Chapter Fifteen

More asleep than awake the next morning, Valentina curled into the warm body beside her and sighed with pleasure. It wasn't until she felt a hand stroke over her hair and soft kisses pressed to her closed eyelids that she finally woke all the way.

Oh God, she thought as she tried to keep her body from going instantly stiff against Smith's, what had she done?

No, she hadn't forgotten that she'd slept with him. She'd made that decision with a clear mind and didn't regret it, wouldn't ever let herself regret the most sweetly sensual hours of her life. But as morning light shone in through his second-story bedroom windows, she did regret breaking one very important rule: She'd stayed the night.

She was a flesh-and-blood woman full of hormones and desires. One hot night of sex was okay. Great, even, especially if it meant she could stop spending all her time and energy wondering about how it would feel to make love with Smith, and turn her focus back to her real life.

But waking up in his bed, having breakfast, sharing the part of her day with him when she was the most vulnerable...that was most definitely not okay.

Somehow she needed to figure out how to get out of his bed and his house without making a big deal of the one night they'd shared together.

Only, as he softly kissed her eyebrows, then each cheekbone, the tip of her nose, and then her chin, the last thing she wanted to do was leave his bed. Desire rose again, fast and hot, and she wanted so badly to thread her hands through his soft hair and drag his mouth to one of the places she really needed it.

So many rules she'd already broken for this man...so many more she knew she might not be strong enough to keep from breaking as, instead of turning away from him, she started to turn deeper into his arms, her leg moving to slide against his as she arched into his touch, silently begging him for more.

Until the harsh sound of a cell phone yanked her out of the sensual fog.

Her eyes flew open, her hands going flat on his chest. "Your phone - "

" - can keep ringing."

But she was too well trained by her sister's schedule to lose hold of an important calendar item, even as deep in the sensual fog as she'd been. Shock hit her that she'd come this close to forgetting. Clearly, making love with Smith had muddled her brain in a serious way.

"You and Tatiana have a phone interview with Entertainment magazine this morning."

The words were barely out of her mouth when Valentina's phone began to buzz with the ring tone that meant her sister was calling. Tatiana had spent the night at an event for up-and-coming young actresses in Los Angeles, so she not only wouldn't know Smith had spent the night in bed with Valentina, she definitely wouldn't guess that he was with her right now. Still, it made sense for her to try Valentina to see if she could reach Smith when he hadn't called in for the interview.

Smith might be able to ignore his phone, but she couldn't. Especially not when it was her sister calling. She scooted out from beneath him and tried not to feel shy about her na**dness as she hurried over to her purse across the room.

"Hey, T." Please, Valentina silently prayed, don't ask me any questions that I'll have to lie to answer.

She all but dove under the covers with her phone to her ear, as Smith watched her with still-hungry eyes.

"I've got Beth from Entertainment magazine on hold," her sister told her. "She keeps asking me when Smith is going to call in. Did he say anything about canceling to you last night when you were at Alcatraz?"

"No, he didn't say anything about not being able to do the interview. Maybe he's just running a bit late. I'm sure he would never want to put you in an awkward position with an upset journalist because he didn't show."

Only, instead of leaning over to pick up his phone, Smith put an arm around her waist and dragged her up against his na**d body - his very hard, very aroused na**d body - surprising her even further with a soft kiss to her mouth.

A half-gasp, half-growl left her lips and her sister asked, "Val? Is everything okay?"

"I'll see if I can reach him," Valentina promised her sister, before, for the very first time ever, she hung up on her.

Glad for the rush of frustration that was quickly replacing desire, she was about to lay into Smith when he finally picked up his phone from the side table and started dialing.

"Beth, sorry to call in so late."

But instead of letting Valentina go so that he could focus on the interview, he pulled her in even closer to him, his arms holding her firmly around the waist, one of his legs a heavy weight over both of hers.

"How's your son doing? Still tearing up the soccer field?"

Close enough to hear the woman's cheerful answers, Valentina tried not to make a sound. God forbid either the journalist or her sister could tell that Smith was in bed with a woman.

With her.

Of course he didn't make it easy for her to remain silent as his hand stroked slowly over her ribs, down to her waist, and then the curve of her hips. She trembled with the effort to keep from voicing her pleasure at his touch. Especially after a night when she'd been able to let herself go completely.

When she simply hadn't had any choice but to let go.

She'd thought it was just for that one, very special night when all rules - all worries - were off. Only, this time, the sweetness of his touch wasn't enough to combat the brutal reminder of who he was.

Smith Sullivan, movie star.

How could she have let herself forget?

Not that going back to assess the hows and whys mattered much at this point. The point was that she had forgotten. And, more important, she needed to never, ever forget again.

At least on set, she was constantly viewing him in his producer, director, or actor role. Whereas with his family, at Alcatraz, on his boat - and most definitely when she was in his bed - Smith was simply a wonderful man.

Not to mention the most sensual, most infuriatingly persistent man she'd ever known.

Of course, despite all of the stern warnings and reminders she'd just given herself, during the long minutes that felt like hours as he chatted with her sister and the journalist, Valentina's body continued to heat up by degrees. Smith never came close to touching her breasts, or between her legs, but it was almost worse that he didn't because everywhere he didn't touch throbbed, swelled with need, even as she prayed for his interview to end.

Although, in her secret heart of hearts, she knew she didn't want the interview to ever end. Not if it meant she had to finally make herself leave Smith's arms.

At long last, when she could have sworn he'd run his hands over every inch of her skin but the spots that ached desperately for his touch, he finally put down his phone...and turned his entire focus back to her.

"Sorry about that. Now," he said as his fingertips drew a trail of goosebumps over the delicate skin on the inside of her forearm, "where were we?"

She took a deep, too-shaky, breath. "I was leaving."

Most men would have been more than happy to let their one-night stand escape. Heck, pretty much any other man on the planet would have been telling her not to let the door hit her too hard on the way out...and any other woman on the planet would have been begging Smith to let her stay.

When the thought occurred to her that maybe that was why they'd always fit together so well - because neither of them behaved as they should - she fought to shove it away.

His hand didn't still on her skin. The same slow stroke of heat warmed her more with every pass he made over her curves as he said, "I don't want you to go," in a low voice that thrummed up and down her spine and over her skin.

"You know what we agreed last night," she reminded him.

"I know what we agreed," he said, "but that was before."

That one word - before - and all the memories of the after that had included his mouth, his hands, his body over hers, forced her to silently acknowledge her own foolishness.

Had she really thought she could get what she needed from him in one short night to fill her well, scratch her itch, and purge the desire from her system? And hadn't she known all along that his kisses, his hands warming her skin, his body pressing down hard and perfect over hers, would be akin to a trap?

One she'd never, ever want to get out of.

She wouldn't deny that somewhere between working together on set and a moonlit dinner on the rocks at Alcatraz, they had become friends. And, oh, to be Smith's lover was truly an extraordinary thing.

But giving her body and laughter and companionship to him was one thing. Giving her heart to him would be another entirely.

Because no matter how much she enjoyed being with him, regardless of how wonderful he'd been thus far, at the end of the day, he was still in the one profession in which forever truly meant nothing. Valentina's mother had wanted to believe in that false forever so many times. But wanting to believe in the fairytale hadn't ever been enough to actually make it come true.

Even worse, the whole thing would end up captured on film, by photographers and cameramen who worked for a public that couldn't get enough of their stars' private lives.

"Last night was amazing." There was less than no point in acting like it wasn't. "But that doesn't change who you are. Or who I am." Only, when her crystal-clear logic didn't convince him to lift his limbs from where he still had her pressed to the bed beside him, frustration at just how badly she wanted to stay with him had her saying, "You should have let me go during your interview. It wasn't fair that you kept me here."

Smith had her all the way on her back with her hands held above her head so quickly that the air squeaked out of her lungs.

"Fair? Do you think any of this is fair?" His eyes went nearly to black right before his mouth took hers in a hard kiss, one that had lost any veneer of gentleness. "Do you think it's fair that I'm falling for a woman who wants nothing to do with me just because of my job?"

He nipped at her lower lip this time, before taking her mouth again in a kiss that had her own mouth responding to the heady mix of pleasure and pain. And as his free hand cupped her breast, even though somewhere in the back of her head the thought came that she should be frightened of a man who had just lost his control and was now letting loose his frustration on her, she arched into Smith's touch instead.

How could she ever be afraid of him? He'd been so gentle, so sweet with her from the very beginning. He'd held her in his arms when she'd talked about her father. He'd treated her sister like the precious jewel she was. And she also knew that what they'd shared together the previous night could never be misconstrued as just sex...because it had been making love, from the first kiss to the last gasp of pleasure.

Her tongue was tangling with his now as his hand moved lower, over her stomach, then lower still, before he lifted his mouth from hers, his eyes blazing with heat and frustration and boundless desire as he stared down at her.

"Is it fair that I can't stop thinking about you for one second when I'm working on the biggest film of my life and shouldn't be thinking about another goddamned thing?"

If he hadn't been holding her hands so firmly above her head, she would have reached for his face to comfort him. Instead, all she could do was shake her head.

"No." She swallowed hard at the raw emotion on his shockingly beautiful face, and at the powerful emotions pushing through her insides, too. "It isn't fair."

She couldn't make things fair for him, couldn't give him whatever it was he seemed to want, couldn't promise him a future where it didn't matter who he was or how complicated his life and career were.

All she could do was give him herself, and pleasure, one more time.

Smith was so much bigger, so much stronger than she was, but passion - and the pain of knowing how badly she had hurt him this morning by wanting to leave so soon after waking - gave her the strength to tumble them over so that he was on his back and she was straddling him. Her wrists were still in his hand, but now her palms rested flat over his chest, right where his heart was beating fast.

With her thighs opened wide above him, she found his hard length and began to move over him, not taking him inside, but gliding up and down his thick length again and again until they were both panting. All the while, he held her hands over his heart as her belly tightened down and she rocked harder into him. With his other hand, he gripped her h*ps hard to help her all the way over the edge of pleasure she hadn't realized she'd already approached. She cried out his name as her cl**ax took her over, head to toe, Smith's hard body steady beneath hers as she rode out wave after wave of sweet sensation.

It wasn't until she finally came back to earth that she realized he had reversed their positions again so that she was lying back on the bed. Her body was still vibrating from the incredible strength of her unexpected release when she felt him shift slightly to the side, heard a drawer opening and paper tearing, her entire body clenching tight, then opening again for him, in anticipation of even more intense and heady pleasure.

* * *

Smith was a heartbeat from roughly thrusting into Valentina when sanity punched him hard across the jaw.

What had he just done? And what the hell was he about to do to her?

"Valentina, forgive me."

"Forgive you?" The words were soft, and sounded so damned sexy, from lips swollen from his rough kisses. "What have you done?"

Did she really not realize he'd all but tackled her just minutes ago when frustration - and a helplessness he had no idea how to deal with - had finally gotten the best of him?

He lifted one of her wrists and winced at the red marks. He didn't know if he deserved the chance to make it better, but he couldn't stop himself from trying.

"I hurt you," he said just before he leaned in to press his mouth to the sensitive skin at the inside of her wrist. "I never meant to hurt you."

The last thing he expected was for her to slide her hand from his and place it against his cheek.

"No," she said softly, "you didn't hurt me. I'm the one hurting you. And I'm sorry." She lifted her mouth to his and pressed a soft kiss to one corner of his lips. "I'm so sorry for hurting you." She pressed a kiss to the other side before both hands moved to his face. "That's why I tried to leave this morning, because I don't want either of us to get hurt. But," she admitted before her mouth found his with a kiss that stole another piece of his heart, "I didn't want to go." Her tongue swept across his lips. "I still don't." She pulled back enough to look up at him. "Please, Smith, kiss me back."

She'd never gotten around to asking him for a kiss at Alcatraz. She'd simply taken it instead, and he'd loved that she had.

But now, as she finally asked him for his kiss, he prayed it was her way of saying he hadn't hurt her...and that she wouldn't hold anything he'd done this morning against him.

Wanting her more than he'd ever thought it was possible to want another person, he cupped her face in his palms and turned her soft kisses into the dark, dangerous tangle of lips and tongue and teeth that they were both craving. And yet, even in the swirling darkness, there was such sweetness, a shimmering light rising up over both of them.

"Take me," she begged as she opened herself to him and wrapped her arms and legs around him. "Please, Smith," she whispered on a soft moan when he lowered his mouth to the hollow of her neck to taste her skin, to try to convince himself that she was real, that she could still want him after he'd nearly crossed the line. "Make love to me one more time."

God, he thought as he kissed her again, he would never get enough of her mouth. Even as he finally moved into her and her h*ps bucked up into his to take him even deeper, even as he lost hold of anything but how soft and hot and perfect she was beneath him, around him, his lips never left hers.

Sex had always brought him pleasure, but making love with Valentina went so far beyond pleasure, that as she begged him between kisses to take her harder, deeper, until her words blurred together into one long, low moan that merged with his, he could barely hold back his own pleas.

Not just for more pleasure than he'd ever dreamed was possible, but for the chance to seduce more than just her body.

To win over her heart, too.

Afterward, they lay together, forehead to forehead, nose to nose, mouth to mouth. He wanted to stay like that with her forever, wanted to do whatever he could to keep her from leaving, but he was so much heavier that he didn't want to crush her. Shifting onto his side, while still keeping her cradled against him, he stroked one hand over her damp hair.

Unfortunately, too soon, she was saying, "I promised Tatiana I'd have a girls' day with her. We haven't seen much of each other outside of the set."

She offered the explanation as if to try to soothe him, and he was glad to know that despite how clear she'd been about not wanting to date him, his feelings obviously mattered to her.

"In fact," she said, "I really need to get back home before she returns from the airport. If she knew I didn't spend the night at home, she'd wonder why."

A heavy cement block landed on his chest. "You're not going to tell her about us."

She shifted out of his arms and sat up partway on the bed, using the crumpled sheets to cover her beautiful na**d skin.

"No," she said softly, "I'm not." She licked her lips. "I don't regret what happened last night. Or this morning." The hazel of her eyes met his, so steady and so beautiful that his entire chest squeezed even tighter. "But I thought you of all people would know how this is supposed to play out."

He worked to keep his expression impassive. "Tell me, Valentina, how is that?"

In her frustration, she sat up higher on the bed, cross-legged so that the sheets slipped to reveal a luscious stretch of hip and thigh. "You're supposed to move on to your next conquest. Everything is supposed to finally go back to normal." Her voice rose a little more with each sentence, until she was practically yelling at him, "Now that we've had sex, you're supposed to be done with me!"

He let her slide out of the bed, closing the bathroom door and locking him out for a few minutes.

Now that he'd had her, he thought as he dragged on a pair of jeans, they were anything but done.

Smith was in the kitchen pouring two cups of coffee when Valentina came out ten minutes later, fully dressed, her hair still damp around her shoulders, her shoes on, her bag in her hand.

"Stay for a cinnamon bun, Valentina."

She looked with surprise at the plate at the center of the breakfast table by the window. Her stomach growled even as she said, "Why are you making this so much harder than it has to be?"

"It doesn't have to be hard."

It was what he wanted to show her, what he knew she believed in her heart of hearts - that love didn't have to be hard. He thought again about what his mother had said to him on the phone: "Sometimes it's harder to admit to ourselves that we want love than it is to keep living without it. Don't give up on her."

With that sage reminder echoing in his head, Smith took Valentina's bag from her clenched hands and put it down, then pulled out the chair for her. She looked for a moment like she would mutiny, until with a sudden sigh, she sat down.

"You really don't play fair, do you?" She pulled off a piece of the cinnamon bun and popped it into her mouth on a greedy little sound of pleasure. "These truly are some of the best things I've ever eaten. Dripping with sugar, just the way I like them."

He couldn't stop smiling at her as he ripped off a piece for himself. Nor could he stop himself from leaning over to lick off the sugar glistening at the corner of her mouth. "I like it, too."

She opened her eyes and glared at him. "Smith."

He grinned back at her. "Valentina."

She tried to hide the twitch of her smile by turning away and letting her hair fall over her face.

But he saw it.

When she'd finished eating breakfast, had washed her plate out in the sink, and was turning to say what he knew would be a very polite goodbye, Smith took her into his arms.

"Thank you for letting me love you last night."

He took her mouth a moment later, devouring the hints of sugar and spice that remained on her already sweet lips. When he finally made himself pull back, her big eyes had already gone hazy again with desire, and her skin was flushed with heat. And yet, he could see how hard she was working to fight what she was feeling.

He wasn't twenty-one anymore and life didn't revolve around sex, no matter how great it was. Which meant he also understood that the reason sex with Valentina had been so mind-blowing wasn't because she'd been a conquest. It wasn't because she'd been a mystery he'd been dying to solve, either.

No, it had been because she mattered to him. On a far deeper level than any other woman ever had.

He'd wanted to find out if she was the one.

This morning, he was pretty damn sure he had his answer.

"We can't do this again, Smith. Things could get too messy, too quick. Even now, if Tatiana finds out where I was last night - "

" - she'd be happy for you. And for me."

Valentina lifted her chin. "Yes, she'd be happy as long as we were happy. Until the day came when she had to take sides. She likes you, Smith, so much that it would really hurt her to have to stop being your friend just because we're sisters who always put each other first. I don't want to do that to her and I know you don't, either."

"If I wasn't an actor, if we weren't working together, would you want to be with me for more than just one night?"

He could see how surprised she was by his question, enough to admit, "Yes."

And yet, a moment later, she pulled out of his arms, picked up her bag and coat, and headed for the door before adding, "But since I've never had a knack for playing pretend, it doesn't matter what I wish was different, does it?"

For the rest of the day, he couldn't get her expression out of his head. She'd looked determined, and as strong and beautiful as she always had, but underneath it all she hadn't been able to hide the woman who wanted nothing more than to believe - and to know for herself - that the fairytale was real.

Smith couldn't wait to prove to her that it was...and that their happy-ever-after could be even sweeter than any flashy Hollywood version could possibly be.