I never want anything else but this.
Ever.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” Logan grunts, bringing me out of the haze. His growling, animalistic noises, the slap of his sweat-soaked skin against mine, the creak of the bed, all fill the air, becoming a deliciously lewd symphony.
Then he lets out a long, primal moan, shoulders shaking as he comes.
The pumping slows. His grip loosens.
He collapses against the pillow, his hair damp and dark and sticking to his brow. His eyes take me in, his breath heavy and hard. “Good morning,” he manages to say. He’s still inside me and I’m still pulsing around him, the torrent inside me slowing.
“Good morning,” I tell him, breaking into one stupid, happy grin.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
By the time we finally get out of bed it’s nearly eleven a.m., and I need to get going so I can get an early start helping Johnny. With the restaurant closed yesterday and Charlie still gone, we have extra work to make up for.
Unfortunately, this means I’ll have to do the walk of shame.
“All right, let’s go,” Logan says, grabbing his keys as we walk out of his door. He locks it, then grabs my hand, the movement seeming automatic.
It takes me by surprise, even though my first instinct is to pull away, which I do once we get to the street. This is what I want but it’s going to take some getting used to.
“I’m going to head back by the beach,” I tell him.
He frowns. “Why?”
“Because I’m wearing the same dress I wore last night – sans underwear – and it’s going to look pretty obvious if we both show up together like this.”
I expect him to be a bit insulted that I won’t go back with him but a wry smile tugs at his lips. “You’re really going to take this sneaking around thing to another level, aren’t you?”
I just give him a levelling gaze.
“All right,” he says. Then he grabs me by the waist and pulls me to him, kissing me passionately. “But I’m not letting you walk off without giving you one of these,” he says against my mouth.
I’m smiling through the kiss. I can’t help it. One moment I think I can keep my head on straight, the next I’m absolutely giddy that this man is kissing me, holding me. That we can do that now, even if just in private.
Which means we probably shouldn’t be doing it on the public street where any of his neighbors could see, but he obviously doesn’t care about that.
He pulls away slowly, resting his forehead against mine, noses touching, while is hand slips down to my ass. “This isn’t going to be easy,” he says softly.
“I know.”
“Don’t forget about me.” He kisses me on the forehead.
“Don’t stop being an asshole,” I remind him. “Or people will think something’s up.”
He grins at me and smacks my ass. “That can be arranged. I’ll see you, Freckles.”
I watch as he walks down the road, past the rooster strutting parallel to him in the red dirt between the asphalt of the road and the stiff grass of the bordering properties. Large banana leaves and palm trees sway in the humid breeze, the hazy mountains rising high in front of him. I feel like the moment is going to be ingrained in my head forever, the moment where I realized that Logan has a big, big piece of my heart.
And I’m pretty sure he always did.
I literally can’t stop smiling. I turn and cut through a narrow path, bright green leaves and blooms in purple, red and yellow, pulling at my hair until I spill out onto the beach. With the golden white sand and the crystal clear waves crashing feet away onto the lava rocks, I throw my hands up into the air and grin at the sky, breathing in deep.
All this time. All this waiting. And now Logan wants to be mine in the way I always wanted to be his.
Almost.
But I shut that thought down. It has no place in today and it shouldn’t have any place in the days after this. I’ve spent too long worrying and caring about what everyone else thinks of me. What we have is worth more than that.
So I do something relatively crazy. Though the waves are strong at the reef, I come to the spot where I had my surfing lesson with Charlie before Logan took over. It feels so long ago and that feeling, that pure joy of riding my first waves, feels like nothing now compared to what Logan and I shared last night.
I can’t help but laugh, gleeful and childish, like I’m a little girl again, then I run straight for the water, jumping in with my dress on. The water feels like a bath tub, such a vivid aquamarine that even a painter couldn’t duplicate it. I swim out a little bit, enough so that my feet are still touching the bottom, and stare back at the resort, my home, a place I never ever want to leave.