Dr. Vance turns on my second implant, and it’s twice as exciting as the first time.
Everything is brand new to me. I can see, smell, taste, feel, and now I can finally hear the world.
After dinner, after soaking in every foreign sound and loving the living hell out of it, I sneak over to Blake’s room down the hall for a few minutes. Our flight leaves at nine in the morning, so we’ll be headed to the airport at the crack of dawn but I wanted to see Blake at least once in private before we left.
“Hey, beautiful.” He answers the door with that happy to see me, deliriously drugged smile still tucked on his face. His eyes beam as if a light went off somewhere behind them as soon as he opened the door. I swear, Blake Daniels glows in my presence, and, as narcissistic as that sounds, I’d bet everything I own, including my new implants, that it’s true. Blake gently pulls me toward him before slow dancing me to the bed. Lying over the mattress is a brown, glossy guitar with a pearl face around the opening in the center.
“You didn’t bring your guitar, did you?” I cock my head trying to recall him tucking it into the car on the way to the airport yesterday.
“Nope. I handed the concierge a roll full of bills and told him what I wanted. He ran out and picked it up for me this afternoon while we were gone. I have a little cash stashed away, and I thought what better time to buy a souvenir.”
“Souvenir, huh?” My suspicions are aroused.
“For Ben.” His smile expands just enough to annunciate that devilish look in his eye. “And you.” Blake lets out a soft laugh, and I drink it down. Those familiar vibrations trickle through me beautiful and familiar. My entire body warms at the feeling. It’s as if the old me were flagging the new me down, saying don’t worry. I’m still here. Things are better but, at the core, you’re still the same.
“I bought it because I couldn’t wait to do this.” He takes off his shirt achingly slow, and that never-ending want blooms in my chest. Blake’s fingers run down the front of my blouse, unbuttoning it at record pace. “Sound travels best without all this cotton between us.” An animalistic growl comes from his chest, and I lay my hand over it, old school, to feel him pulsate through me.
“Play for me.”
“I thought you’d never ask.” Blake kisses me just below my ear, and I hear it.Hearit! I hear that precious kiss. I can’t stop marveling at the beauty life held back like a well-kept secret, but now I’m in on it. And I’ll be eating it up the rest of my days, one delicious sound at a time. The audiologist ran his test once things calmed down this afternoon and said I have moderate to good hearing. It’s not perfect, but it is to me. A part of me still prefers to read lips if I can. Everything sounds so foreign, so ironically difficult to process.
Blake and I snuggle up on the bed as he pulls the heavily veneered guitar over his lap.
Blake strums his fingers over the strings, and the room explodes with a heavenly light. “Oh, Annie—” His voice is melodic and low as tears spontaneously blur my vision. I’ve melted. I’ve drowned in that sweet, curling melody. “Look who’s in love with you…”
I close my eyes and lay my head to his chest, hearing, feeling, absorbing the notes as they plume from Blake’s mouth. Perfection. Blake Daniels is just that—perfect.
“This old boy thought he lost his mind when you got up and left, but you’re back in my arms where you belong. Oh, Annie—look what you do to me. My heart is racing—can’t catch my breath. Forever isn’t long enough, but it’s all that’s left. Sweet Annie.”
I pull his face to mine as he carefully places his guitar to the floor. “That was by far more amazing than I ever could have imagined. You sound like a god.” I shake my head, overwhelmed hearing his voice configure into a thing of beauty like that for me. “When we went out that first night at the Black Bear, I thought how could this gorgeous creature possibly be interested in me? And then later I wondered why on earth a musician would care to have a deaf girlfriend. But you kept coming for me. You kept showering me with attention—with those heady kisses—and it all became real. You wanted me. I couldn’t understand it, but I could feel it.”
“I still want you, Annie.” He pulls me into his lap. “I know I have my hands full with Ben, but I want you by my side for the rest of my life. In fact, if you weren’t in it, my heart would grieve for you just as much as it does for Benji.” His chest pumps with a quiet laugh. “Okay, more.” He raises his hand a moment. “Sorry, Ben.”
“Well, then.” I twist until I’m lying in his lap, pulling him down by the neck. “Good luck trying to get rid of me. In fact, I was thinking that on weekends I could spend some extra time at the carriage house with you and the baby.”
He cocks his head to the side, hopeful. “As in spend the night?”
“As in spend the night.”
“Yes.” He closes his eyes in victory. “You’re welcome anytime.” Blake pulls me up and works off my jeans. “There’s a special thank you I’d like to give, but I think I can say it best if we’re both naked.”
“Really? I guess this is my chance to hear it for the first time,” I tease. “Do you know what I do best when we’re both naked?”
Blake unhooks my bra, and it sails across the room. We share a laugh as he pins me with his limbs.
“I think I know firsthand what you do best when we’re both naked.” His cheeks twitch. Blake redefines gorgeous on an alien level.
“Oh, yeah?” I pull my legs over his back as he reaches for a condom. “What’s your guess?”
“Me.”
He dots my lips with a juicy, loud kiss, and the pit of my stomach quivers with lust. This man has me, so thoroughly, so completely I don’t care to know the world without him.
“I was going to say you, too. But that’s because you make me feel like a woman, Blake. You’ve never made me feel less in any way, and I want to thank you for that.”
“The only way to thank me is by landing those perfect lips over mine every single day until I’m no longer on this planet. It’s only fair.” Blake’s expression grows serious as he lies over me with the weight of his chest. He leans in and whispers right into my ear, “I’m going to marry you someday, Annie Edwards. I’m going to make you mine.”
My heart gives a wild thump at the quasi-proposal.
