Penmort Castle (19 page)

And it
was
scrumptious, momentous and earth-shattering, pounding
through her body as Cash pounded inside her.

After, when
Abby was coming down, her body tight around his (both her limbs and
other better places), was when she heard him pull in his breath. He
drove into her one, last, succulent time and she knew she had
him.

And that was
earth-shattering too.

When they were
done his weight relaxed into her. Her arms flexed, her thigh
tightened at his side and her leg curled deeper around his waist
and she found, stupidly and ridiculously, she wanted to hold onto
him. She wanted to hold onto the man who lit welcoming lights, who
worried about her when she was late, who showed patience with an
old, lonely woman, who found his mother after she committed suicide
and was brave enough to talk about it.

She wanted to
hold onto Cash Fraser and the magic of this moment forever.

Then sanity, as
it had a way of doing, invaded.

And she
wondered what, in all holy hell, she was doing.

She’d just
given
herself to him.

This wasn’t
supposed to happen.

Then,
heartbreakingly, she remembered Ben.

There had been
no one since him. When she was with him, she never even considered
another man.

Now, she’d just
let Cash fuck her.

In fact, she’d
practically begged him to do it.

What was the
matter with her?

Cash’s face
came out of her neck as his hand released her hair.

“Abby.”

She tipped her
chin down to look at him in the shadows, wondering how she was
going to get out of her latest, stupid, stupid, stupid Abby
behaviour.

She was
thinking, hysterically, she’d blame it on the drink before he
spoke.

“Don’t fucking
shut down on me.” His voice was a warning, holding an edge of
anger, making her scarily aware that, even in the dark, he could
read her.

“I’m not
shutting down,” she lied.

“You fucking
well are,” he clipped and since he was using the word “fuck” a lot,
she knew he wasn’t edging toward anger, he was there. Before she
could process this (as in, let it freak her out), he went on. “What
just happened was good.”

“Cash.”

“I don’t give a
fuck about whatever fucking rules you have. That was
you
that you just gave me. I wanted it, you gave it, I took it and I’m
not fucking giving it back.”

“Cash –” she
started again.

“No, Abby,
you’re mine,” he declared and genuine fear started edging out the
beginnings of panic, the despair at her reckless behaviour and the
full-tilt guilt.

“What does that
mean?” she whispered and his hand came to rest against the side of
her face.

“Five days ago,
I paid for a part of you. Just now, you
gave
me all of you.
And I’m not fucking giving it back.” She pulled in breath at what
he said and what he might mean but he kept talking. “This is mine,”
he said, moving his hips and she couldn’t help it, he was still
inside her, it felt good and her own hips pressed into his in
response. Then his mouth came to hers. “And this mine,” he murmured
before he brushed his lips against hers then his hand left her face
to trail down her side. “And this is mine,” he went on, his hand
coming back to her face, his thumb gliding along her cheek. “And,
darling, this is mine.”

“Cash, I think
it’s safe to say you’re freaking me out,” she informed him softly
and honestly, her voice proving her words true.

She saw in the
dark his white teeth flash in a smile as his anger disappeared.

Then he
whispered, “Get used to that feeling, Abby. Because when
something’s mine, it’s
mine
and I never give it up without a
fight. And even if someone’s fool enough to fight me, they never
win.”

“Cash, you
can’t have me, I’m not yours to have,” she told him, her voice now
sounding a wee bit desperate.

His mouth came
back to hers and she
felt
that he was still smiling.

“Oh yes,
darling, you are,” he said there and he kissed her.

And right
before his tongue touched hers and she lost herself again, Abigail
Butler thought,
Oh bloody hell. Now what have I done?

The Morning
After

Cash woke to
find Abby curled beside him on the bed in the curve of his
outstretched arm. Her knees were touching his calf, one of her
hands resting light on his stomach, her head was on her other hand
on the mattress, forehead pressed into his side.

Though it was
an odd position, it felt both intimate and poignant.

He felt
something else and glanced down to see Abby’s cat was curled
between their bodies, snug in the crook of her lap.

He rarely slept
the night with a woman, preferring his own bed and the statement it
made when he left them to theirs.

However every
once in awhile, particularly if his partner had satisfied him, he’d
break this rule.

But he’d never
shared a bed with a cat.

He looked to
his left and saw her clock announcing it was four thirty.

Staying at her
house added an hour to his commute. He liked to be in the office by
seven at the latest.

He needed to
get up, get home, showered and to work.

He didn’t
move.

He listened to
the silence of Abby’s house and allowed himself a moment to process
the conflicting emotions of triumph and disquiet that he felt.

Cash Fraser had
had many women in his life.

Two of them
were long-term relationships.

Neither of
these ended well. They didn’t like his work schedule which left
little time for them. They didn’t like his travel and he wouldn’t
take them along as he didn’t like distractions. And they tried to
impose restrictions on his life and activities which Cash would not
abide.

Therefore, both
times, he ended it.

The other
women, often enjoyable, sometimes disappointing, were mostly
acquired to satisfy him in bed.

None of them
was even close to what he had from Abby, out of bed, and now in
it.

Last night,
with her abandoned response, Abby had taken him somewhere no woman
had shown him. He’d never had a woman who let the barriers down so
thoroughly, inviting him inside, not just to experience fucking
great sex ending in a staggering orgasm, but something far
deeper.

He didn’t know
he wanted it. In fact, if he’d been asked before he had it, he
would have said he didn’t.

But once it was
his, he claimed it with a ferocity that surprised even Cash.

Since the day
they met, Cash wondered which of her responses was genuine and
which was an act for which she’d been paid.

Last night
wasn’t an act.

The arrangement
was, he could fuck her only after they’d gone to the castle.

She’d almost
begged him to take her last night, giving him herself for free.

Now she was
his, even more than when he’d paid for her.

The second time
was nearly as good as the first. He’d taken off the rest of their
clothes and he’d taken his time.

He searched for
her sweet spots, found them and manipulated them ruthlessly until
she was writhing underneath him and begging for release.

While he was
doing this, she was doing much the same, her hands and mouth on
him, her long limbs tangling with his, her touch bold. She was open
and giving of herself and her responses while offering pleasure in
return for what she took.

Like everything
else about her, it was exquisite.

This was why he
felt triumph.

The disquiet he
felt was twofold.

Firstly, and
less importantly, was his overwhelming desire to possess her. He
wasn’t certain what he wanted from her and there was nothing in
Cash’s life of which he wasn’t certain.

He knew it was
cliché, his intent to conquer the professional escort, break
through her façade, force her response, make her his.

He thought
little of this. There were many things Cash Fraser had desired in
life, things others would have thought unobtainable and with
single-minded purpose, he got them.

Abby would be
no different.

And the minute
she told him she wanted him inside her, he decided he wanted
all
of her.

And that was
what he would have.

Secondly, from
the beginning something didn’t strike true about Abigail Butler,
Paid Escort.

She’d hid it
better at first but he felt, especially looking back, there were
signs that what she wanted him to see and what was real were two
different things.

She had the
bearing, the coolness, the clothing, the car, all the
trappings.

But her home,
her cat, her friends, her nosy neighbour, her heartbreaking history
and the way she behaved with him didn’t quite add together.

Not that anyone
in her business wouldn’t have a life outside the job it was just
that she let him in so quickly.

Cash felt
something was not quite right.

And it
disturbed him.

On that
thought, deciding to concern himself with this later and start his
day, he slid away from her carefully, not waking her but her cat
gave a tired mew.

He strolled
into the hall and saw what he didn’t see last night. There were
boxes and tools everywhere which he found surprising. The rooms on
the first floor were clean, tidy and uncluttered.

He dodged them
as best he could in the dark and headed toward where he guessed
(rightly, in a way) he’d find the bathroom.

He pulled on
the light and stopped dead.

Except for the
toilet, the room was gutted. Bare floorboards, no tile, no tub, no
sink. The back wall looked like it had been set with new
plasterboard, the floor underneath had new boards.

Clearly Abby
was having some work done on her house.

Leaving those
unappealing facilities, he turned out the light and walked up the
stairs to the top floor. The house was huge, there had to be
another bathroom.

He located it
but discovered that the only thing that worked was the light.

He walked back
down to her room, pulled on his boxers and headed down passed the
ground floor, where he knew from his movements last night there was
no bathroom, to the garden level.

He found
another bathroom, as ancient as the one on the top floor.

It, too, was
not functioning.

“What the
fuck?” he muttered, annoyed. He retraced his steps, using the only
facilities available to him and went back to her room.

He got fully
dressed and sat on the edge of her bed. Her cat’s head came up and
he gave an enquiring meow but kept his place.

Sometime after
Cash’s departure from the bed, she’d moved up and curled into
Cash’s pillow, her arms tight around it.

Cash shifted
the hair off her neck and bent to her ear.

“Abby, I’m
leaving.”

She stirred
slightly and her head turned toward his voice but she stayed
silent.

“Abby,” he
called when she didn’t have a further response.

She sleepily
got up on her elbow, her hand pulling her hair out of her face
holding it there as her eyes moved to the clock.

Then her head
turned to him.

“Do you always
get up this early?” she murmured in her soft, sexy, very effective,
early morning voice.

“Yes,” he
replied, his mind doing a scan of his schedule and finding, to his
disappointment, that he didn’t have time to do what he very much
wanted to do to Abby before he needed to be at his first
meeting.

Dropping her
hair, she fell back to the pillows and told him, “That would
suck.”

He smiled at
her quiet, amusing words and then asked, “Abby, what’s going on
with your bathrooms?”

He felt rather
than saw her body go still.

And he also
thought this was an unusual reaction to a simple question.

Then her head
turned on the pillow to look up at him. “I’m having a few problems
with the plumbing.”

It would
appear, even to someone who knew nothing about such things, with
three bathrooms out of commission, she was having more than “a few
problems”.

She was back to
withholding from him and Cash didn’t like it.

“Do you need me
to call someone to come and look at it?” Cash enquired, attempting
patience in order to control his irritation that after all they’d
shared last night she’d fallen back to earlier habits.

She got up on
her elbow again and replied, “No, it’s under control.”

“Under control
is having at least one working shower,” Cash returned. “Not under
control in a house this size, or any house for that matter, is
having only a working toilet.”

“It’s being
taken care of,” she told him.

“When?” he
pressed.

Abby sat up
fully holding the covers to her naked body and replied, “They’re
working on it.”

Cash was
finished with the conversation. “I’ll make a call,” he declared.
“I’ll send someone to have a look at what’s happening and keep them
on target. You’ll have a working bathtub by tomorrow night.”

When she spoke
again, her voice had lost that early morning sweetness and he knew
she was getting angry. “Cash, I’m taking care of it.”

“No, you
were
taking care of it. Now,
I’m
taking care of
it.”

“Cash!” she
snapped.

“I’m not
discussing this,” he finished.

“Well I bloody
well am,” she retorted.

“Abby,” he
stated in a way that made it clear this conversation was over.

“Cash,” she
mimicked his tone.

At her words
and her tone, Cash wanted to laugh at the same time he wanted to
shout.

She was quite
often unbelievably adorable, even when she was angry.