Temper

by Chantal Fernando

  To my three sons, my biggest supporters—thank you for being so understanding, loving and helpful. I’m so proud of the men you are all slowly becoming, and I love you all so very much. I hope that watching me work hard every day and following my dreams inspires you all to do the same. Nothing makes me happier than being your mama.

  And Chookie—no, I love you more.

  And to my readers, thank you for loving my words. I hope this book is no exception.

  About the Author

  New York Times, Amazon and USA TODAY bestselling author Chantal Fernando is thirty-two years old and lives in Western Australia.

  Lover of all things romance, Chantal is the author of the bestselling books Dragon’s Lair, Maybe This Time and many more.

  When not reading, writing or daydreaming, she can be found enjoying life with her three sons and family.

  Sexy Beast

  by Jackie Ashenden

  CHAPTER ONE

  Freya

  I HATED EVERETT’S launch party.

  It wasn’t really his fault. It was just that my dress was too tight, making me feel like an overstuffed sausage, and when you’re nearly six foot, built on the Amazonian side—not to mention a redhead—an overstuffed sausage is not how you want to feel. Plus there was the whole being a Clydesdale in a room full of Arabian Thoroughbreds thing going on, what with the room being full of tiny women in glittering dresses, all prancing around.

  But that wasn’t unusual for me. As a mechanic from a tin-pot little Texan town whose best friend just happened to be a billionaire, I was often in situations where I didn’t really fit.

  I was way more comfortable in my garage, lying under a car in grease-stained overalls, than I was at fancy fundraisers like this one.

  My friend Everett Calhoun and his two friends Damian Blackwood and Ulysses White were launching a special foundation that they’d set up with the backing of the giant multi-billion-dollar company the three of them had started years ago. The fundraiser had all the fancy trappings of a really big event, with famous people and designer outfits, jewellery auctions and a really amazing venue—the British Museum—in a gallery with lots of sculptures from ancient history.

  Not my idea of a good time. I preferred hanging with friends at a low-key bar or pub, with a beer.

  But then, I wasn’t here because I liked glitzy parties.

  I was here because Everett’s business interests took him all over the world and I very rarely got to see him. He’d needed a date for this party, and so he’d asked me. He never asked for help; he was more usually attempting to help me—not that I’d ever let him—so it was nice to be able to do something for him.

  I’d always wanted to see London and since I’d taken on Casey at the garage I was able to leave the business without worrying it might fall over if I missed a day or two.

  Resisting the urge to rub my sweaty palms down the dress I’d hurriedly picked up at a store along Oxford Street that afternoon, I craned my neck trying to spot where Everett was. He’d told me he was going off to find me a drink and he was taking his time about it. Not that I was unhappy about that.

  Because there was another reason why the party was getting to me. Why I was feeling antsy and restless and more than a little distracted. Everett might have needed me to be his date tonight, but I also needed something from him. Something I’d been considering a lot on the flight to London that I hoped wouldn’t change our friendship, but maybe would, and whether that was a good idea or not was anyone’s guess.

  But I couldn’t start talking to him about that because he wasn’t here, which was super annoying. Especially when I really needed the margarita he was supposed to be getting me.

  He shouldn’t have been that hard to spot considering he was six-four and built like Superman, but I couldn’t see him anywhere.

  I could see Damian Blackwood, phenomenally good-looking and radiating charm like a Hollywood movie star, talking to a bunch of people and making them laugh, his beautiful voice and Australian accent making him easy to pick out in the crowd.

  Ulysses White was there too, striding around grim-faced, his black eyes full of ice, his assistant trailing after him—another of those thoroughbred women—looking exasperated.

  But Everett Calhoun? My best friend in the whole wide world? Where the hell was he?

  ‘Little,’ a deep voice from behind me said.

  Only one person ever called me ‘Little’.

  I turned and there he was, and right on cue my heart starting beating faster, the way it always did around him. The way it had been doing ever since he was sixteen and I, two years younger, was adjusting the bow tie on the suit he’d hired for prom.

  He’d been gorgeous then and he was gorgeous now, especially in a tux, the tailored black fabric highlighting his height and the width of his shoulders and powerful chest.

  Back in Texas, before the military, he’d worn nothing but jeans and T-shirts and always looked hot AF. But in the suits he now wore? Oh, man, flat out delicious.

  His dark blond hair had once been shaggy and I’d always wanted to push it out of his eyes. Now he wore it cut army-short and, even though I missed the length, I liked the way the short cut highlighted his amazing face.

  He wasn’t classically handsome, like his friend Damian. His features were blunter, harsher, intensely masculine. His jaw was strong and square, and his nose had a bump in it from when it had been broken while he’d been on deployment somewhere. His brows were heavy, his eyes deep set and blue as the ocean, with a tinge of green. He’d never been much of a smiler, which was a shame since his mouth was the perfect shape for kissing and—

  Stop.

  Everett was staring at me, blond brows pulling down into his usual frown, the one that made him look like a very stern Viking. ‘What’s up? I got you the margarita you wanted.’ He held out the drink while I tried to ignore my physical response to him.

  It wasn’t usually this noticeable. Then again, I wasn’t usually at a party trying to get up the courage to ask my best friend if he’d help me out...sexually.

  Not that I wanted actual sex. I just wanted an orgasm. No biggie.

  First, though, I needed a drink.

  Shoving thoughts of orgasms aside, I gave him a grin. ‘Took your time. What did you do? Make the tequila yourself?’

  ‘Had to help Damian with a problem.’ Everett was characteristically short on detail. ‘You want this or what?’

  Still grinning, I grabbed the glass and took a large gulp, the alcohol burning on its way down. I probably needed to be careful, especially considering it had been alcohol that had put the thought of Everett and orgasms in my head in the first place.

  It had been my twenty-first birthday and my first time in a bar. Too much beer and late night conversation about relationships—or, rather, my lack of one. And by ‘relationships’ I meant ‘sex’. Or, rather, me rambling on to Everett about how sex wasn’t that great for me, because men didn’t seem to know how to get me off. I couldn’t quite understand how the conversation had ended up where it had, but the result was Everett telling me that if I wanted an orgasm that badly to come and see him, and he’d give me one.

  I’d forgotten about it the next day—mainly because I’d been drunk as a skunk—and he hadn’t mentioned it either, and so the offer had gotten lost in the mists of my own drunken memory.

  But a week or so later the memory had popped back up, my embarrassment complete when it reminded me that while I might have been drunk during that conversation, Everett had been stone cold sober. Of course my brain had instantly frozen, the briefest burst of hope flashing through me before I could stop it. The hope that maybe the offer meant he was as interested in me as I was in him. Stupid brain. I knew he wasn’t. He’d never treated me as anything more than a friend and I was sure his orgasm proposal had more to do with friendship than it did with any kind of sexual at
traction.

  Which naturally had ensured I would never take him up on it. Ever. I didn’t want pity orgasms from Everett, because that was what it felt like, no matter what his intention had been in offering to help.

  I didn’t need his help. Never had. And that had nothing to do with the fact that I’d been crushing on him since for ever and had always nurtured secret thoughts that maybe one day he’d suddenly turn around and see that his best friend was a woman, not just a tomboy in grease-stained overalls.

  Except then Tiffany’s wedding had come along. She was my favourite cousin—I was brought up with her after my mother died—and I’d been asked to go, but the thought of enduring a hen party full of sexual innuendo, when I had no decent sex life to make innuendos about, seemed sad. My aunt and her family—Tiff excluded—thought I was pretty sad as it was, and I was a little sick of it. Being nearly thirty and not having had an orgasm with a partner seemed wrong, and I was a little sick of that too.

  I could have pretended, I guess. Made up some story of wild, no-holds-barred sex with some amazing guy. But the truth was that I’d always had a nagging doubt that the problem lay with me. That there was something wrong with me, that I wasn’t much of a woman somehow.

  I hated that feeling since I knew exactly where it had come from: my very critical aunt who never failed to comment on my faults, especially on my height and how unfeminine I was. And even though I was totally fine with myself these days, her comments had stuck, echoing in my head when I was at my lowest. Whispering to me that I’d never be able to have a fulfilling relationship, that I’d end up being alone for ever.

  I didn’t want to be alone for ever. I didn’t want her comments in my head any more. I didn’t want to feel like a lumbering Clydesdale in a room full of pretty fillies. I didn’t want that doubt about myself.

  So I’d changed my mind about Everett’s offer. I wanted to feel like a woman and if anyone could do that it was him. Sure, it might be a pity orgasm, but hey, at least then I’d know that the problem wasn’t me.

  He had his hands shoved in his pockets now and was staring at me, still looking every inch the stern Viking with his steely gaze, hard jaw and powerful build.

  An intimidating guy, Everett Calhoun.

  But he’d never intimidated me. I’d known him since I was eight and he was the boy next door who’d seen me crying in the backyard. He asked me if I wanted to shoot some hoops with him, because he wanted to be a basketball player when he grew up and that I should be too, since I was tall.

  He’d been the first person to see my height as an asset not a drawback, and that was how he’d treated me ever since. He was a good guy who looked out for people even though life had dealt him a shitty hand.

  Or at least it had been shitty. Now it was pretty good, though he’d worked very hard to get where he was today, and I admired him for that.

  Still wasn’t intimidated, though.

  ‘You didn’t answer my question,’ he said patiently.

  ‘What question?’

  ‘I asked you what was up.’

  So he had.

  ‘So “what’s up” in the general sense?’ I said. ‘Or maybe “what’s up” in the literal sense, as in some balloons escaping or...’

  Everett remained silent, his blue gaze unwavering. How had he picked up that I was nervous? Admittedly, I tended to run at the mouth when I was uncertain, but I was sure I hadn’t been babbling before.

  I needed some more margarita. Stat.

  ‘Jet lag,’ I said, gulping at my drink. ‘It’s a bitch.’

  ‘Jet lag,’ he echoed, those two words somehow encompassing an entire universe of scepticism.

  ‘Yeah, man. Flying cattle class is no joke. You’ve probably forgotten.’

  Everett’s brows twitched. ‘I offered to pay for business class.’

  ‘Which was generous, but unnecessary.’ I could have used the extra legroom, but it was just such a waste of money. A plane was a plane. ‘Anyway, so this is fun. Not. Why didn’t you ask one of the fillies over there to be your date?’ I waved my glass in the general direction of the Thoroughbreds. ‘I’m not ungrateful, believe me. Just...puzzled.’

  ‘Because Morgan said we had to bring someone who mattered to us,’ Everett said, turning to glance out across the crowded gallery.

  Morgan was the little woman I’d seen trailing after Ulysses. His PA and Damian’s baby sister, apparently. She was the one who’d organised this launch for the new Black and White Foundation, which was something to do with disadvantaged kids. A great project, I thought, and it was very Everett to put all his considerable money behind a very good cause.

  He was a man of action rather than words, but that was what I liked about him. He never spent a lot of time talking about what he was going to do. He just went ahead and did it.

  ‘Plus,’ Everett went on, clearly reading my mind, ‘I hate shit like this and it’s good having someone around that I don’t need to talk to all the time.’

  I grinned, a small glow of pleasure sitting just behind my breastbone. It was always nice to be appreciated by him, especially since he didn’t often say stuff like that out loud.

  All of this is going to change when you ask him for your favour—you realise that, don’t you?

  Lifting my glass, I took another healthy sip, watching the swirl of the crowd in the gallery and shoving that thought aside to an unused corner of my brain. Operation Orgasm didn’t have to change anything, not if I didn’t let it. And I wasn’t going to let it.

  All I wanted was to turn up at Tiffany’s hen party with the knowledge that my clitoris and/or vagina were in perfect working order, and that I was just as much a woman as my perfect, delicate cousins were, despite what my aunt thought. And hey, once I knew for certain that the issue wasn’t me, perhaps I could move on from my hopeless crush on my best friend and find someone who might want to crush on me instead.

  ‘Thanks E,’ I said. ‘Best friends who are also billionaires rule.’

  He grunted, which was Everett-speak for thank you.

  I knocked back more margarita, only slightly disturbed to see I’d had nearly all of it in the couple of minutes since Everett had brought it to me. But if downing a whole margarita in the space of five minutes was what was needed to get this request out, then that was what was needed.

  There was a silence. An uncomfortable one.

  I was painfully conscious of his massive, powerful figure standing next to me, and for a second I didn’t know what would be worse, him saying, ‘Yeah, sure, I’ll give you an orgasm’ or, ‘Not if my life depended on it’.

  ‘You’re nervous.’ His deep voice was a rumble, his gaze still on the swirling crowd. ‘Why?’

  Dammit. Of course he’d come back around to that. He never let anything go, the asshole. And I still wasn’t ready to tell him the reason.

  You’re never going to be ready.

  That was, unfortunately, true. In which case, I needed to suck it up, get on with it and stop pretending it mattered. Hell, if the worst came to the worst, I could always pay someone to give me one. I wouldn’t be the first woman to pay for an orgasm, surely?

  Ignoring his question, I downed the rest of my margarita and put the empty glass on a plinth supporting some ancient Greek sculpture. Then I glanced around to make sure there weren’t any other groups of people near us, because the last thing I wanted was an audience.

  Luckily, there was no one in our immediate vicinity, so I turned to face him. I was aware of the small thrill that hit me every time I had to look up at him, because I generally had to look down at people, not up. ‘I...uh...need to ask you something.’

  He raised one blond brow.

  Okay, Freya. It’s now or never.

  It should have been easy. I owned a garage and was around men all day. I’d never had any problems talking to them before. I’d never had a
ny problems talking to Everett either. But suddenly it wasn’t easy. Suddenly it felt like the hardest thing I’d had to do for years and years.

  Perhaps it was because I preferred to give help rather than receive it. It definitely had nothing whatsoever to do with the sex.

  ‘So, uh, remember the night of my twenty-first birthday?’ I began awkwardly.

  His gaze narrowed. ‘Some.’

  ‘Right, well, you know you made me an offer that night?’

  His gaze narrowed still further. Did he remember? Part of me hoped he didn’t, even though it would mean me having to explain the whole thing out loud.

  ‘About orgasms, yes?’ He didn’t hesitate with the reply or stumble over the word. As if he said ‘orgasms’ every day in just that tone of voice.

  So. Clearly, he remembered. Which was great since I didn’t have to go over the whole thing again, but also...awkward.

  ‘Yeah.’ I willed my cheeks not to flush, because red on red was never a good look. ‘And you said that—’

  ‘If you wanted an orgasm, you could come to me,’ he finished, his face disturbingly expressionless.

  ‘That’s about the size of it.’ My hands were somehow in fists at my sides so I opened them, trying to relax. ‘So, I guess that’s why I’m a little...nervous.’ I took a breath. ‘Because...uh...I’d like to take you up on your offer.’

  Copyright © 2020 by Jackie Ashenden

  Now Available from Carina Press and Chantal Fernando

  New York Times bestselling author of the Knights of Fury MC series Chantal Fernando is back with trouble in the form of a renegade.

  Read on for an excerpt from Renegade

  “You have got to be kidding me,” I groan, slamming my hands down on the steering wheel in frustration. After a week of nothing but bad luck, from locking myself out of my house to smashing the screen on my phone, I shouldn’t be surprised that my car has decided to die on me just as I’m about to leave for a road trip to visit my nine-months-pregnant sister, but I am.