Down & Dirty (Lightning 1)

“A candy room? Is that a euphemism for something? Because if so, I could be down with that. I like…candy.”

“Yeah, like that’s a surprise.” She rolls her eyes even as she gives the folder another wave. “Sorry to disappoint you, but it’s not a euphemism. There’s a room in this house that is actually set up to look like an old-fashioned candy store. It’s got those chute-like dispensers lining the walls and everything.”

Brent and Lucy would love it. I can just see them racing from candy dispenser to candy dispenser, trying to see who could get the most the fastest. Their mother would have a fit—Heather acts like their competitive natures are a bad thing and regularly blames me for them—but I think it’d be fun to watch. Not to mention give a whole new twist to Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.

“Nothing to say to that?” she asks when I don’t immediately respond.

A quick glance her way shows that she’s braced for another innuendo. And since I don’t like to disappoint a captive audience—or any kind of audience really, I answer, “I hope they have kisses. They’re my favorite.”

Another eye roll. “Don’t you ever get tired of being cliché?”

“That wasn’t cliché, sweetheart. That was honest. If I was being cliché, I would have said something about how much I like Red Hots. Or maybe mentioned that I really hope you like lollipops.”

She groans, shakes her head. Then says, “Sorry to dash your hopes, but I really don’t like lollipops. All that sucking and licking. Too much effort for way too little payoff.”

Her answer hits me right in the dick, but not the way she intended. Instead of knocking me back, it just intrigues me more. And makes me want to show her just how much payoff a little extra sucking and licking can get her.

Chapter 5

Emerson

Hunter doesn’t answer right away. Finally. I congratulate myself for shutting him down. It’s about time, especially since he’s the kind of player who, if you give him an inch, will take the whole football field in just one down.

My phone vibrates and I glance down just in time to see the GPS warning that the turnoff for the house is two hundred and fifty feet in front of us.

“You need to make a right here,” I tell him, keeping my voice even despite the fact that my insides are turning to jelly. It’s my first day as a real estate agent/assistant and here I am showing a twenty-million-dollar home. I’ve never even tried to show a condo before. And yeah, there’s a part of me that wonders how hard can it be. But there’s another, bigger part that warns me that I can easily screw this up.

After all, before my car broke down this morning and sent me into a total tailspin, I’d planned on spending the day, the week—the month—making coffee, greeting customers, maybe adding houses to the MLS. Never once had it occurred to me that I’d be out here trying to sell a mansion to the best quarterback in San Diego history. Or that I would have pissed my boss off so completely by doing it.

Ugh. Between showing up to work looking like a hooker and then unwittingly stealing my boss’s client, there’s no way I’m going to have a job tomorrow. No. Way. Which means, if I don’t want to end up on the street at the end of this month, I need to sell this house to Hunter. Or one very much like it. Today.

Because I’ve finally figured out the upside of this ridiculous situation. When a house sells, the selling agent gets three percent commission. Half of that goes to the agency and the other half goes to the agent. And since this house costs twenty million dollars, one and a half percent is…holy shit. Three hundred thousand dollars! Three. Hundred. Thousand. Dollars. Even with taxes taking a huge chunk, I could live on what’s left of it for at least two years. Maybe three if I can find another job.

I definitely need to sell this house.

After the shittiest morning ever, the universe all but dropped this gift in my lap and I’m going to take it. No, I tell myself as Hunter pulls up to the box that opens the big iron gate that stretches across the driveway. I’m not just going to take it. I’m going to run with it and milk every penny out of him that I can get. It’s the least he can do after surely getting me fired.

“The code is 2769,” I tell him, relieved that Kerry had written it on the top of the MLS sheet for the house. “And then, once we’re in, you’re supposed to park in the guest parking area to the left of the house.”

He nods, but doesn’t say anything else. Which, judging from the very short time I’ve known him, is totally un-Hunter-like behavior. The guy who’s been flirting with me for the last forty-five minutes wouldn’t have let the fact that the code ends in 69 pass without a comment. Maybe it’s because I shut down the banter between us with my last answer, but a quick glance at him tells me it’s more than that. His jaw is clenched, and his eyes narrowed as he glares at the huge, sprawling house looming on the other side of the gate like it’s somehow personally offended him.

And just that easily, the butterflies in my stomach turn into pterodactyls. How the hell am I supposed to sell him this house when he looks like he’d rather burn it to the ground than buy it?

I’m still trying to figure that out when we climb out of the car a couple of minutes later. My phone is clutched in my hand and I pray I don’t screw this up as we approach the house’s huge mahogany and glass front doors. Last night, I downloaded the agency app that opens lockboxes, using the password Kerry had given me when she’d hired me.

&nb

sp; Just in case, she’d said. You can practice with it when you have a few extra minutes, since it’s tricky.

I really hope it isn’t that tricky since I haven’t had the chance to play with the app at all. And since technology pretty much hates me at the best of times, let alone when both my job and my pride are depending on me getting this right.

My hand is shaking a little as I hold my phone over the lockbox and wait for the app to do its thing. I make the mistake of glancing back at Hunter as I do, and for a moment—just a moment—we make eye contact.

There’s a predatory gleam in his green eyes as he watches me, one that has me feeling every slow, excruciating second as I wait for the box to unlock. Just like I feel—acutely—every tremble of my hand, every breath I exhale, every beat of my too anxious heart.

Suddenly, the lockbox whirs, then clicks. The sound jolts me out of whatever weird fugue his gaze has put me in, and I all but leap for the box. My nerves make me clumsy, and I fumble a few times as I pull the key out and try to fit it in the door.

I finally manage to get it in the lock, but the stupid thing won’t turn. I pull it out, put it back in, try to twist it again and again—all to no avail.