Semi-Sweet On You (Hot Cakes #4) - Erin Nicholas Page 0,26
of watching this baking-auction thing? That had been her idea?
He realized that he’d been whipping the melting chocolate way too hard, and he made himself take a breath and slow down.
He glanced up at the girls in the front row. They were definitely still watching him. At least the whisking had made his arm muscles bulge. He almost laughed. He wasn’t really the flex-for-it type of guy. Except when he was giving his friends shit about his muscles and tats giving him an edge with the ladies. But hey, you had to use what you had when you were in competition. Mostly it was his intellect and stubbornness that he flexed in his job, but Piper had insisted on the t-shirt to show off his arms, so he was going to assume that was his greatest asset today. And his cookies. The literal ones.
“So once everything has heated up and is nice and firm,” Max was saying to Cam’s left. “That’s when you know it’s time to pour on the sticky stuff.”
Cam almost snorted. But they were all wearing mics so that everyone could hear their “baking” instructions. He had to admit, Max was good at the innuendo. It was partly the tone of voice he was using. And the way he was looking at Elliot, his date plant—and one of Fluke, Inc.’s best programmers—right down front.
But Max was a big, burly guy who also had muscles and tats and a beard, along with a very deep voice, and with the way he said some of the things he said, like “sticky stuff,” even the girls in the crowd who knew he was gay were watching him with interest.
“You have to be sure that everything is soft and warm and ready,” Cam agreed. “But you also don’t want to go too fast when it comes to the sticky stuff.” He removed his saucepan of chocolate from the burner and turned to the cookie crust he’d made a few minutes ago. “It’s okay to take it slow,” he said, letting his voice drop as well as he poured the chocolate over the crust. “There’s no need to rush. The firm parts and the soft parts need to come together easy.”
Max, on the other hand, did snort, the sound loud in his mic. The crowd laughed.
“I’m with you,” Max said. “Sometimes slow is the way to go. But if you get things firm enough before you even start the sticky stuff, you don’t have to be overly gentle.” He winked at the crowd. “Of course I mean the crust of this caramel crunch bar. You want that crust firm enough so it doesn’t fall apart when you’re… eating it.” That little pause before “eating it” definitely made those two words sound very dirty.
Cam loved it. Max was a ton of fun.
Cam nodded with a grin. “Though, honestly, things… coming apart…” He used that same pause and tone. “Once I get my hands on them isn’t that unusual.”
“So you… make a mess?” Max asked. “When you’re baking?” He said baking with a tone that clearly conveyed I-do-not-mean-baking.
“Hey, as long as the good stuff gets to my mouth, I’m absolutely okay with a little mess,” Cam returned with a grin.
Max gave him a nod. “I’m with you on that, brother.”
The crowd was completely with them. Grinning and laughing and nudging each other and whispering. Cam and Max were doing everything Whitney had asked—baking while making it fun and a little sexy but still family-appropriate since the innuendo would go over kids’ heads.
He glanced around again, trying to not seem obvious. Where the hell was she? She was missing all the fun. And why did he get the impression that was pretty usual for her?
He spotted her, and her ugly skirt, over by the alpaca pen.
She was choosing alpacas over watching him be funny and charming and kick ass at baking?
Well, she could run, but she couldn’t hide. Their conversation about getting back together—okay, he’d been the only one talking about that, but she’d been there—was not over.
“This doesn’t look right.”
Cam and Max glanced over at Ollie. Ollie wasn’t doing as well with the sexy innuendo and bro-banter. He had been far too preoccupied with following the recipe he’d been given. Piper had assured them that Ollie had practiced it prior, but he was clearly not a natural in the kitchen.
That made some sense. Ollie was a big-picture guy, much less concerned with details. Like the difference between a quarter tsp and a half tsp.