Was she actually supposed to punch it, or was he teasing?
“You’re already hopeless,” he murmured, his warm breath grazing the back of her neck. “First, make a fist.” She heard the smirk still in his voice as his hands folded around her right one, curling her fingers into her palm. “Then, bring your elbow back …”
“Okay, okay,” she said. “I know how to throw a punch.”
His hand coasted around her hip, settling on its soft arc. “Go ahead then.”
Emeline fisted her hand and punched the middle of the dough.
Mmmfff.
The bump collapsed.
Emeline watched it caving in on itself, slowly, like a deflating balloon. Hawthorne’s arms came around either side of her, his hands pushing the dough down, flattening it out. She smelled the forest on him, earth and moss and pine.
“Get the air out,” he said, stepping out from behind her and flipping the bowl over so the dough spilled out onto the floured table. He started tearing it into six roughly equal chunks. “Take one in your hands and tuck it into itself, like this.” He folded his dough, then rounded it into a perfectly smooth circular orb in less than a minute.
But when Emeline tried to copy his movements, hers ended up a lumpy mess that stuck to her fingers.
Hawthorne’s mouth quirked again. “You’re thinking about it too much.”
Or possibly, she wasn’t thinking about it enough. She was thinking about his hands, and how efficient they were. How they knew exactly what to do.
His forearm disappeared inside the bag. When it reemerged, his hand held a fistful of white flour. He tossed it across the table, back and forth, like gently falling snow. “Cover it with more flour, then try again.”
While she worked on her lumpy mess, Hawthorne finished his second, then third—cupping the dough on both sides and moving it in circles until it was perfectly round. He worked quickly and skillfully. By the time he finished shaping his fourth loaf, Emeline had turned her first back into a sticky bulge.
She pulled her hands away.
“I’m ruining it.”
He swapped out her mess with the last chunk of dough, then held out the bag of flour, as if to say,Again.
Emeline reached inside, grabbed a handful of flour, and threw it the way he’d shown her …
Or not.
She’d taken too much flour, and it slipped out of her fist all at once instead of sparingly. A dusty white cloud billowed up, forcing Emeline to close her eyes.
When she opened them, a white haze coated her eyelashes. Her lips tasted dry and powdery, and her button-up shirt and jeans were dusted in flour. Blinking up at Hawthorne, she found him covered too.
Emeline laughed at the sight of his dark hair speckled with white.
He raised both eyebrows. As if to say,Oh really.Reaching into the bag, he tossed a fistful back at her. She gasped as the flour hit, splattering across her shirt like a soft snowball.
A slow grin spread across her lips.This is something I can beat him at.
Grabbing the bag of flour, she hoisted it high and dumped the whole thing over his head.
It was like standing in the midst of a snow squall. The room disappeared. Emeline couldn’t see the table, or the dough, or even Hawthorne.
And then there he was: lunging at her through the white cloud. Emeline dodged out of reach, shrieking and laughing as she ran for the other end of the house. Halfway to the bedroom, he grabbed her around the waist and lifted her off the floor. “We’re not finished.”
She attempted to fight him as he half carried, half dragged her back to the table, but she was laughing so hard, she couldn’t kick her legs.
He set her down before the table. With his arm still looped around her waist, he held her snug against him, her back to his chest. Laughter softened his voice as he whispered against her cheek, “Try again.”
The brush of his lips made a warm ache roar to life inside her, and her laughter fell silent.
