Page 161 of X's and O's

“I know,” I whispered back.

“So Scythe is going to be the one who stands up at the altar with you today.”

I brushed my thumb over his cheek. “I know that too.” He hadn’t needed to tell me. “It’s okay.”

He nodded, taking my words at face value. “I wanted to tell you that I’ve wanted to be your husband since the first day I met you.”

I smiled at that, knowing that from him, it wasn’t just throw away words. He wasn’t capable of that. When he said he’d wanted to marry me from the get-go, he meant it. Vincent didn’t lie. He didn’t embellish.

I’d felt his love from that first day, so I knew every word was true.

He cleared his throat. “I promise I’ll take care of you.”

I nodded, my throat clogging up.

“I promise I’ll support every dream you have.”

I squeezed his fingers.

He frowned, and then it smoothed out. “And I promise I won’t repeat the vulgar things Scythe is saying in my head right now.”

I let out a laugh, all my nerves disappearing as I pressed up on my toes and kissed him. Our lips lingered there, not deepening the kiss. We were just content in being together.

“I promise I’m going to love and take care of you every day of my life too,” I whispered on his lips. “Forever.”

“Forever,” he whispered back.

They were the only vows I needed from him. I didn’t need an officiant or witnesses or a pretty dress. There in that bathroom, I married him.

Rebel practically knocking down the door interrupted us. “Uh, Bliss? It’s getting late, and we really need to get that dress on you.”

I glanced over at the beautiful off-white gown hanging from a hook on the bathroom wall.

Vincent stepped in and pulled the tie on my bathrobe.

It came undone, revealing my bare skin beneath.

His eyes heated, and he instantly dropped to his knees in front of me.

“Uh, Rebel?” I called back through the door with Vincent licking his tongue along my inner thigh and straight through my folds. “I’m going to need a minute.”

One quick orgasm later, Vincent had me in my dress and was back out the window.

I opened the door and was met with a round of sharp gasps and a few tears from my friends. The four women who’d become like sisters to me, as well as my actual biological one, crowded me, circling me with the love I felt from them on a daily basis.

Verity squealed and squeezed my hand. “You’re so beautiful! How did you manage to get your dress on by yourself though?” She eyed the row of tiny buttons that held the dress closed.

Rebel hid her laugh. “Yeah, Bliss. How did you manage that?”

She knew very well I couldn’t have done that alone. A knowing expression in her eye said she knew just as well as I did about Vincent’s athletic abilities.

I ignored my best friend and focused on my little sister. Though she wasn’t as little anymore and was practically a young woman now herself. “Who cares about me,” I told her. “Look at you in that dress!”

In typical teenage fashion, Verity quickly forgot her questions to me and twirled, showing off the way her dress flared prettily around her legs as she moved.

She and our brother, Everett, had spent the last six or so years living with their maternal grandparents. They were only a twenty-minute car ride away and were happy there, enrolled in a great school with lovely friends. I didn’t see them daily, but I had made sure I had a good relationship with their mom’s parents and kept pretty close tabs on how my younger siblings were doing. They came to our home regularly and fought a battle with Ophelia and Augie as our girls’ favorite aunt and uncle.

The wedding planner, still very much alive, despite her not letting Vincent in earlier, clapped. “If we’re all ready, it’s time to get this show on the road. Don’t forget your flowers!”