‘Good comeback.’ She nodded approvingly and raised her glass, taking another long drink through her straw.
‘One other correction in your assessment.’ He leaned across the table and dropped his voice, forcing her to lean closer so she could hear him. ‘I do desire you, Mrs Baranski. And I would love nothing more than the opportunity to prove it.’
Rosa scowled and leaned back, folding her arms across her chest. ‘Why do you have to spoil it? We were having a lovely conversation...’
‘Discussing my faults?’ he interjected.
‘Absolutely.’ She nodded. ‘As I said, we were having a lovely conversation and you had to reduce it to a basic level.’
‘Your cheeks are burning.’
‘Thanks for pointing that out.’
‘Do I make you hot?’
‘Shut up.’
‘You make me hot.’
‘The only thing hot about you is the air that comes out of your mouth.’
‘So harsh.’ He sighed. ‘And such a lie too.’ Before she could splutter with outrage, he grinned. ‘Shall we make it the best of three games?’
‘Only if you promise to stop talking about sex.’
Once they had taken seven tiles each, he could not resist pressing her a little further. ‘What do you think about making this game more interesting?’
‘How?’
‘If either of us gets a triple letter word the other has to remove an item of clothing.’
‘You’d be naked in two goes.’
‘One.’
‘Oh...’
‘Feeling hot again?’ he purred, noting the colour of her neck.
‘If you make one more lewd remark I’m abandoning the game.’
‘Then I will win by default.’
Her pursed lips loosened, a smile beginning to crack out of all that sternness. ‘You always have to get the last word in.’
He grinned again. As much as she tried to deny it, Rosa’s immunity to him was weakening by the minute. He was scratching under the surface of her skin and piercing into the delicious flesh. Soon she would be his for the taking.
Her eyes narrowed, a shrewdness flickering in them. ‘I’ll make a deal with you. If I win this game you are not to talk about sex for the rest of the holiday.’
‘And if I win?’
‘If you win I’ll get some earplugs.’
‘I’ll agree to one night—if you win I promise I will not talk about sex again until tomorrow morning.’
‘That includes innuendo.’
‘You have a deal.’
This would be an easy win. Rosa had played two games of Scrabble. She had picked it up quickly, but he had gone easy on her on the basis it was unfair to humiliate a novice. Not this time.
‘When I win I can talk about sex all night if I so wish. I can tell you exactly what I would like to do with your ravishing body, how I spend inordinate amounts of time wondering what colour your nipples are and what they taste like...’
* * *
‘Stop it.’ Rosa’s protest came out as a moan. The second he had mentioned her nipples she had become wholly conscious of how sensitised they had become—as her whole being had become. Her skin was almost dancing with awareness.
Listening to his gravelly voice purring the words in Russian, she had felt the blood in her system heating to unbearable levels.
She crossed her legs, as if the act could smother the pulsations between her thighs, and forced her voice to sound at least reasonably normal. ‘You play dirty.’
His green eyes glittered. ‘I like dirty. I especially like playing dirty with husky-voiced bombshells.’
He was impossible to talk to!
Growling under her breath, Rosa pulled a letter out from the green sack. ‘Typical.’ She had pulled out the letter X.
Naturally Nico pulled out a B. He didn’t even try to hide his smirk. ‘I shall start, then.’
It became immediately apparent that he was set on winning. All dirty talk stopped, and his focus was solely on the letters lined up in front of him.
Of course as soon as it was her turn the innuendoes started again.
‘Stop trying to put me off,’ she complained after her third move. He was already forty points ahead. ‘That’s bad sportsmanship.’
He smirked, although his eyes were creased in concentration. ‘If you can’t take the heat...’
‘I should jump into the pool.’
‘Sorry?’
‘If I can’t take the heat I should jump into the swimming pool.’ She smiled in what she hoped was a seductive manner, suddenly compelled to give him a taste of his own medicine. She was making it too easy for him. Why should she be the only one to suffer? ‘Maybe I should jump into the pool naked?’