“You sorry fucker,” Paul says. “If I didn’t love your sorry ass so much, I’d have to hate you.”

Matt looks down at his watch. “Time’s a wasting,” he warns.

I laugh. I can’t help it. The look on Paul’s face is priceless.

Paul swipes a hand down his face again. “Just be careful,” he says. “Be careful.” He shakes his head like he has more to say but now he’s talked out.

I lean over and bump fists with him. “Thank you,” I say. “I love you.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Paul says, swiping his hand through the air as though he wants to erase our conversation. He looks defeated, and I don’t want him to feel that way. Matt closes the door to his room, and I sit down across from Paul.

“I’ve never felt like this before,” I say.

“I know,” he admits. “That’s what worries me.”

“She’s the one for me.”

“I know.” He’s quiet, contemplative.

“I’m afraid,” I blurt out.

“Of her?”

“Fuck no. Not of her.” I point toward my room. “Did you see what she looks like now? Her f**king earrings cost more than our yearly rent.”

“All the more reason to use a condom. Finish school so you can get a good job that will support her.” He sighs heavily. “I’m preaching to the choir.” He throws his hands up.

“We’ve had so much between us since we met,” I say. I don’t want to talk about it with him. I’ll talk about it with her. “I can’t explain it.”

“I get it.” He grabs my knee and squeezes it. “I understand. You finally got her back.”

“She’ll probably make me use one just for sheer meanness when I go back in there. Do you think she’s pissed?” I look anxiously toward the door.

Paul just laughs.

“Her father doesn’t like me.”

“He doesn’t know you yet.”

“He knows I’m deaf and that I’m all tatted up.” I look down at my arms. Every single tattoo means something to me. I wouldn’t erase them if I could.

Paul shrugs. “And neither of those things makes you bad for his daughter.” He quirks an eyebrow at me. “Getting her pregnant, on the other hand…” He lets his thoughts trail off.

“He brought her ex-boyfriend to New York to live with her. That’s why she’s here at our apartment.”

Paul purses his lips like he’s whistling. “Sorry,” he says, when he remembers I can’t hear whatever noise he’s making. “That’s shit.”

“She refused to stay there.”

“Good girl,” he says with a smile. “I knew I liked her.”

“Her father is going to be a problem.”

“Win him over, dumbass,” he says. “You’re smart. You want to succeed. You’re talented as hell. And you love his daughter. He’ll get over the tats and you not being able to hear.” He motions absently toward his ears. I’ve been deaf so long that my family doesn’t see it as a handicap. Neither do I.

I push to my feet. “I’m going to bed.” Paul arches his brow at me. “None of your f**king business,” I grouse. But I rub his head as I walk by, and he shoves my hip to get me away from him. “Love you, dumbass,” I say.

“Love you better,” he replies. It makes me smile.

I still have a grin on my lips when I open my bedroom door a crack and stick my head in. I am prepared to retreat if a shoe or a lamp flies in my direction. But the only thing I see is Emily sitting on my bed with her guitar across her lap. Her fingers absently strum the strings, and she twists the tabs at the top of the guitar. I have no idea what they’re called or what she’s doing, but she is obviously absorbed in her task.

She looks up when I step up to the edge of the bed, and a smile hovers over her lips. “I missed my guitar,” she says.

She left her guitar with me when she went back home three months ago. “It missed you too,” I say.

I sit down on the edge of the bed and take her in. Her hair is shoved back behind her ears, and her legs are splayed open. I can see the strip of her pink panties between her legs, and I lick my lips. I lean forward and pull her toward me, my hand cupping the back of her neck. I kiss her quickly. “Sorry about Paul,” I say.

She shrugs. “He cares about you. I think it’s kind of sweet.” Her face puckers. “Intrusive,” she says. “But still sweet.”

“I’ll tell him tomorrow that you called him sweet. He was worried you’d be angry at him.” There was a time before she left when she walked up behind him just as he told me I should f**k her and get it over with. And now this mistake.

I take off my jeans, lie down on the bed on my side facing her, and prop my head on my upturned hand, my elbow pointed toward the wall. “What were you playing?” I ask.

“Nothing yet,” she says with a smile. “I can take requests.”

I shake my head. This is one area where I can’t bond with her. “I don’t know anything at all about music,” I say. “Sorry.” I know it’s important to her. Kind of like a mainstay in her life.

“You can’t hear this at all?” she asks. Her fingers strum across the strings again. “That?”

I shake my head. I wish I could hear it, but I can’t.

“Can you hear any music?” She’s curious. I like that.

I nod. “I can hear the rock bands at the club. Or rather, I can feel the beat and the rhythm of the song when rock and roll is playing.”

“Can you dance?”

I roll my eyes. “Can I dance? You have to be kidding me.” I motion to my body. “I have rhythm.”

Her face colors. That’s not quite the rhythm I meant, but I’ll take it. “Someone is thinking naughty thoughts,” I tease.

I reach for her toe, but she jerks it back before I can tug on it. “I’m sorry I can’t enjoy your music,” I confess. “There’s nothing I would like more than to hear you play. I want to experience everything that makes you happy.” I shake my head. I don’t usually feel left out of anything, but I do now.

She sets her guitar on the floor. “Thanks for hanging onto my guitar for me,” she says, leaning toward me. She gets up on her hands and knees and crawls over.

“Why did you leave it?” I ask as she rolls herself into my arms.

“I knew I’d be back. I just didn’t know when,” she says. “I wanted to be sure you knew, too.”

“I knew. The minute you made your big announcement on TV, I knew.” When she went back home, there was a press conference and everything. She announced that she would be coming back to New York. Back to me.

I slide my hand under her shirt to rest on her waist, and I draw little circles above her panties. I lift her arm and kiss my way up her tattoo that has my name in it. “The tattoo helped.”

“You can thank Paul for that,” she says, giggling as I tickle her lightly across her stomach. I slide my hand into the edge of her panties, and she stills in my arms. “This okay?” I ask.

She nods, drawing her lower lip between her teeth. “You want to try out one of those cherry-flavored condoms?” she asks.

“I don’t particularly care if my junk smells like pie,” I say. She laughs.

I hook my fingers in the sides of her panties and pull them down her legs slowly. Her exhale brushes against my forehead as she lets out a deep breath. She kicks her feet when I get to her ankles, and her panties go flying.

I inch her shirt up her belly, placing quick kisses to all the skin I uncover. Her belly quivers when I lick the underside of her breast. With a quick jerk, she reaches down and pulls the shirt over her head. She’s na**d. Completely, delightfully, wonderfully na**d.

“Damn, that’s pretty,” I say. She giggles, and her stomach ripples.

I’ve been with a lot of women, but I’ve never been with one who works so hard to communicate with me. She knows I can’t hear her cries or moans or even startled gasps, but I never feel disconnected from her.

“Do you want me to use a condom?” I ask, lifting my lips from hers long enough to watch her face.

She shakes her head.

“You sure?”

Her eyes meet mine. “If you need one, I’m fine with that. But don’t do it for me.”

I grin. Thank God. I’ve never felt this way before, and I don’t care to have anything between us.

Emily shoves my shoulder, rolls me onto my back, and climbs up to straddle me, her legs spread on top of me. It seems like hours later that we’re both satisfied, and I don’t want to withdraw from her.

I still on top of her and start to roll to the side, but her arms wrap around me and hold me close. I rest on my elbows, so f**king spent that I can barely move. I lean more heavily onto her and brush her hair back from her face. She’s sweaty and beautiful and mine.

She complains when I move, trying to clutch me closer to her, but I just need to pull the covers back. Then I move her up to the head of the bed and slide in beside her. I cover us both and wrap my arms around her. She reaches over and turns off the lamp. I have a night-light on so that we can have pillow talk, and she doesn’t seem to mind it. She’s facing me so I can see her lips.

“Should we talk about the condom thing?” I ask.

She blinks those pretty brown eyes at me. “I’m on the pill. I think we’re okay.”

I kiss her shoulder. “And if we’re not?”

“Then we still will be.” She grins at me.

Yes, we will be.

Emily

I wake Logan by placing quick kisses across his na**d chest. He sleeps like the dead, since he can’t hear. Nothing usually wakes him, but apparently this does. The sheet tents quickly, prompted by the length of his manhood, even before his eyes blink open.

His arm wraps around my na**d back, and his blue eyes meet mine. “Morning,” he says, looking down at me. “Why are you so bright-eyed and bushy-tailed this early?” he asks. He props a hand beneath his head so he can look down at my face.

“I can assure you there’s nothing bushy about my tail.” I took care of that with a day at the spa before I came back to New York. I laugh when he chuckles and growls, rolling me beneath him. He tosses the covers over his head and inches down my body.

“What are you doing?” I ask. I quickly realize he can’t hear me, and I tap his shoulder. He tosses the covers back and looks up. “What are you doing?” I ask again.

“I didn’t get to see enough of your non-bushy tail last night.” He grins and works magic with his fingertips. “Not bushy at all,” he says.

His lips rest right above where the triangle of private hair would be if I hadn’t just had a wax, and he kisses me softly. I squirm because what he’s doing feels really good, but I’m also mortified by the intimacy of his actions. He acts like my body has been his since the beginning of time. Like there’s no thought of indecency or embarrassment between us. I like it. I like it a lot. I can imagine him having this same intimacy and more with my body when we’re both old and gray. When we’re helping one another shower rather than ha**g s*x in the shower. When we’re bedridden instead of lying in bed making one another sweat. I can already imagine it. And I love it.

Yes, it frightens me sometimes. What sane woman wouldn’t be scared to death of a man who can make her feel the way Logan makes me feel? No one.

I love this man. I love every part of him. And he apparently loves every part of me if his questing fingers and his foolish grin are any indication.

I tap his shoulder. “You’re going to have to let me up.”

His eyebrows draw together. “Why?” He parts my lower lips and blows across the center of me, and my feet arch of their own volition.

A blush creeps up my face. It’s absolutely absurd to be embarrassed when his fingers are inside me, but I really have to pee. “I need to go to the bathroom.”

He grins and flips me over. I think he’s helping me get up, but he’s not. He climbs on top of me and straddles my thighs. He brushes my hair to the side and kisses my neck. “Let’s try something new,” he says. And then he does. And it’s magical.

Logan says my name over and over, and I stretch out across the sheets. I can’t move. I can’t think. I can’t talk. He falls down beside me. His breaths are harsh, and he’s struggling to compose himself as much as I am.

“Do you still need to pee?” he asks with a chuckle.

“I might if I could move,” I say. He tweaks my nose and laughs. It’s a throaty sound, and it makes me so happy to hear it. “Where did you learn that?” I ask. I realize my mistake as soon as I make it.

He shrugs and avoids my gaze. I reach for him, making myself come out of my post-coital stupor, and I climb up on his chest, elbowing him so that he winces and I can take his mind off my mistake. I don’t want him to feel guilty for his past. I can’t change it. And right now, I’m damn glad he has one because I’ve never had an experience like that. Just think what I was missing.

“You have pointy elbows,” he says, pulling my arms to my sides so I fall flat on his chest. I stick my chin into him and laugh. “And your chin, too.” He tousles my hair playfully. “Death by elbow impalement,” he says. He has dismissed my earlier moment of insanity with my stupid question. Good.

“Sorry I was being nosy,” I say quietly.