Masters Forever (Masters #3) Read online

  MASTERS FOREVER

  Book III of the Masters Saga

  By

  Ginger Voight

  © 2015 by Ginger Voight

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. This book contains material protected under International and Federal Copyright Laws and Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without express written permission from the author/publisher.

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  Just a little taste…

  ***

  His gaze landed on my mouth, making me lick my lips nervously. He groaned as he held me closer. “Oh, Coralie,” he murmured. “Have I ruined everything?”

  I gulped hard. “Is that your question?”

  “Yes,” he whispered and I couldn’t help but shudder against him.

  “Devlin,” I started, but my voice was strangled in my throat as I stared up at him. I was lost the instant his mouth descended onto mine, covering my lips in a warm, earnest kiss that begged my compliance. I had to brace my hands on his strong shoulders before I wilted right to the floor. Despite it all, I couldn’t fight his control over me.

  I didn’t want to.

  When at last I submitted to his kiss, he lifted me up into his arms, his hands clasping fistfuls of my hair as he ravaged my mouth at last. “Stay with me tonight,” he pleaded yet again, this time with his talented mouth against my lips.

  I shuddered hard. It was all I wanted–and all I knew I had to refuse. Nothing had changed. Yes, he had a vice-like grip on my soul, able to command me and control me with nothing more but the look in his eyes. That was never the question, nor, really, the problem.

  The problem was that he was likewise controlled, by a woman he had just admitted that he had to sleep with, even if he had fallen in love with someone else. “I can’t,” I finally croaked as I tried once more to push away from that strong chest.

  “Why?” he asked as he tried to pull me closer.

  My eyes met his. “One question. One answer.”

  His gaze darkened. “You never answered my question, Coralie.”

  I stared into those eyes as long as I dared. “Didn’t I?” I finally said before I finally tugged away from him. I practically ran from the room while I still could.

  ***

  CHAPTER ONE

  “Are you okay?”

  I turned to face Caz Bixby, who rode shotgun in my car on our way from the country club to my father’s Bel Air mansion. “What do you think?” I practically snarled.

  Granted, it wasn’t his fault I was angry. It wasn’t even his fault he had been forced into an impromptu date with me this particular New Year’s Eve. I had wanted to get even with my once-gigolo, once-husband Devlin Masters, and I knew there was no better way to do that than to make him think I was going to fuck his nemesis.

  You know the story by now, I’m sure I don’t have to tell you. The best way to deliver a KO punch to Devlin’s great ego was to let him see that his magical penis hadn’t branded me for life like he hoped.

  At least, I hoped it hadn’t. It had only been three months–technically eleven weeks, five days and twenty-two hours–but seeing Devlin tonight had set the clock back at zero. It had proven beyond a doubt that all it took was one minute, one glance, one touch–one kiss–and I was as besotted by Dev today as I had been since the first day we met. He had betrayed me in some of the worst ways possible, but one look in those captivating green eyes and I was once again transfixed, bound by this invisible hold on me that suggested matter what I did, or how much time had passed, I would always belong to him.

  “No matter what legal documents say, you’re mine, Coralie. You have been since the minute I touched you.”

  I shuddered hard as I recalled his words. If there was any reason to fuck the likes of Caz Bixby, an unapologetic egomaniac and hustler in his own right, it would be that. I needed to break the fucking chain binding Devlin and me together once and for all.

  Maybe then I could dig Devlin out from under my skin and I could move on. I was at the dawn of a brand new year. I didn’t want all the drama of my past year to hold me down even one second longer. Remaining faithful to a marriage built upon lies, or to a man who was incapable of fidelity himself, was ridiculous. It was foolish.

  But somehow… it had been beyond me.

  Every time I blinked I saw his face. His smug, handsome, sexy, arrogant, hateful, seductive face. I saw those eyes, so bright and green they glowed like neon. Might as well been lasers with the kind of power they wielded. I saw that mouth, the one that was perpetually upturned in a sexy amused smirk, the very one that had caught my eye in the first place. It promised to bring me nothing but pleasure wherever it happened to land on my body. There were times when I could still feel his breath against me. I could feel those strong hands curl into my skin, holding me tight, like he’d die if he ever let me go.

  But he did let me go. He let me go the very first time he slept with Suzanne Everhart in Las Vegas, and every time he fucked her thereafter.

  There was hardly a day that went by that I didn’t see that image too. The night I had walked in on them had been burned into my brain, the most offensive graffiti I could think of. And it appeared to be permanent, which meant I’d never be rid of it. Of him. Of her.

  If she had been at that party tonight, wrapping herself around him like a silk tie, I might have walked right into oncoming traffic. It was hard enough to watch him return to his date after our confrontation in one of the unoccupied meeting halls.

  Pardon me. I meant dates. He had dates. Two women. Twice the hourly rate. He walked straight towards a known socialite, the daughter of a Hollywood producer, and pulled her into one arm. Then he took her plainer sister in the other and he herded them right out the door before I could make my own dramatic exit with Caz. This promptly took the wind out of my sails.

  I knew that these two women would not only get that coveted midnight kiss, but also a string of orgasms from one of the sexiest men on the planet, thanks to those hands… that mouth… and my God, those eyes.

  Still, to this day, there was a part of me, hidden not so deep down, that responded to the mere idea of being in his arms again. Despite everything he had done and all the pain he had caused, everything about me had been branded by everything about him. I knew that when he was toying with me at the party, which should have been enough to remind myself how much of an asshole he was.

  But weren’t they all?

  I slid another glance to Caz. “Was it hard to get out of your commitment for the evening?”

  He scooted down in the seat. “Not at all. But if anyone asks, you’re my baby sister and you’re having an emergency appendectomy.”

  I shook my head. “Figures.”

  “It’s a harmless lie,” he shrugged. “The agency is sending someone else to salvage her evening, someone she’s used and enjoyed in the past. No one is left out in the cold here. She gets to think I’m noble. I get to fuck you. Winners all the way around.”

  I chuckled to myself. “What? No ego trip that no one could please her like you?”

  “Sex is sex is sex, CC,” he said softly. “You’re taking me home to fuck me, when you know damned well you’re going to think about someone else.”

  My smile fad
ed. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. I haven’t decided yet if I’m going to fuck you.”

  “Bullshit,” he chuckled. “You can’t drive a stake into Devlin’s heart if you don’t. And he’ll know,” he added. “That fucker always knows.”

  I hated myself for all the questions I wanted to ask, most of which revolved around Suzanne Everhart. Finally I could hold my tongue no longer. “And what exactly would Suzanne do if she found out I fucked you? You’re her property too, right?”

  “That is the question,” he mused as he watched the landscape go by. “If Devlin doesn’t kill me, who knows? Maybe she will.”

  “Devlin isn’t going to hurt you,” I dismissed. “He’s got too much to lose.”

  Caz’s voice was soft. “Funny. I thought he already lost it.”

  I turned into his stare. I didn’t say anything else as we entered into the long, private drive leading up to my father’s estate. I parked my car and then led the way to my personal residence, my large one-bedroom bungalow once lovingly dubbed Petit Paradis by my late mother.

  I still wasn’t convinced I was going to have sex with Caz, easily one of the most aggravating men I had ever known. But I didn’t want to be alone either. Not in that house. Not on this night. And if I wanted to replace Devlin, who better than one of his colleagues? It didn’t have to mean anything. For people like Dev and Caz, this was business as usual. Hell, I could have easily selected Caz that first day I perused the website. He was a sexy guy, with many of the same qualities that had originally attracted me to Devlin.

  When we got down to the bottom of it, they were fairly interchangeable. That was why Caz could lie to his client tonight and send someone else in his stead. It was never about them, but the women themselves. They all had one goal and one goal only: making women, any women, all women, feel wanted. Desired. Fulfilled.

  I could only hope they were interchangeable. Because I didn’t think I could muscle through one more day unfulfilled, unwanted or undesired.

  I closed the door behind us and we walked into my softly lit living room. He sank down onto my suede sofa and popped both feet onto my large coffee table. “Nice digs,” he said with that annoying smirk of his.

  “Thanks,” I muttered as I walked to the small bar to pour a couple of drinks. I had some of my family’s champagne chilling in the fridge, left over from one of our holiday parties during the month, but I decided to start off with something stronger. It was barely nine o’clock. I wanted to be unconscious by midnight. That didn’t leave me a lot of time.

  If Lucy was there, she would have made me margaritas or pina coladas and we would have gotten high watching some NYE special televised from New York, something we had done ever since we were kids.

  But I supposed those days were over now. My bestie was now eight months pregnant with her first child, she had other priorities now. From the last text she sent me, she was calling her NYE early, ready to sleep in while she still could.

  My partner in crime had been domesticated. Never again would we be free to do those things without worrying about husbands or babies, two of the things that I wanted most this year, and two things I had lost. Everything collapsed, like a soufflé.

  It was another reason I was glad not to be alone, even if the best I could do was Caz Bixby. I brought him a glass of straight bourbon.

  “You’re not fooling around,” he commented as he watched me sit on the other edge of the sofa. “I’d fuck you sober, you know.”

  “Yes,” I sighed. “You have made that quite clear.”

  He chuckled as he drained the glass in one gulp. “Good stuff,” he said before he rose from the sofa to refill it. He brought the bottle to the coffee table, where he flopped yet again. “So what’s the plan, CC?”

  I drained my own glass. “Get as numb as fucking possible.”

  His eyebrow arched as he refilled my glass. “To make fucking possible?”

  “Something like that.” I tossed back another drink. “I’m ready to do just about anything to replace all the pain with something that feels good for a change.” I looked him up and down. “Apparently.”

  He chuckled as he put the bottle back on the table. “Not exactly a ringing endorsement for my particular skills,” he said as he pulled me towards him. “Don’t you trust me, pussycat?”

  It was the wrong thing to say. The minute my eyes closed I saw Devlin’s face. I heard Devlin’s voice, demanding trust that he didn’t deserve. Not ever. Not once. And because of that, I knew I’d never trust another man ever again. Caz had virtually asked the impossible.

  I shook my head as I hopped up from the sofa, turning at once to face Caz, to tell him I’d changed my mind. I knew in that instant that I was ruined forever. I couldn’t go through anything without it somehow involving Devlin Masters, even in thought. That was when I actually saw Devlin, looming large and real in the archway connecting my living room to my tiled foyer. “Jesus,” I breathed.

  “Not quite,” Dev replied as he sauntered easily into the living room. Caz’s head snapped around to find Devlin glaring daggers into his very soul.

  “How’d you get in here?” I said with a tip of my chin. “I deliberately had the locks changed after you broke in the last time.”

  He chuckled as he reached for the bottle of bourbon. “It’s not breaking in when you have a key,” he pointed out. “Might want to be a little more creative when you look for a new spot to hide your spare, darlin.’”

  His cocky smile sent a cold chill right through me. He had always known where I kept my spare key, so that meant his not coming into my house before now had ultimately been his choice, not mine. He looked positively triumphant as he watched this realization march across my face, the one that indicated I knew that he could get to me however he wanted, whenever he wanted, if that was truly what he wanted. The power he wielded made me tremble in spite of myself as he turned back to Caz. “That’s your cue to leave, Caz. Date’s over.”

  Caz leaned back and put his feet back on the coffee table. “Haven’t you heard, Dev? Three’s a crowd.”

  “Since when?” Devlin growled as he advanced toward the other man.

  “Since now, Devlin,” I snapped. “You need to leave.”

  He smirked before he guzzled until the very last drop of booze until it was gone. “I’m not going anywhere, Coralie,” he announced. “We have some … unfinished business between us.”

  “Don’t you have a date?” I sneered. “Correction. Don’t you have two?”

  “What can I say? My baby sister is having an emergency appendectomy.”

  Caz chuckled softly. I glared between them. “Is anything real in your world?”

  “Just the price tag,” Dev remarked.

  “How romantic,” I sneered.

  “That’s what happens when you started cavorting with professionals, sweetheart. You learn all the tricks. You lose all the magic.”

  I glared at him. Once upon a time I thought he was made of magic. I knew now that was the biggest lie of all. He was just a man. Just a regular, amazing, sexy, aggravating, delicious, mysterious, flawed, talented, intelligent, cunning and dangerous man. And God help me, I still wanted all of it, despite everything. “What are you doing here, Devlin?”

  He walked towards me. I had to back up a step when he finally reached me. “Nobody gets to fuck you but me. Remember?”

  “Those rules no longer apply,” I informed him. “If I want to fuck Caz or Oliver or that guy in the gorilla suit selling cell phones on Santa Monica Boulevard, I goddamn will. You don’t own me, Devlin. Not anymore.”

  “Maybe,” he conceded. “But I own him.” He looked down at Caz. “Like I said, Casper. It’s time to leave.”

  If Caz was intimidated at all, he didn’t let it show. “I’m not going anywhere, man.”

  “Maybe you didn’t hear me,” Devlin suggested. Caz glared back at him.

  “Maybe you didn’t hear me,” he shot back. “Your threats don’t work on me, Devlin. You want to stand t
here like you hold anything over on me. You don’t hold shit.”

  “Let’s see what Maurice has to say about that, shall we?” Devlin said as he withdrew his phone from his pocket.

  Caz jumped up to face him. “You know what? Do it! You’ve been threatening to fire that bullet for years. So muster the balls and do it already. Do your worst, Devlin. That still won’t change anything. I’m here because she wants me to be,” he said, pointing at me.

  Devlin practically snarled in response. “You really want to test me on this, Caz?”

  “Fuck it. If you can’t do it, I’ll do it my own goddamned self.” He grabbed Devlin’s phone from his hands, connected the call and brought it to his ear. “Yeah. Maurice? It’s Caz. Just wanted to call and wish you a Happy New Year’s Eve. Oh, and by the way, I’ve fucked men for money. And I quit.” He threw the phone back at Devlin. “Mic drop, bitch.”

  They stood at least two feet apart, on either side of my old wood coffee table. They were locked in a fierce glare that made me nervous to watch. I knew they were just one second away from going at each other like a couple of grizzly bears. “Guys,” I said, my voice cracking from how dry my mouth suddenly got.

  A slow sick smile crossed Caz’s face. “Why don’t you tell her what you’re really mad about, Devvy?”

  “Leave while you still can, Caz,” Dev warned in a tightly controlled voice.

  “Wouldn’t matter,” Caz smirked. “Because she already knows. I told her months ago how close you came to being my bitch.”

  With a ferocious growl, Dev lunged across that coffee table, crashing everything from the top of it onto the floor before he landed on Caz. They fell backwards onto my sofa, where Dev virtually straddled the other man, pummeling him with punch after punch. Each one landed with a sickening smack of skin against skin.

  I raced over to them, trying to pull Dev back by his massive shoulders. He shrugged me off of him before he grabbed Caz by the neck with both hands. “I’ve been waiting years to fucking kill you!”