“It did hurt,” she said softly into his neck, and the one short sentence felt like it had reached in and ripped his heart out. “But—” The breath she took shook her chest. “—it wasn’t you who hurt me. I did it to myself.”

He drew back so that he could look into her eyes. He didn’t completely understand what she’d just said and he needed to. “I screwed this up so bad, I can’t believe it. I prepared Tatiana for today, but I—” Damn it, he should have tried harder to talk with Valentina about today before it happened, but he’d been afraid. Afraid that even talking about it would make her run. “My entire career, I never had a problem with filming sex scenes. But it killed me today. Please, tell me it isn’t too late to tell you how much it kills me to touch anyone but you.”

“It’s part of your job, Smith, one I don’t want to steal piece by piece from you because you’re worried about what I might think or feel about you playing a certain role.”

But didn’t she see? He’d been so worried about the importance of investors and the studio and his reputation that he hadn’t realized what was truly important until it was nearly too late.

Her.

“I didn’t think today would be so hard. Not after all the times I’ve had to pretend to make love with married actresses, with women I don’t like, with complete strangers, even with friends.” He dropped his hands from her shoulders and moved away in self-disgust, his hands going to his hair, pulling the dark strands up straight. “Being with your sister onscreen today was the hardest thing I’ve ever done.”

He could see in Valentina’s eyes the same bleakness that he felt down deep in his soul. He hadn’t cheated on her, but nothing felt right anymore. A simple, pure love story without strife or complication was what he’d wanted so badly to give her. But he’d given her just the opposite today.

And, still, even though it wasn’t fair to ask her for anything else, he wanted so much from her.

So much more than he’d ever wanted from any other woman.

“I’m not going to lie to you,” she said softly, “today was bad. Really, really bad.”

When he winced at the terrible part he’d played in causing her so much pain, she reached for him. He looked down at her elegant fingers on the muscles of his forearm, then found himself holding his breath as she slowly slid them down to his hand.

Her fingers entwined with his and he had to lift her hand to his mouth to press a kiss to it, whether she wanted him to or not.

“I didn’t know I was capable of that much jealousy,” she admitted with a rueful twist of her lips into something that no one would ever call a smile. “I know there is nothing between you two. I even know that there never could be, that you’re like brother and sister, but...” She took a shaky breath that was like a punch to his chest. “But it was so hard to remember any of that when you were—” She shook her head. “No. I don’t want to relive it anymore, not with the crazy soundtrack from today still playing in my head.” She moved closer, close enough now that he could feel the heat of her body all along his. “Help me make a new one, Smith.”

All he wanted was to kiss her, to love her, but not just for those reasons.

“I’ve never wanted a woman more than I want you, but I want our lovemaking to be more than just a way for you to forget what happened today. I need us to be more than that, Valentina.”

He saw the effect of his words laid bare on her face. He wasn’t going to hold back anymore. He couldn’t. Not when he’d come so close to losing her today.

“What—”

When she paused, Smith found it so damned difficult to let one of the most extraordinary women he’d ever met stumble on her question, but as much as he wanted to steamroll her into loving him the way he knew he loved her, he forced himself to wait.

Finally, she asked, “What do you want? What do you need?”

“You.”

It was as simple as that. He suspected it always would be. From that first moment he’d met her, he’d been drawn to her. Making love with her had taken that sudden spark and magnified it until he’d become utterly consumed with her. Not just her body, not just her unbridled passion, but everything she was, inside and out.

“I want you, too.”

Her words came so softly that he’d barely have been able to hear them if he hadn’t been praying for them with every fiber of his soul.

For all the suffering that today’s filming had caused, maybe it was exactly the turning point they both needed.

He slid the pad of his thumb across her full lower lip and she shuddered at his touch, the strong woman who always trembled so beautifully in his arms. “You already have me, Valentina. You know that. So tell me—” He paused to draw on his self-control so that he didn’t give in to the almost overpowering urge to take before she had a chance to give. “—what else do you want?”

“I want—”

She paused again, but this time when she looked into his eyes, he could see her strength, clear and present on her beautiful face. And the determination that was so much a part of her.

“I want to try. I haven’t given you—us—a chance. I mean, I know I’ve taken a chance on sleeping with you,” she said with a heated flush that had him wanting to pull her down to the floor to take her right then and there, “but I haven’t let myself think that anything more could be possible.” She looked incredibly contrite as she said, “I’ve been unfair to you. And I think,” she said slowly, “to myself, too.”

She was still holding his gaze straight on, and hot damn if that didn’t do it for him just as much as her momentary lapse into softness did. Oh yes, all the contours and shapes, the sharp edges and rounded curves, the fire and the ice...every last cell that made up Valentina Landon did it for him.

“Would you like to go out on a date with me?”

Joy at her question came so sharp and sweet he could all but taste it as he grinned at her. “There’s nothing I’d like more.”

But instead of grinning back, she said, “Nothing?” in a seductive voice that sent every last pint of blood rushing south.

“Well, now that you mention it,” he said as she closed the final distance between them and pressed herself against him, “there might be one or two things.”

Her mouth lifted up to his and even as he tried to let her lead their sensual dance, he was lost to his need for her. There was no one but Valentina as whatever remnants were left from more than twenty years of women were completely erased from his consciousness as her tongue slid out over his lower lip to mimic the way he’d been touching her just minutes before. He sucked her tongue inside so that it tangled with his as her hands tugged at his shirt.