“The dogs from the puzzle, right?”

He nodded. “Plus Summer’s poodle. My brother Gabe is going to be her stepfather soon, when he marries Megan on New Year’s Eve. Gabe’s a firefighter.”

“I love the fact that you and your siblings all do such different things,” she said, and then, “I’ve chatted with Vicki a few times when she’s come to drop off another new sculpture. She’s engaged to your baseball-playing brother, isn’t she?”

“Ryan and Vicki are the newest engagement in the family.” He had to reach out and brush a lock of hair back from her forehead, for no other reason than that he couldn’t resist touching her.

“Is anyone else but you free?”

Free? He wasn’t even close to free, and was only now realizing that he hadn’t been since the day he’d first seen her, first talked to her, first tasted her lips and held her in his arms.

“Just Lori. She’s Sophie’s twin. A great choreographer. We call her Naughty to Sophie’s Nice.”

Valentina grinned. “Naughty, huh? What does she think of that?”

He grinned back. “She loves causing trouble and making sure she lives up to it every day of her life.”

“Of every one of your siblings, I think she’s the one I’m jealous of.” Valentina looked down to where her hand was still splayed out over his chest before lifting her eyes back up to his. “Getting to be naughty, knowing it’s okay just to let go, sounds so wonderful.”

Oh hell. He’d known there was passion simmering just beneath Valentina’s cool and collected surface, but hearing her say it aloud sent him all the way to the edge of his control.

The gentle jolt of his yacht as the engine was turned off stopped him less than an inch from her mouth. “I’ve got to help Billy dock up,” he said in a voice raw with the passion he was trying to keep from unleashing for just a little while longer, but Lord knew he could barely move his arms from around Valentina to go and do it.

Her eyes were full of so much sensuality as she said, “I’ll help, too. Just tell me what you need me to do.”

His body responded immediately to the idea of Valentina letting him take charge, and he couldn’t resist dropping his mouth to hers for a quick, hard kiss in the few seconds before they made it to the dock.

“I’ve never seen you take orders from anyone.”

She nipped at his lower lip before murmuring, “That’s because no one has ever had the guts to give me any before.”

His entire body responded to her way-too-tempting challenge as she shimmied past him and out onto the deck.

Working quickly and efficiently—or, as efficiently as Smith could given that watching Valentina tie a perfect sailor’s knot made his fingers slip on the ropes more than once—the three of them brought his boat in and secured it to the dock. And then, finally, they were saying goodnight to Billy and were back in Smith’s car.

He was gunning out of the parking lot when Valentina said, “I think we need to set some ground rules before we get to your house.”

Her words still held that note of sensuality that had been present ever since she’d kissed him earlier, yet he could tell she was completely serious. Smith had never liked being constrained by rules. He knew when to respect them, whether he wanted to or not...and he also knew when it was absolutely imperative to break them.

So even though he was beyond desperate to get her into his bed, he pulled over on a dark street and turned the engine off. “All I want is to give you pleasure, Valentina. More pleasure than you’ve ever imagined.” But that wasn’t enough. He knew he had to offer her more than just pleasure. “I promise I won’t do anything, not one single thing tonight, that you don’t want.”

She blinked at him, her gaze full of a mixture of longing and lingering worry that tugged hard at his heartstrings. And when she said, “I know you won’t,” her softly spoken response pulled them even tighter.

“Whatever happens when we get to my house—” He paused, knowing he couldn’t let either of them hide from what was about to happen. “—and to my bed, I don’t want either of us to regret tonight.” Or any of the nights that I know will come after that.

Her pause was longer this time before she said, “I won’t regret it.” She slid her hand over his. “I want tonight just as much as you do.” She paused again before adding, “But only tonight.”

Her thumb brushed over his palm the same way his had across hers on the boat, as if the gentle touch of her skin could in some way soften the fact that she’d just made her intention to spend one night with him, and one night only, perfectly clear.

He lifted her hand to his lips, knew that was as close as he could get to kissing her again until they were behind the locked doors of his house—unless they wanted to get arrested for indecent exposure in his car.

As sure as Valentina was that this couldn’t go past one night, he was even more sure they were going to end up in it for the long haul. Just like his siblings and their mates. Just like his mother and father.

Chapter Thirteen

As soon as they were parked in his garage, Smith jumped out of his car, yanked open Valentina’s door, and scooped her up into his arms.

“Don’t forget the cupcakes.” His brain was barely getting enough blood by that point to wrap around the fact that she actually still wanted dessert until she whispered, “As soon as I saw them, I pictured us eating them naked in bed.”

Jesus, he thought as he paused only long enough for her to reach down and grab the box of cupcakes, he was as close to losing it as he’d ever been, despite the fact that they both still had their clothes on and they were a good hundred feet from his bedroom.

But as much as he wanted her in his bed, naked beneath him as he made love to her the way he’d been dreaming of for too damn long, he couldn’t keep his mouth off hers any longer. Not when he was finally holding her in his arms, and she was looking at him with such heat in her beautiful eyes, a flush of sensual anticipation staining her high cheekbones and coloring her unpainted lips a dark rose.

Standing holding her in the middle of his living room, Smith lowered his mouth to Valentina’s in a kiss so soft, so sweet, it was more a breath than a meeting of their lips. Low down, his gut twisted tight as he tasted the exotic spice of her with a long, slow swipe of his tongue over her full bottom lip. Her soft moan of pleasure at the sensual touch had him tightening his hold on her, and his lips pressing deeper against hers. When her tongue found his and stroked against it, it was his moan sounding in the room.

Finally, he was getting to kiss her, hold her. And as she stroked one hand over his jaw while opening herself up even more to his kiss, and kissing him back with unabashed passion, she was so much sexier, so much sweeter, than he’d dreamed.

Again and again he tasted every inch of her mouth, the sensitive corners, the curves and contours of the cupid’s bow at the top of her upper lip, then back yet one more time to nip at the fullness of her bottom lip before laving over the small hurt with his tongue.

On a gasping breath, Valentina whispered his name. “Smith. You’re making my head spin.”

“Good,” he said before he kissed her again. He wasn’t even close to having his fill of her mouth as he pulled back just far enough to tell her, “Because it’s what you’ve done to me from the very first moment I saw you.”

But even as his words sounded against her lips, she was licking out against him, making him even crazier to have her, and this time when they kissed, gentleness gave way completely to greediness, to the need to turn desire into possession.

“Please,” she begged on a rasping breath when he let her free for just long enough to try to catch her breath.

“Tell me,” he urged her even as he had to steal another taste of her lips. “What do you need, Valentina?”

“More.”

Her confession nearly took him all the way over, without anything more than their kisses to get him there. And yet, this anticipation, the shockingly sensual dance where they drew out each other’s pleasure with simple kisses, with gentle caresses, was too good to turn away from just yet.

“Yes,” he agreed as he dropped his mouth to hers again and drank in the pure sweetness of her response, “I could keep kissing you forever.”

As they’d kissed, her hazel eyes had dilated until the brown had been edged out almost completely by green.

“Everywhere.”

The one word from her lips was full of so much need, so much desire, that what was left of the blood flow to his brain crashed in one big wave toward the hard-on throbbing behind the zipper of his jeans.

“I need you to kiss me everywhere.”

Immediately rewarding her with kisses along her jawline, and then against one earlobe, as he pulled the very sensitive flesh between his teeth and she shuddered in pleasure, he was even more amazed by how well she covered up her sensuality on a day-to-day basis. Especially when it ran this deep, when her response to every kiss, to every touch, floored him...and made him desperate for more of her.

Hovering on the precipice of taking her on his living room rug, Smith forced himself to mount the stairs to his bedroom instead. She held onto him with one arm around his neck, the other holding the dessert box dangling from her fingertips.

Every time he’d imagined making love to her, he’d envisioned making her lose control. But when he finally stood at the foot of his bed with the one woman he desired above all others in his arms, Smith finally understood that he’d gotten it backward. Because with nothing more than a handful of kisses, Valentina had taken complete charge of his body, his arousal.

Still, as he lowered his mouth to hers in another soft kiss, and she trembled in his arms, he loved knowing that maybe, just maybe, he wasn’t the only one losing all semblance of control.

He lowered her to his bed, and when the dessert box finally slipped from her hand onto the covers, he slid his fingers through hers. They stared at each other for several long moments, and he swore he could hear the beating of her heart, and his, racing with each other.

Fast.

Dangerous.

And so damned right.

Finally, he leaned his weight into hers, and held her steady beneath him as he took her mouth again and again, her taste more and more addictive with every kiss. Just as generous with her kisses as she was with everything else she did, she held nothing back as she pressed into him, wrapping her jeans-clad legs around his hips to bring him closer.

Hotter.

Sweeter.

More, he thought when he couldn’t get enough of her mouth, or of the sleekly sensuous curves moving beneath him.

“Too many clothes,” he murmured against her neck as his fingers found the hem of her sweater, her stomach warm and sensitive even under the cotton shirt that still separated his fingertips from her bare skin.

Even as he reached for her, she was running her own fingers beneath his shirt, and over the muscles of his abdomen, which rippled beneath her touch.

“Yes,” she agreed with a nip to his earlobe, “too many.”

He had to take her mouth again, their tongues swirling together until he needed to draw away for a split second to pull her sweater and shirt all the way off. Her breasts rose and fell with each breath and when he looked at her again, he saw that she wore the simple black bra better than any supermodel could have.

“Thank God,” he said as he reached out and ran one finger over the swell of first one breast, and then the other, “you’re finally here with me.”

Again, she trembled beneath his barest touch, and he loved watching her lose control so much that even though he was dying to taste her again, he held back long enough to brush his fingertips over the incredibly soft skin at the swell of her breasts one more time.

Barely a heartbeat from ripping off her clothes and just taking her with absolutely none of the finesse or gentleness that he usually gave to his lovers, Smith tried to force some rational thought back into his brain. Maybe, he thought with more than a little desperation, putting her on top would save them both from moving too fast this first time.