Stephanie is FTA
It was 5 o'clock and I was leaving the bond's office after dropping off my body receipt for Allen Delaney. Delaney had been charged with assault with a deadly weapon. Apparently, he got into a dispute with his neighbor over a parking space and decided to end the debate by nailing the guy over the head with his 3 pound Maglite. Needless to say, I hadn't been looking forward to going after this guy. But, hey, at least it wasn't a gun, right?
In the end, I got my man and even managed to stay out of the garbage, I didn't ruin my clothes, and nothing blew up. Any other person wouldn't use these things to evaluate their day's success. But with me, that's a big accomplishment! I walked out the door of the office and was looking for my car keys in my purse when my cell phone rang.
"Yo." I answered with my standard greeting.
"Babe." He hated when I said that.
"Hey Ranger, what's up?"
"I have this FTA I was hoping you could help me with. Could you stop by the office for a few minutes?"
"Sure. I was just leaving Vinnie's. I'll be right over."
I hung up and hopped into my brand new F-250 super duty with an extended cab pick-up in emerald green. A girl's got to make a statement! I was doing pretty well financially lately. I had started working full-time for Rangeman along with still doing the occasional skip chasing for Vinnie when Lula needed backup, which was a pretty frequent event. Seeing how no one had blown up my car or my apartment recently, I decided to trade in my POS car for something a little more badass.
I thought it was a little odd that Ranger had waited till now to mention the new skip since he usually brought those things up in the daily Rangeman meetings. Maybe it was someone new that just had come in but I don't know why he didn't just ask Tank or one of the other guys. Who knows with these things when it comes to Ranger? He's not exactly Chatty Kathy when it comes to details.
I pulled up to the building on Haywood and used my key-fob to remote open the garage gate. I parked in one of the empty spaces next to the fleet of black Rangeman SUVs. I gave the camera a little finger wave as I took the elevator up to the 5th floor. When I stepped off of the elevator, I was greeted with big smiles from the 3 stooges, better known as Lester, Bobby, and Cal. I headed off in the direction of Ranger's office when I was pulled aside by Tank,
"Something came up and Ranger had to leave, but he said for you to wait upstairs in the apartment for him."
Good thing I wasn't in a hurry to get to my parents' house for dinner tonight. I had been doing the family dinner thing less frequently since Morelli and I were now permanently off-again. Dinner with my mother usually consisted of being berated for not marrying Joe and giving her more grandchildren like my sister, Valerie. I had a hard enough time remembering to feed Rex. That's about as far as my maternal instincts go. My mother insisted that I go over to Joe's, apologize, and make up with him, even though I kept telling her we were broken up for good this time.
Our break-up hadn't been about my job or how I have a tendency to blow things up and stumble upon dead bodies. I swear, it's almost never my fault! The break-up hadn't even been about going to work for Ranger full-time. This time it had been me doing the yelling and arm flapping instead of Morelli. It was a real role reversal. Our latest and final break up had come about after I found out that Joe had left out one small detail about his new case working with Terri Gilman and the Feds when he had told me about it. The small detail being that he and Terri were having private "debriefings" late at night at her place. Words were exchanged, Italian gestures were made and some one may have thrown Joe's shoes at him. Ok, I guess it was me doing the shoe-throwing. So that was the end of that. Well good for him! I hope he and Terri will be very happy together. Oh, and I also hope he dies of gonorrhea and rots in Hell!! Ahem, I digress.
I rode the elevator up to the 7th floor and let myself into Ranger's apartment. It was dark and quiet like always, but my spidey sense was tingling. I was feeling around for the light switch when the little hairs on the back of my next stood up and I felt cold metal brush against my arm. Before I could pull my arm away, I found myself pushed up against the wall with both arms being held tightly behind my back. I felt a rush of panic go through my body as I heard the familiar sound of handcuffs clicking closed. I tried to fight against the weight of the person restraining me but I could barely move. I didn't know what to do next or who the hell had me handcuffed, but then I heard the person speak,
"Stephanie Plum. You have failed to appear and I am going to have to bring you in."
I knew that voice! But I still didn't understand until the light flicked on and I found myself face to face with…. Ranger! Huh?
"Ranger! What the hell is going on?! Let me out of these god damn cuffs!!" I yelled at him.
"I'm sorry, Babe. I can't do that," he stated with his blank face firmly in place. He was dressed as combat Ranger. Black boots, black camo pants, black painted on t-shirt stretched over his muscular chest and his black utility belt carrying his glock, a knife, a canister of mace, an extra set of cuffs and a Maglite(not intended for use as a light source). I knew from past experience that he had at least one other gun and/or knife on his body hidden somewhere. Ranger believed in the Boy Scout motto "always be prepared. This was the scary, don't-fuck-with-me Ranger. He meant business.
"I told you a while ago that I'd be back in your bed again if Morelli was out of it for too long. I've waited long enough for you to come to me but you have "failed to appear" in my bed voluntarily so now I am going to have to take matters into my own hands." He said with the corners of his mouth tipped up slightly in his almost smile.
The panic and fear that I had felt earlier vanished as the light bulb lit up over my head. I opened my mouth to say something but nothing came out. I'm sure I was doing a terrific impression of a fish. Then suddenly, Ranger's mouth crashed down on mine. His tongue touched mine and a fire went straight to my doodah. He had himself pressed up against me so close that even air couldn't slip between us. I very quickly became aware of his "desire" pressing into my belly. He lowered his lips to my neck and slowly left a trail of butterfly light kisses down my neck until he found the sensitive spot where neck meets collarbone and bit down drawing a gasp from me. I knew I was a goner. I melted into him and if my hands hadn't been cuffed behind my back they would have been tangled in the front of his shirt. Then someone moaned loudly. I think it was me. Ranger removed his lips from my body and looked me in the eyes. His eyes were gorgeous, dark pools of desire and there was something else I caught a quick glimpse of that I couldn't identify. Could it have been love? No, Ranger doesn't do love. Ranger's love always comes with qualifiers. What Ranger does do is lust. And he does lust so well all other thoughts except those of a naked Ranger buried deep inside of me go right out the window.
Ranger removed the handcuffs and tenderly kissed each wrist then turned my right hand over and placed a kiss into the palm. Still holding my hand in his he spoke quietly,
"Babe. I've waited a long time for you. I've waited patiently ever time you went back to Morelli. But when I heard that you and Morelli were done for good this time, I couldn't wait any longer. I love you, Babe. Stephanie. And I plan on showing you how much I love you...all….night….long." Each word was punctuated with a kiss on the lips. "If it takes all night for you to see that you belong to me, I'm up for the challenge," he said with the wolf grin spread across his face.
I was speechless. Did Ranger just say that he loved me? There wasn't an "in my own way" or "my kind of love comes with a condom, not a ring" attached at the end of his statement. The vision of making love to Ranger had my mind whirling and I was beginning to think that I must be dreaming and…. wait a minute.
"I belong to you?" My voice ratcheted up a notch as I tried to pull my hand away from Ranger, getting ready to go into full blown rhino mode when he claimed my lips again, kissing me until I was dizzy. He finally pulled away and then said,
"And I belong to you. Only you, Stephanie. I always have."
My heart skipped a beat. I was so happy I thought my heart might burst out of my chest.
"I guess I can live with that."
I relaxed against Ranger's muscled shoulder as he wrapped his arms around me and my mind started thinking about all the perks of belonging to Ranger.
"Now turn around, Babe. I need to finish frisking you in case you're hiding any weapons," he said giving me his full-on 200 watt smile. I immediately obeyed and turned around, my back to his front and couldn't help wishing all of our clothes would magically disappear.
Ranger used his left leg to gently push my legs apart just like I'd seen him do a hundred times before. Although he was usually doing it to some slime-ball skip and there was never anything gentle about it. I'm also pretty sure that none of Ranger's skips had ruined their panties after he did that to them like I think I just had. Ranger started with his hands at the top of my shoulders and moved them down to my stomach pushing up my top and bra and then letting his hands slowly brush over my breasts. I could feel the heat from his large, calloused hands seep into my skin. He was rubbing small circles over my nipples and I thought if they got any harder they could have cut glass. He trailed his hands down my sides and lowered them to cup my ass. My skin was on fire everywhere he touched me. I was fairly certain it wouldn't take much more of this for me to have a Ranger induced orgasm. The whole time that Ranger was "patting me down", he was whispering all the ways he was going to prove to me that I would enjoy belonging to him. Ranger can be VERY persuasive.
By the time Ranger reached around to the front of my jeans I was panting heavily and I might have been drooling a little. It was getting really hot in here and I desperately wanted to feel Ranger's skin on mine. I was about to explode from desire when he cupped my pelvic bone with one hand and said,
"I think I am going to have to take a closer inspection here. Unfortunately, a full body strip search is going to be necessary."
"Oh, thank God!" I nearly screamed out. I felt Ranger's body shake as he chuckled to himself.
"Well let's get started then. I have a lot of time to make up for."
And with that Ranger swept me up in his arms and carried me into his bedroom to show me just how well he could handle himself with an FTA.
quote from Ace Ventura: Pet Detective