She smiled up at him. “All I want is you.”
If they’d been anywhere else, Smith might have forced himself to hold tight to his control. But these were his friends. Family. And he didn’t need to hold back in front of them.
Not when they knew that Valentina held not only his heart, but his soul.
Her mouth against his was as warm and soft as her eyes had been and, silently, he made every one of the vows to her that Gabe had just made to Megan...all the while knowing that Valentina was making them right back to him.
“I love you.”
They whispered the words aloud to each other and Smith knew it didn’t matter if they had a large wedding, or if it was just the two of them in front of a priest. Every time they laughed together, every time they kissed, every moment they spent with each other’s families, they became more and more entwined in each other’s hearts.
Hand in hand they walked out into the large reception room. The children, including Summer, had begged their parents to let them go play out in the snow before it was time for lunch to be served, and the sound of hooting and hollering warmed the already cozy space.
Smith had introduced Valentina to his cousins Rafe, Adam, and Dylan, who had all flown in from Seattle earlier. Their sister, Mia, was flirting with one of the guys from Gabe’s firehouse. Unfortunately, the oldest Seattle Sullivan, Ian, had his flight in from England cancelled and wouldn’t be arriving until later that night.
Smith whisked a tray of champagne from a pretty young server who blushed profusely at his thank you, then passed glasses around for a toast to the bride and groom.
“To love,” Smith said, grinning at the way his single cousins barely held back their eye rolls.
“And to what looks to be one heck of a snowball fight outside,” Rafe added.
Smith wasn’t at all surprised to see Summer kicking serious butt against some of the older boys. After all, he’d spent a couple of hours the previous afternoon teaching her everything he knew about snowball warfare.
Valentina squeezed his hand as she pulled his gaze over to the dance floor. “Look at how sweet that is.”
Chase and Chloe’s daughter, Emma, had crawled onto the empty dance floor and a boy who looked to have just learned how to walk had toddled up to pat her hair. The two babies plopped down in front of each other and began to have a wordless conversation of goo’s and ga’s that had everyone smiling.
Until the boy suddenly reached out a chubby little hand and gave Emma a shove.
The baby girl’s eyes went wide for a moment before she toppled slowly over onto her back. She was kicking up her heels in a wail just as Chase scooped her up into his arms.
“Poor thing,” Valentina murmured. “And she was having so much fun flirting, too. Now whenever she sees him, she’s going to be worried that he’ll do it again.”
“What about you?” he asked softly. “Are you feeling worried about anything?”
He could feel Valentina’s pulse quicken against the pad of his thumb where he was stroking her sensitive skin. She bit her lip, and he watched her channel her inner actress as she said, “A little.”
“Excuse us, guys.”
His cousins gave him a look that said they knew exactly what he was about to do with his beautiful fiancée, and he knew they were more than a little jealous, too. A couple of them had brought dates, but he could tell that the women weren’t anything special to them.
Love made all the difference...and meant so much more than money, or success, or fame ever had. But he wasn’t going to waste his breath explaining that to his cousins. Not when it would be so much more fun to let them suffer through figuring it out for themselves.
Fortunately, after all the clandestine sex he and Valentina’d had on set, he had the knack of scoping out the perfect spots for their trysts. Not to mention the fact that he knew just how much she secretly loved that tiny threat of discovery, of having to be extra quiet so no one heard them, and especially of knowing what they’d just been doing when everyone else had simply been going about their day.
Of course, he would never let anyone find them, would never let another man or woman ever set eyes on Valentina’s naked body, but that didn’t mean he didn’t get off on fulfilling her secret fantasies.
They’d gone to several industry events together during the past month and with every one, Valentina’s nerves came with less force. Even though Smith liked to think that her confidence mostly had to do with his brilliant distraction technique of making sweet love to her right before they got dressed—and often after, as well—he knew the truth came from her inner strength, and her willingness to do whatever she needed to do to make their relationship work.
The linen room smelled of laundry detergent and was still warm from the dryers that had been recently running. Better yet, it had a lock, and was far enough off the main room that Valentina’s sounds of pleasure would be for his ears only.
As they came together in each other’s arms, clothes stripping off, hands and mouths wandering wherever bare flesh was revealed, even as Smith’s passion for Valentina took him a thousand miles away from movie-star perfect, or from any semblance of control, he knew she was right there with him.
And she always would be.
Epilogue
Lori Sullivan watched the dance floor fill up with her brothers and cousins. Even Sophie and Jake were dancing together with their tiny little twins wrapped in pink and blue blankets between them. Lori had been so busy lately that she didn’t get to see any of them enough, and knew she should be out there on the dance floor with them.
But, for the first time in her life, she didn’t feel like dancing.
She wasn’t at all surprised when her mother moved beside her a moment later and slid a hand around her waist so that they were watching the dancers together. Mary Sullivan had a sixth sense for when her children were happy...and when they were hurting.
Their mother’s unconditional love—knowing that Mary was there for her children, and only them—had been something Lori could always count on. Still, as she turned to take in her mother’s stunning profile, one that had sold many, many magazine covers before she retired from modeling, Lori was caught by the sense that things were changing.
Not only because each and every one of her siblings had found love, but also because even her mother suddenly looked different. Almost glowing.
Could there be a man in her mother’s life?
Lori shook off the silly question. Of course there wasn’t. There never had been, not in all the years since her father had passed away. If Lori hadn’t been feeling so off-kilter, she would never have had such a crazy thought.