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She blinked away the tears gathering on her lashes. “I love you, too.”
And she did. Like, with her whole damn chest and all the gooey parts inside of it. It was the most liberating feeling she’d known and the happiest confession she’d ever shared.
“Oh, thank the mages,” he breathed against her mouth before claiming it with a leashed ferocity born of separation and uncertainty. Their tongues melded in a dance that had become familiar and whole, where no part of her was a stranger to no part of him. There was a wild tameness to the act, as though their joining needed to establish roots again before it could grow wings.
It was more than enough when their souls could take it from there.
When they finally parted, she beamed up at him. “You know, it’s a good thing you showed up.” She nodded down at her dough ball. “I was just about to make spinach knishes, and it’s a two-person job. This puppy needs to be spread tissue-paper-thin across this whole counter, and two hands aren’t enough. Or maybe I should put a Help Wanted sign in the window.”
Brass’s smile tickled her cheek as he nibbled a line of kisses along her jaw. “Well, I know a guy. Kind of broody. Definitely the silent type. Prefers cleaning to cooking. But he also knows a great chef in Latvia who can give you a few pointers. The chef’s name is Georg. I can introduce you when we check out the tasting menu he’s going to prepare for us when we visit.”
The squeak that reverberated through all the kitchen’s stainless steel was enough to trigger a mild earthquake. “A tasting menu? Really?”
Brass wiggled a finger in his ear, trying to let some of the sound back in. “Yeah. Just give me a date and it’s all yours.”
Molly sighed against his mouth, placed one final lingering kiss there, and wrapped her arms around his neck. “I’m yours. Always. I love you.”
Then he held her to his heart, and she smiled against every answering beat. “Now that’s the kind of magic I can get behind.”
Epilogue
Several Months Later - The Spring Equinox
Wood-roasted chicken and charcoal-braised lamb perfumed Aurora’s downtown with the sweet steam of the annual Spring Swing Festival, the greener and more grill-friendly version of its winter counterpart. For Molly, the festival signified many things.
One, Chunky’s Churros was now offering its spring flavors, including her absolute favorite, lemon curd. And two, it was the confirmation that she’d never work another festival again. Kind of hard to twist her arm on the subject when she was still hobbling around on sleepy sex limbs after a certain angel convinced her that lazy Sunday mornings were better spent in other ways.
Brass in her bed and the automatic start set on the coffee pot were quickly becoming an addicting combination.
Yeah, she wasn’t mad about it. Especially when, once they finally made it out the door, he’d promised to acquire her the crown jewel of the festival. The pièce de résistance. The Holy Grail of gastronomic acquisitions. The?—
“Dumplings! Two o’clock! And the line isn’t long yet. Oh my gosh oh my gosh!” Molly tugged on Brass’s arm as if it was an air horn in an eighteen-wheeler and started dragging two hundred and ten pounds of muscle through the unsuspecting crowd. “Excuse us! Coming through!”
By the time Molly’s heels had skidded to a stop at the end of a food truck line six customers deep, she finally allowed herself to inhale. And oh Lawdy, was she happy she did.
“Breathe with me, Brass. We’ve reached Mecca. C’mon, in through the nose, hold it for a two count, then exhale.” Her eyes fluttered closed as she allowed the scents of the Dumplin’ Buggy, the once-a-year spring festival proprietor of the most delicious dumplings to ever have been hand-pinched, flow over her. “I can already taste the choices,” she said to Brass, still with her eyes closed. “Sweet chili oil, soy-marinated chicken, maybe some sort of hoisin-sweet potato-ginger combination.”
“If I didn’t know any better, I’d say someone scouted the joint before we came over here,” Brass remarked.
She smacked his deliciously hard abs. “Quiet, I’m trying to work out their theme. And no one says scouted the joint anymore, not since N.Y.P.D. went off the air.” Molly inhaled again, smacking her lips. “There’s just one more flavor I’m not nailing down yet. Szechuan peppercorns, maybe?”
“Try jalapeño and cream cheese with a spicy chili aioli.”
Molly’s eyelids swung open. “Yes! Wait. How did you?—”
The sly grin that had gotten Brass’s mouth in trouble more times than the words that left it tempered Molly’s fury when she saw the four Styrofoam cartons balanced across his ridiculously strong and apparently heat-resistant forearms. Nestled within each tray were perfectly pinched pillows of rice flour dumplings. Their seared little bottoms sat on top of lush beds of green seaweed and sticky rice and were drizzled with glistening sauces and hefty chunks of vibrant scallions.
In other words, four little palate orgasms.
Brass held out a set of paper-wrapped chopsticks and, knowing better than to try and find a free park bench, marched Molly and their haul back to the sanctuary of her closed-to-the-world (for a day) restaurant.
Once they’d tucked into their treats, after no fewer than a dozen porn star moans elicited on Molly’s part, she looked around at the small space she’d carved out for herself and how different it would look in a few weeks. “I bet Amelia likes dumplings. She strikes me as a dumpling lover.”
“Who doesn’t like dumplings?”
“No one I’d ever invite to my birthday party, I can tell you that much. If it was up to me, I’d have a dumpling-shaped birthday cake.”
Brass chuckled into his napkin. “Filled with dumplings?”
