Dark Blue: Study in Seduction, Book 1 (6 page)

She smiled and resisted the urge to pat his arm. “Oh, much bigger than Wales. I’d say it’s a Grand Canyon of a hole, at the very least. Really, it
is
okay. It’s been a long time.”

Michael gulped his pint and changed the subject. “Listen to that bloody bell. Only in Oxford could anybody be pompous enough to think a bell should chime one hundred and one times a night.”

Ignoring the urge to laugh at the beer froth on his upper lip, Carla nodded in agreement. “Nothing surprises me in Oxford anymore. It has more traditions and rituals than a Gypsy wedding and a bar mitzvah combined, but why
do
they ring the bell so many times?”

“I think it has something to do with the number of original scholars of the college. Some say it used to be the signal for the colleges to lock their gates. It rings at five past nine because it’s still on Oxford time, and back in the day that was five minutes later than London time.”

“Naturally. Is there anywhere in Oxford that isn’t still on Oxford time?”

Michael laughed. “I doubt it.”

Emma and the others downed their drinks. The chimes of Great Tom had obviously been the signal to move on to the next watering hole, and fifteen minutes later, they arrived at a trendy cocktail bar jammed into a narrow side street.

“Can I buy you a cocktail?” asked Michael.

Carla knew he was broke on his meagre stipend from St Bert’s, and he was a genuinely nice guy and even relatively normal, despite being a scientist. She smiled at herself; that was the sort of statement Emma might make. Perhaps she was fitting into St Bert’s after all.

“Why not?” she asked, and Michael’s face lit up.

Alex grabbed his briefcase from the hallway and checked his watch again. He was bordering on OCD, according to Rana, who was only half joking. If he walked fast, he’d make it to the restaurant ahead of his dinner date. It was old-fashioned, and she could more than look after herself, but he didn’t like the idea of a woman waiting alone at the bar or the table for him.

Call it the French side of him.

Or the dominant side.

Oh yes, he knew what he was, or what he would be given the chance with Carla. She’d made it bloody difficult to concentrate in their tute, that was for sure, and he’d overcompensated with his critique of her work as a result.

Her face today after he’d critiqued her essay… He winced and closed his eyes.

He thought he’d gone too far at first, that she had been crushed, yet by the end of the critique, the fire had returned to her eyes. She’d argued back, just enough to give him reassurance that she wasn’t totally demoralized. He’d caught her later, glaring at him as if she wanted to strangle him. He’d been trying to listen to Gideon, but he’d noticed her from the corner of his eye, and it had taken every ounce of his famous self-control not to smile.

He hadn’t given in. He’d paid her no attention after his initial critique, beyond the civility required of a tutor for his student. She hated him, he was sure, and that was good. It protected him—and more importantly, it protected Carla.

Since she’d confronted him in the cloisters, he’d been more determined than ever not to respond to her. He was a total bastard to blank her comments about the party, but he’d convinced himself it was for the best. A relationship with any student would end in disaster, let alone one who affected him as much as Carla did. It had killed him not to stand up in the middle of the tute, take her hand and lead her off to his house and do everything he’d promised to do at that party and a whole lot more.

He’d battened down his desires and feelings for years now and become so good at it, he’d gained a reputation for austerity, coldness and rigour. Perhaps it wasn’t her he was protecting, but himself. He didn’t know how much longer he could keep it up. It was destroying him. He wanted her so much; not just to bare her gorgeous body and know every intimate part of her, but to strip away her emotional layers and have her utterly at his mercy. That was what he really got off on, wasn’t it? That was what a therapist would say—he wanted emotional control of a woman through sexual domination.

He wanted control of Carla.

He’d wanted her from the moment he’d seen her across that room at the party—nervous, unsure yet so willing to explore and eager to release the pent-up desires of years.

Fuck. So where did he go from here? He was scared. Carla had unleashed emotions and desires so powerful that he felt he was fighting a losing battle against them every moment he spent in her company.

Emma squeezed Carla’s arm. “You look happier. Have you recovered from Le Prof’s inquisition?” They were waiting in the queue for the ladies’ at the bar.

“I’m fine. I suppose he has to be tough on us. He’s only trying to help, and he did like some of it,” replied Carla, feigning bravado.

Yet she half wished Emma hadn’t asked. Her evening had been an almost Alex-free zone until then. While the volume in the bar was still below earsplitting, she’d chatted about regular stuff like house prices and car insurance to Michael. It comforted her to speak of everyday things, and, briefly, she started to feel that it was almost cool to be over thirty, solvent and a homeowner. After a couple of Blue Moons, she actually felt rather mellow and started to put the afternoon’s death-by-essay into perspective.

“Well, don’t worry too much. He didn’t like mine either. He said I’d resorted to a string of old chestnuts.”

“Really? I didn’t hear him say that.” Carla had been too devastated by her own mauling to pay attention to Emma’s critique and now felt ashamed. “I’m sorry he had a go at you too.”

“Oh, I don’t care. He was right. I hadn’t written anything original. I’d been so busy rehearsing for the new play I’m doing with the college drama society that I’d rushed the essay and found a lot of the comments from the Internet. I’m lucky Alex didn’t ask me to rewrite it like Gideon had to.”

“He didn’t ask me to rewrite either, so I ought to be grateful.”

“Oh, I’m not grateful. He’s a bastard.” Emma sighed dreamily as the ladies’ loo door opened. “A hot-as-sin, brilliant bastard. Fuck, I think I need therapy, and hopefully I’m going to get some later if I play my cards right. There’s a gorgeous guy from the drama society coming to the club with us. If I’m lucky, I won’t be sleeping in St Cuthbert’s tonight.”

It was all so simple when you were nineteen, Carla reminded herself as they walked to the club. Or perhaps it was simple when you were nineteen
and
loaded with the confidence that a public school education and gap year had given you. Carla had left school halfway through her A levels, having decided she couldn’t stand another moment cooped up in the classrooms. What an irony now that she’d signed up for three years of St Bert’s. After quitting high school, she’d worked as an editorial assistant on the local newspaper and had taken the chance to do her journalism qualifications. Then, at twenty-one, she’d met Stephen and fallen head over heels. They’d married two years later, and her path in life was set: wife, junior editor, and, she’d hoped, a mother one day. Sadly, that part of the plan hadn’t happened

“We’re here.” Michael’s hand on her arm stopped her from sailing past the entrance to the club. She’d been lost in thought, seized by memories and regrets that were more painful than she’d recognised.

“Sorry, I was on another planet.”

Emma skipped up, eyes shining. “Come on, Carla. We might not get ID’d at all if you and Michael are with us.”

Carla laughed. “Thanks a lot!”

She joined the end of the queue that snaked back from the club door. While the others fumbled for IDs and Michael lent one of the younger students some cash, Carla glanced up the street. Alex stood under the soft glow of a street lamp thirty yards away, his collar turned up against the cool night air, in conversation with a woman Carla didn’t recognise. The mystery woman was about her own age, wearing high-heeled boots and a scarlet mac. As Carla watched, Alex’s date kissed him on the lips and walked away up the Woodstock Road.

Chapter Five

The woman didn’t look like a Willow, more a Scarlet, or was the image just conjured up by her coat? Even as Carla cursed her wild imagination, Alex turned away from the woman and made straight for the club—and Carla.

“Oh my God, it’s Le Prof!” Emma giggled. “Perhaps he’s coming into Shark End with us.”

“Hello there. Enjoying yourselves?” Alex spoke generally, yet Carla had the strongest sense that his words and his attention were focused on her.

“We’re hoping to,” Emma cut in.

Alex laughed. “Glad to hear it. Hi, Michael. How’s it going?”

“Cool, thanks, Alex. Thanks for your advice on funding my junior fellowship application.”

“No problem. Call me anytime if I can be of any more help. Hope you have a good evening.”

He turned his attention to Carla again. “Hmm. Shark End? This place has had about a dozen name changes since I came to Oxford. Have you been in here before?”

“God, no. This is my first time.”

“I suppose there has to be a first time for everything.” His eyes sparkled. They were definitely the eyes that had mesmerized her from behind the mask at the party. Oh, it was him, and he knew
exactly
what he was doing and the effect he had on her, both in the cloisters and right now, the bastard
.

Her reply was a whisper, unheard by Michael or Emma and her friends. “There does.”

“Perhaps it might not be as excruciating as you’re expecting.” She shivered, not with cold but with pure, unbridled lust. They were back in the foyer of that London mansion again, Alex circling his prey, Carla baiting him.

“You think so?” she murmured.

“Oh yes, I think this evening could turn out to be every bit as painful as you can imagine.” His breath was smoky in the night air. She shivered at the memory of what he’d done to her that night, at his fingers slipping down the front of her basque to tweak her nipple, at his hand pressing the seam of her leather trousers into her clit. At his threat to take her home and deal with her insolence in his own unique way. Despite the cold, the air seemed to smoulder around them both.

Emma waved frantically from the door. “Come on, Carla!”

Alex smiled benignly. “I mustn’t keep you talking. Your friends are waiting for you, and I must be getting back to college. I’ve got my own painful evening to get through.”

His voice was heavy with regret, almost as if he’d felt the weight of disappointment that had lodged in her own heart.

“Really?” she asked, wondering if his words had referred to meeting a woman, or, dare she imagine, having to leave her here at the club.

“I’ve got a deadline on my book, so it’s a late night and an early start in the morning for me. See you, and have a great evening.”

He was gone, a tall, dark figure headed for the alleyways that led from the main road to the colleges.

“Carla! Are you coming or not?”

Carla tore her eyes from Alex just as he melted into the shadows. “Yes. Coming.”

The streets were silent as Carla walked back from the club with Michael in the small hours. Emma had gone home with her student friend, so Carla was sleeping in her room. They walked through the side gate to St Bert’s and came across Gideon urinating in a flowerbed.

She winced. “That’s revolting.”

Michael grimaced.

“Watch out, I’m going to chunder!” They leapt away as Gideon threw up over the cobbles. It was clear he’d visited a kebab van in the recent past, and she gagged. Lights popped on in the room up above, and Carla realised that it was Alex’s.

“Is everyone okay down there?” A window opened, and he glared down at the quad. Carla backed into the shadow of the wall, hoping the cobbles would open and swallow her up.

Michael called up. “It’s fine. It’s only Gideon, pissed again. I’ll take him to his room.”

In the gloom, Alex’s reaction was impossible to work out, yet his tone betrayed his annoyance. “Good, but keep the noise down, please. People are trying to sleep and work.”

Carl gave an inner sigh of relief. She didn’t think he’d spotted her. “How embarrassing,” she said to Michael as they herded Gideon across the quad towards his room.

“Oh, don’t worry, Alex won’t give a toss. I just hope he wasn’t shagging someone.”

“You think so?” she asked casually.

Michael gave a wry smile. “Not really. I doubt it. He wouldn’t have come to the window if he was, and I wouldn’t bring a woman to this hole if I had a perfectly good house to take her back to.”

Michael had handed her the ideal excuse. “Where does he live, then?”

“A big Victorian terrace in Norham Gardens. His house is up near the Cherwell Boathouse. Now
that’s
the kind of place I’d like to have one day. In my dreams, that is.”

“You never know,” Carla replied with the breeziness of someone with four bedrooms and no mortgage. She liked Michael. He seemed so ordinary, a tenuous but welcome link with her real life amid the hormones and madness. “Does Alex live on his own?”

“As far as I know.”

“I thought he was divorced…”

Michael’s face was puzzled, and Carla knew she’d veered dangerously close to being far too interested in Alex’s marital status.