"You used a box recipe how bad could it turn out?" Lena asks.
Kara takes a moment, pondering if she should mention the seven other boxes and failed cakes lying in the pits of her apartment complexes trash chute.
"Um, well, this one should be fine," Kara says.
Lena laughs with a smirk and raised eyebrow.
"This one?"
"I followed all of the directions and honestly what could go wrong?"
Conveniently, as she finishes that sentence they both become aware of a sinewy string of smoke drifting up from the oven before caressing the smoke alarm and setting it off.
"Oh Rao-WOW! Wow… Not again." Kara catches herself.
The obnoxious ringing makes them both jump into action. Lena grabs a towel off the kitchen counter to fan the smoke away all the while trying not to laugh and Kara quickly moves to the oven, pulls it open and goes to reach in before getting pelted in the head with something soft, an oven mitt. She looks up at Lena, still fanning at the smoke, but now shaking her head before giving Kara a pointed look.
Kara chuckles nervously, "Ha… that could've been bad…"
"Mmm, I'm sure." Lena laughs.
Kara blushes and retrieves the burnt cake from the oven, mitt on, and sighs. Lena looks over at that, expression softening.
"You know as cute as your little scrunched up nose is when you get frustrated, darling, I can show you how to bake, no muss, no fuss, no box needed."
"You know how to bake?" Kara asks.
"Well with Lex being so much older and busy with school and my model parents being what they were I spent a lot of my preteen years with nannies or the help or whoever Lillian could thrust me upon so she didn't have to bother. Some of my favorite memories of my childhood are of helping our chef, Julian, cook my birthday cake every year."
"Lena… That's beautiful."
Lena smiles sadly down at the towel still in her hand, picking at a fraying seam, before shaking her head and shrugging.
"It's something. Lillian never particularly cared for my birthday. To her it was always a reminder of the mistake I was."
Kara walks over and puts her hands over Lena's, stopping her fretting over the towel.
"You're anything but."
At that Lena looks up, sharing a long meaningful glance with Kara before she panics a little at the swoop in her chest and turns away bracing her hands on the counter and taking stock of the ingredients they have left. Quantifying numbers of eggs and cups of flower is easy it's science and it gives her escape from the wash of feelings that she's having and what they might mean.
"Anyway… Through my time with Julian I picked up plenty of baking how too, so why don't I show you?"
Kara a little disappointed from the brush off, immediately lightens up at the prospect of baking, with Lena!
"Yes! Yeah… Um I should have all the stuff and things. Yes, lets bake..."
Lena laughs, the tension in her shoulders rolling away
"Lets get to it then."
The two decide on something simple, a pineapple upside down cake, which, Kara is delighted to find out, is Lena's favorite cake. Lena tasks Kara with some simple things first, preheat the oven, find a suitable pan and open the cans of pineapples and maraschino cherries.
Then, they get to the "hard stuff," or rather the other easy stuff that when put into the hands of someone as kitchen inept as Kara, become hard. First Lena had Kara melt ¼ stick of butter to put in the bottom of the pan. Which after ¼ burnt and another ¼ that popped and went all over her microwave, Kara finally got a batch Lena deemed acceptable. They then poured that in the bottom of the cake pan and then got to work putting the allotted brown sugar, pineapples and cherries around the pan.
Not hard work but hard to watch, at least for Lena. Every time Kara would place a pineapple or cherry in the sugary mixture she would get a little on her fingers and then proceed to lick it off. Heart attack inducing material, especially when she would look up at Lena smiling while doing it, seemingly oblivious to the absolute heart palpitations she was causing.
The next part Lena does, Kara watching closely over her shoulder. Lena tries not to shudder at Kara's hot breath on her neck before showing her to mix the correct amounts of flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt into the dry mix bowl before moving on to prepare the wet mix of butter, brown sugar, egg, yogurt, milk, pineapple juice and vanilla extract and then carefully adding them both together.
Kara garnering some courage, from the obvious blush under Lena's always perfect bun, puts her arm around Lena's waist bracing it against the counter, casually pointing at the recipe asking about this and that, while hardly paying attention because who really could with that beautiful of a woman in between their arms? Definitely not her, but Kara knows exactly what she's doing.
It gives her a rush hearing Lena's breathing speed up, her heart racing and blood rushing all for her, all because of her. Yes, she's pretty terrible at baking, cooking, well food preparation in general, other than the sneaky eating she does throughout, but she isn't so dumb that she doesn't know what a tablespoon is or baking soda for that matter. But, if acting a little naïve gets Lena leaning into her, holding her wrist to show her what utensil to use and leaning back into her when she gets a right answer, well she'll play a fool forever.
Lena for her part isn't naïve either. Her heart soars as she begins catching on to the advances being made and she decides to push her luck. She finishes stirring, brings up the batter covered spoon to her lips, before turning to face Kara and giving it a saucy lick, she says,
"Do you want to taste?"
Kara, not anticipating a counter attack, especially not one like that, flushes; backing up, hand reaching up to adjust her glasses, stuttering.
"Yes…. Uh. Um no, I mean, well you just licked it, I mean not that I mind that your mouth was on it but wouldn't that be like me putting my mouth on your mouth sort of... Not that that would be a bad thing, putting our mouths together, ha, ha, what if I have to give you mouth to mouth someday or something? I don't know, um no I'm good…"
Lena bites her lip through the whole adorable ramble trying not to smile before giving pity to the flustered girl, pulling over the fruit covered baking pan, she says,
"Now all we have to do is pour this in, put it in the oven and wait."
Kara nods, thankful for the change in subject and does the final task of pouring the batter and delivering the pan to the oven.
"Okay, now we have 40-48 minutes 'til delicious cake," Kara beams.
The women head over the couch to watch some new shark documentary on Netflix that Kara had wanted to watch. Cool sharks for Kara, biology for Lena a win-win. They stretch out Kara sitting upright with her feet on the coffee table and Lena long ways along the couch with her feet in Kara's lap, only interrupted by Lena checking on the cake at the twenty minute mark and adding aluminum foil to the pan to prevent from browning.
They're not quite finished with the show when the timer for the oven goes off. Kara jumps up excitedly, pausing the doc, and rushing over to the kitchen followed by an amused and endeared Lena. Kara reaches for the oven mitt, making a show of putting it on, before reaching into the oven for the cake practically drooling at the smell.
"Oh, this smells so good!" Kara practically moans.
Lena cant help wish it was her Kara was talking about, but alas she laughs and says,
"You know we have to let it cool for ten minutes before we flip it over."
"Noooo, I want it now," Kara pouts.
"Well as head baker extraordinaire of this evening I'm going to have to say no. I promise it'll turn out much better if we wait."
Kara laments but concedes sulking her way back to the couch so they can finish the documentary while they wait. When it's finally over they both sigh in relief, Kara because its cake time and Lena because she no longer had to endure Kara's anxious leg and longing looks past her head to where the cake sat cooling in the kitchen.
They made their way to the kitchen, Kara grabbing a serving platter and Lena two small plates, and forks before coming together smiling at one another, shoulder to shoulder against the counter
"And now for the big reveal!" Kara says, giddy.
"Well get on with it then. My upside down cakes are out of this world, best in the universe even."
"Oh really. Well, I'll be the judge of that!"
Lena smirks, Kara oblivious to the bait she had just taken too distracted by flipping the pan over onto the platter, but Lena lets it go, deciding that tonight wasn't the night for that conversation.
"Well it looks good, but taste is key," Kara says, as she cuts two slices, hers considerably larger than Lena's.
Kara takes a bite, closing her eyes and throwing her head back at the taste. She can't even help herself, she moans, practically orgasms, because this cake is so freaking good.
"Mmmmmm, this is probably the best thing I have ever tasted ever. How are you so good at this?"
Lena clearly affected by the indecent sounds Kara just made, sets down her fork, stepping into her space and reaches up to wipe some crumbs off Kara's bottom lip.
"Simple really, It's just chemistry."
Her last syllable punctuated by a wink after pulling her thumb slowly down and off Kara's lip, bringing it up and sucking it into to her own mouth. Kara is visibly dazed, eyes trained on Lena's thumb still in her mouth. Lena smiles thumb between her teeth.
"What's a matter? Not going to finish your cake," Lena asks cheekily before turning back to her own, lip between her teeth now, trying and failing to hide her smile.
Kara is let go from her spell when their eye contact is lost but seeing Lena's little smirk spurs her on. Kara takes Lena's hand closest to her and reaches out for her hip with the other spinning her towards her and bringing her closer so she can push her against the counter.
"As delicious as it was, I think I'd rather finish you."
Lena laughs, while Kara flushes at her own forwardness. Lena brings her free hand up behind Kara's head pulling her so they're a breath apart and says,
"You weren't so sure about that mouth to mouth thing earlier."
Kara groans, head falling to Lena's shoulder at her teasing, Lena laughing as she turns her nose into Kara's hair whispering in her ear,
"Although my offer still stands if you'd like a taste."
Kara laughs, as she brings her head up smiling.
"I think I'd like that." She says before leaning in slowly, giving Lena a chance to back down from her offer.
Lena smiles softly holding her ground and then Kara kisses her, soft and sweet and better than any piece of cake in the universe. Their mouths slowly melded with one another's, pineapple and cherry mixing in with their own distinct flavors creating this mouthwatering combination that has them deepening the kiss for more. They break apart chests heaving, Lena smiles taking in the beautiful blue of Kara's eyes and wondering how a simple kiss could be that good, so she asks.
"How was that so good?"
Kara smiles, shaking her head a little as if to figure it out, then laughs to herself before replying,
"Simple really, we've got good chemistry."