The Debt Page 10

  He was so fierce and passionate. So unlike the reserved, laconic men I’d been brought up with and worked with at Australis.

  Sex might not be part of the girlfriend deal but there was a part of me that hoped it would be.

  A few days after the shopping trip, my bags packed and ready, I was in the weird position of being the one picked up for a change.

  Mr Evans insisted that we go to the airport together—and since we were supposed to be a couple, he had a point.

  He drove his own car this time, a massive Land Rover that seemed appropriate given he was a property developer and into construction.

  Automatically and by instinct, I headed towards the driver’s side only to have him give me a narrow look. ‘I’m driving, remember?’ he reminded me. ‘It’s my car.’

  ‘Oh, right. Sure.’ I gave him a sheepish grin.

  It felt strange not having the wheel in front of me and I didn’t know what to do with my hands. So I gripped onto my seat belt as he took us to London City Airport, where we’d catch his company’s jet to Dubai.

  He drove with the kind of aggressive confidence I’d expected of him, talking via speakerphone the whole time, dealing with site issues, property concerns, something legal to do with a contract and then some kind of staffing problem. He dealt with it all with authority and a bluntness that probably added to his fearsome reputation, yet I found myself admiring it.

  No wonder people didn’t know how to deal with him in the UK. He wasn’t polite and he didn’t play by the normal rules, and I found that incredibly attractive. That he didn’t care what other people thought of him was also apparent, and, as someone who did care, I found the fact that he didn’t fascinating.

  Dad would have been appalled.

  We got to the airport, boarded the jet, and were in the air within a couple of hours and even then Mr Evans was still dealing with calls.

  He paced impatiently around the cabin, filling the space with his own particular brand of vibrant electricity, and even though I sat in one of the plush leather seats, ostensibly looking through a magazine, I couldn’t help but watch him instead.

  That energy was anger. I knew that now.

  Given how he’d been totally shafted by his half-brother and how responsible he felt for the loss of his mother’s money, I understood how driven he was.

  I was curious, though, as to why she was still living in the council estate, not to mention why he was still feuding with his half-brother, when all of that had happened so many years ago. Also, the few times he’d spoken of his father it was with nothing but contempt, and I wondered what the story was there.

  Being curious about him was probably a bad thing, but I was all the same.

  It was a good half hour into the flight before Mr Evans finally finished up his calls and threw himself down into the leather seat opposite mine, his blue gaze like a slap of ice water across my hot skin.

  He stared at me for a full minute at least, then said, ‘So, tell me how Australis got into trouble.’

  Every muscle in my body gathered tight. ‘Wh-what?’

  ‘I’ve been looking over the financials and it does seem as though there are some issues.’ His stare became sharper. ‘Which is odd because it seemed like a good bet when we made our initial investment. You want to tell me what the problem is?’

  I should have expected him to ask, especially considering it was his money he’d invested, but that didn’t change the sudden and intense need to change the subject. Because I really did not want to have to explain to him about how my mismanagement of the Mark incident had turned what should have been a minor problem into a giant mistake.

  ‘There was a...staff issue,’ I said, deliberately vague. ‘We lost one of our best designers.’

  ‘And why was that?’

  ‘He had to be let go for...certain reasons.’ My hands had crept into my lap, my fists clenched.

  Mr Evans frowned. ‘What reasons?’

  It was stupid to feel so tense about confessing the truth to him. So I’d made a mistake in my handling of it. So what? Anyway, I didn’t have to say it was me, did I?

  I swallowed. ‘He harassed a staff member. There was a fuss so Dad paid him to keep quiet and go away. It was a lot of money.’ Too much money. But Dad hadn’t wanted it to become public. He’d met Mark’s demands without protest and hadn’t said a word to me about it. But I knew he was angry at how I’d handled it. If I hadn’t gone and hurt Mark, it wouldn’t have been such an issue.

  Mr Evans’s gaze had got very narrow, sapphire glinting from beneath his thick black lashes. ‘And Australis struggled after that?’

  ‘We couldn’t get another designer that good. I tried to fill in, but...’ I trailed off. No need to tell him that Dad had never been satisfied with my work after that, no matter how hard I’d tried.

  A silence fell and it wasn’t a comfortable one, not with Mr Evans’s gaze on me, concentrated as an X-ray.

  ‘It was you,’ he said suddenly. ‘You were the person who got harassed.’

  Of course he’d guess. He wasn’t a stupid man by any stretch.

  Who cares that he knows? You shouldn’t. It was nothing, remember? Nothing at all.

  I forced myself to look at him. Forced myself to smile. ‘Yeah, but it was no big deal.’

  Mr Evans didn’t smile. He went very still instead, a feral light glowing in his eyes. ‘Did he hurt you?’

  But I didn’t want to go into it. ‘It wasn’t a drama, honestly.’

  ‘Did. He. Hurt. You?’ Each word was bitten off, a rough thread of anger running through his voice.

  I wanted to ask him why he cared so much, but I was afraid of the answer for some reason, so I didn’t. ‘Not physically.’

  ‘And your father paid him off? Why? He didn’t defend you? Get the police involved?’

  ‘No,’ I snapped, feeling defensive. ‘Dad didn’t want any fusses made. And I’d made it into this big deal already.’

  Mr Evans’s expression settled into forbidding lines. ‘And how exactly did you make it a big deal?’

  ‘Mark grabbed me, so I... I kind of...kneed him in the balls.’

  An electric-blue flame leapt in Mr Evans’s eyes and it looked suspiciously like approval. ‘Good,’ he said fiercely.

  ‘No, it wasn’t good.’ I tried to ignore the warmth that approval had ignited inside me. ‘I shouldn’t have done anything. I should have just...handled it. But Mark told everyone that I’d assaulted him and Dad didn’t want to deal with it. So he paid Mark to be quiet and leave.’

  ‘He shouldn’t have.’ Mr Evans leaned forward abruptly in his seat, his voice low and savage. ‘He should have hauled that motherfucker down to the station and booked him.’

  I blinked at his vehemence and the ferocity in his gaze. ‘Well, he didn’t. Why does it matter to you, anyway?’

  ‘My mother was my father’s maid. He seduced her and she ended up living hand to mouth in a council estate with a child she got no support for.’ Bitterness edged each word. ‘I know what workplace harassment can do to a woman. And yes, I care about it.’

  His ferocity was a physical force. A shock wave pushing against me. ‘Apart from anything else, I don’t like people taking advantage of others more vulnerable than they are.’ He put a hand on each of the armrests on either side of my seat, a wall of hot male anger. ‘In fact, you’re damn lucky I wasn’t anywhere around this Mark bastard when he grabbed you. Because if I had been, he wouldn’t have had any balls left for you to knee.’

  He was threatening like this, his anger not directed at me but for me. A protective anger. An anger that Dad had never displayed, not once. No, his had always been at me. As if Mark grabbing me had been my fault.

  I didn’t know why desire hit me so hard in that moment, a surge of it spiking in my blood. Because it shouldn’t have. I didn’t need a man gett
ing protective of me—hell, I’d kicked bloody Mark straight in the family jewels, hadn’t I? I could protect myself.

  But some part of me liked that Mr Evans was angry on my behalf. I could imagine him at the Australis Christmas party, standing behind me, big and scarred and dangerous. Scowling that famous scowl. A wordless threat to anyone who thought touching me was a good idea.

  And he wouldn’t have cared about making a fuss as Dad had.

  No, he wouldn’t have cared about that one single iota.

  He would have been on my side.

  I wanted him suddenly and very, very badly.

  And he must have seen it, because his gaze became very focused. ‘You like that idea, don’t you?’ His voice dropped almost an entire octave.

  ‘Yes.’ Very purposefully, I put my hands over his where they rested on the armrests of my seat, his skin searing my palms. ‘I do.’

  ‘That’s very bloodthirsty.’

  ‘You have a problem with a woman being bloodthirsty?’

  ‘Fuck, no. But fair warning, pretty thing. It turns me on.’

  I shivered. I shouldn’t goad him and yet I couldn’t stop. ‘I don’t mind if you’re turned on.’

  The expression on his face got taut. ‘You might. Because if you keep touching me like that, we’re having sex. Understand?’

  Oh, I understood. I was very clear. And the more I stared into his eyes, the more I wanted him and the less my doubts about it seemed to matter.

  I couldn’t even remember why I hadn’t wanted to have sex with him again in the first place. It was only sex. Not a big deal.

  ‘That’s going to be difficult in Dubai,’ I said huskily. ‘I mean, presumably couples who are serious have to touch each other. And it’ll look weird if we don’t.’

  The look in his eyes became scorching. ‘You want to get in some practice, then?’

  If I thought about this too long I’d get cold feet.

  I needed to stop thinking.

  I leaned forward, running my hands up his strong forearms, trailing my fingers over hot skin and powerful muscle.

  And kissed him. Hard.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Ash

  ELLIE’S MOUTH WAS HOT, her delicate touch against my bare skin making my breath catch.

  I shouldn’t have responded. I should have pulled away, especially given what she’d just told me about the prick who’d touched her, who’d hurt her no matter how she’d downplayed it.

  Because I was just another prick who would hurt her.

  Because that was what I did. I hurt people.

  But I couldn’t have pulled away from her in that moment if my life had depended on it.

  I’d warned her, though. I’d warned her that if she was going to touch me like this, we’d be having sex. And I was a man of my word.

  Despite numerous invitations, I’d never had sex in the company jet—I preferred to keep the line between my company and my pleasure very separate.

  Today, I didn’t give a shit about that line.

  Her tongue was tentatively exploring me, her nails beginning to dig into my biceps. She tasted so sweet, strawberries on a summer day, and the heat of her body was temptation incarnate.

  She was wearing shorts today, instead of her uniform. Just a simple pair of blue denim shorts, with a green T-shirt. Nothing spectacular.

  Yet I hadn’t been able to take my eyes off her.

  I’d had to busy myself with a whole lot of business just to stop myself from gaping at her like a love-struck teenager. I’d thought I’d had myself well in hand. But when she’d started talking about her family’s company, about the situation with the harassment and some motherfucker who thought he could touch her; about how her father had paid that prick off instead of supporting his daughter...

  I’d wanted to kill someone over that.

  If either her father or the prick who’d touched her had been there I think I would have literally strangled them.

  But since they weren’t, I’d have to take the sex.

  What a fucking hardship.

  I shouldn’t touch her again, but she was kissing me quite desperately and I couldn’t refuse her. I didn’t want to refuse her.

  I lifted my hands to her face, sliding my fingers along her delicate jaw, her skin silky and soft beneath my fingertips.

  A kiss was great. But her mouth wasn’t where I wanted to kiss her.

  Holding her carefully, I pulled away.

  She blinked, her eyes a pure dark gold, looking at me as if she’d never wanted anything so badly.

  My cock, already hard, ached like a bastard.

  ‘Lie back,’ I ordered. ‘Let me give you something.’

  ‘But I—’

  ‘I’m not asking.’

  As I expected, the order ignited her fighting spirit. ‘Oh? You think you’re driving again?’

  ‘Yes.’ I dropped my hands to her bare thighs, stroking, her skin just as silky and warm as her jaw had been. ‘And as I recall, you very much enjoyed it when I drove the last time.’

  She was already a very pretty shade of pink, and when I stroked her again she went even pinker. ‘But I’m always the driver.’

  ‘I know. So let me do the work for once.’ I kept my gaze on hers as I reached for the buttons of her shorts, watching her reaction. ‘All you need to do is lie back and enjoy the ride.’

  ‘Oh.’ She chewed on her bottom lip a moment as if considering it. Then she let out a breath. ‘Well, I guess when you put it like that.’ Slowly she sat back in her seat.

  Raw triumph flooded through me, along with something a little more uncomfortable. Because she wasn’t one of my socialites, or an aristocrat I could sully. She was different. She was a fighter who was conceding me the advantage by choice. Because she trusted me. Even after that arsehole had hurt her, she trusted me.

  The heady eroticism of the knowledge caught me by the throat at the same time as it unsettled me.

  I had no idea why she would trust me, even why she had the night in the limo in Paris, especially given what kind of man I was.

  You’re not good enough for her. You’re not good enough for anyone.

  I shoved that thought away. This wasn’t about me. This was about her. About giving her pleasure and making sure she’d never regret the trust she put in me.

  I undid the button of her shorts and pulled down the zip. Then I slid my hands into the waistband and began to ease the denim down, taking her underwear with it, watching her face the whole time.

  Her gaze had darkened, but I didn’t miss the hint of uncertainty in it.

  I stopped. ‘What? Changed your mind?’

  ‘No.’ She sounded sure, at least. ‘I haven’t changed my mind. But...’ She glanced at the door that led to the galley and cockpit. ‘No one’s going to interrupt?’

  My tense muscles relaxed. Thank fuck for that. Shyness I could deal with.

  ‘My staff know better than that,’ I said. ‘I like to do work when I fly long distance so they leave me alone. No one’s even going to knock for another couple of hours.’

  ‘Oh, good.’ She gave me a small smile, her flush deepening beautifully. ‘I didn’t much care about it in the limo, but this is... I don’t know, different.’

  She was right. This was different. Because this wasn’t us being at the mercy of our chemistry. This was us being very purposeful.

  This was me doing something for her.

  I wasn’t used to reassuring people, but I tried. ‘Don’t worry. I would have told the stewardess to stay put if I thought it would be a problem.’

  Her uncertainty melted away entirely. ‘Okay, good. Well...’ She lifted her hips. ‘Come on. Get going.’

  Impatient girl.

  I was generally a selfish man but not sexually, and especially not now, with her. This was ab
out what Ellie wanted. And I was going to give it to her. Slowly.

  I tightened my grip on the fabric still covering her and tugged it down, easing it over her butt, down her thighs and off, before discarding it onto the floor of the cabin.

  She’d gone the loveliest shade of pink and I put my hands on the armrests of her seat, taking a moment to look at her, because she was a fucking gorgeous sight. All silky pale skin and the dark nest of curls between her thighs.

  The pink became scarlet as a tide of red washed over her skin and her hands lifted as if to cover herself, but I caught her wrists before she could, gripping and holding them lightly. ‘You don’t want me to look?’

  She shifted uncomfortably but didn’t pull away. ‘No... I just... Mark used to look at me and I didn’t like it.’

  ‘I’m not Mark.’

  ‘No, I know, but I—’

  I released one wrist and caught her chin in my fingers, holding her so she had no choice but to meet my gaze. ‘I’m not Mark,’ I repeated. ‘And this is different, understand? Yes, I like to be in charge, but the only reason I am is because you’re letting me.’ I tightened my grip, because this was important. No, this was vital. ‘You have the power here, pretty thing. And you have it because your pleasure matters. It didn’t matter to him, not one fucking iota. But it matters to me.’

  She didn’t say anything, her attention focused on me as if she’d never seen me before in her entire life. And that made my cock even harder, my body liking the way she was staring at me very much indeed.

  ‘Let me look,’ I went on, letting her see the desire in my gaze. ‘Because you’re beautiful and I like looking at you. And I think there’s a part of you that likes me looking at you, too. A part that you don’t want to let yourself acknowledge.’

  Emotions flickered through her expressive face, gone so fast that I couldn’t decipher them. But then I felt the slight resistance drain from her arms, her wrist going lax in my grip. And she eased herself back in the seat, her chin lifting, the expression glowing in her eyes very clear now. A challenge. Because of course, she was a fighter.

  ‘Shall I show you how much you like it, then?’ I asked, to be certain.