He laughed. Praise Baby Jesus, she had missed hearing him laugh.
“What are you doing in there, anyway? I’m dying of thirst over here,” she said, craning her neck to see what he was up to.
When Vann returned to the busted futon, he was carrying a tray in his hands and had a devilish grin on his face.
“What is that?”
He set the tray down in front of her. “Something a bit better than beignets.”
“That’s the wedding cake! What did you do? You can’t just—“
But he shushed her with his lips. “It’s the scraps. I found them in your fridge at the restaurant. And a bowl of your leftover buttercream.”
“Oh, sorry. I should know better than to assume you’d cut into the wedding cake,” she said sheepishly. “This should be good, I hope.”
He was curious. “Haven’t you tried it?”
She shook her head. “No, oddly enough, I haven’t.”
He picked up a chunk of lemon raspberry cake and fed it to her. “Now,” he said, “nobody should serve anything they didn’t taste themselves.”
It was good. Better than good. She closed her eyes. It was the best cake she’d ever tasted.
When she opened her eyes, Vann’s hand was wrapped around a piping bag full of icing.
“I’m not much for cake. But I love frosting. And if my nose is correct, you’ve made white chocolate buttercream. Don’t tell me, let me guess. Here, get rid of that blanket.”
He yanked the blankets away, exposing her breasts. GiGi felt the heat building again. They had fucked three times today already, and she was ready to go again. Whatever it would take to keep him here.
He twisted the piping bag and with the metal tip dripped some of the icing onto her nipple. GiGi gasped in surprise and moaned when her lover latched on to suck off the sugary stuff.
“You’re crazy, and I love it,” she sighed.
“Lie back,” he instructed.
“No argument here,” she purred. Vann proceeded to twist and grip the bag again. She felt the cool icing tickling her ribcage, and she smiled as he used his teeth and tongue to clean her off. “Hey, I want some of that.”
Vann set the bag down and teased his fingertips over her lips. One by one she took his fingers into her mouth and licked off the icing. “It’s good,” she said. “I’m gonna have to throw these sheets away after the butter stains, but this is hot.”
“I’ve been thinking about nothing else since the moment you said you were making the cake. I’ve been waiting almost four months to eat icing off of your gorgeous tits. But I’m glad I had to wait because I have one more thing…”
He sat up and picked up the piping bag one more time. This time he twisted it tightly and gripped it in both hands to trace something along her thigh with precision.
“What are you doing, decorating me? I thought you didn’t like cake decorating,” she teased.
He laughed. “Just hang on, and may I remind you that you are far more delicious a canvas to work on than cake?”
“Charmer.”
He finished and said, “Done.”
She sat up and looked down at her leg. All up her thigh were three piped cursive words, framed in beaded icing border fancy enough for a wedding cake. It read, “Marry me, Peaches?”
A better, more apropos proposal she could not have invented herself. Beyond that, a better mate for life she could not have designed. Finally, after a lifetime of waiting, she was saying yes to something that made her happy and was just for her.
Chapter Nineteen
Vann
After leaving the rehearsal dinner early to check on preparations for the next day, Vann kissed GiGi goodnight as she walked him out of the café.
“Don’t work too late tonight. You need your rest for the wedding tomorrow.”
“I won’t,” she said.
It had been a while since Vann had set foot in his own titular restaurant, but as expected, everything was under control. Vann had one less thing to stress about on the day of the wedding. Not that he had anything to stress about ever, as he hadn’t picked up a knife himself since he’d cooked for GiGi on their first date. He gave last-minute instructions to the staff and left. This whole event would be a piece of cake. After all, he had the resources to hire enough people that he barely had to do anything but give his head chef the menu.
It was only 10 p.m., so Vann went for a walk. It was a beautiful night. The humidity was mercifully mild, and he didn’t feel like he was walking through a swamp with every step.
In this familiar neighborhood where he had started his first restaurant, nobody stopped to ask him for an autograph. It was refreshing.
Vann decided to make the walk extra-long tonight and go check on GiGi. Even though he’d begged her not to, he knew she would be freaking out right now over the cake.
Walking back toward her café, he was having this feeling of total contentment that he had never felt before in his hometown. He owed everything to this city, and yet he could not deny himself the opportunity to leave and see the world. But being home for the wedding was changing something in him. Or maybe GiGi was changing something in him. He liked being close to his pack, and not just at the full moon, where he was safe to undergo the shape-shift. He felt like perhaps he could settle down here and make a life with GiGi. If that’s what she wanted.
As he rounded the corner, he could sense something wasn’t right. He felt it in the air as he approached her café.
GiGi
Her fingers were cramped as she sculpted her ninetieth ivy leaf out of royal icing. She still had to do sugar butterflies on top of
