Penmort Castle (Ghosts and Reincarnation #1)(17)
Author: Kristen Ashley

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.