Devlin Masters was our romantic hero in the male escort romance, MASTERS FOR HIRE. Caz Bixby, however, is just a down and dirty manwhore. He genuinely is the yang to Devlin's yin. I didn't see him coming in Book 1, but the second he introduced him in book 2 of the MASTERS SAGA, MASTERS FOR LIFE, he made himself QUITE at home.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t get your name,” I said, sweet as sugar.
He smiled wider. “Caz. Caz Bixby. I’m a friend of your Aunt Margot’s.”
“He’s my personal trainer,” she purred as she stretched out on the chaise lounge.
Of course he was. Next to Devlin, I had never seen a man more anatomically accurate. His jaw was squared, just like it had been sculpted from marble. From the way his clothes fit, I was pretty sure that everything below the neck was just as defined. He looked like he could have stepped out of a magazine.
He caught how my gaze swept over him, and I could tell by that glint in those bright amber green eyes that he both welcomed and expected the attention.
Like I was saying in my last blog, Devlin is a huge question mark. He gave our CC the fairytale of her dreams in Vegas, which they take back with them to Los Angeles in a very permanent way. Despite "leveling up" in their relationship, much remains a mystery about Devlin. He holds many, many secrets, which he refuses to share with CC, expecting her to trust him.
Essentially he's asking her to take him at face value like he accepted her. But it's not going so well. Once Caz hits the scene... it gets even worse.
“You know I’d never take lessons from Margot’s slimy boy toy, right?”
“You’re goddamned right you’re not. You’re never to talk to that man again.” His voice was laced with hostility, and his eyes flashed with anger as he turned to face me. “Do you understand me, Coralie?”
My eyes narrowed as I stared at him. “So let me get this straight. You can train some enchantress for her Ironman triathlon, and possibly my beautiful niece on the piano, but I’m never to do anything with another man ever again?”
“Not that man,” he growled.
“Why not?”
“Coralie,” he started in a foreboding voice, but I was over it. He was the one being unfair and unreasonable. He expected me to take it on the chin every time he interacted with some woman, but I couldn’t even take fucking tennis lessons?
“I’ll take them if I want to take them,” I informed him coolly.
“Coralie,” he repeated, his jaw clenched tight.
“You want me to trust you? Then trust me. I would never betray you, Devlin. And you know that.”
He was silent for a moment before he finally sighed. “It’s not you I don’t trust.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Caz Bixby isn’t just some fitness instructor or sports trainer,” he informed me in a resigned monotone.
My gut tightened. “How do you know that?”
“I know everything about Caz Bixby,” Devlin finally admitted. “He’s a gigolo, Coralie. Just like me.”
Here's the thing. The only thing that can break up Dev and CC are the secrets Dev harbors. And just one guess who knows every single one of them?
They say familiarity breeds contempt, and this was never truer than in the case of Dev and Caz, who are intrinsically linked by their shared history. They hate each other, but they can't get rid of each other... though God knows they try. In Book 2, Caz is essentially our antagonist. He doesn't want these two together, and he'll do anything he can to wedge them apart. This includes hitting on CC whenever he really doesn't care for "fat chicks." He gets paid to fuck, though, so he knows how to fake it. When the fates align to put her in his world on a weekly basis, as this "personal trainer" whips her into shape, he makes sure to turn up the heat.
By the time Caz showed up, I was finally ready to face him for Round Two, where he would no doubt try to weasel into my psyche and plant more suspicion and doubt. He wore a pretty self-confident smile when I opened the door. He also wore a suit and carried roses, along with a bottle of champagne. He entered the room with the swagger of a man who thought he had the upper hand.
“I thought we were going to work out,” I stated as I closed the door behind him.
“Oh, we will,” he said as he handed off the roses to me. “But there are several ways to do that, aren’t there?”
I took the roses into the kitchen to find a vase. He followed behind.
“This is really some place you have here.”
“Thank you,” I said in a clipped voice. I knew he was circling something and, of course, he was.
“You ever wonder how many women Devlin had to fuck to afford this place?”
I sent him a severe side-eye glare. “It doesn’t matter how many women he fucked in the past. He’s only fucking me now.”
Caz chuckled softly. “Oh, the many ways those words can be interpreted. So tell me. How did [Dev] take the news when you told him about our deal?”
“What makes you think I did?”
He shrugged. “Because you’re a good girl. You’re going to give him a play-by-play of all our interactions because you still feel like you need to earn his trust.”
I gave his outfit the once over. “I take it that you showed up tonight like we were on some kind of date just to undermine my efforts.”
“Of course,” he admitted gleefully, with a self-satisfied smirk. “You’re paying $10,000 a week for my services. You might as well get what you paid for.” He walked towards me until he was practically shadowing me from behind. His voice lowered as he toyed with a tendril of my long hair. “Fucking, by the way, is definitely on the table. Just in case you were wondering.”
I pulled away with a scowl. “I wasn’t.”
That made Caz laugh too. “Let me guess. Good ol’ Dev has fucked you so much and so well this past week, you’re too sore to even consider it. And you probably think that was an accident, too.”
I turned to face him. “He fucked me often and well because that’s what we do.”
“Right,” he agreed. “Like I said, you get what you pay for.”
“You’re disgusting,” I snapped before I walked away from him.
“But I’m right,” he said as he followed me. “And deep down, you know it.”
The tension between these three is OFF. THE. CHARTS. Is it dangerous? Lethal? Erotic? You tell me.
I reached for a lamp, which cast a mellow light across the large living room. Devlin sat in one of the chairs, still in his suit from work, his shirt open at the collar, his tie long abandoned. He held a crystal decanter in one hand. It was once full of expensive Scotch, but he had all but drained it. I could smell it all the way across the room.
He waited until we got a little closer before he said anything. I realized that Caz’s discarded suit was draped across the arm of his chair, with the shoes right on the floor next to him. It sent an involuntary shudder through me when I met Dev’s murderous gaze. His voice was every bit as malevolent.
“Nice workout?”
“Fabulous,” Caz grinned. “[CC] is quite… flexible. And that stamina. Wow.” He ran a hand down his glistening chest, along his skin tight shorts, near his pronounced package. Devlin’s cheek twitched as he tried to keep his composure. It only made Caz try that much harder to get under his skin. “But I’m sure I’m not telling you something you don’t already know.”
I was afraid that Dev’s head might actually explode. I crossed over to him, where I reached for Caz’s clothes. Devlin circled my wrist in his fingers, tightening his grip without even looking at me. Instead he stared straight at Caz. “They’re his clothes. Let Caz get them.”
The two men stared at each other for a long moment. Finally Caz approached, but slowly. I felt Dev coil, almost like a snake, the closer he got. He raised his other arm, which made Caz stop immediately, but all Dev did was take another swig of liquor from the decanter he held. His mouth curved slightly, as if he knew how unsettled the other man had become. Caz was no longer smiling as he reached forward, deliberately and cautiously, for his clothes. Devlin had him locked in that lethal glare, while he held onto my wrist with a white-knuckled grip. I could practically feel him twitch, in anticipation of any movement.
Caz withdrew his clothes, but his tie trailed behind. He clearly debated whether or not it was worth a second brush with Devlin to retrieve it.
Devlin wasn’t going to let him off the hook. “Don’t forget your tie, Casper,” he murmured.
Another unspoken moment passed between them, like an electrical current. “Keep it,” Caz said. “I know how you like ties.”
Dev’s hand gripped my wrist even harder. I knew he was doing everything he could not to fly up from that chair throttle him. Caz must have known it too, because his smile returned. “See you next week,” he said before he finally left.
You got your fairy tale in Book 1. In Book 2, we're going for pure angst. In Book 3, MASTERS FOREVER, I gun the motor even harder. You get erotica, drama, romance and a complete family saga. And these two professional lovers will give our heroine WAYYYYY more than she ever even dreamed.
“Jesus,” Caz exhaled as he rolled his eyes. He grabbed the remote and turned to a music channel that had pulsating dance music. He dragged me up by the hand. “This is a party, for fuck’s sake.”
“Caz, I don’t want to,” I tried to protest as he pulled me to the center of my living room. Still holding the remote, he turned down all the lights courtesy of the dimmer.
“Come on, pussycat. If you wanted to stay here and feel sorry for yourself, you’d have never left.”
A dance tune by Madonna began to play, the aptly titled “Hung Up.” Caz pulled me close, his hands on my hips, to guide me through the sensual movements as we began to undulate to the music. I stole glances at Dev, who watched us from his spot in the corner of my couch.
It was the very same corner where he had been that first night, when he commanded that I strip for him. He had seduced me that night, confidently and well. My flesh responded instantly to the memory. I shuddered and looked way, focusing on Caz, who danced closely to me, grinding his hips against me, his eyes locked with mine. “Only a couple of hours left, baby,” he said. “Do you really want to spend it sad?”
The music pulsated around me, a rolling beat that made the entire room felt like it was spinning and tumbling through space. Of course, that might have been the pot. My brain had taken off somewhere around Pluto. That, combined with the alcohol I had consumed, helped me submit to the dance. I closed my eyes and just allowed myself to ride the music.
“That’s it,” Caz murmured. “Let yourself go. You know you want to.”
Again my eyes sought Dev. Maybe I was waiting for permission. Maybe I just wanted to make sure he wasn’t going to lose his shit again. My eyes snapped open when I realized he was no longer sitting on the sofa.
I nearly jumped out of my skin when I felt him fall into step behind me, pinning me between both of them.
“Dev,” I started, but his mouth landed right next to my ear.
“Shh,” he shushed, and it sent an involuntary shudder all the way through my body. His hands landed on my hips just above Caz’s. They both guided my movements as we danced closely together. I shivered as Dev’s hands slid up my sides, hooking my arms on his as they curved around each shoulder to pull my arms back. Using his body he arched my back towards Caz, who danced even closer, his hands sliding up my sides until his thumbs could brush under each full breast.
Their eyes locked, and the intensity of their stare took my breath away. It was as if they communicated with no words at all, with Caz immediately followed Dev’s lead.
Yep, my lovelies. For the first time - EVER - I go *there.* No really. I go THERE. There's a reason my Steven's mother, grandmother, sister and all my kids aren't allowed to read it.
EVER.
Because of all the secrets and spoilers in the second and third books of the MASTERS SAGA, I can't say too much more. All I CAN say is that these two men flipped my world topsy-turvy.
And I enjoyed every fucking minute of it.
I can't say I had an actor in mind to play Caz, but I happened upon this particular video around the time I was writing the books and I found it VERY inspiring.
This personal trainer inspired Caz SO much, down to every freaking tattoo. AND BEARDS, which I don't normally like. In fact, I was never supposed to like Caz at all. His entire presence in this book was to tear my couple apart from the inside, working in tandem with one of the biggest bitches I have EVER written to date: Suzanne Everhart. Not only are they out to torpedo my couple, but both thought it would be easy because of CC's size. Neither hide this.
He reached for a tendril of my hair, caressing the silky strands between his finger and his thumb. “I like that you proved me wrong. It excites me when I think of you. And I know if I keep coming by your house week after week, I’m going to find a way to get you into bed. I won’t stop. I don’t stop. That’s what Suzanne’s counting on. She needs to break you. She needs to show Devlin that you are just like everyone else. Just like her.”
I pulled my hair from his grasp. “Why can’t she just leave me alone? Why can’t you?”
“As long as blood is pumping, her teeth are going to be in that jugular, CC. Me too. We’re not nice people. We’re not good people. We play the game and that’s it.”
“Thanks for being honest, I guess,” I said as I started to push past him. He grabbed my arm and held me close.
“I’m the only one with the balls to be honest with you, Coralie. And you know it.”
He's an arrogant prick with his own self-serving agenda. But something happened along the way that I wasn't expecting. He won me over, despite the horrible things he did. He was compelling and interesting. I wanted/needed to know more. This made him the kind of character that we WILL be seeing again. I have him scheduled to appear as a supporting character in three upcoming books. By the time he gets a story of his own, we'll ALL be aching for it. (And I kind of think he's going to make damned sure of it... starting first with twisting me around his finger.)
I have a lot of work to do with Caz yet, but he has a whole lot of potential.
And I can't resist him. Bottom line.
For a limited time only MASTERS FOR LIFE is on sale for $0.99, which, with the sale on MASTERS FOR HIRE, brings the grand total for all three full-length novels to less than $5. I HIGHLY recommend that you purchase the entire MASTERS SAGA, because you WILL curse me by the end of Book 2. Seriously, if you can't jump - immediately - to the next book, you'd hunt me down with a freaking pitch fork. It's on par with EMPIRE STRIKES BACK, without the three-year wait to see how it resolves.
One-click THE MASTERS SAGA if you dare...
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