Excusing himself, he moved through the room toward her. “I’m glad you’re here.”

Her beautiful skin was already flushing when Tatiana moved to her side and slipped her arm around her sister’s waist.

“I was worried I was going to have to come kidnap your computer to get you out of your office for the party. You’ve been working so hard lately, I’m starting to wonder if you’ve secretly taken on another actor.”

Smith could guess exactly how Valentina was spinning her sister’s innocent comment as she flushed deeply before trying to laugh and say, “Imagine my trying to keep a secret like that from you.”

She very purposefully didn’t look in Smith’s direction as she said it. He had never been anyone’s secret before. Girls, then women, had been proud to claim him, practically from the minute he could walk and talk.

He didn’t like being Valentina’s secret, disliked it with such vehemence, in fact, that if he wasn’t careful, he was going to completely lose the tenuous grip he had on his patience. Moments of satisfaction had been few and far between the past week, but he was working like hell to keep believing they were getting somewhere...and that the day would soon come when Valentina wouldn’t be able to keep denying their connection.

So rather than pull her into him and kiss her senseless in front of his entire crew, he made himself turn and walk away to play Secret Santa. He let the laughter, the joy, the happiness of the people around him fill him up over the next hours. It was one of the best parts of working on a movie, the way a group of strangers came together and turned into a family over the course of weeks or months. By the time the taxis were called to take everyone home, everyone would be pleasantly sloshed. No doubt they’d all be starting work later than usual the next morning.

And yet, as he laughed with his cast, as he complimented his crew for the great job they’d been doing, he wanted Valentina with a fierceness that surprised even him. No woman had ever done this to him: made him burn, tore him open, tried his patience to its very limits.

People were dancing all around them as Valentina came toward him, a wrapped box in her hands. “I have a gift for you.”

Even though all he wanted was her, he made himself take the present. Gifts had never made him surly before, but he relished the harsh sound of the paper shredding beneath his hands.

Only, when he saw the puzzle, he thought—no, he knew—what she was trying to tell him.

Because everything had changed for them at Alcatraz.

“I love it, Valentina.”

One word. All he’d need to change was one word. It to you.

He wasn’t surprised when she let the dancing crowd pull her in and swallow her up, disappearing before he could say it. But he knew without a doubt that she’d heard what he hadn’t said...and that he wouldn’t wait much longer to whisper the three little words against her lips.

Chapter Nineteen

“Valentina!”

She was just sitting down on set to wait for filming to begin when Smith’s sister Lori called her name and came to sit next to her.

“It’s so nice to see you again,” Valentina said, meaning it. She’d had such a great day at the spa with Smith’s sisters a week ago.

“You too,” Lori said, her eyes twinkling with mischief. “I’ve been dying to get an update on the guy you’re having the super hot I-don’t-want-this-to-encourage-you sex with. Is he still putting in his best effort for your heart? Or has he given up yet?”

Before Valentina could answer—or slap a hand over Lori’s mouth—Smith was standing in front of them...looking like he’d just heard every word his sister had said.

“Hey Naughty, glad you could drop by,” he said as he gave Lori a hug. But his dark eyes were on Valentina the entire time, refusing to let her look away.

“Me too,” Lori said beaming up at the brother she clearly adored.

Valentina was almost blinded by the beauty shared by the two siblings. Were it not for the kindness in their eyes, and the smiles that so naturally played around their mouths, the Sullivans would have been a very intimidating clan, indeed.

Tatiana came by just then to say hello to Lori, which left Smith’s focus too much on Valentina for comfort. She tried to shoot him a look that said, I’ll explain what Lori just said later, okay? Just don’t do or say anything we’re going to regret. Please, can we save this for when it’s just the two of us?

But she could see the frustration in his eyes, the same darkness that had been there after their first night together when he’d pinned her to the bed in the morning and refused to let her leave, the same end to his patience that she’d felt at the holiday party when she’d given him the puzzle of Alcatraz.

God, just the memory of the lovemaking they’d shared had her insides clenching with heat. She could have sworn a hundred times over that she wasn’t running so that he could chase her...but her body disproved that lie each and every time.

“Valentina.” His low voice thrummed over nerves stretched taut. “Those files you asked for are in my office.”

“Great,” she managed in what she hoped was a calm, even voice. “I’ll get them from you—”

“Now.”

There were no files. And even if there had been, she certainly could have waited to get them until after he and Tatiana finished shooting their next scene. But something told her it was either follow Smith into his office now...or risk him doing something in front of everyone on set later that would have eyebrows rising and tongues wagging.

She could see he wasn’t in the mood to wait too long for her to make her decision, so she quickly said, “We’ll be right back,” to their sisters and led the way to his office. She could feel his eyes on her, the subtle sway of her hips feeling more pronounced beneath the heat of his gaze, every sensitive area of her body already responding to him without so much as a touch.

She’d barely stepped into his office when she heard the door close—and lock—behind them.

“Smith.” She slowly turned around to face him. “Lori never would have said that if she knew you were the guy I’ve been—”

He waited, one eyebrow raised...and her stomach twisted at the sure knowledge that no matter what she said, she was only going to hurt him again.

She couldn’t say they were just sleeping together, because she couldn’t deny that what they had shared had been more than that. So much more. Even though she’d been trying as hard as she could to convince herself that it wasn’t.

“I don’t know what to call what we’re doing,” she said softly. “Actually, I tried to find you this morning in your office so that we could talk.” God, she hated admitting it, but he had to know. “I don’t know how to handle how fast everything has been moving between us. And even though every day I tell myself it’s the last time, things between us just keep getting—”

“Strip.”

The word worse—or was it better?—was halted on the tip of her tongue by his rough-edged command.

Day in and day out she watched him dominate his cast and crew on set. However smoothly he did it, Smith was always completely in charge of everything around him. With her, however, he’d invariably been gentle. Even that morning in his bed, he’d been careful not to push her too hard or too far.

Until now.

“Strip.”

Valentina knew she should be irritated with him for making such a command. Not to mention frustrated by the way he always steered her away from taking measures to shut down their affair.

She should be feeling anything but immediately warm and loose—and desperately wanting—just from the possession in his voice. And from his sure knowledge that she was not only going to obey his sensual command...but was going to absolutely love every single second of it.

So sure, in fact, that he didn’t wait for her to start taking off her clothes before he began to remove his own. Unfortunately he was right about her, because desire grew more and more inescapable as she watched him shrug off his jacket and then undo one button after another on his shirt.

She could barely swallow by the time he reached for his belt buckle, but somehow managed to croak, “They’re going to be looking for you on set soon.”

“Then we’ll have to make this quick, won’t we?”

His shoes and socks were off a moment later and then his pants until he was clad only in boxer briefs that did nothing whatsoever to hide the state of his arousal.

“Our sisters are going to wonder how your clothes got wrinkled,” he murmured as he advanced on her.

He was right. If she wasn’t going to muster up the strength to leave his office, she needed to get her suit off, and fast. With desire holding her so tightly in its grip that wild horses couldn’t have dragged her away, she reached for her jacket with shaking fingers. But Smith was close enough already that he was sliding his hands into her hair and kissing her.

Her hands fluttered from her jacket to his broad shoulders. Right when she should have been saying no and pushing him away, all she could do was say yes over and over in her head as she pulled him closer. And then his hands were shoving her jacket off and he was undoing the buttons on her blouse and unzipping her skirt as deftly and efficiently as he’d removed his own clothes.

When she was standing in front of him wearing nothing but her heels and another set of the beautiful lingerie he’d given her, the breath came out of his chest in a heated rush.

“I wish I could spend the next ten hours appreciating you,” he murmured as his lips and teeth came down over the tendon that connected her shoulder and neck, “but since we’ve only got ten minutes...”

Before she realized what he intended, he lifted her onto his desk, not so much as blinking when her hips shoved a stack of papers and a stapler to scatter all over the floor.

“I’ve never wanted anyone or anything the way I want you. You’re making me cross lines, break my own rules to have you. I need you, Valentina. So damn much it’s tearing me apart.”

When they were like this, when he was stroking her skin and searing her with his heat, when she could feel just how much he wanted her, she couldn’t hold anything back from him. Besides, she was clearly just as messed up as he was, because it was more than just sex that was driving her to be with Smith again and again.

It was the need to be close to him.

To let herself be held.

To be intimate.

To be needed.

They were all the things her mother and father shared...and that had torn her mother apart after her father died.

But just as she couldn’t possibly turn away from his need, there was no way she could deny her own. “I need you, too.”

Her admission had him taking her mouth again on a growl of possession as he stepped between her legs. He drew back just enough to say, “Lift your hips,” then pulled off her panties. A second later his boxers were gone and he’d found a condom to roll on over his thick length.

The very last thing they should be doing was having sex on Smith’s desk while his sister, and hers, and the crew were waiting on set for him to film an important scene. And yet, as he took her ankles and wrapped her legs around his hips, as she twined her arms around his neck and held on tight, as he thrust into her on a desperate groan, there was nothing in the world she wanted—or needed—more.

They may have had only ten minutes, but what a glorious sixth of an hour it was as Smith took her over, body and soul, his hips moving in time with hers, his mouth pressing sucking, biting kisses over the upper swells of her breasts.

It didn’t matter how many times they made love, she could never get enough of Smith’s warmth, his passion, the way he so fully embraced not just life, but her, too—sharp edges, soft curves, and everything in between as he sent her flying up over another peak of pleasure, before following her over a second later with one more hard thrust that had the desk skidding with a loud screech over the floor.