0.0 || inhumation || ✓

Epilogue

Five Years Later

Poppy sat in the back of a car, dressed in a dress that was only for the princess's dreams—white gold, with hand-stitched lace from head to toe. It was one of the most beautiful pieces ever created that made the one wearing look lovely, and everyone around her looked at their best.

Poppy's head was rested on the shoulder of Sawyer Phan, her husband of just over five hours. They had taken slow to most, but for them, this is where they were destined to be. They were both a little tipsy, but then what would you expect? It was meant to be the happiest day of their life, free from complications, crime and death, just a bubble of happiness, and that is all that mattered.

So as the limo pulled up to their tiny getaway home where they would spend the next two weeks in honeymoon bliss, it was only natural for Sawyer to lift his beautiful bride over the threshold. Even holding her in his arms, the dress still trailed on the floor, but she didn't care because she only had eyes for him, and he only had eyes for her. So he took her into the house and proceeded up the stairs to the master bedroom. He wasted no time throwing her down onto the bed and kissing her. It was a slow kiss, but it was a kiss that the two of them poured their hearts into as they would become one.

However, nothing would be perfect because Poppy was wearing a costly dress at the end of the day. The thing about expensive dresses is they had a nightmare of getting out without at least three people.

So while they were kissing, Sawyer began to attempt and fail to get her out of such a beautiful thing, but him not lie to us. No matter how beautiful she looked today, he would always prefer her slightly less. So while they rolled on the bed, kissing one another, he became a little more frustrated with the lack of succeeding in his task. Poppy lying on top of him, one leg on each side of his body, smirked at his behaviour and whispered the words.

"Do you wish me to give you a hand?" He naturally declined her help because he was still as stubborn as ever and while that amused Poppy in most cases, she simply fell next to him as he would make another attempt to get her out of her over-the-top dress.

A few more minutes passed, and Poppy was once more lying on top of him, kissing him with all her might as he attempted to remove the dress; he was more than frustrated now, but he was still forever stubborn and declined her help. Poppy pulled away, sitting on his bare chest, looking down at him before saying. "You realise we are married now, which means we are in equal partnership. I can help if you wish." She says once again, but he flips her over so that she is below and he is above. Without exchanging words, he goes below her dress, kissing her thighs and playing with the little panties she chooses to wear. Without much warning, his tongue went beneath the material, and he began drawing circles with it, making her let out small moans with each movement. Just as suddenly it had started, it stopped, and he smirked at the expression of annoyance on her face. "You cannot tease me like that if you are not going to go through with such things."

"Well, I was thinking." He says, kissing the nape of her neck, causing the colour to flood to Poppy'scheeks. "Because it is our wedding day." He went to kiss the channel again, this time a profound and longer kiss leaving a slight mark upon her skin. "That we should just sit around and talk." He pulled away from her at the sign on these words, and she raised her eyebrows at the utter bullshit coming from his mouth.

"Right, we would already be having hot and steamy sex if you went such a stubborn jerk, so don't play that line with me." She said with a smile, loosely wrapping her arms around his neck and pulling him closer to her; even with the oversized, over-the-top dress, she still managed to wrap herself around him a little bit.

"But seriously, I am sorry I made you wait so long." Poppy seemed surprised by the sudden change of tone to his voice, and resting her forehead against his, she opened her mouth to say.

"Five years since we got together, that is not exactly such a long period." He smiles at her words and goes to kiss her briefly before saying.

"I feel like I let you down. Like I would have the marriage you after our third date." He says honestly, and Poppy sits up a little bit after hearing his words; he wasn't the romantic type, and she thought he was about to tear up, but he moved back from her as she sat up, and the two of them held one another gaze.

"I think that would have been terrible because we had nasty sex that night." He smiles at her words and pulls her closer to him before saying.

"you know exactly what I mean." There was a pause, and she nodded her head in understanding. One year after they got together, he proposed; most people thought it was too soon, both Jared and Nadine had tried to talk them out of such a ridiculous idea, but just as they had chosen a date, William Merrit entered their lives again. Still, it was short-lived but enough to push back their plans; William Merrit did his best to get Sawyer charged alongside Abigail and her crimes; while he never was arrested; there were times over the eight-month trial that he thought he would.  He then couldn't be the happy-go-lucky guy trying to make it in the world, and while Poppy tried to plan their wedding at every opportunity she got, he kept pushing it back until about three months ago. He was sitting in bed watching her get changed, and it wasn't that she did anything that life-changing. She paused enough to let her fingers brush over the hold cuff marks from years ago. An expression of sadness crossed her face, but she did her best to put a big smile on and get on with her day.

"I don't care." She says sternly. "I don't care. We got married, we know each other better, we went through some rather horrible things together and still come out the other end. I love you, and that is all that matter. I do not care that you lose faith because you found it again, and I love you. I will spend the rest of my life with you. You held me together in my darkest days, and I did my best to return the favour to you. So I ask you again do you wish me to help you get this dress off, or are we going to stare at one another and pretend we are okay, not screwing one another." He laughs at her words and kisses her forehead before saying to her in a somewhat defeated, not slightly sarcastic, tone.

"I suppose you can help." She smiles at his words, and without another exchange between them, they begin to give themselves entirely to one another. Thoughts of the bad times seem like a different lifetime, one which was no longer a part of their happiness ever after.

I had an issue with this story when I just hit a wall with it. I am not too happy with this chapter, but then again, it is better than nothing, and I felt I should at least give our two leads a happy ever after. I didn't mention the rest of the characters too much because I will be writing a story about Cain, and this epilogue is set after his story, so that I couldn't mention Nadine and Jared without them. I was going to write a wedding scene here but realised it gave Cains's account away. I think I get a little dizzy somewhere in the middle, and maybe I need to come back to this story and re-write the whole thing because it is a little choppy at points. I hope you enjoyed it; I'm not sure why but thank everyone for reading and voting.

Word Count = 52,488