Come A Little Bit Closer (The Sullivans #7)(65)

Her fingers entwined with his and he had to lift her hand to his mouth to press a kiss to it, whether she wanted him to or not.

“I didn’t know I was capable of that much jealousy,” she admitted with a rueful twist of her lips into something that no one would ever call a smile. “I know there is nothing between you two. I even know that there never could be, that you’re like brother and sister, but...” She took a shaky breath that was like a punch to his chest. “But it was so hard to remember any of that when you were—” She shook her head. “No. I don’t want to relive it anymore, not with the crazy soundtrack from today still playing in my head.” She moved closer, close enough now that he could feel the heat of her body all along his. “Help me make a new one, Smith.”

All he wanted was to kiss her, to love her, but not just for those reasons.

“I’ve never wanted a woman more than I want you, but I want our lovemaking to be more than just a way for you to forget what happened today. I need us to be more than that, Valentina.”

He saw the effect of his words laid bare on her face. He wasn’t going to hold back anymore. He couldn’t. Not when he’d come so close to losing her today.

“What—”

When she paused, Smith found it so damned difficult to let one of the most extraordinary women he’d ever met stumble on her question, but as much as he wanted to steamroll her into loving him the way he knew he loved her, he forced himself to wait.

Finally, she asked, “What do you want? What do you need?”

“You.”

It was as simple as that. He suspected it always would be. From that first moment he’d met her, he’d been drawn to her. Making love with her had taken that sudden spark and magnified it until he’d become utterly consumed with her. Not just her body, not just her unbridled passion, but everything she was, inside and out.

“I want you, too.”

Her words came so softly that he’d barely have been able to hear them if he hadn’t been praying for them with every fiber of his soul.

For all the suffering that today’s filming had caused, maybe it was exactly the turning point they both needed.

He slid the pad of his thumb across her full lower lip and she shuddered at his touch, the strong woman who always trembled so beautifully in his arms. “You already have me, Valentina. You know that. So tell me—” He paused to draw on his self-control so that he didn’t give in to the almost overpowering urge to take before she had a chance to give. “—what else do you want?”

“I want—”

She paused again, but this time when she looked into his eyes, he could see her strength, clear and present on her beautiful face. And the determination that was so much a part of her.

“I want to try. I haven’t given you—us—a chance. I mean, I know I’ve taken a chance on sleeping with you,” she said with a heated flush that had him wanting to pull her down to the floor to take her right then and there, “but I haven’t let myself think that anything more could be possible.” She looked incredibly contrite as she said, “I’ve been unfair to you. And I think,” she said slowly, “to myself, too.”

She was still holding his gaze straight on, and hot damn if that didn’t do it for him just as much as her momentary lapse into softness did. Oh yes, all the contours and shapes, the sharp edges and rounded curves, the fire and the ice...every last cell that made up Valentina Landon did it for him.

“Would you like to go out on a date with me?”

Joy at her question came so sharp and sweet he could all but taste it as he grinned at her. “There’s nothing I’d like more.”

But instead of grinning back, she said, “Nothing?” in a seductive voice that sent every last pint of blood rushing south.

“Well, now that you mention it,” he said as she closed the final distance between them and pressed herself against him, “there might be one or two things.”

Her mouth lifted up to his and even as he tried to let her lead their sensual dance, he was lost to his need for her. There was no one but Valentina as whatever remnants were left from more than twenty years of women were completely erased from his consciousness as her tongue slid out over his lower lip to mimic the way he’d been touching her just minutes before. He sucked her tongue inside so that it tangled with his as her hands tugged at his shirt.

Buttons flew as she yanked the fabric open and shoved the cotton off his shoulders and onto the floor. Smith loved that no one who had met Valentina, not even her close friends, would recognize her right now. So much passion drove her that it floored him every single time they were intimate with each other.

And all of that passion was his.

“It should have been me today.” She followed her words by pressing a kiss to the hollow just beneath his Adam’s apple. “I love my sister so much and what you two were doing wasn’t even real and I still wanted to shove her off the bed and take her place beneath you.”

Every spot her sister’s mouth had been during filming, Valentina now covered with her lips, running kisses over his shoulders, and then his collarbones. She made hungry little sounds as she reclaimed him for herself and each one reverberated through him, from chest to groin.

Lord, if he was going to stay upright, he needed something to hold on to. Thank God her hips were right there, surprising him yet again with how full and round they were beneath his palms.