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had forgotten to breathe.
    “You have a great laugh,” he’d told me. “I’ve been listening to it all night.”
    I had tilted my head, realizing almost instantly that he was blind. “That’s the worst pick-up line I’ve ever heard.” I smiled at him.
    “Are you sure?” he teased me. “The very worst?”
    The arch of his eyebrow was wicked, his dimples were sweet, and his plump parted lips, wet now as he licked them, were making my cock hard. The man made my mouth go dry.
    I’d noticed the way the light hit his auburn hair, a play of brown and red. I’d appreciated the splatter of freckles across the bridge of his short, upturned nose and had seen the way his eyes narrowed seductively, the long, thick feathery lashes hooding them. I’d heard the soft moan under his breath. I’d wondered, with the part of my brain that was still working, why someone had not put a ring on the man’s finger. That fast, I thought I might want to keep him.
    He knew what he was about, because standing there, head tilted, waiting, cute and sexy all at once, he’d had an agenda. I liked that. Men who played games, who weren’t sure what they wanted, were not for me. With the no-nonsense attitude he had going, already he had my undivided attention. I’d let my gaze go everywhere, missing no part of him. He was smaller than me, leaner-muscled, prettier, but solid and strong. I liked the daring tip of his head, his lips that were pale and pink and full, and the effect I had on his breathing. He was holding onto the back of the bar stool beside him, flexing and un-flexing his hand, waiting to see what I would say. As if there were ever any doubt. I wanted to eat him.
    “I’m Marcus Roth,” I said hoarsely.
    He let out a breath and thrust his hand at me. “Joseph Locke.”
    I took the offered hand in mine, holding tight. “Pleasure to meet you.”
    “And you,” he said, stepping forward, inhaling me.
    I had thought that because he couldn’t see that he would be timid about his desire, as well as reticent to trust. But the man knew what he wanted, and when he’d asked me to get something to eat with him, I’d found that I couldn’t say yes fast enough. I liked the laugh lines in the corner of his eyes, found myself charmed by his rakish grin, and felt my pulse jump at the way he laced his fingers into mine. I was a big guy, six six, two hundred and fifty pounds of hard, heavy muscle; I was normally not on the receiving end of possessiveness. But Joe couldn’t see me, and so he didn’t know that he didn’t need to stake his claim in front of other people. He was all of five ten, trying to yank me after him wherever we went. I had been charmed completely.
    Now five, almost six years later, he still had to show anyone who was looking that I belonged to him.
    “I knew it was you,” he sighed as his hand slipped around the nape of my neck, pulling me closer to him. “I told my cousin, but she didn’t believe me.”
    The man’s sightless eyes were really the most beautiful shade of blue I had ever seen. And I could gaze at them endlessly and enjoy them without him ever flushing with embarrassment and looking away. His eyes warmed me, and I was certain, everyone who ever met him.
    “Yeah, well, it’s a damn parlor trick that you can tell a person by their frickin’ walk, so who could blame her?”
    She gasped, but Joe and his family, the people who knew me and got me, started laughing instantly.
    I arched an eyebrow for poor Ellen, who was the only one not getting the joke.
    Deb was snickering as she looked at me with smiling eyes. “I’m so glad you’re here. Joe’s been missing you,” she finished, patting my shoulder. 
    “I’m so embarrassed.”
    I turned my head to look at Ellen, who was now standing on the other side of Joe.
    “I didn’t mean to imply that—I just, no one told me that you were—”
    “Black?” I asked her.
    “Oh God,” she groaned, head in her hands.
    Poor girl, she was turning a very