Author's note: If anybody wants a peek at Logan's yellow Corvette, referenced in this chapter, I have a pic on my Pinterest page: michellehazenbo/veronica-mars/

These last three chapters of the fic made me so happy to write, and I'm really looking forward to sharing them.

Chapter 23: Therapist Hijinks - Part III

Veronica

The airport air smells like flu season germs and mall-counter perfume, and the security guards are giving me the side-eye for not having any luggage, but I don't care about any of that. I'm the kind of excited that bubbles up inside you and makes it hard not to bounce on your toes. I don't know why particularly, I just feel…happy lately.

Of course, it doesn't hurt to have something to look forward to today. Logan's one of the first out of the gate when the doors open—thanks first class. He's a little more tanned than when he left, and he's wearing a soft black hoodie that makes me want to curl into his lap and nap on his shoulder. He tugs his phone out of his jeans pocket and sends a quick text, his bent head giving me a look at how all the hours of airplane seats have left his hair mussed.

A raven-haired, curvy beauty comes out of the plane runway behind him and lays a hand on his arm, smiling and laughing a goodbye that's way too familiar for whatever plane-based acquaintance they might have had. He gives an absent smile back, but his eyes don't make it all the way up from his phone to her face. In my pocket, my phone buzzes a new text and I snicker a little. Poor girl.

He tucks his phone back into his pocket and his strides lengthen, carrying him toward the escalator until his gaze catches on my hair and then his steps glitch as he recognizes me.

I flip up the sign I sharpie'ed on the back of the Out Of Order sign I always keep in my purse.

It says, "Mars" and something in his eyes softens when he sees it, even as his smile broadens. He changes direction and catches me in his free arm without slowing down. He lets the momentum spin us around and the handle of his carry on hits the carpet with a thud as my legs swing out.

My shoe flies off, but the draft of cold air on the bottom of my foot becomes inconsequential as soon as his lips find mine. They're a little chapped from sun and salt water and dry airplane air, and they feel like he's been carrying our home with him for the whole ten days he's been gone. And now it's all right back here where it should be.

My heart's hammering embarrassingly fast, like we're reunited teenagers who just got the whole star-crossed thing dropped for lack of evidence, and forbidden love is suddenly back on the menu.

"Hello, handsome," I whisper when I pull back long enough to smile at him. Someone behind us wolf whistles and Logan chuckles and kisses my nose.

"How'd you get past security, riff-raff? Flash that fake FBI badge at the TSA again?"

"Forty-nine dollar ticket to Palm Springs." I kiss him again, lingeringly. "Totally worth it."

He needs three more kisses before he can be persuaded to set me back on my feet, at which point I remember my missing shoe and we have to hunt for it for a moment.

"Wait, where's Dick? Please tell me he didn't fall in love and elope in Bali? Because I am not breaking the news to Mel this time."

"That was only one time."

I give him a look.

"One non-Mel time, I mean. And they got married for the fifth time before we left. Didn't you get the e-invite?"

"Sure, but it was from Dick, so I didn't open it."

"Fair."

Logan grabs up his baggage and tucks my hand into his, which makes me blush a little. For some reason, holding hands with him in public always makes my heart do this trip-POP like it's something momentous. Maybe because the way Logan holds hands, it feels like it's probably illegal in thirty-two states and American Samoa.

"Dick stepped on a cone snail."

"Uh, can't that kill you?" Hey, a girl can hope.

"Sometimes. There's loads of kinds of cone snail. I offered to pee on it for him, like you do for jellyfish stings, but he was strangely unappreciative." Logan shrugs. "So I crammed him on a medical transport with the prettiest, most flirtatious nurse I could find, called Mel, and went surfing. I figure the resulting catfight will keep him happier and more distracted than any amount of morphine."

"Aww, you're a good friend." I stroke his hand with sweeps of my thumb as he guides me onto the escalator in front of him, then tugs his bag on behind us. "None of my friends ever offer to pee on me."

"Clearly because you don't keep a Casablancas on the friend roster. Dick would pee on you in a hot second if you asked. Wouldn't even require an explanation. He's good like that. I, on the other hand, am curious as a tail-twitching feline. I think it's the Mars in me." He brushes his knuckles down the back of my neck. "How long of a lead-up do you need to ease me into the bad news, oh loving-airport-greeting-wife-of-mine?"

"No bad news. I just showed up here instead of seeing you tonight at home because I had a lot of things to tell you, and I didn't want to wait. Plus, I missed the sex." I crane my neck, eyeing the crowded baggage claim area. "You know, if you were a more reasonable size, we could both crawl inside one of these rolling suitcases and sneak a quicky."

"If you were a more reasonable size, I could use you to shield the hard-on you're giving me right now." He kisses the top of my head, coming to a stop behind me at the third baggage carousel. "What kinds of things do you have to tell me? How tall I am, how much you missed me, how devastatingly handsome and intelligent you find me?"

"Well, I already mentioned how tall you were, and how much I missed you, and I'm finding you less devastatingly handsome and intelligent the longer you talk about it, so…"

"Rats." He snaps his fingers. "I forgot the first lesson of charming ladies."

"Did you?" I say dryly, battling a smile. "Do tell."

He bends to my mouth. "Less talking. More…" His tongue saunters into my mouth and there is no way he is this good at surfing.

Which means this little trip of his was a terribly misguided waste of ten days that could have been spent kissing. I don't entirely register that I've taken him by the front of his hoodie and am yanking him harder against me until he pulls away with a little chuckle and a sparkle in his eye. "Easy, Bobcat. Still in public."

"Ung." I turn away from him and face the carousel, all of my skin prickling in a very distracting way. I cross my arms over my chest for camouflage, then give a chilling look to a middle-aged gentleman who is very focused on how well my arms are covering my hardened nipples. His eyes flick to something just over my head, and he pales and looks away. Then finds something requiring his attention on the other side of the baggage carousel.

Logan's hand comes to rest on my shoulder, his thumb stroking me softly just inside the collar of my jacket. "So what are those things you wanted to tell me?"

"Ah, yes, the things." I clear my throat. "And the stuff." I can list 462 ways to get him out of his pants right now, and remember exactly how much my fingers have to be spread to wrap my fist around his cock, but the other details of my life are kinda fuzzy.

I blink, then remember.

"Oh! So I got into it a little bit with your therapist. Just for a minute."

His hand jerks on my shoulder, then comes to rest again with studied casualness. "Let me guess. One of you won, and one of you got arrested, and both of those people were you."

I frown, not sure whether to be proud that he knows I'd win, or annoyed that he thinks I would slip up enough to get arrested. By the Neptune police, for heaven's sake.

"I left your father bail money," he frets, pulling his phone out of his pocket. "But when he didn't text to let me know he'd used it, I assumed everything was fine. Or at least that you did whatever you did without getting caught."

"Don't text Dad, oh my God." I snatch his phone. "You two are like a couple of grannies on a porch, I swear. No, what I was going to say is that I got into it with your therapist for a minute and I had a pretty killer plan for what I was going to do to her next, but then I decided not to go to war and I went to therapy instead."

Logan blinks. Examines my face. Takes a peek down my dress.

I smack his arm. "We're in public, Logan. And as of two minutes ago, you still—inexplicably—cared about that."

"Sorry, just wanted to see if you were really my wife. You have that one beauty mark near your left nipple…"

"There are a lot better things you could do with my left nipple that would prove me to be definitively your wife, and none of them involve checking for identifying marks."

I realize I should have lowered my voice for that comment when another guy stops staring at us and bustles with alacrity for the far end of the baggage claim area.

I pat Logan's chest. "Stop glowering, honey doll, you're scaring the townsfolk."

"They should be scared, looking at you like that," he grouches. "Do they have any idea how much shit you could do to them without even needing the bail money I left?"

My cheeks are beginning to hurt, and I make an effort to stop smiling and play it cool. I may have missed my favorite bantering partner. A little.

"Speaking of vicious violence and retaliation, did you really just say you went to therapy?"

"How is therapy related to vicious violence and retaliation?"

"Obviously because violence and revenge are both activities you'd infinitely rather engage in than therapy."

"Fair point." I nod. "Maybe I'm growing as a person. Ever think of that?"

"Are you?"

I purse my lips. "Maybe. Too soon to tell."

He shifts his weight to the opposite foot, the first outward tell that he realizes how huge of a deal this is. "So, uh, how'd it go? Did you go to Doc Lev or someone else?"

"Dr. Lev. The first appointment, she just gave me a little investigation activity to do, so that went great. The second, she wanted the Cliffs Notes version of my life story. I figured she'd heard most of it from you, but she wanted to know me me, she said. Not just whatever roles I play in your life."

I glance up at my husband, and he looks so casual he's almost bored. Which means he's listening very, very closely. He's studying the baggage carousel instead of me, bless his kind soul. I pat his muscular butt appreciatively.

"The third one, well. The third one we really talked." Now I'm studying all the baggage on display, my throat annoyingly tight. "I should have…well. I should have known better than to try and start therapy when you were out of town."

"Veronica…" His arm comes around my shoulder right away and he hugs me into his chest, kissing my hair. I feel small and protected and okay and everything I never feel when I'm not with him.

Immediately I feel the urge to step away and make a joke. Prove I don't need this or him and it's fine, really, all fine. But who would I be fooling? Not me. Sure as fuck not Logan.

So I nuzzle subtly into his chest, letting my head tip to the side and rest against his collarbone.

"I realized," I say in an undertone that stays just between us, "that I am on guard just all the time."

"Mmm-hmm." His voice is barely a rumble, more felt than heard, but there's no I-told-you-so to the sound even though I can tell even from those bare syllables that this is not exactly news to him.

"I didn't even notice how much I go around all day on hyper alert. I'm watching for anybody watching me, for anything that could be a clue on a case, anybody acting out of the ordinary. Definitely anybody who might be a threat. It drops off when I get home, but it doesn't entirely go away until we're in bed together."

I wasn't going to tell him this here. Not in public. But I…want to. I want him to know with an urgency I don't totally understand. Part of me, I think, was a little afraid that his plane might go down somewhere over that vast ocean between us before he ever got to hear these words from my lips.

"Turns out, in bed with you is the safest I ever feel." I look up at him, and he no longer looks casual.

His eyes are wide, and full of emotion. He looks like I…cracked him.

"Say something," I mutter. "Jesus, you look like you're going to faint." My toes are curling atop my flip-flops and my hands are starting to pluck at the front pocket of his hoodie.

Instead, he starts to smile. With his eyes first, the little crinkles appearing at the edges before the brown warms to a deeper gold. And he battles with the smile that wants to claim his lips, and mostly seems to lose.

"Uh," he says.

I burst out laughing. "Somebody should make a GIF of you right now. You just lit up like a Christmas tree that can be seen from outer space."

"I can't believe you just said that." He squeezes me a little tighter.

"You can't believe I told you that, or you can't believe it's true?"

"Both."

He ducks his head and kisses me, the movements of his lips softer, wondering. Like he is awed by me. And that makes my throat catch and I press up closer for more. It reminds me of the moment when I stepped into the aisle at our wedding, how his face changed so dramatically. How nothing in my life before or since has ever made me feel so special.

When he finally pulls back, I'm not sure words are really a thing I can manage. That smile is still lighting up his whole face, his eyes twinkling so bright that girls three layers deep around us are probably swooning just from the reflected glare.

"Presto, intimacy," he jokes.

I laugh at the old reminder of how sharing time used to go for us, and lay my head against his shoulder. "I guess you can share the good stuff, too. Who'd have thunk?"

#

Author's Note: Song for this section is Marian Hill "One Time".

Logan

My wife walks me out to the parking garage, her tiny hand anchoring me while I wheel my larger suitcase and she takes the baby bear version of my carry-on. This is so much better than the homecoming I was expecting and was low-key fucked up about all the way across the ocean on the flight home.

Veronica and Eugenie didn't hurt each other or end up in prison, and Dick bounced back with his usual Rubbermaid ease from the cone snail that honestly scared the fuck right out of me. I mean, the guy's nothing to write home about, but he's had my back forever and he's maybe the only person on earth that's never made me feel like I was a piece of shit at one time or another.

He's like that one mole on your shoulder—yeah sometimes it's ugly and you wish it was gone, but if it really was, everything would just look weird and unfamiliar.

I'm not just staying quiet to process right now, though. I'm very aware that my wife in therapy is a very delicate state of affairs. If it lasts, this will be the only "real" time she's ever done it. Dr. Lev is emotionally intelligent enough to actually know what to do with Veronica, and smart enough to not be left in her dust. Well, maybe.

The last thing I want to do is say the wrong thing and make Veronica change her mind.

A flash of black and center-of-the-sun yellow catches my eye and I glance over to see the darkly tinted windows of my Corvette. "You brought my car?"

She smiles, a sly, wicked curve that makes heat build beneath my belt buckle. "Wanted to take it for a little spin. It looked fun." She peeks sideways at me from under long, long lashes.

"I like the color coordination." I let go of her hand to flick the drifty little skirt of her yellow sundress. She's got her black leather jacket thrown on against the cool sea breeze, and the combination is pure Veronica.

"Thought I wouldn't mind being your favorite color today." She winks and unlocks the trunk and my hand drifts from her lower back to smooth over the pert curve of her ass. She's warm through her dress and I don't feel a panty line. My heart jolts and I let my hand climb until I find the subtle bump of an elastic waistband. Sweet Jesus, she picked me up from the airport wearing a thong? The woman is trying to kill me.

"You better drive," I say through a dry throat. She grins and boosts my big suitcase into the trunk before I get a chance to reach for it.

"Oh, I was planning on it. Believe me."

I toss my carry-on in one-handed and slam the trunk. Watch Veronica slide into the driver's seat of my sleek sports car, tucking her flirty skirt in under her pretty ass. I attempt to recall how to say a Hail Mary.

Before I can get in on the other side, I have to hit the button and wait for the seat to slide back, because she was the last one to ride in here. She, meanwhile, is tucked all the way up under the steering wheel to reach the clutch, and I suppress a smile because I might lose a limb if she catches me laughing. Seriously, I don't know how short people drive, though, with the wheel so close they could practically rest their chin on it at stoplights.

I get in and don't even try to pretend I can keep my eyes off her. There's a funny thing that happens when I'm apart from her. I miss her, sure, but we're secure enough we can be apart when we've got different stuff going on. It's just that the world never fits quite right when she's not at my side.

It's subtle, the way everything seems a little less interesting. Jokes less funny, my wit a touch duller, the click-in perfect feeling of catching a wave not as satisfying as it is at home. The way the pit in my stomach grows at night, wanting…something. And food and scotch and even exhaustion can never start to fill the edges of that emptiness.

It's not what I thought missing somebody was supposed to feel like, but that's the all-encompassing, breath-held way I always miss Veronica. No matter how many times I tell myself it'll be different this time, that I know it's coming, and I'm prepared for it. But then, who could ever be prepared for a force of nature like her? How she can fill up my whole life, and it empties right back out again when she's gone.

She goes through the gears fast and silky as she slides us out on the highway, then chooses the exit to take the long way back along the beach. I watch the view, wondering how she knew I'd miss seeing my own ocean.

"If I ask you something now," I say, my gaze still safely on the sea, "can we get through the fight about it and be ready for makeup sex by the time we get home?"

She exhales quietly. "I get pretty defensive sometimes, don't I? How about I just try…not to?"

I cock a hand back behind my head, sprawling in the seat and tipping my head back her way. "The therapy. Why now, after all this time?"

She pauses, and I can tell she's thinking it over, because our speed ebbs until we're below the speed limit. It practically takes a crane hooked on the back bumper to keep the hungry engine of this Corvette down to the speed limit.

I say it flat out. "Did you need it now because of all the stuff getting dragged back up about Shelly Pomroy's party?"

She stiffens, and gulps down a small breath. Lets it back out. I can pretty much watch the whole progression of her battling herself not to get defensive and snap at me or change the subject. The process is as familiar to me as putting on my pants in the morning, so I give her all the time she needs.

"Not really." Her fingernails tap the gear shift. "I mean, a little. I kind of figured I was done with all that, but it turned out I just wasn't thinking about it. It's still there, still messing with me in some ways. But that's really not the thing."

The engine revs with a quiet purr and she puts a hand on my leg.

"I mostly did it because I wanted to be like you, Logan."

Ah, so this is a dream. The short sundress and leather jacket color-coordinated to my favorite car should have given it away. A bit odd that she's wearing panties, though. Her fingers stroking softly up the inner seam of my jeans is definitely climbing toward a bullseye in terms of Logan's Sleeping Fantasies of The Ideal Life.

Fuck, this probably means I'm still in Bali, missing her, and I've got a back-kinking 15-hour plane ride still ahead of me.

"I asked you to go to therapy in college because I was afraid," she says. "That I couldn't stay away, but that didn't mean it would ever work."

"You were afraid I'd do some shit so crazy you'd have to leave me."

I don't blame her. That community pool I torched in high school: she was right. I didn't think for a second about the kids who wouldn't get to swim before I did it. The hotel in Mexico in college, I didn't start on fire, but I didn't put it out, either. And I was unknowingly friends with not one but two rapists, which doesn't speak much to Young Logan's judgement of character. I was out of fucking control and she knew it before I did. For a few years there, loving her was the only thing that kept me from going off the bridge, off the rails, all of it.

"But you were already starting to change by the time I asked you to go to therapy," she points out. "Remember how you gave me all that advice, saved my friendship with Wallace when he was ready to dump me?"

She looks over and smiles, the wind through the open window lifting her hair and blowing it softly against her graceful neck.

"We were doing better after that, despite the first two therapists we went through being crappy. You learned to hold yourself under control at the worst moments, but you were wound so tight, I could just feel it in you."

Her hand balls into a fist, knuckles going white where it rests against my leg. "But it wasn't until Dr. Lev that you were able to finally unwind a little bit." She gestures, her fingers opening and relaxing. "She tells me you did all the hard work yourself, but she still must have given you some kind of way through, some kind of tool that finally clicked and made it easier to get a grip on."

She downshifts for a stoplight, the seagulls calling outside the car and circling the sand on the other side of the road.

"I mean, even when I was asking you to go to therapy, I think part of me was worried that it would change you, take away all the parts of you I liked. I like that edge to you, the snappy sarcasm. The way you're never polite just because you're supposed to be and you park just…wherever the fuck you feel like it."

"Eh. Parking inside the lines is for assholes who want other assholes to door ding their cars."

She smirks. "Still." Her hand plays higher on my thigh and I struggle not to get distracted, because I really want to hear what she's about to say.

"I like that you still might punch somebody in a bar. But these days, if you do it, it's the right somebody." Her fingers settle over my zipper and I pulse harder, both at her words and her touch. "I like that you reach for me instead of a drink when you're upset now. I like that moment when you are just about to snap at me and you stop and I can see you remember that I'm on your side. I like…you."

I pull off my sweatshirt and toss it behind the seat, because it's getting way too warm in here for that.

The light changes, but as soon as she gets the car back up to third gear, her hand is back, tracing my leg.

"I want to be able to do that, for you. To…how did you put it, that time in bed? To not clench down, but relax and trust you."

The combination of her words and her soft little hand. I'm so hard the line between the head of my cock and the shaft is making a clear impression through my jeans and she must see it, too, because now she's tracing that sensitive dividing line and I can feel it all the way into my bone marrow.

I slip a hand under her hair, cupping the back of her neck. "Veronica. I…" My voice comes out hoarse and I have no idea what I'm going to say. I had no idea she felt that way about me, and how much I've changed. The idea of her admiring me kind of spins my head, like the concept of ground and ceiling have gotten a little mixed up together.

I know a lot of words, in more than one language, and no combination of them seems like it could express how it feels to hear Veronica say she wants to be more like me.

"After therapy, you're kind of more you," she says. "The lashing out, the sort of half-crazed parts that I think were really more your dad than you…I see them less and less. Don't take this the wrong way, because I've always loved you, Logan." Her voice is a little uneven now, too. "Even before I wanted to. But I like you more of the time now. I want you to like me, too."

She pulls up at a stoplight and peeks over at me.

I swallow, wishing I could say something to her, anything, that would hit her as deeply as that just hit me. But really, words have never worked for us as well as touch. If I just had her alone, where I could let my hands do the talking…I know she gets it, when I touch her. Like that translates exactly what's inside of me, and I can see it click in her eyes.

"Love, I need you to get us home a hell of a lot faster than this. I'll pay the tickets."

The engine revs in neutral, and Veronica pouts at the traffic pouring across the intersection and blocking our way. Then she yanks the emergency brake, lifts up off the seat and reaches up under her skirt. The frat boys in the convertible next to us figure out what she's doing before I do, and they light up, watching closely as she bends down and reaches under the steering wheel to kick off her underwear.

"Uh, you've got a little bit of an audience, sugar tush." I flick a finger toward her open window and she looks over, sees them staring, and waves her panties at them cheerily. The black lace and yellow ribbons catch in the breeze and one of the guys gapes, one laughs, and the other two whoop like it's raining tits. Until she reaches over with an ostentatious little flourish of her wrist, and tucks her panties right into my jeans pocket while they watch.

The light turns green, and she takes off with a bark of tires and a delicious growl of engine, leaving the frat boys cat calling and chugging through gears as they struggle to catch up.

"I have to fuck you," I say through a dry mouth. "Right now."

"Whatever you say, handsome." She spins the wheel and cuts the back end loose with a slide of smoking rubber, turning sharply into a parking garage. The brakes bite hard and barely make it to a stop in time, the low nose of the Corvette poking all the way under the striped bar closing the opening.

She slings an arm out the window and plucks a parking slip. If you didn't know her, you'd swear she drove stunts for the Fast and Furious. But I do know her, so I know she has no idea how to drive like that, and the only reason we didn't spin all the way out just now was luck and a little bit of good tires.

This knowledge in no way makes it less hot.

She gasses it, climbing up the spiral of the parking garage so fast the tires scream continuously on the slick concrete and I get dizzy from more than arousal. She flips into a parking spot facing a wall, studiously rolls up the windows, then turns to me with eyes so fierce I suddenly remember that I nicknamed her Bobcat because of the look on her face the first time she saw me naked.

Her hand slides into my lap a few seconds before the rest of her follows in a roll of bare legs, yellow skirt and black leather. She smells like marshmallows and Promises and mischief.

"Sweetheart, if you climb in my lap, no way am I going to make it home," I warn, my hands finding that perfect curve of hip to ass, the thin fabric of her skirt only tantalizing me further.

"I thought you didn't want to make it home." She tosses her jacket into the backseat, then bends down and nibbles my neck.

I can feel her panties in my pocket like the lace is scorching me through my jeans. I may never take them out of there again. I'll just carry them around, my lucky set of panties. Transferring them from jeans to elastic waist jeans to polyester old man pants until I'm too old to remember my name but not too old to remember that once upon a time, the most beautiful woman I'd ever seen chose to place those in my pocket.

"I don't want to make it home," I clarify.

Don't put your hands under her skirt. Don't put your hands under her skirt. I touch bare skin at the edge of her skirt. Don't…dammit, Logan, there are no panties under there. I break a sweat as I force my hands back up to safer territory.

"But you usually have a little thing about sex in public. As in, you don't want anybody to see you having it."

"Good thing you tinted those windows then…" Her throaty voice is revving me as high as she just had my Corvette's RPMs, but I'm still frowning, trying to sort out from her tone if she's just trying to brazen it out because she knows this is what I want, or if she really—

She pulls back and gives me a look full of steam, her blue eyes sparking with excitement.

"Yes, I really mean it, no, I'm not saying it for you, and if you don't get your hands under my skirt ASAP, I'm going back to see if one of those frat boys will oblige me instead." She kisses me, every bit as wild and daring as her words.

"Fuck," I mutter, my brain all a whirl of screeching tires and revving engines, yellow dresses and black panties. My hands dive under her skirt and she's warm and soft and already wet, and dammit, I've missed this. The way she jerks and arches under my fingers, begging for more with every broken breath and squeaked sound.

I drop my head back against the seat, watching through heavy-lidded eyes as I drive her as crazy as I can with both hands under her skirt and her underwear safely in my pocket.

Which, it turns out, is pretty fucking crazy.

She gets my zipper down and my cock in her hand while I'm focused on other things, and then I'm the one gritting my teeth against the bolt of pleasure that's almost too sharp after so many days without her.

She flips around, so tiny she can practically do gymnastics in the cramped front seat of this sports car, and then she's kneeling to either side of my legs, her hands braced on the glove box, my name falling from her lips like she's begging.

I nearly rip the zipper out of my pants getting my jeans out of my way, and then I take my cock in hand and guide it into her. She takes it with a gasp, her inner muscles gripping me and then relaxing in a wet slide that sends me halfway to heaven. I hit the recline button, brace my feet against the floor, and thrust up into her, sharp and satisfying.

She yelps, and I should be worrying about who can hear us, who might come around the front of the car and see us through the clear windshield, but all I care about is the way she arches her hips back for more. The scrape of her fingernails against the glove box.

I roll my abs, already sore from surfing, and lift the whole weight of my body with them, fucking her sweet and slow while I draw down the zipper of her dress and slip my hands inside. Her breasts flutter along with her breaths, feathering her tight nipples into my palms.

"Logan…"

I rub her gently, leaning forward enough to press a kiss to her spine as I seat myself all the way inside her. Her knees clench against the outsides of my legs, trembling along with the rest of her. She's close, I can feel it. I lay back and slide my hands down to her hips, gripping her hard so I can drive into her ferociously once, twice to go as deep as she likes it, and a third time just for me even though she's already coming, the waves of it sliding along my dick like a standing ovation.

I love the stuttered sound of the breath she's trying to swallow, how she goes all the way silent when the pleasure takes her over. I tip her back against my chest so instead of bracing on the dashboard she's cradled full-length against me. My erection pulses harder, demanding release, but I don't want to come. I just want to stay deep inside her, her skin soft everywhere it touches me and her open dress zipper scratching me through my tee shirt. I nuzzle through her hair to kiss her shoulder.

"I love you. Missed you like fucking crazy."

She pulls away, and disappointment echoes in my chest. I brace myself for the consequences of having pushed her too hard, gotten too close and made her uncomfortable. Until she turns around and crawls back into my lap.

Her eyes are glistening, and she kisses me all desperate. "God, I missed you."

I slide back inside her without even trying, like I was always meant to be there, and fuck, she's so tight and perfect around me. Even in the cramped front seat of a Corvette, I've never felt a single thing better.

She starts to ride me with surprising strength. It's intoxicating and maddening, not being able to control the rhythm of it. I force my trembling hips to stillness and let her take the lead, watching her face. When she hits a spot she likes and bites her lip, I nearly come just from watching. I cup a hand behind her neck and draw her down so I can soothe her abused mouth with my tongue.

Her dress is slipping down and I should be worried about exactly how tinted these fucking windows are, but then her breasts are taut and round against my chest and I hate my shirt and I'm driving up into her, clutching her whole body like I don't know if I need to have her or hold her or both all at once.

She pulls back and holds my eyes and I can see all of it. How much she loves me, and more than that…I can't stop looking at her, because she's wild and unafraid and gorgeous and I can tell she hasn't given a single thought to how tinted the windows are.

She's everything I always hoped she'd get to be.

I come so hard it hurts, and I don't realize I've made a sound until I hear the helpless echo of it inside the small car. Then I'm gasping against the skin of her neck, her scent softening every breath that makes its way into my lungs. Swearing over and over again like I don't know how else to say what just happened. She kisses my temple, and that's what finally breaks me out of my daze, falling back against the seat with wide eyes.

"Woof," is all I can think to say, and she grins saucily.

"Should I go pro, then?"

"Oh, fuck no." I gather her back into my arms, with her crumpled dress all the way down to her waist now and my cock still buried full length inside her. "No way am I letting any other men know what they're missing here. We'd have continent-wide revolt, all them fighting over you. Fucking Helen of Troy launched a measly thousand ships. You'd get nukes for sure."

She giggles at my rambling, though I'm not even sure I'm making sense. I stroke her back and she lets out a breath and the small weight of her unfurls against my chest.

"Why'd you do that?" I murmur into her hair. "Look at me, right at the end. You never do that."

She sits back again, those eyes of hers pulling me in until I can't even remember where we are. "It makes you feel safe," she says simply.

And fucking Christ, I've never loved her more.

#

I show up Dr. Lev's office three days before our next appointment and lean against her doorway.

She gives me a look over the top of her glasses. "Please don't tell me she bugged my office again."

"Nah." I fold my arms. "I was just trying to decide how you knew that playing hard to get was the best way to get Veronica to want to come to therapy."

"Ah, that." She winks, the spark of mischief in her eyes. "I learned from the best."

I take a breath to argue I never played hard to get with Veronica. But then, I wasn't particularly easy at any time in our relationship, and I was an impossible asshole for most of it. Intentional or not, it seems to have worked out for me. The breath comes out on a chuckle.

"Anyway, thank you. I don't know if you know her well enough to realize it, but it's uh…pretty impressive, pulling that off."

She taps a pen on her desk. "In your wife's defense, playing hard to get wasn't all it took. She pushed very hard to make sure she could trust me with you, and I think once she realized she could…" She shrugs. "Most of my clients don't resort to the erm, extreme tactics Veronica did, but building trust is a normal part of beginning a therapeutic relationship. She's an interesting woman. Keeps me on my toes. I like that. No thanks are necessary."

I push off the doorway, but my fingers are twitchy at my sides and I can't stop thinking about all the days I've spent in this room. How brutal it's been, how deep some of this shit has dug. I wasn't entirely lying when I told Veronica I'd rather we found her a different therapist, a gentler one. That shit would never work for me, but when it comes to my wife…

"Hey uh." I swallow. "Go easy with her, Doc. Would you?"

She looks up from her work, and her normally impassive face and shrewd eyes soften.

"Don't worry. I'll take good care of your girl, Logan." She smiles. "Just as long as you don't tell her I said that. It's easier for her when I'm a bastard."

"Don't I know the feeling."

I toss the therapist a salute that's only half joking and walk away, deciding I'll buy her a helicopter for Christmas. Or at least a pony.

Author's Note: This was one of my favorite chapters to write, and I'm not quite done bringing Veronica back around to the woman I always thought she could be. The next one is Veronica attempting to learn how to say I love you. It's just so much fun, and I do believe I owe all you lovely readers a bit more fun.

Also, part of this chapter is a direct reaction to how much I hated, in early S4, how they seemed to imply that successful therapy had made Logan into a pussy, and kind of a weak-tea version of himself. That's a very harmful misconception to perpetuate about therapy, and not true.