Chapter 1-The Job

Home. I threw open the door to my apartment to find everything as I left it. Rex was running on his wheel and my glock was laying cold, lonely, and unloaded in front of the cookie jar. I glanced at the answering machine to find the numbers blinking red informing me I had messages waiting. They were probably all my mother. I had enough shit from Morelli earlier. All I wanted to do was sleep now. Once again, he and I had argued about the idea of me working for Ranger. Maybe he would back off tomorrow. I doubted it, but I could always hope... and pray... and wish...

On the way to my bedroom I stripped off every stitch of clothing I had on and crawled under the covers. The last thing I saw was my alarm clock staring back at me with a read out of 2 am.

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3:34 am my clock was glaring at me. I felt a hand on the small of my back. I turned to see the face but I already knew who it was. My spidey senses were tingling all over so I knew the owner of the hand was Ranger. I smiled and shifted so I could see him better.

"Babe."

"Mmm, yeah?," I mumbled sleepily.

"I heard about the fight. Against my better judgement, tastykakes are on the counter. Call me in the morning," he said, placing a kiss on my forehead. Then he was gone. It was just Ranger's style. The longer you knew him, the more you assumed he had some sort of super powers. I didn't mind.

I rolled back over and slumped into my pillow. My dreams circling around tastykakes, Bulgari body wash, and Carlos Manoso.

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The sun was glaring through my bedroom window and now the digital read out was 10 am. I groaned and pulled the covers up over my head and tried to fight myself back into sleep. 20 minutes later I gave up and rolled off the bed, standing with little agility, and padded to the bathroom.

Emerging from the shower smelling of Amber Romance from Victoria's Secret, I wrapped myself up in a a towel and grabbed my cell, checking all of my voicemails. I had two messages from Morelli, who was still soudning quite smug, as if he had done nothing wrong and I was entirely to blame. He'll realized he messed up when he doesn't get a call back from me today. My mom had called a little after 8 to invite me over tonight for dinner. I was thinking about taking her up on that offer, wondering if chocolate cake could be in my future tonight when my cell phone chirped to life.

'Batman' appeared on my screen to let me know who was calling. I laughed out loud and remembered back to the time when Ranger had been flipping through my cell phone when he spotted Batman stored in the phone. He checked and gave me a 200 watt smile upon finding out that it was his own number stored under Batman. I melt into my panties when I get that smile. I flipped the phone open and hit the send button, holding my breath for his famous words, and I was not disappointed.

"Babe."

"Morning Batman," I said in my most sarcastic tone. I could hear him smiling through the phone and I almost choked on my tastykake trying to keep from laughing at him.

"I see you found the tastykakes," he said in an amused tone.

"How did you know that?," I asked looking down at my wrapper wondering if he was using his ESP to read my thoughts again.

"Babe, I can heard the wrapper crinkling in the background and you keep sighing." His tone was neutral this time.

"Is there a point to this conversation?," I asked, sounding a bit too annoyed for my own good.

"See you in 10," he said and disconnected.

I groaned and tossed the phone to the couch. Seeing Ranger always made my body go into overdrive. We had spent one amazing night in each others arms, but the next morning he had sent me back to Morelli. I flopped onto my bed, wondering what on earth I was going to do. I curled up into my blanket and before I could stop myself I had drifted off to sleep.

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"Babe, you keep making noises like that and I will never get any work done."

My eyes snapped open and I jumped out of the bed, clutching the towel to me. Ranger was leaning against my doorframe with one side of his mouth slightly elevated. I backed up against the wall closest to my bathroom and in one fluid motion Ranger was in front of me. I was holding my breath and he had the closest thing to a smirk as Ranger could get.

"Hi," I managed to squeak out. I was wearing nothing under my towel, and he could sense it. His eyes were melting into dark chocolate. He was looking at me the way I look at birthday cake after a hard day at work. My knees were shaking.

He grabbed my towel and pulled me to him. My hands splayed across his stomach and I could feel the ripples of his wash board abs underneath my fingers. I sighed and curled my fingers into his shirt, the scent of Ranger successfully fogging my brain.

"You smell good enough to eat," he said, his eyes solid black pools of silk. I wanted to take him up on that, but my conscience was screaming no. Low and behold, I speak before I think...

I was grinning into his chest when I raised up to look at him. My Amber Romance was having an affect on Batman.

"Was that an offer?" My mouth asked before my brain could stop it.

His eyes ignited into lust flames and he arched an eye brow at me.

"Are you going to start something you can't finish?," he asked, almost smirking again.

I flushed bright red and my eyes shot to the floor. The sexual tension in the room was enough to suffocate me. His eyes returned to normal and he kissed my forehead.

"Some other time then," he said, pulling away slowly.

With the distance between us now, my brain started to work again. Fuck! I'm still in a towel! I grabbed a pair of boxers and a t-shirt, throwing them on quickly.

I padded out to the living room where Ranger was seated on my couch. I sighed, wishing I could see him like this all the time.

Ranger looked up at me and gave me a real smile. I wet my non-existant panties. He patted the cushion beside him, wanting me to sit down.

"What's going on?," I asked, plopping down beside him with a goofy smile planted on my face due to the close proximity we were sharing.