Free No strings attached by Alison Kent

after, his mouth lingering near her ear to say, “You smell great.”
    “Oh, please!” She smelled like stink and sweat. “You’re out of your mind.”
    Grinning, he shook his head, regarding her while holding the bottle in one hand, twisting the spout with the other. “You smell like fresh air and sunshine.”
    “And salty sticky skin.” She was glad, at least, that she hadn’t played in her jersey. It still smelled marginally clean.
    “You know, princess, when you were learning all my secrets during Macy’s scavenger hunt, you should’ve asked about aphrodisiacs.”
    Again he leaned in close, this time nuzzling the patch of skin beneath her ear. His breath warmed her there, where he lightly blew on her neck. Then he pulled away, winked and squirted a mouthful of water from the bottle.
    Oh, but this was so unfair. Chloe hadn’t yet recovered from the brush of Eric’s hair beneath her chin, or the smell of all that clean male skin as he’d reached beyond her for the water. And now he was teasing her, heightening her senses unbearably with a touch she knew meant nothing.
    What she did know was that she really needed to shut the refrigerator door before the food inside suffered from exposure to the room’s temperature and that of her body. But the cold air at her back was like the touch of an ice cube on sizzling skin, and she needed to ease the burn.
    When the water spilled from Eric’s mouth beforehe could swallow, when the trickle ran from the ridge of his chin down his neck to the hollow of his throat, when a single rivulet squiggled down the center of his breastbone to his belly, Chloe could barely find her voice to echo, “Aphrodisiacs?”
    “I like a woman who’s not afraid to sweat. I like the taste of salt on her skin.” Eric drank again, dribbled again, again drew Chloe’s gaze down his nearly nude body to where the terry fabric at his waist soaked the drizzle from his abdomen.
    She refused to allow her gaze to dip any lower. “You’re doing that on purpose, aren’t you?”
    “What?” He asked the question with all innocence, then poured a stream of water into the corner of his mouth, where it wet his lower lip and a whole lot more.
    Chloe wet her own lower lip with a flick of her tongue in an effort to slake her uncommon thirst. “Doing that. With the water. Like you think I’m going to clean it up?”
    He set the water bottle on the kitchen counter and tore a paper towel from the roll mounted on a silver rod set into the countertop next to the stainless steel stove.
    She took the towel he offered, thinking she was tempting fate way too much, with their obvious mutual attraction and her body being so hungry and Eric having so many qualities that belonged to Cary Grant.
    But still she beckoned him closer and, with the towel folded into fourths, patted him dry, keeping her fingers from coming into contact with his skin.
    It was hard to maintain control, especially when she wanted to touch the flesh she’d felt in the past onlythrough his clothing. She handed him the used paper towel.
    He took it, but then grinned and audaciously added, “The towel was for you. In case you needed to dry your mouth. After drinking.”
    “If you want me to clean you up with my tongue, you’ll have to provide a more appetizing enticement.” She couldn’t help herself. And even after she’d delivered the dare, she felt no need for repentance or for taking it back.
    So when Eric once again reached beyond her into the fridge and came away with the same bottle of chocolate syrup that had starred in her earlier fantasy, she didn’t say a word. She only lifted a brow and glanced from the bottle, which Eric set on the counter, to his guilelessly wicked blue eyes, before returning her attention to the contents of the fridge.
    Without a word, she added a can of whipped topping and a colander of freshly washed strawberries to the syrup sitting on the countertop. That ought to do it, she mused, breathless, finally