Sexy Beast--A Sexy Billionaire Romance

by Jackie Ashenden

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Everett

  I HAD FREYA pressed up against the wall, her entire body shaking, her scream vibrating against my mouth. Dimly, I could hear the people who’d passed us still talking as they made their way down the other end of the corridor—they hadn’t heard a thing. Not that they were important right now.

  What was important right now was that I didn’t flip up Freya’s pretty green dress, rip her panties off and sink my cock inside her. Or, alternatively, force her to her knees and order her to suck me off.

  I was hard. Seriously fucking hard. And on edge in a way I hadn’t been in years. And I didn’t know what the hell was wrong with me.

  Getting Freya off should have been simple, and in the end it had been. She was the most responsive woman I’d ever touched so whatever guys she’d been sleeping with, they must have been the stupidest assholes ever to walk the earth. A few easy questions would have been enough to figure out that she had major performance issues, and those could have been solved easily enough.

  Hell, I’d solved them within a couple of minutes. And after that...

  My groin ached and the heat of her mouth was insanely distracting. She tasted of the margarita she’d had earlier, sweet, with a bite to it, and something else, something delicious that I wanted more of. The scent of Freya and aroused woman was heady in the air around me, and it was a major turn-on. In fact, everything about this was a major turn-on and it shouldn’t have been.

  Giving an orgasm was no problem. But getting hard myself? Almost getting lost in the way her eyes widened and darkened when I told her what to do? When I saw how nervous she was with me? And how turned on I’d made her?

  No, I hadn’t expected that. At all. Not a problem in the normal run of things, but this was not the normal run of things. This was Freya, one of my closest friends. The person who knew me best, better even than Ulysses and Damian. And I couldn’t afford to get myself on edge around her.

  No, so you’d better take a fucking step back, hadn’t you?

  Yeah, that was an issue. She was still trembling and I still had my hand on her pussy, my thumb on her clit. The silky fabric of her dress was thin, and I could feel her heat against my palm. I wanted to keep it there, play with her more, see how far I could push her. Maybe give her another orgasm right here and now. She was so responsive, it wouldn’t be difficult.

  Yeah, and what would she think about all the orders you’ve been giving her? What would she think if you told her to suck you off?

  A cold feeling trickled like ice water down my back. Dominance games were all well and good in the club. But I didn’t play them outside it. And I definitely wasn’t going to play them with her.

  I had some of my dad’s darkness in me, some of his potential for violence, and when I got on edge it showed. Easier to deal with that edge in a club, with a stranger. With someone I wasn’t connected to on the same level as I was connected to Freya. Someone who didn’t matter as much to me.

  So. Get. The. Fuck. Away.

  It took far more willpower than it should have to lift my head and shove myself back from her. She stood pressed to the wall, her jade-green eyes almost black, her cheeks deeply flushed. Her mouth was all full and red, and I could taste her... Fuck, she was delicious. But this whole thing had been nothing but a mistake.

  I expected her to say something light and funny the way she normally did, to normalise everything, but she didn’t. In fact, for the first time in the history of our friendship, she only looked at me and said nothing at all.

  You’ve fucked up, friend.

  My chest tightened. ‘Are you okay?’ I asked, the words coming out harsher than I wanted them to.

  She nodded, but again didn’t say a word.

  The silence thickened around us, full of a tension that had never been there before.

  Christ, I needed to get out of her vicinity. And fast.

  ‘The auction is in ten,’ I said shortly. ‘Meet me at the entrance to the museum after.’

  I didn’t wait for her to respond. I simply turned and strode back out into the gallery.

  It seemed as if a decade had passed out there in the hallway, while back in here everything was the same. The crowds were doing what they’d been doing before I’d pulled Freya outside, and I swear the music—some classical shit—was exactly the same piece that had been playing before.

  I couldn’t get my head around how everything here was going on as normal, and yet my entire personal universe felt like it had tilted on its axis.

  So you got hard for your friend? Big fucking deal. Handle it.

  Yeah, shit, I was turning this into something it shouldn’t be. Making a rookie error in thinking that a simple fucking orgasm would change things.

  So, I’d made Freya come and it had been pretty good for her. And I’d gotten hard in the process. So what? Where was the issue? Well, there wasn’t one, not if I didn’t want there to be, and I didn’t want there to be.

  I would treat it like I treated sex in general, which was as a release valve that helped me get on with the important shit in my life.

  Such as managing this auction.

  Shoving away the inappropriate sexual thoughts that were lingering in my head, I made a point of checking on my staff, dotted here and there amongst the knots of people. Then I went over the security plan in my head yet again, concentrating on the details to keep from thinking about how much Freya had liked me standing over her and holding her chin. How nervous she’d been of me, and how that had turned her on, because, oh, yes, it had. And how, in the end, she’d tried to hold off that orgasm just because I’d told her to—

  ‘Everything in place for the auction?’ Ulysses’ cold voice came from behind me, mercifully derailing my thoughts.

  I didn’t look around. Instead, I shoved my hands in my pockets and stared grimly out at the crowd, trying to get my dick under control. ‘Yeah, should be.’

  ‘Damian’s wondering if the security team is in place.’

  I glanced down at my watch to check the time. Right on target. ‘Any minute...now.’

  As soon as I said it, the members of my security team in the crowd began to move, gathering people to urge them down to where a podium had been set up for the auction. The secure van containing the jewels from Damian’s collection that were to be auctioned off tonight would be pulling up now too, with more security to keep the jewels safe as they were taken into the museum.

  Which reminded me...

  I scanned the crowds, checking out where Damian’s date—the sneaky little thief who’d managed to breach my security in Hong Kong—was. But I couldn’t see her.

  ‘Looking for Morgan?’ Ulysses asked, obviously thinking of other things. ‘She’s dealing with—’

  ‘No,’ I said curtly, conscious that my temper was showing. ‘I’m looking for Damian’s date.’

  Ulysses shrugged, noticing neither my tone nor, apparently, caring very much about Damian’s date. But that was Ulysses all up. He didn’t do people. Patterns and tech and money were his thing, which made it kind of incredible that he’d managed to befriend Damian and me. We’d met online as teenagers, connecting with each other over shitty childhood experiences.

  Then Ulysses, one of the most driven men I’d ever met, had had some cryptocurrency success, and he’d roped Damian and me into it, and before we knew it we were the proud owners of a multi-billion-dollar company.

  Give or take ten years of hard fucking work, of course, since making money required drive, determination and a certain amount of arrogance. Which we all had. In spades.

  I glanced at Ulysses, but he wasn’t looking at me. His gaze was firmly pinned on the pretty little woman with long black hair who was down near the podium, holding a tablet in her hands and directing people. Morgan, Damian’s little sister and Ulysses’ PA.

  Interesting. Did Damian know h
is friend was watching his sister like that? Since Ulysses obviously still had his head attached to his body, I was thinking that probably Damian didn’t.

  ‘Five minutes,’ Ulysses said, then abruptly strode off in the direction of the podium, the crowds parting around him like the Red Sea before Moses.

  ‘So,’ another, more feminine voice said hesitantly from behind me. ‘Are you going to tell me what that was all about or am I going to have to guess?’

  A heat I definitely didn’t need or want shot through me as I caught a hint of her scent, sweet and feminine and musky.

  Freya.

  Fuck. I didn’t want to talk to her right now, not when I had to be on deck with this goddamn launch. And definitely not when I was still as hard as a teenage boy looking at Playboy for the first time.

  ‘The auction is starting.’ I tried to be less curt with her than I had been with Ulysses and failed. ‘We’ll have to continue that later.’

  There was a small silence, then she said, ‘Um...was it me? Did I freak you out?’

  Something tight shifted in my chest—the memory of her voice, all small and uncertain, telling me that she was nervous because she thought she couldn’t do it. As if not being able to come was somehow her fault and not the clearly fucking awful men she’d been sleeping with.

  I might be an asshole, but I didn’t want to be one of those men. I didn’t want to be an asshole to her.

  So I turned.

  She was standing at my elbow, her eyes dark, her usual sunny smile absent.

  You bastard. Did you even think about what walking away so suddenly might mean for her?

  Of course I damn well hadn’t. I’d just wanted to get away from her before I did something stupid, like put my hand around her throat and take everything I wanted from her mouth.

  Because the truth of the matter was, the problem was her. Just not in the way she thought.

  ‘No.’ I held her gaze, letting her see if not the truth then as much of it as I could show her. ‘It wasn’t you, I promise.’

  An expression I couldn’t read passed over her face and then she nodded, the tightness around her mouth relaxing. But she still didn’t smile. ‘Okay, well, that’s good.’

  I could tell she didn’t believe me.

  Without thinking, I reached out and took her chin in my hand the way I would have done with any submissive in need of reassurance, holding on firmly and making her look at me.

  Surprise flickered through her eyes, then, unexpectedly, all the tension bled out of her, her gaze turning dark as she stared back at me. Responding to my authority.

  Holy shit.

  My breath caught, my inner dominant waking up, and I said, before I could stop myself, ‘It’s not your job to doubt me, understand?’

  ‘But—’

  I pressed my thumb over the velvety softness of her mouth, silencing her. ‘Quiet,’ I ordered, and her eyes went wide. She didn’t say anything though, and a small electric pulse bolted down my spine at her instinctive obedience. ‘I meant what I said. It wasn’t you. Do you understand? Nod if you do.’

  She nodded, making no attempt to pull away from me, only watching me as if she couldn’t drag herself away.

  ‘Good,’ I murmured, that electricity coiling deep inside me, heating me up. ‘We’ll have to talk about this later, because right now I have an auction to manage.’

  She blinked and I suddenly wanted to kiss her again, nip that full bottom lip, make her jump. I wanted to make her wary of me, so she wouldn’t see me as the safe friend I’d always been to her...

  Except no. What the fuck was I thinking? I wasn’t going to put that shit on her. We were friends and giving her an orgasm didn’t change that, no matter how hard I’d got in the process.

  Letting her chin go, I turned away so I didn’t have to see the slightly glazed expression on her face. ‘Get yourself another drink,’ I said. ‘I’ll come find you after the auction’s over.’

  I left her to it, forcing her out of my mind and whatever the hell I was going to say to her later, concentrating my attention instead on the whole reason for the party in the first place: the launch of the Black and White Foundation.

  This was important to me for a number of reasons, but mainly because the foundation was to help disadvantaged kids, and I’d once been one of those kids. My mom died when I was very little and my dad wasn’t able to hold down a job, since he preferred drinking and knocking the shit out of people to working. So we were poor. And when you’re poor the opportunities for changing your situation are few and far between. I wanted to change that for the kids affected by poverty. I wanted them to have opportunities, a chance to better their lives and find a way to get out of the poverty trap, and that’s what I hoped the foundation would achieve.

  Good thing, then, that the auction turned out to be a massive success. The funds we managed to raise were enough to give the Black and White Foundation a great start. And I was expecting both Damian and Ulysses to be pleased by this, but Ulysses seemed preoccupied and Damian was drinking and smiling like he didn’t give a shit about anything. Except I knew he did because he kept scanning the crowd, looking for someone. I suspected it was for his date, but when I asked him where she was he said she’d gone home with a headache. Clearly it hadn’t been her he was looking for, in that case, but I didn’t press him.

  I was a little preoccupied myself. Mainly with Freya.

  The whole rest of the evening my attention was consumed with her, aware of her in a way I’d never been before. And not in the way a friend would be, that was for fucking sure. I kept glancing around to see where she was and who she was talking with, her presence like an itch I couldn’t scratch.

  My brain kept going back over that episode in the hallway, replaying the way she’d looked at me, the heat of her pussy against my palm and the taste of her mouth as she’d screamed out her climax. And then, out in the gallery, the warmth of her skin as I’d taken her chin in my hand, the way her eyes had darkened as I’d told her to be quiet...

  Yeah, I did not need to be thinking about any of that. At all.

  Yet it was damn difficult not to when every time I looked up she seemed to be almost...glowing. Because there was no other word for it. Her skin was luminous, a pretty flush to her cheeks, and her eyes had gone as brilliant as the emeralds in one of Damian’s pieces. She looked fucking gorgeous, radiating heat and sex appeal, giving people that warm, generous smile of hers.

  She was talking to some tool now who was looking at her with obvious interest, and who could blame him when she was glowing like that? No doubt from the effects of the orgasm, since I was pretty sure that was why she was looking so damn sparkly and happy.

  The orgasm I’d given her. Me, not the asshole who was talking to her right now.

  I’d never been possessive my entire life, certainly not of a person, not after the way my bastard of a father had treated people. And I’d never felt anything like that for Freya. Protective, yes. Wanting to smash some fool in the face for daring to talk to her? No.

  Except that was what I wanted to do right now. I wanted to stride over there and get up in his grille and tell him to fuck off home and leave Freya alone.

  I was good at controlling myself. My military training had helped keep those darker urges in check, as did driving myself hard at work, along with the occasional club visit. So there should be no reason for that possessive urge to rise up inside me, almost choking me. No reason at all.

  But that didn’t stop the fact that it was happening, and if I wasn’t careful I was going to go over there and make a complete dick of myself.

  It was like that orgasm had tripped a switch inside me and I was damned if I knew how to turn it off.

  I ignored the urge as long as possible and then, when it started to distract me more than was safe, I went and found Morgan and asked her to keep Freya company for me. Morg
an gave me a suspicious look, but I didn’t explain and luckily she didn’t ask any further questions, walking off muttering something about ‘dumb alpha males’. And next time I looked up, the asshole was gone and Morgan was chatting to Freya instead.

  Better. Much better.

  The auction finished late and there was a definite high energy in the gallery afterwards; people had obviously enjoyed themselves, many of them appreciating the excitement of watching expensive jewels going for outrageous sums of money. Especially since it was for charity, which put the stamp of virtue on everything.

  I didn’t want to stay and socialise—like Ulysses, I hated small talk with a passion—so I left Damian in charge of wrapping things up since he seemed determined to distract himself from whatever was bothering him, and went to find Freya. She was staying in my suite in the Shangri-La in the Shard and she’d probably want to catch a ride back with me.

  Weren’t you going to go to a club? Find yourself a bratty sub to punish?

  Yeah, I’d been going to do that, sure. But that would be to admit that I couldn’t handle myself. That I couldn’t flick off that switch. And I had to. Because there was no way anything else was going to happen with Freya, no fucking way.

  My temper was touchy by the time I found her waiting for me near the gallery exit, and it was not helped by the fact that the asshole who’d been talking to her earlier was talking to her again. And that she was smiling up at him as if he was the best thing she’d seen all week.

  I tried to lock my baser instincts down hard, but when she spotted me coming towards her she flushed. Beautifully. And the possessive urge I’d been trying to ignore all fucking night rushed to the surface. Because it didn’t take a genius to figure out why she’d blushed.

  Me. And the orgasm I’d given her.

  That guy was still in her face and I wasn’t in any mood to be polite when I got to them. I slipped an arm around her waist and pulled her firmly against me. ‘Ready to go?’ I asked, giving the guy trying to chat her up a ‘What the fuck are you looking at?’ glance. ‘Limo’s out front.’