Sexy Beast--A Sexy Billionaire Romance

by Jackie Ashenden

  The problem was, I didn’t seem to have a dominant side any more.

  I was all dominant. I wanted to be that air. I wanted to be the one who gave her fucking life, the one she turned to, not only for fun and friendship, but for help and for comfort. For pleasure and release.

  For everything.

  I wanted to be everything for her, the way she was everything for me.

  I wanted her to be mine. Mine and only mine.

  Something roared to life inside me in that second, something I’d been trying to keep locked down and under control, that simply burst the chains I’d kept on it and tore through me like a fucking wildfire.

  I picked her up in my arms and took her back to the couch outside the fitting room. I sat down with her in my lap, kissing her desperately the whole time as I reached for my wallet in my back pocket and the condoms that were in it. Her hands were already dealing with the button and zipper of my jeans, clawing at them, because apparently she was as hungry for me as I was for her.

  I ripped open the condom packet with my teeth and slid one on. Then I gripped my cock in one hand and put the other on her hip, adjusting her so her pussy was right where I wanted it. Then I thrust in hard, watching her face as I did so, her green eyes going wide and dark, a sharp breath escaping her as I slid in deep.

  She felt so good. Hot. Tight. Wet. The muscles of her pussy clenching around me, holding me to her. Her face was flushed, the colour of her eyes so vivid, and she stared at me as if I was the only thing in her entire universe.

  And I wanted to be the only thing in her entire universe. I wanted nothing and nobody else to be there but me.

  Freya, my best friend. My lover. Mine.

  I took her mouth hard, my fingers digging into her hips as I thrust up into her, and she tried to move with me, her hands gripping my upper arms for balance. It should have been slow and sensuous—at least that was what I’d intended it to be. I’d wanted to play with those sexy chains, scrape them over her nipples and press them against her clit, drive her wild. But the fire blazing in my veins wouldn’t allow it.

  My fingers were gripping her so tightly I knew I’d leave bruises on her delicate skin, but I lifted her up and brought her down hard on my hungry cock. The sound of her flesh meeting mine was loud in the silence of the store, and she was panting. I brought her back down on me harder, at the same time as I thrust up, angling her hips so she could take me deeper. The feel of her around me was indescribably good and yet it wasn’t enough.

  There was a roaring in my head, the ache in my chest getting worse and worse even as the pleasure built higher and higher, a bonfire inside me. The raw possessive need for her was suddenly overwhelming.

  She was mine. All mine. And I would make sure of it.

  I moved, needing her beneath me, pulling out of her and pushing her off my lap and onto her back on the couch. Then I hooked one leg then the other over my shoulders, shoving myself inside her again. She gasped, her hands moving to my chest as I leaned forward to grip the arm of the couch, sliding as deep into her as I could get. Then I began to fuck her—and not gently, because the feeling inside me wasn’t gentle.

  It was a raw and savage need that I couldn’t control like I knew I should have, and I was blind to everything but the desire to possess her utterly.

  Another woman might have protested, but Freya didn’t. Her hands slid to my shoulders, her nails digging into my skin, and she shifted and bucked beneath me, trying to fuck me as hard as I was fucking her. There was a wild light in her green eyes, her teeth bared, and she was panting.

  I’d never seen anything so beautiful.

  ‘You’re mine,’ I growled down at her, pinning her with my weight to keep her still. ‘You’re fucking mine.’

  ‘Yes,’ she gasped, her body straining as she tried to move. ‘I am. Always.’

  The satisfaction was so intense I leaned down and stopped her mouth with mine, kissing her, biting at her lower lip as I shoved myself inside her, deeper, faster. Because of course she was mine and now she knew it too.

  The pleasure was becoming unbearable now, and I only just had the presence of mind to slip my hand down between her slick thighs to find her clit, to apply some pressure and some friction, making her stiffen and arch upwards as the orgasm hit her.

  Then it was hitting me too, like a fucking freight train, and I was shoving myself into her as the pleasure exploded like a bomb in my head, my hands hard on her as I proceeded to lose what was left of my goddamned mind.

  I lost myself for long minutes afterwards, feeling like I’d been hit with a baseball bat, my head ringing, my heart shuddering inside my chest.

  What the hell happened to you?

  I’d lost control of myself. That was what had happened. And it hadn’t been anger that had been the catalyst, not this time, but good old-fashioned lust.

  No. It wasn’t lust.

  A cold thread wound through me because I knew deep down that of course it hadn’t been lust. We’d done nothing but have sex for the past three days and I hadn’t lost it like this before.

  You know what it is.

  But I didn’t want to think about that, so I shoved it aside as I felt her squirm beneath me, pushing myself back to give her some room and also so I could see her.

  She was looking up at me, her gaze brilliant, her face flushed. But the delicate bodysuit of hers was a wreck. Some of the chains had broken and the ribbon had snapped. A few of the crystals had come loose and were embedded in her soft skin, leaving marks. Scratches. All signs of the control I’d lost.

  What the fuck were you thinking? You know how dangerous that is.

  The cold thread wound tighter, the boulder sitting on my chest getting heavier and heavier.

  ‘Wow,’ Freya breathed, looking up at me. ‘That was...’ Then she stopped and frowned. ‘Hey, what’s up?’

  I was good at controlling my expressions, but clearly not good enough. Shit. The last thing I wanted to do was explain any of this to her. Not the heavy feeling sitting in the centre of my chest, the knowledge that something was wrong. Something I should have held tight to, that I’d let go.

  And I knew what happened when I let go. My dad, bloody on the floor and smiling at me like he’d finally seen something in me that pleased him, that made him proud.

  ‘Real chip off the old block, aren’t you, son?’

  The ache in my chest became a crushing pain that I dealt with by ignoring it completely.

  ‘Nothing,’ I said shortly. ‘I’m afraid I ruined your pretty playsuit.’ I began to ease myself away from her, only to have her reach for my wrist, her fingers circling around it to hold me where I was.

  ‘E, you said you wanted honesty from me.’ Her grip on me tightened, her gaze searching my face. ‘But you need to be honest with me too. What’s going on?’

  Ah, shit. What the hell was I going to do now? I didn’t want to talk about this crap with her. Not here, not now. Pretty much never.

  Gently, I disengaged her fingers from my wrist and moved off her, getting up off the couch and getting rid of the condom in a wastebasket near the counter. ‘I’m pissed off that I ruined your suit.’ I kept my attention on doing up my jeans. ‘That’s all.’

  ‘No, that’s not all.’ She pushed herself off the couch, seemingly not at all bothered by the remains of the playsuit that left her pretty much naked. ‘What’s the problem? The suit presumably you can replace. It’s not as if you’re strapped for cash.’

  I finished doing up my jeans then looked at her. ‘I’m not having this discussion now. I’m going to get all of this packed up and sent to the hotel—’

  ‘E,’ Freya interrupted and there was a note in her voice that stopped me cold. ‘Why are you lying to me?’

  ‘I’m not lying,’ I snapped, knowing I sounded petulant but unable to help it. ‘What the fuck does that matter, anyway?
’

  ‘It matters because you matter, Everett.’ Her gaze was as direct and honest and brave as she was. ‘And I know something’s wrong. I saw it in your eyes just before. So why don’t you tell me? Please.’

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Freya

  THERE WAS A hot gleam in Everett’s eyes that looked a hell of a lot like anger and I had no idea why. What I did know was that, whatever was going on, his reluctance to talk pissed me off too.

  He couldn’t demand total honesty from me and then not tell me what his deal was. And anyway, hadn’t we done this already a couple of days earlier back at the hotel?

  It felt especially raw after what he’d just given me in the fitting room, the way he’d put his hands on me and told me he’d always choose me, possessiveness flaming in his blue eyes. I had loved that, even as part of me hadn’t wanted to accept what he’d said, that I wasn’t as fine about my aunt’s treatment of me as I’d made out.

  But then I hadn’t wanted her to matter. I hadn’t wanted her to hurt me. And I hadn’t wanted to accept the things Everett had done for me or listen to the nice things he said about me, because if I had that would have felt like admitting I’d been hurt. And that I did care.

  Yet I couldn’t look into his hot blue eyes and keep on insisting that I was fine either. I couldn’t keep on denying the emotion clogging in my throat and making my eyes prickle. Because to do so would have meant denying all Everett had done for me, saying it meant nothing. And the fact was, it didn’t mean nothing. It meant everything.

  Because he meant everything.

  I’d had no words for it in that second, hadn’t been able to speak even if I’d wanted to, so I’d kissed him instead, hoping my body would say what I couldn’t.

  He’d taken me hard and desperately, with no orders this time, and no control. Just him, savage and raw and wild. It had been unbearably exciting to be pinned beneath him, held down and taken furiously, as if he was so starved for me he hadn’t been able to help himself. Then he’d growled out that I was his and I knew in that moment that I was. And that I didn’t want to be anyone else’s.

  Nothing had seemed to matter then. Not my aunt. Not the fact that she’d never cared for me the way I’d wanted her to. Not how I’d always felt too tall, too big, too out of place all my life.

  Nothing mattered but Everett calling me his.

  Until, of course, he’d pushed himself away from me and started lying about why.

  ‘It’s not you,’ he said flatly.

  ‘You know, for once I don’t think it’s me, either.’ And I didn’t, not given how many times over the past few days he’d proved it wasn’t. ‘So what is it?’

  He shook his head and turned toward the door. ‘Let’s talk about this later. Why don’t you get dressed?’

  ‘I don’t want to talk about this later.’ Because I knew what would happen. We’d get back to the hotel and Everett would distract me in some way, and then the opportunity would be gone.

  ‘Too bad.’ He kept on moving toward the door.

  Asshole.

  I quickly went around the couch and put myself between him and the exit. He stopped, glowering. ‘Don’t push me, Little. I’m not in the mood.’

  ‘And I’m not in the mood for you being an evasive dick.’ I squared my shoulders and lifted my chin. ‘I said please.’

  Tension gathered in the air around him. He was mad. I could see the hot blue spark of anger glowing in his eyes. ‘Like I said. I don’t want to talk about it.’

  ‘After you basically pushed me into baring my soul to you in front of the mirror just now? How is that fair?’

  He looked away. ‘I have my reasons.’

  My stomach dipped, disappointment aching inside me. I didn’t want to push him if it was going to hurt him to tell me, but I couldn’t deny that it hurt he didn’t want to. It felt like he didn’t trust me the way I trusted him.

  ‘Okay,’ I said, trying not to let that hurt show. ‘I won’t insist. But if you won’t tell me what the issue is, you could at least explain why you have to keep it such a big secret.’ I hesitated. ‘You can trust me, E. You know that.’

  Everett muttered something filthy under his breath. ‘It’s not about trust.’ He lifted a restless hand, running it through his hair in a gesture I’d almost never seen him make before, glancing down at the floor. ‘I just...don’t want you to see me differently.’

  I frowned, puzzled. ‘See you differently...to what?’

  He didn’t reply, though his hand dropped and abruptly he looked at me, a fierce expression in his eyes. Then he took a sudden step forward, his gaze dropping down my body, to the ruined playsuit, and he put out a hand, his fingers brushing over one of the marks on my side, where a crystal had pressed against my skin. I shivered.

  ‘I hurt you.’ His voice had thickened, full of an emotion I didn’t recognise.

  I frowned and put my hand over his where it touched my side. His skin felt warm underneath my fingers, but that expression on his face...it was pain.

  ‘E,’ I said softly, my heart constricting, ‘you didn’t hurt me. Honestly. And anyway, those times you spanked me hurt worse than that.’

  He lifted his attention from my skin and met my gaze. ‘That was different. I meant to do it those times. And I was in control of myself. I was...not in control just then.’

  ‘So? I liked it. I liked that you were kind of desperate. It was exciting. And I would have told you if I hadn’t been into it.’

  Something shuttered in his face, like a light going out or a door closing. ‘I can’t be like that, Freya. Not with you. It’s too risky.’

  There was a heavy note in his voice. A kind of finality that made me feel cold inside. ‘What are you talking about? What do you mean, “too risky”?’

  He was silent, and for a long moment I thought he wasn’t going to speak. Then he said, ‘Remember years ago? When my dad got beaten up? I told you he’d got into a fight while he was out drinking.’

  I did remember, dimly. It had been years ago and I’d thought it was only what the asshole deserved. Everett hadn’t said much about it, but then he never talked about his father much as it was.

  ‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘I remember.’

  Everett’s gaze was very blue and very direct. ‘The fight he had was with me. I beat him up. He was drunk again, and he cuffed me around the head and I... I snapped. I got so angry. I punched him, and then I punched him again, and then the next thing I knew he was on the ground.’

  A wave of shock passed over me. Cool, controlled Everett snapping and punching his father? I could barely imagine it. Then again, if anyone could have pushed him to the limit it would have been his horrible father. Only he’d never said a word about this to me, not one single word. I’d simply accepted what he’d told me as the truth, that his father had got into a fight. I’d never even had a suspicion that it would be otherwise.

  ‘That wasn’t the worst part, though,’ he went on, his gaze dropping from mine, back down my body to the little dents in my skin the chains had left. He trailed his fingers over them, making me shiver yet again. ‘The worst part was when he was lying on the floor, and I was standing over him. And he looked at me and he just...smiled and told me I was a “chip off the old block”. As if he was proud of me. As if I was just like him.’

  My heart was a big ball of hurt in my chest—hurt for him. While another part of me was furious at him for not telling me this, for keeping this from me for so long, especially when it had clearly been eating him up inside. But this wasn’t about my anger, so I tried to sound neutral as I asked, ‘Why didn’t you tell me about it?’

  His fingers trailed over another set of dents at my hip and again he was silent. Then he looked at me again. ‘I didn’t want to talk about Dad with you. Being with you was the only time I could escape him and even talking about him made it feel like he was i
ntruding. But mainly... I didn’t mention it because I didn’t want you to see me differently. I didn’t want you to look at me the way Dad did, as if I took after him.’

  My throat closed up. ‘Oh, E. I would never look at you that way. Never. Why would you think I would?’

  ‘Because I never told you I’d hurt Dad. You didn’t know.’ He looked away again, his hand dropping from my body, every line of him tense. ‘And I decided you couldn’t know, because you were the only person who didn’t see him in me. You thought I was a good guy and I just... I needed someone to believe that.’

  The shock deepened, widened. I’d never pushed Everett about his father because he hadn’t wanted to talk about it. And since I didn’t talk about my aunt, it didn’t seem fair to bug him. But maybe I should have. Because then I could have done something for him, so he didn’t have to deal with this alone. Except I’d been too wrapped up in my own stuff, too busy telling everyone I was fine, to be bothered paying attention.

  I swallowed, pushing back the regret that was choking me. ‘Yeah, well, I know now, don’t I? And nothing’s changed. You’re still a good guy.’

  But he just stared at me. ‘Am I?’

  ‘Of course you are, you idiot.’ I reached out a hand to his chest, resting my palm against the hard width of it, wanting to touch him, offer comfort. ‘You’re not a drunken, abusive asshole, for a start.’

  He glanced down at me, his body wound tight as a spring. ‘I got angry, Freya. And I just lost it and I shouldn’t have. I should have controlled it, should have kept it locked down, but I didn’t. I lashed out at him and I fucking nearly knocked him out.’

  ‘Yeah, and? He deserved it. Hell, if I’d been there, I would have put in a few punches myself.’

  Everett’s gaze burned with a fierce, cold light. ‘You don’t understand. Of course he deserved it, but I shouldn’t have lost it the way I did. And I can feel that anger inside me, Freya. It’s still there. It’s like a bomb waiting to go off, a little piece of him I can’t get rid of. All I can do is make sure I stay in control enough that it doesn’t.’