Shaken

Shaken

A Martini Sisterhood Novel

By Heather Long

Shaken

A Martini Sisterhood Novel

By: Heather Long

Published by Fated Desires Publishing, LLC.

© 2014 Heather Long

ISBN: 978-1-62322-070-9

Cover Art by Scott Carpenter

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person or use proper retail channels to lend a copy. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return it and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author. To obtain permission to excerpt portions of the text, please contact the publisher at
[email protected]
.  

All characters in this book are fiction and figments of the author’s imagination.

Shaken

The Martini Sisterhood—five women bonded by the ties of friendship, supporting each other through challenges of surviving love, and loss.  For these women, life can change on a whimsical dare and a magic eight ball…

She’s good at sorting out professional messes…

Accountant Zip Crenshaw spends so much time on spreadsheets that’s she’s forgotten what it’s like to be between the sheets. During her weekly cocktail hour with the girls, they consult a Magic Eight Ball about her crush on bartender Tony. When the toy advises her to go for it, Zip dares to color outside the lines and go after the man who heats her dreams… 

He’s in the middle of a personal trial…

Tony Giordano enjoys Friday nights above all others, because it’s the one night a week he’s sure to see the sexy accountant and her friends. Having long since resigned Zip to the look, but don’t touch category, he’s blown away by her invitation.  Tony's always been a planner but with his custody battle looming, he's not prepared for the effect she has on him…

One night leaves them both shaken…

What began as a whimsical dare quickly turns passionate, but is an unquenchable desire—and a Magic Eight Ball’s advice—enough for these two planners to risk happily ever after on?

Dedication

To my personal Martini sisterhood, we may not drink martinis, but you are definitely my girls.

Chapter One

Zip jogged up the stairs of the East 53rd and Lexington station, the Friday Midtown crowd already thickening. Her stiff neck ached, and her back pinched with every step. Tax season had to be the absolute worst, with everyone wanting to claim the best deductions, but failing to keep the best records. She’d been with Slemien & Karter for five years, and they still handed her the box cases—boxes full of receipts, scraps of notebook paper and, the worst, Post-its with an order number and, if she was lucky, a dollar amount.

She seemed to spend the months of February, March, and April explaining to some women that they couldn't write off their sexy lingerie as a business expense because it made them feel powerful under their business suits, while encouraging other women to record their restaurant receipts for power lunches. The world lived in a sad reality when a woman would rather claim her lacy underthings because they were sexy than keep a receipt for the long business lunch that made her blow her diet.

At the top of the stairs, she dodged out of the way of the people behind her and paused to glance at the gray skies overhead. Snow threatened, but the mild winter temps were still hovering in the upper thirties. She’d traded out her Salvatore Ferragamos for a pair of blue-green Skechers shape-ups. The five-hundred foot walk to Lexington toward Coveted—one of the best bars in Midtown—hardly counted as a workout, but it combined well with the stairs at either end of her subway ride. With the half-mile hike to the subway and the fifteen flights of stairs at her office, she didn’t need a gym.

The walk definitely worked off the calories she planned to indulge in at Friday happy hour with her girls. After shifting her laptop bag from one shoulder to the other, she fixed her backpack strap. The pair of bags were another curse of the season.

Glad she’d skipped her black pencil skirt for the navy A-line with its flare around the knees, she set a brisk pace on the breezy street. The matching navy jacket didn’t do much to keep the cold out, and her nipples puckered against the yellow silk blouse. But she loved New York in February—the snappy cold, the post-holiday hustle, and the reduction of tourists throughout Midtown’s hotspots.

No line waited in front of Coveted, and Johnny held the door open as she descended three steps to the entrance.

“Hey, doll. You’re early.” The doorman doubled as a bouncer when the club was pumping, but so early on a Friday it would only be regulars.

“Hey, Johnny.” Zip kissed his cheek. He closed the door behind her and gave her an arm while she tugged off the Skechers and swapped them out for her Ferragamos. The four-inch heels brought her up to his height. Once she regained her balance, he squeezed her elbow and let her go. “Are we in a Frank mood, tonight?” she asked. The low, easy tones of Sinatra’s
I’ve Got the World on a String
echoed through the speakers.

“Oh, yeah. Keeps the natives from getting restless.” Johnny winked and held her laptop bag while she stowed the Skechers in her backpack. “Your girls aren’t here yet, but your table is waiting.” Five years of Friday nights had earned her the kind of personal service that made Coveted the most desirable spot for the Martini Sisterhood to convene their weekly ritual.

“Who’s playing downstairs?”

“Lone Star D and Daddy Puff.” Johnny handed her the laptop case. “You want any of that in the coat-room lock-up?”

“Nah. I’m good.” She finger-combed her hair and smoothed her jacket. “I don’t suppose….”

“Tony’s at the bar.” The man’s easy grin said it all, and Zip fought the rush of heat in the blush that swept through her. Tony Giordano, her favorite bartender, gave her wicked thoughts plenty of fantasy material.

“Thanks, Johnny.”

“No problem, sweetheart. Have fun tonight.” He returned to his spot by the door and opened it to admit more regulars, a pair of women who breezed through and down the stairs to the dance bar with its DJs, pulsing music, and flashing lights. The Sisterhood preferred the lounge level with its glossy décor, shimmering metal, polished wood, and mirrored panels.

Tony holding court at the bar always rated a plus in her book. The six-foot-plus, dark-haired god put the stallion in Italian. Her heart skipped a beat as she reached the top step and Tony slanted a look in her direction. The corners of his mouth turned upward into a genuine grin. Wide shoulders bulged beneath his white dress shirt. Muscled pectorals no number of buttons could conceal strained the pristine cotton. The bronzed beauty of his face—the razor-hard jaw, dimples in his cheeks, and the
coup de grace
of his blindingly blue eyes—all combined into one dizzying package of
God, I wish I could go there.

“Evening, sweetheart.” Even his Brooklyn accent rolled the words together into a caress that went straight to her pussy and left her wet and weeping.

Tucking her hand more firmly around her bag straps, she mustered a smile of her own. One that hopefully said
its-good-to-see-you-and-no-I’m-not-thinking-about-stripping-you-naked
. “Hi, Tony.”

She mentally applauded the cool reserve in her tone. He’d arrived at Coveted long after the Sisterhood, but a year of saying
hi
, chatting with him at the bar when the girls were late, or just staring at him from across the room, made him as much a part of their ritual as their standing date for Friday evening drinks. Hell, even the pumps she wore, with their extra inches of height, were purchased with Tony in mind.

She loved his eyes.

Resisting the urge to smack herself, she mimed a walking motion with her fingers and pointed to her booth. The Sisterhood reserved the corner table every Friday, and only once in five years had she occupied it alone. It happened to have been a stormy night and Tony’s first week on the job.

The delicious Italian had kept her company, checking on her regularly throughout the evening and earning a firm place in her wettest of dreams. But Tony was taken—or at least he had been then. She’d since heard a waitress commenting he was back to being single and had been for a few months. Not that this made him available to Zip. She’d resigned herself to the friend category. Despite his playful interest, he’d never made a move. Still, her nipples peaked at the thought, and a lonely ache squeezed between her legs.

Fresh roses sat in the middle of their favorite booth. She paused, still half-imagining Tony out of his shirt. The white flowers were in full, radiant bloom and smelled delicious. Tiffany, their regular waitress, met her at the table with a glass of white wine. Zip always started with wine if she came in first, saving the martini pitchers for when the girls arrived.

“Happy Anniversary from Tony and the other bartenders.” Tiffany set the glass in front of her and grinned. Hell, it was their anniversary. Five years of Friday night happy hours at the Coveted. Funny that the bartenders would remember the correct date and she hadn’t.

“Thank you!” She twisted to see Tony watching her with a hint of his usual humor dimpling his cheeks. He winked and blew her a kiss before a customer dropping onto a barstool captured his attention. Zip sighed and shoved her bags into the booth her before scooting in.

“Did you want to order the appetizers or wait for the other ladies?” Tiffany had been serving them for about three months, ever since their favorite waiter, Roger, moved on to a new job. The bottle blonde was perky, sweet, and seemed irresistibly young—she reminded Zip of herself as a college freshman—most of the girls had agreed on that, except for Lucy. Lucy swore Zip had never been that upbeat.

“I’ll wait. We’re all due tonight, and I have some work I can do while I wait.” Zip addressed Tiffany warmly, but her attention focused on Tony. He was mixing a drink and chatting with a businessman at the bar. His too-serious expression firmed the line between his brows. Tipping the wine glass up to her lips, she smiled. The wine’s sweetness swirled around her tongue. Tony never forgot her penchant for the sweeter whites and their fruity bouquets.

Tension coiled through her blood while she watched him. Dragging her gaze away proved a challenge, but she fished her iPad out of the laptop case and flipped it open. She could review her latest client’s fiasco of bookkeeping, or she could dive into shimmering Hawaiian landscapes and delicious alpha males claiming their women. She selected the e-book application and sighed.

With a half-look over the top of the iPad, she had no trouble imagining Tony in the role of the man tying his lady to the spanking platform. She caught the quick glance he tossed her way, and her sex clenched. Oh, no trouble at all.

Exhaling a steadying breath, she took another sip of wine and dove into the decadence of reading a little harmless sex.

“Bring on the martinis,” Veronica McNeil demanded after striding across the populated lounge to the table. In ones and twos, the ladies around Zip called out a greeting to the leggy blonde with a Barbie-doll-perfect figure, dressed in a sexy, red business suit. An attorney, Veronica looked like a sex kitten; too many lawyers made the mistake of assuming she actually was one when dealing with her. Her usual, warm sassiness made her seem wound too tight and brittle around the edges. She shoved Kaley over with a nudge of her briefcase and all but collapsed gracelessly onto the edge of their round.

Sitting in the middle, Zip shifted her gaze from Jem and Lucy on her left, to Kaley and Veronica on her right. Veronica ignored all the wine glasses on the table and waved Tiffany over. The waitress had already shifted to bring their order to the table.

“Keep ’em coming.” Veronica shrugged out of her suit jacket, revealing the creamy gold blouse beneath. It went spectacularly with her platinum blonde hair and set off her hazel eyes. “What?”

Zip cocked a brow, but Doctor Lucy took the direct approach and leaned forward, chin propped in her hand. “Spill.”

“Cheating son of a bitch has been fucking his secretary three times a week from two until four. She’s pregnant, he’s freaked, and I dumped him. What’s with the white roses?”

“Tonight’s pick is the Zanzibar cocktail, shaken—not stirred.” Tiffany interrupted any responses with a pitcher of martinis and five full glasses. She traded those out for the nearly empty glasses from earlier.