“While you do the eggs, I’ll get the dumpling wrappers started. They’re just flour and water.” He poured flour into another bowl, then added water and started kneading.
I inexpertly cracked the eggs and managed to get most of them into the bowl with only a few small puddles on the counter. Then I grabbed the whisk.
In spite of our agreement, the kitchen was still sizzling with sexual energy. The tension felt like a lit fuse, burning toward something unknown. It set me on edge.
Sticking the whisk into the egg mixture, I whipped it around too vigorously and bits of egg flew everywhere.
“Hey!” Kade tried to rub a blob of egg off his face with flour-covered hands, and turned it into a sticky smear. “What are you doing?”
“Whoops.” I wiped my splattered cheek against my shoulder. “I guess I’m making dumplings on your face.”
“Oh yeah?” He flicked flour off his hands at me. “Now you have dumplings on your cheeks.”
“Wait, you need something to go inside your face dumpling.” I threw a slice of green onion. It hit his nose and bounced off.
“Hey!” He grabbed a mushroom and lobbed it. Though I ducked, it still hit my forehead. And when I straightened, a second mushroom bumped off my glasses.
“Oh, that’s it, you’ve done it now. Get ready for a full face dumpling.” Maybe I was channeling my frustrated lust into a thirst for messy vengeance, but I was all too willing to go with it. Sticking my hand into the bag of flour, I grabbed a fistful.
“Don’t you dare,” he warned, advancing on me. “Put the flour down, or pay the price.”
“What price?” Without waiting for an answer, I threw the flour over his rapidly advancing face.
Coughing, he grabbed my hands, wrestling the flour away from me. His body hit mine, pushing me against the counter. He was bigger and stronger than me, and when I tried to push him away, I found I couldn’t.
“You asked for this,” he growled.
“Asked for what?” I gasped as he picked up the bag of flour. “No. Wait!” He emptied it over my head and I spluttered and coughed, trying to blink flour out of my eyes. My searching hand found the bowl of eggs, and I dipped my hand into it, then smeared the eggy mixture down the front of his shirt.
“You’re going to regret that,” Kade’s voice was low and dangerous.
I felt my flour-covered glasses lift off my nose. Then Kade pressed his body against mine, holding me against the counter. His palms stroked my cheeks, brushing away flour. Blinking the last of it away, I opened my eyes to find his face close. The gray of his irises had darkened, and his expression sent heat jolting into me.
Without my glasses, distant objects had a soft, fuzzy focus, made worse by the clouds of flour drifting in the air. But close up things were relatively clear, and my vision was plenty good enough to see that Kade was looking at me as though I was a delicious dumpling and he was about to eat me.
My heart thudded.
I lifted my egg-covered hand to his neck and dragged it across the smooth skin below his ear. My barely thought-out goal was both to cover him with slime, and more importantly, to keep him against me and not let him escape. To slide my hands behind his neck and bring his lips to mine, with force if necessary. He couldn’t look at me like that and walk away. No way, not again. This time, he’d be the one paying the price. A look that hot demanded action.
“Nat,” he whispered, bringing his perfect mouth so close I could taste my name on his lips. “You’re so damn beautiful, you drive me out of my—”
“Shut up,” I panted. “Unless you’re going to kiss me, you’d better—”
His eyes narrowed. “You’re right. Abstinence isn’t working.”
“Then just do it,” I begged. “Let’s get it out of our systems. Please Kade, I can’t stand it.”
“Fuck it.” His voice was full of gravel.
Then his lips found mine.
He was demanding, his mouth urgent, his tongue forcing its way in. His hands were behind me, pulling me hard against him. But I didn’t want to be against him, not if he was wearing clothing. I pulled back to fight his T-shirt up. I had to touch his skin, to feel the ridges of his muscles, and this time nothing would stop me from tearing his clothes off—
A loud sound came from somewhere close.
Dimly I realized it was the front door opening. Voices came from the hallway. Asher and Iola’s voices.
Kade wrenched away from me, pulling his T-shirt back down. He grabbed a wooden spoon off the counter as he turned to face the intruders, like he thought they’d assume he was innocently stirring something. His hot look dropped away, and he composed his features into a blank expression that reminded me of Asher’s emotionless mask.
My heart stopped its desperate thudding as though it had been injected with lead, sinking low in my chest instead. I swallowed hard, mostly to keep from screaming at Asher and Iola to go away.
A moment later, they walked into the room, stopping in the entrance to gape at us. At least, Iola gaped. Asher, as usual, barely registered any surprise.
“What—?” Iola’s question was a single word on a sharp intake of breath.
I grabbed my glasses from the counter and jammed them on. Then I took them off again to try to wipe the film of flour onto my filthy T-shirt. Even without my glasses, I could see the kitchen looked like what might happen if an earthquake and a tornado got together for a buffet lunch.
Asher shook his head. “Kade, when you like a woman, you’re supposed to get her flowers. Not flour.”
Kade rolled his eyes, pointing his wooden spoon at Iola. “I blame you for Asher’s new liking for puns. You’re a bad pun influence, but at least yours
