The First Time We Met: The Oxford Blue Series #1 (10 page)

I have work to do, but it proves impossible to concentrate over the afternoon. Every time I open a book or sit down at my iMac, my mind is filled with the necklace and why Alexander sent it. It was totally beautiful, a piece I’d have definitely picked out for myself if I could ever have justified the extravagance.

If it was simply to get my attention, then he has it. If it was a peace offering, it’s had the opposite effect. Why does this happen now, when I finally got my chance to be independent and start again, free from the expectations of my parents and Todd’s shitty behaviour? It feels as if Alexander Hunt has marched into my life when I
so
wasn’t looking for him and now he won’t leave me alone, like I’m some kind of challenge he has to conquer because he can or thinks he can. Even if I had been looking for someone, he’s the very last man on the planet I’d have chosen, no matter how much he drives me insane with lust.
But
, comes the rogue, inveigling whisper in the corner of my mind,
he is the ultimate challenge for me
.

Now I am sitting on the edge of the window, looking out over the rooftops of Oxford. The dome of the
Radcliffe Camera is bathed in sunlight, with the finials and towers beyond pointing up to the sky. Bells chime, as they always do, and in the distance the fields and countryside dream under the sky. It is the classic idyllic Oxford scene that you can buy on a thousand postcards around the city. It is
my
dream, so why do I feel so confused?

I think of calling Immy as soon as she gets back from her tennis ‘lesson’ with Skandar at the sports centre, but I don’t want to play gooseberry and this is something I don’t feel I can share with her until I’ve composed myself. How will Alexander feel when he finds out I rejected his gift? Angry, hurt, upset? It gives me no pleasure or triumph to cause him pain yet I still know I’ve done the right thing. The wind rattles the window and it’s growing cold in here. I fasten the catch, and the bells are muffled. Everything is quiet as I sit on my bed, my knees hunched to my chest, before the peace is shattered by a barrage of thuds on my door.

‘Lauren. Open the door, please.’

‘Go away, Alexander.’

I hug my knees tighter as a brief silence is followed by more urgent taps.

‘No.’ His voice is louder now.

‘You’re wasting your time.’

‘If I have to sit here all night until you let me in, I’ll do it. I’ve spent the night in less comfortable places.’

I’m on the edge of the bed now, my heart beating faster.

‘Then you’ll have to sleep out there on the landing.’

His voice is loud through the wood. ‘That’s ridiculous.’

I jump up and hiss through the door. ‘Me? Ridiculous? Keep your voice down. Everyone in college will hear you.’

‘Good. Let them. I don’t care.’

Immy will be home soon and I don’t want her to hear this, or anyone else for that matter. Tentatively, I twist the Yale lock and open the door a few inches. Alexander paces the landing, grim-faced. The door squeaks and he rounds and stares at me like I’m an alien. Maybe he really didn’t expect me to open it.

‘You’d better come in before someone calls the porters.’

He gives a satisfied nod. ‘About time.’

What?
I wish I hadn’t opened up, but it’s too late now and I back inside as he pushes his way in. He’s never been in my room before and, now he is, he seems to fill the space – although the walls, the floor, the furniture may as well not exist because Alexander has only one focus and that is me.

His blue eyes burn as he speaks in that quiet, unflinching voice. ‘What do you think you’re doing?’

‘What do I think I’m doing? You’re the one battering down my door.’

‘A, I wasn’t battering it down. Believe me, you’d have known about it if that was the case. B, you call racing off like that at the ball nothing? Ignoring my every call and text, nothing? Throwing that necklace back in my face,
nothing
?’

I am furious at this. ‘You do know that your behaviour since the ball has verged on the stalker-ish?’

He grins as if I just handed him a huge compliment. ‘I’ll carry on stalking you until you see sense.’

‘You call sending me that ten-thousand-dollar necklace sensible?’

‘Actually, it was nearer twenty thousand.’ His smile is wicked and sexy and so
wrong
as he adds, ‘Pounds.’

‘That makes it worse. You can’t buy me no matter how wealthy or powerful you think you are.’

‘
Buy
you? I sent you the necklace because I thought
you’d like it, and as for powerful? That’s a joke when you have me calling you ten times a day, unable to concentrate on my work, lying awake at night thinking about you in that dress and out of it!’

My nipples peak under my top at the vision of him peeling off my ballgown and my throat is dry as I answer, ‘Wow, I have to hand you full marks for frankness.’

‘Actually, I always get full marks for everything.’ The arrogant twist to his mouth drives me crazy in every sense of the word. ‘Come on, Lauren, let’s stop baiting each other and call a truce, although I have to admit the sparring is a massive turn-on.’

‘You
get off
on me insulting you?’

‘Oh, I get off on you all the time.’

His hands slip around my back and rest on my waist. Infuriatingly, I do not move. Even worse, I have an overwhelming urge to touch him back, but know that if I do there will be no going back.

‘And here’s me thinking that I’ve been driving you insane …’ I murmur, balling my fists at my sides.

‘You have, but not in the way you think. You surely can’t deny that you want to find out what would happen if we do call a truce for a while? How exciting this could be for both of us? Because, Lauren, you strike me as a woman who doesn’t back down from a challenge …’

My instinct ought to tell me I’m being sold a line, but the one instinct that truly matters is telling me to take the risk and embrace the danger – to revel in it My hands move to the waistband of his jeans, resting so lightly as I hover on the brink.

‘You know what I think?’ he says.

‘I’m never sure what you’re thinking, Mr Hunt.’

He laughs softly. ‘I think that you think I’m some kind of player who uses his charm to get girls into bed and then leaves them.’

I burst out laughing. ‘What charm?’

‘Exactly.’

I shake my head as much at myself as him and my resolve is melting as fast as an ice cube tossed into a hot drink. ‘All I’ve seen so far is a guy who’s frank to the point of being brutal, a sarcastic, domineering egomaniac who thinks the world should fall at his feet.’

‘I ought to warn you what will happen if you insult me again.’ His eyes shine with sensual threat. ‘I’ve never met a woman who’s given me so many sleepless nights.’

I
want
to believe him … the same way I wanted to believe Todd so many times and that makes me wary.

‘I’m not going to be flattered by that,’ I say, yet my voice has softened, and I
am
softening.

‘I can see that, but would you please tell me why you sent back the necklace?’

‘Because … it felt as if you were trying to buy me.’

‘I wasn’t. I was simply giving you a gift. I wanted to make you happy and I’m sorry it had the opposite effect.’

‘The necklace is truly fabulous, but you didn’t need to spend that kind of money to impress me.’

‘Lauren, of course I didn’t have to. I’m well aware you can buy your own jewellery.’

What can I say? My other jewellery has come from
my family and my own occasional indulgence, but I’d never have dared splash out on a Cartier necklace.

‘You
do
like it?’ he asks, and the genuine doubt in his eyes is far harder to resist than his self-assurance.

I take a deep breath, knowing I probably just stepped off a cliff.

‘I love it.’

There. I’ve said it out loud and there’s no going back now. In seconds, he gathers me into his arms. His sweater is soft beneath my fingers as I push my tongue inside his mouth, longing to taste every part of him again. He deepens the kiss and it feels amazing, even better than at his house and at the ball. His fingers linger at the hem of my top and every nerve end tingles from my scalp to my toes.

‘Take this off.’ His voice is low and raw and my hands tremble a little as I slip my sweater over my head and toss it on the floor.

He sits on my bed and beckons me to stand between his thighs. I shiver a little as the cool air whispers over my skin. Alexander gathers me to him, his big hands settling on either side of my hips. When he rests his forehead on my midriff and inhales, as if he wants to breathe me in, the pleasure is so intense I tremble.

‘You’ve driven me mad for two weeks.’ His voice resonates against my ribcage. As he looks up at me again, I catch my breath at the intensity of desire I see in his eyes. ‘Do you have to look like this?’

‘Like what?’

He slides my mini over my legs to the top of my
thigh-highs. ‘Like this. Sexy, maddening, so fuckable I’ve almost broken down your door every night since the ball.’

I exhale sharply as he hitches my skirt higher over my butt. His palms rest on my hip bones then slowly, agonizingly, he slides my panties down over my hips to the tops of my thighs. I can’t hide how much I want him now and, more important, I don’t want to.

Dropping my skirt, I push him back on to my bed and he pulls me down on top of him. Finesse has gone. We scrabble at each other’s clothes in our lust to get to each other’s bodies. A button pings off his shirt as I struggle to kick off my boots and panties. My bra’s gone too and when he kisses my nipples, I cry out. Above the heat and weight of his body, I’m aware of my nakedness and complete exposure to him.

But I’m not going to stop.

And he knows it from my moan of sheer ecstasy as he presses down on my clit with the pad of his thumb.

‘Good?’

‘Oh yes.’

His gentle strokes on my swollen nub make me shiver and force whimpers of pleasure from my lips. My breathing is fast and shallow, but I don’t care any more. When he trails his fingers through the stick moistness of my pussy, I buck my hips. I’m already on the edge of coming, right here on top of him. I don’t have any doubts this time, or none I want to recognize now. I want Alexander inside me, filling me up.

The leather of his belt is stiff as I free it from the
buckle. My fingers struggle with the button fly of his jeans and his hand closes around mine.

‘Wait.’

The single bed creaks as he climbs off it. Propping myself up on my elbows, I drink in the sight of him, stripping off his trousers and boxer shorts in front of my eyes.

My body spasms with desire for him. He’s broad-shouldered and bare-chested and I realize it is the first time I have seen him without the barrier of clothes or uniform. His body has a restrained power, with its lean tight sinews and smooth skin stretched taut over muscles. He finds a condom from his wallet and sheathes himself while I imprint every detail on my mind, so I can recall the moment when I first saw him naked.

There are tan lines on his neck and arms. Dark springy hair dusts the centre of his chest and arrows down to his navel and groin. Broad shoulders balance a narrow waist, and the hard guns and ridges of muscle on his stomach testify to the life he leads that he won’t tell me about. As does the puckering of white flesh, a thin angry line a couple of inches long, beneath his left shoulder blade.

No need for words. We both know what we want and I straddle him as he lies back on my bed. His fingers tighten under my bottom and he guides me on to his shaft. As the tip nudges inside me, I cry out. I can feel his thighs grow rigid beneath me and his cock swells and hardens until he’s stretching me to the limit. I’m full of Alexander and it feels as if I’ve been waiting
for this for ever. He slides in deeper until my bottom rests on his thighs and I moan as I take him all the way in.

His eyes cloud with concern. ‘Is this OK?’

‘
Amazing
.’

It’s all he needs. He pushes upwards, his cock nudging at the very core of me. I have to brace my hands on the bed, clutching at the cover. He thumbs my clitoris, sliding through the wetness.

‘Is that good? I want it to be good for you.’

‘It’s good … Believe me, it’s good.’ He carries on stroking me and I know I can’t take much more because the tell-tale pulse of my climax ripples out from my sex. My climax starts to fizz through my limbs as the outside world recedes.

Springs creak, and the headboard bangs the wall as Alexander groans and lifts me off the bed with his hips. He has both hands around my thighs now, but I don’t need him to touch me any more. I’m on my way and nothing can stop me as he thrusts into me hard and fast. Our breathing is a ragged mess, sweat pours off us and the whole room feels as if it might collapse as we fuck each other like we’re fighting for our lives. The last thing I remember before his body goes rigid as iron is the intensity on his face. Then my own orgasm explodes through me, and feels as if it will go on for ever.

The bedcover is soft under my skin. The air is chilly over my breasts yet my arm and shoulder are hot and sticky. The sharp scent of sweat and sex clings to the
air. I don’t know how long I have been here, perhaps thirty seconds, perhaps a few minutes. I have no way of judging, but I know I am lying on my back, with Alexander’s naked body pressed against me.

I turn my head and his face is inches from my hair, his eyes closed with faint shadows beneath. His breathing is rhythmic and steady. He’s still and silent now yet the image of his face as he came inside me so violently is etched on my mind. It was pain, need, anger, release. Who knows? I don’t think I ever saw that much intensity before. Have I done that to him? Was it release or triumph or aggression? I only have one other man to compare it to but Todd … deep down, I know there is no comparison and that
does
scare me and I don’t know why.

The room is bathed in light of the darkest blue and I shiver as the unheated air licks at my sweat-sheened skin. The chimes of the clock filter through my window, muffled yet unmistakeable. There’s a real world out there, beyond this room, beyond the cloistered walls of this college. Beyond Oxford. Fighting wars, killing, a dirty, bloody business, and Alexander is at the very heart of it. In entering his world, even at the fringe, those things have edged their way into my world now.

He opens his eyes. He isn’t smiling but he looks at peace. ‘What’s the matter?’ he asks me.

‘Nothing,’ I say. ‘Absolutely nothing.’

‘No regrets that you’ve screwed the enemy.’

‘You’re not my enemy.’

He rolls over on to his stomach and levers himself up
on his elbow. He touches my nose with his and whispers, ‘Thank God, we got that one clear.’

He is naked, face down on my bed and I can’t take my eyes from his body. His toes hang over the end of my single bed, and his calves are bunched muscle beneath a smooth curve of skin. Above the taut hamstrings, his butt is just awesome, sculpted and firm with big powerful glutes.

‘What?’ he demands.

‘I couldn’t possibly say.’

‘You’re checking out my arse, aren’t you?’

I blush a little. ‘Is it a crime?’

‘No, but it’s … a little disconcerting.’

‘Well, I’m delighted to have finally disconcerted Alexander Hunt.’