Disclaimer: I own none of these wonderful characters. Janet owns everything.

The Plan

Stephanie Plum. I ran my hand over my face and sighed. I had to stop thinking about her. I had been sitting in my office for the last 45 minutes with the Kaufman file in front of me unread. If you want to get right down to it, the damn thing wasn't even open. I shook my head slightly and opened the file.

There. Get a grip, Carlos.

She had broken up with the cop two months ago. It took the burg about an hour to spread the word like wildfire. It took about three hours for her to get piss drunk in Pino's with Lula and swear off all men forever. It took and additional hour for her to narrow it down from all men to just the 'cheating, bastard cop fucker' and the 'Cuban piece of ass chicken shit'. I assumed I was the chicken shit. Like I said, that was two months ago and I had been letting her have her space, especially since she wasn't too fond of me after the whole Dickie bugging fiasco. It had nothing to do with being a chicken shit. It's no secret I want her bad, and starting my objective when she would rather see me castrated doesn't make for good warfare.

I have made several decisions in my life recently. The foremost decision is that I want Stephanie Plum. The problem with this is that she is uncharted territory for me. A full scale invasion with no prior recon. Which leads me to decision #2. I'm making this too hard. She's a woman. It can't be this difficult. I'm setting realistic, attainable goals which will be achieved with planning and strategy. Every goal ever set can be accomplished with the proper due diligence. You just need discipline and order and the rest will fall into place.

I just need to be able to concentrate. I can't seem to wrap my mind around a plan before it deteriorates into her moaning my name. Sometimes she's bending over across my lap wearing a Betty Rubble outfit-

Shit. My best time so far has been 4.5 minutes before I lose focus. This isn't good. I need to find some way to get my focus back.

I came back to reality from a sharp knock on my door.

"Enter!"

Tank walked in and tossed another file on my desk.

"Information you wanted on Ibarra, Boss." I grunted and picked up the info. Great. Another file I won't be able to read.

Tank was staring at my desk, his face an open book of confused amusement.

"Dude, what the fuck is that?"

I looked down at my notepad where I had been idly doodling while I thought. 'Stephanie Manoso' was written plain as day. Shit. What the hell is wrong with me?

Tank barked out a laugh as I crumpled the page and threw it in the trash. First plan of action: secure Tank's big, fat mouth.

"Will there be anything else, Pierre? I have a 7 hour stakeout on Stark that I need to find someone to cover. Then there is quite a bit of monitor duty still unassigned."

Tank settled down but the grin remained. "Man, it's been a long time since you resorted to pussy threats to protect your manhood." Shit. He motioned to the trashcan. "Are you going to ever do anything about that or are you just going to resort to breaking into her apartment while she's sleeping to try to touch her boobie?"

"Fuck off, Tank. I'm getting there."

"You want to fill me in?"

I pressed a finger to my eye and blew out a breath. I didn't show signs of frustration often but when I did it felt really, really good.

"I wish I could. I can't seem to concentrate long enough to coordinate my plan of attack."

Tank pulled up a chair, his grin widening by the minute.

"Talk to Tanky. Tell Big Daddy all about it."

I leveled my eyes at him and remained silent.

"Lighten up, man," he finally said, rolling his eyes at me.

I smiled at him and leaned back. "I need a plan. A simple plan that will change my status with Stephanie and somehow ensure her nudity at the same time."

"Ah, the eternal plan of all men."

"Any ideas?"

"I got a few."

We got right down to it. With Tank there, I didn't have near the problems I usually did thinking about sex every 5 minutes. I could go for long stretches of at least 10 to 12 minutes at a time. At the end of two hours, our meeting had adjourned to my apartment and included beer. By the time Tank left I was feeling the familiar optimism I did at the start of a well planned mission. Oh yes. Stephanie Plum didn't stand a chance.

TBC…