She was back to withholding from him and Cash didn’t like it.
“Do you need me to call someone to come and look at it?” Cash enquired, attempting patience in order to control his irritation that after all they’d shared last night she’d fallen back to earlier habits.
She got up on her elbow again and replied, “No, it’s under control.”
“Under control is having at least one working shower,” Cash returned. “Not under control in a house this size, or any house for that matter, is having only a working toilet.”
“It’s being taken care of,” she told him.
“When?” he pressed.
Abby sat up fully holding the covers to her na**d body and replied, “They’re working on it.”
Cash was finished with the conversation. “I’ll make a call,” he declared. “I’ll send someone to have a look at what’s happening and keep them on target. You’ll have a working bathtub by tomorrow night.”
When she spoke again, her voice had lost that early morning sweetness and he knew she was getting angry. “Cash, I’m taking care of it.”
“No, you were taking care of it. Now, I’m taking care of it.”
“Cash!” she snapped.
“I’m not discussing this,” he finished.
“Well I bloody well am,” she retorted.
“Abby,” he stated in a way that made it clear this conversation was over.
“Cash,” she mimicked his tone.
At her words and her tone, Cash wanted to laugh at the same time he wanted to shout.
She was quite often unbelievably adorable, even when she was angry.
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 na**d 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 br**sts, 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 f**k 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.
Chapter Eleven
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).