The First Time We Met: The Oxford Blue Series #1 (12 page)

‘So did you join the Paras to annoy your father?’ I ask, as he finishes up his
clafoutis
.

He gives a snort of derision. ‘Well, he was incandescent when I announced it, which was rather satisfying, but there were other reasons, some of which I’d rather not discuss over dinner.’

‘Or any time?’

‘Maybe it would be better not to.’ He dabs the napkin to his mouth and smiles at me, but I know it’s largely to distract me from a line of questioning that he’s not comfortable with.

I try a new tack. ‘I admitted I hate to fail. What about you? What do you call success?’

‘Always being at the very top of my game.’

‘The
top
?
Always
?’

‘What point is there if you’re not?’

‘Is that at work?’

‘That’s a given, but in other things too. Sport, academically. I don’t see the point of settling for anything less than your best.’

‘Wow, and they say British guys are the masters of self-deprecation,’ I joke.

‘Only in Richard Curtis films. I find it a lot simpler to be a complete and utter bastard.’ His eyes glint when he says it, throwing down the gauntlet to me again.

‘That’s not true. You just like playing a part.’

‘Not at all. What you see is what you get with me. I go straight for what I want, no matter what it costs.’

‘I had noticed. What if I hadn’t opened the door to you earlier or thrown you out?’

‘I knew you wouldn’t,’ he replies without hesitation. ‘Coffee?’

‘No, thanks.’

‘Good. I don’t think I can keep my hands off you much longer.’

That wicked sparkle is back in his eyes and I am more conscious than ever of my nakedness beneath the skirt. ‘You’ll have to wait until we get back to college unless you want the restaurant staff to call the police.’

‘Ah.’ He gives a grimace that I think is meant to be apologetic. Yet, somehow, I sense he’s not the least bit sorry for what he’s about to say.

‘What have you done, Alexander?’ My voice is wary.

‘I’m afraid we’re not going back to college. I booked a room here. I thought it might be a nicer place to spend our first night than your single bed or my place.’

A room? At an hour’s notice?

Actually it’s a suite, with a sitting room that’s lined with some modern original artworks that I actually like. In the bedroom, there’s art deco furnishing and a fabulous
hand-painted closet. It’s chic, stylish and understated, yet all of it pales in comparison to the bed or, more accurately, what is on it: a neat, Louis Vuitton case with a silver Kate Spade luggage tag with my name on it. In my handwriting. My heart beats a little faster as he walks over to me.

‘If I’m not mistaken, that’s my overnight bag.’

He lingers behind me, his breath warm against the nape of my neck. ‘You’re not and it is.’

‘O-Kayy.’ I stare at the bag, recalling the time he was on the phone while I went to the bathroom after we’d had sex. He must have packed and got my bag into the car and had it brought up here. That means he went through my closet and drawers, choosing clean clothes, underwear … He surely can’t have been in my room earlier, that’s not possible, and yet Alexander has as good as told me that he thinks anything is possible.

His lips brush the skin at the base of my neck.

‘My God, I do believe you planned this whole thing,’ I whisper.

I hear his voice at my ear, in a perfect imitation of my East Coast accent. ‘I guess I did.’

I start to unfasten his shirt, stopping at the open front where he lost a button.

‘I don’t see an overnight bag for you. How are you going to manage without clothes?’

‘I guess I’ll have to cope somehow.’

‘I guess you will.’ I undo the final button and pull his shirt from his trousers, marvelling again at the warmth and solidity of his skin under my hands. The sight and
feel of that chest and those abs has me in knots of desire and I close my eyes and press my face to his chest.

There’s a soft whirr as he unzips the side of my mini and it falls to the floor, leaving me naked from the waist down. Alexander lets out a long slow breath and cups my butt with his hands.

‘Do you know how much I want you?’

I tilt back my head and close my eyes. ‘I’m getting there …’

He eases my top over my head and tosses it on to the bed, then unhooks my bra and throws it after the top.

‘Look at yourself.’

He turns me round so that we’re in front of the full-length mirror. All I have on now are the thigh-highs and my heels. Confronted with my nakedness, a sudden shyness overtakes me and my body tenses.

‘What’s wrong?’ he asks.

‘Nothing … It’s just that seeing myself like this … it’s pretty full-on.’

‘It is and you look as sexy as hell.’ His teeth graze my shoulder gently and then his voice is raw-edged as he murmurs. ‘Touch yourself.’

His command goes straight to my core and makes me wet, but still I hesitate. I don’t think I’ve ever felt this exposed – this bared – physically.

‘Shall I help you?’

Alexander takes my hand and guides it downwards, pressing my fingers over the top of my pubis. The pressure of our two hands makes my muscles tauten sharply
with need. I see my lips parted with desire and hear my breathing quicken as Alexander slides my fingers between my legs. Gently, he presses my finger against my clitoris. ‘Touch yourself, like you would if I wasn’t here. You have done that, haven’t you, Lauren, because of me?’

His presumption – his ego – ought to make me mad, but it only makes me want him more. And it’s true, of course, I’ve fantasized about him; even while I’ve hated him, I’ve craved him. I push my hips back against his erection and yelp with shock and pleasure as he moves his hand behind me and slips a finger inside me while I touch myself. Ripples of sensation radiate out from my core and I can’t take much more.

‘Good?’

‘Yes, but I need you inside me.’

‘Get on the bed.’

He moves to strip off his trousers and boxer shorts, so he’s naked and hard for me. I lie down, opening my legs for him, and seconds later he enters me slowly, easing his length until I’m so gloriously full I don’t think I can take it.

‘More?’

Words fail me, but Alexander hears anyway and eases in a little more and starts to push in and out rhythmically. My muscles tighten around him like a ring of steel, and my orgasm rips through me. Nothing else matters, only this moment and everything else can go to hell.

‘So you finally shagged him, then?’

Immy dumps her bag on the bench at the side of the court and stands with her hands on her hips. We were going to play tennis before lectures this morning, but the courts were still coated in a layer of frost. It’s Wednesday of Third Week and I haven’t seen her since Alexander came round to my rooms on Saturday because she’s been on a field trip. I tug the zip of my top higher and think back to last night, clutching at the pillows while Alexander went down on me, and I’m grinning so hard I can barely reply, so Immy does it for me.

‘That would be a “yes”, then?’ She pulls her racket from her bag. ‘I saw him in the library late last night. I don’t know what you’ve done to him, but he looked totally knackered.’

‘Oh, really?’ My tone is cherubic, though I find it impossible to keep the grin from my face. The truth is that I’ve spent every spare second in bed with Alexander at his house. After breakfast in our suite at Le Manoir last Sunday morning, the Bentley arrived to whisk me to the train station and Alexander back to college. He wanted the chauffeur to take me straight to London, but I’d arranged to meet my course mates at the station
so we could all travel together. I hate letting people down.

‘You’ll be the talk of college soon – Alexander has a reputation for being impossible to get.’

I pull my racket from my racket bag, feeling my cheeks heat. ‘I think I was the one who put up a fight. As for college gossip, you’re the girl who’s dating two guys at the same time.’

Immy nibbles at her bottom lip then pulls a face. ‘Well, not exactly. It’s over with Freddie. I called him before I left for the field trip.’

‘Oh, poor Freddie.’

She groans. ‘He’s a lovely boy and a fantastic shag, but we both know it wasn’t going to work. I’d rather be honest with him and I didn’t think I was upset, and he was all brave and philosophical, but I still cried buckets after I told him. I hit the Bombay Sapphire in a big way on the field trip. I can’t remember much of the geology part of it, that’s for sure … but Freddie will be OK; there’s some girl in his tutor group who’s been after him for months. She can console him …’

She hesitates, then taps her racket against her calf and runs on the spot. ‘Come on before we both freeze to death. Let’s see if you can take a set off me this time.’

I do take a set off Immy and though I still lose the match two – one, I feel pretty pleased as we cycle back to college for a quick shower. I’m going to dinner at Alexander’s place tonight but before then I have a tutorial with Professor Rafe a.k.a. Handy. His role is meant to be pastoral, but he keeps telling me that I show
‘exceptional promise’ so he wants to have extra one-to-ones with me. Armed with Immy’s warnings about him – and gossip I’ve heard at the faculty – I am now wary of him, but I can hardly refuse a tutorial with him. Besides, I’m confident I can give him enough ‘busy’ signals to keep him away from me.

The chapel bell chimes and my heart sinks a little because there’s still fifteen minutes to go in my tute with Professor Rafe. We’ve spent the first thirty minutes discussing methodology, my specialist subject and the V&A’s exhibition, but now he’s moved on to American politics.

He brushes something off his knee where the cord is flattened and worn. Are they cookie crumbs? Why do so many of the girls here think he’s sexy?

‘I’m very impressed with your father’s bold stance on gun ownership,’ he says, launching into more of his opinions of our political system. All I can do is nod politely and agree with some of his views on our crazier politicians, but when he starts with the snide remarks about ‘our colonial origins’, ‘religious extremists’ and ‘corrupt campaign financing’, I really don’t want to go there. I could, of course, give him the full benefit of my own opinions and point out that he’s misinformed on a number of points, but you know what? I came here to study art history, not politics. And, yes, Oxford is about a rounded education and coming up against a wide range of opinions, but I’d rather not do any of that while some guy’s hand is on my knee, as it now is.

‘You know, I’d really like it if we could discuss these issues in more depth over a drink in the KA this evening?’

I shift my leg away from him and he gives my knee a brief pat. It feels spontaneous and
possibly
it’s avuncular, but my thighs still close in automatic response and he takes his hand away.

‘I’m pretty busy with my essay research,’ I say, which ought to be obvious to him. I refuse to mention that I also have a boyfriend, because, frankly, it’s none of his business.

‘You know what they say about all work and no play?’

‘Actually, I don’t.’ I spring up from the sofa, not caring that there’s five minutes left of his tute. ‘I have to go, Professor Rafe. I’ve got a doctor’s appointment.’

‘Oh dear. Nothing serious, I hope?’

‘No. Just a routine check-up.’

‘Aha, I understand.’ His smirk makes my flesh crawl as I see his brain putting two and two together and possibly making a very creepy five. Actually, I have seen the doctor, as has Alexander. We both got checked out and I got a new prescription for birth control, but the thought of Rafe even suspecting those things makes me want to barf.

I grab my bag and back towards the door.

‘Maybe another time, then?’ he says, standing up and advancing on me. ‘And I’ll see you the same time next week, when you don’t have a … um … medical appointment.’

‘Yes. Next week. Bye.’

Outside, I suck a few lungfuls of clear cold air. What would he do if he knew my appointment was with Alexander, and that it may not involve anything medical, but it definitely will involve taking off my clothes? That thought fills my mind as I collect my bike and cycle to Alexander’s house, resolving not to tell him about Rafe. First, I can handle the guy myself and, second, I don’t want the police to find Rafe dumped in a trashcan minus the most treasured part of his anatomy. Not that I really think Alexander would physically harm Rafe, although he might scare the shit out of him. I’m going to have to be more assertive – a.k.a. rude – to Rafe and tell him straight out that his touching me makes me feel uncomfortable. It’s not so simple, however, when I have to spend another two and half terms with the guy.

The fresh air lifts my mood a little. Since Immy warned me about Rafe, I’ve been hyper-aware of every comment he makes to me, and for ninety per cent of the tute he did confine his conversation to the subject or politics. It was only at the end when he asked me for a drink. Tutors do take students to the pub at Oxford; it’s kind of a tradition and I know Immy’s tutor does, but he’s not trying to get in Immy’s knickers, as she puts it.

Alexander opens the door while I’m chaining my bike to the metal railings outside his house. He’s wearing jeans, but he has no shirt and is barefoot. My hands shake as they fasten the padlock. There is something raw about him like this, stripped of his armour of suit
and uniform – perhaps even more raw than when he’s totally naked. His hair is damp and his skin has that muted sheen that tells me he’s fresh from the shower.

I rush through the door and he closes it quickly behind me. He touches my cheek. ‘Your face is a little pink.’

‘I raced here from my tute.’

‘How was it?’

‘OK. I don’t really want to talk about it.’

‘I’m happy not to talk.’

I exhale sharply as he pulls me against his bare chest and my hands seek the solidity of his muscled shoulders and back and press my hips against his jeans. I ease the zip down, slip my hand inside and meet soft hair and a hardening cock. ‘Oh dear, Alexander, you appear to have forgotten your shorts.’

‘My memory is terrible these days. I blame you.’

I wind my arms round his neck. ‘I hope no one comes to the door and finds you like this.’

‘Like what?’

‘Minus your pants.’

‘That makes two of us, then.’ He lifts me up bodily. I wrap my legs round his back and he shuffles forward with me towards the stairs. My butt hits the step and I’m sitting on the stairway. My consolation is the view I have of Alexander stripping off his jeans, a feast for the eyes that makes me want to take him in my mouth right now. He’s all hard-packed thighs and ripped abs, but it’s the healed wound that adds a deeper layer of desire.
He’s no pristine pretty boy: and his scars only serve to remind me his is a body that’s been used and tested in real battle.

I shiver, part lust, part in the realization of what and who I have gotten myself into. But I don’t care right now because I only want him deep inside me.

I push myself up off the stair tread so he can bunch my skirt around my waist. He clicks his tongue against his teeth, focusing on my legs.

‘Tut tut. Hold-ups
and
kinky boots. Disgraceful.’

‘They’re not kinky, they’re Prada, and also not easy … To ride a bike in, that … is.’ My words are punctuated by sharp breaths because he’s easing my panties over my ankle boots.

‘I’m glad you risked life and limb for me.’

He parts my thighs and his dark head descends between my legs.

‘Oh.’ The rasp of his tongue on my clit makes me whimper like a baby. I hate him for reducing me to a keening mess yet I crave more.

His hands grasp my hips to steady me and he looks up at me. ‘Keep still.’

‘I can’t.’

‘It’s an order. And open your legs wider.’

Using his mouth, he pays relentless attention to my pussy and clit with hot short breaths and cool laves of his tongue. He flicks at my clit with his finger and thumb, a shock of tiny pain that makes me cry out. Then he circles his tongue around the nub to soothe it. The muscles in my thighs are shaking and I’m clawing
the flesh over his shoulders with my hands, on the very precipice of coming.

‘Do I need to get protection or are you happy to go bare?’ he asks.

His words are an extra push over the brink, when I was already teetering. ‘Bare. Now, but quickly because I’m so ready.’

And he’s on me, and I help him by pushing myself up from the step. His hips are between my legs so that I have to wrap my legs round his waist to allow him inside me. And then he is inside, his cock almost too large, hot. The feel of unsheathed flesh is beautiful and dangerous. He slides in and out of me, nuzzling my shoulder, his breath warm against my neck, whispering filthy things in that impeccable accent.

He thrusts harder and faster and my bottom bumps against the steps. It’s not comfortable, and that turns me on even more. I pull him into me anyway, writhing against him, aching for my own climax as he seeks his. I feel the pulsing of his cock as he spills into me and I fall over the edge after him.