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 br**sts, 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 br**sts, 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.