Impossible To Resist (BWWM Romance Book 1)(84)

“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.