Breathe. Just Breathe.

I thought I’d share a little something I wrote for this weeks edition of Wildfire, the All Romance eBooks Newsletter. (Reposted with permission) It’s called Breathe.
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Breathe, I told myself. Just Breathe.

It’s funny how things that you normally do without conscious effort become all but impossible when your world crashes in on you. I remembered it being that way when my mother died, I remembered it being that way when I found out that my ex-husband was cheating on me, and I remembered it happening the day that I had the accident in Yosemite, the day that a pack of wild wolves sprang from the woods, cutting across the trail I’d been hiking, the day that he found me. And now, he was here.

“Allison!” he shouted from behind me. I could tell that he was close. I quickened my step, my heart pounding a staccato beat that matched the sounds of my frantic steps. I raced down the stairs in my high-heeled black pumps, praying that I wouldn’t trip and fall.

When I rounded the corner to my office I had my keys in my hand. Only my hand was shaking. I couldn’t get the key in the lock.

Allison?” he said quietly.

I closed my eyes.

“You said you were from Dallas,” I whispered. “You said you were a Lawyer.”

The corridor was teaming with students, co-eds in their late teens and early twenties that had come here to learn. Boys and girls who placed their faith in teachers”¦teachers like me. My stomach lurched. I swallowed down the bile that had risen up in my throat, slipped the key into the lock and opened the door. Before I could close it, his boot was there. Those same God damned black cowboy boots that I saw when I first came to on that trail back in the woods.

“I said I worked for a law-firm in Dallas. It was true. Last summer I worked for my uncle in Dallas and stayed with him. Let me in Aly. People are going to wonder”””

That did it. For better or for worse, I stepped back and Jake Madison crossed the threshold, all six-one and one hundred, eighty pounds of him. Jake was all muscle and sinew. His body was beautiful and hard and I knew it well. I knew how it looked, I knew how it smelled, I knew how it tasted and I knew how it responded to my touch.

I placed my hands behind my back and moved to the far wall.

“I can’t believe this is happening,” I gasped. “You can’t be a college student.”

Jake smiled that big lop-sided grin of his and wagged his finger at me. “You said that you taught at a college in southern California. That was a lie, I called every one. None of them had a professor Connelly.

“Connelly is my maiden name, Jake. I used to be Allison Robinson. I was offered this job at the last minute,” I explained, “when Deborah Marshall decided not to come back from maternity leave. How old are you, Jake?”

“Twenty-one,” he said, moving closer his steps fluid and confident. “Twenty-two in a few weeks.”

“Twenty-one,” I repeated, trying to let it sink in.

“Yes, ma’am,” he said, as he placed his hands on the wall on either side of me. “Now, shut up and kiss me.”

I reached out and placed my hand on his chest. I’d meant to push him away, honest I did. But somehow my hand developed a mind of it’s own and it took a detour, trailing down over Jake’s stomach. It quivered expectantly under his tight white t-shirt.

“I never should have let you in this door. I want you to leave,” I told him, my voice was breathless and rough with want, even to my own ears it sounded like a lie.

“You shouldn’t have let me in the door? I never should have let you go. You want me, I’ll give you that”¦” he murmured.

His mouth was just a hairsbreadth away from mine. “Jake,” I gasped, as he took my hand and slid it down over the bulge in his jeans.

“Kiss me,” he demanded.

“You’re a student,” I reminded him. Or, maybe I was reminding myself.

He deftly moved one of my hands around to the back of his neck and the other around his waist, then he stepped closer still, crushing me to him in a way that reminded me of everything that I wanted, everything that I’d missed for the last few months, everything that I thought I’d never have again and couldn’t take now.

“I can’t. It’s wrong.” I closed my eyes. Wishing, praying that things could be different.

“It’s not wrong. I’m not your student. I didn’t get into the class. I was going to try to crash. I was every bit as surprised to see you as you were to see me, Allison. Our relationship pre-dates you coming here. No one can accuse you of anything,” he reasoned.

“You’re being naïve. One week of good sex”””

“Great, mind-blowing sex,” he corrected.

I couldn’t help but smile and agree. “Okay, great, mind-blowing sex. That’s”¦that’s not a relationship.”

“No?” he asked, his hand gliding down over my hip, past my thigh. He gingerly began to gather up the edge of my skirt.

“No,” I replied.

His calloused fingertips were tracing the tops of my silk stockings, exploring. “Maybe not,” he agreed, brushing him lips across mine, his tongue darting out to tease my bottom lip. “But it was something, and it could be more.”

“More?”

“Much, much more. It could be a great beginning,” Jake whispered. “Come on, Aly. Don’t push me away. Don’t let this chance pass us by. People wait their entire lives for the right person to come along. What if you’re it? What if I’m it? I know you’re still getting over a bad relationship. I know that I’m asking you to take a big risk here but”””

“Jake? Shut up and kiss me.”

“Oh, honey, I’m going to do much more than that,” he groaned, the deep timber of his smooth voice washing over me like a warm evening rain, removing the grime from my past and giving me something fresh, something I thought I’d lost forever”¦hope.

As his lips neared mine, Breathe, I told myself. Just Breathe.

Wanting a bit more of Allison and Jake? Look for Book 4 of Samantha Sommersby’s Forbidden Series, Forbidden: The Temptation.