Chapter 8
A week had passed since they arrived at the bunker and Stephanie felt as if she were slowly going out of her mind. Ranger kept to a regular schedule, rising at five each morning to work out. She became accustomed to waking to his watch alarm and feeling him pull reluctantly away from her body. Afraid to question whether he took her in his arms late at night when he finally came to bed or if he pulled her to him in dreams, she always feigned sleep when he awoke.
Stephanie would wake two hours later and have a bowl of dry cereal and a cup of coffee as Ranger began making calls. Once finished, she would do her mile on the treadmill. Ranger would come out of the office, push the coffee table out of the way and work on defensive maneuvers with her. He trained her patiently and emotionlessly. Each day, he would put her in a different hold and teach her several counter moves to break them. He would put her in the same hold over and over again until she either met with success or was at the verge of tears with her failure. He was always encouraging, but not as a lover or a friend would be. In those moments, he was just her trainer.
After their session, Stephanie showered while Ranger returned to his office where he would hole up for the better part of the day. Feeling so detached from the outside world, Steph would spend the hours up until lunch watching national cable news. There were no local channels so she still had no idea where they were. She wanted to ask Ranger but thought better of it; if he wanted her to know, he'd tell her.
Ranger would join her for lunch and she was so lonely, she would try to engage him in conversation. Questions about how things were going with his due diligence and reconnaissance work were met with noncommittal grunts or silence. If she brought up current events, he would pick up the ball and try to engage her in a discussion, but before long it would become obvious to Stephanie that her knowledge of world events, government policy and history was vastly less significant than Ranger's. She'd muddle her way through the conversation just to bask in human interaction and then eventually let the subject drop.
When lunch was over, Stephanie would go to their room and journal. She had never done it before, never thought she had the time and didn't see the purpose. Now she had all the time in the world. She didn't write about how they got there, that the bunker was under a school, or how Ranger kept in contact with the outside world. Instead she used her journal as a means of self-exploration. She'd written four pages on the differences between loneliness and being alone. As a lark, she wrote lists of pros and cons of being isolated from the outside world. The way her life was, sometimes she thought the world was a safer place when she wasn't actively participating in it. And being cut off from her mother could sometimes be considered a good thing.
She wrote three pages pontificating why she married Dickey Orr. Eight pages were dedicated to the unhealthy patterns of her relationship with Joe Morelli. She also wrote him a letter of apology she was sure he would never see.
Whenever she thought she might write about Ranger, her hand would hover over the page while she tried to formulate the thoughts she wanted to express. Sometimes she wanted to write about all the actions and deeds he had done regarding her over the years that had built this chasm between them. But then she'd think about her own actions toward Ranger and she didn't have the heart to cast blame.
Other times she wanted to write about the unfamiliar feelings that came over her when she really thought about the ways he'd shown his love for her. He was generous with his cars, his money and his time. But looking back, she realized he had told her he loved her many times with only his eyes. His dark eyes were filled with rage and pain when she fell out of Stiva's cabinet and he thought she was dead. She remembered the regret and love she saw in his eyes when he looked at her just before he turned to Scrog. Those same chocolate eyes spoke of fear and longing when he told her, "I'm not emotionally distanced from you."
She looked over at the edge of the bed and could picture him there, as he was a week ago, trying to tell her how to respond to a rape. Hunched over, head in his hands while he took deep breaths to forestall either emotion or nausea.
Today she wanted to write him a letter. She decided that if something horrible should happen to her, she wanted him to know unequivocally how she felt. But how do you tell someone that the moment they came into your life, you felt like the world went from black and white to a kaleidoscope of color? How do you tell them that when they are gone for weeks at a time, you feel the weight of their absence settle heavy in your chest to the point that you can't breathe? How do you find the courage to tell them? What if they don't want to know?
"Steph?"
She startled and looked up from where she was sitting on the bed, the open notebook on her lap. Ranger was looking down at her from the doorway, his face blank but his eyes were soft.
"Why are you crying?"
"I—I didn't know I was." Tucking her chin to her chest, she quickly wiped her face.
He slowly walked to the bed and sat down in front of her. Reaching toward her face, he tipped her chin up with his index finger. She tried looking into his eyes, but she couldn't. She felt him studying her while she looked at a point over his shoulder.
"Look at me, Babe."
When she refused to comply, he let out a sigh and dropped his hand. "Is this making you cry?"
She flicked her eyes down when she felt the light pressure of him dragging his fingers back and forth across the open notebook. She knew the page was blank, but that didn't stop her from jerking the notebook into her stomach defensively.
"Babe, I would never invade your privacy like that."
She sniffed and wiped at her face again. Almost inaudibly she said, "I wrote Joe a letter yesterday."
He said nothing but she knew he was watching her, waiting for her to continue.
"He … we're not together anymore and I wanted to apologize to him for dragging things out as long as I did."
Ranger held his silence so she plowed on.
"I wanted to write you a letter."
"Babe?" He took her hand in his, his thumb tracing patterns on her skin. "I'm right here."
Looking down at the contrast of their hands, she whispered, "I wanted to write you a letter just in case."
His thumb stilled. "In case what?"
"In case something happens to me."
"I'm not going to let anything happen to you."
"Then why are you training me?"
He didn't answer.
Pulling her hand from his, she scooted across the bed to lay her journal on the nightstand. When she turned back, Ranger was looking across the room at the notebook. Realizing she was watching him, he returned his focus to her and said, "You've been in here over an hour."
Confused, she said, "I always journal after lunch. Then I take a nap. You know that."
"But you didn't write anything."
"Maybe I already turned the page."
"The cap is still on your pen." He plucked the pen off the quilt and held the evidence in front of her at eye level before tossing it unerringly to land on the notebook.
She maneuvered up the bed toward the center and curled up with Ranger's pillow, her eyes focused on the closet door across from her. "There isn't any way to say what I want to say."
A minute of silence ticked by. Then two. Gracefully, he rose from the end of the bed and toed off his boots, then bent to tug off his socks. Standing straight again, he peeled off his shirt and tossed it on the dresser.
Walking around the bed, he climbed in behind her. He let out a sigh and said, "Can I hold you?"
She nodded once and he wasted no time wrapping an arm around her waist and pulling her body into his. Placing a tender kiss on her shoulder, he burrowed his nose into her neck. He whispered, "Thank you."
She realized Ranger had no idea that she knew he held her when she slept. It broke her heart a little to know that he hadn't been holding her because it was just a natural sleeping position for a man and a woman sharing a bed or because he thought she needed to be held. He just wanted to hold her. He needed to hold her. He was afraid she wouldn't let him so he waited until she was asleep.
Stephanie asked, "Do you ever wonder if you'll find true happiness in life?"
He paused only a moment at her strange non-sequitur. "I don't believe true happiness is something anyone experiences as a constant."
"What do you mean?"
"No one lives a life in a state of constant happiness, Steph. That's life."
"Okay."
"You don't have to sound so dejected, Babe. I have happy moments."
"Not whole days? Just moments?"
He thought on that for a while. "I'm sure I had a whole day where I was happy at some point in my life."
She yawned. "Jesus, that's depressing."
"Wait. I have something."
"Can't wait to hear this."
He gave her a brief squeeze and rested his chin on her shoulder. "I was happy the whole day after the shower rod incident."
She elbowed him lightly and said, "Be serious."
"I am. Ask Tank. Ask Lester. I couldn't get the fucking grin off my face the whole day."
"You don't grin."
"I was grinning on the inside. What about you?"
"What do you mean what about me? I don't remember a whole lot of happy going on when Joe was FTA. I'm pretty sure I didn't have a twenty-four-hour span of happiness during that nightmare." She yawned again and nestled her head more deeply into the pillow.
"How about your wedding day?"
"Nope. I wrote a list in my journal of twenty-two things that made me unhappy on my wedding day."
"Should have been your first clue."
"Only seven of them had to do with Dickey. The rest had to do with my mother."
"Hmm."
"Today's been pretty okay so far."
"You were crying when I came in here."
"But I didn't know it so it doesn't count."
They were silent a while and Stephanie began drifting off to sleep.
"Babe?"
"Hmmm."
"Have I ever made you happy?"
Half asleep, she answered, "Mmm-hmm."
"When?"
"Mmm. When you tease me. When you trust me."
"I trust you all the time."
"Mmmm. When you kiss me."
"My kisses make you happy?"
"Mmm-hmm. Sometimes they make me sad."
He leaned up on his elbow, scooped her hair away from her neck and kissed her nape. "Are you awake Stephanie?"
"Hmmm."
"When do my kisses make you sad?"
"When I remember I won't always have them."
When Stephanie came awake, she was disoriented, as usual, and had to look at the clock to get her bearings. It was just after seven in the evening. The room was dark except for the nightlight and the sliver of light coming from the edge of the bedroom door.
She turned in Ranger's arms and looked at his sleeping face. She decided that he had to be exhausted since her movement didn't wake him. After studying him for a minute, she remembered that Ranger had found her journaling and that she had told him about the letter she couldn't write. His letter. And then something else came back to her. Was it a part of a dream, or real?
When do my kisses make you sad?
Had she told him his kisses made her sad? Had she told him that he sometimes made her furious, anxious, scared? Did he know that the entire time she had loved him, her love was always tainted with guilt, insecurity and fear? Here she was, spending days thinking about her mortality and things she'd left unspoken, and she just told him that his kisses made her sad?
She tilted her head, pressed her lips against the warm skin on his neck and whispered, "Ranger."
He stirred and said, "Mmmm?"
"Your kisses make me happy."
He cleared his throat but remained otherwise silent.
"They don't make me sad."
He said nothing, just looked her through hooded eyes.
"I want to be happy."
Ranger studied her and she could see that he was mentally weighing her words. He hesitated a moment, unsure, before leaning forward and brushing his lips across hers. Stephanie let out a shuddering breath. Tunneling her fingers through his hair, she pulled him in and stroked her tongue delicately against his. Ranger groaned and rolled her beneath him. The kiss changed. Up on his elbows, he cradled her head in his hands and poured months and years of his longings and desires into his kiss.
Stephanie ran both hands up and down his muscled back, reveling in the silky texture of his skin and wondering how she had gone so long without this. When she flexed her pelvis against his, he growled into her mouth and the kiss changed again.
The kiss became one of possession and claiming. Her heart and body ached and she knew nothing would soothe those pains until he was inside her. With impatience, she shoved roughly at his pants. A sound between a sigh and a sob broke from her throat when the effort proved unsuccessful.
Without breaking the kiss, Ranger lifted away slightly. He unsnapped, unzipped then pushed off the offending garment. Her hand reached between them and she clasped his length and began to stroke him exactly the way he had taught her to that night so long ago. He broke the kiss and stilled above her, air hissing through his teeth. Her hand drifted down to caress the heavy sac beneath. Grasping her wrist, he pinned it to the mattress, ending her explorations abruptly.
Kneeling up, he patiently tugged off her clothes, distracting himself in the process. Removing her bra, his greedy mouth sucked and toyed at her nipples as though they were a rare delicacy he had long been without. She watched him as he arrowed his tongue around the stiff points until they were glistening, darkened from the attention and hard as diamonds. Drawing one tightened peak into his mouth, he rolled his eyes up to hers, daring her to watch him make love to her.
He rubbed his face back and forth between her breasts and across her torso as if marking his scent onto her skin, his stubble abrasive and electrifying. His impatient fingers hooked into the hips of her panties, dragging them down slowly while his mouth paid homage to her hips, her tummy, her inner thighs and the backs of her knees. He worked his way back up and laved at the hollow where thigh met groin, causing her hips to buck and rock against him. Placing a hand on her abdomen, he pressed down, keeping her still.
Gliding that hand down, he sifted his fingers through her curls and gently parted her. His tongue teased and tasted at her cleft with whisper-like strokes, causing Stephanie to pant and clutch at his head. Steadily, he increased his assault, tonguing, lapping, humming his pleasure at her taste. She begged, shamelessly splaying her legs and pushing herself toward his mouth, tugging at his silky hair, pulling him into her sex. Then he added his fingers, gently at first, until it just wasn't enough. Stephanie rotated her hips, pressed toward his wet face while he tirelessly pumped his fingers into her, suckling on her clit. Without any warning, she dug her heels into his shoulders, grasped roughly at his hair and cried out, shuddering in release.
Still contracting from her climax, she watched as he nibbled and kissed his way up her body and then covered her mouth with his. Her scent, her juices damp on his face aroused her even more, making her moan into his kiss. With his body poised over hers, the crown of his cock gently pressed for entrance.
Stephanie wrapped one long leg around his waist attempting to pull him inside, but he resisted. "Slow, mi corazon. Let me go slow."
Inch by inch he eased himself into her, allowing her body to accommodate him. When he was as deep as he could go, he stilled. He kissed her shoulder, her neck. "I missed you," he sighed.
For a while, his thrusts were agonizingly slow, but exquisite. In her mind's eye she could see the long, sculpted lines of his body gracefully gliding over her as if part of an elegant erotic dance. He was a sensual lover who liked to draw out the pleasure, the tastes, the sounds and the intimacy of lovemaking.
Stephanie dragged her nails up his broad back, and he growled and bit at her neck.
"Please. I need more, give me more," she begged.
He rocked once deeply into her, stilling as his cock kissed the mouth of her womb. "Say my name," he rasped.
She swiveled her hips against his with impatience. She whispered, "Ranger."
He withdrew until only the tip of him was still inside her and gritted out, "My name."
Opening her eyes she saw Ranger's face above hers. His hair was loose, partially shrouding his face. She fingered his hair away so she could see him and was stunned by the feral expression in his eyes.
She breathed, "Carlos."
He rammed his length into her, taking her breath away. Finding her hands, he pinned them over her head. Again and again, he withdrew and slammed into her and each time he hit bottom, she gasped and tightened around him.
Ranger slipped his hand between their sweat-slicked bodies and began circling her clit as he continued to pound into her, the sound of skin slapping against skin punctuating each thrust. Between labored breaths, Ranger panted out, "Come, Stephanie. Come for me."
A few moments later, she cried out, her sex tightening around him. Muttering a harsh oath, he thrust one final time and spilled hotly within her.
Ranger rested his forehead against hers as he caught his breath. Stephanie shivered and he loosened his hold on her hands, rolling them to their sides.
With a kiss to her temple he said, "No matter what happens, you have to know that I love you."
Just as she was about to respond, the satellite phone rang, startling Stephanie. With one last light kiss to her lips, Ranger was out of the bed and on his way down the hall.
Stephanie was staring at the ceiling when he returned. He switched on the nightstand lamp.
Blinking against the unwelcome brightness, Steph leaned up on her elbows and said, "What's going on?"
Ranger stepped into the closet for a moment and came out seconds later with a pair of sweats. He tossed them on the foot of the bed.
"Get dressed. We have company."
