by Abby Green
After a long moment, with Luc’s body embedded in hers, Nessa felt as if she were claiming him. Immediately she rejected it as a ridiculous notion. Luc Barbier was not a man who would ever be claimed. That much was obvious.
She unlocked her arms from around his neck. His breath was warm against her neck. He moved then and she winced as tender muscles protested. He didn’t look at her as he pulled away and stood up.
Nessa felt self-conscious and realised how wanton she must look, spreadeagled and with her clothes in total disarray. She started to pull her shirt back over her chest, and her skirt down, feeling cold. She had no idea how to behave in this unorthodox and totally new situation to her—post-sex etiquette. In a stables. On sheets.
Luc was just standing there, half turned away, like a statue. Nessa’s hands stilled and she came up on one elbow. Something caught her attention, a long angry scar that zigzagged down Luc’s back. She remembered feeling it under her hand in the throes of passion. But it hadn’t registered fully.
She sat up. ‘What is that on your back?’
Finally, he looked at her and his face was expressionless. Little alarm bells went off.
‘My scar?’
She nodded, horrified to imagine him suffering such violence.
‘It’s a reminder from a long time ago to not forget who I am or where I came from.’
Nessa didn’t like how it almost sounded like a warning. ‘That sounds serious.’
Luc looked at her. ‘My scar isn’t serious. What is serious is that we didn’t use protection.’
Nessa insides seized with icy panic when she remembered feeling the warm rush of his release. How could she have let that happen?
And then she ordered her sluggish brain to kick into gear and breathed a sigh of relief, tinged with something much more disturbing, like regret. Which was crazy. After her experience losing her mother, Nessa had never relished the prospect of becoming a mother that could die and potentially devastate her family. No matter how cute her little nephew was, or how envious she felt when she saw his special bond with her sister.
She’d taken birth control in college but had stopped soon after leaving, not deeming it necessary when it had never been necessary there. Now she felt supremely naive and foolish.
She forced herself to look at Luc. ‘I’m at a safe place in my cycle.’
Luc made a mirthless, almost bitter sound. ‘I’m supposed to take your word for it?’
Anger surged at herself for being so lax and at his accusatory tone. She stood up, pulling her shirt together and her skirt down, hair wild and loose. She mustered up every atom of dignity she could given the circumstances and said coolly, ‘Well, you’ll have to just take my word for it. There were two of us involved, so why weren’t you thinking of protection?’
* * *
Because for the first time in a long time he’d been a slave to his base desires, and protection had been the last thing on his mind.
The realisation sent shards of jagged panic into Luc’s guts. How could he have forgotten one of his most stringent rules? He, who had vowed never to have children because he had no desire for a family. Family was anathema to him. And to forget that with this woman, of all women? She was the one most likely to turn around now and use this for her own gain. He might as well have just handed her a loaded gun.
Except even now, Luc was still acutely aware of Nessa’s state of déshabillé and how much he wanted to tip her back onto the sheets and take her again. He reached for his trousers, pulling them on angrily, disgusted with his lack of self-control.
He was in the grip of a tumult inside him that he didn’t know how to decipher or necessarily want to. All he knew was that what had just happened between him and this woman left anything else he’d ever experienced in the dust. It hadn’t just been mind-blowing sex. It had been something else. Something that had affected him on another level.
More disgust ran through him—he’d just done what he expressly forbade his own employees from doing. And now he’d made things exponentially worse by not using protection.
Nessa was looking at him and he realised she was pale. He knew he was being a bastard—it had been his responsibility to protect them. Not hers. He ran a hand through his hair. ‘Look, I’m sorry. I just... I don’t ever forget about something as fundamental as protection.’
She still looked pale and his chest felt tight. ‘What’s wrong?’ Had he hurt her? He was so much bigger than her and the last thing on his mind had been taking care, or being gentle.
What’s wrong? What’s right? Nessa glanced away for a moment feeling ridiculously vulnerable, and even more so after his apology. She hadn’t expected cuddles and a heart-to-heart after sex with this man—no matter how much lust had clouded her brain. But she also hadn’t expected him to be so obviously angry with himself.
He hadn’t even noticed that she was a virgin. He’d thought she was acting innocent.
She forced herself to look at him and for a second could have almost imagined she’d dreamed up the last hour. He was dressed again, albeit without his tie and jacket. She still felt thoroughly dishevelled and at a disadvantage, and suddenly she wanted to pierce that cool disdain and self-recrimination.
‘I don’t know what this is between us but I’m not proud of myself,’ she said.
Luc looked at her with no discernible change in his expression, but then she saw the merest flash of something almost like hurt cross his face. He stepped closer, and she could see his eyes burning and a muscle jumping in his jaw.
‘You might be related to royalty but if you were seated at a banquet table right now and dressed head to toe in couture, you would still want me. Lust makes great levellers of all of us. As does crime,’ he answered.
It took a second for Nessa to absorb what he’d said. She couldn’t believe he’d misunderstood her. He turned away at that moment and, in spite of the turmoil she was feeling, she reached out, wrapping a hand around his arm. ‘Stop.’
He turned around.
She swallowed. ‘I didn’t mean that I wasn’t proud because it was you. I meant that I’m not proud because I feel like I’m betraying my family.’
His lip curled. ‘It’s just sex, Nessa. Don’t overthink it.’
She immediately felt silly for opening her mouth. She let his arm go and stepped back. ‘Forget I said anything.’
She was about to step around him and make her exit to lick her wounds and castigate herself for being so weak but this time he took her arm, stopping her and asking harshly, ‘What is that?’
Nessa looked around and for a second couldn’t see what he was looking at behind them. But then she noticed the unmistakable stain of red on the white sheets. Her blood. Her virginal blood.
She went icy cold, and then hot with humiliation. Quickly she stood in front of it. ‘It’s nothing.’
He moved her aside and looked closer. If the ground could have opened up and swallowed Nessa whole she would have jumped right in.
He looked at it for so long Nessa wished she’d taken the chance to escape. But then he moved back, and there was such a mix of expressions on his face that she was stunned into silence.
Luc couldn’t believe what his eyes had just told him, and yet he couldn’t stop thinking about all the moments when he’d thought she was putting on some act with the shy tentative kisses, the self-consciousness, and the way she’d run the other night.
But what beat at his brain most of all had been that moment, when he’d felt her body clamping tight around him. It had made him stop, and look at her, but the question had barely formed in his mind before her muscles had been relaxing to let him go deeper, and he’d conveniently blocked the half-formed question out, too desperate to sate himself.
She’d been a virgin.
That knowledge filled him with too many things to untangle now. One of which was a fierce feeling of satisfaction that he’d been her first. It was something he’d never imagined feeling in a scenario like this.
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
She opened her mouth and closed it again, and that only brought Luc’s attention to those lush lips and how they’d felt on his body.
‘Well?’ he snapped. She flinched minutely and Luc bit back a curse at himself. He felt unmoored, boorish. Out of control.
A hint of defiance came into her eyes and it comforted him. This woman was no wilting lily.
‘I didn’t think it was relevant. Or that you’d notice.’
Luc burned inside at that. He had noticed but had dismissed it. ‘I don’t sleep with virgins.’
Nessa folded her arms and said tartly, ‘Well, you just did.’
He felt the burn of more self-recrimination. ‘If I’d known I wouldn’t have been so...rough.’
Amazingly, Nessa blushed and glanced away. ‘You weren’t too rough.’ She hesitated. ‘It was okay.’
‘Okay?’
She looked back at him. ‘I mean, I don’t know, do I? It was my first time.’
Her words propelled Luc forward and he caught her arms in his hands. She felt unbearably slender and delicate all of a sudden. He was acutely aware of how petite she was. ‘It was more than okay. I felt your body’s response, and not everyone has that experience for their first time.’
She blushed even more now but she stared at him. ‘I’ll have to take your word for it.’
Luc was torn between laughing out loud at her sheer front and tipping her back onto the sheets to remind her exactly how unbelievably good it had been. But she’d be sore, and frankly he didn’t like the strength of the emotions running through him. This was not a post-sex scenario he had ever experienced before. Usually there was a bare minimum of conversation before he left. Right now it was hard to let her go.
In fact, he was afraid that the longer they stood there, the more likely it was that he would take her again. Especially when she was looking at him with those huge pools of amber and green. Her face flushed and hair wild. Clothes in disarray.
Doing something he’d never done before—exhibiting any kind of post-sex tenderness—he put his hands to the buttons of her shirt and did them up, gritting his jaw when he felt the swells of her breasts underneath the material.
He stood back. ‘You should go. Take a bath. You’ll be tender.’
She swallowed and for a moment looked endearingly unsure. And unbelievably sexy.
‘Go, Nessa,’ Luc growled, aware of the tenuous grip on his control.
She looked around at the sheet and made a gesture. ‘I should take—’
‘I’ll take care of it.’ This was unprecedented territory for Luc.
Finally, she left and Luc watched her walk out, slightly unsteadily. Her skirt was still at an angle and all he could see were those slim legs and remember how they’d felt clamped around his hips. She was a lot stronger than she looked.
Luc tried to make sense of what had just happened but it was hard. One thing was sure, though: Nessa O’Sullivan had just managed to impact somewhere no one had touched him in a long, long time. And if he was to consciously allow her to gain any more advantage, then he’d be the biggest fool. What just happened...it couldn’t happen again. No matter how much he wanted her.
* * *
Nessa stayed in the bath until the water cooled and her skin had started to pucker. There was tenderness between her legs but also a lingering buzz of pleasure.
She couldn’t quite believe the sequence of events that had led to that frantic coupling on sheets in a stables with Luc Barbier.
Her whole body got hot just recalling how quickly they’d combusted. How easily she’d given in, and given away her innocence. And, how easily she’d justified it to herself. And you’d do it again right now if you could, whispered a wicked little voice. Nessa knew it was true. She wouldn’t have the strength to resist Luc again, not after that. It was like experiencing paradise and then having to deny it existed.
And while he wasn’t here right now, cosseting her and whispering sweet nothings in her ear, the way he’d told her to leave and take a bath, and how he’d done up her buttons for her, had made her feel pathetically cared for.
She cringed and wanted to submerge herself under the water when she thought of how Luc had to be seriously regretting what had happened. Nessa cringed even more to think of him disposing of the evidence of her virginity.
He was a man used to sleeping with the most beautiful women in the world: experienced worldly women, not naive innocents like Nessa.
She took a deep breath as if testing for emotional pain and she let it out shakily. Her emotions were intact. Luc had impacted her on a physical level but that was all, she assured herself.
Liar, mocked a voice. Seeing those slivers of the more complex man under his stern exterior, and his gruffly tender treatment at the end had moved her more than she cared to admit.
If she saw any more evidence of that Luc, she wasn’t so sure her emotions would remain untouched. And forming an attachment to Luc Barbier would be a lesson in futility and pain. Of that she was certain.
One thing was clear. The moment of madness just now couldn’t happen again. Not that Nessa imagined for a second that Luc wanted it to. His self-recrimination had been palpable, and that suited Nessa fine. It did, she told herself. No matter what her newly awakened body might be aching for in secret places.
CHAPTER SIX
LUC LOOKED AT the figure riding the horse and couldn’t believe what he was seeing. The boy—for it had to be a boy, he was too slight to be a man—was riding one of his prize thoroughbreds as if he’d been riding her all his life.
Jockey and horse were one entity, cutting through the air like a bullet. He’d never seen the filly perform so well. And he already itched to see what the jockey would be like on Sur La Mer, back in France. He just knew instinctively that he could be the missing link to get the best out of the horse.
Luc looked at his chief Irish trainer. ‘Okay, who is he and where has he been before now, and can we retain him immediately?’ Luc knew how rare it was to find raw talent like this.
Pete had come to him a few minutes ago and just said enigmatically, You need to see this.
Pete grinned. ‘He’s a she.’
‘What the—?’ Luc looked back and his skin prickled with a kind of awareness. The jockey and horse came around the nearest corner and as they thundered past him he caught a glimpse of dark red hair tucked under the cap and a delicate jawline. He recalled Percy Mortimer saying Nessa was a good rider.
Luc’s nervous system fizzed immediately, even before Pete said, ‘It’s Nessa O’Sullivan.’
For the past couple of days Luc had been ruthlessly crushing any memories or reminders of what had happened in the stables. At night, though, when he was asleep, he couldn’t control his mind: his dreams were filled with X-rated memories. He’d woken every morning with a throbbing erection and every muscle screaming for release.
He hadn’t been at the mercy of his body like this since his hormones had run wild as a teenager.
It was galling; humiliating.
And here she was again, provoking him.
Pete was looking at him. ‘Well?’
Luc controlled himself with effort. ‘What the hell is she doing on my horse?’
Pete’s grin faded. He put up his hands in a gesture of supplication. ‘I’ve known Nessa for years, Luc. I know her whole family. They’ve been riding horses since before they could walk. Her sister and father are excellent trainers. I’ve seen Nessa race—she’s not done many, granted, but she’s got her licence and she’s a natural. We were short a rider today and so I asked Mrs Owens if I could borrow her. I don’t know what she’s doing working for your housekeeper, Luc, but she’s wasted there. She should be out here. All she’s been waiting for is an opportunity to prove herself.’
If it had been anyone else but his trusted and very talented trainer, and if Luc hadn’t seen her with his own two eyes, he would have fired Pete on the spot. And he wasn’t about to tell Pete
why Nessa was working at the house.
He looked back at the gallops to see the riders dismounting and walking the horses back to the stables. He spotted her immediately, the smallest of the bunch, immediately bringing to mind how tight she’d felt when he’d breached her body. Virgin. No protection. And he still wanted her with a hunger that unnnerved him.
Oblivious to what was going on in his head, Pete said, ‘Luc, I think you should use her in the next race. Give her a chance.’
Luc looked at Pete, provocation and frustration boiling over. ‘You’ve done enough for now. I don’t care how talented a jockey she is, she knew better than to say yes to your request.’
* * *
Nessa was still buzzing with adrenalin after exercising the horse, and chatting with the other riders, some of whom she knew. They’d all been curious as to why she was here but she’d kept it vague.
She was in the changing room and had just pulled off her mud-spattered top when the door slammed open and she whirled around, holding the shirt to her chest. ‘Do you mind?’
But it wasn’t Pete or one of the other riders entering the ladies’ changing room near the racing stables. It was Luc Barbier and he looked murderous. The door shut behind him with an ominously quiet click, and the room was suddenly tiny.
She’d deliberately avoided thinking about Luc’s reaction if he found out. Apparently for good reason.
He stood before the door in worn jeans and a black polo shirt. He’d never looked more forbiddingly sexy. Nessa’s insides melted even as she tried to ignore her body’s response. Luc hadn’t come near her for the past couple of days, making it perfectly clear that the other night couldn’t have been a bigger mistake. And while Nessa agreed on every rational level, she hated to admit that she’d been hurt by the dismissal.
Guilt lanced her now. Had she agreed to Pete’s request to fill in for one of the jockeys, knowing Luc wouldn’t approve, to provoke a reaction? Nessa was afraid she knew the answer to that.
