Penmort Castle (Ghosts and Reincarnation #1)(23)

There was, she had to admit, something about him calling her “darling” that she liked way too damned much.

However, when he said it into her neck while they were in bed, she liked it a whole lot better which made it worse.

A lot worse.

“Not entirely,” she muttered her lie.

She was completely awake and totally panicked.

She felt his body laugh even though she didn’t hear it. His face came out of her neck and his fingers put pressure on her hip to roll her to her side and into him.

She lifted her hands and pressed them against his chest as his face went to the other side of her neck.

“Let’s see,” his voice rumbled against her skin, “you sleep like a dead weight pressed into me all night and all of a sudden your body jerks and freezes and you pull away. I’m thinking you’re pretty f**king awake.”

Abby was stunned and not about the fact that he knew she was lying. “I slept like that all night?”

“You rolled into me five minutes after you drifted off and stayed there.”

Abby was even more stunned. She was certain he fell asleep before her.

“Sorry,” she mumbled.

His face went away and although she couldn’t see him she felt his eyes on her.

“Sorry about what?” he asked.

“Sorry if I bothered you while you were sleeping,” she told him. “And sorry if I woke you up.”

His mouth came to hers and he murmured, “Don’t be. I’m not.”

Then he brushed his lips against hers softly and after his mouth trailed down her cheek to her ear.

It occurred to Abby at that moment that something was not quite right.

Then she felt his tongue touch the skin under her ear.

Her belly dipped.

“What are you doing?” she asked, her voice breathy, her hands putting light pressure on his chest.

“Tasting you,” he whispered in her ear and she felt a happy tingle slide from her ear downward.

Her hands on his chest pressed harder. “Um, Cash, we have a deal,” she reminded him.

“Yes,” he murmured his mouth moving to trail along her jaw, “we do.”

She found breathing was becoming difficult. “Cash, stop it.”

“No,” was his surprising and terrifying answer.

She’d been correct, something was definitely not right.

“Cash!” she gave him a shove and his body stayed where it was but his head came up.

“Abby,” he returned patiently, his mouth had gone away but his face was close and his hand at her hip had somewhere along the line become an arm wrapped tightly around her waist.

“Are you reneging on the deal?” she asked, her voice sharp.

“No.”

She pushed at his chest again. “What do call this?”

At her push, his arm got tighter and his other hand forced itself under her, travelling up her back to sift into her hair and cup the back of her head.

What Cash said next made all the breath force itself rather painfully out of Abby’s lungs.

“I agreed not to f**k you until we went to the castle. I didn’t agree not to do anything else.”

Abby thought immediately this was not a fortuitous turn of events.

“Well I didn’t agree to anything else,” she retorted angrily.

Anger, she hoped, would hide her fear.

“You didn’t stipulate against it either,” he replied.

This was true.

“Then I do now,” she told him.

His fingers twisted in her hair.

This was not painful. It was gentle and highly effective as it caused a pleasurable tremor to slide from her scalp all the way through her body.

“Abby,” he said softly, “so far I’ve paid nineteen thousand nine hundred and ninety nine pounds to spend approximately eleven hours with you, the majority of that sleeping. Do you honestly believe I’d pay that much to take you out to dinner and chat with you in my kitchen?”

She had to agree that sounded absurd.

Then again, everything about this situation was absurd.

“I’m not comfortable with this,” she declared even though she wasn’t entirely certain what “this” was. She was, however, relatively certain she was uncomfortable with it.

“Do you want to back out?” he asked even as his arms grew tighter.

“I think I do,” she responded, even though all of a sudden she wasn’t certain she did.

“Then you can pay me back thirty K and we’ll call it off.”

Her body seized and her mind flew through quick calculations of the money she’d already spent and the money she likely needed.

The original ten grand she’d asked for was the bare minimum of what she needed to take off the pressure of her debt and get current (and this was before she knew she needed major work done to the only usable bathroom in the house). She’d intended on selling some heirlooms, finding a job and hoping to stay on top of things.

The fifty thousand he’d already paid her would get her entirely out of debt as well as allow her to do some much needed updating to Gram’s house.

The two hundred thousand would allow her to fix up the house so it was thoroughly restored. It would allow her to keep Gram’s lovingly conserved collections of vintage clothing and priceless (to Abby) family heirlooms. And it would give her a generous nest egg allowing Abby time to decide what she wanted to be when she grew up.