Dirty Work - Regina Kyle Page 0,35
me over the rim of his brandy snifter. He gestures to the empty board with his glass. “Ladies first.”
“Nice try.” I smirk right back. Jake’s not the only one who’s played this game before. With my clothes on, that is. But still. “Official Scrabble rules state that we each draw a tile, and the player with the letter closest to A starts the game. Technically, we should have done that before picking our tiles, but I’m willing to let that minor infraction slide.”
Sure, I’d love the advantage of making the first move on a clean board—and earning the double word score that comes with it for covering the pink square at the center. But I’m planning on winning this game fair and square. Pun intended.
He sips his drink and leans forward, resting his strong, sinewed forearm on his thigh. Is forearm porn a thing? Because if it is, Jake could make a fortune off his. Not that he’s hurting for dough. “I thought we were making up our own rules.”
I don’t know if it’s the alcohol, the late hour or something else—like maybe he’s as turned on by this erotic, pretty-please-precoital dance we’re doing as I am—but his voice seems to have dropped an entire octave. It’s rough and slow and smoky, sending hot little pinpricks of desire shooting through my nervous system.
I adjust the pillow behind me and cross my ankles. “Only for the stripping part.”
He leans in closer, and for a long moment we just stare at each other across the board, the air thick with sexual tension. Finally, he takes another sip of brandy, sets his glass down and sits back. A Cheshire cat smile spreads across his handsome face, dotted with stubble that’s sprouted in the I-can’t-keep-track-of-how-many hours since I shaved him this morning. I don’t know what’s got me more hot and bothered, the damn sexy stubble or the thought of shaving it off him again.
“Okay. We’ll do it your way,” he says, that whole rough-slow-smoky thing making him sound like Idris Elba and ramping the pinpricks up to a steady, persistent ache.
Get a grip, girl. Focus. If you play Scrabble with your hormones and not your head, you’ll be naked in no time.
Although that might not be such a bad thing...
I pick a tile out of the bag, then hold the bag out to him.
He reaches inside, pulls out a tile, and holds it close to his chest. “You show me yours, and I’ll show you mine.”
I turn my tile around to face him with a dramatic flair. “D. As in damn hard to beat.”
He lays his tile face up on the table, and my heart sinks. “B. As in better luck next time, Nightingale. Because I’m up first.”
I grab his tile and toss it back in the bag with mine. Then I sit and wait as he sorts through the tiles on his rack, scowling and shuffling until he finally picks six tiles and lays them down in a horizontal line in the center of the board.
“Laytex. Double letter score for the X, and double word score for going first. That makes—” He does a quick mental calculation, his brow furrowing adorably with the effort of counting in his head. I give him credit, though. I’d be using my fingers. Maybe my toes, too, after the socks came off. “Sixty-four. Lose the sweatshirt.”
“Not so fast, word boy.” I hold up a finger. “Number one, there’s no Y in latex. And number two—”
I add another finger. “I decide what I’m taking off, not you.”
“Fine. I’ll give you number one.” He takes away the Y and moves the LA over a square. “But my place, my rules. And I say winner gets to tell the loser what to take off. So I repeat.”
His eyes darken to an almost inky black. “Lose. The. Sweatshirt.”
“And I repeat. Not. So. Fast.” If the intense, hotly appraising way he’s looking at me is anything to go on, I have a pretty good feeling how this night’s going to end. But I want to enjoy the journey. I add up the remaining tiles on the board, as predicted with the help of my fingers. “You’ve only got forty points. I’m not taking anything off.”
“Not yet,” Jake adds with a seductive eyebrow waggle. “But soon.”
Unfortunately—or is it fortunately?—his prediction turns out to be correct. After I score a pathetic six points with my first word—loner, built off the L in latex—he tops a hundred points with squeeze. My sole consolation is