to be a long time before she could figure out how to keep from freaking out about being in the Hollywood spotlight alongside him. If ever.
Only, instead of the usual panic that accompanied that thought, a shudder of sweet anticipation came at Smith’s incredibly sexy promise about how he would help her cope with the pressure.
But it wasn’t until he pressed a soft kiss to her mouth and began to step away from her that she realized the only thing he’d been concerned with was helping her, not taking his own pleasure, too.
Thank God her brain had started functioning well enough by then for her to take his hands in hers and ask, “What if I’m still worrying?” When renewed concern moved across his beautiful face, she quickly put his hand on her hips and brought her mouth a breath away from his to whisper, “What else will you do to make me stop?”
She felt his answering grin right before he said, “This,” and took her mouth in a possessive kiss.
He deftly slid down the zipper along the back of her dress and helped her step out of it, before carefully laying it across the back of a soft chair in her bedroom. He stood holding the yellow silk in his hands, his gaze filled with awe as he took in her naked body, now clad in only a silk thong, thigh-high, lace-edged stockings, and heels.
And then he was threading his hands into her hair and lowering his mouth to devour hers in a deeply passionate kiss. He rained kisses over her face, down her neck, her shoulders, before finally laving the peak of one breast with his tongue, and then the other.
She loved the rough scratch of his jacket against her bare br**sts as she pulled him down over her, using her calves to pull him even closer even as he slid her panties off. And this time she was the one kissing him with the passion he revealed within her more and more every time they made love. If they had more than a few stolen minutes, they might have kissed for hours, until both of them were utterly, completely desperate for more.
Very reluctantly, Smith pulled his mouth from hers and his hands from her skin to undo his tie and the buttons on his dress shirt. Valentina knew better than to help him—she needed him so badly that she was in danger of ripping the shirt off him—and curled her hands into fists on the soft bedcover to keep from ruining his dress clothes. Fortunately, he was able to undress quickly enough that it felt as if he’d barely stepped away from between her thighs to kick off his pants when he was right back with her, a condom already rolled down his thick, hard length.
A heartbeat later his hands were once again threading into her once perfectly done hair, his mouth was kissing off her expertly done makeup, and he was sliding into her on a pleasured groan. Her skin was slick against his as they moved together, Smith going deeper even as Valentina opened herself all the way up to him.
As he rocked into her again and again, and her pleasure grew higher, sharper, she forgot all about Hollywood, about billionaires and cameraman and gossip rags.
She felt as though her entire body was tightening down around him when he lifted his head from her mouth and looked into her eyes.
“I love you.”
The simple vow was all it ever took to send Valentina hurtling over the edge, and Smith was right there with her, not only to catch her as she fell...but also to show her just how incredibly good it was to leap, knowing his strong, warm arms would be around her every single second.
Minutes later, as they both worked to catch their breath, and Valentina stroked Smith’s slightly damp hair from where he’d laid his head across her br**sts, she felt wonderfully drained of nerves.
He pressed a quick kiss to her lips before pulling her up off the bed, stripping off her stockings and heels, and dragging her into the bathroom for the world’s quickest shower. He held her hair up out of the way of the spray as she soaped both of them up, his body responding again as if he hadn’t just finished taking her.
But even though she could see that he would have also been happy to do just that, she turned off the water and reached for a towel, handing