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.
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.
She turned her body fully toward him and slowly slid both of her knees up around him so that she was sitting on his lap facing him. As she moved her body gradually toward him, spreading her thighs as she went, she felt his rock solid erection press against her body and the feel of him against her made her gasp with intense need. He cried out softly as she began to move herself along the length of him, their swimsuits a thin barrier over their bodies.
He clenched his hands on her hips, pulling her down harder against his erection, rubbing it on her and making her sigh softly as their kisses deepened and he lost himself to his desire for her. Connor’s mouth left hers, trailing slowly down her neck, biting her skin gently as he kissed and pulled at her skin with his teeth and lips, moving lower and lower as they moved their hips together, pressing hard with desire against one another.
His mouth descended to the swell of her breasts and he kissed at them hungrily, his mouth moving the material of her bikini top aside until he had captured her dark nipple in between his lips and teeth and was sucking at it, rolling the tip of his tongue over it while she arched her back and rode herself against him harder.
Connor’s hands slid beneath her bikini bottoms at the waist, and he slowly moved them over the round flesh of her ass as he pulled her tight against his groin. Everything in him was lost in her, and there was nothing in the universe but her, until he let her nipple go, running his hot tongue over it again and again, kissing and pulling at it, and then he looked up into her face and everything in him stopped.
She looked down at him, hungry for him, aching to feel him deep inside of her, but when their eyes met, he gasped and a tidal wave of guilt washed over him and bound him tightly. He pushed her away from him suddenly, and she stared at him with wide eyes, full of confusion.
“What… What is it? Did I hurt you somehow?” she asked sadly, shaking her head and reaching her hands to him.
He drew in a deep breath and turned away from her for a moment, his hands pushing hers gently away. “No. You didn’t hurt me. I was hurting you. I was hurting us, and failing in the biggest possible way; letting you down.” He felt wretched for what he had allowed himself to do.
She shook her head again at him and tried to get close to him again. “You aren’t hurting me or us, Connor, I want this with you!” she said in an anxious voice as her eyes searched his downward turned face. “Please… don’t stop. Don’t push me away. I want you… I want you so much…” she said softly, reaching her hands under the water and sliding them up his thighs toward his groin. “Connor… we both want this.”
He shook his head and closing his hands around her forearms, gently pushed her away again. “NO! We can’t do this! It isn’t right! You are my student and I’m your teacher, and there’s nothing right about this at all! I have a duty to you, and allowing this to happen between us is failing that duty in the worst possible way!”
His eyes met hers and he spoke seriously to her. “I want you more than you could imagine, but that doesn’t make it right, and that doesn’t mean that we should give in to our desires. We are not in a position to have a relationship like this! We have to maintain our roles. I cannot let you down this way! I won’t!” he insisted, pushing himself up to his feet.
She felt hot tears sting her eyes and she looked away from him, reaching her hand over to the material of her bikini top and pulling it to cover her exposed breast. He sighed and reached for her, bringing her to her feet in front of him. He placed both of his hands on either side of her face and tilted it upward to him. She looked at him sadly and he saw a tear as it rolled down her sculpted cheek.
Connor shook his head. “God, you are so beautiful, and I feel so lucky and flattered that of all the men you could have, you somehow decided that you want me, but you and I aren’t able to have each other that way. It’s my job to teach you and guide you, not to make love with you, no matter how much I want to.” He shook his head and looked up for a long moment, taking a deep breath. “God, I want to.” He sighed and then his eyes lowered to hers again.
“You deserve to be in a loving relationship with a young man closer to your age who isn’t in any kind of position of authority over you. An equal. Someone who doesn’t have a responsibility to you the way that I do. Please understand…” he whispered, begging her to see the rational perspective of their situation, rather than the emotional one.
She sighed and pulled his hands from her face, nodding slightly and turning away from him. She knew what he meant, but it did nothing to dampen the fires that burned hotly inside the depths of her, the fires that made her ache for his touch, his kiss, his body to be inside of hers.
He followed her out of the hot tub and they walked back to their room silently, each of them saddened and hungry for the other. They each took a turn rinsing off in the shower and putting their pajamas on, and neither of them said a word to the other as they went to bed with their backs to each other, both of them barely one breath away from rolling over and reaching for the other to make love.
It was a long while before either one of them fell asleep, but they both finally did, and though neither of them had a restful sleep, both of them woke with a start as the phone rang in the morning.
Connor rubbed his good eye and reached for the phone as she turned to look over her shoulder at him while he took the call.
“Yes, this is Connor James. Hello, sir…. Yes, I did…. You do? .... Well, that would be wonderful! There are two of us, of course, is that a possibility? It is…. Well thank you so very much! We certainly appreciate your thoughtfulness and generosity, and we will look forward to seeing you there, sir. Good morning to you as well.” He hung up the phone and turned to look at Catalina, who was watching him expectantly.
“We just got two invitations to the banquet tonight,” he said with a smile, and she smiled back and leaned against the pillows.
“That’s great! I’ll have to get my dress out and steam it.” Then she turned to look at him with regretful eyes. “Connor… I’m sorry about last night. I just… I shouldn’t have tried to kiss you to begin with. I started it, it was my fault, not yours, and I never should have --”
He cut her off, raising his hand and shaking his head. “No apologies, okay? Please. It was both of us, it happened, we both let it happen, and we both took responsibility for it. We don’t worry about it, we go on. I’m just so sorry that I failed you, but I’m determined that it won’t happen again, so please, don’t worry or think about it, and we will go on and everything will be fine. Okay?” He looked at her hopefully.
She nodded with a small smile. “Okay,” she answered simply, and then the two of them got out of bed and got ready for the last day of the event. They were both careful about giving each other space and respect as they readied to go, and both of them were caught in between wanting to give that respect, and wanting to give in to their heated desires and make love with one another. Both of them were concentrating on avoiding the electric heat between them at all costs.
When they arrived at the event building, they were not surprised to see that there was twice as much security as there had been both previous days, and it seemed as though every person going in was aware of the seriousness of the situation and prepared to be on their best behavior. Catalina and Connor stayed close to one another and as the morning went on, she was able to work in a peaceful environment.
All of the attendees behaved as she had expected that they would have on the first day of the event, and it made her work infinitely easier. But Connor still stayed very close to her all the while that she worked.
The last day of the event, rather than having a midday break, went straight through for five hours and then the event ended on a positive note as the candidates all shook hands and left the stage and there were no uprisings in the audience, and no demonstrations outside of the building. It was as calm and peaceful as it could possibly have been.
When Connor and Catalina walked out of the building, they were surprised to see that the snow, which had stopped falling earlier in the evening the day before, had begun to fall again, this time much thicker, faster, and heavier than the prior storm had deposited on Springfield.
They looked at each other with worried glances and went back to the hotel. Getting the latest report on the weather told them that the city should expect up to six inches, which was not enough to cause any kind of traffic problem, or delay them from leaving the next morning. They were both relieved and hopeful that the report was accurate that time.
Catalina laid down for a nap and Connor worked on his laptop, taking care of classes online while he was away. When the afternoon grew late, he readied himself for the banquet, and she woke up shortly after he had finished dressing. She pushed herself up from the bed and saw him standing before the desk in the room wearing his black tuxedo. She drew in a long, slow, silent breath and raised her eyebrows slightly.
“Not to make things awkward, but you look incredible.” She looked at him with a shy smile. He turned toward her and his cheeks went a little pink.
“Every man looks good in a tuxedo,” he told her with a slight chuckle. “The bathroom is all yours.”
She nodded and took her dress and herself into the bathroom to get ready for their night out. A while later she emerged and when he turned to look at her, she took his breath away and he could not speak at all.
She was wearing a strapless red gown with a sweetheart neckline that enhanced the upper curves of her breasts, while the satin material of the gown hugged her figure closely, snug against her narrow waist and full hips.
It hung almost to the floor, showing the tips of her matching shoes, though there was a long slit that ran up the front of the gown to the middle of her thigh. Her hair was curled about her head like a dark halo, her makeup gave her face a beautiful healthy glow, and around her neck was a thin gold necklace that had once been her mother’s.
She took a few steps toward Connor and he forced himself to take a breath as his eyes traveled slowly over her body until they reached her shy smile and her gray blue eyes.
“How is this? Do you think it will be alright?” she asked in uncertainty.
He nodded stiffly.
“You are stunning. I think you’ll probably be the most beautiful woman at the entire banquet.”
She laughed a little and he took a deep breath, letting it out slowly as he walked toward her. He held out his arm and she slipped her hand through the crook of it. “Shall we go?” he asked with a smile.
No matter how much he was drawn to her, no matter how much even the sight of her turned him on, no matter how much he wanted her, he knew that they would have a good time even just being friends that night. She seemed to understand that, and to feel the same way, and she gave him a wide smile as they walked down the hall of their hotel toward the banquet.