The Virgin's Debt To Pay: The Virgin's Debt to Pay / Surrender to the Ruthless Billionaire

She was drowning in liquid heat and could feel it, slippery, between her legs. Luc’s mouth left hers and she heard a soft moan emanating from her mouth. He trailed kisses over her jaw and down her neck. Her head fell back, too heavy.

The only sounds in the room were harsh breathing and the thump thump of her heart. Luc’s hand was on her shirt, deftly opening the buttons. Cool air hit her bare skin and her nipples drew into tight, hard points.

The world tipped on its axis and Nessa only realised moments later that Luc had sat down on the edge of the bed, bringing her with him so that now she sat on his lap. She was dizzy, and thought that this must be how it felt to be drunk: light-headed and euphoric.

He was pushing her shirt open, and she looked at him and saw an almost feral expression on his face. He cupped one of her lace-covered breasts. Breasts that had always felt very inadequate to Nessa. But now when she looked down she could see how she perfectly filled his palm. As if she’d been made for his hands alone.

He pulled down the lace cup, baring her flesh, and she bit her lip to stop from moaning, pleading. His thumb skated over one small hard nipple and it sent electric shocks through her whole body.

He looked at her and smiled and Nessa realised that he hadn’t smiled at her once until now. And it was as devastating as she’d suspected it might be. Wicked, seductive, gorgeous and irresistible.

Lust and need cocooned them from reality, and for one wild second Nessa could almost convince herself that perhaps she was still asleep and this was all just a very vivid dream.

But she knew it wasn’t a dream, and she knew that it was very important that she stand up and stop this.

Luc’s head was dipping towards her breast and Nessa had never wanted anything more than to surrender completely to this moment, but something within her, some small sane voice, broke through. She put her hands on Luc’s shoulders and levered herself off his lap, feeling like a foal trying to stand for the first time.

Luc just looked at her as if he couldn’t quite believe she’d moved away, and Nessa realised she was half naked. She pulled at her shirt, scrambling to do up at least one or two buttons. The bare flesh of her breast chafed against the material, sensitised by his touch.

She forced out, through the clamour of her own desire, ‘I didn’t come here for this. I really didn’t.’

Luc’s body was hard and throbbed with a need to claim and possess, things he’d never felt for a woman before. Nessa was looking at him with wide eyes and flushed cheeks, and hair coming loose.

I didn’t come here for this. Something slid into Luc’s mind: the very rogue possibility that she had just fallen asleep while on the job. And then he dismissed it. She was playing with him and he would not be manipulated like this. He’d already exposed himself far too much. And the fact that she’d been the one to pull away, signalling she was more in control than he was, was even more exposing.

Luc forced his blood to cool, and stood up in a fluid motion. Nessa took a step back. The thought that she was stepping back from him in case he touched her again sent something dark into his gut. And something far more unwelcome: a feeling of vulnerability, something that Luc had rejected long ago. He was invulnerable.

‘Sleeping with me isn’t going to improve your, or your brother’s, situation. I told you already that I don’t play games, Nessa, so unless you’re willing to admit that we both want each other with no strings attached then get out of here.’

His voice was so cold and remote it skated over Nessa’s skin like ice. She hated his obvious cynicism, and wanted to deny his claim that she would manipulate him to gain favour for her brother, but self-preservation kicked in at the last moment. She fled, taking the basket of cleaning supplies with her.

* * *

When Nessa finally made it back to her room she closed the door behind her and rested against it. Her heart was still thumping out of time, and her whole body ached for a fulfilment she’d never needed before.

And she reeled with the knowledge that she’d almost lain back for Luc Barbier and handed him something she’d never handed anyone else. Her innocence. She’d almost tipped over the edge of allowing Luc to see her at her most vulnerable. A man who had shown her nothing but disdain and distrust.

Thank God she’d pulled back from the brink. She shivered now at the prospect of Luc looking at her when he’d discovered her virginity. She could already imagine the mocking look on his face, and how he would spurn her with disgust.

But then she thought of how he’d said, Unless you’re willing to admit we both want each other with no strings attached, and she shivered again. But this time it wasn’t with trepidation or humiliation. It was with an awful sense of illicit excitement.

* * *

Luc had turned the shower to cold, but that still hadn’t cooled the lingering heat in his body. He couldn’t believe how close he’d come to stripping Nessa O’Sullivan bare and taking her in a haze of lust.

She’d been the one to pull back. And even though Luc hadn’t imagined the chemistry between them, it still got to him somewhere very vulnerable that she’d had more control than him.

He couldn’t trust her, and yet he’d been about to sleep with her, complicating an already complicated situation even more. He shuddered to think of the hold she could have had over him after sleeping together. He hadn’t yet known a woman who didn’t try to capitalise on intimacies shared, even when they were only physical. And he had no doubt—in spite of her protestations otherwise—that she’d had an agenda.

He looked at himself in his bathroom mirror and scowled. If she thought that she could whet his appetite like this, and he would come running after her like a dog in heat, she was mistaken. Luc wouldn’t be caught offguard again. She was resistable. Even if the pounding of his blood told him otherwise.

He pulled a towel around his waist and knotted it roughly, finding his mobile phone and picking it up. Within seconds he was issuing a terse instruction to the security firm he’d hired to seek out Paddy O’Sullivan, to step up their efforts.

Afterwards he threw the phone down and surmised grimly that the sooner they found Paddy and his money, the sooner he could get rid of the all too distracting Nessa O’Sullivan too.

* * *

Two nights later, Nessa was holding a tray full of champagne flutes filled to the brim, serving them at Luc’s glitzy party. She was dressed in a white shirt and black skirt. The uniform of waiters everywhere. Hair up in a tight bun.

She could appreciate the breathtaking scene even as her arms felt as if they were about to drop out of the shoulder sockets. The unusually mild Irish spring day was melting into a lavender-hued dusk. Candles imbued the guests and room with a golden light.

She smiled in relief as some guests stopped and helped themselves to drinks on her tray, lightening her load marginally. And then her gaze tracked back inevitably to where one man stood out from the crowd—dark head and broad shoulders visible from every corner of the room.

Her main objective was to avoid coming face to face with Luc Barbier at all costs. The enormity of what had almost happened still sent shock waves through her body every time she thought of it. So did the thought of a no-strings encounter, added a wicked voice.

And even though she was trying to avoid him, she couldn’t look away. Much like most of the women in the room, she’d noticed with a spurt of something suspiciously...possessive. He was dressed in a tuxedo and he was simply breathtaking. He was the epitome of virile beauty, but with that undeniable edge of something dark and dangerous.

As if reading her mind, two women stopped nearby and, in that way of seeing but not seeing Nessa, because she was staff, they were whispering loudly enough for Nessa to catch snippets.

‘Apparently he’s an animal in bed...’

‘They say he was found on the streets...’

‘Petty crime...’

‘Only got to where he has because he slept with Leo Fouret’s wife and the husband bought him off to keep him quiet...’

Nessa went still at that, something cold trickling down her spine. She hadn’t heard that final, particular rumour before. Although, he had apparently left Leo Fouret’s stables under less than amicable circumstances, before blazing a trail on his own.

The women moved away and then more guests approached Nessa, relieving her of her remaining drinks. She was only too happy to escape back to the kitchen to stock up. Just before she left, she cast one last glance in Luc’s direction, but his head was bowed towards someone in conversation.

Lambasting herself for having listened to gossip, no matter how inadvertently, Nessa forged a path through the crowd and away from Luc. She told herself that she wasn’t remotely interested in what the women had been saying. And that she was truly pathetic to be feeling the tiniest bit sorry for him that he was surrounded by such fervent gossip in the first place.

There was no smoke without a fire, as her father loved to say on a regular basis. And from what she’d seen of Luc in action, she could almost forgive a married woman for falling under his spell.

* * *

‘What on earth is Nessa O’Sullivan doing serving drinks at your party, Barbier? I’d hardly think she’s short of a few bob!’

It took a second for Luc to register what the man beside him had said and when he did his wandering attention snapped into sharp focus. ‘You know her?’

The man snorted. ‘Of course I do—you forget Ireland is a small place. Her father is Paddy O’Sullivan, one of this country’s best trainers—at one time. Before he hit the bottle and almost lost everything. Now of course they’re back on top of the world, although I don’t think Paddy will ever repair the damage to his reputation. Still, he doesn’t need to now, not with the goldmine he’s sitting on thanks to his son-in-law.’

Luc usually had an aversion to gossip but not this time. ‘What are you talking about?’

Percy Mortimer, a well-known English racing pundit, turned to Luc. ‘Nessa O’Sullivan is related to royalty—her older sister—who incidentally is also a very talented amateur trainer—is married to the supreme Sheikh Nadim Al-Saqr of Merkazad. He bought out their stud a few years back. Nessa’s not a bad rider. I’ve seen her in a couple of races over the years, but she doesn’t seem to have made a proper impression yet.’

What the hell? Luc barely heard that last bit. Sheikh Nadim was a very serious contender in racing circles, and a billionaire. And Luc had had no idea that he owned a stables just down the road. Nessa’s family stud. He reeled, although he didn’t show it.

Percy was saying something else but Luc wasn’t listening. His gaze was already scanning the crowd for a dark redhead. He’d seen her earlier—looking once again as if butter wouldn’t melt, dressed in her white shirt and skirt. Even that small glimpse had been enough to cause a spike in his heart-rate.

Damn. Where was she, anyway?

Luc tried to move away but saw a group headed for him with Pascal leading the way. The look on Pascal’s face told Luc that he had to stay exactly where he was.

Nessa would have to wait, for now. But he would track her down and this time there would be no games. Only answers to his questions. Like what the hell was she playing at, working for nothing to pay off her brother’s debt when presumably she could ask for a handout from her billionaire brother-in-law?

* * *

Nessa’s feet and arms were aching, and she knew she shouldn’t be here, but after the party had finished and they’d been released, she found herself gravitating towards the stallions’ stables. As if pulled by some magnetic force. As if that could help to ground her and fuse her scattered energies back together.

She’d been acutely conscious of Luc’s every movement, all evening.

At one stage she’d caught his eye and it had seemed as if he was trying to communicate something telepathically. From the grim look on his face it hadn’t been something particularly nice. And then, even though she’d skirted around the edges of the room, keeping far out of his orbit for the rest of the evening, she could have sworn she felt his dark gaze boring into her periodically.

She came to a stop in the middle of the stables when she realised that they were empty. She looked around and remembered belatedly that the stallions had been moved up to different paddocks and stables for a few days while these were being repainted and renovated.

There were white sheets piled high in a corner along with painting and cleaning paraphernalia. Nessa told herself it was just as well as she turned around to leave. The last thing she needed was to be caught again in the wrong place—

Her heart stopped when she saw the tall broad figure blocking the doorway, with only the moon behind him as a silhouette. Too late. Luc.

She could see that his bow-tie was undone and top button open, his jacket swinging loose and his hands in the pockets of his trousers.

He moved forward into the stables and she saw his stern expression revealed in the dim lighting. Immediately the space felt claustrophobic. Nessa’s body tingled with awareness as he came close enough for her to see that there was also barely leashed anger in his expression.

She swallowed. ‘I know I shouldn’t be here—’

‘That’s not important. We need to have a little chat.’

Surprise robbed her voice for a moment and then she said, ‘About what?’

Luc folded his arms. ‘About why you’ve omitted to mention the not inconsequential fact that your sister is married to Sheikh Nadim Al-Saqr of Merkazad, and that he owns your stud farm.’

He continued, ‘I’d imagine one million euro is short change to Sheikh Nadim Al-Saqr, so what the hell is Paddy doing jeopardising his career for a handout he could’ve begged off his brother-in-law, and why didn’t you just pick up the phone to Nadim to sort this mess out?’

Nessa went hot and then cold as the significance of this sank in, and the realisation that someone must have recognised her at the party.

She said carefully, ‘I didn’t think it was relevant.’

Luc looked even more stern. ‘Not good enough.’

Nessa swallowed. She knew she couldn’t avoid an explanation. ‘Nadim did buy our farm but he put it back into our name as a wedding gift for Iseult, my sister. It’s ours again, he’s just one of the shareholders. And I didn’t want to involve him because this has nothing to do with Nadim or Iseult. My sister is due to have a baby in a couple of weeks and they don’t need the stress.’

Luc stepped closer but Nessa was trapped, with a stable door at her back and nowhere to go. She was acutely aware of his tall, lean body and his scent.

‘There’s more to it than that,’ he said. ‘You and your brother avoiding asking for help just proves you’re both involved in something that’s gone beyond your control. I’m guessing Nadim wouldn’t approve, and you don’t want to bite the hand that feeds you.’

In a fierce low voice Nessa replied, ‘No. It’s nothing like that. Why must you be so cynical and mistrustful?’

‘Because,’ he answered smoothly, ‘I was born that way and nothing I’ve experienced has ever proved me wrong. Life favours the opportunistic. I should know.’

I was born that way. Nessa couldn’t stop a rush of curiosity and pity. The second time she’d pitied him this evening. But then she crushed it. Luc Barbier was the last man on the planet who needed anyone’s pity.

He said, ‘You could be free to walk away if you asked Nadim for help.’

Luc heard himself say the words even as something inside him rejected it immediately. Let her walk away? A hot surge of possessiveness rose up inside him. He wanted her.

She was looking at him, eyes huge, and for a second he could almost have imagined that she looked...hurt. A ridiculous notion.

Nessa shook her head and some long tendrils of red hair framed her face. ‘No. I will not take the easy way out and cause my family distress. I promised Paddy that I wouldn’t go to Nadim or Iseult.’

Luc was intrigued by this apparent loyalty. ‘Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t go to Nadim myself.’

An expression of panic crossed her face. ‘I thought you didn’t want this news to get out either!’

‘I don’t. But from what I know of the Sheikh, I think he would appreciate the need for discretion on his family’s behalf. It would affect his name and reputation too.’

Nessa wrung her hands in front of her and it only drew Luc’s attention to where the shirt strained slightly over her breasts. He dragged his gaze up.

‘You have no right to involve them.’

Now he really wanted to know why she was being so stubborn on this. ‘Give me one reason, Nessa, and make it a good one.’

She looked at him as if he was torturing her and then she answered with palpable reluctance. ‘When our mother died Iseult was only twelve; I was eight. Our father couldn’t cope with the grief. He went off the rails, and developed a drink problem. Iseult went to school, but she did the bare minimum so that she could take care of the farm, the horses and all of us.’

Nessa glanced away for a moment, her face pale. Luc felt at an uncharacteristic loss as to what to say but she looked back at him and continued. ‘If it wasn’t for Iseult shielding us from the worst of our father’s excesses and the reality of the farm falling to pieces, we never would have made it through school. She shouldered far too much for someone her age...and then Nadim came along and bought the farm out and she felt as if she’d failed us all at the last hurdle.’

Nessa drew in a breath. ‘But then they fell in love and got married, and for the first time in her life she’s really secure and happy.’

‘Married to a billionaire, conveniently enough.’ The cynical comment was said before Luc had even properly thought about it, and it felt hollow on his lips.

Nessa’s hands clenched to fists by her sides. ‘Iseult is the least materialistic person I know. They love each other.’

Luc was a bit stunned by her vehemence. ‘Go on.’

She bit her lip for a moment, and he had to stop himself from reaching out to tug it free of those small white teeth.

‘My sister is truly happy for the first time in a long time. The only responsibility she now bears is to her own family. They had problems getting pregnant after Kamil so this pregnancy has been stressful. If she knew what was going on she’d be devastated and worried, and Nadim would do everything he could to help her. He might even insist on coming all the way over here, and she needs him with her now.’

She added impetuously, ‘If you do talk to Nadim, I’ll leak it to the press about the money going astray. Maybe they’ll be easier on Paddy than you’ve been.’

Luc just looked at Nessa for a long moment, and he had to admit with grudging reluctance that her apparent zeal to protect her family was very convincing. He’d never seen a mother bear with cubs, but he had an impression of it right now. And he didn’t like how it had affected him when she’d mentioned her sister’s happy family. For a second he’d actually felt something like envy.

It reminded him uncomfortably of when he’d been much younger and he and other kids from the flats would go into Paris to pick pockets or whatever petty crime they could get away with. Stupid kids with nothing to lose and no one at home to care what they got up to.

One day Luc had been mesmerised by a family playing in a park—a mother, father and two children. The kids had looked so happy and loved. An awful darkness had welled up inside him and he’d tasted jealousy for the first time. And something far more poignant—a desire to know what that would be like.

His friends had noticed and had teased Luc unmercifully, so he’d shoved that experience and those feelings deep down inside and had vowed never to envy anyone again. And he wasn’t about to start now.

But eclipsing all of that now was the carnal hunger building inside him. He’d thought of little else but that incendiary kiss the other night. When he’d sought Nessa out after the party he’d told himself he could resist her. But the thick sexual tension in the air mocked him.

She called to him, even in those plain, unerotic clothes. She called to him, deep inside where a dark hunger raged and begged for satisfaction.

Suddenly it didn’t matter who she was related to. Or if she was playing mind-games. She threw up too many questions, but there was only one question he was interested in knowing the answer to right now, and that was how she would feel when he sank deep inside her.

Luc closed the distance between them, and reached out to slide a hand around Nessa’s neck, tugging her closer. Her eyes went wide and her cheeks bloomed with colour. She put a hand up to his and said, ‘What are you doing?’

Luc’s gaze was fixated on her mouth and he had to drag it away to look into those huge hazel eyes. ‘Do you really expect me to believe that you’re just an innocent who would do anything for her family? And that the other night was pure chance and chemistry?’

For a taut moment, Luc held his breath because he realised that some small kernel of the little boy he’d once been, yearning for something totally out of his orbit, was still alive inside him. He waited for Nessa to gaze up at him with those huge eyes and move closer, to tell him in a husky voice, Yes, I’m really that innocent. The worst of it was, he wasn’t entirely sure that he wouldn’t believe her.

But she didn’t. She tensed and pulled back, jerking free of Luc’s hand. Glaring up at him. ‘I don’t expect you to believe anything, Luc Barbier. You’ve got eyes in your head and if you choose to view the world through a fog of cynicism and mistrust then that’s your prerogative.

‘As for the other night—it was madness and a mistake. You won’t have to worry why it happened because it won’t happen again.’

Nessa had almost moved past Luc when his shocked brain kicked into gear and he caught her hand, stopping her. Every cell in his body rejected what she’d just said. She was walking away again. A savage part of himself rose up, needing to prove that she wasn’t as in control as she appeared.

He pulled her back in front of him. ‘You want me.’

She bit her lip and looked down. She shook her head. Luc tipped her chin up feeling even more savage. ‘Say it, Nessa.’

She looked at him, eyes huge and swirling with emotion but Luc couldn’t draw back now. Eventually she said with a touch of defiance, ‘I might want you but I don’t want to.’

Something immediately eased inside him. She glanced down again as if by not looking at him she could avoid the issue.

‘Look at me, Nessa.’

For a long moment she refused but then she looked up, eyes spitting golden sparks, and it ignited the fire inside him to a burning inferno of need. He pulled her closer again. She put her hands up to his chest. ‘No, Luc. I don’t want—’

But he stopped her words with his mouth and used every ounce of his expertise to show her how futile her resistance was. Whatever else was happening around them, whatever she was saying, he could trust that this was true at least.

CHAPTER FIVE

NESSA WANTED TO resist Luc—she really did. She hated that he still patently believed she’d orchestrated the other night. And that he most likely didn’t believe what she’d told him about her family.

But it was hard to think of all of that when his mouth was on hers and he was sliding his tongue between her lips and possessing her with such devastating ease. Big hands moved down her back to her buttocks, cupping them and bringing her in close to where she could feel the bold thrust of his arousal. For her. Not for one of the stunningly beautiful women at the party. Her. Nessa O’Sullivan.