Come a Little Bit Closer: The Sullivans (5 page)

Her eyes widened at the information, giving him even more confirmation that she hadn’t spent one moment of her life reading about him in a magazine or looking him up on the Internet.

“I’m sorry,” she said, “I didn’t know.”

He was amazed by how much it meant to him, this possibility of building a relationship with someone where they both started from the same place, so that they could both uncover and discover each other’s stories at the same time that they wrote their own story together.

“My father,” she said so softly he had to focus on her lips to hear the words as her eyes closed and she sucked in a breath, “died, too.”

It was pure instinct to cover her hand with his over the loose puzzle pieces. “How old were you?”

Her breath shook slightly as she said, “Twenty-two. I know I should be over it by now, but—”

It wasn’t enough to simply hold her hand, he needed to wrap his arms around her. It didn’t surprise him when her long, lean limbs fit perfectly against his.

“I used to think the same thing, that one day I’d wake up and I’d be over it. That I’d be able to think of him without it hurting.” He took one hand from her back to put it over his heart, as if to soothe the ache. “It hasn’t happened yet.”

When she instinctively moved her hand over his to try to comfort him, his chest squeezed tight at just how good it felt to have her touch him with such innate sweetness.

“I miss my father so much,” she admitted. “Everything changed after he died.”

“I know exactly what you mean.” And he did. Because even though his mother had been amazing as she stepped up to the plate to parent eight kids by herself, and even with his brothers and sisters all banding together to take care of each other, it had still sucked to lose his dad. Really, really bad. “That first year, all nine of us—” The nine that their father had left behind. “—were all trying so hard just to be normal. But how could we be when nothing was normal anymore?”

“Normal.” Valentina echoed the word in a hollow voice. “I would have given anything for normal. Especially for Tatiana.”

“How did your sister and mother deal with losing your father?”

“Tatiana is beautiful, but resilient,” she told him. “A lot like her character in your movie. She seems so fragile and gentle, but she’s actually tougher than most of us.”

Impressed with her insight into the character he’d written, he told her, “My sister Sophie is a lovely, soft-spoken librarian.” He shook his head as he thought of all the times people had underestimated his quiet sister. Especially the man who had recently become her husband. Jake should have known he never stood a chance. “She also has a core of strength that any warrior would envy. I thought a lot about her when I was writing Tatiana’s character. It helped that Soph was pregnant at the time so I could easily picture her in the role if I needed to.”

Valentina had relaxed against him by degrees as he’d spoken about his sister. He left her hand where it was still resting on top of his, even though he knew it probably wasn’t fair to take advantage of her momentary vulnerability.

“Do have any other siblings apart from Tatiana?”

“No.” She paused before adding, “It’s always just been me and her.”

No question, there was something more behind that statement. So much more that he said, “What about your mother? How did she deal with losing your father?”

Valentina jolted back from him as if he’d burned her. She blinked at him from across the couch, looking as though she had abruptly surfaced from a dream. One that had surprised her—and scared her—in equal measure.

A beat from reaching for her again, Smith realized it was exactly what he couldn’t do. Not unless he wanted her to run. But just because he knew that didn’t mean it was any easier to shift his attention back to the puzzle and pick up one of the pieces.

His entire adult life, when Smith had seen something he wanted, he’d taken it. In many cases, it was given to him before he even had to reach for it. But he knew without a doubt that Valentina wasn’t like anything else he’d ever wanted: If he wanted her to trust him, he’d have to earn that trust moment by moment, truth by truth, smile by smile.

“Everyone has always said how well my mother dealt with losing my father,” he said slowly. “And she did. She has.” He slid another piece into place without even really seeing the picture before him. “But she’s never let herself love anyone again. She’s never even been with another man, as far as I know, in all these years.”

Valentina picked up her drink and drank it all down in one long gulp that had his eyebrows going up with surprise.

“Funny,” she said, “my mother’s just the opposite. She’s slept with every single man, every
actor
, who so much as looked at her or said she was pretty.” Her words were sharp, now, with pain she wasn’t bothering to hide. “But you know the funniest part about it?” She looked straight at him as she said, “I don’t think she loved any of them, either.”

When he saw pain in her clear, beautiful eyes, nothing could have stopped him from reaching for her again.

Nothing but the ring of the doorbell that had Valentina jumping entirely off the couch this time. Her face flushed with guilt as she looked between him and her empty margarita glass.

“I’m sorry, I never should have said any of those things to you. Especially about my mother. Please don’t say anything to Tatiana about—”

He took his final chance of the night to slide his hand over hers. “I promised you I wouldn’t hurt your sister, and I won’t hurt you, either.”

She stared at him, her pupils dilated again so that her eyes were entirely green for a moment, and he wasn’t sure if she believed him. And maybe she was right not to, because even though he now had an inkling of why she was wary about trusting a man in his profession, it was still so easy to imagine coaxing her upstairs to his bed, stripping off her clothes layer by layer, tangling her hair in his fingertips, and taking the rest of the night to explore her. To learn her most sensitive curves and hollows, to experiment with touching and tasting her until he knew precisely what would have her begging for more. Begging for
him
.

The doorbell rang again and he had to all but force himself to walk away to let her sister in. But throughout the rest of the night, as the three of them worked through promotion timelines and interview requests, with Valentina sitting as far from him as she could without raising her sister’s eyebrows, Smith couldn’t force away his desire for her...or the memory of just how good it had felt to hold her in his arms in front of the fire, his heart beating against their linked hands.

Chapter Five

Holding her cell phone up to her ear as she rang her sister’s agent, Valentina looked out the small window in her trailer-slash-office on the
Gravity
set. She’d expected winter in San Francisco to be cold, but from the way the heat of the sun was eating up the morning fog, it looked like it was going to be another perfect day outside.

She was hit with the urge to forget about work for a few hours and get out on the water in a kayak, or up in the mountains on foot to enjoy looking out over the gorgeous city they were working in. Over the past few years, Tatiana had taken acting jobs in beautiful cities all over the world, but Valentina had never considered moving to any of them. Until now. It helped, of course, that the house they were temporarily renting in the Noe Valley was incredibly cute. Regardless of how early she headed to the set, or how late she returned from it, someone was always out walking a dog or riding a bike. For a big city, San Francisco managed to be a perfect combination of the cosmopolitan and small town.

George Kauffman picked up. “Val, great to hear from you. Fill me in on everything. Especially the incomparable Smith Sullivan. Because if he’s as gorgeous as he was the last time I saw him, I honestly don’t know how anyone is getting a damn thing done on set.”

Valentina liked Tatiana’s agent a great deal. While he was incredibly slick when he needed to be, and was a master of negotiation, he didn’t feel compelled to wear his agent hat all the time. More than once the two of them had gotten a little tipsy celebrating one of Tatiana’s successes. The fact that he was gay helped, too, if only because Valentina knew she’d never need to worry about whether her sister was safe with him. It was a large part of why she herself had let her guard down with him several years back.

Unlike, she thought with a twist of her lips, the way she constantly felt she had to add new layers of bricks to her walls whenever Smith was near.

Valentina was as sensual as the next woman, and certainly enjoyed sex when she found the time and the right man to have it with, but she’d never brought her sensuality into the workplace. Ever. Only, it seemed that whenever she and Smith were in the same room, no matter how hard she tried to focus on business, she couldn’t stop the heightened awareness that took her over one cell at a time, from her heart that beat too fast to the tips of the toes that curled in her shoes every time he so much as said her name.

“Filming is going fantastically well,” she told him. “And Smith has been a dream for Tatiana to work with.”

George made a sound of approval over the line. “Of course he has. That man is a dream, period. You know,” George added in a thoughtful voice, “he wouldn’t be a bad choice.”

“For what?”

“To break your extremely unfortunate dry spell.”

The phone almost dropped from her hand. “You’re crazy.”

But she’d said it too quickly, too forcefully. She who doth protest too much, and all that.

She could all but see George’s smile as he said, “He’s always had good taste in women. Unfortunate for me,” he said with a playful grumble at Smith’s sexual orientation, “but good for you. And from what I remember about our casting meeting, his eyes kept circling back to
you.
”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” she said in as light a voice as she could manage, as if they were joking about something that would never, ever happen in a million years.

“Well,” George said after a pause that was just a little too long for her comfort, “I think we both know that if the beautiful and talented and filthy rich Smith Sullivan is smart enough to try to stick his hands up your skirt, you won’t stand a chance.”

She hated knowing her friend and colleague was right, hated it so much that as she grabbed a stack of notes on her desk, she tried to put a stop to all of his nonsense by saying, in her sternest, most businesslike tone, “If you’re done speculating over whether or not Smith Sullivan wants to stick his hands, or any other body part, up my skirt—or if I have strong enough superpowers to resist him—perhaps we can discuss the details of Tatiana’s recent commercial offer.”

A creak from her office’s doorway made her finally lift her gaze from her paperwork...to stare straight into Smith’s amused eyes.

Oh God.

Oh no.

Could he have heard what she’d just said? About her skirt, and his hands, and....

Yes, she realized with a hard thunk of her heart as it careened down to the bottom of her stomach. Of course he’d heard every last word of it.

Why else would he look so amused...and, quite possibly, delighted?

“George, I’ll need to call you back in a few minutes.”

“Oooh, you sound tense. And more than a little breathless. A movie star must have walked into the room.” George was obviously giddy over it. “Why don’t you just leave your phone on speaker so I can hear his voice—just in case he says all those naughty things I know we’re both hoping he’ll say.”

She hung up on Tatiana’s agent and immediately stood up so that she and Smith would be on even ground. Well, as even as they could be, given the six or so inches he had on her even in her heels.

“You didn’t need to hang up so quickly for me,” he drawled in a voice that didn’t try to be sexy. It just
was.

“I know how busy you are,” she replied. And it was true. As star, director, producer, and screenwriter of
Gravity
, she wasn’t sure how he’d managed more than a handful of hours of sleep a night since production began. And yet, he didn’t look the least bit tired. Instead, he looked even more handsome than he usually did.

Clearly, he wore smug well. Because she knew damn well just how smug he had to be feeling after what he’d heard her say to George.

Even worse, though, than the mortified flush that still hadn’t left her cheeks, was the fact that she had to clasp her hands tightly in front of her as she asked, “What can I help you with this afternoon?” It was either grip her fingers tight enough to leave marks on her palms or give in to the urge to reach for him...and find out if the dark shadow on his chin felt as deliciously sexy against her fingertips as it looked.

He moved from the doorway into the trailer, which suddenly seemed tiny with the two of them in it. A vision hit her of Smith backing her up against her desk and putting one leg between hers to open her up to him before he slid her skirt up and—

“—asked for your number so she could thank you herself.”

His voice finally penetrated her too-vivid daydream and she found herself blinking up at him.

When had he moved even closer?

Her heart raced at his nearness, and as she inhaled a deep breath to try to pull some oxygen into her lungs, she accidentally took in his scent instead. Pure, clean, and so male that her heartbeat only ratcheted higher, to the point where she was sure that he would be able to see the pulse racing beneath her skin if he looked.

Which, she suddenly realized when she caught the direction of his gaze on the pulse point at the side of her neck, was exactly what he was doing.

It felt like the fog outside had come in through the trailer window to wrap around her brain. She couldn’t remember what they’d been talking about, had barely heard what he’d said. But she still had enough sense to realize that if she didn’t say something soon, there wasn’t going to be much room left for talking anymore. Not when he looked—and smelled—so darn good.