I bit my bottom lip, smiling so wide it hurt.
My legs had been carrying me back to the bathroom to continue getting ready, but my heart pulled me in another direction.
I took off in a slight jog, running up to Logan and grabbing his face in my hands. On my tippy toes, I closed my eyes and pressed my lips against him. He melted into me as I did him.
Our lips brushed in such a tender, gentle kiss that seared this moment into my brain forever. When we pulled away, Logan’s eyes were still closed, but he carried a hint of a smile.
My heart was so full of love and longing that when I stepped away from him, I didn’t take my gaze off him until I was tucked back into the bathroom.
30
LOGAN
Iplanned the night before she kissed me. The fact she did made it that much sweeter.
Dinner reservations at a seafood spot right on the beach, followed by a walk at sunset. Ellie deserved to be reminded just how special she was, how a man should treat her.
At first, I put it together hoping to lift her spirits. To remind her she was loved, no matter how loud the noise got in her head.
But after that kiss… everything shifted.
Her lips on mine weren’t anything I could’ve prepared for.
She was lightning.
My pulse, my breath—everything was at her mercy the second she wrapped her legs around my waist. Holding her like that, tasting her for the first time, had been the highlight of my year.
There’s no world where I ever forget the first moment Ellie Cassidy kissed me.
I’ll be old and gray, sitting on a creaky porch swing somewhere, still thinking about the way she made me feel.
The urgency in her lips.
The way she tasted.
The way my hands fit against her skin like they’d been made to hold her.
“Dinner was amazing,” Ellie said beside me, her arm looped around mine as we walked away from the restaurant toward the beach.
The sun had already started dipping toward the horizon, casting soft, warm light across everything. We were right on time to catch the sky burst into color.
“All-you-can-eat crab legs? Count me in every time,” I said with a laugh.
She grinned up at me. “All-you-can-eatanythingand I’ll be first in line.”
We reached the edge of the sand, and I bent to kick off my shoes, glancing up as Ellie did the same. We carried them in our hands as we crested the dune, the crash of the waves echoing ahead of us like a rhythm only the two of us could hear.
Gone were the sounds of families, kids squealing, beachgoers bustling.
Now it was just the tide, the breeze, and her.
“Wow,” Ellie breathed, her voice soft with awe. Her smile was so bright it damn near knocked the air from my lungs. “That is stunning.”
Texas sunsets were always beautiful, casting their fire over the mountains and spilling golden light across wide-open fields.
But this?
A beach sunset, the way the sky melted into the water, light dancing across the surface like it knew it had an audience?
