He leaned in for another kiss and as his lips touched mine he whispered "I love you too babe. I have from the moment I saw you in that diner. I felt something as you walked in the door, something that I never felt before and I know that you were the one." Then he kissed me a soft and slow loving kiss. We were so consumed by each other that we didn't hear the door open and close behind us. We were suddenly ripped from our own little world by the sound of a very angry voice.

"What the fuck is going on!"

We very quickly jumped apart and came face to face with a very angry Joe. He stormed forward and grabbed a hold of my upper arm before I even had the chance to try and move away. He dragged me away from Ranger and threw me against the wall so hard that I saw stars.

Joe came right up into my face as he started screaming at me. "What you cant keep your paws off of HIM until you get out of MY house!"

All I could do was just stand there in silent astonishment. As angry as I had seen Joe before I had never seen this side of him.

"You got nothing to say for yourself you little slut! Oh this is rich Stephanie Plum with nothing to say. What's the matter Ranger still got your tongue?"

Finally able to regain some of my thoughts back after the initial shock I was starting to get mad. "Joe please! We were just getting ready to leave!"

"Don't you lie to me! Don't you dare fucking lie to ME you little whore. I saw you with my own eyes! Would you have fucked him in MY bed too!"

He was so close that with every word he practically spat in my face. And that's when it happened, the thing I always thought Joe would never do he hit me. He hit me so hard that I flew across the room and landed on the end table. I landed on it so hard that between my weight and the force on which I landed the table cracked and broke beneath me. You know how when people say that things just happen so fast you don't have time to really think. Well that's what happened to me. Before I could even blink Ranger was at my side.

"Babe? Babe are you alright?"

"That son of a bitch hit me!"

I could see the muscles in Rangers jaw clenching as he was trying to keep control of himself. He knew that even with what had happened I wouldn't want anything to happen to Joe.

"Shh Babe let's go and give Morelli some time to cool down and come to his senses." He was talking so softly to me and he was smoothing back my hair with his hand. I was about to get back up off the floor when out of the corner of my eye I saw Joe reaching behind him to the small of his back. After being around these guys for so long I knew what was there and what was about to happen. I glanced at Ranger and he was so totally focused on me that he hadn't seen Joe coming towards us and reaching for his gun. Before I even gave it another thought I reached behind Ranger and grabbed the Glock that he kept in the waist band of his pants. Joe already had his gun drawn and pointed at Ranger.

With a deadly calm to his voice Joe said "Get away from her Manoso, she isn't your concern."

"The hell she isn't Morelli! Look what you did to her man. Just let her go."

At that moment Joe gave a small sad smile "I can't" and he fired.

I screamed as Ranger fell backwards. I raised the gun and started firing and didn't stop until the clip was empty. I looked at the gun and threw it to my side as I crawled over to Ranger.

"Oh God Ranger! Ranger please say something!"

"Stop shouting, I am not deaf you know."

"When I saw you fall I thought the worst. Oh God where are you hit? I just got you and I thought that I was going to lose you."

By this time I was sobbing uncontrollably.

"Shhh Babe I'm alright. The bullet just grazed my arm. Really it is just a flesh wound." He gave me a sly smile. "Just needs a band-aid."