Blood Orchid (Holly Barker 3)

She spied a cocktail shaker on the wet bar next to the kitchen. “I’ll get you one.” She found a bottle of vodka and some Rose’s sweetened lime juice, filled the shaker with ice, added six jiggers of vodka and two of lime juice. She put ice cubes in two martini glasses and swirled them around, then shook the shaker until her hands hurt from the cold. She dumped the ice from the now-frosted glasses and strained the pale, green liquid into them. “Tie that on,” she said, handing him one.

He tasted the drink. “Oh, God, can I have another?”

“Easy, kiddo, we don’t know yet whether you can handle that one.”

He took a gulp, half emptying the glass. “Let’s find out.”

“What are you fixing?” she asked.

“A Caesar salad,” he replied. “I do it the old-fashioned way, in a wooden bowl, with a fork.”

“What else do you do the old-fashioned way?”

“Almost everything, especially . . .”

“Not in a wooden bowl with a fork, I trust.”

“If that’s what rattles your chain.”

She pretended to think about that. “No bowl,” she said, “but maybe a fork, and I get to hold it.”

He handed her a fork, and without another word pulled her to him and kissed her.

She leaned into him, finding what she’d expected, and she was astonished at how quickly her blood rose. She was already wet.

He put his arms tightly around her, pulled her to him, then lifted her a couple of inches off the floor and started walking toward a big sofa in the living r

oom.

Holly went along for the ride, snagging her purse from the bar as they passed it.

Grant dumped her gently onto the sofa and, still kissing her, shucked off his shirt and shorts, while Holly helped him with her clothes. They were both naked in seconds.

“You mind if we skip the foreplay?” he asked, running his tongue over her nipples.

She opened her purse and took out the condom. “Skip it faster,” she said, stripping off the wrapper and sliding it onto him, in the process spilling the contents of her purse onto the floor.

He glanced down. “Do you always take a Walther PPK to bed?”

“Only when fucking an FBI man,” she said, guiding him into her.

The next ten minutes passed at fast-forward, with no subtleties or anything else except straight sex, enthusiastically conducted. He came seconds before she followed, and they were both noisy about it.

“My God,” he said, rolling over on his back next to her. “I wasn’t expecting that so soon.”

“I was,” she said. “Try to keep up, will you?”

“I thought I did keep it up.”

“You certainly did, Junior G-Man. Now I’m hungry.”

They visited the powder room together, sponging each other clean and dry, then headed for the kitchen, still naked. Grant turned on the built-in restaurant-style grill and turned to the salad. “I need my fork back,” he said.

“Dammit,” she said, handing it to him, “I forgot to use the fork.”

“Don’t worry about it, I have enough holes in me already.” He separated a couple of egg yolks and dumped them into the wooden bowl.

She fingered a scar on his back. “This must have been one of them.”