Lost in Amber: Steamy Contemporary Romance (Finding Forever Book 2) Read online

  He liked the way she moved, her voice muffled by the covers and her hair a mess. She was gorgeous in her dishevelment. It was honest. Basic. Beautiful.

  Putting the cup on the bedside table, he climbed onto the bed and hovered over her on all fours. “Wake up, sleepyhead,” he murmured as he bent down to drop a morning kiss on the crown of her head.

  “No.” The word was about as fierce as a kitten.

  He dropped onto his side, stretching out beside her body. His fingertips trailed up her arm before sneaking under the covers to stroke down the length of her naked body. She let out a pleased sigh and curved into his touch. He grazed her newly bared shoulder with his teeth. “Wake up.”

  With a not so pleased sigh she rolled onto her back and glared up at him through slitted eyes. “You’re annoying.”

  He snorted. “I made you coffee.”

  Her lips curved into a brilliant smile. “You’re forgiven.”

  Chuckling, he watched her drag herself upright in the bed and pick up the coffee mug. She inhaled the aroma deep into her lungs before taking a tentative sip and groaning in satisfaction. “Thank you for the coffee.”

  “You’re welcome.” Sliding down the bed he plucked the sheet from her chest to reveal one plump breast. Glorious. He propped his head up on one hand while he used the other to fondle her breast before moving on to the rest of her body. He liked the shape of her, all hills and valleys, dips and curves. She moved gently under his questing hand, curling, stretching. Her breath hitched, then came faster than before.

  She put her mug back onto the side table and slipped down in the bed until they were face-to-face. “You make it hard for a girl to drink the morning coffee you so capably provided.”

  “Oops.”

  She giggled and rolled until she was the one hovering over him. Bending her arms, she kissed him. The taste of coffee and warm mornings filled his mouth and he placed his hands on either side of her head to keep her in place while he sat up, cuddling her into his lap.

  “Would you like to stay for breakfast?” she asked.

  He dropped light kisses across her cheeks as she spoke and it took him a moment to drag his lips away from her skin long enough to answer. “I would love to stay for breakfast.” He lowered his mouth to her clavicle, testing the sensitivity he’d discovered last night, and was rewarded when she gave a breathy moan.

  “You don’t have anywhere you need to rush off to?” she asked as she stroked the length of his back.

  He shook his head. “I’m doing a jump this afternoon, but I don’t have to be there for hours so… ” The fingernails that had been trailing across his skin stopped and she made a questioning sound. “Skydiving,” he clarified.

  She gasped, her hands tightening on his shoulders. “Seriously?” At his nod, her mouth dropped open. “But you’re so calm. I’ve only done it once but I didn’t get a wink of sleep the night before and I spent most of the morning throwing my guts up.” She poked his chest with a finger. “How many times have you jumped?”

  “This will make an even dozen.” He smiled at the accusation in her eyes, as if she found his lack of nerves highly offensive.

  Her jaw dropped. “Why so many?”

  “For the rush, of course,” he said before dropping a kiss on her lips. “There’s nothing like a massive surge of adrenaline to make you feel alive.”

  “How can you just lie there as if it’s no big deal,” she said in amazement. “Aren’t you even a little bit nervous?”

  He shrugged. “No, not really.”

  “What if something went wrong?” Her eyes widened with a vicarious apprehension that made him smile. “You could die today. Doesn’t that freak you out?”

  He laughed as he shook his head at her. “If I did die, I’m pretty sure it would be too late to freak out about it. And I’m not exactly essential to the world. It’ll keep turning on its axis whether I’m here or not.”

  She frowned at his words. “But what about your family?”

  He heaved a sigh, as if considering the deep ramifications of her question. “Actually, the wife and six kids I keep hidden in the back of my truck might miss me.”

  “Stop,” she slapped him playfully on the arm. “This is serious.”

  “I agree. You’re being way too serious.” He nuzzled her neck, tickling her skin and making her laugh. “Forget the jump. My morning is entirely free and I intend to spend it right here in this bed with you.” He leaned in to kiss those full, sensual lips. One hand cupped the heavy weight of a breast, kneading the firm flesh until her nipple hardened against his palm.

  Her laugh was low and husky as she arched against him. “I bet I know one thing that could tempt you out of bed.”

  “What’s that?” He revelled in the feel of her skin against his mouth until she gripped his hair and pull his head away. Then she said one word.

  “Bacon.”

  He groaned, his head falling back to her shoulder. “Oh, you’re good.”

  “I know,” she replied, her body shaking with laughter. “Are you hungry?”

  “Always.” He waggled his eyebrows and rolled them until she was pressed down into the mattress, his hips nestled between her thighs. Her squeal of delight was caught in his mouth as he kissed her. A long moment past before he lifted his head to suggest, “Sex first, then bacon?”

  She laughed and gave a vigorous nod of her head. “Hell, yes.”

  Chapter 10

  Amber watched Lincoln turn rashes of bacon in the sizzling pan on her ancient stove and wondered exactly how she’d ended up sitting at the counter sipping coffee while he was in the kitchen doing the cooking.

  She was no stranger to waking up with a man in her bed and inviting him to stay for breakfast. She’d had some wonderful nights with male friends and companionable mornings to finish them off. But, when she was the hostess of the… err… sleep over, she was used to being the one who cooked the breakfast. This was the first time the man in question had offered to cook for her. Honestly, she’d been too surprised to disagree. There was also the fact the sight of Lincoln’s muscular form moving around the kitchen as he turned bacon, cracked eggs and popped bread into the toaster, made something inside her sigh with an unfamiliar kind of contented pleasure. She could get used to this.

  The thought caught her by surprise. She didn’t get used to having any one particular man in her kitchen, or in her life. In fact, she rarely spent more than one night in a row with the same man. Once you did that they started thinking maybe they were more than friends with benefits, or that she wanted them to be, and things got complicated. She’d found it best to stick to the one night rule. That way both parties got to enjoy themselves without the development of any inconvenient attachments. So, while being fussed over was lovely, she’d still have to kick Lincoln out after breakfast. It was for the best.

  She could always give him a call in a week or two and invite him back to do it all over again. Speaking of which…

  “Did you remember where your phone is? You did mention owning a mobile phone last night, right?”

  “Yes, I own one.” He looked upward as he considered her question. “It’s in the truck, I think. In the glove box.”

  “You don’t keep it with you?” She was never more than a metre from her phone if she could help it. It would be like missing an arm.

  “My attentions were elsewhere.” He smirked at her before he began to spread an enormous dollop of butter onto a piece of hot toast. Amber’s eyes widened as she watched the butter begin to melt into a puddle. Was he trying to clog every artery in her body in one fell swoop?

  “But what if someone called or texted?” she asked, forcing herself back to the subject at hand.

  He shrugged. “If they had something important to say they would leave a message. And no-one who knows me ever texts me.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t reply to texts.”

  She was getting more confused by the second. She knew of people who didn’t car
ry their phone around the house with them the way she did, but no texting? He may as well have told her he was from a different planet. “So, if I was to send you a text you would ignore it?”

  “Yep.”

  “Because?”

  “If you want to talk to me, call me and talk to me.” He glanced up from checking the eggs, his free hand pressed over his heart. “I promise I will always answer when you call.”

  “Unless you left your phone in your truck,” she replied with a snort. “Let me get this straight, if I leave a message on your voicemail you’ll call me back but if I text the same message you’ll ignore it.”

  With a sigh he twisted the knobs on her stove until the burners turned off and moved the pans to a cooler part of the stove before turning to lean his hands on the counter in front of her. “How many times have you seen people texting back and forth three hundred times when they could have spoken to each other for less than a minute and sorted everything out. Texting is silly.”

  Amber let her mouth drop open as she emitted a shocked gasp. “Never say so.” Sliding off her stool, she plucked his keys from the nearby table and walked out the front door.

  A few minutes later she waltzed back inside with his phone in her hands. It had been easy to find in his glove box, given there had been almost nothing else in there. Apparently Lincoln had a serious aversion to… pretty much everything.

  “Breakfast is served,” he announced as he placed the plates on the table.

  Amber peeked at her plate. The bacon was crispy, the toast dripping with butter and the eggs cooked to perfection. “That looks delicious.” She went back to pushing buttons on the phone. “I’ll be with you in just a second.”

  “What are you doing?” He sat at the table now, staring at her in confusion. She suspected she was actively confirming his low opinion of phones.

  “I’m putting my phone number into your contacts list. Next, I’m going to send a text from your phone to mine so I have your number. I promise not to be offended when you fail to respond to my texts.” One finger hovered over the send icon as she glanced at him. “Have you ever sent a text from this phone before? To anyone?”

  “No. Why?” Now he sounded exasperated.

  She gave him her most maniacal grin. “I want to be sure I’m gentle when I deflower your virgin phone.” She held the phone up so he could watch while she pushed send. “Phew,” she said, running the back of one hand over her brow, “that was amazing. I think your phone and I made a real connection.”

  Lincoln cracked a smile and shook his head. “You’re a crazy woman.”

  She was sitting down to join him at the table, laughing at her joke, when her own phone buzzed in the background. She gave a delighted gasp. “I wonder who that could be.”

  Picking up her fork, he offered it to her. “You can continue talking to yourself after we eat,” he said with a crooked smile.

  Amber accepted the fork and began to eat her breakfast.

  “I really should go,” Lincoln murmured an hour later, right before he thrust his tongue back into Amber’s mouth. They’d been saying goodbye for over ten minutes now, but had yet to get any closer to the door. At this point he was pretty sure they’d devolved into the kissing equivalent of ‘no, you hang up first.’

  Amber nodded against his lips. “Yes, you have to leave,” she said before wrapping her long arms around his neck and pulling him closer.

  When they came up for air again, Lincoln forced himself to untangle their bodies and, with a frustrated groan, he walked over to the door. The hard-on in his pants made the journey less than comfortable. He had one hand on the door knob when he turned back to her. “Come over to my place for dinner tonight. I’ll cook for you.”

  The languid heat in her smile cooled, though her lips stretched into a bigger grin. “You’ve already cooked for me.”

  It wasn’t exactly the response he’d been expecting, but he forged ahead anyway. “No reason I can’t do it twice.”

  “I can’t. Not tonight.”

  “Okay.” He got the feeling she was trying to tell him something with her refusal, he just wasn’t sure what. “Maybe another night?”

  “I’ll let you know if I’m available.” She said the words too quickly and her movements had become stilted. A moment ago she’d been molten heat in his arms, but now she couldn’t wait to see the back of him and he had no idea why.

  “I had a great time with you, Linc,” she said. “I would like it if we could see each other again.”

  There was more. “But?”

  She shook her head, the false smile still locked in place. “But nothing. It’s always nice to make new friends.”

  Ah, that was the word she’d been dancing around—friends. He let go of the knob and faced her properly. “I’m pretty sure what we did last night, and again this morning, qualifies us as more than friends.”

  “Not necessarily,” she said with a casual shrug. “I would like for us to be friends.”

  “I see.” He saw she was putting him in a box with a label on it and expecting him to stay there. He’d never been overly fond of boxes. “Do you have a lot of friends?”

  Her mouth pressed together at the emphasis he put on the word and her voice took on a stern edge, as if she was talking to an out-of-line toddler. “Yes, I do. But if you’re asking how many of them have seen me naked, the answer is none of your business.”

  “I don’t give a damn about a number, princess.” Reaching out, he took her wrist in his hand and pulled her forward. She gasped when he spun her around and pressed her back up against the wall beside the door. When she lifted her free hand he captured that wrist too and trapped both of her arms above her head as he pressed the length of his body against hers. He didn’t hold on too tight. She could easily have escaped if she’d tried. Something deep inside him rumbled in satisfaction when she didn’t try.

  “I told you last night,” he said in a low voice, “I don’t share.”

  The corners of her mouth curved in a seductive smile as she replied. “Oh, Linc, the toy has to belong to you before you can share it. And I don’t belong to you or anyone else.”

  Taking both her wrists in one hand, he slid the other down her body to cup her breast. Through the soft cotton of her t-shirt and bra he could feel the nipple harden beneath the stroking of his thumb. “You are not a toy,” he muttered against her ear, “and I’m not playing.” Then he covered her mouth with his.

  She opened instantly, her tongue willing and eager to tangle with his. By the time he tore his mouth away they were both breathing hard once more. “I’m not asking for promises or commitments,” he said, “and I’m not handing them out either. Hell, six months from now I’ll already be gone.” Finally releasing her wrists, he sank to his knees. He lifted her shirt up to expose her stomach before travelling over her bare skin with soft kisses and licks. “But I’m here right now, and I am not nearly done with you.” He dipped his tongue into her belly button and she groaned, clutching on to his shoulders. He looked up at her, loving the way he could make her body tremble with desire.

  “I’m not done with you either. I did say I want to see you again.” She took a deep breath, as if she was trying to calm herself down, think straight. In response, he dragged himself back up her body, flicked open the button on her jeans and slid one hand inside, sneaking beneath her panties. When his middle finger slid between the lips of her labia she was hot and wet. A strangled sound caught in her throat and her hips bucked up against him. That was better. She wouldn’t be thinking straight anytime soon.

  “Oh, you want me around all right,” he agreed. “You just want to relegate me to an appropriate shelf until you’re ready to play with me again.” She glared at up him, even as she ground herself against his hand. “Apparently I’m the toy. Or should I use the term ‘fuck buddy’ and be done with it.”

  “What do you want from me?” she asked, her voice thick and gravelly with need.

  He slid one finger inside her tigh
t channel and she cried out, her body arching into his. “Be with me,” he demanded, his lips brushing against hers. “For however long we’re together, be with me all the way. Don’t hold back from me. Don’t pin labels on me. Don’t give me the superficial bullshit you’ve served up to others.” He used his free hand to turn her face toward him so he could look deep into those beautiful, brown eyes. “It doesn’t have to last forever to be real, Amber. Let us be real.”

  He held his breath as he waited for her response, body tight as a bow string. If she turned away from him now, that would be the end of them. He already knew what it was like to beg for affection. No way would he ever do it again. She was either willing to give him everything, or she wasn’t. He didn’t do halfway.

  She hesitated, her body seemingly caught in the space between pushing him away and holding on tighter. Then, with a whispered affirmation, she pulled him into a kiss.

  Lincoln’s heart pounded in his chest and he groaned against her mouth. He increased the pressure of his hand on her clitoris, thrusting his finger in and out of her wet channel with ragged motions until she came, hard and pulsing, around him.

  Chapter 11

  Amber’s texts had started out simple enough. That first night, as he’d been getting ready for bed, Lincoln’s phone had made an unfamiliar burbling noise. He’d picked it up to find an equally unfamiliar icon at the top of the screen. It had been a text from Amber. He’d been surprised because they’d spoken briefly about an hour earlier. She’d called to ‘make sure he hadn’t been reduced to a red stain upon the earth.’ He’d laughingly reminded her he probably had a higher probability of death from driving home after the jump than he had of dying during it. Still, the thought she’d cared enough to worry about him was sweet. The warmth of her concern, mixed with a healthy dose of curiosity, made it impossible for him to delete the text without reading it.