AN: I had time and more inclination so I toned this chapter back a bit. So if something is lacking, something is adult content. It snowed all last night, (FCK!) and is raining and nasty out now, and cold, so I decided to start being a well behaved user of and follow the rules again. At least for this one chapter. Enjoy. T

The Funeral of a Good Girl

By – TempestRaces

Chapter 62 – Of Torture and Temptation

"When it comes down to temptation, she's on both sides of the fence."

When he made it back to his room she was curled in a ball at the edge of the bed, still damp hair streaming out behind her head and eyes closed. She wasn't crying anymore, but she still looked sad and pale, with one hand tucked under her cheek and the other curled under her chin. The voice that told him he was an asshole started up a racket again. He dressed quietly before crouching beside her. He brushed a curl off her cheek. "I'm sorry."

"For what?"

"For ruining a good day. For making you sad. For taking what you said so out of context. Can we go eat something and try to forget about it?" She finally opened her eyes and looked at him, like she could see right through him. The look in her smoky green eyes was so serious, where before had been such a light teasing. It was like now she was trying to figure out all the problems with the world and not having much luck. He kicked himself again. The playful had been so fun and he'd put the serious there. Now he had to figure out a way to bring playful back. If he could.

"I think I'd like that," she finally answered.

"Good." He stood up and offered her a hand. She swung her legs over the side of the bed and sat up before taking the offered assistance and standing. "I guess you're not up for much, huh?"

"Why do you say that?" she asked, her eyes narrowed in suspicious question.

"The baggy grey sweats—which are mine, I might add," he chuckled as he figured that out. It explained why she had the waist rolled up several times, at least. "And I've never seen you in a tee shirt before. It's always been some sort of undershirt or tank top, or less." But the way his sweats sat around her hips was very sexy, in that I-just-want-to-take-them-off-your-body-right-now way. He wondered how she was keeping them up at the same time as he wondered why he liked seeing his clothes on her body so much. The ringer style baby doll tee she had on went well with his sweats, but it certainly said 'I'm dressed down to do nothing' or 'I'm going to shoot some hoops on a dusty old court'. Which gave him an idea. "Let's get eating out of the way. I have something I wanna do after we're done."

She studied him another moment, attempting to be sure he hadn't just said she looked bad in what she was wearing. "Fine. Let's go then."

"After you."

"You just wanna stare at my ass while I climb the stairs."

"Guilty." He wrapped an arm around her waist before she could start up them. "I also want to kneel you down on that second stair. Well, after I take my pants back, pull you back against me while I stand behind you here. Leaves my hands free to reach, well, everywhere." He was telling her all of this with his lips just brushing her ear. "And makes it easy to," he bit her earlobe, illustrating his point with action instead of words.

He put the mental picture in her head and once it was there it was hard to shake. "So, are we staying or going?"

Having expected her to give him the brush off or a real set down, her question made him groan. They really did have to hit the shop, and he really was hungry, and now there was a chance she'd be willing to give him stairs sex? "You had to go and act like you'd want the stair sex."

"You don't?"

"Don't get your fur up. I never said that. I never expected you to want to stay. I really, really do want to stay here. But it just wouldn't be right. Besides that, you need a meal before any more strenuous activity."

"Please don't tell me you're blaming what happened before on the fact I need to eat."

"No, but I would be blaming the way you passed out afterward on the fact you really, really need to eat. Let's go find a drive thru somewhere, get some food, and go visit everyone else so they know you're alive. Then, afterward, we'll revisit stair sex."

"Ok. If I feel like it then."

"Go. Before I change my mind and decide to never let you out of the bedroom again."

She went, but not without a dirty look back over her shoulder at him, illustrating what she thought of him implying he could make her his sex slave. She was quite sure it would go the other way. He slapped her ass playfully in response. She let it go with difficulty and they reached the driveway in one piece. "Who's car?"

"Mine?"

There was a subtle begging tone that implied the word please even though he didn't come right out and say it. "I guess. It's blocking me in anyway."

Her put out air wasn't lost on him. He knew she pointed out that his car would have to be moved before they could take hers anyway to make it seem less like she was giving him his way than like she was just doing what made the most sense. "True enough. What do you want to eat?" he asked as they slid into the Maxima.

"Whatever. You?"

"Whatever we can eat in the car."

"We're allowed to eat in your car?"

"Generally no, but I've watched you eat. You won't make a mess."

"True enough. You, I worry about though."

"Well, it's my car. If I make a mess, I have no one but myself to blame."

"I suppose."

He started the car and backed it down the driveway. He drove quickly, but with an obvious destination in mind. He entered the drive thru lane, rolling down his window. "What do you want?"

"Whatever. I don't care. Deciding is too much work."

"You do want something, right?" He looked over at her with worry.

"Yeah, just order me whatever. Long as it comes with a large Pepsi."

When it was their turn, she assumed he ordered, but honestly she was zoned into her own world and didn't really catch it. The next thing she knew they were parked with a beautiful view of a windowless brick wall and Vince was digging in brown paper bags, a paper mache tray of drinks balanced between him and the steering wheel. The Maxima didn't have any cup holders; their space had been sacrificed for a place to mount the boost gauge necessitated by the Stillen supercharger.

"Give me the drinks before you spill them everywhere and end up pitching a hissy fit." He handed her the tray with a dirty look. "What were you thinking taking the cup holders out? You need a cup holder in your car when you only have the one car. You drive this every day. How do you survive without a cup holder?"

"By not allowing anyone, ever, including myself, to drink in my car." He grinned at her in spite of himself. "Guess today is a day for exceptions."

"I guess. I still dunno how you do it. If I didn't eat and drink in the car I'd go hungry and thirsty a lot."

"You need to slow down and make time to live instead of just rushing around all over the place."

"We can't all have jobs that allow us to do most of our work in a few evenings a week and make a living at it. Some of us have to have day jobs."

"Thank god I'm not one of you some people. I honestly thought by now that Dom woulda given up on having me 'help' him. We have a much calmer home life when we don't spend eight hours a day trying to work together too." Like that brought them a little too close to talking about her departure, he handed her a bag of food. "Eat already."

"Fine. What do I get?"

"Whatever I ordered you."

She sneered at him. "Always a fuckin' wise ass."

"Well, if you wouldn't pick yourself, you don't get to be pissy over not getting what you wanted now. You get to eat what you get and be glad I got it for you."

"Really? You somehow think I couldn't just get up and walk into the joint and get something else?"

"I've watched you order food before. I think I likely did ok. Just eat it already before it gets colder than it likely already was when I ordered it."

"That's attractive."

"It's not my fault that you made me too lazy to want to get outta the car." He shovelled his mouth full of French fries. "When you wanna eat quick, you don't always get quality."

"Do you want to eat mine too?"

"No, why?"

"Because if you keep making it out like it's gonna be gross, I won't."

"It's fine. Eat it already."

She opened the bag and took a tentative sniff. It didn't smell too bad. Her bag did not contain French fries. A fact she was heartily grateful for. She didn't do French fries every often and didn't really like them all that much. The burger turned out to be chicken, and was devoid of tomato. She had to figure Vince paid more attention to the things she did than she realized. She finished her burger and before she knew it a caramel Sundae had made its way into her hand. "Treats?"

"Yeah. You seem to like ice cream and caramel so I figured we deserved a little desert."

"But it could get slopped on the car."

"But it won't."

She pretended like she was going to tip the plastic cup over. "But it could."

He growled and made a move to grab her wrist. She righted the cup and started to eat her ice cream with a satisfied grin. She liked making him edgy. When she was finished he gathered the trash and got out of the car to throw it out right away. She realized as she looked around that the interior of the Maxima was spotless. Poor Vince would be very upset to see what the Skyline would look like inside once she got home. If he caught her in the middle of a busy week there would be soda bottles and cups, straw wrappers, sweaters, CDs, and etc all over the place. It felt like she lived in her car over half the time. There was a reason why she kept her deep plastic winter floor mats out all year round. Much as she loved her car she didn't and couldn't keep it clean enough to do surgery out of.

He got back in and shut the door before looking over at her. He started to laugh. "What?" she questioned.

"Nothin'. Come over here a second."

"For what?"

"Just do it. Jesus, you really are trouble."

"We're in a sport compact sedan, not a Hummer. Why could I have to get any closer than this?"

"Because I said so." Because she wouldn't simply obey him, Vince leaned over and dragged her his way with a hand around the back of her neck. He was glad she took her seat belt off to eat. Just another one of her quirks. Once he had her leaning over him he looked up at her. "You got caramel right—" He cut himself off, as rather than finish his statement he drew her face down to his and kissed the corner of her mouth.

She braced her hands on his shoulders and leaned into him, kissing him back with equal intensity, coming up onto her knees on her seat as she leaned across the car at his insistence.

His mouth left hers to move across her cheek and around to her ear and he nibbled.

"Did I get ice cream there too?" Her hands explored his shoulders as his teeth teased her ear.

"No. But you taste better than ice cream anyway. Just as fun to lick too." His hand stole under her top, fingers tracing over her stomach as he kissed her again.

She continued to allow him to lead, following where he took her. Until he started to slide her shirt up toward her head. "What're you doin'?"

"What do you think?" He palmed her breast to illustrate his answer, groaning when he discovered she wasn't wearing anything under her top.

"It's the middle of the afternoon in a public parking lot!" Which didn't stop her from leaning into his touch.

"So? The windows are blacked out and the brick wall isn't going to tell anyone." His fingers plucked at her as his other hand slid her top up more, bunching the cloth under her arms. She caved with a sigh, lifting her arms over her head to allow him to finish the job before she tugged at his tank. He removed it quickly before she could change her mind and tumbled her into his lap with a quick tug on her arm. She landed with her back to his door and her feet still on the passenger seat.

She turned toward him, her arms finding their way around his neck as they fell into another deep kiss. She couldn't believe she was allowing him to take things so far in the front seat of his car in the middle of the daytime, in the middle of a public parking lot. But when his fingers tripped up and down her spine, she understood. She was addicted to what his hands on her skin did to her body. Which also explained how she came back to reality for a moment to find she was no longer wearing any clothes, at all.

Vince reclined his seat a bit, slid it back from the wheel, and then pulled her down against his chest again. After everything that had happened already in their day, after all he'd done to her, here she was so wrapped up in him she hadn't even realized when he'd stripped her pants off her body. It was amazing and only served to make him think he was an asshole, who didn't deserve her. But then he was glad he was an asshole, because it was going to be his excuse to have her anyway, deserve her or not. "I can't keep my hands off you."

"Good, don't," she answered, twisting around to straddle his lap, one knee beside each of his hips. "Don't recall asking you to," she muttered breathlessly against his lips.

"You are sitting on me naked in my car." He looked over her as she sat perched over him. The sun gave her skin a warm glow and picked up the cherry tones in her hair. Her hair was her best attribute, in his opinion, and certainly it was never more true than when it framed her like a satin backdrop. She hadn't bothered doing anything with it. She'd just laid down on his bed and let it dry. Wild, curly and long was how he liked it anyway. Her hair seemed alive and with the sun behind her through the windshield it looked like it was on fire. He fanned it out around her, found himself slightly in awe how beautiful she was. "If there is a guy luckier than me right now, I don't wanna know."

A grin crossed her face as her hands strayed down his chest and toyed with the button of his jeans. "And you're about to get luckier." Part of her had been upset with the rest for allowing the whole 'sex in a car' thing to go so far. The rest had silenced that small part when she'd seen him looking at her, totally caught up in the moment, in her. Lucky because she was with him. He pulled her head down so he could kiss her again, and she stopped thinking at all.

As he tried to recover some semblance of normal breathing afterward, he left his arms looped around her loosely. A small shudder passed through her as she curled closer into him. He brushed her hair back off her face, shocked to put the name tenderness to what he was feeling for her in that moment.

For all her brashness, crudeness, brazenness, she was actually quite shy. Most of the other qualities were things she channelled and projected to cover the inherent shy good girl she was, but thought she shouldn't be. Thought no one would like. Yet she had just totally let herself go enough to—to quote her—screw his brains out in the car because it was what he wanted. Sure, she'd obviously enjoyed it too. But public sex in the car wouldn't have been her first choice, no matter how blacked out the windows were. "Good?"

"Me, or that?"

He chuckled. "Either or. Both."

"Yes and yes. You?"

"It's not a strong enough word for me, or that either."

She laughed, stretched. "And you wonder why I wanna sleep so much."

"It's because you like waking up."

"Sometimes. Sometimes it's because I'm just exhausted."

"Should I just take you home? I know Dom'll be pissed, but I can handle Dom pissed. We could just watch TV for the afternoon or something." He sounded genuinely concerned as he smoothed hair off her face.

"No, I'm not that tired now. But I think I'll be really ready for sleeping by the time I find myself in a bed again."

"Is that a hint that I should leave you alone tonight?"

"Maybe." There was teasing in her voice. "What'd you do with my clothes?"

"Back seat."

"Who's gonna go get them? You?"

"With you hanging off the front of me?" He chuckled.

"Yeah. That's gonna happen." It was bad enough she'd allowed him to take her clothes off when they were practically in public. She burrowed her head into the crook of his neck in embarrassment thinking about it.

He chuckled, tilting his head back to get a look at her face. Her eyes were closed and either she was simply overly warm or the thoughts of immerging from the car in her current state had put a blush on her cheeks. He leaned his cheek onto hers. "Don't worry. Even if you wanted to I wouldn't let you. Some other guy might look at you like this and get ideas and then I'd have to kill him and where would we be then?"

"Even later getting you to work."

A laugh caught him by surprise. Sometimes her snap answers still caught him by surprise. "That would likely be true." He reached behind himself, felt around until his fingers closed over what was either his shirt or hers. Hers, he found. "Ok, arms up. Let's go. We don't have all day." She complied and he pulled her tee shirt down over her head. Once it was settled around her waist, he pulled her hair out from inside and fanned it around her shoulders before sliding his fingers into it to hold her head while he kissed her. "I don't want to go to the garage," he muttered when he finally let her up for air.

"Why not?"

He shrugged. "Just don't."

"So don't. Pick something else."

"I know you'd never guess it from the way we've acted since you got here, but normally Dom and I don't push each other quite so hard, or fight so much. I really don't want to let him down again."

"How's it letting him down when you're only supposed to be there because he thought Jesse wouldn't be? Jesse's there right now so you'll only be extra."

"Yeah, but Jesse wasn't supposed to have to work while you were here."

"I get the feeling that for the most part, Jesse would rather work than stay home with me. He just wishes that I'd hang out at the garage too. So we can both go hang out at the garage, or we can both not, or you can go and me'n Jesse'll leave. What's it gonna be?"

"We better swing by just to see what's goin' on."

"Ok, find my pants then."

He looked at her, and the look on his face made her worried for what was about to come out of his mouth. "Those are my pants. So what if I don't want to give them back to you?"

"Then the next time you go to put any pair of pants on that I find in your room tonight, you're going to get a nasty surprise."

"You'd actually do it too, wouldn't you?"

"If I was still pissed off enough with you, hell yes."

He reached around behind himself again and felt his fingers close over the cotton material of the grey sweats. Once he handed them to her, Tempest slid back onto her own side of the car and started to pull them on. He reached down to grab his own jeans from where they were still hooked around his legs and lifting his hips, slid them back up in place before doing up the button. When he looked over at her, she was sitting with her back to her door, her bare feet on the seat in front of her as she sat facing him. "Ready?"

"Yeah."

"You ok?"

She sighed. "I'm not exactly Dom's biggest fan."

"You and he are just too much alike, and got off on the wrong foot. That's all. He's not so bad when you get to know him." Vince looked over at her. "Well, and when you don't kick his ass when he already doesn't like you. From trailing him by over a car length from the start." He shook his head. "Ok, there isn't really a lot of hope for you and Dom to be friends now. But if you give him a chance I bet you won't have to hate him forever."

"There isn't a chance in me to give to someone who tried to tell me I had to take his orders and who figured he'd man handle me into doing what he said too. There really isn't a chance in me to give to someone who implied the only way I was good enough to be around was as some sort of drunk fuck call. I'm all out of chances for Dominic Toretto."

"You're not totally innocent in this situation, you know? You pushed him every chance you got just to see how far you could."

"I push everyone to see how far I can. That's not an excuse for everyone to grab me, yell at me, and talk about me like I don't matter."

"I know somewhere along the line someone told you that you couldn't treat Dom like that."

"Why the fuck not? He's just another person. He's not somehow better than everyone else on earth."

"No, he's not. But he's how he is because it's how his life made him. He can't really help it anymore than you can help being you."

Unable to come up with an argument to use against that, but clearly wanting to, her mouth thinned into a mutinous line, but stayed closed.

"You really gonna hate going to the garage for a few hours that much?"

"Not if I don't have to interact with him in any way, shape or form."

"Since I think he feels the same about you, I think you're safe."

She shot another glare his way, but stayed quiet so he reversed the car out of its parking spot and headed toward the shop. When they arrived in the back he parked the car and moved to get out. When he realized his companion had yet to move a muscle, it checked his progress. "You getting outta the car? Or should I crack the windows so you don't die of heat stroke?"

"Fuckin' funny guys," she muttered angrily his way as she climbed out of the Maxima. She wasn't sure if she was glad or pissed off when their arrival went largely unremarked. She left Vince's side almost immediately and wandered over to her cousin. Vince's audacity to try and put the blame for how things were with Dominic at least partially on her hadn't gone over well.