Mr. James: A Forbidden Romance (3 page)

She wondered why he looked so uncomfortable and she offered to turn the heat down in the car. He nodded and pulled his own coat off, making her hold her breath and bite down on her lower lip as she saw the collared sweater that he was wearing; it clung to his solid torso like a lover. She let her eyes travel along the lines of his chest, shoulders, and arms before turning her face away from him and trying to still the butterflies that danced in her stomach.

He gave a half-smile. “Well, I wouldn’t call it mischievous; I think that’s being a bit generous. It was more like scandalous, but at least I graduated with enough credibility that I was able to work for a while in the field and then go back and teach what I had learned.”

She nodded. “I’m glad you did. I’ve learned so much from you, and I learn more every time you start talking about photojournalism, so it’s good that you did what you did, because it’s enabling me to do what I do.”

He shrugged. “You could have learned all of it from another photojournalism teacher if I hadn’t been there.”

She shook her head. “No, I learned a lot more than just technique from you, Connor. I’ve had the opportunity to meet a lot of other photojournalists over my time in school, and there isn’t anyone else I would rather have had teaching me, than you. You’re the best, plus you’re my favorite teacher and my advisor, so I’m glad and grateful that you did what you did to get where you are.”

He felt his cheeks warm slightly and he turned toward her for a moment, smiling. “That’s really sweet, Cat, thank you.” He spoke softly, using the nickname that her friends called her.  It was rare that he used it, in fact, he only used it in moments of closeness between the two of them, which had become increasingly often.

She smiled and looked back out of the window, and then frowned and blinked. “Oh my gosh, is that snow?” she asked, looking at the countless flurry of white specks around the outside of the car. The flakes had seemed to come out of nowhere, and what was nothing more than a cloudy sky had suddenly and almost instantly become a thick cloud of snowflakes all around them.

He sat up straight in his seat and looked out around them carefully. “Yeah, that’s a snowstorm. I checked the weather. The weatherman said there was a twenty percent chance of light snowfall.”

“Twenty percent?” she asked skeptically as she stared at the flakes that were getting fatter and heavier all around them.

“Well, you know… weathermen are paid whether they are right or not. He could have said any number and we’d still be driving through this.” He pursed his lips and peered at the thickening flurries around them. “I’m sure we’ll just pass through it.” He dropped his speed down a little for safety.

They drove on through the snow which only got heavier, coating the road and hiding the landscape around them. Connor had to drive slower and slower, and by the time they reached the hotel, they were exhausted. The roads had been closed behind them, and it seemed impossible that they had made it as far as they had.

The hotel was enormous; five floors and designed with a luxurious style. It was ideal for the political event taking place in the city, especially for hosting the banquet at the end of the run of the event.

Connor and Catalina moved carefully through the throng of people who filled the lobby, and stood in line at the front desk. Connor looked at Catalina in surprise and leaned toward her, whispering, “I didn’t realize it was going to be quite this busy here. I mean, I knew they’d probably be full, but this is incredible!”

She looked around them and agreed. “I’ve never been in a busier hotel.” After a fifteen minute wait, they finally made it to the front desk to check in, and the harried desk clerk gave them a tired smile.

“Welcome!” he told them politely. “How may I help you?”

“We’re here to check in. Connor James and Catalina Marshall,” Connor said with a sympathetic smile for the man who was helping them.

The clerk turned toward the computer screen and tapped away at his keyboard for a moment. Then he looked back at them with his weary smile. “Your room is ready for you. It’s on the main floor here, just through that hallway at the end of the foyer. It’s right by the pool and courtyard.”

Connor nodded. “Great! That sounds good. Where is Catalina’s room?”

The man frowned slightly. “We have you both in one room. I see that you were down originally for two rooms, but due to the storm and the road closures, we’ve had to consolidate as much as we can to accommodate as many people as possible. These reservations were made together at the same time with the same credit card, so they have been combined into one reservation.”

Connor felt his heart launch into his throat. There was no way he could share a room with Catalina, for so many reasons.

“That won’t work for us. We’re definitely going to need two rooms.”

The desk clerk sighed and shook his head. “I’m sorry, sir, but it’s just not possible. Every room in the hotel has been consolidated to make room for people who have been stranded by the storm. There’s just no way to offer you another room. They are all taken.

“Your only option is that you would both be staying in the room down the hall on this level. All of the hotels in town have had to do the same thing; with the political event and the weather, every place is booked as all the hotels try to accommodate everyone,” he told Connor apologetically.

Connor tried to swallow the lump in his throat as he turned slowly to look at Catalina. He looked into her eyes and felt everything in him tighten, including his throat as he tried to speak.

“What do you want to do? It’s totally up to you,” he said in a strained voice.

She heard everything the clerk said, and the whole time he spoke about them staying in the same room, her heart pounded in her chest and she felt heat flowing all through her. She was going to have to stay with him in his room. There was a feeling of awkwardness in her that was trumped only by her nervousness and both of those feelings were bound up in intrigue and curiosity.

“It’s fine with me.” She shrugged. “We don’t really have a choice, do we?” she asked, without really making it a question.

The clerk pursed his lips and shook his head. “You really don’t. I’m very sorry about that,” he said with a disappointed look on his face. “I can give you two free meals each as a form of compensation, if that would be alright.”

Connor sighed and turned back to the clerk, wondering how in the world he was going to manage sharing a room with Catalina for four days. “It’s going to have to be.” He handed his card to the clerk.

They finished checking in and walked to their room. Neither of them said a word about it, and both of them were thinking about the experience they were headed for with every step forward that they took.

When they entered their room, Connor groaned as he looked around and saw that there was only one bed. Catalina’s mouth fell open as she stared at it. There was no way that would work for them.

Connor went straight to the phone and called the front desk. The phone at the desk rang several times before the clerk picked it up.

“This is Connor James. We just checked in and you had us consolidated down to one room from two. We’ve just gotten into our room and I see that there is a single bed in here. We are going to need a room with two beds.” He said it seriously, his brow furrowed and his hand over his eyes as he sat in the chair at the desk.

He was quiet a moment and Catalina watched and listened to him.

“Well, can’t you switch us with someone else who has two beds but might only need one?” he pleaded insistently.

More silence, and Connor leaned back in the chair and looked at the ceiling as his hand dropped heavily on the desk in frustration.

“Listen, there has to be something that you can do. We booked two rooms and you put us into one room, the very least you could do is make sure that we have two beds! This just isn’t going to work with one bed!”  His voice grew sharp.

Catalina turned away from him and looked at the rest of the room. It was an exceptionally nice room, with a large well-appointed bathroom, a small kitchenette area with a sink, refrigerator, and microwave, and the office area featured a desk, chair, and lamp.

Then there was the bed. It was a queen sized bed, so there was room for two people, but not much room. It would be very close quarters indeed for them if they were to remain in the room.

“Well, please check, and if anyone is able to change with us, please call me right away.” He sighed in frustration as he hung up the phone and stared at it for a long moment. He turned toward her slowly and looked up at her.

“There’s no other room that they can give us in exchange for this one. We are both going to have to be here, unless they can find someone who is willing to exchange, and the guy at the desk said he’s fairly certain that won’t happen.” He shook his head and sighed deeply.

“I’m so sorry. I didn’t know this would happen,” he spoke quietly as he looked at her.

She shrugged, trying to keep everything light between them. “Don’t worry about it. It’s just the storm. We’d have been in our own rooms if it wasn’t for that.” She walked over and sat on the end of the bed.

“We’ll be okay. We’re two adults. This is no big deal. We share the bed. The worst that could happen is that I might steal the covers.” She gave him a light smile, though she didn’t really feel it was going to be as easy and nonchalant as she tried to make it sound.

He shook his head and looked away from her, sitting there in her lavender sweater dress, making everything in him warm. “I’ll sleep on the floor.”

She shook her head. “Don’t be silly. We’ll both sleep in the bed. There’s no need for it to be any other way. I was kidding about the covers.” She gave him a hesitant smile.

He grinned back at her.  It was shaping up to be a long and difficult four days, and it had only just begun.

They both unpacked and Connor turned the television on for some background noise. It had been a long and harrowing drive to get to the hotel, and Connor was worn out. They went to dinner together in the hotel restaurant, and talked about the work that they would be doing over the days to come.

Connor gave Catalina the bathroom first to get ready for bed, and when she emerged, he was not in the room. He came in much later, after she was in bed, though she wasn’t asleep. She heard him brush his teeth and get ready for bed, and she stared at the curtain over the window in silence, her back facing him as he turned off the bathroom light and climbed into the bed. She knew by the feel of the mattress and blankets that he was as far from her as he could possibly be.

She didn’t think she was ever going to get to sleep that night, as her mind kept spinning at the thought that they were together in the same bed, and that he was that near to her. She finally fell asleep late into the night, but she was the only one.

Connor could not sleep, though he tried to close his eyes, he tried to count backward, he tried everything he could think of as he laid still there in the bed with his back to her. Nothing could ease the tension in his body, nothing could lessen the magnetic pull he felt to her or the need he had to turn over and reach for her.

He could not stop the thoughts from returning over and over to his mind; thoughts of touching her, kissing her, and feeling her beneath him. No matter how much he tried to push those thoughts from his mind, nothing kept them away, and he laid awake the whole night, aching for her, hard with desire, and bound in regret and shame over it.

Chapter3

Catalina awoke to the scent of coffee the next morning, and when she sat up in bed, she saw that there was a tray filled with breakfast waiting on the desk for her. Connor was in the bathroom getting ready for their day. She climbed out of bed with a smile on her face and walked over to the tray, looking at everything on it.

She called out to him. “You brought us breakfast?”

He poked his head out of the bathroom door. His eyes looked a little tired. “Yeah, well, I knew you’d be hungry and we have a long day today, so it’s best to get it started the right way.” He gave her a half-smile and she smiled back before he disappeared into the bathroom again.

Catalina ate and enjoyed her coffee, and when Connor came out of the bathroom, she looked at him casually, trying not to gaze too long at the sweater he was wearing that clung to his sculpted form. His jeans fit him as well as his sweater did, and she felt her heart skip a beat at the sight of him.

Connor pulled the sleeves of his sweater up to his elbows and she glanced at his bared forearms and wondered what it would be like for those arms to be around her. She cleared her throat and looked at the dresser, walking over to it and pulling a drawer open.

“Are you finished with the bathroom?” she asked lightly, reminding herself that he was her professor and she had no business thinking of him in the way that she was. She gathered her clothes up out of the drawer, keeping her eyes off him.

“Yeah, it’s all yours,” he casually, heading for the breakfast tray. “Are you finished eating?” he asked, glancing over his shoulder without really looking at her. He was trying his best not to get a good look at her in her pajamas; he didn’t want to know what she looked like in them, as it would only give him more mental images of her to think about, and he was trying his best not to think of her at all.

“I am. Thanks for bringing that in.” She walked into the bathroom and closed the door behind her. She was grateful for a space away from him where she didn’t have to concentrate on not looking at him or stop herself from thinking of him with heated thoughts.

An hour later, they were in the car headed to the first day of the event. Catalina was rigid in her seat, her camera bag in her lap, her eyes wide and staring out of the windshield of the car. Connor looked over at her and a big grin spread across his face. He chuckled and reached over to pat her shoulder.

“It’s going to be fine, Cat, you’ll be so busy photographing that you won’t have time to be nervous. This first day is the debate, so emotions will be running high and everyone will be trying to be heard. It’s going to be intense, and it’s going to keep you running around all day, so don’t spend any energy or time worrying about it now. Just let it go and focus on what you want in front of your lens today. Be mindful of where you are standing. If the shot doesn’t look good then you’re--”

She cut him off.

“Then I’m not close enough.” She finished his sentence for him and they smiled at each other. “Then I need to move my feet, not the lens. I know… I got it. I’m just…” she trailed off as the building they were going to came into view and Connor pulled the car into the parking lot.

“You’re going to be amazing. Let the nervousness go. This is what you’ve worked so hard for all of these years. This is what you’ve been going after. This is your dream, and you’re going to go do it and do it perfectly.” He gave her an encouraging nod, and she grinned back at him feeling like her stomach was tied in several knots.

“Let’s go!” he said with a grin, getting out of the car. They trudged through the snow and it crunched beneath their feet. New snow continued to fall around them. Fat flakes landed on her hair and face, like cold little kisses from the sky. She looked around her and smiled, biting her lip.
This was going to be the day. This was the day that would change
everything she was going to do for the rest of her life,
she thought. She took a deep breath and followed Connor into the building.

Whatever she was prepared for, it wasn’t at all what she saw when she went inside.  She couldn’t begin to guess at the number of people who attended the event, her eyes swept over a vast field of them. There were so many more than she had anticipated. As she stood there in amazement, she heard Connor’s soft voice in her ear and felt his warm breath on her neck as he leaned over her shoulder and spoke to her.

“Everything you are feeling right now should be caught in your camera. Put that lens up and find the images that define the moment right now, and everything that is making it significant for you.”

She felt breathless at the closeness of him. If he knew what was going through her mind just then, he wouldn’t want it captured on her camera. She closed her eyes for a moment and took a deep breath, steadying herself, and then she lifted her camera to her eye and began to look for the images that told the story. They were all around her, from the massive crowds of people to the politicians who had begun to take their places at the podiums on the stage.

Connor had been right; emotions were high and the energy around them was tense and vibrant as she moved through the crowd and he followed not far behind her. The politicians took the stand and the debate began. There were four men in suits up on the stage, each of them smiling at the crowd and the cameras and scoffing disdainfully at one another.

Catalina watched the crowd through her lens, turning and eyeing everything around her. The first subject that was addressed by the moderator was gun control. It was a hot topic and the strain and shadow of antagonism flashed in the eyes of the four men on stage, and was almost immediately reflected in the eyes of the people who were there to see them speak.

Two of the men were for gun control in the hands of the government and the other two were adamantly against it. Arguments began to build as examples supporting the positions of each side were thrown out like grenades meant to bring their opponents to their knees. The moderator of the debate stepped in several times to remind the politicians of their time limits and to bring them back to the basics of the questions that were being asked.

On both the left and right sides of the room, microphones were set up and a line of people waited at each of them, anxious to ask their questions and get some answers that were as close to honest as possible.

Catalina’s lens caught everything, from the whole scope of the event to the smallest detail, such as the emotion registering in the eyes and on the faces of people in attendance. Connor had been right; everyone had an opinion to voice, and all of them wanted to be heard. There was a range of moods so vast that they went from indifferent and complacent to furious and passionate, and Catalina was capturing all of it.

Connor had also been right about her nervousness; she was far too busy and focused on what she was doing to be nervous. She was also so busy that for the first time since their trip had begun, Connor wasn’t on her mind. The only thing she was thinking about was the crowd and the politicians who seemed to be lighting fires with words all over the room.

She was standing near a man who was at the edge of his seat, watching one of the politicians closely. Suddenly, he stood up and yelled out, vocalizing his own thoughts and disagreement with what the politician was saying. In doing so, he began to wave his arms around and shout even louder, and then other men around him stood up; some of them arguing with him and telling him off, and some of them agreeing with him and defending him and his right to speak.

Catalina was nearly knocked over a minute into the men’s arguments, but suddenly there were two strong hands clamped like iron onto her hips and she was pulled backward so swiftly that she lost her balance and instinctively clung to the arms around her. In a moment,  she felt herself pulled up against Connor’s chest, her hips held tight against him as his fingers held fast to them, and then she felt his mouth almost against her ear and neck as he spoke to her in the nearly deafening chaos that erupted in the room, centered right where she had been standing.

“Are you alright?” he breathed into her ear, and everything in her stopped suddenly. It was all that she could do to keep herself standing as everything in her caught fire at the feel of him against her, holding her so tightly, his breath on her skin and his mouth so close to her cheek. She closed her eyes and gasped, sucking a breath in as her whole body went stiff and it felt like gravity had stopped holding her to the ground.

She steeled herself against the overwhelming urge to turn around right there in his arms and kiss him with everything in her. He held her to him tighter and his voice grew more urgent in her ear.

“Cat, are you okay?” he asked again. Somehow she made herself nod, though her heart was racing wildly in her and she could hardly move at all.

“Yes!” she managed to voice, struggling with her self-control. She felt his arms and hands loosen from her body and then fall away, and when he had left the space beside her, she was able to take a deep breath and it felt to her like she was somehow waking up and coming back to the world.

She steadied herself and made herself pick up her camera and photograph the chaos, arguing, and fighting going on just in front of her, all the while putting all of her focus into the lens and pushing the fiery emotions coursing through her out of her mind.

Security arrived and separated the instigators of the fighting, removing two of the men from the building while the rest were reprimanded and reseated. Security remained in place as the event continued and Connor touched her shoulder lightly to get her attention and indicate that they should move to another spot.

Catalina photographed the rest of the event without any further kind of uproarious incident, but at the end of the day, when it was finally over and she and Connor were on their way back to the hotel for dinner, she could only think of one thing that stood far and away above it all.

The most profound moment of the entire day was when Connor had pulled her away from the fighting and held her so tightly up against him. She felt like she had gone up in flames, and nothing else that happened that entire day could even begin to compare with that feeling.

When they sat at dinner, he looked at her and gave her a smile, determined to keep it light between them.

“What did you think of your first day out?” he asked curiously as he studied her eyes and expressions.

She immediately thought of him holding her and her cheeks warmed as she tried to look nonchalantly at the menu in front of her. “Oh, it was… a lot different than I expected. There were more people there than I thought there would be.”

He frowned. He hadn’t been able to stop thinking of how she had nearly been in danger. It sent him into a sheer panic for her when he’d seen the men in front of her grow angry, and it was an immediate reaction to pull her to him for safety, though he paid for it the rest of the afternoon as he tried to push from his mind the intensity of holding her so close to him.

“I’m so sorry about that fight. I didn’t think it would be like that at all, let alone on the very first day. I thought that the audience would be a lot tamer. I guess there were a lot of people there who felt pretty strongly about what was going on and you were there, right in the middle of it.” He spoke part of his thoughts, and kept the rest to himself.

She shrugged and nodded, picking up her ice water to take a long drink from it. “That was something else that I didn’t expect,” she said simply, her eyes on the most minute details of the menu in front of her.

He hesitated a moment, looking at her from the corner of his eye. “I’m uh…I’m sorry that I had to grab you away from it like I did. I hope I didn’t hurt you at all.” He wondered all afternoon if she was bothered by him pulling her away and holding her so close to him. He realized afterward that someone who wasn’t struggling with desire for her might have pulled her away and let her go, rather than pulling her away and holding her so tightly and protectively in their arms.

She shook her head and looked up at him for an instant. “No, it was fine. Thanks for saving me. Goodness knows what kind of trouble I might have gotten into if you hadn’t gotten me out of there.” She laughed a little and looked back down at her menu and he guessed that she didn’t want to talk about it any longer, so he gave her one last lingering look and then shifted his attention to the dinner options before him.

They were polite and friendly during dinner, discussing the finer points of the day and the debates before they went down the hall to their room and each got ready for bed, taking turns for privacy in the bathroom.