“It’s fine.” It wasn’t. “I didn’t notice.” He had. He cleared his throat. “So, what is the first step in these chocolate cupcakes?”
“Triple chocolate,” she corrected with a wink.
Ember took a sifter and a container labeled flour. She showed him how to sift the flour through it, gently and without a rush. She even explained the step that seemed so unnecessary.
“It makes all of the difference,” she assured him. “It makes the cakes fluffier and lighter.”
“Good to know.”
Once all of the dry and wet ingredients were mixed and then combined, Ember helped him line the muffin pans with parchment cups. She gave him a trick to scoop the batter into the cups: an ice cream scooper. It was as simple as it was genius.
“The only issue with this batter is that it’s quite dense.”
“Especially with all of those chocolate chunks,” he said, his mouth salivating at the thought of all that melted chocolate.
Ember showed him how to center up the pan in the oven to ensure each cupcake was baked at the same heat level. While they were baking, making insanely delicious smells waft through the studio, she taught him to make the chocolate buttercream icing. She demonstrated how to pour ingredients, her hands going to his to adjust his movements whenever necessary.
Kai wouldn’t admit it to anyone who asked, but he was purposefully messing up so that Ember had to touch him. He never wanted the baking lesson to end. Even if it meant that he wouldn’t get to eat the baking cupcakes.
“Now that the icing is done, all we have to do is wait for these babies to cool.” Ember popped each cupcake out from the pan and onto a cooling rack. “It won’t take very long. Just thirty minutes or so. Then I’ll show you how to pipe the icing on using one of these.” She held up a clear bag that was crowned with a plastic tube holding up a metal tip. “I like making the cupcakes look like roses, but there are about a million different ways to pipe on icing. Really, all you need is practice and a steady hand.”
“So, what do we do while the cupcakes cool?” he asked, leaning against the counter.
“We clean,” she answered with a smile. “Do you prefer washing or drying the dishes?”
“Chef’s preference,” he said, echoing her smile.
God, it was so easy to spend time with her. It wasn’t a date, but Kai sure would have liked for it to have been one. Ember was sweet and kind. She was funny and beautiful. She was all kinds of things that made him want to flat out tell her that she was his mate.
That wouldn’t be right.
It was too soon. She didn’t know him, and he doubted she even knew what shifters were.
“You look deep in thought,” Ember pointed out as she dried one of the many measuring cups they had used. “I hope you’re not plotting a way to put those delectable treats in a freezer somewhere.”
He chuckled, shaking his head as he ran a bowl under hot water. “No, I have learned my lesson. I was just thinking about how fun it is to bake. Not nearly as tedious as I would have expected.”
“Cupcakes are pretty easy. If I had shown you how to make something else, like pies or tarts, you would have run for the door.”
He wouldn’t have. He could have promised her that, but he didn’t. “What got you into baking?”
Ember shrugged. “I honestly have no idea. It all started when I was a kid. It was way too young for me to remember, but all I wanted to do was bake by the time I was six. My parents were pretty sure that it was only so that I could eat the treats, but it was more than that. My mother was busy. She’s a chef turned food critic, so she worked a lot of weird hours when I was little. Then she had Sparx and Cinder, my sisters, and time with her was even more spread out. But she would find time to bake with me. It was our time. My sisters were too young to participate, and besides, they had no real interest in the kitchen. When we were baking, it was just Mom and me. I loved it.”
“That does sound pretty special. Do you get along with your sisters?”
“Oh, of course. They’re my best friends, but we’re all so different. Sparx is an actress, and Cinder is a makeup influencer. They’re both pretty glamorous.”
“You’re pretty glamorous yourself,” Kai heard himself say. And he meant it too. “You create these wonderful things. That is impressive.”
Ember’s laughter was music to his ears. “Oh, please. You haven’t even tasted the cupcakes yet. I could be horrible, for all you know.”
“Doubtful, if you got onto this show.”
“You got on,” she pointed out.
“Only to protect you,” he said, the air around them turning electric.
Her beautiful brown eyes were full of light. It made Kai’s heart clench. He would protect her with his very last breath; he knew that to be the truth.
“Let’s ice the cupcakes,” Ember said, heading toward the counter.
There was a pretty blush on Ember’s face. Kai was desperate to know if she felt the same level of attraction he did. The way her body moved around him, the way she smelled, everything indicated that she did.
But she was keeping her feelings close to the vest. Probably because she was a human who didn’t understand that they were mates. Not yet, anyway.
Ember piped icing onto a few cupcakes before handing him the piping bag. He tried one but failed. He pressed too hard, the icing came out with an unattractive and comical splat. The next one he tried wasn’t so bad until he got to the end. Overzealous, he pressed down too hard again, squeezing nearly half of the icing onto the one tiny cake.
“You’re holding it wrong. Look, like this.” Ember nudged his arm until he lifted it so that she could step into his side. She closed her fingers around the piping bag, holding it with both hands. “Put your hands on mine,” she instructed. “I want you to feel the movement.”
His cock jumped at attention from having her so close to him, especially when she had said those words to him. Feel the movement. He wanted to know what it would be like to feel her move against him while he fucked her.
Or made sweet, slow love to her.
He would take both. He would take either, so long as he got to feel her.
“See?” Ember said as she moved them through the motions. She guided him to another cupcake, then a third. “I think you can try it for yourself now. Just remember. Go soft and easy. The icing wants to be on the cupcake. Let it go where it longs to go.”
Kind of like his cock. It knew where it wanted to go.
Trying to tamper down his lust, Kai clenched his teeth down hard in focus. He moved through the movements slowly, barely pressing on the icing to get it out of the bag. Once he was done, he looked at the completed cupcake.
“I didn’t push hard enough.”
“That’s right. It’s a fine balance. You’ll get the feel of it, eventually. A lot of baking is about feeling. Like when you add cinnamon at the very last second when mixing a cake, it turns a simple recipe into something completely new and dangerously delicious. You’ll get the hang of it. And besides, you know the cameramen won’t be zooming in onto your creations. So you’ll be good.” Ember grabbed the spatula she had used to scoop the icing into the piping bag. “Now, for the fun part.”