Chapter 34

By this time they had gotten their food and arrived at the table they shared with Father and Mary, who were already there and seated. Father was trying to hide a grin as Mary blushed delicately. "Vincent, maybe someone should tell you what is actually being talked about here," Father suggested.

"Catherine's kidnapping…" he surmised.

"No, my love," Catherine told him gently.

"Then what?" he asked, completely clueless.

"This afternoon I had to send out a message on the pipes that you were all right and not to be disturbed," Father reported.

"Why would you have to do that, Father?" his son questioned.

Motioning for him to lower his head a bit, Catherine quietly murmured in his ear, "This afternoon when we were….when you…climaxed…well, my love, you…roared."

His head jerked up, and he stared disbelievingly into her eyes hoping against hope that this was just another way of Catherine teasing him. Sadly he found nothing but concern in her eyes and upon testing the Bond knew she was telling him the truth. "Oh god!" he muttered and buried his unique face in his hands.

Mary, the caring generous person that she was, reached across the table and patted his arm comfortingly. "It really wasn't that bad, Vincent."

Father was still trying to suppress a smile because of his son's discomfort and Catherine was about to add her reassurances to Mary's when Mouse came hurrying up to the table.

As usual he began to speak without any consideration to what was already going on at the table. "Good roar, Vincent! Could use as warning system! Heard it two levels down! You should practice it lots!"

When Mouse had started to speak, Catherine was sure Vincent would have crawled under the table if it wouldn't have brought more attention his way. Instead he lowered his arms to the table and his head became pillowed there. It wasn't until the last part of Mouse's speech that Catherine and Father reacted. They simply lost it! Both of them were laughing so hard their sides hurt. Even Mary couldn't help but release a little laugh which she quickly tried to stifle behind her hand.

Catherine was the first to recover enough to speak, "I agree with Mouse entirely, Vincent. I think you should practice it lots!" she said with a giggle.

Mary was blushing again.

Mouse looked pleased that he had made a good suggestion, if Catherine approved of it.

All that happened while Father wondered how much sleep the tunnel community would lose during all this practicing!

Vincent's head came up and he looked around expecting to see much different reactions than the ones he encountered. Everywhere he looked there were happy encouraging faces. The acceptance of his and Catherine's relationship was clear. Joy and pride swelled his heart and he did something that surprised everyone including Catherine.

Standing, he bent down and lifted Catherine into his arms. He was half way across the room before she regained enough composure to ask, "Vincent, what are you doing?"

Clearly not worried about who heard, he announced, "I feel the need to 'practice'! I hope you weren't really hungry!"

As they passed William, who had heard the early part of all this, Catherine pleaded with a barely suppressed chuckle, "Could you send us a tray in an hour? I might be hungry after my ordeal!"

From that point on, since Vincent was aware of the 'roaring' problem he made a special effort to avoid it whenever possible. Either, he and Catherine kissed at that point or he tried to bury his face in whatever was handy. A pillow, her shoulder, or even his own arm was found to be useful, but at least the tunnel community wasn't alerted every time the two of them made love.

To be continued….