You Can't Hurry Love

Chapter Forty-Four

The trip to the police station was eventful. The man's face behind the desk as we handed over the box of stolen jewellery (minus the bracelet of course) was definitely suspicious, to say the least. It probably didn't help matters that when we were asked where we found it, Lincoln replied with 'In an alleyway near Waterloo Station' and I'd blurted out 'Beneath a bench in Millenium Green Park!' But hey ho, it's done now and hopefully over the next few weeks people will be getting reunited with their belongings and despite breaking into Marco's room and threatening him, it did feel like I've done my good deed for Christmas.

Hopefully this will mean I've got some good karma coming my way because I am most definitely in need of it. The deadline for my article is tomorrow and I've been working tirelessly on it ever since Lincoln dropped me back this afternoon. I must admit, I'd been a bit put out that he hadn't been able to stay with me, but Angelo's needed him and I've definitely gotten far more work done than I would have if he'd been with me. With all of this untameable adrenalin coursing through me since the confrontation at the hotel, I can't imagine what I would have been like if I'd had him locked up with me in my bedroom.

Best not to think about it.

So after knuckling down in the solitude of a quiet living room thanks to the joy of Ben and Isaac being out, I'd completed it and I have to say it wasn't too shabby either. In fact, it was actually pretty fantastic and after a brief chat to Diane once I'd emailed it over, I was walking on cloud nine. She loved it, especially the fact that I'd sent it a day early and after what could only be described as a frantic, taxing month, I was more than happy to sit back and enjoy what was left of December in peace.

(Well, aside from writing the final blog for the website but seeing as I had another few days to hand that one in, I sure as hell wasn't starting it now.)

It was nearly ten o'clock in the evening by the time I'd had a bath, watched a cheesy movie about a busy, workaholic woman who gets swept off her feet by a grumpy, Christmas-hating lumberjack (which, for the first time since I could remember, didn't make me want to jab a pen in my eye out of sheer jealously) and now I was holed up on the sofa in my favourite jammies reading a book, wondering whether I could get away with buying Lincoln a red checkered shirt for Christmas.

I quite fancied him as the lumberjack type, all hot and sweaty with an axe in one hand and I was already typing into Google Red sexy shirt, lumberjack, wondering whether I could convince him to come over after he finishes work tonight when the doorbell goes and I drop it clumsily to the sofa, feeling a little flustered as I go to answer it.

I was expecting it to be the boys, assuming they'd just left their keys at home again, but when I open it I find Lincoln leaning casually against the wall opposite, changed out of his work clothes and into a navy blue jumper and tight black jeans. His hair was ruffled, as if the wind had tussled it on his way over here and I longed to run my fingers through it, wondering how it would feel between my fingertips.

'Hey,' he says easily, as if the sight of him hanging around my flat when he should still be at the restaurant wasn't anything out of the ordinary.

'Do you have a habit of letting yourself into women's buildings uninvited?' I ask him with a smile, watching his lips turn up at the corner with his own seductive smirk.

'Only the pretty ones.'

He steps forward and slides his hands beneath my still damp hair, kissing me deeply when our lips meet and I feel my back arch appreciatively as he holds me tight, my body pressing into his magnetically. Just when I was about to ease his lips open with mine though he pulls back, leaving my mouth still puckered up for more.

'Before I get carried away I have something to tell you,' he whispers tormentingly, and I groan.

'Can't it wait?'