And he wouldn’t tell them because somebody might tell the women and he didn’t want them getting ideas. She was about to tell him it was lame to avoid his siblings over a stupid bet when he laid down his tiles, adding a Q, U, A and an R on a triple word score space before the T she’d put down, and then a Z on the end. “You did not just use a Q and a Z on a triple word score.”
“I think that puts me in the lead.” He grinned and picked up the pencil and paper. “Never count a Kowalski out. We don’t like to lose.”
“Obviously I’m not hot enough. Maybe I should have put on some mascara.”
He grabbed her arm and pulled her close. “You don’t need shit on your face to be hot.”
“Just a dirt smudge here and there?”
He laughed and leaned forward to kiss her. She wanted more and threw her leg over his so she was straddling his lap. He moaned against her mouth, his hands going to her hips as she put her hands on his bare chest and pushed him back against the couch.
“Now I know you’re trying to distract me,” he muttered against her lips.
“I don’t like to lose, either.”
It was her turn to moan when he lightly caught her nipple between his teeth, the thin T-shirt doing nothing to dampen the delicious sensation. He slid his hands under the fabric, pushing it up until her breasts were bared to his mouth.
She reached down to undo his fly, but his arm blocked hers. He worked his hand into the wide leg opening of her boxers and found…only her. Groaning, he slid his fingers over her slick flesh and her fingers dug into his shoulders.
“Please tell me we don’t have to go all the way upstairs for a condom,” she said.
“Back pocket.” She leaned with him as he fished it out, then tried to help him get his jeans down over his hips. Her foot hit the coffee table, which snagged on the throw rug and sent the Scrabble tiles sliding all over the board.
She laughed as he tore open the condom packet. “Now nobody wins.”
“I was ahead.” He put one hand on her hip, using the other to guide himself into her. “So I win.”
Emma moaned as he filled her, bracing herself against the couch with a hand on either side of his head. “The game wasn’t over. It’s a draw.”
He pulled down on her hips as he drove up into her, making her gasp. “Ties are for pussies. Admit I won.”
She looked down into his blue eyes, crinkled with amusement as he grinned at her. God, she loved…having sex with this man. “One good word isn’t a victory.”
“That’s not what the score sheet said.” He stopped moving and, when she tried to rock against him, he held down on her hips so she couldn’t move, either. Then he had the nerve to chuckle at her growl of sexual frustration. “Admit it. I can sit here all night.”
“Oh, really?” She went straight for a known weak spot—nipping at his earlobe before sucking it into her mouth.
He let go of her hips with one hand, intending to push her mouth away, but she rocked her hips. He groaned and put his hand back. She breathed softly against his ear and then ran her tongue along the outside.
“Admit I was going to win,” she whispered, “because I can do this all night.”
With one leg, he kicked at the table, sending it over and the letter tiles flying. Before Emma could react, she was on her back on the throw rug with Sean between her legs and her hands held over her head.
“I don’t lose.” He crossed her wrists so he could hold them with one hand, then used the other to pull her leg up over his hip so he was totally buried in her. “Give up?”
She shook her head, but couldn’t hold back the sigh as he oh-so-slowly withdrew almost completely and then just as slowly filled her again. “You’re cheating.”
He did it again and again, the slow friction delicious and frustrating, until they were both trembling and on the edge.
Then, as he was pulling out of her once again with a self-control that made her want to scream, it became a matter of life or death because she was going to die if she didn’t get what her body was looking for. “Okay, fine. You win.”
He drove into her hard, his fingers biting into her wrists before he released them so he could lift her legs to her shoulder. She cried his name as his fingers dug into her hips and he gave them what they both wanted.
When he collapsed on top of her, breathing hard against her neck, she wrapped her legs and arms around him, holding him close.
“Another one for the win column,” he said once they’d caught their breath.
“It has an asterisk, though, because you totally cheated.”
“All’s fair in sex and Scrabble, baby.” He propped his head on his hand and smiled down at her. “What should we play next?”
“I’ve still got clothes on. You’ve still got clothes on. Maybe we should break out a deck of cards.”
“You’re my kinda girl, Emma Shaw,” he said and thankfully he was in the process of getting up off the floor because she didn’t think she did a good job of hiding how happy those words made her.