"Coldcoldcoldcoldcoldcoldcoldcold-"

Judy heard Nick coming long before he actually arrived at the door, and opened it for him to spare him having to wrestle with the keys. He staggered in, soaked to the bone, and dropped the cooler bag he was carrying just inside the door. Judy rolled her eyes at him and pointed towards the bathroom, where she had run a nice, hot bath. Nick stared at it for a moment, then started stripping off his soaked clothes.

"-coldcoldcoldthanksjudyyou'rethebestcoldcold-"

It was a miserable day outside, with freezing rain pouring down and drowning out all ambient noise. Knock-on effects from the broken weather controller about a week and a half ago now, the news was saying. A whole lot less violent than the storms when it was offline, but still enough to make Judy glad that it was her and Nick's day off. And then Nick had decided that what he really needed was some blackbean peppers. And Judy had idly mentioned that she could really go for some spring rolls, and next thing Nick was psyching himself up for a trip into the pouring rain.

Judy had thought it was ridiculous, but it was also harmless. The weather wasn't bad enough to be dangerous and Nick could take care of himself. So she had smiled tolerantly and allowed him to fulfill whatever primal need he had to provide food. Also, she really wanted those spring rolls.

And now he was paying the price for his foolhardiness, as his soaked shirt hit the bathroom for with a splat and he started to wriggle out of his pants. Judy averted her eyes out of habit, then remembered that they were more or less past that now and ogled him out of the corner of her eye. Moments later he was completely naked and he slid into the water with an almost obscene moan that trailed off into a gurgle as his head slid beneath the water. After a few moments he surfaced again, gasped a couple of breaths down, and leaned his chin on the edge of the tub, his eyes half-closed in bliss. "Judy. You are the greatest." She smiled at him and turned to go busy herself with paperwork while Nick indulged himself, only to be interrupted. "There's room enough for two in here, you know."

Judy paused without turning, biting her lip in thought. They'd never been fully nude in front of each other, not quite. All of Judy had been on display at one point or another, between their drunken encounter a week and a half ago and her recent penchant for sleeping topless, and she'd seen most of Nick at one point or another from ogling while he got changed or from moments ago when he had gotten into the bath. But to be fully exposed was a fresh threshold. Excitement shot through her as she considered it, and she couldn't find any reason not to. She trusted Nick to not go further than she was ready for, though in the heat of the moment she doubted there was much he could do that she wouldn't be ready and willing to try.

She turned, and she took in Nick's expression, anticipation and desire and hope. Still biting her lip, she played with the top button of her button-down shirt. "Would you like some company, Nick?"

Nick nodded eagerly, his chin tapping against the edge of the bath. "Yes. Absolutely. Very much so."

She took a step towards him, unbuttoning the top two buttons. "Would you like MY company, in your bath, without any of my clothes on?"

Nick's nodding increased, his eyes wide and his expression almost goofy. It was endlessly endearing to see him staring at her with that expression of desire, verging on worship, and it did wonders for her self-confidence as well. She took another deep breath, considering - this would, she knew, be a perfect time to turn away and say something like 'too bad' to tweak his nose a bit, but she didn't have it in her to crush him like that. She continued to undo the buttons of her shirt while she approached the bath, and reached the edge of it just as she was undoing the bottom button. The bath was built for polar bears but was partially inset into the floor, so the edge was just low enough for Nick's nose to be level with hers, and she took advantage of this to press her nose into his, and his eyes locked onto hers. Taking advantage of his distraction, she slipped her thumbs under the waistline of her pants and panties, and slipped them down her hips with a single deft motion, letting them drop to the floor. She saw Nick's ears twitch in her peripheral vision at the noise, and his eyes widened even further, but he still didn't take his eyes from hers.

"Oh, wait!" She wasn't about to crush his dreams, but she could tease him with the possibility of doing so. She turned and sauntered away, an extra little sway in her hips, and she knew for a fact that Nick's eyes had fallen to where her tail protruded from below her shirt. She grabbed the bag by the door and held it up without turning to keep from fully displaying what her near-nude state was hinting at. "Can't have this getting cold. Shall we eat in the bath?"

"You know how I said you were the greatest? And the best? I take it back. You couldn't have been. Because you just got even better."

Judy couldn't stop herself from smiling at his praise, and walked over to the fridge, smiling wider at Nick's whimper as she left his line of sight through the bathroom door. She collected a bottle of wine - they'd started to buy new bottles of the blueberry wine they'd both developed a taste for as they ran out of the ones Fru-Fru had supplied - and took it over to the doorway. "A nice drink with dinner would go well too, don't you think?"

"Judy," Nick said, a playful growl in his voice. "If you keep teasing me, there's a very real risk I'm going to chase you around this apartment and get water everywhere."

Judy approached Nick again, noting how his eyes flicked downwards to get a glimpse of all of her through her open shirt before returning to her eyes, and dropped the wine and bag by the side of the bath. "Is that supposed to dissuade me?" Nick growled again, and she shivered in delight. "Then again, it would be a pain to clean up..." She slipped her arms out of the shirt's sleeves and let it fall off her, standing bare in front of Nick's gaze.

She stood there for a long moment, letting Nick drink in the sight of her and in turn drinking in the expressions that flitted across his face, but she couldn't stretch out the moment too long because the chill of the apartment was starting to penetrate her fur. With an easy hop she jumped to the lip of the bath, and then dived in, pointing her arms so that her sleek body barely made a splash. In an instant, the chill of the air was replaced by the deep, penetrating warmth of the water.

She let herself float for a moment in sheer bliss, before turning in the water and seeking out her partner. She found him standing on the stairs at the edge of the bath, and took a moment to take in her first mostly-unobstructed view of his bare body, but couldn't linger for too long without running out of air, and she also noted that the uppermost one making a suitable seat and the second one just deep enough for Nick's head to be sticking over the edge of the bath when standing on it. She swam towards him, pointing herself at his chest, and her powerful legs let her dart into his chest and push him back onto the top stair. She took a double-pawful of his chest fur to support herself and pushed her head up and into the air and took a breath before nuzzling herself into his neck, pressing her entire bare body into his.

She disengaged her muzzle and they kissed, gently and sweetly, floating freely in the water. They continued doing so for some time, but Judy could tell she didn't have Nick's full attention. When she broke off for air, she saw his nose sniffing away - which was normal, but normally they weren't neck-deep in water, so he couldn't be smelling her. When she sniffed the air, she could smell a hint of the Chinchillese food he had brought home. She frowned.

"You've got a compliant doe in your arms, and you're thinking about food?" Nick averted his eyes, a conflicted look on his face, before Judy realized something. "Or is that a thing for you? Do you want to see me eating the food you provided?" Nick's gaze returned to her, and she could read the gratitude in it. She ahh'd understandingly, and turned to the side of the bath. She took a moment to come to a decision and her more daring side won, and as she bent over the edge of the bath to reach for the bag, she made sure she was at an angle to give Nick the best view, and she could tell by the sudden chill on her nether regions as they were exposed to the air that there was nothing to obstruct his gaze. She straightened up again and balanced the cooler bag on the edge of the bath, pushing it over to the shallow first step where they could sit and eat, noting Nick's shellshocked expression with pride.

He finally found his voice, and answered her question. "I was thinking of it all the way home. It's... kind of silly, I know, but the thought of you eating the food I'd brought home just... felt really right."

"The big strong predator providing for his mate, hmm?" Nick nodded, embarrassed, and Judy unzipped the cooler bag and fished around inside it, taking out the small plastic tub full of spring rolls, which radiated heat into her paws. She peeled the lid off and plucked one out, watching Nick's eyes locked on her face, and took a bite out of the crispy fried surface of the roll, mmm-ing in appreciation. She did genuinely really like spring rolls, but she was playing it up a little for Nick's benefit. A look of satisfaction spread over his face, and he pulled her into his arms, and she had to lift her arms out of the way to keep the rest of the roll from getting dunked in the bathwater. "Niiick!"

"I can't help it. You're too precious."

"You're just saying that because I ate your spring roll."

Nick laughed and let Judy loose, and sat himself down on the top stair. "Did you know that was going to sound as dirty as it did?"

"Absolutely!" She laughed and licked the entire remaining length of the spring roll. "Mmm, your spring roll tastes sooo good Nick." He laughed and shoved her, and she barely managed to pop the spring roll in her mouth before she lost her balance and fell backwards into the water. She surfaced again, chewing furiously and glaring at Nick, and he just laughed harder.

"I had to stop you before you turned my weird instincts about food into a full-on fetish."

She rolled her eyes, but had to concede the point. That would be a weird one to have to work around. She paddled back up to the top step, sat herself down, and accepted her tub of spring rolls as Nick got his blackbean peppers out. "Did you get chopsticks?"

"Never figured out how to use them. Never had to, either." He popped the top of the container off and, demonstrating, he speared a pepper with a claw and popped it into his mouth.

"Good thing you're already in the bath, that'd make a huge mess."

"That's half the fun of take-out."

The rest of the meal was fairly mild, apart from a little bit of glances back and forth at each other's bare bodies. They snuggled afterwards, and despite Nick's appreciation for her nude form being quite obvious, they decided in a murmured conversation not to go any further then and there - being full of Chinchillese food made them too content and sluggish for further sexiness.