Lincoln nodded. “I’ll make us some tea.”
“Great. Thanks.” Amber gave him a grateful smile as she headed out onto the small balcony off the living room and slid the glass door closed behind her.
He could hear the quiet murmur of her voice through the glass as he moved about the kitchen. A few minutes later she hung up and came back inside.
“I’ve been summoned to dinner at my parent’s house next Friday night,” she announced with something less than pleasure. “I have to go.”
Have to? Those words, coming out of Amber’s mouth, sounded strange. She sat on the couch and stared at the phone, a puckered look to her mouth. Apparently the words didn’t taste good either.
He placed steaming mugs of tea on the coffee table before returning to the kitchen to grab a plate of shortbread. “It doesn’t sound like you want to go,” he commented as he sat back down beside her.
“Of course I do,” she snapped. “If I didn’t want to go I would have said no. I don’t do anything I don’t want to.” She stated the words as fact, despite the evidence to the contrary.
“Is it for a special occasion?” he asked, hoping to draw her out.
“My brother is back in town for a couple of days, for work. I’ve hardly seen him since he moved to Perth a few years ago so… ” She picked up a piece of shortbread, only to put it back down without taking a bite. “You’re invited, by the way. But you don’t have to go.”
“I am?” The thought she’d told her family about him, despite the temporary nature of their relationship, made something in the region of his chest tighten with an unexpected pleasure.
“I let it slip I was having dinner with a friend and it all kind of leapt out of control from there.” She shook her head, ran her fingers through her hair.
“Right.” The pleasure vanished as quickly as it had risen. He grabbed a biscuit and ate it whole in the hopes the buttery treat would wash away the bad taste in his mouth. “I’m happy to go with you if you’d like. If not, just say the word.”
She picked up her mug and curled herself into the corner of the couch. “It makes no difference to me. You’d probably only meet them this one time anyway. Go, don’t go, it’s up to you.”
Lincoln watched Amber sip her tea and avoid looking at him. A few minutes ago she’d been boneless with contentment, her body pressed against him from head to toe. One phone call from her father had changed everything. He saw the tension in her face, the way she’d curled up into the far corner of the couch. Something was wrong here and he didn’t like it.
“I’ll go,” he said. “I’d like to meet your family.”
Her gaze snapped to his and she gave him a tight smile. “Great.”
It was blatantly clear she didn’t want him to go with her and he knew he should respect her wishes and stay away. But he wanted to know what was going on inside her head and he had the feeling dinner with Amber’s family would reveal all kinds of secrets she would never tell.
She’d given him a way in. He was going to take it.
Chapter 13
“Ugh, I can’t believe this is happening,” Amber growled as she stomped around the kitchen.
“It’s one leaky pipe and it’s nearly fixed.” Lincoln didn’t bother to look up as he spoke, instead keeping his attention on whatever he was doing under her sink. “You’ll survive this trauma.”
“It wouldn’t be a trauma if this sort of thing wasn’t happening on a regular basis. First the upstairs toilet needed to be replaced, next some power points fried themselves, now it’s leaky pipes. All of it in the past six months. The whole place is falling apart.”
He manoeuvred out from under the sink and stood up to turn on the tap. “You should call your landlord,” he suggested, hunkering back down to check the leaking had stopped. “Who knows, maybe you can get them to drop the rent on account of multiple inconveniences.”
“Ha!” she exclaimed, collecting the wet towels she’d hurriedly spread on the floor when they’d first come downstairs to a wet kitchen floor. “That might work if I had a landlord, but I don’t think the bank would look too kindly on me asking them to drop my loan repayments because of maintenance issues.”
He raised his eyebrows at her. “You own this place?”
“Yep. This heaping pile of bricks and mortar belongs to me. Lock, stock and ready to fall down around me barrel.”
Standing up once more, Lincoln turned off the tap. “I’m impressed.”
“That’s because I’m so freaking impressive,” she called as she stalked into the laundry to dump her armful of soggy towels in the sink. The words came automatically, as she’d trained them to do, but they lacked heart. All these repairs were starting to put a dent in her savings and, truth be told, she wasn’t feeling all that impressive today. Right now she felt broke.
“This is one thing you won’t have to worry about again for a while,” he said when she returned to the kitchen. “It’s all fixed.”
“Wonderful.” Despite her morose mood, she smiled up at him. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” He wiped his hands on a rag before tossing it onto the counter. “You see, even modern, capable women need a strong man around on the odd occasion. If only because these old pipes can be a bitch to get undone.” He held his arms up in the air and flexed his biceps.
She couldn’t help but laugh as she rolled her eyes at him. “I don’t know about needing a man. I have found that when I want a man to do something for me, I’m generally able to hire one without too much fuss. Plumbers, carpenters, mechanics, anything I want. It does make keeping a man around full-time patently unnecessary.”
“Is that so?”
“Absolutely.” She turned around to grab the rag so she could add it to the pile in the laundry, but stopped when he pressed into her from behind, trapping her between his hard male body and the counter. “So you pay to have your every need met?”
Her eyes drifted closed as one large hand reached up to cup her left breast. “Actually, I do have one or two requirements I wouldn’t be willing to pay for.”
“I thought you might.” His breath was harsh in her ear as he spoke and her body responded instantly. The fingers of his right hand dragged up the back of her thigh, taking her dress with them, until they spread out over her butt cheek. “How do you satisfy these requirements if not through payment?”
He wanted to talk about this now? She took several deep breaths, trying to drag her brain back into some sort of working order. “Um… in those cases I prefer the exchanging of favours.” She reached back to touch him but he grabbed her arms and guided them back to the counter top. Frustrated, she resorted to pushing her arse back into the curve of his hips, and was rewarded when he hissed in a breath. “It’s all about giving and receiving,” she added with a smile.
“Like a barter system?” Both hands were on her breasts now, where he pinched her nipples between his thumbs and forefingers, tugging on them until she cried out.
There was something insanely sexy about the way he touched her. Rough and grabby, with hands that weren’t perfectly clean.
The kitchen was still a mess of muddy footprints. The tiles were damp in places and a few of Lincoln’s tools were scattered across the floor in front of the sink. She didn’t care, as long as his hands were all over her.
“Yes,” she moaned. “Just like that.” She wasn’t sure if she was answering his question or urging him to keep going. “I find, in most instances, this results in mutual satisfaction.” The words spilt out of her between panting breaths.
The distinct sound of a zipper being lowered reached her ears, followed by the faint ripping of foil. She quit breathing altogether.
He flipped her dress up over her hips and pulled the gusset of her panties to one side. A moment later the head of his cock pressed between the wet lips of her labia and she convulsed in need.
Leaning over her back, he growled into her ear. “I would love to satisfy the hell out of you.”
&nbs
p; She cried out again when he slammed into her. He stilled for a long moment, buried to the hilt inside her body. The hand splayed across her back trembled as he pressed her torso down upon the linoleum. Then he began to move in and out of her with long, sure strokes. “You see?” she gasped, grinding down on his erection with every upward thrust. “The feeling is… ” she clamped her muscles tighter, intensifying the friction, “mutual.”
There were no deep, soulful kisses this time. No gazing into each other’s eyes. Lincoln fucked her hard and fast against the counter and it was so freaking hot Amber thought she’d pass out. But then, as her orgasm took hold, he reached out to grab hold of her hand. His fingers twined with hers and held on tight. And in that moment, they connected just the same.
“Tell me about this whole friends-with-benefits thing you’ve got going on.”
Amber lowered her electronic tablet far enough she was able to frown at Lincoln over the top. “Why? Are you planning to finger me into submission again?”
He hummed his appreciate of the fond memory before shaking his head. “No. I just want to understand.”
“There isn’t much to tell.” It was late on a Wednesday evening and they’d been sitting at opposite ends of her couch, their legs tangled between them as Lincoln read a book and Amber caught up on her favourite blogs. Now, Amber put her tablet into sleep mode and sat up straight, crossing her legs in front of her. “I don’t do the whole long-term relationship thing. I prefer to be single and enjoy my life.”
“As opposed to what?” he asked, his mouth lifting at the corners. “Being part of a couple and not enjoying your life?”
She scrunched her nose up at him. “You know what I mean.”
“Not really.” He shook his head. “Are you scared of getting that close to someone?”
Amber made a vague sound of exasperation and rolled her eyes. “You think a woman who prefers to be single is automatically scared of being in a relationship? That’s a bit chauvinistic, don’t you think? Do you assume single men are scared to be in a relationship?”
He snorted, grinning at her. “Probably,” he murmured before he returned his attention to his book. Assuming the conversation was concluded, Amber went back to her tablet. She’d just started scrolling through a Pinterest board when Lincoln asked another question. “What was your longest relationship?”
Dear Lord, the man was like a dog with a bone. She was still considering whether or not she wanted to answer the question when a surprising reality hit home. “Now that I think about it, the longest I’ve ever spent with one man is a little under two months.”
His eyes widened. “I’m your longest relationship?”
“Don’t say it like it’s a bad thing.” She slapped his bare feet, which had found their way into her lap. “I’ve had a couple of other friends I’ve known for much longer, but I didn’t spend the kind of time with them I’ve been spending with you. It was more on-again, off-again. We didn’t spend lots of time going out together and getting to know each other. That’s not what those relationships were about.”
“They were about sex.”
“Pretty much, yeah.” Amber nodded, she wasn’t ashamed of it. “I never claimed to be a nun.”
“And you didn’t want to go further with any of them?”
“If you mean did I go all gooey and make moon-eyes over someone because we shared a few weeks of rousing sex, the answer is no.”
“But what about when a man went all moon-eyes over you? Did you give him a chance?”
“I offered friendship.”
“But nothing more. Why?”
She gave a dramatic sigh. “I prefer to be single, as I’ve already said.”
“There has to be more to the story,” Lincoln said, his scepticism clear. “Everyone says they prefer to be single, right up until the moment they meet someone who makes them think differently. That’s pretty much the way it works.”
“Well, maybe I’ve never met anyone who made me think differently.” Until now.
The words she’d spoken hung between them for a long moment. The other words, the ones she hadn’t given voice to, were there also. But where she felt the keenness of their presence in the racing of her heartbeat and the way her breath caught in her throat, the shadows in his eyes told her he felt only their absence.
She’d already admitted to giving him more of herself and her time than she’d ever given a man before. What more did he want from her? It wasn’t like she had a clue what this growing intimacy between them meant, and she wasn’t entirely sure she wanted to know. In fact, now she thought about it, she had every intention of turning a blind eye on her feelings for as long as possible.
“What about you?” she asked, hoping to deflect the conversation away from her non-confession. “What was your longest relationship?”
She watched his throat working as he swallowed, taking a moment to centre himself. “Let’s see. I was with one woman for about five or six months. That was a couple of years ago now.”
Her mouth dropped open as she gasped in mock outrage. “You’re no better than me.” Plucking a cushion off the couch, she threw it at his head. He gave her a wry smile as he held up an arm to block it. “You made it sound like you were some sort of relationship king!”
“I never said that,” he pointed out. “But I suppose I’m not against the idea the way you are.”
“Go on, spill.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “Why didn’t it work out?”
He gave a casual shrug. “It wasn’t meant to work out. She’d broken up with her fiance not long before we met. For her it was more of a rebound relationship and for me it was,” he paused for a moment, “companionship, I guess. We gave each other what we needed for a while. When the time came I knew she was ready to move on, I let her go.” The softness in his voice told her the memories of this past woman were fond ones. “When it was over I left town, never saw her again.”
It sounded all wrong, for someone as passionate and demanding as Lincoln to let a woman go so easily. Not that she was complaining. She’d rather have him on her couch than in the arms of some other woman. But still… “You didn’t fight for her?”
“No.” There was an unmistakable finality to the word.
She frowned in confusion. “Why not?”
He looked back down at his book as he replied, “Because I never overstay my welcome.”
Chapter 14
Amber stared at her parents’ simple brick home with a combination of trepidation and nostalgia. She grew up here. She’d played spaceships with her brother and sister in the backyard and spent hours on the swing set. Then, when she’d been older, she’d had her first make out session with Tom Wilson in his car out the front after a date. In a lot of ways this would always be home. And yet, now she’d been out on her own for a few years, walking back into it always felt like a return to prison. The thought was silly really. She’d had a good childhood. There had always been plenty of food on the table and clothing when she needed it. She’d had a good education and plenty of friends. Her father had been domineering, and she hadn’t always gotten along with him, but he did it because he wanted what was best for her. She knew that. Even so, she never could escape the feeling she’d barely escaped from this place with her life.
“Are you ready?” Lincoln stood by her side, looking down at her with something approaching concern, though she couldn’t imagine why.
“Of course,” she said, giving him a wide smile. If she was a little nervous about how the evening would play out, he didn’t need to know. There was no reason to think anything bad would happen—none at all.
The front door opened as they approached, revealing her mother’s smiling face. “Hi, Mum.” Amber gave the older woman a hug before turning to indicate Lincoln. “This is my friend, Lincoln Zane. Linc, this is my mother, April O’Hara.”
Lincoln stepped forward and offered his hand. “Thank you for inviting me to dinner, Ms O’Hara.”
“Please, call me April
.” Her mum practically beamed with delight at his gentlemanly manners. “We are happy to have you, Lincoln,” she said as she ushered them inside. “We were beginning to think Amber would never bring a young man home for dinner.”
She saw the surprise on his face before he broke out into a grin. “Well, I’ll take it as a great honour.” She managed to resist the urge to roll her eyes. Despite his early request she let him be a part of her life while they were seeing each other, he always seemed surprised when she did as he asked.
“Is that my baby sister?” A deep voice resounded from down the hall and Amber saw Will coming out of the kitchen.
She rushed into his open arms. “It’s so good to see you.”
“You too.” He wrapped her up in his long arms and held on tight. “How are you?”
Drawing back, she grinned up at him. “Fabulous, as always.”
Will laughed and winked at her. “Glad to hear it.”
Amber introduced Lincoln to her brother, and then to her teenaged sister, Candace, when she stomped down the stairs. Her sister’s eyes were red-rimmed and Amber frowned at the sight. “Is everything all right?”
Candace nodded, dragging her dark hair forward around her face. “I’m fine.”
Amber wasn’t convinced of that for a second, but now wasn’t the time to get into it so she said, “We’ll talk later, okay?”
Her sister nodded and moved away.
“Come give your old man a hug while you’re at it.” Amber jumped at the sound of her father’s booming voice right behind her.
“Dad,” she said, one hand over her chest, “you scared ten years off my life.” She gave him a quick hug and a kiss on the cheek. “I’d like you to meet someone.”
“Ah, here’s your young man.” Her dad didn’t wait for her to perform the introduction, instead stepping forward to complete the task himself. “I’m Harold O’Hara.”
Lincoln introduced himself, taking her dad’s proffered hand. She grimaced as her dad squeezed his hand harder than could ever be necessary as they shook. In her youth, she’d had dates turn pale after one shake with her father. Lincoln, on the other hand, held her father’s gaze and waited for him to let go first. After they were done, her dad nodded at him with a low grunt and announced, “You’ll do.”
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