AN: Ultimately I decided to leave things with the story as they stand. I think it works the way it is, and I like it. Some people won't. If enough people don't, and tell me about it in a way that makes it resonate, then I'll rework it in revisions. For now, the drama works, and it gives me something to play off later. Besides, we've all been young and made bad choices. Or at least, I was and I did. Grin The quote under the chapter title is from Wasted Youth, by Meatloaf, and definitely dates my age, Grin Enjoy. (Oh yeah, and this chapter was edited down, which is why parts of it might not make sense and why the story is again rated M.)

The Funeral of a Good Girl

By – TempestRaces

Chapter Thirty Seven – Of Fragility and Favourite Mistakes

"A wasted youth is better by far than a wise and productive old age."

Leon left his room, and closed the door behind himself for good measure. He knew it wouldn't keep her put if she didn't want to let it, but the gesture made him feel better. He walked into Vince's room, careful to check around the door to make sure Vince wasn't in the room first. Seeing the coast was clear he walked in turned on the light. Her stuff wasn't hard to find, at least, he mused as he started stuffing the clothes that had overflowed onto the floor back into her bags. When he was finished he stood up and hooked the straps of her bags over his shoulder before looking around the room to see if he missed anything. He found a shirt that looked like it must belong to her over on the other side of the room and moved to pick it up.

When he did, he realized there wasn't much sense giving it back to her. She'd never wear it again. It was too torn to even be called clothes any more. It was more or less only good for a rag by this point. Feeling like he should have a light bulb suddenly light up over his head, Leon realized what happened to the shirt. He wasn't sure how he felt about his realization. But it did confirm that for Tempest at least, the torn shirt would likely just bring up bad memories, and was better off lost. With a mean smirk that he really wouldn't have thought himself capable of, let alone interested in enjoying, he tossed the ruined garment onto Vince's still disordered bed.

Let the tousled bed sheets and shredded female attire be a visual reminder to Vince what an idiot he was, Leon decided. Then, not liking the mean streak he found in himself, he left the room, closing the door after turning out the light. He walked back into his own room to find the very girl he was attempting to vindicate—despite that emotion not being one he would have attributed to himself until this very night—reclined in his bed flipping through one of his car magazines.

"Took you long enough," she told him with a smirk.

"You're a bigger slob than Jesse," he imparted by way of an answer. "I had to repack all your shit off the floor."

"No one is a bigger slob than Jesse," she retorted. "'Sides, I need to do laundry so there wasn't much point packing it all neatly."

Leon dropped her bags in the corner. "Sure didn't take you long to make yourself at home." He eyed the way she was sprawled across his bed.

"What was I supposed to do? Stand in the corner?" She cocked a brow. "Besides, it isn't like this is the first time I've been in your bed." Smirking, she continued, "there was yesterday morning, when you propositioned me to 'sit a little lower' and then last evening when you did things to me with chocolate that I'll never forget."

"You're a real champ to bring all that up when I'm here trying to do the right thing," Leon said.

She wasn't sure if he was serious or joking. Either way, he hadn't been the one trying to do the right thing in the backyard half an hour ago. He had no real leg to stand on in the 'I'm so innocent' routine. "Was that what you were doing when you were feeling me up in the backyard?"

"I hardly felt you up in the backyard," he growled, striding over to the side of his bed where she lay. "Trust me, if I'd felt you up, you wouldn't have walked away so easily. You'd still be out there beggin' me for more."

One slender, arched brow rose skyward at his statement. "You think you got skills enough to make me beg?"

"Yeah. What, you don't?"

"Nope. I think the beggin'd go the other way. You'd be beggin' me."

"Really? 'Cause, I'd really love to see you make me beg."

"Do you really wanna go here, Le?"

There was a secretive little smile lifting the corners of her mouth as she came up on her knees which almost scared him. The secret behind it was one of those womanly things they knew and wouldn't share that always spelled trouble for men, and he knew it. At his silence, she continued.

"Because I'd hate to humiliate you by making you beg for something you say you don't even really want."

Drawing on the experience of his past, Leon didn't think he had too much to worry about. Given the number of women who threw themselves at him—and every other guy on the team—every time Dom raced, and the number that he didn't sleep with, no matter how 'nicely' they asked, surely he'd seen just about everything there was to see in the line of women trying to seduce a man. And likely turned it down at least once. Besides, her dark hair, light complexion, barely there figure wasn't the kind of thing that normally turned him on in the first place. "Do I have to participate, or can I just sit at the end of the bed until I feel like begging?"

"You can just sit there and watch. But, you can't touch until you beg me for permission. Not one finger on any part of me until you beg for it. Got it?"

He forced himself to yawn, as if in boredom. "I got it."

"Ok." Here we go. Forcing her issues with what she was doing to the back of her consciousness she met Leon's eyes with what she hoped was a sultry look and ran a fingertip down her own stomach, stopping only to toy with the waist of her shorts. She was gratified to see his eyes definitely followed her finger's path. "I forget what I wore under these shorts," she said, forcing a giddy yet vapid look to her face. "Are you as curious as I am what's under here?" She pulled the material away from her lower body and peered down. "Oh yeah! I was all out of clean underwear so I just didn't worry about it."

"That all you got?" Leon asked, sounding bored.

His question checked her. Could she handle what it would do to her already very bruised ego and self esteem if he did manage to resist what she offered, no matter how she offered it? Deciding she could cross that bridge in a few moments if he was able to keep his hands to himself, she simultaneously turned her back to him and took the elastic out of her hair, freeing the curls to fall down her back and shield her body from view.

When he was spared from her gaze for a moment, he took a relieved breath. Resisting her innocent attempts at turning him on was way harder than resisting the practised overtures of the skanks he normally ran into. The way her hands slid over her own body showed clearly that she wasn't really all that sure what to do, but was just following her instincts. Which were very good, if he did say so himself. How Vince did anything that would jeopardize his ability to keep such an interesting girl in his life, he didn't know. Then he forced himself to stop thinking about the fact that Vince had had her first, and forced himself to start thinking about what she was doing while she had her back turned to him. Maybe the right thing to do would be to stop her now, tell her how hot he found her, but how wrong he found this on the day she'd had a huge, explosive fight with the man she might very well have been falling in love with and just put her to bed. I always do the right thing! I wanna do the wrong thing for once. Vince had her but he didn't care. I'll care! I'll go out of my way to deserve her for the next week and that'll make it ok. Vince'll get over it. He couldn't have been all that into her or he wouldn't have done what he did.

He turned his attention to her just in time to see her pick the remote for his stereo up off the bedside table and turn on the radio. She flipped through the stations until she found one playing something to her liking. He really wished the something she stopped on wasn't 'Red Light Special'. She looked at him over her shoulder provocatively and smiled, one corner of her mouth lifting as she caught his eyes. And pulled her bra top off over her head before throwing it to the floor. Since her back was still turned to him, all he could see was her honey coloured skin peeking through the inky fire of her hair. Then she leaned over and picked the bottle of chocolate syrup off the floor before squeezing some out on her finger and licking it off, careful to keep her head turned to the side so he could see every detail.

"Want some?" she asked cheekily, over her shoulder.

He shook his head no.

"Suit yourself."

She squirted some of the sauce out and 'missed' her finger. He was quite sure that she had missed on purpose, because from the trajectory the stream had fallen at, he was sure it was now somewhere on the upper slope of her chest. And he had to admit he'd been very curious about just what her chest looked like since he'd almost gotten to see it the night before.

"Oops," she said, managing to sound contrite, even though the look on her face showed she knew just what she'd done.

Wondering if she was really about to turn around with Leon sitting right there while she wasn't wearing a top, she turned her head around to face the back wall of the room and squirted more chocolate on her finger before sucking it off while she contemplated her situation. What if he could still resist her while her chest was bare and had chocolate on it just begging to be licked off? But, and she thought this might be even more damaging.

What if he couldn't?

She wanted to shrug but she didn't. It was patently obvious, no matter how much they went out of their way to hide it from her, that they had passed girls around between them before. It wasn't like it was a first. And they certainly didn't turn down sex if they wanted it. It didn't seem to matter to them just who it was with. It sure didn't to Vince. So if she wanted to have sex with Leon tonight, did it really matter? At least this time it really was just sex. So it's not to get back at Vince the only way you really see you can? that nagging little voice of her conscious yelled. So what if it is? her inner dialog continued. It's not like Leon's likely to care if he gets laid out of it, and you likely flatter yourself if you think Vince'll care that much anyway. She waited for a moment, waiting for her logical side to have an answer to her impulsive side's points. So what are you waiting for then? Why hesitate at all if you're that sure? She wasn't disappointed with herself. She had known her mind wouldn't let the topic rest that easily. Is it that wrong for me to want a guy who'll just want me back? Who won't always have someone else on his mind? When, a second after she asked herself the questions, she hadn't had a smart aleck answer for them she took a deep breath and turned back around.

How he didn't tackle her to the bed and eat her alive when she turned back around with a dribble of chocolate sliding down her skin he didn't know. He hoped he still looked unmoved. He watched as she tossed her hair to the right and peeked at him from under her lashes. "Will you look at the mess I'm making?" she tsked. "I'm gonna have to be more careful with the rest of it." He watched as she put more chocolate on her finger and 'accidentally' missed again, causing a dribble to fall down the middle of her abs, headed toward her belly button. "Darn. I don't know why I'm such a slob tonight," she imparted to him with a sorry look he was sure was fake. And then she started to smear the chocolate on her stomach with her index finger as he watched, fascinated. He was equally caught up in the way she put her finger in her mouth and sucked it clean. She went squeeze the bottle over her finger once more.

If he can still sit there with that unmoved look on his face after this, I surrender, she told herself as she positioned the bottle for her 'last attempt'. If he could resist her past her next move, she was out of ideas and she'd just slink off with her tail between her legs and know she was just one of those easy to resist females that guys didn't mind turning down. She 'aimed' for her finger and watched as the dollop of chocolate 'missed' and landed on her skin instead, running down. It was a very overt move for her. "I'm so clumsy tonight," she said, forcing herself to purr even though she felt like she was about to die of mortification. He still wasn't moving. His face hadn't changed. Her head bowed forward and her hair moved to curtain her face as she closed her eyes and took a deep breath to prepare for her humiliating admission that she had nothing left. That she wasn't woman enough to take her shorts off and flaunt herself any farther in a hope of getting a little encouragement. She blew the first breath out and took a second one through her nose. Holding it she moved to open her mouth to surrender.

But she never got a word out. Before she could speak, she was being grabbed. "I'm sorry I didn't actually beg first, but I couldn't take any more," he muttered against her stomach, where he was busily cleaning up the rest of the mess she had made.

"I was about to give up," she said, her tone a whisper.

"What?" he questioned.

"I was about to declare myself obviously resistible in the extreme and go wash myself off."

With a final swipe of his tongue he finished cleaning off her belly before kissing his way back up her body. He really hadn't realized what a number Vince's callous treatment of her feelings had done on her. She was sexually inexperienced in the extreme compared to them. Which really didn't help the situation she found herself in. Having what she and Vince both called some very good, very hot sex in one moment, and then being forgotten in the next. She didn't know enough about guys and their motivations to see that if a guy like Vince had sex with her more than once, it was because she was doing something very right, not just because she was there.

Having heard enough of their sex life through the walls to know what it was like, he was sure they had never lingered over each other. So if she and he were going to make this mistake—and he ultimately had to know it would be a mistake—he knew that one thing he could certainly give her to take away from the experience was knowledge that she wasn't forgettable, or resistible, or bad in bed. And he had to guess from the faint marks still on her skin from Vince's last possession of her that she wasn't bad in bed. He brushed her eyes closed with his thumbs and kissed her gently. He smoothed her hair back from her face as he continued to kiss her slowly.

Somewhere in his mind, he knew it was bad that he was making sure to be so gentle with her so she wouldn't have any excuse to compare them together to her and Vince together, but he put it out of his mind. He wanted her worse than he wanted to be the good guy one more time, and he thought that she might just need someone to show her that she was easily as sexy as Mia, and that there wasn't something inherently wrong with her that made Vince treat her badly. And maybe that was just his own personal justification to get around the fact he knew what he was doing was wrong. But there was some merit to it too, justification or not. No one as young and currently vulnerable as Tempest deserved to be permanently damaged over some caveman's callus treatment of her.

He felt her fingers start to tangle in his hair and smiled against her lips. She tasted shy, he thought with a mental chuckle. But she was enjoying herself, if the way she was kissing him back was any indication. She was so sweet and innocent it was easy to forget that she was anything but when he heard her with his friend through the bedroom wall. He released her lips with some reluctance and brushed his lips over her cheek toward the delicate shell of her ear. She tipped her head to allow him better access, and at that surrender he allowed his hands to wander away from where they were tangled in her hair. He sucked at her neck just under her ear behind her jaw as his hands wandered. She moaned softly under his touch.

He was being so gentle and sweet that she couldn't find her voice to call a stop to what they were doing. She wanted what he was giving her very much. But she didn't want to ruin his relationship with his friend over it. But since she couldn't say no she just convinced herself that Vince would get over it. He'd hate her forever, but he'd forgive Leon, given a few days without her around. And that was fine. It wasn't like she still liked Vince. Right?

She ran her fingers out of his hair and down across his shoulders, tracing the contours of his upper back. His weight felt comfortable over her. And even if she knew that comfortable wasn't something she normally would have associated with spectacular sex, perhaps she knew that comfortable and good was exactly what she needed to function as salve to her beaten self esteem. It wasn't like wild and mind blowing got her very far, in the long run. Ultimately it was different and different was what she needed. And then he kissed her again, and it didn't matter any more. She was just a girl, who was in bed with a boy, who needed the connection and to feel special, like someone cared about her. And the boy was delivering, and it was all that counted.

And afterward, if she was subdued, it wasn't because she was unhappy. Just introspective. And contented, as she lay cradled against him, her head tucked into the crook of his shoulder, his hands smoothing her hair as he crooned nonsense to her.

"You ok?" He was almost scared to ask. He felt like a complete cad for what he saw as taking advantage of her.

"Better than just ok."

"You sure?"

"I'm not laying here in a fit of regret while trying to think up a way to escape, if that's what put the worry in your voice," she commented lightly.

He chuckled softly. "That's good."

"Leon?"

"Um?"

"It could wait until tomorrow, I suppose, but we are going to have to talk about this."

He sighed. He'd known it was coming. And she was right. They did have to talk about it. "You're right. Up to you when."

"Well, the way I see it, we have a few options. I don't want you to think I regret what we did, because I don't. But I think we both know that it shouldn't have happened. Not tonight, and given the circumstances, likely not ever."

"But it did happen."

"I know, and like I said, I wouldn't take it back even if I could. But that doesn't make it any less complicated. So, from where I'm standing there are a few ways we can go. I honestly feel like you're a very good friend of mine. So, we wouldn't be the first friends to have some sort of friends with benefits comfort sex."

"Ok, point being?"

"Well, if we look at it that way, now we're even better friends. I don't think you can sleep with someone who's your friend and not end up either closer, or letting it get awkward and come between you. I don't want that to happen, so I think it'll just make us closer friends. So, really, it's no one's business but ours, we can just keep what happened between us, and, if it happens again in the future, that's what having a friend with benefits is all about."

"But I thought you said you didn't regret what happened."

"I don't. What makes you think I do?"

"Um, the fact you don't want anyone to know we slept together, I guess."

"Sarcasm doesn't suit you, Le. It isn't for me that I don't want people to know. It's for you, mostly. It's going to be angry and painful for Vince to find out about us Leon. It was hard enough when he just saw us flirting around. If he finds out we took that all the way, he's going to be very mad at both of us, but mostly you. Me, he can just hate forever. You, he has to live with for the foreseeable future. No matter how badly it went, and how unofficial it was, we were sorta dating so I'm his sorta ex. You and I shouldn't have hooked up if we didn't want to make it hard on the group as a whole. The others might frown on you and me for it, and I already feel like a huge slut. I don't have to have the rest of the world thinking I am one too.

"You're not a slut because someone hurt you badly and you turned to a friend for comfort."

"I know that, logically. But it's really too bad that feelings and thoughts aren't always logical."

He kissed her forehead. "Any other reasons why you're pushing for the option where we keep this to ourselves?"

"I'm not sure how Jess'll take it. He might be thrilled. But he might be upset and weird about it too."

He made a noncommittal noise. "There's one thing you haven't considered."

"What?"

"What if there was more to this than just sex for me?"

"Well, was there?"

"Maybe. The whole Vince, Jesse, you leaving never to return in a week thing has me kinda thrown, I gotta admit. Plus," he trailed to a stop with a sigh.

"Plus what?"

"There's the whole feeling I get that you're in love with V." There, he said it. He felt like a huge asshole for sleeping with her when he knew she was in love with another man, and reeling from the emotional slap in the face she'd been dealt, but now it was out there. She was silent for a few minutes. "You ok? I didn't piss you off, did I?"

"No, you just made me think. Now I feel bad," she said, unable to help the small laugh that escaped her.

"Why's that?"

"Because you think you have more than friendly feelings for me, I might very well have more than friendly feelings for Vince, and he's head over heels in love with Mia, who only kinda sorta wants him when she thinks he wants someone else. This is fucked up."

He joined her in her laughter. "I guess it is. When you put it like that, it does seem like the best thing to do is to just not mention the whys and wherefores of you spending the night in here. They'll all assume it was just because I wanted to keep you and Vince separate and we should likely just let them assume that."

"Unless we end up making this more than just what it was."

"If I asked you to stay here with me, on a permanent basis, would you do it?" he asked softly.

She thought about it. She figured that she owed him honesty, if nothing else. "Not now. I have something to prove, Leon. Not just to the world, because giving up on a chance to have a person like you in my life to prove something to some people that don't even really care about me would be stupid. But I have something to prove to myself too, and I think I have to do it or I'll always be wondering what if."

He spent a few moments of his own, thinking about what she had said. And because of how she put it, he couldn't fault her for it. "I think I understand. But, so I'm clear, we are still friends, right?"

"Yeah. So friendly that I'm gonna sleep right here in your bed and I'm not gonna bother getting up to put clothes on," she replied with a laugh that ended on a yawn.

"Then I guess I'll feel free to do the same."

"You do that. Night Le."

"Night Gorgeous."

She fell asleep quickly, obviously more settled by what had happened than she was upset. Sleep didn't prove so easy for him to find. His thoughts kept him up some time later, but he wasn't too bothered by it. He heard Vince stumble down just after Tempest started softly snoring, but he wasn't too worried about Vince. He had some answers, but he still had a lot of questions too. He didn't know what he was going to do about any of it, but figured that like so many other issues in life, it would just have to work itself out how it would.