Page 10 of The Neighborly Thing To Do
Chapter 7
Finn
She looks so fucking beautiful in that dress.
Blue is a perfect color on her, and the dress molds to the curves of her chest before flowing down into the skirt, showing off those pretty thighs. She looks like a painting of the definition of beauty. She deserves to be memorialized in art. I don’t paint, and I never carve sculptures of humanoid figures, but for her, I’d make an exception. Such beauty deserves to be commemorated.
I shouldn’t be thinking of her like this. And I definitely shouldn’t be thinking of the way her hand lightly brushed my wing while I held her in my arms earlier. That barely-there touch alone has been enough to send shivers through me. Cassidy Prylor is dangerous for my health and well-being.
She’s also significantly younger than me, and genuinely in a bad position right now. I need to get my head on straight and not take advantage of this situation.
It’s getting harder, though, as she holds my hands and looks into my eyes and repeats the vows Davies is feeding her. I could get lost in those eyes.
And then it’s my turn, repeating the words and trying not to let my voice break as I’m speaking them. I stumble at least once, but Cassidy is polite enough to not point it out. And then Davies says we’re married, and tells me to kiss my bride.
Fuck. We should’ve discussed this ahead of time, but now it’s too late, and I have to act before Davies gets suspicious. Moving slowly so she can see exactly what I’m doing, I bend down to her level, cup her face in one hand, and lean in for a kiss.
It’s the lightest brush of lips, a barely there gesture to seal our marriage. It’s somehow soft and electric all at once and I force it to be over before it becomes something it shouldn’t be.
Cassidy, for her part, is looking up at me with wide eyes and a slightly parted mouth. All that’s doing is tempting me into kissing her again, but I forcefully resist the urge. “Are we done here?” I ask Davies, voice rougher than I would like.
We’re married. I married her. Cassidy Prylor is my wife. Or is it Delaney now? I should have asked her how she felt about a—temporary—name change.
My mind can’t exactly wrap around all this. I’m hoping she’ll give me grace as I figure it out, but right now, I’m clinging to her hand like a lifeline going to keep me from drowning.
Davies clears his throat, no doubt completely aware of how little of my attention he has. “We’ll talk soon about the house,” he says. “But yes. I suppose you lovebirds will want to get home and start your married life properly.”
I flush, feeling the burning in my cheeks and glad my gray, rock-like skin hides the color from them. “C’mon, Cassidy,” I murmur, then swallow. “C’mon, wife.” I say it to taste the word, to feel it on my tongue. Maybe it will help sell this story to Davies, though.
And then I pick her up. It’s practical, of course. I’ll need to pick her up to fly back anyway, and it’ll sell this little show to Davies. I walk us out of town hall and take off toward home, not giving that man another moment of our time.
Cassidy doesn’t say anything, staring around at the town below again, enthralled by the view. Fuck it. I change my flight path, taking us on a loop of the town, giving her a moment to take it in.
When I land on her front lawn, she squeezes her arms around my neck. “Thank you,” she whispers, her voice a little soft breath of gratitude that definitely does not do anything to me. She holds me for a second, and then says, “You can set me down now.” She squirms in my arms.
Nope. There’s one more thing I need to do. It’s a human custom, but I’ve seen movies, and I want to give her one moment that feels normal. I walk up to her door with her still in my arms, but it’s locked.
“Who locks their doors in Hearthstone?” I grumble.
“I do, when someone is trying to literally steal the house out from under me. Hang on.” And then, to my absolute befuddlement, she reaches down her dress and fishes the key out of her bra. She sees me gaping and shrugs, flushing slightly. “Didn’t want to carry a purse, and the dress doesn’t have pockets.”
Right. I gently extract the key from her hand—warmed by her skin, and I try hard not to think about that—and unlock her door, carrying my new wife over the threshold into the house we’ll be sharing for a while.
She stares at me like I’m something completely unexpected as I set her down on her couch. She looks up at me a little dazed, and I look back, not sure what to do with myself now. She adjusts her dress, and I look away before I accidentally see more of those thighs than she intends to show me.
“You might have to stay here for a bit,” Cassidy murmurs. “Since you told the mayor that was the plan.”
I risk glancing back at her. She’s settled now, hands at her side, so I turn fully. “I figured.”
“Will this house be okay for you?”
The doorways and halls are big enough thanks to this being built as a gargoyle home. Some of the furniture might be a littletight with my wings and bulk, but I can work around that. “It’ll be fine; don’t worry.”
The way she bites her lip tells me she does worry, which doesn’t surprise me. It’s essentially been Cassidy’s full time job for a decade to worry about everything.
But I’m a grown-ass adult, and I don’t need my wife to fret about me. I can take care of my own needs.
Cassidy should get a break from worrying. That’s what this time was supposed to be; she was supposed to send the kid to school and get a few moments to breathe. It’s monumentally unfair that Davies and Saunders took that away from her. I certainly won’t add to her burden.
