Dark Blue: Study in Seduction, Book 1 (18 page)

Alex trailed his tongue between her breasts. “Not the whole summer, but for a month, yes. We can both work while we’re out there. Ah, now I see your face. You’ve only just finished exams, and you have a lot of reading and prep to do before the start of your second year.”

Carla groaned, while inside she was quietly delighted. Asking her to Provence was a big step for Alex and meant he was happy to acknowledge their relationship within the privacy of his own family.

“I want to. I really want to, but I ought to go home for a couple of weeks. I need to sort some stuff out with my tenant and visit my parents for a while. They’ve hardly seen me during exams, and they worry about me.”

His eyes sparkled wickedly. “Maybe they have good cause.”

“Yes. If I was my mother, I would warn any daughter of mine not to go within fifty yards of you, Alex Lemaitre.”

“Good. I’d hate to be someone you felt you could take home to your mum.”

She laughed. He was right. While Alex might feel comfortable with taking her to meet his family, Carla wasn’t ready to introduce him to her parents quite yet. Her mother would have too many questions, and there was more. Alex and the “normal” world—the one where she was sensible Mrs. Jonas, Stephen’s widow—existed in two different universes.

He glanced down at her. “I suppose I can allow you to leave me for a short time. I have
viva
s to invigilate for the next couple of weeks and papers to mark. I thought we could leave for La Bastide in mid-July? I have a mother too, who seems to tolerate seeing me occasionally, and my brother, Olivier, would love to meet you, I’m sure.”

He kissed his way over her rib cage and down the soft swell of her belly, circling her navel with his tongue. The sensation was delicious, yet she couldn’t surrender herself to it totally. There had been a definite edge to his last statement about his mother.
A mother, who occasionally seemed to tolerate seeing him, and his brother.
Added to the line about not knowing if his father was alive, it didn’t speak of a happy home life, and yet he had asked her to visit La Bastide with him. Now
that
was going to be interesting and might give her more insight into the man she felt she still barely knew.

Her relationship with her own parents and even her in-laws, to an extent, had been loving and warm. She knew the ties of parenthood were powerful but also guessed she couldn’t comprehend how strong, even as a daughter. She longed to feel that bond, but motherhood hadn’t happened for her. Now she had no idea if it ever would. She was still relatively young, and there was time, if not plenty of it, but… She looked at Alex, delicately licking the downy hair of her pubis. Ohhh…

She wanted Alex’s children.

The second the thought—the need—shot into her brain, she wanted to eject it. She had no idea if he wanted kids. No idea what he wanted, love or just a short, kinky fling. They’d known each other only a few months, so how could she think of spending her future with him and raising a family? Even the possibility of him leaving sent a shiver up her spine. How fragile their relationship was, and there were so many reasons for it not to last.

But it wasn’t crazy. Not with the way she felt right now. Her feelings for Alex went way beyond simple lust. She’d felt desire for Stephen. This was different. It was like a tidal wave of desire and need and hunger.

She was in love with Alex Lemaitre.

She twisted the sheets in her hands, scrabbling for control over that blinding realisation.

She
loved
him.

“What’s the matter,
cherie
?” Alex’s face, suddenly above hers, searched it intently.

“Nothing.”

“There is. You shivered, and you’re tense. Are you not enjoying this?”

“Yes, I am.”

“I’ll have to take firmer action if you don’t relax. In fact, it’s been far too long since I dealt with you in that way, and now your exams are over, I’m warning you I won’t go easy on you anymore.”

He slipped a finger inside her slick heat, and she finally surrendered to the overpowering pleasure.

After he’d made love to her, they sat on his sheltered terrace in the late afternoon sun, sipping Lanson and eating strawberries. Carla dipped a strawberry in the cream jug and popped it in her mouth. The sweet creaminess filled her mouth.

Alex sipped his champagne and waited for her to swallow the berry. “So you’ll come with me to Provence?” he asked when she’d finished.

“Yes. I’d love to. Can you tell me more about it? You said there was a vineyard.”

“We have a few vines that are worked by a local winemaker, who gives us a share of the harvest in return. We don’t have a chateau, so don’t be disappointed, although La Bastide has plenty of space around it.”

“Sounds fabulous.”

“It is, though Castellane is quite isolated. I’m afraid we’ll have a three-hour drive up there from Nice airport. It will be worth it, I promise. La Bastide is an old, fortified farmhouse, and we’ll have our own wing. It’s much too big for my mother these days, but she would never move out, and she often has family dropping by.”

“So I’ll get to meet them?”

“Of course. No one there will care about you being a student. Please don’t be too alarmed. They are harmless, although I must warn you…they’re a little, shall we say,
farfelu—
quirky. Take what they say with a pinch of salt.”

So Alex’s family would be cool with her being his student? She hoped so. She hadn’t told her own family yet about Alex. Was it because she felt guilty or worried that her mother would be shocked—worried for her? No matter how many times she reminded her mother that she was more than capable of making her own choices in life, her mother would take a different view and worry. Then there was the question of Alex being her first serious relationship since Stephen, It was simply easier all round to avoid the issue. Like a lot of things in her life.

Like she was doing now, with Alex, falling in love with him and pushing the consequences to the back of her mind.

She swallowed down a gulp of champagne. “My French is really rusty. I was studying it at school years ago, until I walked out halfway through the course. I don’t think I can hold a conversation with your family.”

“Don’t worry,
cherie
. Most of them speak good English, and besides…” He leaned forward and tilted her chin with his fingers. “I intend that you’ll be fully proficient in every French practise by the time you leave La Bastide.”

Chapter Eighteen

“We’re almost there, I promise.”

Alex shot Carla an apologetic smile as he coaxed their hired car up the final hairpin bend to La Bastide. They’d picked up the Renault at Nice airport and set off on the tortuous drive from the Cote d’Azur through the foothills to Haute Provence. Although Carla had been to France several times, she hadn’t ventured into this region, and she was already blown away by it. The greenery, the scents of flowers and herbs, the overwhelming heat and glittering brightness of the cobalt sky were an assault on all her senses at once.

He swung the wheel hard to the right, his arm tanned and glistening in a shaft of sunlight through the window. To Carla, he’d already melded with his surroundings and become more a part of them with every kilometre. His French was fluent, of course. She’d expected that but still been impressed as he’d dealt with the hire-car staff at the airport and stopped for lunch at a village bistro en route.

His English had changed too. The barely there inflections had become more noticeable. He was back home, and she knew instinctively that home was not the US or even Britain. It was here in the strange heat of Provence.

He braked, and they turned left towards two open metal gates.

Even though the sign on the stone pillar was fading, she could still make out the curly script that said
La Bastide.
A few seconds later, they’d pulled up on the gravelled forecourt of a rambling Provençal farmhouse.

“This is it,” he said. “I’ll get our bags, if you want to get out.”
 

Heat slammed into her as she opened the door. It dried the back of her throat and wrapped itself around her like a sheath. Even through the filter of her sunglasses, the light dazzled her eyes, bouncing off the ochre walls of the house and the dusty gravel driveway. The house seemed weighed down by its tiled roof and thick stone walls and shuttered windows. It was picturesque, yet a little forbidding.

“Oh my. How old is it?”

Alex took off his sunglasses and shrugged in so Gallic a way, she wanted to laugh out loud.

“Not entirely sure. Definitely sixteenth century, with probably medieval origins. There was a crusader’s castle just a kilometre away. Some locals say they used the stones from the ruins for the foundations. Who knows? My mother may be able to tell you more. I know she wanted to be here to meet you, but she’s got a hospital appointment that she couldn’t cancel.”

“Nothing serious, I hope?”

“Just routine, she assures me, and she should be back in an hour at most. I’ll show you our room.
Maman
has put us in the guest wing.”

Alex carried their bags as Carla followed him around the side of the main farmhouse, drinking in the dizzying lushness of their surroundings.

“Wow!” In front of her, a swimming pool set in a terrace glittered in the sunlight. “You didn’t say there was a pool.”

The warmth in Alex’s voice betrayed his pleasure. “I’m glad you like it.”

“And this view is incredible,” she said from the terrace, taking in the prospect, which dropped away steeply to a small wooded area. The property was surrounded by vineyards that stretched to the banks of the river that tumbled through the valley. She shaded her eyes. The sky was the deepest blue she’d ever seen.

“You can swim later if you want to,” Alex said. “First, let me show you to our room.”

The guest wing was a single-storey addition to the house, which Alex explained had once been part of the old winemaking press attached to the main farmhouse. He led her down a corridor and unlocked a door at the far end. The darkness of the room after the brightness of the sun left her blind for a few seconds, and while it was cooler inside, the stillness of the air was oppressive.

“The shutters are closed to keep out the heat.” Alex placed their cases on the tiled floor.

“Can’t we have them open?”

“Of course. But first…” He kissed her, and her eager tongue tangled with his own. She was aware of how tightly she held him.

“It’s beautiful here. I love it,” she said.

He shook his head. “It’s just a place and is only beautiful because you are in it. I’ll unlock the shutters. Mind your eyes.”

She kicked off her shoes and sat on the edge of the bed as Alex drew the bolts at the French windows and the outer shutters. First one half of the room, then the other was thrown into a blaze of light. The muslin drapes billowed in the breeze, and the scent of foliage filled her nostrils.

“
Viens ici
.” Taking her hand, he led her onto a small, private terrace outside the French doors. The terracotta tiles were deliciously warm under her bare feet. There was just room for a metal bistro table and two chairs among the vines, bougainvillea and terracotta pots. Beyond that, a sun-scorched patch of grass fell away to a dusty track cloaked in oak, olive and almond trees. Below, a rocky outcrop rose abruptly from the valley, with a tiny chapel perched on top, and in the far distance, blending with the sky, were mountain ridges topped with white.

“Is that snow on the mountains? It can’t still be there in July.”

“It is. That’s the Alps. There’s always snow.”

She turned to him, feeling as excited as a child on her birthday. Out here in the sun, her thoughts about the forbidding atmosphere of the house had evaporated. “It’s incredibly beautiful, Alex. No wonder you love it here. How could you leave?”

His answer followed a kiss on the back of her neck and the grazing of his teeth over her bare collarbone. “Because I wanted to grow up.”

Alex ushered her into the bedroom and lifted her suitcase on the white coverlet of the bed. The bed itself was a modern take on a four-poster, with a cast-iron frame with filmy toile drapes at each corner. In contrast, an antique armoire with mirrored doors stood against the wall, squat and wide, the carved crest top almost touching the ceiling.

Alex offered her the bathroom, but she let him take first turn, saying she wanted to unpack her clothes to give them time to hang. In truth, she needed some time alone to take in her surroundings.

While he showered, she unpacked her case and explored the room. As well as the armoire, the room held a large chest of drawers and an antique dressing table with a vintage vanity set of comb, hairbrush and mirror, all with silver handles and inset embroidery. She’d seen something similar before when they’d cleared Stephen’s grandmother’s house after she died. She wondered who’d they belonged to and ran her fingertip lightly over the embossed metal of the mirror handle. While the metal was a little tarnished, the embroidery was in almost perfect condition. Had one of Alex’s relatives sewn it and had it made into a wedding gift? She held the mirror up. Her face stared back, still a little flushed from the journey.

The dark depths of the armoire swallowed up her clothes. Hopefully the slight creasing would fall out by dinnertime. As she shut the doors, she examined herself in the age-speckled mirror. Should she put on a little makeup for dinner? It wasn’t a cliché that French woman looked effortlessly chic. They just did and seemed to wear very little makeup while looking groomed and sophisticated. Maybe it was the diet or smoking. Either way, almost everyone she’d laid eyes on had been slender and smart.