The Red Eye 3 (The Red Eye Erotic Romance Series) Read online

  Jennie cheered and clapped, lost in the moment as the gorgeous men gradually removed their clothes. At first, I was swept along with them, but after a while, I realized that tears were flowing freely down my cheeks without my knowing when I’d started crying.

  I didn’t even know why I was crying. Part of it was remembering all those nights dancing to put me and Rick through college, only to have him ditch me as soon as we’d graduated. The more I thought about it, the angrier I was that I’d ever let myself be taken in by his lies. That man had done his best to destroy his life. It wasn’t just that he’d made me go out and support the pair of us, I’d had to carry the secret of my history as a dancer my entire adult life and hope that my employers didn’t find out while he enjoyed the benefit of my money.

  That was until I met Devon. Devon had known all about my past and offered me a job anyway. He’d known that I’d danced for men and fell in love with me regardless. And Rick had to destroy that as well.

  But most of all, I was crying for my own stupid self. Rick had never forced me to strip. He was just very persuasive when he wanted to be. That was how he’d managed to sweet-talk his way back into my bed, even though I was supposed to be with Devon. That was nobody’s fault but my own.

  I didn’t even notice as the opening act finished and a solo dancer hit the stage until the spotlight fell on me. I looked up at the man standing beside me, tears glistening on my cheeks.

  “Nobody as beautiful as you should be so sad. Let me put a smile on your face.” He took me by the hand and led me to the stage, to the jealous looks of the other women watching. By the time I realized that I was going to be treated to my very own lap dance, it was too late to protest.

  He sat me down in the middle of the room and started writhing around me, coming close to touching me but never quite crossing that line.

  He pulled off his shirt, draping it over my shoulders as he danced to the back of the stage. I buried my head in my hands, embarrassed. Somebody else should be sitting here. Someone who would appreciate his efforts. The stripper was going out of his way to impress, and there was no denying that his body was incredible. He just wasn’t Devon.

  When he’d finished, the stripper pressed a piece of paper with his number on it into my hand. “Call me,” he whispered before he headed off stage.

  I stumbled off stage. “Are you all right?” Jennie asked, although it was hard to tell if her concern was because she was genuinely worried about me or if she was panicked that she’d overstepped the mark with her new boss.

  “Fine, but I think I’m going to call it a night. I need to get back to the hotel and get some sleep if I’m going to be any use in the office tomorrow.”

  “Okay. Do you want me to come out and find you a cab?”

  “No, you stay and enjoy yourself. If you want any more drinks, keep the receipt and I’ll let you claim them back on expenses.”

  “Thanks, Rebecca! Make sure you drink plenty of water before you go to bed, otherwise you’ll have the hangover from hell tomorrow.”

  “Will do.”

  I headed out of the bar, the cold night air hitting me like a slap in the face, chasing away the alcohol-induced fog around my mind. Looking at the piece of paper in my hand with the stripper’s cell number, I crumpled it up and tossed it in the nearest trash can before flagging down a cab.

  All I wanted to do was go to bed. By myself.

  I drifted in and out of sleep on the journey back to the hotel, losing track of where I was. Maybe I should call in sick tomorrow. Who cared if it was only my second day on the job?

  I pushed through the revolving door into the hotel lobby, making a beeline for the elevators. Nothing was going to get between me and my comfortable bed.

  “Where the hell have you been?”

  I whirled round. Devon was standing in the hotel lobby.

  Fourteen

  “Devon! What are you doing here?”

  “What do you think? I came to see you. I hate being away from you and I don’t understand why you left. You need to come back to New York where you belong.”

  I looked around. Although it was late and the hotel lobby was almost empty, the receptionist was looking far too interested in our conversation for my liking.

  “All right. You better come up to my room.”

  Any other time and there would have been an invitation in my voice, but I was tired and miserable. Devon showing up like this was a complication I could do without.

  We traveled up in the elevator in silence. Devon reached out to take my hand and I froze. My natural instinct was to take his hand and never let go, but I couldn’t forget what Grayson had said.

  A moment later, he took the hint and moved his hand away.

  The elevator doors opened with a ding and I led the way to my room.

  “Make yourself comfortable.” I gestured to one of the chairs, but Devon remained standing.

  “So where were you? It’s late and I know you don’t have any friends in Boston.”

  I decided to be completely honest with him. “I was at a strip club with my new secretary.”

  Devon raised his eyebrows. “That’s taking team building to a bit of an extreme, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah, well, I didn’t realize where we were going until it was too late. I wasn’t exactly in the mood to watch a bunch of semi-naked men gyrating around. However, I have to say that it was a good way of taking my mind off…”

  “Off what? Your walking out on me for no reason? Rebecca, I’ve tried to understand but I just can’t. You agreed to marry me and now you’re telling me it’s over? And the best you can come up with is just that you changed your mind? I knew you had an issue with commitment after Rick, but I thought I knew you well enough to trust you when you said you wanted to spend the rest of your life with me. What happened?”

  I opened my mouth, then closed it again. There were no words to explain what had happened, not without hurting Devon even more than I already had, and I really didn’t want to do that.

  “Devon, I’m exhausted. Can’t you just hold me?”

  A moment later, I was in his arms and the tears started flowing. I had promised Grayson that I’d stay away from Devon, but he’d said nothing about what to do if Devon came to me, and every moment with him was precious.

  “Shh, baby. Don’t cry.” He started kissing my cheeks, kissing away the tears until he found my mouth. I tasted my sorrow mixed with his comfort, which only served to make me more aroused. Just the idea of Devon making the hurt ease was enough to make me forget what ailed me. Hungrily, I clung to him as we started to tear each other’s clothes off. Devon flung his shirt across the room and reached for his buckle. I took off what I was wearing and lay back to show him my youthful body, the body he loved so much. As his gaze burned down my length, I squirmed, anxious to have him. He got to his boxers and pulled them off, and my eyes widened in pleasure at the evidence of his desire.

  There was an intensity to our lovemaking that came from knowing that this could be the last time. I had thought it before, but I was running out of do-overs. This could truly be it. I needed him inside me, and every second I had to wait was a moment too long. There was no telling when fate would ding to let me know my time with Devon was up.

  He pushed me back on the bed, running his hand between my legs with questing fingers probing past my petals to touch my honey. “Oh my God, Rebecca. You’re so wet.”

  “Just do it, Devon. I need you. Now.” My words were sputtered, stammered, full of urgency.

  He didn’t have to be told a second time. Devon wrapped his hand around his cock and brought it between my legs with a swiftness that stole my breath. With a hard thrust he was inside me, standing on the floor to enter me from an angle he knew drove me wild. He made short work of foreplay. The foreplay was him whispering his need against my ear, his fingers digging into my hips. The foreplay was his hands skating up my body to my breasts and squeezing them. I trembled in his embrace.

  I looked up
at him, drinking in the sight of him above me. It was a sight I’d never get tired of, and I knew that there was no way I’d want to be with anyone else. Any man I was with would only be compared to Devon, and they would never measure up. There was such a thing as “too good.” Devon had ruined me for other partners, and I didn’t even care. I saw no future ahead of me with anyone else. He had branded me his entirely.

  “Turn over,” he whispered, stepping back. I did as I was told, pressing my buttock up against him with a throaty moan so I could feel his rigid cock dip into the crease of my ass and bounce against my cheeks as I wriggled. I parted my thighs and lowered my torso, bottom up in the air. He eased back inside of my slick passage with a groan of intense enjoyment. I backed against him with eager counterthrusts to meet his deep lunges, loving the feel of his thighs slapping against the back of his leg. He reached around me and ran his hands over my tits, lightly squeezing my nipples in the way that only he knew how, and when my breasts were heavy and engorged from all the attention he was giving them, he reached down between my legs to fondle my clit.

  He pressed my body down firmly against the bed, gripping my hips as his thrusting became more urgent. I clutched handfuls of the sheets and bit into the pillow to suppress my loud cries of pleasure. I could always tell when he was about to come, and I rode his energies. I felt the pressure build to the bursting point, and my mouth flew away from the pillow to cry out at the same time Devon did as he collapsed against me. I felt his hot seed spilling, but all I could focus on was the sensation of rapturous release powering through me. The climax seemed to extend into oblivion. By the time I opened my eyes, it seemed an eternity had passed. Devon was lying on my back like a deadweight, but he wasn’t heavy. He felt… like mine. I wished desperately that could be so.

  “I’m sorry, Rebecca.” The words were so quiet I almost didn’t hear them. “I was just so desperate to be inside you. I should have taken my time with you.”

  I rolled over so that I was facing him, placing my hand against his cheek. “Don’t ever apologize. I needed you just as badly. I still do.”

  “So why are you here, Rebecca? This doesn’t make any sense. Unless…”

  “Unless what?”

  His expression was grim. “Did my dad have something to do with this?”

  “Why would you say that?” I tried to act the innocent, but I never was very good at acting.

  “This has got him written all over it. What exactly did he say to make you go? Because I know that you wouldn’t have taken money to leave, so he must have said something. What was it?”

  “Why do you say this is the kind of thing Grayson would do?” I ducked the question, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to avoid answering forever.

  Devon shook his head. “Because he’s done it before.”

  “What?” I sat bolt upright, my post-lovemaking haze gone in an instant. “What has he done before?”

  Devon sighed. “You’re the first woman I’ve proposed to, but you’re not my first serious relationship. I don’t talk about Cindy much because I still get angry about it, but it was a long time ago and has nothing to do with you and me. If she walked back into my life, I’d choose you over her every single time.”

  “But…”

  “But I’ve never really forgiven Dad for chasing her away, and I made it very clear to him what would happen if he pulled that kind of shit in my love life again.”

  It was rare to hear Devon curse, so for him to use that kind of language was a very clear indicator of just how mad he was with Grayson.

  “What exactly happened?”

  Devon rolled onto his back, looking at the ceiling rather than meeting my gaze. “Cindy and I met at a bar one night. I didn’t know anything about her background. All I knew was that she had incredible auburn hair and the kind of smile that would light up a room.

  “We got talking, and unlike most women I met, she insisted on taking turns buying drinks. Usually, women expected me to pay for everything, but she hated not paying her own way, and when we started dating, we took turns choosing where we were going, depending who was paying.

  “Although her family wasn’t poor, they weren’t exactly wealthy, and Cindy was an aspiring actress, so she didn’t exactly have much money. It made for some interesting dates. If it wasn’t for her, I wouldn’t have discovered that great indie cinema I took you to when we first started dating.

  “From the moment he met her, Dad hated Cindy. He told me that she was only after my money and he was going to prove it to me. I warned him to stay out of my business, but he went behind my back and paid her off.

  “One day, Cindy just vanished. She refused to take my calls, and when I went over to her apartment, her roommate wouldn’t let me in, so I did the only thing I could do. I went to the theatre where she worked.

  “When Cindy saw me, she paled. She urged me to go, said that nobody should see us together, but I wasn’t going to go without an answer. At last, she took me to a private room and told me what had happened. Her mom had suffered a stroke and Dad said that he’d cover all her medical bills if Cindy broke it off with me. She said she would never have just taken money, but when her mom got sick, she didn’t feel like she had a choice.

  “I offered to pay, but she wouldn’t take it, said that we hadn’t been seeing each other long enough for her to accept a gift like that from me. I got the distinct impression that there was more to Grayson’s offer than she was telling me. She seemed almost afraid, but she wouldn’t go into any more detail and begged me to leave. So I left. I’ve never seen her since.

  “I know it might seem strange to say that this was one of my few serious relationships when we’d only been dating for a few months, but I never felt like anybody the way I did about Cindy until I met you. You have the same independent fire that she did.”

  “So I’m just a Cindy replacement? Same color hair and everything?” I desperately wanted Devon to give me an excuse to be angry with him. It would make breaking up with him that little bit easier.

  “Oh God, no!” He turned to look at me. “That’s the only way in which you two are alike. Apart from that, you’re night and day. I look back now and I can see that Dad was right. Cindy and I weren’t right for each other, not long term.”

  “So how do you know that Grayson isn’t right this time?”

  My hand flew to my mouth as I realized that I’d just confirmed Devon’s suspicions.

  “So Dad is behind this. I knew it. Look, whatever it is he’s paid you, whatever it is he’s said, just tell me and we can sort it out. There’s nothing you can say that’s going to make me stop loving you.”

  Tears pricked at the corners of my eyes, but I wasn’t going to give in to them. Not this time.

  “He didn’t pay me anything. At least, he didn’t give me any money directly. He did arrange for my promotion in the Boston office, but I’m not even sure that I’m going to stay here. There’s a part of me that thinks that I would be better off cutting ties with the Caesar family completely and leaving Caesar and Krause for good.”

  “Why don’t we just cut off ties with Dad?” The way he said it made it sound so simple. “We could start our own law firm. I have enough money of my own not to need anything from Dad, so he can threaten to disown me if he likes. It won’t make any difference.”

  “Because it’s not about the money. It never has been.”

  “So what is it, Rebecca?” Devon was losing his temper, and I couldn’t blame him. If we were in front of a judge and a witness was being this elusive, I’d rip them to shreds. “I know it’s not the money. You’re not like that. So what does my dad have over you that’s made you run away? Whatever it is, we’ll work through it. I promise.”

  He took my hands in his, gently bringing them to his lips, and for a moment I believed him. “All right. If you really want to know, I’ll tell you. But I’m warning you now. Don’t make promises you can’t keep.”

  “I never do.” He grinned, and there was the Devon I l
oved.

  “I slept with Rick.”

  “Well, you used to be married to him. Of course you’ve slept with him.”

  I shook my head. “No, I don’t mean that. When you sent us off on the Andrew Clifton case, I saw an article in the papers about you seeing someone else. I was already mad at you for making me go away with Rick, and he caught me at a weak moment. He always knew how to push my buttons.”

  Devon dropped my hands, pushing himself away to stand up and walk away.

  “You slept with Rick?”

  “I know. It was the wrong thing to do, and believe me, Devon, there hasn’t been a day since when I haven’t regretted it. It was the biggest mistake of my life.

  “When we announced our engagement, Rick told Grayson what had happened, and that’s when he told me to leave. He promised me that you’d never find out the truth as long as I stayed away.”

  Devon stood there, jaw clenched. The vein in his forehead throbbed in the way it only did when he was trying to keep a lid on his temper.

  “Say something, Devon. Anything.”

  After a pause that seemed to go on forever, he finally spoke. “You know, it’s not so much that you slept with that lowlife douchebag. It’s the fact that you didn’t think that you could tell me about it and work things through. No, you left it to my dad to make the decision for me whether we should continue seeing each other.”

  “Devon…” I reached out to him.

  “Dad was right. We really aren’t right for each other.”

  He walked out of my hotel room and out of my life, and this time I knew it was for good.

  Fifteen

  My life was basically over.

  I lay on my bed, staring blankly at the ceiling, ignoring the ringing of the phone. Again. I lost track of how long I’d been there, but it wasn’t important. Rick had won again, and this time he hadn’t even been trying.