A second later, Levi’s arms wrapped around my waist. His breath was warm against my neck as he whispered, “You look beautiful.” His hands settled on the white lace of my dress.

Turning around, I pretended to fuss with his black tie. “I was wondering where you’d gotten to.”

“How long are you going to stand here?”

“Until someone asks me if I’m the model. A few minutes ago a woman behind me kept talking about the sketch, and I was silently willing something about the back of my head to nudge her in the right direction.”

Levi’s lips stretched in a laugh, and he gently bumped his nose against mine. “Do you remember the cave?”

The memory of our first kiss brought a warm smile to my face. “Like it was yesterday.”

“Me too,” he said, touching the back of his neck in a bashful way that I found absolutely, indescribably hot.

The exhibition was a huge success, admiring out-of-towners and locals alike packed into the art center gallery. Statues were scattered around the room: men and women sculpted to scale, and abstract and geometric metal floor pieces and wall art. Some artists had opted to display their work on easels, while Levi had arranged all his watercolors together on the wood-paneled wall.

My own face smiled at me from the canvas, radiant in its happiness. Blonde hair spilling over sun-kissed shoulders, eyes alight with the kind of pervasive happiness that only an artist could capture. My face looked almost three-dimensional, the fine, precise brushstrokes both curving and harshly defined. The colors were subdued, except for the eyes. The eyes—my eyes—looked like a novel condensed into one page, like they’d leeched and muted the pigment from the rest of the canvas. They’d swallowed it all up.

“I love it,” I told him. I would have said more, but his mouth cut me off as it landed over mine. It was a slow, sweet, languid kiss. I breathed in the scent of his skin, the pine and toothpaste smell that made my nose tingle like I was about to sneeze.

By the time we pulled away, a little out of breath, and a lot smiling, I had the ridiculous urge to say Thank you.

“Sorry.” Levi rested his forehead against mine. “I just really wanted to do that.”

I tilted my lips up for a soft kiss, nibbling at the V of his upper lip. Every time he leaned forward and tried to capture my kiss, I moved, inching butterfly kisses over his lips.

“Don’t apologize,” I said. “I love kissing you.” I wrapped my arms around his middle and pressed myself close. I hugged his warmth to me, his soft shirt rubbing against my cheek. A whiff of light, woodsy cologne brushed my nostrils.

His breath hitched. My heart began a frantic thumping, fast as children’s exuberant feet as they ran themselves to exhaustion.