Down & Dirty (Lightning 1)

I definitely don’t fall in love with the first house Emerson takes me to. Of course, that could be because for most of the tour I’m too busy staring at her to pay much attention to the house at all.

She looks gorgeous today. Absolutely, drop-dead, pinup-girl gorgeous. So gorgeous, in fact, that I’m not sure what to look at first.

It’s not just her hair, though I spent half the night dreaming about wrapping those curls around my hands and tugging on them until she begs me for all manner of things.

It’s not just her X-rated mouth, though God knows the red lipstick she’s wearing today does things to her obscene lower lip that should be illegal in at least twenty-seven states.

And it’s not just her body, though she has more curves than a roller coaster and looks twice as dangerous in that truly amazing excuse for a skirt.

It’s more than that. It’s the way she holds herself. The way she talks. The look in her midnight blue eyes that says she isn’t buying whatever crap I’m selling. I think that’s what I like the most, even more than the little star-shaped birthmark she’s got right under her jaw. And that’s a lot, considering just how many minutes I spent in the middle of the night fantasizing about licking my way over that birthmark.

I will say that the house is much better than anything her boss ever picked out for me. While it’s not quite right—most of the rooms feel a little too cramped for me, their size overpowered by darkly painted walls and towering built-ins—it’s definitely more in line with what I’m looking for. A home and not just a showplace.

We step into the backyard—which boasts a lap pool and a really comfortable-looking hot tub, according to the MLS listing—and both stop dead. Because while there is a pool, the backyard has something else that definitely didn’t make it into Emerson’s list of talking points about the property.

The gardens are full of sculptures. And not just any sculptures. Erotic sculptures.

And not just any erotic sculptures. Erotic sculptures depicting pretty much every carnal act a man and a woman or a man and another man or a woman and another woman can possibly get up to together. And that’s not even counting the numerous pieces depicting various forms of menage.

We both stand speechless for several seconds, our eyes darting from one piece to the next. I’m not a prude by any stretch of the imagination. I’ve been with a lot of women and done a lot of things with those women, but there are depictions of things in these gardens that I’ve never even heard of, let alone tried. I wouldn’t have believed some of them were even anatomically possible, except the sculptor and his or her subjects have obviously proven me wrong. Add to that the fact that whoever the artist is was not very accomplished and it feels a little like we’re trapped in a bad porn movie.

Emerson recovers first. “So, I might have been overly optimistic about this house.” She’s trying to sound nonchalant, but she’s staring, wide-eyed, at a sculpture of three men involved in what is commonly known as a daisy chain.

I can’t help yanking her chain. “I don’t know.” I walk a little deeper into the garden, deliberately pausing beside a very amateur-looking statue of a woman straddling her male lover’s face. “I kind of like this one. Its lines speak to me.”

“Yeah, I bet.” She snorts a little, starts to turn away. But I stay where I am, and even manage to keep a straight face as I pretend to study the sculpture like I would an original Picasso.

She pauses for a second, her eyes darting from me to the sculpture like she can’t quite tell if I’m serious or not. Which is the whole point.

I almost have her, too, until I decide to push it. “I particularly like the look on his face. The arch of his neck, the flex of his jaw. This is obviously—” She looks so horrified that I strangle on my own laughter.

She smacks me then, a quick slap of the back of her hand against my stomach. “Very funny, Charles Baudelaire,” she says, and I don’t know if I’m more surprised that she knows who he is or that she just expects that I do. Either way, I’m

impressed, both by her knowledge and her bullshit detector.

And, most surprisingly, by her willingness to play along. After one more quick look at my face, she moves deeper into the garden, wandering from one erotic sculpture to the next. She finally pauses in front of a sculpture that has my eyebrows hitting my hairline.

“Really?” I ask incredulously. “This is the one you like?”

“It’s exciting. Just look at his face.”

“That’s agony, not excitement. His dick is about to break and he knows it.”

“Right?” she says with a laugh. “I mean, really, what do you even call that?”

“Painful. That’s what you call that.”

“I’m serious. Is that reverse missionary?”

It’s my turn to laugh. “I don’t know. Maybe missionary flip 180?”

“Missionary flip 180? It’s sex, not a snowboarding competition.”

“You sure about that?” I ask doubtfully.

“Actually, now that you mention it…” She moves even deeper into the garden. “What about this one?” she asks as she pauses in front of a statue of a man holding up a woman who is doing the splits while he buries his face in her pussy. “What do you think this is called?”

“Fun. Obviously.”