Penmort Castle (Ghosts and Reincarnation #1)(46)

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?

Chapter Ten

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 f**king 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 f**k 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.