Author: Bella Andre

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.”

She loved the sound of his laughter, loved even more knowing that she’d pleased him. Because oh my, how he’d just pleased her. Again and again, with every touch, every kiss, every stroke of his body against—and into—hers.

“The cupcakes are over here,” she reminded him as he walked beautifully naked across the room to his dresser. He opened a drawer and pulled something out of it.

As satisfied as she’d felt just seconds ago, Valentina’s heart was now beating hard and fast as she wondered what Smith had planned for her. Especially when he said, “Close your eyes.”

“Why?”

He grinned at her. “Trust me, you’re going to like it.”

His easy use of the words trust me had her quickly sitting up in bed and her gut clenching. She could give her body so much more easily than she could give her trust to a man.

But as she looked up into Smith’s eyes and saw the careful way he was watching her, she was amazed—shocked, actually—to realize that she did trust him. At least for this one night, when she could be absolutely certain that nothing, and no one, would come between them.

On a long exhale, she let her eyes close, and a moment later, she felt something soft being wrapped around her eyes. Before she could ask him why he was blindfolding her, Valentina smelled sugar and chocolate.

“Take a bite.”

She bit into the cake pressed softly against her lips and every one of her taste buds came completely alive. “Mmm.” She started to lick at the frosting she could feel on the corner of her upper lip, but Smith’s tongue beat hers there.

“Delicious.”

He moved the chocolate back to her lips and she took another bite. Dessert had never tasted so good before and she was more than ready to feel Smith’s mouth on hers again when he surprised her with the sensation of something cold across the tip of one breast and then the other a beat later.

“Did you know there was filling inside the cupcake?”

She was so lost in the heady anticipation of what he was about to do that she could barely get out the word no.

“I can’t tell what flavor it is. Maybe you can help me?”

“Smith. Please.”

He’d reduced her to begging yet again, but she didn’t care, not when she could feel his warm breath on her skin and then his tongue moving over her as he licked greedily at her incredibly sensitive nipples. She clutched blindly at his shoulders as he moved to clean off her other breast in the same powerfully seductive, wickedly perfect way.

Only when every last drop was gone did he move his mouth to hers and kiss her again. When she was completely breathless, he said, “Tell me, Valentina. What flavor was it?”

Love.

He tasted like love.

The forbidden four-letter word popped into her head unbidden, not just once, but twice, startling her into going stiff in his arms.

Instantly sensing her distress, he pulled the tie he’d used as a makeshift blindfold from her eyes and ran his hands slowly down her arms. “I promised I wouldn’t do anything you didn’t want me to do tonight,” he said in a soothing voice. “Was it the blindfold?”

It wasn’t, of course. She had liked that part very, very much.

She reached for him and wound her arms around his neck. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

And he truly hadn’t. She was the one who was going to have to work like crazy to protect herself again come morning. Which was why she should be glad for the small slip. It was the perfect reminder that even as she gave him her body, she needed to hold back her heart.

Trying to recapture the playfulness from just moments before, she said, “But I do feel kind of sticky now.”

His dark eyes held hers for a long moment, until her prayers that he’d let her strange behavior go were answered. He swept her up into his arms and carried her into his bathroom.

As he started the water running, his hands roamed over her skin, his mouth playing at the curve where her neck met her shoulder. She arched into him and there was barely twelve inches of water in the bottom of the tub when he said, “I need you again, Valentina.”

“Yes,” she said as she slid with him into the shallow water. “Again.”

Somehow he found a condom and had it on just in time for her to come down onto him at the exact moment that he plunged inside. She’d have thought this second time would be wonderful, but not anywhere near as special as their first time.

And yet, when he pulled nearly clear of her before driving in so deep and fast again that she had to cling to him tighter, and as she cried out with pleasure at gentle bite of his teeth and the sweet pull of his lips over her breasts, along with the tight hold he had on her hips with his big hands, Valentina knew that their lovemaking could never become ordinary, nor simple.

Not even if they had decades together in each other’s arms, instead of only one night.

Afterward, when they were both clean and dry again, and she felt more exhausted than she ever had before, Smith gently brought her back to the tangled sheets on his bed, tucked her in, and pulled her against him.

She had never slept well while sharing a bed with anyone, not even her sister on the nights when Tatiana had had childhood nightmares and climbed in with her. And Valentina’s decision to spend the night with Smith hadn’t included sleeping like this with him. Only sex.

But with Smith’s strong, warm arms around her, and one of his hands wrapped around hers so that both rested on top of her heart, she simply didn’t have it in her to fight the darkness of sleep...or the sweetness of being with Smith like this.

Chapter Fifteen

More asleep than awake the next morning, Valentina curled into the warm body beside her and sighed with pleasure. It wasn’t until she felt a hand stroke over her hair and soft kisses pressed to her closed eyelids that she finally woke all the way.

Oh God, she thought as she tried to keep her body from going instantly stiff against Smith’s, what had she done?

No, she hadn’t forgotten that she’d slept with him. She’d made that decision with a clear mind and didn’t regret it, wouldn’t ever let herself regret the most sweetly sensual hours of her life. But as morning light shone in through his second-story bedroom windows, she did regret breaking one very important rule: She’d stayed the night.

She was a flesh-and-blood woman full of hormones and desires. One hot night of sex was okay. Great, even, especially if it meant she could stop spending all her time and energy wondering about how it would feel to make love with Smith, and turn her focus back to her real life.

But waking up in his bed, having breakfast, sharing the part of her day with him when she was the most vulnerable...that was most definitely not okay.

Somehow she needed to figure out how to get out of his bed and his house without making a big deal of the one night they’d shared together.

Only, as he softly kissed her eyebrows, then each cheekbone, the tip of her nose, and then her chin, the last thing she wanted to do was leave his bed. Desire rose again, fast and hot, and she wanted so badly to thread her hands through his soft hair and drag his mouth to one of the places she really needed it.

So many rules she’d already broken for this man...so many more she knew she might not be strong enough to keep from breaking as, instead of turning away from him, she started to turn deeper into his arms, her leg moving to slide against his as she arched into his touch, silently begging him for more.

Until the harsh sound of a cell phone yanked her out of the sensual fog.

Her eyes flew open, her hands going flat on his chest. “Your phone—”

“—can keep ringing.”

But she was too well trained by her sister’s schedule to lose hold of an important calendar item, even as deep in the sensual fog as she’d been. Shock hit her that she’d come this close to forgetting. Clearly, making love with Smith had muddled her brain in a serious way.