I scrape the mixer bowl with a rubber spatula, gathering all the creamy butter into the center.
“Good to go.” I step aside, holding the bowl of sifted powdered sugar. Liam dips the canister, scooping out a generous heap.
A little too generous for a first churn.
Covering my mouth, I mask my gasp.
“What?” He assesses me with a wary set to his mouth.
“Nothing,” I gleefully squeak, stepping back. “Just turn the mixer on.”
“Yeah, that’s not suspicious.” He arches a brow, but I don’t give away anything more, so he shrugs and flicks on the mixer to full speed, much to my evil, vengeful delight.
A plume of powdered sugar shoots back at him as I giggle.
He blinks through the snowy mess coating his face and sticking to his eyelashes before turning his full attention to me. “Oh, I see how it is. You think this is funny, huh?”
“Revenge has never tasted so sweet.” Licking a few flecks of sugar off my finger, I savor the moment fifteen years in the making.
“You sure you thought this through, Peaches?” he asks, eyeing the bowl of powdered sugar still in my grasp. A villainous grin slowly rakes across his face.
Uh. Oh.
I shuffle my feet, juke this way and dart the other, trying to escape his clutches, but his looming figure blocks the only way out, further highlighting my lack of escape plan.
With a squeal, my rear hits the wall, and I resort to tossing sugar at him like it’s Holy Water. “No. Back, Hades.”
“You want me to be the Lord of the Underworld again?” he asks, eyes trained on mine with a playful intensity.
“No, bad.” I panic, my ever-present pokes and prods mixing with a wave of dizzying giddiness. “I want you to be the lovesick boyfriend you signed up to be.”
He cocks his head, reaching into the bowl. “This isn’t what that looks like?”
I go to block what is coming at me, but I still have the bowl and a general lack of understanding of how holding things work, and in an instant, all the powdered sugar dumps over my face and down the front of my apron.
Stunned, I blink in disbelief as a boisterous laugh rattles Liam’s chest. His eyes crinkle. His dimples pop. And I’m far too close to handle any of this properly.
“I don’t know how I thought I’d get out of this clean with you.” I huff, wiping my cheek, but my hands are coated with sugar too, so it smears more.
“Oh no. This one’s your own damn fault. Don’t you dare try to pin it on me.” He chuckles, reaching for a towel and wetting it. He turns back and wipes my forehead with it, that same dangerous mirthful set to his lips.
“Your aura made me do it.”
“My aura?” He gently wipes down my cheek.
“Mm-hmm, it’s kind of the worst.”
“And here I was thinking I was growing on you.”
“Like a fungus, maybe.”
“Like a fungus,” he repeats with a snort and a slow stroke down my chin and neck. My breath grows ragged, and I grip the bowl—the only barrier between our bodies pressing together.
The playful charge in the room shifts. He brings the towel over my lips, and my breath hitches in response.
His hand stills, his gaze darkens, frozen on my mouth.
“I find Italian mushrooms particularly palatable at times, though,” I rasp.
