Page 12 of Blood Sugar

I watched in awe as he grabbed a timer and twisted it to the bake time without glancing at the numbers. Pure muscle memory.

Rowen was a wonder to watch in the kitchen. Every move was precise and powerful, and the way his arm muscles flexed as he lifted heavy bowls or reached up for ingredients was disturbingly appealing.

As he worked beside me, I admired his tattoos. His forearms were covered in simple line drawings of baking utensils and common ingredients. Stalks of wheat ran down his inner arm, along with eggs and something a bit like bamboo that was probably sugarcane.

“Keep an eye on the frosting for me,” he said, steering me toward the third mixer. Peering in, I watched butter tumble around the mixing bowl, slowly mixing into powdered sugar.

“What am I watching out for?”

“Let me know when the butter is incorporated,” he muttered as he adjusted the settings on the other mixers.

When a puff of powdered sugar jumped from the mixer onto me, I tensed, waiting for a reprimand, but Rowen was focused on the baking.

Leaning into my space, he drizzled a touch of milk into the sugar and then moved to the oven to pull out the trays of cupcakes without even glancing in to see what the frosting was doing with the milk.

Biting my lip, I peered into the huge silver bowl where a massive whisk spun in a rotating figure-eight. With the addition of the milk, the grainy balls of whipped butter and powdered sugar turned smooth, and it all blended together until the frosting was a silky, creamy texture.

“You can turn it off,” Rowen said. “If it’s done.”

“I think it’s done. Looks like frosting to me.” Reaching up, I pushed the level backward, shutting off the mixer.

“We need to portion out some white frosting, and then I want to do pink, orange, and green. If we keep the pink pale enough, we can do it all in this mixer.”

I couldn’t help my frown. Doing all of those colors in one bowl seemed nonsensical, but I held the massive piping bag steady as Rowen scooped white frosting into it. His fingers brushed mine as he took the bag from me and twisted it before tying it off, leaving a tingly warm feeling behind that had me flexing my fingers.

“Look, the colors will layer just fine,” he said, reading my skepticism. He dripped a little red dye into the frosting. “This is from beets. Nothing artificial.”

Red streaked the frosting until it blended in, diluting until it was the palest pink. Again, we bagged a portion of frosting before adding another color to the bowl. I watched in awe as he added yellow until it was pale orange.

For the last color, I cringed as Rowen dripped blue dye into the bowl. There was no way it would work with the orange. But sure enough, the blue diluted and mixed with the orange to make a warm green color.

Rowen chuckled at my shocked expression as he handed me a pastry bag. His arm muscles flexed, distracting me, as he scraped out the mixing bowl so every bit of frosting was retrieved. I was so busy watching his arms, my hold on the bag wavered. The next bit of frosting he added to the bag landed partially on my fingers holding the piping bag.

“Dammit,” I muttered, feeling my cheeks heat.

“Don’t worry about it,” Rowen said, taking the bag and tying it off. “Just go wash your hands.”

Instinctively, I raised my fingers to my mouth to lick the frosting off, but caught myself at the last moment. Freezing, I glanced at my new boss to see if he noticed my almost-mistake.

Sure enough, Rowen’s gaze was locked on my fingers, and his throat worked. Despite his strained expression, he sounded composed and unbothered when he spoke. “You can try it. It’s just frosting. But wash your hands after.”

My mouth curved into an indulgent grin, and I popped two fingers into my mouth. Rowen’s jaw flexed and his eyes fell to my mouth as I dragged my fingers out, cleaning off every last bit of frosting.

“Mmm, that’s delicious,” I said, resisting the urge to flutter my lashes at him. “You make tasty frosting, Rowen.”

Hearing his name jolted the witch out of his trance. He reeled back, looking anywhere but at me. “Don’t forget to wash your hands well,” he said gruffly.

“I’ll do my best.” My grin widened. This interaction was a far cry from angry Rowen about to fire me. His cheeks flushed as he busied himself with cleaning up.

Should I be flirty with my new boss, especially when he wanted to fire me and I had to beg to keep my job? Absolutely not. But I couldn’t help myself.

He was delicious, from his thick maroon lashes to his full lips. And besides, he wasn’t totally offended by my flirting. In fact, I suspected he liked it.

“Why don’t you stock the case while I frost these?” he asked, waving his hands at the scones.

Nibbling on my bottom lip, I slid the trays of scones into the bakery case as Rowen frosted the cupcakes with sure, easy motions.

“Do you want to try?” he asked.