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“Merry Christmas, Maggie.”
“Merry Christmas, Archie,” I breathed, my blood already heating at his nearness.
Jeez, better get him inside before I start tearing off his clothes in the middle of the hallway...
He was just leaning down to capture my mouth with his when I grasped the front of his sweater, fisting the fabric and dragging him inside the apartment. Once the door was safely closed behind us, I tilted my chin up and smiled invitingly at him.
He leaned down once more, gently urging my lips apart with his tongue. I sighed, grasping the sides of his neck, burying my fingers in the masses of his glossy black hair.
The kiss deepened and probably would have evolved into something more rather quickly if I hadn’t become aware of an object bumping against my hip as Archie palmed my waist.
“What is that?” I panted, drawing back and looking down.
A shiny crimson bag was at my hip, its twine handles looped over Archie’s wrist.
“Ah. This. It’s for you,” Archie said, handing me the bag.
I took it, surprised by the heft of whatever was inside.
“Well... Should I open it, then?” I asked, my hands squeezing the bag and making it crinkle.
“I believe that is the custom,” Archie said teasingly, his eyes glittering.
I rolled my eyes, smirking at him, before lowering my gaze to the bag once more. Big white tufts of grindle tree starch paper concealed whatever was inside. Taking a breath to steady the sudden flutter of nerves in my belly, I yanked the paper out, letting it fall in a floating cascade, like snow around our feet.
My breath caught as my eyes snagged on the gift inside.
Long, smooth, cylindrical, and fashioned from the same dark wood as the door of Archie’s pub and the sign above my shop, the rolling pin was a work of art. It had two graceful handles, and as I removed it carefully from the bag, I noticed it was carved with a similar design to the pub’s door. Berries, flowers, and blades decorated the length of the rolling pin, which meant those designs would be imparted on the pastries or cookies I made with it.
“Archie... This is stunning. Thank you.” I barely choked out the last words. Man, I truly am becoming a sap. My eyes burned with tears that I blinked back.
“My grandmother had one just like this,” Archie said softly. “It’s still in the kitchen at the pub. In all honesty, I was thinking about giving you that one. But it’s so old now, and worn, and there are a few knicks in it. Plus, Penny said she’d beat in my brain-bowl with the thing if I tried to take it out of the kitchen.” His hands came up to cover mine, cradling the rolling pin. “So, I made you this one, instead.”
“You truly are a man of many talents,” I said, in awe that he’d been able to make both the sign for my shop and this,by hand, so quickly and with such care.
“I have to be,” he replied, “to be worthy of you.”
I smiled tearily up at him and then laughed.
“Well, now I feel like my gift is so, blah! Spoiler alert, it’s more of those tight Hadorian cotton shirts you like so much. I know that, despite your best efforts to be half-naked all the time, some of them got paint on them.”
“Anything you chose for me will be perfect,” he said, caressing my knuckles with rough fingertips. “And, if the gorgeous scents in this kitchen are to be believed, I hope I am not too presumptuous in assuming shirts are not the only gift?”
“Oh, no! Come over here, check this out!” I transferred the rolling pin to one hand, quickly realizing it was too big to hold that way. I tucked it under my elbow, pinning it to my side, and used my other hand to lead Archie into the kitchen.
“So, I made Penny tell me what you’d actually like. I hope she didn’t screw with me this time,” I said, casting my eyes over the food on the counter, my gaze turning critical.
Archie’s eyes were drawn as if by magnetic force to the chocolate torte.
“Thank the moons, for once, she played no tricks,” he said, leaning down to the torte. While he closed his eyes and sniffed the chocolate dessert with a primal sort of appreciation, I turned and took the roast duck out of the oven, placing it atop the stove.
“This needs to rest a bit. Are you hungry, though? I guess you just finished work. I see you got out of closing duties.” I realized then that it was only a little after midnight, and the pub had been due to close at midnight.
“No, I made the call to close early.” His eyes roamed my face. “I had somewhere to be.”
He leaned his hip against the counter. Good grief, the orc was tall. The counter was waist-level for me, but hip-level for him.
“I am hungry, though,” he said, his voice low.
