“Yours,” she answered.
His mouth touched hers lightly, he moved back and guided her safely into the car, slammed the door, rounded the hood, got in, turned the ignition and they were away.
And Abby couldn’t help but feel, until Penmort Castle was lost in the distance, that the whole building watched their departure.
* * * * *
Her body was rolled onto its back and she felt a strong knee pressing insistently between her legs.
Her eyes opened and in the shadows she saw Cash’s face disappear in her neck right before his mouth slid along its length. His hand smoothed up her hip, taking her nightgown with it, then went under it and up, to close with intent around her breast.
“Cash,” she whispered.
At the sound of his name, his thumb slid across her nipple and his head came up.
Fire shot from her nipple to between her legs and Cash murmured, “How are you feeling?”
“I was feeling great because I was asleep,” she informed him, her voice still husky from slumber.
His lips touched hers and he suggested against her mouth, “Let’s see about making you feel even better.”
Then he went about the business of achieving that aim.
Spectacularly.
* * * * *
Abby was on top, straddling Cash who was deep inside her. Her back was arched, one of his arms wound around her waist, his other one high at her back, fingers curled under the joint of her arm. His head was bent and his lips were drawing her nipple inside his mouth with a sharp, delicious pull when her hands fisted convulsively in his hair and she came.
Hard.
It was so wild, beautiful and out-of-control, her hips, as if they had a mind of their own, ground into his, the walls around the heart of her flexing tightly. She felt him rigid, deep inside her and it was as if her whole being existed between her legs.
His head moved away from her breast and if she’d been aware of them, she would have wanted to halt the telltale rasping moans that accompanied her cl**ax.
Before she was through, he twisted, she was on her back and he was driving into her, deeply, almost violently, his hand curled around the crown of her head, the fingers of his other hand going between them and she gasped aloud when he touched her. Her orgasm exploded anew, bigger, wilder and she cried out his name before her head came up and her teeth sank into the flesh at his shoulder.
His hands moved to the backs of her thighs, pulling them high against his sides and he thrust harder, faster and she heard his sharp intake of breath before his hand fisted in her hair, yanking her head back, his open mouth sought hers and she blissfully accepted the deep sigh of his cl**ax.
It was some time after that Abby realised this was not the way to start her first day of having her head screwed firmly on straight.
His h*ps pressed gently into hers as he murmured against her neck, “Exquisite.”
At his word, Abby shivered before he pulled out gently, rolled them to their sides but his hand glided over her bottom and down the back of her leg, keeping it hooked over his hip.
His fingers trailed up her spine, cupped her head, tucked her face in his neck and remained there, lazily playing with her hair.
“We have things to talk about, darling, but I have to get to work,” he said over her head.
Last night on the long ride home, she’d fallen asleep. Cash had gently woken her in the car and she’d leaned heavily against him on the short walk to his door (how he found a parking spot directly opposite his front door, she had no clue and groggily thought it unfair). After Cash made her take two paracetamol, they’d gone straight to bed, Abby breaking one of her most closely held rules of never, but never, going to bed without taking off her makeup and putting on moisturiser.
Apparently being assaulted by a spirit from beyond the grave took it out of you.
At the current moment, she didn’t know what they had to talk about.
What she did know in her post, double-orgasm addled brain was that she needed a swift retreat and a call to Jenny for another “it’s-only-a-job” pep talk mixed with an oh-my-God strategy session on how to survive a murderous ghost.
“That’s okay,” she muttered into his neck.
“Do you feel like cooking tonight?” he asked and she tilted her head back to look at him. His chin dipped down and she felt his eyes on her in the early morning dark.
She also felt herself wishing, even though she knew she shouldn’t, that his gentle concern was real.
“I conked my head and scratched my arm, Cash, I’m not an invalid,” she told him, her words made soft by her voice. “Stop worrying about me.”
His head dropped further, his forehead coming to rest against hers.
“Abby,” he said and something in the way he said her name made her brace, mentally throwing up walls because she knew that tone, harsh but sweet and unbelievably warm, a tone she’d never heard from him before, was akin to an emotional battering ram. “Darling, you show it, you act it but I need you to say it.”
Abby’s breath caught and she forced herself to let it free.
“Say what?” she whispered.
“That you forgive me,” he replied.
Her throat closed and tears burned the backs of her eyes.
She was right, the walls around her heart splintered ominously under his attack.
“Say it,” he demanded.
She swallowed.
“Abby, please, f**king say it,” he growled, the words were curt, their meaning anything but.
“I forgive you,” she whispered and she knew she did and further, she knew that was stupid too.
She had no time to dwell on this, his arms went tight around her, his mouth crushed down on hers and he gave her a world-tilting kiss.
When his mouth broke from hers and Abby’s mind and body recovered from his words and his kiss, she realised she was in worse trouble than she first imagined.
And she imagined it being pretty, dang bad.
But she knew then this wasn’t just going to be a battle over her emotions.
This was going to be the epic battle of a lifetime.
Cash broke into her thoughts. “I’m sorry, love, but you’re going to have to get up with me.”
Her body went still at that alarming news.
What was next? Was he going to handcuff her to his side and make her spend the day with him?
“Why?” she asked, her voice as alarmed as she actually felt and he laughed.
Her head tilted back to look at him, not thinking one damned thing was funny.
His chin tipped down and she saw the white flash of his teeth indicating he was still smiling.
“You can go back to bed in a minute,” he assured her. “I just want to check your arm.”