If you recognize them, I can't take the credit. :) And a big thanks to Margaret once again for reading ahead and pointing out my flaws.

A small smut warning for this chapter :)

Chapter 10—Miami: Day One

Stephanie's POV

It was always hard saying goodbye to Carlos, even if we were only going to be apart for a few days. It made me sad and I guessed it showed.

"Babe?"

"I'm sorry Carlos," I said swiping at the tears that were beginning to pool in my eyes. I hated that he saw my vulnerability. "I'm going to miss you."

"Just a phone call away Babe. I'll call you every night."

"I know. I just wish you were coming with us."

"Bobby's at the end of his rope, if I leave he'll lose it. You'll be fine; Hector's good company. Maybe he'll take you to a club."

"Bobby's not letting him carry a gym bag, you think he's going to release him to dance?"

"He's going to be checking in with Victor. I happen to know he's not as strict as Bobby. If it looks like the wound is beginning to heal, he'll sign off on a little more strenuous activity."

I knew Carlos was just trying to make me feel better. Somehow I didn't think anyone would be releasing Hector to dance in the next few days so I wondered what other options we could have for fun. Maybe he'd go shopping with me or we could take a boat ride to see manatees in the wild. Um, probably not.

"Come on Babe, we have to get going. I don't want your plane to leave without you."

It wouldn't. Rangeman had fractional jet ownership, it was there at our beck and call and James and Argo were piloting our trip today. Hector would never let Argo take off without me. But instead of fighting with him, I grabbed my purse and jacket and followed him out to the car.

I didn't take a lot with me, a few days worth of clothes and some shoes, so I was happy that Carlos was able to fit my bag in the turbo that had somehow appeared overnight. It was my favorite of all his cars, I loved the illumination in the cockpit and the way I sunk into the buttery leather seats that still had lots of support. Not to mention the car had power…lots of power. And if truth be known, I really didn't want to be seen emerging from a big ass Hummer at the airport, that was just wrong.

Once Carlos buckled me in, I made peace with leaving him for a few days. I was going to be staying in his Rangeman apartment in Miami. I was sure the place still smelled like him, even though we hadn't been there in over a month. Unlike Trenton, it had two bedrooms; Hector was staying in the other. I only hoped he didn't ask me to change his bandages; I was pretty sure I'd pass out if I saw how badly he'd been cut.

Once we got to the airport Carlos pulled up to the tarmac. We were flying private and regular rules didn't apply. He killed the engine and we both just sat there for a minute, looking at each other. Carlos reached for me first. He took my hand and played with my engagement ring before he spoke.

"I'll call you tonight and if we hear anything on Kraven, I'll call right away. If you need me, call my cell. It's always with me."

That I knew. And unfortunately I was getting teary again. Those damn female hormones.

"Walk me out to the plane, I don't want the guys watching us say goodbye." Not that they would purposely, but our little black car wasn't inconspicuous. People always looked at it.

He got out, popped the trunk, which is where an engine would be in a normal automobile, and then opened my door for me. We walked to the plane holding hands. The gangplank was down, but we detoured a little to the left of it so he could take me in him arms and give me a proper send off.

Carlos can really kiss and I have to say this was one of his better ones; I felt unsteady on my feet afterwards.

"I'll call you tonight Babe. Have a good trip."

And with that he led me to the gangplank, squeezed my hand and handed me my bag. I climbed the few stairs into the plane while he watched me from the tarmac. It was probably as hard for him to see me leave as it was for me to go. But business called…for both of us.

"Estefania, you made it," Hector said when I popped into the cabin. "Argo was getting impatient and I was ready to take him into the back and relax him," he added with a wink, giving me way too much information.

I knew they had some sort of unorthodox relationship so I asked a question. "Do you want him to stay with us or does he have to get back?"

"He's working until Friday, is it ok if he stays over Friday night? He's booked to take us back to Trenton Saturday morning and I'd hate for him to have to pay for a hotel."

"Hector, if you want him to stay tonight too, it's ok with me. You have your own room."

"He has a flight from Miami to Wisconsin after he drops us off. He's free Friday."

"Argo is more than welcome anytime, you know that. I've been inviting him out to the house in Belmar for the last year and you always have an excuse. He's more than welcome anytime."

"Tank you, he'll stay with us Friday night."

Who was I to argue with Hector? Argo would stay Friday night. Maybe Hec had other men he saw during the week when he was in Florida, or in Trenton for that matter. I loved him but Hector was a hard read.

Hector's POV

Estefania asked a lot of questions. My life wasn't as simple as a date here, another date there. Yes, I saw Argo when we could get away together but I picked up men at clubs too...and before you give me shit about that, I always use condoms. And I wasn't going to allow any one man to be a part of my lifestyle right now. She didn't understand; Ranger did. It had been his motto too until her met her and became so infatuated with her that he couldn't live without her. I'm not at that point.

I worked on the new app I was designing during the flight. I needed to get it to some of the men so they could beta it next week, I also didn't want to answer any more questions about my relationship with Argo. I guess Stephanie got the message as I saw her take her iPhone out of her bag along with ear buds. Good. Music was good for the soul.

The flight to Miami was quick: two hours and twenty minutes and it seemed as if we arrived in no time. A Rangeman car was at the tarmac as we deplaned. I couldn't help but notice that the driver was Silvio. His shock of white hair was unmistakable. Estefania caught sight of him too and dropped her bag to run to him. Sometimes she was so child-like; no wonder her and Julie got along so well. I picked up her bag from where it fell over and rolled it behind me. Bobby would be furious, not only was I carrying my own bag, I had Estefania's too.

"¿Qué tal?" I asked Silvio as I got closer to the car. (What's up?)

"Nada. ¿Tú? Y no me dan una mierda, lo sé todo sobre el Rey." (Not much. You? And don't give me shit, I know all about the King.)

I guessed he'd spoken with Bobby. I didn't want Estefania to feel left out, so I switched to English and told him about the attack.

"Bobby asked that I take you directly to Victor. He was afraid you may have exerted yourself and opened a stitch."

Bobby was anal to a fault. I was fine. And it was then that I felt something wet on the back of my pants. I knew I didn't loose control of my bladder.

"Estefania, is this blood?" I asked at the same time I pulled my hand back from the area with my answer. I was bleeding again. Shit.

"Hector, you're bleeding! How far away are we?" she called out after confirming the spot wasn't urine.

"Put pressure on the area, we'll be there in five," Silvio said calmly from the front seat. Nothing phased him.

Steph took a tampon from her purse, removed it from its wrapper, then took it out of the plunger. "Hector, use this," she said handing it over. I guess I made a face.

"What? It's clean and it's cotton. You think it's better to apply pressure with a dirty sock? It's not going to hurt you. Take it or I'll do it for you."

Jeez. Let's just say this was the first and last time I was going to hold a tampon. Well at least it wasn't a pad. I undid my belt buckle and popped the button on my cargos. I slid my hand containing the tampon back towards my wound and I applied pressure. Getting rid of this was going to be problematic.

We arrived at Rangeman a minute or so later. I supposed Silvio texted Victor because he was waiting in the lobby as we approached.

"My infirmary, now," he ordered as soon as he spotted me. Estefania already had my gym bag so I followed Victor to the elevator.

He asked me to strip and get on his table. In order to do that I had to relinquish the pressure I was applying to the area, so I pulled the tampon out and looked for someplace to dispose of it.

Unfortunately Victor saw it in my hand. "Got your period, Hector?"

"Fuck you. Stephanie gave it to me," I added hoping that would be enough of an answer. It wasn't.

"So now you girls are sharing tampons?"

If we weren't friends and I hadn't known that Victor had a wicked sense of humor, I would have been offended. But there he was, bent over at the waist, laughing hysterically at his own joke and certainly in no condition to look at my wound.

"Hey, asswipe," I said to get him to pay attention to me, "I could bleed to death over here, get off the floor and tell me what's going on."

"I'm sorry Hector," he said, trying to catch his breath, "I couldn't pass that up, you have no idea how funny it was watching you pull a tampon out of your pants..."

"Enough."

I had indeed popped a couple of stitches, probably when I bent over to pick up Estefania's bag. Unfortunately Victor wasn't able to re-stitch them since they had already started to heal. Instead he fitted the area with strong steri strips to hold the wound together, then covered the area with a large water-proof bandage. I had the feeling people would be using this as an excuse to keep me on light duty and I wasn't too happy about it.

Stephanie's POV

I was sitting with Silvio in his cubicle catching up on things, when Hector reappeared from Victor's infirmary. He didn't look too happy which made me wonder how much damage he'd done.

"Don't ever offer me a tampon again, or I'll make you disappear," he tried for serious, but couldn't hold back the grin. By the time he was done with his story, Silvio and I were both on the floor in tears. God, I wished I saw that in person.

We had an address so we really didn't need to find Maria Padilla, but we did need a little more information on her before we ventured out to try to talk to her.

Silvio took us to the server room where the three of us could spread out with our laptops and try to amass information. We needed to know where she worked, what make and model of car she drove and if we got lucky, whether or not she was currently in a relationship.

The first two were easy. She worked as a waitress in a Columbian hot dog joint: Los Perros, in Hialeah. She'd held that job for just about a year, so chances were good she'd be in work tomorrow. MDDMV had a blue 2004 Toyota Camry registered at the same address we currently had for her. We had the make, model and plate numbers. Good, our luck was increasing.

It would be harder to find out if she lived alone or was in a relationship with anyone. We'd have to talk to her neighbors and chances were good they'd let her know they had been interrogated. Nope, two out of three was all we were going to get today.

That took a few hours, we never broke for lunch and my stomach was starting to rebell. Both Hector and Silvio looked over at me when the long growl escaped.

"Hungry, Steph?" Silvio asked, looking up with a grin on his face.

No, I can't imagine why you'd even think that; of course I was hungry.

"I had Lynn make reservations for the three of us tonight at Perricone's Marketplace. I asked for an outside table at seven. I'm sure we'll get it, Lynn is very persuasive. Will a fruit and nut bar hold you over, Steph?" he asked pulling some Kind bars from a cabinet as he spoke.

That was very sweet of him but I was starving now and a health bar just wasn't going to cut it.

"Pizza?" I asked, scrunching up my nose at the bar in front of me.

"How about we compromise and leave here at five. It's a nice place and I think you'll enjoy yourself. I'll ask Lynn to change the reses."

I could tell he really wanted to take us there, so I opened up the bar in front of me and took a bite.

"Ok. Not bad," I added once I had a chance to taste the dried fruit and nuts.

Our dinner was fine; more than fine, but it felt like a place Carlos would take me to and that made me miss him all over again. We got back to Rangeman around nine; I couldn't imagine what time we'd have gotten back if we kept the seven o'clock reservation. I took a quick shower and checked my messages. Carlos had called twice. I also had a text message from him, 'Is everything ok?'

Instead of texting him back I called. He answered on the first ring, sounding somewhat relieved. I brought him up to speed on Maria, then told him about Hector and the tampon. Something seemed off with him, it wasn't something I could put my finger on like he was distracted by work or testy clients. No it was something else, he barely chuckled at Hector's incident.

"Carlos, is everything ok?" I asked repeating his text to me.

"Is Hector with you or are you by yourself?"

"I'm by myself in your bedroom..."

"Our bedroom."

"Sorry, our bedroom."

"Lock the door Babe." What?

I got up and did as I was told, when I got back to the bed there was an alert and an image in a text message from Carlos on my screen. I opened it to see what he was sending me since the 1/4" square was vague. It was a selfie. And not just any selfie. There was a pretty impressive nine inches that I'd recognize anywhere staring me in the face. Oh my God.

"Carlos?"

"I've been thinking about you."

Obviously.

Another text alert. Another picture. His hand on the impressive nine inches stroking himself. Holy shit that was hot.

"What are you wearing Babe?"

But before I even answered, another request. "Take it off." His voice was now deep and sexy.

"I want you to take off your shirt first and expose your neck to me. I know you like it when I kiss your neck. Is your neck exposed?"

Somehow I was mesmerized by his voice and very turned on. I did as asked and removed my shirt. The cold air conditioning in the room immediately made my nipples hard.

"Carlos my nipples are hard for you," I said, getting in to the act.

"Take off your bra."

I did.

"Lick your finger and run it over your right nipple."

Again I did as I was asked. I moaned as the sensations of touching myself made their way straight to my doodah. Carlos groaned on the other end of the phone and continued his conversation.

"I miss your taste, Babe. Do you like it when I finger your cunt?"

Oh God.

"Carlos, I love when you touch me," I whispered back, almost breathless.

"Take off you pants and touch yourself over your panties," he requested again.

I did. I couldn't hold back another moan as I touched myself; I was already very wet.

My phone buzzed with a message again. I picked it up just knowing it was another picture from Carlos.

It was.

Again his hand on his very erect dick. His finger moistening the tip using his own pre-cum.

Be still my heart. I had an idea. I'd never done this before, but I knew Carlos would like it. I took off my now ruined panties, parted my legs and took a picture. I hit send before I had a chance to change my mind.

I heard the ping through the phone that he'd received my text.

"Beautiful, Babe," he said, his voice sounding labored. "Touch yourself for me, I want to hear you moan as you finger your clit. You know how you like it. Touch yourself for me, Babe. Fuck yourself with your fingers."

"Carlos, I'm getting close."

"Come for me Babe. Rub your clit with your thumb and fuck yourself for me. I want to hear you come."

"Carlos," I let out as I came. "Oh God."

"Babe," I heard, his voice a little trembly. Because I know Carlos, I knew he came too. It was quiet for a few seconds. "I love you, Babe. Sweet dreams," this came out deep and throaty.

"I love you too, Carlos."

"Tomorrow, Babe. Get some sleep."

"You too."

I heard the click of his line disconnecting, but not before I heard him say, "I wish you were lying next to me."