Neighbor Dearest

  “Second favorite?”

  “Inside of you is always my number one.” He winked, pulling me close.

  “I should’ve known.”

  ***

  Later that night, I’d said goodnight to Monica and retreated to the guest room after Damien kissed us both and headed to the treehouse.

  An hour later, he texted me.

  Get your beautiful ass up here.

  Chelsea: What if your mother catches me leaving?

  Damien: My mother knows we fuck. She’s not stupid. We’re adults.

  Chelsea: Okay. Is there enough light for me to see where I’m going?

  Damien: You’re good. I’ll make sure you get up okay.

  Damien held a lantern at the entrance to the treehouse so that I could safely make my way up without falling.

  After I climbed up the ladder, he pulled me into his arms. “It seems like I haven’t touched you in forever.”

  “Well, it’s not every day we’re under the watchful eyes of your mother.”

  Damien squeezed my ass cheeks as he kissed me. After he slowly released my bottom lip, he said, “My mother really likes you.”

  I pulled back to examine his face. “She told you that?”

  “She didn’t have to. I could tell by the way she was looking at you. She was smiling and engaged while talking to you. That’s rare. Basically, she sees all the things I see. You’re very real, and she appreciates that.”

  “I’m so relieved.”

  His eyes trailed down from my chest to my legs. “And I appreciate that you look like a teenage dream right now in these tiny shorts.”

  “Well, I’m sneaking into a boy’s treehouse. I had to look sexy.”

  “I spent many nights in this very treehouse fantasizing about imaginary women who didn’t hold a candle to you.”

  “You know…I didn’t think I was your type when we first met.”

  He slipped his finger under the strap of my cami. “Why did you think that?”

  “I look nothing like Jenna or the other couple of girls I’ve seen you with, for that matter.” Just thinking about that made me cringe. “I don’t have huge boobs or a big ass or wear a lot of makeup.”

  “I never had a type. And honestly? From the first night we hung out, all I fantasized about was the beautiful, lithe blonde next door.” He ran his hands through my hair. “I’d wonder what this would feel like between my fingers.” He lowered his mouth to my neck. “What it would be like to suck on this…” He gently bit my skin before lifting my shirt off. “What these tits would taste like.” Bending down, he took my nipple into his mouth and sucked hard before licking a line slowly down to my belly button. “What the grooves of this tiny navel would feel like against the tip of my tongue.” As he continued to kneel, he said, “Don’t get me started on this navel. I’ve painted this navel. That’s how much I love it.”

  “You have?”

  He caressed it with his fingertips. “Yes. I’ll show it to you sometime.”

  I ran my fingers through his hair as he stayed on his knees. He then slipped my shorts down my legs.

  “You know what I love about you, Damien?”

  He looked up at me, flashing a crooked grin. “My massive rod?”

  “I wasn’t going to say that, but honestly you far exceeded my expectations in that area. The first time we had sex, I swore your dick was the width of a Coke can.”

  Damien bent his head back in laughter. “You mean a twenty-four ounce Coke can, right…the tall one?”

  “Of course.”

  He kissed my stomach. “I interrupted you. You were about to tell me what you love about me.”

  “Oh.” I paused. “Everything. That was what I was going to say.”

  He looked up at me with a devilish expression, and I just knew I was in for it tonight.

  Damien stood up. “What do you want to do tonight?”

  “I want you to deny me until I can’t take it anymore.”

  “You seem so innocent when someone first meets you, but you’re a little masochist. I fucking love it.” He lay back on his bed and pointed to the wall across from it. “Stand over there.”

  Completely naked, I leaned against it. My nipples were hard as steel as I watched Damien peel off his boxer briefs. His rock hard cock stood fully erect, glistening with precum. My mouth watered as my eyes travelled from his naked abs back down to his cock. I’d seen his body naked so many times now, but it never ceased to amaze me how beautiful he was fully naked.

  This was going to be good.

  I loved the little games we played.

  “Open your legs. I want to see you. Then put your hands by your knees. You’re not allowed to touch yourself. I want you to watch me while I jerk off to your sweet little cunt.”

  Damien fisted his cock and began to stroke himself while he stared at me. The need to rub my clit was enormous. Clenching my inner muscles, I moved my hips around in a feeble attempt to satisfy myself without the use of my hands. I knew I wasn’t going to last long before I was begging him. Still, the waiting, the challenge was precisely the point. The longer the wait, the bigger the payoff.

  “Fuck, I can see how wet you are from here.” He jerked himself harder. “You see what you’re doing to me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Come here and lick it off.”

  I walked over to him and sucked all of the precum dry off his tip. Tasting him only made the muscles between my legs throb harder. I was going to need relief soon. When I started to deep throat him, he stopped me. “This will end in ten seconds if you keep that up. And I really want to come inside of you. So, no.”

  “I need to touch myself.”

  “Not yet. You’re not there yet. Go back to the wall.”

  As much as I needed him, he knew I secretly loved this desperate feeling. More than that, I loved the intensity of the moment he finally gave in.

  This time, Damien got up from the bed and stood right in front of me while he masturbated. The up close sight of him jerking himself against the backdrop of his abs only made me crazier. When he finally kissed me hungrily, it ate away some of my frustration. When he stopped the kiss, yet continued the game, my body started to tremble in need for the return of the contact. Whenever I would start to shake, he knew I was done.

  “Turn around and touch the wall.”

  My body buzzed with excitement when I felt the warmness of his chest at my back, a prelude to what I knew was coming soon.

  Within seconds, I felt the slow burn of his engorged cock sinking into me. So worked up, I needed release, but held on for as long as I could.

  Fucking me so hard to the point of pain, he whispered in my ear, “Come all over my dick. Come on.” We were so sexually in sync that he always seemed to know my breaking point.

  As soon as I let go, Damien released his load into me. We stayed panting, leaning against the wall until the movement of our hips slowly came to a halt.

  My body was completely limp. Damien was still inside of me, his mouth resting on my skin. A bead of sweat ran from his forehead onto the back of my neck. Our breathing and the rustling of the leaves outside were the only sounds left.

  It was bliss.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  PENTHOUSE

  Damien and I lived in sex-filled denial for quite a while. That ended one night when an eventful dinner at my parents’ house in Sausalito smacked us back to reality.

  Mom and Dad weren’t surprised when I’d told them Damien and I were now together. Apparently, after that messy finale to my moving day, they’d long suspected it wasn’t the end of the story with him. I’d filled them in on everything that had happened since, and they welcomed Damien with open arms.

  My sister, Claire, and her husband, Micah, had also come for dinner that night. At one point during dessert, Micah clinked his fork against a glass and asked everyone at the table for our attention.

  Claire cleared her throat and looked straight at me. “So, we kind of have a special announ
cement.”

  My jaw dropped because I had a feeling I knew what was coming.

  “We’re pregnant!” Micah shouted gleefully as he rubbed my sister’s back.

  Unable to stop myself from breaking out into tears, I immediately got up from my seat to hug them. This was huge. She was the first of us to have a child, and I was going to be an aunt. Visions of chubby legs, blowing raspberries and big toothless grins flashed through my mind. I was so thrilled for them—for all of us. Even still, I was surprised that the news caused me to cry so easily. It was more poignant of a moment than I’d ever imagined.

  “I’m so happy for you, Claire Bear. I love you so much. I just know you’re gonna be the best mother in the world.”

  My parents and I took turns hugging Claire and Micah. Everyone immediately started pondering potential baby names. My sister dialed Jade so that we could all FaceTime. Jade also broke out into tears upon hearing the news.

  So wrapped up in the excitement, I hadn’t even noticed the empty chair.

  Damien had disappeared. At first, I didn’t think anything of it, but with each minute that passed, his absence became more and more disconcerting.

  After confirming that he wasn’t in the bathroom, I made my way out to the back of the house and found him standing alone in the yard. It was cold out and drizzly, not a great night to be outside. This was odd.

  “Damien? Are you okay?”

  He turned around, looking sullen. “Yeah.”

  My mood had gone from happy a few minutes ago to panicky now. “What are you doing out here?” When he didn’t respond, I said, “You’re scaring me.”

  The memory of being sideswiped by Elec’s change of heart was never too far. As much as I knew Damien truly cared about me, my own experiences had conditioned me to expect something to go wrong whenever everything seemed perfect.

  “We need to get away from here and talk in private.”

  Swallowing the lump in my throat, I nodded. “Okay. Let’s get going, then.”

  Nervously grabbing my purse and jacket back inside, I said goodbye to my parents and sister as Damien waited outside in the truck. I’d made up a story that he was feeling a little sick to his stomach when in fact it was my own stomach that was turning.

  As Damien drove us over the Golden Gate Bridge, I sat in the passenger seat, staring at the beads of drizzle gathering on the window. Feeling nauseous, I turned to him and examined his expression. He seemed troubled and kept his eyes on the road. I wasn’t sure where he was taking us until he eventually turned toward our neighborhood.

  Once inside his apartment, it was quiet, since the Double Ds were with Jenna.

  Damien leaned against his kitchen counter with both hands. “I’m sorry for scaring you, but I don’t think this conversation can be put off any longer.”

  His chest was heaving. It scared me whenever Damien seemed stressed out now that I knew about his heart. I just wanted him to calm down.

  “What happened to you tonight?”

  He released a long breath. “When I saw the way you reacted to your sister’s news, it really hit me, how much you’d be missing by being with me.”

  “What do you mean?”

  After a seemingly endless pause, he said, “I can’t have children, Chelsea.”

  What?

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean I can physically have them, but I can’t in good conscience father a child, knowing there’s a fifty percent chance that I could pass along my heart defect.” He repeated, “Fifty percent. It would be selfish, and if I ignored that and something ever happened to my kid, I could never live with myself.”

  Although I’d read about the odds, I’d never considered that he wouldn’t want to take the risk. To hear him admit how he felt was as sobering as it was heartbreaking.

  When I stayed silent, he continued, “We’ve never discussed this before, and we really should have. It was a big reason I tried to avoid getting involved with you. When I used to say I never wanted to have kids, I meant it. You just didn’t understand why at the time.”

  It felt like the safety cocoon of denial I’d mentally built over the past several weeks was beginning to unravel. This was devastating, but so help me God, I couldn’t imagine life without him. Not now. Not anymore.

  I didn’t know how to express my feelings; the words just wouldn’t come to me.

  “I’m sorry,” he whispered.

  “It’s okay.”

  “But see…what I know I should do and what I want, totally contradict each other. I say I don’t want to have kids, but there is nothing more that I really want than to see your belly swell with my baby growing inside of you someday. I want to hold our baby in my arms so badly. But I just can’t do it. And you deserve to experience that. I made the selfish decision to give into my feelings for you before having this discussion. I can’t say I regret that, but at the same time, I don’t think you really understand what you’re getting yourself into. I should’ve initiated this conversation a long time ago.”

  Would he think I was crazy if I admitted that I’d rather have him?

  “I’m not gonna lie. I want children badly, but I don’t want them with anyone else. There are a lot of kids who need to be adopted. We could take that route. I feel like I need you to breathe. And I understand your reasoning for not wanting to risk it. So, if given a choice between biological children and you…I choose you. And I don’t even have to think twice about it.”

  “How can you possibly mean that?”

  “It’s not the perfect scenario. It’s painful. But the choice is not a tough one for me. I can live without children. I can’t live without you.”

  I hoped that didn’t make me sound desperate; it was the honest truth.

  He pulled me into the longest hug. He was breathing so heavily, as if he seriously didn’t expect my answer, like he was both relieved and conflicted at the same time.

  Releasing me, he said, “Here’s my worry, alright? And hear me out.”

  “Okay.”

  “Say we never have kids of our own, and then something happens to me…but it’s too late for you to have kids and then you’ve lost me, too. Then what?”

  “Don’t think like that.”

  “It’s a very real possibility.”

  I refused to entertain the thought. “No.”

  “You want to know the really fucked-up part? I would love to sit here and say that if something happens to me, I want you to meet someone else, move on, fall in love again, but here’s the kind of selfish prick I am. One of the reasons I don’t want to die is because I don’t want anyone else to ever have you. As much as I knock my mother for how devoted she is to my father, I would kill for you to feel that way about me. I only want you to ever have eyes for me. Is that messed up or what? I’m terrified you’d eventually forget about me.”

  “That will never happen.”

  “I used to be afraid of the prospect of dying, but I had somehow accepted it, spent my days painting pictures of all the places I believed I’d never get to see. But things are different now. I can’t seem to accept it anymore. Now, I just want to live. My will to live is stronger than my fear of death now…because of you. You’re the reason I want to live so badly.”

  My heart filled with so many emotions upon hearing his admission. There was no doubt in my mind that I loved this man more than anything in the world. He’d rendered me speechless, and despite all the things I should have said, I attempted to make a joke instead. “This from the same guy who used to pawn me off to other men.”

  “I never really wanted that. I subconsciously did everything I could to derail those efforts, which I suppose was counter-productive. Now that I’ve had you, I can’t fathom how I ever even tried to push you away like that.”

  “Well, you can’t push me away, because you’re a part of me. Not possible.”

  “You’re seriously crazy, Chelsea, for wanting a life with me at this point. Thank God for you. I thank God for you every day.?
?? He kissed me hard then said, “I want you to come with me to my next doctor’s appointment. I really want your input. I think for now I’m gonna hold off on the surgery, though. But I’m keeping an open mind about it.”

  “I want to know everything there is to know. I don’t want you to hide anything from me, especially on those days when you’re not feeling well, and I definitely do want to go to those appointments. So, yes, please make sure you include me.”

  “Okay.”

  “No more secrets, Damien.”

  “No more secrets.”

  “What’s the H stand for, then?”

  He tickled me under the arm. “Nice try. That one is the exception.”

  I playfully threw a pillow at him. “Oh, come on.”

  ***

  My apartment across town was merely a glorified storage closet now that all of my time was spent at Damien’s.

  The old apartment next door still sat empty. Damien couldn’t exactly show it to potential renters with the gigantic unicorn on the wall. So, we needed to figure out whether I was going to try to break my lease in order to move back into my old place or whether I would move in with Damien permanently. Even though we were basically shacking up, he hadn’t exactly asked me to live with him. I wasn’t going to be the one to approach the subject, though.

  Jade and I were chatting about it on the phone one afternoon while Damien was out with the dogs.

  “Are you keeping a toothbrush there?” she asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Then, you’re totally living with him.”

  “I suppose I am…unofficially.”

  “I was planning on staying with you when I came home after the New Year, but maybe I’ll stay with Mom and Dad instead.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t want to impose on you if you’re there with him. I wanted to come for Christmas so badly, but the show is busiest around the holidays, since everyone is visiting the city. They don’t want the understudies performing during peak times. So, none of the leads are allowed to take time off. There was no way I could get out of it.”