Next to the horsehair-stuffed armchairs lolling in exhausted postures around the edges of the space, she pictured vintage marble-topped side tables for customers to lay their cupcakes and confections on while they relaxed and sipped a latte. She’d have a stand for newspapers and periodicals. Maybe even offer Wi-Fi, though she wasn’t sure she wanted to go that route. (The laptop-toting student/starving writer crowd didn’t tend to lay down a lot of cash.) She wanted everything elegant, appealing, and absolutely delectable. Fresh flowers in bud vases would add notes of color, while the aromas of chocolate, coffee, and piping hot cake would surround her customers in a sensual web.

But hold on. Speaking of scents, something didn’t smell quite right around here. Serafina was used to identifying ingredients and judging flavorings by their odors, and this one was… odd, to say the least. Vinegary. Following her nose, her attention was drawn to a large glass jar sitting on a dusty shelf. Was that… She drifted closer, afraid of what she might find. Plucking up her courage, Sera reached out with thumb and forefinger and gingerly drew aside the cheesecloth covering the top of the jar.

“Yeeeoowza! What is that?”

Pauline drifted forward to peer over her shoulder. “Oh, that? It’s nothing to worry about. It’s just Big Mama. Hello, Big Mama!” She leaned in to whisper confidingly in Sera’s ear, as though to keep the contents of the jar from hearing. “Don’t mind the smell, dear. She’s just hungry. I’m afraid I’ve been neglecting her shockingly since the… well, since Hortencia…”

“Big… Mama?” Sera breathed, staring at the enormous brown glob floating in the jar of sickly-looking liquid. “You don’t mean—”

“Yup,” Pauline confirmed. “Kombucha. It’s my own special culture. Go ahead and taste some if you like, but it’ll be better if we feed her first.”

Ugh, no thanks, Sera thought. She knew about kombucha, of course. Chefs heard about all the crazy ingestible trends out there in the world. She’d read somewhere that the mushroom-like culture that floated at the top—mostly comprised of a form of yeast—was known as a “mother,” and that these mamas sometimes spawned “daughters” that brewers used to spin off their signature blends for family and friends. In theory, it sounded okay, if a bit unsanitary. But until today, she’d never actually seen the fermented home brew in person. And now that she had, she didn’t think she cared to see it again. It smelled like hippie feet, and it looked like a monstrous, wet, flabby mushroom. Or a dead stingray. Gross.

“It was very popular with our ladies,” Pauline offered. “A lot of them thought it had special properties, if you know what I mean.” Sera blushed as the meaning became clear, but her aunt must not have noticed, because she continued in a stage whisper, “Sexual properties, dear.”

A snort sounded from behind them. Asher was staring studiously into the middle distance, but he couldn’t hide the little grin that lifted his generous lips.

“What, you want some?” Sera flashed, teasing the outrageously sexy Mr. Wolf before she could think better of it.

“My sexual properties are in no need of enhancement at the moment, thank you,” he shot back with elaborate politeness, and the blush on Sera’s cheeks bloomed into a full-body affair.

“Um, right. Moving on!” Sera wasn’t about to discuss aphrodisiac beverages while a hot guy stood around making quips about his sexual prowess. Even if it was secretly kind of fun.

“What’s back here—the restrooms?” Sera asked as she headed for the rear of the store. A beaded curtain with an image of Ingres’s La Grande Odalisque hand-painted upon it hung across a discreetly placed doorway. Maybe that “back room” Pauline had mentioned so offhandedly a few minutes ago?

Pauline beamed. “Why don’t you have a look?” She placed a palm on Sera’s spine and steered her through the doorway, flipping on a wall switch as they parted the beads.

Sera was confronted with wall-to-wall wieners.

Rubber. Latex. Glass. Metal. In every shape, color, and size—and then some.

Damn it. I thought I was done with dildos, Sera thought, stomach sinking. The sight of sex toys brought nothing but humiliating memories for her.

Pauline moved deeper into the room ahead of Sera, turning on more lights.

It was a temple devoted to the Big O. Every tool the imagination could envision in service to this laudable objective existed in some form or other on the shelves and in the display cases in the windowless room. Images ranging from the instructional to the downright lascivious papered the walls, with geishas, Greek figurines, and Kama Sutra postures at every turn.

Sera’s blush burst into flames, especially when she felt Asher’s presence filling the space behind her. She wanted to back up, but was already perilously close to connecting with his sinewy frame as it was.

Yikes, did he see me ogling that… wait, what the heck is that thing?

“I suppose you’ll want to shut it all down now,” Pauline said glumly, interrupting her niece’s horrified/fascinated reverie. “I know you’re—forgive me, dear—but you’ve always been a bit of a prude in this regard.”

Sera shot Pauline a look that would have quashed a more sensitive woman. But Pauline just patted her on the arm as if to say, None of us is perfect, dear.

Sera wanted to sink through the floor with mortification. Just what I needed to start out my new life in Santa Fe, she groaned inwardly,a reputation for having a stick up my ass. Er, maybe not such a great analogy—eek, anal-ogy!—to think of when surrounded by butt plugs. Her blush was physically painful now.

“Well, I… I mean, what I had in mind for the store doesn’t exactly, um, dovetail with this, ah…” At a loss for a descriptive adjective, Sera gestured lamely at a series of strap-ons.

Behind her, Asher made a rumbling noise that sounded suspiciously like stifled laughter. At the sound of his merriment, Sera’s spine experienced a shiver of awareness that wasn’t a bit unpleasant.

“I understand, dear.” Pauline sighed. “But I must tell you, the contents of this room were an invaluable resource for the women of this community. What income we did draw from the shop mainly came from sales of these pleasure enhancements. I can’t tell you how many times we received thank-you notes from ladies swearing we’d revolutionized their sex lives. Saved a lot of marriages, too.”

“I’m sure,” Sera murmured, eyeing what looked like a nubbly pink jellyfish attached to a series of elastic straps. Where do you put tha… oh.

“I can personally vouch for that one, dear,” said Pauline, following Serafina’s scandalized gaze.

Now Sera did retreat a step or two, but the heat from her next-door neighbor brought her up short. As she peeked over her shoulder, she saw he was braced casually with one arm on either side of the door frame in a posture that showed off his physique to mouthwatering advantage. She could feel his warm, minty breath on the sensitive juncture of her neck and shoulder.

Sex toys ahead of me, boy toys behind. It was certainly not how Sera had envisioned her afternoon unfolding. She wasn’t sure whether to laugh, pray for a teleport to whisk her away, or pass out from sheer sensory overload. Having spent the past year burying all thoughts of a sensual nature, devoting herself to work, recovery, and little else, Sera was unprepared for the effect the back room, and Asher’s presence in it, was having on her.

With an effort, Sera turned around. Her head was barely level with Asher’s neck, he was so tall. But that was fine—it meant she didn’t have to look him in the eye. “Excuse me, please,” she muttered, gesturing politely for him to stand aside. “I think I’ve got the gist of the place now. Quite a dichotomy between what you see in the main room and what’s in stock in the back, that’s for sure!” God, I must be nervous, she thought. I couldn’t sound more like a Victorian schoolmarm if I strapped on a bustle and started rocking the granny boot look.

Asher was more colloquial, though perhaps his command of English was a tad questionable.

“That’s Pauline’s House of Passion for you. Prim and proper up front, orgasms in the rear,” he commented innocently.

A voice channeling Beavis and Butthead giggled sophomorically in Sera’s mind. Heh-heh. He said “orgasms in the rear.” Her face flamed. Get a grip, Serafina, she admonished herself. Grown women don’t freak out at the sight of a few vibrators.

Since Asher seemed to be taking his time moving out of her way, Sera ducked under his arm and squeezed by, taking a welcome breath of nonsexualized air when she reached the main space. Pauline trotted up behind her, hands on hips and a hopeful expression on her face.

“So what do you think, kid?”

“Think?” Sera was finding it rather hard to think at the moment, actually. “Well, the space is amazing,” she said when she’d gathered her wits. “What we can make of it—well, I have some ideas, but I want to hear what you think first. I don’t want to railroad you out of something you love, Aunt Paulie. I can see how much this place has meant to you, and I want to honor that. As far as I’m concerned, you should make the final decision on what happens with the shop.”

Pauline’s sharp brown eyes softened and her face glowed. “I raised a wonderful niece,” she trilled. “Didn’t I, Ash?”

Asher hopped up to sit on the mahogany counter and grinned, arms bracing his weight behind him in a way that emphasized his broad shoulders and corded arms. “Indubitably,” he affirmed.