Page 166 of My Brother’s Best Friends Entanglement

Zachary growls, "I'm aware I'm doing it wrong, Marcus, thank you."

"Hey," I say, and wrap my arms around him from behind. "You're doing fine." I kiss him on the neck, breathing in his scent mixed with cinnamon and flour. He pulls me closer and turns his head to give me a kiss that seems to calm him. I help him get the rest of the ingredients into the bowl, then, with both hands over his on the whisk, help guide the motion slower, steadier. "Like this. Gently, and with your wrist. You're not arm wrestling it."

"Oh." He goes very still under my hands, all the flustered chaos draining out of him at once. "Oh, that's — yeah. Okay. I can do that."

"Of course you can," I whisper, hugging him from behind, loving the feel of his body against me.

"Hang on," Marcus says, from across the island. "Why does he get the hands-on tutorial?"

I roll my eyes. "Because he's having trouble with his eggs and I was worried he was going to cause someone grievous bodily harm with his whisk."

Zachary pokes his tongue out at Marcus but keeps stirring, somehow managing to keep the bulk of the ingredients in the bowl... but not all of it.

Marcus puts his hands on his hips and pouts. "I could be dangerous with a whisk. Nobody's given me the chance. And eggs are hard for me too!"

“I just watched you crack four with one hand and not spill a drop or have to fish out a single piece of shell. You don't need help."

He stands there for a moment, staring, as I help Zachary add a pinch of salt and wipe down the bowl.

Then he sighs dramatically and flops onto the kitchen bench, head in his hands. "This is soooooooooooo hard. I think I need some help." He looks up at me with big pleading eyes. “Moral support. That's a kind of help." Then he straightens up, abandoning his own bowl, wiping his hands down his apron as he crosses the kitchen to us. "Please come over there, I need you to watch me fold in the mix."

I lean over. "There's nothing to fold yet, you haven't creamed the butter."

He blinks and looks down at Zachary's recipe sheet, which Zachary snatches away and hides behind his back.

"Fine. Then come supervise the creaming. What if I do it wrong and waste all the butter?"

I roll my eyes and whisper some more encouragement to Zachary, who gives me another flour-puff kiss on my cheek before I leave.

"Go on then," I say, and let Marcus lead me back to his section of the bench. He pushes me against it, grinding against me as he tucks his face into my shoulder from behind, his arms coming up around me, one hand grabbing his bowl.

"It's better if you watch up close, babygirl," he murmurs against my ear, then drags his tongue down my neck. I shiver and press back against him, feeling his hardness against me. "Do you like my creaming technique?" he asks, as I let out a little moan, one hand sliding down to graze my thigh.

"No one is going to want to eat your porny banana bread, bro," Rhys says from his end of the counter without even looking up.

"Shut up, it's going to be delicious, just you see," Marcus calls over, forgetting all about me and focusing on whisking the butter into a pale consistency, face all furrowed in concentration.

Rhys comes over, pushes Marcus out of the way, and in one movement hauls me over his shoulder to carry me back to his station.

"Rhys!" I shout, unable to look away from the unique view I have of his arse.

He lowers me onto the bench which, unlike the rest of the kitchen, is pristine — the only place I could sit without an arsecheek full of flour. He braces his hands on either side of me as I wrap my legs around him, my arms around his neck, as he kisses me deep, his tongue soft and warm in my mouth, and I'm glad I'm sitting.

"I needed you, too," he whispers against my lips, and I can't help but let out a long, satisfied sigh. I don't get to stay too long — soon I'm back over, helping Zachary fold his batter, gently, under, over, turn the bowl, don't knock the air out of it, and he's concentrating so hard that his tongue's poking out the corner of his mouth like a kid doing long division. But then Marcus is back, wedging himself in on the other side of Zachary, inch by inch, until he's standing right next to me.

"My turn!" he declares.

"You don't need a turn, you've been fine all night," I say with a laugh.

"I've been fine because I'm talented. That doesn't mean I don't also deserve attention." He dips his finger into Zachary's too thin batter and makes a face. Behind him, Zachary makes an offended noise and flicks a small handful of flour at the back of Marcus's head.

That's the moment it all collapses like a soufflé.

Marcus retaliates with a handful of flour at Zachary's chest; Zachary dodges, pulling me with him, but not far enough — it catches me square in the face. Within seconds the kitchen descends into full gastronomical warfare: flour, mashed banana, and a cup of sugar all airborne at once. I'm laughing too hard to defend myself, taking cover behind Rhys while Marcus hurls a banana that catches Zachary between the arsecheeks, and Zachary turns the sink spout on him in retaliation.

Rhys, through it all, calmly works on his own loaf, and it's not until I catch him mid-motion — tipping an extra spoon of salt into Marcus's abandoned bowl while nobody's looking — that I understand he engineered the entire distraction on purpose.

"Rhys."