He was close, their noses brushing, their lips almost touching. “Tell me.”
He’d fallen into a slow, driving rhythm, torturing them both while he waited for an admission she’d avoided for months. There was no more avoiding it now.
“Lincoln,” she gasped as she pulled back to look into his eyes. It was hard to concentrate when she could still feel the edge of her orgasm so close, just out of reach. “I am yours, Lincoln. I belong to you. I love you.”
He froze, his body deep inside her. One hand slid behind her neck as his thumb brushed her jaw. “I never told you to say that,” he whispered. He looked like he was in pain. Like she’d given him a gift that was never meant to be his. Something he would have to give back when this was over.
“You didn’t have to,” she said, a smile stretching her mouth. She laughed at the freedom that came with admitting it at last. “I said it because it’s true. I’m in love with you, Lincoln.”
He pulled away and for a moment she wondered if she’d made a mistake. Was it an admission he didn’t want to hear? Then she realised he was pulling her wrists free from the hook that held her immobilised. The scarf that bound her fell away a moment later and he damned near destroyed his clothes getting out them.
They tumbled onto the bed and a moment later he was inside her once more. Their mouths fused and their arms wrapped tightly around each other. “Come with me,” he groaned as he thrust hard and deep.
“Yes,” Amber cried, her head thrown back as they tumbled head first into paradise.
One hour and several orgasms later, Amber was on the verge of falling into a light doze when Lincoln lifted up beside her, resting his head on one bent arm.
“Say it again,” he said, staring into her eyes. “I want to hear it again.”
She looked up into his face, cupped his cheek with one hand. “I love you.” She knew he’d need to hear the words a lot more before he started to trust them. He’d spent so long needing to hear those words. She’d remind him every day if it would keep the awe on his face. Now, she raised her head off the pillow to press her lips to his. “I love you in ways I can’t begin to describe.”
Lincoln’s arms banded around her, as if he thought she might vanish if he didn’t hold on tight enough. “I love you, too.”
Her lips curved into a smile as her heart overflowed with a myriad of emotions. As she snuggled deeper into the arms of this incredible man who returned her love with such a fierce, generous passion, she decided maybe giving in wasn’t so scary after all.
Long after Amber had fallen asleep, Lincoln lay awake in the dark. Amber loved him. The idea filled him with indescribable joy. And yet, the way it had happened, the things he’d done to get her there, preyed upon his conscience. How long would it have taken her to say those words if he hadn’t had her bound and blindfolded, submitting to him in ways she’d never wanted to even contemplate before tonight? Would she have ever admitted to loving him if he hadn’t forced her into it?
It had only been a few days since he’d admitted to himself how deeply he loved this woman, and already he’d broken the boundaries she’d set clearly from the beginning, pushing her into a situation she’d never asked for—just like her father. She’d trusted him, and he’d committed the one sin that was most repugnant to her. He’d taken away her control because of his own pathetic need to have her admit she belonged to him, the way he belonged to her. His desperation had been overwhelming, his old demons rising to choke all reason out of him.
Amber’s naked body was soft and warm in his arms as she slept, her trust obvious in the way she nestled close against him. If he stayed here, and allowed himself to wallow in her feelings for him, he would never find the strength to let her go. Then, as she’d always predicted, he would take her over. His need to reassure himself that she loved him would wear on her until it killed the very emotion he wanted so desperately to hold on to. He could already see it happening, like some freaking self-fulfilling prophecy he couldn’t escape.
At least, if he left now, it would be with the fire of her love still burning brightly in his memory. Better to leave now and hold on to that, then be here, an unwilling witness, as her love turned to ash.
Chapter 22
“I can’t believe he was cheating on me!” Kelly downed another gulp of her drink and glared at the cracker she held in one hand, as if the wedge of Camembert on top had been in on the affair. “That bastard. I should have known something was going on. How did I not know something was going on?”
Trina returned from the kitchen with a fresh pitcher of orange juice, liberally spiked with vodka, and refilled her glass. “You know you’re better off without him.”
“What is it with men who can’t be happy with what they have? Why do they always want something else?”
“Small penis,” Amber and Julia stated in unison before the four women dissolved into fits of laughter.
They’d arrived at the Mornington Peninsula in time for dinner at one of the local restaurants before checking into the small two-bedroom apartment Trina had booked for their stay. As midnight approached, they were camped out in the living room with drinks and a hastily thrown together cheese platter. Kelly seemed relieved to be out of the city for a few days, free to vent her wrath in a safe space, and Amber was glad she’d been able to get away. Life as Kelly knew it had up and fallen apart. Kelly was furious with herself, with Simon, with the world in general. She needed her friends around her now.
Although, she didn’t seem devastated in the way Amber had expected her to be. It seemed more like she was pissed off about the years she’d wasted on Simon than upset about losing him.
“Can I ask a weird question?” Amber asked. “You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to.”
Kelly gave a half-hearted shrug. “Go ahead. My life is pretty much an open book at this point.”
“What was it like being in such a long relationship? I mean when it was good and you loved each other.” As a woman who was just entering into what she hoped, for the first time, would be a long-term relationship, she couldn’t help but be curious. “Were you happy with Simon?”
“I don’t know if happy is the right word. Being with Simon made me… ” Kelly shrugged, her face screwing up as she searched for a descriptor, “comfortable.”
Julia pulled a face. “Yikes, if that was the first word that came to mind if Derek or Scott described our relationship with each other I’d be insulted. I mean, comfortable is good,” she clarified, “but I don’t think I’d want it to get top billing.”
“I know.” Kelly covered her face with her hands. “Maybe that was the problem. We were never the type of couple who were all over each other. Not even in the beginning. That wasn’t how we were together.”
Amber remembered the way Lincoln had held her close all through last night. And the way he’d made love to her that morning—slow and thorough, with an intensity that had consumed her. It was like the idea of being separated from her, even for the few nights she’d be gone, had driven him to rediscover every inch of her body. She felt committed to his memory like an oil painting. Had Kelly really never had that with Simon?
“Honey, you have got some serious catching up to do,” Trina declared, holding her glass high. They all toasted Kelly’s future of better sex.
“Let’s hope you’re right,” Kelly groaned, falling back on the couch. “I have to admit I missed that, you know, the kind of attraction where you get hot just looking at the other person, and you feel like you’ll die if you don’t kiss them right freaking now. I’ve only really had that once.” Kelly’s eyes grew misty and she reached for the tissue box that had been placed on the table in front of her the moment they sat down. Interesting. She hadn’t needed a single tissue while ranting about Simon. Amber and Julia both sat up straighter at the subtle change in behaviour. Whoever this mystery man was, the mere memory of him had evoked more emotion in Kelly than her break-up with Simon five days ago.
“Do tell,” Am
ber said, sitting forward with eagerness.
Kelly gave a shaky laugh as she shrugged her shoulders. “There isn’t much to tell. I was young at the time, still in university. We only dated for about a month. Then it was over.”
“Why?” Amber asked, entranced by the change that had come over Kelly’s face. “What went wrong?”
“He turned out to be a using bastard,” Kelly said with a pout. Then she cringed as she glanced at her best friend. “Sorry, Trina.”
“Hey, no offence taken,” Trina assured her. “He was a bastard to you. I refused to speak to him for over a year, remember?”
This time Julia probed for more information. “And who is this mystery man to you, Trina?”
“He’s my cousin,” Trina said, “and another bloody architect, just like Derek. They seem to sprout like weeds in my family,” she added with a twist of her lips. “Anyway, I introduced him and Kelly. Biggest mistake of my life.”
“Your cousin? Which one?” Julia asked. “I’ve met everyone, haven’t I?”
“Not quite. Jake moved up to Sydney after he and Kelly broke up and he’s never come back. He visits his mum in Geelong a couple times a year—that’s about it.”
“You don’t have to sugar-coat it for my sake, Trina. We didn’t break up. He dumped me!” Kelly threw her arms in the air. “Yes, another man who dumped me when I least expected it. I’m done with men, I’m becoming a lesbian.”
Trina snorted. “Good luck with that.” She turned back to Amber and Julia. “I thought Kelly and Jake might hit it off. It turned out I was right. Can I just say, from the moment they met sparks flew in a way I’ve never seen before, or again… that is, of course, until Amber over here stepped foot inside a room with Lincoln Zane.”
All eyes turned to Amber and her mouth fell open at the sudden attention. “What?” she asked with wide eyes. “We hated each other.”
“Uh-huh?” Julia said with a sly smile. “We were all there that night and we all saw how much you two ‘hated’ each other,” she said, using air quotes to show her scepticism.
“Fess up, Amber.” Kelly wagged a finger in her direction. “How many minutes did it take you two to fall into bed together after you left that night?”
Amber was busted and she knew it. Everyone in the room knew it. “We didn’t make it out of the building before we started,” she felt the blood rushing to her face as she made the admission, “but we did manage to get back to my place before we finished.”
The applause and catcalls made her laugh. It was true. She and Lincoln had been itching to crawl all over each other pretty much from the moment they met, though it took a while for either of them to admit it.
“Oh,” Kelly groaned, “I miss that kind of thrill. Do you think I’ll ever find it again?”
The three women fell all over themselves to assure her she would. It would happen when the time was right.
“Hey, Julia, tell me where I can find two to try out?” Kelly asked with a wink.
“Actually, despite my own boundless domestic bliss,” Julia said, laughing in a secret way that made Kelly fall backward onto the couch cushions in a swoon, “I’d still advise you to stick with hunting for just the one. I think men like mine are pretty rare.”
Kelly pouted as she sat up again. “You’re right. Maybe I’ll take a leaf out of Amber’s pre-Lincoln playbook and never be seen with the same man twice. If nothing else, it shall provide variety. Here, here.” She held up her glass and the women toasted again.
Amber couldn’t help but smile at the way Kelly referred to her pre-Lincoln days. For all her efforts to keep their relationship in the friends zone, it seemed everyone else already knew what she’d only just come to terms with herself. She and Lincoln were firmly in couple territory—and had been for a while. He’d had managed to slide past all her boundaries and set up home deep inside her heart. The bond between them only grew stronger with each passing day. It scared her beyond belief, but at the same time she would never contemplate giving him up because of her fear.
Until recently, the idea of sharing her life with a man had always seemed like a monumental risk. But now, after the conversation she’d had with her sister, she’d realised she was the one who had to be careful of being overly controlling. When Lincoln had seen what her father was like it made him intensely uncomfortable. Afterwards, when he’d offered to stay or go dependent on what she wanted, he really had been telling her control over her was the opposite of everything he wanted. Except maybe when they were in the bedroom. After their first foray, she was pretty sure she could handle submitting to Lincoln on the odd occasion, and she grew warm as she imagined making him submit to her. But, kinky sex games notwithstanding, he’d straight-out told her that her assertiveness and self-reliance was part of what attracted him to her in the first place.
Even when it came to this weekend, after they’d gotten past the part about who she was going with, he hadn’t done anything to try to stop her from leaving. He hadn’t been petulant about it this morning. There’d been no sulking or subtle jabs about how she shouldn’t be going so soon after they’d declared their love to each other. If anything, he seemed to approve of her desire to support her friend. When she’d left that morning he’d said goodbye with a bone-melting kiss, his hands cupping her face with a tenderness that made her sigh with happiness. Then he’d smiled down at her, told her he loved her, and he’d let her go.
“I’m going to ask Lincoln to stay.” She had no idea she’d said the words out loud until she saw the other women staring at her, probably wondering why she’d suddenly interrupted the conversation that had continued around her.
“He’s going somewhere?” Kelly asked in surprise.
Amber shook her head, embarrassed at her own giddy behaviour. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “We haven’t talked about the future yet. He’s always travelled, but… maybe I could convince him to stay in Melbourne with me.”
“Or you could always travel with him,” Trina suggested. “That could be fun.”
The idea hadn’t occurred to her before, but Trina had a point. There was so much of the country she hadn’t seen, and as an accountant she could get a job pretty much anywhere. They could make it work. “Maybe,” she said, grinning with delight. Her mind was only beginning to open to possibilities she never would have thought to explore before. It was thrilling and nerve-racking in equal measure.
Suddenly she was eager to get home. Despite the fact she was having a great time hanging out with her friends, the knowledge Lincoln would be waiting for her when she returned filled her with a kind of warmth she’d never felt before. That was the moment she discovered, despite all her fears and doubts, she was happy in a relationship!
Chapter 23
Amber knocked on the door of Lincoln’s apartment, bouncing on the balls of her feet in excitement. She was pretty sure she’d come close to breaking the sound barrier getting here after Trina dropped her off. They’d driven back to Melbourne a few hours earlier than planned because Kelly had decided she wanted to get a jump start on packing to move out of the place she’d shared with Simon. She was going to move in with Trina for a while, until she decided what she wanted to do next.
The afternoon sun was still high in the sky when Trina dropped Amber off at her home. After dumping her luggage inside, Amber had hopped straight into her car and driven to Lincoln’s place. When the door opened, she nearly laughed out loud as his eyes widened at the sight of her. “Surprise.”
“Amber,” he breathed, his voice rough. He looked like he hadn’t slept the entire time she’d been gone. “You’re back early.”
Her face was in danger of cracking from the enormous smile that stretched her cheeks as she threw her arms around his neck and held on tight.
“What can I say?” she murmured with a sigh. “I missed you.”
His arms hovered at his sides for a moment, before wrapping tight around her. “I missed you, too.” The words were muffled against the curve of her neck
as he drew the scent of her deep into his lungs. “Damn, you feel good.”
Pulling back, she gave him a cheeky grin. “How about you invite me in and I’ll show you how good I can feel?”
She expected him to return her smile, to respond to her teasing with some witty reply. Instead, he stared at her solemnly for a long moment before releasing her from his embrace. “Come on in.”
Amber frowned as she walked into the apartment and placed her purse on the kitchen counter. Lincoln didn’t seem anywhere near as happy to see her as she’d expected. She didn’t know what was going on here, but something was wrong.
The bare wall on the far side of the room caught her attention, the spot where his pinboard full of photos used to hang. It wasn’t there anymore. Turning, she looked in the kitchen for his coffee machine and toaster. They were gone. Her heart slammed against her ribs as she stormed into the bedroom. The mattress had been stripped, all signs he lived there had been removed. When she returned to the living room, Lincoln stood exactly where she’d left him, his gaze drilling a hole in the floor.
“Where is your stuff?” she demanded.
“In my truck. I’m just about packed.”
“Packed,” she repeated, having trouble wrapping her head around the idea. “You’re leaving me.”
He looked up, his mouth pressed into a hard line. “It’s time for me to move on,” he told her. “It’s what I do, you knew that.”
“But that was before we— ” Before we said ‘I love you.’ She sucked her bottom lip between her teeth and bit down, preventing herself from saying the words. He knew what she’d been about to say, there was no need for her to give voice to it. “You’re not going to pretend you’ve outstayed your welcome, are you?” she asked, remembering the last time they’d talked about his tendency to ‘move on’ from relationships. “That’s what you tell yourself when you’re getting ready to run, right?”
“I’m not running, Amber.” He pushed away from the door, his arms crossed over his chest. “It’s better this way. We never would have worked. You know it as well as I do.”
Lost in Amber: Steamy Contemporary Romance (Finding Forever Book 2) Page 14
