Dark Blue: Study in Seduction, Book 1 (17 page)

“It’s not our day for this,” she murmured, her head falling back as he blew softly in the hollow of her collarbone, feathering her skin with his breath.

“As your tutor, I think I can allow a little latitude, and I also have a surefire way to help both of us forget about these letters, at least for a couple of hours.”

An hour later, she followed him into his garage as he wheeled the Triumph inside. He’d taken her for a ride along the old road from Oxford to Birmingham, chosen because it was quiet, broad, but largely a recipe for exhilarating terror. She was gleaming with perspiration when they returned, pumped with adrenaline and aching from clinging to his body. He propped the bike on its stands and locked the garage doors behind him. The interior was thrown into deep shadows. Only gradually did her eyes adjust to the low level of light afforded by chinks of sunshine filtering under the wooden door.

“I need a shower after that,” she said, hoping he’d offer to join her.

“I have other plans right now. Take off your clothes.”

She glanced around her at the brick walls and sawdust-sprinkled floor. Her hot skin prickled in anticipation. “What, in here?”

“Yes. Right here.” His eyes held the intense, hungry look she’d seen before in his office and at the party. By now, Carla knew better than to hesitate or disobey him, so she unzipped the jacket he’d loaned her and shrugged it off her shoulders. The garage was cool and the air felt refreshing on her bare arms. Alex took his own jacket off and folded his arms. She loved the way his biceps bunched as he did it, and how sexy his olive skin looked against the grey T-shirt.

He stepped forward and took the jacket from her, his pupils like glittering pinpoints. “
Continuez
.”

She licked her lips, unsure whether to take off her tracksuit pants or peel off her T-shirt. Which would please him most? The pants, perhaps, but first her trainers. She undid them and kicked them off before stepping out of the denim.

She stripped off her T-shirt next, and he took that too, bunching her clothes against his broad chest. The concrete floor was rough beneath the soles of her feet and the air cool on her skin as she stood in her bra and panties before him.

“Carry on,” he said, flaming her body with one look.

She swallowed hard, wondering what was in store for her. Chastisement or sex or both? She unhooked her bra and shrugged it off, holding it out to him as the smell of oil and sawdust filled her nostrils.

“Get those off.”

His sharp order made her instantly bend and pull down her panties as his gaze drilled into her. He held out his hand and dropped her knickers on the workbench with her clothes. Carla wrapped her arms around her breasts. She’d started to feel cold, and her nipples were hard with arousal. She was also slick with moisture at being made to undress by Alex in such a strange setting. He didn’t smile—then he laid his palm on the engine case and tailpipe as if he was satisfied.

“Right. Get on the bike.”

“What? In the nude?”

He gave a sarcastic laugh. “Why did you think I asked you to strip? Just do it.”

While Carla knew it was all a game, his tone made her shiver inside. She crossed to the bike, holding the handlebar. The machine gleamed in the stray shafts of light, the engine casing clicking as it cooled. She climbed onto the seat, trying to be elegant but failing. She had to balance her feet on the foot rests, as her legs would barely reach the ground. Sitting naked astride the bike felt strange and intensely sensual. Her exposed labia were moist against the cold leather, her butt cheeks spread apart. She wanted to grind into the bike, but it seemed an insanely rude thing to do, even if Alex had made her mount the machine.

He shook his head and smiled. “
Mon dieu
, I should take photographs, now I have my two passions in life so gloriously displayed like this.”

His passions? Was she one? Or just an object? “I don’t think I look like a biker babe,” she said, gripping the handlebars.

He came closer, lifted her chin and kissed her. The touch of his lips made her shiver. “I don’t want a babe. I want you, a real woman, naked and beautiful as you are.”

“I’m just an object like this.”

He shook his head and ran his fingers through her hair. “No, you’re a living, breathing object. One I will have when and where I say. How does it feel to be on show like this?”

She wriggled into the seat, unable to keep still any longer. “Very exposed.”

“Exposed? Good.”

“And chilly.”

He ran a finger over her nipples. “And I thought you were just pleased to see me. Now rub yourself against the seat.”

What? She wanted nothing more than to relieve the ache. Doing it while he watched, while she was naked and exhibited, almost out-of-doors? It scared and thrilled her in equal measure.

“Do you want to move?” he asked.

“Yes, very much, but it seems wrong.”

“Just do it, Carla,” he barked.

She should have been angry with him and refused. Instead, the relief of being ordered to do as he said overwhelmed any other thoughts. It felt so good to be relieved of the responsibility of feeling dirty or unladylike. All she had to concentrate on was pleasing him—and herself, because she wanted to rub herself against the seat. As she slid along it, the stitched seam chafed her swollen clit exquisitely. Alex walked forward to the front of the bike, watching her, watching her writhe through eyes that were dark with lust and satisfaction. His boots rang out on the concrete floor, and she inhaled the scents of leather, oil and sawdust as she pressed her swollen clit and pussy against the hide.

“Does it feel as good as it looks?”
 

She let her head drift back. “Yes.”

“The seat is wet. That’s your juices, and you’re ready. And much as I adore the sight of you shivering and displayed on that bike, I think I had better warm you up. Keep looking ahead.” He walked behind her.

The zip on his leathers rasped down, and she twisted her head, desperate to drink in the sight of his naked body. His leathers were around his ankles, and he wore no boxers. His erection was magnificent, and she wanted it so much.

“Eyes forward, or I will be forced to take action. It can get very cold in here overnight. The sooner you do as I ask, the sooner I can warm you up.”

She didn’t think he’d really lock her naked in the garage, but she didn’t want to even entertain the possibility, and she longed for his hot shaft inside her, his warm arms around her, his mouth on her neck this instant.

She heard him shed his boots and leathers; then the bike wobbled a little as he climbed behind her. “Slide that exquisite pussy forward, my lovely, to make room for me.” His arms encircled her, their heat enfolding her waist and breasts, the hair rough against her skin. She left a trail of wetness as she shuffled forward, the leather tantalising her swollen clit and his erection hot and hard against her butt cheeks. “Now lift yourself up a little so I can help you onto me.”

She stood, balancing on the foot stands as the bike shifted again. Alex lifted her up by her butt cheeks and positioned his thighs under her.

“You can sit down now.”

She lowered her bottom and was instantly and firmly speared on his hot, hard length. She was as wet as she could be, and glistening, but it was still a shock taking his whole length suddenly and completely. She let out a little cry.

“Are you okay,
mon coeur
? Shall I stop?”

“No, oh no.” Her inner muscles had already relaxed and stretched to accommodate him. The initial ache was now just a glorious fullness that came from having Alex embedded deeper inside than he had ever been before. “You’re beautiful. Hot. Amazing.”
 

He nuzzled her neck, dropping kisses on her skin, nipping her bare shoulders. He lifted her hips higher and started to thrust in and out of her slick heat. His hands must have been braced on the seat back, because he lifted and lowered her using only the power of his thighs. She grasped the handlebars and whimpered in pleasure as her climax stoked higher and higher. A few more thrusts and she heard his breathing quicken and felt his thighs grow iron-rigid under her bottom. Waves of intense pleasure rolled through her as her muscles spasmed hard around him, and her world went black. When she opened her eyes, Alex’s arms encircled her as he whispered a mix of Anglo-Saxon expletives and French endearments into her ear.

Who cared what anyone thought about them or tried to do to them? She wanted Alex, she was in love with him, and no one—save her or Alex himself—was ever going to tear them apart.

Chapter Seventeen

“Your time is up. Please put down your papers.”

Carla just had time to check her exam script for spelling errors before the exam invigilator called out. She flexed her aching fingers and heaved a huge sigh of relief. It was over. The past week had been one of the most intense of her life, workwise. Up late revising, awake half the night—and not in a good way. She hadn’t seen Alex more than twice in two weeks and not for the past week at all. He’d insisted on it, and, much as she’d missed him, she wanted to focus too.

She gathered up her pens and followed her fellow candidates out of the grand exam schools and out into the High Street, her white blouse sticking to her back. The sun made her blink, it was so bright. She pulled off the black bow at her neck and took off her academic gown. Why did they make you dress in this ridiculous outfit in the hottest time of the year when what you really needed to wear was shorts and a T-shirt?

“Carla!” Emma pushed her way through the crowds of laughing, shrieking students and flung her arms around Carla’s neck. “It’s over. Thank fuck, it’s over!”

“I know. I thought I was going to pass out in the heat in there. And the questions… I had to make up the entire last one. They were total killers.”

“Don’t I know it. I just know I’ve got a Third, if I’m lucky.”

Gideon was at their side with a bottle of champagne in one hand and a cigar in the other. “How did it go, girlies? I’m off to get totally slaughtered.”

“Me too, when I’ve got out of this outfit,” said Emma. A cork popped, and a spray of fizz drenched them. “Come on, let’s go and party!”

They ran back to college, running the gauntlet of friends spraying bottles of fizz, squirting foam and Silly String in the narrow lane that led back to college. Emma’s boyfriend handed her a huge bouquet, and as they neared college, and just as she regretted not having Alex to meet her, a group of girls from her power-walking club appeared with a bunch of flowers and a bottle of champagne.

“Oh, thanks. You needn’t have done this.” Happiness and relief flooded her as she hugged her friends. It wasn’t their gifts that had moved her as much as their turning up at all. After getting through the rite of passage of exams and now going off to celebrate like any other undergraduate, she finally felt she belonged. She was entitled to be here. She’d worked her butt off to earn her place and now to keep it.

Emma patted her back. “Come on, let’s go to the pub.”

Carla wrinkled her nose. “I need to change first. My clothes are sticking to me, and I smell like a bar.”

“What’s wrong with that?”

She laughed. “I’ll go to the locker room and get clean stuff; then I’ll meet you back here.”

Alex hadn’t been able to meet her outside the exam school, of course, but he had asked her to come to his house, and later they were going to dinner, to a very smart restaurant in a manor house that was miles out of Oxford. To add to her feeling of relief, there had been no notes since the shoebox, and she’d dared to hope that the sender had got bored or sated their malicious tendencies.

“Hello, there. Congratulations.”

“Alex!”

He was in the corridor outside the locker rooms. He wore running shorts with no vest. Perspiration glistened on his torso like dew. He smelled of clean, fresh sweat and testosterone, and he was
ripped
. She longed to lick his body, taste the salt and pull down his shorts and close her hand around his magnificent shaft. He was turned on now, she could see.

Throbbing with need, she glanced around her to make sure they were alone. “I didn’t know you’d be in college.”

“I was going to stay away, but I wanted to see you finish exams. I went for a run around town. I saw you come out of the exam schools and ran back here to wait for you. I want you in my bed right now.”

“You don’t. I’m really sticky, and I’m wearing Eau de Prosecco.”

“Sounds like a dream combination to me.” He lowered his head to her ear and whispered, “I want to tear off your knickers right now and lick every inch of you clean. I can’t wait until tonight. I’ve got something special for you as an exam treat.”

Her inner muscles clenched tightly. “Something nice?”

“I wouldn’t say
nice
, exactly, but you’ll enjoy it.”

She shivered in a delicious fever of anticipation. “I promised to go to the pub with some friends, and after that, I’ll be right over.”

“You want me to come to Provence? For the whole summer?”

Carla wriggled a little more upright, which was difficult with both her wrists shackled to Alex’s bedstead. When she’d walked into his room, the silk-tasselled cords were already looped around the metal frame. Now, stripped naked and firmly restrained, she was at his mercy.