Page 180 of I Was Always Yours (RCA: Royal Crown Academy)

He yanks me to him with one sharp tug, one hand closing around my waist to rest above the curve of my ass as the other cups my neck.

“My bride,” he purrs, and his lips find mine in a heated kiss.

I let myself fall into his embrace, loving the way he touches me. It’s all consuming, like it always has been, and I find myself shivering in response to his fingers ghosting over my skin.

He pulls back and places his face in the crook of my neck, nuzzling my throat. I giggle as his tongue darts out and licks my pulse point.

“What are you doing here, Nix?”

“I missed you.” He whispers unhappily. “You’re not allowed to spend the night away from me ever again.”

I smile and hold back a laugh at his petulant tone.

As tradition dictates, I spent the night before my wedding away from the groom. I left Aubonne for Hampshire where we’re getting married yesterday morning so we’ve spent two days apart, the most since we got back together.

After he proposed to me again, he surprised me with an official engagement party at my parents’ house. My family and all my friends came from far and wide to celebrate our reunion.

We drank and we laughed and I showed off my ring and Phoenix kept his hand possessively on my hip, just above his tattoo, the whole time.

Once everyone left, we went to our new house, sat on the balcony of the master bedroom, and watched the stars. Then he put a bunch of blankets on the floor of the still empty bedroom and we christened our new house all night long.

In the five months since then, life has been pretty close to perfect. More than that, it’s been… easy. Loving him was something I’d done in secret for years, being able to do it openly was like a heavy weight off my shoulders and we settled naturally into our new, real relationship.

Phoenix ended up cutting ties with his family in the weeks after our re-engagement. If I was worried about how it would affect him, I didn’t need to be. With the dark cloud of their presence lifted from above him, he flourished.

Plus, my parents embraced him. Well, mostly my mum who happily declared that she’d always wanted a son. My dad warmed up one excruciating degree at a time, the battle of testosterone-fueled wills between the two of them good cinema for my mum and me.

The end of the Cold War between them was slow going, until one day, my dad gruffly asked him over lunch to train his guards in martial arts.

From that point on, I’d often find my dad looking down from his window at where Phoenix was teaching submission moves to new recruits, a look of satisfaction on his face, which is the closest my dad ever gets to looking impressed.

Then, a month before the wedding, he asked him to attend a meeting with him. When they’d come back, I’d watched my dad narrow his eyes at Phoenix and then extend his hand. They’d shook hands and gone their separate ways.

Since then, my dad had invited Phoenix to three more of his meetings, none of which had been described to me. I didn’t ask and I didn’t want to know. All that mattered is that he’d started bringing Phoenix into the family fold ahead of the wedding.

After our re-engagement, I brought up potentially pushing back the wedding once. Not because I wasn’t ready or didn’t want to get married, but only because that timeframe had been dictated by our parents and we didn’t need to stick to it any longer if we didn’t want to.

Phoenix’s answer was a resounding “fuck no” before he fucked me brutally against the tree where he’d carved our names all those years ago. He wouldn’t hear of pushing back the wedding. He was single mindedly focused on marrying me in June, almost like he was afraid I might slip through his fingers again.

We decided on a date two weeks after our graduation and a ceremony on the grounds of our new house because where else would we get married other than where it all started?

We’ve furnished the house in the months since he bought it, and even though we won’t live there full time, it already feels like our home.

Something that belongs to the two of us and no one else.

All morning, my mum and my friends have helped get me ready in tandem with my stylists. Before Phoenix forced his way into my boudoir, I’d been staring at my reflection, reveling in the way I looked in my dress as my mum cried softly beside me.

I chose a classic, old Hollywood style wedding dress. It’s floor length with a dangerous high slit up to my mid-thigh and an off the shoulder neckline. I paired it with teardrop earrings and no necklace, preferring to keep my neckline bare.

My bouquet is a simple composition of blood red roses and eucalyptus that completes the look. I feel classic and beautiful, and looking at Phoenix in his tux, we make an extremely attractive pair.

His tuxedo is tailored to within an inch of his life, his trousers highlighting his long legs and his jacket wrapped snugly around his arms. He looks expensive and elegant, the gold clothing pin in his ear and his closely buzzed hair the only hints of ruggedness on him today.

Tugging at Phoenix’s blindfold, I make sure it’s securely in place. I don’t want to start this marriage off with bad luck.

“It was just one night.”

“It was too long,” he corrects.

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