Chapter 14

I woke up briefly when Les crawled into bed a little after midnight. "It go okay?" I murmured as I snuggled against his warm body.

"Yeah, baby. Everything's okay. Go back to sleep," he whispered.

So I did.

I woke up when his cell phone beeped and he cursed softly at it. Guess I'm not the only anti-morning person. I opened my eyes and watched him slide silently out of bed and stretch.

"Morning," I said softly and then smiled when he jumped.

"Morning, Beautiful," he said with a smile. "Sorry, I didn't mean to wake you."

"It's okay," I said as I stretched and then looked at the clock. It wasn't even quite 6 am yet.

"Why are you up so early?" I asked as I looked back at him.

He shrugged. "Work."

"But you had to work last night. Don't you get to go in late or something because of that?" I asked, starting to get irked on his behalf.

"Nope. I'm on core team, so I just do what needs to be done. It's why I make the big bucks, baby," he said with a tired grin. "Welcome to the world of high stakes security."

"Did you get enough sleep?"

"I'll manage. And it's Tank's turn to be on call tonight, so I shouldn't be called out tonight unless it's a really big problem or something. But I need to grab a shower and get ready, okay? You go back to sleep, no need for you to be awake at this unholy hour of the morning," he said as he leaned down to kiss me gently.

I was feeling a bit frisky for some reason so I yanked him back into the bed and gave him the hottest kiss I could muster at oh-dark-thirty in the morning. When he finally pulled back, breathing heavily, I gave him a lazy smile and snuggled into the blankets. "Have a good day," I told him.

"What was that?" he asked breathlessly.

"Good morning kiss?" I said innocently.

He swore all the way to the bathroom and I giggled as I fell back asleep, dreaming of the things we could do if only he didn't have to go to work right now.

I woke up at a more civilized time of the day a few hours later. I found a note taped to the bathroom mirror.

You're an evil, evil woman. I love it. But remember that paybacks are a bitch, and I'm going to have all day to think about how to get you back for that, Beautiful. I doubt I'll be able to think about anything else!

Be afraid, be very afraid.

Being naked when I get home might help mitigate your punishment.

Love you,

Les

I got a rush just thinking about how he might punish me.

I was sitting on a stakeout outside a skip's house when my cell rang. Les.

"Come up with a good punishment yet?" I purred into the phone.

"I think the fucking universe is trying to fucking punish me for all my past sins," he growled in response.

I sat up straighter. "What's wrong?"

Another growl. "Tank sprained his damn ankle while going on his fucking run this morning."

"I'm sorry."

"Me too!"

"But I don't understand why you're so pissed. Tank being pissed yeah, sprained ankles hurt, but why's it got you so hot and bothered?"

"Because you got me all hot and bothered this morning and I've been fantasizing about how I was going to get you back for that all day. But with Tank out of action for at least ten days, it means I'm going to be pulling doubles since he can't handle alarm calls or the higher dollar or more dangerous skip collars."

Oh. That did suck. I'd been looking forward to how he was going to get me back too.

"What about Bobby? Can't he help?"

"Some. But he's the medic, so there are limits as to how many hours he can work and still be able to do medic duty if one of us gets banged up. So with Ranger off God knows where, Tank on office duty until his ankle heals and Bobby limited in how much he can do, most of the extra field work and on call bullshit's going to be on me," Les said. Poor guy sounded positively miserable.

"It'll be okay. You said he'd only be out ten days, right?"

"Ten to fourteen days, according to Bobby. Tripped over a fucking crack in the sidewalk."

"Hey, I do that all the time! At least I'm not the only one!" I tried to joke.

"Yeah, we've all tripped before, that's no biggie. But he had to do it today? I haven't had any fucking blood flow to my brain since this morning and I'm going to have to pull his on call duty tonight because he fucking sprained his ankle? Today? Seriously?"

I swear I think he whimpered the last bit.

I bit my lip to keep from laughing. Or crying.

"Good things come to those who wait," I tried.

The string of Spanish curse words convinced me that he didn't really buy that one any more than I did.

"Okay. Nothing we can do about it. Do you definitely have to work tonight or just maybe have to work tonight?" I said hopefully.

He sighed. "Ninety percent sure I will. We got a tip that a high dollar skip is supposed to show up at a bar with some buddies sometime tonight. Since he's high dollar, one of the core team needs to be there to oversee picking him up. It would be Tank since he's on call tonight, but it'll be me since Tank won't be in any shape to help if things go to hell in a hand basket. I'm sorry, Beautiful."

"Hey, it's okay. I understand. I knew what kind of job you had. Hell, I have the same job! So don't worry about it. We'll figure something out, okay?"

He sighed again. He must be really bummed out. "But I had such plans!"

"You can tell me all about them later," I promised.

His voice dropped to a husky growl that instantly soaked my panties. "Can I show them to you later?"

"I'll think about it," I squeaked.

"Think hard," Les said. "Shit, the things you do to me with just a kiss!"

"Imagine if I'd really been trying," I said.

He groaned. "Stop it," he ordered. "I can't think about that or I'm going to do permanent damage to myself!"

I smiled. "Sorry."

"You really are evil, you know that?" he said.

"Yeah, I know. But it's fun."

"Baby, soon as I'm not on fucking call, I'll show you fun," he said, his voice going husky again.

Hoo, boy. I'd better start eating my Wheaties.

His soft sigh broke my concentration. "Problem is that since I'm the only one who can respond to emergencies, I'm going to have to stay on site for a little while, baby. So I'll have to stay in my apartment on four. Shit like this is the only reason I've kept it."

"Will I be able to see you any?" I finally asked.

"Hell yeah!" he replied. "No way I won't see you, Beautiful. But it'll probably be things like going out to lunch or dinner close by. And we can still talk on the phone and stuff. But I'll need to stay in or very close to the building when I'm on duty or on call."

I blew out a sigh. "How about I meet you for lunch or dinner or whatever you can do?" I finally said.

"That sounds good," he said. "The guys can handle the normal day to day shit, so I can meet you for lunch at Shorty's whenever you want."

"I'm staking out a skip, but I'm getting hungry and I have to pee like you wouldn't believe, so anytime soon is good for me. So maybe in half an hour?"

"See you there, Beautiful."

I felt the urge to beat the heck out of someone, but unfortunately my skip didn't stick his head out of his house and I didn't feel like breaking in. So I settled for shooting a glare at the house before heading out to meeting Les at Shorty's.

I got there just before he did and saw him in the parking lot. "Hey, Beautiful," Les said as he saw me walking towards the front door.

Then he pulled me around to the side of the building, wrapped both arms around me and kissed me until I was sure my clothes had spontaneously combusted from the heat he generated in my nether regions.

"W-wow," I stuttered when he finally let me up for air several minutes later. "What was that?"

"Hello kiss?" he said in a mock-innocent tone, throwing my words from earlier this morning back at me.

I stuck my tongue out at him and he tucked a curl behind my ear. It had come loose from my ponytail when he'd held my head in place to he could attack me with his luscious lips.

He offered me his arm and I took it, not entirely certain how steady my legs were after that.

I went to the bathroom while he found us a table in the back where he could have his back to the wall, of course. It took me a minute and a couple of splashes of cold water to get my cheeks to cool down from where they'd gotten all flushed from Les's amorous assault.

I started to slide into the booth across from Les, but he stood and had me slide in next to him before he sat back down on the outside. "I want to be able to touch you," he said with a wink.

"You touch me much more and I might embarrass myself," I muttered.

He leaned in close to my ear. "Now you know my pain."

I rested my head on his should for a minute. "This sucks."

"No shit."

We were quiet while the waitress brought our drinks. Water for the man in black, Diet Coke for unhealthy me.

"So what do you want to do?" I finally asked.

"Other than you?" Les teased.

I rolled my eyes at him. "You know what I mean."

He sighed. "Nothing much I can do, baby. I'm going to be pulling a lot of doubles and I'll be on call just about all the time until Tank's ankle is better. Bobby can do some of the on call shit, but not all of it since he's pretty much on call all the time for medic stuff and he can't be on call for take down and alarm stuff too. We've had to do this before when one of us has been hurt, but the timing just sucks."

"What can I do to help?" I asked.

"You're doing it. Understanding that sometimes things come up. Maybe go by the house every couple of days and checking on things. I'll swing by when I can too, but it can't hurt to have both of us go by," he said.

"Okay. I can do that. Anything else?" I asked.

"Fix Tank's fucking ankle so I can finally have a night alone with you!" he growled, his eyes dark and glittering dangerously.

Gulp.

"Would that I could," I murmured. Truer words were never spoken.

He groaned and gave me a quick, hard kiss. "You're killing me here!"

"Sorry," I replied, smiling weakly. He just rested his forehead against mine for a minute.

"Soon," he muttered.

I didn't have to ask what he meant. I had a pretty damn good idea what he was referring to, and it wasn't the delivery time for our pizza.

When he finally sat back, I looked up to see the waitress watching us with fascination coloring her brown eyes.

We had a leisurely lunch spent just chatting and joking. And lots of little touches, mostly hidden by the table, which had me almost ready to drag him under the table and say screw the consequences.

Mmm, screwing Les.

Wait. What?

He finally had to head back to the office, but not before he pulled back to the side of the building and turned my bones back into silly putty. I had a death grip on his on his shirt and one leg hooked around his hip when he finally pulled his lips back from that spot on my neck he loved.

Damn. He needed some time off. Soon.

His voice was an entire octave lower than usual when he mustered the ability to speak a moment later. "Damn, baby. You don't know how much I want to call and tell them I quit so I could take you home right now."

I moaned softly and he jerked his hips against mine. "Shit, don't make those noises when I can't do anything to earn them!"

"Pretty sure you earned them," I replied. Holy shit, was that my voice? I sounded like Mae West!

"Baby, you ain't seen nothing yet," he promised as his voice dropped even lower. If his voice went any lower, I'd have to rename him Barry White. Damned if I didn't want to get it on, though.

But if he thought he hadn't shown me anything yet, I was pretty sure he was going to kill me when we finally were together. But I'd die a very happy woman, I was sure.

I think I whimpered a little bit at that thought and his hips ground against mine again. "Beautiful, I'm serious," he said in a dangerous tone. "Stop making those noises or I'm not going to be responsible for what happens."

I sucked in a deep breath, released the death grip on his shirt and tried to smooth out the wrinkles. "Then you better leave or I won't be responsible for what happens."

He started cursing in Spanish but he took a half step back. "You're going to kill me."

Ditto.

Les walked me back to my car, kissed me with far less tongue than moments ago and told me he'd call me tonight before he jumped in the black SUV to head back to Haywood.

My shower massager wasn't going to survive ten days and nights like this.

Sadly, the shower massager had its work cut out for it.

I managed to talk to Les pretty often and we saw each other for meals almost every day, but as he predicted, he didn't get much in the way of downtime since he was on call almost all the time. We had met up a couple of times at his house to check on the renovations. I couldn't believe how great the house was looking. Thank God all the faux wood paneling and brightly colored bathroom fixtures were gone!

But it had almost turned into to more than just a progress check a few times. If there hadn't have been construction workers crawling all over the place like ants, and if I wasn't vehemently opposed to putting on a free show, things might have gotten freaky. But it didn't.

Every time I saw him, though, he looked more and more tired, despite his best efforts to keep up a happy façade for me. He'd crash in his apartment on four anytime he wasn't needed on the control floor or out on calls, but the poor guy was insanely busy and he wasn't able to really rest except in brief snatches. It wasn't enough.

It had been a long eleven days for poor Les, and I was just glad that Bobby said that Tank's ankle should be back to normal soon.

Author's note: Steph's finally getting comfortable with the physical side of things with Les, but damn Murphy is keeping them apart! Alas, things won't change all that soon, but you'll see why in the next chapter.

I think the theme song for this part of the story should be "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" by the Rolling Stones.

Please let me know what you think! I love reviews like Steph does donuts.