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Part of me wants to just keep running away and never look back because the way he makes me feel is…
I'm not sure I have a name for it, but the intensity I feel around him, the same intensity I could see in his eyes just now when he kissed me, is more than a little bit scary.
I love that he really wants to talk to me. It makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside, but the frightening part is that I don't know if I should allow myself to feel this way.
In all of my life, I've never believed you could feel this deeply about someone practically at first sight. It was just some ridiculous notion you read in romance books. It wasn't supposed to be possible in real life to feel this way so fast, and it certainly was never going to happen to me. But I think it did.
I think that, even while I was standing in that suite, startled by his unexpected appearance, looking at him raging at the invasion of his privacy, even then, I was already falling for him a little bit.
And it wasn't a matter of looks, of chemistry, or of anything specific that I can pinpoint, really. It's like I have this knowledge inside of me, the kind of dawning that maybe we, as human beings, can experience once in a lifetime.
The certainty that no matter the circumstances, we're standing in front of a person that's going to mean the world to us, someone that could be our One and Only.
And it's wonderful, but it's terrible, too.
How much power can a man that makes me feel like this can hold over me? How easily could he cause me pain if I let anything happen?
I worry that the way he's been charming me will make me fall hard for him. Then, when he inevitably realizes how much easier any kind of relationship with a girl that can actually hear him could be and how very laborious and extenuating trying to talk with me can be, that he's basically going to have to learn an entirely new language that's completely visual and doesn't share many traits with his everyday communicative style, a language that has to be slower, deliberate and careful rather than slurred, quick and spontaneous like spoken American English can be, I'm scared that he's just going to walk away and leave me behind.
I'm even more scared of what that could do to me. These things that I feel for him, they are so sudden, so devastating in their strength, that I just know that the more time I spend with him, the further enmeshed I'm going to end up being in everything that he is, and the deeper the hurt of separation is going to be when he's gone.
If I trust him, if I take the leap, is he going to let me fall, or is he going to catch me in his arms and keep me?
I don't know. That's the problem here. And I don't know that I'm brave enough to risk anything and everything to find out, and that's why I don't turn back and go find him. That's why I hail a cab instead and get the hell out of there as fast as I can.
His words from just an hour ago are coming back to haunt me. Those words are what really scared me. They are the thing that got me to run away from him worse than those last moments between us ever could have, even with that ultimatethreathe made when he said he wanted everythingfrom me and with that stolen kiss that’s still burning on my lips.
“Of course, you didn't need to be fixed, baby. I think you did the right thing…”
CHAPTER13
Mia
Ithrow the covers off my body after another sleepless night. My eyes are still firmly closed against the solid white light filling the room as my hand slaps against the bed shaker under my pillow to stop it from vibrating away from me and then moves across the nightstand to tap the side of the flashlight alarm clock connected to it and turn it off as well.
It's been three days since I last saw Carson.
Three days since that kiss… that very soft, barely-there, butterfly-wings kiss that, even while being gentle, still managed to squeeze around my heart, stiffen my nipples to diamond stubs, and turn my panties into an even greater melty mess than they already were by then, due to that gorgeous face of his.
Three days, and still, my rounded thighs clench in need whenever I think about it and feel the ghost of the sensation of his lips on my own.
“Of course, you didn't need to be fixed, baby. I think you did the right thing…”
I sigh, trying to get my head away from thoughts of him as I walk out of my bedroom and into my tiny kitchen to get myself the required half-gallon cup of coffee I'm going to need to be able to even attempt to face the day.
Yet, the words flowing on his lips linger. I can see those lips moving and telling me that I did the right thing. That I don't need fixing.
He could have written me a million romantic poems, paid me a million compliments, and called me a million flattering nicknames and terms of endearment. Still, those simple words would top everything.
My brain always comes back to that moment in the restaurant, in which inevitably Carson asked questions about my deafness and then surprised the hell out of me when he said he understood my choice not to getfixedbecause, just like I said, he agreed that there was nothing broken in me.
Never before has someone agreed with that statement.
When people first meet me, and they realize I'm deaf, they are naturally curious about what caused mycondition.
I can see the questions in their eyes for days, sometimes for weeks, but then they all end up asking me. And usually, after I explain why I'm deaf, their next question is almost unfailingly always the same: 'How come you're not wearing hearing aids or one of those implants?'
I was expecting Carson to ask the same question, but he never did. I provided him with many openings for more than an hour or so, but nothing.
