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Sexy Beast
Sexy Beast

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Sexy Beast

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It pissed me off. Mainly because I liked doing things for the people who mattered in my life, and Freya mattered. But she was adamant in refusing me every single goddamn time, and so I’d stopped offering, because I wasn’t a fucking idiot.

Except, for some reason, my help was exactly what she wanted this evening.

Interesting. What had made her want it now?

She was looking pretty damn embarrassed. Her face was bright red, which was startling against the vivid green of the pretty gown she’d bought on a lightning fast trip down Oxford Street, and her fingers were splayed stiffly at her sides, as if she was trying to relax her hands and not doing a very good job.

So, nervous and embarrassed, which meant something had to have pushed her into asking me.

‘My offer,’ I repeated, studying her. ‘That you’ve never mentioned before today. Not even once.’

She gave me a forced grin. ‘Yep. That’s the one.’

‘Why?’ I asked. ‘And why now?’

‘I’m super glad you asked me that question, because yes, there’s definitely a reason.’ She let out a breath. ‘It’s Tiffany’s wedding in a couple of weeks and I didn’t want to turn up dateless yet again. Plus the hen party is going to be a nightmare. So I thought if I knew for sure that the problem wasn’t me—’

‘The problem is never you,’ I interrupted, because I didn’t like it when she talked herself down. She didn’t do it when it came to fixing engines, so I couldn’t understand why she did it in relation to her love life.

She rolled her eyes the way she always did whenever I tried to tell her she was wrong about something. ‘Yeah, well, I don’t actually know that it’s not me, do I? Because if I did I sure as hell wouldn’t be embarrassing myself by asking you for help.’

My usual irritation at her insistence on not letting me do a single thing for her shifted, getting sharper at her obvious annoyance at having to ask me for help at all.

But I didn’t let it show. I never let anything show.

‘So nothing’s changed then?’ I ignored her eye roll. ‘You haven’t even found one guy who’s managed to get you off?’

Annoyance glittered in her dark jade-green eyes. ‘No, and not through want of trying, believe me.’

‘No need to be defensive. I’m just trying to work out why I’m your last resort.’

‘You’re not my last resort.’ She shifted on the strappy high-heeled sandals she’d bought with the dress, teetering only slightly. ‘Sex just isn’t something you’d ask your best friend for help with, okay?’

‘Not necessarily,’ I disagreed, still annoyed for some reason. ‘But then, you’re not asking me for sex, are you?’ I lifted a brow. ‘Or are you?’

She flushed, going the same shade of fiery red as the fat plait that hung down her back. ‘Uh, no.’

‘So, just an orgasm then?’

‘Yes. Look, you don’t have to do it if you don’t want to. I’d rather it wasn’t something you got mad about.’

How she knew I was irritated, I had no idea, but then Freya often picked up on my emotions with uncanny accuracy. Which only irritated me further.

Why are you getting mad about it, anyway?

I wasn’t mad. I was just...irritated.

I’d made her the offer because I didn’t like seeing her unhappy, and that kind of vanilla sex wasn’t a big deal. Fixing her sex life for her wasn’t any different from her fixing my car for me. And besides, I was good at it. Getting a woman off was easy when you knew what you were doing, and I certainly did. But she hadn’t mentioned it again and since that was pretty much par for the course with any help I offered her, I’d left it at that.

I hadn’t thought it was still a problem, but obviously it was.

‘I’m not mad,’ I said aloud, to remind myself. ‘And I haven’t said no. I’m just disappointed you didn’t come to me sooner.’

‘Yeah, well, I didn’t.’ She gave a little shrug and for some reason I found myself staring at the way the silky fabric of her gown pulled across the curves of her generous breasts. ‘Like I said, I don’t usually think of orgasms in conjunction with my best friend.’

There was no reason that she should either, since I’d never seen her as anything more than a friend who happened to be a woman. Sure, I’d checked her out, because I was a man and not blind, and she was gorgeous. Who wouldn’t notice a nearly six foot tall redhead with an athletic body and the kind of curves to keep a man very happy indeed? A round, pretty face, cute button nose, full pouty mouth and enough freckles to fuel the girl next door fantasies from here to fucking kingdom come.

Freya wasn’t a pocket Venus. She was the literal, actual, life-sized version.

But, even so, I’d placed her very firmly in the friend zone. She was the single most important person in my life and I didn’t want to compromise our friendship with sex. Especially given the kind of sex I preferred. I’d always tried to be the good guy in her life, the person she could count on no matter what, and the last thing I wanted was to put that at risk because I couldn’t control my own stupid dick.

I wasn’t looking for more even if I’d wanted it. My legacy would be the Black and White Foundation for disadvantaged kids, the one that Ulysses, Damian and I were launching that night, and I was more than happy with that. A family of my own wasn’t on the cards and never would be, not with the kind of shitty genes that I had. But I wanted to do something with my wealth, otherwise what was the point in having it?

Damian liked to spend his money on fast cars, parties, jewels and women, while Ulysses preferred tech. I spent my hard-earned cash on protecting those who couldn’t protect themselves—initiatives for the homeless, women’s refuges, anti-violence campaigns, addiction centres and various other things, especially in my home town.

Which all sounds very virtuous and sacrificial, but it wasn’t. My friends were born good guys, though they spent their money trying to make themselves look bad.

I’d been born bad and spent my money trying to make myself good.

So far it was working, but who knew for how long?

Won’t be for long if you tell Freya what you really like when it comes to dealing out orgasms.

I scowled at the thought. Yeah, that wasn’t happening. Not on any planet. The last thing my decidedly un-kinky best friend needed to know was that I got off ordering other women around and punishing them.

Freya frowned at me. ‘And now you’re scowling. This is going well.’

Firmly shoving aside thoughts of the dominance games I liked to play, I concentrated my attention on her instead. ‘Be straight with me, Little. What exactly are you asking for?’

She only just missed another eye roll. ‘I thought I was clear, but okay, apparently not. I’d like just one orgasm that isn’t self-administered before having to go to Tiffany’s hen party in a couple of weeks. There.’ She drew herself up, her chin lifting. ‘That straight enough for you?’

How are you going to do it? Put her on her knees? Get her to suck you off?

I had no idea where the thought came from. Maybe from the glitter of challenge in her eyes, because a challenge from a woman always got me interested. Or, rather, it got my inner dominant interested.

Yet it had never happened with Freya before. Never ever. And it wasn’t because she hadn’t challenged me before, because she certainly had. She constantly poked at me, but it was always in a very easy-going, good-natured way that amused me rather than anything else.

Maybe that was why the Dom in me stirred. She hadn’t ever given me a look quite as direct as that before. Or maybe it wasn’t her directness but her request to help her sexually that had got me thinking about how to give her what she wanted in a way that would be the most intensely satisfying for her.

Either way, I found myself looking at her closely, studying how the green silk of her gown clung to her figure, outlining curves a goddess would have been proud of. Beautiful, full tits. An elegant waist. Curvy hips. Long, long legs.

Normally, I didn’t much care what kind of body a woman had, because it was all about the way they submitted to me that got me off. But I had to admit that, thinking about it, Freya had one hell of a sexy figure.

She could take anything you gave her.

The thought wound through my head and I wasn’t sure I liked it. Because although I could give Freya what she wanted, it would be vanilla all the way. I didn’t need to subject my friend to the kinds of games I liked to play. Hell, if I wanted that, there were plenty of clubs that could meet my needs. In fact, I already knew of a couple in London that I could head to after the party.

‘Yeah, that’ll do,’ I said, shoving all those thoughts away. ‘Though I don’t know why you need to prove anything to Tiffany.’

Tiffany was the cousin she liked the most and the only one out of all that family who wasn’t a total dickhead. I’d always hated the way they treated Freya—her aunt especially—but Freya had never let me intervene. It was her problem to deal with, apparently.

‘I’m not proving anything to her,’ Freya said firmly, giving me a warning look. ‘I’m proving it to me, okay?’

Stubborn Little. She could give a mule a run for its money. ‘Understood. Though you don’t need to—’

‘Oh, for God’s sake, E,’ she interrupted. ‘Just tell me whether you will or not.’

I ignored the small electric jolt that her interruption sent straight down my spine, making the beast in me want to put her on her knees and punish her for it.

She was always so impatient. I preferred to collect all the available intel before I made a decision and this situation was no different. ‘Why me?’

‘Seriously? You know why you. You offered, remember?’

‘Yeah, but you’d clearly rather do anything else than be here right now asking me for an o—’

‘Okay, okay.’ She flapped her hands at me yet again then took a little breath, giving me the look she always gave me when she was being serious and straight up, which wasn’t very often. ‘Look, you said you were good at it. You said you always got a woman off. That your failure rate was zero percent.’ Her forehead creased. ‘Or is this a fisherman situation?’

‘This is not a fisherman situation. Why would I lie about it?’

‘Men do.’ Her gaze was very serious. ‘All the freaking time.’

Of course, I instantly wanted to know who’d lied to her and why, but now wasn’t the time. I’d have to ask her about it later.

‘I do not have a failure rate,’ I said flatly, ‘because I’ve never not got a woman off.’ It wasn’t a brag. Just a straight-up fact. ‘And yes, I can get you off too, if you want me to.’

I’d never been going to refuse her. Not helping her when she finally asked me for help was simply not an option.

An expression that looked like relief flickered across her face, though there was something else there that looked a little like uncertainty. ‘Oh, well, that’s, uh, great. But it’ll be a challenge. Not gonna lie. I’m a tough nut to crack.’

I gave her a look. Because Freya might act tough and make like she was one of the boys, but she was definitely a woman underneath all of that. And I knew how a woman’s body worked. I knew how a woman’s mind worked too—at least when it came to sex—and I had no doubt at all that using both to get Freya off would not be a problem.

‘You won’t be.’ I allowed myself a slight smile. ‘And besides, you know I like a challenge.’

‘You’ve definitely got one.’ She turned to look over the crowd once more.

‘Little,’ I ordered, letting a thread of steel wind through my voice, just to see what she’d do.

She turned to look at me pretty much instantly.

She’s responsive.

Oh, hell, no. Not going there, remember?

I held out my hand to her. ‘Come on. Let’s go find somewhere more private.’

Her eyes went very round. ‘What? You mean here? Now? But I—’

‘No point in waiting.’ I grabbed her hand and turned, tugging her along with me. There wasn’t much point in hanging around, and once I’d made up my mind I acted. And the part of the launch where various items were going to be auctioned off for a fundraiser, including some of Damian’s jewellery collection, was going to be starting soon and I had to be present for it. Might as well get this over and done with right now.

CHAPTER THREE

Freya

EVERETT’S HAND WAS WARM, his fingers firm as he took my hand in his, and I found myself being tugged along behind him as he strode from the gallery, heading for one of the exits.

For a couple of seconds I was too shocked to resist. I was too shocked to do anything much but stumble after him, my brain flailing around trying to work out what was going on. Because he couldn’t be serious. He couldn’t mean this orgasm stuff now. Could he?

You know he is.

But of course he was. Everett was nothing but serious and once he made up his mind about something he didn’t mess around. When he had a mission he was on it and nothing and no one would come between him and accomplishing it.

It was unexpectedly scary, and my heartbeat was suddenly ten million times faster than it had been a moment ago. I found it difficult to breathe and there appeared to be a whole roomful of butterflies fluttering around in my stomach. I wished I’d had another margarita because, holy shit, I needed one.

What if I couldn’t do it? What if he couldn’t? What if Everett Calhoun and his zero percent failure rate actually failed? Where would that leave me?

Perhaps there’s something wrong with you after all.

I tried to ignore that thought, tried to pull myself together as Everett tugged me out of the gallery and into a quiet corridor, where there was no one around.

Then he dropped my hand and turned, his palms settling on my hips—his big, hot palms—as he pushed me gently, but very firmly, into a small alcove off the corridor and up against the wall.

I blinked.

Everett was a big guy, tall and broad and muscular. And of course I’d noticed, because there weren’t many men around who were taller than me. But I’d never thought I’d like just how much taller he was, and how much broader. How it felt like he was towering over me, his wide shoulders blocking out the view of the corridor, his body a wall of hard granite right in front of me.

A wall of hot, hard granite.

Holy shit. My mouth had gone dry and I was abruptly very, very conscious of his hands on my hips, and how the heat of his palms was burning through the silk of my stupid tight dress.

His hands were so big. How come I’d never noticed that before? And how come I’d never noticed just how hot he was either?

I looked up and had to tilt my head back just to meet his gaze; the butterflies in my stomach fluttered harder. My breathing had gone AWOL and the atmosphere was suddenly crackling with a weird sort of electricity that seemed to be solely generated by Everett’s intense blue stare.

The way he looked at me, like I was the sole interesting thing in the universe, was...disturbing. And the way he loomed over me was disturbing as well, because it was making me feel...small. His big hands made me feel almost...dainty.

He was so very, very male and for the first time in my entire existence I felt very, very female.

I didn’t like it. I’d come to terms with my height and my build. To the subtle slights my aunt sent my way about how I was a ‘big girl’ and that I had to be careful with overly feminine dresses because they would look strange on a ‘woman of your size’.

She meant well. She wasn’t being deliberately cruel. But I wasn’t like her or her three daughters, my cousins. I wasn’t small and slender. I didn’t like dolls or tea parties as a kid, and I didn’t like shopping as a teenager. I preferred hanging out with my uncle as he worked on his old Chevy, where there was no pressure to act or look a certain way. Where I wasn’t being picked at or told to be more like my cousins. Where all I had to do was hand him a wrench now and then.

So yeah, I didn’t want to be frilly and feminine. And I didn’t want to feel small and dainty, or any of the other female kinds of things I hadn’t measured up to. Especially not when I was supposed to be trying to settle Operation Orgasm.

So what are you going to do? Push him away?

I couldn’t do that, not now I’d asked him to help me out. And anyway, he was still my best chance. Zero percent failure rate, right?

So I tried not to think about his hands on my hips or his granite chest in front of me. Or how much he was towering over me right now. Instead, I went for my usual response: a joke.

‘Whoa there, tiger,’ I said breathlessly, pushing at his chest a little. ‘Give a girl some air.’

He didn’t move. Not even an inch. ‘Am I making you nervous?’

His voice was a dark, deep rumble, his blue eyes glittering with sparks of green, and I had the sudden sense that maybe I’d bitten off more than I could chew.

But that was crazy. This was Everett. My best friend Everett. And yes, I’d been lusting after him since I was a teenager, but I wasn’t a teenager anymore. I’d been with plenty of guys and pretty much they were all the same. They were either intimidated by me and tried to make up for it by being extra aggressive and douchey, or they wanted me to make all the decisions for them. Or, in the case of my last date, they started off confident and then, when I failed to get into it, they blamed me for not being sexy enough.

Everett wasn’t like any of them, it was true, but would he really be that different?

I was afraid I already knew the answer. And I was afraid because if he was different this would make everything so much more pressured. What if he couldn’t do it? Or, even worse, what if I couldn’t?

And what if he could?

One warm hand gripped my chin, forcing my head back, and I found myself looking into his eyes. ‘Answer the question.’ There was a steely note in his voice, one I’d never heard him use with me before.

‘W-What question?’ I asked, stammering for no good reason other than the heat of his fingertips on my skin was making every thought in my head fray and shred like wet paper.

‘Do I make you nervous?’

‘No, of course not.’ My response was automatic and also a complete lie, because yes, he was making me nervous. He was making me very nervous indeed. ‘I mean, come on, E. You’re you. I’ve known you since you were ten years old and you’d cry when you missed a hoop—’

Unexpectedly, his thumb pressed down over my mouth, shutting me up.

I blinked, momentarily stunned silent.

‘You talk a lot when you’re nervous,’ he said. ‘You turn everything into a big joke, because that’s easier than being afraid, right? So what are you afraid of, Little? Tell me.’

Afraid? Ha! As if. At least not of him. But I didn’t want to tell him all about the stuff I was afraid of. Such as how I was worried that there was truly something wrong with me. That the reason I couldn’t come had something to do with a defect in me. Because I was supposed to be fine with myself the way I was. I was supposed not to care.

So, in lieu of answering, I opened my mouth and bit his thumb instead.

At least, I tried to. Because the second I was about to bite down, he murmured, ‘Uh-uh. Little girls who bite don’t get what they want.’

It was honestly so stupid that I should have laughed. Little girls who bite? Come on. Yet I’d never felt less like laughing in my entire life.

I was very conscious that the tip of his thumb was in my mouth and that he tasted salty, the flavour of his skin on my tongue making me both hungry and thirsty for something I didn’t know how to ask for.

‘Good girl,’ he said, when it became obvious to both him and me that I wasn’t going to bite down. He removed his thumb. ‘Now, answer the question. What are you nervous about?’ There was no doubt he expected to be obeyed. No doubt at all.

And instead of laughing, of telling him what a dick he was being, I heard myself say, ‘That I can’t do this.’

He didn’t laugh. He didn’t even smile. He only frowned slightly. ‘Why would you think that?’

I didn’t want to go any deeper into all the insecurities I’d thought I’d shrugged off over the years, that were all apparently still there, so all I said was, ‘We’re in a hallway and there are people around. And it’s not even like I can get naked or anything.’ I let out a breath, suddenly miserable. ‘It’s not going to work.’

Everett arched one blond brow, as if he’d never heard anything so stupid in all his life. ‘First, you’re assuming you have to get naked to come. And second, you’re assuming that I don’t know what I’m doing. And I do.’

Man, he could be arrogant sometimes.

‘Oh, yeah?’ I didn’t hide my scepticism, because this was all starting to feel a little ridiculous. ‘How?’

He tapped me lightly on the forehead. ‘You use this.’

I scowled. ‘Hate to break it to you, E, but my clit is not in my forehead.’

Ignoring my joke, he only gave me the most intense, stern look, that made me want to squirm. Then, very lightly, he trailed his finger from my forehead down the centre of my nose to the tip, and then further down, pressing gently in the dip at the top of my lip, before brushing over the curve of my bottom lip, a brief touch on my chin, and then away.

I froze, my heartbeat roaring in my ears like it did after a particularly hard workout at the gym.

It felt like he’d drawn a stripe of fire right down the centre of my face. Like he’d picked up one of the arc welders I had in my garage and turned it on my skin, searing me. My skin burned, my mouth incredibly sensitive.

What the hell had he done? With a single touch. Other guys had touched me before, but it had never felt like that. As if I’d been burned. It was almost too much, too intense. Like if he kept going, kept touching me, I’d break apart or collapse in a puddle of liquid metal at his feet.

‘Oh, yeah,’ he said, nothing but utter certainty in his eyes. ‘This is going to work.’

I swallowed, weirdly unable to look at him. Sure, I’d always had the hots for Everett Calhoun, but I hadn’t expected to respond this strongly to him and I didn’t understand it.

It made me want to shove him away and go back to the hotel, and then maybe get the next plane out. Run straight back to Texas and retreat into my garage, hide under the Maserati someone had brought in last week, lose myself in fiddling with engines. They, at least, were simple.

I couldn’t do that, though. I might have opened a can of worms with this dumb orgasm idea, but closing it now was pointless. Especially since all the worms had escaped.

‘What was that for?’ My voice had gone oddly husky.

Fascinating sparks of green glittered in his blue eyes. ‘Reconnaissance.’

I reached for another joke, trying to put some distance between me and my weird reactions. ‘Well, you know, I’ve been calling this Operation Orgasm in my head so I guess reconnaissance works. I’m kind of on a mission, right?’ I tried to grin. ‘You gotta plan strategy and tactics, that kind of stuff.’

‘Uh-huh,’ Everett said.

A silence fell, yet all I could hear was my voice echoing around the hallway, saying stupid things and trying to be funny. Trying to cover the fact that I was deeply unsure, and failing. And Everett only stood there, an implacable wall in front of me, staring at me, the tension around us getting more intense and electric.

I flushed and tried not to squirm under the pressure of that stare, my head filling up with all kinds of stuff I should say to make the moment less intense. To make myself feel less embarrassed and exposed. To make myself feel less vulnerable. Which was odd when I’d never felt this way around him before.

But my mouth wouldn’t work. He was so...big. His hands had come to rest on my hips again, and they were so hot. And I could smell the familiar scent of his aftershave, fresh and outdoorsy, like a forest on the edge of the sea. I’d always liked the way he smelled. It was sexy and familiar, and it made me feel good.

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