"Um, come on in."

Vegeta opened the door and stood out of the way, allowing Tarble and his wife Gure to enter first.

Vegeta surveyed his condo with barely restrained anxiety.

And then released an audible breath.

His place had not been trashed. That was a good sign. Dishes were done, counters were wiped down, and even his laundry sat folded atop the dryer in the utility room. Vegeta, spying the water droplets in the sink, calculated that she'd been here as late as this morning. The little transparent beads clutching the side of the sink indicated that she couldn't be too mad, then, and that he still had a chance yet...

"Uh, please excuse the mess," Vegeta apologized, noticing the engine atop his kitchen table, draining oil into a shallow pan.

"Are you into cars, Vegeta?" Tarble asked cheerfully, letting his stuffed duffel bag slide from his shoulders onto the kitchen floor heavily.

"Something like that." Vegeta looked sidelong at the engine with suspicion. She wouldn't have left that unless deliberately trying to get under his skin, would she have? What other surprises lay in wait for him?

"Do you tinker, Vegeta?" Gure's small voice queried from the other side of the room as she let go of the suitcase handle.

Vegeta had to grit his teeth on the indignity of the word tinker. "I share my place with my significant other." Vegeta cleared his throat, feeling his ears heat. "She's a mechanic."

"Oh?" Tarble's face lit up with interest. "How interesting!"

"Are you a cat person?" Gure's high voice asked sweetly.

Vegeta's head snapped up to see Scratch weaving between his brother's legs before falling onto his back for belly rubs, and both Tarble and Gure leaned over to indulge him.

Vegeta eyed the cat warily. "No," he answered, flatly.

If it wasn't for the pounding and general crashing of plaster in the other room, the men in the office watching the woman working on putting a building back together was for nothing other than the dumb thing bleating between their legs. Bulma had—rather obtusely, in Raditz's opinion—shucked her modest coveralls this afternoon in favor of some overalls, unbuttoned and knotted at the hip, and a white—sheer white!—crop top, baring her pinched waist, her compact arms, and the tight planes of her lower back for all the office to see like some kind of '90s pop star wannabe. While Raditz could admit his employees weren't exactly a bunch of dumbnut army privates setting eyes on a woman after a year in the field, they were, still, men. She was gleaming with sweat, wayward curls from her bun curling against her neck in an inviting way that even had Raditz deeply pitying what Vegeta would do to the male staff if he were to come back ever.

Though he was plenty fond of Bulma, Raditz still harbored some surprise for Vegeta's, er, choice in girlfriend, because Vegeta had always gone for—and by gone for, Raditz meant cooly spent the night with after the women did all the pursuing—women with polished hair and manicures and slinky dresses and expertly displayed cleavage and just a general objective awareness of self that Bulma was definitely not in possession of at the moment. Raditz would NOT complain, if only because it got him very close to their hot friends. Raditz, if he actually used his noggin (though he tried not to), could understand the appeal of Bulma for Vegeta, because she was novel, fresh, real, and frank and didn't take any of his shit. On paper, it seemed like it shouldn't work, but Vegeta'd need his woman to be like a damned rubix cube to stick around this long. He could see how she would interest a driven, rude professional confined to a glossy world.

In that way, Vegeta had been like a virgin before he made it with Bulma; the man had never cared for or made love to a woman before Bulma'd swept in, and the thought made Raditz giggle. But he'd always thought Bulma was...well, uh, on the shabby side, like a loveable mangy stray cat as Nappa had reflected one morning over waffles, earning a painful kick in the shin from Vegeta, who hadn't even looked up from his plate of eggs and steak to acknowledge it. But Raditz could now literally see that Bulma was all woman, like, kind of fucking hot under all those baggy, stained clothes, and he finally understood just how a cold-hearted dickhead lawyer might find himself under a woman's thumb, if the thumb were Bulma's. There was nothing quite like a half-naked woman using power tools a few feet away to get the blood flowing from the head…er, to the head, so to speak.

Raditz shook his head, tsk'ing. The schmucks were going to learn a very hard lesson when Vegeta returned, if the dumbass managed to properly apologize and win her back.

AlthooOough, Raditz suspected Bulma wasn't nearly as mad as she let on. Having caught her running her hands along Vegeta's desk during their lunch break, sparse but for a small model VW bus beside his monitor, Raditz sauntered in, breaking the spell.

"Me'thinks you're just putting on a bold face, eh?" He watched her smugly. "You're all hot air when it comes to Vegeta, little lady. Am I right, or am I right?"

But Bulma had just stomped on his toes with her boot before pivoting to leave, successfully ending Raditz's badgering and causing him to fall into Vegeta's office chair and try not to cry with pain.

Raditz checked his watch face once more and finally let everyone know that they could leave. When the crowd had filed out, Raditz and Nappa poked their heads into Vegeta's office, clearing their throats over the shredding of the hacksaw.

Bulma looked up from her safety goggles. Raditz couldn't even complain, given the superb, creamy cleavage rocking in his line of sight just out of time with her sawing.

"We're leaving," Raditz called, waving goodbye.

"Okey doke." The sawing began again, and so did the swinging cleavage.

"It's Friday," he insisted, forcing himself to look at the ground, at the windows, at the ceiling, somewhere, anywhere but her. "Pack up soon and go spend your Friday night doing something more exciting than...this." He waved his hand at the mess.

"Yeah, well," she turned, rummaging in her tool box and giving him a view of her backside, "I have nothing to do tonight, unfortunately. I'll probably just sit on the couch with Scratch and watch bad, 70's kung fu flicks." She straightened and began hammering with built up frustration. "Because my life is devoid of romance," she finished with a snarl, "and I have nothing else to sit on tonight!"

"Ohhhhh, I'm a dead man," Raditz bemoaned as he forced himself to turn away, eyes pleading at the ceiling. He clapped his hands together in prayer as he strode toward the front door, Nappa following doggedly behind. "Vegeta, get back soon and make up, or I can't promise my man parts won't betray us."

"She's not my type," Nappa bumbled disinterestedly from behind him, deep baritone bouncing around in the front doorway. "I like big women with less of a mouth on them."

"I really need to get laid," Raditz lamented as the front door shut behind them, the cold breeze slicing through his coat, "because a big mouth ordering me around sounds really hot right now."

It wasn't for lack of trying. Raditz put his collar up against the wind and tamped out a cigarette from his pack, crouching behind Nappa to light his cigarette and using him as a shield from the buffeting wind. He drew in smoke, and then exhaled with a sigh. Raditz had been putting even more effort than usual wooing any girl that paid him attention when he went out. He was just that goddamned desperate, and even still, he just wasn't having any luck. At first, he'd thought none of the women were his type (plainspeak: unimpressed by him), and those that were d.t.f. always threw up glaring red flags, like the one who requested her favorite country music song as the song they danced to at their wedding, minutes after shagging for the first time. Raditz might have been clinically dead for a second, as he got dressed and grabbed his jacket in a blackout and hadn't come to until he was a few blocks from his place, blinking in front of an Indian food place.

With Fasha breezing into his life again like a goddamned ill omen, he'd been reminded of the good shit in relationships that he couldn't get from casual encounters: of the good company, of the good food, of the regular blow jobs. She had him realizing that he'd been nursing a hole in his heart all these years, and Bulma's setting a good example of a committed woman was, like, setting off his biological clock or something.

Fucking on occasion and Nappa's company just weren't cutting it anymore.

And that's why Raditz had resorted to online dating.

For a reason Raditz didn't want to examine, he was really embarrassed that it had come down to this, in the same way that he was ashamed that he typed with only two fingers at like ten words per minute.

"Hey, buddy, what's the scoop tonight?" Raditz looked back at Nappa, who lumbered beside him, scaring passersby.

"Let's go for burgers at Sully and Sons."

"Nah, I want something classier." Raditz blew smoke. He wanted the privacy that had to be paid for in case his real sad love life gave him the sniffles after a few glasses of whiskey. "Look, I'm going to Blue Room. Gonna drink some high-class cham-pag-nay. Gonna holla at some classy ladies. Gonna throw some shade at their boyfriends before getting ran off. I'll meet you back at home, okay? Don't wait up."

Raditz turned away from the drooping disappointment on Nappa's face.

"And shave your goddamned fu manchu. You look like an idiot."

"Fuck you!" Nappa called half-heartedly.

Raditz smirked, hailing him with a small wave and walking in the opposite direction, cutting through the cold, shoulders tensing around his ears.

Raditz wasn't all there as the hostess at Blue Room seated him at the bar, didn't really pay attention to what kind of drink he ordered, but sighed wistfully, leaning back in his bar stool and watching the couples in the restaurant with a look of reproach.

The possibility for a life full of happy-spunky-love had been stolen by another woman's games of power and then totally severed from him in a car crash. And so, Raditz deeply, truly, profoundly felt that Fasha was a soul sucking succubus b-word—no, a c-word—but he needed to ask Bulma if it was okay to call a woman a c-word even if she was a total fucking life ruining nutjob.

Now what? Raditz just suddenly, like, wanted stability, and he wanted it now. He wanted a woman who put some fire in his loins and in his brain and stuff. He wanted a woman like Bulma, and he wanted to be all stupid about her like Vegeta.

But where did he find a woman like Bulma? The hardware store? Did he stand around topless, wearing a tool belt, and wait for the horny, handy women to claw at him?

Raditz needed to ask Bulma if that would work next time he saw her.

Where did one meet women at his age?

He turned slightly to glance sidelong at the figure that had slid into the bar stool next to him, and did a double take.

Pale blonde hair curled at her chin in a sleek bob, her back proud and straight, her long, lithe legs crossed before her. Cornflower blue eyes slid in his direction, and then back to the bar. She was all perfectly poreless skin and sharp bone structure like a model, her gray silk camisole puckering slightly open at her chest as she removed her suit jacket.

"Buy me a drink," she ordered flatly.

"Motherfucking Juuhachigou." Raditz watched her, shaking his head.

"Okay," he quickly agreed, waving the bartender over animatedly.

Vegeta had excused himself from his home with poorly disguised unease. He congratulated himself for at least waiting until Tarble and his wife seemed comfortably settled in, but then, shamefully, he had bolted. The past week as Tarble's houseguest had wound Vegeta tight, no matter how discomfited it made Vegeta to admit that something as insignificant as just hanging out with someone could chafe him. And now that he was home, he could funnel that social anxiety straight into the other difficulty he was rather embarrassed to be facing: his good standing with Bulma.

He jumped into the Ghia and barreled down the highway as fast as the little 1600 cubic centimeters engine could go, the mono speakers blasting tinny music. He drummed his fingers on the leather steering wheel and tried to tamp down his panic.

When he'd left her snoring after the 5 am call from his private investigator, scribbling her a note and paying the bill before jumping into a cab to chase after his father's demons, he'd felt confident that she'd understand his situation. After the first few days scrambling after leads and rushing around North City, jumping from taxi to taxi, he hadn't much room to think of anything but his months-long objective, now substantiating and near: sifting through all the dirt on his father and unleashing it in court. Vegeta had waded neck deep into his father's shadowy personal life, and the product hadn't just been several clandestine affairs with moneyed women, each shrewdly chosen, but a sibling—a joyful, optimistic, willowy younger half-brother. And so he'd taken another day to reel. Tarble had welcomed Vegeta into his home, admitting graciously that he knew he was a product of an affair. He had heard only that his father was a big deal in West City and already had a legitimate heir, but Tarble hadn't ever wanted to intrude on the busy father and son, accepting his lot in life congenially. Vegeta couldn't fathom it. They'd gotten to know each other, inasmuch as Vegeta could be personable and talk about himself and accept all Gure and Tarble's warm overtures of friendship. It hadn't been until the following day that Vegeta had gotten a chance to lay back in his bed, alone with his thoughts, and reach compulsively for his phone for the one person he now wanted more than the dark truths his father had left like trailing bread crumbs behind him.

He wanted his woman. But his woman wasn't picking up the phone.

It didn't take long for Vegeta to realize it was deliberate.

And even as he grit his teeth, and even as he turned over and over in the guest bed, sleepless and lonesome, he couldn't hold it against her for long.

He'd fucked up.

Again.

I warned her, he thought bitterly, and grit his teeth. I don't do relationships. I'm a man without the time or patience to capitulate to a woman's every contrary whim. Which Vegeta had taken to breast in retaliation after the next few days of Bulma-imposed isolation. But his puffed up conviction had unraveled, and quick.

When he'd texted Raditz to inform him that he'd be back by the weekend, he'd tentatively, gingerly asked how Bulma seemed to be doing, and immediately regretted it, red faced with shame. It would be admitting to Raditz that they hadn't spoken, and it filled him with bald humiliation. But Raditz had simply let him know Bulma was pissed, but otherwise, all seemed well.

This can be fixed, he'd told himself.

And if she wasn't at his place on a Friday evening, there was only one other place she'd be.

At her shop.

His leather loafers crunched gravel as his measured strides took him closer to the front door of B's Dubs…

But she wasn't there. The front door was locked, unyielding, no matter how much he jiggled it with increasing frustration.

Vegeta ran his hand over his face in exasperation. Anxiety was curling in the pit of his stomach, like a child's snake firework that only grew longer and thicker and blacker with every breath. You were gone for over two weeks, he reflected. Even you know that two weeks without a word warrants a steep price.

What if that was the last rejection Bulma was willing to take?

With no small amount of mortification next quickly swallowed by desperation, Vegeta scrolled through his cell phone contacts and put the phone to his ear, fidgeting and pacing toward the back of the garage as he waited, a pained look on his face.

"Hello?" Goku's woman asked curiously.

Vegeta took a breath, pacing, and forced his back to straighten. "Hello. This is Vegeta." His voice was uncertain even to his ears.

"Oh. It's you." Chi Chi's voice grew chilly.

After Vegeta failed to immediately respond, there was a huff on the other end.

"Well? What do you have to say for yourself?"

He didn't know why it hadn't occurred to him that Bulma's best friend would be every bit as self-assured as she was. Vegeta felt himself flinch at her tone, and then get frustrated at himself for being such a pushover around these women.

"I've returned to West City. I was just"—his voice trailed, and he cleared his throat—"I was hoping you could tell me where Bulma is at the moment. She wasn't at my condo, and she's not at her shop."

"Oh, you'd like to know, would you?" Chi Chi's voice was oozing condescension. It was clearly no question now that she didn't approve of him. "You're wondering why she isn't on her knees at your doorstep, wasting away as she waits for you, huh?!"

Vegeta's teeth ground, but he held back, intent on both getting the information and, well, proving to Bulma's unfortunate friend that he was…contrite.

"I'd like to apologize," he assured her through clenched teeth, "but I need to meet with her, first."

"Who said she wants to see you?" She harped.

Vegeta felt something like regret and self-loathing chill him even as he heated at her tone.

"Maybe you don't deserve her. What do you say to that?" Chi Chi was on a roll now. He thought he could hear Goku distantly trying to reason with her and pull the phone away, and then cry "Ow!" as the woman presumably bat him away. "Maybe she got fed up with you when you didn't call, didn't write, and she wized up and realized there were better men in the world, huh? Maybe I could give you the address of the place she's meeting another man right now. And maybe I won't."

Something sank in his chest even as he trembled with anger. He couldn't trust that he wouldn't say something to the demented woman that wouldn't get him in trouble with Bulma, so he clenched his jaw to keep it from escaping.

"You're a jerk, and you don't deserve her! So there!"

There was a dull silence that followed which he registered as being hung up on.

Vegeta put his phone carefully back into his trench coat pocket.

And he rolled up his sleeve.

And slammed his fist down into the pile of scrap beside the garage door, glass shattering in protest as it split his knuckles.

He was made of very base desires. He wanted to beat the shit out of someone. He wanted to fight recklessly and abandon the hard-won future, heart beating its drum for only the moment his fist made contact with flesh. He wanted to feel his knuckles sink into someone's jaw, see the blood drip between his swollen fingers. And he lusted for someone's own fist to smash into his own cheek, his body skating backwards with the force of the blow, giving up his life to gravity, to fate, and relishing it, every second in the air taut with desperate gratitude.

He took several shallow breaths, pacing back and forth before sliding back into his car seat. He couldn't go back home. He felt like a top, spinning frenziedly, and he'd only begin to spin more wildly before crashing to a stop. Couldn't go home to face his foundling half-brother; Tarble would want to talk about feelings, and Vegeta knew intrinsically that Tarble was not made of the same chewy, loathsome, hard-hearted stuff Vegeta was. Vegeta would only poison the younger man with the vile taint their father had seeded inside him. He needed to be around a man who could swap a few punches and drink these two weeks into the trash can of oblivion. At 6 pm on a Friday night, he knew where two of them might be.

Bulma hummed, mixing the spackling in time to the music before slapping it onto the spanking new wall with her palette knife. She filled in the drywall seams with the mud, her voice rising to belt out the chorus. 7 o'clock on a Friday night and only the janitor had surprised her tonight, freezing once he spotted her before nodding nervously in hello, then swiftly replacing the trash bags and bolting for the door. She had that effect on people.

"Raditz owes me big time," she grumbled, blowing hair out of her face. She was covered in her fair share of drywall dust and mud, mostly because she was clumsy and not as an indicator of her capabilities. The electric nail gun was shrill in the empty office as she closed up the wall like King Tut's tomb. She'd reset the modem, too, and now Raditz's problem was fixed. If she weren't so annoyed to have had to leave work early two days in a row to play handywoman, she'd call him up and demand he take her out for a drink as repayment. That was a legit way to end a shitty few weeks, she reasoned.

All there was to do now was wait for the mud to dry, and then sand and paint. Bulma wiped her hands on her overalls, the denim slinking low on her waist. If she waited for Monday like she wanted to, it would mean she'd be out a couple more hours at the shop, and Suke wasn't good for anything, unfortunately, except taking orders and patching flats. Better than nothing, and she was grateful for him, but he was no master mechanic. She ought to just come in tomorrow morning and finish to make the best use of her time. Raditz at least had had the mind to leave the keys on his desk.

"Well, no one can say I'm not good for something," she complained to herself, bending to pick up her tools and toss them into her bag.

She squinted as a bead of sweat dripped into her eye, and wiped at her face with the back of her hand. She was disgusting, and she made a face down at herself.

She turned the dial down on the radio and felt for her phone in her back pocket. She ignored the blinking light and headed straight for Raditz's number. Whatever it was, it could wait until after she got blisteringly drunk with her sassiest bff Raditz.

He picked up on the third ring. "What are you calling me for," he urged into the speaker with barely veiled irritation. "I've got a really strong mack going on tonight and a phone call from a woman's gonna ruin my game!"

Bulma paced slowly around the room. "You're really gonna get it next time I see you. Bam. Boom. Straight to the moon."

She heard him sigh. "Has the wall been repaired?"

"It's done." She chewed her fingernail absently. "All that's left is to paint. Trying to decide if I'll come in tomorrow or Monday to do it."

"Look, if you let me go so I can holler at this fine looking female that just left to go to the powder her nose or whatever, I'll come in tomorrow afternoon and help you do it. But for god's sake, let me go."

"Oh, hell no. You owe me a drink." Bulma reached into her back pocket to grab her pack of cigarettes, fumbling. "I sure am thirsty tonight," she whined, and then tried her best to sweeten the deal, teeth gleaming with a teasing grin. "I am in dire need," she crooned, "of what you can give me, sir."

She heard Raditz scoff. "If I didn't know any better, I'd think you were coming on to me."

Bulma winked, grinning. "Buy me a drink tonight, and maybe you'll get lucky." She snickered as Raditz floundered, and against his better judgment, he whispered, "Can't I have you both tonight?"

Just as Bulma was about to roar with surprised laughter, her cell was ripped from her hand and she was face to face

with a very,

very,

angry Vegeta.

She stared at him in astonishment.

"Vegeta?" She asked, patting him as if he might be a mirage or a figment of her overactive imagination.

He ended the call forcefully with his thumb and then tossed her phone onto his desk behind her.

And then he yanked her to his chest by her wrist, holding her wrist hostage.

"Are you already seeing someone else?" He issued dangerously.

She blinked. "Huh?"

"I'm gone for two weeks," he glared down at her, his chest heaving against her own as his face screwed with bridled emotion, "and you've already jumped into another man's arms?"

Bulma watched him with confusion, a sliver of anxiety curling in her belly at his aggressiveness before a smarting anger descended on her.

"And what if I did, huh?" She jerked her hair out of her face sharply, scowling. "What's it to you? You left me high and dry. I have a right to date other men after that stunt. So what are you going to do about it?"

She'd expected a look of peevishness, a passive understanding of wrongdoing which would eclipse his face as she told him like it was and gave him the what-for.

Instead, Vegeta yanked her close and crashed his mouth into hers, prying her mouth open with his tongue as he crushed her to his chest.

All thoughts flew from the cuckoo's nest of her head, and she squirmed in his grip. He only held her tighter, which caused her to beat at his arms helplessly.

It wasn't until he sunk one of his hands into the hair bunched at the nape of her neck and tugged her head back, mouth releasing hers even as he cruelly held her hair hostage with his fist, that he met her panicked eyes with his own weighted gaze.

"Have you given up on me already?" He whispered without loosening his grip, his breath hitting her lips.

Frankly, she was having a hard time understanding English at the moment. Why was he angry? She wondered dumbly. So he was home now? What was going on? Should she be frightened, should she feel unsafe?

...She didn't, though. Her misgivings were fading, replaced by something else, something throbbing and out of the reach of control, something like...

Desire.

"Don't touch me if I don't want you to touch me," she demanded, voice raw. She met his gaze intensely, daring him to refuse.

His face hovered above hers for a moment, but then he released her, his hand drawing slowly out of her hair as he moved to step back and give her space.

This time, she grabbed his wrist.

"Only touch me when I want you to touch me," she ordered, and watched him sharply as she tugged him close again, pulling him with her as she backed up until the back of her knees hit his desk. "And I want you to touch me."

Vegeta was watching her, suffused by some kind of molten, snapping thing, but it no longer alarmed her but thrilled her, and she drew him in between her knees with her fists in his shirt, yanking him down to her face. "You left me. For two weeks."

"You're already fucking someone else," he chomped out, but then his head dipped and his tongue traced her lower lip. She let her head loll back on her shoulders and arched her back in invitation, and Vegeta took advantage, blazing a path up her neck, the tip of his tongue rounding the curve of her ear. He suddenly gripped her hips and yanked her closer to the edge of the desk, and she could feel the rock hard jut of him against her, the surreal reality of them joined like this after weeks of emptiness.

"But you still get hard for me," she countered, mouth quirking dangerously, and this time she yanked Vegeta's head back by the hair at the nape of his neck and set her mouth to his strong, thick neck, earning a small moan from the throat under her lips.

"I want to fuck you," he whispered raw and desperate from under her mouth. "I want to bury myself in you," he said into her ear. "Now. Right now."

"You're gonna have to beg me," she taunted.

Instead, he ripped the overalls from her hips and down her legs, where they caught on her boots. He didn't blink as he tossed her back onto his desk and buried his face between her legs, shaking his head back and forth against her possessively. Her mouth parted and an anguished pant escaped, and she ran her fingers through his hair as he sucked her into his mouth unapologetically.

She gathered what remained of her wits and pulled him from her by his hair. "You didn't beg me," she growled, huskily. "You didn't ask permission."

Vegeta squared his jaw.

Slowly, he straightened, his lips gleaming in the light, a five o'clock shadow darkening his face. He pulled her boots off one by one without dropping her gaze, and then drew her overalls off her legs, denim slipping from bare skin.

Then he pulled back and reached over his head to grab his shirt collar, tugging it up and over the crest of his thick hair, like a curtain drawing upwards over the taut ridges of his abs. She palmed them greedily, straightening on the edge of his desk before stealing a kiss once his head was free of his shirt.

He kissed her deeply, ravenously, and she kissed him back with the force of all the need and doubt that had curdled inside her since he'd left.

"Don't you leave me again," she demanded against his lips, snatching his chin in between her fingers and forcing him to look her in the eye.

"Never again," he promised in a whisper against them, pressing her close with one hand as he undid his belt and zipper smoothly, eyes trailing to her lips. They kissed cravenly, wet and hard and demanding, both refusing to yield. A moment without time, just mouth to mouth, hot and desperate and connected profoundly, until he slowly pulled away, sucking and trailing his tongue up her neck. She barely registered it as he eased her back against the length of the desk, as his mouth moved over her hard nipples under her thin shirt. She felt his fingers then, at her thighs, and her hips yawned open instinctually.

She grabbed him by his hard forearm and drew him close so that they pressed chest to chest. She watched him from under lowered lids. "Prove that I'm yours," she insisted, their noses brushing the others.

He stilled, watching her, breathing unevenly as he considered it. And then he slid one finger down between her already wet lips, and she sucked in a breath through her teeth.

He watched her with black, molten eyes in the half darkness of his office, drawing his finger out of her just so before plunging it back in. Just one finger, tortuously, not quite filling her up. She grit her teeth and tried to meet his gaze. He eased it back in again, and watched her devilishly, head bowed.

"May I?" He finally asked quietly.

She watched him, gaze running leisurely over his features, her blue eyes murky in the half light. "Yes," she finally answered.

And then he straightened, and his tongue lapped at her own, and she wrapped her legs around his bare hips, his jeans riding low as he pressed against her and sunk in to the hilt.

The waited a moment, breathing unevenly, resting their foreheads on the other's shoulder.

Finally, she raised her head heavily and put her lips to his ear. "Don't stop." An admission, whispered firmly, and Vegeta answered by cradling her head in his hands and driving home into her.

Bulma blew smoke out the cracked window languidly, cooly watching the traffic out the windshield.

They hadn't really spoken since finishing on his desk. Vegeta had helped her find her clothes, and she'd tossed him his shirt, and then they'd locked up in the hush of the night.

He'd asked if she'd like to go for a drive, his voice rumbling in the cool air, and she'd just nodded, fishing for her pack of cigarettes.

She rested her head against the headrest, listening to the Ghia's motor churn, the dim chatting on the radio.

She finished her cigarette, flicking it out the window, the embers spraying in the wind. Slouching in the bucket seat, Bulma watched the road roll under the wheels in the silence.

Finally, as if connected by a string, her head rolled to the side to watch Vegeta, who was already watching her under long eyelashes with a relaxed, predatory claim. They stared at one another for a long moment, before Vegeta flicked his own rare cigarette out the window, rolling it up once the cloud of smoke had escaped. He didn't fidget, necessarily, but reality was slowly creeping its way into the languorous, post-sex haze. There was the slightest indication that he was working up to something: a tic at his temple, his jaw working slightly.

But he surprised her. "Do you want to come home with me, or am I dropping you off at your place?"

She watched him, slack in the seat; just watched him, his sharp profile, the incremental tightening of his jaw.

"I thought your place was my place," she finally stated, tonelessly.

Their eyes met again, but this time, his were alive with some feeling, as if he hadn't expected her to say it.

"If you want to stay with me," he began cautiously, his hands moving restlessly on the wheel as he turned his gaze back to the road, "then I'd like to warn you that I have company."

This time, her eyes widened. "What kind of company?" She asked cautiously.

It felt wrong to be so tight lipped after becoming so close in the dark on his desk, but there was an inescapable distance between them again that they had to bridge carefully or simply leave gaping, unfulfilled.

Vegeta's mouth thinned, and he watched traffic with an unreadable expression. "Family," he finally said.

Bulma opened her mouth to ask who—as far as she knew, his estranged father was all he had—but her mouth closed on the question. Instead, she asked, "Will they be up when we get there?"

Vegeta shifted in his seat, contemplating. "Probably not," he informed her, before glancing at her. "You're probably safe to run to the room without having to go through introductions looking freshly fucked."

She smiled, youthful, into her lap, and his own lips twitched when he glanced over to see the blush sweep her cheeks.

He reached for her hand, and she held her palm out tentatively. He curled his fingers between her own and pressed his fingertips into her palm.

"Please come home with me tonight."

Her face fell at the solemn overture, and she looked up at him.

He watched her, eyes pleading.

It was the first time she'd ever seen a look of passiveness and fear from him writ plainly for her to see.

She squeezed his hand.

"Yeah, sure," she finally said, looking back out the window to hide a warbly smile, with a joy leaping from her breast.