I do not own the rights to these characters and don't profit from this in any way shape or form.

In the Wind

Chapeter 1:

It was raining again and the constant drone on the fire escape was making sleep impossible for me.

I looked at the digital display on my bedside alarm clock and sighed when two a.m. looked back at me. An argument could be made that the third helping of my Mother's pineapple upside down cake might be a contributing factor to this current sleepless state, but if I was being honest with myself, it wasn't the rain or the cake. It was me and my inability to stay out of my own head.

The late night visitor I'd had the past four nights wasn't helping either.

I've gotten use to Ranger breaking into my apartment over the years and I almost never try to figure out how he does it anymore. And it's not like I minded him being here, I mean really, who would mind finding Ranger in their bedroom? But he usually had a reason – like he was hiding from the police or he wanted to make sure no psychotic lunatics were holding me hostage – These visits were different. Four nights in a row and he's not once announced his presence.

I'm not sure why, but every time I hear the locks tumble in my door, I pretend to be asleep. I lay here breathing evenly with my eyes closed and sometimes ponder how he manages the security chain while he slips silently into the chair that sits across from my bed.

Eventually, I drift off to sleep and by the time the sun comes up, he's gone.

Sometimes when I wake up in the mornings, I have the fleeting thought that maybe I've been imagining the whole thing. But I know I haven't been.

Four nights of watching me sleep and not saying a word. It's starting to make me worry.

I sighed again and rolled over onto my side, knowing that if I didn't get at least some sleep, functioning tomorrow was going to be tough, but my overactive mind would not cooperate.

My Mother's innocent query about Joe Morelli was what started my brain going tonight. She'd asked how he was and I could only shrug in response. I don't really know how Joe is. I haven't seen him for a while. There were rumors flying around the burg that he'd been spotted in the company of a nurse from neighboring Hamilton Township and I didn't doubt for a second they were true. Rumors in the burg usually tended to be at least mostly true.

Jealously had flared hot and quick when Lula told me. Of course it had; I've loved Morelli since the first time he looked up my skirt when I was five years old.

The only problem - I've been in love with Ranger since the first time I laid eyes on him.

"Isn't that a bitch?" I said out loud to the darkness of my bedroom.

I jumped a little when my bedroom spoke back. I hadn't heard the locks tumble this time. Damn.

"Babe."

I rolled to my other side and he was leaning on the doorjamb to my room, arms crossed over his chest. Typical Ranger pose. The faint glow from the night light in my bathroom illuminated him in my doorway and I was glad for the opportunity to see him so well in the dark.

He was all hard and lean muscle and his biceps strained a little at the short sleeves of the t-shirt trying to contain them. The shirt was black, of course, and my eyes lingered on his arms before traveling to his face.

His hair was long again and currently pulled pack in a ponytail like the first time we met.

A flash of heat shot through me as I remembered that encounter. I don't know what I had been expecting when I walked into that cafe, but it wasn't what I saw. The fact is, Ranger is just about the hottest thing you'll ever see. He has the smoothest skin, the color of a mocha latte, and it covers a body that makes women pant and sometimes faint in his presence.

I didn't faint but desire shot right to my doo-dah and I know I blushed fifty shades of red before I was able to stammer out a hello. When I left all I could think about was how I wanted his perfect lips to explore every inch of my body – oh, and I wanted to see him naked.

Every woman I know wants to see what Ranger looks like naked. And probably some of the men too.

Fortunately for me, I know first hand what Ranger looks like naked. It's burned permanently into my brain.

Unfortunately for me, I've only seen it once and take it from me – once could never, EVER, be enough.

My gaze lingered on his eyes for a moment – they were a fiery chocolate brown and could burn a hole right through to your soul with their intensity – but it was nearly impossible to read anything in them in the dark. Hell, it was mostly impossible in the daylight as well. Ranger was a man of mystery.

I let out a breath and my eyes slid down the length of this body to the jeans that were hugging his perfectly formed thighs like – wait a second, jeans? Ranger did not wear jeans.

I looked up at him. "Are you in disguise?"

I felt rather than saw the corners of his mouth twitch up with the hint of a smile.

"Why are you awake?" He asked, ignoring my question.

"Probably because people keep breaking into my apartment. You have to tell me how you do it. How do you get past the security chain?"

Ranger tipped his head back and I was graced with a full on laugh. Rare. He pushed off the jamb, and headed to the chair across from my bed, lowering himself slowly into it.

He sat quietly assessing me from his perch and I held my breath as we watched each other in the dark.

Without even much of a thought I lifted the blankets up from the empty side of the bed in a silent invitation. He looked at the space waiting for him and then his eyes found mine again and I could see the question in them. It might have been a full minute before my head nodded slightly in affirmation.

In one fluid movement he was up out of the chair and lifting his t-shirt off his body. His shoes and socks were next and then I watched his jeans slide down his legs and pool at his bare feet. He stepped out of them and slid in next to me wearing only his boxer-briefs. Ranger gathered me to him and I settled into his arms, my head resting on the expanse of his chest.

Neither one of us spoke and neither one of us moved. We lay there holding each other for a long, long time.

I don't really know when I figured it out. But I knew.

"When are you leaving?" I asked without lifting my head off of his chest.

He exhaled slowly and pulled me in closer. "Soon."

I swallowed before asking the next question, to which I was pretty sure I did not want to hear the answer. "Do you know when you'll be back?"

Ranger lifted his hand and tucked a curl of my hair behind my ear. "No."

Yep, that's exactly what I did not want to hear.

I sat up and taking us both by surprise, swung my leg over his body, straddling him. He was instantly hard and I could feel the length of him through the thin layer of the boxer shorts I had thrown on before bed. I eased forward, sliding my hands over his incredibly well defined abs and up over his nipples which hardened under my palms.

Then my mouth was on his and our tongues touched and I could not contain the moan that spilled from my throat as his hands slid up underneath my stretchy tank top.

I raised my arms and he ripped my shirt from me and then his mouth was on my breast, his hands were firm on my back and I could think of nothing but having him inside me.

With a clap of thunder and a strike of lightening that momentarily lit up my room, he flipped me on my back and was yanking my boxers down at the same time I was trying to release him from his. Free of the constraints of his shorts, his whole body seemed to throb with need as he grabbed my hips and thrust inside me with one smooth, deep stroke.

He inhaled sharply when he reached as far as he could go and I stopped breathing completely as my legs came up around him. His breath was coming out in quick, uneven gasps as he stayed still inside me.

His eyes were intense on mine and I could see something in them I couldn't define. He was trying to tell me something and I desperately wanted to know what it was.

"Ranger?" His name was merely a ragged whisper on my breath.

At the sound my voice his eyelids dropped closed, shuttering me from his mind. He buried his head in my neck, his breath hot on my skin and slowly slid his length from my sheath until he was nearly out. I couldn't stop the whimper that escaped my lips as my hands grasped onto his back in a frantic attempt to bring him back to me.

He plunged in again at the touch of my hands and began moving within me. He didn't stop until we both cried out with the most exquisite, beautiful release.

The rain had finally quit and there was a brilliant stream of sunlight filtering in through the curtains of my bedroom window. I reached for him next to me, knowing he wouldn't be there, and my hands slid through the empty, cold sheets.

Ranger was in the wind.

to be continued...

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