Come A Little Bit Closer (The Sullivans #7)(48)

She shrugged, feeling a little foolish. “Nothing about trajectories and acceleration made any sense, until, one day, they suddenly did. I guess I felt invincible after acing that class, like there was nothing I couldn’t figure out if I just worked at it hard enough and didn’t dare give up.” Wanting desperately to know more about him, she took her chance by asking, “What about you?”

“I went for anything where I could get up in front of the class and make a fool of myself. Acting. Dancing. Improv. Glee club. The rest of the time I was on a soccer field or trying to hit a home run or trying to dunk a basketball. But if I’d known a girl like you was in the lab, physics would have definitely shot straight to the top of my list.”

They were in the middle of a store where anyone could see them or take a picture, but despite everything Valentina was afraid of where Smith was concerned, and despite everything she had learned in her physics class, she couldn’t find a way to stop gravity.

Because, oh, how she wanted to feel his hands on her waist, his mouth on hers, and she was leaning in closer to do just that when his phone suddenly rang—the one particularly harsh ring-tone that told both of them there was an emergency on set.

On a curse, Smith pulled back from her and picked up. When he hung up a minute later, from his half of the conversation, she’d gleaned that one of the lighting rigs that had been giving them trouble from the first day had overheated and taken down half the power on set with it.

“I’ll take you back,” she offered immediately.

“I want you to finish your own shopping,” he replied. “I’ll take a cab.” He didn’t reach for her then, but it would have been easier if he had, rather than saying in that low voice that sent thrill bumps running all across her skin, “I enjoyed spending the afternoon with you, Valentina. So much that it will make missing you tonight even harder.”

“Don’t miss me, Smith. Please don’t,” she begged him, partly because she hated hurting him, but also because his wishing he could be with her only made her own impossible wishes harder to ignore.

“Would you be happier knowing that I’m waiting for you to come to me, instead?”

Waiting? For her?

Oh God, she didn’t know how to respond to that, especially not when he said, “I should warn you now that I’m no good at waiting. Especially not when every single voice in my head is telling me to take what I know is already mine.”

Before she could respond, he was gone in another perfectly timed exit that left her feeling like her heart was hanging by a thread.

A very, very thin one.

Her head was spinning and it was tempting to head back to bury herself in work or a hot bath. But since this was her one chance to get the rest of her holiday shopping done, she made herself peruse the rest of the wonders on the remaining floors of Gump’s.

Valentina was about to pay for her gifts when she saw the box by the register: a puzzle of Alcatraz.

She hadn’t yet bought a gift to give to Smith at the cast and crew holiday party. The puzzle couldn’t be more perfect. And as she asked the woman behind the counter to please wrap it up as well, she suddenly had to wonder—could gravity have as much to do with forever as it did with the first flush of falling for someone?

When she got home a little while later and unpacked the gifts she’d bought, she was surprised yet again...this time by layer upon layer of gorgeous tissue-wrapped silk and lace lingerie that Smith had somehow gotten the staff at Gump’s to place in her shopping bags.

* * *

Valentina could have quite easily stayed hidden from Smith the next day. She could have stuck near Tatiana, who was filming scenes with alternating triplet newborns who had been brought in for the movie. She could have buried herself in email, could have even taken her computer home to get her work done in the peace and quiet of their rental house.

But she wasn’t a coward, damn it...and she couldn’t let Smith keep putting his life on hold while he waited for her to come around.

She found him in the screening room, sitting in the dark. His attention was so completely on the screen that she wasn’t sure he even knew she’d come into the room, not until he reached out a hand for her and she took it without thinking.

In silence, they watched the scene from the first day of filming. She was shocked to think that she and Smith had still been strangers then, at least until she’d yanked him into his office to warn him away from her sister.

How, she found herself wondering, had there ever been a time when she hadn’t known him? He’d become so important, so vital, to every single one of her days...and to one incredibly perfect night that she’d never, ever forget.

But the questions faded as she got lost in the scene all over again, forgetting everything except the drama playing out before her eyes. When the scene ended and the screen went to black, she had to tell him, “It’s even better than I remembered. The two of you are so perfect together.”

“Our characters are perfect together. But they aren’t real,” he reminded her as he tugged her closer to him in her chair on wheels in the dimly lit room. “You. Me. We’re what’s real, Valentina. How much longer are you going to make me wait for you?”

It had barely been three days since they’d made love. And yet, Valentina knew exactly why Smith was so frustrated with those seventy-two hours.