Everybody and everything familiar belongs to Janet. Mistakes are mine alone.
I can't fucking believe I'm doing this, but after spending half the night on a job with Vince, and him being unusually and annoyingly chatty, I was ready to do what I could to avoid a situation like that again. He only shut up long enough to hand me restraints for the fucker I'd knocked out.
I found out that love can make physician/psychologist-cleared men act like hormone-stupid kids with their first crush. And I'd been tired of hearing about it thirty seconds after Vince started. Steph and I have loved each other for years, and we're both mature enough to not say the words so much they become habit more than an expression of how we feel. If the emotion is real, all actions done to show it become ingrained so you don't have to voice your adoration twenty times in five fucking minutes.
Since this has been his only transgression while working for my company, I decided to take pity on Vince - and whoever would be partnered with him next - and pull back out of the garage after dropping him off. That's why I'm currently sitting in an all-night diner at, I looked at my watch, one-fifty-nine a.m., watching the object of Vince's obsession arrive for her shift. I suppose she's pretty in a PTA kind of way, but no one can top Stephanie in sex appeal or inside-out attractiveness.
I know she'll be calling me momentarily once she wakes to find me not in bed next to her. And I want this handled before she does so I can tell her that I'm on my way back. The coffee in front of me is only for show, and the tired looking waitress who had poured it for me, kept her word and immediately directed Adria Spencer to my table.
As Vince's boss and Rangeman's owner, I really should kick his ass for using company resources to learn what he could about this woman, but I remember what I had done right after I met Stephanie, what I continue to do to this day.
"Can I get you anything?" She asked.
Her voice was soft, the southern accent barely detectable.
"I just need a moment of your time."
Her expression became wary. "If you're looking for something other than food ..."
I gave my head an impatient shake to cut her off. "I'm not interested in food or anything else. I have everything I want at home, but a man who works for me is very interested. He had you checked out ..." Her green eyes went wide. "He wasn't trying to be intrusive. You appear to have made a big impression on him, and he wanted to find a way of helping you out."
The hours of this place made it a staple among the men who have early morning patrols or who have to decompress before going home after answering a midnight break-in call.
"I don't need any help," she said, her back going up, and with it ... my respect.
"You do, but that's not my concern." I pushed a piece of paper containing a phone number to the edge of the table. "If you'd like a job that pays well, one that will allow you to sleep at night and watch your daughter during the day, call this number. Leticia has a position for you."
Ella's younger sister runs a licensed daycare and is happy to take on a money-strapped war widow with an almost two-year-old to raise. As expected, my cell buzzed. Steph is up and probably curious as hell. My good deed for the year has been completed, and now I'll get my reward for it. If I forgo sleep, I'll have three hours free with an awake Stephanie.
"Hey, Babe."
"I thought you'd be home by now. Did you have someone else to haul in or another person to save?" She asked me.
"I'm really not a superhero."
I can picture her shoulders shrugging in dismissal. "I'd agree with you there, except for the fact that you look and act just like one. You probably subdued a bad guy ... then for kicks, helped out a good guy on the way home."
She does have a unique view of who I am. Vince's little waitress had moved away from me when I'd answered my phone, but her eyes and ears are still on me.
"Are you coming home tonight?" Steph asked. "Or will I only see you during daylight hours?"
"I'm heading out now."
"Where are you?" She asked, as if there's only a slight chance I'd answer her.
"I'm at the diner on Broad Street."
"Really?"
"Yes."
"The guys love that place. And apparently Vince loves a 'cute brunette' who works there."
She knows more about everybody and everything than people give her credit for.
"That's what I hear."
"So you're there doing exactly what you did for me?"
"Which is what?" I asked.
"You're going to change her life."
"I only improve on what's already there."
"Can I count on a piece of pie being with you when you get here?"
"It's two in the morning, Babe," I pointed out.
"I'm up at the same time you are, do you plan on us sleeping when you reach the seventh floor?"
No, I hadn't.
"What kind do you want?" I asked her.
Her smile came through the phone. "Surprise me." And she hung up.
I intend to surprise her, love her, and also be curled around her until it's time to start the day over again. To make her more receptive to that idea, I'm going with a chocolate-filled chocolate crust.
I met Spencer's eyes again. "I need a brownie cream pie to go," I told her.
"The entire pie?"
"Yes."
All Steph's appetites increase the minute I get her out of her clothes and start demonstrating how bedtime and gym time can be interchangeable. When I get home, she can have her favorite pie, then I'll feast on mine.
I paid for Steph's snack and was on my way to the door, when a hesitant hand touched my arm. I don't like people touching me unless it's an invited gesture, but I didn't want to scare the shit out of an innocent woman. If my gut is correct, and it always is, I'll be seeing this woman again at future company functions.
"You're not trying to scam me or anything, are you?" Adria asked. "I won't become a trafficking victim if I call this number?"
I had to suppress a smile. "No. I'm doing an employee - and you - a favor. Nothing more."
"Do you know Vince well?"
That she knows exactly which man I've been referring to, made this more than a one-sided attraction.
"Yes. You won't find a more honorable or trustworthy guy. He's also good with kids," I added.
I don't want to be a fucking matchmaker, but knowing that Rachel had been left with a kid and no one to depend on, had this hitting too close to home for me. I'm still trying to reverse that fuck-up any way I can, because I understand that Julie's life would have been drastically different if Rachel hadn't met Ron.
I saw her glance down at her hand again, looking at the paper I'd given her. "And this woman ..."
"Will do whatever she can for you, as will Vince. You just have to give them both the opportunity to."
And I left her standing there, knowing each person will be getting a call by the weekend if Vince was smart enough to leave his number. I climbed into my truck and pointed it towards the person who had saved me ... who still saves me every single day. I cut my eyes to the clock on the dash. Two-twenty-five. By two-forty-five, Steph and I should both be naked in our bed with me already moving inside her.
The only cars on the road were bar runoffs. And I got back to my building in less than ten minutes. Working nights suck, but Steph living here makes the limited hours I get to spend in the apartment satisfying to say the least. I took the stairs to the seventh floor, and opened my door to see her standing in the hallway near the kitchen, wearing the black dress shirt I'd worn earlier in the day for a meeting. Since she knew I was on my way, she probably didn't bother putting anything on under it.
She walked over to me, and I was distracted by the soft sway of her breasts. She's definitely only wearing skin under that. When I forcefully dragged my eyes back up to her face, she had an equally hungry look on hers. Normally, that particular look is directed at me or at a part of my body, but I'm holding one of her favorite desserts, so there's only a fifty-fifty chance her desire is for me right now.
"How did everything go?" She asked, taking the cardboard box out of my hands.
"Good. No one except the FTA got hurt," I told her, following her shapely ass to the kitchen.
She smiled at me over her shoulder. "And Vince will score a date?"
"Eventually."
"So we should celebrate your capture and the start of a Rangeman romance."
"I don't think either needs celebrating, Babe. And I don't eat dessert."
She ended up surprising me by putting the pie in the fridge after only taking a quick peek to see what I'd chosen.
"At the moment," she said softly, "neither do I."
Apparently the hungry look was for me after all. "You're not having any now?"
"Nope. I'll save Ella some time and have that for breakfast. I'm in the mood for something else."
"Like what?" I asked, while she untucked my t-shirt from the waistband of my cargoes and slid her hands underneath it.
"I'm thinking less about food, and more about you picking me up, carrying me to the bedroom, and tucking me back into bed."
"That's it?"
Her smile was a flirty one. "Unless you have something more interactive in mind."
"I did. And still do."
"Good. Because you're hot when you go all Rambo on someone, but you can also melt panties when you're looking out for the people around you."
I could see her eyes suddenly start to sparkle.
"What?" I asked, not for the first time wondering what's going on under that curly hair of hers.
"Instead of 'aiding and abetting' a fugitive, you've aided someone who really needed it and are now thinking about bedding me."
I plan on doing more than just think about it, and the fact that I know she isn't wearing panties had me reaching for her. I picked her up in a fireman's carry, which allowed me to caress her bare ass and other equally bare, equally delicious parts as I took her to bed. She was squirming against my hand and shoulder by the time I dropped her onto the mattress. My hands were back on her a beat later. My two shirts - the one I had on and the one she'd stolen - landed on the floor, and she gave me only enough time to get my pants open before she circled my dick with her hand and guided it into her already wet body.
It may have taken more time than it should, and a few relationship trial runs, but she's now ready for me any time, and in any way she can get me ... when I'm naked, saying I love her, or forcing her to take care of herself in the way I know she deserves to be.