Unwanted: One Night

Unwanted


Chapter 13 - One Night


The sound of glass breaking greeted Bulma after she had gathered the strength to enter her husband's bedchamber. Even though his room adjoined hers, she had not been inside the dreary space since their wedding night. Yet, not a single aspect had changed within it, including its hostile resident.


"Are you all right?" Bulma rushed to Vegeta's side as she saw blood dripping from his hand. Upon closer inspection she realized the glass that she had heard break was his mirror, which had a fist shaped indentation left in its shattered wake.


Startled by his wife's unexpected appearance, Vegeta's back stiffened as he felt two delicate hands examine his fresh wound. Blinking, he tried to determine if his bleeding was inducing a false image of the deity, "What are you doing here?" His tone was a mix of anger and confusion. The latter must have been more prevalent because she ignored his question and guided him to sit upon his bed.


"I will get something to wrap that with," she disappeared only for a moment before returning from his washroom with a basin and three cloths. Silently she drenched one in the water. Clasping his injured hand, she held it steady while she wiped away the blood. Once she had cleaned as much as she could, she used the second cloth to dry the excess water. She then wrapped the third cloth around his injured knuckles. "Sorry," she apologized after his hand contracted. Though she believed it a pained response, the reaction had been an effect of her gentle handling. He could not recall the last time he felt something so soft against his skin. "I do not suppose you would like to tell me why you felt your mirror needed some reshaping."


He sure as hell would not. How could he admit that he had been furious when he arrived at his room? Having learned that it would be another day before the annulment was redrafted, Vegeta was left with little to think of besides what his wife had been doing and whom she had been doing it with. It was enough to drive a husband insane with unfounded jealousy. "You should leave," Vegeta rose to his feet, pulling his throbbing hand away to finish wrapping it himself. "The last time you ventured into my private chamber in the middle of the night you ended up regretting it immensely."


"I would like to think we have both changed since that night," Bulma followed after him, finally allowing herself to take in his physical state. He had undressed for the evening, clearly having had no intention to return to the gathering. His muscular torso was completely bare. His boots had been removed, as had his socks. His trousers were all that covered him. The knowledge spread a familiar warmth throughout her body.


"Have we?" He turned around to face her in his half naked glory. His eyes engulfed hers as he challenged, "I do not know about you, my lady, but standing here, looking at you in all your allurement," he took a step forward, closing what little gap had been left between them, "I can easily remember the insanity you invoked within me that night, how easily I succumbed to an obsession with tasting you, possessing you, making you mine."


His hand found her face, and began stroking her milky cheek lightly with his thumb. His ministrations were so soft, so careful, so loving that Bulma feared she might lose herself if she did not break free from him. "Vegeta," she pressed her hands to his chest to try and push him away, a terrible mistake. His skin was hot and sleek, begging to be caressed, to be kissed-just as she remembered. Almost on an accord of their own, they slid own his obliques before stopping at the seam of his pants where she tucked the tips of her index fingers to keep them from falling any further.


"For the gods' sake, you feel it too," his hand glided across her face to interlace through her hair. Cradling the back of her head, he lifted it so that her eyes would find his. Once they did, he used his free hand to trace her flushed cheeks and her parted lips, which served to augment her breathing. "Two nights ago... The months while we trained together... That blasted night seven years ago... It's between us, I do not know what the hell it is, but it's there, and nothing I have done will make it go away, will banish you from my thoughts, my desires. Tell me you do not feel it?"



His grip within her hair tightened upon the dare. She could feel the anger emanating from him, already anticipating her denial. But she could not deny it, not when he was this close. "Yes... Yes, I feel it." His grip loosened, but only slightly. She used his barely relaxed state to suggest, "But that does not mean we have to surrender to it."


"And how do you propose we avoid it?" his breath was against her ear, his lips barely grazing her neck. "Get an annulment, and then you run off and marry my brother?"


"You said you wanted to be rid of me," she was quick to argue his cruelty earlier this evening. "And I can not stay with you, not without love."


"To hell with love," the crude growl was accompanied by a tender nipping at her neck. "How much better can it be than this?" his lips touched hers. Utilizing the advantage of her sudden gasp, he drove his tongue in her mouth. Mercilessly he employed the knowledge he had garnered the other night to expedite the discovery of every secret to her ultimate pleasure.


"Vegeta," she moaned between the few breaths he allowed her as he emerged from his assault. "We cannot do this again," even as she made the insistence her fingers widened, crawling up his back, remembering what his skin felt like beneath her digits.


"Then get the hell out of here," his warmth disappeared with a powerful shove. His chest rose and fell at a harsh pace as his eyes engrossed hers. "What are you waiting for?" he demanded angrily as he ran his fingers through his ragged hair. "Get out of here before I no longer have the sense to let you."


Closing her eyes, she lowered her head, wondering how she had lost control of the situation so fast, "I came to talk to you."


"Well, I assure you, I am in no condition to talk," Vegeta rushed out before he turned away from her, not allowing her to bear witness to just how unable he was to speak to her at that very moment. "So unless you want to end up on your back beneath me, you need to leave right now."


Silence.


For what felt like an eternity, Vegeta heard not a single sound from behind him. Ready to scream at her to leave once again, he was interrupted by the sound of a thud, then another. Turning around to determine what she was doing, Vegeta observed the unimaginable. She had pulled her shoes off and was currently reaching behind her back to untie her dress. "Could you help me?" she swiveled around. Pulling all of her hair to one side of her neck, she pointed to the task she had assigned him.


Frozen in his tracks, Vegeta revisited the possibility that he was having a blood loss hallucination. "What are you doing?" he demanded after determining he was not in fact hallucinating, "You just said we cannot do this again."


With an irritated hiss, Bulma turned back around to face her husband with a solemn look upon her face, "Yes, well, I changed my mind." She daringly walked up to him. "Untie," she ordered showing her back once again. She released a grateful breath as she felt her skin exposed to the cold. Reaching behind herself, she grasped her husband's hands and placed one on each of her shoulders. Laying his fingertips over the hem of her dress, she encouraged him to push down the fabric. He followed her guidance slowly, pushing the shoulder line down her biceps, off of her arms, and then readjusting his grip to continue pushing the dress down her hips before it became loose enough to fall on its own accord down to the floor.


"Thank you," she whispered over her shoulder before she made a half turn to step out of the puddle her garment was in. Grasping Vegeta's hands once more, she guided them to her shoulders for a second time. Placing them on the straps to the final garment that concealed her heaving chest, she pressed down on his fingers to guide his movements. To her surprise, she found him unwilling.


"Why are you offering yourself to me?" His question was barely above a whisper. His grip on her shoulders flattened, almost as if he needed the support to stand.


"I just want one night," her response was even softer than his question. Lifting her eyes to meet his, she admitted. "I have not changed my mind about ending our marriage, but I do not want to end it on a foul note. I do not want my only memory of laying with you to be one of heartache. You have changed. I have changed. If we are to say goodbye, I want it to be under better circumstances than before." Pressing down on his fingers once more, Bulma had hoped her admittance would abolish his reluctance. It seemed to work.


"Wait," Vegeta removed his fingers from his wife's shoulders. Repressing a growl, he grazed his hands down her arms until they reached hers. Interlacing his digits with hers, Vegeta tugged her body against his. "I have been dreaming of this moment for seven years," he bent his arms to pull hers around his neck. Once they were secure he quite literally swept his wife off her feet and carried her to his bed.


Depositing the gentle creature on the smoothness of his silk sheets, Vegeta stepped back from his clearly uncertain wife as he challenged, "Are you certain you want to do this?" His body was already aching for her. If he did not ask now, once they started he doubted he would have the will power to stop. "This is not like seven years ago. I will supply you with no delusions or lies. I will not merely kiss or touch you. I will take all of you. I will fill you until the point of completion. So if you have any reservations, leave now; I will not give you another chance."


The length of time with which it took for her to respond strangely comforted him. The longer the wait, the more he felt certain that she was firm in her decision. When the final agreement of, "I am sure," came from her lips, he had almost lost all belief it was possible.


"So be it." Unbuttoning his pants, Vegeta stripped himself of the final garment that concealed his body. After allowing her a moment to gaze upon his sleek form, Vegeta lifted one knee onto the bed, and then the other. Once he was towering above his prey, Vegeta surprised his mate by not touching her. Instead he twisted around to lower himself onto his back.


Following the movements of her husband, Bulma's eyes widened slightly in confusion as she watched him in all his naked beauty, recline in the center of the bed. Propping the pillow beneath his head, Vegeta relaxed his arms by his sides. When he closed his eyes, Bulma would have thought him about to fall asleep had she not been aware of his painful erection. No man could sleep with that sort of discomfort.


"Vegeta?" the one word she hoped would answer all of her questions. To her relief he opened one eye and lazily glanced at her before returning to his composed state.


"You said you wanted a new memory," he began cryptically, "last time I took control and before long lost it. This time is yours, my wife. Do as you wish."


Swallowing embarrassedly, Bulma felt fortunate his eyes had not been opened; if they were, he likely would have seen a blush. "Vegeta, I-" She stopped herself mid-thought. What the hell was she going to tell him, that she was only slightly less unschooled in the dance of old as she was as a virginal sixteen year old? That in the seven years since she had last lain with him she had not been with another man even once?


"Come now, woman," he interrupted her thoughts as if he had been listening to every one of them, "Do not dare tell me you have never indulged in a sexual fantasy. You must have dozens of dreams worth of curiosity." His tone was of amusement as Bulma estimated at that very moment he was indulging in a few fantasies of his own. Watching his chest rise and fall almost hypnotically, she did recall several haunting visions at night. Particularly as of recent, she had dreamed of his coming to her, crawling into her bed. She would touch him endlessly, caress him possessively and kiss him as if he were the only man who had ever existed.


Now it seemed her fantasies were becoming reality. He was offering her carte blanche to do as she wished, to be in control, to have her mighty king yield to her every touch, every taste, every command. The thought was even more erotic than she could have imagined.


Throwing caution, propriety and any sense of self-preservation she had left to the wind, Bulma reached out and tentatively laid a hand over her husband's chest, directly over his heart. It was racing, for her.


Crawling closer to his still figure, she placed her other hand on his chest, directly adjacent to her first. Spreading out her fingers, she began a slow trail around his torso, examining every muscle, every crevice. His skin was even softer than she remembered. She could already feel the moisture from his sweat gathering, anticipating.


Her subject let out a quiet moan every time her fingers slid down near his pelvis, closest to his enflamed core. Realizing the aggravation it caused him, Bulma deviously set out to avoid the throbbing area, wanting to enjoy her fill of his chest before she dared venture any lower. Kneeling over the engorged man's body, Bulma pressed her lips to his throat. The contact caused his head to jerk up slightly.


Pleased by her effect, she began using her lips to follow a similar path her hands had taken. She kissed his tightly pulled skin, extending her tongue to trace the indentations between every muscle, wanting to leave not an inch unburned into her memory.


Her heart beat faster as she reached one of his nipples. Recalling the effect his attentions had had on her years ago, she dared to try a similar technique. Parting her lips over his hardened nipple, she clamped her teeth around it. Tickling the firmness with her tongue, she heard him release a surprised groan. "By the gods, woman," the sound of her victim's lusty voice inspired her to lift her eyes to meet his. "Where did you learn that?" he asked before dropping his head back against the mattress.


She could hear the sheets rustle as he alternated between gathering them between his clenched fists and sliding them distractingly underneath his fingertips. He groaned as she finally removed her lips from his pectoral muscle, clearly disappointed by the loss of contact. Not wanting his suffering to endure, she lightly placed a kiss over his heart, before gliding her lips down to his other nipple. Wanting to be equal in her courtesy, she went to work on the second, using the same movements that invoked such a strong reaction from him previously.


His breathing hitched, his body quaked. She smiled against his chest. It was an empowering sensation to know she was the one in control, that she and she alone had aroused his body to such a state. But she knew she could not explore and experiment forever. She knew what he needed and was pleased that he was controlling himself as well as he was under the circumstances.


Slithering her lips down to the bottom of his abdomen, Bulma pulled her mouth away just before reaching the center of his heat, where he needed alleviation most. A flashback to the last time they laid together resurfaced in her mind. The first time she learned how a man and woman fit together. She remembered the first taste of it, when he had slid his fingers inside of her, stroking her to the point of senseless pleasure. She wondered, as she glanced down at his enflamed sex, if she could invoke a comparable reaction from him.


Sliding her fingers past his lower stomach, she allowed herself the liberty of circling her digits around his firm shaft. "Bulma," he suddenly moaned her name as his back arched upon contact. He clearly had not been expecting such a bold move from her.


Resolute, Bulma skimmed her hand slowly down his length, and then less lethargically back up. His hips began to thrust forward, invoking the memory of their first, her only time, making love. Love? Could she call it that? Not likely. He did not love her, and she certainly did not love him. This was simply what he called it, passion. They were partaking in one another's bodies, enjoying one night together, in unadulterated bliss. At least that was what she continued to tell herself.


"Enough," she heard the rough cry from her husband. He panted as though he had just run several laps around the castle.


Grasping the hand that wound around his erection, he pulled her away from him before he lost all control. He had waited seven years to be with the woman, damned if his was going to be reinitiated in any other way than inside her body. "Lie down," he half ordered, half begged as he began pulling Bulma's undergarments off. The moment her breasts were freed, his lips were upon them, suckling, nibbling, and ultimately devouring with his tongue, teeth and lips.


"Vegeta," he heard her soft moan as they switched positions. "I thought this was to be... I thought it was... I was to be in control." It took her a few moments to properly order her thoughts. Good, she was as incoherent as he was.


"You had your fun," he responded in the moment it took him to switch from one heaving mound to the other, "Now it is my turn." He slid the free hand that was not supporting her back down her waist. Hooking his fingers on the lining of her underwear, he began pulling the final impediment off of her hips.


Encouraged by the rising of her pelvis to help him finish pushing the garment off, Vegeta decided to leave his wife's breasts to move further down her body. Kissing a straight line down her stomach he paused at her naval. Dipping his tongue into the crevice, he felt her body arch as a low pitched moan escaped her lips. Moving lower, Vegeta headed further down to her abdomen, stopping again as he reached the patch of azure curls that sheltered his destination. "Bulma," his hot breath sent a reverberating chill straight up his wife's spine. "Open for me," he begged as he ran his fingers down her thighs, gently persuading them to part.


The moment her legs were wide enough for his lips to begin their attack, he did. Licking her moistened folds, he locked his hands around her hips, attempting to hold her reaction in place. "Oh my... Vegeta... You cannot... You cannot mean to... Not there... Oh..."


Her ramblings set him ablaze. His cantankerous wife was a rare pleasure indeed. Forging forward, he daringly clamped the lip of her sheath between his teeth. Tugging lightly, he heard her release a horse cry. Withholding a smirk, he preformed the same blissful torture on the other side before delving deeper. Drinking her essence, he greedily lapped at the source of nourishment he had only been able to dream of over the long, lonely years.


"Vegeta, you have to stop," her body was trembling in his grasp. "I can not take it any more, I can not hold on, I-Oh, Vegeta!!" her body spasmed, her hips thrusting down roughly against his mouth, Vegeta welcoming her hot taste.


As soon as her body began to calm, Vegeta pulled his mouth away. Running his tongue over his lips, he watched and waited as his wife became lucid enough to be taken completely. How long he had waited. Crawling over to stretch out beside her, Vegeta propped his head on his palm, which was supported by its connecting elbow.


Running his fingers over his flushed mate's face, Vegeta tilted Bulma's head just enough to pull out the few pins that bound half of her hair in a bun. It had begun to fall out when they began their coupling. For years he had dreamed of her lying naked upon his bed, her hair fanned out across his pillow, as she lay utterly sated beneath him. Being as though this would likely be his only night to have his dream, he would make it perfect.


Once her hair was completely undone, Vegeta pulled Bulma flat against his chest. Pressing her hefty bosom to his powerful chest, he began running his lips against her cheeks, mouth, and neck to try and revive her. As beautiful as she looked after pleasuring her, he still was unfulfilled and no amount of developed morals and good judgment would last much longer.


Her eyes finally fluttered open; Vegeta's heart slammed into his chest. Had she always been this beautiful? This innocent? He suddenly wondered what the hell he was doing with her, being with her this way, after all the pain he had caused her. "Ask me to stop, and I swear we will go no further," the words poured out of his lips without a moment's thought behind him. Vegeta's brain had ceased to function minutes ago, it seemed some other part of his body was controlling his speech, and it certainly wasn't his libido.


With a soul-shattering smile, Bulma lifted her head up just enough to touch lips with her husband's, "Make love to me." The plea was so breathy, Vegeta thought he had imagined it. He realized he had not, only when she pulled him atop of her as she rolled onto her back. Cradling his head in her sweaty palms, Bulma slowly halted the passion of their kiss to ask again, "I have not the fortitude to deny you, please, become one with me." She left his knotty hair and ran her fingers across his shoulders, "Fulfill me," down his toned back, "Make love to me." With the final request her hands clasped the tight flesh of his backside, encouraging him to come down upon her.


Vegeta released a sound somewhere between and whimper and a cry that only a man in agonizing pain could muster. His elbows were planted on either side of Bulma's head. As his forehead rested atop of hers, Vegeta shifted it back and forth only enough so that he could capture her lips between his heavy panting. "Bulma," liquid welled in his eyes. He had never felt anything like it. "I need to hear it. Tell me you no longer hate me for what happened seven years ago. Tell me you forgive me."


His mate groaned, her head falling back slightly as she desperately replied, "You know I do not hate you! I could never hate you for that night." Her second sentence was softly spoken. It was an addition, Vegeta received the impression, that had she not been so lost in passion she would not have made. "I already told you I have forgiven you!" Her face turned back to meet his, "What more do you want from me?"


For a moment, time seemed to cease as their eyes absorbed one another's. Her question was a valid one and almost instantaneously, Vegeta realized the answer.


More.


He wanted more than her forgiveness. He wanted more than her physical desire for him. Curse the gods, he wanted her love. The realization came out of nowhere. It simply popped into his head as he watched her waiting beneath him, a sight he had for years imagined. But the actual scene was different. It was not as perfect as he had hoped. He wanted her eyes to shine upon him with more than just primal lust. He wanted all of her, mind, body and soul.


"Nothing I can have," the words fell from his lips before he had a chance to edit his thoughts. She may have forgiven him, but she would never desire him the way he finally realized he desperately needed her to. Yes, the physical attraction was strong, so much so that she could succumb to him even after all the heartache he had caused her, but that passion would never equate love. He had lost his slim chance of ever receiving such tender sentiments from her seven years ago. In her eyes, he would always be unwanted.


"Vegeta, please," she was at the breaking point, he could feel it, and he would fulfill it, but only this once. This one night he would spend completing his soul. He would make her his, bury himself inside her, branding every moment of their coupling in his mind, but just for this one night. He would not ask her to stay. He would not hope for a future. It had to end, whatever the hell it was between them, tonight. For his and her own good, it had to. He could only hope he had the willpower to part from her when the time came.


"Yes," the cry came out in a near scream as Vegeta forged through her cleft. She was hot, wet and welcoming. He had never experienced anything like it, not even their first time. "Bulma," he whispered her name between thrusts, forever scarring on his mind the very poignant connection of coupling with this single woman. He did not have to be a clairvoyant to know it would never be any better than this. No woman could ever invoke feelings within his body as the little creature beneath him.


"Damn it," the crude comment hissed from Vegeta's throat as his completion came to him. Five thrusts, less than a damn minute and he had lost himself! Burying his face in his lover's shoulder, for a moment, Vegeta thought he would never live down the shame. He had waited so long to be with her, inside her, and he had failed miserably to fulfill her. Damn his traitorous body!


"Oh gods," the shriek from the woman beneath him snapped Vegeta out of his momentary bout of self-pity. Her arms were flailing for a moment before she began pushing at his shoulders, "How could you do this to me again?!" The question jerked Vegeta to attention. Lifting himself off of his wife, he carefully pulled out of her so that he could try and figure out why she sounded so angry when in a matter of moments he could have properly completed what he had started.


"Woman, calm down, I-" her eyes were swollen. She was crying. His wife was crying. And he suddenly realized he had no idea why.


"I do not know why I ever trusted you," she pushed herself off of his bed, grabbing at her discarded garments to try and cover herself.


"What the hell are you complaining about?!" Vegeta followed after her, grasping her biceps firmly, he gave her a light shake as he explained, "I asked you if you wanted to do this! You swore you did! I might not have been what you expected but that is no damn reason for you to start crying over it!"


"Oh, I beg to disagree," she began to fight against his hold, "There would be no greater irony than your having imbued me with child and I did not even have the pleasure of finishing with you."


A sword through his chest could not have as effectively pierced Vegeta. "That's what you are so upset about?" His hands fell from her arms numbly, "You are angered because I spilled my seed inside you?"


The freedom immediately allowed Bulma to return to her dressing, "The last time we did this, you told me you had not sired any bastards because you had never spilled your seed within a woman. How stupid of me to just assume that you would offer me the same courtesy you had your other partners. Clearly I still mean less to you than a whore."


Vegeta blinked several times, finally focusing his eyes on his utterly undone wife. No amount of consequences their conceiving a child invoked could cause this kind of violent reaction. They were married. Should she become pregnant, she would be carrying his heir, and as much as he hated to admit it, it was high time he produced one. The child would be worshiped, adored. Was the thought of carrying his child so truly repugnant that she was reduced to sobbing? The concept sickened him, especially considering how the sudden vision of her swelling with his cub made his heart race.


"It is just one time," Vegeta attempted to calm her nerves. If he were going to understand her anger, he would not easily succeed with her as unstable as this. "The likelihood of you becoming pregnant after only one time is highly improbable." It was a partial lie, but there was no reason for her to know that. What was the worst that could happen to her? She would have a child whom the woman would no doubt love unconditionally. She was not sixteen anymore, she was a grown, married woman.


"Do not lie to me!" The determination in her voice took him aback. "I am well aware of the probabilities of conceiving a child after laying only once with a man. I won't go through that heartache again," her body finally collapsed once she finished pulling her dress back on. Her head fell into her hands. Vegeta felt another sharp pain slicing through his chest. Had it truly been that frightening for her? The weeks she had to wait while she hoped for her courses to come, to prove she had not conceived? The thought sickened him that he had put her through such a trauma. A sixteen-year-old alone having to even contemplate what she would do in the event of an unplanned pregnancy was unthinkable. His guilt suddenly plummeted to a new depth.


"For fuck's sake, woman," Vegeta knelt before his wife. Wrapping his arms around the small figure of his spouse, Vegeta tried to calm her as he commanded she look at him, "Never will I forgive myself for the torment I put you through, but damn it," he released an arm that he had bound. Circling his fingers around her cheeks he earnestly confessed, "If you believe nothing else about me, you must know I would take care of my own flesh and blood, seven years ago or today. I would never abandon my child if-" abruptly he broke from his thought, another, more painful one suddenly seeping into his mind. "Is that what you fear?" Retracting his hand from the soft caress he had been indulging her with, he grasped her chin, forcing her to look him in the eyes as he demanded, "You fear having my child because it would bind you to me for the rest of your life. You fear it would cost you your precious future with Kakarrot?"


The harshness of his tone unraveled Bulma as she saw the anger and fury in his eyes. "This was a mistake," she jerked her head away so that he would be forced to release her chin. Trying to stand up, to flee the scene before it could become any more heated, she found herself being yanked back down on the floor, or more accurately, atop of Vegeta. "Let me go!"


He didn't. His grip only tightened, "Not until you answer me!" His eyes were so cold, nothing like they had been a moment ago. She felt like crying once more. Why was every bliss that ever happened to her always taken away almost as quickly as it had been allotted?


"Yes!" the word came out of her mouth without any accompanying thought. She was upset, not thinking clearly; it was the only excuse for the harshness of her proceeding comments, "I never wanted anything to do with you. All we have is a physical attraction. I do not love you. I never could love you. I want nothing to do with you in the future. I want any connection I ever had with you to be severed indefinitely. I do not want any remembrance of any miserable moment we had together. I don't want you. I have always wanted Kakarrot." Her last statement seemed to echo through the room for nearly an eternity before Vegeta's consistently numbed expression finally altered. His eyes narrowed, appearing to darken almost an entire shade as his lips turned down.


She hit the floor. His shove had been nothing short of violent, and had she not been wearing a dress to cushion her fall she would have probably been bruised. "Get out," his voice was low and steady, almost as composed as he looked while towering above her.


Apparently she did not move fast enough for him, because before she could rise to leave with what little dignity she had left, he grabbed her arm and yanked her to her feet. "I changed my mind," he grasped her left wrist. Using his right hand, he gripped the golden band he had placed on her finger earlier that evening and pulled it off, "You are not worthy of this ring." He shoved her hand away and turned to walk back over to his bed, "Get out."


Tears fell down her cheeks, as Bulma picked up the remainder of her discarded apparel. She tried to tell herself it was better like this. They needed to part on awful terms if for no other reason than the security of her future. Ignoring the piercing in her chest, Bulma turned to leave through the door that adjoined their rooms. She stopped right before stepping into her room. Against her better judgment, she cleared her throat and admitted solemnly, "Vegeta, I'm sorry, I-I truly hope you find happiness in your future. But it can't be with me. It just can't."


The door clicked and Vegeta felt his knees give out on him. Collapsing against his bed, the Saiya-jin king swiftly realized that for the first time in his life he would have to accept defeat.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~