Impossible To Resist (BWWM Romance Book 1)(65)
“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.