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foot five. How am I doing?”
    “I’m
twenty-seven. And five foot four. How do you do that?”
    “A lot of
people think I don’t know anything because I can’t see,” he answered.
    Amanda flushed
at his astuteness. She had to resist the urge to tug her hand away in
embarrassment.
    “Yes, I am
blind. But I still see by picking up information with my other senses. From
talking to you I can tell where your voice is coming from, that gives me an
idea of your height. Of your body. Your reaction to me
guessing your age can give me a clue to it, also the words you use…”
    He leaned in
conspiratorially. “I don’t like to tell most people how I do it. I like to leave
them confused—a bit off balance.”
    At this, Amanda
felt ashamed at her initial reaction. So, Donovan Strait couldn’t see. He was
exactly as he was before. This new knowledge shouldn’t change anything.
    “So, what
else do you know?” Amanda asked playfully.
    Donovan
paused thoughtfully. “You play by the rules—since you’re not sure you’re
playing hooky tomorrow. That’s an expression I haven’t heard in a while.”
    “Not always,”
answered Amanda softly, startled to realize she was flirting openly with him. Trepidation
about his blindness dampened her desire at first, but now her attraction
flickered stronger than ever.
    “Oh? So you are going to play hooky tomorrow?”
    His voice grew
smoky, full of sexual promise. Amanda swallowed hard. Coming to a bar late at
night, boldly approaching a man she didn’t know, was certainly breaking the
rules.
    It was
exhilarating.
    “So what do
you think of when you hear the music?”
    A devilish
smile lit his face when she took too long to answer.
    “You’re
holding something back,” he probed.
    “I

—uh feel the music coming over me,
rolling over me.”
    “Caressing
you?” asked Donovan.
    Amanda’s face
burned as all her images earlier in the night came back.
    He didn’t
wait for her reply. “Touch, like sound, is very powerful. It’s one of the most
powerful senses.” Donovan traced his fingertips over Amanda’s wrist, over the
pulse thrumming there.
    “Are you
excited Amanda?”
    “Yes,” she
whispered. In truth, she was very excited, more so than she could remember
being by any man. Any remaining reservations vanished under his expert
seduction.
    “By me?”
    He smiled,
already knowing the answer. His voice dropped a few octaves. “You’re wondering
what it would be like to be made love to by a man that knows things other men
    don’t… who can see you with his hands. Who
could touch you in ways other men cannot.”
    Amanda didn’t
answer. She drew shallow breaths as graphic images flitted through her mind.
His grip tightened reflexively on her wrist. Sensual awareness flooded Amanda. Her
heightened pulse, her uneven respirations told him everything he needed to
know, and he read her like an open book, as though her body was braille .
    “A lot of men
are only interested in what they see in women. What they narrowly define as beauty. With one, lone
sense. They don’t appreciate a woman’s voice. The way her breath
quickens as her excitement grows. The scent of her arousal. The smell of her perfume when she’s gone. People are
meant to be tactile. Do you know the softest part of a woman’s body? Most men
would say her thighs. What about the inside of her wrist? The
area behind her knee? The underside of her upper arm? The webbing between her fingers and toes…?”
    Donovan raised
Amanda’s hand, pressing her delicate wrist against his full lips as his fingers
laced briefly with hers.
    Her skin
burned with his touch and sparks lit up along her spine.
    “Her lips,
the area behind the ear…”
    His hand
touched her hair, trailing over the earlobe underneath and moving behind the
shell of her ear, to Amanda’s sigh. She swore the whorl of his thumb left an
imprint on the tender area, scoring it with heat. He withdrew his fingers from
her pulse point, raising the tips to