All familiar characters, events, and phrases, belong to Janet. The mistakes are mine alone.
"Told you this was a bad idea," Tank risked annoying me by stating.
"Shut up ... unless you feel like eating my fist instead of supper."
'Rangeman' hired Stephanie to lure a high-dollar yet relatively-low risk FTA out of the bar he frequents, but I hadn't expected how my feelings have changed and how my emotions would decide to kick in tonight and interfere with the job. The glass containing a vodka on the rocks that is my standard prop, was on the verge of being crushed in my hand every time some asshole looked at - or approached - her.
Tank had witnessed the way my fingers had tightened repeatedly around my drink, how my body remained tense and ready for action whenever a guy invaded her space, and the way my boots moved before I could stop them after every smile she gave the fucker we're after ... as she tried to convince him to abandon a very public place for the parking lot where Tank and I would walk him into Bobby and Lester who are waiting outside.
That had been our plan, but I didn't take into account how much seeing her near another man would fuck with my head. Since Morelli was given a size seven Cat boot to the curb, I fully believed Stephanie is all mine. Hell, I thought that since the day my eyes flicked to her as she stormed that diner. Even knowing this is just a distraction job did nothing to dispel my current fury. I hated to admit it, but if someone touches her, I'm afraid I may lose it entirely.
Turns out, there was a reason for me to be concerned. When Dimitri Samartras dared to put his hand on her very bare leg, I almost flipped the table.
"Calm down," Tank instructed. "She handled it."
I let my eyes move off the hand I want to break and greasy head I really want to put a bullet through, and saw that Steph had expertly moved the uninvited and unwelcome hand, all the while not breaking the flirty demeanor she had going. Only I could tell how strained her act is. I should feel proud at how well she kept her cool ... and her lunch down, but I was too busy being pissed off. Tank had been a hundred percent correct for calling me crazy after I'd ended the call that got Stephanie involved in this apprehension. This was a fucking mistake ... the biggest one I've made in years.
"I'm ending this now," I informed my second-in-command.
"Give her three more seconds and he'll turn himself in just for the chance of a date with her when he's out of a cell again."
He was complimenting Stephanie on a job being very well done, while also thinking he's being funny, but any humor I felt ended when Steph walked in here twenty minutes after we'd secured the table I'd picked out ahead of this capture.
I'd chosen this one because it's an equal distance from me to Steph, and also from Tank and my seats to the front door. But when I got up from it, I felt like there's a football field-sized distance between my position and the one I shouldn't have put Stephanie in. I caught my babe's 'Oh shit!' look when she saw me stand up. She knows the shit isn't what's going to hit the fan. Instead, it's the asshole who touched her that's going to be exploded.
Her subtle headshake that signaled she has the situation under control and I should butt out until she gets our skip outside, didn't do anything to stop me. I have stayed awake nights, worried that the intensity of what I feel for her will one day compromise a job or endanger the public. And as I walked towards her, I knew both concerns are going to combine tonight.
"What the fuck?" Samartras said, right before I used his throat as a handhold in order to remove him from the barstool he'd been perched on as he attempted to loom over my woman.
The reason we had planned to get him away from a crowd is due to his shoot first and pay later reputation, the basis of his original arrest. I hadn't wanted anyone harmed if he fought us. His reaching for a weapon now ... one, showed me that we had been right in our original plan to seclude him. And two, it proved he's certifiably insane to try to pull something on me when I'm already riding a rage.
I 'accidentally' snapped his wrist in the process of removing what I know Vince will say is a stolen sidearm after a search has been run on it.
"Ranger ..." Steph began, shocked that I'd gone straight to disabling a skip rather than waiting for her to deliver him intact.
"Don't, Steph," Tank advised, as I was battling my way out of a red mist that was threatening to take me over.
"You need to learn to keep your hands to yourself," I told Dimitri.
"What the fuck's it to you what I do or to who? She your bitch or something?"
If I weren't primed for a fight, the indecision Steph felt on whether she should hit the guy herself for the insult, or stand way back because she knew I was about to react, may have had me holding back just so I can watch what she can do. Tonight ... those were the last words he should've said to me or about her. Yes, I see Stephanie as my woman, but no one refers to her as a bitch without suffering a few painful consequences for their stupidity.
I've purposely tried to maintain a balance between killer and peacekeeper. I'm feeling anything but peaceful right now, and Stephanie sensed that. She quickly stood, using her hands to slide down the material of the skirt part of her dress which had ridden up as she hoisted herself onto and then off of a stool that I'd guess is that height for that purpose alone.
The dress she'd chosen couldn't even be called provocative, but the fact that it encased her body and it being surrounded by the classy and slightly untouchable air she gives off, made the red, almost-off-the-shoulder, above the knee, dress appear far sexier than it would hanging on a rack. She's a woman any man would desire, and also what other women strive to be ... dick-hardening sexy without needing to flaunt or shout it.
Something was shouting, but it was me ... ordering the fucker to put his hands behind his back. A kick to his kidney and another to his ribs encouraged faster cooperation.
"If you behave," I told Samartras, "you can be seen by a doctor before being turned over to the police. If you fight me, you'll need more bones set after Tank manages to pull me off you."
Guess he's smarter than he looks because he did do what I ordered him to. Everyone involved knew fucking with me right now will possibly get them killed. Once he was secured, too tightly he continuously whined, Tank called Brown and Santos in.
"What the fuck happened?" Santos asked, as soon as he saw a bitching and moaning skip that had been apprehended without him.
"This wasn't the plan," Brown added.
"It wasn't, but it's done," I told them.
They recognized my 'commander' tone and knew something's up. A switch had obviously been flipped, and they started assessing the situation as well as the carnage left behind.
"What do you want us to do?" Bobby asked me.
"Get the fucker to St. Francis. If he does anything more than breathe, skip the hospital and drive around until he passes out from the pain and then dump him at the TPD. If he says anything about Stephanie, shoot him."
My men and the asshole stared at me, trying to gauge how serious I am. Tank and Stephanie already know I'm dead serious here. Lester dragged Samartras to his feet by his bound wrists and then shoved him towards the door. Not only do my men not appreciate anyone who triggers me, they also view Stephanie as their girl next door, a woman they all have a crush on to some degree or another but know there isn't a chance in hell of ever getting. They don't take it well when someone fucks with her. Bobby quickly followed Santos and Samartras out of the bar with a few shoves of his own. My guys understand that it's better to get the fucker away from me before anything else could happen, knowing it won't be good if it does.
That left a bar full of curious patrons, me, and an uneasy Stephanie and Tank. This is what I was afraid would happen if I let Stephanie get too close, not that I had a fucking choice in any matter concerning her. I saw her, I wanted her, and I've only continued to obsess over her. Tank gets it, since he has his own shit to accept and work through. But Stephanie ... I never wanted her exposed to this side of me.
Abruzzi remains just a 'what if' in her mind. She has seen me angry in the past, though I've been able to keep the true rages away from her, but this one is different. I'm not reacting to someone harming her, or the fear I felt at not being able to locate her, I'm enraged at the thought and sight of her being close to someone other than me. Someday has obviously come for us, and she and I now have to deal with it.
She made me proud, and made me love her more, by walking up to me and giving me a careful hug, remembering that physical contact with her always calms me down. Tank was less relieved than I am.
"Steph," he began, "I think you should ..."
She turned to him, narrowed her eyes, and cut him off. "Yeah well ... what I think is that I need to be with Ranger right now. We'll take my car home."
"That's probably not a good idea," he said, trying to help but succeeding only in pissing Stephanie off.
"It's apparently the only bright idea I've had today, since I clearly wasn't needed for this job and shouldn't have accepted it."
"You were needed more than you know," he replied while glancing at me. "You sure you want to go home with Steph?"
I know he's really asking if it's safe for me to be alone with her with no one around to run interference.
"We'll be fine," I assured him. He hesitated, but relented when I followed that up with a direct order. "Go."
"After you," he told us, watching out for us even when we tell him not to.
Being alone with Stephanie will have me starting to relax. Staying with her in a place she may get hit on again before she could stop it could shove me completely over the edge, so he held the door open for us so we had to leave with him. I nodded my thanks as I passed him. He hasn't remained my best friend since boot camp for no reason. We've always had each other's backs, even when it isn't appreciated.
Steph was quiet until we got into the CR-V hybrid I forced her to accept after her last POS broke down too close to Stark Street for my liking. I pulled out behind Tank, who is now driving my truck back to Rangeman, and I turned left after he went right.
"Would you like to tell me what that was all about?" She asked me, when we were officially alone.
"No."
"Ranger, you can't just almost blow a job and not tell me why, especially when it seems like I was the cause of the problem."
"I'm the boss. I can do whatever I want. And Samartras wasn't given a chance to hurt anyone, so the capture was in no way close to being blown."
She sighed and then stopped talking, figuring I'm not likely to. I did a sigh myself, only I kept mine internal. If I want things to change between us so I do have every right to kill anyone who touches her, I suppose I'd better start changing how I deal with her.
"You weren't responsible for what happened. I lost my temper," I admitted, after a few silent moments.
She snorted. "No shit. Your FTA barely got out of there with all of his limbs still attached."
"He should've kept them off you then."
"Believe me, a hand on my leg isn't the worst I've had to endure from a sleazy skip."
"I know. And that added to why I lost it," I told her, cutting my eyes to her after stopping for a light.
"Any chance you'll explain that?"
"You may not want me to."
She thought about that for a second or two, but she must have come to a decision herself about us.
"I want to know everything you're thinking right now," she said.
I could feel her blue eyes on me, imploring me not to shut her out. That gave me the permission I needed. If she wants to know how much I want her, I should give it to her with both barrels.
"Remember when I told you that my men know you're my personal property?" I asked.
Her eyes narrowed for the second time tonight. "A person can't be someone's property."
"History would've been changed for the better if everyone believed that."
"I know. Evolution doesn't always include someone's mind, and how it thinks, evolving. I've been waiting for the Burg to catch up to the twenty-first century."
"They still draw a distinct line between those born in the Burg and the rest of the planet. You'll be waiting awhile."
"Like I am for your answer?"
"Touché, Babe."
"So ...?"
"Alright. I consider you mine ... and I don't want another man close enough to you to inhale the scent of your perfume, let alone touch you."
That admission appeared to confuse her. "But you hired me to flirt with the guy," she pointed out.
"I did ... and then I realized how much I don't like it."
"So I really am the reason the job went South?"
"In a way. Not only am I the only Ranger you'll ever need, I need to hear you say that I'm the only man you'll ever want."
She paused, and then whispered one word that summed this up. "Wow."
"Yeah, wow. You've now had more time than I did to process that revelation."
Her smile was slow in coming, but when it did reach her lips ... it made my heart stop and my dick pay attention.
"You've always been a man of action more than one who uses a lot of words," she said, her smile still in place.
"Does that bother you?"
"Nope. It's one of the things I love about you, since I'm also not a big fan of talking about what I'm feeling."
Too bad on her end, because there is something she's going to have to talk about.
"It's 'one of the things you love about me'?" I asked, repeating her statement.
"Yep. There are a bunch of things I like. The way you look, how you smell, how hard your body feels when I hug you, the care you show not only me, but everyone in your life ..."
"You love me?" I asked her, cutting to the chase so this one can finally end.
"Yes," she admitted. "Like I said, I hate talking about how I feel, but you somehow set up this conversation in a way that seems less like torture. You are the only man I want, the only man I have wanted. Although Morelli was his usual jerky, arrogant, self-absorbed self, you are why I finally buried what was long-dead. I'd started to find more excuses to avoid him, and more reasons to call you, which is why I did say yes to this job ... because I'd get to spend at least part of the night with you. I realized months ago that you're the one I want to be with, but I didn't know how to make it happen."
For the first time tonight, a grin threatened. "Telling me would have upped the chances."
"Smartass," she accused, but now I know for sure it was said with definite love.
My hand went to her leg, the only one that belongs there, and hers sandwiched mine between her thigh and her palm.
"Guess I can still bill you for completing a distraction job, because I distracted you so much, you just missed the turn onto my street," she pointed out, only then noticing her surroundings.
"I purposely missed it," I told her. "I'd hate for you to be all dressed up with nowhere good to go. And I think you'll agree that we now have something to celebrate."
"Huh, I thought you'd already be planning on how to get me undressed, not decide I should stay dressed just so you can take me somewhere."
"You should get the night out that you deserve. You've already been subjected to a guy who was only interested in getting you naked. Now you get to experience a man who loves you. Only after our date will we discuss your undressing."
"You're planning to join me, right? Getting undressed along with me, I mean."
"Try to stop me."
"No thank you. Turns out there's actually two Rangers I need ... the fully dressed - in clothes and weapons - one who'll defend my honor and my body, and the naked one who takes the best care of both."