“Oh you cunning minx.” The Professor’s eyes glazed over for a moment, his gaze flitting from my face to my chest and down to the hem of my nightie, that barely skimmed the tops of my thighs. “First you ply me with devil juice, and now you seek to denude this sacred form?” He raised his voice, feigning offense.
“Sacred?” I rolled my eyes at him. “You’ve already seen me denude. I think it’s time to even the playing field.”
“Play? God, don’t tell me,” he said, lifting a hand to his head. “No more drinking games, please. I may never recover.”
“No. No shots.” I smiled. “Strip Scrabble. If you want to see any more of this luscious body,” I said, relinquishing the strand of hair and running my hands down my torso. “You’re gonna have to battle for the privilege.”
I leaned over the laptop, clicked open the Scrabble app on my desktop and invited him to a game. A second later I heard the invite chime on his screen.
“Oh this is it, then. We’re really playing?”
“We are really playing.” I nodded. “What’s the matter, Professor? Chicken?”
He took a large swallow of tea, swiped a hand across his mouth, and sniffed. “I’m an English Professor, Claremont, surely I can best you in a simple game of Scrabble,” he said as he clicked on the invitation to accept it.
“No doubt,” I agreed, my eyes catching his when he looked up. “I’m sure you’ll do quite well,” I ran my hands back up my torso and walked my fingers across my breasts to the tips, massaging the tingling buds till they grew hard and protruded behind the thin fabric of my nightie.
“That’s cheating,” he said, pointing at my breasts. “That’s completely unfair, distracting the opponent with…with…breasts.”
I clicked on the app, and our first set of letters appeared on the board. Then I moved my hands to the hem of my nightie and drew it up slowly till the barest hint of panties was visible. Hot pink. Satin and lace. His gaze followed the movements of my hands, then locked on my center. He licked his lips, a slow glide of his tongue over that plump lower strip of flesh. I wanted to bite that lip, to feel that soft pink heat against my own, to capture that tongue, follow it.
“Oh you are going down, Claremont!” he cracked his knuckles and his eyes met mine in challenge.
“Did I mention?” I asked, keeping my tone casual as I sat back on my heels and pulled the computer into my lap, “I’m a champion at competitive Scrabble.”
“Fuck me.”
“That’s the plan.”
* * *
“Smilets?” I stared, incredulous, at the game screen. “That is not a word!” I shouted. The Professor had just turned my seven-point word into an eighteen-point word, with just two tiles, and the aid of a double word score square. I was down to my last letter, and there were no more pieces left in our virtual game bag. I was also down to my last article of clothing. So was he. His pajama bottoms and my short nightie were the only articles of clothing that still stood between us. Honestly, despite my wailing about cheating, I couldn’t wait till we were both naked. But I didn’t let him know that. After all, a champion Scrabble player has to put up a worthy fight.
“Smilets,” he said, a smug grin spreading across his face. “Challenge it if you must, but you will lose, Claremont.”
“I am going to challenge it, this is gibberish! You can’t just make up words to get me naked, you scoundrel.” My fingers flew over my keyboard, googling for any verification of ‘smilets’ online.
“Ah, excuse me, but I hardly need to cheat, love,” he said, his voice laced with amusement. “I’m sorry if you find the scope of my vocabulary intimidating.”
“Ha! We’ll just see what the internet has to say about smilets.”
“Right, you google. I’m off for more tea.”
“Fuck,” I said as confirmation popped up on my screen.
“Oh, somebody sounds disappointed,” he called.
“Fucking Shakespeare,” I yelled back and closed the browser window. “It’s always fucking Shakespeare with you. I should’ve known.”
He walked back into view, and I had to stifle a sigh of appreciation. I could stare at that sculpted torso for hours. He was just too beautiful, with tousled brown hair flopping over his forehead, and a scruff of stubble roughening his jawline. The long elegant fingers of one hand massaged a lazy pattern down his neck and across his bare chest, while the other hand held a steaming mug of tea. He was all lean muscle and smooth skin, the epitome of masculine beauty. He grinned at me, lifted the mug to his lips, and took a cautious sip before setting it down.
“Those happy smilets, that play'd on her ripe lip, seem'd not to know what guests were in her eyes.”
“Yes, Mr. Smartypants. King Lear,” I said, rolling my eyes. “I found that quote, and Freedictionary.com has it listed as ‘a little smile’. I still think it sounds made up.”
“Well it is,” he said, sitting down. He propped his elbows on the table and leaned into the screen. “Shakespeare made up thousands of our words, many we still use today. Although I confess, smilets is not in common usage.”