Disclaimer: All the characters belong to the wonderful Janet Evanovich. I am just borrowing.

Spoilers: Possibly all the books up to Twelve Sharp

Content Warning: eventually NC17, maybe?

This is my first try at fanfic, so please be kind.

Stephanie's New Deal Chapter 2

I racked my brain for a moment and realized I needed to stall. I opened my mouth and allowed the first question that came to mind to spill from it. "What happened to nothing non-consensual?"

Ranger leaned closer to me and I felt his lips caress the shell of my ear. "How can it be non-consensual when you don't even know what I'm going to ask, Babe?"

I sucked in a breath between my teeth and my mind jumped to the fact that my grandma Mazur did that all the time, too. Well, even with Ranger sitting so close to me that I could feel the heat rising from his body, that just killed the mood.

I pushed him by his shoulders, moving him far enough back that I had space so I could slide down the couch if he came at me with those killer lips again. Ranger is a very sexy man and he knew how to turn me on. I wasn't going to chance him deciding to use those facts against me in order to get what he wanted.

Unless it was what we both wanted, I thought to myself. Which was probably for us to be naked and wrapped around each other, our mouths ...

Oh my god, I thought to myself again, think about something else or you're going to have him handcuffed to your shower curtain rod while you have your way with him.

Not that that would necessarily be a bad thing. Assuming I could even find my handcuffs in the mess that was my apartment.

I guess my eyes must have glazed over around then because Ranger leaned his face down into mine. He had a small smile on his face and he looked me directly in the eyes. "I need your attention for a moment, Babe."

His loss, I thought to myself. "So, let me get this straight. You say I owe you and I have to make it up to you and you want me, but it's not sex?"

His smile widened to his wolf smile. "We can add that to the method of repayment if it'll make you feel better," he said.

I think my eyes glazed over again as I thought about the different ways it could make both of us feel better. I may have run my tongue along my top lip, too. I heard Ranger groan my name and then he was leaning down toward me, his hands resting on the back of the couch on either side of my shoulders, and his lips close enough to mine to kiss.

I jarred myself awake and wrenched myself sideways down the couch to put some distance between us. If I was ever going to get the whole story out of him, I couldn't be within touching distance. I couldn't speak for him, but I knew damn well that I didn't have the self control for us to be that close. And at this rate it would be next Christmas before I found out what he was referring to. Given what we could be doing in all that time, I wasn't sure why I was objecting, but a girl's got to have priorities and my need to satisfy my nosiness always seemed to come out on top.

"So what's the story?" I asked, trying hard not to look at him for fear of imagining all those things we could be doing instead of just talking.

The smile that had been on his face when he saw my need to distance myself from him in order to think dimmed just slightly as he spoke. "I've got to admit, although I'm sorry to see that car go so quickly, I can't help but be thankful that it's put you into my debt."

He looked out the window over the couch for a moment and then back at me, a smile curving up one corner of his lips. "I didn't even get to drive it. The dealership had it delivered just this morning."
Another shot to the heart of guilt. I started to open my mouth to apologize yet again, but he didn't allow me the chance before starting to speak again.

"I need you to act like we're getting married and attend some meetings with me over the next month."

My jaw hit the floor as my heart raced. "Pardon?" It was like we'd just switched languages, and it wasn't one that I spoke.

"There is a company that is based in New York that I want to supply the security for. Rangeman tried to get the contract three years ago, but they turned me down at the time. The contract has come up again and I want it."

"What does that have to do with me?" I wanted to know.

Ranger looked out the window again. I had the feeling he was thinking heavily, although there was no smell of smoke like he always accused me of when I was doing the same. His eyes were locked in the distance and his expression was conflicted. I didn't know what he was seeing, but I got the feeling he was debating how much to tell me.

"The last time we were negotiating with this company they did extensive background searches on all of the men in my company, including me. They said that as the owner of the company, my personal life was used as an indication of the stability of the company. They said they believed it to be suggestive of my ability to balance things and they were looking for someone who managed to balance things well."

I guessed that I could see that. "So where do I come in?"

"I need you to act like you're my fiancé. We've known each other long enough that it could be believable. And I need it to be believable because there's a good chance that they will be doing an in-depth investigation again."

"How in-depth are we talking here?"

He finally turned his attention away from the window and looked directly into my eyes. "We're going to have to make them believe that we're in love. They'll probably investigate you, too, so we need to cover all the bases. You're going to have to tell your family that we're engaged, and make them believe it."

I felt my eyes widen. "Why can't I just tell them that it's a cover?"

"You know how people are, Babe. They like to talk. And once this gets out, the entire 'Burg is going to be talking about it. If your family isn't reacting how they'd normally react to news like this, then it's going to make people suspicious and those suspicions will get back to McNamara."

"Is that the company?"

"Yeah. It's a huge investment firm in the city. If Rangeman got the contract, it would mean millions over the next three years." He paused. "You'd get a percentage, of course."

I waved that one away with a violent swipe of my hand. "I don't care about the money. You know how this is going to affect people, right? My mother? My sister? Mary Lou? Oh my god!" I stopped, stunned by the realization that it hadn't been my first concern. "Joe! What's Joe going to think? I'll have to tell him the truth."

Ranger nodded slowly. "I figured you would. And that's fine, as long as he understands that he can't talk about it with anyone or let on that the engagement isn't real."

"How are we going to do this? The 'Burg knows that Joe and I are currently on-again. Won't it seem suspicious if tomorrow I'm suddenly with you?"

Ranger smiled at the implied acceptance of the situation that hovered there in my statement. "I figured you could invite him to Pino's and tell him about it there." His smile widened again. Definitely the wolf grin.

And I knew exactly why it was the wolf grin. Ranger could imagine as well as I could what Joe's reaction was going to be to this news, and telling him about it in public would ensure that the entire city, never mind the 'Burg, would know about our fight – and presumed break-up – within an hour after the meeting.

I bent over at the waist to put my head between my knees to get some blood flowing back to my brain. I wasn't totally comfortable with the situation, but I was going to go through with it. I knew I was. Really, there was no other option because even if I hadn't just finished blowing up Ranger's brand new, never driven, uninsured car ... what it really came down to was that he needed my help. In all the years I'd known him, through all the probably hundreds of times I'd asked for his assistance, he'd asked for mine in return less than a handful of times. And so, yes, I was going to help him.

"Babe?" he said, rubbing my back gently. I think he was worried that I had passed out on him. It was definitely a consideration, but it hadn't happened yet.

I sat up and looked at him. "Okay," I said. His expression lightened and the corners of his mouth curved up a little. "I'll call Joe and ask him to meet me for dinner tonight."

He stood up from the couch. "Call me when you're done and we'll make further arrangements."

Ranger must have had more faith in my ability to survive that conversation with Joe than I did. Currently, I was picturing all sorts of scenarios for the meeting, most of them ending with Joe pulling out his gun and shooting me.

Ranger started to turn around, but then turned back to me, leaned down to brush a gentle kiss across my lips, and whispered, "Thanks," before letting himself out my front door.

I heard my deadbolt tumble closed and rolled my eyes. The big show off.

Dinner with Joe went ... pretty much the way I had expected it to. Fortunately for both of us – me, because it meant I was still alive; him, because it meant he wasn't in jail – he decided that ending the conversation by screaming and yelling at me was enough. No need to pull out his gun. For once, it was actually kind of a relief to have been yelled at in public.

I was currently curled up on my couch, eating some Ben & Jerry's and watching some sort of nondescript sports game. I hadn't had the money to pay for cable the last two months so I was stuck using rabbit ears and the reception left a whole lot to be desired. I knew it was sports because the announcers would yell out, "Goal!" every once in a while. That sort of ruled out basketball and baseball, but it left hockey, soccer, and a few other things in the running.

I heard a key in my front door lock and stifled a huge sigh. I had called Ranger as I was leaving the restaurant and I knew he was coming over to let me know what the plan was from here, but it wasn't Ranger at my door. Ranger has a key, but he never uses it. He'd rather pick my lock for some reason. He claims it's to keep his skills sharp, but I suspect it's because he's sentimental about that door lock after having done it for so long.

Joe closed the door behind himself. He didn't slam it shut, so I had hopes that the yelling wouldn't start for at least a few minutes, but I still checked to see if he was carrying. There didn't appear to be a gun at his back, which was reassuring, but I knew he'd still have one strapped to his ankle. If he bent over for any reason, I was throwing myself out the window.

He sat down in one of my easy chairs and his head flopped back on the back of it. I heard him sigh and it was the sound of a man who was exhausted. I could definitely relate to that.

I took a moment to look at him. He was wearing a dark brown t-shirt that matched his eyes and faded blue jeans. His feet were in scuffed runners that had probably been used in many a chase with a felon. He looked scrumptious and if I weren't bracing myself for an upcoming battle with him, I might have told him so.

I sat there, waiting for him to speak, my spoon resting in the ice cream container so I wouldn't look like a doorknob by forgetting it was halfway to my mouth if he said anything shocking.

"I understand why you need to do this."

You know. Something like that.

"You do?" I asked. I wasn't sure that I completely understood it myself, but I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt if he thought that he did.

"You're helping out your friend." He raised his head to look at me directly in the eyes. "It's the same thing you'd do if it were Sally or Mary Lou, right?"

There was more being asked there than what was said, but I ignored the rest of it to nod an affirmative.

"And it's not as though a lot is going to have to change in order for you to play along with this, right?"

"Wrong," came Ranger's soft answer from the vicinity of my door.

Joe jumped slightly, his hand reflexively going to his back where his gun normally rested, before realizing that he'd come over relatively unarmed. He eyed Ranger closely, but Ranger was going for unassuming and he had his hands clearly visible, palms open at his sides. It was as close a sign of surrender as I'd ever seen Ranger make, with the exception of when he'd walked in to my living room to face off against Scrog. I pushed the thought to the back of my mind because armed, unarmed, or just existing with good intentions for the night, both these men were dangerous. And they were especially dangerous right now given that neither looked very happy with the other.

"What do you mean, wrong?" Joe demanded as Ranger came to lean against the wall next to my television. The three of us were in classic stand-off position, each of us able to see the other. Seated and standing, the three of us were in a triangle. If there tension hadn't been so thick in the room I might have been tempted to laugh slightly at the irony of it.

"I need for this company to believe wholeheartedly that Stephanie and I are serious about each other and are getting married. It's going to be easier to do that if she's living with me than if she's living here in her apartment while I live in mine."

"Maybe they'll assume she has old-fashioned values and wants to wait until after marriage to sleep with you."

"Yeah, and they'll believe that because no one in Trenton knows that the two of you have been sleeping together." Ranger's voice was hard and the sarcasm practically dripped from it. I'd never heard him be sarcastic before.

"He's right, Joe. Connie and Lula can always tell when ... you know." It was embarrassing trying to articulate my sex life with one man in front of the other man that I loved. "The entire 'Burg always seems to know when I'm not getting any because the two of them can always tell."

"That's one reason," Ranger muttered.

I turned to him, a question on my face, but I didn't have time to ask it.

"So not only do I have to accept my girlfriend pretending to be engaged to you, but now I have to accept people assuming that the two of you are sleeping together?" Joe's face was beet red and he looked like a possible stroke casualty.

I tried to talk him down. "Joe, it'll be okay. It's just for a month, and then we can stage a break up or something."

Joe looked back and forth between Ranger and me. His eyes were hard and he looked like he was fighting not to say anything else. For a moment it looked like it would be a losing battle, but then he pushed a hand through his hair and took a deep breath. He closed his eyes for a moment and I could practically hear him mentally counting slowly to ten in order to gain control of himself again.

"Fine. I said I trust you, and I do." He came over to where I was still sitting and gave me a quick kiss on the lips. "I trust you, but that doesn't mean I want to sit around and listen while the two of you make plans to stage this. I'm going to head home, Cupcake." He looked at Ranger and said, "I'm guessing it would screw up your plan for Stephanie and I to spend one last night together." His tone made it a challenge, as though he was hoping for Ranger to confirm the idea so he could attack him about that, too.

"Joe," I said, my tone placating, "you're probably right that it would be a bad idea. Especially after the fight we had in Pino's. The 'Burg will have already heard about that and they're going to believe that we've broken up because of it."

He wrenched his eyes from the glaring war he was having with Ranger in order to look back at me. His expression softened only slightly, his pupils still dilated with anger.

"Okay, Cupcake. I won't make this any harder for you than it already is." The unspoken suggestion was that being involved with Ranger like this was going to be a strain for me. I let that assumption go, too.

Joe walked across my living room without another word, but when he got to the door, Ranger said, "It would be best if you looked pissed off as you go out to your truck. It'll make it all the more believable that the two of you are finished."

Joe stopped but didn't turn around and I could actually see the muscles in his back bunch up from the tension flowing through him. He finally turned back to look Ranger directly in the eye. "That won't be a problem. But expect a public reconciliation of my friendship with Steph. We're going to need to do that to justify all the time I'm going to be spending over at your building. It'll make it all the more believable that I'm supporting you two lovebirds and that we're bonding at your place." His expression hardened just slightly more. "Because you can bet that I'm going to be over there regularly."

Ranger's lips curved in a catlike smile. "No problem. Just give it a few days to a week, first. We want to make sure the world knows how happy the two of us are together before you start hanging out with us."

Joe's eyes narrowed in a glare, but all he did was leave and slam the door loudly behind himself.

"Guess we're not going to have to worry about making people believe that he's still angry," I said quietly.

Please tell me what you think. It's my first fic and so I'm worried that it seems really fake. I would love feedback.

Also, if anyone has any ideas for how Ranger and Steph should make their announcement, please let me know. - Josie.