Page 27 of Kiss-Fist (Deaf Hearts #1)
‘Don’t,’ I sign again. ‘You can’t keep that promise.
You will screw up again. No matter how hard you try, sometimes you will forget.
You’ll get excited and make us reservations for a movie with no captions, or you’ll introduce me to a friend who’s freaked-out by Deaf people.
You’ll sometimes forget and speak before you sign.
It’s going to happen. It always happens. That’s your reality.’
He looks gutted again, and I hate myself for being so blunt, but what other choice do I have? It all needs to be said.
“What do I do?”
‘Don’t ever stop trying. I’m going to do the same thing some days. I’m going to write you long notes and forget you can’t read them. I’m impatient sometimes and that might hurt your feelings. That’s just life.’
“But you won’t hate me when I screw up?”
In this moment, I can’t imagine a single thing that would make me hate him.
This man has forced me to break every one of my self-imposed rules, and I don’t feel a single second of regret about it.
I might not be ready to admit what this feeling is in my chest, but I can’t ignore that it’s there, waiting for me to find the courage to face it.
No. I won’t hate him.
‘Will you hate me when I do it?’
His eyes go wide. “No.” His hands lift as though it’s involuntary and he signs, ‘Never.’
I grin at him. God, I am so gone for him. ‘Then neither will I.’
He breathes, his entire body sagging with his exhale, then he looks up at me. “Do we need to have an interpreter every time we have to talk like this?”
I grin at him. ‘Not if you study hard.’
His eyes go a little wide, and then he glances behind him for a quick second before laying his hand right on my dick. I think she’s up high and far enough behind him she can’t see it, but I can tell from her face she knows something is going on. “Will you give me an incentive?”
Swallowing thickly, I nod, then look at the screen. I think I’ve said all I need to say. He gets it, and I trust that he’s being honest. This won’t be the last time we talk through this, but now I know without a doubt that I’m willing to be patient for him.
I ease back, thank Carol for her work, then end the session. When the screen shifts back to the light blue of the home screen, I shut my laptop for good measure before turning back to him.
He looks nervous all over again. It’s like a veil of silence has fallen between us again, and I feel a tiny pulse of resentment that I can’t fast-forward weeks—months—maybe years—until we’re beyond this roadblock.
Reaching up, I touch his jaw. ‘Say your name,’ I sign with one hand.
He stares at me, then lifts his hands. ‘My name? Thom?’
‘Not sign,’ I clarify, then clear my throat as I tap a single finger on his lips.
In this moment, I want to learn it. I do this for almost no one.
I had plenty of speech therapy in college when I decided to go into history.
I wasn’t sure what doors would be open for me, and my advisors kept suggesting that I learn to communicate with my voice.
It was a nightmare couple of years, but right now, I’m going to pull up on those atrophied skills.
‘Say,’ I tell Thom again and place my other hand against the side of his throat. ‘With your voice. ’
He looks nervous. I spoke once in the car—a single word. I saw the way it had shaken him a bit, but he didn’t look at me like I was some kind of freak. No, he looked at me like he liked it.
He takes a breath, then nods and his lips part. “Thom.”
I know the phonetics of his name, but they don’t match the way I’ve seen people say it—a touch of the tongue behind the front teeth that doesn’t linger with breath. The o will be spoken in the back of the throat, and I can feel it against my palm.
‘Again,’ I mouth.
“Thom.”
Fayid said it wrong. I won’t. I take a breath and feel for the weight of it in the back of my throat, feel it pressing against my vocal cords. I press my tongue to the back of my top teeth, and then I mimic him.
“Thom.”
His face lights up like Christmas has come early. His hands close over my wrists, and his fingers are trembling. He doesn’t ask me to say it again, and that means something to me. He understands what I’m giving him—the trust of hearing my spoken voice where very few ever will.
Leaning in, his lips are parted, and he waits for me to give him permission. I let him linger there, feeling his breath on my cheeks before I move my hand to the back of his neck and tug.
His lips crash into mine, his kiss hungry, hot, frantic. His hands move to my waist, pulling me into his lap, rucking up my shirt, splayed out big and heavy and strong against my back .
He holds me like he needs me. Like I’m the only thing keeping him grounded. I know this because that’s how it is for me. Those impossibly strong, perfectly sculpted arms are the only things keeping me together right now.
I want him. I want everything he has to offer. I want to feel his hard cock in my hand, then deep inside me. I want him to make me come—to spread me out and make me beg for it, make me cry for it.
To remind me that everything I’m compromising on to have him is going to be worth it. When we pull back, our stuttered breathing is matched, and I meet his gaze.
He glances down at my dick tenting my pants, then back up at me. His brows lift, and I give a single nod.
His grip on me tightens, and then, before I can brace myself, he pushes me to the bed, pins me down, and prepares to take me.
Exactly the way I want.