JE deserves all the credit for creating these wonderful characters.

Jenny (JenRar) I can't thank you enough for your fast and gentle work as the beta on this story.

Chapter 10 – Bolder

Stephanie's POV

I woke up slowly and couldn't help but smile when I moved to get even closer to the warm mass of muscle serving as my pillow. I was flooded with the memory of how we'd spent the last night together, and even the soreness that was apparent when I moved couldn't wipe the smile off my face. I was betting that I was pretty rough looking after all the activity in bed, and that I was practically glowing like a Christmas tree.

"Morning, Babe," came the sexiest voice I'd ever heard. It was deep and rumbly and made his chest vibrate. I instantly wanted to hear him say something else in the hope that the shiver that passed through my body at the sound would be repeated.

"Good morning, Ric," I said in return, hoping that me saying his name in the morning light would have the same effect it did last night.

He moved so quickly, I couldn't help but think of a panther pouncing on its prey. I was on my back with his body pressing me into the mattress before I could even blink.

"Do you know how much I love hearing you say my name?" he asked.

The boldness I'd felt last night hadn't gone away with the appearance of the sun, so I replied, "I know how much you liked hearing me shout it. My throat is sore from all the screaming."

His whole face lit up at my response. Apparently, he liked the new more assertive me. I know last night when I pushed him over and challenged that he needed to be ready for me, he'd seemed surprised, but he hadn't fought me on it. He'd given me full access to his body, and I'd taken my time in becoming reacquainted with every inch of him. I'd worked him over and done everything I could think of to tease him so that he was reduced to mumbling things that definitely didn't make sense. Thank goodness Lula had given me some erotic romance novels to read, because some of the things covered in those stories were definitely well received when I'd tried them.

When I'd heard the word payback, I'd known I needed to give him some relief, and when he'd shouted my name as he came deep in my throat, I'd realized I'd never taken the initiative in bed before and I'd had no idea what I'd been missing. I liked the control; I loved determining when he could come and when I would slow it down to keep him from going over the top. I think being in charge turned me on to a degree I'd never experienced before.

Ranger brought me back to the present by trailing a series of kisses across my collarbone. "About last night," he said, moving from under my neck, over to my shoulder. "Have you ever done something like that before?"

I couldn't think straight. Between the attention he was giving me with his mouth on my skin, the memory of each time we joined during the night, and vibration of his voice against my chest, I couldn't for the life of me figure out what he was talking about. He stopped moving, as though trying to help me clear my head enough to answer him.

"I've had sex before," I finally answered, hoping it would be enough to get him moving again.

He chuckled. "Not sex, Babe. You turned into a bit of a dominate. I didn't think you had it in you, but it was such a turn on to hear your mouth tell me to lie back down or you'd stop, and to feel your nails digging into me as a reminder that you hadn't told me I could get up. You were so in tune with what was running through my head that you knew just when to slow down and when to put more pressure into your actions. If you've never tried out that side of your sensuality, then I'm in deep shit, because you the more you do it, the better you'll become."

I couldn't stop the smile that came over my face. I had dominated Ranger? I had shocked Batman, and now he was worried about me being too much for him to handle. Oh man, that was the greatest news I'd gotten since the Tasty Pastry set up a reward club so that after buying twelve dozen doughnuts, you could get a dozen for free. Comparing sex with Ranger to free doughnuts made me laugh, and he lifted his head to look at me and raised an eyebrow. I didn't want him to think I was laughing at him, so I said, "It's not you. I was just thinking of doughnuts, and comparing them to you struck me as funny."

There was a low growl as he used his knee to open my legs farther and pressed himself against my tender core. "If you think I resemble a soft doughnut in any way, I think I need to remind you of some of my less than sweet qualities."

The friction between us was beginning to make my thoughts of being too sore to do anything disappear. "You did promise me a taste of your cream filling anytime I wanted it, didn't you?"

He smiled in response, but before he could say anything, the phone on the nightstand began to ring. Both us of turned our faces and glared at the interruption. He reached over and hit a button, putting it on speaker, and barked out, "Report."

Tank's voice came over the line and said, "Bossman, it's nearing 0800, and I wondered if we needed to send up a search party."

I tried to stop the laugh that was threatening to bubble out, but failed miserably at the thought that I'd tired the sex god out enough that he was three hours late getting up.

"Good morning, Stephanie," he added after hearing my laughter.

"Good morning, Tank," I replied, before putting my hand over my mouth to keep from interrupting again.

Then Tank added one more thing that set the agenda for the day. "There is another envelope, and I've been holding it until you came down first. Should I go ahead and begin processing it?"

Ranger's stalker had contacted him again, and I knew that despite where our activity this morning had been heading, it wasn't going anywhere now.

"Hold it; I'll be there in twenty." Without waiting for a response, he leaned over and hung up the phone.

"Sorry about that," he said, rolling off of me.

I sat up, pulling the sheet up to cover my naked chest. The motion wasn't lost on Ranger, and he turned back to face me. "Why are you doing that? You weren't shy last night."

"Last night, it was dark and we were in the middle of…things, but now, the sun is up and we've got to go downstairs and face whatever creepy thing this stalker has come up with to send to you," I explained.

He stood up and offered his hand to me. I hesitated, but in the end, I told myself this was my Ric and the sun being up wasn't a valid reason to revert back to the "unsure of myself Stephanie" I had always been. I'd liked being assertive and confident last night. There was no reason to give that up.

When I let go of the sheet and took his hand, the smile I got was more than enough response to let me know he liked my decision. "Come on. We'll shower together to save time, and then go down together."

"Are you sure it will save time?" I challenged, figuring if we were in there together, it might slow him down.

"Absolutely," he assured me, adjusting the water temperature. "We could make love in the bed and then take a shower, or we could get in the shower and make love at the same time. The second option seems more efficient."

I followed him in and smiled, loving the way his thoughts were going this morning. Ranger opened the Bulgari and began lathering up a shower sponge. He silently washed my body, paying extra attention to my breasts and between my legs.

"Sore?" he asked when I winced slightly.

I just nodded in response, not feeling the need to have a discussion about it. I didn't expect him to drop the sponge and kneel in front of me, leaving the water cascading down my back. He lifted my right leg, rested my foot on the built in bench behind him, and then proceeded to softly kiss and tease me.

At first, I wondered if the tender approach he was using would work, but when he instructed me, "Close your eyes," I shut them and felt every brush of his tongue and every slow movement of his fingers that much more intensely.

It only took a couple of moments for him to bring me to the brink and then softly guide me over. He held my hips tightly as I slowly came back down, and when I opened my eyes and looked at him kneeling in front of me, having experienced such a tender display of how he felt about me, I was overwhelmed with emotion.

He must have seen the water building in my eyes, because he stood up quickly and held my face between his hands. "I love you, Stephanie."

"I love you, too," I admitted, as a single tear escaped from my eye. I needed to change the subject to keep from embarrassing myself further, so I looked down at the impressive erection between us.

He saw what had caught my eye and shook his head no. "If you touch me, we won't make it out of here for an hour. This time, I want you to sit here and just watch."

I let him move me to sit on the bench, and then watched him pick up the sponge he'd dropped to care for me and begin to efficiently clean himself. At first, I was disappointed, thinking as good looking as he was, I didn't really need to just sit here and observe how to quickly clean a man. But when I heard the sponge hit the floor once more, I looked up and saw the expression on his face change and the look in his eye told me the show was about to begin. He put one hand on the shower wall, and with the other, he gripped himself to begin to slowly stoke from base to head, swiping his thumb over the top each time.

He was watching me intently, and I couldn't tear my eyes away from what he was doing to himself. I never thought watching someone pleasure themselves would be a turn on, but boy, was I wrong. I wanted in on the action in the worst way, but I respected his wish that I just sit and watch. I could see his strokes begin to increase in speed, and his breathing even sped up slightly, just before his hips thrust forward and he began to come over his own knuckles. I licked my lips involuntarily, thinking of what a waste it was to see that go down the drain.

"You didn't like just sitting there, did you?" he asked, and I shook my head no. He knelt in front of me once more and kissed my lips tenderly. "Next time, I may want to be the one to watch, so I can see how it feels."

I refused to fall back into the role of the girl so easily embarrassed that she was speechless, so despite my red face, I replied, "That's a privilege you'll have to earn."

The brief look of shock that came over his face at my response made my bold words totally worth it.

In the end, it took us thirty minutes instead of twenty to get downstairs, but there were no glances at a clock or tapping of a wristwatch to make the point that we were late. As soon as we stepped off the elevator on five, Tank appeared at his doorway and glanced at the small conference room next to Ranger's office. We walked in and were joined by Les and Bobby. When I leaned forward to push my chair under the table, I felt my muscles pull and wondered why I was so sore. Then I remembered a couple of the positions we'd tried out last night and figured it was probably a miracle I was even walking this morning. Maybe I should look into yoga after all.

Ranger saw my brief recognition of pain and looked at Bobby. "Get Steph some Ibuprofen and a bottle of water."

Bobby stood up, despite having just sat down, and asked, "Is there something I need to check?" He obviously was assuming I had been my usual clumsy self and gotten hurt.

The corner of Ranger's mouth tipped up before his blank face reappeared, and he shook his head no, sending Bobby off to grab some meds for me. While he was gone, Tank pushed another plain white envelope to Ranger as we all leaned forward to see what was inside.

Bobby returned with three tablets and a bottle of water. Despite not wanting any medication, I knew this was just Advil and would probably make a difference without doing any harm, so I took them without complaint and moved the water to the side so that I wouldn't mess anything up when Ranger pulled the contact from the stalker out.

The note was typed again in the same formatting as the previous, and said only: Remember, you brought this on yourself when you chose to ignore me. We could have been perfect together.

He put his hand back in the envelope and pulled out a small, check size envelope and several pictures. He passed the photos around. Two were taken of us kissing yesterday morning at the bonds office, and the third was a close up of me taken as we were entering RangeMan from the roof after our chat. I had turned back after feeling that we were being watched, and the photo had been snapped then. It had a green tint to it from a night vision camera, which said whoever was doing this had some sophisticated toys to play with. An X had been drawn in over my face. Ranger had gripped that one so hard, a crease formed in the paper the picture was printed on. I put my hand over his to help him relax and eased it from his grasp to pass around.

The small envelope was the last thing he opened. He glanced in, and then shut the top and looked away.

"What is it?" I wondered aloud. He seemed to be upset about it, and I wondered what was in there that was worse than a direct death threat to me like the photo was.

My question caused him to pull the envelope closer to him as he swiveled his chair to face me. "I'm so sorry, Stephanie."

Hearing my whole name sent a shiver up my spine, but not in a good way.

"You're scaring me, Ric," I said, forgetting we were in a room with other people and he might not want me to use his name in front of the guys.

I watched an emotion fly across his face at the mention of his name, and he reluctantly held out the envelope for me to take it.

I had a feeling whatever was in there I wasn't going to like, but it was so small and felt empty in my hand, so I began to wonder how bad it could be. When I opened it up and peeked inside, I got my answer. There was a scattering of tan and white hair inside that I knew in my gut belonged to Rex. Whoever was stalking Ranger had broken into my apartment, stolen my hamster, and hurt him in order to punish us for being together. Now they had the gumption to send me hair from my pet to gloat that they had hurt a defenseless animal

I closed the envelope with an intentional slowness, set it on the table, and then pushed it back to Ranger with my fingertips. He took it from me, but before he could say anything, I stood up and announced I'd be at my desk whenever he was ready to go to Vinnie's. I assumed the plan was still for us to put in some public appearances, but I needed a little time alone before I was ready to face anybody.

I had only been at my desk for a few seconds, before I felt the presence of someone else. I turned around to tell whoever it was to go away, but when I saw it was Scar, I didn't have the heart to be mean, so I just spun back to face my computer. I was completely lost, feeling as though it was all my fault that Rex had been hurt by whoever it was fixating on Ranger. When I'd left my apartment, I'd had no idea what was going to happen, or I would have brought him with me. I had always worried that one day, I would piss off the wrong person and they would try to hurt someone in my family, but I never considered my job bringing about Rex's ultimate demise.

I knew that wallowing in guilt wasn't doing anything to bring Rex back, and then I had a new thought. It was just an envelope full of hair. It was possible the stalker was just taunting me and hadn't killed him – that they'd just given him a bit of a hair cut. If I could help to figure out who it was sending these annoying threats, then there might be a chance he was still alive and in need of some touch up work on his fur to keep him from looking funny as the only hamster with a bald spot.

I shook my head to clear it, refusing to give up on my little guy, and realized that when my eyes focused, the computer was on and the primary search programs I used were open. I glanced over at Scar, and he held out the list of employees from the manufacturing company I'd been reviewing yesterday.

"It helps," he advised.

There might have been a time that I'd have taken offense at his pushy approach, but coming from him, I knew he was trying to help in the only way he knew how, so I smiled at him and started running surface checks into the two men that had records from the employee listing. After an hour of being humped over the keyboard, I lifted my arms and stretched them over my head, feeling the tension in my shoulders that had returned, despite the heavenly massage from Ranger last night.

I dropped my hands and turned to see Scar reading out the information I'd printed. He glanced up at me and waited for me to speak.

"Do you know anything about yoga?"

He grinned and nodded yes.

"Do you know enough to gently teach me?" I pushed a little more.

"My sister was a yoga instructor. I've done it on and off when I've been injured or using my body in ways that aren't typical for my standard workout. It's a great way to build up flexibility and muscle strength without bulk," he replied, in what was probably the longest speech I'd heard from him yet.

"Would you show me?" I asked, wondering if I might be crossing the line with a guy I hardly knew at all.

He looked at me for a brief moment, like he was using some kind of mind reading skills to question why I was asking for his help. In the end, he nodded yes and said only, "Tomorrow, 0700."

I turned back to the monitor in front of me and replied, "Thank you."

It was nearing lunch when Ranger appeared at my cubicle and interrupted our work. He was impressed with the progress we'd made and wanted to pass along the background checks I'd run on the employees of the corporations, as well as the individuals who had the access to see the roof of RangeMan.

"How about some lunch at Pino's?" he offered, as an alternative to another trip to the bonds office.

I was all for taking a break from my desk chair, and I really didn't feel like another run in with Lula. I figured even with the sobering delivery from this morning, I was still probably sporting a glow bright enough for her to pick up on it and start questioning us again.

I stood up and realized I didn't have my purse with me, so I told Ranger I'd meet him in the garage after running upstairs to grab it. I figured by the time I got back downstairs, he'd have the car angled so that no one could see me step off the elevator and the guys would have the back booth at Pino's cleared so we'd have the safest spot in the restaurant all to ourselves.

I picked up my purse from the closet where I'd left it last night, and as an afterthought, I checked the .38 in it and saw it was fully loaded. I guess Ranger had helped himself to my gun and done that, because I was pretty sure it only had a single bullet in it the last time I looked. I was about to get upset about it, but I looked at the newly made up bed and couldn't find any anger inside me. I decided instead to try something different. I went back into the recesses of the closet and started digging around in one of the bags Hal had brought for me. I found a collection of various holsters that I'd purchased or been given, in the hope of finding one that I'd be comfortable enough with to actually use.

I found a thigh holster that I'd bought, thinking it would make a sexy addition to a Halloween costume, and quickly took off my jeans, finding a long straight denim skirt to wear instead. I slipped on the holster and positioned it in the right spot so that if I was careful, I could use the split on the front of the skit and the need to hike it up in order to climb in and out of the car to my advantage in teasing Ranger. If he wanted me to have my gun on me, then I was going to make sure it was brought to his attention that I'd received the message.

I made my way to the elevator, wondering what it was about this apartment that gave me such a feeling of empowerment. I never would have thought of teasing Ranger at my place. After thinking it through, I decided it wasn't really the location; it was the man himself that was helping me to get in touch with my stronger side.

I didn't want to fall into the trap of wishing we'd opened up to each other sooner, because that rabbit hole had no bottom to it. When I saw my reflection in the steel doors that closed in front of me, I stretched my leg forward and loved the way I could just barely make out the bulge of the gun through the skirt. When I moved, a little more the black of the holster showed. When the ding announced I was in the garage, I straightened up and stepped out, hoping my plan to continue teasing Ranger didn't backfire on me.