Neighbor Dearest (29 page)

My heart beat faster with each step closer to the end of the line. I could finally make out Damien’s face. He seemed overcome with emotion, and it shocked me to see him wipe his eyes. I’d never seen Damien cry and honestly didn’t expect it today. That, of course, made me break out into my own tears before I even got to him.

The dogs left their spots to greet me, and I bent down to pet them. Damien had put little bow ties on them; it was the most adorable thing I’d ever seen. I then noticed that the town car driver suddenly appeared again and took Dudley and Drewfus to the side.

Damien whispered, “He’s gonna take them back to Jenna’s in a little bit.” Placing his head on my forehead, he simply said, “Hi.”

“Hi.”

He pulled back. “You look...” he seemed to lose his words then looked me up and down. “That dress. Baby, you look like an angel.”

“I’m glad you like it.”

“I really do.”

Holding both of his hands, I looked around at the torches surrounding us. “This is amazing what you’ve done.”

“I figured you’d appreciate the fire, even though this one is controlled.” He winked.

“I do.”

There was a vague awareness of a man standing to our left, holding a book. Whoever he was, he was being patient, letting us have our private moment.

Damien and I continued to be in our own world, holding hands in silence. I momentarily closed my eyes and cherished this moment: the sound of the water, the breeze in my hair, the smell of his cologne mixed with the salty ocean air.

“May I start?” the man asked.

Damien squeezed my hands then looked over at him. “Yes.”

The Justice of the Peace started his script, saying some generic things about love and marriage. Then, he asked Damien and me if we had written any special vows. With the short notice of our wedding, I hadn’t had the time nor the clarity of mind to put my feelings into words.

Damien placed his forehead against mine.

I whispered, “I didn’t write vows. I didn’t know we were supposed to.” I started to tear up, afraid that I’d somehow failed him by not coming prepared with something poignant to say. The thought of putting into words everything I was feeling seemed impossible.

When I looked into his eyes, he was crying.

Damien wiped my tears with his thumbs and wrapped his hands around my face. “I had a thousand things memorized to say to you in this moment, but I can’t think of a single one. What you mean to me, Chelsea, defies language. It can’t be summed up in words or reduced to a minute recitation. Just know that I love you with all of my heart and soul and that it’s limitless. As long as my heart is beating, it will only beat for you.”

His bottom lip was trembling.

I placed my hand on his heart and said, “This heart beating for me…these tears...they tell me more than any amount of words ever could. I never thought I’d be fortunate enough in my lifetime to have someone love me enough that it would bring them to tears. I love you more than life, Damien. You’re everything I’ll ever need. Please don’t forget that. I’m so lucky to have found you, so lucky that out of all of the places in the world I could have ended up, I moved next door to you—the one person I was meant to be with.”

“It was no accident. It couldn’t possibly have been. I’m just so grateful to God that He brought you to me when he did.”

The man cleared his throat. “For two people who didn’t memorize anything, I would say you did pretty well. Best unintentional vows I’ve ever heard.”

We got a good laugh out of that.

“Do we have rings?”

“Yes.” Damien reached into his pocket, taking out a white gold hammered band and a large round diamond that had to have been at least two carats. The stone sat atop an eternity band of smaller diamonds. My eyes practically popped out of their sockets. That ring must have cost tens of thousands of dollars.

“Oh, my God, Damien…” I mouthed.

Damien repeated after the officiant, “I give this ring in pledge of my love and devotion. With this ring, I thee wed.” He placed the ring on my finger, and it fit perfectly.

I repeated the same words and slid the thick band onto his hand.

“By the power vested in me by the state of California, I now pronounce you husband and wife.”

Damien lifted me into a kiss and whispered over my mouth, “You’re my wife, Chelsea Hennessey.”

“I love that name. It actually rhymes.”

“Chelsea Hennessey. It does have a nice ring to it. Chelsea Hennessey…got married by the sea. And the lucky bastard is me.”

“You’re a poet now? You have too much talent for one man.”

“I plan to show you many talents tonight, wife. By the way…” His eyes traveled down the length of my body. “That has got to be the sexiest wedding dress on the freaking planet. I’m gonna take scissors to all of your dresses and cut four slits into them just like that.”

“Wouldn’t be the first time you cut my clothing into pieces.”

“Clothing on a body like yours is a sin.”

“Speaking of which…I’m not wearing underwear.”

“Fuck. Really?”

“Yes, you’re rubbing off on me.”

“Rubbing one off on you…later…for sure.”

“I married a dirty, dirty man.”

“I married a little perv.” He kissed me hard.

I stretched my fingers out. “Can we discuss this ring?”

“Do you like it?”

“It’s perfection, but did you sell the building or something to pay for it? It’s huge.”

“Well, see, I read something in this wedding etiquette article that the size of the ring should be directly proportional to the groom’s cock size, so…”

“Ah…that explains it.” Wrapping my arms around his neck, I could see the reflection of the flames in his eyes. “Seriously, it’s the most beautiful ring I’ve ever seen. It had to have cost a fortune.”

“Like you always say, I do everything big. I love you big. The ring should reflect that, if the person can afford it. I can’t think of a better thing to spend some money on.”

“Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me. No ring in the world could repay you for what you’ve given me and for agreeing to marry me.” His mouth curved into a smile. “Are you ready for our reception?”

“Is there a reception?”

“Yes. The dogs don’t know the chicken dance, so there will be none of that, but I brought dinner catered by Mama Rocco’s. I figured we could eat here on the beach under the torches. I also booked us a room at a resort on the mountaintop a few miles away. The driver, Gary, is gonna come back after he drops off the dogs and clean up after us, so we won’t have to worry about any of that. I basically hired him for the night.”

“You really have everything figured out.”

“I haven’t figured out how to get you out of that dress and fuck you on this sand without getting arrested. Seriously, I can’t wait to get back to the hotel.”

Remembering my promise to my sister, I said, “Oh, I promised Jade we’d take a picture.”

“Gary will do it. He snapped a bunch during the ceremony, too.” He waved Gary over. “You mind taking some pictures of us?”

Activating the flash, Gary took several snapshots of us with the torches as a backdrop.

“Thanks, man.”

When our pseudo photographer was out of earshot, I asked, “Who is that guy anyway?”

“Gary? He’s the new tenant downstairs. Nice guy. He couldn’t pay his rent, so I told him if he worked for me all day today, I’d let it slide just for this month only. He’s at our beck and call.”

“Well, that’s win-win, I guess.”

The dogs sat by us throughout our picnic-style dinner atop a blanket before Gary left to take them back to Jenna’s, leaving Damien and me alone under the stars.

We couldn’t have asked for a better night.

***

Damien carried me over the threshold as we entered our suite at the mountaintop retreat, which overlooked Monterey Bay and the Santa Cruz mountains. He’d arranged for a massive bottle of champagne to be sent to the room, and there were rose petals scattered throughout.

“How on Earth did you find the time to do this?”

“Gary really earned his rent today.” He grinned.

“I should have known.”

“I wanted this day to feel as much like a real wedding night as possible.”

“It’s way better than an average wedding. We basically cut out all of the bullshit and made it about us, which is the way it should be.”

“Lie back on the bed. I want to look at you in that dress one last time before I take it off.”

Lying back against the plush down pillows on a bed of roses, I watched as my gorgeous husband kneeled at the foot of the bed while he gazed at me for several minutes.

“Alright. I’m done looking. It’s burned into memory. Now I need to put those slits to good use.”

Damien slowly undid his tie; there was something so sexy about that simple act. He then crawled over to me. “Let’s give new meaning to tying the knot,” he said as he took my hands and wrapped the tie around my wrists, pinning them over my head.

He took off his vest and shirt, throwing them aside before lowering his warm chest onto me. I wanted to touch him, but my hands were tied. He knew I loved this kind of torture, though.

Damien feasted on my body, starting with my neck and eventually making his way downward.

Burying his face under the material of my dress, he used his tongue to fuck my bare pussy as he bore down on my clit with his thumb. I wriggled beneath him, desperate to hold the back of his head as he did it.

When he sensed I was going to come, he suddenly got up to quickly untie my wrists before he undid his pants. He pushed my dress up, and within seconds, he was inside of me. Rocking his hips in a rhythmic motion, he penetrated me slowly and deeply. It was unlike his usual pace. With his eyes closed, he was cherishing every single movement. What it lacked in speed, it made up for in intensity. We’d fucked in just about every which way since we’d gotten together. Every time was somewhat different from the last. But
this
time felt different from all of the other times.

This definitely felt like a husband making love to his wife.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

THE FIGHTER

As magical as our wedding night in Santa Cruz was, it wasn’t powerful enough to slow down time.

The day of Damien’s surgery came faster than I’d hoped. Well, if I’d had my way, it wouldn’t have come at all.

He didn’t let go of my hand once as we drove to Stanford in the wee hours of the morning. We were both eerily quiet.

After parking his truck in the hospital garage, we lingered after Damien turned off the ignition. Understandably, neither of us was ready for what faced us inside. He looked over at me. I could no longer mask my fear.

“It’s okay to be scared, Chelsea. You’ve forgotten I can see right through you.”

“I want to be strong for you.”

Squeezing my hand tighter, he said, “Everything’s gonna be alright, baby. It’s okay to show your fear, though.”

Once inside, I likely wouldn’t be able to tell him everything I wanted to say. The words I couldn’t form felt like they were choking me.

I was breaking down and could hardly talk. I managed to say, “You’d better be okay, because I can’t live without you.”

Blinding tears filled my eyes. I had one job—to be strong for him—and I had totally failed.

“When I’m in there, I want you to think about all the things we have to look forward to this year, like planning our other wedding. Just focus on the good and then every hour that passes, we’ll be closer to having this behind us.”

I nodded as if it were really possible to look forward to anything in this moment.

He went on, “Nothing is gonna happen, okay? But God forbid, if something did, I need you to know that what I said that one time about not wanting you to ever move on, that was irresponsible. I would want you to move on and be happy.”

I shook my head profusely. “I can’t have this conversation, Damien.”

“Yes, you can, because nothing’s gonna happen, but I just need to say this. Please.”

“Alright.”

“I don’t want you to stay alone or feel guilty for moving on someday if something ever does happen to me.”

I nodded just to make him feel better, but I knew deep in my heart, that there would be no moving on if something ever happened to Damien. It was
that
kind of love. The once-in-a-lifetime kind. The kind that his mother and father had. The kind that I couldn’t have with Elec or anyone else, because it would have only been possible with Damien.

“You’re my soulmate, Damien. My fighter. Have you ever heard that song,
The Fighter?
The Keith Urban one?
”

“I’ve heard it come on the radio. It reminds me of us,” he said.

It shouldn’t have surprised me that he’d picked up on that, too. We were connected that way.

He nudged his head. “Let’s go. Let’s get this shit over with. I have a wife and dogs to get back to.”

“Okay. Let’s do it.”

Inside, Dr. Tuscano addressed any last minute concerns we had.

“So, we’re clear on everything that’s gonna happen? The incision will be made down the center of Damien’s chest. The cut muscle will eventually heal on its own. We use a heart-lung machine during the procedure, which helps protect the other organs while the heart is stopped. Once the operation is over, Damien’s heart will start beating on its own again with no problems.”

The doctor noticed Tyler and Damien’s mother waiting outside the door and waved them in. They looked just as nervous as I did. Damien was being stronger than all of us.

Dr. Tuscano finished answering some questions that Monica had before he said, “Surgery should take about five to six hours. Don’t be alarmed if no one comes and updates you. We typically need full surgical staff to remain in the operating room for this procedure.”

Damien hugged Tyler and kissed his mother. They were just about to leave to allow us a moment alone when Damien called after his brother.

“Dude, keep Mom and my wife sane out there. I’m counting on you.”

“You got it, man.”

After the door closed, Damien whispered, “By the way, when I said you should move on with another man, that doesn’t include Tyler. I’d find a way to come back from the dead to castrate him if he ever made a move on you.”