Dark Blue: Study in Seduction, Book 1 (15 page)

“The domination, the discipline. Do you often have this kind of sexual relationship with other women? You were at the fetish party, after all, but I think we’re way past games.”

He stopped on the bank and looked down at her. Alex’s expression burned with a fire that heated her to the core. He wrapped his arms round her and ran his finger down her cheek.

“Our games have only just begun,” he murmured. “It’s true that I’ve dabbled a little in the scene and been to a few clubs over the years, but all of them had me backing out within half an hour, and that party was one of the worst examples. I’m really not interested in watching a bunch of masked accountants and bankers shagging each other in fancy dress. I am intensely interested in one person, one I think is ready to explore exciting new places, if she dares to let me take her to them.”

She pressed her cheek against his jacket and inhaled the sweet scent of the leather. “I want to dare.”

His chest thrummed against her face as she heard and felt him laugh. “Good, because ever since I saw you at that party, I’ve thought about you and what I want to do with and to you—what had driven you to go there, because you were clearly a novice. I knew you were curious and burning to explore this world, and I wanted to be the one who guided you. I’d spent the past seven months fighting it, and then you walked into my tutorial. Can you imagine how I felt? It took every ounce of self-control not to show any reaction. I could barely carry on teaching.”

She glanced up at him. “You were very good at acting as if you’d never bloody seen me. Too good! I didn’t know whether to pass out or run out of the room. And then you made me read that poem. I wanted to sink through the floor.”

He shook his head. “Yes, that was a bit wicked of me.”

“A bit!”

“Well, you knew that we were going to study Rochester with Dr. Bhide, so I decided I shouldn’t treat you any differently from the other students. I thought I
wasn’t
treating you any differently, but, I confess, I’d far rather hear Rochester’s filthiest adventures from your lips than Gideon’s. The way your sexy little tongue stammered out the word ‘cunt’ gave me the most enormous hard-on.”

She should be furious but instead was even more turned on. “You knew from the start it was me.”

“How could I ever not recognise those gorgeous curves and that air of a rabbit caught in the headlights?”

“You beast, Alex Lemaitre.”

“I do try to be. How did you feel when you saw me?”

“I was shocked, stunned—excited and in despair too. I wanted you too, but you were Professor Lemaitre. I hadn’t come to Oxford to have an affair.”

He took her hand, and they started walking again. It was dusk now, and lights twinkled on the boats moored up alongside the bank. Her hand felt so warm in Alex’s, and her senses zinged at the thought of what was to come, soon, at his house.

“That’s why we shouldn’t be doing this. More than me risking my career, our relationship could harm your dream. You’ve worked so hard to get here.”

“I do know my own mind. I’ve survived Stephen’s death, his betrayal, gone back to college, got my exams, got in here. I know my own mind, and I want this. I want to carry on. If that means we have to hide, keep it secret, I’ll do it.”

She thought about asking him about the scarlet woman, but she didn’t want to show that she didn’t trust him yet. Since Stephen, she’d—understandably, if she was kind to herself—become a bit paranoid about trusting any man. She barely knew Alex, after all, and the woman could be a publishing contact or friend or even, at a stretch, a relative.

Alex pulled his keys out of his pocket. “Shall we go home?”

She nodded politely, as if he’d just asked her to tea. “Yes, please.”

The bike journey home didn’t seem nearly as terrifying now she could focus on what was to come in Alex’s bedroom. Finally they were going to make love. It was a step further towards sharing more than snatched moments of sensual correction in his room. She had to hope that he would share more of himself. She had to trust that it would come, given time.

By the time Alex had locked the Triumph in the garage next to his house, Carla was ready to burst with need. She was moments away from having Alex inside her at last.

He unlocked the front door and stepped back. “After you.”

The hall was silent, dark in the gathering twilight. The door slammed shut behind her, and instantly his arms were round her and his mouth on hers. She clutched at the buttons of his leathers. “I want you inside me. As deep as you can get. Too deep.”

“And I want to see just how much of me you can take.”

He grabbed her hand and tugged her up the stairs, making her stumble as she went. He led her through the first door at the top of the stairs. He released her just long enough to draw the curtains and then pulled her down on top of him on the cover of his big brass bed.

His face was above hers, drinking her in. “I’ve waited so long for this.”

He unzipped his leathers and stripped them off, along with his boxer briefs and T-shirt. Oh my. Alex. She expected him to be hard, but his erection was breathtaking—proudly beautiful and just for her. She closed her fingers around his shaft.

“
Carla.
”

Her name was a sigh of the deepest pleasure.

She knelt between his legs, desperate to watch him lost in ecstasy, groaning his pleasure, at her mercy as she’d been at his. “Please, Alex, can I be in control?”

“
Non
,
cherie
,
but you can use your mouth on me.” His voice was ragged as he hooked his fingers in the sides of her panties and drew them down her hips. He cupped her butt cheeks in his hands. “Do it, now.”

Despite what he’d said, she was determined to make him lose control. She’d use her tongue and lips and teeth until he lost his mind and begged her for mercy.

“Now.” The word was jagged with impatience. No matter what he said, he was already losing his grip. She lowered her head as his fingers dug into the soft flesh of her bottom. She kissed her way around his navel, circling his taut abdomen with kisses. Her mouth moved lower, and she circled him again, this time with her mouth around the tip of his shaft. He groaned, losing control with her at last, tightening his buttocks and lifting his pelvis as she sucked fearlessly on the head of his penis. He tasted wonderful: salty, musky, uniquely Alex. She wished she could take the whole length of him into her mouth until she couldn’t breathe, drive him insane with pleasure.

Alex had to lose control.

“
Mon dieu
.”

His hand tangled in her hair, and there was light pressure from his fingers as he guided her mouth farther down onto his cock. His shaft slid into her mouth until she was full.

“Carla… I’ll come…”

She wanted him to come, wanted to feel the hot fluid, the essence of Alex against her tongue. She grazed the tip of his cock with her teeth.

“No!”

She felt her hair tauten sharply at the nape as he forced her to break the contact. He let go of her hair and pulled her on top of him so fast she gasped for breath, until she lay face-to-face with him, his erection iron hard beneath her stomach. She was bereft at being parted from him, maddened by his arrogance. “Alex, why did you stop me? I wanted to feel you come. You were on the brink.”

“I told you, I want to come inside you.”

“I wanted both.”

“For our first time, I want to be inside you. Later, I’d love you to take me in your delicious mouth again, and I swear I’ll lie back and let you do anything you wish.” Her protest was cut off with a finger on her lips and a whisper. “No more arguments, or you’ll be over my desk again, and this time I promise I won’t stop until the bell has finished chiming.”

Carla bit her lip. The threat had its effect, and Alex had already reached beside him to the nightstand for a packet. After sheathing himself, he took both her hands in his and positioned her so she was sitting astride his lap.

“I want you like this where I can see your beautiful breasts and your face as you shatter.” The lightest brush of his fingertips across her nipples turned them pebble hard and had her gasping in pleasure. Alex’s gaze was coal-hot and raw with hunger. Its intensity made her even more conscious of her nakedness, the slight imperfections of her body, but Alex shook his head. “Don’t be shy now. You’re perfect, and you should rejoice in it. Let go for me completely. I want every tiny piece of you, body and soul.”

He tilted her hips up and, without warning, speared her with his shaft. As she took in his length, her muscles relaxed to accommodate the hard thickness, but the feeling of fullness still made her gasp. Alex arched his hips, and the steel of his erection nudged deeper inside her.

“Oh.”

“Are you okay,
cherie
? Can you take more?”

Her answer was to open her thighs wider, as far as she could, until her buttocks rested on his thighs. She groaned softly in triumph and pleasure. She was full to the core with Alex at last. He had nothing left to give. He thumbed her clitoris, and a wave of intense pleasure and hot liquid arousal overwhelmed her.

“You’re so wet.
Parfait
.”

“Alex, please. No more. I’ll come.”

“Let go for me. Let me take everything you have.”

That was what he really wanted. Total control over her, sheer sensual domination. A moment when she had bared every last atom of herself to him, physically and emotionally. And she couldn’t stop. As he brushed his thumb over her nub again, he began to lift his hips, thrusting her weight and his off the bed, the tip of his shaft meeting the very core of her. She tried to focus on his features and cling to a vestige of sanity so she could see him fall into the abyss with her, but it was too late.

She heard him groan with pleasure, tried to claw on to consciousness long enough to see his head arched back, eyes screwed shut, neck corded. She wanted to cry. Not because she was stretched to the limit and beyond, but because he had opened her up to her fullest, emotionally. Tiny stars spun inside her as he thrust harder, and her orgasm overcame her in waves of intense feeling that made her body tremble and shudder. Her inner muscles clenched around his cock as she cried out.

Chapter Fifteen

After spending the night in Alex’s bed, Carla walked back to the hostel the next morning, refusing his offer of a lift. Since then, she hadn’t seen him for a few days—a necessary agony imposed by them both so that she could focus on her work.

In today’s group tute, she’d have to pretend that nothing—let alone their mind-blowing lovemaking and kinky games—had passed between them.

Her way into college took her through the lodge and by the pigeonholes. Her parents still sent letters by post, and there were usually a handful of formal invitations from societies and the faculty to drinks. Birthday cards too, of course, and good-luck postcards for those approaching exams. Oxford still had its traditions, and receiving physical mail was one of the nicer ones.

“Morning, Carla.”

“Oh, hello, Michael.”

Carla smiled at him and was reminded of his hint to leave something in her pidge. She really hoped he hadn’t. While she thought he was a lovely guy, she’d definitely have to put him off now she’d started seeing Alex.

“How are you?” he asked. “Haven’t seen much of you since we went to see
Gorefest VI
. You didn’t seem yourself. I was a bit worried, but Emma said you were going down with something.”

Or going down
on
someone
. “I didn’t feel a hundred percent. Probably shouldn’t have come at all. I’m fine now. I blame college dinner.”

“I avoid it at all costs.”

She laughed but inside shrivelled a little. Any minute now she had a horrible feeling he would ask her on a date, and she would have to say no, politely but firmly, and it would be excruciating for them both, and she really
did
like him as a friend.

Michael nodded at the pile of envelopes and leaflets in her hand. “Someone’s popular. Wish I got so much mail.”

“Oh, this is a few days’ worth. I don’t check my pidge that often. Most of it’s probably junk mail.”

He reached into his own marked slot. “By the looks of it, I don’t even have any junk, unless an invitation to drinks at the scientific society counts. Oh, and here’s a card asking me if I’d like to join the university Scrabble club.”

“Sounds like a blast,” Carla said, far too brightly.

“It might be, but I’m hopeless at spelling. I think I’d be thrown out after five minutes.”

She laughed. “Me too.”

“An English student? No way… In fact, you could come along and hold my hand at the first session.”

Oh crap. She’d walked into that one.
Now she’d have to do the dirty deed and tell him she wasn’t interested, although an invite to the Scrabble club hardly counted as a date.

Alex’s timely appearance in the lodge saved her from replying at all. She knew him well enough now to detect the momentary hesitation. He was weighing up how to react to seeing her and, thank goodness, chose the right response.

“Hi, Michael, Carla.”

Carla muttered a “Hi,” but Michael seemed happy to see Alex. “Hello, Alex. How’s things?” he asked.