that, he reached around underneath her and sought out her small but hard clit.
She let out a helpless whimper of pleasure.
“What are you doing to me?” she asked him, dropping her forehead to the mattress.
He decided to answer with actions instead of words, and within minutes, he got what he was after. Taffy let go with a long, passionate cry, and exploded around his cock with such intensity that he couldn’t help but join her. He was stunned by how his body and soul burst open, yet again. Together, they crashed over the edge.
* * *
He was asleep. Not only was he asleep, he was snoring like Granddaddy’s old chain saw. As carefully as possible, Tanyalee picked up Dan’s heavy arm enough for her to slide away, roll to the far side of the bed, and get her feet on the floor. In a single motion she grabbed her shoes, shredded panties, clothes, and carry-on, then slipped into the bathroom. She took the fastest shower she’d ever taken in her life, threw on a pair of jeans and a T-shirt, gathered her hair in a ponytail, and applied a sweep of lip gloss. Then she held her breath and said a silent prayer. Oh, please, Lord, let me get my luggage and get out of here before he wakes up. Amen.
She made a mental calculation that it would take her about ten steps to grab her large suitcase near the door and escape into the hallway. From there it would take just seconds to reach the elevator. With any luck, one of those shuttle vans they’d taken from the airport would be waiting out front.
Of course she’d like to stay, chat, and say a proper good-bye. Tanyalee had been raised better than to be rude, under any circumstance. But this was an emergency.
She turned off the bathroom light before she opened the door. Luckily, the latch didn’t make a sound. She tiptoed toward her suitcase and put a hand on the doorknob.
And stopped.
Oh, shoot! She just couldn’t do it.
As silently as possible, Tanyalee rooted around inside her bag for the charm bracelet Aunt Viv had given her for Christmas last year. She liked it just fine, but it was a cheap imitation of a Pandora and, besides, her much-hated childhood nickname was all over it—Taffy. Why that goofy old woman insisted on calling her that was a mystery.
She grabbed a pen and the small notepad she kept in her bag. “Something to remember me by,” she wrote, signing it with a big T, which she knew was for Tanyalee, but Dan would be none the wiser. Then she walked on her toes to the bed, placed the bracelet and note on the rumpled sheet, and turned to go.
Yet again, Tanyalee stopped. She turned back. Dan was gloriously naked, lying on his side with his face angled away from the rising sun, still snoring, everything about him relaxed. She had to stare, because she couldn’t remember ever seeing a man so outrageously masculine and so beautiful at the same time. There was really no other word for it—this dark-haired, olive-skinned man from Brooklyn was as beautiful as a painting.
She heard herself sigh and began a leisurely visual tour of his big body. His legs were long and strong, muscles defined all the way from his ankles to hip, with his thighs and behind being the highlight. Goodness! And then there were his strong and flat midsection, outrageously buff chest, and long, rock-hard arms. His big hands were slightly cupped in the peace of sleep.
Tanyalee felt herself smile. She’d worn the Big Cheese out. “Good-bye, Dan,” she mouthed in silence, then blew him a kiss. “Thankyousoverymuch.”
* * *
Dante opened one eye and snapped to attention. He scanned the strange hotel room and tried his best to put the pieces together—rerouted flight, Taffy, sex, Washington, sex, it was already mid-morning if he was lucky, sex, sex, sex.
“Fuck!”
He sat upright and grabbed his cell phone. Eleven-thirty? His flight left at nine! The room was silent and empty. Taffy had left without saying good-bye? After the night they’d had together? Seriously?
Dante sighed and scanned the seven unanswered calls and four text messages on his phone. One call was from Daya, concerned because she hadn’t heard that he’d arrived home safely. And the balance of calls and texts were from his boss, Kelly O’Connor. He tossed the phone to the sheet, fully aware that his being AWOL probably pissed her off.
“Great,” he mumbled, running his hands