The Funeral of a Good Girl

By – TempestRaces

Chapter Forty-Two – Of Fear and Self Preservation

They parted ways and Tempest headed over to her car. She slid in the passenger seat and Jesse backed out around the building. "What was that about?"

"Harry's working on some parts for the Skyline. Just some backup stuff that he'll have an easier time getting his hands on than I will once I go home."

As that seemed like a perfectly valid reason for her to talk to Harry to him, Jesse let the topic drop. Since it was pretty much supper time, he headed for the house. "What're you doin' tonight?" Jesse asked after he'd shut the car down.

Tempest shrugged. "Not too much, I'd imagine. Not unless you have big plans for us?"

"We could go to another movie."

"If I get to pick this time."

"Deal. I'll get the website up after we eat and you can see what's there."

"Sure," Tempest answered before following Jesse into the house. She realized that this time she was going to have to eat the meal Mia had made. Otherwise she was going to look bitchy to everyone. There was no conveniently invented excuse as to why she didn't normally eat supper. Not like there was for her and breakfast. And if they wondered why she wouldn't eat supper with everyone they'd ask questions about the whys and she had no desire to answer them. Had no desire to talk about the situation either. So when Jesse headed right to the dining room after his shoes were off, she followed him. Since Vince was no where to be found, she sat beside Jesse and hoped he didn't show up late.

It was Jesse that commented on his absence. "Vince not come home for supper?"

"No," Dom answered shortly.

"Why not?" Jesse asked. He had obviously been oblivious to Dom's queues to let it go.

"He didn't care to fill us in. He just told us he wasn't coming home and didn't know when he would end up back here. But that it wouldn't be until late tonight. Then he left for somewhere right from the garage."

"Oh, ok." Jesse let the topic go with a shrug.

Tempest kept her sigh of relief to herself. Or so she thought, until she saw the look Leon was giving her across the table. She shrugged and mouthed the word 'what'.

Leon just shook his head. Two of the most stubborn, blind, and often stupid people in the world and they had to hook up to be stubborn, blind, and stupid together, break each other, and generally irritate those around them right there in his house. Finally he mouthed back 'nothing' with a smirk. Tempest replied by sticking her tongue out at him. Leon kicked her in the shin under the table. A look of pain flashed briefly in her eyes before a look of evil replaced it.

Carefully, she pried her boot off her foot and started to run it up the baggy pant leg of Leon's jeans. She knew he couldn't say or do anything without alerting the entire table to what she was doing. She went back to a mundane conversation with Jesse, all the while brushing her toes over the skin of Leon's calf, knee and thigh. She occasionally watched him out of the corner of her eye as he attempted not to show any reaction.

As Dom watched Tempest talk with just slightly too much enthusiasm about radiators with Jesse, and watched Leon keep a relaxed look just a little too relaxed to be normal on his face, he slowly got madder and madder. Things were up within his team. Things he didn't understand or like and he was getting tired of it. Her and Vince at each other's throats. Her going out of her way to piss Vince off. Vince behaving not even half as well as a spoiled child. Her getting very buddy buddy with Leon. The exchange she and Leon had just made totally nonverbally worried him. Why had they gotten close enough to 'speak' without needing words? And why was Leon studying his dinner so intently now?

Leon fought back a response of some kind as the seeking toes of the witch across the table brushed very close to his groin, yet didn't touch. He watched her face as she watched her cousin, easily keeping up in the conversation she was having with Jesse while she really concentrated on torturing him. She had her chin cupped in her palm, her green eyes focused on Jesse's blue ones, and was responding appropriately to everything Jesse said. Yet he was sure most of her concentration was on keeping her toes dancing all around the places that would drive him crazy, and not give so much as a feather touch where he really wanted it. He really was fine with their decision not to try being together in a real sense. But that didn't stop his body from looking at her, knowing she was good at certain things, and responding to the potential to do them again. Sitting with the rest of his family at the dinner table or not. He saw her pupils dart to the corners of her eyes and glance his way swiftly again, before just as swiftly returning to center on Jesse.

Leon looked flustered, she giggled to herself. She knew what he'd been thinking about her, and she didn't like it at all. So she was making him pay. She brushed the ball of her foot over the area she'd been studiously avoiding before starting to toy with the hem of his jeans on the other side. She never paused or dropped the thread of the conversations she seemed deeply involved in with Jesse. She thought everyone but she and Leon were immune to what was happening between them. Deciding she'd really make Leon pay a second before she stopped and allowed him a few moments to comport himself well enough to stand up from the table, she tripped her toes ever higher before using the ball of her foot to apply gentle pressure in a few strategic areas.

As he watched Leon's quick indrawn breath, watched him almost suck part of a carrot down his throat unchewed, and return with far too much concentration to watching his dinner, Dom had enough. "What is going on?" he bellowed.

His roar caused Tempest to momentarily forget where her foot was. Her knee hit the underside of the tabletop hard enough to make her bite her lip to stop from doing some bellowing of her own. The rebound caused when her knee bounced off the oak table caused her to drive her foot with some force into a sensitive area of Leon's anatomy.

Leon fought back a string of swear words. She hadn't gotten him that badly but the unexpected jolt had shocked him. He watched with some glee as tears welled at the bottom of her eyes and she fought the need to rub her now aching kneecap. He fought a need of his own to rub his now throbbing for different reasons than before crotch. He spared a glance at Dominic. There could well be serious trouble brewing. Dom was very pissed off.

"Well?" Dom growled. No one answered. Tempest had remained locked in her conversation with Jesse, but she had stopped talking when he roared. Jesse was looking around in confusion, so as if she realized that pretending to still be looking at him while they talked wouldn't work anymore, she looked around the table too. She looked at Letty with one eyebrow cocked and Letty only grinned in answer. Dom knew they were basically laughing at him together for taking whatever was going on so seriously, and it only served to make him angrier. This intensified when Leon shook his head at them in warning, as if to warn them he was off his rocker already and the two cocky females didn't need to make it worse. "Someone better tell me what the fuck is going on around here lately!"

"Nothing Dom. Chill out already," Letty told him, a ghost of a smile still flirting with the corners of her mouth.

"Nothing," Dom growled softly to himself. "Nothing is why these two had some sort of private conversation over why Vince wouldn't come home for supper? Nothing is why those two," he gestured between Jesse and Tempest, "found a conversation about radiators so interesting? Nothing is what made him," he pointed at Leon, "almost choke on his dinner? Nothing is what made her," this time he glared at Tempest, "almost bite her own lip off in an effort not to scream at me? You still want me to believe nothing is going on after all of that?"

"Dom, you need to calm down dawg. It's no big deal," Leon tried to placate Dominic before he could get really upset.

"If it's no big deal you shouldn't have a hard time telling me what's going on."

"Like Letty said, nothing is going on," Tempest finally found her voice. She carefully manoeuvred her foot back into her discarded boot in preparation for needing to stand up away from the table.

"Nothing? For real?" Dom glared at her.

"Listen, much as I know you figure everything that goes on in the state of California is your business, that's not really true. So yeah, seriously, nothing is going on that involves you and when you need to know what's up, someone will fill you in. Until then just chill out before you drop dead of an aneurism or somethin'. Stress is going to kill you young if you don't calm the fuck down."

Jesse looked quickly between his cousin and his mentor. "If we're gonna catch that movie we should really head out now or we're not gonna make it." He scraped back from the table quickly and took hold of Tempest's upper arm to haul her out of her chair.

"Sit!" Dom roared. "No one is going anywhere until this is settled."

Jesse's ass was in his seat again so fast Tempest had to wonder if he had friction burn or splinters from the process. That tears it! "Really?" she asked, her eyebrows drawn together over her nose in disbelief. "You're gonna stop me from goin' someplace? 'Cause I missed out on the memo that gave you any authority over me." She stood up in preparation for walking away from Dom and his archaic attitude.

"You better shut that fuckin' smart ass mouth before I shut it for you!"

Tempest laughed. She really laughed, from deep in her belly with genuine mirth. It scared Leon in a lot of ways, as he watched Dom's face turn red in reaction. "Baby girl," he murmured her way in warning.

"No, seriously! I want to see him shut my mouth for me," Tempest was still chuckling as she turned her laughing green gaze to Leon. She had to wonder who Dom thought he was. She spared a quick look at Letty and found that the other girl was no longer laughing. She was exchanging a worried glance with Mia. "You know what? This is totally retarded. I'm going to go change out of my dirty work cloths." She looked at Jesse. "And if you're allowed out to play after supper, we'll go see that movie." She started to walk away from the table and before she knew it she had Dom's huge, callused hand wrapped around her wrist as he stopped her travel toward the basement stairs.

"I said, sit back down," he ground out through clenched teeth.

"And I said no," she answered, shrugging. "So now what?"

Dom's grip tightened on her arm as he rose out of his chair. "Either sit, or I'll put you in the chair myself."

"Let go of me," Tempest ordered. Her eyes took on the hard cast of stone as she slowly got angrier and it drew her down into a place of icy calm control over her emotions. Dom was taking this thing between them one step too far. Her frozen jade, narrowed eyes met his fire hot black irises in a clash of wills so strong it was felt by everyone in the room. "Did you hear me or are you deaf?" she asked between clenched teeth, as his strong brown hand stayed locked around her slender wrist with an iron grip.

"I heard you, you spitting wild bitch, but I'm sick of your shit. So sit your ass down in your chair before I put you there!" Dom used his grip on her arm to back her up a step toward her abandoned seat.

Dom might have truly been sick of her shit, but not half as sick as she was of his, she was willing to bet. With a twist of her arm she had her wrist free. While Dom was looking at her in shock, having never been treated to one of her escape manoeuvres, she spun on her heel, leaned to one side and had her right foot pinning Dom to the wall by his throat a second later. "When I say let me go, I suggest you let me go." She stood breathing heavily, her foot pressing into Dom's neck just enough to start to restrict his airflow, thus letting him know she meant business. The second she'd done what she'd done, she had started to rethink the manoeuvre. Sooner or later, she was going to have to let him go. While the threat of not being able to breath was keeping him still and docile right now, god knew what he'd do when she let him go. She couldn't hold him pinned to the wall forever. "Nothing about you kindly allowing Jesse to offer me a place to stay here gave you the right to put your hands on me. Do you understand?" He just stared back at her, anger colouring his face a vivid red. Of course, the lack of oxygen might also have had something to do with it, she figured.

"Come on Gorgeous," Leon finally got over his shock and got up out of his seat. "This doesn't really have to go this far, does it?"

"It didn't have to before someone put his overgrown paws on me without an invite." She looked at Leon and let him see the fear she had over turning Dominic loose after what she'd done. It was strange to her, how she was willing for Leon to know she felt fear. If it was Vince trying to get her to stand down, she'd still be bluffing her way into looking pissed off. But Leon, Leon she could let see the real her. The feelings under the surface. Then Dom's hands locked around her ankle and she pressed her booted foot into his neck harder on instinct alone. His hands fell off but the angry look on his face intensified. She couldn't help herself. Self preservation took centre stage when anyone put her personal safety on the line.

Leon, ever the peacemaker, stepped forward a few more steps and ran a finger down her cheek soothingly. "I'm sure that it was pure instinct on Dom's part to grab you like that, just like it pure instinct for you to protect yourself the way you did. So I'm sure that if you let him free, you can both admit you over reacted and let it go. Can't you?" Leon asked her softly. While he posed his question to Tempest he was looking at Dom for some clue he wouldn't come at the smaller woman when he was freed. Dom seemed to nod almost imperceptibly.

Everyone else sat frozen around the table, unable to believe what they had just seen. Not only had someone pinned Dom down against his will, but it had been the female cousin of Jesse, the most easy going person they all knew. No one knew what to do so they all did nothing. Leon was the only one not shocked into remaining in his seat.

"Come on Temp, stand back, take a deep breath. Things got out of hand but it's settled now. Let him go," Leon cajoled softly. She glanced his way and whatever she saw on his face seemed to reassure her in some way as she started to unlock her knee. Her eyes darted back to Dom, as if gauging his willingness not to fly at her once there wasn't a lug soled boot against his windpipe. Before she could fully unlock her knee and turn Dom loose, Vince strode into the room.