A/N: Ok, here’s the deal: This is, hopefully, the last chapter with screwy chapter breaks, but unfortunately that means it’s pretty short. Instead of posting a chapter and a half, rather than this half-chapter, I’ve decided to save what I’ve written next to give myself a little bit of a buffer. I’m visiting San Francisco for a week in February, and I guarantee I won’t get a chance to write that week. Hopefully I’ll have the buffer by then and still have a chapter to post.

Even if I don’t, though, I do have another chapter of “Chase the Dawn” that I’ve been saving. If I don’t get the extra chapter written in time, I will be updating that story on Friday morning (February 15th

I also want to thank all of my wonderful reviewers, because without you guys I wouldn’t be so darned motivated to keep such a rigid schedule and, hell, I probably would have given up long ago.

Enjoy!

“Hey, cachondo, watch those eyes!”

Ryan blinked guiltily and returned his gaze to Aleda’s face… or would have, had she not used the distraction to duck behind him and wrap an arm around his chest, digging in with her wooden claws. He stretched his neck around to look at her over his shoulder.

“Not bad,” he said with a grin. “And what did you call me?”

“Cachondo.”

He brought his hand up to cover hers. His eyes glinted with mischief. “You’re the one who answered the door in your underwear.”

Aleda gasped in mock outrage. “I beg your pardon, these are pajamas! I don’t know where your mind is!”

“Oh, I think you do,” Ryan chuckled, sending warm vibrations down her arm. “After all, you’re the one that put it there.”

Her eyes raked down his back, where she could see the golden heat coursing through his veins. “El viejo verde está muy seguro de sí mismo,” she commented dryly.

His hand tightened around hers, where it rested on his chest, and pulled her around to face him. He caught her deftly and steadied her with a hand on each hip. “Well, yes,” he admitted with a cocky grin. “I am pretty sure of myself… Although I have to say, I’m not sure how much I like you calling me a dirty old man.”

“Mm, I don’t know,” Aleda said. She let her arms trace their way up to his neck. “You are almost sixty. Sounds kind of dirty to me.”

Ryan’s fingers tightened on her hips and drew her closer. “Si tú quisieras que fuera ‘verde’,” he murmured, “Solamente necesitaras preguntarme.”

Aleda giggled and pushed herself up a little on the balls of her feet, then froze. From the driveway came the unmistakable sound of a car door slamming shut. “Papá!” she whispered urgently. Her eyes went wide. Ryan just looked up in annoyance, his eyes following the path of the two hunters walking up to the front door. He glanced back down at the girl in his arms and noticed her so-called ‘pajamas’, now half-translucent with sweat.

“Come here,” he said, and pulled her to the stairs, where he had left his shirt and jacket. She tensed and resisted him for a moment before she realized that he wasn’t taking her upstairs. He grabbed the button-down shirt off the steps and wrapped it around her. It did a good job of covering up her top half, but it was a shame that he didn’t have anything that could possibly do something about her bare legs.

The shirt would have to do.

“Hey, what time is it?” she asked. “I didn’t have a chance to grab my watch this morning.”

“Um… Twelve-forty, almost.”

“Oh, geez! I have to be at school in twenty minutes!”

She skipped up a couple of steps and tried to calculate her chances of making it up to her room without her parents seeing her. Ryan walked up behind her and put a hand on her back. “I’ll keep your papá busy, you go get yourself changed,” he told her.

“O-Okay...”

“Wait here thirty seconds and then go. I’ll get him into the kitchen and you can go around.”

He slid around her on the stairs and ducked through the door that opened into the living room, careful not to let anybody that happened to be in that room see the girl that was standing a few steps down. Aleda heard their voices, and the sound of footsteps moving around the first floor. Not long after, she heard the footsteps move past the door and into the kitchen, and she cautiously opened the door and peeked through. Ryan had Papá cornered in the kitchen, and facing away from the living room. She snuck through the room as quietly as possibly and slipped up the stairs to her room.

Home free!

She went straight for her drawers and found a pair of jeans to pull on, though she still had on Ryan’s shirt. For a minute she considered… but, no. Probably not a good idea to go out in public wearing an oversized guy’s shirt.

If nothing else, she wasn’t wearing a bra.

Three minutes later she was downstairs in jeans and one of her own shirts, and Ryan and Papá were talking almost amiably in the kitchen. She dropped Ryan’s shirt as casually as possible onto a chair before walking into the kitchen herself.

“Hi, Papá. Did you have a good brunch?” she asked cautiously.

“It was very good,” he said. “And your… training?”

“Good. Good. I, um… I beat Ryan a couple of times.” Aleda fidgeted, and wondered why it hadn’t been so awkward when she’d been dating Nate. Papá hadn’t seemed to freak out quite so much about him. It bloody well figured. She cleared her throat. “I actually have to be at school in about twenty minutes. So I should go.”

“Do you have something for your lunch?” Papá asked.

Aleda shrugged. “I was just going to wait until I got home.”

“Okay. Well… I will see you when you get back,” he said. He turned and left the room, heading for the master bedroom where Mom was still busy changing into something more comfortable for a Saturday afternoon.

“Why do you have to go to school on a Saturday?” Ryan asked when Papá had left the room. He noticed his shirt on the chair and picked it up.

“I’ve got detention, actually,” she said, a little bit embarrassed.

He managed to look somewhat amused, and raised his eyebrows. “Oh yeah? You’ve been getting into trouble, then?”

“It was silly,” she said, blushing. “Just a stupid… thing.”

“Tell me anyway.”

“I…Well, okay, I had a massive fight with Nate in the middle of the cafeteria yesterday. Happy?”

Ryan grinned. “Very,” he said. “I definitely approve.”

She stuck her tongue out at him and started to walk past him. “You would.”

He caught her as she walked past. “Hey, do you need a ride?”

“Oh, that’s okay. It’s not that far of a walk.”

“Yeah, but I’m leaving anyway. Come on.”

She looked at him thoughtfully for a moment in mock hesitation. “Well… okay. But no kidnapping me today, you hear? I’m in enough trouble already.”

Ryan chuckled, shaking his head at her playful severity, and followed her out to his motorcycle.

With him driving, it took only two minutes to get to the high school instead of fifteen. He checked the time again when they got there.

“You’ve still got a little while before one o’clock,” he told her. “Where do you have to go?”

“Cafeteria. Are you going back to your apartment?”

He shrugged. “Yeah, I guess. Although I have a few errands to take care of.”

“Still trying to get Mike kicked out of Baltimore?”

“Groceries, actually.”

“Alright… Well, I guess I’ll see you next week?”

“You know, I’ve never been in this place.”

Aleda looked at him and frowned. “What?”

He dismounted and pulled off his helmet. “You’re in this building every day and I’ve never even seen the inside of it. We should fix that.”

“I’ve got to go to detention!” Aleda protested as he took her hand and walked up to the long row of doors at the front entrance.

“You’ll get there.”

There was just no use trying, sometimes.

“So which one is your locker?”

She led him down the right hallway and pointed to one. “There,” she said. “Number 142.”

He walked up to it and inspected it carefully, as if there were something particularly unique about hers that made it any different than the hundreds of identical lockers all over the school.

“Come here for a second,” he said. She walked over and stood where he pointed, right in front of her locker. He leaned an arm against the locker and before she could say a word he was kissing her, using his other arm to hold her tight against the hard metal of the lockers.

He pulled back and smirked. “One down, twenty-six to go.”

“One down… One what? Ryan?” But he had already started walking down the hallway, looking with interest into all the classrooms. She sighed and jogged to catch up.

“Well, the cafeteria’s right down here,” she said. “I really should get in there.”

“Okay. But I’m picking you up at six tomorrow night.”

Aleda grinned. “Oh, well, if you insist.” She glanced through the large glass windows separating the cafeteria from the hallway and made a face. Nate was there.

Ryan noticed, too. He gave her one last, visible kiss for good measure and said goodbye.

Aleda walked into the room with a sigh. The teacher running the detention made her sign in and then sit down. Fortunately, there were plenty of places to sit in the cafeteria, and only a few other students there that day. Nate seemed inclined to ignore her completely. She nodded slightly to herself and set her head down on the table.

Nap time.