Disclaimer: I don't own or profit from DBZ. I mean seriously. We all know if I wrote it there would be a hell of a lot more sexy going on.

WARNING: Gratuitous use of the word woman. It's disgusting really. Not only do I over use it but I've made up a whole reason for its use that is in no way supported by canon. But that's what I do. Make shit up.

No matter how I stray. I always return to my dark prince.

A while back the awesome people at the We're Just Saiyan community had a challenge to place our favorite couple in different historical time periods. This is my contribution. It's only, oh, about a year late. Those of you who haven't visited We're Just Saiyan should. There's a link on my homepage.

De-Nile

Chapter One

"Woman!"

Bulma jumped three feet off the ground and clutched the extremely sensitive time dilation device to her chest. If she dropped it, Kami only knew what would happen. Visions of West City being turned into a sinkhole danced in her mind.

"Woman!" the arrogant, asshole male bellowed again.

"I have a name!" she shrieked, spinning around to face him as he entered her lab, which was off limits to everyone, including her father.

Vegeta ignored her. Just like he ignored her rules, her feelings, her….desires. Wait. Where did that come from? There were no desires. Not for the regimental alien who was wound so tight he probably shat diamonds. Even if he was (Kami help her) not wearing a shirt.

Bulma eyed him as he stalked up to her, wearing only a pair of loose, black training shorts. They shimmered in the diffused afternoon light and her fingers twitched to test if they were silky to the touch. As her gaze wondered downwards her analytical mind tried to suss out if he was wearing underwear or if he preferred hanging loose. Embarrassed, she dropped her eyes to the ground. Damn, even his feet were bare, and why was that sexy?

"You will increase the gravity output in your inferior training room."

Bulma's brain was stuck in neutral, trying absorb how it was physically possible for the horrible little man to have the most perfect six pack to ever be in existence. Not only a six pack, but an absolutely lickable v-cut was revealed as his shorts rode dangerously low on his hips. He would have to be God's gift. Prick.

"Not likely," she sneered. "You will just have to make do with all that frustrating inferiority. Maybe it will give you time to think or maybe learn stuff. Like my name!"

She started to turn away, but he jerked her around by the arm and then very slowly walked her back into the wall. She could feel the imprint of his fingers on the bare, sensitive flesh of her underarm, and she double damned herself for wearing the white, sleeveless sundress.

Her heartbeat thudded in her chest, and heat flooded her entire body. She tried desperately not to react. This was just Vegeta and his impotent intimidation tactics. He couldn't kill her, couldn't force her to do anything she didn't want to do. Even his grip on her arm was gentle. The man was so strong he could break her without even trying. She was sure it took more effort on his behalf not to hurt her.

All he had were harmless threats and bluster. Lately, he had taken into moving into her personal space, having figured out that she would eventually agree to whatever he wanted just to get the hell away from him.

"Increase the gravity distribution to five hundred by tonight." Once he had her corralled against the wall, he dropped his hand away, crossing his arms over his chest as if anchoring himself against touching her. By the way his muscles strained, she didn't think it was nice touches either. She never forgot what a dangerous animal he was. He never let her.

She wasn't going to be intimidated. Not today. She was on a cusp of a monumental breakthrough. That crazy, purple-haired kid traveled back to warn them about the androids in a Capsule Corporation time machine. It was completely obvious to anyone with half a brain that she was the one to develop the technology, so dammit she was going to develop it if it killed her. She hated not knowing something. Worse, she hated it when someone outsmarted her, including her own self!

She propped one hand on her hip, clutching the small device to her breast with the other. "Or what, Vegeta? You going to give me a brutal tongue lashing? Oh, I know! You'll scowl me to death."

She couldn't help to notice how his dark eyes traveled slowly down the length of her body when she mentioned a tongue lashing, lingering at her breasts and sex before meeting her gaze again. Since she was almost positive he was a eunuch, he couldn't possibly be having sexy thoughts about her. Which meant behind those lingering looks he was calculating the many different ways he was going to kill her when he became stronger than Goku.

"You will do this," he commanded.

"No, I will not," she shot back.

She could actually feel the heat off his body, the angrier he became. Six inches away and he was radiating heat like her own personal furnace. She wondered if that made it harder or easier to deal with hot weather. Personally, she hated the heat. Oh, she liked to sunbath on occasion, but to her there was nothing worse than the height of summer without any relief in sight. Sweat trickled down the length of her spine and she tried to move further away from him, but the very rude wall behind her was unaccommodating.

He, on the other hand, moved closer. Smirking like he knew exactly what the problem was. Bastard.

"Give me what I want." His voice was a low purr that rumbled across her skin, leaving goose bumps in its wake. This was an entirely new tactic. She almost shimmied out of her damp panties and handed them over right then and there, even as she knew that wasn't what he was asking for. Why did assholes have to be so sexy? Why was she attracted to them? Was it a karma thing? Had she done something horrific in another lifetime?

Her cocked hand slipped off her hip to hang loosely at her side. She knew her lips were parted because she could feel her fast, almost panicked breaths, rapidly drying the thin, delicate tissues. She licked them moist again, swallowing when his dark eyes followed her tongue.

"Fine, Vegeta." She paused, trying to regain her sense of balance. Her ploy wouldn't work if it looked as if she lost all her bravado. "I'll increase the gravity output. But only if you can say my name."

Ahh. There was that pretty scowl. She had almost missed it. It meant they were on equal ground. No weird sexy vibes from him, and no irrational urges to mount him like a prime stud from her.

"This is not an acceptable exchange of services," he growled. Wow. He looked really irritated. Inside a little voice crowed in victory. She schooled her features into a thoughtful frown.

"You're right. It's not. Increasing the gravity would take at least twelve hours of my very precious and costly time. Whereas you saying my name would take all of three seconds." She tapped her pouty lower lip with her forefinger. "Maybe I should ask for something more besides my name."

"You know not of what you ask, woman."

"Ugggh!" She threw up her hand. She was surprised when he didn't flinch. Everyone else did, including Goku who could squash her like a bug if he wanted. "There you go again. Woman, woman woman. Is that all you know how to say?"

"That is what you are, is it not?" He scanned her body and this time there was no hint of heat. The look he gave her spoke volumes of his doubt of her sex, much less her sexiness. Oh no, he didn't!

"Look here, Mister I'm the Prince of Diddly Squat. I get that you've been roving around the vastness of space in your dinky little egg pod for most of your adult life with only yourself and your crew of butt monkeys to keep you company, but I can assure you I am a woman." She motioned to the well-developed curves of her body. "A very sexy, desirable woman. Men fall over themselves just to learn the pleasure of my name," she spat.

"I do not fall over any woman." Sometime during their argument they had moved closer to each other and the spicy male scent of him washed over her senses. No one so bad should smell so damn good. It was like a Venus flytrap for women. As soon as you sniffed in his direction, he'd gobble you right up.

"Color me shocked! You're so uptight I doubt you'd even know what to do with a woman if you ever got one."

Huh. She didn't know someone could actually imitate the personification of wrath. His tanned skin was flushed a nice healthy ruddy color and his eyes were black flames of death. Oh, yeah. He was pissed. Predictably that urged her on more. Other people's rage was her catnip.

"I can see now why you're a dying race. If all your men treated your women like this I can see why there was no procreation going on. I mean, my God. How hard is it to say a name?"

Houston, we have a problem.

His arms dropped from their usual, 'I'm-the-shit-bow-at-my-feet' pose, his hands fisted along his thighs. He crowded her space until she was plastered against the wall and he still kept coming until his lips were a hairsbreadth from hers. To make room for him, she dropped her hand that was holding the time device to along her side. He edged even closer, planting one hand on the wall above her head. She was well and truly trapped. He could do anything to her. And why did that thought make her breath hitch and her sex tingle?

"On Vegeta-sai women were precious. Jewels to be cherished. Their worth was beyond measure. A man wasn't truly a man until he found a mate to complete him."

Bulma was so hot she thought she might melt onto the wall like paraffin. One of her lab assistants was going to have to scrap her off with a putty knife. The rise in her body temperature had nothing to do with the heat of his body, but the flames in his dark eyes. He was staring into her eyes so intensely that she was on the cusp of igniting. She desperately needed to regain control of the situation before she threw herself at him like an overeager, untrained Cyprian harlot.

She swallowed, almost not wanting to speak and destroy the moment, but vanity demanded she do so. No man, no matter how scary, was going to intimidate her. "So I guess, you're half a man then." She hid her cringe as she spoke. She expected him to burst into a homicidal rage. Traveling with male companions over the years taught her how seriously men took their masculinity. Vegeta was the most masculine man she had ever met. She was certain he wouldn't take her insult kindly.

"Your words are true," he replied softly. She almost forgot they were in her lab and not in some silk covered boudoir exchanging secrets; their arrangement was so intimate. He was so contentiously in her personal space. Crowding her, yet she didn't feel threatened.

"I am but half a man without my mate. And I always will be for there are no Saiyan females left."

Well, for fuck's sake. Wasn't she three kinds of a bitch?

She softened, which, hello Bulma Briefs here. She never softened. She was proud of her bitch skills. Diligently honed them with unerring accuracy, usually on her male friends, just because she liked to see them squirm.

She tried for a little upfront honesty, which was a whole new ball game for them, but she thought it might be worth it - worth forging a connection between herself and this stoic man who was suffering beneath all his pride. It was clear to see, if anyone would bother to look.

"I just don't understand why you won't call me by my name. It's hurtful when you treat me like a nameless automaton here to service you."

One dark brow rose, and Bulma was sure her entire body flushed bright red when she realized how suggestive her comment sounded. He rested both hands on the wall, sliding them up so he was stretched over her like a great big cat basking in the sun. The movement canted his body forward so his chest brushed over hers in a light caress that hardened her nipples into diamond tips.

He dipped his head so his nose was almost, but not quite, at the crux of her neck and shoulder. He inhaled deeply and instinctively she knew he was scenting her, like a predator after its prey.

"On my world a man must never address a woman by name who is not his. To do so is to disrespect the woman and her family." He lifted his head to look directly into her eyes. What she saw there made all the small, interior muscles in her womb clench. She never saw him look so vulnerable, and she suspected she never would again. In a heated moment of spontaneity she made herself defenseless with unveiled honesty, and in turn he reciprocated with his own truth.

Softly he touched her hair, almost as if it would shatter with rough handling. He rubbed the silky strands between his thumb and forefinger.

"So you see, woman." His eyes slid away from hers, as if in the final moments, he couldn't bear to see what he thought he could never have. "I will never call you by your name, because you will never be mine."

"Oh." The word left her in a soft, painful gasp. It physically hurt in the center of her chest, as if he had struck her and pierced her heart. She wasn't certain if it was her pain or his she felt. Yamcha would vehemently deny that Vegeta felt anything except homicidal rage, but Bulma knew differently. The man before her was a mosaic of emotion. You only had to pull back the defensive scales to look.

He drew away, his hands dropping back to his sides, his heat receding. She panicked, reaching for him with both hands. To do what she wasn't sure. Touch him, hold him, most definitely try to kiss him. There was a loud voice inside her, jumping up and down in a short cheerleading skirt and pom poms that was screaming that she would so be his girl, if he'd just drop the whole bastard act every once in a while and look at her like he was right then.

It wasn't until both hands made contact with the wide expanse of his muscular chest did she realize her mistake.

"Oh, fuck—"

A blinding light flared outwards from where they stood. It was a kaleidoscope of colors. White at the center, blue, purple and red at the edges. The world around them wavered, then straightened out, stretching into impossible lines. Weight crushed Bulma's chest and she realized it was her own lungs, expanding with air until she couldn't exhale. She scrabbled for Vegeta, but she couldn't find purchase on his slick, rounded muscles. Strong arms encircled her waist, pulling her close and she buried her face in the crook of his neck. The whirling and twirling made her stomach heave so she closed her eyes and hung on. The world was ripped away and they were falling for an eternity into well that was endlessly deep and indecipherably dark. As she clung to Vegeta all she could think was that at least she was finally touching him.