Author's Note: The song for this chapter is Bloodstream by Stateless

This chapter is so long because Veronica and Logan wouldn't have it any other way. Enjoy…

Chapter 19: Absolution - Part VI

Logan

The next morning, I'm in Doc Lev's office and the silence just keeps stretching as I try to sort it out in my head.

"She said she didn't protect me, either. From my dad. Because after she found out about the abuse, she didn't turn him in or do anything."

"That's true. She definitely could have, and she didn't. Is it difficult to forgive her for that?"

"It's not even a question. I never expected her to protect me, never asked her for help. And what does it matter now, all these years later? I'm okay, I got through it. I mean, I'm not perfect, obviously. But I'm okay."

Doc Lev looks at me.

I narrow my eyes. "Shut up."

"I didn't say it!"

"You were thinking it."

"Well, then, since you already know what I was thinking, let's cut through the bullshit, Logan. Why do you think it is that you can forgive her so easily, but you can't feel those same things for yourself?"

"Because I love her."

"Yes." She lets out a small, quiet breath. "Because you love her. But not yourself."

Neither of us says another thing. But she doesn't stop watching me, just like when she called the hotel. Like she thinks this, of all things, can still change.

I wonder if she's right.

#

Veronica

I wait, parked behind a bush across the street, until Logan's car leaves the parking lot. Then I haul ass over there and park in his spot—at least partially because he always takes the best one. Shady enough to keep the steering wheel from burning your hands but far enough from the front door that no one parks next to you and dents your paint. It's subtle things like this that most people don't notice, how my husband moves through the world a little smarter than everyone else. Right now, I hope like hell that he's not smarter than me, because I need to win this round.

I take the stairs two at a time because if she has another client coming, I need to get there and boot them the hell out before the door closes. Luck is on my side because the door's open and the waiting room empty and I slam the door and lock it on my way in.

"So. Did he tell you?"

"Good morning to you, too, Mrs. Mars." Dr. Lev finishes what she's writing before she looks up. Then she stares over her reading glasses at me. "It would be cute how you keep thinking I'll give you any information about Logan's treatment, if it weren't so ludicrous."

I refuse to smile, because I really need her to be a little less ethical right now, but at the same time, I can't argue because it's Logan's secrets that she's guarding. If this woman ever needs anything, I will move heaven and earth for her. And I don't even like the bitch.

A picture on the bookshelves behind her catches my eye, and I nod to it. It's her daughter, Nathalie, on a yacht dock with two older women with their arms around each other, both laughing, neither with gray hair.

"Is that you, when you were younger?"

"I thought you were supposed to be the brilliant investigator." She goes back to writing.

"Figures that you used to be a blonde." I smirk. "Logan may have had a lot of therapy, but he hasn't changed that much since middle school. He'll still do more for a mean blonde than for anyone else on earth."

I plant the heels of my hands on her desk, curling my fingers under the ledge on the outside, and stare her down. She's going to help me, willingly or not.

"He won't have sex with me."

Her eyebrow quirks this time as she looks up over her glasses. "Let me get this straight. You, Veronica Mars, are having difficulty interesting men in having sex with you. Specifically Logan does not want to have sex with you." She sounds amused.

I whirl away from her desk, pacing around her office because maybe if I keep my feet moving, it'll distract them from how very much they want to carry me the hell out of here. I don't need this shit, especially lately. Why didn't I send him to the nice therapist? The one with all the sleepy puppy pictures on her office walls, and the therapy dog. Dogs love Logan.

The buckle on my leather jacket catches a branch of her potted ficus tree as I steam by, and it jerks it over, spilling dirt across the rug.

"Shit, sorry." I bend and scoop dirt back into the pot, patting it back into place as I right the tree and set it back beside the client's couch. There's still a dark stain of dirt on the rug, but I leave it there in a flash of pettiness, snapping back to my feet to face her.

I'm not afraid of some gray-haired old fucking has-been. Especially not when Logan's happiness is on the line. I'd burn her entire house down and make it look like an accident, if it would bring the spark back into his eyes.

I give her my flattest, most bored look, so she understands I'm not so easy to ruffle. "Is this more fun for you if you embarrass me first?"

"It's more fun for me if you get to hear how silly that sounds when I say it out loud."

"I'm not kidding, Dr. Lev."

"You're really asking me."

"Yes."

"And you realize I'm not a sex therapist."

"Yes."

She tosses down her reading glasses and rolls her eyes like a teenager. "Jesus, Veronica, seduce him."

"Seduce him?" My chest goes tight and I remember scotch in the lobby with Jeff Ratner, trying to rake up my courage. Or the day I walked into Logan's hotel room with my dad's handcuffs in my pocket and tried to pretend I had any idea what the fuck I was doing. Leave it to Eugenie Lev to challenge me to do one of the things I'm worst at in the world.

"Sexually, you little idiot. With breasts that perky, I'm sure you're still young enough to remember how it's done." She flicks her fingers to shoo me toward the door. "Now stop wasting my time so I can get to people with actually complex problems."

I head for the door before she can see she finally ruffled me. I'm done here anyway. Fuck, why couldn't she have told me the answer was to burn somebody's house down, instead?

"I am charging you the whole hour for a question that stupid!" she calls after me.

#

After I leave Dr. Lev's office, I go back to mine and boot up the feed from the two bugs I just planted, to make sure they're transmitting okay. At first there's just rustling, but after a while I hear the good therapist sneeze and I smile and set them to record. I can skip through and just listen for Logan's voice later, so I don't barge into any of her other clients' private discussions.

My chair squeaks when I sit back, staring at the frosted glass door that says Veronica Mars, Mars Investigations in gold stick-on letters I got from the dollar store. For an impatient person, I'm pretty good at waiting out stakeouts, but I don't even know when Logan's next appointment is. If he doesn't bump up his normal weekly visits I might not get anything useable for another seven days. And if he isn't talking to his therapist about our sexual issues, I might not get anything usable at all. How long can I keep going, with things between us only half-fixed this way?

As long as you need to, I remind myself.

I drop my head into my hands and let myself consider Dr. Lev's solution. Would trying to seduce him be faster? Everything in me wilts at the idea of trying to be sexy right now, when his lack of interest makes me feel stained by everything that happened to me.

I take a breath and blow it out, trying to feel that warrior spirit that lit me up when I was yelling at him yesterday about how my body was my own. It's funny how in books, the epiphany always sticks. Not so much in real life.

Maybe it's like I told Logan, how sometimes marriage is just fighting for more moments. I swallow. If I really meant that, I better fucking follow it through. I glance down at my body, trim and capable in a leather jacket and jeans.

"There's nothing wrong with you," I whisper, and immediately feel like a fool.

I've gotten so much more confident in bed over the years, mostly because Logan makes it so easy. He wants me, simple as lungs taking breath. I can get him hard with a single look, or at least I always could before now. But that's the key, isn't it?

I pick up a pen and start doodling on my desk blotter while I think. He told me it wasn't me, that he felt so disgusted by what he'd done that he couldn't stand to have me touch him. Feeling like I'm too good for him, somehow, even after everything I reminded him that I'd done wrong. If I trust that he was telling me the truth and not just trying to make me feel better, then his new issue about sex was never about me at all.

Dr. Lev's voice echoes in my head. It's nice to know your insecurities don't cloud your judgement all the time.

I scribble harder, letting dark ink fill the paper. I fucking knew Logan loved our house, no matter what she said. Just like I know he wants me. The truth of it falls into my mind with a nearly-audible click and I don't know how I convinced myself to doubt it.

It's one of the fundamental truths of my life. People are corrupt, my dad is smart, and Logan is horny. The spark between us runs so hot that even when we hated each other, we couldn't entirely resist it.

If that's still true, I can seduce him, no problem. Not only that, I need to. Because if he feels unworthy of being touched, of being loved…I'm the only one who can fix that for him.

"Everything okay, honey?" Dad leans against the doorway to my office, the empty reception desk behind him. "I thought I heard you talking to yourself in here."

I look up and put on a smile. "Mm-hmm, fine! Just checking on some new bugs I planted."

He gestures to my desk-sized appointment calendar. "Decide to clear your schedule?"

I look down, and realize I've colored out all of my appointments for the next week, in angry slashes of ink. Way to be professional, Veronica.

I chuck my pen and it skitters across the desk and rolls onto the floor.

"Shit." I sigh. "Logan and I are fighting."

"That guy? Eh, he's a jerk."

"He's not." I wilt a little in my chair, thinking of that bone-deep streak of decency in him. The one that's eating him alive with guilt right now. I know Dad's just joking, but I can't even let him say that in jest. "He's really not. That's the problem. I think he loves me too much, Dad."

"Hasn't killed me yet," he says gently.

My lips tug toward a reluctant smile I thought I was too sad for. "Well, you're a Mars. Hard to kill."

"He is now, too, sweetie." Dad crosses the office and kisses me on the head. "I think he'll pull through. Since you no longer know if you have any appointments, why don't you take the rest of the day off and go home and apologize? I bet it'll make you feel better."

"How do you know I'm the one that needs to apologize? Maybe it was his fault."

"If it was his fault, you'd be mad, not sad," he says with annoyingly faultless logic as he lets himself out of my office and crosses back to his.

"You're my dad!" I shout after him. "You're supposed to be on my side."

Their ongoing bromance is cute until I get sent home to apologize.

"I'm his father, now, too!"

I sigh even more deeply. "Dammit."

I hate it when other people are right.

#

One of the nice things about being married is that when it comes time to break out the sexual arsenal, you already know all your opponent's weaknesses.

Plus, I keep a lot of costumes and clothes changes in the trunk of my car. Many of them sexy, I'm sort of disturbed to notice. But on most jobs, it's helpful to be able to control where men's eyes will go, especially if it's very far away from what your hands are doing.

I haul everything back to my office to change. Knee socks, a swishy plaid skirt so short it probably should belong to an actual schoolgirl, though most of them are still taller than I am. My shirt unbuttoned from "flirtatious" to "perilously low." I can't decide on the push up bra, because Logan really likes the size of my breasts, but keep it in the end just because it adds to the curb appeal. My smallest shoulder holster. I don't use it much because it only fits a pair of small caliber pistols, but they're really selling the cleavage angle, and they make me look like FBI Barbie.

Once I add the red, red lipstick, I'm more like the kind of FBI Barbie who comes with a boom box and velcro tear-away shirt.

Hair, loose and tousled or pigtails? I try both, then decide it doesn't matter. Both drive Logan wild. I watch my shiny lips curve in the mirror, and a spark of warmth begins to grow near my heart. This is going to work. I can feel it.

It's funny, actually. A lot of times, especially when I just want to go dancing and be left alone, my looks feel like an annoyance. At best, I use them just the same as I use my taser and telephoto lens: like tools. But when Logan looks at me, and his eyes spark and warm, it's the only time I feel like my looks are really a part of me. Like I'm something beautiful. Not just a fairly useful brain popped into a body that men happen to find distracting.

I pivot to sort through my pile of clothing options, and consider if the leather jacket is overkill.

"Honey, have you seen the—" Dad opens the door, stutters, and shakes his head. "That is not the kind of apologizing I had in mind."

I start to laugh.

"I really wish I hadn't seen that," he mutters to himself.

"I'm fully dressed!" I protest.

He closes the door.

I decide the leather jacket can't hurt, and I add the guns to my shoulder holster. Unloaded, just in case I get too wild and forget they're there.

Then I call a warning to Dad, and strut back out through the reception area of our office, feeling a little in control of my damn life for the first time in a while.

I'm in luck that when I pull into the garage, Logan's car and surfboard are both there. I touch up my lipstick and slide out of the car, a little surprised I haven't felt the jangle of nerves yet. Used to be, the pressure of deliberately trying to seduce him in any context was enough to send all my insecurities screaming to the surface. Am I done with all that?

Probably not. But it's a battle that's getting easier to win with practice, it seems like.

"Paging all hottie surf bums," I call as I enter the quiet house. "English Lit minors?" I peek into the bedroom, then the formal living room, but he's not in either so I head for the office, which should have been my first guess. He's been putting in some long hours on Safe Drinks since our fight, either because of the investment push or because of his megatron size guilt complex. I purse my lips and lean against the doorframe, enjoying the sight of him behind the libido-thrilling dark wood of that dominant businessman's desk. "Mmm, eccentric billionaire it is."

"And people said that English Lit minor wasn't going to pay off." He pulls off the wire-rimmed glasses he uses when he works long enough for the laptop glare to get to his eyes, and then his lashes stutter and blink hard in his understated version of a double take. He's very good at hiding his emotions, my Logan. But I saw that one.

I sashay over to the desk and perch up on its edge, picking up his glasses and sliding them back onto his nose. "Hmm, don't take those off on my account."

I lean down, his eyes nailed to my shiny red lips the whole way, and steal the lightest kiss I can manage. Even that leaves his lips smudged with sinful, delicious red.

He jerks in a breath. "Please tell me you didn't just come from working a case dressed like that."

Those wire-rimmed glasses, Jesus. I can barely look at him without my eyes feeling like they're steaming over.

"Depends." I brush my thumb over his mouth, wiping away my lipstick. And then I pout. "Will I be in trouble if I did?"

"No, but I will be."

He surges out of his desk chair, catching me by the hips and taking me with him when he comes to standing like I don't weigh a thing. He swings me around and pins me up against the bookshelves behind his desk. The shelves bite my back and I don't give the slightest hint of a fuck because his fingers are gripping the very edge of my ass and I want him to bend me over that desk and rip my panties down and spank me until I beg for his cock.

He bends to within a breath of my mouth. "What kind of case?" It's almost a groan, and I know he worries I only dress like this to bait predators.

I lean close and nip at his bottom lip. I still remember how hard and deep he rode me from behind after I shot that murderer at the Kane Software Ball. Never let it be said I left one of his fantasies unturned today.

"Dangerous one. Shot a man."

"In Reno? Just to watch him die?" He kisses me once, his tongue deep and dirty.

"Mmm," I purr, smiling that he could tell I was teasing just for effect. Whatever I was going to say in response disappears when his hands shove under my jacket and he finds my breasts and shoulder holsters at the same time. His eyes go nearly black and wild and his hand twitches convulsively, my nipple peaking eagerly for the contact it's been missing for so long.

He pulls back. "Did you—You were kidding about shooting the guy, right?"

I shrug out of my jacket, moving away to drop it over his desk chair. "I don't know. I'm pretty dangerous." The teasing tone goes dry on my lips when I turn around and see him again. Christ, those glasses. I might have to take those back off him or I'm going to climb him like a tree and I'm not sure that fits into the sexy part of the plan so much as the sheer desperation part of the plan. I haven't gone this long without sex since before I was too young to drink.

I take the guns out of my holsters to distract myself, laying them one by one on his desk with a deliberate thud of metal against wood.

Logan watches me, his chest rising and falling quickly. I take one step toward him and he meets me before I get there, catching me by the hips again and my feet leave the ground but I'm kissing him before I notice where he's lifting me to. The familiar thunk of a laptop hitting the carpet behind me tells me I must have made it onto the desk.

I don't waste an instant worrying about it. There's a reason Logan never bought a desktop computer, and this is exactly it. Desks drive him as wild as they drive me. Well, almost.

My shirt loses its top button as he struggles to get under that holster and I'm kissing him so hard his glasses have gone crooked. I hook his ass with my leg and haul him closer, his other hand climbing my bare thigh and—

He makes a sound. It's like a wheeze, deep down in his throat and his body locks hard just for a second and then he lets me go, backing away.

"Logan?" I freeze, too, and actually throw a frightened glance behind me. Nothing but huge, privacy mirrored windows and the beach across the street. I turn back around, suddenly self-conscious of my ripped shirt hanging half off my shoulder and my skirt pushed up to show my panties.

"Sorry, fuck." He shoves a hand back through his hair and his tanned skin has paled to a sickly gray-green.

"Logan, hey." I hop off the desk and reach for his arm.

"Don't." He backs away. "Give me a second. Give me—fuck." His throat convulses and I jump back, but he just brings his fist up to his mouth.

Oh my god, did he just dry heave? My skin goes cold and I pull my bra strap and then my shirt up onto my shoulder, buttoning the higher button he didn't rip off.

"Veronica—" he starts, and if he apologizes to me, I might actually shoot a man today after all. I don't even know why I find that part the most infuriating of all, but I went from level 10 sexy to so revolting he nearly puked, and the emotion of it is nearly electrifying my hair, I'm so…I don't even know what.

"What?" I snap. "Did you suddenly remember a dentist appointment you needed to get to?" I remember my scribbled out appointment calendar, how I just fucked my entire next week of work by not paying attention to my doodles, because I was thinking about him, and then I'm even madder. "Or did you suddenly remember Cassidy's hands up my skirt where yours just were?"

My voice comes out cold as the Arctic, because I know it's true.

His head snaps up and he yanks off those wire-rimmed glasses. "Forgive me if one of my closest friends taking advantage of your unconscious body is the biggest libido killer on the planet." His voice is precise, as cutting as mine.

I stalk closer to him, feeling the leather of that empty shoulder holster wrapping my back and I feel dangerous and mean and so pissed I could almost levitate. "That happened over 10 years ago and your libido has been healthy enough to sell shares on eBay until now. Don't act like it just happened."

"I'm not acting," he bites off, tossing his glasses at the desk and missing. "Jesus, Veronica. What about this makes you think I'd choose it?" He turns away, pressing the heels of his hands to his eyes like he hasn't slept in weeks and they burn.

Every tender thought and intention I had in my office today is lost to the wash of rage and the live wire of one damn thought. My husband doesn't want me.

He's disgusted by me.

He tries to touch me, and all he can feel is the guys who came before him, and how fucking territorial and cave man is that? That jerk didn't hear a single thing I said about how my body is mine.

"Well, you know what? I'm done waiting on you to have sex with me. I didn't do anything wrong and I don't deserve to be deprived because you've packed your bags and departed on a guilt trip. I'll take care of myself by myself."

I charge out of the office and across the house. When I get to our bedroom I kick off my shoes and hurl them across the room, then throw myself on the bed. I crawl up to the pillows and huff out a breath as I lie back and shove my hand into my panties.

I'm mad, but I was also righteously turned on right before he froze up on me, and I'm still wet. Fighting has always done it for us. Some of the hottest, tear-your-favorite-shirt sex we've had has been in the middle of, not even after, our loudest fights. I sink two fingers into myself and fuck it feels good to have something inside me after all this time. But my hand's too small and all the wrong angle and it's ridiculous how infrequently I actually have to do this.

My laugh comes out bitter and a little twisted. My husband keeps me far too satisfied for me to bother having to learn how to do it myself. Maybe I should buy a manual.

I blow out a breath and lean my head back against our headboard, letting my fingers pump slower and deep, almost sullen as the tension down low in my pelvis starts to build again. Those fucking wire rimmed glasses. I'd like to tear them off his face and bite him. Right in the thick muscle of his stupid, gorgeous shoulder. Damn him, I miss him so much.

My clit pulses against my palm and I press harder against it, too impatient to think much about what I'm doing but just annoyed at how frustrated I am, how every part of me feels a little achy and swollen and neglected. I part my legs a little further, letting my other hand drift down my inner thigh and that feels soft and good, but it also bites tears behind my closed eyelids because Logan always touches me so gently right there.

At least, he used to.

"Take down your panties, love."

For a second, I think I'm imagining his voice, but it's a little hoarse, more tortured than its usual smooth rumble. My eyes pop open and he's in the doorway, one arm wrapped across his chest and the other propped at his mouth, knuckle pressing hard into his lips. His biceps bulging under his shirt with the tension in his body.

"Let me watch you."

His eyes are unwaveringly on where my hand is working myself and I squeeze once, unthinkingly, around my own fingers.

"You want my panties off, you have to come take them off yourself," I say, sounding petulant even to myself. I start to rub again, the tingles of it pulling at me. It feels like a need more than a pleasure, like an itch I have to scratch whether I like it or not. I withdraw my too-thin fingers and rub them up higher now that they're wet, my panties hiding a little of what I'm doing under my rucked-up skirt, but not much.

Logan's knuckles are pressing harder against his mouth and I'm starting to worry he might draw blood. He hasn't moved, but he hasn't looked away.

I let my eyelids drift a little closer shut and concentrate on how I'm touching myself. I need to get off even more than I need to punish him by making him watch. But these small, rubbing circles aren't doing it for me. I plunge my fingers inside again and want to cry at how inadequate they feel. My abs clench as I curl harder against my hand.

It's not like I can't get myself off with Logan watching me. We've done it a thousand times. I was self-conscious about it way, way back at the beginning but he's always been warm and right with me when he watches, the thrum of his arousal feeding mine because I could feel how much it excited him to see me touch myself.

He's no less interested today. That's clearly not the problem. He was hard as a crowbar in the office, and when I open my eyes a little to check, the front of his pants are straining right now, too. Whatever mental image has blocked him from getting aroused recently is not holding him back at the moment. But he's thick and ready, and I can't have him.

I squeeze tight around my fingers, so close but I can feel I won't be able to go over. It's just not going to happen for me today, no matter how wound up I am. Not with that invisible wall between us, and the throb like a wound at the center of my chest. The hurt of watching his throat convulse in a dry heave after he pushed me away.

It's my body, not theirs.

But I still can't get there. I pull my hand out of my panties and yank my skirt back down, exhaling through my teeth.

"But you didn't—"

"There's no point," I snap. I don't want to look at him. "It's not the same. It's just a fucking orgasm."

His shoes rustle against the carpet and the bed dips under his weight. "Hey." His voice is soft, that kind of steady he always becomes in the bedroom. I haven't heard that voice in so long it stabs me a little. I wrap my arms around myself and squeeze tight, pushing back into the pillows and staring down at the bedspread.

"You do all this other stuff," I whisper, still angry, but the tears prickling, too. "I don't know, like touch my hair and kiss my wrists. I used to worry back when we were dating that I was getting really spoiled and if we broke up I'd have to go back to just plain sex. And now I have and it's just not enough. It's so…empty. It doesn't even really feel good."

His knuckles skim the back of my arm. I uncross my arms with a huff and take his hand, squeezing it but still not looking at him.

"All the other stuff is how I get you to feel safe so you can come," he murmurs. "Doesn't work, otherwise. Remember how hard it used to be for you to get there?" His thumb skims arcs over the back of my hand, slow and soft and it's just supposed to be comforting, but it prickles all the way up the inside of my arm and brings my nipples taut beneath my shirt. "You'd try to fake that you'd finished, so I'd think you were fine, remember?"

"And I'd be sooo embarrassed and pissed when you called me on it." I almost smile, ducking my head.

He leans in and kisses my cheekbone. "Want me to hold you while you get yourself off?"

"You don't have to." I look away. "I know you don't want to."

"Ahh, love. You don't know a thing if you ever think I don't want you." He tucks my hair back from my face. "You're right, none of this is fair to you. You haven't done anything wrong."

He's close enough I can roll my face into his neck and hide it. I'm probably getting makeup all over his shirt and I don't care. There's a quiet thunk as one of his shoes hits the floor, then the second. His other arm comes around me and eases me into him, and then I'm cuddled against his firm chest instead of the too-soft pillows and I can smell the little bit of cologne he sometimes wears. It settles like silk into the way-back of my mind, smoothing everything.

"Shh," he murmurs, his arms wrapping tight over my chest for a minute and hiding me from the whole stupid world. "We're okay."

I close my eyes hard when he says it, but a tear still drips free and catches in the corner of my trembling lips. I hate this push up bra because I want to feel his forearm against my breasts and instead it's just the press of this thick cushion. I wiggle closer, his erection thick against my bottom and I find that way more comforting than I probably should. But that's our normal, in some ways. A lot of ways, really.

He brushes his lips against my hair, laying a small kiss on my temple and crooking his fingers so he can brush the backs of his knuckles down my arm. My socked foot wiggles in between his ankles, hides itself under his leg. Logan nuzzles my hair back and kisses my neck. Chastely, and it still makes the air I suck in go hotter.

His hand starts making quiet circles over my belly and I tremble under his touch, my hips arching up in immediate response. But he's not dipping lower, just soothing me and oh my god, I've missed this.

I didn't need to seduce him, I needed him to seduce me. It clicks into place just as his hand finds its way under my shirt and lays warm and quiet over my naval. It's not even sexual and it's still the best thing I've felt in weeks.

It's just like the nightmares. I don't know why I didn't think of it sooner. He's never been totally comfortable with needing me. But when I needed him, he's always been right there. Instantly. Steadily. Coming into his own all the faster so he could be there for me.

I stretch back against his chest, nuzzling and relaxing into place as my breath comes out. The tension in me has eased to a warm, tingling glow and this time when I reach down, everything feels good instead of frustrating. I make a noise and try to wriggle up higher on his chest.

"Can you…"

"Uh-huh." He reaches under my skirt and pulls my panties down until I can kick them off, and even now, he's not enough of a boy scout to leave my skirt down. He smooths it all the way up so he can watch before his hands return to my arms, stroking and soothing me. I hide a smile and arch against my palm, taking it slower because I don't feel as urgent now.

I let my fingers get wet, circling lazily around my clit where he can see. Rocking back and forth between the pressure of my hand and his hard cock against my ass. His breath hisses out, but he stays with me, his arms creating a warm cocoon I snuggle into as pleasure starts to spread its tingling tension out through my limbs.

It would be easy, now, to nudge myself over that edge, but instead I start to whimper and tense, biting my lip.

"It just—I can't—"

I turn my face up to him and he kisses me hard. "Yes, you can, love."

I have to pull my hand away from my clit because his tongue alone is nearly sending me over the edge, his mouth taking mine and distracting me so thoroughly I keep forgetting that my goal isn't to have as many screaming orgasms as possible.

"Please, Logan," I beg against his mouth, my breath ragged. "I'm so close and I can't—"

He makes a deep, growling sound and rolls on top of me, his hips driving me down into the bed. Spots dance before my eyes and oh my god, I've never tried this hard not to come in my life. I jerk at his belt, rip at his shirt. A button hits me in the chin, but then I can feel his bare chest, abs flexing as he drives up against me, as out of his mind with it as I am.

His big hands grip my shirt and with a harder jerk than I expected, my buttons are all out of the game at once, and the stupid padded bra is yanked down around my waist. My fingers go limp on his half-unbuckled belt because he's licking my nipples and teasing me with his teeth and hard, sucking kisses at the undersides of my breasts that make me arch all the way off the bed.

I rip at the button to his jeans and tear them off over his ass, jerking him toward me but he's already there and the head of his cock shoves hard at me and I tilt up and I'm so wet he drives inside without any pain at all, the stretch of him perfect and oh, god, so deep.

I make a strangled sound, one leg hooking over his waist and trying to haul myself closer on instinct. But then I don't have to because he drops down on his elbows, kissing me and surging into me in waves that scrape my inner thighs with his half-pulled-down jeans.

I'm moaning and crying into his mouth, spasming around his cock in what feels like a thousand built-up orgasms and every time I squeeze down on him, he just fucks me deeper, smoother, and my mind falls away into the rush of it.

I love the moment when his control shudders and he jerks faster than he ever lets himself otherwise, slamming home into me so hard it wrings one more rough, quick peak out of me. He goes still, the waves of my orgasm going on without him as he pants into my neck and I cradle his head and the twitching muscles of his shoulders.

I kiss his ear, a smile taking my whole face. "Hi."

He laughs into my throat. "Fuck. Veronica. I think I'm too old for sex like that."

"Did you break something?" I flex around his still-thick cock. "Mmm, don't worry, the important parts seem intact."

"My…lung…" he wheezes. "Maybe." He pulls out gently and then rolls off me with a whole lot less coordination, coughing out a few more swear words that make me giggle.

I flap my arms, trying to squirm out of my ripped shirt without sitting up, but that just puts a crick in my neck. I shove reluctantly to sitting, then burst out laughing when I look down. "Oh shit, you didn't just kill the buttons." He jerked so hard the threads ripped an entire piece of fabric off with it. So much for that shirt.

He blinks at me, laying all relaxed with his jeans and boxers around his knees. "Oh, stop it," he tells me. "Smug isn't a good look on you."

"Isn't it?" I grin and shrug out of the shirt, reaching behind me for the clasp of my bra that's located a lot closer to my belly button than my breasts currently. Logan watches this process with more than a little interest.

"Okay, yeah, maybe it's not a bad look." He reaches out with one hand and pops the clasp I'm straining for, then hauls himself up onto his side with a mighty groan and starts fumbling to get his jeans the rest of the way off. Then his half-ruined shirt.

I ditch my skirt and roll up onto my side, languid and naked and grinning as I kiss his shoulder. "I can't believe you fell for that old ruse. Oh, I can't open this jar of pickles, I need a big strong man to do it for me…" I sing song.

He snorts, glances once at me, then subsides against the pillows. "Jesus. You should be outlawed. Though for the record, when the 'jar of pickles' you need help with is your hot, wet pussy, I don't really think that's considered fair play."

"Oh come on, how far would I have gotten in Neptune if I played fair?" I nibble at his ear and listen to his breathing get ragged again. "In my defense," I whisper in his ear, "it really was a lot, lot easier to come with help."

He pulls me up onto his chest and he's already semi hard again. "How sore are you?"

I wriggle a little, considering it. When he thrusts inside all at once, usually I pay for it later even when I'm really wet. "Mmm, maybe a three? Not bad."

"Good, because if you keep whispering in my ear like that, you're gonna end up a six in no time."

I smirk and wipe a smudge of my lipstick off his mouth. "I love the way you flirt."

"I love you." He cups the back of my head and draws me in for a long kiss. When we part again, his eyes are quiet and dark. "I'm sorry."

I shake my head. "Don't. I shouldn't have taken it so personally." I roll off his chest and tuck up next to him, propping my head on a hand so I can see him better. "I get why it's hard for you. You're …you. And you always want to protect me."

He nods, stroking my hair away from my face. Smoothing it softly so my whole scalp tingles with the sensation. I draw my leg up onto his, enjoying the tickle of his hairy legs against my inner thigh.

"But I need you now," I tell him. "A whole lot more than I need to worry about what happened back then." I draw my fingernail down his chest. "I missed you."

His arm tightens around my waist and he pulls me against him. "Missed you, too."

I can all but hear the wheels of his brain cranking in the quiet, and I know he's worried about next time. If we'll be okay now, or if he might freeze up again when he remembers the wrong thing at the wrong moment and the guilt of everything he can't change just flattens him.

"I was thinking earlier about how in books and movies, you only have to win a battle once." I resettle my head on his chest. "And then in real life, when you have the epiphany and the same crap comes up again the next week it's like, 'what the hell is this?'"

He blows out a breath. "Yeah. Yup."

"It seems like, you're never done with some things, you still have to fight those battles." I lace my fingers with his. "But I think, once you figure out how to fight something, every time it gets a little easier to win."

"Marriage is more than a moment," he murmurs.

I nod, the warmth of his skin lulling against my cheek. "And tomorrow, we get another one."

Author's Note: So, when I first started this fic, I thought erotic romance of this type was something I hadn't really done before, and then someone pointed out to me that basically all my original fiction books have centered around the theme of relationship issues being worked out through sex. Considering my first series was called Sex, Love, and Rock & Roll…Touché, my friend, I will concede the point. If you might be interested in my non-Veronica Mars writing, you can find all that at michellehazenbooks dot com Also, if you're looking for a book where I explore the long-term effects of trauma through a relationship like I've done here, I also do that in my book Unbreak Me.