He had to call on every ounce of control he’d ever possessed to keep his hands from shaking as he undid the button on her jeans and pulled down the zipper. Even then, he still shook with need that didn’t have a prayer of being contained as she lifted her hips so that he could slide the denim, and the lace beneath it, off her hips, then down her smooth thighs. After she’d kicked off her shoes, then used her bare feet to push her jeans and panties off the rest of the way, he pulled her back down on his lap, her legs straddling his again.
“I don’t think,” he told her as he stroked his hands down over her naked back, to the soft flesh of her hips, all while drinking in the most beautiful sight he’d ever had the pleasure of seeing, “I’ve never been this happy in my entire life.”
He loved the way she moved under his hands with a soft purr; loved the fact that she wasn’t the least bit reserved in her nakedness; loved that once she’d made the decision to be with him tonight, she’d given herself all the way over to their lovemaking.
And he loved it even more as she said, “You’re making me happy, too,” then put her hands on either side of his face and leaned down to kiss him in her innately seductive, yet incredibly sweet, way.
Just that fast, sweet shifted to sultry as they moved together on the bed, their hungry bodies twisting up his sheets even further as he laid her naked body back against the pillows and levered himself up over her on his hands so that he could stare again.
Her skin was awash in gold, with just the slightest hint of rose behind it. Her br**sts were full, the perfect size not only for his hands, but also for her slender frame, as were her softly rounded hips.
“I—” He could hardly speak, hardly think. “I need a second.” He worked to draw in a breath, and when he mostly failed, with what little oxygen he had left, he told her, “You’re so beautiful.”
Thank God he didn’t need to be able to get his brain to work to run hot, wet kisses over her mouth, her chin, the curve of her neck, her shoulders, the sweet swell of her br**sts, and then beneath where her skin turned out to be even more sensitive. He made his hands keep pace with his mouth, kept them from venturing down too far, too fast. Every new place on her body that he discovered, he wanted to touch, to taste, to breathe in, all at once.
Her stomach was flat, but soft, too, as the muscles beneath her skin rippled at every press of his lips. Intoxicated by her, desire wrapped so tightly around him that he didn’t think to slow down now as he moved lower down her body to the soft curls that covered her sex.
Smith breathed her in as he slowly cupped her with his hand and felt her wet and hot against his palm. He now knew the taste of her mouth, her br**sts, the taut skin over her stomach.
But he needed to know more.
On a sound of deep, desperate need, he covered her sex with his mouth, slicking his tongue slowly over her, once, twice, three times. He felt her hands move into his hair, pulling his mouth down tighter against her even as she arched up to take his tongue deeper inside her. And when her inner muscles gripped him, and her cries of ecstasy started to ricochet off his bedroom walls, Smith’s own pleasure at having his mouth on her, his hands under her soft hips, made it almost impossible for him to keep from losing it.
In the aftermath of her climax, Smith couldn’t bring himself to move his mouth, to take his tongue from her soft, slick skin. For several minutes, as Valentina lay loose and panting against the covers of his bed, and he gently kissed and licked and nipped at the skin on her inner thighs, and then her hip bones and back up to her belly button, he realized he’d never get his fill of her.
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.”