Nothing could have prepared her though for that first cataclysmic penetration. She felt impaled. Luc was too big. He looked at her for a moment with a line between his brows and her heart stopped. Did he know? But then he slid in a little further. The discomfort faded as he filled her more, all the way until she couldn’t breathe.
As he started to move in and out he lifted her leg and wrapped it around his hip, making him move even deeper inside her. Nessa was clasping his shoulders, needing something to hold onto as tension wound into a tight ball deep inside her.
She’d never felt anything like the glorious glide of his body in and out of hers. She was utterly consumed with the moment and what this man was doing to her.
She wrapped both legs around him now, digging her heels into his buttocks, wanting, needing more. Sweat made their skin glisten and their breathing was harsh as they both raced to the pinnacle of the climb.
Luc’s movements became faster and Nessa could only cling on for dear life as the oncoming storm hurtled towards her. He arched her up towards him and found a nipple with his hot mouth, sucking it deep, and at that moment Nessa was flung into the eye of the storm and she cried out a release that went on, and on, and on.
Luc went taut above her and she felt the warm rush of his release inside her but at that point her brain was too burnt out to think of anything else but the oblivion that extreme pleasure brought in its wake.
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.’