Mr. James: A Forbidden Romance (4 page)

It was almost another sleepless night for Connor as he tried to keep the memory of the feel of her in his arms from his mind, but he was so exhausted from the drive to Springfield in the white out blizzard, the bout of insomnia the night before, and the long arduous day they’d had together, that he finally fell asleep right at the edge of the bed with his back facing her back.

Catalina closed her eyes, thinking of the heat that had washed over her when he had held her, how tightly he had held her, and how electricity had shot through her and rendered her helpless in his embrace. Her thoughts segued into dreams where she was lost in deep desire all through the night.

When she woke up the next morning, breakfast was again waiting for her, and she heard Connor getting ready in the bathroom. It baffled her how he was somehow able to get out of the bed without her waking up, but he was a ninja about it, and she slept soundly without any disruption until she woke up on her own.

She sipped happily at her coffee and ate her breakfast, enjoying the fact that it had been brought to her two days in a row. When it was her turn for the bathroom, she dressed herself in black pants and a silvery gray sweater that brought out her eyes. She wanted to blend into the background of the crowd so that she could take photos without being noticed much.

Connor heard the bathroom door open and looked up at her without thinking at all about it, only to lose himself in the blue-gray depths of her eyes. He was drawn right to them, and it was a moment before he realized he was staring into them, before he made himself look away and concentrate on the cup of coffee before him.

“Well, you look nice today. Are you ready to go?” He followed it up with a change of topic so that it would seem as casual as he hoped it sounded.

She felt her cheeks warming and a small smile touched the corners of her lips as she turned away from him to pick up her coat. “Thanks! Um, yes. I just have to grab the camera batteries off the charger and then we can leave.” She kept her response light; she didn’t want him to know that his compliment thrilled her.

They drove back through the still falling snow, though the storm had lessened considerably and the flakes had thinned to just flurries. There was more than a foot of packed snow on the roads and side-streets of the town.

The two of them hiked through it from the parking lot and made it to the building where day two of the event was to be a continuum of the debates the day before, though covering different hot topics.

Catalina felt more sure of herself the second day, and confidence enabled her to get better shots and move around in the room with ease and focus as she worked. Connor stayed near her and watched over her as she captured much of what was going on.

It was much the same as the first day; the four candidates took the stage, but then the moderator came out and made an announcement that there would be controversial topics being discussed and that any manner of uproar from the crowd would not be tolerated and any instigators making a scene would be expelled from the building. Then she took her seat and the debate began.

Catalina looked around the crowded room and decided that the audience looked to be fairly calm and collected. She saw faces of people who had been there the day before, but none of them had been involved in the disruptive scene that she had almost been caught up in yesterday.

The moderator began the debate with women’s rights and abortion and the air in the room got hot rapidly. People were mostly still for a while at the beginning of the discussion, but as the debate took an ugly turn between the candidates, Catalina could see how it was beginning to fire up individuals throughout the crowd.

Just as things began to sound like a low rumble among the people facing the candidates, the moderator called for a thirty-minute break, and everyone got to get up and move about, get some fresh air, and cool down a little before the afternoon session of the debates continued.

It was long into the second half of the day when a young woman who was waiting at the microphone asked a question about men making decisions about women’s body parts. Since men didn’t have the parts in question, she felt that they had no right to make decisions about organs that they did not have themselves.

There was a stirring in the audience and a man who happened to be standing at the opposite microphone on the other side of the audience turned to her and called out his opinion about having a right as a father about deciding whether or not his child should be aborted. He felt that the woman didn’t have the solitary right to the decision, and before he was even finished speaking, the crowd erupted in anger and frustration. Nothing the moderator said made any difference to the mass of people who launched at each other.

Catalina was right in the middle of it when it broke out, and Connor, who had been watching her and everything around her with a hawk’s eye, leaped forward just as a huge man swung his fist toward another man. The target of the huge man ducked and the huge man would have hit Catalina directly in the face if Connor hadn’t jumped in front of her.

Just as he put himself between her and the huge man, the man’s massive fist landed hard on Connor’s face and knocked him backward into Catalina and both of them landed against three security guards who were struggling to restore order in the melee.

The security guards, seeing what happened, converged on the huge man and had him on the ground and in handcuffs in a matter of moments. Two other security guards helped Catalina and Connor to their feet and steadied them as Connor tried to regain his balance.

Catalina hadn’t realized that he had been hit at first, all she knew was that they had both flown backward with considerable force and she’d landed on other people. It wasn’t until the guards picked them up and began to make a fuss over him, that she looked up and saw blood pouring from a cut over his eyebrow.

Her mouth fell open and adrenaline and panic flooded through her as she reached for him, sure that her heart was going to break in half at seeing him injured. The security guards hauled them both to the front of the building where a team of medics took over and hovered around Connor, cleaning him off and patching him up.

The debate was brought to an immediate end and several people were escorted from the building in handcuffs. Connor and Catalina got into the car and she drove them back to the hotel, worrying about him the entire way.

When they reached their room he lay on the bed for a few minutes, but then sat back up. She was looking for ice to make a fresh ice pack for him and when she got back, she stood before him and looked down at him as he sat on the edge of the bed looking like hell.

“How are you feeling?” she asked, knowing that it wouldn’t be good. She handed him the ice pack and he held it to the bandaged cut on his forehead.

“I feel like I got hit by a truck.”

She sighed and tilted her head, looking at him in sympathy. “You did get hit by a truck. Luckily, they arrested him, so if you want to press charges later, you can.”

He shook his head and sighed. “I’m not going to press charges. I just wish my body didn’t feel so sore and stiff, and my head wasn’t about to explode.”

She frowned at him. “Did you take the pain pills that the medics gave you?” she asked as she reached her hand up to touch his forehead lightly.

He nodded. “Yeah, I took a couple of them. They’ve kind of taken the edge off, but they aren’t doing much to get rid of the pain.”

Catalina shook her head at him. “I can’t believe that you took a punch for me.”

He looked up at her with his one good eye. “What, you think I was about to let you get hit by some whack job?” he asked incredulously.

She rolled her eyes. “I guess not. Listen, why don’t you lie down, that might help you feel better.”

He shook his head, speaking in a low voice. “No, it made my head feel worse. Thanks, though,” he said appreciatively.

Catalina tilted her head and looked at him thoughtfully. “What if you went outside and sat in the hot tub for a while? That might help your muscles feel a bit better. What do you think?”

He considered it and realized that she was probably right. Nothing else was going to make his sore, tired body relax and heal as fast as the hot tub would. He nodded and went to the bathroom to put his swim trunks on. When he came out, he saw that she had changed into her swimsuit and was wearing one of the hotel robes over it.

His stomach tightened at the thought that she would be joining him in nothing but a swimsuit and he wasn’t at all sure if he would be able to get through it easily, but for the sake of his battered body, he realized that he was going to have to try.

They walked out to the courtyard and pool area together, and were surprised to find no one else there. She helped him into the hot tub and he turned his head away from her as she slipped her robe off and stepped into the steaming, bubbling water.

She had had to avert her gaze when he came out of the bathroom, because the sight of his toned and muscular body in his swimming trunks was enough to make her gasp as her body flooded with warmth and the butterflies in her stomach went wild. She had felt stirrings deep in her when she had taken his arm and steadied him as he entered the hot tub, his strong back almost mesmerizing her as she wished she could run her hands over it.

Catalina took a deep breath and sat beside him. She had brought a red bikini that flattered her figure and was comfortable to wear, and Connor was doing his level best not to look at her in it, though it was extremely difficult, especially as she engaged him in conversation.

“I can’t believe that it got so wild again today at the event.” She was thinking back on the fights that erupted all over the room. She was trying to keep her mind on the debates rather than on the beautiful man who was sitting beside her in the steaming water.

He sighed and shook his head. “I can’t believe it either. I’ve never seen anything like that happen before. Ever! I guess that’s just how photojournalism goes. It’s probably best that you saw it early like that before you really got in too easy in the beginning, thinking it would be all peaches and cream and then discovering that the road can sometimes be really rocky. I’m so glad you didn’t get hurt today!” He looked over at her face with a look of utter relief.

She tipped her head a little and smiled at him with guilt and gratitude. “I’m glad that I didn’t get hurt, but I feel horrible that you did! Thank you again for jumping in between us. I was so surprised and I didn’t know what was going on with you, and then suddenly we were flying backward and it was pure chaos. I didn’t even know that you were hurt at first. This is just crazy.” She reached her fingers up to touch his forehead near his bandage.

She reached over to the side of the hot tub and picked up the ice pack that she had made for him, lifting it in her hand to hold against his forehead. She moved closer to him to get the pack on comfortably, and as she closed the space between them, he looked up at her so near him and could not look away.

Feeling his gaze on her, her eyes drifted down to meet his and suddenly it felt like a magnet had locked them both together. She felt inexplicably drawn to him, and though she knew she shouldn’t, she could not resist leaning a little closer to him, her full lips close to his, parted slightly. She wanted to kiss him more than anything, and she could see in his eyes as he stared at her, that he wanted it just as much as she did.

Her breath grew shallow as she drew nearer to him, so close she could feel his breath on her lips, and in that moment he could not hold himself back any longer, and he could not resist the temptation of her offer of a kiss. He lifted his hands toward her and gently pulled her body to him and lifting his chin, pressed his lips softly to hers with just a feather touch at first.

It was like a fire had been lit between them, and the soft touch of their kiss ignited a desire in both of them that swiftly grew hot. Her lips moved tenderly and sensually over his and she slowly traced the tip of her wet tongue over the curve of his mouth, making him groan deeply and close his hands tighter on her body as he pressed her to him.

Feeling the same hunger for him that he felt for her, she tasted his tongue, twisting hers around it, and sucking gently on it as her belly tightened and everything in her felt like a riot of desire.