Chapter Thirteen

As soon as they were parked in his garage, Smith jumped out of his car, yanked open Valentina's door, and scooped her up into his arms.

"Don't forget the cupcakes." His brain was barely getting enough blood by that point to wrap around the fact that she actually still wanted dessert until she whispered, "As soon as I saw them, I pictured us eating them na**d in bed."

Jesus, he thought as he paused only long enough for her to reach down and grab the box of cupcakes, he was as close to losing it as he'd ever been, despite the fact that they both still had their clothes on and they were a good hundred feet from his bedroom.

But as much as he wanted her in his bed, na**d beneath him as he made love to her the way he'd been dreaming of for too damn long, he couldn't keep his mouth off hers any longer. Not when he was finally holding her in his arms, and she was looking at him with such heat in her beautiful eyes, a flush of sensual anticipation staining her high cheekbones and coloring her unpainted lips a dark rose.

Standing holding her in the middle of his living room, Smith lowered his mouth to Valentina's in a kiss so soft, so sweet, it was more a breath than a meeting of their lips. Low down, his gut twisted tight as he tasted the exotic spice of her with a long, slow swipe of his tongue over her full bottom lip. Her soft moan of pleasure at the sensual touch had him tightening his hold on her, and his lips pressing deeper against hers. When her tongue found his and stroked against it, it was his moan sounding in the room.

Finally, he was getting to kiss her, hold her. And as she stroked one hand over his jaw while opening herself up even more to his kiss, and kissing him back with unabashed passion, she was so much sexier, so much sweeter, than he'd dreamed.

Again and again he tasted every inch of her mouth, the sensitive corners, the curves and contours of the cupid's bow at the top of her upper lip, then back yet one more time to nip at the fullness of her bottom lip before laving over the small hurt with his tongue.

On a gasping breath, Valentina whispered his name. "Smith. You're making my head spin."

"Good," he said before he kissed her again. He wasn't even close to having his fill of her mouth as he pulled back just far enough to tell her, "Because it's what you've done to me from the very first moment I saw you."

But even as his words sounded against her lips, she was licking out against him, making him even crazier to have her, and this time when they kissed, gentleness gave way completely to greediness, to the need to turn desire into possession.

"Please," she begged on a rasping breath when he let her free for just long enough to try to catch her breath.

"Tell me," he urged her even as he had to steal another taste of her lips. "What do you need, Valentina?"

"More."

Her confession nearly took him all the way over, without anything more than their kisses to get him there. And yet, this anticipation, the shockingly sensual dance where they drew out each other's pleasure with simple kisses, with gentle caresses, was too good to turn away from just yet.

"Yes," he agreed as he dropped his mouth to hers again and drank in the pure sweetness of her response, "I could keep kissing you forever."

As they'd kissed, her hazel eyes had dilated until the brown had been edged out almost completely by green.

"Everywhere."

The one word from her lips was full of so much need, so much desire, that what was left of the blood flow to his brain crashed in one big wave toward the hard-on throbbing behind the zipper of his jeans.

"I need you to kiss me everywhere."

Immediately rewarding her with kisses along her jawline, and then against one earlobe, as he pulled the very sensitive flesh between his teeth and she shuddered in pleasure, he was even more amazed by how well she covered up her sensuality on a day-to-day basis. Especially when it ran this deep, when her response to every kiss, to every touch, floored him...and made him desperate for more of her.

Hovering on the precipice of taking her on his living room rug, Smith forced himself to mount the stairs to his bedroom instead. She held onto him with one arm around his neck, the other holding the dessert box dangling from her fingertips.

Every time he'd imagined making love to her, he'd envisioned making her lose control. But when he finally stood at the foot of his bed with the one woman he desired above all others in his arms, Smith finally understood that he'd gotten it backward. Because with nothing more than a handful of kisses, Valentina had taken complete charge of his body, his arousal.

Still, as he lowered his mouth to hers in another soft kiss, and she trembled in his arms, he loved knowing that maybe, just maybe, he wasn't the only one losing all semblance of control.

He lowered her to his bed, and when the dessert box finally slipped from her hand onto the covers, he slid his fingers through hers. They stared at each other for several long moments, and he swore he could hear the beating of her heart, and his, racing with each other.

Fast.

Dangerous.

And so damned right.

Finally, he leaned his weight into hers, and held her steady beneath him as he took her mouth again and again, her taste more and more addictive with every kiss. Just as generous with her kisses as she was with everything else she did, she held nothing back as she pressed into him, wrapping her jeans-clad legs around his h*ps to bring him closer.

Hotter.

Sweeter.

More, he thought when he couldn't get enough of her mouth, or of the sleekly sensuous curves moving beneath him.

"Too many clothes," he murmured against her neck as his fingers found the hem of her sweater, her stomach warm and sensitive even under the cotton shirt that still separated his fingertips from her bare skin.

Even as he reached for her, she was running her own fingers beneath his shirt, and over the muscles of his abdomen, which rippled beneath her touch.

"Yes," she agreed with a nip to his earlobe, "too many."

He had to take her mouth again, their tongues swirling together until he needed to draw away for a split second to pull her sweater and shirt all the way off. Her br**sts rose and fell with each breath and when he looked at her again, he saw that she wore the simple black bra better than any supermodel could have.

"Thank God," he said as he reached out and ran one finger over the swell of first one breast, and then the other, "you're finally here with me."

Again, she trembled beneath his barest touch, and he loved watching her lose control so much that even though he was dying to taste her again, he held back long enough to brush his fingertips over the incredibly soft skin at the swell of her br**sts one more time.

Barely a heartbeat from ripping off her clothes and just taking her with absolutely none of the finesse or gentleness that he usually gave to his lovers, Smith tried to force some rational thought back into his brain. Maybe, he thought with more than a little desperation, putting her on top would save them both from moving too fast this first time.

A moment later, he was pulling her over him so that she had to brace her hands on his shoulders to steady herself. Her hair came down around them like a curtain of honey-colored silk, her gorgeous br**sts nearly slipping free of her bra.

Ah, yes, he thought, it was the perfect position for him to lie back and really appreciate, to take the time to savor Valentina's beauty.

Only, when she smiled down at him, a sensual lift of her gorgeous lips that had his breath catching in his throat and his entire body heating up at least another ten degrees, he realized his mistake.

He'd need to be locked up in a cell with the key thrown away and the bars reinforced with extra steel before he would ever truly be able to keep himself from moving too fast with her. Because with her torso bared to his hands, how could he keep himself from stroking, from touching, from shifting his still-covered erection up beneath her jeans-clad thighs even as she ground down onto him?

But it didn't truly hit home just how far gone the cause of slowing things down was until she lifted her hands from his chest and reached behind her back to unclip and toss aside her bra.

Holy hell.

She was gorgeous.

Never in his life had he seen such beautiful breasts, just full enough for his hands when he cupped her, and so sensitive that when he stroked his thumbs over the taut peaks, her ni**les tightened and drew his mouth straight to them.

"Oh God," she gasped as his tongue circled the tip of one breast before his teeth lightly teased her damp skin, "that feels so good." When he moved to the other side of her chest and did it again, she moaned the words, "So, so good."

"Do you have any idea how long I've wanted to taste you like this?"

She didn't do anything but shake her head, but he hadn't expected her to answer, not with his lips and tongue and teeth teasing her until his head was spinning with the exotic taste of her.

"You taste so good, Valentina. So damned good."

Each word he spoke was more raw, and full of need, than the word that came before, as twenty years of sexual experience, of other women, fell completely away. The softness of Valentina's skin against his fingertips, the taste of her on his tongue, was all that remained.

"Everyone thinks I've been obsessing about the movie, but all I can think about is you." He pressed his face to the curve of her neck, then inhaled. "What your skin smells like." He ran his hands into her hair. "What your hair feels like flowing between my fingers." He rocked his h*ps up into hers. "And what sounds you're going to make when you come."

"Oh, yes." She threaded her hands into his hair to take his mouth back to her breasts, "Make me come."

Sweet Lord, he knew he'd been falling for this woman for a reason. Just as bold in the bed as she was in the boardroom, she had him mesmerized. Hypnotized.

He had to call on every ounce of control he'd ever possessed to keep his hands from shaking as he undid the button on her jeans and pulled down the zipper. Even then, he still shook with need that didn't have a prayer of being contained as she lifted her h*ps so that he could slide the denim, and the lace beneath it, off her hips, then down her smooth thighs. After she'd kicked off her shoes, then used her bare feet to push her jeans and panties off the rest of the way, he pulled her back down on his lap, her legs straddling his again.

"I don't think," he told her as he stroked his hands down over her na**d back, to the soft flesh of her hips, all while drinking in the most beautiful sight he'd ever had the pleasure of seeing, "I've never been this happy in my entire life."

He loved the way she moved under his hands with a soft purr; loved the fact that she wasn't the least bit reserved in her na**dness; loved that once she'd made the decision to be with him tonight, she'd given herself all the way over to their lovemaking.

And he loved it even more as she said, "You're making me happy, too," then put her hands on either side of his face and leaned down to kiss him in her innately seductive, yet incredibly sweet, way.

Just that fast, sweet shifted to sultry as they moved together on the bed, their hungry bodies twisting up his sheets even further as he laid her na**d body back against the pillows and levered himself up over her on his hands so that he could stare again.

Her skin was awash in gold, with just the slightest hint of rose behind it. Her br**sts were full, the perfect size not only for his hands, but also for her slender frame, as were her softly rounded hips.

"I - " He could hardly speak, hardly think. "I need a second." He worked to draw in a breath, and when he mostly failed, with what little oxygen he had left, he told her, "You're so beautiful."

Thank God he didn't need to be able to get his brain to work to run hot, wet kisses over her mouth, her chin, the curve of her neck, her shoulders, the sweet swell of her breasts, and then beneath where her skin turned out to be even more sensitive. He made his hands keep pace with his mouth, kept them from venturing down too far, too fast. Every new place on her body that he discovered, he wanted to touch, to taste, to breathe in, all at once.

Her stomach was flat, but soft, too, as the muscles beneath her skin rippled at every press of his lips. Intoxicated by her, desire wrapped so tightly around him that he didn't think to slow down now as he moved lower down her body to the soft curls that covered her sex.

Smith breathed her in as he slowly cupped her with his hand and felt her wet and hot against his palm. He now knew the taste of her mouth, her breasts, the taut skin over her stomach.

But he needed to know more.

On a sound of deep, desperate need, he covered her sex with his mouth, slicking his tongue slowly over her, once, twice, three times. He felt her hands move into his hair, pulling his mouth down tighter against her even as she arched up to take his tongue deeper inside her. And when her inner muscles gripped him, and her cries of ecstasy started to ricochet off his bedroom walls, Smith's own pleasure at having his mouth on her, his hands under her soft hips, made it almost impossible for him to keep from losing it.

In the aftermath of her cl**ax, Smith couldn't bring himself to move his mouth, to take his tongue from her soft, slick skin. For several minutes, as Valentina lay loose and panting against the covers of his bed, and he gently kissed and licked and nipped at the skin on her inner thighs, and then her hip bones and back up to her belly button, he realized he'd never get his fill of her.

Somehow, some way, he was going to have to figure out how to turn this one night she'd given him into many, many more. But for now, he could barely think beyond the need to have her.

And to keep making her his, any way he could...