You guys are funny. Thanks for the welcome back from a couple of you and all the nice reviews. Might as well start fanning. I have more bloomer toasting Ranger love happening in this chapter.
Chapter 2
We both had groaned as his fingers found me. I had waited for so long for him to touch me like this again. His breath, his smell, his smooth skin, his magical touch. He was mesmerizing, intoxicating, hypnotizing, thrilling. No one word could quite capture Ranger in describing him as a lover. I think he would have made more money and made it faster without having to dodge bullets as a high priced gigolo. I felt his chest shaking behind me and then he chuckled. "Babe."
He stepped one foot into the tub and lifted me and pulled me back onto his, "Attention!" Good soldier. Maybe that military training was good for the discipline alone. I felt his chest shaking again. Then he guided my hips and slowly impaled me and we both gasped. Oh mercy, I forgot how generous he was in the jewels department. Our breathing was labored as he stopped and let me adjust to the invasion and the sheer size of his soldier's assault. When I was comfortably stretched and he felt me clench him, he whispered in my ear, "Wrap your legs back and around me, Babe."
I did as he asked and he held me with one hand and then began moving my hips. He was using his other hand like an instrument and was playing a delectable tune on my swollen rose bud. I was not going to last very long at all. I whispered, "Ranger, I can't… I'm going to…"
He was breathing hard. "Don't ever hold back from me. Let go."
I did let go and when I moaned and gasped out his name and clenched him as the power of my orgasm took me, he yelled out and did the same and I felt his hot semen coating my walls and his leg inside the tub that was touching mine was now trembling.
He kissed my neck and held me for a minute until his breathing slowed and after making sure that I was okay to stand on my feet, he left me for a few seconds. When he came back he reached up and began releasing me from the handcuffs and lifting me out of the tub. He sat me down on the floor and ran his hands through my smooth hair and pulled my head to him and kissed me. At first it was gentle and then more demanding as he grasped my tongue and sucked it into his mouth and then he began moving on it and making love with firm gentle strokes just as he had done inside me a few minutes ago and I moaned again.
If I had any doubts about my plan before, they had just dissolved into dust and been blown away by this kiss. He lifted his head just slightly and said against my lips. "Thank you for this, Babe. You just let me experience one of my fantasies." Yes! I wanted to bust a move and start pumping my elbow up and down, but that just wouldn't have looked very sexy with me being nude and all. He was grinning at me again and I rolled my eyes. "Have I been talking out the side of my stupid head since you've been here? Have you heard everything that's in there?" He laughed out loud. "Pretty much, Babe. I love that you're an open book."
I shivered again and he smiled and said, "As much as I've tried to warm you up, I bet you're cold. Let's go snuggle under the covers." He threaded his fingers through my hand and pulled me to my bedroom and I got in and he rolled over me and got in beside me and we pulled the covers up and he reached for me and pulled me close. He said in my ear as he touched my bare mound, "So, is this for me too?" I nodded.
Then he said, "Tell me about the other?"
I looked in his eyes. "Ranger, I chose and this time there is no going back to another man no matter what you try to tell me to do."
He grazed my breasts with his knuckles. "It is permanent. I've told you before that once you go in…"
"I know. There 's no leaving. Remember, you're the one that keeps leaving," I said exasperated.
He sighed. "I thought I was doing it for the right reasons. To keep you safe."
I laughed. "I'm no safer without you."
He chuckled. "True. What do you want from me?"
That one was easy. "Your love."
"Babe, you already have it."
I touched his handsome face and ran my fingers through his loose hair. "I want to know you. Who you are and how you got to be you."
"I can't tell you everything about how I got to this point and there are things I wouldn't want you to know about me. That side of me would scare the shit out of you."
I turned and looked directly into his eyes and wrapped my arm around him. "I know that you've killed people. You're a soldier and you've had to do things to make the world a safer place. You did these things for your country. You're not bad. You're doing an awful job that hardly anyone else in the world is capable of doing and I'm proud of you. The only fear I have where you're concerned is losing you. I can hardly breathe without you. I know, because I stopped breathing when Scrog shot you and I thought you were dying."
He moved over me and kissed my neck and then my face and eyelids and my lips and settled himself between my legs. He pulled them around him and entered me and held me so close as he slowly loved me while speaking words against my lips and into my ear in Spanish. His hands roamed over me, touching and caressing me everywhere. He continued the slow rhythm and I held him to me losing myself in his heat and the sound of his heart beating against mine and I was hoping with my entire being that he wouldn't push me away again tomorrow.
A tiny beep made my eyes flutter open and I raised my head from the warm taut chest it was buried in and locked eyes with Ranger. He turned his watch alarm off and reached over to the nightstand and grabbed his phone and checked it. I watched as his eyes and faced turned from warm to blank and expressionless. He detached my hands from him and rolled and said, "I have to go, Babe."
A heartbreaking déjà vu flooded me and I felt my breath leaving me. Why did I jinx myself by thinking negative thoughts while he was making love to me. I sat up and wanted to reach for him and then lowered my hand and looked up into his blank face. I was only able to get two words out. "Never...again."
He looked at me for a few seconds and just when I thought he might say something, he grabbed his boots and coat and walked out of my bedroom without looking back at me. I flopped back on the bed trying to right my world and get my breath back. He had just rejected me, again.
He had just lain my heart to waste in the room that I had pledged myself and my love to him in my own way. I didn't think that I could live in it any longer. There were memories of him in my bed, in my shower, on my couch and his blood was still on my living room floor. There was no Joe to go back to and my mother was withholding cake and would barely let me in after my break-up with him. She was more heartbroken than we were. Then, how stupid am I? I had branded myself with his name. No one else would ever want me now.
I laid there in my thinking position as tears pooled in my eyes and slowly began to fall and dampen my pillow. Then the sobs came and I closed them and rolled over and hugged myself. My world had stopped turning this morning and in order for it to move again, I needed to change. I needed a new life. This Stephanie Plum didn't have much going for her here and this life had been stagnant for a long time anyway. After I was cried out for the time being, I got in the shower and washed him away and made coffee and fired up my laptop.
I put down my coffee mug and typed in bounty hunter jobs and waited for the results. Only two that looked serious came up. The rest were phony rip offs. Pay someone to teach you to be a badass. Do I look like a badass? Do I want to look like the "Dog" and his woman? Nope. Not even. With the popularity of the reality TV show "Dog", had come the imposters, kooks, nuts and wannabees to this business. One of the listings that I was looking at was in Texas and the other was in Buffalo, New York.
I called the one in Texas first. I told him that I was calling about the BEA job and the guy asked me who was calling. I looked at my phone and said, "I'm calling."
He chuckled. "Sorry toots. I don't know who put you up to this call. I got news for ya' though. Everything's bigger in Texas, including the fugitives. It's not a job for the fairer sex if you know what I mean." I growled at the phone and hung up on him. Yeah, I know what you mean you sexist butthead!
I wanted to throw my phone. Instead, I paced and chugged some more coffee and mustered the courage to make the other call. Naturally, a person of the sexist kind answered again. "Yello. Bedford Bonds."
"Hello. My name is Stephanie Plum and I'm calling about your listing for a BEA agent."
He asked, "You have experience?"
"Yes."
"Where?"
Well, this was going a little better. I said, "Trenton, New Jersey."
"Give me a minute." I heard him typing and then he was quiet a couple of minutes and then he barked with laughter. I cursed and started to hang up the phone when he said, "Wait! Don't hang up. What's the story? You moving?"
"Yes." I grumbled. "I'm looking for greener pastures. Yours have to be greener. We don't have any in Trenton."
He chuckled. "That bad, huh?"
I said, "Whatever you read, it wasn't my fault. I need a change of scenery and bulls, a fresh start and um...new stalkers. The bull crap is too thick here. Can't breathe." He barked with laughter again.
I said, "I'm hanging up now."
"No, no. I'll take you on. I need an office girl now, like an assistant. We can work you in. We have different requirements for BEA agents here and it'll take you a little time anyway. You willing to start out that way?"
I thought for a minute. I could maybe be a Connie for a while. "Well, sure I guess. Can you recommend an apartment complex nearby?"
He said, "You want to board first and take your time finding a place, I have a friend with a boarding house near. Nice lady."
That actually sounded good. "Okay. Can you email me the details. I just need a day to wrap up things here and I can be on my way. I already paid rent for the month and if I board, I can worry about moving out later in the month. It will give me time to get settled."
He said, "Sounds good. Can't wait to meet you Ms. Plum."
I said, "Call me Stephanie or Steph and I'll call you when I get into town."
"Okay. I'm Mason. Mason Bender. See you soon." We disconnected. So, just like that. I have a new job and I'm moving to a new place.
I turned and looked around my apartment. The wheels were in motion now and I wasn't going to change my mind. Like yesterday, I knew I could do it if I kept the momentum going. I was going to do this thing and dammit, I was going to try my best to do it good!
I had one outstanding skip and I would get him today and tell Vinnie that I was quitting. I would wait to talk to my apartment super in case my move didn't work out, close my meager bank account and have dinner with my parents tonight and pack. Tomorrow morning I would be leaving the smog of Trenton and heading for a new home.
TBC -
Don't be mad at me. I'm just making him an idiot until the end of the story. JE is still writing him as one. Snicker.
