Thanks for letting me know people still read the story. It doesn't get a lot of hits compared to my other stories, and those haven't been updated in 'a coon's age' so I just assumed it wasn't being read here. Since it is read at the other place it's posted, I just figured I'd save some time and not post it where it wasn't being well received. But now that I'm more aware that it is being read, I'll post it gladly here. This chapter was originally NC-17. It's pretty toned down, but likely still pushes the limits of M. So, you're warned. Don't whine to me about it being to racy for your tastes because all you'll get is a big round of Brie to go with your whine for your trouble G

Just because I don't want to update the story with a note why it's taking so long, here's a brief update on Catalyst. Yes, I do plan to finish it and yes I do know it hasn't been updated in a very long time. I did start on the final chapter for it and have a few pages down. Here's the rub though. Catalyst is this huge, shiny, impossibly perfect—considering I wrote it—story in my mind. The characters are real and normal, the spelling and grammar are good—considering I wrote it—and I really, really want the last chapter to be perfect. So now I have all these grand expectations and I want the perfect ending I imagined. And now I doubt my ability to end my own story to my own standards and give it the ending it deserves. So I've been half afraid to write it. I haven't wanted to force it because I've been feeling if I do, it won't come out perfect. Sooner or later I'll start writing it and settle for done and it'll turn out better than I thought it would, like all my chapters for it seemed to. But for now it feels like I've written myself into a corner and can't get out. Hope that makes sense, and I promise it will be finished someday.

With love, T

The Funeral of a Good Girl

By – TempestRaces

Chapter twenty-two – Of Surprises and Borrowing Trouble

Vince parked the car in the driveway, and was glad to see all the lights were off. "We'll go in the back door. Closer to the stairs."

"Good idea. You got a key for the back door?"

"Yeah, I do live here."

"Smart ass."

He chuckled. He got the door unlocked and turned back to face her. He just found himself standing, looking down into her eyes on the back step. She broke the silence first.

"I had a nice time tonight. I'm glad I didn't beat Dominic." She smiled softly, choosing to say 'didn't' rather than 'couldn't'.

"Me too," he answered. Before he knew what he was doing, his hand was cupping her cheek and his lips were brushing over hers lightly. He was waiting for her to push him away, to tell him she wasn't interested in picking this part of what was between them back up. So he was quite glad when rather than do as he expected, her hands slid up over his chest and didn't stop there, but instead carried on to twine around his neck as she kissed him back.

Some part of her had planned to tell him they were likely better off just keeping the period at the end of their sexual relationship. And then he put his hands on her and there wasn't a thing she could think of but the feeling of his skin against hers. She swayed into him, leaning on his chest as she both allowed him to kiss her deeply and responded in kind. She sighed against his lips as one of his hands moved into her hair to hold the back of her head and the other moved around her waist, holding her close to his body heat.

After another moment, his hand left her hair and his lips moved down across her neck. He reached behind himself and fumbled for the doorknob. He was glad he'd unlocked the door before he'd turned back to kiss her. He wasn't ready to let her go, not even long enough to open the door. So in that spirit, when he pushed the door inward, he didn't turn around to walk through it, but rather stepped up and backwards into the house, pulling her with him. He moved them deep enough into the kitchen to get the door closed and locked before backing her up against it, still licking and nipping the side of her neck as her hands knotted in his hair.

She used the grip she had on his hair to drag his mouth back to hers. Once that was accomplished her hands released their hold and drifted downward before sliding around behind him and drifting up over his back, under his shirt. He leaned closer to her, lining his body up with hers, trapping her between the heat of his bulk and the cold of the wooden door. "Take me to bed, V." She shocked herself with her request uttered out loud.

"Can't wait that long," he growled against her neck as he reached between them.

She heard the zipper of his pants going down. She gasped in shock. "What're you sayin'?"

"That I can't wait 'til I can get you down the stairs to have you." He started to work her dress up over her hips.

"We're gonna," she trailed off, her voice breathless. She figured he could fill in the blank without her help. "Right here in the kitchen?"

"I'll never be able to look at this door the same way again," he confirmed in a low voice tinged with laughter.

She felt her knees get weak when the facts he was both dead serious and had her dress pretty much out of his way already clicked. She reached for him. If they were going to do what they were going to do, she figured she might as well go all out.

It suddenly occurred to him that important elements of her clothes were missing. "You weren't wearing anything under this scrap of dress all night?"

"Surprise," she said on a breathless laugh.

He groaned against her mouth, wondering what he'd done to deserve such an intriguing package of trouble. It was dark in the kitchen, but enough light spilled in from outside to highlight her leaning against the door. Her skin was pale and looked luminous in the ambient light from outside. The effect was intensified by the inky black of her dress rucked up around her hips. "I can't get enough of you."

"No kiddin'." Her hands returned to the slick skin of his back, sliding under his tight black shirt to trail up and down his spine.

"I don't know how I waited this long to get you home. I haven't had anything else in my mind ever since you kept rubbin' your ass back on me in the pool hall."

She laughed throatily. "Why do you think I did that in the first place?"

He growled softly before tangling his hands in her hair and kissing her again. Their mouths met in a clash of teeth and tongues, their mutual desire coming together like two flame fronts, burning hot and violent.

After, she giggled tiredly in his arms. "Ok, that wasn't what I had in mind, but sure was interesting."

He caught her with a chuckle before wiggling her dress back down over her lower body. "I never figured on anyone but Dom and Letty 'christening' the kitchen."

"Really? Where? Not against the door I hope."

"No. On the counter beside the sink."

"Gross," she said, but laughed as she said it.

"Well, they cleaned up behind themselves."

"That's still nasty."

"Well, sometimes even the amount of time just to tackle a flight of stairs is too long."

"I hear that." This side of Vince was the one that was going to make it the hardest to let him go in a week, she mused to herself as she stood in his arms, leaning into his strength and joking with him. The almost tender, playful lover was the part of him she loved the most. The badass who would have a verbal sparring match with her any time, any place came in a close second. Oh my god, did I just say love, even in my own head? Oh man, she groaned in her own thoughts. I'm in a lot of trouble.

"And unless you want to try out the kitchen table, it's time to go to bed." He swung her up into his arms. When she giggled breathlessly at him after he had his arms hooked around her back and under her knees he kissed her again. "I've got about thirty seconds before that table's gonna look too good to pass up."

"Just get your shirt. I don't wanna know what'll happen if Dom finds that hanging over the dish rack in the morning."

He had to fight a fit of laughter loud enough to wake everyone in the neighbourhood. He was half tempted to leave his shirt hanging there, just to see what Dom would say. But in the end common sense won out and he snagged it before starting down the basement stairs.

I really can't believe it! Poor Mia stood frozen in shock in the living room. She had woken up a while before, and unable to go back to sleep, had decided to head down to the kitchen for a glass of warm milk. The strange noises she had heard had given her pause. Thinking there might be a prowler in the house, she had first turned to go wake Dom. But then she had admonished herself to stop being foolish, and decided to check on her own. She had tried to talk herself into believing she was hearing things, or that someone had left the window over the sink open and there were ambient sounds from outside making their way in. If only that had been the case!

Instead she had come down the hall, creeping like she expected someone to jump out and get her at any minute, only to find herself confronted by Vince's bare back across the room. When she realized he wasn't standing still, but moving his hips, she'd figured out what he was doing, standing shirtless in front of the door. And with whom. At first her shock had stood her frozen in her place, a hand covering her mouth in horror. They were having sex. In her kitchen. Standing against the back door. And judging by the way Tempest had her head thrown back, and Vince had his open mouth pressed to the column of her throat, they were really enjoying themselves too. They were so wrapped up in each other they didn't even know she was there.

That thought had her moving again in a hurry. She didn't want them to know she was there either, didn't want to get caught watching. Not that there was a lot to see, due to the way they were standing. Thank god, she thought, kissing her thumb in thanksgiving. The idea what was going on was enough to live with. She didn't want to see any more than she already had! Heck, she hadn't wanted to even see that much! But it still boggled her mind. Vince, of all people, had Jesse's analytical, methodical cousin so tangled up she was willing to throw caution to the wind and allow him to back her up against a door in one of the main rooms of a house that six people lived in and have sex with her.

He took his shirt off to have sex in my kitchen and it landed on my dish rack! And they thought about leaving it there for Dom to find. Mia couldn't prevent the snort of laughter that escaped her. The humour of in the idea of Dominic finding clothes in his kitchen wasn't hard to see. But, funny or no, now she still had to live with the knowledge of seeing it happen, knowing it happened, and acting like she hadn't seen, and didn't know, anything. And now, add to all that she now knew her brother and best friend had had sex on her kitchen counter, beside the sink. And that her brother's friend and his other friend's cousin had momentarily considered having sex on her kitchen table. What's the world coming to?

When she was sure they were locked safely in Vince's room, she moved into the kitchen and put some milk in a pot on the stove. She then filled the sink with hot water and cleanser and wiped down the door. She knew she'd never get back to sleep if she didn't do in now, when it would be dry and the evidence she knew what they'd done gone by morning. Like an afterthought she scrubbed the counter down too, even though she knew she'd washed in literally thousands of times since 'the event'. By the time she was done her milk was warm and she poured it into a mug, carrying it back upstairs with her. She chuckled once she was back in her bed. She figured she could either see the humour or go crazy. Maybe it would be good for Vince to get a taste of reality in the form of a real relationship, even if it was only for two weeks. It could only be giving him unrealistic expectations to date girls who didn't expect anything of him time after time.