Chapter6
Catalina spent the rest of that day working on photographs from the trip; doing minor editing work and getting a good look at everything she had shot. It was good work and she was proud of what she had done.
She did her best to remain focused on her work and to not let her mind go to either Reggie or Connor, as each of them was a considerable distraction for her for so many reasons. She didn’t hear from either of them, and while that made her wish that at least one of them would reach out to her, it was also a bit of a relief because it gave her the time and peace she needed to get her work done.
After a few long hours of editing, she was finished, and she pulled the thumb drive from her computer and slipped it into her purse. She turned to leave her room and stole a quick glance in the mirror. Her hair was curled around her face, her makeup looked good and there was no sign of the torrent of tears that she had cried over her fight with Reggie.
Her blue gray eyes slid over the reflection of her lines and curves. She was wearing a burgundy colored sweater dress that buttoned up the front and hugged her body closely. It was flattering on her and showed off her shape while keeping her skin covered.
Catalina left her house and headed to the campus. She was going to see Connor to give him the final edit of the photographs that she had taken, and she was doubly nervous and excited to see him. Her heart picked up pace when she reached the campus parking lot. She hadn’t seen or communicated with him at all since they had returned from their trip, and everything in her was yearning for him.
Everything in her felt like it was pulling her with an increasing force toward him, and anxious though she was to see him, she was also nervous about what it would be like with him as they tried to reconnect in a platonic way.
She wondered if he would like the photographs she had taken, and whether or not they would do well in the media that was to be printed about the event in several publications that were waiting for her photographs.
She reached his office and knocked delicately on the frosted glass in the old oak frame on the door. She heard him call out for her to come in and her heart began to pound as she reached for the doorknob and turned it. She pushed the door open and stepped inside and as he looked up at her, the lines on his face formed from deep concentration, the tired somber look in his jade green eyes, and the line of his mouth all transformed at once.
His eyes lit up when he saw her, a smile grew wide over his face, and it looked as if just the sight of her had refreshed him completely. He gasped and laughed a little, standing up from his chair behind his desk and dropping his pen on the desktop. He reached her in just a few strides, closing the door behind her as he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her into a warm embrace.
Catalina’s whole heart and body were flooded with joy and happiness at seeing him, and she grinned blissfully as she felt the familiar heat and strength of his body against hers. She nuzzled his neck with her nose and lips, kissing him there softly in a greeting as she slid her arms around his chest and held him close to her.
“God, it’s so good to see you,” he whispered in her ear as he held her close. The sight of her had lifted him completely out of the slump he had felt that he was in since he returned to the school. He’d done his best to focus on his classes, his students, his backlog of work that was waiting for him upon his return, and all of it seemed to suffocate him as he tried to keep her off his mind, and failed miserably at it.
He breathed in the scent of her hair and skin and for a moment, for one long sweet moment, he lost himself in her, wishing that he could kiss her and taste her, wishing even more than that, he wished he could feel her body up against his, but the rules of engagement between them had changed, and he had to remind himself that he was her professor and she was his student. There could be nothing between them but scholastic interactions of academia. He took a deep breath and sighed, partly in relief at having had a chance to hold her in his arms, and partly because he didn’t want to let her go at all.
She didn’t pull away from him first, she let him hold her until he sighed and stepped back from her, looking down into her eyes with a smile.
“What brings you here today?” he asked, looking downward for a moment and then smiling back up at her. “Not that I’m not thrilled to see you…”
She laughed a little and opened her purse to pull out the flash drive she’d brought for him. She held it up in her hand and tipped it toward him. “Work. I’d love to say that I came to see you because I miss you like crazy, and I do miss you, but I’m here because of work,” she told him with a smile.
He nodded and reached up, his fingers sliding over hers as he took the flash drive from her. He let his hand move slowly, enjoying the feel of his skin against hers, even in such a slight way.
She drew her breath in a little at his tender touch and then dropped her hand away from his, and looked away from him. He knew that they had to relegate themselves to the change in their bond; the change of letting go of the powerful intimacy they had shared. He took a deep breath and as he was turning away from her, he let his eyes drift over her body, taking in the delicately covered curves and lines, and every part of her that his eyes touched made him long for her with a burning ache that he was forced to deny.
Connor took a deep breath and walked over to the laptop that he had been working on earlier that day. It was sitting on the coffee table in front of the wide old leather sofa at the other side of his office. Sitting before it, he slid the flash drive into the portal on the laptop and he tried not to notice as Catalina walked slowly toward him. He tried not to see the way her legs moved beneath the soft material of her sweater dress with each step she took on her way to the sofa. His groin tightened and his blood warmed as it began to course through him faster.
She sat beside him and a slight wave of air passed by him, carrying the scent of her perfume on it, right into his nose, and the scent rendered him breathless for a moment as he tried to maintain his focus on the images that were loading on his monitor.
Catalina knew that she should not have sat so close to him, but she could not resist the draw that she felt for him; the magnetic pull, as though he was the air that she needed to breathe and perhaps the touch of his skin against hers might be the only thing that was really keeping her alive. She longed for him with every fiber of her being, and though she knew they could not be together, it was some form of comfort and pleasure to her to be able to sit so close to him.
She was close enough that the heat from his body warmed the side of hers, and the smell of the soap on his skin reminded her of the taste of his skin when she had kissed it so many times in their living dream.
She struggled to make herself focus on the work before them, rather than on the muscles in his arms that she could see because he had rolled his shirt sleeves up, or his strong and gentle hands that moved over the keyboard of the laptop; hands that had touched every part of her and made her come completely undone before they had rebuilt her back together again.
He moved through her images swiftly, each one flashing before him for barely more than an instant as he discarded some of them and pulled some of them out of her file, transferring them to a file of images they would keep. She was amazed at how quickly he worked, and she hoped that someday she too would be able to sift through so many images so quickly.
Inside of half an hour, he had gone through everything she had shot, and he had enough images pulled that the story of the whole weekend, her best of the best shots, was complete and they were done. The whole project was done, short of sending the chosen images in to the publications that would be using them.
Reaching his hand over to the flash drive slowly, he pulled it from the computer and set it on the table for her. He didn’t want it to be done. He didn’t want any of it to be done. He knew that there was no other reason for her to stay in his office, but he was racking his brain trying to come up with any excuse he could to keep her there for as long as he was able.
He finally turned to face her and saw that she had been watching him. Their eyes connected and he felt his heart rage against his body, feeling as if it was trying to escape, it pounded so hard.
Connor almost looked away from her, but he had no real willpower to do it. He simply let his eyes connect with hers and remain there.
“I miss you so much,” she whispered, raising her hand and touching his cheek. She let the tips of her nails slide through the short hairs of his beard, and with hesitation for only a brief moment, she leaned closer to him.
“I know we said we were going to go back to being college professor and student… but no one is here… Connor, no one would see us if we shared just one… kiss…” she whispered, her mouth nearly touching his.
A small smile slowly curved upward on his face. “No, I suppose one kiss wouldn’t hurt anything.” He closed the space between them and pressed his lips to hers. The warmth from them flooded through him, setting fire to everything in him swiftly, and he lifted one hand to her cheek, holding it there as he moved his mouth over hers, wanting more, though they had agreed to a single kiss.
She slowly reached her arms up, sliding her hands over the solid wall of his chest, slipping them up behind his neck as she parted her lips and he tentatively touched the tip of his tongue to hers. Each of them knew they were taking the kiss just a little further than they had intended to, and both of them thought that the other one would be the one to pull away first, but both of them wanted more, and neither one of them pulled away.
Catalina felt everything in her melt as her body heated with need for him, and as his kiss deepened and she felt his other hand on her back, pulling her to him a little closer, she gave in to her need to feel him. She leaned forward and pressed herself up against him. The touch of her chest against his unraveled his resolve and he held her tighter, losing his breath as he felt himself stiffen with desire; the muscles in his thighs and stomach tensing as his body yearned for hers.
His mouth left hers and began to travel down her neck, sucking and nibbling at her skin, all the while thinking that it would only be just a little more time with her, just a little more closeness, and then he would let her go, but he grew hard and the fires of need in him began to consume him.
His hand slipped from her cheek as his fingers drifted down the side of her neck to the top of her dress, where he hesitated a moment. She felt him stop and everything in her yearned for him to keep going, so she placed her hand over his and drew it to her breast. He closed his fingers around the generous curve of it as she closed her eyes and let her head fall back, moaning softly.
He gently squeezed her, massaging the breast in his hand before he could not hold back the smoldering ache for her that was searing through him. His fingers moved swiftly to the top button on the front of her dress and he pulled it apart, revealing a little more of the dark mahogany skin of her chest. He brought his mouth to it, running his tongue over it, kissing her, and moving lower as his fingers pulled the next button open.
One by one, he separated each of them until her breasts were bared to him and he lifted them to his hungry mouth, sucking and biting at them, making her moan with need. She twisted her fingers in the hair at the back of his head as his hot tongue devoured each breast, and she held him tightly to them.
Connor lifted his face from her chest and looked into her eyes with a ravenous gaze. “I can’t hold this back, Cat, I need you. I need to feel myself inside of you… please. Just once… just this once, and then we’ll go platonic. I swear it…” he vowed to her as his eyes sought an answer in hers.
She felt relief wash through her as she smiled joyously at him and pulled his face to hers to kiss his mouth voraciously. “Yes, lover of mine, yes a thousand times. Yes!” she whispered against his mouth as she laid back on the sofa and he moved above her, positioning himself between her legs as he pulled their clothes off and lost himself in the feel of her soft hot skin moving against his.
She felt her panties slide off as he took them from her, and she spread her thighs, wrapping her legs around him and using them to pull his hips to her. His rock solid erection was pulsing against the outside of her as he abandoned the last of their clothing to the floor.
“I want to feel all of you on me…” he whispered as his hands canvassed every part of her body that he could reach. She felt desire building in her belly and she began to push her hips upward against his groin, moving slowly and firmly as she closed her arms around his shoulders and twisted her tongue around his in a heated kiss.
As much as he wanted to take his time with her, he could not hold himself back from the aching need that was burning through him and he held her tightly as he pushed the tip of himself into her and then thrust the length of his erection all the way into her. As he filled her she gasped and her back arched, pressing her breasts hard against him and he groaned in pleasure as he began to slide himself in and out of her.
Her breath came in short shallow pants as they pushed hard against each other, building the heat and friction between them until tiny beads of sweat formed along her skin and she felt as if she never wanted their lovemaking to end. His hands closed firmly on her body everywhere that he touched her and if he could somehow have held all of her all at once, he wished that he could have done it.
They held the summit of their fiery passion back as long as they could but it grew too hot between them and they clung to one another, gasping in pleasure as their orgasms rocketed through them, solidifying their bodies together as their every muscle tensed and they cried out in release. She felt his hot orgasm flood all through her and it made her come again, shuddering in his embrace. Slowly, the bliss in them ebbed and began to recede, and their breath returned and their eyes opened once more.
He kissed her softly and tenderly, slowly moving his mouth over hers, sucking gently on her lips as he cherished every single moment with her.
“There is nothing in the world like making love with you,” he whispered as he looked into her eyes and kissed her once more. He raised his hand and brushed a stray piece of hair from her forehead as his body began to relax. “This closeness with you is something that I crave all through the day, into the night, and in my dreams.
“It’s something I’ve never experienced before, and now that we’ve shared it, I don’t know how to go back. I don’t know how to let go of it and live without it,” he said as his brow furrowed slightly. “I’ll figure it out, I guess, because I will not compromise you here, but I want you to know how precious you are to me, and how much every moment with you means to me.”
She felt her heart begin to ache and she leaned up and kissed him softly, and then looked into his jade green eyes as she combed her fingers though his sandy golden hair.
“Being with you is the most incredible thing that has ever happened to me. I mean, I felt so strongly about you before; admiring your work, and everything that you are as a person; your integrity and honesty, your ambition and dedication, your amazing mind and your kind and compassionate heart… there’s so much about you that I admire, and what we share together like this just amplifies all of it more than I ever knew that it could.” She pressed her forehead to his and then kissed him once more; a long lingering kiss that stopped the words between them.
He sighed and pushed himself up from her, sitting for a moment with his head in his hands. “I wish it could be different for us. I really do. This is so difficult. I don’t know how I’m ever going to make it through the rest of the year, seeing you in my classes and around the campus, and knowing that I can’t touch you or kiss you, knowing that I can’t have you at all.
“It’s already felt like one of the most difficult things I’ve ever had to do and we just got back.” He turned to look at her, running his finger along the lines of her cheek. “I hope that it’s not that difficult for you, too.” He spoke earnestly, looking at her with great concern.
She sat up and began to reach for her clothes and pull them back on. “It is that difficult for me as well, but we’re just going to have to get through it. I’m not going to compromise your job here, or your reputation, or any part of your career or life. You mean too much to me for you to get hurt, and I won’t be the one to do it.”
She dressed herself and then turned to look at him as he stood up and zipped his jeans closed.
“I do want you to know that every moment you are thinking of me, I am thinking of you too, and I want you just as much and just as often as you want me. I have no idea how I’m going to be able to sit through your classes and watch you teaching while I’m thinking of how it feels to make love with you.
“My focus will be split all year between what I need to learn and what I want with you, but I promise you that I will do my best to make it work.” She smiled at him and slipped the flash drive into her purse.
She walked toward the door and opened it, turning to look over her shoulder at him one last time before she walked out. He felt like his heart was going to burst out of his chest and he called her name.
“Cat!” He walked quickly to her and stopped when he reached her in the doorway. He lifted his hands to her face and held it, gazing into her eyes, searching for an answer to the fear in his heart.
“What is it?” she whispered as she looked up at him and reached her hand up to touch his as he held her cheek.
He hesitated a moment and then asked her in a strained voice, “Do you regret it? Are you sorry that you ever did any of it with me?”
She smiled at him widely and shook her head, reaching both of her arms around his chest as he enveloped her in his embrace.
“No, lover of mine, I don’t regret a single moment of it at all. Not any of it. I would do all of it again, except that I would have started it on the very first day I met you so that we could have had all of this time together. That’s the only thing that I would have changed,” she told him softly as she leaned her face up to his.
He was overwhelmed with his feelings for her, and he bent down and covered her mouth with his, kissing her passionately, tasting as much of her as he could while he held her tightly against him, one hand moving up into her hair to close his fingers in it, and the other hand sliding down to her ass, closing firmly around it as he pulled her hips to his and pressed her back up against the doorframe. He kissed her long and hard, and they finally parted breathlessly, gazing into each other’s eyes as they let each other go reluctantly.
She bit her lip and tried to stem the hot tears that stung her eyes as she stepped out of his embrace and his doorway. “I’ll see you around, Professor James.”
“See you, Miss Marshall.” He breathed painfully as she turned and walked away from him, her eyes blinded with the tears she could no longer hold back. She heard the door of his office close and she knew that it was the last time that they would ever touch that way again.
She had just reached the end of the corridor when she heard her name and turned around to look behind her. Reggie was walking up to her quickly, and from the furious look on his face, she knew that it wasn’t going to be good when he got to her.
She sighed and waited and when he got to her, he was so angry that she took a step back from him, keeping her eyes locked on his.
“What in the hell was that?” he asked, jerking his hand back down the hall toward Connor’s office.
She felt her heart skip a beat as panic hit her like a wave and her eyes grew wide. He couldn’t have seen her with Connor. There was no way that he had just seen her leaving Connor’s office.
“What are you talking about, Reggie?” she asked in feigned exasperation.
He leveled his gaze at her and shook his head. “Don’t you try and play games with me, Catalina Marshall. I saw you just now with that… that creepy old man, that lecherous jerk. I saw his hands all over you and him sucking on your face. What in the hell are you doing with him? I told you not to be with him! I told you just to leave him the hell alone!”
Fury rose up in her and she took a step toward him, looking up at him with fire in her eyes. “You have no right to tell me what I can or can’t do, or what I should do! Who do you think you are? What I do with him is no one’s business but his and mine!”
He took a step closer to her and she held her ground, glaring up at him. “I’m your best friend! That’s who I am! Or did you forget? Did you forget that I’m supposed to be the one that you trust the most, the one that you are closest to in the world? Did you forget that you and I love each other and that you mean the whole world to me? Did you just throw all of that out so you could go get it on with your teacher?” He flung his words at her, demanding of her that she consider what it was that she was really doing.
She stopped short, her reply halted by the reality of what he had said to her. She shook her head. “It’s not like that, Reggie! Don’t twist things around and make them what they aren’t! That’s not what’s going on between you and me, or him and me! You were never supposed to see that! No one was supposed to see that!”
He gave her a disgusted look and shook his head. “Oh no, I’m not supposed to see it, but you expect me to sit there and listen to you tell me all about it, how the two of you had the best sex you’ve ever had in your life. That’s what you want me to do. Forget that I love you and just sit there and listen to you tell me all about you laying down with another man! Is that it?”
She felt her cheeks warm with embarrassment and she looked around her quickly to see if anyone else was listening to them. There was no one around, but Reggie’s raging eyes were burning into her.
“That’s not it at all!” she told him as tears threatened her eyes for the second time that morning. “Reggie, I love you too, as a friend. I didn’t even know that you had any kind of other feelings for me until you said it when I got back from the trip, so don’t you go accusing me of anything! You have never said a word to me about how you felt, and I’m sorry to have to remind you, but I don’t feel for you that way! I love you, but just as a friend, as my best friend, and that’s not going to change!”
He lifted his chin at her defensively and glared at her. “So you’re just going to keep screwing that old man behind closed doors and leave me out in the cold to wish it was me you were holding. Is that what you’re going to do?”
Her eyes narrowed to razor thin slits. “What I do with him is none of your damn business, Reggie! Let it go!”
He shook his head. “I’m not going to let it go! Someone has to stop you before you wreck your school career and destroy your life!”
She turned around and walked away from him as he yelled after her. She walked as quickly as she could, hoping that the distance would silence him and that he would see that it was nothing they were ever going to agree on, and somehow let it go.
Catalina hurried toward her communications class, wishing that the beautiful time she had shared with Connor had not been so utterly marred by such a nasty fight with Reggie. She pushed them both from her mind as she opened the door to the classroom and sank miserably into a seat in the back row.