Come a Little Bit Closer: The Sullivans (15 page)

“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 hips 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 hips 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 naked 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 nakedness; 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 naked 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 breasts 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 climax, 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...

Chapter Fourteen

Valentina looked down to find Smith staring up at her, his eyes even darker than normal, and so intense that her heart skipped a beat in her chest.

She could see the desire on his face, knew hers matched it in equal measure, and yet past the desire was something that tore at her heart...a longing, a need she’d worked so long and hard to hold at bay in herself. One that went far beyond making love.

It went to cold nights wrapped up together under a blanket on the couch.

To tears dried by someone you knew you could trust with your deepest, darkest secrets.

To afternoons on rocking chairs holding hands while grandchildren played at your feet.

Tenderness rose up in her just as swiftly as pleasure had and she pulled him back up over her to give him a kiss that was even sweeter than any that had come before. Just as sweet was the next warm rush of pleasure as his hands explored her naked skin from curve to curve while his tongue teased hers. She could taste herself on him and shivered at the incredibly potent memory of Smith between her legs, lapping at her as though she was the sweetest treat he’d ever been given.

She wasn’t surprised by wanting him, not when Smith was so incredibly desirable, and sexy. But she was surprised by just how deeply her need for him ran...and by the fact that she already wanted more, even before she’d had all of him.

So much more.

Which was why, even though she’d barely come down from her first orgasm, when he slid one hand down over her breasts, then down to the vee between her legs, it was the most natural thing in the world to open her legs for him, and to lift herself into the wonderfully deep strokes of his fingers inside her.

“God, Valentina.” He licked at her neck, before sucking her skin in between his teeth and lips. “You’re so wet. So damned wet, and hot, for me.”

With every thrust of his hand, his palm rocking over her sensitive flesh, he took her higher and higher. So incredibly high, she found herself actually bracing for it to all come tumbling down around her. Because how could she possibly fly so high without knowing for sure if she’d make it back to earth in one piece?

“
Smith.
”

She didn’t know what she was trying to tell him. Didn’t know if she was begging for more, or pleading with him to have mercy on her. Her eyes fluttered open and she knew what she saw in his gaze—the hunger, the emotion, the desperation—was there for him to see in hers, too.

“I’m right here,” he said when he felt her tense, soothing her with his touch, even as he sent her flying higher and higher into uncharted territory. “Come for me, Valentina. Let me have all of you again.”

And oh, how she wanted to be completely his, if only for one perfect night.

Just that quickly, her defenses dissolved beneath his touch, his mouth on hers, the slick of his tongue against hers. And as waves of pleasure crashed up and over her again, she was surprised to feel neither emptiness, nor the slightest shame at the way she writhed against him, as purely sexual a being as she’d ever been.

Just as he had after her first orgasm, Smith took her all the way through, then past the delicious peak of her climax. Safe, yet oh-so-heady, warmth surrounded her as he rained kisses over her breasts, then across her ribs, over her stomach, then down past her sex to press soft kisses on the inside of each leg. At the same time that his mouth roamed her, his large hands stroked down over her muscles, the length of her arms, her back, and then down both legs, making her so incredibly relaxed.

It had been fun, sexy, exciting, to be naked beneath him, over him, while he’d still been fully dressed. But an ever-growing need to have all of him, too, made her impatient and she was soon pulling off his shirt with little care for buttons popping off or the sound of one sleeve tearing.

She loved the way their hands looked together as he helped her unbutton and unzip his jeans, his big and tanned, hers slender and pale. It was what she’d always felt around him, more feminine, more sensual, than she’d ever allowed herself to be with anyone else.

Not, of course, that she’d
allowed
herself to be that woman with him, not even tonight. Smith had simply
demanded
that sensuality from her from the first moment they’d met.

Valentina wasn’t promiscuous, but she hadn’t been a nun for the past decade, either. And yet, being with Smith felt like making love for the very first time. They were more than a man and a woman who couldn’t resist coming together...they felt like a miracle.

Or, at the very least, she thought as he threw his shirt onto the floor, kicked off his jeans, and grabbed a condom from a drawer in the bedside table,
he
was a miracle.

Because she’d never seen such a beautiful man in all her life.

She’d known his face was near perfection, but the breadth of his shoulders, the lean muscles that rippled over his arms and across his stomach, his strong hips and thighs, all wrapped in tanned skin...

“I need a second to appreciate
you
now,” she told him as he came back over her.

Lifting a hand that trembled with both need and excitement, she ran the tip of one finger lightly down the deep line at the center of his abs. Tilting her face up to press a kiss to his skin, with her lips and tongue, she went back over every inch of perfection that she’d just touched.

His muscles flexed and jumped under her hand and mouth as she whispered, “I might even need two.”

“Take as long as you need.”

His voice was raw with desire, and she loved knowing she’d done this to him. She would never be his physical equal—no one would—but she could match him passion for passion, need for need, kiss for kiss.

Only, her ache for him went even deeper, so deep that her hands shook as she ran them down over his torso until she couldn’t take any more time at all and had to pull at the waistband on his boxers to drag them over his erection. Thank God, a moment later Smith had a condom on and then he was back over her, her hands in his on either side of her head.

He didn’t move, didn’t push inside her, didn’t even kiss her again. Instead, he simply stared into her eyes as if there was an answer he’d find if he only looked hard enough for it, and had the patience to draw it from her.

“
Valentina.
”

The way he whispered her name with such desperate hunger had her closing her fingers tightly over his, and lifting her head so that their mouths could meet in a beautifully brutal kiss, both of them biting, sucking, taking from each other what they needed, and giving just as much back.

She couldn’t get over her amazement at finally feeling the heat of his skin, the dark hairs on his chest, his muscles moving against hers...and to know that all those secret fantasies she’d had about him since the day they’d met were finally coming to life.

And, oh, she’d never felt so alive as she did when she opened herself to him and he finally came into her. The stretch of her inner muscles over his thick, hard length made the pleasure so intense that her eyes fluttered closed, and her hips lifted automatically to take him deeper, her ankles linking together behind his hips to bring him closer.

Completely connected now, she could practically feel his heart beating inside her as he said her name again,
and it was almost enough to have her coming apart around him. But before she could make even the slightest sound to let him know just how close to the edge she was, his mouth covered hers in a kiss so heartbreakingly sweet, so gentle even as continually rising passion drove her to wrap her legs around his hips tighter still.

And moments later, when he finally lifted his mouth from hers, everything inside of her rebelled at letting him go.

For weeks, she’d pushed her feelings for Smith into the shadows. It had been a secret she was trying to keep from everyone, especially herself.

Tonight, carefully guarded secrets were no match for desire.

Valentina threaded her hands into his hair and pulled his mouth back down to hers. She wasn’t just offering herself for one night anymore...she was demanding he take everything from her. It had never been like this for her. She had never been this ravenous, this insatiable.

In perfect sync, they moved together, her hips colliding with his, her body begging for every deep, hard thrust. Sinfully sweet became beautifully dirty as they both spiraled out of control in each other’s arms.

* * *

Valentina couldn’t remember ever feeling so good, so languid, so satisfied, even though Smith’s heavy weight was pressing her into the mattress, and the tangled sheets were bunched up under her calf.

“We made a mess of your sheets,” she murmured against his neck, licking at the salty sweat just below his ear. “They’re all tangled now.”

“Good.”

She couldn’t miss the deep satisfaction in his voice, nor the fact that all it took was the vibration of his chest through to hers as he spoke to bring her sated body back to life beneath him.

Knowing she was safe as long as the night still surrounded them, and wanting to make the most of every single one of the stolen hours, she said, “I’m ready for dessert now.”

Smith lifted his head and smiled down at her. “I thought that
was
dessert.”

She pressed her mouth to his and loved getting lost in his kiss. “No, that was just to make sure we worked up an appetite for cupcakes.”