Down & Dirty (Lightning 1)

I nod, even as it registers that she’s living in one of the lower income areas in town. South of Chula Vista, literally two exits from Tijuana, it’s also one of the most unsafe areas. Between car thieves, drug runners and Mexican mafiosi looking to make a point on American soil, barely a day goes by that the news doesn’t have something to report about IB.

I want to ask her what she’s doing living there when she works in a high-end real estate agency, but I don’t want to embarrass her. Or piss her off, especially right now when I haven’t even offered to buy her a drink.

“So, we should probably talk about what you want to offer on the house,” she says after we drive in silence for a few minutes.

“I was going to suggest full price. I don’t want to risk losing the place to someone else.”

She laughs then, a warm, full-bodied sound that fills up the car and goes straight to my dick. I don’t know what I said that was funny, and to be honest, I don’t actually care. I’ll make an ass of myself every day if it means hearing her laugh lik

e that. It’s low and husky and sexy as fuck, just like Emerson herself.

“Hunter, sweetheart, we are not offering full price on that house. The owners got incredibly lucky that you were looking for a house in their price range just as they listed it. That might make them cocky, might make them push for a little more, but the truth is there are very few people in the world who can drop twenty-four million on a house. Real estate like that house often takes a year or more to move.”

“Good thing I plan on living there for a decade or two, then, isn’t it?”

“It’s a very good thing. But that doesn’t mean we should just roll over and give them whatever they want. We’re going to start low, real low. See how they respond.”

“How low?”

“Low enough to make them cringe—or laugh. They’ll come back with a counteroffer that, if we’re lucky, is lower than what we reasonably would have offered, just because we set the bar so low.”

“I get wanting to make a deal, but that seems a little cold-blooded, doesn’t it? They’ve got a beautiful home. I don’t want them to think I’m taking advantage of them.”

“And you don’t want them to take advantage of you, either. They paid six million dollars for that home when they bought it in 2009, at the height of the housing crisis in San Diego.”

“Six million? That’s a four hundred percent markup in less than eight years.”

“Exactly what I’m saying.” She grins at me then, and it’s more than a little wolfish looking, if I’m being honest. The strength and slyness in the smile take my dick from semi-hard to throbbing in the space from one breath to the next.

“So what do you think we should offer then?”

“They’re carrying a three-million-dollar mortgage on the place. That, plus the three million they’ve already sunk into the place, is all they really need to recoup. Obviously property values have skyrocketed in the last few years, so the house is worth significantly more than that. I say go in at twelve, see what happens.”

“Twelve million?” I take my eyes of traffic to shoot her a disbelieving look. “You want me to go in there with an offer that’s half the asking price?”

“I do. They’re not going to agree to it, and we know—worst-case scenario—that you’re willing and able to pay full price. But maybe we’ll get lucky. They’ll come back with a counteroffer of seventeen million or something. Shaving seven million dollars off the asking price is nothing to sneeze at.”

“Obviously.” I’m a little too shell-shocked to say anything more. When I first requested to work with Emerson, Kerry gave me the impression that she was very inexperienced, completely unable to hold her own in the world of high-end real estate. Obviously Kerry was bullshitting me, or she doesn’t know Emerson nearly as well as she likes to think that she does. Because the woman plotting next to me seems to know exactly what she’s doing.

Which is just one more turn-on for me, one more thing about her that makes me hard. I’ve never understood guys who wanted a whimpering damsel in distress. In my opinion, strength and confidence are so much sexier.

We spend the rest of the drive making small talk. It drives me crazy as I want to delve deeper than the weather with her. I want to know more than who her favorite football team is, though I’m glad it’s the Lightning.

Which is why, when I pull into the parking lot of her very run-down apartment building, I say, “I’ve got this thing I’m supposed to go to tomorrow night.”

“Thing?” she repeats, looking baffled.

“Jesus, I’m usually smoother at this kind of thing.” I give an awkward laugh, rub my hand over the back of my neck.

“Are you? Is that before or after you douse a woman with a dirty puddle?”

“After. Definitely after.” We both laugh then, and she looks beautiful, so beautiful, even under the dim parking light. I want to kiss her, want to take her upstairs, stretch her out on her bed and make love to her the way I wanted to this afternoon—until she’s hot and sweaty and has come so many times she can barely lift her head. Then I want to do it all over again.

But my phone vibrates in my pocket, reminding me that I have commitments waiting for me at home. So I table my very detailed, very explicit fantasies and cut right to the chase. “So that thing I mentioned. It’s a charity ball for Children’s Hospital. The Lightning sponsor it every year. I was going to do a hit-and-run on it—”

“A hit-and-run?” she interrupts.

“You know, just stop in as part of the whole command performance thing. Sign some autographs, thank the other donors, write a check to the hospital…It’s what I usually do. But I was thinking, maybe you’d like to go with me?”