Penmort Castle

Chapter Five Sleeping with Cash

Upon opening the door to his home, Cash smelled the food and it was instantly apparent that Abby could cook.

He also heard the music.

It was hard not to. The neighbours could likely hear the music.

This was because it was loud.

He threw his overcoat around the newel post and headed to the back of the stairs, rounded the wall and then down the backstairs toward the kitchen which was at garden level.

He was late, tied up at work. He’d called and told her this fact. She was already at his house when he’d phoned and she didn’t seem to mind that he’d be home at nine rather than seven, as he’d told Moira to tell her he’d be.

He did mind.

Further, he minded that she obviously didn’t.

Now it was a quarter after nine and it sounded like she was having a blowout party attended by rock stars, groupies and their various and assorted roadies and hangers on.

He made it to the garden level of his three-story townhouse to see, thankfully, she was not having a party.

Instead she was reading a magazine.

When he bought his house in Bath and started renovations, he’d had this level torn out so most of it was open plan. Then he’d hired an interior designer who designed the space for him.

Against the back wall there was a modern, black, chrome and stainless steel, state-of-the-art kitchen that several women he’d brought to his home had been in gales of ecstasy about but Cash, himself, rarely used.

At the foot of the stairs separated from the kitchen area by a wide counter with tall stools was a comfortable seating area he never used.

Across from the stairs and extending from the kitchen there was a modern, black-lacquered dining table that seated twelve that he sometimes wondered why he’d purchased because he’d never sat there.

There was a cloakroom under the stairs and the only interior door, off the dining area, led to a workout room with a rowing machine, elliptical machine, weights and weight bench that, outside of his bedroom, was the room he used most in the house.

The wall to the garden shared by the kitchen and seating area had been fitted almost entirely with floor-to-ceiling windows including a set of French doors.

Abby was lying on her stomach on his enormous, scarlet red couch.

She was, he was surprised to see, wearing a pair of bottom-hugging jeans, high-heeled shoes with what looked like a number of thin, sexy straps at the ankle and a taupe jumper woven in such a way that it was see-through and visible underneath was a creamy camisole.

Her back was to him and her hair was in a ponytail at the back of her head. She had her knees bent, ankles crossed, feet swaying in the air and she was flipping through the pages of a magazine.

She looked like the stereotypical American teenager and if he heard her snap some gum in her mouth, he wouldn’t have been surprised.

His hand went to the knot in his tie and pulled while he called, “Abby.”

He watched as her body jerked.

Then her head twisted around, ponytail flipping over her shoulder, and her eyes locked on him in stunned surprise.

She regarded him as if she was house sitting and expected him at that moment to be in a business meeting halfway around the world, not in his house as he told her he’d be.

“You’re home,” she announced unnecessarily.

“That and I’m starving,” he replied.

“You’re late,” she told him, not moving from her position.

“I called,” he informed her, yanking off his tie, walking deeper into the room and tossing it on the large grey chair that sat perpendicular to the couch.

“You called and said you’d be here at nine. It’s not nine. It’s after nine,” she returned.

Cash shrugged off his suit jacket, it joined his tie and he unbuttoned the top three buttons of his shirt.

He was not in the mood for this.

He planned to have been there the last two and a quarter hours, eating the food she’d cooked for him and exploring the sexual boundaries of their arrangement.

He had not planned to be as tired as he was as hungry as he was and as late as he was. Further, he had not planned to come home to smell something nearly as enticing as her ass in those jeans, enter into a loud conversation with her so he could be heard over her music and have her behave like she was his actual girlfriend, something which, for many years, he avoided having.

This was one of the reasons he did not approach any of the women of his acquaintance to perform the duties he was paying Abby for as he had no desire to give them any ideas. And they’d get them, he was certain.

“Abby,” Cash stated wearily, “I’m shattered. I need a drink, food and bed in that order.”

She studied him calmly for a moment then put her hands in the couch and lifted in a push up, twisting her hips into a sitting position. She rose to her feet and went to the stereo, turning down the music to a decibel level that was almost, but not quite, normal.

“What do you drink?” she asked, her spiked heels sounding on the wood floors as she walked to the kitchen.

“Tonight, whisky,” he answered, watching her move through his house.

She went directly to the cabinet where his housekeeper stored the liquor and opened the door.

Obviously she’d become acquainted with his kitchen.

“Water?” she asked.

“No.”

“Ice?”

“No.”

“How many fingers?”

She was also obviously acquainted with whisky.

“Two,” he answered.

She took down the whisky and a squat glass and poured two fingers while he went to the stereo and turned the music down passed normal straight to old woman.

When he turned away from the stereo, she was in front of him with his glass.

“I think it might be illegal in a few countries to play Foreigner that low,” she declared in her soft voice.

“I doubt England is one of those countries,” Cash returned.

“I bet Scotland isn’t,” she replied and seeing her mischievous grin, suddenly, he wanted to kiss her.

Not touch his tongue briefly to hers but kiss her so hard, so long and so thoroughly he could smell her sex mingled with her perfume.

She didn’t read his mind instead, she went on to tease, “Though, considering your people brought us the Bay City Rollers, maybe not.”

It was deeply unfortunate, Cash thought, that she’d teased him.

That made him want to kiss her even more.

He didn’t because he knew if he did, at that moment, he might not be able to stop.

He took the whisky from her and lifted it to his lips, his eyes watching her over the rim of the glass. Even dressed casually with very little makeup, she was stunning.

Before taking a drink, he returned, “My people also brought you Nazareth.”

He watched her warm hazel eyes grow even warmer.

“Touché,” she replied softly.

Good Christ, he thought, taking in her warm eyes and soft tone and he found it took a supreme effort of will not to reach for her.

She seemed oblivious to his rampaging thoughts and turned, again heading toward the kitchen.

“I ate already,” she informed him as she moved and he followed.

This did not please him.

He didn’t respond. He leaned a hip against the counter and saw the kitchen was clean and tidy, only a glass half-filled with red wine sat on one of the counters.

Abby took down a plate.

“If I eat late, I don’t sleep. My body doesn’t like it,” she shared.

He knew she liked her sleep, she’d told him that morning when he’d woken her to hear her sweet, soft voice sounding husky, irate and adorable.

He watched her pull out cutlery and set it beside the plate she’d retrieved and while he did so he found that he didn’t like that he knew exactly eight pertinent facts about her. These being she sold her body for money, couldn’t sleep if she ate late, lived in her grandmother’s house, had a dead husband, liked loud music, red wine and sleep and, most importantly, she sounded unbelievably fuckable in the morning.

“I would have preferred you waited for me,” he told her honestly.

Her gaze shifted to him as she pulled on oven mitts.

“Sorry,” she murmured, sounding like she actually was, and turned away to open the oven door.

The tantalising smell came out in a wave and she extricated an earthenware pan filled with what looked like pasta shells overstuffed with meat and sauce and covered in cheese.

“Stuffed pasta shells, garlic bread and salad,” she announced, setting the pan on a pad, she threw off the mitts with an expert flick of her wrists and her eyes went back to him. “Baked pears with cream and chocolate sauce for dessert,” she told him, reaching to pull open the drawer by his hip. “I ate my dessert too,” she admitted.

“If that’s as good as it smells, I’ll forgive you,” he told her.

“It is,” she smiled then bent her head, grabbed a serving spoon and shut the drawer.

“Who taught you to cook?” he asked as she served up the shells.

“Mom,” she replied.

“Is your mother close?” he enquired.

“I like to think so,” was her strange and, Cash thought, evasive answer.

Cash didn’t let it go.

She might wish to remain distant but he didn’t want that and he bloody well paid enough to have her as close as he wanted her.

Which was exactly what he was going to get if he had to tie her down and interrogate her.

Shaking off that altogether too stimulating thought, he pressed, “Is she in England?”

“No,” Abby replied.

“America,” he stated.

“Yes.”

“That’s not exactly close,” Cash remarked.

She’d finished serving up the shells and was returning to the oven for the bread. “Well, she’s not exactly in America,” she came back to the counter with the bread, gracefully flipping the oven door closed with her foot before she did. Her eyes stayed on her task as she went on, “It’s more like she is and she isn’t.”

“That sounds difficult to do,” Cash observed.

She tore off an enormous chunk of what looked like homemade garlic bread and put it on his plate before her eyes met his.

“She’s dead, Cash.”

Her quiet words felt like a blow to the belly.

Fucking hell but he was a bastard.

“Abby,” he said softly by way of an apology.

“It’s okay. It was a long time ago,” she told him, putting his fork on the plate and handing it to him then she moved to the fridge.

Cash carried on, he shouldn’t have but he didn’t know that so he did. “Is your father still in America?”

“Yep,” she said casually, head in the fridge, “lying beside Mom.”

When she turned around, hands holding a big salad bowl, her gaze came to his. He saw her eyes were carefully guarded. His eyes were on her, his fork suspended halfway to his mouth.

She went on matter-of-factly, “Heart attack. Dad. Cancer. Mom. Mom went first. Two years apart.”

With some effort, he started to eat.

The food was, incidentally, better than it smelled.

She put his salad in another bowl, dressed it and slid it along the counter to where he was eating and watching her.

She was busying herself putting away the food when he remarked, “That must have been rough.”

“It happens.”

“It does, Abby, that doesn’t mean it isn’t rough.”

She finished with wrapping foil around the shells and, head bent to the pan, she replied quietly, “Miss them every day.”

He felt her four words settle heavily somewhere in his gut.

He decided to let her be and as she put the food into the fridge he told her, “That may be the first time anyone used that oven.”

She closed the refrigerator door and came back to the counter saying, “I wondered why it was sparkling clean. I thought you might be obsessive compulsive.”

“I have a housekeeper,” he looked pointedly around the pristine room then back to Abby. “The jury’s out on if she’s obsessive compulsive.”

He heard her soft laughter as she jumped up to sit on the counter and grabbed her wineglass.

“My verdict, yes,” she said to him with a grin and he was experiencing the strong desire to put his food aside and kiss her when he watched an unusual look cross her face.

She was, Cash realised, struggling with something.

He didn’t wait for her to win her struggle because her winning, he thought (correctly) would mean him losing.

“What is it, Abby?” he asked.

“Nothing,” she promptly replied.

“Say it,” he demanded.

“Cash –”

“Abby, what is it?” he sounded just as impatient and annoyed as he was getting with her cagey behaviour.

“I just wondered…” she hesitated then lifted her hand as if to pull her hair out of her face but then she encountered it tied back and looked endearingly confused for a moment before her hand drifted down to her lap.

He waited.

She took a sip of wine.

He finished his pasta and salad and prompted, “You wondered what?”

Her eyes came to him. “About your folks,” she cleared her throat, “I wondered about your folks.”

Cash didn’t hesitate. “My father’s dead, no one knows how. Mysterious circumstances.”

Her face gentled. “I’m sorry, Cash.”

“Don’t be, I never knew him.”

He saw surprise flash in her eyes before she said, “I’m sorry about that too.”

He moved to put his dishes in the sink. “Don’t be sorry about that either, from what I know, he was a twat.”

When he turned from the sink, she was watching him and, gently, she repeated, “I’m sorry about that too.”

At her words, instead of walking to her, forcing open her legs and pulling her into his arms, moulding her body to his, crotch to chest, so he could kiss her like he very much wanted to do, he leaned his hip against the sink, crossed his arms on his chest and replied, “I’m sorry about it too.”

She took another sip of wine, tilted her head and asked, “Your Mom?”

“Suicide. I was fifteen.”

Her eyes got wide and she breathed, “Bloody hell,” she shook her head and went on, “oh my God.”

“I found her,” Cash, likely suffering from guilt for forcing her to talk about her own dead parents, found himself sharing a piece of information that he rarely shared with anyone.

“Oh my God,” she repeated.

“It wasn’t a surprise. She’d tried three times before,” Cash continued.

Her back straightened and she lifted a hand that Cash saw was shaking before she demanded in a voice as shaky as her hand, “Please, stop talking.”

“She wasn’t a well woman, Abby, it was the reason my father didn’t marry her,” Cash explained because she was looking pale and for some reason in pain.

Her look intrigued him.

Women looked at him in many different ways all of which he could read. Cash knew Abby was horrified by what he’d shared but he didn’t quite understand the pain.

“Still,” she whispered, breaking him out of his thoughts, “you found her?”

“It was expected. Every time I came home, I expected something. She was manic depressive, amongst other things, and refused to take meds. When she was high, she was brilliant, funny, beautiful, smart, full of energy. When she was down, she was suicidal. It’s not as tragic as it sounds if it’s your life. It’s only tragic when it’s not,” Cash stated calmly because he was calm. He’d long since learned this lesson and he’d learned it very well. “She was the one who called me Cash, came up with it during a high. I was very young and it stuck. I don’t remember ever answering to anything else.”

Latching onto a change of topic, Abby asked, “What’s your real name?”

“Conner.”

She observed him for a moment.

“Yeah,” she said softly, “that fits too.”

He moved toward her and stopped in front of her. He leaned in and put his hands on the counter at either side of her hips.

He watched as her body tensed and he ignored it.

“When I met you, I thought the name ‘Abby’ didn’t suit you,” he told her.

“Really?” she asked, leaning away from him but, he noted, trying to look like she wasn’t.

This nearly made him laugh.

“Really,” he replied and moved closer, “but tonight, you’re an Abby.”

“I’m always Abby,” she returned then, with her voice slightly breathy and higher than normal, she asked, “Do you want pears?”

“Not right now,” he answered.

“More whisky?” she queried.

Cash shook his head.

She bit the side of her lower lip just like she did the day he met her.

He’d been right, it was adorable.

With his eyes still on her mouth he said, “Right now, it’s time for bed.”

Abby opened her eyes to a feeling of warm unfamiliarity mingled with the realisation that it was early morning and dark.

For a moment she was pleasantly confused.

Then her brain woke, her senses cleared, her vision adjusted and panic ensued.

In the shadows she could see a wide expanse of chest and a bedside clock that said it was twenty past five.

Both the chest and the clock belonged to Cash.

Her body froze as she took in her position.

She was lying, tucked tight to his side, her thigh thrown over one of his. She was curled so deeply into him that her calf had fallen between his legs. Her head was resting heavily on his shoulder, a good deal of her body doing the same down the length of his and her arm was wrapped around his waist.

She found this position disturbing in a variety of ways.

Firstly, she had not slept in a bed with anyone other than Jenny since Ben died and she couldn’t believe she’d had any sleep at all beside Cash much less almost on top of him but it appeared she had.

Secondly, she’d never cuddled with Ben in sleep, not because she didn’t want to but because Ben didn’t like it. He’d gently told her early in their sexual relationship that he preferred to be unhindered while sleeping. This had always secretly disappointed her and after he’d died she yearned to go back in time with the knowledge of what would befall them and coax him into learning how to sleep with her pressed against him.

Lastly, she barely knew Cash Fraser. She’d been in his company only three times. Yet she felt comfortable and snugly warm cuddled up to Cash’s long, hard body in a way that wasn’t forbidden or wrong (as she thought it should feel) but instead in a way that seemed perfectly natural (as she thought it was not).

Last night, after he told her it was time for bed Abby had been close to hysteria.

It took all her energy and concentration not to let on this was the case.

Indeed, their very short evening together took a lot of energy and concentration.

There was something weirdly intimate passing between them regardless of the fact that they barely knew one another. She thought it had a lot to do with her being in his home, cooking for him and waiting for him to get home from work. These were things you didn’t do on a second date. These were things you did for someone you knew well and cared about.

She was also trying to be friendly without being too friendly and she thought this might be working though she found it immensely taxing. Cash made it harder by deciding, freakishly (to Abby’s way of thinking), to deepen their conversation past the trivial to the very personal. Pressing her for information and openly sharing the horror stories of his mother and father didn’t help. It was impossible to stay distant from someone who told you he didn’t know his father outside of the fact he was a “twat” and found his mother after she committed suicide.

In fact, any human with a modicum of compassion was forced by all the rules of being a human with a modicum of compassion not to stay distant when such a story was shared.

Even though nothing about him invited it, indeed he seemed entirely adjusted to his hideously sad history, Abby had wanted to put her arms around him. She found it almost painful not to give into this instinct.

But then he’d said they were going to bed and everything else flew out of her head.

He’d moved away from her on the counter (thankfully) and asked where her bag was. She told him, they went upstairs, he retrieved it from the lounge and took her to his bedroom. All the while, Abby’s sense of doom intensified.

He had an enormous master suite on the second floor, replete with a huge king-size bed covered in a deep grey comforter with six big, fluffy pillows stacked at the head, three to a side, two in black pillow cases, two in midnight blue and the top in a matching grey sham. The furniture in the room was heavy, dark and uber-masculine. The look, like everything else in his house (and everything about him) was powerfully male, sleek, expensive and modern.

He showed her to the adjoining bathroom. It was immaculate white, looked brand new and fitted with what appeared to be a top-of-the-line bathroom suite. It had grey accent tiles and thick, luxurious towels in the colours of his bed sheets.

He left her in the bathroom; she closed the door behind him and changed.

The search for a casual but classy outfit in which to cook dinner for Cash Fraser, International Spy Catcher, was nothing compared to the search for what to wear to his bed.

She didn’t want to give him any ideas by wearing anything alluring but she also didn’t want to step out of her role of Cool Paid Escort to the Rich and Famous by wearing what she’d normally wear (a pair of comfy PJs).

She and Jenny had settled on a dusty-blue nightgown made of super-soft, stretchy cotton that hugged her upper body and fell to a line of charcoal-grey lace at the hem just above her knees. Thin, grey, satin straps held the nightgown to her shoulders but there was no other adornment. It was fitted and graceful without being overtly sexy.

She donned the nightgown, brushed her teeth, washed her face, applied moisturiser, pulled out her ponytail and, taking a deep, calming breath (which didn’t work in any way, shape or form), she walked out to the bedroom.

Cash had turned on the overhead light to the room when they entered but now only a soft light shone from the sleekly lined lamp on the bedside table that had a black shade and a glass base. He was standing by the bed, his BlackBerry in hand, his thumb pressing buttons, wearing nothing but a pair of dark grey, cotton, drawstring pyjama bottoms, the quality of the material demonstrated by a low sheen.

His chest and feet were bare.

Abby (and her rapidly beating heart) noticed immediately that Cash’s clothing was not costly camouflage.

Cash Fraser had a great body.

His chest was all smooth muscle leading down to the planes and contours of strong abdominals. His collarbone and the tops of his hip bones stood out in sexy relief. His biceps and lower arms had well-defined muscles, his veins slightly jutting.

She found herself thinking (at that moment descending into a kind of dazed madness) that a man with a body like that could climb mountains, fight wars, battle opponents hand-to-hand in bloody combat and, no matter the challenge, always come away the victor.

This alarmed her.

Greatly.

Even as it captivated her.

Even more greatly.

“Abby?” he called and her body jerked at his deep brogue saying her name.

Her eyes flew from him to the bed and she stared at it in desperation like it was going to form a mouth and start telling her a fascinating tale.

“Sorry,” she muttered. “Tired,” she muttered again, not trusting her own voice.

“Which side?” Cash asked and as she was studiously regarding the bed at the same time trying to ignore her thoughts and feelings, she didn’t know what he was talking about.

Her eyes shifted to him.

It was a mistake.

He was too gorgeous for his own good (and hers).

“Pardon?” she enquired.

“Which side of the bed?” he asked and she started yet again.

She slept on the left with Ben. She’d taken to sleeping in the middle without him.

“The middle,” she blurted.

Another mistake. This made him smile.

He had a great smile.

Oh dear Lord, she thought.

He twisted his torso and placed the BlackBerry on the bedside table then strolled to her.

He got up close and his chin tipped down to look at her.

“Relax, darling,” his burr was a soft rumble, “I don’t bite.”

In desperation Abby tried to be flip. “That’s a relief.”

“Though, I don’t mind if you do,” he continued and she could do nothing but swallow.

He saw her nervous reaction and it made him grin.

Then he walked passed her to the bathroom.

She scrambled to the bed, getting in on the left side. She pulled the covers high and curled into herself, making her body as diminutive as she possibly could.

She didn’t know if she could do this. In fact, she was pretty certain she couldn’t. In fact, she was extremely certain she was giving it all away by acting like a frightened virgin.

She couldn’t give it all away. She’d dug this hole for herself, now she had to live in it until the time when she could dig her way back out.

She forced herself to relax, uncurl and assume a sleeping position that normal people might use, on her side, hands tucked under her face, knees crooked.

Minutes later, he came out of the bathroom.

She didn’t watch as he turned out the light and got into bed.

But her body was tense as he turned to her. She felt his hand come to rest on her hip and his mouth went to her ear.

“Good night, Abby,” he said softly.

“Good night,” she replied chirpily.

She could swear she heard him chuckle.

Normally this might annoy her. At the time, she was too flipped out to let it register.

He kept his hand where it was but settled behind her. She could feel his body, though he kept his distance.

She waited.

He didn’t move and he didn’t try anything.

She waited more.

He stayed where he was and she felt his hand get heavier as his breathing got steadier. Moments later, his hand slid away as he fell to his back.

She waited more, hoping he’d start snoring which would give her a valid reason to find somewhere else to sleep.

He didn’t.

Eventually her body relaxed and shortly after she fell asleep.

Now this.

How she’d snuggled into him, she had no idea. But she had to move and fast.

Carefully she rolled to her back. Unfortunately, Cash rolled with her.

His body was pressed to her side much like hers was to him moments before (except, of course, the head to the shoulder bit), and she felt his hand come to rest on her belly.

His voice was husky when she heard him ask quietly, “Abby, are you awake?”

She decided immediately to feign sleep.

Cash was not deceived.

“Abby,” he called.

“Mm,” she mumbled, hoping he would think she was mostly asleep.

Cash was still not deceived.

His hand slid across her belly to curl around the top of her hip and she felt his face in her neck before he murmured, “Darling, I know you’re awake.”

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 fucking 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 fuck 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.

She had, she knew, no choice.

She couldn’t back out.

Her hands gentled on his chest but her body stayed tense.

“All right Cash,” she said softly, “but I want to know, in detail, what you feel you’ve paid for.”

She didn’t really want to know. But she knew she had to know.

He rolled to his back, taking her with him and reached out an arm to turn on the bedside lamp.

She blinked at the sudden brightness even muted by the black shade and as she was doing this he rolled back. This time into her so his body was mostly on top of hers, his weight settling into her but somehow not all of it.

Their position meant his strong, heavy legs tangled naturally with hers and the intimacy of this was not lost on Abby. It felt strange and wonderful at the same time it felt very wrong.

His hand came up to rest against the side of her head, the tips of his fingers sifting into her hair at the temple.

Lying atop her she saw his hair was messier than normal, his black eyes sexier than normal and his face held a frighteningly determined expression.

This, she knew, did not bode well.

“In detail,” his voice came at her quietly but his words were ruthless, “I’ve paid for the right to put my hands and mouth on you. To kiss you, taste you, touch you, anywhere I like, everywhere I want, and do whatever the fuck else I want with you.”

Abby stopped breathing.

Cash kept talking. “I’ve also paid for the right to expect that you’ll do the same to me.”

After he said that, Abby fought against hyperventilating.

Cash on the other hand was completely calm. “I’ve paid for the right to make you come with my hands and my mouth as often as I like, whenever I like, wherever I like, given reason. I’ve also paid for the right to expect you to return the favour.”

“Cash,” Abby breathed.

Cash ignored her. “I’ve paid for the right to be familiar with you when I want, where I want and I’ll give detail to that too.”

She decided she didn’t want any more detail.

She didn’t have a choice, Cash kept going. “I’ll be touching you, kissing you, holding you and whatever the hell else I want to do with you in private and in public.”

Abby was back to pressing against his chest.

Cash was back to resisting her efforts.

He went on. “If I ask you a question, you answer it honestly. You don’t hold back and you don’t evade. I’ve paid quite generously for you to play the part of the devoted, adoring girlfriend. I’ve paid for you to play it convincingly, when we’re alone and when we aren’t, in all that being my girlfriend entails in these modern times. I’ve paid for it and I expect to get it and it’s what you’re going to give me.”

Abby stopped fighting because she was concentrating on breathing.

“Do you have any questions?” Cash asked, his tone polite, the underlying firmness of it resolute.

Abby, no longer having a voice, shook her head.

He’d been, she thought, pretty thorough.

“I’m giving you the chance to back out now, transfer the thirty K back into my account by close of business today and you’ll never see me again,” he told her, paused for a second then continued. “If you don’t back out, that means you agree to these terms for the length of our arrangement and we’ll not discuss this again. Is that understood?”

Abby, still not having a voice, nodded her head.

Cash, still calm, his face still hard, watched her.

Then he asked, “What’s your decision?”

Abby found her voice and whispered, “I need some time.”

“You’ve got two minutes,” Cash returned.

Abby felt her eyes grow round.

“That isn’t time!” she cried idiotically, because it was, just not much of it.

A muscle in his jaw leapt and Abby watched it with concern because it was an indication that he was not at all happy and she had a feeling that an unhappy Cash was a very bad thing.

He spoke. “We’ve already set the plan in motion. You back out now, I’m fucked. I don’t have time.”

She had thought two days ago that she’d done something immensely stupid.

She’d been wrong.

It was catastrophically stupid.

But the truth of the matter was she needed the money. It meant security and freedom and it meant that she could keep hold of the only things left in her life, outside of Kieran and Jenny, that meant anything to her.

And if she backed out now, Cash was, indeed, fucked.

And for some bizarre reason she didn’t like that idea either.

She made her decision. It terrified her but it was the only choice she had.

She asked so quietly her voice was barely discernable, “Do we have to start right now?”

Something intense and unfathomably deep flashed in his eyes at her words and Abby felt a corresponding emotion in the region of her heart.

“Yes,” he replied, her heart sank and he dipped his head to touch her mouth with his. “And no,” he went on, speaking against her lips and her heart leapt.

“What does that mean?” she whispered.

“Put your arms around me,” he commanded, his throaty, deep voice had grown gruff.

She did as he asked, sliding her hands from his chest, around his sides to wrap them around his back.

“Now, Abby,” he started, “I’m going to kiss you and you’re going to kiss me back. Then you’re going to go back to sleep and I’m going to work. Then tonight, after you make me dinner again, we’ll begin.”

Without giving her a chance to reply, he did as he said he’d do, his head slanting and his mouth opening over hers.

The minute his tongue touched her own, her body liquefied and even though she didn’t will herself to do so, she kissed him back. One of her hands slid up his spine to plunge her fingers into his thick hair, the other arm wrapped tighter around his waist.

The kiss was shattering, tearing through her, hot, sweet and wet. It was long, it was hard and it was unbelievably, delectably thorough.

She’d never experienced anything like its fiery intensity.

Never.

Not with Ben.

Not in her dreams.

Not in her whole, damned life.

When his mouth disengaged the only thing Abby could think was that she wanted more.

A lot more.

Everything.

But she didn’t get it. Instead, his eyes moved over her face and they were blazing as fiery hot as his kiss. Something he found in her face made his expression shift to a soft satisfaction before his head bent and he kissed her neck below her ear.

“Go back to sleep,” he murmured there then without another word, he was gone, knifing away from her out of bed. He flicked the covers back over her, turned off the light and headed to the bathroom.

Abby lay in stunned silence, listening to the shower and knowing that there was a very good possibility that she’d never sleep again. She thought there was a slim chance she might spontaneously combust. And she realised with a flash of guilt that mixed with heady longing that she felt wetness between her legs and an arousal the intensity of which she’d never experienced in her life.

And if you told Abigail Butler that she would turn and curl her arms around Cash Fraser’s pillow, tucking it to her body and smelling his cologne combined with the scent that was all him, and she’d fall promptly to sleep after her latest drama, she would have laughed in your face.

But that was just what she did.

Dressed and ready for work, Cash walked into his dark bedroom, his eyes on Abby’s form in his bed.

He was very pleased to note that she’d not lied during the negotiations in the pub.

It was abundantly clear that Abigail Butler may sell her time and her presence but she most certainly never sold her body.

He sat on the bed in the crook of her lap, half-hoping to wake her, half-glad he didn’t.

He bent low and kissed the skin of her exposed shoulder. Then he lifted his hand and slid the hair from her neck and he kissed her there.

She twisted her head in sleep, not to dislodge his touch but to deepen it.

He smiled against her skin.

He got to his feet, pulled the covers over her shoulder and left the room.

He didn’t give a fuck if that very day any of his clients’ entire multinational conglomerates were stolen out from under them.

Cash would not be late home that night.