First Love, Last Love (13 page)

L
AURI
went into a public phone box and called for a taxi, getting the driver to stop on the way home so that she might do as she threatened and hurl the keys to the Ferrari into the murky depths of the river flowing below her.

She would teach Alexander Blair for thinking she would meekly jump into bed with him! It might be a childish gesture to dispose of his car keys, but it had given her infinite satisfaction, almost as good as being able to dispose of their owner in the same way. How dared he touch her so intimately, caress parts of her body no other man had ever seen!

Her cheeks were flushed as she ripped off the stained dress and threw it down on a chair, pulling on her ankle-length towelling robe. She would never be able to face him again, would have to leave her job, would have to—What was that noise? She frowned as she heard the opening and closing of the front door. Steve was home early, possibly because he realised she would be here on her own with Jane away.

Lauri went downstairs, brushing her hair into a red-gold cloud about her shoulders. ‘I’m home, Steve. I—My God, what are you doing here?’ she exclaimed as she came up against Alexander Blair’s hard chest.

‘Lauren,’ he steadied her, wincing slightly, ‘much as I would like you close to me my chest is hurting like hell.’ He put her away from him.

‘How did you get here?’ she asked dazedly.

‘By car, how else? I have a spare set of keys to the Ferrari, although I could have used the Rolls, you know.’

‘Oh yes,’ she sighed, ‘I forgot about that. I—I’m
sorry about your keys. It was a stupid thing to do.’

‘Yes,’ he agreed unhesitantly, ‘very stupid.’

‘You goaded me into it,’ she said resentfully. ‘Talking about taking me to your bed in that way!’

‘Did you actually throw them in the river?’

She gave him a nervous glance. ‘Yes,’ she bit her lip.

‘Really?’

‘Mm,’ she nodded.

To her surprise he smiled, the smile turning to a throaty chuckle, and then finally to full laughter.

‘Alex?’ She was mesmerised by how attractive he looked when he laughed in this way, without a trace of mockery.

He sobered, but the smile still remained. ‘Mm?’

‘You—You don’t mind about your keys?’

‘Well, of course I mind,’ he chuckled. ‘But it’s what I should have known. You never do what’s expected of you.’

‘Expected of me?’ she flashed angrily. ‘If you mean going to bed with you, then no, I don’t!’

‘I didn’t mean that, as it happens. I meant that I didn’t expect you to run off like that, and especially with my car keys.’

‘Is that why you threatened me with the police?’ she challenged.

‘That was done through sheer fright. I was terrified you were going to actually attempt to drive the Ferrari. I might let you do just that one day,’ he mused. ‘But only with me, never alone.’

Lauri gave him a searching look. ‘I thought you never let anyone else drive you?’

He shrugged. ‘Perhaps I’ll make you the exception.’

She was aware that this was in the nature of an olive branch, but she wasn’t going to be charmed so easily. She resented being treated like a little girl offered a treat to soothe her ruffled dignity. ‘I don’t want to drive your car,’ she said primly. ‘And how dare you
just walk into my home like this?’

‘If I’d asked to come in you wouldn’t have let me.’

‘No.’

‘Now you have your answer as to why I just walked in. I needed to see you, Lauren,’ he added huskily.

She gave him a suspicious look. After all, she was no more protected from him here than she had been at his apartment. Less so really, dressed as she was. She clutched her robe to her. ‘It could have waited until tomorrow.’

‘No,’ he shook his head. ‘I needed to see you tonight, to apologise for my behaviour earlier.’ He put a rueful hand on his chest. ‘But you did anger me,’ he grimaced.

‘You hurt me first,’ she defended.

A teasing light entered the blueness of his eyes. ‘I would readily kiss every bruise I inflicted,’ he offered.

‘I bet you would!’ The beginning of a smile began to tug at the corners of her mouth. ‘But you aren’t going to, not unless you would like a scratch down the other side too.’

‘No, thanks. I may have deserved these, but you had challenged my prowess as your lover.’

Lauri flushed fiery red. ‘You aren’t my lover!’

‘Yet.’

‘Never,’ she denied heatedly. ‘I’m not interested in having a lover. I just want to get on with enjoying my life.’

‘Oh, I’d make sure you did that,’ his voice was husky.

‘I didn’t mean in that way,’ she snapped. ‘Look, you’ve apologised for your behaviour, I’ve apologised for mine, so why don’t we just call that the end of it?’

‘The end of it?’ His eyes were narrowed.

‘We don’t get on, Alex. We may be attracted to each other, but other than that we just argue. I don’t want to see you any more.’ By the look on his face, half anger, half disbelief, it would appear that not too many women had been the one to end a relationship with
him. ‘I’m sorry,’ she shrugged.

‘You’re also a liar,’ he murmured, his eyes never leaving her face. ‘Come here.’

She knew that look in his eyes of old. ‘N-no.’

‘Come here,’ he ordered, his face implacable.

‘Please, Alex …’

‘Come here!’

She went, standing just in front of him. ‘It’s no good, Alex. We—’ her words were cut off by the descent of his mouth on hers, his lips moving over hers in a gentle soul-destroying kiss. It was like none of the other kisses he had given her, her response instantaneous and unreserved as he plundered her mouth again and again, his own arousal unmistakable.

‘Far from being no good,’ he murmured throatily against her lips, ‘that was
very
good. Too good to throw away because of a little misunderstanding.’

Lauri jerked back, but remained in the circle of his arms when he refused to let her go. ‘
Little
misunderstanding?’ she scorned. ‘I don’t think it was little at all.’

‘Maybe not,’ he conceded. ‘You’ll have to put it down to the difficult week I’ve had—meeting you for the first time being part of it,’ he added ruefully.

‘Thanks!’

‘Well, you have to admit that all of our encounters so far have been pretty traumatic. And then there was that meeting with Laurence,’ his face was grim. ‘Have you seen anything of him, by the way?’

‘Me?’ Lauri frowned. ‘Why on earth should I have seen him?’

Alex shrugged. ‘He seemed rather—taken with you.’

She shook her head. ‘I don’t think so. Maybe it just seemed that way because he realised he knew my mother. After all, he must have lost touch with most of his friends when he moved to Switzerland with your sister.’

‘Yes.’ Alex released her, his face harsh.

‘Well, it can’t have been very easy for him to come back after all this time and try to pick up the pieces,’ she defended.

‘Easier than you think,’ he muttered, looking at her coldly. ‘So you liked him?’

‘I don’t like or dislike him, I don’t know him. But I think if I got to know him I might like him very much.’

‘Oh, don’t worry, you’ll get to know him,’ Alex sneered. ‘Laurence was never one to pass up the chance of seeing a beautiful girl.’

‘I’m not beautiful—and as you just said, I’m only a girl. Goodness, he’s old enough to be my father!’

‘So he is,’ Alex nodded distantly. ‘What was your father like?’

‘Oh, very nice,’ she gave a sad smile. ‘Very kind. He always had time to sit and talk to me, always listened to my problems, even though he had the responsibility of Jane and Steve too.’

‘Your family seems to have suffered a lot of tragedies,’ he said dryly.

Her eyes flashed. ‘Death is not something one wants, it just happened that way. I loved my father very much.’

‘I can see that,’ he acknowledged gently.

‘He and my mother were very happy together, proving that young marriages can be a success. Mummy was only eighteen when they married, and Daddy was twenty. But they loved each other so much that they said it seemed silly to wait.’

‘They waited long enough to have you.’

She nodded. ‘I think I was an afterthought. Some marriages are like that, aren’t they, already complete even without a child. Mummy must have been in her mid-thirties when I came along.’

‘Were they happy together even then?’

She gave him a puzzled look. ‘Of course they were.
What a strange thing to ask!’

‘It wouldn’t be the first time a wife has found herself another man,’ he rasped.

‘How dare you! Really, Alex, you’ve gone too far this time,’ she snapped. ‘Sniping at me and being sarcastic are things I can take, but when you start maligning my mother’s morals, the morals of a woman you know absolutely nothing about, then I think the time has come for you to go.’

He looked at her coldly. ‘You’re asking me to leave?’

‘Yes,’ she confirmed rigidly.

‘Because of a little harmless surmising on my part?’

‘I don’t consider it harmless. You were being very rude about my mother.’

‘I wasn’t being rude, Lauren.’

‘Call me Lauri like everyone else does,’ she ordered shrilly. ‘I don’t like being called Lauren.’ She didn’t like this man calling her it, as if their relationship meant something special to him.

‘I’ll call you what I damn well please.’ His arrogance of their first meeting was back in evidence. ‘Lauri makes you sound like a little girl.’

‘And you like a woman in your arms,’ she sneered.

‘Exactly,’ he drawled lazily. ‘And you become a woman in my arms, Lauren.’

She glared at him, her eyes deeply green. ‘I hate you!’ she told him vehemently. ‘You think a natural physical response to experienced lovemaking is enough to make me fall into your arms whenever you choose to snap your fingers. Well, it isn’t! I could find any number of men who would evoke the same response.’

‘Little liar,’ he called her for the second time that evening.

She gasped indignantly. ‘You conceited, arrogant—’

‘How you do love to call me names,’ he smiled, pulling
her effortlessly against him. ‘And how I love to silence you.’ Which he did very effectively, by kissing her!

‘I wish you would stop doing that,’ Lauri murmured some minutes later against his chest. ‘I—’ she broke off as he seemed to flinch. ‘What is it? What’s wrong?’ She lifted her head to look at him.

‘Nothing,’ he smiled down at her. ‘I think my shirt got stuck to the scratches. You pulled my shirt away by nestling against me like that. Not that I’m complaining,’ he grinned. ‘Far from it.’

‘Nevertheless,’ she moved out of his arms, ‘you’d better undo your shirt and let me have a look at your chest.’

‘Gladly.’ Alex shed his jacket with a grin, unbuttoning the black shirt he had changed into.

‘That will be enough,’ Lauri stopped him from actually removing the shirt altogether, all too aware of the potency of this man. ‘Mm,’ she bent her head to look at the angry red marks, ‘I think you ought to get a doctor to take a look at these.’

‘Oh yes?’ he taunted. ‘And what would I tell him?’

Colour floded her cheeks as she bit her bottom lip. ‘I never thought of that. But it doesn’t look very good.’

‘That’s just the antiseptic working. Don’t you know the saying “It always gets worse before it gets better"?’

‘Yes. But—’

‘Don’t fuss, Lauren.’ He made no effort to rebutton his shirt. ‘Now would you like me to soothe your bruises better?’

‘You’re very persistent,’ she said lightly. ‘I think my bruises will disappear without any help from you.’

‘Sure?’ His deep blue eyes held her mesmerised as his hands moved to the lapels of her towelling robe, slowly parting them to reveal her bare breasts and bikini briefs. He bent his head to kiss the hollows of her throat, moving lower and lower until he had one hardened nipple
between his lips, evoking pleasure with his tongue.

Lauri felt as if her body were melting into his, waves of ecstasy washing over her. This pleasure was like nothing else she had ever experienced, tension of a kind she didn’t understand starting to build up inside her.

‘Sure?’ Alex repeated huskily, for the moment giving her respite from his lips but caressing her hips with his sensitive hands.

‘No, I’m not sure.’ Her fingers were tangled in the dark thickness of his hair. ‘Kiss me some more, Alex,’ she pleaded.

‘Here?’ He kissed her throat.

‘No,’ she groaned. ‘You know where. Oh, please, Alex!’

‘Do you love me, Lauren?’ His lips were back on her breasts, a fire spreading through her whole body.

‘I don’t know,’ she moaned dazedly. ‘I—Oh God!’ she shuddered with emotion, her body feeling aflame with wanting.

‘Do you?’ he persisted, moulding his thighs to hers to move against her in sensuous rhythm.

‘I—’ Another sound besides their heated murmurings was penetrating her dazed senses. It was the sound of someone whistling! And it was coming from the kitchen. She broke away from Alex’s embrace, her breathing laboured as she fought for control. ‘There’s someone else here,’ she clutched the robe to her, tying the belt with shaking fingers.

Alex made no move to button his shirt. ‘You didn’t answer my question,’ he said huskily.

Lauri looked away. ‘No, I—I didn’t. And I’m not going to. Please,’ she looked nervously towards the door that led to the kitchen, ‘do up your shirt.’

‘Not until you answer me.’

‘You have no right to ask such a question,’ she moved
towards him and began buttoning his shirt herself. ‘It has to be Steve out there,’ she snapped her agitation. ‘And you don’t seem to care.’ She glared at him.

He shrugged. ‘I don’t. I’m just interested in your answer.’

‘Help me do this,’ she pleaded, ‘before Steve comes in. If he sees you like this he’ll—he’ll think—’

His arms went about her. ‘Let him think,’ he murmured against her throat. ‘I couldn’t give a damn.’

‘Well, I could!’ She jerked away just as the door opened and her uncle came into the room.

Steve came to an abrupt halt as soon as he saw them. And Lauri wasn’t surprised at the shocked expression on his face as he took in Alex’s unbuttoned shirt and ruffled hair, and her only clothing a towelling robe.