A/N- My Beta is still not feeling well, I wanted to post-will fix when she's had a chance to comment-excuse my bad writing :)

JE owns the characters-just taking for a test drive.

Chapter 8 The truth—well almost

A part of me wanted to just stay in our room and make love to Carlos, but I knew we had a small window of opportunity to head out before Garcia and company had a chance to follow our trail. So now for the second time in less than fifteen minutes, Carlos and I are headed down to the lobby to check out. I was clearly sad to be leaving this magical place that brought us together.

"We should call Bill," I mentioned as he gave the desk clerk Victor Colón's Black American Express Card with the no-credit-limit. "I know we can't stop to say goodbye, but maybe we could invite him to visit Trenton or something. He's a good guy and you really didn't get a chance to spend a lot of time with him."

"Mmmm, Babe," Carlos said, clearly still distracted.

Yep, he was in one of his zones. "Want me to drive?" I asked…thinking maybe it would help if didn't have to concentrate on the road.

"I'm good."

"I bet you didn't hear anything I said. Do you even know where we're going? You probably haven't paid attention to anything since you hung up with Tank. Hey," and I took his hand, "everything's going to be ok…I can feel it."

Carlos was back to being Ranger, and clearly a Ranger I had never met before. This wasn't Sexy Ranger, or GQ Ranger…this was Sullen Ranger. If I met this man in a dark alley, I would be afraid, very afraid. And clearly, I didn't have the skills to bring him out of this churlish mood. Maybe food would help.

We dove along for a little over an hour following that annoying voice that chimed in every few miles with another course correction and I decided to bring up the food thing. Before I could get the words out of my mouth, my stomach let out a loud, fierce growl and Ranger took the cue.

"Babe, I think we need to feed the beast," and he smiled.

Thank God he was smiling, I couldn't take any more of Petulant Ranger. I smiled back, took his hand and put it on my stomach just as it growled again. "Food…now," I said. Ranger smiled again, took the next exit off US 1 and we went to look for a place to eat.

Just as Ranger pointed out a little Mexican place, my phone buzzed telling me I had a text message. I opened the phone to see who had texted me but the display read, 'Blocked.' I didn't know a blocked number could text so I assumed it was from someone at Rangeman, since they all have these extraordinary powers, and opened it. I dropped the phone and let out a loud "fuck," when I saw what was texted to me. Thank God I was still in the car and the phone just fell onto the carpeted floor mat or the evidence would have been destroyed. "Ranger, Carlos," I yelled. "Stop."

He had already slowed the car to check out the Mexican place, so Ranger quickly pulled over and brought the car to a halt.

"Babe, what's the matter?" he asked.

I picked up my phone like it had the cooties and handed it to him. Ranger took one look at the image that was texted to me, took his iPhone off the console and called Bobby.

"Brown, Stephanie just had a photo texted to her. It's a picture of the two of us from the other night. It would appear that someone knows who we are and they might be going to try to use that information. Hector is our technology guru, can you get him down here to look at her phone and figure out who sent that text? I would just go to Silvio, but I don't want to involve Miami, he's probably being watched anyway."

If it didn't creep the hell out of me, it was actually a pretty wonderful picture. It was taken the night of our Mojito conversation. Ranger was leaning against the limb of a tree on the beach, he had me pulled into him–my back to his front–his arms around my waist, and he was kissing the top of my head.

As long as we were already parked in front of the Mexican place and it looked like the food was good, we decided to eat and talk next steps.

"I want to call Tank, I know he and Lula are on their way out of the country but I'm not sure he could get a flight that fast—and they needed IDs. I don't feel that we are safe here now and I want to see if Tank concurs."

The waiter brought a red plastic wicker basket of still-warm chips, a bowl of salsa and two glasses of water over to us when the door to the 5-table cantena opened, a man walked in and I saw Ranger tentatively seek out his gun.

The man glanced over at us for a second before placing a 'to go' order at the counter. I thought for a minute he was going to come over and sit with us, but saw he was looking around…his eyes darted to the restroom icons, and after paying, he left to use the men's room. My spidey-sense wasn't even tingling but I could tell that Ranger was not at all relaxed.

"Call Tank, you'll feel better," I initiated, noticing our man coming out of the restrooms and picking up his order to leave. I felt better too.

Once the guy was safely out the door, Ranger punched in Tank's number. After the Yo, yo, back and forth again I only heard Ranger's side of the conversation. "Stephanie got a present." "Ok, you know." "I think we should take a private jet from Opa-Locka, fly into Monmouth and stay at the Pardo house in Deal." "It's as safe as Fort Knox." "You agree?" "I'll talk it over with Steph." "We're near Cutler Bay right now, we can drive to Opa-Locka in about a half an hour." "Right."

"Babe, feel like going to the Jersey Shore?"

"What's the Pardo house?"

"You'll like it, it's right on the water."

"What's the Pardo house?" I tried again, hoping it wasn't a freaking safehouse he was going to lock me in.

"I think you call it the Batcave."

"Ranger?"

"Carlos."

"Carlos, is this your home?"

"Technically Marc Pardo owns it. It can never be traced to me, but yeah, it's my house."

"You once told me the Batcave is forever?'

"Babe," his one word answer.

"Ok Carlos, to the Batcave."

Ranger quickly called Bobby to stop Hector from getting on a plane, followed by another call to Lester to let him know about the photo and the change in plans. As we already had a suite booked in Orlando, Lester and Manny would stay there. Anyone looking for the Colón's would have a very unpleasant surprise.

I'm usually pretty good with last minute stuff, but all of a sudden I felt overwhelmed by everything that happened in the last half an hour and when our food arrived, I no longer had much of an appetite. I picked at my burrito and moved the rice and refried beans around on my plate while unconsciously twirling a lock of hair with my other hand. Ranger reached over, took my hand away from my hair, brought it to his mouth and kissed it.

"Babe, to use your own words from earlier...everything's going to be ok," and he kissed my hand again. "Come on, let's pack this up for later, the NetJets plane Tank called for should be flying into Opa-Locka just about now. We don't want to keep them waiting too long, Jet-A fuel is expensive," and he motioned to the waiter for our check and asked for our lunch to be wrapped.

A half an hour later we left the Mercedes with an attendant and were ushered up the gangplank of a private jet. We buckled in, taxied down the runway and took off. Once we had leveled off and were flying smoothly, we unbuckled our seat belts and Ranger motioned to a room at the back of the plane. "Come, Babe," and he took my hand. He opened the door to a bedroom suite with a king-sized bed and marbled bath. He pulled me down onto the bed and kissed me. I moaned and he kissed me again, "Was what you said to me before true?"

I said so many things earlier, I had no idea what he was referring to and I guess I looked at him questioningly. He kissed me again, pulled me close to him and ran his finger down my nose and over my lips. "You told me that you loved me."

I didn't think he was paying attention, he had seemed so distracted by the court martial news…but I guess he did hear me. We were looking into each others eyes now…looking into the depths of each others souls, so I put my hands to his face, looked at him intently and said softly, "Yes, I love you Carlos."

He rolled me over, so he was on top of me and he kissed me again. "I love you too, Stephanie." We just lay there kissing and holding one another tenderly for what felt like forever, when suddenly Carlos got this wolfish look on his face. "Want to join the mile high club, Babe?"

I didn't answer but started to take my clothes off, leaving on just my bra and panties. Then I unbuckled his belt, took his shirt out of his pants and lifted it over his head. I started running my tongue over his pects, his six-pack abs, down to his belly button, avoiding anything below…then I reversed my tactic and licked him back up to his neck. I thought I heard him moan, so I whispered, "What do you want me to do now?" And before he could answer I gently massaged his ear with my fingertips, working my way down the outer fold. Then I ran my pinkie along the crease where his ear connects to his head and ever-so-slowly prodded his ear with the tip of my tongue.

"Babe, you're killing me," I heard him say as I made my way back down his body again. I took his very erect cock out of his pants and put it in my mouth. He started to reach for me, but I moved out of his way and just kept teasing his dick with my tongue. I could tell I was driving him crazy and he could barely talk when he let out, "Babe, I'm not that good, please." I just shook my head no and said, "Well then come for me," and I took him deeper into my mouth, looked up at him with a devilish glint in my eye and started sucking him harder. I stopped, moved my tongue to the head of his dick and licked…then I blew on it. I paused for a second looking up at him, then I took him back into my mouth and brought my hands under his ass to bring more of him in, sucking him until he came…pulsing and writhing deep in my mouth.

"Babe,"

From my experience last night, I knew that Carlos was good for more than one orgasm and I was more than surprised to see how quickly he recovered from this one. I was going to show him I could be as bad as he was, so when I saw he was fully erect again, I seductively moved my thong to the side to show him my very wet vagina. I saw his eyes darken to almost black as he watched me. "Babe," he said, "I need to have what you're showing me." And then he took control and we made love again and again. It was one of the most sensual things I'd ever experienced. Every once in a while I could feel the movement of the plane, dipping a little to the left, or a little to the right and at one point we dropped…all while Carlos was inside of me or treating me to some world-class loving.

When we finally got our breathing under control, Carlos looked at the watch on his wrist and pointed to the shower. We went in together, but there wasn't enough time for any more lovemaking, we were landing in twenty minutes.