Dark Blue: Study in Seduction, Book 1 (29 page)

How much had he hurt her already? Could he try to gain her trust again? Find the courage to give the whole of himself that real love demanded?

Carla heard the Triumph from down the street. The bike’s throaty roar grew in tone and volume, waking her from the semi-doze she’d fallen into. That sleep had given her some relief from the tears she’d poured out after she’d left Rose. Although it was dark outside, the bike’s lamp lit up the drive, and she heard the gravel spray as it stopped.

Alex. Here. Now.

On top of everything else, she couldn’t think straight, but she went downstairs and opened the door. The sight of his gorgeous face took her breath away. He still had the power to make her legs buckle with desire.

“Christ, what the hell has happened?” he asked.

You have, Alex. You have
. “Nothing.”

Stepping into the hallway, he reached for her, but she moved away. If he hadn’t come back to her forever, with every tiny piece of his body and soul, it would be unbearable to have to let him go again. Once in those strong arms, she could never allow him to leave—not when she felt so raw with emotion. All her strength was taken with just existing.

“Please, Alex…” She could hardly bear to look at him, she ached for his touch and his love so badly.

“Please, what? Fuck off out of your life? I can see why you might want that, but listen to what I have to say. I’ve been thinking about us.”

“Thinking about us? Was it that hard a decision to come here?”

His dark eyes burned with passion. “Carla, what is the matter? Won’t you even listen to me?”

“That’s all I do. Listen to people.”

“Something’s wrong, isn’t it? More than just between us. Your eyes are raw.”

Before she could back away, he’d captured her in his arms. Being there felt so amazing and so right, she didn’t have the strength to struggle, let alone the will. So much for never letting him touch her again. That had lasted about ten seconds, and now all hope was lost.

“What happened?” he asked, stroking her hair as she rested her face against his motorbike jacket, the comforting scent of warm leather filling her nose.

“There was another note,” she murmured. His arms tightened around her instantly. “And I finally worked out who had sent it, so I went to see her.”

He flinched as if he’d physically felt her pain. “Jesus Christ. Who the hell was it? And what do you think you were doing, going to confront her? You could have been hurt.”

“I’m fine. It was Rose who sent the notes. She was Stephen’s mistress, and…” Carla gulped back a sob. “And she has a little boy. Stephen’s little boy. She saw us in Oxford. She’d been dumped by her latest partner, and she was…bitter and hurt and jealous, and she sent them.”

He swore brutally under his breath, holding her so tightly she could hardly breathe.

“Please don’t say that. It won’t help, and you weren’t there to hear her. I was angry and upset, but I also felt sorry for her, and Fergus is such a lovely little boy. She’s promised she’ll take him to see Stephen’s parents after I’ve told them about him.”

Alex shook his head. “I still don’t feel bloody sorry for her. I can’t forgive her because she hurt you so much. Now she’s opened up all your old wounds again.”

“Yes. It’s a shock and it hurts. I’ll get over it.” Not just over Stephen and the news about Fergus, but Alex as well. He’d loosened his grip on her a little, so she slipped out of his arms.

Alex followed her into the living room and stood by the mantelpiece.

His eyes were full of pain. “I haven’t helped, have I? I’ve made things worse,” he said.

“You couldn’t have known I was going to see Rose.”

“No, but… You know I’ve come back to talk about us. I want to make an effort to try and be what you need.”

“
An effort to be what I need?
Alex, you make staying with me sound like a difficult task. The last thing I want is for you to have to change to be what I need. I want you to need me from here.” She touched her heart, which felt as if it were breaking in two.

Alex threw up his hands in frustration. “I thought relationships
had
to be worked on, and the way I feel about you isn’t work. Christ, I don’t want to be apart from you for a single minute, and not when you need me most. I love you. I want to be everything you want me to be.”

I love you
. He’d said it before, but it hadn’t been the right time or the right reason.

“I want you to be yourself. That’s all.”

Too late. Alex had moved closer. “This isn’t the greatest timing on my part. I can understand how you must feel right now.”

She tried not to burst into tears as he took her hand. How had she spent the past few days without him? “I appreciate the sentiment, but you can’t.”

“I’m
trying
to. That’s what matters. Finding out about this little boy from Rose, not to mention the notes… No wonder you don’t know what to think or feel. You must be…”

“Jealous? Hurt? Completely confused about whether to tell my family? I can hardly think. I know you came all this way, but I think it’d best if you go now. I thought I wanted to be comforted and to share this with someone. Now I know I can’t.”

“I’m not going anywhere,
mon coeur
.”

His words were as soft as rain on her face. She had no resistance left, so when he folded her into his arms, she just sobbed. He stroked her hair, whispering “shhh” and “
ma cherie
.”

“Go, please,” she begged, though every bone in her body wanted him to stay.

“No. I’m staying.” He kissed her throat.

“Alex… No… Don’t do this to me, please.”

“Shh. I have to do it, and you need it. No matter what happens tomorrow, we both need this now.”

He made her sit on the sofa, knelt beside her, unzipped her jeans and tugged them down her legs, bringing her panties with them. She lay back against the sofa as he stripped her jeans over her feet, pushed her legs apart and knelt between them.

“Give in,
cherie
.”

Carla whimpered as he parted her labia and his tongue rasped over her clit. Tangling her hands in his hair, she gave in to him, every nerve alive with an intensity more powerful than she’d imagined in her dreams each night since they’d been apart.

Her head drifted back, and she surrendered to the languorous, soothing pleasure of his mouth on her sex. She longed for release, but as she grew close, Alex stopped and glanced up at her. “You know what I should do to you,
mon coeur
, for putting yourself in danger today?”

His eyes glittered with desire and sensual threat.

She swallowed hard. “I know.”

“But I won’t do it, not after what’s happened and the way you feel…”

Carla shook her head. “Don’t you dare spare me! Not punishing me would be the real torment, and I need normality more than ever.”

Doubt flickered briefly across his face; then his eyes blazed. “Then so be it, and afterwards, I’ll fuck you so hard you won’t remember your own name.”

In seconds, she was across his knee, her hands held behind her back. The first slap across her behind made her cry out in shock and relief. As his hand came down on her bared skin again and again, the tears poured down her cheeks and the feeling of release flowed through her like a great river. Only she and Alex could understand that this was exactly what she needed, that the spanking wasn’t a punishment. It was therapy and comfort.

Though she was sore afterwards, she wanted Alex inside her even more than ever and ripped his jeans over his thighs. With his trousers still round his ankles, he took her over the back of the sofa, fucking her as if both their lives depended on it. She’d never yearned for release so much in her life. The sweat poured off her as she screamed for her climax while Alex slammed into her, shouting out her name.

Alex opened his eyes on a grey dawn. Carla’s head still rested in the crook of his arm, leaving the nerves numb. Her breathing was soft and rhythmic, her hair silky against his skin.
 

Somehow he managed to slip off the bed without waking her. He longed to talk to her, but she looked so peaceful and beautiful that he could hardly bear to disturb her. He pulled his leathers on over his jeans and drew up the zip as quietly as he could.

“You’re leaving?”

Her sleepy voice cut through the silence, and he turned. Her hair was rumpled, her cheeks still flushed from their lovemaking during the night. His heart lurched with a cocktail of love and lust. It was all he could do not to take her again right there and then. “Yes, I ought to go home soon. I didn’t want to wake you up for a while, but I can stay longer and help you tell your family if you want me to.”

She propped herself up on one elbow. “Thanks for being kind, but I want to do this alone.”

It cost him enormous will not to dive straight back into bed, gather her body against him and never let her go. “I wasn’t being kind, and I do understand. Carla…” Despair overtook him. “I can’t just let things end between us like this. You mean too much to me. I know you won’t believe anything I say, but I swear I’m going to show you how much I want us to be together.”

She sat up against the pillows, alarm and puzzlement in her eyes. “What do you mean?
Show
me?”

”I…I don’t know, but I will. Please don’t throw me out of your life forever. Give me another chance.”

She got out of bed and walked over, taking his face in her hands. The gentle touch of her fingers on his skin made him shiver with longing for her. “I don’t want it to end either, but I don’t know where I am emotionally, after what’s happened with Rose and between us. I need time to prepare my family for meeting Fergus and…” Her eyes pleaded with him. “I love you too, but right now, I need the breathing space more than you could ever know. If you really love me, give me a week until college starts. Then I promise I’ll listen to you.”

Chapter Thirty

Carla walked around the quad. It was the start of Michaelmas, the first week of her second year. She had a first and a small scholarship—worth only a few hundred pounds in monetary terms, but like gold in the confidence boost it should have given her. She’d achieved more than she’d ever dreamed, but it meant very little.

It had been a week since she’d seen Rose and a week since Alex had left her bed with a promise to see her at college. She’d heard nothing from him since, which was what she’d told him she wanted. It was hardly surprising he’d kept away. During the emotional roller coaster of the past week, despite what she’d told him, she’d regretted pushing him away and not giving him a chance to help her.

Even though she hadn’t wanted him to get involved in telling her family about Rose and Fergus, she’d longed for his support, on the end of a phone and his arms around her. Her parents and in-laws had been very shocked, of course, and in the case of her in-laws, disbelieving at first that their son could ever have betrayed and cheated and lied to his family as he had.

However, there was one huge consolation—they had a grandchild, and one whom Rose was willing to let them see. Carla had arranged a time for Fergus to meet his new granny and granddad. It had been agonizing to reveal Stephen’s betrayal after so long, but she owed it to everyone to break apart the wall of silence.

Now that was over, or rather the beginning of that process was over, she’d had to push it all aside and get ready for another new start.

Would Alex be in it? Or just on the sidelines, within touching distance but still as out of reach as the stars? Would he still feel the same way?
 

It was the day before official term started, and she’d had to pick up her mail from the pigeonhole. The college looked even more austere than usual, the leaves drifting from the lime tree across the lawns of the back quad. She thought back to a year previously, when she’d begun at St Cuthbert’s a few weeks after that party. The one where Alex had swept into her life and changed it forever. How could she ever get through this term with him so close yet so far off?

As she walked towards the student union, he came out of the archway that led up to his staircase, carrying a box of books. She stopped, but he walked towards her. She’d hoped she wouldn’t want him as much when she saw him again, but that hope was blown apart by the sight of him—gorgeous, sexy and not hers anymore.

She was wrong. Her heart thumped like crazy as he spoke to her.

“Carla. You’re back.”

“Yes. I said I would be.” She glanced at the boxes again, and unease swirled through her. “What are you doing?”

 
“Taking these books to my car.”

“Oh, of course.” She caught her breath. He was moving his stuff out of his room. Why?
It couldn’t be…
 

“Aren’t you going to ask me why?” he asked, echoing her fears.

What was he doing to her? “Should I?” She forced out the words, almost too afraid to hear the answer.

“I’m leaving.”

His words sliced clean through her heart. She’d thought there could be nothing worse than seeing him every day and not being his lover, but now there was—not seeing him. “Leaving St Cuthbert’s! No, you can’t!” She grabbed his arms. “Has someone found out about us? Have they told the warden? Oh God, I’m so sorry. I never wanted this to happen.”