Disclaimer: I don't own them and I'm not making any money.

Chapter 9

My mind was foggy and my body was functioning on autopilot. I managed to dress in the cargos and Rangeman top Ranger tossed at me, then did the bare minimum in the bathroom. I practically sleepwalked behind Ranger to the garage.

I dozed in the car until I felt us come to a stop. We hadn't been on the road long enough to get to the warehouse and I roused myself enough to register Ranger speaking.

I assumed I fell more deeply asleep than I realized, and he was checking in with the previous shift. I was about to drift back out when I felt something cold being shoved into my hand.

"It's an iced venti caramel macchiato," Ranger said. "Between the cold, sugar, and caffeine it should have you back in the land of the living by the time we get to the warehouse."

"You're really giving me sugar and caffeine?" I asked, still not processing at full speed.

"Don't want you to fall asleep and drool on the leather interior," Ranger replied, clearly amused at my inability to focus so early in the morning.

"Ass," I said, and got a wolf grin in return that told me he was thinking of pointing out how much I liked his ass. I rolled my eyes in response and wrapped my lips around the straw in my drink to take a long pull.

When I looked back up, Ranger's eyes had lost their humor and gone black.

"Something wrong, Batman?" I asked, before twirling my straw and taking another pull of my drink.

"Don't start something you don't want to finish, Babe."

"Who says I don't want to finish it?"

The next thing I knew, Ranger had scooped me from my seat and was kissing me senseless. I was returning the kiss with the same enthusiasm when I felt something buzzing just to the right of ground zero. I let out a moan that had Ranger cursing as he pulled his lips from my pulse point.

"Yo," he answered in a voice slightly rougher than normal, and I realized that the buzzing had been his phone. "We stopped for coffee. Be there in ten."

I twisted to look at the clock on the dash and saw it was 5:07. We were late.

"Babe," Ranger growled at me and then glanced pointedly at his lap where my twisting had caused me to apply some literal pressure.

"Sorry," I said before climbing gingerly back into my own seat.

"We're not done here," he warned. I thought it best to ignore that for now and retrieved my drink which had somehow been deposited safely in my cup holder.

We made it to the warehouse in slightly under the ten minutes Ranger promised the guys and with a quick flash of his headlights they were gone. We were officially on duty. Surveillance Ranger is hyper focused, and I was the complete opposite today. Between the kissing, the caffeine, and his silence my mind was going a million miles a minute.

"What was that?" I finally cracked and asked.

"If you have to ask, I'm doing something wrong."

"Ranger," I said, rolling my eyes. It was still dark, and we were parked outside the glow of any streetlights, but I was sure his bat senses would pick it up.

"Something's been up with you the last few days," he said after a moment. "It's pushing my buttons more than normal."

My behavior had started out as impulsive, but morphed beyond that. Ranger and I had been in a holding pattern for so long, I wanted to know what would happen if I disrupted it.

"Maybe I was seeing what it's like to be the one applying pressure."

"Why." His eyes were focused forward, scanning the warehouse and the surrounding areas, but I could see the tension in his jaw. Interesting.

"I don't think it was a conscious decision at first. Joe and I have been growing further apart. Even when we were 'on.' That makes my feelings for you harder to keep contained. They just bubbled out and I realized I liked it."

"It shocked the hell out of me, but I liked it too."

I was summoning up my courage to ask what he meant by that. Or maybe even what that meant for us when Ranger's body went from his relaxed, watchful state to alert and tense forcing me to swing my attention to the warehouse I was supposed to be helping watch.

The activity on the warehouse docks had been slow with a handful of trucks coming and going at fairly regular intervals. We'd expected it to pick up during the day, but suddenly all of the bay doors were opened with light streaming out only to be blocked one by one as an almost choreographed line of semis were backing trailers into the doors.

I heard Ranger calling in the unusual activity while pulling binoculars from somewhere and handing a pair to me. I brought them to my face and fumbled to get them focused before all of the bays were blocked. I picked the last bay, hoping to give myself the most time and nearly dropped my binoculars. I could see a wall that ran parallel to the loading bays, and it was lined with cages. Most were empty, but three had huge, fucking dragons in them.

"You see that?" I asked Ranger, just to be sure I wasn't completely hallucinating.

"Yeah. I also see your guy."

It took a minute for my shocked brain to process what he meant before I finally asked, "Wright?"

"And he's in the thick of things."

I started slowly moving my binoculars. I wasn't nearly as skilled with them as Ranger and did better holding steady on one spot rather than scanning an area. After a few hiccups, I finally found him. He was pulling paper from a clipboard and handing it out with the same methodical precision that the loading activities were taking place.

We only had a few more moments before the last bay was blocked by the final truck.

"Now what?" I asked.

"We wait for backup. Too many players and variables in there."

Twenty minutes later, the first truck was pulling away from the bay door. Within another ten, the last truck was gone, and the building was once again dark and quiet.

We hadn't been watching the suddenly lifeless building long when a black SUV pulled up behind us and flashed their lights. Our backup had arrived.

"Be right back, Babe," Ranger said and was gone before I had a chance to respond.

I could see him talking to whoever was in the other SUV. He was obviously his usual brief self because, as promised, he was back in our SUV moments later.

"That's Tank and Vince. Woody and Chet should be here soon as well as Agents Carson and Johnson. Their teams are going to want to take a look at this, so we'll wait before going in and disturbing anything."

I grabbed my coffee and gave it a swirl to check how much I had left. Not enough for a long wait, so I hoped the feds drove fast.

"Babe," Ranger said, shooting me an amused look.

"Knock it off with the ESP," I grumbled, but part of me enjoyed that he knew me so well.

We were quiet for a few minutes before Ranger cleared his throat.

That was weird and I turned to face him in the SUV only to see him fidget. Double weird.

"So, pressure," he said, somewhat awkwardly referencing the conversation we had been having before the activity at the warehouse had started.

Ranger didn't do awkward. As a result, I was momentarily thrown before my brain re-engaged enough to realize I did not want to let whatever this was pass. "Yeah. And you admitted to liking it. How did that happen?"

"No idea. My life's changed - slowed down - over the last year."

I thought about it for a moment and realized he'd been around Trenton more and in the wind less. And the times he was in the wind were shorter. It struck me that I couldn't remember the last time I'd gone more than a week without seeing him.

"What about your lifestyle?" I finally managed to ask. I could feel my heart trying to pound out of my chest and prayed that Ranger couldn't hear it.

He was quiet for a long moment before picking up my hand and rubbing circles on my palm with his thumb. It would have been relaxing if I hadn't been so on edge.

"My lifestyle still involves two guns and a knife."

"Oh."

I tried to pull my hand free and back into my own lap, but he kept hold, giving an extra squeeze until I looked up at him.

"But I think it's more of a habit at this point. My actual lifestyle is more CEO than mercenary these days."

I squeezed the hand still holding mine in return, silently thanking him for his honesty while I ventured a little smile.

"For what it's worth, I like Ranger the CEO and Ranger the Mercenary."

"Ranger the CEO might have room in his life for a relationship, though."

My breath caught in my throat and my heart was back to hammering. Little black dots were dancing in front of my eyes before I heard Bobby's voice in my head with breathing exercises he'd guided me through more times than I liked to admit.

I'd just regained the ability to think when Ranger's phone started ringing.

"You've got to be fucking kidding me," I said.

"I don't see this part of my lifestyle changing," Ranger said with as close to a sheepish smile as his face was capable of before he answered.

He listened for a minute before disconnecting and turning to tell me the feds had arrived. Guess our heart to heart was over.

"We're not done here," Ranger said, causing me to grumble about ESP and earning me a chuckle in response.

I rolled my eyes and climbed out of the SUV. Before I got my door shut, Ranger was around the vehicle and by my side, placing a hand on my lower back to guide me towards the gathering of Rangemen and federal agents.

There was nodding, handshakes and introductions being passed around before two of the feds started jostling over who was in charge. The Rangemen stood by until I noticed Ranger toss Tank the briefest nod. Tank instantly stepped in and started giving orders. Since I didn't know many people who would contradict Tank, everyone got moving pretty quickly after he took charge.

I chanced a glance at Ranger and received a little shrug. He might be morphing more and more into CEO Ranger, but he clearly only had so much patience for bureaucratic bullshit.

It only took me a moment to realize that Tank had finished talking and I hadn't been given any rolls. Considering this started as a stakeout for my skip, I was starting to build up a bit of steam when I felt Ranger's hand return to my lower back and his thumb rubbing little soothing circles.

"The teams going in are trained in explosives."

"Oh," was all I could manage to say in response, but I got a low wattage grin as I calmed down. I didn't like being left out, but I'd also just about hit my max tolerance for explosions for the week.

"It's all clear, boss," Tank said a short time later, popping the little bubble Ranger and I were in. "Sounds like you're going to want to take a look inside."

That piqued my interest and I followed behind the guys as we approached the building.

There were two feds standing outside of a man door on the end of the row of loading bays. One reached and opened the door as we walked up and the smell hit me before I'd made my way through.

It smelt burnt. I'd become an expert in burnt smells over the years and this was an almost overwhelming mixture of all of the burnt smells there are. Burnt wood and metal, burnt chemicals, the acidic tang of burnt plastic, and finally the nauseating odor of burnt flesh.

I gagged as my eyes filled with tears, trying to keep from losing the contents of my stomach. Through my blurry vision, I could see scorch marks and smoke. There were more of the cages I had spied from the SUV but only about a third of them were empty. The rest were obviously the main source of the burnt smells. The massive inhabitants of the cages had been roasted alive, killing them and turning the majority of the cages into mangled, burnt horrors.

oOo

A/N: Sorry for the cliff hanger! This story is complete (17 chapters in all). I'll try to get the next chapter up soon!