No Funny Business (The Lennox Brothers Romantic Comedy)

This is it. Take it or leave it.”
“May I call you next week?” I asked desperately.
“Only if you’re going to be in Chicago, ready to start work on the first of the month.”
There was a knock on the café's door. Kade was outside with several bags of groceries. I promised to call my boss back if I managed to sell the café quickly, and hung up.
“Hey,” Kade said as I let him in. “Good job with the cleaning. It doesn’t smell bad in here anymore.”
When he brushed past me, my chest squeezed like it was trying to turn my heart into juice.
In the years since we’d broken up, I’d expected every other chef I met to smell as good as he did, and been woefully disappointed. But Kade’s skin was somehow infused with the most mouth-watering cooking scents. He made me think of butter sizzling in a frying pan, and maple syrup poured over fresh waffles.
And how could he get more good looking every single time I saw him? It was impossible, right? But I kept noticing things about him that made him seem sexier each time. Like how easily he carried four bags in each hand, the muscles in his forearms looking ultra defined as they flexed with all that weight.
I followed him into the kitchen and ogled the muscles in his arms while he set the bags on the counter.
“What are you going to make?” I asked, although my mouth was already watering.
“Dark chocolate and pomegranate cookies. A summer cake with fresh raspberries. Coconut butter cupcakes. And…” He shot me his irresistible smile. “Pickle cake.”
His playful look was so knee-weakeningly sexy, it was amazing he didn’t leave a trail of collapsed women behind him wherever he went. If we were going to cook together, I’d have to have to work on building up my immunity. Either that, or keep a chair handy.
“Pickle cake?” I repeated.
He reached into one of the grocery bags and pulled out an enormous jar of dill pickles. “Trust me, you’ll love it.”
“Okay, pickle cake it is. How can I help?
He lifted his eyebrows. “Have you brushed up on your baking skills since I left?”
“I’m afraid not. But I’m completely at your service tonight, ready to obey your commands.” My cheeks warmed. “I mean, your cooking commands.” I closed my eyes for a moment, shaking my head at my own awkwardness. “You know what I mean.”
He chuckled. “Either way sounds like fun.”
His flirtatious tone made my cheeks even warmer, so I picked up the pickle jar and pretended to study it.
Why did he have to be even more swoon-worthy now than when we were dating?
“What’s my first job?” I frowned at the label a moment longer before putting the pickle jar back down.
“We have six different recipes to bake, and it’s what, four o’clock already? If we don’t want to be working all night, we’ll need a system.”
He sounded enthusiastic about the idea, like he was enjoying himself.
“What kind of system?”
He flicked both ovens on to warm up. “You measure the ingredient quantities, I’ll sift, beat, fold, and mix.”
“Deal.” I pulled some freshly-cleaned mixing bowls and other baking equipment off the shelves. Thanks to my hard work, the entire kitchen gleamed even more than normal.
“Where are the recipes we’ll be following?” I asked.
“In here.” He tapped his head. “Let’s start with the cookies. First step is to melt the butter. Shall we say…” He tilted his head, his gaze drifting to the ceiling. “About five sticks of butter should be enough.”
“You don’t have an actual recipe to follow?”
“No recipes. These are new creations.” He grinned at my doubtful expression. “Don’t worry. They’re based on existing recipes I’ve made before, with small changes here and there, like swapping out an ingredient with something more unusual.”
“Are you sure that’s a good idea?”
He stepped toward me, his expression going serious, and put his hands on my forearms. “Nat, if selling the café is what you need to do, I won’t do anything to jeopardize that.”
I nodded, my heart thumping. With his face angled down to mine, and his body so close, my heart had decided it was the perfect time to perform some kind of interpretive dance with a sharp, erratic rhythm. It was hard to resist the urge to bring my nose closer to drink in his delicious scent. As a nuzzling location, the base of his neck looked particularly tempting.
I swallowed. Hard.
“I trust you.” The words came out as a hoarse whisper.
“Good.” His gaze softened, the light gray of his irises turning warm. “This is going to be good for both of us.” Then his dimples came back. “I know women hear that promise from men all the time, but I actually mean it.”
I snorted a laugh, and he let me go and turned back to sorting the groceries. As soon as his gaze was off me, I clutched at the counter for support. My knees would never survive an entire night of the legendary Kade charm. Especially because I couldn’t help but recall his outstanding talents in the sack. And though it was almost a decade since he’d last made love to me, I’d bet my entire four-hundred-page serial killer novel he was every bit as good as I remembered.
“Five sticks of butter,” he repeated. “Softened but not melted.”
“Definitely softened,” I agreed under my breath. “And melting fast.”
“What did you say?’
I reached for the butter and held it up. “I said, I have it right here, chef.”
“After we mix the dry ingredients, we’re going to fold in eight eggs. But we’ll need to be gentle with them. We’ll stroke them into the mix so softly, they’ll barely know it’s happening.”
“Stroke them softly,” I murmured to myself, wishing I was one of those eggs.
“A sprinkle of sugar, enough to make the cookies melt on the tongue.”
“Melt on the tongue.” I sighed wistfully.
“And I’ll shave some pure, dark chocolate on top, each sliver so thin it’ll be like a gentle kiss.”
“A kiss?” I blinked, then narrowed