Part 4
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"I had a lovely evening last night, Natalie. How about you?"

Natalie took a step back and considered pinching herself. She looked around the sedate campus for someone, anyone to save her. Nothing. With a sigh she turned and faced her least favorite person.

"It's been so long since we talked, girl to girl."

"A really long time, Evangeline." Natalie didn't know whether to laugh out loud or run. This woman was clearly off her rocker. Or, Natalie's eyes narrowed, she had something she wanted to rub in. "Why was your evening so wonderful?"

"John." Evangeline said his name on a sigh. "He brought me flowers and took me out to the Palace. Then, well, you know. It was the first time he brought me flowers."

"Really, John McBain sending flowers, that is surprising. Listen, I really have to get going. I have class in ten minutes." Natalie brushed by the lawyer, not bothering to ask why she was standing in front of the law school building on campus.

"Oh, Natalie."

"Yes." Natalie turned around.

"Why don't I walk you in? I'm teaching this portion of your criminal law class. As a favor to my good friend Dean Martin."

"I wouldn't want to look like a teacher's pet." Natalie smiled and rushed on ahead. Evangeline teaching her law class? "I wonder if John knows yet?" she muttered to herself.

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"How was school?" John asked as she put a file on his desk. It was dusk now and she had just gotten on shift after getting a bite to eat on campus and being grilled by her classmates about the woman lawyer who would be teaching their upper level crim law class for the next couple of weeks.

"Pretty interesting, actually." Natalie walked around the desk and settled on the corner.

"Don't do that." John said automatically.

"Don't you want to know why class was so interesting?" Natalie asked, lowering her voice to be more intimate and pique just a bit more than his interest.

"Fine." John dropped his pen and leaned back in his chair. "Why was class so interesting?" He plastered on his "let's humor Natalie" smile.

Natalie grinned when she saw him keep glancing between her breasts and her face.

"I have work to do, Natalie." He knew he'd been caught. As usual.

"We got a guest teacher for our criminal procedure portion of my crim law class. A real lawyer."

"Didn't you tell me that this class was in the law school? Aren't all the teachers by definition lawyers?"

"You listened? Yeah, it is. But this isn't a professor, this is a practicing lawyer. Someone you know, rather well."

John opened his mouth to speak, then stopped and swallowed.

"Your girlfriend didn't tell you that she's my teacher? How awkward." Natalie stood up and picked up his pen.

"There's nothing awkward about it. We've talked about this."

"We have. I just thought you'd like to know. In case you thought to meet me at school for dinner on Tuesday or Thursday." She rubbed the pen between her fingers. It was slightly obscene and John's face reddened.

"Natalie, we aren't having a relationship." He grabbed his pen back.

Natalie turned around and walked towards the door, her long red hair swinging. "Same time tonight?" She asked, her hand on the door knob.

"Yeah."

"She really appreciated the flowers. Aren't you glad I thought of them?" With a lascivious grin she opened the door and walked out.

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Natalie slid the key into lock and pushed the door open. She sighed when she saw John prowling about the room, a beer in his hand. She walked in and closed the door behind her.

He was warring with himself again, she saw. His lips curved into a smile, but it didn't reach his stormy blue eyes. She put her bag down on the couch and walked over to the fridge and got herself a beer.

They'd been seeing each other in their "non-relationship" now for two months. The first few times they'd been together John had tried to pull back and swear it would never happen again. After the fourth time, when he had shown up at Llanfair to talk to her and "put an end to things once for all," he stopped making promises he didn't really want to keep.

Natalie had been surprised that he had continued to see her and not break up with Evangeline. It didn't seem in character for John and it had Natalie worried, worried enough that she hadn't pressed him on it. So while she wanted him to be able to look at her all the time with the love she saw in his eyes when she woke up in his arms and she wanted to be more than a mistress, she decided to wait and see what he would do.

Also, Natalie admitted to herself, she kind of enjoyed have one over on Evangeline who had from day one loved shoving her sexual relationship with John in her face.

Ultimately, Natalie knew she would either end up with John all to herself or it would end because of whatever it was that held him back from her and kept him clinging to the pretense of his relationship with that woman.

Right now it was starting to feel a lot like a roll of the dice on which outcome it would be and John's mood only reinforced that.

"Do need another beer?" She asked.

"Yeah."

Natalie grabbed another and handed it to him. He tossed the empty into the recycle bin and walked around her.

Natalie frowned and watched him. Something was different tonight. Her heart sped up and she took a bracing sip of her beer.

"This has got to stop, Natalie. I'm with Evangeline and this is wrong. This could really hurt her if she finds out."

"Are you planning to tell her? Because I'm not."

John frowned and took another drag of his beer.

"She's suspected this all along, hasn't she?"

"How do you know that?"

"Please. Do you think it's just you she's thrown accusations at all this time? Natalie, stop calling him. Natalie, I give you permission to lean on him. Natalie." The last was said in a snide imitation of the woman and with a roll of Natalie's blue eyes.

John sighed and sat down heavily in the chair kitty corner with the couch.

"Sorry, I shouldn't have said that. Do you want me to leave?" Natalie asked.

John looked up at her, his eyes burned and he shook his head.

She walked up to him and got down on her knees in front of him. He put his hand on her face and stroked her skin, pushed her hair behind her ears and drank her in. Tears pricked her eyes. She knew she saw love in his expression. But why couldn't he be with her fully?

As John's arm slid around her back and arched her body into his, Natalie began to see that soon this affair would turn to resentment and jealousy if it didn't change soon. His tongue slid between her lips and he leaned forward and they hovered over the coffee table.

"Tomorrow," Natalie whispered.

"What?" John asked as he took their beers and tossed them on the floor, heedless of the spillage and he lay her down on the table and began to unbutton her shirt.

"Nothing." Natalie reached up and tore at his shirt.

Clothing was tossed aside, skin was tasted and teased.

John cupped her breasts and drank from her dusky nipples. One then the other, again and again as she arched and grabbed at him. Her breath was a raspy plea as his hard manhood teased at her thighs. She tried to wrap her legs around him, but he slid his finger inside her stopping her greedy movements. She saw stars as he slid another, then another and began to invade her in time with his bites on her sensitized aureoles.

"You taste so good," John groaned.

"I need you. Inside. Now. Please. John." Natalie writhed under him. "John."

"Say it. Say it." John's mouth hovered over her lips.

"I love you, John. I love only you. Aaaaah!" Natalie cried out as he plunged his hardness inside her and began to ride. One hand grabbed at her hip, his other tangled in her gorgeous red hair as his lips mated with hers.

"Say it!" He commanded again.

"I." Kiss. "Love." Kiss. "Only." Kiss. Suck. "You."

John reached down and pressed his finger against her pulsing center and pushed her over the edge. They pounded together as she saw pulsed around him and pulled him with her into the stratosphere of pleasure.

They lay panting against each other for a few minutes.

John stroked her body gently as Natalie ran her fingers over his scalp.

"This must hurt." John reached under her and lifted her up, still straddling his body. With a tenderness that belied the animal passion that had just passed between them, he lay her down on the bed and crawled up to lie next to her. He smiled tenderly at her and brushed her hair off her face.

"What is it about you that I can't deny myself, Natalie?"

Natalie knew she saw love there even though he had yet to say it. Or show it to the outside world. Her breath caught in her throat as she prepared to respond to his question.