Mr. James: A Forbidden Romance (7 page)

“No, there’s no one, Deborah,” he said quietly, wishing that there was some way he could get Catalina out of his mind so that thoughts of her wouldn’t drive him crazy with desire when he couldn’t have her.

Deborah sauntered slowly around his desk, reached for his chair and turned it toward her, and then lowered herself to a kneeling position in front of him. She placed her hands on his thighs with her fingers spread far open as if she was clutching him.

“Do you have any idea how much I want you, Connor James? I would do anything you asked; I’d do anything that you wanted me to, any way you wanted it. I would change your whole world, baby. No one wants you like I do, and no one will please you in every possible way like I can,” she promised him with a confident smile as she gave him a sultry look.

He gazed down at her there, her face nearer to his crotch than it ever had been. He thought of Catalina and how much he wanted her, and he wondered again how he was going to keep her from his thoughts; how he could possibly find enough things to distract him so much that he had no time to long for her and pine for her. As Deborah smiled at him and ran her wide open fingers further and further up his thighs, closing in on his groin, he considered what Deborah had said.

He wasn’t in the market for a lover, but if he was going to have any chance at all of keeping Catalina off his mind and keeping himself out of trouble, he was going to have to keep up appearances with some woman or other, so it would appear that he was in a relationship, and he was going to have be distracted enough that Catalina couldn’t get into his mind.

Connor sighed. Deborah Hargrove’s pushy offer was sounding a bit better to him. She smiled up at him and raised herself up slightly, running her hands over his belly and chest until she slid them behind his neck.

“Come on, baby. Give us another chance. We were good once. We could be good again, and you still don’t know the epic pleasures you’ll find in my bed, so come on. Give me a chance to show you again. Let’s give it another try, please baby?” she batted her dark eyes at him and he leaned his head back and looked at the ceiling. It needed paint. He made a mental note of it.

“Alright, we’ll give it another shot, but I’m not interested in getting into bed with you right away. Let’s keep things simple to begin with, please?” he asked seriously.

She nodded and rose up, trailing her manicured nails along his jaw line. “Whatever you say, honey. Just as long as you are mine.” His stomach turned at the thought and before he had a chance to change his mind, she walked to the door and looked back over her shoulder at him.

“Come over to my place for dinner tomorrow night. Seven o’clock. I’ll have something really… hot… cooking for you when you get there.” She winked at him and walked out of the door, closing it behind her.

He lowered his head down into his hands and rested himself on his desk. He didn’t know how in the world he had let her talk him into dating her again. She was the last woman in the world that he wanted, and he had a suspicion that she would be no substitute at all for the woman he wanted most in the world.

***

The next night, when he went to dinner at Deborah’s, she answered the door in a dress that might have been a sheer nightgown, or might have been a sheer dress, but it left very little to his imagination and he knew before he stepped into the house that it was entirely possible that he had bitten off more than he could chew.

He followed her to the dining room and they sat together at the table. He gave her a bottle of wine to thank her for dinner and she smiled and went to the kitchen to open it. Connor looked around her home and easily saw her family’s wealth in every corner of it. There was no question that they all had money, but he knew for certain that Deborah Hargrove had gotten her job at the college simply because her uncle was the dean there, and Dean Hargrove was not a man to cross.

Deborah returned with the opened bottle of wine and poured it for them both. “Here we go.” She picked up her glass to toast him. “To all the sweet days and hot nights to come,” she said pointedly, and he touched his glass to hers and willed himself not be sick on her dining room table.

They ate a three course meal and she offered him dessert, but he turned it down. Connor talked with her briefly about some staffing changes that the college had recently seen, and then he stood up to bid her a good night.

She frowned at him and her worn face grew stoic as her eyes narrowed at him. She stood up to face him and lifted her chin slightly, reached her hand toward the front of his jeans, pulling him by the waist toward her.

“Darling, you just got here. How can you even think of leaving so soon?” she tilted her head and asked him as if it was a rhetorical question. He knew as he looked at her that he had made a monumental mistake. He knew he should never have agreed to date her, because he realized that he was using her to displace his need for Catalina, and there was no way that she was ever going to be able to do that successfully; he had less than no attraction toward her, and there was nothing that was going to change that.

If anything, she made him want Catalina more, not less. He reached his hand to hers at his waist and pulled her hand from the grasp she had on the front of his jeans.

“Deborah, I’m sorry but I think I made a mistake. I don’t really think that we should get back together. We’re not a good couple. We’re far too different, and we want different things…” he began, knowing that what he really wanted deep down, more than anything, was a dark woman with blue gray eyes and a dimple that appeared when she smiled.

The woman standing before him looking at him in frustration was never going to come close to Catalina. He had been kidding himself when he let himself believe that there could ever be a chance that Deborah could distract him from what he really wanted. What he needed with Catalina.

She narrowed her eyes at him and her voice grew deep. “You are not breaking up with me, do you understand? You are not going to play games with me, young man. I want you, and I always get what I want.” She started toward him, but he backed away and turned toward the hallway where the front door was.

“Well, it doesn’t seem like you will this time, Deborah, because it takes two to tango, and I’m leaving the dance.” He turned and walked away from her and he heard her grow angry behind him, but he wasn’t about to stop and give her a chance to catch up with him and try to change his mind.

He walked right out of her door and heard her shriek as he closed it behind him. He sighed and felt a little guilty for a minute, but then he got into his car and drove home, thinking all the way of the perfect few days that he had shared himself and his love with a woman he would only be dreaming of for the rest of his life.

Chapter5

Catalina went home the day that they got back from Springfield and the first thing she did was go to sleep. Partly because she was exhausted from the trip, and partly because she didn’t want to be awake in a world where she wouldn’t be able to be with Connor James.

She woke up the next morning and knew that she had to get to class. She feigned her way through most of the morning as she tried to get herself back into her regular routine, though she had no real interest in it. She had texted Reggie when she’d woken up that morning and he had pleaded with her to meet him in their spot, so during her midday break, she went to the bench beneath the old oak, and she waited for him to show up.

He was a little late, as per his usual, and she smiled and stood up to hug him and greet him when she saw him. He wrapped his arms around her tightly and held her close to him, resting his cheek against her and breathing her in. She knew he was breathing her in; he always did it, and when she had asked him why once, he said that he loved the way she smelled. He left it at that, so she left it at that, and neither of them talked about it again.

He finally let her go and they sat down together and faced one another. She gave him a warm smile and tilted her head, looking at him with genuine care.

“How’ve you been the last few days?” she asked him curiously.

He let out a big breath of air that he had apparently been holding in. “I’ve been… uh… well, I’ll tell you the truth, I’ve been miserable. I hated it that you were gone. I missed you like crazy.” He reached for her hand and she let him hold it, though she wasn’t thrilled about the way that he held it so firmly and so close to him, like he wasn’t going to let her go ever again.

He smiled at her broadly and shook his head. “God, it’s good to see you. I was going crazy without you! I couldn’t stand you being gone. So… tell me all about your trip. How did it go? How was the photography?” he asked with interest, his eyes set on hers.

A rush of thoughts roared through her mind, like a crashing river coursing through canyons and boulders, making its way swiftly to a destination unknown. There was so much to share with him that she felt overwhelmed.

She laughed a little and reached her hand up to tuck a piece of her hair behind her ear. “I’m not sure that I know where to begin.”

He shrugged. “Just begin from where you left and go from there.” He smiled, gazing into her eyes and rubbing his fingers over her hand affectionately.

She glanced at her hand and chose to look away. “Well, let’s see. Start from when I left. Well, Connor and I-“

Reggie frowned darkly and cut her off. “Didn’t we talk about this? Do you know how inappropriate it is for you to call him by his first name? Call him Professor James like the rest of the world, please, and show some respect. You aren’t that close with him. First names are reserved for people who he is close to.” Reggie looked at her pointedly and she bit her lip, wondering for a moment just how much she was going to tell him about the trip that she had shared with Connor. She decided she would have to just tell him and see how he reacted.

“Well, okay then, Professor James and I,” she felt her insides cringe at referring to him so formally; it reminded her that they could not be close on campus and that she would have to treat him as a distant professor, and with some deference, not as a lover and friend, she continued to speak about him, “we left here early in the morning and he drove us through a terrible snow storm.”

Reggie nodded and frowned. “I know, I saw that storm on the news. We didn’t get much snow here, but I watched where the storm went and it basically followed you all the way to Springfield. I was so worried about you! Why didn’t you answer my texts while you were there?”

She shrugged. “I had next to no service while I was there, so no one really heard from me while I was gone.”

He shook his head in disapproval.

“Anyway, we finally got there, but it took forever because Con… uh… because he was driving so carefully and slowly on the roads. When we got to the hotel there were tons of people there, not only for the political event, but also because the roads got closed behind us, so the hotel had to do this consolidation thing, where they try to get as many people into the hotel as possible.

“Even though he and I had separate rooms to begin with, we wound up having to share a room because the hotel put us together to save space for other people.” She thought back on it and realized that she and Connor might not have made love like they had if it weren’t for them having to have shared a room.

Reggie’s brow furrowed and his dark look grew even darker. “You shared a room with him?” he asked as if it was the biggest sin that could have happened.

Catalina sighed. “Let me finish, please?”

He looked away for a moment and then nodded at her. “Okay, go.” She hoped that he let her finished telling him all of it without interrupting her again.

“Well, so anyway, we wound up having to share a room. So we settled in and then we went to the first day of the event. It was crazy! There were so many people there! Tons more than I ever expected. So I started photographing everything, and there were four politicians up on the stage participating in the debate. They started talking about gun control right away and a bunch of people in the audience got really opinionated about how they felt, and before we knew it, some of them got up to fight and Connor had to pull me away from it so I didn’t get hurt! He saved me just in time,” she told him with a shake of her head.

He sighed and shook his head. “Professor… James…” he repeated slowly as if that might get the idea stuck into her head.

Catalina looked at him sharply, her eyes bright as she spoke. “You know what, you’re going to have to let that go. I call him Connor. That was his idea a long time ago. He is Connor to me, and that’s what I’m going to call him. It’s not disrespectful, and it’s not going to change, so you’re just going to have to let that go, okay?” she asked without really making it a question.

He frowned a little again and sighed, then nodded his acquiescence. “Fine. Go ahead.”

She could see that he didn’t like it, but she went on anyway. “So there was a small fight and he saved me because he pulled me out of the way just in time. I felt so lucky, but that was just the first day.

“Then, the second day, we went back again and there were tons more people and security guards, and when they started the debates, they warned the entire crowd to keep their cool, but then they started talking about women’s rights, women’s bodies, and abortion, and the crowd got really angry again, arguing over it all, and a bunch of them got really ugly.

“In fact, one huge guy was going to punch another guy, but the other guy ducked out of the way and the huge guy almost hit me!”

Reggie’s eyes grew wide and she saw anger growing in him.

“Hey, that’s just the nature of photojournalism. That’s how it goes sometimes,” she told him earnestly.

He didn’t look like he wanted her anywhere near it in the future, if that was how it was going to be.

“I take it you didn’t get hit?” he asked coolly, looking her over for signs of damage.

She shook her head. “No, I didn’t get hit, but Connor did get hit. He jumped right in between me and the huge guy and he saved me again, taking the punch that would have flattened my face, and it messed him up enough that the paramedics had to stitch him up and give him pain pills and bandage his eye.”

Reggie raised both brows and nodded slightly in approval. “That’s good. He was looking out for you. Looking after my girl,” he said, rubbing his fingers over the back of her hand again. She frowned slightly, but decided that she was going to tell him the entire story.

“So we went back to the hotel and I told him he ought to get into the hot tub so he could feel better and he said yes, so we went out there together and while we were sitting in it, I was trying to help him with an ice pack on his forehead where he was cut, but then I guess I got too close to him and wanted to kiss him, so I did.” She paused and looked at Reggie’s face, trying to gauge how he would react to that news before she told him anything else.

Reggie’s jaw clenched and he stared hard at her. “You kissed him.”

She nodded solemnly. “I kissed him,” she admitted.

Reggie shook his head slowly. “I can’t believe you did that. What in the hell were you thinking?”

She sighed and looked down at her hand in his for a moment and then she looked back up at him. “I wasn’t thinking. I was feeling.”

“What did he do?” Reggie asked, looking like he wasn’t entirely sure that he wanted to know.

She bit her lip and smiled as the wonderful heated memories came rushing back to her. “He kissed me back. A lot. Reggie, it was SO good… we made out in the hot tub and it was unbelievable. I wanted him so much, but then he kind of stopped all of a sudden; he just pushed me away from him and told me that we had to stay teacher and student and that we couldn’t have anything like that happening between us.”

Reggie looked thoroughly disgusted. He looked away and shook his head again. “Well at least he stopped you. You can’t do that! You’re going to get hurt one of these days doing things like that, and you can’t get hurt, Catalina, there are other people who care about you! I care about you, and I couldn’t stand to see you get hurt! You have no business doing something like that!”

She ignored him and continued, thinking back to how it all began with them. “Well, so then we agreed to keep it teacher – student, and we went back to bed.” She was interrupted again.

“What do you mean, you went back to bed?” he asked incredulously. “You two had your own beds in this room you shared, didn’t you?” he leaned toward her with serious staring eyes.

She shook her head. “No. Originally we had our own rooms, like I said, but then we wound up having to share his room, and since it was just going to be him in there in the first place, there was just one bed,” she answered nervously.

He grew irate, but she could see that he was holding it in. “You shared a bed with your college professor? Do you have any idea how many rules and laws you are breaking? I can’t believe that you did that!” he snapped angrily, and she felt herself flare up defensively.

“Well, Reggie, we had no choice! The hotel made us take one room and that was the only option. Trust me, Connor called the front desk the moment that he saw that we were going to be there with one bed and he argued with them and asked them to change it, but they just couldn’t, so we made do with what we had!

“Don’t you get all high and mighty with me like we had a choice and just decided to have it like that. Besides, we were just fine. You’ll hear all about it, now just listen, please! There’s so much to tell you!” Her voice softened and she tilted her head, her blue gray eyes pleading with him for his patience as she told him everything.

He sighed and looked down at his feet and then nodded. “Alright. I’m sorry. Go ahead.”

She gave him a smile and moved to pull her hand from his, but he held on to it tighter, and she left her hand there. “So then it was the last day and we went to the event and there was more security than I have ever seen anywhere, but we finally had a day when nothing happened, just the debates, and it was good.

“It was easier getting photos that day because I could move around without worrying about people going nuts, but my best photos came from the first two days, showing people who were all up in arms about everything. I got some great shots of the chaos around that place.”

She shook her head, thinking of it. “Well, the last day they let everyone go early and we all left in the afternoon. It was snowing badly when we left; I couldn’t believe we had gotten hit with a second storm. The first one wasn’t anything compared to the second one. We went back to the hotel and we got ready for the banquet that we were invited to, so we got dressed in our formal wear…. Reggie, he was in a tux. I swear he looked like James Bond; he was so handsome!”

Catalina grinned thinking about it and Reggie turned his face away from her, narrowing his eyes and looking downward. He said nothing and she sighed with a blissful smile thinking about it, and then went on.