Realizing he was missing out on spending time with someone, I felt guilty that he had to stay home and babysit me. As he dropped the phone on the arm of the couch, I poked him in the arm to get his attention.
“You can go out if you want,” I told him. “I’ll be fine.”
He scowled at me grumpily. “You might be okay, but I wouldn’t be. Do you realize how hard it is for me to walk out that door without you—even to go downstairs to work?” He pulled me onto his lap. Lifting my hand, he placed my palm over the center of his chest, letting me feel how hard his heart was pounding. From the erratic way it was beating, I thought maybe he really didn’t like being away from me any more than I did being away from him. His throat worked as he swallowed hard a few times before signing again. “I can’t fucking breathe when my eyes aren’t on you. That might freak you out, but I need you to know what I’m feeling, baby. This is moving fast. Supersonic fast. But I care about you, treasure.”
With my hand still pressed to the center of his chest, I took one of his and placed it in the same spot on my own. After a good ten seconds passed, I signed, “I’m scared of a lot of things, but knowing you care about me is the one thing I can honestly say I don’t fear.” I gulped, ready to be just as open with him as he was with me. “Because I care about you too.”
His metallic-blue eyes darkened with emotion, reminding me of the ocean at night with the moon reflecting in the dark depths. I cupped the side of his face in one hand, my thumb brushing over the stubble on his jaw. He was so beautiful, all I wanted to do was sit there looking at him for hours.
“I’m never letting you go,” he signed after a few minutes of just letting me touch him. “You are mine, Delaney.” I shook my head, and his face darkened. “Don’t say no. I’ll make you want to be mine. Just give me a little more time.”
I shook my head again, then leaned in and kissed him on the lips—quick—before pulling back. “I don’t mean, ‘No, I’m not yours.’ I mean, ‘No, don’t call me Delaney.’ I like it when you call me ‘treasure.’ It makes me feel…special.”
“Fuck,” he mouthed before pressing his forehead to mine. He breathed heavily for a minute before his head snapped up. “I need to warn you, here and now. If you ever try to leave me…” His eyes closed, and he inhaled deeply again, as if the thought caused him physical pain. “Please don’t ever leave me, treasure.”
I stroked my fingertips over his thick, dark lashes. Leaning in, I touched my lips to each lid. Pulling back, I tilted his chin up, much like he did so often to me, and those eyes I was sure I was already in love with locked with mine. “I will never leave you.”
His entire body seemed to vibrate, and I ached to hear the growl that must have been coming from him. I wanted to hear every word, every noise, that left his throat. Just for an hour. That was all I needed, and then I would go back to my silent world without complaining.
But realistically, I knew that wasn’t ever going to happen. I was never going to hear anything for the rest of my life. Not even a buzz or ringing in my ears like I’d been told some deaf people heard. I was surrounded by total silence twenty-four hours a day. At first, it had been scary, and then incredibly lonely. Even at school, where I’d been surrounded by peers who had the same disability as I did, I’d felt so alone.
Yet the moment I’d met Max, that loneliness had disappeared.
His hands gripped my backside roughly, and he stood. I wrapped my legs around his waist as soon as he was on his feet, my arms clinging to his shoulders as he sprinted into the bedroom. His incredibly long legs ate up the distance in no time, and before I could fully comprehend where we were going, he was placing me in the center of the bed and following me down.
I held on to the back of his head, pulling his mouth to mine. My body felt like it was on fire, and I needed him to put out the flames before the entire building burned to the ground.
The kiss consumed me, making it impossible to know up from down. When he thrust his tongue into my mouth, giving me a deeper taste of him, the world turned gray around the edges. There was nothing outside the circle of light that surrounded us, and I got lost in the sensations he created with just the brush of his fingertips across my heated flesh.
As if by magic, our clothes disappeared, and soon, I was lying naked beneath him, my lips swollen and tingling, my chest rising and falling as I panted, my thighs coated in arousal. Max leaned over me, his metallic blues eating up the sight of my nakedness as if he were starving. His nostrils flared as he inhaled, and he licked his lips as if whatever he was smelling made his mouth water.
“So beautiful,” he mouthed as his head lowered and he licked my left nipple.
The feel of his hot, wet tongue on my hard nub sent little electric shocks through my body to my core, making my clit pulse and throb. The tip of his torturous tongue teased my nipple until I gripped the back of his neck, holding him against me in a silent
