Barely a heartbeat from ripping off her clothes and just taking her with absolutely none of the finesse or gentleness that he usually gave to his lovers, Smith tried to force some rational thought back into his brain. Maybe, he thought with more than a little desperation, putting her on top would save them both from moving too fast this first time.

A moment later, he was pulling her over him so that she had to brace her hands on his shoulders to steady herself. Her hair came down around them like a curtain of honey-colored silk, her gorgeous br**sts nearly slipping free of her bra.

Ah, yes, he thought, it was the perfect position for him to lie back and really appreciate, to take the time to savor Valentina’s beauty.

Only, when she smiled down at him, a sensual lift of her gorgeous lips that had his breath catching in his throat and his entire body heating up at least another ten degrees, he realized his mistake.

He’d need to be locked up in a cell with the key thrown away and the bars reinforced with extra steel before he would ever truly be able to keep himself from moving too fast with her. Because with her torso bared to his hands, how could he keep himself from stroking, from touching, from shifting his still-covered erection up beneath her jeans-clad thighs even as she ground down onto him?

But it didn’t truly hit home just how far gone the cause of slowing things down was until she lifted her hands from his chest and reached behind her back to unclip and toss aside her bra.

Holy hell.

She was gorgeous.

Never in his life had he seen such beautiful br**sts, just full enough for his hands when he cupped her, and so sensitive that when he stroked his thumbs over the taut peaks, her ni**les tightened and drew his mouth straight to them.

“Oh God,” she gasped as his tongue circled the tip of one breast before his teeth lightly teased her damp skin, “that feels so good.” When he moved to the other side of her chest and did it again, she moaned the words, “So, so good.”

“Do you have any idea how long I’ve wanted to taste you like this?”

She didn’t do anything but shake her head, but he hadn’t expected her to answer, not with his lips and tongue and teeth teasing her until his head was spinning with the exotic taste of her.

“You taste so good, Valentina. So damned good.”

Each word he spoke was more raw, and full of need, than the word that came before, as twenty years of sexual experience, of other women, fell completely away. The softness of Valentina’s skin against his fingertips, the taste of her on his tongue, was all that remained.

“Everyone thinks I’ve been obsessing about the movie, but all I can think about is you.” He pressed his face to the curve of her neck, then inhaled. “What your skin smells like.” He ran his hands into her hair. “What your hair feels like flowing between my fingers.” He rocked his hips up into hers. “And what sounds you’re going to make when you come.”

“Oh, yes.” She threaded her hands into his hair to take his mouth back to her br**sts, “Make me come.”

Sweet Lord, he knew he’d been falling for this woman for a reason. Just as bold in the bed as she was in the boardroom, she had him mesmerized. Hypnotized.

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.