Penmort Castle by Kristen Ashley Read Free Book Online Page A

job he’d paid her to do to put on a show to the photographers,
his mouth met hers.
    The minute
their lips touched hers relaxed under his, her scent filled his
nostrils in an overwhelmingly intoxicating way and her body melted
into his, bestowing on him a goodly amount of her weight as if
she’d lost the ability to stand on her own two feet.
    He accepted her
obvious if somewhat surprising invitation and deepened the kiss,
his hand moving from her elbow in order to wrap his arm tightly
around her waist, hauling her closer to him.
    Her body went
rigid as his tongue touched hers.
    She tasted, he
realised with acute clarity, as complex and exquisite as everything
else that was Abby and he felt his body begin to heat in
response.
    His head came
up at her reaction and he belatedly saw the camera flashes around
them.
    Her guard was
down and Cash could easily read the strange mix of wonder and alarm
on her face.
    Instinctively
he recognised that something had changed. She might have begun this
show for the photographers but it didn’t end that way.
    He attributed
this to the brief but remarkably affecting kiss and the cameras,
which she had to know where there.
    The former of
the two reactions he saw on her face served to please him,
dissipate his anger and bring him to the swift decision that he
would not wait to have her. Instead, he’d coax her to break her own
rule and sleep with him before they reached the castle.
    The latter
reaction was understandable, he knew the cameras could be
disconcerting if you weren’t used to them.
    Cash gave a
glare to the photographers even though it was he who called them
there in the first place. They’d managed to interrupt something
that had turned into a moment Cash most definitely did not wish to be interrupted.
    One called out
a question that Cash didn’t bother to hear. When he started leading
Abby to the car, his arm firmly around her waist rather than at her
elbow, he unconsciously moved his body to shield her from the
cameras. It was a natural instinct at complete odds to the whole
point of this exercise.
    And he didn’t
give a good God damn.
    For comfort’s
sake, her arm stole around his waist though her hand never left his
stomach. When he looked down at her again she was peering around
his body at the calling photographers.
    Cash saw that
she had not managed to compose her expression. Her customary
aloofness had disappeared, the alarm was still there (the wonder,
unfortunately, gone), and Cash again found himself thinking she
looked rather adorable.
    “It’ll be all
right,” he murmured his assurance.
    Her eyes
shifted to him and, still unguarded, he read immediately that she
most definitely didn’t believe him.
    And it was
right there for him to see, there was no thinking about it.
    Abigail Butler,
the woman who very much wanted him to believe she was a remote,
impersonal, accomplished call girl was instead downright
adorable.
    Taking in her
endearingly disgruntled look, Cash couldn’t, if under torture, have
stopped himself from throwing his head back to laugh.
    * * * * *
    And that was
one of the pictures printed the next day, along with one of the
kiss.
    Abby with one
hand on Cash’s stomach, the other arm around him, her upper body
curled into his side but she was walking forward even as her head
was tilted back. She was regarding Cash with what looked like
loving irritation. Cash’s arm was around her waist, his head was
tipped back, his attractive face full of laughter.
    * * * * *
    Fifty miles
away, in a cold, sturdy, ancient castle situated on a steep cliff,
its parapets facing the waters of the Bristol Channel, Alistair
Beaumaris sat amongst the used china and silver of the breakfast
table, looked at the picture and it put him in a very bad mood.
    Alistair was
brother to the true heir of Penmort, Anthony, who had, to
Alistair’s way of thinking, foolishly sired an illegitimate son to
a Scottish beauty but never wed her. Nevertheless, upon his
brother’s death,