Chapter Eighteen

Neither of them could look away from the other. Their bond, the pull between them, was already too strong. And bigger than either of their good intentions - hers to keep her distance and his to remain patient.

In the end Smith didn't know who moved first, whether he was the one wrapping his hands around her waist to pull her against him, or she was the one sliding her hands into his hair. But it didn't matter who made the first move.

All that mattered was that she was in his arms again.

Her mouth was soft, her lips sweet from the candy she must have been sucking on that morning, her taste even more seductive than he remembered. He needed her too badly to have any thoughts of finesse, but thankfully, even as he pulled her onto his lap, she was crawling over him, her skirt hiking up higher and higher on her gorgeous thighs.

Still, he might have been able to keep it at least partially together if he hadn't felt, then tilted back to see, the lacy edge of a garter. His curse was low, borderline pained, as he traced the lace over her thigh with his fingertips. Her skin was so soft, so warm as she made little sounds of pleasure at having his hands on her again.

With one quick yank, the rest of his patience disappeared, and he had her skirt bunched up around her waist and his hands cupping her hips.

Holy hell, she hadn't just worn the lingerie he'd bought her...she'd put on the slinkiest, sexiest pair of stockings and panties that he'd given her. Were it not for the punishing workouts he put himself through every morning, his heart would have stopped right there.

"My God, you're gorgeous."

His fingers moved from the lacy edge of her garter, up the soft skin of her inner thigh, to skim the inside edge of her panties. He could already feel how wet, how ready, she was for him as she whimpered softly, then rocked into his hand.

"Show me more." He nipped at the underside of her neck as he begged her to put him out of his misery. "Please, Valentina, I need to see more of you."

She stared at him with big, beautiful eyes. "This is crazy," she whispered. "Completely crazy," she said again, "but I can't stop wanting you anyway."

With trembling fingers, as she began to unbutton her blouse, Smith not only drank in the inch-by-inch reveal of her creamy skin, he also relished her admission of how much she wanted him despite all of her reasons not to. He knew how cautious she was about actors, about the spotlight, and yet here she was anyway, one more time. Somehow, he needed to make her see that she couldn't live without him...and that the two of them were worth all the irritations and inconveniences that came with his life.

He wanted so badly to taste her, to hear her sounds of pleasure as she leapt off that first peak in his arms, but somehow he managed to hold off until her blouse was open nearly to the waist.

"Valentina."

With one hand sliding into the slick heat between her thighs, he lifted the other to cover the swell of her breast, so gorgeously on display in a bra that just barely covered her nipples. He leaned forward to take one of those luscious peaks into his mouth, cupping one breast even as his tongue slid beneath lace to slick over beautifully aroused flesh.

Only, instead of sating him, the taste of her made him even hungrier, and so desperate that he couldn't keep the hand still at her core, couldn't stop his fingers from playing over her arousal, then sliding hard and fast into her.

Just that fast, with his fingers in her, his mouth on her, she came apart, her arms wrapped tightly around his shoulders, her neck and back arching her br**sts into his mouth, her h*ps rocking into his.

He wanted to savor her, wanted to take hours to pleasure her again and again, to appreciate every inch of her beauty, her sweetness. But the three days - and nights - he'd been made to wait to have her again had been three too long, and just as he'd told her in the store the day before, he didn't have a lot of practice with waiting.

Keeping his head on straight just long enough to pull a condom he'd been praying he'd get the chance to use soon from his back pocket, then to unzip his pants and get it on, Valentina's mouth found his just as he lifted his hands back to her waist and positioned her over him. Less than a heartbeat later, she was lowering herself down over him and taking him inside.

Their mouths collided just as fiercely as the rest of them, the pull and thrust of his body against - and into - hers a mirror of the way their tongues were stroking, sliding together. And as she took over their rhythm, her hands gripping his shoulders tightly, her thighs strong and taut as she rocked into him again and again, Smith let go of her waist to cup her br**sts with his hands, the lace nowhere near as soft as her flesh in his palms. On a growl, he yanked at the fabric so that his mouth, his hands, could cover her instead.

Just at the moment that his tongue, his teeth, found her nipple, she arched back and down, taking him so deep that even as she started to detonate again in his arms, he was right there with her, losing himself completely inside of her.

* * *

Valentina's legs shook as she walked back to her office to get her things. They were still shaking by the time she got in her car to drive home.

It was one thing to say she didn't want to be with Smith.

It was another entirely to say it and then immediately melt into him as she begged for more of his kisses.

And it was another still to give herself to him in ways she never had with another man.

Yes, the set had been fairly deserted by the time she went to seek him out in the screening room, but she hadn't thought to lock the door. Anyone could have walked in on them and seen her straddling Smith in the chair, her skirt hiked up around her waist, her blouse unbuttoned and open so that nothing would get in the way of his mouth, his hands, or his -

Oh God, she thought as she pulled into the driveway of her rental house and laid her head down on the steering wheel, what am I doing?

Friday night, and then Saturday morning, were supposed to be her one-time-only gift to herself. Even today, before she'd reached for him, she'd justified it by telling herself it was the very last time.

All those years she'd thought actors were the ones who couldn't be trusted.

Now, it turned out that she was the one who kept saying one thing...and then doing another.

* * *

The next days passed in a blur of meetings and important scenes being filmed and working with Tatiana on her lines...and secret, frantic, couldn't-possibly-get-enough-of-it sex with Smith.

Somehow, making love with Smith had become an inevitable, and utterly necessary, part of each day. Every time she saw him, she was more and more tempted to go against what she believed - what she knew - to be true about men in the business. For the first time, she wondered if it wasn't that women like her mother were so weak, but rather that the pull of these men was too strong to resist?

Because every time Smith's hands, his mouth, touched her, all of her well-thought-out reasons, each one of her careful considerations, every last vow and promise she'd made to herself, disappeared as if they had never existed at all.

When Tatiana asked Valentina to weigh in on her wardrobe for some upcoming scenes she would be shooting with the baby, she shouldn't have been surprised to find Smith there, too. But when Tatiana and Kayla, the wardrobe director, needed fifteen minutes to check out the stash of fabric in Kayla's storage locker, Valentina was surprised by how natural it was not only for Smith to lock the door before pulling her into his arms, but also for her to wrap her arms and legs around him and put her mouth to his as he took them both over yet another brilliant peak.

The next day, she made sure to get in early to make up for the work she'd been too fuzzy to complete post-quickie with Smith, but even though she'd thought she was the only person on set, she found him in the kitchen making coffee. The next thing she knew, the door was locked again, the blinds were down, and they were making love against the counter, her hands pressed flat on the Formica as she pushed her h*ps back into his to try to take him deeper, while he gave her everything, absolutely everything she couldn't help but want. She could have said no, but knowing his touch, his kisses, made her a willing slave to wanting every time he was near.

At neither time did they talk before or after. Maybe because he knew she wouldn't want to hear what he had to say...and she was afraid of what she might tell him. But she knew they couldn't go on like this for much longer, using only the language of their bodies.

Soon, very soon, what was happening between them would have to be discussed.

And ended.

Friday dawned dark and foggy after a long night of schooling herself to put a stop to the madness, a perfect reflection of the way her insides felt. She couldn't keep up with the highs of those stolen moments in Smith's arms, and then the lows of seeing him on set an hour later and having to act like they were strangers. Yes, she knew he didn't want things to be that way, that he would gladly have alerted the entire cast and crew to their budding relationship, but she knew any pain she was suffering now was so much less than the pain she'd feel down the road if she were foolish enough to think of herself as his girlfriend rather than his latest film-fling. Valentina had seen far more women than her mother go through that hell during the past ten years, and she'd always vowed never to put herself in that position. And God forbid anyone with a camera caught them together. She couldn't imagine seeing herself on the cover of a magazine.

So as she headed onto the set with her gifts for the holiday party, she firmly reminded herself: No matter what, she wasn't going to make love to Smith again.

* * *

Smith was known throughout Hollywood for working hard, for holding focus, and for always giving his best. But he'd never put in hours like these before, never even knew he had it in him. It was easy to let everyone think it was because he was staking so much on the success of Gravity.

He alone knew the truth.

Ten minutes in Valentina's arms would fuel him for ten hours, and then, when he finally came down from the high she gave him, he missed her so much - and wanted her again so badly - that trying to rest or relax was pointless. Instead, he worked through all those hours of frustration and need, only sleeping when he'd temporarily exhausted her scent, the feel of her on his lips, his hands, out of his system.

Most of the cast and crew were already in the holiday-decorated room in the big warehouse they'd rented in San Francisco to film the bulk of their indoor scenes, sharing drinks and food, by the time Valentina arrived. Even in the middle of a heated discussion with two cameramen about the San Francisco Outlaws' prospect for another Super Bowl that year, he sensed her presence in the crowded room.

Excusing himself, he moved through the room toward her. "I'm glad you're here."

Her beautiful skin was already flushing when Tatiana moved to her side and slipped her arm around her sister's waist.

"I was worried I was going to have to come kidnap your computer to get you out of your office for the party. You've been working so hard lately, I'm starting to wonder if you've secretly taken on another actor."

Smith could guess exactly how Valentina was spinning her sister's innocent comment as she flushed deeply before trying to laugh and say, "Imagine my trying to keep a secret like that from you."

She very purposefully didn't look in Smith's direction as she said it. He had never been anyone's secret before. Girls, then women, had been proud to claim him, practically from the minute he could walk and talk.

He didn't like being Valentina's secret, disliked it with such vehemence, in fact, that if he wasn't careful, he was going to completely lose the tenuous grip he had on his patience. Moments of satisfaction had been few and far between the past week, but he was working like hell to keep believing they were getting somewhere...and that the day would soon come when Valentina wouldn't be able to keep denying their connection.

So rather than pull her into him and kiss her senseless in front of his entire crew, he made himself turn and walk away to play Secret Santa. He let the laughter, the joy, the happiness of the people around him fill him up over the next hours. It was one of the best parts of working on a movie, the way a group of strangers came together and turned into a family over the course of weeks or months. By the time the taxis were called to take everyone home, everyone would be pleasantly sloshed. No doubt they'd all be starting work later than usual the next morning.

And yet, as he laughed with his cast, as he complimented his crew for the great job they'd been doing, he wanted Valentina with a fierceness that surprised even him. No woman had ever done this to him: made him burn, tore him open, tried his patience to its very limits.

People were dancing all around them as Valentina came toward him, a wrapped box in her hands. "I have a gift for you."

Even though all he wanted was her, he made himself take the present. Gifts had never made him surly before, but he relished the harsh sound of the paper shredding beneath his hands.

Only, when he saw the puzzle, he thought - no, he knew - what she was trying to tell him.

Because everything had changed for them at Alcatraz.

"I love it, Valentina."

One word. All he'd need to change was one word. It to you.

He wasn't surprised when she let the dancing crowd pull her in and swallow her up, disappearing before he could say it. But he knew without a doubt that she'd heard what he hadn't said...and that he wouldn't wait much longer to whisper the three little words against her lips.