AN: So here's the deal. I couldn't be bothered rewriting this to tone down the rating. So sorry in advance for making you read my smut attempts. Don't read it if M+ story content is going to offend. Otherwise, read and enjoy. T

The Funeral of a Good Girl

By – TempestRaces

Chapter 61 – Of Perfection and the Imperfect World

As per normal, he woke up first. The reversal of their normal waking positions threw him at first. Well, not reversal, because she was almost always on him in some fashion. But he'd never woken up to her draped over his back before. He figured they weren't reversed. She was where she always was. It was he who was reversed. He normally wasn't much for sleeping on his stomach, but it was novel with her where she was. She'd shifted at some point in time, and now her slightly parted lips were barely touching his earlobe, her warm breath tickling over the fine hair around his ear with each exhale. He wanted her again. The swiftness of it was becoming familiar. He rolled over under her, bit her earlobe. "You need to wake up."

"Why?" she questioned in a whine, never opening her eyes. No matter how well rested she was, she always hated to get woken up. She liked to wake on her own terms. Due to how much she could sleep, that rarely ever happened. So she was always slightly petulant on waking.

"Because I'm about to fuck you, and I'd rather you were awake and actively participating. But if you want to just sit up," he leaned her back against his bent up knees, slid inside her, "and sleep in that sort of propped up sitting position you have goin' on right now, that'll work too. I can finish up without you being conscious."

She arched her back over his knees, driving her deeper onto him as she laughed. "You're going to have me trained into enjoying waking up any time now." Her laugh turned into a quickly indrawn breath as his hands held her hips steady as his lifted off the bed. "Yeah, really enjoying waking up."

"You are totally perfect," he groaned. It was true he didn't really know that much about it, but a woman who would let you wake her up twice in one morning to screw her brains out couldn't be all that common. Same went for one who wouldn't get offended to be told she was about to get fucked. And would just bonelessly stay where she was put and shudder delicately while you did what you wanted with her. It was just almost too much to take in. "Just don't move and it'll be totally perfect."

"Why can't I move?" She wiggled her hips experimentally, as if testing to see if the sky would fall if she moved. His tone had implied something equally dire.

"Because this is supposed to take longer than thirty seconds," he growled back, angry with himself, and what looking at her on him as she was did to his control.

She laughed again. "It's only been an hour since you last got off you know? You should have a little more restraint now. Not less."

"Yeah, maybe. Guess I'll just have to rush you along." He bumped up into her again even as his fingers sought out teasing places that had the laugh right out of her voice. The lilting laughter turned into begging moans.

"Oh fuck me!" she gasped before she tensed against his thighs and came. The need had rushed over her so fast she hadn't had a chance to even think about holding it off, making him work harder. She'd wanted to, and thus the exclamation. It wasn't a request, but an expletive of her own frustration with her lack of control over her body.

He realized that her meaning wasn't the literal one he was already acting out with her, but rather an exclamation of surprise. It didn't matter. Hearing the perfectly perfect woman who never talked dirty—not during sex in any event—and rarely even put what she wanted him to do to her into words call 'oh fuck me' was it for him. Perhaps it hadn't been begging, or a request, but he took it as such and gave into her unintentional request until he surged hard and deep into her and came with a loud growl. She fell forward onto his chest, still panting softly. "Sleep more?"

"No, no more sleep." He kissed her hard. "Get up and go to the shop for awhile time. Before they start to think I've got you tied to the bed."

"Well, given you're the one who was supposed to get up at eight and be there for nine, maybe I'm the one that's got you tied to the bed."

He chuckled. "Maybe. But if we stay here any longer there won't be any more sleep to be had anyway. Just more sex."

"I don't know if I can take any more sex without some sort of recovery period. But that doesn't mean I want to get up from where I am." Her eyes drifted shut, her head fell flat against his shoulder, and with a sigh she started to drift off again.

"Do you ever sleep at home?"

"A few hours a night. Whatever I can fit in. Why?"

"It's like you're making up for it now, here, while you don't work." He chuckled.

"Satisfying you is harder than my full time job. I've known a lot of guys, and I've never heard any of them want to get laid before bed, then twice in the morning."

"That's just 'cause none of them knew you were the kind of girl who'd like to get laid once before bed and twice in the morning." He kissed her again. "Come on, let's get up and get outta here for awhile. Go show Jess you're still alive. That I haven't killed you with my attention."

"Or killed me for going out with Jim."

"Or killed you for going out with Jim," he agreed. "I'll let you have the shower first," he wheedled, trying to tempt her out of bed.

"Why can't you just go back to sleep like a good boy?"

"I'm not tired anymore. I'm starving. And I don't want to get into a wrench throwing match with Dominic. It's time to go."

"You go. Send home food for me. Have the delivery guy wake me. And feed me."

"If you think I'm sending some other guy here to bring you food while you're naked and then feed it to you," he growled.

She laughed. "I was more or less implying that you should go get me food and then bring it back here and feed it to me. No need to get all crazed."

"You're evil."

"So they tell me." She groaned. "Fine. I'll get up and get in the shower first. But you have to stay out. Twice in one morning is enough."

"Says you," he pretended to whine, amused with his desire to kid around with her, to tease her and play with her. He was getting in over his head. "Besides that, shower sex doesn't really count against the tally. It's on a separate count than bed sex."

"It's all going to have to be after a meal sex. Unless I'm allowed to sleep through it."

"Baby, you can't sleep through the things I do to you and you know it."

"Preen all you want, you stuck up pervert, but you're not getting any more sex before the sky gets dark. There have to be limits."

"Why?"

"I dunno. There just do." She started to move to get up, and stopped with a groan before falling back into her original position, sprawled on top of him. "Carry me to the shower?"

"Why would I do that when you denied me more sex?"

"It's because of all the sex I already gave you that I'm too exhausted to take myself there, that's why. Besides, if you carry me to the shower, I won't feel it necessary to tell anyone about your little problem this morning." She schooled her face to look sympathetic and conciliatory.

"Excuse me? Little problem?"

"Yes. It's sad when a man starts to get old and starts to lose, um, his, well, staying power."

With a growl he started to tickle her ribs while holding her down so she couldn't get away. "Unless you want to be shown first hand right this minute just how long I can go, I'd drop that line of bargaining."

"This is supposed to take longer than thirty seconds," she mimicked in a pantomime of his earlier statement. She smirked as she toyed with a piece of his hair.

"That was a one time situation brought about because of extenuating circumstances. It won't happen again."

His tone was so serious she was sure she'd taken her teasing one step too far. But she hadn't, not really. He often said things to her in jest that she would have to take very seriously if she didn't know he was kidding. She placed her palms on his cheeks to hold his face steady before kissing him. She knew when he tried to resist her that he was pissed with her. "Don't get all mad at me. I was teasing. I know—trust me, I know—that it was the exception not the rule for things to go that quickly." She kissed him again, and was frustrated when he continued to ignore her. "Besides, I was gonna hold out on you longer than I did but I couldn't, so it's not like I'm so different. I didn't say what I said to be seriously mean." He wouldn't look at her at all. She'd never understand men. Not ever. After how great the day had started now it was fucked, because she'd said something off the cuff, in jest, and he'd taken her seriously, despite the fact he had to have known she was teasing. "Fine. Be like that."

She got up and picked up her bag most likely to have daytime casual clothes in it and opened the door of the room. No one was around so she walked to the bathroom and shut the door. She had half an hour to compose herself. Half an hour was about the longest she could draw out a shower and not have it seem odd. She shivered, told herself she was over reacting, and started the water. Hot. She felt cold. Had goose bumps.

Seventy two hours. Give or take a few. That was all there was for them. And he wanted to spend an afternoon of it fighting over something stupid. She got under the water. Washed and conditioned her hair. Washed herself.

Couldn't face the world yet. She turned her face into the spray. By her calculation she had about fifteen minutes of her thirty left. Tears joined the water running down her face. She consoled herself. No one would ever know. Just her and the water. The hard part was she had to get out of the water at some point. Had to dry off, put clothes on and act like nothing was wrong. Like she wasn't in love with a man she wasn't speaking to now, and would likely never speak to again in about three days. Her head bowed, her palms pressed flat to the tiled wall in front of her.

She took a deep breath in to try and get herself under control. When she released it, it shuddered out of her chest. She took another deep breath in, sure she was winning the battle. Then a sob escaped her. She tried to get herself to stop. She really did. When she couldn't she simply put her balled fist to her mouth and allowed herself to sob. Just for a minute. Then I'll be ok, she told herself. Another sob shook her and she was glad the closed door and the pounding water would keep the sound from reaching anyone else.

He'd walked into the bathroom intending to tell her off in earnest for what she'd said. Her comment had been playful and innocent of any malice and he knew it. But it had also slammed home the message that he was totally wrapped up in her, and it scared him, which angered him. So he was going to take the anger out on her little self righteous, I'll-just-walk-off-on-you-with-my-nose-in-the-air ass. He'd decided to wait for her to finish and get out of the spray before he started in at her at the last minute and leaned on the sink ledge to wait her out. He watched her wash her hair, rinse the conditioner out. Oblivious. She had her eyes closed. She turned to face the front wall. Watched her head bow down, her arms brace against the wall. The clear plastic shower curtain obscured her just enough to give her shape a dreamlike quality. He looked around and realized it was uncommonly steamy in the bathroom, which was adding to the hazy effects.

A noise brought his focus back on her. He figured he'd imagined it. Then she just quivered in place, put the knuckles of her right hand into her mouth and bit down as she started to cry in earnest. Like she figured she wasn't going to get herself stopped any time soon, her fist left her mouth and her arms wrapped around herself in a sad little hug. Hot water plastered her hair around her shoulders, down her face. He'd hurt her again. Remained ignorant of the fact. Thought she was walking off in a snit to be self righteous. Let her just walk away. And again little miss lone wolf had slunk off to lick the wounds in private because she wasn't willing to allow him to see her hurting if she had a choice. She had to lick the wounds alone. Wounds he'd inflicted on her. He'd never dream of being so indifferent to Mia. But he bought into Tempest's tough and untouchable front so well that most times he just figured she wasn't as easy to wound as other girls. Treated her like a guy he was used to roughhousing with. Try as she did to act like one, and manage as she did most of the time, she wasn't just one of the guys.

He picked up the huge yellow fluffy towel off the shelf beside the shower before he pulled the curtain back, killed the water and wrapped the towel around her in a quick succession of movements, before picking her up out of the tub. Her skin was flushed pink from the hotter than necessary water. She tried to stop crying again, with limited success. She managed to nearly choke herself and not much more. He was surprised she didn't fight him off, that she let him pick her up and set her on her feet in front of him.

"I don't know what's wrong with me," she managed to say, a shuddering breath punctuating the statement. Pretending the situation hadn't bothered her much at all was the only way she could see to deal with it. What he'd said hadn't been that bad. It was just all the other circumstances merging together and pressing down that had made her take it so badly. He couldn't know how upset he'd made her. It gave him too much power over her. And he wouldn't understand. Nor appreciate the sentiment involved. His arms came around her and she clung to him for dear life in spite of herself. While she was already broken down surely it wouldn't make any difference if she acted like a sissy for another few minutes.

He sighed. "I'm not good at you. You had me pegged right all those days ago. I don't know how to treat you, what to say to you. You're not one of the guys, no matter how good you act like it a lot of the time. You're not the kind of girl I see myself with. I don't know what to do about it. But it's hardly your fault. It's not because there's something wrong with you." He gathered her wet hair off her face, at a loss for what else to say or do. She kept crying, finally leaning back in his arms.

"Don't just stand there. Slap me or sedate me or something. You can't just let me keep crying!"

"Why not?"

"I don't cry. Crying is for pansies and little kids."

Rather than do as she asked, he held her tighter and rubbed her back. There was a lot about her he didn't know. Like where that idea had come from. He assumed he knew her well, and he was wrong. There were depths to her that he had no idea about. He hated it when she cried. But that was because he didn't know what to do about it. Because it made him feel helpless. Because it make him feel the need to beat the source of her tears into dust, and most times he couldn't. Either because the source wasn't tangible or because the source was him. Not because he didn't think she should cry if she felt like it. So where had the idea that it wasn't ok for a person to cry if they needed to come from in her head? Finding out the real answer to that would just let her worm her way into his soul a little bit more and she was already in too deep for comfort. "Why don't you go get dressed and lay down for awhile? I'll take a shower, get ready and we can go eat. You'll feel better after you eat. Right?"

"Maybe," she mumbled.

"Likely." He bent his head, kissed her mouth, her cheek, before laying his cheek on the top of her head. Without any sort of shoes on her feet, the height advantage he had on her was magnified, making her seem even smaller in comparison to him than she normally did. He felt smaller than her, for not 'picking on someone his own size.' "Go. I won't be long." He watched her shuffle out of the room, towel still wrapped around her and dragging her bag by the strap behind her.