Vaughn flashed me a wolfish grin. “I only heard ‘baby’ and ‘got me into your bed permanently.’”

“I bet you did.”

Since agreeing to see where this thing between us might lead two weeks ago at Jess and Coop’s wedding I owed Aydan. A lot. Why? Because I’d been in Vaughn’s bed every night since and he had succeeded in making me late to work every morning.

We’d had so much sex I could have sworn my abs and legs had toned up.

“Okay.” He stretched his neck from side to side and then shrugged back his shoulders. “I once walked in on my father while he was . . . well, during fellatio with my friend’s mother. If I can recover from that, I can do anything.”

Giggling, I stood back and watched him as he strode toward the lane with purpose. There were no words for how much pleasure I found watching Vaughn Tremaine do anything. I’d never met a man so masculine yet so graceful and strong. I’d also discovered that he kept his body as beautiful as his face through hard work. A lot of hard work. He woke up at five a.m. every morning and disappeared to the hotel gym. When he got back to the room he’d take a shower and then come wake me up to do a sexy workout with me. I didn’t know where the man got his energy.

Vaughn studied the ten pins at the end of the lane and slowly slid his hands into the bowling ball with not even a hint of a grimace. Once he set his mind to something . . .

I felt a little drool at the corner of my mouth watching his tight ass in his black jeans as he bent to throw the ball. His form wasn’t too bad actually, having a natural understanding of how to move it to get the best results.

I was not surprised when he knocked down eight of the ten pins.

He turned to me, expression serious. “I can do better.”

“You knocked down eight,” I disagreed. “That’s awesome.”

“I can do better.”

I’d never met a man who was so competitive with himself. He had to do his best in everything. It was exhausting. “Your need to be the best at everything is exhausting.”

Vaughn didn’t even flinch at my honesty. Instead he walked up to me, wrapped an arm around my waist, and drew me in for a quick, sweet kiss. When he pulled back he murmured, “If I didn’t need to be the best at everything, princess, you would have had a lot less orgasms this week.”

My belly fluttered and I felt an answering tingle between my legs. I swear to God, this man now had more control over my body than I did. “Right. Well. I wouldn’t want you to stop being who you are.”

He grinned, smug. “That’s what I thought.”

“You’re lucky I find you funny, Tremaine,” I warned him. “Arrogance is usually off-putting.”

“Then you’re lucky I find arrogance attractive, too.”

“Uh!” I pushed him away. “I am not arrogant.”

He laughed. “You are so arrogant.”

“I am not!”

“You think you’re one of the best attractions around here, princess.” He snatched me back toward him. “And you would be right. So never change.”

I melted into him. “Do I really come off arrogant?”

“Only with me, but if you haven’t noticed, it gets me hot.”

We did this thing we’d been doing a lot this past week: falling into each other’s eyes. That almost always led to sex. “We’re supposed to be bowling,” I whispered.

“Fine. First we bowl, then we fuck.”

I smacked his arm. “We are in public.”

Chuckling, he pulled reluctantly away from me and gestured to the bowling balls. “Your turn.”

As I was setting myself up to bowl, I glanced over my shoulder at Vaughn and found him staring at my ass. I grinned, loving how sexy he made me feel. “Oy, Tremaine.”

He dragged his gaze up to my face. He’d sat down to watch me, had his arms draped over the seats on either side of him, lounging with his legs out and his ankles crossed. Without even meaning to he gave off an air of power and superiority. He could turn any chair into a throne, even the little plastic bench chairs in a bowling alley.

I gave him a coy, curious smile. “You ever had sex on the beach?”

Vaughn quirked a brow. “What made you think of that?”

“When I mentioned we were in public”—I shrugged—“and we were talking about sex . . . I wondered if you’d ever done it somewhere public.”

“When I was younger,” he said. “Club restrooms.”

“With girls you didn’t know?”

“Yes.”

I nodded and turned away because that bothered me. Not really because Vaughn had been with other women. I wasn’t naive about that, and I had been with other men.

No, it was the strange girls part of the scenario. The idea of hooking up with some guy I didn’t know in a bathroom stall sounded so empty.

Readying myself to let the ball fly, I was stopped by Vaughn asking, “And you?”

There was something about his tone . . . Looking over my shoulder, I found him no longer lounging. He was tense, and he wore this expression on his face that suggested that he was curious but almost afraid to know too much. I straightened and faced him. “Never. Tom wasn’t very adventurous,” I said, rueful. “And Ivy, Iris and Ira’s daughter, she was my best friend growing up. She had sex on the beach once and said it was the worst experience of her life. Sand got in some really awkward places and it was cold and icky. Her description put me off the idea for good.”