Penmort Castle (20 page)

And there
weren’t many people who would go head-to-head with him. In fact, at
that moment he couldn’t think of a single soul who would be that
stupid.

Or that
brave.

Instead of
laughing or shouting, he decided to try a different tack to get her
to submit.

His hands went
under her arms and he pulled her naked body out of the bed and
across his lap. She pressed her palms against his chest and tried
to pull away but his arms wrapped around her, crushing her to him,
her hands caught between them.

“What do you
think you’re doing?” she snapped right before he kissed her.

At first she
struggled. It took awhile for him to break through but finally she
started melting. Her hand forced its way from between them up to
his shoulder, his neck and into his hair, her other arm going down
and around his back. She pressed her torso to him and kissed him
back.

He reacted
instantly to her capitulation, his body started to heat and he felt
himself begin to get hard.

His lips slid
from hers to the expanse of skin on her neck below and just behind
her ear that he knew was highly sensitive. He wasn’t disappointed.
She trembled in his arms and he liked the feel of it.

“Cash, please,”
she whispered in his ear, her voice back to soft, sweet and
effective as her hands moved on him and he felt another strong
surge of desire.

“Abby,” he said
against her skin.

Both her hands
moved into his hair and she held it in gentle fists as her head
twisted and her mouth moved to his.

“It’s my
house,” she whispered there, “my responsibility, my mess. I have to
take care of it on my own this time.”

The words “my
mess” and “this time” registered in his brain for a brief moment
before she kissed him, her tongue touching his and she moved in his
lap to straddle him.

Then nothing
was in his head but the scent of her.

She wanted him,
he could smell it.

His mouth moved
to her jaw, down her neck, to her chest and as he pressed his hands
between her shoulder blades to arch her back, he found himself
agreeing, “All right, darling.”

Then his lips
closed around her nipple and he sucked in hard, hearing her soft
moan as he did it.

Shortly after,
when he had her on her back, him on top, his clothes were gone and
his mouth was moving down her chest, between the valley of her
breasts, down her belly, Cash dimly realised three things.

He was, for the
first time he could remember, going to be late for a meeting.

And he had, for
the first time he could remember, relented on something he fully
intended to do.

And he didn’t
give a fuck about either.

Then his hands
spread her legs and he tasted her.

When his mouth
touched her, he heard her gentle, rasping sigh, his mind erased and
he thought about nothing except Abby.

The Fight

Abigail Butler
was in a tizzy.

No, that wasn’t
correct, she was in
three
tizzies.

Firstly, and
probably least importantly (but at that particular moment, it was
the one that was most flipping her out), she had no clue what to
wear to dinner with Cash’s family that night at Penmort Castle.

Abby’s Mom was
English and growing up Abby had spent most of her vacations in
England. After Abby married, she and Ben came to visit Gram as
often as they could. There was also the fact that she’d lived there
for over a year. And England, being England, had its fair share of
castles.

Therefore Abby
had seen a great number of them. She’d even visited several. Some
of which had given tours.

She had,
however, never eaten dinner in one of them.

And therefore
she had no earthly clue what to wear.

The second
tizzy was caused by the distressing phone call she’d received that
day from a friend of hers in DC.

Abby, being
tremendously stupid, hadn’t thought about what people she knew
would think if they saw pictures of her and Cash in the press.

In fact, it
hadn’t even crossed her mind.

But then Lori
phoned from DC, breathless and excited to hear Abby’s spectacular
news; news about the new man in her life; news about the new man in
her life who happened to be a Famous, Super-Sexy, International
Industrial Spy Hunter. And lastly, news that Lori felt entitled to
seeing as she was Abby’s friend.

This
distressing phone call had the disturbing information that Lori had
seen a photo of Cash unsuccessfully shielding Abby from the camera
while letting them into his house the night of their moonlit stroll
in Bath.

Abby’s luck,
indisputably bad, meant that Lori didn’t see a picture of them
walking or talking or eating dinner.

No
.

It had to be a
photo of them at night, Cash protecting her gallantly from the
camera’s glare while letting them into his home. It had to be a
photo that served Cash’s purpose, showing the world that they’d
already passed “the first part” (the casual-dating,
getting-to-know-you part) and were well into “the second part” (the
not-casual-at-all, spending-the-night, clearly-lovers part).

Lori had been
in throes of ecstasy about the very
idea
of Abby with
famous, wealthy, unbelievably gorgeous Cash Fraser. But what made
matters worse was that she was beyond thrilled that Abby had
“finally moved on” from Ben and was clearly starting the next,
exciting chapter in her life.

Abby didn’t
know what to say. In fact, she didn’t even know what to
feel
.

In a lucky
twist, she didn’t have to say much of anything since Lori would not
shut up.

Which brought
Abby to her last tizzy.

The Tizzy to
end all Tizzies.

That morning
she and Cash had had a fight.

Not just a
fight but a rip-roaring, voices-raised, unpleasant-words-spoken
clash
.

She should not,
she figured, be fighting with her client. She reckoned most
experienced escorts avoided doing that.

But it had
happened.

And now she was
both angry and worried.

Angry at what
Cash had said though, if she was honest with herself (which she
found excruciatingly difficult to be at that juncture), none of it
was untrue. And angry with herself for feeling anything at all.

And worried
about so many things she couldn’t count them all.

She didn’t like
to fight with anyone and she found that fighting with Cash hurt. It
hurt a lot. And their fight had been ugly and she’d caused it, so
that made it hurt more.

She also
worried that they wouldn’t get passed this even though they had to
carry on with their arrangement.

And she worried
what it meant that she felt too much,
way
too much, for
Cash.

Enough to get
in a passionate verbal battle in the first place much less feel the
hurt after it had happened and further to feel pain that the reason
it happened was because she may have wounded him.

Abby reviewed
her situation.

On a Sunday,
she’d met him at the pub to negotiate “the arrangement”.

Their first
“date” was on a Monday.

And they’d made
love on Thursday night.

Then on Friday,
after she’d stupid, stupid,
stupidly
had sex with him,
breaking her own rule and altering their arrangement, everything
changed.

It changed for
Abby and she was relatively certain it also changed for Cash.

Friday, his
assistant Moira had called and said he’d be working late but home
by eight. Moira told Abby that Cash wanted dinner in. Moira also
informed her that Abby would be spending the weekend at Cash’s.

Abby didn’t
like Moira calling her instead of Cash. It scared her, especially
having her “orders” come from Moira right after Abby had (stupidly)
allowed their relationship to get intimate.

Abby worried
about it all day while the bathroom fitters were banging away and
she was wandering the rooms with little paint pots, painting
patches on the walls so she’d know what shades she wanted when the
time came to decorate.

While slapping
paint on the walls, she worried that now that he had her, the
challenge had been won and he’d lost interest.

He
was
Cash Fraser, she reminded herself. He could have anyone,
undoubtedly very easily, even her as he’d proved.

She worried, as
it was the best sex she ever had (okay, so it was the best
three
sexual experiences she’d ever had), both in the
pleasure-sense and in a way that seemed weirdly more profound, a
way Abby refused, in her current state of turmoil, to fully
explore, that Cash hadn’t felt the same.

Further, she
worried that it
was
the best sex she’d ever had and what
that said about her and also what that said about how she felt
about Ben.

Ben and Abby
had had a full, satisfying and happy sex life. Ben had been a very
good lover, at the time Abby thought he was great.

But what she
had with Cash transcended great, going straight to
amazing
.

Further to
that
, she worried about worrying about Cash not thinking it
was amazing and what
that
said.

Friday night,
she made sure she was at his house in plenty of time to make him
dinner. She was careful to make something nice, better than pasta
shells, but not too nice which would say she was trying too hard.
She also went back to her Dinner at Cash’s House Look, jeans, a
nice sweater and for courage, her makeup was done in “Carefree
Splendour” (casual with a hint of glamour).

She heard the
door open upstairs at ten past eight and she found to her agony
that she was nervous as a teenager on her first date.

She was
listening to Billie Holiday turned down low and freaking out about
her decision to buy, and bring, a few scented candles which she had
lit.

His home,
although gorgeous, had zero personal touches and she thought it
could use some. Furthermore, she liked candles and knew the scent
would soothe her.

But as she
heard Cash approach, she looked around and it seemed like she was
both being way too familiar in adding anything to his house when
this was not her place
and
that she looked like she was
trying to strike a mood.

Before she
could dash through the room, blow them out, toss them in the
rubbish and turn off Billie singing the blues, she saw his legs on
the stairs.

Bloody
hell
, she thought as he came into view, wearing a charcoal grey
suit, a forest green shirt and a great tie which made her wonder
(somewhat frantically but also not for the first time) if he just
had good taste in clothing or if he had a personal shopper.

He was carrying
a large, glossy bag containing various-sized, thin but wide,
boxes.

She didn’t
think about the bag, she thought instead about how to stop herself
from fainting.

He stepped off
the last stair and, eyes on her, walked to the comfy seating area
off the kitchen and put the bag on a chair. Then he shrugged off
his suit jacket and that joined it. Then he tugged off his tie and
that joined it as well.

He was turned
to her and in the process of unbuttoning the top three buttons of
his shirt, he spoke.

“What’s the
matter?” he asked and her body jerked when his deep voice hit the
room.

“What?” she
queried, her mind blank.

His hands,
finished with his buttons, went to rest on his hips.

“What’s the
matter?” he repeated.

Her brain
decided to function and, trying to sound calm (and fearing it
didn’t work), she replied, “Nothing’s the matter.”

“Then why are
you standing across the room staring at me like I’m a dread serial
killer and you’re in my clutches?” His voice was bland, his words
filled with dry humour.

Abby, however,
didn’t laugh.

“I am not,”
Abby returned but his words told her that she’d failed at sounding
or appearing calm.

She watched in
fascination as his face took on a warm, soft look.

Normally, he
looked amazing.

When he smiled,
he was breath-takingly handsome.

When he
laughed, the world seemed to stop.

That look beat
all of them.

“Abby, come
here,” he said gently.

On shaking legs
she did as he commanded.

When she got
close enough, his arms went around her loosely and he held her
close but not too close.

In his deeper,
throatier, sexier brogue, he demanded, “Now, tell me, what’s the
matter?”

And for some
unhinged reason, Abby blurted, “You had Moira call me.”

His head gave a
small jerk then tilted slightly to the side. “I’m sorry?”

“Moira, your
assistant?” she said on a question as if he didn’t know his own
assistant’s name. “She called me today,” she explained and went on,
“you didn’t.”

Cash stared at
her a moment and Abby held her breath.

Then she
watched as he threw his head back and let out a deep, rich bark of
laughter before his arms closed tightly around her, crushing her
body to his. His head came down and he buried his face in her
neck.

Still laughing
against her neck, he muttered, “I see.”

She pushed her
body back and twisted her head to look at him. “You see what?”

He was still
smiling when his head came up and his eyes locked on hers. “I see
you’re pissed off that I didn’t call.”

“No, I –” she
started but his arms gave her a gentle squeeze, effectively
silencing her.

“I was in
meetings all day. Unfortunately what I do means I have a lot of
meetings. Even though I’d vastly prefer to be on the phone talking
to you, or listening to the crazy shit that goes on in your house,
sometimes I won’t be able to call.” One of his hands came up and
gave her neck that gentle squeeze she liked way too damned much.
“Abby, you’re going to have to get used to that.”