No Attachments - By Tiffany King Page 0,45

hand. Smiling, I opened my door and almost changed my mind when a freezing gust of wind swept in the vehicle. "Holy shit, it's colder than a witch's tit out here," I complained, grimacing as the rain drove down on me. I continued to curse as I rounded the vehicle only to find Ashton already headed toward her front door.

"I would have carried you," I said as she bounced from one foot to the other.

"It's okay," she said, shivering.

I unlocked the front door as quick as I could and propelled her inside. Unfortunately, it wasn't much warmer in the cottage than it was outside. "Where's the thermostat?" I asked as she stood in the center of the room shaking from head to toe.

"My room."

I bumped up the heat until I heard it kick on, and then dropped the small box on her nightstand before proceeding to the bathroom. I got a hot shower started before going back out to collect Ashton.

She was right where I had left her, still shaking like a leaf on a windy day. "Come on," I said, pulling her toward the bathroom. A wall of steam greeted us when I opened the door. The warmth draped our cold bodies like a blanket. Ashton's eyes were heavy with exhaustion from the night's events. She was leaning heavily against the closed bathroom door and looked ready to drop.

"Take off your clothes," I said as I pulled at my own clothes with numb fingers.

"I'm really not in the mood," she joked. Her lips were a pale blue and her frame was shaking out of control.

"Very funny," I said, reaching out to help her when I saw the cold had rendered her fingers useless. I stripped off her muddy sweater and the long-sleeved t-shirt she had on underneath and then deftly unfastened the button of her jeans.

"I can do it," she said, standing in her bra and jeans in front of me with teeth knocking together.

I pulled off my own muddy jeans as she struggled to remove her own. Finally, after a few false attempts, she stood before me, pale but beautiful in only her delicate lace bra and her barely-there panties. Had we not been frozen and blue from the cold, I could have stared at her forever without ever tiring.

"I knew you were a boxer-brief kind of guy," she said in an exhausted voice as I stood in front of her.

"I'm going to get you in the hot shower to warm you up and then you can sleep," I said, pulling her toward the shower as I followed behind. As we stepped into the shower together, I adjusted the setting so we wouldn't be scalded and then pulled her in my arms under the cascading flow of water. The shaking of her body seemed to intensify for a moment before she sagged against me, sighing as the warmth began to penetrate her freezing limbs. I turned her against me so she could hold on without falling. I lost track of how long we stood under the stream of hot water. Before the temperature of the water could change, I finally forced myself to move. Reaching behind her, I unclasped her bra and pulled back slightly so it could slip off her arms. I willed myself to not to look, but I couldn't help sweeping my eyes down her body, taking in her puckered perky nipples before crushing her back against me. Controlling my body's reaction to holding her topless form was a mammoth task that I was failing at miserably. She was practically asleep on her feet, which made my arousal seem almost dirty. Feeling slightly embarrassed, I finally looked down to see if she was aware of my response. I was shocked to find her looking at me with full awareness. I smiled apologetically. "Sorry," I said, no longer able to hide the evidence of my desire pressed against her.

"For what?" she asked, leaning forward to lick a bead of water off my collarbone.

"For wanting you this badly during a pretty shitty time."

"So we took a boat ride in the rain and froze our asses off. The before and definitely the after make up for it," she said as I squeezed soap on the washcloth. Keeping my eyes on hers, I slowly began to wash the last traces of mud from her body.

"I'm not sure those were muddy," she said in a hitched voice when I ran the washcloth over her breasts.

"Just trying to be thorough," I