She smiled mischievously and stepped inside to put her arms around my neck. “Well, then I must be your genie in a bottle because I just made your wish come true.”
I shook my head at her. “Nuh-uh. You haven’t yet, but we have the rest of our lives for you to try.”
“I’m more than glad to start trying right now,” she informed me.
There is was...her intoxicating scent calling me to her. What if I did take her right now? What if I grabbed her from where she stood and carried her to the bedroom and gave in to what we both so clearly wanted? It couldn’t be wrong if it was what we both wanted, right?
I recognized my old self-pleasing vampire thinking and turned it off like a switch. “Six days until you are my wife. After that, you may do whatever you want to me. What’s mine is yours, remember?” I reminded her.
She walked past me and sat on the sectional. “I’ve waited 22 years for you, so I guess I can wait six more days,” she reasoned.
“I waited a little longer than 22 years for you, so I think you can make it if I can,” I reminded her as I sat next to her.
She leaned toward me for a kiss. “Not my fault you’re older than dirt,” she laughed. I could still feel her lips curl into a smile as she gently placed them against mine, but they didn’t stay like that for long because they became a little too eager as they left my mouth and began to trail down my neck.
I gently pulled away and said, “Hey, you shouldn’t disrespect your elders like that.”
She leaned back and looked at me with a raised eyebrow. “We’re in trouble if you think this is disrespect. I haven’t even begun to disrespect you the way I plan to.”
She didn’t play fair at all. “No, I was talking about you calling me older than dirt.”
“So, I can’t put that in my vows? I promise to love, honor and cherish you even if you are old as dirt?”
We had a wedding in six days and I hadn’t given any thought to our vows. What kind of husband did that make me? “Do you want us to write our own vows?”
“We are somewhat of a unique pair. I think our vows should be, also. What do you think?” she asked.
I didn’t need to think it over because I totally agreed with her. “You’re right. Ordinary vows alone would never cover what we will be pledging to each another.”
“I’m going to be busy the next several days and you probably won’t see much of me,” she warned. “I have to go dress shopping and see to some of the arrangements. Gia and Lairah are doing most of it over the phone and online for me, but I don’t feel right about them doing it all. I appreciate their help, but it’s our wedding and some things I want to take care of myself.”
I reached into my back pocket and pulled out my wallet. I didn’t know if she would have trouble using one of my credit cards so I handed her a stack of cash. She opened her mouth to protest and I placed my finger to her lips. “Don’t say a word about not taking my money. You are mine to care for and this is part of the way I do that.”
I pulled her closely to hug her. “I know you’ll be busy this week and I completely understand. Do what you need to do this week with the wedding and spend as much time as you can with your grandparents. We have the rest of our lives to be together.”
She scooted closer. “Have I told you how wonderful you are and how much I love you?”
I laughed and said, “Umm, not in the last four hours.”
She leaned her head back to look up at me. “You are amazing and I can’t tell you how much I truly love you.”
I kissed her on her forehead. “You better be finding a way soon if we’re writing our own vows.”
˜ ˜ ˜
The days flew and each one behind me brought me closer to becoming Chansey’s husband. I sat on my sectional with a pen and pad each one of those days and tried to write my vows, but I was experiencing a severe case of writer’s block. Nothing could be clearer to me than my love for Chansey, but I wasn’t able to find the words to express the depth of my love for her.
There was a knock at my door and I opened it to find all of my family members on the other side. “The whole crew has arrived. It’s time to party.”
“I can’t believe you’re all here. Why didn’t you call to tell me you were coming?”
“We wanted to surprise you,” Chansey said from the back of the crowd. “I knew you were disappointed when you thought they wouldn’t be at our wedding, so I moved the time back so they could all be there.”
I kissed her forehead and said, “You are phenomenal.”
“Yeah, I sort of am,” she laughed. “But it’s your wedding, too. There’s no way we could do it without our family there. The humans will just have to get over the late ceremony. It’s our wedding, so they’ll just have to think we’re weird. I don’t care.”
We visited with our family for a while, but they didn’t stay long because Chansey and I still had last minute details we were sorting out about the wedding. “How are you coming with your vows?” I asked.
“I wrote them the first night we were back from New Orleans. How are yours coming?”
I didn’t want to tell her I didn’t have the first word, yet. “I’m still working on them.”
She saw my troubled face. “Are you having a hard time with them?”
“A little bit,” I admitted.
She rubbed her hands up and down my arms. “Take a deep breath and relax. Don’t try to write fancy words to woo people. Pretend it’s only the two of us and say the things you want me to know. This is about you and me. Forget about everyone else.”
I felt a sense of calm and relief wash over me in a way only Chansey could make me feel. “Two more days. Can you believe it?”
“I can hardly wait,” she squealed. “Since we have to leave Pascagoula, are we driving to The Savannah Compound after the wedding?”
I grinned and said, “Nope. We’ll be in Savannah soon enough. We’re going to get away from all of this craziness for a couple of weeks so we can just have a little fun.”
“Yay! Are you going to tell me where you’re taking me?” she quizzed.
I thought about leaving her in the complete dark about honeymoon, but then I thought about how well she would take that and decided against the idea. “You told me that you wanted me to take you somewhere tropical on our honeymoon, so you better pack a swimsuit because you’re getting your way, but that’s all I’m telling you about it.”
Her face was full of anticipation. “I wasn’t expecting to go anywhere special because I didn’t think you would be able to book anything on such short notice.”
I thought of how I surprisingly was able to book the reservation to the honeymoon suite that someone has just canceled. “This place sort of landed in my lap, so I guess it’s destiny for us to spend our honeymoon there.”
“Destiny seems to have a way of finding itself into our lives, doesn’t it?”
“It’s done a pretty good job of bringing us together, so far,” I agreed.
10 Forever Times Infinity
Friday arrived and we did a very brief rehearsal that night with the pastor and our two members of the wedding party, Shelby and Solomon.
Sol was acting weird with Shelby before and during the rehearsal and I didn’t know what to think about it. He flirted shamelessly with her the way a human would and touched her even when the opportunity didn’t present itself.
At one point, Chansey turned to me and gave me that WTH look and all I could do was shrug in answer. I didn’t know what was going on, but I intended on finding out as soon as possible.
The rehearsal was over quickly because our ceremony was going to be very simple and Sol suggested we go out together as a foursome. Shelby was obviously thrilled with the attention Sol was giving her and I couldn’t wait to get him alone so I could find out what he was up to.
Chansey cut her eyes at me as she and Shelby went inside to change for our foursome and I gritted through my teeth, “What are you doing, Sol?”
He
carelessly shrugged and said, “What? I don’t know what you mean.”
He was lying. He knew exactly what I meant. “You’re flirting with Shelby. A lot. Why are you doing that?”
He shrugged again and it pissed me off because this wasn’t a game. Shelby was Chansey’s best friend. “I don’t know why. I just want to for some reason and I like the way it feels. I like Shelby.” He raised an eyebrow at me and said, “She’s hot.”
I shouldn’t have to explain this to a vampire older than me. “To Shelby, it looks like you’re trying to get a date with her. Leave her alone because she has a boyfriend.”
As if a boyfriend should matter. She was human. That was reason enough for him to lay off.