Chapter Nine
Wyatt hummed softly as he rolled up his sleeves to knead, feeling as though the show was going well today. He hadn’t screwed anything up, conversation was flowing easily between him and Kai… he could do this. If this was what it was going to be like, he could absolutely handle it.
At the other end of the counter, Kai chuckled. “You just rolled your sleeves up, didn’t you?”
Wyatt raised an eyebrow. “How’d you know?”
“A soft sigh ripples through the audience every time you get your forearms out,” he said. “I think they like them.”
When Wyatt glanced over, Kai was grinning to himself. This time, though, he was ready for it. Hell, now that he knew to expect it, having Kai compliment him—in his roundabout way—was even nice.
“I think that means we should get to see yours, too,” Wyatt responded, scraping his brioche dough out of the bowl and dumping it on the floured countertop.
Kai turned to look at him, eyes wide.
Wyatt smirked. They might have agreed to a truce, but he could get a little of his own back. Besides, if this was about their respective sex appeal…
“Come on,” Wyatt said, a murmur of agreement from the audience backing him up. “Sleeves.”
Kai sighed, setting his knife down gently on the cutting board. He stepped back, long, elegant fingers unbuttoning the cuffs of the deep navy shirt he was wearing.
The wardrobe department kept putting him in blues and greys, which were a good look on him. Clearly, they’d figured out that people didn’t watch cooking shows just for the food.
Wyatt wasn’t sure they watched for the food at all. Not with someone like Kai working methodically and elegantly, his satin-smooth voice explaining every step along the way. Wyatt was going to have to catch up on his old shows.
For research purposes, obviously.
“I’d just like to state for the record that this is a bad idea when you’re working with anything hot that might spit at you,” he said, cuffing his first sleeve efficiently and then moving onto the next one.
Lean, corded muscles moved under his smooth skin as he worked. Wyatt’s mouth was suddenly dry.
A wolf whistle from the audience snapped him out of staring, and he turned his attention back to Kai’s face, grinning broadly even as he wrestled with a surprising spark of arousal coiling around the pit of his stomach.
It was just a forearm. This was stupid, but…
Wyatt had known, intellectually, that Kai was attractive. That wasn’t in dispute. He was pretty, with delicate, elfin features, and his eyes sparkled when he smiled, and he was tall and thin but not… gangly, or anything. He had shoulders broad enough to make his frame look balanced, and Wyatt was just realizing that under his clothes he was all skin and muscle.
This was the first time Wyatt had felt attracted to him, though. All because he’d rolled up his goddamn sleeves.
He was way too bi for this.
“I think they like it,” he said, forcing himself to focus on pretending to drool over Kai instead of actually drooling over him.
Wyatt went back to his bread, ignoring the way the tips of his ears were burning.
“The trick to getting a nice, soft brioche dough is kneading the hell out of it,” he explained, figuring that if he concentrated on what he was doing, he could stop thinking about Kai’s forearms.
Or the rest of him.
Hell, what would his thighs look like?
Wyatt couldn’t risk a glance right now, but his brain was happy to give him a full-color artist’s impression of exactly how Kai would look naked.
“Which is why your forearms are so much more impressive than mine,” Kai said. “I’m not made for kneading.”
“I dunno, I think they liked your forearms,” Wyatt said, looking up at the audience.
Well, the bright lights in the general direction he knew the audience was, anyway.
“What do you guys think? Cheer if you’re into Kai’s forearms.”
The cheer that roared up in the audience was loud enough to make Wyatt blush, and he wasn’t even the one being cheered for. When he looked over at Kai—definitely not looking at his thighs, definitely not looking at his thighs—he could see him blushing even through the half-inch of makeup they’d slapped on him.
He really didn’t need it. If anything, he was prettier without. He probably rolled out of bed looking incredible.
Wyatt swallowed.
He really didn’t need to picture Kai in, near, or on a bed right now.
“Next week,” he began, forming his ball of dough and putting it in a bread tin. “You can have him in a t-shirt. Even if I have to peel his shirt off myself.”
Wyatt realized what he’d said a moment too late, and glanced over again to see Kai just looking at him, eyes wide.
He’d gone too far. After all the crap he gave Kai about making him uncomfortable, now he’d done it.
“I’d like to see you try,” Kai said, the barest hint of a smirk playing around his lips.
The thing was, Wyatt would also have liked to see himself try.
Not that he planned on making a move or anything. It was no big deal, really.
Kai was hot. He’d known that from the beginning. It just seemed a little more obvious right now.
“Yeah, well, we’ll see,” Wyatt said, wanting to distance himself from the conversation. He set his brioche dough aside and covered it with a clean towel before turning back to the audience.
“Now, if you make this at home that needs about an hour to rise, and then you’ll knock it down again and let it rise, then bake it. Instructions are on the website, like always, but no one wants to watch bread rise for two hours, so I’ve got one I made earlier,” he said, grinning.
He loved saying that.
“So we’re gonna cut this and fill it with strawberries and cream, which is perfect for a summer picnic,” he said, heading to the fridge.
Wyatt worked in silence as Kai explained what he was doing, pouring cream into a bowl and slicing strawberries carefully. He wasn’t quick with a knife like Kai was, but he could just about manage to cut up a few giant strawberries with a paring knife without putting his fingers in too much danger.
“Those strawberries look amazing,” Kai said once he was done explaining, while Wyatt was sprinkling balsamic vinegar and sugar over the ones he’d cut up.
“You can have one if you want,” Wyatt said, nudging the remainder of the pack over.
“Both my hands are occupied,” Kai responded. He sounded genuinely disappointed by that.
Wyatt hesitated for a second, an image flashing in his mind that made his stomach flip.
It was too much, on the one hand, and he’d already come close to crossing a line today.
On the other hand, Kai wanted a strawberry, and Wyatt wanted ratings. They both wanted ratings.
Why the hell shouldn’t he play this up? They’d agreed to it, after all, and it was clearly working.
Wyatt picked out a nice, fat strawberry and rolled it in sugar, holding it by the end and then heading over to offer to Kai, holding it up to his lips.
Kai’s eyes widened, and he turned just a fraction to look at Wyatt. There was a moment where Wyatt wasn’t sure he wouldn’t refuse, but then he parted his lips, took most of the strawberry in his teeth, and bit down, separating the flesh from the core expertly with just his mouth.
He made a soft, happy noise, closing his eyes as he chewed and then licking his lips.
Wyatt’s mouth was dry all over again.
It was completely unfair that he’d been given a co-host who could just… radiate sensuality as easily as he could breathe.
Another wolf whistle from the audience, followed by laughter, snapped Wyatt out of staring at Kai again. Whoever was doing had done him two favors today.
He got the feeling it was Donna. She’d taken to watching the shows being filmed from the audience.
“I could get used to you hand feeding me,” Kai teased, though Wyatt could see him blushing again, too.
“You wish,” Wyatt responded, going back to his brioche with his heart pounding in his chest.
Fine. Kai was hot, and he was kind of into him now that they weren’t fighting.
That didn’t mean he was going to say anything about it. They were just flirting for ratings, and enjoying it was okay.
It didn’t have to mean anything at all.