She messed with her hearing aids but got nothing. Stupid rechargeable batteries needed to be replaced. Gently, Dustin pulled the aids from her ears, one at a time, and dropped them into the charger beside the bed. His face was so beautiful, like an angel, as he pulled her tightly against him. Dustin swallowed hard, frowned down at her lips, his fingers trailing up and down her ribs.
Slowly, he brushed her hair out of her face and lifted his hand into the air. And then he did the most important, most impactful thing a man had ever done for her.
He signed, Emma, I love you.
Her face crumpled immediately, and tears spilled from her eyes. Embarrassed, she buried her face against his chest as her shoulders shook with her crying. He didn’t rush her, or push her. He simply held her close, cupped the back of her head, and rested his cheek on her hair until she could get control of her emotions again.
Finally, finally, Emma eased back and lifted her hand in front of him, and then slowly, so he could understand it, she signed, I love you, too.
Chapter Ten
Dustin paced near the door. He should’ve done it like he planned. Got her flowers and taken her out to eat. Dated her like a human, and then at the end of the night, when he was dropping her off at her motel door, told her he loved her like they did in the three shitty late-night rom-coms he’d forced himself to watch. Emma deserved romance.
Maybe this was okay. Or maybe not. She’d cried after he signed his feelings to her, but he didn’t know what that meant. Human women cried about everything, and he had no idea whether those were happy or sad tears. God, he couldn’t do this. He couldn’t make her happy, so why was he even trying?
Emma turned on the shower in the bathroom, and Dustin paced again. He ran his hands through his hair out of a nervous habit and bit back a growl. He hadn’t said that to anyone. Well, technically he still hadn’t said I love you out loud to anyone, but this one counted. He’d built it up in his head so much over the last couple days, from the second he figured out what this devoted feeling was in his gut. Emma was his, and he wanted to make her happy, like she made him happy.
Off-key notes drifted from the bathroom, and he stopped his pacing to listen to her sing. She sounded happy. Maybe Emma didn’t need flowers when he made big statements. Let’s bite her.
“Shut the fuck up, wolf,” he muttered.
Quietly, he padded to the bathroom door so he could hear her better over the running shower. She was singing so softly he couldn’t make out the words—they all slurred together. Her hearing aids were still in the charger. A smile stretched Dustin’s face and felt so good. She’d said it back. He’d been studying American Sign Language relentlessly any hour he spent away from her, but he was only comfortable with the simple alphabet right now. He would learn it all though. It would just take time. And practice. Emma had been having problems with her aids lately. She fiddled with them too much, and they needed to be re-charged all the time. Maybe he should buy her better ones. Were there better ones? He would have to research this.
She was still singing. God, he loved her voice. Because she gave it to him. She would never sing like this if she knew anyone else was in the room, but for him? She couldn’t hear herself, but she was still humming. That must mean something, right? That he made her extra happy? Extra comfortable? Dustin’s grin got so big it made his face ache.
Dustin pressed his shoulder blades against the door and leaned his head back, closed his eyes to memorize the tone of her voice. There was a fluttering sound that was ruining the moment, though. Dustin opened his eyes and glared at the desk against the wall. Emma’s journal was open, and the top page was lifting in the vent breeze.
Dustin was pulled to it like a bug to a light. He’d thought about this journal so much. Obsessed about it, really. He’d wanted to see her thoughts so badly, and here it was, open, calling to him, tempting him. A good man would’ve closed it and let it be, but Dustin was a werewolf, and his moral compass was a little bent, so he murmured, “Oops,” and flipped it open to the middle.
He read the neat handwriting, a few lines of a song. It was a ballad, a lonely one. Dark. Hmm. Dustin locked his arm against the table and turned the page to the next song. After reading that one, he flipped through two more until he came to a drawing of a panther. It was Winter. She was lying in the shadows of a group of white pines, head turned to the side looking straight at him. The drawing was in black ink, but the eyes were colored gold. Damn. Emma was really good at sketching—a true creative, clearly.
There was another song about wanting more. Dustin liked music as much as the next person, but these were clearly written for other people. To sell maybe, he didn’t know, but most of the lyrics didn’t match what he’d seen of Emma. She was good. The choruses were catchy, and he wished he could hear them with music. Guitar maybe, like the old scratched-up one that sat on a stand in the corner.
But as he continued to flip through, he lingered on the drawings most. After Winter’s Panther, there were angel wings, like his tattoos, and then a set of eyes, one green, one blue. Dustin’s heart froze in his chest. At the bottom, she’d written, Who are you?
Next was a drawing of his black-furred wolf with his teeth bared. That was what he had probably looked like when he and Kane had almost gone to blows at the trailer park. Fucker had forced a Change that hurt so bad. The next was of him in the woods, face turned up at the moon, lips pursed in a howl. It was a dark drawing, done in some medium other than ink. When he smudged the corner, the black strokes smeared. He sniffed his finger. Charcoal or something close.