Page 31 of The Witch's Cottage
She turns, and the moment her eyes meet mine, a smile stretches across her pink lips.
I don’t think I could ever grow bored of that smile. It makes everything inside me warm.
“Welcome home,” I say, then laugh when her cheeks flush. “Get everything you need?”
“Yeah. Plus a little extra.” Reaching into her basket, she pulls out a little bundle of chocolate and offers it to me. “To show my appreciation,” she says softly.
I’ll never turn down chocolate, especially if she’s the one giving it to me.
“Did you put a love spell on these?” I ask as I loosen the drawstring on the pouch and pluck a chocolate from the bundle. Holding it up in the rapidly fading light, I arch a brow.
Aurora props a hand on her hip and smirks at me. “As if I’d need a love spell. Your sister told me you’resmitten.”
Now it’s my turn for my cheeks to heat up.
Aurora laughs, gracing me with that beautiful twinkling sound, and then lifts onto her toes to press a kiss to my cheek. “How’d the cleaning go?”
Before I can answer her, she sweeps toward the kitchen doorway.
And freezes.
Green eyes wide and mouth open, she turns to look at me. “Alden...”
Smiling, I pop the chocolate into my mouth. “What?”
“It looksamazing,” she whispers.
I follow her into the kitchen, where she sets her basket on the kitchen table. As if only just realizing it’ll wobble, she reaches out to grab the basket from falling, but her brows rise when the table doesn’t budge.
“You didn’t,” she says, stooping to look at the table legs. With a gasp, she jumps up and whirls to face me. “Did you fix the table?”
Again, I just select another chocolate from the pouch and smile. But the next thing I know, Aurora is throwing herself at me and wrapping her arms around my waist. The impact sends me back against the doorframe, and I laugh as she presses her cheek into the fabric of my tunic.
“It’s not a big deal,” I say. “One of the legs was just a bit short. I used some wood I found in the shed. Hope you don’t mind.”
“Mind?” Aurora says, looking up at me with her arms still wrapped around my waist. “It’s perfect.”
I smile at her. Seems I’ve been doing that a lot lately. “Does that mean I’ll get another one of these?” Lifting the pouch of chocolate, I give it a little shake.
“Oh, you’ll get more than that.” Her hand drifts down my side and across the front of my trousers. Before I can get too carried away with what she’s referring to, though, she smiles. “But that’ll have to wait. We have baking to do.”
Flashing me a sly little smirk, she whirls away to fetch her apron from where I hung it on a hook beside the back door. After slipping it over her head, she turns to face me.
“Have you ever baked before?”
“Does reheating Lydia’s cranberry crumble count?”
Her lips quirk up on one side. “No. But don’t worry, I’m a good teacher. And I don’t mean that in a dirty way, so don’t even think about it.”
“Oh, I’m thinking about it.” Quickly crossing the kitchen, I wrap my arms around her and bury my face in her neck. She smells like spring air, sage, and pine, and it makes me want to get lost in her.
“Alden,” she says with a giggle. “How about this? For every bread loaf you help me make, I’ll give you a kiss.”
“Do I get to decide where the kisses go?” I ask against her neck.
“Hmm.” Wiggling around to face me, she wraps her arms around my neck. “I suppose I could agree to that.”
With a smile, I quickly steal a kiss from her pink lips, then step away. “All right, little witch. Tell me what to do. I’ve got kisses to earn.”
