Getting Naughty with Avril Tremayne

I’ll share a secret. Getting Naughty was originally pitched something like this: 

Teague Hamilton is the ultimate good boy – a clean cut, unflappable lawyer. Every element of his life has been chosen with even-keel confidence, including pretty, polished Lydia Laverton with whom he’s trying to fall in love. When his old college friend Romy, a restaurant consultant, asks him to help one of her clients cut through the red tape to open an eatery in New York, things don’t go according to plan for the very first time in his life.

Hana Larsson is a Danish dynamo, a girl who won’t take “no” for an answer and doesn’t expect to hear it. At their first meeting, Teague explains a few things she can't do and she promptly sacks him. Neither of them can understand how they end up having sex in Teague’s office, but from that moment, Teague’s tame life seems suddenly unbearable – especially when she dares him to greater and greater wildness.

The book that actually emerged had only one of these elements in it: Teague Hamilton is definitely the ultimate good boy, clean cut lawyer, whose life is pretty well prescribed for him. Other than that... Well, there's no sign of Lydia. And instead of being set in New York, the book ended up at Bondi Beach, Sydney. There's no Danish chef – the heroine, Frankie, is an Aussie, and dances in a gentleman’s club. And most importantly, Teague and Frankie knew (and wanted) each other ten years ago but he was never game enough to take a walk on the wild side with her. And then they meet again ten years later...

I don't really know how the changeover from story A to story B happened, but my best guess is that my subconscious was busily wresting the story from me from the moment I sat down to write book 1 in the series, Getting Lucky. You see, I wrote a reference in that book to Teague almost drowning once upon a time while participating in the Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race. So risky, with such an imperfect result - most un-Teague-like! And then I started penning book 2 in the series, Getting Even, and I started to understand why he entered that race. Teague is the lighthouse in his circle of friends - calm, stalwart, supportive, guiding his volatile friends when they're adrift in turbulent seas aboard rickety boats. He doesn't precisely want to be in one of those rickety boats, but he sure wants to come down from the lantern room and leave the lighthouse to get out in the elements from time to time, even if it's only to watch the sea from the cliff's edge. Once I knew that about him, I saw that he didn’t need a woman to fall in love with his hidden depths; he needed a woman who liked him exactly the way he was - a woman who would let him decide for himself whether to stay in the lighthouse, walk along the cliff, get out on the water - or do all three! And suddenly there was Frankie, already an off-stage character in both Getting Lucky and Getting Even, and she was waiting for him to turn up at her house in Bondi…

Bondi Beach, Sydney, Australia

 Here’s a little excerpt from Chapter 1, after Teague has arrived at Frankie’s to deliver something from their mutual friend Matt (the hero of Getting Lucky). Frankie has just propositioned Teague and he’s having a hard time believing she means it!

He frowned like he really did not get it!

    “Teague!” she cried. “Seriously!”

He looked behind him, as though he thought she must be talking to someone else even though she’d just addressed him by his damn name.

 “I’m talking about you having a fling while you’re here.”

“I don’t have flings.”

“Oh, I know that, Teague! I tried hard enough to get you to have a fling with me the whole time I was in DC! But now... Well, now you’re here, and I never thought you would be, so I’m making one more attempt. And you can say no, but I hope you don’t, because I think I can help you not be miserable, or at least give you a respite from it while—while you’re here. In Sydney. So. That’s all.”

Silence. Stillness.

A rush of heartbeats later, with her words hanging in the air, he shook his head. “No,” he said.

“Well!” She blushed again, brought both hands up to her face. “This is embarrassing.”

“No, I mean—” He made a sound—like a cross between a sigh and a huff. “You said something about meeting your friends, so I thought you must mean I should have fling with one of... But—” Slight head shake. “Do you mean a fling with you? No. You can’t mean that.”

“That’s funny, Teague, because I’m pretty sure what I’m doing right at this moment, sitting here at some godawful hour of the morning when I’m far from at my best, is offering myself to you straight up, since you’ve never been able to take a damn hint.”
 

Buy the book HERE!

I'm giving away a signed print copy of book 2 in the series, Getting Even. It's a hottie, so approach with caution. To go into the draw,  follow me somewhere! (eg, like Amazon or Bookbub or my 18+ Facebook page Tremayne Untamed). The links for all of the options are HERE, where you can tick off which option you chose and leave me your email address. Meanwhile, I'd love to hear if you prefer sweet or sexy romance - and if you've read any DAREs!