Disclaimer: I don't own The Fast and the Furious, Fast & Furious or any of its characters, merchandise, TV/film rites, ect… (I think you get the point.)

Summery

ONE SHOT – Beauty is only skin deep, right? So what does that mean if you spend half your life covered in oil and engine grease?

"Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished and persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot." -Mark Twain

Lamb: As always sorry for any bad spelling and if you feel the need to throw things at me please wait until I've hidden behind the sofa kay!?

Dedi: This fic is dedicated to Tonyahuqt03

Muse: On with the fic!

Pretty girl is suffering, while he confesses everything,
Pretty soon she'll figure out what his intentions were about,
That's what you get for falling again,
You can never get him out of your head,
It's the way that he makes you feel,
It's the way that he kisses you,
It's the way,
That he makes you fall in love,

Pretty Girl

The first sign that something was wrong was the harsh squeal of brakes as the car pulled up just out of their line of vision. The next was the resounding boom as the drivers door of said car was slammed violently shut. And the final one was an extremely pissed off seventeen-year-old latina stalking through the forecourt, while the look on her face was promising that the first person to cross her would have a very painful death.

"What the…?" Vince bellowed in shocked outrage as Letty stormed passed him and into the cool darkness of the garage. "Letty!"

"Now what?" Dom groaned as he looked from Letty over at his best friend then back round just in time to catch sight of the girl disappearing into the gloom.

"Letty! Letty!" The cry was accompanied by the sound of running feet and a moment later a distraught looking Mia appeared in the forecourt. Her face was flushed, her mouth twisted in misery and her eyes were swimming with tears. "Letty, please!"

"Hey, hey." Dom caught hold of his sister, stopping her before she could follow after the other girl, a move, which at that moment was probably tantamount to suicide. "What's happened?"

"I… I… she…" The young Italian gulped as tears began running over her cheeks.

"C'mon baby girl," Mia looked round at Vince when he put a comforting hand on her shoulder. "Letty's tough as they come, just tell us what happened. It'll be all right."

-------

Some ten minuets later, after Vince had agreed to take a still very emotional Mia to the store, Dom headed into the garage in search of his quarry. Through sobs and tears his little sister had managed to give a somewhat coherent account of the events that had put Letty in such a foul mood. From what he and Vince had been able to gather, it all boiled down to the fact that most girls were back stabbing bitches who'd run their mouths off as soon as look at you.

The crux of the matter was that, after much begging, bullying and bribery, Mia had persuaded Letty to go shopping at the mall with her. Shopping, unless it was either car or food related, being a very un-Letty like activity. The story went that they had run into a group of what Mia called 'Dom's fangirls' and what Letty called 'skanks of the first order' and had been lucky to get away before the latina hit any of them.

Especially since there had been a few choice insults hurled at Letty, mostly concerning her appearance and why she spent so much time at the garage. The final dig being that, considering the former, why did the guys, though specifically Dom, let her do the later. Under normal circumstances Letty would then have come back with some biting remark of her own but, according to Mia, she had simply turned her back and walked a way.

It was a turn of events that was more than a little worrying to all of them. But personally, Dom couldn't really see what the problem with Letty was. So some silly little girls had told her that she wasn't pretty, so what? She should have had more brains than to listen to them and more common sense than to believe them.

Letty, at just turned seventeen, was beyond pretty she was a walking fantasy, to be precise for the past year she had been his walking fantasy. Other women hadn't even figured into his lust, his stubborn body just rejected them all. He wanted Letty, just Letty. But she was one of his best friends and he hadn't wanted to fuck that up so he'd kept his distance, but maybe that had been the wrong thing to do. It was certainly proving a hard thing to do.

Only the previous night the two of them had been working late, Vince had long since departed and his dad had taken Mia home. But he had needed to do some work on his car and like the friend that she was Letty had agreed to stay and help him, though the bribe of a second helping of Toni's famous pasta might have also been a factor. For almost two hours they had slogged away, until the engine was once again purring like a contented kitten and in delight at a job well done Letty had hugged him. It was a totally unexpected move and yet without thinking he had hugged her back.

For a long moment he had considered just leaning forwards, moving in to catch her lips with his, his worries about risking their friendship be damned. He hovered there before her, hands curled around the curve of her shoulders, lips barely a breath away from hers and Letty had allowed it. She didn't push him away, didn't make some wisecrack or call him some obscene name. She simply remained still, perhaps waiting to see how far he would chance to take it.

Time had seemed to freeze around them. The sounds from the streets, of the city alive at night, simply melting away. Dom paused on the brink of decision that could change everything and then the shrill ring of the telephone ripped through the moment.

-------

"Letty?" There was no answer, but Dom could see her boots sticking out from underneath a 1989 Cadillac Eldorado. "Letty, you gonna come out of there?"

"I'm kinda busy." The words were slightly muffled due to the car, but still it was easy for him to tell that Letty was snarling and growling like a bear with a sore head.

She knew she was being a bitch but at that point in time Letty was beyond caring. She also knew that she had been stupid to react the way she did to a few stupid comments made by a few stupid skanks, but the words had cut just a little too close to the bone for her to ignore. They had meant what they said to be an insult but the truth was that the same thoughts had been going round and round inside Letty's head for a while.

Just why did Dom and Vince let her hang around with them so much?

It made sense at the garage, for that was Toni's and ever since she had been tall enough to look under the hood of a car without standing on tip-toe he'd been only too happy to have her around. But at school, while it was true that she was the oldest in her grade, due to when her birthday was, she was still only a sophomore while Vince and Dom where in their final year. Yet still they let her hang around with them, and though she loved it for the life of her she just couldn't understand why.

There were enough rumours though, high school being what it was, about why two of the hottest guys in school let the tomboy greasemonkey spend so much time with them. You had the two guys, who always seemed to be involved with half the cheerleading squad and then someone like Letty tagging along behind. And while it was easy enough for both Dom and Vince to ignore the gossip mill it wasn't as easy for her to do.

"Letty…" Dom started, but decided that trying to talk to her when she was in a mood like this was pointless, he'd be better off banging his head against a brick wall. So, having given up on trying to talk her out, he instead he put his foot on the creeper and rolled her out from under the car.

"Hey!" Letty yelled, but her irritation turned to fury when he lent down, grabbed her by the tops of her arms and all but hauled her to her feet. "What the fuck d'you think your doing?"

"Trying to make you see sense." He automatically yelled back, before remembering that he was meant to be trying to reason with her not start yet another fight. And fighting was something that came all too easily for the pair of them; his father likened it to living in a war zone, they were at each other's throats so often.

"Oh yeah?" It came out as a challenge because that was how she worked, when Letty was hurt or upset she got angry, with everyone but mostly with herself for being so weak as to get upset in the first place. She became furious and lashed out at the closest available target, which in this case was Dom.

"Yeah," He replied, taking a deep breath and forcing himself to stay calm. "Now close your eyes." If he could Dom would have framed the look that crossed her face at his words; she really couldn't have been more shocked if he'd've slapped her.

"Dom…" All her anger evaporated as her brow furrowed in confusion and she pulled back slightly, looking at him as if he had gone completely insane. Of all the things she had been expecting a request to close her eyes had not been one of them.

Letty shifted slightly, not feeling all that comfortable standing before Dom while he gripped her arms tightly. The look on his face was intent, in a way almost captivated, and the latina was suddenly more aware than every of her oil stained cloths, dishevelled hair and the sweat that peppered her skin. She was a mess, she knew that, knew that most of the time she looked as if she had just been dragged backwards through a hedge and then spent half an hour climbing around a junkyard. But with Dom standing so close, holding her, she felt even more of a state than normal and just wished the ground would open up and swallow her whole.

"Just trust me Ok Letty?" Dom shook her gently; dark eyes locked with hers as if he were trying to mentally persuade her to do what he wanted. "Now close your eyes."

"Fine." Though her expression still clearly said she thought he'd lost his mind Letty never the less did as he asked. It had always been one of the things that had most irritated her about Dominic Toretto, when he asked her to trust him, for some god alone knows reason, she always did.

"Good, now tell me you're pretty." There was a smile in his voice as he spoke because Dom already knew exactly what her reaction to such a request would be. The girl didn't disappoint.

"I –" Letty started, bitter chocolate eyes immediately flying open, but was cut off before she could get past the first word.

"Eyes." Dom commanded and he could see her hesitate, but in the end, as always, she did as he told her even though it was in her face, she knew that Mia had told him everything. "Now tell me you're pretty."

"I can't, Dom." Her head dipped to one side and if her eyes had been open he knew that they would have been fixed on the floor. "I just can't."

"Tell me." He voice was almost pleading as he took her face in his hands, bringing her head back up, and it was all Letty could do to keep her eyes from flying open once again. His callused palms felt cool again the burning skin of her cheeks and, Lord help her, but she just knew she was blushing.

"I'm pretty." Somehow she managed to force the words out, though for a moment she thought she might choke. Partly because she didn't believe what she was saying and lying had never sat well with her, but also with Dom's hands on her skin she was finding it rather hard to breath.

"Now…" He stoked one callused thumb back and forth over the soft skin of her cheek, noticing how she trembled slightly at the caress. "Now say it like you believe it."

"I'm…" Letty started only to hesitate and then her shoulders sagged in defeat, some voice in the back of her head telling her that Dom wouldn't let her go until she did what he wanted. "I'm pretty."

"That's my girl." His voice was low and husky; the words warm breath that ghosted over her skin and sent shivers running up and down Letty's spine.

He saw her eyelids twitch as she fought the urge to open her eyes and see just how close he was to her. And in reality he was probably too close to her, not just physically but also mentally and emotionally. Letty was the only girl he had ever really got to know. The others we all just passing interests or infatuations out of all of them only the ebony haired teen had ever been his friend. She knew him and understood him, and she liked him simply because he was himself. She always had, even when all he'd done was mock and tease and dismiss her out of hand. But for some reason Letty had always stuck by him, she'd never once given up on him.

The soft brush of Dom's lips against hers set her own buzzing and had electric currents sliding across her skin. And where, just a moment before, Letty had fought to keep her eyes closed she now wondered if she would ever be able to open them again. A breath she didn't realise she'd been holding skittered through her lips, mingling with his which she could still feel against her skin.

Dom watched as the tip of Letty's tongue brushed her lower lip before she slowly, almost reluctantly, opened her eyes. He was sure that if he had not still been hold her face the latina would have refused to meet his gaze, but caught as she was the teen had no other choice. There was so much to read in her expression, hope, longing and desire, but there was also fear a hell of a lot of fear. True Letty was the only girl who really knew him but that meant she knew how he treated the majority of the girls he dated. She didn't trust him and it pained Dom to suddenly realise he'd never really given her any reason to do so.

The look in his eyes changed as she watched, suddenly becoming distant and remote as if the Italian male had just come to a conclusion that he did not much like. The moment was passing, she could see it in Dom's face that he was a split second for pulling away from her and waving off what had happened as nothing. And a small traitorous voice said that she should let him because if she were honest with herself then she knew that sooner or later he would hurt her.

But another, far stronger part reminded her, that safety didn't collate with the life style that she had chosen for herself. Fast cars, speed and the intoxicating adrenaline rush those were the things that Letty knew she craved, the thrill was what she lived for. Risk it all in order to win it all and when push came to shove there was no one she would rather stake everything on than Dominic Toretto.

Letty caught his wrists, holding his hands steady before he could let them slip from her cheeks, and without letting her gaze drop from his she closed the infinitesimal space that separated them and kissed him.

Please R and R I'd love to know what you thought.

Big love and inspiration

Lamanth