The First Time We Met: The Oxford Blue Series #1 by Pippa Croft Page B

his lapel, aware I touched a raw nerve. ‘What makes you think you’ve disappointed me?’
    ‘People make assumptions.’
    Wow. That was spiky, but I won’t back down now. ‘So, it’s Captain Alexander Hunt, but that’s not all, is it?’
    ‘Immy must have told you about the rest by now. I’d be amazed if she hadn’t.’
    ‘She said your father’s a marquess although, frankly, that means nothing to me.’ He laughs softly and it’sclear my remark has amused rather than offended him, but he continues with faultless politesse.
    ‘Actually, it means precisely nothing as far as I’m concerned too. Other than the fact that, by an accident of birth, I’ve been extremely fortunate. Or perhaps not, depending on how you look at it. My father wants me to leave the army and learn how to run the estate properly.’
    ‘And you don’t?’
    He looks at me as if I’ve gone crazy. ‘Of course not. I want to carry on in the service. I’m not ready to swap the uniform for tweeds and a wax jacket and spend my days poring over accounts books and meeting land agents. I’d rather die.’
    My skin prickles at the vehemence in his voice. ‘You don’t mean that.’
    ‘Perhaps, but I’m not going back to manage Falconbury until I absolutely have to.’
    I notice there’s no mention of a mother, which must mean she left, or worse, and he has a thorny relationship with his father from what I can gather.
    ‘Well, if it’s any consolation, when it comes to family expectations … I can understand those. I love my parents to bits, and they’ve always had big aspirations for me, but …’ His thigh bumps mine through the confection of my skirt and I can hardly keep still with him so close to me. Whether he likes it or not, I have to edge away.
    I get up and cross over to the billiard table and pick up a ball because I need something – anything – to distract me from his sheer animal presence.
    ‘So your parents didn’t expect your aspiration to involve flying halfway round the world to get away from them?’
    I am so surprised at this insight that I laugh out loud. ‘No, they didn’t. Like you, I suppose I deliberately went against their expectations. My mother is a wonderful woman, but I think she envisaged me at least being in the same country; she said she couldn’t really understand why I couldn’t do my master’s in the States. My father thought the same, but he might have been more worried that something would “happen” to me. I had such a hard job to make them accept I was coming to Oxford.’
    ‘Well, I’m very glad you chose Wyckham or we’d never have met.’
    ‘That’s luck for you,’ I say lightly.
    ‘Oh, I don’t believe in luck, Lauren, and by the way …’ His gaze flames me from head to toe. ‘… have you any idea how fucking sexy you look tonight?’
    Any words stop in my throat. How can I reply to that?
    ‘That dress is … something else, and at the risk of getting my face slapped you have the most amazing breasts in Oxford.’
    ‘Only Oxford?’ I murmur as he gets up slowly and deliberately from the chaise.
    ‘Perhaps I could extend it to the whole county. Your bottom is pretty sensational too. I’d go so far as to say it’s the most spectacularly pert arse I’ve ever seen.’
    Frozen in position, I’m trying to crush the ball topowder. Alexander lifts up my wrist, opens my fingers and takes the ball from me. He drops it on the table and it rolls across the baize until it bumps the cushion with a soft thud. We’re so close now you couldn’t slot a business card between us. The next thing I hear is my intake of breath as he pulls me tight to him. My back bumps the edge of the table and he takes my face in his hands, tilts my chin upwards and kisses me.
    It’s a slower, more considered kiss than the one on the dance floor. Maybe it’s because we’re alone now, or it’s quiet, but I’m alive to every sensation. His mouth is warm and he tastes bitter-sweet from the whisky he