Chapter1
The massive dome of a clear blue sky arced over the college campus; the endless deep blue atmosphere was only shrouded by intermittent wisps of feathery white clouds that drifted overhead, in no hurry to go anywhere. Closer to the earth, rows of trees, fat and full with summer leaves beginning to blush at their tips, shaded the October sunshine, soaking up the golden rays before they could reach the ground.
In the cool shade of one tree sat an old fashioned bench, made of wood and wrought iron, curled into graceful designs, and harking back to a more genteel era. On the bench sat two friends; a young man by the name of Reggie Brown, who had a strong lean build and a good sized frame. He stood at six feet tall, with broad shoulders and a narrow waist. His skin was dark, almost the color of light coffee. He had black hair and dark brown eyes. He had a wide set jaw and a rounded nose over full lips. He was considered good looking among his peers and classmates, though he didn’t make any extra effort to be so; he was most comfortable presenting himself in a casual and natural way.
Beside him, leaning back on the bench and gazing up into the hidden depths of the tree towering over them, looking at the gradually changing leaves, was a young woman. Catalina Marshall was tall as well, though she didn’t reach Reggie’s lofty height. She had long, toned legs, her body just as fit from jogging often, though her feminine curves were generous. She had short, layered ebony hair that almost reached her shoulders and framed her lovely face. Though her mouth was full, it was small. Her nose was straight and narrow, her eyes were wide and framed with thick black lashes. Catalina’s eyes were the most striking aspect of her face; they were almost slate blue, the color of a blue gray stormy sea. Her skin was not as dark as Reggie’s was; she was the color of dark caramel. In her right cheek, there was one dimple that showed itself when she was in a good humor.
There was a sweet and genuine beauty about her; something that could not be bought or added. It was just an inherent trait of hers that was captivating to anyone who took a moment to pay any attention to her, and as a result, she had a good number of friends who loved her dearly, and Reggie was the best of them.
Reggie was talking with her about his engineering classes. She didn’t like engineering much, but anything he did was important to her, so she listened as he explained the goings on in a few of his classes and the projects he was working on at the time.
They met beneath the massive oak every day for lunch, and as they had no classes together, it gave them an opportunity to catch up with one another and spend time together at school. They saw each other outside of school as well, but during their busy weeks, the old oak was the best place for them to catch up and connect with each other.
Reggie was telling Catalina about an internship at an engineering firm that he was hoping to get. He had tried for others but had been unsuccessful, but he felt certain that he was a good candidate for the most recent one that he had applied for and he was certain he would get it. “This is going to be the one, Cat,” he explained, grinning with wide eyes. “It will be the one that jumpstarts my whole life. It’s going to happen this time, I just know it is. Then I can land a good job and start focusing on more serious things in my life.” His voice grew softer and his excited grin became a warm smile as he reached for Catalina’s hand and gazed deeply into her eyes. “There’s so much that I’m hoping for in my future. So much that means everything to me,” he said in a low and earnest voice, holding her hand as his eyes searched hers.
She grinned back at him and gave his hand a little squeeze before pulling hers from his grasp. “I’m sure you’re going to get it. It’s really just a matter of time. You’re a brilliant guy, you’re hard working and dedicated, and there’s nothing that you can’t do. One of these days, one of the firms that you’ve been applying to will see that and bring you on board, and then you’ll be all set. You’ll have everything you want.” Catalina shrugged her shoulders lightly and tipped her head as if it was all already a done deal.
Reggie reached a hand over the back of the bench to touch her shoulder. “Everything I want is almost in reach,” he said, leaning closer to her and lowering his voice. His eyes fell to her lips for a moment and then he raised them back up again and looked into her blue gray eyes.
She hadn’t noticed his glance; she was busy watching a chipmunk as it raced through the fallen colored leaves and darted up the tree. Reggie watched her, rubbing his fingers gently over her shoulder.
“So what’s going on with you? Are still working on that super-secret project that you couldn’t tell me anything about?” he asked her with a smile. She turned to look at him, her stormy eyes bright, and her smile so wide that it showed her dimple.
“Yes! Well, I can finally tell you now, though, so it doesn’t have to be a secret any longer.” She sat up a little straighter on the bench and turned to face him fully. “So Connor and I-”
Reggie frowned and tilted his head. “Connor?”
Catalina laughed a little and rolled her eyes slightly. “I mean Mr. James,” she said coyly.
“You mean Professor James?” Reggie corrected her, his eyes narrowed and his face stern.
Catalina shrugged one shoulder. “Well, he’s letting me call him Connor now, and I like that better. So, Connor and I have been working on getting press passes to cover a political rally in Springfield, and we didn’t know if we were going to be able to get them so we could go photograph the event, but he just texted me a little while ago to let me know that we got them and we’re going! I’m so excited! This is my first really big photojournalism shoot! It’s out of town, it’s a big event, and it’s with Connor there to help me… I can’t wait!” she gushed as she raised her shoulders and looked upward to the blue sky with a huge grin on her face.
Reggie’s brow furrowed. “He has your cell phone number? Why does he have your cell phone number? I think that’s crossing a line! I don’t think he should have your number. He’s a professor, you’re a student… there… that’s…” he shook his head in frustration, “that’s just crossing a professional line!”
Catalina looked at him, the grin fading from her beaming face. “Reggie, he’s my advisor and my professor of photojournalism, which is my major. Of course he has my cell phone number. There’s nothing wrong with that. What are you getting so worked up about? Neither of us is crossing any lines! Gosh. You’re acting like it’s wrong or something. There’s nothing wrong at all with it, especially since we’re going to be traveling out of town together for this project. We have to be in contact. Plenty of students all over the world have their teachers’ cell phone numbers; it’s the age of technology, Reggie.” She rolled her eyes and sighed.
He looked away, turning away from her even more.
“I just don’t like it, that’s all. You’re going out of town with him, and I don’t like that, and you’re traveling with him, which also seems wrong to me, but I can tell right now that it isn’t going to be any use to try to talk you out of it or try to discuss it with you.” He let out a deep breath slowly, then he looked down at his hands as he folded his fingers together.
Catalina tilted her head and gave him a sweet smile, laying her slender hand on his wide shoulder. “Reggie, it’s going to be fine. Seriously. This isn’t anything for anyone to get worked up about. We’re going to go, we’ll be gone for three or four days and we’ll be back. Easy as that.”
He sat up straight and turned sharply to look at her in alarm. “Three or four days? You mean this isn’t a one day thing?”
She lowered her brows and looked at him in irritation. “No, it’s a three day event and we have to drive there, so there’s some travel time involved, which makes it about four days.”
He looked away from her and shook his head. “I don’t like it. Where are you staying?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know; a hotel, I guess. We haven’t talked too much about the details because we were waiting to hear back on the press passes. I’m supposed to go in and see Connor to talk with him about it. We’ll get it all worked out. Please don’t worry about it.”
Reggie faced her and leveled his eyes at her. “You’re going out of town alone with your professor for four days and you don’t want me to worry about it. Right. I just don’t like it.”
She frowned at him and pushed her lips out stubbornly. “It’s not up to you to decide whether you should let me go or not!”
He rolled his eyes and leaned back with a sigh. “Like I could stop you,” he said dejectedly as he stood up and turned to face her. “Hug me.”
She stood up and her irritation dissipated in the face of their friendship. She reached her arms around his chest and hugged him, and he wrapped his arms around her, hugging her back, leaning his head close to her cheek and touching his lips ever so softly to her skin there as he whispered, “You be careful and come back as soon as you can.”
Catalina let him go and looked up at him almost reproachfully. “I’ll be fine, and I’ll come back when it’s done.” She gave him a wink.
He heaved a sigh as big as he was, and shook his head slowly as he turned around and walked away from her. She watched him go and smiled at his dedication to her and to their friendship. She was grateful that her best friend cared so much about her, that he worried about her, and that he was always looking out for her. She knew she was lucky to have someone who cared so much.
Catalina walked through the campus and headed toward Connor’s classroom. She checked her watch and saw that he was still teaching his class. She nudged fallen leaves of red, gold, and brown as she walked, smiling at the perfection of the moment. She loved fall, it was her favorite season, and she loved the school she was attending, about to graduate from after spring semester, and she was thrilled that she and her professor were able to get the press passes they needed to the political rally.
There were three nights of activities, and she would be able to attend all of them as media, and the realization of that sent adrenaline and excitement all the way through her soul. It was the beginning of what she had worked so hard for since high school to make into her lifelong career. The first real story. The first real work. The publishable pieces that would be the foundation of her early portfolio, and it was starting. It felt like she was just at the top of a roller coaster ride that was about to go screaming straight down on its way through a wild and unprecedented ride.
She reached the building where Connor James was teaching his class, and she slipped silently through the doorway of his room, sitting at the last seat in the back row, so as not to disturb the other students in the room.
Connor James was by far one of the most handsome young professors at the college. There was no end of girls or women who seemed to want him, and somehow he never really noticed their considerable numbers or keen interest; his attention was always focused on the present and whatever task he was dedicating himself. There were many hearts crushed as a result of his obliviousness.
Catalina rested her chin in her hand and watched him. While she did not suffer a crush on him, like so many others did, she did not miss the fact that he was a beautiful man to look at, and it made her smile to think that she was lucky enough to be in his company often, for he was as smart and as good humored as he was good looking.
Her eyes followed him as he stood before the class, outlining details of the photo-journalistic approach to photography, which was significantly different than any other approach to the subject. He was going on about how each photograph must tell a story, but she had taken that class her first year, and she knew it all by heart at that point. She was more focused on him.
His golden sandy hair was combed back away from his face, styled carefully to one side, ending at his collar. His short beard was trimmed and allowed the perfect view of his full lips, and framed his square jaw line. He had jade green eyes that swept over the room and stopped on her when they saw her. He gave the slightest of nods that she was sure was so imperceptible to the other students, that they must all have missed it. She smiled back and he continued with his lesson.
As he spoke, he began to pull his dark brown sport coat off, sliding it over his thick-muscled shoulders and down his arms and hung it neatly on the back of the chair. The solid wall of his chest looked as if it was pulling just a little at the buttons on his shirt, leaving many of the girls in the class wondering what he looked like without the shirt on.
It was tucked into the band of his jeans, which hugged his narrow hips and when he turned around to face the screen behind him, many of the ladies eyes dropped to get a view of his back side. Several of them bit their lower lips and looked at each other, shaking their heads breathlessly.
Connor mindlessly rolled the sleeves of his shirt up to his elbows, revealing his strong forearms, and went right on teaching and talking with no idea in the world that he was being so carefully studied by so many. If he had known, he’d have preferred that every one of them were studying the content of his class rather than him.
Catalina, having been through three years of school with him, was well accustomed to seeing the reaction he produced in females around him. She eyed them, rather than him, smiling to herself, knowing what they were thinking, and knowing that there was no way in the world that he would ever consider anything even remotely close to it with a single one of them. He was a traditional man of honor and morality in every aspect of life; something she had gotten to know about him in the very first month of her classes with him when she had started college.
The class ended a short time later and several of the women went to him with inane questions and quick snippets of conversation, trying to flirt with him and catch his eye. He was profoundly adept at answering their questions, resolving their issues, or just being polite and friendly, and then evaporating from their presence swiftly.
He looked directly at Catalina and nodded his head subtly toward his office. She quietly stood up and left, crossing the hall and going down a few doors to his office, and where she waited for him.
A few minutes later, he stepped away from his classroom alone and walked down the hall toward her, letting go of a breath he had been holding and giving her a smile. She smiled back and her dimple showed, and her blue gray eyes seemed to have a light in them that made his stomach tighten when he saw her. He tried to push the feeling away, but at the end of the last year it had begun to stir in him every time he saw her, and he promised himself that a summer away from her would make it go away. A summer away from her had made him long to see her again, and when the fall semester started, the feeling came back stronger, and he fought against it just as hard as it pulled at him.
He wasn’t even sure what it was exactly; it wasn’t sexual arousal, it was something about her that sucked his breath away from him, made him feel like everything in the world around him was vanishing, made his body tense, made his stomach tighten just a little, and made him want to be nearer to her, like she was a magnet and he could not find solace unless he was near to her, and the nearer he was, the stronger the pull became.
Connor felt it paramount that all of those feelings be kept locked safely inside him, and that he never let them show. She was first and foremost his student, his responsibility; and he was her teacher, a guide and protector, and nothing more.
That was all that he would let himself be to her, and every time the feelings came and he fought them, it was for both of them. It was for her, to respect her as a student, a professional in training, an individual, and a woman, and it was for him, to maintain decorum and a high moral standard, to be trustworthy and responsible, to be the educator that she trusted him and paid him to be, and nothing more.
It was a struggle that had begun to grow increasingly difficult, and dim tendrils of anxiety had rooted in him, stealing through the core of him, whispering to him that he had almost an entire year ahead of him to struggle through, and that it wasn’t going to get any easier as time passed and she neared graduation.
The promise of her imminent departure weighed so heavy in him that he refused to think of it. He blocked the dark day from his mind and focused, as he was so good at doing, on every present moment, which allowed him the breathing room to try to concentrate on being her devoted professor, committed to her future and her success as a photojournalist.
“How are you doing today?” he asked lightly as he drew near to her and pulled the keys to his office out of the pocket of his jeans.
She caught the fresh scent of his cologne as he came to her and as she breathed it in. It made her pause a moment as she tried to clear her mind and refocus on what he had said to her. Looking at him from a distance and appreciating the view was one thing, but standing next to him, breathing in his scent and feeling the heat from his sculpted body was another thing altogether. She blinked a few times and smiled, looking away from him for a moment as he walked past her into the room.
“Oh, um…. I’m great! I’m so excited about the trip! I wasn’t sure if we were going to get the passes at all, so I didn’t let myself think about getting them, I just waited and kept my mind on other things, but now that we have them, it’s all I can think about!” She followed him into the room, feeling her face warm slightly when she realized that her eyes had gone straight to the back pockets of his jeans, just like all the other girls in the classroom. She closed her eyes and sighed, then turned her head to look at the bookcase on the far wall of his office as she walked over and sat on the big old leather sofa there.
Connor tipped his head and laughed lightly. “Yeah, I didn’t know if we were going to get those either, and it was a surprise to see them come in this morning, but I’m just as excited as you are. This is a good story for you to begin with; it’s a big deal, and you should be thrilled about it.”
“I’m nervous, too,” she admitted, looking down at her hands in her lap as she twisted the ring on her right hand. It was one that her mother had worn before she passed away, and Catalina never took it off. It was gold with eight tiny diamonds in a circle, eight small red rubies in a circle above that, and one single tiny diamond at the center of the rubies, making the ring look like a poinsettia. She always wore it, and it was a nervous habit of hers to twist it when she was feeling pressured.
He looked over at her and smiled as he picked up a file from his desk and walked over to her. He saw her twisting her ring and he knew that she must be very nervous indeed. He’d picked up on that habit of hers in the first semester when she did it on test days or when he was reviewing her work.
Connor sat beside her on the sofa and placed the file on the coffee table before them. He was much closer to her than he normally was, and she was surprised to find that she could barely keep her thoughts on the file he was opening and talking about. She leaned forward toward the table and kept her eyes on the papers he was showing her, but all the while, her senses were locked on everything about him; his heat, his nearness, his scent, the hardness of his body, and it seemed like the harder she tried to focus on what he was saying, the more her senses tried to take over and intoxicate her with everything about him.
“So, we’ll meet here tomorrow morning, and we should get an early start. I’d say seven. Does that work for you?” he asked, turning to look at her. He regretted doing it the moment their eyes connected and he drew in his breath, feeling his body tighten slightly. She was too close to him. Much too close, he thought, but when he considered moving, he knew it would be awkward, so he broke the hold of their gaze and looked back at the paperwork before him.
“Yeah, sure. Seven is fine,” she said quietly, directing her own attention to the paperwork and drawing in a breath.
He cleared his throat and continued. “Great. Okay, so we’ll leave at seven. I called and booked each of us a room at a hotel in Springfield the minute I found out that we got the press passes. I couldn’t believe it, but it’s the same hotel where the banquet will be on the last night of the conference. It’s crazy that they even had any rooms left. I’ve put some requests in with a few of the big wigs there for an invitation to the banquet, but everyone wants to go and that’s the hottest ticket of the whole event, so it’s unlikely to happen. It’s worth a try. Just in case we get in to it, you should bring something formal to wear. No guarantees though.”
She nodded. “Got it.”
“The first day is the debates, the second is a town hall meeting, and then the last day is another debate to discuss issues brought up at the town hall meeting. The banquet follows that and closes everything down. We’re in for all of it but the banquet. Bring all of your camera gear, and I’ll have mine in case you need anything.” He sighed and leaned back against the sofa, looking toward her slightly.
“I’m really proud of all that you’ve done and what you’re going to be able to do here. The work that you’ve done over the last three years has put you into a really great position to get a job doing photojournalism work just about anywhere. You’re really talented and you’re such a hard worker.
“This is your payoff. You can do this, no matter how nervous you get, no matter what happens; this is the doorway to the future for you. I’ll be right there to make sure everything goes as well as it can for you.” He smiled at her and she felt overwhelmed with gratitude for everything that he had done for her.
Without thinking about it at all, she leaned over to him and wrapped her arms around him, hugging him close. “You have been my inspiration all the way through it. I never could have gotten anywhere with any of it, if it weren’t for you. Thank you so much for everything, especially for this trip,” she told him, her mouth near his ear, and her breath on his neck.
The feel of her body pressed against his, even in their embrace on the sofa, gave him a rush that he had never anticipated. Her face pressed against his cheek as she breathed on his neck was dizzying to him. He could not react for a moment, wanting desperately to turn his face toward her and press his lips to her neck. He closed his eyes and breathed in, realizing too late that the soft sweet scent of vanilla that filled his nose and then his lungs was just as tantalizing as she was in his arms. He gave her a quick squeeze back to reciprocate her thanks, and then he let her go and stood up abruptly.
Drawing in a sharp breath, he walked to his desk and jammed his hands down into his pockets. It had finally happened. She was so close and so tempting that he had felt a heated stirring in his groin, and in his mind, he demanded of his body that platonic normalcy prevail. His body began to grow hard for her.
He walked around his desk and sat down in his chair, sliding it up against the desk as far as it would go, hiding his stiffening arousal. He was mortified that it had happened, and he felt his face growing warm.
She was a student, he reminded himself. His student, looking up to him for education and guidance, not lecherous and abominable behavior. He shook his head and looked down at papers on his desk without really seeing them.
“I’ve got several things to take care of here. Why don’t you do whatever you need to do to prepare for the trip, and I’ll see you tomorrow at seven, alright?” he confirmed, not doing much more than glancing up at her for a moment to acknowledge her.
She rose up off the sofa and nodded at him with a smile. “I’ll do that. Thank you so much, again. It really means the world to me.” It had taken her breath away to feel him so close to her, but she forced herself not to think of it, and she moved quickly toward the door, opening it and waving to him as she hurried out.
Connor dropped his head into his hands and groaned when the door was closed. Guilt crashed through him and he sighed in frustration as he stood up and walked over to the windows in his office. He opened two of them; tall graceful old windows that held old glass and were framed in time weathered oak.
As he gazed out of them, he saw her crossing the lawn in front of the building, and he watched her walk so gracefully, almost gliding, the sun reflecting off her hair and skin. He sighed again and lifted his hand to the window pane, leaning his forehead against it as she got further from him.
He could not have her. He could not wish to have her, or want her. She was off limits and desiring her was out of the question. He made himself think those thoughts over and over, like a mantra that he was determined to make himself believe. He vowed to respect her and remain committed to his position at the school. He’d never had any kind of romantic or inappropriate feelings for any student before at any time, and he was determined that this anomaly of desire for her was not going to get the better of him.
He remained at the window, watching her until she vanished from sight, and then he closed the window and told himself that he had to focus with laser beam intensity on the work they would do in the week ahead, and nothing else.