Hard Eight (Stephanie Plum 8)

“Yes.”

He beeped his car locked, and when we got to the second floor, he took my key and he opened my apartment door. He flipped the lights on and looked around. Rex was running on his wheel.

“Maybe you should teach him to bark,” Ranger said.

He prowled through my living room, into my bedroom. He flipped the light on and looked around. He raised the dust ruffle and looked under the bed. “You need to get a mop under there, babe,” he said. He moved to the dresser and opened each drawer. Nothing jumped out. He stuck his head into the bathroom. All clear.

“No snakes, no spiders, no bad guys,” Ranger said. He reached out, grasped the collar on my denim jacket with both hands, and pulled me to him, his fingers lightly brushing my neck. “You're running up a bill. I assume you'll tell me when you're ready to settle your account.”

“Sure. Absolutely. You'll be the first to know.” God, I was being such a dork!

Ranger grinned down at me. “You have cuffs, right?”

Ulk. “Actually, no. I'm currently cuffless.”

“How are you going to catch the bad guys if you haven't got cuffs?”

“It's a problem.”

“I have cuffs,” Ranger said, touching his knee to mine.

My heart was up to about two hundred beats per minute. I wasn't exactly a handcuff-me-to-the-bed kind of person. I was more a turn-out-all-the-lights-and-hope-for-the-best kind of person. “I think I'm hyperventilating,” I said. “If I pass out just hold a paper bag over my nose and mouth.”

“Babe,” Ranger said, “it's not the end of the world to sleep with me.”

“There are issues.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Issues?”

“Well, actually, relationships.”

“Are you in a relationship?” Ranger asked.

“No. Are you?”

“My lifestyle doesn't lend itself to relationships.”

“Do you know what we need? Wine.”

He released my jacket collar and followed me into the kitchen. He lounged against the counter while I took two wineglasses from the cupboard and grabbed the bottle of merlot that I'd just bought. I poured out two glasses, gave one to Ranger, and kept one for myself.

“Cheers,” I said. And I chugged the wine.

Ranger took a sip. “Feel better?”

“I'm getting there. I hardly feel like fainting anymore. And most of the nausea is gone.” I refilled my glass and carted the bottle into the living room. “So,” I said, “would you like to watch television?”

He picked the remote off the coffee table and relaxed into the couch. “Let me know when you're nausea-free.”

“I think it was the handcuff thing that pushed me over the edge.”

“I'm disappointed. I thought it was the idea of me naked.” He searched through the sports and settled on basketball. “Are you okay with basketball? Or would you rather I search for a violent movie?”

“Basketball is good.”

Okay, I know I was the one who suggested television, but now that I had Ranger on my couch it felt too weird. He had his dark hair slicked back into a ponytail. He was dressed in SWAT blacks, fully loaded gun belt removed but a nine-millimeter at the small of his back, Navy SEAL watch on his wrist. And he was slouched on my couch, watching basketball.

I noticed my wineglass was empty, and I poured myself a third glass.