The Funeral of a Good Girl
By – TempestRaces
Chapter Thirty-Two – Of Jealousy and Liking It
When Vince stepped off the stairs in the basement his gaze moved from the sofa to his bedroom door. What was he supposed to do with Tempest? She hadn't seemed to hate him anymore before she'd fallen asleep. But was that more about him saving her and her being grateful, or was it about her wanting to take back what she'd done at races? He wasn't about to wake her up to ask her, given that she'd been so convinced she wouldn't get any sleep at all. Not to mention that if he woke her up to ask her about their violent break-up and subsequent make-up then he'd have to talk to her about both, something he'd do anything to avoid. And none of that helped answer the question of where he was supposed to put her to bed.
The decision was made when he realized she deserved to have privacy if she woke up sick or worse. Crying. What a horrible, sickening, terrifying thought. Her waking up crying with him the nearest thing to her, and thus him being forced to deal with the waterworks. But, at least knowing what he was going to do gave him a direction to take. He shoved the door of his room open with his toes and lay her down on the bed. He started to look around in her clean laundry pile for a baggy shirt to give her. He settled on a long tank top when it became clear she didn't own a tee shirt.
"So I'm a dead weight, am I?"
Her sleepy, groggy question tinged with laughter at his expense checked him. He turned back to the bed. She'd rolled onto her side and pulled a pillow under her head and was now staring at him sleepily as a smirk flirted around her mouth. She looked so relaxed and sleepy. He wanted to just crawl in with her and try to find some of that warm, sated happiness for himself. But that sounded far too sappy so he refused to admit to it. "When you're not conscious enough to co-operate? Hell yeah."
"Guess you aren't as strong as you look."
"I never said you was heavy. I said you were a dead weight. There's a difference," he growled. She had to go and wake up and start torturing him when all he wanted was to pass out in peace.
"Not one I see," she said, finishing on a yawn she blocked with her hand in a languid motion coloured with sleep.
"Tough. And now that you're awake you can have a glass of water before you go back to sleep."
She pouted. "I don't want any water."
"Well, let me think about that. Tough. You're having water. Then I'm having water and we're going to sleep."
"I ain't gettin' up for water," she spit the last word out with a sneer.
He laughed at her. Couldn't help himself. She looked so funny, three sheets to the wind, next thing to passed out in his bed pouting about having a drink. Unable to help himself, he walked around to the side of the bed she was on and looked down at her. "I'll bring it back here, but you have to drink it." He tossed her the shirt he'd picked out. "Make yourself useful and change while I'm gone."
She sat up halfway in the bed, propped up on her hands as her face pulled into a ferocious scowl. "Who do you think you are?"
"For tonight, as the comparatively sober one, I think I'm the boss."
"Think again. And who taught you the word comparatively? I wanna make sure they don't teach you any other words you could choke on."
"Ha ha! That's funny." He sneered down at her sarcastically. "Change," he repeated, punctuating the command with a hand pointed in her face. He turned to leave the room.
When his back was turned to her she stuck her tongue out at him, scrunching up her nose in a childish show of irritation. Changing sounded an awful lot like work. All she wanted to do was close her eyes and allow herself to drift off again. Changing her clothes and drinking water didn't really figure into her evening plans. Everything she did felt like she was doing it under deep water. Her head felt like it was filled with the same, and it was a huge effort just to remain conscious. With a groan she got up off the bed. If she didn't do as he wanted her to before he came back, she'd just have to listen to him some more. If there was a single person in the world who could out-stubborn her, it had to be him. This fact irritated her to no end.
He was back quicker than she had figured he would be. Of course, it could also be that her perception of time was skewed by her mental state. She was thinking quite slowly. Perhaps she was moving slower than her usual as well. When he walked through the door, the soft cotton of the undershirt he had given her to wear was just settling around her hips. "Hope you're happy!" she growled. "I got up and I changed. Happy now?"
"No. You still gotta drink this before I'll count as happy. Here." He handed over the glass he was carrying and watched as she downed the entire contents. It didn't even appear she had stopped for air during. She handed him the empty glass with a sarcastic sneer.
"There! I drank your water."
"I see that," he said. A snort of laughter escaped from him, despite his best effort to keep it in. He fought a groan as he watched her eyes narrow. Laughing at her right now wasn't the smartest move he could have made.
"What is so funny," she ground out.
"You got water all over the front of you. How you missed a mouth that big I don't know, but you did."
She looked down at herself, saw he was right, and sighed softly to herself. She looked up at him, looking so smug, and just so, well, right. "Oh, bite me!"
"With pleasure. Where would you like it?"
"On my ass, smart guy."
"Ok, assume the position."
"What position?"
"Lay down on your belly with your ass bare and I'll bite it for you."
"It's a figure of speech, which you know as well as the next person. I'm tired, getting hung over, and cranky. Stop trying to be a wise ass."
"I'm just tryin' to do what you tell me to. I'm tryin' to co-operate here." He grinned.
"Sure you are. You just want an excuse to jump my bones while I'm drunk and vulnerable."
"I'm not the one who kissed the other the way you did back at Hector's. Who wanted to jump who then?"
Her face took on a pinched look of distaste when he called her out. He was right, and she didn't care for it. "Seems like the polite thing to do would be to not draw attention to it," she mumbled.
"Don't know who you think you're with that polite figures into it."
"I don't either. I'm clearly delusional."
He hooked some of her wildly tousled curls behind her ear. "You're kinda cute when you're drunk, tired, sleepy and delusional." Where the fuck did that come from?
"I'm about to be cute while I'm all those things and in the bed, not standing beside it. You can stand there all night if you're so inclined, but I've been on my feet all night."
"Don't remind me."
"Why?" she asked as she crawled into the bed and flopped back with a sigh of happiness. She was finally in bed with both things he'd decided she had to do before she could sleep done. Could passing out be far behind?
"Because I'll have to spank your ass instead of biting it if you remind me how you paraded around a stripper pole all night."
"It's not like I stripped."
"Might as well've."
"I disagree. No one saw anything they wouldn't have seen while I just danced on the normal dance floor."
He wasn't prepared to argue with her any longer while on his feet. She might be tired, but so was he. The adrenaline response of discovering her being held against her will, and then having his hands tied to do anything much in response had taken a lot of out him. He walked around the bed and got in. "Yeah, but there were lots of people on the 'normal' dance floor. There were only five of you on the raised stage you were doing what you did on." He didn't care for the look on her face one bit, after he made his statement. She had evil intent written all over her. He settled on his back, hands hooked under his head, and waited for the fallout to begin. He was sure he was right about the fact there was going to be some sort of smart aleck retort out of her when she came up on her side and looked down at him.
"You're kinda cute when you get all indignant and drunk and jealous."
"I'm not jealous."
She smiled. "You are so jealous. Other guys were lookin' at my goodies and you didn't like it."
"I don't care who looks at you. Go back tomorrow and take your clothes off for all I care." Her catching him being jealous did not put him in a good mood.
She reclined on her side with her head propped up on one hand beside him, staring down at him with a smug look on her face. "You're so jealous," she teased, before flicking him on the nose with her finger. He grabbed her hand.
"Don't."
"Or what? What're you gonna do about it, jealous pants?"
"You don't wanna know what I'll do about it," he growled.
Even knowing he was getting really angry wasn't enough to make her stop teasing him. She was still too drunk to comprehend just how bad an idea it was. "You're only gettin' so pissy 'cause I caught you bein' jealous about other guys watchin' me with the pole."
"I. Am. Not. Jealous," he ground out through clenched teeth.
"Ok, you're not jealous," she agreed with a patronizing tone and look on her face. "Just get some sleep."
In a flash, he went from lying on his back beside her to looming over her with her pinned on her back. "I warned you."
"So you did. Now what?"
Her amusement in the face of his anger angered him further. So did the fact he didn't have any idea what to do with her. What could he do with her? Nothing he did ever tempered her smart mouth. He'd tried to find something that would and nothing managed. A big part of him was just happy she was happy again, smiling. But he couldn't let her get away with talking to him the way she was. "You're not too big for me to take over my knee."
"What's with this obsession you have with my ass and you spanking it? Could it be because you sometimes spank it while thinking of my ass?" She smirked.
"That tears it," he growled. He did the only thing he could think of to shut her up. He pressed his lips against hers.
With a sigh of surrender she kissed him back as though he had first kissed her just to kiss her, not to shut her up. The anger quickly left the act, replaced by something that felt strangely like tenderness. It was the first time she could ever recall that they had kissed in view of a bed—never mind in one—and not spent as much time biting at each other as they did enjoying each other. Her hands crossed behind his neck, her fingers stealing into his hair to tease the silk texture of it even as his hand came up to frame her face. After another minute, when his mouth wandered from her mouth, across her cheek and started down her neck, she sighed. It wasn't that he seemed like he didn't want to be with her, but both their involvement lacked a certain burning need to be together that was normally present so strongly it consumed them both. The almost gentle kissing and nibbling wasn't the way they were together. She knew she was exhausted and figured he was pretty beat himself. "V?"
"Um?" he muttered against the side of her neck.
"You know, we could just," she paused. Would she hurt his feelings if she acted like she would rather just pass out than pass out after sex? "Well," she hesitated.
"Go to sleep?" he asked, sounding almost hopeful.
"Well, I mean, yeah. If you want to," she added quickly.
"Well, I mean, only if you want to. Go to sleep I mean."
"I could go either way, really. I mean, I could always," she trailed off. "But I could sleep too."
"Well, I could definitely always," it was his turn to pause. "But I mean, I like to sleep as much as the next person."
"There's always later. We could just sleep for a while first, maybe. Rest up."
"Yeah, good idea. We'll get some rest first."
She allowed herself to be settled against his side with a tired, but content sigh. She knew she was going to need a good night's sleep. Tomorrow was going to suck, and suck a great deal. She would not only have to deal with the mother of all hangovers, if history was any sort of teacher at all, but would also have to deal with the displeasure of Mia, Dom and Jesse over what they would perceive as her reunion of every sort with Vince. She sure had gotten quite good at complicating her life, she mused just as sleep claimed her.
Sleep relinquished its hold over her at around two the following afternoon. It did so in a most violent way. She woke up with a pressing need to be sick. As she ran to the bathroom, she couldn't help but muse that her good luck had been bound to run out sooner or later. She had been very drunk several times since arriving in California, and had managed to escape being hung over each time.
Until now.
This was definitely where her luck ended. Because, man was she sick this time. Despite the fact there was really nothing left in her stomach to come up, she still heaved for several minutes before she felt well enough to stand up again. She washed her face with cold water and brushed her teeth before picking up the bucket still downstairs from her last brush with the morning after and headed back into Vince's room, dragging her feet and pressing a hand to her forehead. All she wanted was to fall back into bed in the dark and sleep until she didn't want to die. Given Vince's love of sleeping until obscenely late hours, she was hoping her flight from the room hadn't woken him, and that she could crawl back into bed and fall back asleep before he had even realized she was gone.
She set the bucket on the floor by the head of the bed and crawled back in. She managed to keep her moan of misery low pitched. She lay on her side, facing the edge of the bed where her bucket was and closed her eyes.
"Where'd you go?"
Vince's question, uttered in a low, sleepy tone shocked her a bit. He came up on his side behind her and draped his arm over her waist. She leaned back into him with a sigh. So much for him staying asleep. "Bathroom."
"You ok?"
"Nothing a few hundred more hours of sleep won't fix."
"Is that a bucket?" Vince asked, peaking over the edge of the bed.
"Yeah," she answered quietly.
"That bad?"
"And likely worse. If it's gonna gross you out if I throw up, now'd be a good time to take off," she cautioned as she frantically scrambled to grab her bucket.
Rather than take her offered excuse to take off, he pulled her hair back behind her and rubbed her back. "Didn't think to take water back with you, huh?" he asked after she finished and sagged back into him.
"No point. I won't be able to keep anything down when I feel this shitty."
"No, but you could have at least been able to rinse your mouth if you brought water with you."
She agreed with a nod. "You can bail, you don't have to stick around and deal with this shit."
"I'm not ready to deal with the rest of this house. Don't worry about it. You throwin' up is hardly the worst thing I've had to see. 'Sides, you've hurled in front of me before."
She groaned. "Don't remind me. I'm always at my worst around you."
"That's not true. I've seen you lookin' pretty good too."
"Yeah, and you've also seen me vomiting several times, getting in fights, and getting man handled by some creep. I have no dignity left now anyway, I guess."
"Well, dignity is over rated anyway. It's better to live without it, stop letting it bother you, and act however you want than it is to always try to edit yourself to suit other people."
She laughed. "You could be right, I suppose." She stopped talking to groan. "Don't make me laugh. It hurts too much."
"I could get you that water and some aspirin?"
"I guess it couldn't hurt to see if I could keep them down."
He got up, sliding away from her carefully. "I'll be right back. Don't go anywhere."
"Yeah, as soon as your back's turned I'm off to run a marathon."
"Nothing about you would surprise me. Not even if you planned to run a marathon while puking."
"Thanks for drawing attention to it again."
"It's just me'n you, Trouble. And it's hard not to have attention drawn to it when you're doing it right in front of me."
She moaned in slight embarrassment. "I'm never drinking again."
"How many times have you said that?" he asked, paused with his hand on the doorknob.
"Too many to count up, but this time, I mean it."
"Sure you do," he left the room with a chuckle. When he came back into the room, she was dozing on her side with one hand under her cheek and the other arm draped over a pillow. He was torn, unsure if he should just let her continue to sleep, or wake her up and make her take the pills. In the end, he figured he'd drug her. She could sleep while the water sat in her stomach and she might just manage to keep most of it down long enough for it to start to rehydrate her. "Ok, water and Tylenol, just what the doctor ordered for alcohol induced headaches."
"You just had to wake me," she said on a moan.
"It must be the sadist in me, I guess. Now sit up and drink this, and take these, and then you can go back to sleep."
"You get entirely too much joy out of this, and I can tell."
"I get no joy out of you bein' sick."
"You say that like you mean it." She looked up at him in shock. He sounded serious. She would have figured that he would be the first one to love seeing her miserable, as repayment for her making him watch her dance with the stripper pole and be jealous all night.
"I do. I was supposed to get some when you woke up, but now you're too sick. How'm I supposed to be happy about that?"
"What I told you you'd get while I was drunk, and what I actually intend while sober are two different things."
"It don't really matter. I have no intentions of taking advantage of the puking chick. We can re-evaluate our options when you wake up able to not throw up, ok?" he asked, chuckling.
"Maybe when I wake up feelin' better I won't want another thing to do with your smug, mangy hide," she mumbled.
"That's a chance I'll just have to take. Now, go back to sleep and shut the hell up." Despite his curt words he slid back into his bed and then over to lay behind her.
"You really don't have to stick around."
"I know I don't. I really don't feel all that great myself, and I'm really not ready to be conscious yet. So if you'd just shut up and get some sleep, maybe I could too."
"Alright already," she mumbled, already starting to drift off. That was often how she felt when she was seriously hung over. Like she didn't want to anything but sleep. She had been known to sleep until seven or eight pm in fits and starts. She might wake up for awhile, feel not too bad, be sick again and then go back to sleep. She figured it was her body's way of telling her that it felt too bad to be dealt with, and that it would ultimately be better for her to just sleep until she didn't feel like death was a better option than life.
She surprised herself by sleeping for another two hours before she woke up. She tried to keep her need to be sick inside, but it didn't work out that way. Thankfully, there was only water to come up and it was over quickly. She carefully leaned back into the calm presence of Vince again and sighed.
"If I got as sick as you, I might not ever want to drink again either. Some shit, huh?"
"Tell me about it. I knew all that tequila was a bad idea. I mostly blame Jesse. I stopped buying my own long before he stopped buying me more."
"I'll help you kick his ass when you can stand up without falling over."
"I could stand up just fine right now. Maybe not without being sick again, but I could easily stand up."
"Jesse just wanted you to have a good time. I'm guessing he hasn't seen the aftermath firsthand of you having that good a time."
"No, he hasn't. But he's heard about it enough."
"Well, maybe the best punishment would be for me to go get him next time you think you're gonna hurl, and I'll make him hold your hair back."
"I don't need anyone to hold my hair back, and its bad enough you're seeing me this way."
"Why's it such a big deal? If you're sick you're sick. I hardly expect you to get up and find somewhere else to stay just 'cause you woke up sick. You slept here last night, you woke up here sick, so you can stay here and be sick. At least you're outta the way and its dark and quiet."
"It's a big deal because I look and feel so weak right now. I don't need anyone else seeing me like this," she muttered.
His hand rubbed idle circles on her stomach. "I don't think you're weak because you're sick now. You drank a lot, and dealt with what happened to you besides that. Being human doesn't make you weak."
"You are the last person I ever expected to hear that kind of sentiment from."
"Why's that?" he asked, half scared of the answer.
"Because normally Mr. Macho guys—of which, you are one—would be the last kind of person to think that showing human flaws doesn't make you weak."
"Well Trouble, if anyone tries to tell me that my human flaws make me weak, I'll just prove to them how very not weak I am," he chuckled. "Nothing drives home how not weak you are like pounding the guy who told you that you were into a bloody pulp."
"Spoken like a true Mr. Macho," she yawned.
"I don't feel all that macho when I'm holding the sick chick's hair off her face while she retches. Or while I'm running for her water and Aspirin."
She giggled sleepily. "A little humility won't hurt you. But you managed to even make doing those things seem like enough of a chore to you so as to save yourself the trouble of not looking manly."
"That's good. You're still not ready to be up yet, are you?"
"Don't think so. Why?"
"Because if you go back to sleep, you'll be quiet."
"Are you sure you still wanna hang out in bed with the sleeping, sick chick?"
"Yeah. If I get bored I might have to resort to feeling you up, but I'm surprisingly ok with that."
"I just bet you are."
"Go back to sleep."
She rolled over to face him, pushed him onto his back and made herself at home curled into his side.
He watched as, with one huge yawn, she settled into a comfortable position against him and with a contented sigh, relaxed totally and drifted off. He couldn't help the small spike of jealousy that came over him at her easy ability to just fall back asleep. Even though he loved to sleep in, this was pushing the limit of how long he wanted to stay in bed. But his need to take care of her was alive and kicking, not that he knew where it came from. He knew she didn't need him to take care of her, and wouldn't appreciate the sentiment of it either. But he wasn't willing to leave her to wake up alone. When he forced himself to let his mind drift off, he did mange to sleep again himself.
He woke up again hours later with the beginnings of a 'you spent far too much time asleep today' headache. It seemed she didn't have any similar issues in that regard herself. She was still contentedly sleeping where he had left her. A glance at the clock and a groan later and he was aware it was six pm. Whether she liked it or not, if she was able to be awake without throwing up, they were getting up. They had been in bed for fourteen hours and it was long enough to spend in bed. Well, long enough to spend in bed not entertaining each other in any event.
"You still asleep?" he asked her gruffly. He knew she was, but he was hoping his question would wake her up. She didn't answer, or wake up. She just burrowed closer to him, her face finding the hollow between his shoulder and neck as she settled in again with a sigh, her hand sliding down from his shoulder where it had been to drape casually over his hip. "You awake yet?" he pushed further, running a hand up her back to trail his fingers across her nape.
"No," she muttered, annoyed.
"Temp, we've been sleeping for over half a day."
"So what?" she retorted petulantly against the side of his neck. She was clearly pissed off.
"So…For over half a day, T."
"You had to wake me so you could get up?"
Her whiny tone didn't suit her, but he knew how much he hated to be woken, so he had to understand in some ways. "I guess not. But are you really still feeling so terrible that you can't get up for awhile?" He paused. "Unless of course, you have some way to keep me from getting bored if I stay here with you?" His fingers left the fine hair at her neck and started to trip down her spine.
"V," she whined in a drawl.
"T," he drawled back. "You find me repulsive all of a sudden? You didn't seem to mind me with my hands on you too much last night." He waited for her to come back with a story about how drunk she was.
"I find myself repulsive. I haven't had a shower since yesterday. I haven't been to the bathroom in hours, and I seriously need to brush my teeth again before I let anyone else near my mouth."
He laughed. And was entirely too happy to hear her honesty. She didn't try to pawn off what she'd done, both their reunion in the club and what almost came afterward in his room, as a drunken mistake she hadn't known she was making. "Well, go to the bathroom and come back. I think I can help you forget how shitty you feel, and I promise you'll get sweatier before I'm done, so you don't need to worry there."
"I'll go to the bathroom, and see how I feel on the way back."
"Don't be long."
She just shot him a dirty look over her shoulder as she walked out of the room. He chuckled. She was so prickly. All dirty looks and petulance. You had to know where to look to find the crack in the armour that would let you in. She was gone longer than he thought necessary. Just as he was about to go looking for her she came strolling back in, wet hair hanging down her back. "You stopped to take a shower? I've been waiting on you to come back and finish what you started and you stopped to take a shower?"
"I felt all gross. I needed to. I was quick." She walked back up beside the bed and looked down. "If you're mad at me, I'll just go lookin' for Jess."
"I'm not mad, I'm frustrated."
She smirked, an eyebrow cocked to accent the smugness. "Might be good for you to live a little frustrated for awhile. You're awful full of yourself."
"Look who's talkin'." Vince growled.
"I got good reason to be stuck up."
"Oh yeah? What's that?" He looked up at her with a look that could only be described as dirty on his face.
"Because I made you jealous of a whole club full of other dudes, that's why," she answered, still smirking in a most smug manner. "You were so jealous that you told me to go back there tonight and take all my clothes off if I wanted in an attempt to hide just how jealous you were."
"I was not jealous," Vince bit out.
"Ok. I'm just gonna go find Leon and make out with him then. I think I'm ready for a little variety in my life." She turned to walk away from the bed. She found herself tossed back onto it in a heartbeat. She landed with a startled exhale as Vince landed half on her, pinning her down with a snarl.
"You are not going to so much as think about making out with anyone but me," Vince growled. She smiled, not smugly this time, but in that 'I've got a secret you want to know' way that drove him crazy.
Little did he know, she had him right where she wanted him. He might not be willing to admit he was jealous over her. But he was certainly showing it nicely. And it was good enough for her. In fact, the fact he clearly didn't want to be jealous was way better than had he simply been ok with his jealous feelings. If he didn't like it, that meant it was very real. She lifted her head off the pillow it had landed on and nipped the side of his neck where it joined his shoulder. He growled at her in his chest, the sound low and angry, very indicative of Vince. "In that case, you better be keeping me entertained," she retorted. She knew she was pushing her luck—and perhaps too far at that—but she couldn't help herself.
A look of incredulous anger flashed over his face, but was gone quickly, replaced by a look that Tempest knew from experience meant things were going to get a lot better for her very quickly. She was going to be tortured, this much she knew. But she was going to enjoy every second of it, this she also knew. Before she could analyze the situation any farther, Vince lowered his head toward her and nipped the skin over her collarbone hard enough to sting, but not hard enough to break the skin. She lost her battle to keep her breathlessly pleased gasp to herself and felt his self satisfied smirk against her skin.
Unwilling to be outdone, she grabbed a fistful of his hair and violently hauled his mouth to hers, biting his bottom lip with a similar amount of force. She was quite sure his bottom lip was going to end up very swollen, but she didn't draw blood. Much as his attitude often made her want to, she restrained herself with difficulty. He didn't take her reaction in step. She watched as he licked his lip, tongue testing out where her teeth had snapped. In his anger, her tank top didn't stand a chance. He didn't even bother trying to pull it off over her head. He simply grabbed the material on either side of the seam and pulled. The seam let go with a loud rending sound and a moment later her was tossing her shredded top to the floor.
"Was that necessary? I liked that shirt."
He didn't answer, just caught both her hands between one of his and raised them over her head. She wanted to struggle to get free, but pushed the need down with some effort. She didn't want to give him the satisfaction. She looked up at him with one brow cocked instead, as if to say 'that all you got?'
Her arrogance got to him, like it always did. He forced the growl that started to bubble in his chest back down and slowly lowered his mouth toward her skin. He nipped the curve of breast hard enough to leave an angry little red mark before swiping the same area with his tongue. As anticipated, his efforts wiped most of the smug look off her face. He told himself that under no circumstances was she getting her hands free until she fought his hold, or asked. Begged. Either way. For once she wasn't going to have the upper hand.
Sensing that again, their game was about power, she fought against any need to show a reaction. The fight got harder the longer he continued to touch her with his lips, tongue, teeth and free hand. Deciding that laying passively in the hope she could out-stubborn him wasn't the best plan, she instead forced a sultry look to her face and used her leg to rub down his hip before hooking it around his nearest leg. She wanted to shout about her minor win when her action forced him to sharply draw a breath and return his gaze to her face.
When he saw the siren look on her face, his plans of torturing her went out the window. He wanted her, and he wanted her now. When it came to who could resist the other longer, he supposed she had just won. Not that he was ever going to tell her that to her face. She already had some strange ideas in her head about how he felt about things. Thinking he was jealous of some random guys in a bar just about tore it. There was no way he was going to let her start thinking he was so caught up in her he couldn't tell her no. He might as well just hand her his balls on a silver tray, and he knew it.
She was one female who constantly pushed the envelope of how far she could take any situation. She was always pushing. Pushing him, pushing Dom, pushing her car. Pushing. Trying to see just how far she could take things before she took them too far. She didn't even seem to be too bothered when she did take things too far, either. Most of those times just turned into yet another situation for her to push against the boundaries of her world again. He didn't know why he let her get away with it around him. She got away with saying things to him and doing things to him that no one else would. He knew he wouldn't let Dominic talk to him the way she did. Not even in jest. He had his doubts if he would even let Mia try it. Of course, it would never enter Mia's motherly little soul to say the things that Trouble said, or do the things that Trouble did.
He could only surmise that as he'd been caught up in both his thoughts, and the way her skin tasted under his mouth, he had let her hands go free. Because before he had realized he'd turned her loose, she had her hands tangled in his hair.
"Stop daydreaming and get to it already!"
So she was pulling his hair and ordering him to stop messing around and finish what he'd started. Despite finding the situation anything but a laughing matter, he found himself chuckling. There she went again. She shouldn't be able to get away with ordering him to do anything. Not even with ordering him to 'hurry up and have sex with her, already'. But she could. Bossy, mouthy, troublesome woman that she was. And more the fool he, he thought with his last second where thought was possible, for not only giving her what she ordered him to give, but liking it too.