Penmort Castle by Kristen Ashley
He sat in the desk chair taking her with him, settling her in his lap with her body curled into his, bent legs against his chest, cheek on his shoulder, head tucked under his jaw. Once he had her cocooned against him, he circled her entire body with his arms.
Neither of them spoke. Both of them were still catching their breath. Even after their breathing evened, they stayed silent.
Abby was thinking about what he said before she came. She had no clue what he was thinking.
Then he told her.
“I’m going to fuck you in every room in this house.”
Her head tilted back to look at him.
“Tonight?” she whispered in disbelief.
His chin dipped down, she could see the flash of white where his mouth was indicating he was smiling.
His lips touched hers before he replied, “Darling, as much as I love it that you’d think I’d be up to such a staggering feat, I’ll take my time.”
She immediately felt like an idiot. Of course he wasn’t going to do it in one night. In fact, at that moment, there were five other people in the house (not to mention a latent ghost). They couldn’t even get to every room of the house.
Feeling embarrassed, she tucked her head under his chin. When she did, his arms tightened and immediately she felt the embarrassment slide away.
They were again silent.
Eventually he called, “Abby.”
“Mm,” she replied.
“Thank you for telling me everything you told me tonight.”
It was her turn for her arms to steal around him and give him a squeeze.
“I should have said something earlier.”
“It wasn’t easy to say,” he replied.
“Still,” she muttered.
His arms gave her a mild shake before he commanded, “Darling, look at me.” Abby tilted her head back again to peer at him in the dark. When he continued, his voice was soft and rough and very effective. “It wasn’t easy to find the right time and it wasn’t easy to find the right words. You did both. Thank you.”
She stared at his shadowed but still handsome face and whispered, “You’re welcome.”
His face tipped until their foreheads were touching and he slid his nose alongside hers.
When he did Abby closed her eyes and committed every nuance of that moment to memory.
Then he murmured, “Unless you have any other bright ideas, maybe we should go to bed.”
She opened her eyes, bit her lip and thought about it a second, finally informing him, “Nope. No other bright ideas.”
He laughed softly, lifted her up as he stood and put her on her feet.
Then he took her to bed.
When she was pressed into his side in their big, curtained bed, in a big, imposing castle (his big, imposing castle), close to dreamland and feeling that peace spread through her that only Cash had been able to give her for many a year, she heard him speak.
“I meant what I said.”
“Pardon?” she mumbled.
“When you were about to come. What I said. I meant it.”
She felt her body go tight as all thoughts of sleep fled.
Then she felt her belly get warm.
Quietly, she shared, “The first time I saw you, I almost ran away.”
Surprisingly he responded, “I know.”
Abby forced her body to relax and after she succeeded in that monumental task, she snuggled closer.
Moments slid by.
Finally, taking her heart in her hands and hoping with everything she was that Cash would know what to do with it, she whispered, “I’m glad I didn’t.”
His arm around her waist tensed and he replied, “I am too.”
Yes, he knew what to do with it.
Abby smiled against his shoulder, cuddled the last smidgeon closer and fell asleep.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Losing Abby
Cash was in the library, his eyes swiftly scanning the books.
If Honor had found clues to Vivianna Wainwright in the library, Cash thought there might be something she’d missed. Something that might give him insight into how to defeat a fucking ghost. Something that might help him to feel a little less fucking useless.
Cash Fraser’s thoughts were sprinkled liberally with the f-word such was his mood.
He’d left Abby at the breakfast table with Nicola, Fenella and Honor.
He didn’t want to but once the conversation turned to catering and flowers, Abby saw his impatience and urged him to go.
He refused.
Abby enlisted Nicola and Nicola urged him to go.
He wanted to refuse but he didn’t.
Cash felt there was something wrong with Nicola. She had a fragility about her that was atypical.
However, Cash didn’t have time to worry about Nicola when his thoughts were centred on Abby and what was to happen that night.
He’d left Abby only after pulling her to him and engaging in a lips-to-ear whispered conversation that, to any who observed it, would look like lover’s talk.
Instead it was Cash telling Abby if she left Nicola’s fucking side he’d not be responsible for his actions.
After biting her lip (this time, Cash could swear, it was to hide a smile, although he had no fucking clue what there was to smile about), Abby agreed.
Only then did Cash leave.
He spied an unusual book, thin and old, pulled it from its shelf and leafed through it, finding it was a (bad) epic poem about the Civil War.
He replaced the book and his mind went back to Abby.
He had, he realised, been wrong. He’d thought he had her that first weekend they were together.
He hadn’t had her then.
He knew this because he had her now.
All of her.
The all of her he saw that she gave her husband in their wedding photo.
And the feeling of having all of Abby was something Cash had not anticipated.
He should have. She’d given him clues. Hell, she’d given him clues from the first day they’d met.
He, of course, thought she was a professional escort. So when she’d wiped the gloss from his lips at the pub and leaned into him in an affectionate way when he put on her cape on their first date, he thought it was a show.
It wasn’t.
It was just Abby.
The night she’d thought he was in an accident, her guard came crashing down.
Quickly after she invited him in, laughing in abandon with her face turned up to his; calling him for no reason (and then hilariously expecting him to carry the conversation); squeezing his thigh comfortingly when he was angry; curling in his lap to be close when she had to share hard facts but in a gentle way; leading him to the study and asking him to fuck her on the desk, that was Abby.
All of Abby.
All for him.
On this thought, for some unknown reason, Cash’s mood turned darker and he wondered if Benjamin Butler had any time to think before he’d died. To think about his wife. To think about leaving such an exquisite creature behind. To think about how fucking lucky he’d been and how abhorrent it was that their time was cut short.
Cash hoped he had not.
His mind occupied with Abby’s dead husband suddenly Cash felt a warm draught against his ankles.
He looked down and saw nothing.
He looked to the door. It was, as he left it, open.
He looked to the window. It was, as he’d entered, closed.
The draught ascended the length of his body, curling around.
Cash took a step back and it disappeared.
“Fucking hell,” he muttered, thinking the situation with Abby, the castle and the ghost was screwing with his head.
On that thought, the draught came back, circling his wrist in an odd way, almost but also strangely not, putting pressure there as if to lift his hand.
He took another step away.
“Here he is!” Cash heard Fenella screech and the draug
He turned to the door to see her entering, yanking her mother behind her, Abby following, Honor coming up the rear.
Abby’s sentries.
Cash stared at them.
Then he repeated, “Fucking hell.”
“Well, I knew he couldn’t have gone far,” Abby stated, rushing forward.
The minute her back was to the others, she gave him a comical, wide-eyed look which Cash couldn’t quite interpret and at which Cash was in no mood to laugh.
“I’m still not certain why we all had to go in search of Cash. Abby could have found him on her own,” Nicola noted, her words explaining Abby’s look.
Abby had made it to Cash’s side and her fingers curled around his bicep as she leaned into his body and looked back at Nicola.
“I could have got lost,” she lied, bald-faced.
“Yes, it’s a big castle.” Honor drawled, her eyes on Cash. She looked like she didn’t know whether to laugh or scream and Cash felt her pain.
“And I’m blonde,” Abby went on, “I think it’s a scientific fact that blondes are a bit scatty.”
At her words, Cash started leaning towards laughter and looked down at Abby. “I’m not certain that’s science.”
“Really?” she asked. “I thought there were some studies done about it.”
“I don’t think so,” Cash replied.
“Well, there should be,” she mumbled, giving him another look, this one he could read quite clearly and it said shut up, then she turned a bright smile to Nicola and declared overly cheerfully, “Well, I found him now! All’s well!”
Cash’s mood disappeared and he burst into laughter.
His arm went around her waist to pull her closer. When it did, her hands detached from his bicep, one arm slid around his back and she looked up at him right before his head descended and, still laughing, he kissed her. It was swift, it was light but it was definitely a kiss.
When he lifted his head, he saw she was smiling up at him dazzlingly as if his laughter was a gift from the gods, better than any diamond bracelet, any cashmere robe.
The smile still on her lips, her thumb came to his mouth and she swiped at her ever-present lip gloss the kiss had transferred to his lips. As she did so Cash felt the room around them melt and all he saw was her exquisite face, her smile, her glow.
And he knew, regardless of all that was happening, ghosts and brothers murdering brothers and sons exacting retribution, Abby was happy.
And Cash had made her that way.
In that instant Cash saw that not only had her guard come crashing down, the pain she couldn’t quite hide that lurked in the back of her eyes from the minute he’d sat across from her at the pub had disappeared.
He’d taken it away.
“Jesus,” he muttered, powerful sensations he didn’t completely understand shooting through him like spears and he watched her face turn confused.
“What?” she asked.
“Jesus,” he repeated.
Abby turned into him. “Cash, are you okay?”
As if his actions weren’t under his control, his hand went to her jaw tilting her face up further. His mouth came down on hers and he gave her a kiss that was not swift, it was not light and it could have quite possibly been the physical definition of a kiss.
“Oh my,” Cash vaguely heard Fenella whisper from far away.
“Maybe we should leave them alone,” Nicola murmured from just as far.
“The bloke who played Cash in the movie didn’t kiss that good,” Honor noted blandly.
Regardless of their onlookers and the conversation they were holding, Cash’s focus was entirely on Abby. He kept kissing her as if they were the only ones in the room and she kissed him back the same way.
“Honor, shush,” Nicola snapped quietly, “let’s go.”
“We can’t go. Abby’s going to town with me,” Fenella said and on that, with disappointment at the brevity of their kiss (and the fact they had an audience who wouldn’t shut the fuck up and get the hell out) Cash’s head came up. Instead of pulling away, he slid his nose alongside Abby’s.
“I said, let’s go,” Cash heard that Nicola’s voice was now getting sharper, if not louder.
“Are you okay?” Abby repeated in a whisper, her eyes on his.
“Yes,” Cash replied, his voice vibrating low, “I’m very okay.”
And this was true. Regardless of their current circumstances, he’d never felt so fucking okay in his life.
Abby’s brows drew together and her mouth twitched in a way that it looked like she wasn’t sure whether to smile or to frown.
“Abby, are we going to town?” Fenella called and Cash’s hand flexed where it still held Abby’s jaw, not in a demonstration of affection, instead in a reflexive action denoting his restrained desire to wring Fenella’s neck.
“Um…” Abby muttered, her mouth deciding it wanted to smile which it did, “we were coming to tell you that we’re going to town. We need your car.”
That got Cash’s full attention.
“My car?” he asked as he dropped his hand from her jaw.
“Yes, your car,” Abby answered.
“Town is a two minute walk away,” Cash told her.
“I know,” Abby replied.
“Why do you need my car?” Cash enquired.
Her smile turned mischievous. “Because I want to drive it.”
Cash burst out laughing and both his arms went around her, pulling her into his body.
“Does that mean we’re going to town?” Fenella semi-yelled like they were three rooms down, not fifteen feet away.
Once he’d sobered, Cash looked at his cousin. “You’re going to town.”
Abby’s body melted into his and her head tipped back further to smile at him.
Then she whispered, “You’re going to have to walk me down to the car.”
“I know,” he whispered back.
“Now can I get to the business of preparing for one hundred guests to descend tonight, or do you girls want me to go into town with you, just in case Abby gets lost?” Nicola asked but for the first time since they arrived last night, she looked cheerful if not her normal cheerful.
“You go, Mummy. We’ll be fine,” Fenella assured Nicola as Cash started to lead Abby to the door.
“I’m glad to hear that since you’ve lived two minutes from town since you were ten years old,” Nicola mumbled as she headed busily out the door, casting a smile back at Abby and Cash before she disappeared.
Honor gave them a small wave and followed her mother. Cash walked Abby and Fenella to his and Abby’s room to get his keys.
However when his fingers closed around the keys on the bureau, the warm draught he’d forgotten with the arrival of Abby and her entourage came back. It was stronger this time, almost insistent, and it felt like it was trying to prevent him from picking up the ring.
It disappeared again when his fingers closed around the keys and Cash’s hand moved away from the bureau.
He shook off the bizarre feeling thinking it was just the castle. The place was centuries old, it likely had hot and cold draughts everywhere.
He escorted Abby and Fenella down to the old stables. The stables were now a five car garage where Alistair and his family kept their (far too expensive for Alistair’s circumstances) cars and where Cash had parked the Maserati last night.
Fenella folded her body into the passenger seat and Cash stood in the driver’s open door with Abby.
She tipped her head back to look up at him and he could see the excitement on her face at the prospect of driving his car.
“Thanks for letting me drive your car,” she murmured.
He put his hand to her neck and teased, “I’m thinking maybe I should have asked you if you were a good driver before giving you my keys.”
She grinned and leaned into him before she replied, “I’m not only a good driver, I’m a granny driver.”
Cash smiled at her amusing descript
Her grin turned playful as she exclaimed, “Of course! I’m half-American, you know.”
“That’s why I’m asking,” he retorted.
She shook her head, her soft hair sliding on his hand, her face telling him she wasn’t going to stoop to a response.
Cash went on. “Call me when you’re heading back, I’ll meet you at the gate.”
She nodded, got up on her toes, hand to his stomach and touched her mouth to his.
He felt her touch, the warmth of her body and the excitement in her eyes all with a heady intensity that was not unusual with Abby, however it was, in that moment, significantly more profound.
When her mouth moved away, her eyes caught his and her soft, tender look told him she’d felt the same.
Any vestiges of Cash’s earlier dark mood melted away.
With effort (for he vastly preferred spending the morning in other pursuits with Abby, say, sexually christening another room in the castle), he dropped his hand.
She got in, he slammed the door and returned her wave. He nodded to Fenella, left the garage and headed up the steep hill to the gate.
As he climbed, he heard his car start and he turned to watch her roar out of the garage, not like a granny driver, but instead like an Indy car driver.
Then he stood watching as the car turned on a screech of tires into the long, steep, winding lane that led through the wood to the main road that skirted the town.
And he continued to watch, body now frozen, as she raced down the lane, nearly missing the hairpin turn at the bottom, two tires in the turf at the side of the lane.
And he still watched from his high vantage point as she negotiated the lane, brake lights blazing the entire way. Even so, it seemed she was picking up speed as the high performance sports car hurtled down the hill and she was, clearly, just keeping it on the road.
A feeling of foreboding swept over him and before his mind made the conscious decision to do so, he started running. He didn’t keep to the lane but took the more direct path, sprinting through the trees on the hill at the side of the castle, his eyes on the car as he went.