Intimacy

A/N: It's not completely necessary to read Time Enough For Tears before you start this story, but it sure helps! There are spoilers throughout from book one through ten. So basically, just enjoy! Thanks!

Chapter One: Time Enough For Tears

I woke up to a darkened room and a feeling of being trapped. Instantly, my mind began to race. I was on the verge of hyperventilating when a familiar smell drifted to me in the dark. I wasn't trapped. Ranger had me half-tucked under his body, one arm tossed across my hips, his face buried in my shoulder. He was sound asleep.

Smiling, I played my fingers through the silky hair spilling across me. It was surprisingly soft. Leave it to Ranger to have better hair than me.

I still wanted to stick to my plan. I wanted to be a better bounty hunter. I wanted Ranger to teach me everything he could, and I wanted to be like Jeanne Ellen Burrows. The bitch. Okay, maybe I was just jealous. Yes, definitely jealous. I mean, she was a Rangerette, for crying out loud. She screamed Ranger-training. So now that I was the First Lady, maybe I'd get some of that.

Someday I might even learn to like my gun. I thought about that for a moment. No, that was unlikely. But I was hell with an aerosol can. Pepper spray I could do.

And now I had all these neat black clothes. The leather pants I wasn't sure would ever touch my body again, but hey, they were in my closet.

Wait. I didn't have a closet. I was in Ranger's apartment. All my things were on the floor. The rest of my stuff was at my apartment. The apartment I no longer lived in.

I started having a small panic attack. My underwear would soon be in Ranger's drawers. My lingerie mixed in with that one pair of black boxers…I was hyperventilating. Omigod.

"Babe," Ranger said, his voice heavy. He laid a hand over my heart and said something in melodic Spanish. I froze. I didn't know what he'd said or what it meant, but the gesture touched my heart. I remember now. I love this man, I thought. And just a few hours ago he admitted he loved me too. Wow. Could my day get any weirder? Nervous breakdown, declaration of undying love from the Man of Mystery…

I debated calling Lula to have her check the temperature in Hell, but it hurt when I pinched myself so I figured it was all real. I never imagined any of this would happen. Okay, I had a few times, but only in the dreams I had that I didn't tell anyone about. I never even accepted them myself. I mean, this was Ranger. The man in black. SWAT man. Batman, even.

And he loved me. Funny how life works out, isn't it? A couple of years ago I looked at this guy and about wet my pants. Now I still just look at him and almost wet my pants, but in a different way.

Tomorrow I would ask Ranger to train me, I thought. A yawn escaped my lips, and Ranger's heavily muscled arm tightened around my hips. Yum, I thought, and closed my eyes.

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Something was nuzzling my neck. My first thought was, "Weird, I don't have a dog."

My second was "Oh, goody," when Ranger nipped at the tender skin beneath my jaw.

"Morning, Babe," he said, his voice raspy and shooting tremors down to my toes. I'm pretty sure they curled again.

"Morning, yourself."

"Sleep well?"

"Mmm…"

I could feel him laughing, and the sound made me sigh. This time I was sleeping in his bed as his partner (how weird was that?), not a fling or a one-night stand. The smell of him enveloped me, and made me want to crawl inside his skin and stay there forever. Not literally, but figuratively. Eeew. "I want you to teach me how to be like Jeanne Ellen," I said, running my fingers through his silky hair.

Ranger laughed. "Had that mid-life crisis already, huh?" he said, kissing my collarbone.

"It's not funny. I'm tired of being shot, cut, burned, and kidnapped. I want to be good."

"Oh, you're good," he whispered, trailing his fingers the length of my ribcage and up the side of my breast.

I shivered and moved to swat his hand away, but then he bent his lips to replace it and all thoughts of resistance went out of my head. He put those amazing hands of his to work as well, and by the time he was finished with me I was facedown in the pillow again. I think I might have been purring.

"You're awfully good at that," I said, trying to nonchalantly check and see if I had been drooling. Again.

Ranger was sitting up with his back to me, reading the face of his pager. So that's what woke me from my stupor, I thought. Damn pager. Luckily, he cleared the readout and set it back down before turning to face me full on. My mouth went dry. His hair was slightly disheveled and natural, falling about his shoulders in a sexy sort of disarray. Mine, on the other hand, didn't bear even considering. Too early in the morning, not enough doughnuts.

"Duty calls, babe." I thought he might just get up and leave then, like he had before. It was a pleasant surprise when he wrapped those heavily muscled arms around me and dragged me hard against his naked chest. My pulse began to pound and my purr kicked up again. This got me a smile from Ranger. "You should be Catwoman for Halloween, babe. Getting that purr down pretty well."

I punched him in the shoulder. "It's your fault. I can't help it. You're out of my league."

His lips suckled at the tender place at the base of my ear, allowing him to get away without comment. I felt rather catlike indeed as I stretched languorously beneath him, arching my back up to meet his chest fully with my breasts. Two could play this game, I thought, a wicked smile curving my lips.

I was rewarded with a barely audible growl from deep in Ranger's chest, seconds before I found myself flat on my back with Ranger firmly inside me. Lord, didn't the man ever get tired? I was going to need health insurance if he was like this every day.

"Think you can manage on your own for the day now, babe?" Ranger asked me, tracing lazy circles over the softness of my belly with his middle finger. He placed a gentle kiss on my navel, then my nose, and finally my lips. "Since you've already made me late for work." The gentle rise of his eyebrow told me he was teasing.

"Guilty," I said, smiling. I'd happily make him late for work every day for the rest of my life.

"Ditto," he said, and his backside disappeared into the bathroom.

Shaking my head at him, I dragged myself out of bed. It was very early, but I felt energized enough. My world had taken on a new light since last night. Amazing what a complete nervous collapse could do for your priorities.

My bags were where they'd been left the night before, and I rummaged around in them for a while before settling on the new black designer jeans and the black camisole. I'd finished getting dressed when Ranger was out of the shower, but for now I wanted to savor just being around him. Doing his usual routine. I had made him late for work, so I doubted he'd linger much.

Rex rushed out of his soup can to blink at me, wide-eyed. That was the morning equivalent to 'Where the hell's my breakfast?' in Hamster, so I dropped a grape and some hamster pellets in his cage. Rex, being the connoisseur that he is, sniffed disdainfully at the pellets before stuffing the grape in his cheek pouch and burrowing back into his can, all without a backward glance at me. "Stupid ungrateful Hamster," I said, smiling at his cage.

I was such a dope.

Ranger emerged about two minutes later, finding me curled up on the couch with a book I plucked off a previously unnoticed shelf. "Find something interesting?"

I showed the title to him. "Criminal law," I said. "Looks interesting."

He came to stand behind me and rubbed his thumbs gently over my collarbone. "It's one of my old college books. Read it." He pressed a kiss to my temple, and I closed my eyes, enjoying the sensations of him being in my space for the sole reason of being in my space. It was a heady feeling.

"I sent for Ella to bring up breakfast," he said over his shoulder as he went to retrieve his mail from the sideboard. "She'll be here in about fifteen minutes if you can hold out that long."

I crouched on my knees, peering at him over the back of the couch. "I'll survive. What about you? Aren't you late for work?"

"I called Tank and filled him in on the situation. The guys can handle this one on their own."

I gulped. "Filled them in?"

This got me the wolfish grin. "Babe."

"So, you didn't fill him in on the whole situation?"

The grin stayed in place, and I scowled at him. I knew he wouldn't humiliate me like that. It was Ranger. I watched him shake his head as he opened his mail, piece by piece, read it, and toss it in the trash. The fact that he didn't shred his personal correspondence before tossing it was a great testament to his trust in me. All I had to do was keep earning it.

"So," I said, "do you think you'd have the spare time to um, you know…"

The eyebrow went up. I flushed. Not the direction I was going!

"What I meant was, do you think you could maybe, um, train me?" The last part came out very small. I think I was losing my nerve.

"Train you?" The sparkle in his eyes had me rolling my own.

"Yes. To be like you. Okay, not entirely like you. I still need doughnuts." When Ranger's mouth tipped up at the corners I knew I had him. "I just want to learn more, I guess." My brain went back to the night before. How terrified I had been. And how small I had felt, powerless to stop it.

I bit on my lower lip. "I don't want to be afraid like that again."

Ranger crossed the room to me and drew me down on the couch with him. I leaned into his chest, enjoying how generous he was being with his emotions. It wasn't likely to last. I knew he was giving me the reassurance I needed to get my feet under me and accept the decision I had made, and it would take its toll on him. His job didn't allow for that kind of extra feeling, but he was doing it anyway.

I traced little patterns on his stomach with my fingers. Without meeting his eyes, I asked the question that had been burning in my heart all morning. "Do you still mean what you said last night?"

"Which part?"

I rolled my eyes, eliciting a small chuckle from him, vibrating my hand on his flat stomach. "That you love me."

"Babe."

I couldn't look at him. Not after last night. A rejection would be too much to take.

His hands came down and wrapped themselves around my upper arms, dragging me up the length of his body so were basically nose to nose. And eye to eye. Damn him.

"I'm going to explain this one more time, so pay attention, Steph. You live with me now. I love you. Beyond that, I can't guarantee much. But I love you, and that will never change. I wasn't free to have you when you were with Morelli, but now you're mine." His index finger slipped up under my chin and he cupped the side of my face. "I'm not letting you go again, Babe. You're mine now."

I couldn't stop myself. "But are you mine? Exclusively?" I winced at the question, but he didn't let me go. I was forced to look back into those deep chocolaty dark eyes one more time. This time they were smiling.

"Babe, I've been yours since the day you got me shot."