She shook her head and mouthed the words , "I want to go home."

With daily practice, Alex's lipreading skills had improved to a point that he could, with great effort, make out simple sentences. "Home? To your parents, you mean?"

"Yes."

He had only one answer for that. "Absolutely not." Leaning forward, he grasped her wrist and drew her to him. Ignoring her protests, which was rather easy to do since she didn't voice them aloud, he pulled her down onto his knee and curled an arm around her. "This is your home now. You belong here with me."

She jerked her gaze from his lips and stared resolutely at the window. Realizing immediately what her game was, he tugged gently on a curl at her temple. When she still persisted in not looking at him, his mouth quirked at the comers.

Catching her by the chin, he forced her face back around to his.

"Annie, I don't care about your being deaf. You're beautiful and warm and funny. Being with you makes me happy as I haven't been in a very long-" Alex saw that she was staring fixedly at his nose. He chuckled in spite of himself. "You little minx. So, it's your plan to ignore me, is it?"

Tweaking the tip of her nose, he succeeded in reclaiming her attention. "I love you," he whispered hoa.r.s.ely. "If you go away, Annie, you'll break my heart. Is that what you want, to make me sad?"

Shadows of pain shifted in her lovely eyes. Touching a small hand to his jaw, she said, "I want you to be happy. You can't be with someone like me. You should find someone who can hear, someone who can talk."

Following her lips movements, Alex struggled to make sense of the few words he'd been able to make out. The effort gave him cause to appreciate Annie's intelligence. So many of the mouth positions that formed certain sounds looked exactly like those that formed others. Yet Annie managed to lip-read with amazing adeptness. He knew that to do so she not only had to keep up with the speaker, but had to second guess him half the time to figure out any unclear words.

"Someone else can't make me happy," he a.s.sured her when he had finally made sense of what she'd said. "Only you, Annie. So, you see? You can't leave me. If you do, I'll be sad forever."

"I can't hear. I can't talk. People think I'm an idiot, and they hate me. If I stay with you, they'll hate you, too!" She made a frustrated little gesture with her hands. "I want you to be happy. Let me go home."

Those last four words were easy enough for Alex to interpret. "No," he shot back. "Never. If you leave, Annie love, I'm leaving with you."

A glisten of tears touched her luminous eyes. She gazed at him for several endless seconds before a smile started to quirk at the corners of her lips. Finally she said, "You are the stupid one, not me."

After stumbling his way through that sentence, Alex grinned. "Stupid, yes. A big, bungling oaf without any sense whatsoever. I guess you'll just have to stay here and look after me."

She rolled her eyes, clearly exasperated with his logic. Or perhaps with his lack of it. "I can't stay here."

He had other ideas, and sliding his hand around to the nape of her neck, he quickly acted upon them, settling his mouth over hers. There were more ways for a man and woman to communicate than simply with words, and he was determined she should learn that lesson before he finished with her. No mouth? The girl had a mouth most men would kill for.

Fully expecting her to resist his kisses, Alex tensed his arm at her back, prepared to subdue her until she began to relax.

But, to his pleasant surprise, she acquiesced, allowing him to part her lips and touch his tongue to the moist recesses of her mouth.

Dear G.o.d. Just that quickly, and Alex was lost. Never had a kiss been so wonderfully sweet. She surrendered to him like a blossom to sunshine, opening, pressing upward, so soft and delicately fragrant that he felt intoxicated. His heart started to pound. His breath became ragged. Tightening his arm around her, he slid his lips from her mouth to her throat. He wanted her. Like embers fanned to a sudden flame, the pa.s.sion he had so ruthlessly tamped for weeks ignited within him.

At the touch of his lips on her throat, Annie leaned her head back and moaned low in her chest. Alex lifted his free hand to her bodice. The tempting softness of her breast filled his palm.

Obviously aroused, she began to breathe in quick, whining little pants. The sound alone was enough to drive Alex half-mad. With a practiced touch, he grazed his thumb across the peak of her breast, delighting in the instant hardening of her nipple. But there were too many layers of cloth. He wanted so badly to feel the silken warmth of her skin that he burned.

The b.u.t.tons at the front of her bodice were frustratingly small. He fumbled, managing to unfasten one, then two, his sense of urgency mounting. In the back of his mind, he kept expecting Annie to start struggling, and he was prepared to stop himself if she did. But instead she ran her small hands into his hair, her breathing still as fast and irregular as his.

Finally Alex slipped the last b.u.t.ton free. Gently, his senses electrified with antic.i.p.ation, he drew the panels back and encountered ... a chemise.

"s.h.i.t."

He drew back to survey the undergarment, acutely conscious of Annie's blue eyes, large and feverish, on his face.

Pleased to find that her chemise had a drawstring neckline instead of d.a.m.nable b.u.t.tons, he seized the ribbon and tugged sharply. Instead of pulling free, the strands of satin knotted.

Alex clenched his teeth, biting back another curse, knowing, even as he began to untangle the snag, that Annie might regain her senses during the delay and start to panic before he ever got her b.r.e.a.s.t.s bared.

Taking a deep breath and giving her what he hoped was a rea.s.suring smile, Alex leaned farther back so he might see better. Then he set upon the knot, so frustrated that it took all his restraint not to rip the chemise off her. Keep smiling. After all, it was just a little knot, he told himself. He felt sweat start to bead on his forehead. One stubborn knot. He could scarcely believe his miserable luck. The most beautiful girl he'd ever seen was sitting on his knee, not only willing but patiently waiting for him to get her clothes off her, and he was fumbling around like a G.o.dd.a.m.ned idiot!

Alex glanced up to find that Annie was watching his hands, her beautiful eyes filled with bewildered curiosity, her mouth slightly pursed. She didn't seem in the least afraid, and for that, he was grateful. On the other hand, he wasn't at all sure she knew what he meant to do, either. Whatever Douglas's offenses against her had been, he had clearly not trespa.s.sed on her upper torso, at least not in such a fashion that he had left Annie with an aversion to being touched there.

Alex felt a pang of guilt as the knot finally came loose. But he chased it away. The girl was deaf, not dead from the eyebrows down. And at twenty, she was no longer a child. In addition to that, she was his wife. Another man, given the opportunities Alex had had , would have long since consummated the marriage. Besides, it wasn't as if she were struggling. Or frightened. She only seemed curious about what he found so fascinating beneath her chemise.

Alex was more than willing to satisfy her curiosity.

His heart was slamming inside his chest like a threshing machine as he loosened the gathered neckline of the chemise.

The white cloth fell loose to underscore her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. Milky white globes with swollen pink crests. Reverently, Alex brushed a fingertip across her skin. It was warm and silky, just as he had imagined. He trailed his touch lightly to her nipple, watching the swollen aureole grow pebbled, the peak erect.

Annie jumped when he captured the sensitive protrusion between his thumb and forefinger. Her startled eyes flew to his.

As he rolled her flesh gently, she made tight fists in his hair and her eyes darkened to a stormy blue, her lashes drifting low over her pupils.

Bending his head, Alex flicked her other nipple with his tongue. She emitted a strangled little cry and arched her back to better accommodate him, her sudden yearning expressed to him in a language as old as womankind. Alex was happy-no, elated-to attend her needs. In fact, he couldn't quite believe that she had surrendered to him so easily and was responding as she was, pressing herself forward, eager for his touch and the ministrations of his mouth.

Taking care not to hurt her, for he guessed her b.r.e.a.s.t.s were probably tender, he nibbled the swollen bud of her nipple.

When it grew distended and hard, he captured it between his teeth, then started to tease it mercilessly with his tongue. He knew exactly how sharply to nip that sensitive f.l.a.n.g.e of hardened flesh, exactly how hard to suckle it, to drive her beyond reason. With quick relentless flicks of his tongue, he rasped the responsive tip, making it swell until it throbbed with her every pulsebeat. Then, and only then, did he deliver the killing blow to her senses, tugging hard on her with his teeth.

With the first tug, Annie shrieked. Not a little, whimpering cry. An earsplitting, rafter-shaking shriek. Caught off-guard, Alex was so startled, he jerked back and nearly dumped her on the floor. He might have if she hadn't grabbed him by his ears.

"Annie, hush!" Her head was thrown back and her eyes were closed, so she couldn't see him speaking. "Annie, don't scream." Alex threw a horrified glance at the door, which was unlocked. Clearly frustrated, she wrenched on his ears and arched upward, offering him her breast in a very determined way. "Maddy'll come barging in on us, sure as-"

Her nipple grazed his lips. At the contact, she mewled with urgency and jerked him forward by his ears. "Ah-hhh!" she caterwauled.

"Jesus Christ."

In one fluid motion, Alex pushed up from the chair, lay her atop the table on her back, sending paper and charcoal flying, and clamped a hand over her lips. Then, and only then, did he give her what she wanted. It was the first time in his life that he had ever been laughing when he drew a woman's nipple into his mouth.

With the first rasp of his tongue over her crest, Annie shrieked into his palm and twisted on his ears again. Alex decided his ears could take the punishment. In a heartbeat, he could no longer even feel his ears, anyway.

Annie was like a miracle unfolding in his arms. So incredibly sweet, so absolutely guileless. No stranger to women and ways to please them, Alex knew exactly where and how to touch her, and she responded to each new sensation with hungry eagerness and complete trust.

When she was panting and trembling with need, he ran his free hand under her skirt and up her leg. Imagining his goal, the apex of her thighs, he groped for the slit in her bloomers, so eager to run his fingertips over her warm wetness that he was nearly mindless. So mindless that it took him several seconds to realize that Annie had gone rigid and was pushing in earnest against his shoulders. He reared back and fixed pa.s.sion-glazed eyes on her fearful ones.

Looking, into her eyes, slowly registering her reaction, he froze and hauled in a deep breath, trying to get control of himself. Then, with great reluctance, he drew his hand from under her skirt. It seemed that Douglas's ghost was going to haunt them, after all.

"It's all right, sweetheart." Braced on an elbow, Alex leaned a hip against the table and bent his head to kiss her swollen mouth. "Don't be afraid. I won't hurt you."

The tension slowly eased from her body. The fear slipped from her eyes. Lying there on the table, her lovely b.r.e.a.s.t.s bared and only inches from his lips, she tempted Alex in a way no woman ever had, and he congratulated himself on his almost saintly forbearance. Remembering how the little minx had nearly yanked his ears off, he gave her a heavy-lidded, satisfied smile, confident that the moment would come, and soon, when she wouldn't call a halt to their lovemaking. All he needed was patience and other opportunities to arouse her.

He started to push up. At his movement, Annie grabbed the front of his shirt and held fast. He arched a questioning brow.

"What, sweet?"

She silently whispered something, but in his feverish state of unsatisfied pa.s.sion, he had difficulty concentrating on her lip movements. "What?"

Her eyes darkened to a cloudy gray blue. Then she brushed her fingertips over her nipple and dimpled a cheek at him.

Alex's gaze shot to her breast. As he watched her tease her own nipple erect, he felt a certain part of himself getting painfully more erect as well.

"Annie, no," he said hoa.r.s.ely.

She tugged urgently on his shirt.

"I can't," he said with a ragged laugh. "You don't know what you're asking."

She pouted her lips and looped her arms around his neck.

"Please?"

Grabbing her above the elbows, Alex hauled her up to a sitting position, pretending he didn't understand. It was a lie, of course. But the way he saw it, all sin was relative, and it was better that he lie to her by omission than risk becoming so aroused that he lost control. To force himself on her would be unforgivable and cause irreparable damage. She was only just now starting to trust him.

With trembling hands, Alex groped for her chemise ribbons, which was no easy task with Annie's slender fingers running interference. He glanced down to see what she was doing and nearly groaned when he realized she was lightly tweaking the swollen peaks of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. Jerking his gaze back to her face, he took measure of her expression, which was drawn taut with desire, her eyes heavy-lidded and dark with need.

"Christ!"

He caught her wrists and drew her hands away. He had clearly opened a Pandora's box, he decided, and set himself to the task of putting his treasures back where he had found them.

As he tightened the drawstring of her chemise and drew a bow, she sighed resignedly.

"You liked that, did you?" he couldn't resist asking.

She smiled an angelic little smile and nodded. Alex drew her bodice together and began fastening b.u.t.tons as though his life hung in the balance. "Well, we'll have to do it again sometime," he said in an oddly tw.a.n.gy voice.

She nodded again. He grinned and met her gaze as he worked the last b.u.t.ton into its hole. "Next time, don't ask me to stop, and I'll show you how nice the other things can feel."

A troubled frown drew her delicate brows together. Alex bent to kiss the wrinkles away. When he straightened, he rasped the back of his knuckle across her lower lip. "Trust me, Annie. What I would have done if you hadn't stopped me would have felt a hundred times nicer." When she looked unconvinced, he said, "Maybe even a thousand times nicer."

She still looked dubious. He studied her for a long moment, and then he said in a monotone, "You can't count."

She whispered, "I can so.'" Then she promptly held up a fist and began unfurling her fingers, one at a time.

"One- two- three-''

Alex closed a hand over hers, laughing in spite of himself.

"Never mind, you've convinced me. How high can you go?"

"Forty," she informed him proudly. "No mistakes."

"Forty? As high as that?" He considered that for a moment.

Then, determined to explain things in terms she could grasp, he said, "What we just did? It was"-he held up a finger-"one nice feeling. But what we could have done?" He held up all ten fingers, then folded and unfolded them three times in quick succession. "What we could have done if you hadn't made me stop would have been forty nice feelings."

She narrowed her eyes suspiciously.

"Seriously. Lots and lots of very nice feelings," he a.s.sured her. Bracing the heels of his hands against the table on either side of her, he brought his face within inches of hers. "And let me tell you, sweetheart, if the time comes when you want more of that, I'll oblige you, anyplace, any time."

She wrinkled her nose, which set him to laughing again.

Then he caught her chin on the edge of his finger and tipped her face up. "As for your going home, forget it. I love you, Annie. It doesn't matter to me that you can't hear. Not a whit.

Understand? And as for your not being able to talk, you'll learn because I'm going to teach you."

She looked troubled by that p.r.o.nouncement.

"Until you can talk," he whispered, "you have a beautiful mouth, and I can think of dozens of nice uses for it besides talking."

With that, he settled his lips over hers to prove his point.

Nineteen.

For Alex, the word courtship took on new meaning over the next few weeks. Instead of wooing Annie with softly spoken words of love, he made cacophonous music. Instead of writing her romantic poems, he drew letters for her and painstakingly tried to teach her the manual alphabet. Instead of entertaining her with brilliant conversation, he stuck a horn in her ear and yelled, or he fixed one eye on a book and, as he read, awkwardly tried to execute signs according to the instructions.

In the beginning, Annie was an unreceptive pupil. While he was in a sweat, trying to make a sign perfectly, he would glance up and discover that her attention had drifted to the window behind him or that she was eyeing one of her noisemakers with abject yearning. On occasion, he even caught her looking at him with the same longing, which played havoc with his nerves. Since that day in the nursery, he had initiated no more embraces, not because he didn't want to hold her in his arms, but because he feared he might lose control if he became too highly aroused.

Annie had no such concern, apparently. To her, the foreplay they had engaged in had been a highly pleasurable experience, and she obviously made no connection between their doing that and Alex longing to do more. Unfortunately, there was a connection, a rather strong one, and Alex was determined not to engage in activities that might get out of hand. Not until he felt certain Annie was ready to consummate their marriage.

One morning in the middle of a lesson on the manual alphabet, Alex glanced up from the instructional guide to find Annie leaning across his desk, her weight resting in equal part upon her elbows and her swollen stomach. Her mischievous grin and the sultry gray cast to her eyes set his heart to thudding.

"Annie, we're supposed to be working," he said sternly.

The dimple in her cheek deepened, and as she gazed at his mouth, he got the distinct impression she was thinking about other things besides lipreading. Lifting one hand to her bodice, she toyed with her b.u.t.tons, then lifted her darkened gaze to his, her smile filled with unmistakable invitation. Jerking his eyes from hers, Alex started leafing almost frantically through the pages of the book. The little minx scooted closer.

"Annie ..." He glanced up. "Please get off my desk. You're going to scatter my papers everywh-" His gaze dropped like a rock to her slender fingers, which had moved from the line of small b.u.t.tons on her bodice to the crest of her breast. Through the layers of her clothing, she was lightly stroking herself.

Alex could see her nipple thrusting against the material, a sharp little peak that beckoned to him irresistibly. "Annie, don't. That isn't-"

She smiled and caught her bottom lip in her teeth.

Alex shoved up from his chair and took a turn before the window. "You mustn't-" He couldn't keep his eyes off her hand and what she was doing. His guts knotted painfully. It was on the tip of his tongue to tell her that such behavior was unladylike, but in truth, as long as she only did such things when they were alone, he didn't find it objectionable. Far from it. "Don't ever do that in front of other people," he amended hoa.r.s.ely. "Not in front of Maddy or anyone. You understand?"

She nodded. Alex dragged in a shaky breath. "As for doing it in front of me," he went on, "you have to understand that if I should take you up on your offer, I'll want to do the other things we talked about. Last time, when I tried, you grew frightened. Unless you've had a change of heart, then I'd suggest you stop"-he swallowed, hard-"issuing me the invitation."