Stealing Taffy (Bigler, North Carolina #3) - Susan Donovan Page 0,5
why were you in Arizona, Taffy?”
The sensual caress of her fingertip came to a screeching halt. She pulled her hand away. Uh-oh.
“Family business.” Taffy sniffed, pushing her empty plastic cocktail cup to the corner of her tray table.
She is so lying. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to pry.” With that, Dante silently reviewed the checklist now clearly displayed on the whiteboard of his brain.
The flight attendant’s voice came over the intercom. “Ladies and gentlemen, the captain has informed us that due to an increasingly severe weather system in the Raleigh-Durham area, we are being diverted to Reagan National in Washington, D.C.”
A collective groan went through the coach cabin.
“What?” Taffy blinked in incomprehension. “But I don’t want to go to Washington!”
“We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause our passengers, but please be assured that safety is our primary concern. More information will be available at the gate, but we will now begin our initial descent into the D.C. metro area.”
She looked to Dante with huge blue eyes. The flight attendant raced by, picking up trash and instructing everyone to lock their tray tables and return seats to upright positions.
Dante suddenly took pity on daffy Taffy. Clearly, the girl wasn’t a seasoned traveler, and she needed some guidance. “Usually, in cases like this, they put you on the next outgoing flight once the weather is clear. Or, you could choose to stay overnight and catch a flight the next day.”
His mind began to flood with the image of Taffy spread out on a hotel bed, naked, naked, and more naked …
“I don’t know anyone in Washington,” she said, shaking her head. Dante thought he saw her upper lip tremble. “Will the airline pay for a hotel?”
He shrugged. “Not likely. These days you’re lucky if they bring the plane to a full stop before throwing you out the cabin door.”
She gasped.
Totally naked.
“I bet you’ll come up with a creative solution to that little problem,” said the eavesdropper, snorting again.
Dante shot the old broad a look he figured would shut her up. It worked like a charm.
Taffy blinked back real tears, and Dante felt a flash of sympathy for her. He might be a federal agent but he wasn’t a jerk. Not all the time, anyway. And he could tell that whatever Taffy had been up to in Arizona had left her vulnerable, unsure of her ability to cope, and in need of lots of vodka. Maybe just being away from Raleigh and everything and everyone she’d ever known was too much for her to handle. Maybe it was the jailbird ex-fiancé. Dante made a mental note that if he had a few extra minutes when he got back to Asheville he’d research any recent kidnappings, cold-case murder investigations, real estate swindles, and flying-squirrel incidents in the Raleigh-Durham area. It might give him an idea if any of the wacko tale she’d just told was true, though he wouldn’t bet on it.
What was important was that he got her naked, ASAP.
“It’ll be okay,” he assured Taffy. He reached for her pretty little hand and held it in his own. Dante smiled kindly at her, calculating that it would take an hour, tops, and he’d have Taffy just the way he wanted her.
Unwrapped.
Chapter 2
Dan inserted a card into the hotel room door and gave it a push. He glanced over his shoulder and smiled at Tanyalee as he gestured for her to go ahead. She felt herself blush from peep toes to hairpins.
Oh, God. This was wrong. All wrong. She shouldn’t be doing this. “Thank you kindly.” As Tanyalee walked under the bridge of his arm, she calculated that he must be six feet three, maybe four. Her mouth went dry.
“Are you hungry?” Dan asked.
She shook her head, too nervous to speak, and wandered through the room. It was quite nice, with a big king-sized bed made up with fancy linens, a minifridge under the TV, and maybe even a view of Washington, D.C.
If she weren’t such a shameless tart she’d take a moment to look for the White House or the Capitol, but she wasn’t here for sightseeing, was she?
Tanyalee hugged herself and wondered … was this the “negative self-talk” her therapists had warned her about? Was this part of relapse? She pushed the unpleasant questions out of her mind because of course she wasn’t in relapse! This wasn’t about manipulation. This was just about sex.