“What happened?” I signed.
She gulped but quickly answered. “I was looking out the window, trying to see you. I missed you.” She lowered her eyes to my chest. “Then I saw the cop’s car pull up. I got scared he was here for me.”
“You have nothing to fear here, little treasure,” I tried to reassure her. “That was just Ben. My brother-in-law. My sister was working in the shop, and he came by to deal with a customer who was being disrespectful to Lexa.”
She remained quiet, her chin quivering.
Groaning, I cupped the back of her head and tucked her close. I knew she trusted me, but it seemed it was going to take longer for her to trust that she was safe from all things with me. But I was going to prove to her that nothing could touch her when I was with her.
We sat there for a while, with me rubbing her back in an attempt to soothe us both, before she finally began to relax. When she lifted her head, signing an apology, I captured her hands and lifted them to my mouth so I could kiss each palm. “You have nothing to be sorry for, treasure. Ever.”
Twin tears fell down her cheeks. “What if someone takes me away?”
My hold on her hands tightened for a moment before I forced myself to ease my grip. “That won’t happen,” I promised. “Because I will kill anyone who even tries.”
9
Delaney
Reading hadn’t kept my attention for long as each minute ticked by without Max there with me. It didn’t seem healthy that I missed him to the point of an ache forming in my chest less than ten minutes after he’d left.
Was I being too clingy? Would that annoy him? Some of the girls at school who had boyfriends mentioned that guys hated being smothered. I didn’t want to lose Max, so I tried to fight the need to be near him.
But that hadn’t stopped me from trying to see him through the window overlooking the front parking lot of the garage. There had been no sign of anyone except for the occasional car driving past until the police cruiser had pulled up in front of the building. As fast as he’d braked, I knew the cop was in a hurry, and when he stepped out, the look on his face told me he wasn’t happy.
My only thought was to hide, so I’d grabbed my phone and dived into the closet, trying to make myself as small as possible as I tried to fight the fear of being taken from Max and forced to return to my aunt and uncle.
That fear still hadn’t completely faded hours later as Max sat with me on the couch. The TV was on some movie I hadn’t really been paying attention to. The subtitles were on so I could follow along, but my gaze kept going to the closed and locked front door, worried that at any minute it would be forced open and I’d be dragged out of the apartment in handcuffs.
Beside me, Max shifted, pulling his cell phone out of his pocket. When he glanced at the screen, he pressed his lips into a hard line, but he lifted it to his ear. Unlike the night before, he didn’t turn his face away as he spoke to whomever was on the other end, so I was able to read some of what he said.
“Don’t feel like going out… Dude, I’m exhausted.” His jaw tightened before he spoke again. “No, I don’t want company either. I’m just going to chill here for the rest of the weekend. See you Monday.”
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.