InSight

* *
    T hose were strong words. Words Abby wanted to hear. Still, she hated that another person’s decision had an impact on her future. She’d worked so hard the last eight years to make her own way, without depending on anyone to shape her life. “Before you say anything else, I don’t want you to confuse your emotional feelings with some macho need to protect me.”
    “Be quiet, Abby. This is hard enough for me. And please, don’t be noble. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I think we have something special developing. I’ve never been friends with a woman I’ve made love to, and I’ve never fallen in love with a friend; in fact, I’m not sure I’ve ever really fallen in love, deeply, and without expecting more in return than I was willing to give.”
    “You don’t have to explain.”
    “Let me finish, please. So many elements enter into our situation. I’ve been a mess the last year, alternating between proving I’m still the same man as before I lost my hearing and facing the reality that I’m not. My marriage ended, my job and future still hangs in the air. I’d lost confidence, and it’s taking time to get it back. I think I’m on the right track. I do know I want to keep seeing you, to make love to you, and to share what I’m capable of sharing. That part scares me. It’s not anything I’m used to.”
    He was speaking her thoughts because it had always been her way too. He took his time, taking deep breaths, as if he needed extra oxygen to build his courage. She waited.
    “You have to understand, my marriage ended less than a year ago. I figured that was it with serious relationships. I sucked at them. Then I met you and everything changed. That said, no matter how much I want to, I’m not in the position to make promises.”
    Abby smiled. “I don’t want promises, Luke. I never have. They’re only good for the moment they’re spoken because lives change, forcing people to change. We’ve both made commitments in the past and neither worked out, for different reasons to be sure. I don’t think we’re in a position to make them again.” That was a long speech. Had he understood? She asked him.
    “I got enough.”
    “There’s a part of me that liked my uncomplicated life just fine before you came into it. I went to work every day, came home, and started over again the next day. Emotions make things complex, and I don’t need that any more than you do. But when I didn’t hear from you for four days, it bothered the hell out of me. I hated that. It made me feel needy.”
    “I’m sorry.” He told her about Miami . “I won’t lie. The first couple of days I had to think things through. You’re not an ordinary woman. I don’t want to blow this.” He pulled her close. “I don’t want to lose you.”
    She buried her face in his chest so he couldn’t see her answer, but she said it anyway. “I don’t want to lose you either.”
    He moved back and lifted her chin “You’re not getting away with that. What did you say?”
    “I said, I don’t want to lose you either.”
    He kissed her hard on the lips. When Luke ran his fingers through her hair, then around her shoulders and across her back, Abby reacted as if she were injected with a powerful stimulant that jump-started all her remaining senses.
    “You’re a beautiful woman.”
    The words prompted an extra heart flutter. “Am I? I don’t know what I look like any more. I always thought that was the best thing about being blind. You know, never seeing myself grow old.” She laughed, unsure of what to say or do next.
    He touched the corner of her eyes. “It won’t matter because that’s surface, the outside. You’re beautiful on all sides.”
    She caught her breath, reeling from maybe the best compliment ever, and this time when he took her in his arms she didn’t recoil. Luke’s kisses were soft, and as she responded with a lack of inhibition she hadn’t experienced since before her marriage went sour, they became more passionate, more desperate. She wanted him.
    Fumbling with the buttons of his shirt, her hands reached inside, almost clawing at him, until they fell back onto the sofa, pressed against each other. His hand slipped under the bottom of her shirt and lifted it over her head. When he caressed her breasts, soft moans escaped that were lost in his silence. She thought of nothing. Not the intruder, not the threats, not the attacks. When they teetered on the edge of the sofa, almost falling off, he took