My knees actually buckle as his lips skim across my collarbone and I cry out, reaching for him. He grabs me—of course he does—then pulls me against him as he strokes soothing hands down my arms, my back, my ass. He murmurs sweet things into my ear as he does it, a jumble of words that don’t make much sense but somehow soothe my overwrought body like nothing else could have.
I know we need to go, just like I know that I’ll have to face the consequences of my totally unprofessional behavior soon enough. But not yet. Not just yet.
So instead of worrying about throwing off our appointment schedule, I bury my face in the hollow of his throat.
Feel the fast staccato beat of his heart beneath my lips.
Breathe in the warm, sexy scent of him.
He smells delicious, like everything I never understood I wanted, and somehow I know that whatever happens here—whatever happens with Hunter in general—orange and bergamot mingled with the soft scent of jasmine flowers on the wind will be an aphrodisiac to me for the rest of my life.
He holds me for as long as I need him to, hands soft, voice low, face more tender than I’ve ever seen it. In these moments he’s as different from the man I met yesterday morning as night is from day and I’ve never felt safer or more secure.
I know it’s stupid to feel this way—after all, his reputation with women is legendary. But right now, none of that seems to matter. Nothing does but the way his touch warms me from the inside out.
I pull away first, not because I want to but because something tells me that he won’t be the first one to let go. Not the man who re-dressed me so tenderly, who held me up when I couldn’t do it for myself.
Our eyes meet and his are shaded, a dark, verdant green that I feel all the way to my toes. “I’m good,” I tell him before he can ask.
“Yeah?”
I nod. “Yeah.”
“Good.” He smiles then, so bright it nearly blinds me. Then again, that could just be the feels bouncing around inside of me like laser beams.
I watch, more fascinated than I should be, as he tucks himself back into his jeans. Then he bends down and picks my ripped panties off the ground. I start to take them from him but he just shoots me a wicked look before stuffing them in the front pocket of his jeans.
Trophy? I wonder. Or souvenir. The only difference is intention. If you’d asked me yesterday, I would have said trophy. But now, as he wraps an arm around my waist and propels me gently toward the back door of this ridiculous, ridiculous house, I can’t help wondering if it’s the latter. And if it is, what that means. For him. For me. For us—if there even is an us beyond this one nebulous afternoon.
Hunter’s arm stays around me all the way to the car, even when I stop to lock up the house and deposit the key back in the lockbox. He opens the car door for me, gently helps me inside, then pauses to drop a kiss on my lips before closing the door and jogging around to the driver’s side.
As he does, I can’t help feeling a little like Alice falling down the rabbit hole. Not only did I just have oral sex with my first-ever real estate client, but now I’m swooning over him like Cinderella with her Prince Charming.
I’ve never been a Cinderella kind of girl. Never even wanted to be. But as Hunter climbs in the car, his hand comes to rest on my knee. And I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel the sizzle—and the sweetness—all the way to my bones.
We spend the rest of the day looking at houses. I try to keep it strictly professional between us, but it’s hard to do that when Hunter keeps holding my hand during the walk-through, brushing his fingers against my lower back or breasts or ass and dragging me into corners for long, drugging kisses that curl my toes.
It’s so different than how I expected this day to go that I’m a little shell-shocked. But I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t enjoying it, because I am. There’s a reason Hunter Browning is one of the most sought after men in the world—he’s absolutely dazzling when he sets his mind to it. He knows how to treat a woman, how to make her feel beautiful and desirable and wanted.
Hunter likes three of the houses I picked out, two of which were also my first choices. But the closer it gets to seven o’clock—and our appointment at the house I found this morning—the more excited I get.
We pull up at five to seven, after I manage to pry him away from the last house, which he liked so much that I was afraid he was going to demand that I make an offer on the spot. Which I would normally be thrilled about—and I will be, I swear, if he still wants it after he sees the house on Marina Lane.
I know right away that it’s a hit—I’ve learned to read him over the last few hours, learned to recognize what look he gets when he finds something he likes and what look he has when he’s not interested. The moment I instruct him to pull the car over in front of the large bronze gates of 52 Marina Lane, I know he’s going to be as excited about the place as I am.
And he is, so excited that he forgets to come around the car and open the door for me. Not that I need him to do it or anything, but he’s made a point of it at every one of our ten previous stops. The fact that he forgets to do it now I take as a very, very good sign.
But he doesn’t go immediately to the house, as I’m hoping he will. Instead, he stands at the end of the driveway and looks out over the ocean. It’s getting late, so the beach is nearly empty, the after-work surf brigade clearing out even as we watch.
“It’s a beautiful view,” I tell him, because it is. The sun is going down, turning the sky—and the endless, rolling ocean beneath it—to crimson flames.
He nods even as he grabs my hand, and for a second my heart stops. It looks like he wants to bypass the house completely, like he wants to walk straight over the sand and into the rolling waves.
I’m so not down for that.
But in the end, he just smiles at me and says, “You think this is the one.”
“I—Umm—” I scramble for something to say—this is his house and the last thing I want to do is unduly bias him toward one property or another—but the truth is, yes. This property is the one for him. I feel it in my bones.
“It’s okay.” He drops a quick kiss on my lips. “I feel it, too.”
We walk up to the house, hand in hand. After I use the app to open the lockbox, I let us in, calling hello even though the place is supposed to be empty. It’s a big house—not an elaborate mansion with a hundred rooms by any means, but it is a little over six thousand square feet—and the last thing I want to do is surprise someone who forgot we were coming. This morning Alice told me about walking in on a couple having sex during one of her showings when the house was supposed to be empty. And the worst part was the guy half of the couple wasn’t the same man who was selling the house…
No one answers—which isn’t exactly a surprise—and we wind our way through the first level. The whole bottom floor is pretty much one huge open room, with only a few archways here and there to delineate where one room ends and the other begins. There’s two formal sitting areas, a large but not huge dining room, a nook for a grand piano, a state-of-the-art guest suite with floor and toilet seat warmers and a professional kitchen, bar area and breakfast nook that make me drool even though I’m a rudimentary cook at best.
Hunter looks right at home in the kitchen, though, enthusing over the pot-filler over the stove and commenting on the warming and cooling drawers, the wine refrigerator and the round, butcher block island.
The backyard is pretty plain, if you discount the incredible view. But if you go up one level, the patio-balcony extends almost to the property line. There’s a pool, plus two outdoor entertainment areas, including a bar. The second floor has a media room, a huge game room with poker and pool tables and four more bedroom suites.
The media room, with its three built-in TVs, is my favorite part, at least until I get to the third level which is all master retreat, complete with exercise room, library, and a small study that could also be changed into a nursery, if necessary. And when you step outside onto th
e curved balcony, there’s an intimate seating area and a built-in hot tub.
Hunter’s eyes go dark when he sees the hot tub, and I catch him looking back and forth between me and it several times. At three and a half feet it’s about the deepest water I’m willing to go in, so I can totally get behind the fantasy I can see brewing in his head. Once he buys the house, that is.
I mean, if he still wants me around.
It’s a sobering thought, one that has me pulling back just a little. Because he’s Hunter Browning and I’m…me. We’ve known each other two days and no matter what happened in that garden this afternoon, once he picks a house, there’s no reason for us to ever see each other again. No reason at all for me to ever be in that hot tub with him.
Which is fine. I’m just in this for the one and a half percent commission. Or at least that’s the story I’m telling myself.
“So, what do you think?” I ask when Hunter makes his way back to where I’m standing.
“It’s a lot of house.”
“It is,” I agree. I want to jump in, to tell him all the reasons this house is perfect for him, but it’s not my place to push. This is Hunter’s house, and even though I think he belongs here with every fiber of my being, he’s just a client.
“Wow. That’s about as noncommittal as it gets,” he teases as we slowly walk back down the first of the two circular, glass-enclosed staircases.
“I don’t know what you want me to say.”
“I want you to tell me you think I should buy it. Or not, if that’s the case.”
“But it’s not my house.”
“No, but that doesn’t mean I don’t value your opinion.” My stupid, stupid heart beats a little faster at that, at least until he adds, “You spent the last twenty-fours looking at all the houses available in my price range in San Diego. Do you think I’m going to find something that meets my needs better than this?”
“No. I really don’t.”
We’re on the second floor now and he reaches for my hand, tugs me over to the edge of the balcony that looks out over the ocean. We stand like that for a few minutes, just staring out over the ocean as the sun finally sets.
Then, as the moon turns the ocean to polished glass, he turns to me with a huge grin and says, “Okay, let’s make an offer.”
I barely resist the urge to crow. I did it. I found him a house—and made my first sale. Holy shit. I did it. And in thirty days, when this baby closes, I’m not going to be poor anymore. I’m going to be pretty close to the opposite of poor. I mean, not buy a $24-million-dollar house opposite of poor, but I’ll be able to get my car fixed. Pay off my credit card. Eat. All of which sounds pretty damn fantastic to me.
“Let’s do it,” I tell him. “I mean, we have to decide what you want to offer. And I’d suggest sleeping on it tonight, just to be sure. I’ll write it up tonight, and then if you still want the house in the morning, we can submit it first thing.”
“I’ll still want the house.”
“I know. But we’re talking about twenty-four million dollars. I want you to be as sure as you can possibly be before we do this thing.”
“And my teammates told me real estate agents only care about their commission and not their clients.”
“They’ve obviously met my boss.”
He laughs. “It was one of them who suggested her, actually. And though it’s a dick thing to say, I’m really happy I soaked you with that puddle yesterday.”
“It is a dick thing to say.” I mock glare at him. But as he presses a soft line of kisses over my cheek and down my jaw, I can’t help relenting. “But I’m glad, too.”
“Oh, yeah?” He presses his mouth to mine once, twice, then again and again. “And why is that, exactly?”
“My dry cleaning only cost ten bucks. Which means I made ninety bucks off your bad behavior yesterday.”
“Ninety bucks, huh? I hope you plan to do something fun with it.”
“Oh, I absolutely do,” I say, voice deliberately breathless. Which includes buying groceries so I can eat until payday, but it’s not like I’m going to tell him that.
There are some things that rich quarterbacks don’t need to know, no matter how easily they make you come…
Chapter 15
Hunter
I want to take Emerson out to dinner, partly to thank her for the work she put in to finding me the perfect house and partly because I don’t want her to think that what happened this afternoon is just a one-off thing for me. While I’m the first to admit that most of my sexual encounters lately have been one-night stands followed by the occasional hookup if we’re both in the mood, that’s mostly because I’ve tried to be available for Heather and the kids whenever they need me.
While that hasn’t changed—my twin and her children will always be my top priority—I find myself reluctant to just walk away from Emerson. She fits me in a way I wouldn’t have expected when I first saw her on the curb yesterday, like everything in her was designed specifically to appeal to everything in me. And while I really don’t have time for a relationship right now—between Heather, the kids and the fact that we’re coming up on the busiest part of the football season—I figure I’m going to have to make time. Because I’m not letting Emerson walk away from me. Not until we have a chance to explore the insane chemistry that burns between us.
I’m about to suggest dinner at one of the many amazing restaurants that line Prospect, just a few blocks from the house I just decided to buy. But before I can broach the subject, I get a text from Lucy, asking when I’m going to be home. She’s using her mother’s phone, but I know it’s her from the long string of ridiculous emojis. And from the fact that she misspelled the words “when” and “home.”
So much for dinner—and a shot at repeating what happened in that garden this afternoon. There’s a part of me that wants to text her back, to tell my niece I’ll see her in the morning. After all, I made sure there’s someone there to cover dinner and a movie with the kids as Heather doesn’t have enough energy to handle them for any length of time anymore. But just because they have a babysitter doesn’t mean I’m going to ignore Lucy’s obvious desire for reassurance. She’s about to lose her mother and she knows it. If she needs me, I’m going to be there for her.
Which is why—after we’re back in the car—instead of asking Emerson out, I ask, “Do you have a car you need to pick up at the office or can I drop you at home?”
She’d been looking straight at me, a big smile on her face. But as my words sink in, her eyes go blank and she turns to look out the window instead.
Her response—or lack thereof—makes me want to kick my own ass, and that’s before she admits, “My car’s in the shop, actually. So if you don’t mind dropping me at home, I’d really appreciate it.”
“Of course. Just point me in the right direction.”
“I live in Imperial Beach, so you can hop on 805 South and we’ll be there in about thirty minutes.”
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.”