Page 143 of Knot That Serious

Eli did. She found a recipe online, and followed it fairly closely. By the time she’d mixed all her wet ingredients, Jack was done zesting the orange, so she traded the bowl for her phone.

“What’s next?” she asked.

From years of experience, she knew what was next. Even if she’d never baked this recipe before, she’d baked plenty of brownies, so she could’ve made it work. But Jack liked to have a job, too, and it was more fun when he could participate.

“Stir in the cocoa powder, cake flour, all-purpose flour—why do you need two different flours?—and salt.”

Eli chuckled. “Each flour does something different that makes the brownie bake the way you want it. You know this.”

“I know. I don’t see why they don’t just sell a different type of flour for each baking product.”

“Well, then you’d have to have ten different types of flour on hand if you wanted to make multiple desserts. Imagine if we needed ten bags of ten different kinds of flour at the bakery.”

Jack snapped his mouth shut. “Okay, I see. I should stop talking.”

“No!” Eli said, and whirled toward him, pointing the measuring cup at him. She hadn’t finished pouring, and the white powder dusted Jack in a slash from his hip to shoulder. Eli froze, mouth dropping open.

Jack was still, too, and glanced down slowly at his white-splattered shirt.

“Oops,” Eli said, taking a step forward and staring at the measuring cup as if it had betrayed her. “My bad.”

“Well, if you wanted me to take my shirt off, all you had to do was ask,” Jack drawled.

Eli swallowed as he reached up and grabbed his shirt with one hand by the back of the neck and pulled it off.

She should turn around, probably, but she was incapable of doing little else but stare. Eli had seen Jack shirtless plenty of times over the years; it wasn’t a big deal. Normally she could appreciate his physique with a distant sort of admiration.

But that was before they’d spent her heat together, and she remembered just how those abs tightened when he was close to or—

“I was saying,” Eli began, voice higher-pitched than normal. She turned to face the mixing bowl again. “That you didn’t need to be quiet. You don’t ask stupid questions like you think you do.”

“Oh,” Jack said softly. Then he laughed. “Well, now I feel silly for taking my clothes off.”

“What!” she spun, half-expecting Jack to be standing buck-ass naked in their kitchen. But much to her relief, he was still only missing the shirt, and still seated on the counter.

“Made ya look,” he teased.

Eli rolled her eyes, cheeks flushing, and turned back to her bowl. “You’re ridiculous.”

“You love it,” he returned, a playful bite to his voice.

After humming doubtfully, her hands were only a little shaky as she finished measuring out the dry ingredients, trying not to think about just how true his stupid words were.

“Wanna help?” she asked, and motioned for him to come closer.

He neared without saying anything, and she held out the bowl of dry ingredients to him. “Just pour a little when I ask.”

“Got it,” he said quietly, voice rumbling by her ear. She scooted over to make room for him and motioned for him to add the dry mix.

He shook about a cup’s worth in, and then Eli got to mixing. The batter grew thicker as everything was incorporated, until only the tiniest bit of dry mix remained in the bowl.

“The rest,” she said, and lifted her bowl towards his.

His wrist twitched, and Eli was suddenly covered in a dusting of flour from wrists to shoulders. She stilled, lifting her gaze from the bowl to Jack, who was grinning at her all lopsided and cute. “Jack!” she hissed.

“Oops. Now you have to take your shirt off, too,” he said. She knew he was kidding. Heard it in his voice, saw it in the twitch of his lips.

And a very loud part of her was shouting what are you doing but another part was downright giddy at the way surprise filled his features as Eli shoved the mixing bowl to the side, reached up, and yanked her dusty shirt off.

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