She forcefully scribbled on the paper, It’s just money!
“No, it’s not!” I roared, jumping off the bed. “It’s a life. It’s security. It’s being able to provide for you. It’s being able to send Flint to college and pay to get Quarry to the best doctors so he never has to experience this shit. It’s buying you a home and a car, maybe a whole fucking studio where you can sit and draw for the rest of your life. Fuck accounting! You hate it.” The more I spoke, the angrier I became. I wasn’t mad at her. I just fucking hated reality. “It’s more than money! It’s being able to make babies with you and not having to bust my ass at a job I hate when all I truly want to be doing is sitting on that fucking couch”—I pointed to the living room—“with our family.
“Do you have any idea how it feels for a man to not be able to provide for his family? It’s crippling! Don’t make me feel guilty for making this choice. Damn it, I’m doing it for all of us. If it means you guys are taken care of, I will sit in silence for the rest of my fucking life.”
By the time I finished, tears were streaming from her eyes. She didn’t want me to suffer—I understood that. This was my life though. Suffering was a guarantee. Security was not.
“Okay.”
I read her lips as she rose to her knees and wrapped her arms around my waist. Then I held her, smoothing her hair until I was able to calm down.
I cupped both sides of her face and studied her eyes. “Okay? That was too easy.”
Her response was nothing more than a shrug.
As we crawled back in bed, I took her mouth in a gentle kiss. It didn’t grow any deeper, but it was there for comfort, nothing else.
Eliza pulled away first and grabbed her notebook.
I have two conditions.
I rolled my eyes, but she ignored me.
Swear to me, that the minute your boxing career is over, you will get the implant.
“You know Slate didn’t retire until he was thirty-three,” I teased.
I don’t care if you are three hundred. Promise. Me.
“I can’t box at three hundred!” I laughed, and she narrowed her eyes. “Okay. Fine. I promise. Just give me ten years.”
“Ten. Years?” She gave me a sad-puppy-dog face that made me laugh harder. God, it felt good.
“Maybe more.” I grazed her jaw with my teeth before looking back at her paper. “And number two?”
The Page family is officially enrolling in sign language classes. All of us.
“The Page family, huh?” My smile grew painfully wide. “You’re a Page now?”
Well, not legally. You know I’m still married to Justin Timberlake.
I laughed then snatched the pad from her hands. “Then send my apologies to Justin, because I’m about to fuck his wife.”
The sparkle of humor vanished from her eyes, but longing and desire appeared just as quickly.
“Are you sure?” She over-enunciated so I could read her lips.
“Uhh . . .” I quirked my eyebrow in confusion. I was always sure when it came to her. “Please don’t tell me deaf people can’t have sex,” I joked and pulled her shirt over her head. “I just want things to feel normal, Eliza. And the normal I want to feel tonight is you coming against my cock while I empty inside you.”
A shy smile crept onto her mouth, but her hands boldly slid over my cock, which was thickening in my jeans.
I couldn’t get my clothes off fast enough.
It started out slow, with me kneeling beside her, watching my fingers as I glided them in and out. She lazily stroked my shaft and watched me, watching her.
I licked over her breasts; she raked her nails over my back.
I was into it. Completely. But as I guided myself inside her, her head fell back in pleasure and it was as if someone had kicked me in the stomach. There wasn’t a single noise to accompany it.
With every thrust, I watched her quietly fall apart underneath me. I willed my eyes to somehow magically transmit the sound I saw coming out of her mouth to my ears, but no matter how hard I tried, she still came on a silent cry.
I struggled to find my own release, fucking her harder than ever before. I was on a mad mission for over an hour, drilling into her in every possible position I could think of. I was in no way gentle, and by the end, it had to have become painful for her. But she never once tried to stop me as she took every ounce of the anger that was aimed at my own body.
I was covered in sweat as I began to tire, still no closer to finding my orgasm than I was when we started. I was ready give up, when she flipped us over and began to ride me. Then Eliza Reynolds proved once again that she was magic. She made me better. I was still deaf, but she showed me that there were other ways to hear her.