Devil's Deal is a mostly well written, steamy love story. Bailey is a waitress who also works as a designer at an interior design firm. She's working 2 jobs to pay off her debt, and hoping someday her dream job of head designer will come true, when she meets Lucas, a hot billionaire playboy, at her waitressing job. He hits on her and is really surprised that his usual lines don't work on her.
She's a little sensitive because she's been hurt by the insipid, cheating exes in her past, not to mention that she feels as if Lucas is only interested in trying to figure out her ethnic makeup. I can relate to that; I've been asked whether I'm everything from Mexican to Hawaiian to Native American, when in fact, I'm Filipina. It makes for a less than positive introduction to someone who's hoping to get to know you, and Bailey definitely didn't like it, either. But, he gets a chance later to make up for his misstep earlier, when he runs into Bailey at her design job, and he's even more delighted when Bailey is assigned to work on his home.
As their relationship takes a turn into sexual, even though Bailey had been adamant that she'd never sleep with him, it was nice to see Lucas be interested even after the first time they had sex. But, it was also at this point that I started to have some misgivings about this story. Some of the wording in the sex scenes was a bit cheesy, (ie: penis rather than cock, vagina rather than pussy, and even labia. Ugh, such clinical terms have no place in steamy scenes!) and I was a bit disappointed that Bailey gave in so quickly to Lucas when she had been so strong before. The story languishes a bit, and there's some drama regarding exes of both Bailey and Lucas, and there's the inevitable point where they breakup because of miscommunication. It was all resolved rather quickly, though, with not too much angst.
I wavered between 3 and 4 stars, but because I like both Bailey and Lucas, I decided on 4 stars. I like their connection and the fact that this is an interracial romance, but that the race issue isn't the central point of interest. I do have to say that the epilogue was a surprise, and kind of a terrible way to end Lucas and Bailey's story, but, it does set up Sienna (Bailey's best friend) and Gavin's (Lucas' best friend) story, which I'm looking forward to. Here's hoping Michele will leave out the cheesy language in the sex scenes and keep Gavin and Sienna the interesting characters they are here in Devil's Deal.
I received an ARC through NetGalley for an honest review.