Stealing Taffy (Bigler, North Carolina #3) - Susan Donovan Page 0,4
on sometimes, believe it or not, but I have to say, you’re a very good listener.” She patted his hand with hers. And kept it there. He felt so warm and solid. Tanyalee brushed her thumb back and forth across the top of Dan’s very large hand, noting the lovely texture of muscle, tendon, skin, and a dusting of manly hair. Without warning, she pictured the landing strip of dark fur that probably ran down the center of his ripped abs, leading right to his …
“Oh, my goodness!” Tanyalee sucked on her straw like she was trying to pull a nail from a coffin. “Enough about me. So, what do you do for a living, Dan?”
Dan smiled, and Tanyalee thought maybe he started to chuckle but had stopped himself. “Nothing exciting. Not compared to what you’ve just told me.”
Oh, well—so much for the Italian-prince fantasy. “That’s okay. I’m sure whatever you do is exciting in its own way.”
“Yeah, well, I … I own some factories.”
Tanyalee felt her mouth unhinge but couldn’t seem to hide her surprise. So why was this guy in the cheap seats? Maybe it was a last-minute booking. “Factories? What kind of factories?”
Dan paused for a moment. “Cheese factories,” he said.
* * *
Cheese factories? Where the fuck had that come from? O’Connor was going to laugh her ass off when he told her about this. Dante’s boss possessed a sense of humor almost as twisted as his own, which turned out to be a real plus in their line of work, since busting up meth labs wasn’t a laugh-a-minute kind of job.
But maybe he shouldn’t mention this mile-high encounter to O’Connor. Especially if it ended the way he hoped it would, and he hoped it ended completely naked. Besides, he and O’Connor would have a lot more than his love life to discuss when he got back to Asheville. He didn’t care what the DEA higher-ups said—he would get his transfer out of North Carolina. He had to. Six months in and he was already going insane. A Brooklyn boy had no business chasing hillbillies through the woods. It just wasn’t natural.
Pink Taffy’s little polished thumbnail was dragging along the top of his hand and her breath was coming too fast. He wasn’t sure if it was the vodka, the way she’d been staring at his body, or the mention of his vast industrial holdings that had her panting. It was all he could do not to burst out laughing.
Dante had always enjoyed women and it was usually mutual, but now that he hadn’t touched a drop of alcohol in three years, he’d have to admit that women had become his diversion of choice. Especially women like Taffy here—a hot dish of girl-sex served up with an extra-large side of crazy sauce. Why this particular kind of woman seemed to get him every time was a mystery to him. His twin sister the shrink claimed he chose the type on purpose. Daya said the ultrafeminine, überunbalanced types provided an antidote to his overly masculine, law-and-order personality. Dante knew his sister was full of shit and just trying to mess with his head, like always, but it was an interesting theory.
“What kind of cheese?” Taffy had just asked him.
“Oh, several kinds.” Dante realized his pretty travel companion wanted details, but he wasn’t much in the kitchen himself and he was raised on his mother’s authentic Puerto Rican cooking, which was heavy on the sofrito sauce and light on the cheese, so he’d have to wing it. “Cheddar, Monterey Jack, and Muenster, mostly.”
“Oh, how lovely.” She batted her eyes at him.
The flight attendant came by with his seltzer and he thanked her politely.
“You have such lovely manners,” Taffy said, now running a fingertip up and down the inside of his wrist. Dante ignored the snorting sound that came from the elderly eavesdropper in the window seat. Taffy didn’t seem to notice. “I can tell you’re a Yankee but I can’t place the accent. Are you from Chicago originally?”
“Brooklyn.”
“That’s in New York City, right?”
He nodded, clenching his jaw to prevent anything sarcastic from slipping out, because, really? This chick had to ask where fucking Brooklyn was?
“I’ve never been to New York City,” Taffy said wistfully. “Except for this trip to Arizona, I’ve pretty much been in North Carolina all my life. Of course, we were supposed to have our honeymoon in Hawaii, but you can’t very well go on a honeymoon without a husband, now can you?”