Chapter 4: Naked Pillow Fight

Logan

The bra came from the right side of the door, so I go left, anticipating the ambush. But of course then Veronica comes at me from the right, double-anticipating. She swings a pillow from each hand so I take the hit from both sides at once. I burst out laughing and try to wrest one of the pillows away from her. She's not even topless, the little minx. Must have pulled the bra off out through the armhole of her shirt just to have some lingerie to lure me in.

I make a grab, but she's agile and darts away, rolling across the bed. I dive after her, taking an airborn pillow in the face as she re-loads from the pile on the bed. Somersaulting off the bed and back to my feet, I look for her, but she's already retreated to the far side again, grinning and her eyes bright with the rush of competition.

I double down on a long shot and rip my shirt off, throwing it in her face. She rips hers off and throws it right back and I hoot with laughter. "Your competitive side has always gotten you in the most trouble, Ronnie."

"Sure about that?" she taunts back, but her tits are bare and tight and as soon as I see them, I'm hit with the sensory memory of her velvety soft nipples against my tongue. They used to tighten at the first hint of my breath touching them, like they couldn't be happier to see me.

A pillow smashes me in the face.

Okay, I'm pretty sure that one just apparated from thin air, while I was cataloguing exactly which parts of Veronica's body were the least capable of hiding her reactions to me. Her nipples are the second most honest. The third most honest is her eyes, which always gave her away before the studied lightness of her voice and carefully controlled face. But the most honest part of her body, when it came to me…

I consider if I took off my pants and hurled them at her, if the same trick would work twice. Because I'm desperate to find my way back to the parts of her that always give away how much she wants me.

"Careful, Echolls. Your situation there isn't going to let you walk pretty soon, much less run fast enough to win an epic pillow war." Veronica's finger traces a little circle in the air, indicating the fly of my jeans.

"Ah, the curse of a dirty mind."

"And here I always considered it one of your strengths."

"Did you? I'm intrigued. Which of the ideas from my dirty little mind was your favorite?"

Her eyes flick up and to the left, just for an instant, thinking about it. I launch across the bed, catching her by the waist and rolling her over my body, and then underneath me.

"Victory at all costs," I quote, dropping a kiss on the tip of her nose. "Winston Churchill."

"The world's known expert in topless pillow fights."

Her skin is exquisite against mine, and my lids droop to half mast, enjoying every place we're touching. I drop my head and brush my cheek against hers, our temples aligning exactly.

"Are you trying to kill me here?" she says, a little breathlessly.

"It wouldn't be the first time you've accused me of being a murderer." But I shift my knees to take a little more of my weight, no matter how much I miss the friction of her body pressed tightly against mine.

She grabs me by the back pocket and presses me closer again. "Not what I meant." Her tongue traces the hollow beneath my ear and I go lightheaded so fast spots flicker before my eyes. "You weren't too heavy. You just normally don't make me wait for it this long."

"Don't I?" I brighten, a sly smile taking my face as I pin her wrists high over her head and lean down to her.

I nuzzle my nose the barest touch of pressure alongside hers, my breath coming quick as it touches her lips. She licks them, her chest heaving under mine in a way I'm enjoying immensely.

"Are you waiting for an invitation or the next lunar eclipse?" she demands.

"I was just remembering all the other times I made you wait for it." I shift back until my chest is barely contacting hers, just brushing her nipples. And then I rock slightly, just enough to feel her nipples tighten at the friction.

She tries to take her hands back and I bear down on her wrists, letting her feel my greater strength. Her eyes dilate with arousal. "Dammit, Logan, you know I hate that."

"No," I breathe, "I don't think you do." Her nipples are rock hard against my chest now and her hips begging upwards beneath me. "I just want one minute to enjoy you when you're not running away."

She subsides, softening into my grip. "I came here," she pointed out. "Twice, just tonight. If I'm running away, I'm doing a shitty job of it."

The ghost of a smile touches my lips. "You usually kind of do."

The scent of her always kills me, this close up. The wisp of sweetness emanating from the hollow beneath her jaw where she always dabs her perfume. She used to put it on her throat, until I kept getting a tongue full of bitterness when I'd kiss her neck, as I inevitably was drawn to do. It tickles something deep inside my bones to know she's kept the habit even when we've been apart. Like somehow, I still have some claim on her if she's putting on her perfume differently because of me.

Her eyes go hazy, responding to some change in my expression I have no control over, and when she speaks, her voice catches a little. "Didn't you miss me at all?"

I know what she wants. I lower my head until our lips are close enough to feel the heat from each other.

"You have no idea," I whisper over her mouth, her lips parting as she begins to pant.

She breaks first, attacking me with a kiss so ferocious that her whole little body bows as she fights my hold to get closer to me. I groan into her mouth, my erection thickening painfully. Her hands are on my jaw, my throat, nails scoring my chest and I'm on my back by the time I realize I must have let her wrists go. But I don't care because she's cradling my face, her palms soft and fingertips urgent.

"Oh no, your lip," she gasps, and pulls back a little. "Does it hurt? Am I hurting you?"

My swollen lip is throbbing and the split in it stings brightly. It's not healed enough for as rough as we're being and I don't give even the hint of a fuck.

"In case you haven't noticed, Bobcat, I like a little pain with my pleasure when it comes to you." I surge up to sitting, scooping her into my lap so she's kneeling astride me, her tight little bottom tucked into my hands. She's so short, we've long since discovered this is the best position for kissing for us. Well, this or her boosted onto the bathroom counter with a wedge crammed in the door and an Out of Order sign slapped to the outside surface.

To this day, I get a little hard every time I pass an Out of Order sign.

She's trying to be good; I can tell because she's moved on to my neck, where she can use her teeth on me without hitting anything bruised or swollen, and I am miles from complaining.

"Does this make us BFFs with benefits?"

She grins against my neck. "Depends. What all does the BFF with benefits package include?"

"Oh, you want to see the package?"

I reach beneath her to pop the button on my pants.

She hops off my lap and tugs down my jeans. "Looks like the deluxe."

I snort with laughter, and play along with the ego-stroking. "You lucky girl…"

She looks up at me, her eyes still red from all the crying she's done tonight, and her smirk slips a little. "I am, aren't I?" she whispers. "You forgave me, both you and Wallace." She tries for a smile again but it's still a little wobbly. "Store bought cookies and all."

The part of me that's always, always hungry for approval wants to take credit and play the magnanimous, forgiving boyfriend. But I know Veronica has that place in her too, even if she's more well-loved than I've ever been. Even if she keeps her need better hidden than I do. So I pull her back into my lap, because I need to hold her even more than I need to get into those low-slung jeans of hers.

"You're worth forgiving." I slide my hand into her hair and let her burrow into the warmth of my neck for a moment. "You okay?" I murmur it, quiet and private like it's another one of her secrets I'm keeping safe for her.

She nods against my skin. "It's funny, for as many fights as we've had in this hotel, how much I like coming back to it. It feels a little bit like mine." She huffs out a breath. "As much as anyplace containing this much bad modern art could ever be mine."

"That's because you know you can always come back here. Even if we've been fighting, even if I'm mad at you, even if I'm not here. That key is yours." And so am I.

"Yeah, I know. It's a little risky in terms of tripping over half-naked girls, though. It's a wonder the housekeeping department can keep them all in tiny towels."

I wince. I don't blame her for it being a sore point, as many times as she's almost come back to me only to find me with another woman. "You know why I do that." I'm not going to say it, because it's a little fucking humiliating. I let everyone else think it's just a really healthy sex drive.

"Yeah. Doesn't make it any more fun. That's why I kick 'em a little when I trip over them."

"Doesn't have a thing to do with how I feel about you," I remind her.

"Said every cheating husband ever, in his 'But honey…' speech."

"Have I ever cheated on you when we were actually together?"

She winces. "This is the worst pillow talk ever."

I take her arms and hold her enough away from me that I can see her face. "No. Never happened. Because there's no one else I would ever want, if I could have you. And you know it, but you let doubt gnaw at you anyway." I scowl at her, frustrated. "But when you're afraid, it's me you come running to every time, because that's more true than any bullshit doubts you've ever had."

Her lips part on a little intake of air as she listens to my voice rise with the passion of it and before the last syllable is even out, she kisses me.

The force of it knocks me back on the bed and this time she follows me down, moving from my lips to the pounding pulse in my throat, to my naked chest. By the time she gets to my stomach, I'm thunderously aroused again and the feeling of her small hand wrapping around me wrings a groan from my throat.

My eyes have fallen shut, so I don't even see it coming, just feel the heat when she licks the tip of my cock. Hesitantly, then all the way from base to tip. I hold very, very still.

Veronica was less experienced than I ever would have guessed, when I finally got her in my bed. And a lot more tentative than I'd have expected from a girl with her ball-busting mojo. But later, when I found out everything that had happened to her, I started to understand.

It's far from the first time she's had me in her mouth, but she's never gotten super confident with it, despite my unambiguously enthusiastic response. In the time we've been together, she's started to get a little more comfortable with experimenting. The more casual and relaxed I am, the more her wicked side comes out in the bedroom, and there is nothing sexier to me.

It always makes me wish that I would have gone for her, not Lilly, back when we were younger. That I could have been her first kiss, her first man. I bet she'd be kinky as all hell by now, if she'd been safe with me the whole time she'd been having sex.

The heat of her mouth surrounds me, sliding down my length and every muscle in my body melts. I usually try to keep some dignity in moments like this, but it helps Veronica get more confident when I don't hold back, so I let my breathing go ragged, my hands fisting in the bedsheets. One of her hands finds its way under my leg, her nails trailing down the back of my thigh and my hips jump in immediate response, goosebumps rippling across my stomach.

"Jesus, you can't do that when I haven't had you in weeks." I find her hands and pull her back up on top of me, kissing her as sweetly as I can manage when I want to slam full-length into her. But I'm enjoying this too much to make it quick, and it's way too ingrained in me to not take my pleasure until I've given hers. Lilly may have been a demanding lover, but she started me off right. A man always gets to finish, but the lady comes before, during, and sometimes after.

I hook my finger into Veronica's jeans and give her button a little questioning tug.

"Yes," she gasps, coming back to my bruised mouth to give me a kiss so gentle I fall for her all over again.

"You know I can't take it when you're sweet to me," I rasp, my hands starting to shake.

"I do know…" She smiles, but her hands clutch me harder and it stabs straight into my chest. Fucking Christ, she takes me to pieces on nights like this. When I can remember a little too well what it's like when she's gone.

To distract myself, I unzip her jeans and slip my hands down the graceful curve of her back and under her panties. Over her glorious ass and strong thighs, pausing at the vulnerable backs of her knees just to enjoy the sight of her panties falling to her ankles. I lay a kiss on her leg and strip her bare, her leg coming around my back to urge me closer as soon as it's free. Her breath is starting to come faster, because she knows what's next even before I smirk and bury my head between her thighs.

This is my favorite thing in the world. Because I can make her writhe and beg and build from tiny gasps to involuntary moans to little scraps of a scream. It's the most open she ever gets about how much she wants me. And I goddamn well know, better than I know the blood coursing through my own veins, that she's never been like this with another man.

There was a reason Duncan was the one making all the noise when they were alone in his bedroom. Veronica Mars is a creature of complicated tastes, and I doubt most men would take the time to figure her out, if she'd even let them.

She kisses like she's half a breath away from ripping my clothes straight off my body, but her mind is always cranking a thousand miles per hour, looking for the trick, the angle, the danger, and it takes a very subtle talent to get it to shut it off.

But once her clothes start to come off, she gets a little lost. Uncertain, nearly shy, and always always trying to pretend like she's not. She needs it to build slower than most guys are willing to go, with lots of reassurance that comes from gentle brushes of knuckles against her skin, and kisses to her hair and the nape of her neck and her wrists, with the sheets pulled casually up over her so she doesn't feel too exposed. Never words, because that would draw attention to the fear that she still won't admit lives so much inside her.

Fortunately, there's nowhere I'd ever rather be than in bed with her, so slow is good with me, and stamina is my personal gift. As is patience, when she squeaks through her first orgasm, and I tangle her fingers with mine and slowly start to drive her back up until her second crests and rolls, shaking from her shoulders all the way down into her toes. Her hands convulse and she pulls away, folding into a little ball as she quakes and pants through it. I ease my body in behind hers and stroke her hair away from her damp face, playing the silky strands through my fingers as I inhale her scent down into my lungs like a ritual.

She pushes back against me, asking for more, and I'm so hard against her ass that it aches all the way into my balls. I snatch a condom out of the bedside table and roll it on, stroking kisses over the back of her neck. I don't ask how she wants it, because I already know. This is her favorite position to start in, because I can cuddle my body all the way down hers, holding her tight. She has to feel completely safe or she can't come at all, no matter how many tricks I pull.

It's fine with me, too, because this position makes it easy to warm her up and give her what she needs without hurting her. Because Veronica Mars needs her foreplay gentle, her hands seeking out mine whenever she's uncertain about what's happening, but she likes to be fucked hard. Ridden rough and deep, and rocketed into an orgasm that always leaves her throttling my dick like we both might die of it.

She thinks I hate the thought of her with another man because I'm a jealous, possessive motherfucker, and she's not wrong. But I also hate it because I know they'd never get the ebb and flow of her tastes right to satisfy her. They'd push her too fast, or yank off her clothes in the heat of those atomic kisses like she won't mind, and she'll pretend that she's fine and into it, and what if they don't notice the difference? Or what if she begs for harder before she's wet enough and they hurt her? What if they don't know to hold her hand when she comes?

I bury my face in her hair, half-crazed with the thought of it, and she reaches back and cups my neck.

"What's wrong?"

She's wet as almighty hell, the entrance of her already pressing at the swollen head of my cock like she's dying for it, and she still knows me well enough to ask.

"I love you so fucking much," I say, my voice raw. "And I can't take the thought of you not being okay."

"Lucky for you, cowboy," she drawls. "I'm pretty okay at the moment. Or I would be, if you'd wiggle that six-shooter of yours just a little bit to the…left."

She teases, but she also turns her head enough to catch my lips and I pour all my worry and fear into her hot little mouth, and she's right there with me. She always has been. No matter what she says, how hard she tries to pretend she doesn't need anyone, she's always been there for me, no matter how fucked up I was.

But the more she kisses me, the more I forget I've ever needed anything but to give her my too-swollen cock and let her fuck every last thought out of my head.

When she reaches back and takes hold of me, guiding me in, I know she needs it bad. She's rarely so bold. But then, I guess she rarely has to be, with me.

But dammit she's tight…I make myself stop, my muscles twitching, and nuzzle my knee in between her legs, stroking my palm down the outside of her thigh so she can feel me with her. Parting her legs is one of the hardest things for her, and I try to take it slow when I have to do it. But this time, she melts open, arching back into me.

I push in a little deeper, but it's been weeks since we were together and she's fisted tight with wanting more. Resisting my efforts to get inside even while she clenches tighter with needing it.

"Please," she gasps, her hips wriggling despite my attempts to hold her steady. "Harder."

When she's like this, she doesn't care if I hurt her, but I do.

"You think I'm not going to give you what you need?" I whisper low and dark in her ear.

She whimpers, and I think it was supposed to be a word but I can't totally tell because my hand is between her legs and she's getting it insanely wet and I'm not sure I understand language right now. I bite her shoulder and give her a sharp thrust that crams another inch of my cock inside.

"Oh god oh god oh god…" She mutters and claws at my shoulder, and I just keep circling her clit with wet, languid fingers like I've got a century or two to devote to this. She loves the hard, quick little thrusts I give her, and they stretch her slowly so I can get in without harming her, even while she's strangling my cock with the edge of a third orgasm I refuse to give her yet.

"Please…" It comes out when her breath breaks, and her nipples are so hard now I have to stop playing with them and just cover them with my palm and the arm that's wrapped underneath her body and slowly going numb with it.

"How hard do you need me to fuck you this time?" I growl.

The other reason I love this position is that I can hold her and whisper dirty things in her ear until she's hot and wild enough to go for her real favorite position, which is bent over with her ass cocked up for me, her hands braced against something so she can take it as ferociously as I want to give it to her.

Her breath gasps and stutters her assent, but she doesn't share whatever fantasy is locked up inside her beautiful head right now.

In my wildest daydreams, I think about how uninhibited she'll be someday, when she's been safe with me for so long she can't remember anything except being adored and my cock wringing orgasms out of her in every filthy, depraved way she could ever think to ask for.

My hips punch upward, seeking more of her even as she melts down over my swollen dick. Almost there. I seduce her neck, playing her throbbing pulse with my tongue and teasing her shoulder with my teeth while she begins to shake. I shift my fingers, giving her the heel of my hand to press against so she can control this orgasm. She's so slick I nearly slip out of place, but then I feel her clit start to pulse and I wrap my free arm around her and hold her down so I can slap deep into her.

The waves of her orgasm squeeze me from base to tip and I start to feel a fluttering in the back of my brain and grit my teeth to hold off. I need more, always more of her. Instead I hold very still and let her writhe back and forth, grinding herself between my hand and my erection as she dissolves into this tiny, keening sound that exists mainly in her chest and barely escapes.

I nuzzle a kiss in under her earlobe and hum so she can feel the rumble of my chest against her back. It's not as distracting as an "I love you," but it means the same and she knows it, and it'll help her feel me here with her without breaking her trance with words. My free hand strokes her, so softly everywhere I can reach her, so the caresses will fade into all the other shades of pleasure I want for her. But almost too soon, she jolts against me and I know she needs more than her small rocking movements can give her.

"More," she breathes. "Logan, please, more."

I boost her up to kneeling, slipping out for just long enough to position her hands flat against the wall, my knees spreading hers wider. The head of my cock finds her entrance, and I tease her until I'm soaked and she's begging in gulps of air that never quite make it into words. Then I slam all the way in, driving her up off the mattress as I wring the first scream out of her. I cup her between the legs, just a soft touch so she can take as much as she needs, then start to fuck her so aggressively that her biceps flex and tremble with the effort of holding herself away from the wall.

"Ah-ah-ah," she stutters. "God. Harder."

I torque my hips, getting the angle high enough to punch straight into her sweet spot and when I hit it, I hear her nails scrape paint off the wall. I grin like I'm meeting all the angels of heaven at midnight sharp.

Sometimes I need to brace a hand against the wall to back her up when she starts to go limp, but tonight she's holding strong, so I wrap both arms around her and hold on. "Fuck," I groan through gritted teeth. "I love you so much it's probably going to kill me."

She makes a sound that could be a laugh but when the next thrust slams home, it gargles into more of a sob. I fuck her until my abs feel like they're burning bright red, my ass is spent and my legs are straight up torched. When I burst, she was there a breath before me and she's clamped so tight all I can do is push deeper, feel more until the pleasure is too much and we both fall.

It takes longer than I'd like to admit before I can sort out my arms and legs and cuddle her instead of squash her, but then she turns and her bare breasts are soft against me, her lips even softer against my ear when she whispers, "When you told me you were falling in love with me, that day in your car? I was already there. And I never, never would have told you."

I grin and settle her more fully on my chest, spent in so many ways I don't care if I ever wake up again. "And now?"

"Now…" Hazy blue eyes blink, long lashes toying with my emotions even before her lips tilt toward a smile. "Now I'm so far gone for you I can't even see my way back."

"Just the way I like it." I let out a breath that unwinds me into the bed, and I fall asleep to the faint tingle of her fingers tracing beautiful, unspoken words onto my chest.

The End

Author's Note: Thanks so much for your kind words about this story, and for giving me a chance at a new fandom! I have a new story coming up, with a whole steam-engine's worth of smut, and some comedy (why is smut comedy not a genre?). Here's the description, because I'd love for you all to stay with me for the next story. I'll probably start posting chapters next week!

Lemonade

Many lemons went into the making of this fic! Veronica and Logan are happily together, but they end up working out some of their longest standing emotional issues in the bedroom, with periodic insights and comic relief from Logan's ball-busting ex-Mossad therapist, who is either Veronica's most formidable nemesis or her new best friend.

A loose collection of established relationship smut-fics, not super canon-compliant.