A Rare Delicacy
by Babealicious
Rating: M for eventual smut and coarse language. Maybe some mild violence.
Cupcake: Joe may get taunted and bashed around a little, but no permanent harm will be done.
Spoilers: Through all the books.
Disclaimer: I do not own JE's Stephanie Plum series characters. Not mine, just borrowing. Will return Lester Santos at a later date, although he may have some slight bruising to the chest and neck, a somewhat noticeable limp, and several bite marks in various locations upon delivery... ;)
They say that you should always savor the taste of a rare delicacy because the opportunity to have it again may never arise.
Which is why I consider myself a fool for not relishing every last smell and taste of the only woman I've ever allowed myself to love. She'd let me into her heart and soul that night we'd spent together, and all I was able to give her in return at that time was my body. I desperately wished that I would have taken the time to savor the feel of her smooth, milky skin beneath my eager fingertips; the flowery scent of her wild brown curls as they glided over my stomach; the intoxicating taste of her intimate desire.
Had I known that that would be my only chance to delve that deeply into her essence, I would have locked each and every taste and smell away in my memory so that I could sit and bitterly remind myself for the rest of my life of what I could have had.
I'd been in the wind for nearly a year with Tank as my only outside contact for the first portion of the mission. After six months, instead of being debriefed and sent home, I was transferred unexpectedly to a different undisclosed location in Bolivia that had no electricity or running water. Not to mention the absence of a telephone.
Before I left Trenton a year ago, though, I had made sure to say good-bye to her.
"I'll be gone for six months, babe," I'd said after dragging her to the alley behind the bonds office.
Silence ensued, followed by the lowering of what had just been bright blue eyes, now dull with disappointment. "Why so long, Ranger?" was eventually the quiet reply.
"The government needs me. I have a contract to fulfill. The length of time depends on how long it takes for me to get the job done. Could be less than six months, could be more."
"Can you at least tell me where you're going or if it'll be dangerous?"
I shook my head. "Can't, babe. I wish I could, but you know how this works. I've been in the wind before, although never for this long. Tank will be in charge while I'm gone. Go directly to him for any issues that you have. I hope to at least leave some form of communication open between him and I, so he can give you updates as he gets them."
She took all of that in with silent understanding. She always did. It made me feel like such a shit, the way she accepted my responsibilities with grace and dignity and never criticized me for being virtually missing in action for sometimes what turned out to be a month or two at a time. I feared greatly that there would, someday, come a time when I would return from God-knows-where and she'd have moved on with her life, but at that moment all I needed was her unconditional support.
"Ranger." Her voice broke me out of my thoughts. She was peering up at me with now-darkened eyes, trying to see into my soul, as usual. A full minute passed before she said, "Kiss me before you go?"
Did she even have to ask? As soon as the words left her larynx, my mouth was on hers, hungry and insistent. Her tongue touched mine and something inside me snapped. I gripped her face in my hands and poured every ounce of passion and desire I felt for her into that kiss. By the time I'd released her we were both panting, each of us desperate for more but the realization that we were in an alley behind the bonds office kept our lust for one another at bay. I couldn't allow myself to sink too deeply into the aforementioned emotions at that moment because I wasn't going to be able to see her or be near her for six months. Or maybe longer.
"I have to go, babe." With a quick kiss to her flushed cheek, I was gone.
It needed to be that way, I'd decided. And I knew she understood because I saw it in her eyes as I backed away from her. She had given me a tearful smile and had mouthed "good-bye" as I climbed into my Mercedes and drove away. When I looked in the rearview mirror she was still standing there, sobbing as she watched my taillights disappear into traffic. When I turned the corner and could no longer see her, my heart splintered inside my chest and I prayed to God that I would return home to her beautiful, smiling face and the happiness that she made me feel everyday, just by being her.
Days turned into weeks and weeks turned into months, and six months turned into nearly twelve. All I thought about while I was on vacation in hell was her. The way she always flashed me excited little smiles when I came up behind her at Rangeman or the bonds office. The way she blushed with pride when my men congratulated her on a distraction job well done. And the way her eyes darkened to midnight when she sat down upon me and took me to heaven, her head falling backwards as she came screaming my name.
Christ, it had been a long year. Today was my lucky day. They had me in debriefing for four hours, slapped a bunch of termination paperwork into my hands, threw me on a 747 bound for the States, and told me to go home and wait for my big fat check in the mail.
I called Tank on a pay phone as soon as I walked off the plane at Newark Airport.
"Tank," I croaked out.
I heard him sigh deeply with relief. "Bossman, good to hear your voice." Santos was shouting in the background, yelling to everybody in Control that I was on the phone. Probably they'd all been wondering if I was even still fucking alive.
"I just landed in Newark. Delta Airlines. I'll be waiting outside."
"Ten-four. On my way." The line went dead.
I went to the baggage claim to wait for my military-issue duffel sack to come around on the luggage carousel. When I finally had it in my arms, I carted it outside with me and was never so happy to breathe in the smell of bus fumes and polluted Jersey air.
When Tank swung the Explorer up to the curb at the Delta terminal an hour later, the expression on his face was grim. No wonder. I hadn't been able to get in touch with him for the last six months of the mission due to my location. Until now.
Tank got out of the Explorer and tossed my olive-drab duffel bag onto the backseat. He loaded me into the passenger's side and slowly pulled away from the curb.
"Is she okay?" was the first thing I said to him.
He nodded. "She's fine."
"Good." The relief I felt at that moment was orgasmic.
The ride out of the terminal was completely silent until, "Got some news for you," Tank boomed, startling me from my thoughts. I had figured he was grim for a reason. His tone and demeanor told me that I probably wouldn't like what he had to say much.
I let out the breath that I hadn't realized I'd been holding. "So what's going on?" I asked, dreading his answer.
Tank glanced over at me. "Of all the weekends for you to pick to come home," he muttered, shaking his bald head. "Fuck."
"It's not like I could have chosen when my ass got thrown on the first plane headed back here," I exclaimed. "I haven't had contact with any of you for six months."
Tank thumped his fist on the steering wheel. "Christ, I know that. I've been down that road, too, you know."
"Well, would you just tell me what the hell's going on, then?"
He was silent for a long while before finally saying, "It's-" He took a deep breath and let it out before continuing. "She's…Jesus, I have no idea how to tell you this."
"Just tell me, man." Bile was quickly rising in my throat and my panic level had just reached ten.
Tank scrubbed a hand over his face and turned away from me, his eyes focused back on the road. "She's getting married tomorrow."
If hearts could shatter into a million pieces, mine would be doing exactly that. If stomachs could dissipate into pools of liquid body tissue, mine would be just melting away. No way. No way was she getting married tomorrow. Tank was pulling my leg.
"You're fucking with me. Please tell me you're kidding me, right?" I demanded to him.
Tank shook his head grimly. "I wish I was. Boy, do I wish I was."
My stomach rolled with waves of nausea and I saw red. "How could you let her do this?" I grit out quietly. "Any of you guys?"
"She's a grown woman, Ranger. Who are we to stop her?" Tank looked over at me incredulously.
I ran my hands through my hair and growled in frustration. He was right. Tears pricked at the corners of my eyes as my head fell back against the headrest.
"Why?" I asked to the ceiling of the Explorer, more of a question to God than to anyone else.
Tank shifted uneasily in his seat before replying, "She didn't know when you were coming back, Bossman. Claimed she needed to move on with her life."
I scoffed. I always came back. True, this was the longest I'd ever been away from her. And one of my biggest fears each time I left on a mission was that she would meet someone else while I was gone or be "on again" with Morelli or worse, start dating one of my men. But when did I ever not come back? Never. I always did.
An awful thought crept into my brain. "Did she think I'd been killed?" I asked Tank. Just the notion of her worrying that I'd been dead for the last six months was almost too much to bear and I got nauseous again. I took a sip from the water bottle Tank had placed in the Explorer's cup holder for me and slouched back in my seat.
Tank shook his head. "No." I breathed a sigh of relief before Tank continued. "She said she knew in her heart that you were okay, although she was confused about why you hadn't made contact with anyone. It had been too long, these last six months. She just…didn't understand."
"I couldn't contact anyone," I exclaimed angrily. "It wasn't like I could just pick up a coconut phone that the Professor had crafted and make a bunch of calls. It's pretty hard to get a dial tone in the middle of the fucking rainforest."
"Preaching to the choir, Bossman." Tank picked up I-95 at Elizabeth and took us south towards Trenton. He sighed again. "I tried to explain it all again to her. You know, how these government assignments of yours work. I told her that if you were able to call, you would. Because all the other times you had gone into the wind, you'd called and e-mailed. But she wouldn't hear me out. Said she couldn't wait for you any longer." At least Tank had made an attempt to get her to understand. I had to appreciate that.
My voice cracked. "I can't believe any of this is happening," I said. I leaned back in my seat and shut my eyes, trying to will away the vision of her in a wedding dress, walking down an aisle that didn't have me at the end of it.
Tank glanced over at me again and spoke quietly. "She was okay for the first few months after you left because we still had contact with you. Then your six months were up and you were still gone. As soon as you'd stopped calling and e-mailing, she became withdrawn and wasn't really the same anymore. She got tired of missing you, man. She couldn't do it anymore."
Missing me, I scoffed to myself. I was an idiot to think that she wouldn't miss me because I knew damn well that she would. Hell, I missed her more than I ever thought I could miss someone. Often times, I missed her so much that it physically hurt. She'd graced my visions during the day and had starred in my dreams at night. And while I was stuck in a dilapidated mud hut for weeks at a time, eating bugs and dining on MREs just to stay alive, she was out making floral arrangement decisions with Mary Lou and going gown shopping with her mother and Lula.
So she removes me from her life and tries to forget that I ever existed so she wouldn't miss me anymore. I may as well have just stayed down in that miserable shithole forever, because she was clearly done mourning the loss of what we had before I left and has now moved on. Without me. What did we have before I left? I wasn't really sure, but I knew it had to be something. No two people have that kind of passion and desire for one another and have it not mean anything to them at all.
Even though I knew what the answer to my next question to Tank would be, I asked it anyway.
I swiveled my head to look at him. "It's the cop, isn't it."
Tank eventually nodded, sliding me a sympathetic look before refocusing his eyes on the road ahead.
I stared silently out the window with a very heavy heart, feeling as though I'd lost something of so much value to me that it would be virtually impossible to replace. The physical and emotional pain I'd endured for the last nine months was rough, sure. But the pain I felt deep inside from losing her to him for good was completely unimaginable.
A/N: This is my first fanfic so please let me know what you think. I'm totally open to constructive criticism so please drop me a review if you have the time! Thanks for reading, stay tuned for chapter 2 up soon.