Xander became my personal trainer for runs, and I might have wanted to kill him at the beginning for all the long jogs we did, but then I started to look forward to them. And, okay, the way he looked in his running clothes might have helped a bit. Fine, a lot.

He’s just delicious, and all the girls who jog in our park agree.

When I glared at them, he teased me and told me while fucking me that I’m the only woman he sees and ever will.

True, I still have those self-confidence issues sometimes, but now, I have my mechanisms and I’ve learnt how to easily move away from them by digging into my self-empowerment.

Now, I can look at myself in the mirror and finally smile. I can be myself and not want to be someone else.

And the person who played the most important role in all of that is this man who’s now kissing his way up my body – my non-perfect, full of stretch marks and scars body – and still has that wild, lustful look in his eyes.

He flicks my nipple with the pad of his thumb and I moan deep in my throat and run my fingertips over the place where his heart lies. He had a tattoo inked on his skin as soon as he returned from rehab and stayed away from Absolut Vodka. We do drink, but he never loses himself to it now.

Green.

That’s what’s on the tattoo. Just one word next to his heart.

He got me inked on him for life, and I still feel close to tears whenever I see it.

Xander is mine as much as I’m his.

His chest sticks to mine as he grins at me with that sloppy, sleepy, lustful smile.

“Morning, Xan.” I ruffle his blond hair. I can’t keep my hands off it and I might be too in love with the colour. It’s shining under the morning light coming from the balcony of our bedroom.

He leans on his elbows so they’re on either side of me. “Happy graduation.”

“Ugh, don’t remind me of all the things I have to do today. Kir was demanding to come here.”

Dad, Lewis, and Kirian will join us for lunch after the graduation ceremony, and then I’ve already made plans with Elsa, Aiden, and the others.

That is, if Aiden doesn’t decide to kidnap Elsa somewhere.

We always have family lunches and dinners now. Lewis and Dad are our fathers, and although I don’t call Lewis ‘Dad’ and Xan doesn’t do the same to my dad, we have that unspoken mutual understanding, sort of like the one Dad and Lewis had for years.

It’s easier this way and doesn’t give us grief from any prying eyes.

Mum moved to Paris two years ago. She sends us invitations to her exhibitions, but we don’t go. There isn’t even pain as we talk about her now. She’s like that distant relative no one actually cares about.

Even Kirian, who’s supposed to be attached to his mother, doesn’t want to spend time with her and is now striving to be a ‘proper’ man like Dad and his Uncle Lewis – his words, not mine.

“I’ll bribe Kirian with brownies so he doesn’t spend the night,” Xander says.

“Why can’t he?”

“Because we’re celebrating.”

“We’ll be doing a lot of celebrations for one night.”

“We’ll have to add one more then. The most important one.” He reaches under the pillow and retrieves a ring with a blinding green jewel on top.

My eyes widen as I stare between him and the ring. This can’t be what I think it is…?

“I’ve wanted to do this since RES, but Dad and Calvin said all that adult shit about college graduation and whatnot. Besides, I didn’t want to distract you more than I should. Needless to say, I’ve waited so fucking long to make you officially mine, to call you my wife, my life, and my future.”

I’m crying like a little girl by the time he finishes. “Yes! Absolutely yes!”

“I wasn’t asking. That means you have the chance to say no and I’m not having that, Green.” He slips the ring on my finger. Perfect fit – of course it is.

Sometimes, I think Xander knows me even better than I know myself.

He stops and looks at me more than I’ll ever stop to look at myself.

And for that reason, he’s not only perfect for me, but he was made for me.

Just like I was made for him.

“I love you so much, Xan.”

“And I love you, Green.” He claims my mouth in a slow kiss that robs my breath.

I’m melting and I have no interest in stopping it. London mewls, then jumps on the bed, demanding to join the celebration. She hates being left out.

Xander pulls away, “Now, for the wedding date.”

“What about it?”

“How about tomorrow?”

We both laugh as our lips meet again.

Epilogue 2 - Xander

Five years later

You know that feeling where you love someone so much that you’d kill for them, but sometimes, you want to kill them?

Those tiny moments where you want to strangle them while you fuck them.

This is one of those times.

Those thoughts have never stopped swirling in my head since the company dinner we had at Ronan’s house.

And now, Kim is walking by my side, interlacing her fingers with mine as if nothing happened.

We’ll see about that.

I enter the code to the apartment, and she goes inside first.

“I’m craving something to eat. What do you think we –”

Her words catch in her throat as I pull her by the arm and slam her against the apartment’s door. I grab both her wrists and shove them above her head.

She gasps and her green eyes fill with excitement so tangible, I can feel it over the black rage swirling in my brain.

“What were you doing back there, Green?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

She’s provoking me on purpose and fuck if it isn’t working. I yank her dress up, then my trousers and boxers down.

She bites her lower lip, her tits rising and falling heavily against my chest.

“You don’t know, huh? Because it seemed to me you were allowing that fucker from accounting to flirt with you before I kicked him out.”

“I was?” Her eyes widen with mock disbelief.

I lift her up by a hand under her thigh and she doesn’t need an invitation as her legs wrap around my waist.

“You’ll pay for it, Green.”

“I will?” she whispers in my ear.

I slam inside her so hard, my balls slap against her arse. Fucking fuck. She feels so right – so damn right.

She moans aloud as I fuck her hard and fast against the door. The bangs and the slaps of flesh against flesh echo in the silence.

Thankfully, for the neighbours’ sake, the apartment is soundproof.

Kim’s groans fill the air and her mouth opens in that wordless O.

“You like provoking me, Green? You like how I pulled you out in front all of them, claiming you as mine?”

“Yes,” she whimpers as I hit her sensitive spot over and over again until she’s screaming my name.

I follow her soon after, the force of my release knocking us both cold. Her head falls against my shoulder and she stares up at me with that dreamy, utterly pleasured smile.

“I love it when you don’t hold back, Xan.”