Protecting the King Ch 12
~ ~ Stephanie – Day 9 - morning Thursday ~ ~
Stephanie pushed the sheet down to her waist and stuck one leg out from under it. Lying mostly on her side, she had one leg straight down on the bed, and the other, the one now regulating her temperature, was hiked up at the knee. Ten seconds later, she huffed, raised up onto one elbow and flipped her pillow over. She lay her cheek on the cooler side of the pillowcase, shutting her eyes.
Somewhere after 3:45 a.m. she had promised herself she'd stop looking at the clock each time she woke. All it did was taunt her with how slowly this night was going. No looking. The time doesn't matter. Don't look. The alarm was set so it wasn't like she'd oversleep. No peeking. Don't look. Stop thinking about it. Stop it. Just keep those eyes closed and sleep. Don't look, don't look, don't look, don't –
5:03 a.m.
Dammit. She looked.
Rolling onto her back, she made a noise of frustration and slapped her hands against the mattress. Sleep had been fitful at best but considering how wired she was it was amazing she had slept at all.
She was pretty sure Ranger would be back at Haywood by now. In fact, he'd probably gotten back before midnight. After almost a week in jail, he'd finally be back at Rangeman where he belonged. Back in his penthouse on the seventh floor. Back in his bed with the deliciously luxurious sheets. The shower gel with the heavenly scent. She had wanted to be there waiting for him, ready to welcome him home the minute he stepped through the door.
Lester, who had an annoying habit of being reasonable, had pointed out that in many ways, for Ranger this ordeal was similar to when he went into the wind. There was a constant level of stress, heightened tension, always on guard for enemies seen and unseen, always planning, running scenarios in his head. Lester then very kindly reminded her that the standard procedure for anyone returning from the wind, whether it was Ranger or one of the Rangemen, was to take time alone to decompress. The good news for both her and Ranger was that decompression time was usually proportionate to the length of the op, and this was a short one.
"Let him have a few hours of decent sleep, Beautiful," Lester had said, "before you go say hello. When you get there, proceed with caution. Take a minute to get a feel for where he is in the whole process. How unwound he is." Lester hesitated then added, "You should know that he was … dismayed that the video was posted and that may affect the time he needs to unclench properly."
With that, he had given her a quick hug and headed out to the state prison for his part in last night's dramatics.
Lester might have been the biggest goofball of all the Rangemen, but he could also be the most diplomatic. She had noticed the very long pause before he'd said 'dismayed '. Stephanie had the feeling that the delay meant he really didn't want to discuss what was actually said and was searching very carefully for the right word that would convey Ranger's meaning without triggering any questions from her.
The more she thought about that drawn out pause, the more certain she was of what Lester hadn't said. Ranger was pissed. She knew that he hadn't wanted the video used. Hadn't wanted her to be involved at all. She had ignored Lester, defied Ranger, hunted down the video, and posted it. Ranger was not accustomed to having his orders ignored. So. Lester didn't want to let on that Ranger was angry. Okay. But how angry was he? And how much of it was pointed at her? Those two questions were part of what had kept sleep out of her reach.
5:17 a.m.
Dammit! She looked again!
Screw it. Stephanie threw back the covers and headed into the bathroom. She'd shower and toss on some nice jeans and a shirt and just tiptoe up to the seventh floor and peek in on him. Make sure he was there. Make sure he made it home. It'd be a quick in and out, with no one the wiser. Well, no one except whoever was on monitors. And whoever was manning the reception counter at the front door. And anyone she ran into on the way up to … you know what? Just stop thinking about it and do it.
And once she made sure that Ranger was back where he belonged, she could zip home and take a nap. The meeting about Cartman wasn't scheduled until 11:00 a.m. since no one had known exactly how long the confrontation at the prison would take or how long Ranger would need for his first real sleep in a week. So, tidy up, run to Haywood, peek, run home, nap, run back to Haywood for the meeting. Later, after Cartman was out of the way, Steph and Ranger could finally have their discussion about Someday. Sounded like a plan to her.
It was just after 6:00 a.m when she pulled into the parking garage at Haywood. She exchanged nods with Ramon who was stationed in the lobby and headed straight to the elevator. The doors opened the instant she pushed the button and her ride to seven was uninterrupted.
She clicked the fob to unlock the door and slipped inside, pausing a second to let her eyes adjust to the dimness of the small night light in the entryway. It was too dark to see much of the living room straight ahead, but she was fairly sure it was empty. She held the knob to close the door quietly. The rest of the apartment was so silent that she heard the refrigerator humming to itself in the kitchen to her right. Beyond that was a low steady undertone that she thought might be the ceiling fan in the bedroom to the left. If that was on, then he was here.
It finally occurred to her that she was essentially sneaking up on a highly trained special forces operative who'd been, as Lester had reminded her, on high alert for a week. Surprising him might be a very bad thing. His training could have him reacting with lethal force to the presence of an intruder before he realized it was her.
Suddenly, she understood what Lester had meant by taking a minute to gauge where Ranger was in the whole decompression process. Leaning against the door, she stared at the tile floor, thinking hard about whether she should continue or turn around and leave. She reached back and to the side and grabbed the doorknob.
"Babe."
Startled, she raised her head and did a full-body flinch. He was a vague silhouette in the bedroom doorway, a dark shape against a darker opening. How could she gauge his temperament when she couldn't see his face? It wasn't too late to leave, was it? Crap. It was. The moment stretched out and she couldn't think of anything to say and even if she had, she couldn't say it. Uncertainty had crept in and stolen her voice.
"Were you looking for me or did you come over to hang out in my foyer?"
Letting go of the knob, she made a show of looking around her at the walls, the console table, and the floor. 'Well, you have to admit, it is a pretty good foyer."
It wasn't the words that had broken her paralysis but the way Ranger had said them. She couldn't see his face but she could picture it. There wasn't enough amusement in his tone for him to have the almost-smile where both corners of his mouth tipped up just a bit and his eyes lit up. But it wasn't harsh, either, so he didn't have that tense set to his mouth and the hard eyes. No, he sounded pleased to see her but tired. One corner of his mouth would have the tiniest hint of a tilt to it and his eyes would have that crease that meant he might need to start thinking about maybe taking a break later, possibly.
The dark person-shaped outline left the bedroom doorway, moving toward her. The closer he got, the more the dim light revealed. He was wearing the face she had pictured and his black silk boxers. The rest was warm dark skin. The light cast shadows highlighting the muscles in his abdomen, chest, and legs. She could see the muscles in his calf bunching and releasing as he walked up to her, bringing the scent of Bvlgari. He halted an arm's length away and waited.
Stephanie let out a shaky breath and admitted, "I had to make sure you were here. That you'd made it out okay. I was going to take a peek and go home. I'm sorry I disturbed you."
Instead of answering, he stepped into the kitchen and flipped on the indirect light under the cabinet. It was bright enough to see each other clearly, but kept the same intimate feel as the nightlight.
Ranger pulled a glass from the cabinet and filled it with water from the tap. He held it toward her and raised one eyebrow. Stephanie nodded and accepted the glass. He filled another for himself. When he leaned his hip against the counter, she mirrored him. For a few minutes they faced each other, sipping their water. Stephanie marshaled her thoughts and assumed he was doing the same.
"You didn't disturb me."
Stephanie was surprised that he was the one to break the silence but relieved by his declaration.
"I'm glad you're here. Although," he set his glass on the counter then crossed his arms over his chest, "Santos had some interesting reports for me regarding the participation of the one person that I specifically ordered him not to involve."
While it might not have been phrased the way she'd expected, this was one of the points she thought he might make. Stephanie had come up with a response to this.
"Ranger, you have always supported and defended me. It's only right that I do the same for you. Besides, you owe me dinner. I had to get you out of jail or we'd never get to talk about Someday."
Okay, all that practice went right out the window. Saying it to his face was daunting, making her delivery stilted. She flashed a quick smile at him, but couldn't hold it, too nervous even to fake the confidence she needed for this conversation. At least the glass of water disguised the trembling in her hands.
"Apparently, Santos failed to make it clear that the objective could be achieved through other means."
Something flashed over Ranger's face as he spoke. Despite the water she'd drunk, it made her mouth go dry. Shit. Her fingers clutched the glass tighter. She knew that she had been flirting with trouble when she went off on her own, but it hadn't occurred to her that the hammer might come down on Lester, too. The least she could do was correct his impression and defend her friend.
"Lester did tell me to stay out of it, more than once."
"If he'd done his job and followed my orders, you wouldn't be in the public eye right now."
Oh yeah. He was ticked.
"His job was to find out what was going on, and that's what he did," she insisted.
It was one thing if he wanted to yell at her. She was the one who caused the fuss, after all. But she would not let him criticize Lester. She'd seen for herself the strain he'd been under, as well as the effort he'd put in to clear his cousin's name. Ranger started to reply but she held up her free hand to stop him.
When she'd imagined all of the ways this conversation could go, she'd had to analyze the situation to some degree before she could come up with, and practice, her counter-arguments to anything he might bring up. She'd ended up with some half-formed idea of checkers versus chess that made sense in her head but she wasn't sure if she could describe it to someone else. She'd have to try, though, for him to understand her position.
"What we do is hard and can be unpredictable but it's unpredictable in specific ways. An FTA with a non-violent background suddenly pulls a gun or a knife. Or a usually-violent skip decides to come quietly. Someone who always shows up at one bar at noon suddenly starts showing up at a different bar at dinner time."
Since he didn't interrupt she continued.
"It's kind of like playing a simple game of checkers. You've got your men on the board and they're out capturing the opponent's pieces and it all flows along in a certain way. But this whole thing with the murder of that guy, how it was done, that didn't fit any of the rules of the game. Which means that you couldn't come at it like you usually do."
He raised one eyebrow and made a rolling motion with one hand. A few words from him would have been nice but at least he was willing to listen.
"It's like –" Stephanie had to pull her thoughts together. How could she explain it clearly? "It's like you're looking at the black and white squares of a game board. You think that you're playing another game of checkers like you always have. Then something happens far out of the usual rules that changes your perspective. This isn't checkers anymore. Your opponent is playing chess and not only have they gotten a head start but they've got the next few moves mapped out.
"So you can't keep playing like it's checkers. You have to up your game as well and also switch to chess. Lester knew that. And in chess all the players on the board move in different ways but they are all there to protect the king. And that's what happened here." The hand holding her glass gestured downward.
"Lester got all the different pieces together and he played each piece according to their rules. Informants are the lowest level pieces, the pawns, and they were the first pieces to be activated. He got the ATF and the Trenton police and even people at the prison to help, too. But all the law enforcement pieces are held back by specific rules. Let's call them the knights. Your Rangemen have more latitude but there are still limits. They're the rooks, or maybe bishops." She nibbled at her bottom lip, trying to remember how each of those moved on the board, then waved a hand dismissively. "One of those. Anyway, then there's me. I go by a completely different set of rules than anyone else involved in clearing this up."
"That would make you the queen in this analogy," Ranger said. As he listened, his expression had lightened. "The queen moves around the board as she pleases which is something you seem to excel in."
Her cheeks flushed in response to the wry tone in his voice. At least he didn't sound upset but she still felt the urge to divert his focus from her.
"Everyone that knows you has personally helped out, Ranger. Even Joe helped clear your name."
He gave her the facial equivalent of a double eye-roll "Morelli was there to take down a dirty cop. For him, clearing my name was an unfortunate side effect."
She frowned at him. "Not true and not the point. The point is that people who know you, know that you were innocent, and they all chipped in to help. Even Grandma Mazur's friend Millie Debrowski was happy to help you."
His eyes narrowed. "Do I want to know what your grandmother's friend did?"
If he were anyone else, she would say she heard a note of mild concern.
Stephanie smiled. "She's a volunteer at the animal rescue where I found our video."
Oh no. Back to frowning again. Well, for him it was frowning. On anyone else it would be a case of Resting Slightly-Disgruntled Face.
"According to Lester, you took it straight to Cartman," Ranger said. "When she told you that your testimony was hearsay and the video inadmissible, didn't you question that?"
"Well, she pinged my Spidey Sense, but … I mean .." Stephanie sighed, aware of how dumb the next bit sounded now. She fidgeted with the glass, circling one finger around the rim over and over again. "I thought she might be evil but I didn't realize that she was a liar, too. So I took matters into my own hands."
Now that was an outright frown: corners of the mouth turned down, lips pressed tightly together.
"Why would you do that, Stephanie? You put yourself up for ridicule. I didn't want you to go through this. I know how the small minds of the Burg gossip mill work. I know they're tearing you apart right now." Ranger paused, his eyes searching her face. "What did your mother say?"
A deep breath in. Slowly release it. Couldn't she stay in denial about the consequences for just a little longer? Then again, a week ago, after taking Grandma to Bingo Man's viewing, hadn't she been all in favor of finally behaving like the adult she was? Of making hard choices in a mature and responsible manner? Time to face this.
"Based on the 22 missed calls and 13 unheard voicemails in the first 24 hours after it was posted, probably a lot. But that's her issue not mine. I told Val to tell her I'd explain it all later."
When Stephanie told Val that, she was hoping that later would turn into never, as if this would all blow over if she ignored it long enough. It was a move straight out of Stephanie's childhood playbook. She'd held onto the strategy even though years of practical application had proved that waiting usually made things worse. Time to update the playbook and change from waiting to confonting. Another deep breath and she told him the rest while acknowledging it herself.
"That's just from Mom. My voicemail is full. There are a few dozen more missed calls and texts mostly from numbers I don't recognize. And I've gotten, um, let's just say 'comments' from people the couple of times that I've been out in public. Some of those have been strangers." She could hear the tremor in her voice when she admitted, "I guess they recognized me from the video."
Ranger gritted his teeth, swearing under his breath, then held her gaze. "That's exactly what I was trying to avoid. I could have gotten out of this without exposing you like that."
If it was anyone else, she would have said they sounded exasperated. But this was Ranger. Mr. Stoic McBlank-Face. Mr. Tightly Wrapped. Unless … maybe this was part of their Someday? One of the things he had wanted to discuss before all this happened? After all, being a couple is getting to know each other and you can't do that if one of you is hiding behind a mask.
Maybe, just like she'd had a revelation about finally growing up, he'd had one about finally letting her see behind the mile-high walls he'd built around himself. Let her see who he really was. Somehow that helped reinforce her decision to deal head-on with the fallout from spreading the video instead of hiding from it in Denial Land so she continued.
"But how long would it have taken?" Stephanie asked. "Weeks? Months? Longer? And the whole time you'd have been sitting in jail with some of the same criminals you've taken in over the years while someone conspires to destroy you and everything you've worked so hard to achieve."
"Damn it, Stephanie." Ranger clenched his hand into a fist then flexed his fingers out to release it. "I've made a career out of safeguarding those who deserve it, whether it's directly through bodyguarding or indirectly by taking out threats against them. I don't need anybody in danger because of me. I don't need you to protect me, especially from the small fry in the Trenton PD holding cells."
"Why is it so difficult for you to believe that you deserve to be protected?" A drop of water splashed out of her glass when she set it down hard on the counter. Now she was getting exasperated. "I'm not talking only about the small fry, but the bad guys you'd run into in prison while we tried to uncover whoever it was that targeted you to begin with. I mean, we know who it was now, but at the time I uploaded that clip I didn't. And there was video evidence against you. I know it was manufactured but a jury might believe it. Hell, half of Trenton fell for it.
"And then you were denied bail and I could tell that nobody saw that coming. Connie told me that Vinnie was flabbergasted and she was completely blindsided as well. And bail is a simple, basic part of any case and if that went to hell, how much worse would the hard parts be?"
Stephanie spoke with a deep and utter conviction. It welled up inside her, manifesting as a stern voice and a ramrod straight spine. Never had she felt so strongly about anything.
"So if turning myself into a public spectacle was what it would take to get those charges dropped, then hell yeah, I'm doing it." She poked her finger into his chest to emphasize her point. "If my family disowns me, so be it. If my friends turn their backs on me, then they weren't my friends to begin with. I knew that would probably happen and I didn't care. I still don't. You are the only thing that matters to me."
His eyes stared into hers. She thought she heard a hint of uncertainty when he said, "You really mean it. You'd go to those lengths to defend me even if it means losing your friends and family?"
Without pausing to think, she blurted out, "I love you. Of course, I'm gonna defend you like that. I'll do anything for you. Anything."
Eyes wide, Steph clapped her hands over her mouth as if she could pull the words back in or maybe stop any more from coming out. A lesser version of that heart-pounding stomach-flipping feeling that she'd gotten when posting the clip came over her now. Oh crap. She'd kept that in for so long that saying it aloud was alarming and saying it directly to him, especially in the absence of their Someday discussion, felt like the beginning of one of the worst kinds of nightmare, the one filled with all varieties of social anxiety.
A subtle smile graced Ranger's lips as he lifted one hand, lightly outlining her face at the edge of her hairline. His eyes were soft as he tucked a strand of hair behind her ear with a barely whispered, "Babe". If she hadn't seen his mouth move, she would have thought she had imagined hearing it.
He brushed her hands away from her face then leaned in to touch his lips to hers. He lingered a moment then pulled away. It was chaste and delicate and full of meaning. It was the sweetest kiss she had ever received and she wanted one like it every day for the rest of her life.
"You've never said that before," he murmured. "Even after I've said it to you. Instead you'd look panicked, like you do now."
It was true. She did panic. She'd always been awkward with boys in high school and college. She could kind of flirt but wasn't sure if she was doing it right or what she should do if someone showed interest. She didn't have the confidence to go for what she wanted.
Matching him, Stephanie spoke quietly. "What, so you'd try to lighten the impact by adding qualifiers? Not relationship material? No ring but a condom?"
The thumping of her heart was easing up, no longer shaking her sternum with every beat. He cupped her jaw in his hand. The masculine scent of him mixed with the scent of Bvlgari then combined with the feel of his warm skin on hers simultaneously soothed her nerves and made other bits of her start to tingle. She could get used to this. This closeness. She hoped she'd have the chance to get used to it.
"I was …" He paused, then sighed. "Trying to manage expectations." He dropped his hand from her face to caress her shoulder. "This is part of what I wanted us to talk about, to make sure you really understand what Someday entails."
The panic was ebbing and that confidence from a few minutes before was rolling in, giving her the nerve to reply.
"Okay, we can have that talk now, but only if you accept that what's done is done with the video." She raised her hand to poke her finger at him again, but found herself pressing her palm flat against his chest. She could feel the faint beat of his heart, faster than expected. "I had good reasons for what I did based on what I knew at the time. Maybe if you'd at least have kept me in the loop, the outcome would have changed. But we have to deal with what is, not what we wish it had been."
It took the space of six and a half heartbeats for Ranger to respond. His chin jerked down once and she was flooded with relief that he had agreed to move on from the subject of the video.
Stepping away from the counter, Ranger slid his hand over her shoulder, continuing down until it was at her lower back. She found herself moving without thinking at his touch. He guided her to the sofa in the living room, settling her into one corner of it. He turned on the lamp on the end table then sat at an angle next to her, their knees touching. He took one of her hands in his, resting their joined hands on his thigh.
There was a hesitance that she hadn't seen before. Could it be? Could Batman have his own set of insecurities? His own bad experiences? He was Batman, for cripes sake. He was the hottest, sexiest guy in Trenton or anywhere else. He had women throwing themselves at his feet all the time. All. The. Time. She'd seen it with her own eyes more than once. Way more than once.
He licked his lips before speaking. "The demands of the career I've chosen won't allow the usual routine. There's no nine to five at the office, home for dinner, weekends off. I'm essentially on call 24/7, not to mention leaving with only a few hours notice due to training or deployment. I'm not saying that my marriage to Rachel could have survived if I'd had a regular job, but the deployments were definitely a factor."
His face was in neutral as he opened up about his past romantic history. Stephanie thought about how hard this kind of disclosure would be on her and understood it would be hard for him too. She made an effort to listen attentively because that was what she would want if she were the one speaking.
"After that,'' he continued, "I tried dating, tried to find someone to be with. Someone who'd be okay with the lifestyle: the missed dates, the sudden absences, the need for secrecy. Each time I was upfront with what being with me would entail. Some women noped out after a date or two. Others hung in a little longer. The ones that stayed were fine with it right until they weren't.
"Sometimes I'd get the courtesy of a face to face break-up. More than once, though, I came back to find a note or a voicemail or I got a text and I was alone again. That comment about the ring and condoms? That came from something the last woman I tried to have a relationship with said."
The hand holding hers would tighten its grip when he spoke about being rejected then ease up again. It squeezed the most at that last bit.
"What did she say?" Maybe she shouldn't interrupt, but Stephanie couldn't leave that hanging out there. She found herself getting indignant on his behalf.
His face went full-blank. Her hand was now between both of his, his thumb rubbing the back of her hand.
"We'd been seeing each other for a few months. During that time, I'd been called away several times for short ops, nothing dangerous, but I'd had to cancel plans with her each time. The last cancellation was a weekend trip she had really been looking forward to. She was upset. Angry. Told me to call the commander back and ask to postpone." He shook his head in disbelief as he recounted his girlfriend's reaction. "I couldn't even stay to work it out because I had to meet the transport at a specific time per orders"
His gaze shifted from her eyes to over her shoulder. Stephanie could tell he was caught in the memory.
"When I got back five days later, I went to see her, intending to ask her to move in with me. I was thinking that if we lived together at least she'd see more of me when I was home. I thought that might help. It made her madder. She said no. I asked if she was holding out for marriage. And she … she laughed. She said I was already married to the government so offering a ring to her would make me a bigamist. I'd also be a liar because I'd always put my oath to Uncle Sam ahead of my marriage vow to her. That unless I made drastic changes, I'd never be anyone's idea of relationship material.
"Before she walked out, she said instead of a ring I should offer condoms to make sure no one else got stuck with a 'disappearing baby daddy' like me." He swallowed hard. "Since she knew about my failed marriage to Rachel and my daughter Julie, that was a direct hit."
Holy crap! What an awful thing to say to him! Stephanie was outraged on his behalf. She was so angry that she wanted to hunt down that woman and punch her in the face. She could feel the hurt emanating from him. It didn't show on his face or in his voice so others might miss it, but not Steph. No wonder he always held back. He'd been told over and over that he wasn't wanted as a partner. That he was good for a fun time but too much effort, too much trouble, for anything steady. Her heart hurt for him.
Then she thought about how her previous experiences in high school, college, and beyond had fed her own sense of inadequacy. And how that, in turn, had affected how she responded to his overtures.
Oh crap. What had she done? What had she been doing to him the past couple of years? She had another epiphany, similar to the one she'd had the night her car broke down. That was when she'd recognized that he would brace himself when asking where she wanted him to take her.
Now that she knew his dating history, she realized what her choices must have felt like to him.
She would let Ranger touch her, kiss her, even make love to her, and then she walked away or went back to Joe. That was all entirely due to her own insecurities but from Ranger's point of view, she was inadvertently reinforcing that rejection of him as anything but a bed-partner.
No wonder he'd been reluctant to let down his guard and open up to her. He would always be her hero, her Batman, but he was as human as everyone else. Their insecurities had different root causes but the end result was the same. Neither of them had thought they were good enough for the other. How ironic, she thought, and doesn't that just make us the perfect pair?
Impulsively, Stephanie slipped her arms under his, pulling him into a hug. Her face fit perfectly into his neck and her hands rubbed his back. His arms wrapped around her. He leaned his cheek against the top of her head, inhaled deeply and slowly breathed out. His breath stirred her hair and was warm against her scalp.
"That was mean and spiteful and totally wrong. If I ever find her," Stephanie said to his neck, "I'll beat her up for you."
She could hear the smile in his voice when he replied, "Maybe just spit in her milk and tell her she's ugly."
That made her laugh and his chest bounced as he laughed as well. They held each other even after the laughter faded. A sense of peace filled her, made her feel lighter. She felt safe in his arms.
"I'm sorry you went through that." Without letting go, Stephanie pulled away to look him in the face. "I get that you have crazy hours. So do I. It doesn't take marriage to make a commitment. I really don't want to do the former again but I'm more than willing to do the latter. Condoms get a big 'hell yeah' from me because I don't want kids." She thought for a moment. "I would like to know how much longer you have on your government contract."
"Five months, two weeks, and four days. Keep in mind that any mission I go on could last longer than the expiration date of that contract. They could wait until the last day of the contract then deploy me and I'll be gone for however long it takes whether it's two days or two years"
Okay. That was kind of disheartening in some respects and from the resigned sound of his voice, he felt that way too. But at least she was aware of the possibility now. It would probably be best to focus on the positive side, that the upcoming expiration date was less than six months away.
"I have to admit, it used to bother me when you dropped out of sight then popped back in again. But that was before I learned what being 'in the wind' meant. And then you started giving me a heads up if you had enough lead time which helped. Plus, I can bug Tank for updates. And, I guess, I've gotten used to it." Stephanie sat back, running one hand across his side to his abdomen then up over his pectorals. "That doesn't mean that I don't worry about you. I do. I know that you're the biggest, smartest badass out there, Ranger, but I worry."
"Carlos," he said. "When it's just us, please call me Carlos. I'd love to hear my name come out of your mouth."
Stephanie smiled. "Okay, Carlos. I will, Carlos."
Hoo-boy. He wasn't kidding about wanting to hear her say his name. A sharp intake of breath. A sensual heat that flared in his half-closed eyes. Ranger was a portrait of desire and that sparked a matching heat in her.
Emboldened, Stephanie framed his face in her hands and lightly kissed his mouth then whispered, "Carlos." She ran her fingers into his hair with one hand then kissed along his jaw whispering his name after each press of her lips. He shuddered and his mocha latte skin flushed. Her other hand trailed down his chest. The heel of her hand stroked across his nipple and she felt it tighten against her palm. She whispered his name again and again into the flesh across his collarbone.
One of them, she wasn't sure which, made a noise deep in their throat somewhere between a growl and a purr and Ranger snapped. His arms gripped her tightly to him, his mouth ravaging hers and she greedily responded. She found herself panting, her pulse roaring in her ears as a wave of arousal bubbled up within her. There was a deep insistent need between her legs and her nipples ached to be touched.
Ranger dragged her into his lap to straddle him, her knees gripping his hips as he slouched down into the couch cushions, pulling her with him. She felt the hard length of him through her jeans and the scant cover of his black silk boxers. Pressing her core down, she rolled her hips against him. She gasped and fell forward, leaning on him for support, as the motion sent a flash of pleasure through her so intense that she lost control of her limbs. Ranger let out a ragged groan that vibrated his chest and his whole body quivered, his breathing uneven.
She broke off the kiss and breathlessly announced, "We're gonna do this. And it's gonna be good."
~ ~ Author's Note ~ ~
This is the chapter that has all three lines of dialogue from the challenge on the Janet Evanovich Fan Fiction group on Facebook as well as the visual prompt.
Dialogue:
"Why is it so difficult for you to believe that you deserve to be protected? "
"I love you. Of course, I'm gonna defend you like that."
"I'll do anything for you. Anything."
Visual Prompt:
An image of chess pieces on a chessboard. The image text reads: "Every man needs a woman when his life is a mess, because just like in a game of chess, the queen protects the king."