Impossible To Resist (BWWM Romance Book 1)(67)
“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.