Warning Signs

by financebabe

Ranger realizes what he wants out of life just as Stephanie is involved in an accident. Can what they have survive the day to day of life and the adjustments of formimg a life together? A Babe HEA.

3. Good Morning

The characters below are all from the mind of JE. I'm just having fun forcing them to do what we all wish they would do.

Jenny (JenRar) I can't thank you enough for working as the beta on this story. Thank you for your encouragement and gentle corrections.

Chapter 3 – Good Morning

It had been a long time since I'd really necked with a woman. Hell, did they even call it that anymore? Usually, kissing was a quick part of foreplay, a transitional element to lead to sex. But I was in no hurry. Sure, I was hungry for as much of Stephanie as I could get, but I wasn't willing to give up this experience for an orgasm. That was definitely something I never thought I'd say.

Every touch, sound, and taste of her drove me to a frenzy of wanting more, but I knew that once we stopped, it would be hard to recreate this initial experience again, and I was reluctant to see it end.

I had no concept of time, but based on the lighting in the room, I knew it was pushing the dinner hour, meaning we had to have been at this for at least an hour. Damn, in a past life, after an hour, I'd have been searching for a cigarette and my car keys.

The death grip Stephanie had in my hair led me to believe that she felt the same way, too. She would relax enough to run her fingers against my scalp, but I would touch her somewhere, or mark her creamy skin once more, and she would come back to fist my hair again, as though it were somehow the secret weapon that kept her together.

My hand was under her shirt, savoring the silky feel of her skin, when I heard her stomach growling; I knew it was probably the right time to stop for dinner. I wasn't opposed to picking this up exactly where we left off, but I didn't want her to be fighting dueling hungers, out of the fear I might lose out to the beast.

"Babe," I said, stopping the exploration of her collarbone, which I had discovered I had a thing for. Everybody knew about the major female body parts that were erogenous zones, but I'd had no idea how responsive she would be to attention there, and seeing the effect it had on her just energized me to keep going back.

She took a shuddering breath and rested her head on my shoulder, as though she knew we needed to get a hold on ourselves, but didn't want to.

"How about some dinner?" I offered, forcing myself to look at this as an opportunity to meet her needs. They didn't have to all be sexual; if she had a desire, I had this macho drive to be the one that provided for her. And knowing that she was independent and resisted people providing for her made me all the more determined to do it.

It took her a minute to respond, but she eventually found her voice and said, "Okay, but after we're done, I don't have to go back home, do I?"

I pushed my shoulder forward to dislodge her head so she would look at me. "I said forever. By my accounting, forever doesn't end after dinner – hell, forever doesn't end, period."

"Good," she said with a nod. "Then let's eat, and then we can discuss dessert." She hopped up, allowing what she said to hit me.

"I don't have much in the way of sugar in the house. I hadn't really planned out our time, so I wasn't as prepared as I should have been," I confessed, hoping she would understand and cut me some slack, since for once, I'd acted impulsively, instead of planning out every detail.

She turned her head back to look at me and replied, "Who said anything about sugar?" Then her eyes fell to the bulge in my pants I was having no success in convincing to stand down. "I said dessert."

I stood up slowly, wanting to ease into whatever pain in my leg that might come from the change in position. I had to smile, because as I was taking the first few awkward steps, I noticed Steph turn her head to the side and shake it, like a swimmer would if they got water stuck in their ear. I guess we'd been so distracted by what was happening between us that the intrusion of reality took some readjustment.

I pulled a stool around so she could sit in the kitchen with me, but I knew better than to ask for her help. I liked this kitchen and had appointed it well, so I wasn't foolish enough to risk losing it by having her cook with me. I threw some sliced squash, onion, mushroom caps, and eggplant on the stovetop grill and let them roast, while boiling some linguini. In a sauce pan, I brought some low-fat chicken broth to a boil and reduced it down, before throwing in some garlic and basil for flavor. After it began to thicken, I squeezed a lemon into the broth and poured some cream in, as well.

When the pasta was done, I drained it and transferred it back into the pot, poured the sauce over it, and then cut up the grilled vegetables and stirred them in, as well. I served it onto two plates and topped hers with a healthy dose of parmesan cheese.

She looked at the plate skeptically.

"Humor me," I dared her, handing her a fork.

She proved her Italian heritage by masterfully spinning the pasta around the tines of the fork and lifting it to her mouth. Her eyes opened widely, as though she were shocked. "That's surprisingly good."

"You're going to give me a complex," I warned her, tasting my own dinner and feeling pleased with the end result. My mother had taught me to cook, and her lessons had stuck.

"Is there anything you aren't good at?" she wondered.

I shrugged, enjoying the feel of relaxing around her. "I don't know... There's plenty of stuff I haven't tried yet."

It took us an hour to finish an admittedly simple meal, because there seemed to be no limit of things to discuss. I'd always loved to hear her talk, so I asked questions to keep her going, but found that when she turned the tables on me, I was not only willing, but eager to answer her requests, as well.

Stephanie jumped up when we were finished and grabbed the plates, insisting that I let her do the dishes. I made my way to the sink behind her, to dry and put things away as she finished, enjoying the feel of such a domestic task.

I remembered watching my parents do the dishes after dinner, and had even asked my father once why he helped Mama with a job in the kitchen. He'd laughed at me and told me one day, I'd understand when I met the right woman and learned that spending time with her was more important than anything else. So if he had to put his hands in soapy water to do that, it was a small price to pay for spending time with his woman.

I smiled, watching Stephanie tilt her head to the left and scrub at the cheese that had melted, and then dried on her plate. I had been allowing people to call Stephanie my woman for a few years. Hell, I'd even referred to her that way in my mind, and now, I was doing the dishes with her, happy to share such a task, just because it meant I could spend more time with her. I guess my father wasn't the fool I used to think.

When she succeeded in getting the offending cheese off, she swished her hips back and forth a few times, as though performing a little victory dance. Damn, there was so much about her that I didn't know, and every new discovery was only drawing me closer to her. I'd never seen Steph as the "dance in the kitchen" kind of woman, yet as she handed me the wet plate to dry and put away, the smile on her face made me want to devote myself to learning all those secrets and idiosyncrasies that made her uniquely her.

"Your limp is getting more pronounced," she pointed out as I put away the last plate.

I'd been so focused on her, I hadn't noticed it as much until she pointed it out, and then I was abundantly aware of the throbbing.

"It's probably time for me to stretch it out," I reluctantly admitted. "Would you like to see upstairs?"

She glanced over to the area where Tank had dropped her bag when they first walked in, and then nodded, seeming a little unsure. I decided to guess at what she was worried over and told her, "There is no pressure here. If you want to go home later, I'll drive you myself, or I can call Tank to pick you up. And if you'll stay, like I hope you will, there are multiple bedrooms you can choose from."

"Including yours?" she asked with a slightly rosy face, pushing herself past her embarrassment to make her wants known. God, she was an amazing woman—so much stronger than most people realized.

"Especially mine," I assured her, hoping that was where we ended up.

Steph stepped around me to get her bag, and then followed me up the steps to the second floor. I was pushing myself to walk up without slowing down, even when the pain began to really kick in halfway up. I was a proud man and couldn't stand the idea of her thinking of me as weak. If ever there was someone I wanted to be strong for, it was Stephanie.

I stepped back at the landing on top of the stairs and allowed her to pass by me to explore the rooms at her leisure. I leaned against the wall, as though content to let her have her fun while I watched. In truth, I was taking the weight off my leg in the hope that the throbbing would die down quickly.

She returned to stand in front of me and took my hand. "Let's get you in bed before the pain gets any worse."

I started to shrug her words off, despite their truth, until she touched her fingertips to my cheek and said, "Your brow has sweat on it, and there is no way you're out of shape to the point that you can't handle a single flight of stairs, so I guessed it was from the pain."

It hurt my pride that I hadn't hidden it any better than that, but at the same time, there was a comfort in knowing she knew me so well and wasn't pushing me to bed out of some desire to control me, but rather out of a desire to take care of me. It was strange to have a woman just want to care for me, without expecting something in return.

I gave into her wish and began to walk to the master bedroom. "Go do what you need to in the bathroom so that you can stretch out and relax to go to sleep."

After I was done, I came back out to the bedroom and saw her holding a medicine bottle with a dropper in her hand, squeezing out the liquid back into the bottle while watching it intently.

"What are you doing?" I blurted out.

She grimaced and said, "I'm supposed to put two to three drops in my ear a few times each day, but I can't count the drops that I put in, because I can't see it on the side of my head. So I'm trying to judge how much needs to be in the dropper to equal two to three drops."

I limped over and held out my hand. "Or you could put your head on the pillow and let me put it in for you."

She paused, but I waited her out, until she placed the bottle in my hand and shifted so that her injured ear was up.

"You ready?" I asked, but she didn't respond. It wasn't like her to ignore a question, but then I realized she probably couldn't hear me. Her good ear was muffled by the pillow, and the ear that was damaged was all she had to pick up on my voice.

I touched her shoulder and pointed to her ear. She nodded her head, giving me permission to put her medicine in, and I smiled at the fact that we had no trouble communicating, even without words. It was a relief to know we could talk without my typically non-communicative nature getting in the way, but it was equally nice to know that words weren't always needed.

I capped the bottle after putting in her medicine, and then read the label directing her to wait several minutes before moving to allow them to work their way into her inner ear. After setting my watch to indicate when she could get up, I rubbed her back absentmindedly while we waited.

I squeezed her arm after her waiting was finished and motioned that she could get up. She looked down, as though she was embarrassed that I had to help her, so I decided to offer her a little something to ease her worries and said, "When you get back, you can help me with my leg."

I could tell from her expression that she knew I was just offering as a form of turnabout, but she still smiled and accepted the offer.

I stretched out on the bed, glad for the relief, and listened to the sounds of someone else in the house. No one else had visited me here, so it was a new experience. As I heard her turn on the shower and make herself at home, I found that it was comforting, turning it into more of a home than just a place I was staying to pass the time.

I had finally settled into the zone that had eluded me since my mission and savored the feeling of stillness that Stephanie brought to me.

When she opened the bathroom door, I swallowed a lump in my throat. As far as I was concerned, the vision in front of me was the sexiest thing I'd ever seen.

Stephanie was wearing one of my black t-shirts, hanging loosely on her down to her thighs. The moist heat from the shower had brought out the curls in her hair, making it even more uncontrolled than normal, and she was standing there, slightly shy, with one set of pink toes on top of the other foot.

I smiled without a hope of pulling in how I felt to hide it behind a blank face. I pulled the covers back on her side of the bed, and then grinned again when I realized that Stephanie had a side in my bed. Hell, she'd always had one; I'd just been too pigheaded to admit it. Damn, how had the guys kept from telling me to pull my head from my ass?

I turned off the lamp after Steph crawled in beside me and realized that having her that far away wasn't going to work. I needed to touch her. "Come here," I rumbled, before rolling her over and pulling her to my side to draw her against me. We fit like two pieces of a puzzle, and that was how we both drifted off to sleep.

The next morning, I woke to the most wonderful feeling. We'd rolled some during the night, but spooned to my front was Steph's back side. I didn't have to open my eyes to picture how we must look, my dark skin to her light, her smaller frame to my more developed one, and her curls to my straight hair, but pressed together with no space in between. Contradictions at every turn, but that only served to fit us more tightly together.

Of course, thinking about fitting tightly with Stephanie brought up other images, and it was while I was lost in that fantasy that Steph woke up, laughing.

"What is so funny?" I opened my eyes to ask.

She moved her hips and pressed her backside into my crotch. "I see you got up before me," she blurted out, still finding her pun amusing.

I decided to meet her head on and tease a little in return. I pressed my erection to her ass, moved a hand to her hip to hold her to me, and then sucked on the already bruised mark on her neck. "That's right. I was up first, and I've had time to come up with all kinds of ways to start out morning off right."

In the past, anytime I made an allusion to us having sex, she changed the subject quickly, but this time, she seemed to be right there with me. Her hand flew back and grabbed my neck, pulling to keep my mouth on her.

I brushed more of her hair out of my way, and then pulled the neck of the t-shirt so that I could get better access to her, lavishing her smooth skin with attention. She easily turned, moving at a speed that allowed me to continue kissing her, despite her repositioning until she was facing me.

I wasted no time in claiming her mouth with my own. I knew Steph was a great kisser – I'd stolen enough from her at the bonds office on top of what we shared on the sofa last night – but what she was doing to me now was taking it to a whole new level. It's not that her technique was original or she was doing things I'd never heard of before; it was more that everything she felt was being passed along through that connection.

She wanted me; I'd always known that. Everybody that spent any kind of time around us knew that we had chemistry. But our talk last night and how we'd woken up this morning seemed to have freed something in her, and if her current reaction was any indication, I was going to see what else she might have been holding back from me.

While I was lost in thoughts of how damned hot it was to have her receiving my advances head on, she easily pushed me over and climbed on top of me, straddling my waist and pressing her body against mine. She didn't seem to want any kind of distance between us, which suited me just fine. Hell, a little more friction between us is all it would take to set me off like some damn teenage boy.

No matter what was about to happen, I knew I only had so much control, meaning my lasting time might not be what I'd typically be capable of. As her hips began to grind against mine, I decided that while I might not be able to give her much in the way of hold out time, I had stamina on my side and nothing on my calendar, so there was ample opportunity to redeem myself.

"So hard…" she moaned, making me smile.

"All because of you," I teased in return.

She shook her head no, and her words confirmed that I hadn't understood what she meant. "Well, that, too, but it's so hard to hold back."

And wasn't that just exactly where I wanted her, on the brink of losing control so that I could push her over the edge and be there to catch her? "Stop holding back," I commanded, moving my hand from where it had been rubbing her smooth back to her chest, so I could greet those perfect nipples.

She let me push her up so I could get my mouth on her chest, and then she gave me the most intense moan, like I was hitting the perfect spot in exactly the right way. My dick started pulsing, as though reminding me he had a purpose here and it wasn't to stand there, watching the action without participating.

"I can't…" she started, unable to finish the sentence.

The possible endings my mind came up with caused me to release her from my mouth so that I wasn't forcing her into something she wasn't ready for. It might hurt like a bitch, but there was no way I would force myself on Stephanie. Not now, when she trusted me enough to let me in her life. There was no way I was going to screw this up over sex.

Her eyes shot open and looked at me questioningly. "Why are you stopping?" she demanded.

"You said you couldn't do this," I reminded her.

Steph moved her hips again, lowering her body so that the wetness between her legs was now being directly applied to me. I gritted my teeth, needing to tell her what she was saying and what she was doing didn't match up, and I was struggling to just hang on here.

"I said I can't wait, not that I can't do this," she corrected me emphatically, not leaving any doubt about what she wanted.

And there it was; the desperation in her eyes that mirrored my own gave me the permission I needed to move my hips with hers to put the tip of my erection closer to where I wanted it with every shift.

As if we had both reached our breaking point at the exactly the same moment, Stephanie lifted her hips as my hand moved between us to reposition my head at her willing entrance. We both froze, knowing any movement now was going to change everything between us. Sure, we'd had a real discussion last night about how we felt, and for us, it was huge, although I supposed there were still some elements that had been left undefined.

Our eyes locked, and we stayed that way for a few seconds, making our next move even more monumental. This wasn't something we were falling into, to be regretted later as a momentary loss of control. This was an intentional act, by both of us, where we both understood the meaning.

She smiled, softly, as though that thought brought her a measure of joy that she could no longer hold back. Seeing her reaction and thinking that being a part of my life was bringing her this joyful emotion undid me, and my hips began to move again, breaking the dam between us.

As I slid into her tight confines, I knew I had been here before, and I was about as far from a virgin as a man could be, but I was still struck with how different it felt. My torso lifted from the bed so I could be even closer to her. Shit, I had no idea what I was doing. I thought we'd have sex, and it would be amazing, like it had been the last time we'd done this – that it would serve to bring us closer together. Once again, I was proving what a damn fool I was.

I was home inside of her with my arms wrapped around her body to prevent her from moving. My chest was aching again, this time from the feeling that it was so full, there wasn't room for the influx of emotions hitting me. I knew this was it. There was no turning back from this, and there was no moving on to someone new if it didn't work out. Stephanie Plum was it for me, and my heart and mind both knew that what I was feeling in this moment was my new addiction. It was the first time my sexual hunger and my soul were joined, and nothing else would ever suffice for me again.

I pushed the curls away from Stephanie's face so that I could see her and was alarmed to see silent tears streaming down her cheeks.

"Did I hurt you?" I panicked.

She shook her head no and paused, as though she couldn't figure out what to say to explain her emotional reaction. "I didn't know it would be like this." She wrinkled her forehead, as though she hadn't said the right thing, and tried once more. "It's so much more."

"I know," I tried to assure her, relieved that she was as surprised by the overwhelming feeling of us being together as I was.

"What am I going to do if you push me away?" she confessed, attempting to lower her face to my shoulder so I couldn't see her.

Hell, no... I wasn't going to let her hide from that. Mentally cursing the pain in my leg, I rolled us over, still joined, surprising her enough to stay focused on me. "I'm not pushing you anywhere. And I'm not letting you go anywhere," I promised.

I pulled my hips back as slowly as I could manage, while saying, "I'm playing for keeps here – this is forever."

"Forever," she repeated, as though testing out the word and liking the way it felt on her lips.

Then I thrust into her again, grinding my jaw to hold back even with the throbbing of my dick and the clamping of her muscles around me. "Forever," I assured her once my mouth would work again.

She nodded that she understood, and then her mouth dropped open and her head tilted back, as though the pleasure of this moment was too much to handle. It mirrored how I felt completely, so I took that as permission to begin making love to my woman in earnest. She opened her legs wider and wrapped them around me, changing the angle and drawing me farther in.

Then she seemed to get an idea and pushed against me to roll over, allowing her to be on top once more. She shifted the angle again, drawing me in completely. I knew without a doubt that I was touching places in her that had never been explored before, and it hooked something deeply possessive inside of me.

She pushed her upper body up with her arms and met me thrust for thrust, not holding back vocally in letting me know how it felt. It was like having my ego stroked with every movement, only encouraging me to give it to her harder and faster. I was trying to make myself think of anything other than how it felt to be moving inside Stephanie, but she would moan or claw at me with her fingernails, and the mission stats I was trying to bring to mind would fly back out the window, forcing me to focus solely on her.

For the first time in my life, everything I was revolved around this present place and moment in time. It all centered around this person, who was freely loving me and willingly taking me into her heart and her body, despite my past and the potential risk in the future.

I felt the change in her where she went from wanting more, to frantic for it. I moved my hand from her perfectly rounded ass to squeeze between us.

"Ranger!" she screamed, as my fingers lightly rubbed over her clit.

"Oh, God," she added, as her muscles clamped down on me, milking my eruption from me.

I could feel the heat of my cum moving into her and felt that it wasn't just a biological reaction to pleasure, but it was my very heart moving into her body, as well.

She collapsed on top of me, completely boneless and breathing heavy, occasionally squeezing me again or rocking against me once more as she rode out the orgasm passing through her.

I was a planner – a master strategist. I did very few things without having multiple plans in place to make my objective reality. But it appeared that what should have been my most important plan, how I could make this woman my own, wasn't something I could have prepared for. This was so much more than I even thought possible that I never would have imagined this.

I woke up, content and happy to have my woman in my arms. As we'd moved to a place that I believed we were going to have sex, I'd been thrilled. Since I was a physical person, a solid sexual connection was going to be important for me while in a relationship. But what I got only served to nail that point home. Stephanie was an exception to every rule I'd ever held for myself, and this experience just proved that to be even more true.

As I thought about a physical relationship with Steph, I could feel my body beginning to respond. I might have just had my world rocked by this woman, but my body was clearly letting me know it was more than ready for another round.

Stephanie moaned and shook her head, putting me on edge that my self congratulations about what we'd just experienced might have been premature.

"What is it?" I asked, proud of how level my voice was.

She didn't look up to respond. "After that, you'd think I would be satisfied for a long time."

I guessed where she was heading with her comment and smiled at how lucky I was to have a woman whose needs were so well aligned with my own. I moved against her, trying to hint that I was ready for anything she wanted from me. She shocked me by sitting up abruptly, her wild hair flying through the air, as her body was on display for me.

"I've had a long dry spell to make up for," she rationalized, moving her hips against me and pressing her clit against my body, causing her to shiver in response.

I put my hands on her hips to encourage her to keep moving and promised her, "Trust me, Babe. I have no intention of letting you go dry ever again."