancing down at Nate for only a second to check his feeding progress.

Chloe blinked and swiped at her cheeks.  A shaky smile came across her lips.  “You know...for just a second there, I almost forgot that you’re deaf.  You’re talking so much better now.  I can’t even detect that heavy accent of yours anymore either.”

Amber didn’t smile or frown in return.  She just hitched a shoulder.  “I have been practicing.  Linc has encouraged me.”

“Back to Lincoln Martin again,” Chloe mused.  “What do you see in that guy?”

Amber steadied a gaze on her sister.  She honestly didn’t feel that Chloe was in any position to advise Amber on her love life.  “What do you see in Daniel?”

Chloe ignored Amber’s retorted question.  “Are you in love with him?”

“Yes.”

“He’s too old for you.”

“He is perfect the way he is,” Amber said simply.

“Does he love you, too?”

Amber lowered her gaze to Nate.  He was starting to look more and more like his father.  Poor thing.  

A throw pillow hit Amber’s knee and she looked up at her sister.  “He doesn’t, does he?” Chloe asked.  “You’re in love with him, and he’s just using you for the sex...and you’re letting him, aren’t you?  Why, Amber?”

Amber returned her gaze to the baby, watching him drain his bottle and set him up on her shoulder to burp.  Only then did she answer her sister, but she wasn’t about to explain the issues she and Linc were facing.  With a wicked grin, she said, “Well...the sex is really good.”

Chloe’s mouth twitched.  “Yeah, I noticed.”

“Can we go back to your problem?” Amber asked.

“My problem has been solved.  I left.  Now, let’s talk about you.  How long has this been going on?  Since the wedding?”

Cradling the drooping baby in her arms, she rocked him as she said, “Your problem is not solved.  You cannot run away from a marriage like that.  Did you even try to talk to Daniel about this?”

“What is there to talk about?  The bastard is cheating on me,” Chloe said scornfully, though Amber could tell Chloe didn't belive that anymore than she did.  “I want to know how long you and that cowboy have been knocking boots.”

“It is none of your business what I do in my personal time,” Amber said.  “And you know as well as I do that Daniel is not the cheating kind.  And do not call him a bastard in front of your son.”

“Lately, I don’t know Daniel at all anymore.  He’s changed, I’ve changed, our marriage has changed, and I can’t make heads or tails of it,” Chloe said, and leaned over to pick at the Chinese food still on the coffee table.  “How old is this?”

“We ate an hour ago,” Amber said, standing up to place the baby in the center of her bed for his nap.  She came back and picked up the container of rice, digging through it with her fork.  She got so hungry after being with Linc.  And they didn’t even get to finish this time.  “So, you flew all the way up here to interrupt my evening when you could have saved yourself the time and money and gone to Mom and Dad’s.”

Chloe shot Amber a belligerent look.  “Mom and Dad would have sent me back home, you know that.  They think Daniel is the next best thing to spreadable butter.”

“You used to think so, too,” Amber said around a mouthful of fried rice.

“I still do,” Chloe admitted.  “I love him so much, and no, I don't really think he'd actually cheat on me, but honestly...I had to get away for a few days.  I’ve been going crazy in that house by myself, and I missed you.”

Amber smiled lovingly at her sister.  “I have missed you, too, sis.”

“Yeah,” Chloe said with a grin, “I could tell.”  She breathed out and got a dreamy look in her eyes.  “Daniel used to get me from behind like that.  God, I miss it!  It’s all about the energy and the speed and wild sensations when you’re humping like animals.”

“Chloe!”

The sisters giggled together, and Amber felt embarrassed all over again at getting caught like that.  She couldn’t remember what came over her to back herself onto Linc and grind into him with abandon, only that it felt really great.  Usually, she liked seeing his face, watching him as he made love to her, but Chloe had a point...that position was all about the animal inside two people.  It’d been fun, and she couldn’t wait to do it again.

They talked quietly for a few hours while baby Nate snoozed.  Amber told Chloe about her past four weeks, minus the whole mess with Linc and Macie.  “I don’t like it,” Chloe kept saying, “I don’t like him.”

“You do not have to,” Amber would say back to her and try to turn the conversation around again.  But her sister was persistent.  “He’ll never love you,” Chloe said, and Amber shrugged, and Chloe said, “You can do so much better,” and Amber would glare at her and tell her to drop it, so Chloe told Amber all about how life had changed for her since the baby came along back in December.

"Daniel and I, both, think there is something...I don't know if 'wrong' is the right word, but something's off about Nate.  He's not like other babies, and I think it's the worry and fear which are driving Daniel and me apart more than anything else.  We never talk anymore."

Amber curled up next to her sister and just held her close.  Soon, exhaustion took over and Chloe dropped off to sleep.  The baby woke up, needed to be changed and cleaned, and Amber was just settling down in her reading chair with Nate cradled against her chest, thinking about all that had happened between her and Linc.  “I am a man trying to love you,” Linc said to her, and the words slipped around her like a fuzzy bathrobe, warming her from the outside in.  “...trying to love you.”

How was he trying? By curbing his own needs and desires?  She spent one heavenly night with him, and now he almost didn’t want to repeat that.  “I didn’t come here for this.”  But then he kissed her in her bathroom again, igniting passions in both of them -- well, actually, hers had already burst to a full nuclear explosion -- so why did he show up?  Just to tell her about Raven Rose?  “I missed you...I missed you, not the sex...”

Not the sex.  Yet, she felt his erection.  Saw it.  Saw the dark desire in his eyes.  Saw the way he watched her while she bathed.  Felt the heat from his hands while he rubbed lotion into her back.  

“I did not come here for this.”

But he obliged her, because she practically attacked him, seduced him within an inch of his control.

He came to be with me.  He missed me.  To talk to me, though it had been hard for him.

And I screwed up by trying to screw him.

“I am an idiot,” she moaned to walls.  No wonder he left.  He never seemed like the man to run away from a fight, even if it was with her sister, so he left because she pushed him into something he hadn’t been prepared for.  Amber squeezed her eyes shut with shame.  I couldn’t just let him take charge of the night...I had to do it, making him yield to my demands because I’m such a freaking independent woman now.

She’d stripped him of his pride tonight.  She was sure of it.  “I’m not wired that way,” he said.  No, he wasn’t, and that was one of the reasons she loved him so much.  He’d been thinking of her the whole time, not wanting to love her until he stopped loving Macie, because he probably didn’t think it was honest and honorable.

“Oh, Linc,” she sighed.  “You do not have to stop loving her.”  But that was what he was determined to do.  According to him, it was the right thing, the correct way, the noble, respectable way to love someone...with his whole heart.

Just as she loved him.

Why didn’t I see that? she thought with self-reproach.  He was only trying to give her the same kind of love she felt for him.  Those thoughts whirled around in her mind for hours, spiralling her into a mild depression.  I’ll have to tell him...tell him to take his time, do what he felt was right.  The next time I see him.

She wanted to rush out to his house and tell him, but there’s Chloe, camped out on her sofa.  What am I going to do about her and Daniel?

Then the light for her downstairs intercom flickered.  Linc's words of safety about her going down every time someone rang her bell crossed her mind.  She smiled and poked her head out her window instead.

Daniel.  

He waved from the sidewalk when he saw her and made her sister's name sign -- a C over the heart -- with his eyebrows raised in a question and pure panic all over his face.  Amber nodded and let him come up.  She met him in the hallway as he stepped off the elevator.  Immediately, Daniel took his child and held Nate close, the corners of his tightly shut eyes leaking tears.  

"When did they get here?" He asked, his face buried into his son's head, so it was difficult for Amber to figure out what he said.

"Not too long ago," she said with a small smile for father and son.  "You are in some serious doo-doo."

"She told you?"

"Did you think she would not?"

Daniel clasped Amber's arm.  "I swear to you, I didn't cheat on her...in any way."

Amber patted his hand.  "I believe you, and so does Chloe.  But there is more going on than that, is there not?"

"I have to talk to her.  Will she let me see her?"  He darted a furtive glance at Amber's door, cracked open just enough to keep the lock from latching.

"She is asleep, but come on in."

Daniel rushed directly over to his wife sleeping on Amber's couch, knelt down and kissed her, his lips moving with whispered words.  Chloe opened her eyes, startled -- yet happy -- to see him and kissed him back.  Amber left them alone in the living room, dressed in some decent clothes and packed herself an overnight bag.  It was getting really late, but she could stay with Lucy tonight and leave her sister and brother-in-law alone for some privacy.

The two were still whispering to each other and kissing and crying with Nate between them when Amber approached, her bag in her arms.  'You three can stay here tonight, and I will go stay with a friend.'

Chloe jumped up from the couch.  "What? No! I can't kick you out of your own apartment.  We can go to a hotel."

'It is okay,' Amber signed with a smile.  'My friend Lucy lives close by, I will go stay with her.  She will not mind.'

Chloe hugged her tight and drew back to ask, "Are you sure?"

'Yes...I will call you tomorrow from work.'

Chloe, still uncertain, bit down on her bottom lip.  Then she peeked over Amber's shoulder.  "Um...where do you keep your clean sheets?  I'm not sleeping in that bed like it is."

Amber laughed and showed her the linen closet before leaving.  She had half a mind to drive out to Linc's place, but she was just too tired.  Lucy owned a brownstone in one of the historic districts, and she seemed happy to have Amber over, especially after the explanation as to why her deaf friend and co-worker showed up on her doorstep at eleven o'clock at night.

'I got caught with a guy once,' Lucy signed with a grin over a cup of hot lemon tea.  'My first time actually...talk about embarrassing!  I was nineteen.'

After talking to Lucy about her night, she didn't feel so bad about abandoning Linc for her sister.  'You didn't tell him to leave,' Lucy pointed out.  'He left on his own.'

'I am going to text him and go to bed,' Amber announced heading toward the stairs.  Lucy followed and showed her the bedroom she could use.

'I'll wake you in the morning,' Lucy signed before bidding good night and going to her own room.  Amber pulled out her cell phone and sent a text to Linc.

'Evrythng ok...sis & hubby staying at my place...i am at lucys tonight...ttyt...<3 u'

A minute later, he replied.  'Come stay w/me.'

Oh, the temptation, to talk to him, tell him she’d wait for him, to tell him he didn't have to stop loving Macie, to just be with him, but it was so late already.  'Too tired to drive...wrk tomorrow.'

'I'll come get u.'

Amber smiled.  'Too tired...wrk tomorrow.'

‘Take the day off.’

She sighed.  If only it was that easy.  ‘Cannot...too busy.’

This time his reply took a few minutes longer.  She wondered what he was thinking.  ‘When can I see u again?’

‘I do not know...tomorrow night?’

His response didn’t come right away, and Amber thought he might think she only wanted to finish what they started tonight, which wasn’t the case at all, and it irritated her again that she’d been so selfish.  ‘We can have dinner again and talk,’ she texted, wanting to clarify.

‘Just talk?’

To Amber, there seemed to be some anger in those two words.  ‘What do you want?’

‘I want to see you again,’ he replied.

Amber grimaced.  ‘Just see?’

‘:-)’

She gripped her phone, hating all this texting.  She wished she was like a normal person, able to call him directly, hear his voice, tell him what she was thinking, but she couldn’t.  And she wasn’t about to type it out.  ‘I am sorry for tonight.’

‘Don’t be.  How long is your sister staying?’

‘I do not know.’

‘She looked upset.’

Amber thought about all Chloe told her, and how Daniel ran after her, willing to do anything to make it right again, and how Linc was trying to do the same with her.  To make it right.  It brought tears to her eyes.  ‘I think she will be fine.’

‘And you?’

‘I am fine, too.’

‘You should still be with her,’he texted back.  What did that mean?  He didn’t want to see her tomorrow?

‘I want to see you,’ she sent to him.  ‘I need to talk to you.’

Staring at the screen on her phone, she waited for him to respond to that.  Finally, his balloon popped up, and she read, ‘We can talk at the ball on Saturday, okay?  Be with your sister for now.  I’ll pick you up at seven.’

Amber was just too tired to argue anymore.  She typed in that would be wonderful, told him she loved him again, and went to bed.