Free No strings attached by Alison Kent Page A

closing the refrigerator door. After all, she’d always wanted to act out her own food fantasy à la 9½ Weeks.
    Eric briefly took in her additions to his enticement, then leaned his backside against the counter, his hands curled over the edge on either side of his hips, his feet crossed at the ankle. “Strawberry shortcake?”
    Chloe took more than a slight pleasure in the labored rise and fall of his chest. Eric was doing his best to appear calm and collected, at ease, but she wasn’t fooled. His hunger was stirred, and the terry wrap at his waist no longer lay flush against his thighs. His excitement was evident, and Chloe’s belly clenched and released. Her thighs grew warm and heavy.
    She reached for the can of whipped topping, shook it longer than required. But then the point of taking her time was not about ensuring the texture of the cream as much as it was about making Eric wonder and wait.
    She squeezed a dollop onto her finger, then licked it clean with the tip of her tongue. Her gaze remained locked with Eric’s as she repeated the process, only this time she offered the dessert to him.
    He parted his lips and she dragged the flat of her finger down his tongue, leaving the sweetness behind. His eyes flashed at the contact, and again as she returned her finger to her mouth to lick it clean.
    She moved closer, putting her body directly in front of his. Wetting first her top lip, then the bottom, she finally squirted a shot of the creamy froth into the bowl of her curled tongue. She pressed the cold foam to the roof of her mouth, where it melted at the contact with her body heat.
    “Mmm,” she hummed, and held up the nozzle toward Eric. He stuck out his tongue; she swirled a small peak onto the tip. And then, while the cream dissolved in his mouth, while his gaze remained focused on hers, steady and fixed, yet simmering, she shook the can again and drew a half moon over his chest, from collarbone to collarbone.
    The chocolate syrup came next.
    She squeezed a pool into the hollow of his throat. It ran down to spread out over the thick ribbon of cream. He hadn’t moved. He’d done little more than pull in a sharp breath at the first cold contact, but the tic in his rigidly held jaw, the pulse at his temple, his fingers tightly wrapped around the countertop edge were all Chloe needed.
    She knew by looking into his eyes what she’d see if she dropped her gaze down his torso to his groin. But she didn’t. Instead she moved another step closer, keeping her eyes on his and bringing their bodies within inches of touching. Then she took up the largest strawberry she could find.
    She dipped the point of the fruit in the chocolate pooled deeply in a bowl of creamy white. The chocolate topping was thick, but it wasn’t minutes from separating under the weight of the sauce. She grinned as she circled the plump end of the fruit with the tip of her tongue, the motion ripely suggestive, especially when she sucked off every last drop of chocolate.
    The veins in the back of Eric’s hands, the tendons in his arms stood out in bold relief as he maintained a death grip on the countertop. Very nice, she thought and, her eyes at a sultry, sleepy half-mast, she pulled the fruit from her mouth, dragged it through both cream and chocolate and offered it up to Eric.
    The same fruit she’d had in her mouth and teased with her lips and her tongue.
    He bit into the meat, nipping lightly at the tip of her finger, which she then ran over the seam of his lips, down his chin, his neck, teasing the slight bulge of his Adam’s apple before sliding through the hollow of his throat and breaking open the dam of cream.
    Chocolate syrup ran down the center of his belly all the way to the terry wrap at his waist. She hooked her fingers over the Velcro and tore it away.
    Eric’s breath caught hard and he nearly choked on the fruit, but he managed to swallow. He also managed not to move, but to stand there naked without saying a word. Oh, how