Fic: "Slippery When Wet," 1/1, VM, V/Lamb, R.
Title: "Slippery When Wet" 1/1
Author: monimala
Fandom: Veronica Mars
Character/Pairing: Veronica/Lamb
Rating: R
Word Count: 3430
Disclaimer: Still not my characters, despite my best efforts to claim them in the name of France.
Summary: Written for picking_losers' April Showers Challenge. She'd somehow skipped from 40 days of rain and the ark to the ten plagues of Egypt, with Lamb being #11.
Spoilers/Warnings: Through mid-season 3, "Mars, Bars" doesn't happen. Humor, adult language, sexual situations.
It was always sunny and 75 degrees in southern California. It was a rule. Veronica hadn't exactly ever *read* this rule anywhere, but it was one nonetheless. Like "walk to the right" or "always root against the Yankees." SoCal was a meteorological miracle, veritably temperate bliss, and well worth rubbing in the face of everyone in the rest of the world -- including Yankee fans. So, of course, much like everyone else in Neptune, she was completely unprepared when it started raining.
A simple trip to drop off some film for her dad turned into forty days, forty nights, and the sudden need for an ark.
"Damn it," she muttered, hugging her messenger bag to her side in the hopes that her jacket would offer extra coverage for the various and sundry electronic devices she had stashed within. It wouldn't do to lose her iPod, her Sidekick, the bug she was planning to drop off at Vinnie's for old times' sake and the silver bullet that Parker had insisted on buying her to "help embrace your femininity."
Veronica was embracing plenty right now. Mainly the fact that her hair was plastered to her head, her waterproof mascara was not waterproof after all, and that southern California weather rules were apparently made to be broken. And, of course, there hadn't been a single spot in front of the one-hour lab, so she'd had to park the Saturn a good three blocks away. In Neptune, that was practically across town.
She was in the process of making that trek (sadly sans ark), already squelching her toes in her abused Chucks, when the patrol car rolled up at a sedate five miles an hour and splashed her from head to toe. Not that she wasn't already pretty soaked.
By the time Lamb buzzed down the window and smirked, she was on her fifth or sixth unprintable adjective. "Looks like someone left their cake out in the rain," he drawled, from the safety of his dry (bleep) warm (bleep), weapon of cargo pants destruction.
"Are you actually admitting you listen to Donna Summer?" She swiped her hair out of her face as she stalked (okay, sloshed) over to the window and scowled. "Asshole."
"Actually, my daddy had Waylon Jennings' version on an LP." He grinned, pausing a beat before adding, "Bitch."
Veronica debated throwing her bag at him. It would serve a dual purpose: getting her stuff out of the downpour *and* hitting him in the face. Then again, how would she explain it if Parker's little battery-operated Valentine's Day present gave him a black eye?
**
Lamb saw her from clear down the road, even with the wipers going full tilt. And, sure, it was high school of him to steer close enough to splash her, but considering she'd only been out of Pirate gear for a year, he figured it still applied.
It applied even more when he rolled down the window and noted that not only was she out of Pirate gear, but, thank you Jesus and Pamela Anderson, she was in a white T-shirt. It was some kind of rule. Probably not one on any of the books, but still a rule: All hot girls caught in the rain must wear white. Of course, that meant he was admitting Veronica Mars was hot… and that he got most of his rules from hair metal videos.
He tried, and mostly failed, to bring his eyes up from her chest. "So, you gonna stand there all day and debate 'MacArthur Park' covers or get in?"
"I think I'd rather get wet," she snorted.
"I can arrange that, too," he said, before he realized it was one of those things he was supposed to keep to himself. Jesus, he'd even *leered*.
"What?"
Veronica stared at him. The rain, which was already running in really pornographic rivulets all down her face and throat, hit her tongue and her open mouth and now he was *really* leering. "Get in," he choked out. "I'll drive you to your car."
"It's the least you can do after ruining my pants." He just barely ducked as her messenger bag came hurtling in the window and landed in the passenger seat beside him. Then, she was stalking around the cruiser to let herself in. Sure enough, her tan cargo pants were two shades darker, soaked to the bone… just like her jacket and already noted Tawny-Kitaen-eat-your-heart-out T-shirt.
He'd gotten her good and wet… all without lifting a finger.
Well, shit. That had to be some kind of record.
Lamb solicitously turned up the heat, even though it meant saying goodbye to some quality T.H.O. It wasn't like he actually had a shot of seeing Veronica naked, so why get his hopes up, right? "Couple blocks, right? I thought I saw that silver monstrosity of yours on my way up."
"Don't worry, I'm not compensating for anything." Veronica shot him a withering look as she flapped the ends of her jacket, trying to dry it out a little.
"Nah. You'd be driving a Hummer if you were."
She laughed, actually laughed, at the joke. Probably because she didn't think about it. And when he watched her head tip back and followed a residual droplet of water down the column of her gorgeous throat, he felt steam rise from his own skin. She was beautiful. So, unbelievably beautiful. He couldn't stand it.
Why the Hell had he suggested giving her a ride? Why had he stopped? Why had he splashed? Why was he even doing things like seeing her from a mile down the road and slowing down?
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. And in conclusion, Jesusfuck.
He did what any self-respecting high school guy would do: He drove straight towards Lovers' Lane.
**
Veronica had just gotten the surprise chuckles under control --it was the word "Hummer;" it was inexplicably funny-- when she noticed they were speeding up.
"Hey... hey, you passed the car, Deputy."
"You and I... we need to get a few things on the table." Lamb's voice was a gravelly growl, decidedly lacking in the quippage of before.
"Really? I thought we had it all pretty clear: you Coyote, me Roadrunner. Meep meep."
"Yeah? Well, consider this my ACME anvil." His jaw was tight as he turned them towards the beach, so tight it seemed ready to snap back like a rubber band. "You're driving me fucking insane, Veronica Mars."
"A-actually, you're the one driving." Veronica was startled by the intensity in his voice. In all the years she'd known him, she'd never seen him be intense about anything except the Sharks, browbeating powerless teenagers, and ferreting her dad's chicken marsala recipe out of him during one Christmas when her mom was still around. (He'd failed.)
No. No, wait, she was wrong. She remembered how he'd been looking at her as he rolled to a stop. How he was *still* looking at her. Like he liked what he saw. Like he *wanted* it. Oh. Oh (bleep) God. She instinctively crossed her arms over her chest, as if that was going to somehow stop the triple X-ray glare. "This is kidnapping, you know."
"Not until you've been gone 24 hours," he murmured, glancing at her arms and then lower. His gaze was hot and she could almost swear that her clothes were drying --no, *melting*-- from the force of it.
"So, this is what…? Your idea of sweeping me off my feet? You get me drenched to the skin, insult me and then ravish me in your car? I'd ask if you were reading too many Victorian novels, but that implies you read to begin with."
"If I wanted you wet, Veronica, it wouldn't take a book to teach me how to do it." He braked to a stop just a few feet from the curb. And then he was slowly, emphatically, taking his hand off the wheel and counting off his fingers. "All it would take are these."
She registered that his middle finger was longer than the other three --but it was a definite "fuck me," not a "fuck you"-- before her stomach clenched and she fumbled with the door handle. "Go to Hell."
It took her two tries to turn the latch and then she was practically tumbling out of the car, back into the storm. No, away from it. Away from Sheriff Don Lamb, Asshole, and the undisguised lust in his eyes. And even farther away from the fact that it didn't completely gross her out. Damn it. What was she even thinking? She'd somehow skipped from 40 days of rain and the ark to the ten plagues of Egypt, with Lamb being #11. She skidded down the dunes, into the wet sand, hearing him call, "Veronica, wait…" but ignoring it.
The rain was coming down harder, or maybe that was just her imagination because she so desperately wanted to wash away the cardinal awkwardness, the Police lyrics that were running through her head, and the last ten minutes. She'd looked at Lamb a million times. She'd seen the worst kind of hatred in those lightning blue eyes. This... this was, yeah, absolutely fucking insane.
And, suddenly, his hand was on her shoulder, because, of course, he'd followed her. And it was *that* hand. The one he'd shown her. Four fingers and a thumb that could... that could... "No. No, this has got to be a sick joke." He was pulling her around, away from the rain meeting the ocean, and his fingers went sliding against her neck. She shivered from the contact and then shivered because she'd shivered. "I don't get it. Where is this coming from? How could you possibly *want* me?" she gasped, stumbling back, almost tripping, but since he was still holding on, she didn't fall.
"Jesus Christ, Veronica. Look at your fucking entourage --Echolls, Kane, Navarro, Leo D'Amato, the cashier at the fucking Sac 'n' Pac-- you really think I'm somehow going to be immune?" Water dripped off his nose. The brown polyester of his uniform fitted to him like he was headlining at a wet T-shirt contest at MTV's Spring Break. But the expression on his face was something that belonged on a premium channel. "Bitch," he called her again, only this time it sounded like an endearment. "You're a cold little bitch and you have no goddamn idea how long I've wanted you."
She and Lamb were enemies. They loathed each other. They wrapped their hate in tissue paper thin propriety and snark. It was a rule. Veronica hadn't exactly ever *read* this rule anywhere, but it was one nonetheless. Like "walk to the right" or "always root against the Yankees."
When he tangled his hands in her hair and dragged her close, he didn't just break it, he kissed it into oblivion.
**
He'd clearly watched The Notebook too many times. That was what Lamb was going to tell himself tomorrow. Even though he'd never actually seen the movie at all and just knew that one dumb scene from the commercials where the guy and girl made out in the rain like they were going to die if they didn't. He was going to tell himself that and burn his old Whitesnake mix tapes, and make an appointment with the departmental shrink, but, right this moment, he was kissing Veronica Mars and she tasted like spring. She was insanely small in his arms, barely there, and he wondered how that was possible when she was such a fucking huge pain in his ass.
Her mouth was soft and salty and wet and he didn't want to stop drowning in it, but he had to… since he didn't have gills and needed to come up for air. As he pulled back, practically gasping, she stared up at him, blinking away rain and shock. Then, her hand was snapping into action. The slap was too fast for him to avoid, the sting too sharp to ignore.
"You're such a bastard."
"Assaulting an officer of the law is a felony, Veronica," he reminded, softly, rubbing his knuckles against his throbbing jaw.
He didn't know it was possible for her to get paler, for her to look more fuckable, for her to do both at the same time… but, Hell, this was Veronica. She was practically Supergirl. And he felt like she was seeing right through him.
Her fingertips pressed against her lips. Her knuckles were white. She'd looked like this standing out there by the photo place: soaked to the skin and vulnerable and… and waiting. "What are you doing, Lamb?"
"Why'd you get in my car, Veronica?" he countered. He had no idea where the gentle impulse came from --probably from The Notebook-- but he pushed her hair back off her face and felt slightly encouraged when she didn't flinch or slap him again. "It's not like you could get any wetter than you were."
"That's not what you said earlier," she reminded, softly, her voice barely audible over the freaking deluge. Her hand covered his where it was resting against her cheek… and her fingers spread out over his.
He couldn't quite read the look in her eyes. Maybe it was her spiky lashes and smeared mascara; maybe it was the fact that she was right, he couldn't read at all. "What are *you* doing?"
"Taking Parker's advice."
Her half-chuckled and half-choked reply didn't make sense to him. What she did after it was a different story.
She turned her face just a few millimeters. He felt the tingle all the way to his toes when her mouth pressed against his palm and she trailed upwards to kiss his index finger, his ring finger, and then his middle one. She lingered the longest there, actually using her tongue.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. And, oh yeah, Jesusfuck.
**
Lamb was better than a silver bullet. He was warm and solid and touching her and suddenly the fact that it was raining like the world was going to end didn't seem to matter that much. Maybe later, it would. Later, she was probably going to rethink a lot of this and claim her brain was waterlogged. But right now? This instant? All she cared about was the fact that Sheriff Don Lamb was the best kisser she'd met her entire life and she could consider her femininity suitably embraced. Groped. Caressed. And completely awakened.
She knew how much he wanted her now. She got it. She could taste it. She could feel it in the way he cupped her face and pulled her tight against him and groaned her name. He'd called her cold, but he was wrong. Temperature of her drenched skin aside, she was practically on fire. The fact that it was Lamb sending her up in smoke… it was something she would have to angst about some other time. There was plenty of time for self-loathing, for recrimination, for regret… for things she couldn't explain away with a freak thunderstorm.
Her thumb traced over the finger-shaped redness on his jaw. Her thumb and then her mouth. "Is it still a felony if you're out of uniform?"
"Y-yeah."
"Arrest me later."
She worked the buttons of his shirt. They were thick and heavy against the holes and her fingers were slippery, but eventually they gave. His hands moved restlessly up and down her back and then he was pushing off her jacket, tugging up her t-shirt and diving one palm beneath the waistband of her cargos, squeezing a handful of her ass.
The heavy sand around their feet and the elements finally got the best of them and they tumbled to the beach with anything but cinematic grace. They were awkward and sodden and dirty and whoever thought that reenacting that famous scene from From Here to Eternity might be romantic was wrong. It wasn't romantic, it was hot and desperate and needy. She kissed him while she tugged off his shirt --discovering no MTV wet T-shirt beneath, while she grappled with his belt and his zipper. She kissed him while he held true to his word and got her wet with just one hand. Because if she was kissing him, then she wasn’t thinking about hate, about insanity, about how this was totally out of character and stupid and reckless and… "Oh my *God*."
"I want you, too," she murmured, since her body was already telegraphing it. His middle finger sank deep, a "fuck me," not a "fuck you," and his index finger curled against the perfect spot, the one that made her keen his name, while his thumb stroked her clit. "I want you *now*."
"You have me Veronica. Damn you."
**
They had sex just once out there at Neptune's ocean view make-out point before the storm drove them back to his place. One gloriously crazy, dirty fuck that was going in his Top Five Sexual Encounters of All Time.
She'd turned down his offer to shower together, saying, "I think we've pretty much covered that, don't you?" And Lamb wasn't necessarily disappointed, because it meant he got to watch her come out of his bathroom wearing nothing but one of his shirts. He had sand in his hair, in the crevices of his elbows, and he didn't even want to think about the front seats of the cruiser, but when she came out into his bedroom all enveloped in white cotton and smelling like his shampoo, it made him hard for her all over again.
The rain was still coming down, pounding against the bedroom window, and he was glad it was almost always sunny in southern California… because he was never going to be able to see storm clouds without remembering how it felt to have Veronica beneath him.
He watched her root through her messenger bag, check her phone for messages, tap some sort of obviously illegal device to make sure it was still working… and then her cheeks went red. Redder then when she'd come for him that first fan-fucking-tastic time.
"What is it?" he asked, the fresh shirt in his fingers forgotten. "Already getting to the 'this was a mistake' part of the event?"
"I think we both knew that going in," she murmured, absently finger-combing her hair but still not looking at him.
He shook his head, making a sound that was equal parts disbelief and total agreement. "The unspoken rule, huh? We fuck each other blind and go our separate ways?"
"You know what they say about rules, Don…" Veronica finally raised her head. Her smile was for him, just for him, as she pulled her other hand out of her bag. A small silver object buzzed against her palm as she emphatically counted off her fingers. A small silver object with a cord and a battery pack. "…They were made to be broken."
He thanked Jesus when she kissed him. He thanked Pam Anderson when she shrugged out of his shirt, proving that his odds of seeing her naked were better than he'd thought. And when she made him come his brains out in the most embarrassing possible way, he slumped against the pillows and copped to loving Donna Summer… almost as much as he was beginning to love Veronica Mars.
**
Three days after the freak rainstorm that washed out a couple of roads, left some trailers in the barrio completely flooded, and led to the craziest night of her life since nearly being murdered on the roof of the Neptune Grand, Veronica actually got around to picking up her dad's photos. They were the lurid exploits of a cheating wife and she stuffed them back into the envelope hoping Jimmy in the lab had enjoyed himself… particularly since the cheating spouse was, as he'd suspected, his.
She'd actually circled the block a few times until a spot opened up, so there were no treks across town in her immediate future. Not that she would've minded. It was gorgeous out. There wasn't a cloud in the sky, and it was a perfect, balmy 77 degrees. All was right with SoCal and, thus, the world.
The patrol car still rolled up at a sedate five miles an hour.
By the time Lamb buzzed down the window and smirked, she was on her fifth or sixth unprintable adjective.
"So, Veronica, you getting in or not?"
"What do you think…?" She sighed, swiped her hair out of her face, stalked over to the window and scowled. "Asshole."
He just barely ducked her messenger bag and grinned. "I think you're starting to warm up to me… Bitch."
--end--
April 14, 2007
Author: monimala
Fandom: Veronica Mars
Character/Pairing: Veronica/Lamb
Rating: R
Word Count: 3430
Disclaimer: Still not my characters, despite my best efforts to claim them in the name of France.
Summary: Written for picking_losers' April Showers Challenge. She'd somehow skipped from 40 days of rain and the ark to the ten plagues of Egypt, with Lamb being #11.
Spoilers/Warnings: Through mid-season 3, "Mars, Bars" doesn't happen. Humor, adult language, sexual situations.
It was always sunny and 75 degrees in southern California. It was a rule. Veronica hadn't exactly ever *read* this rule anywhere, but it was one nonetheless. Like "walk to the right" or "always root against the Yankees." SoCal was a meteorological miracle, veritably temperate bliss, and well worth rubbing in the face of everyone in the rest of the world -- including Yankee fans. So, of course, much like everyone else in Neptune, she was completely unprepared when it started raining.
A simple trip to drop off some film for her dad turned into forty days, forty nights, and the sudden need for an ark.
"Damn it," she muttered, hugging her messenger bag to her side in the hopes that her jacket would offer extra coverage for the various and sundry electronic devices she had stashed within. It wouldn't do to lose her iPod, her Sidekick, the bug she was planning to drop off at Vinnie's for old times' sake and the silver bullet that Parker had insisted on buying her to "help embrace your femininity."
Veronica was embracing plenty right now. Mainly the fact that her hair was plastered to her head, her waterproof mascara was not waterproof after all, and that southern California weather rules were apparently made to be broken. And, of course, there hadn't been a single spot in front of the one-hour lab, so she'd had to park the Saturn a good three blocks away. In Neptune, that was practically across town.
She was in the process of making that trek (sadly sans ark), already squelching her toes in her abused Chucks, when the patrol car rolled up at a sedate five miles an hour and splashed her from head to toe. Not that she wasn't already pretty soaked.
By the time Lamb buzzed down the window and smirked, she was on her fifth or sixth unprintable adjective. "Looks like someone left their cake out in the rain," he drawled, from the safety of his dry (bleep) warm (bleep), weapon of cargo pants destruction.
"Are you actually admitting you listen to Donna Summer?" She swiped her hair out of her face as she stalked (okay, sloshed) over to the window and scowled. "Asshole."
"Actually, my daddy had Waylon Jennings' version on an LP." He grinned, pausing a beat before adding, "Bitch."
Veronica debated throwing her bag at him. It would serve a dual purpose: getting her stuff out of the downpour *and* hitting him in the face. Then again, how would she explain it if Parker's little battery-operated Valentine's Day present gave him a black eye?
**
Lamb saw her from clear down the road, even with the wipers going full tilt. And, sure, it was high school of him to steer close enough to splash her, but considering she'd only been out of Pirate gear for a year, he figured it still applied.
It applied even more when he rolled down the window and noted that not only was she out of Pirate gear, but, thank you Jesus and Pamela Anderson, she was in a white T-shirt. It was some kind of rule. Probably not one on any of the books, but still a rule: All hot girls caught in the rain must wear white. Of course, that meant he was admitting Veronica Mars was hot… and that he got most of his rules from hair metal videos.
He tried, and mostly failed, to bring his eyes up from her chest. "So, you gonna stand there all day and debate 'MacArthur Park' covers or get in?"
"I think I'd rather get wet," she snorted.
"I can arrange that, too," he said, before he realized it was one of those things he was supposed to keep to himself. Jesus, he'd even *leered*.
"What?"
Veronica stared at him. The rain, which was already running in really pornographic rivulets all down her face and throat, hit her tongue and her open mouth and now he was *really* leering. "Get in," he choked out. "I'll drive you to your car."
"It's the least you can do after ruining my pants." He just barely ducked as her messenger bag came hurtling in the window and landed in the passenger seat beside him. Then, she was stalking around the cruiser to let herself in. Sure enough, her tan cargo pants were two shades darker, soaked to the bone… just like her jacket and already noted Tawny-Kitaen-eat-your-heart-out T-shirt.
He'd gotten her good and wet… all without lifting a finger.
Well, shit. That had to be some kind of record.
Lamb solicitously turned up the heat, even though it meant saying goodbye to some quality T.H.O. It wasn't like he actually had a shot of seeing Veronica naked, so why get his hopes up, right? "Couple blocks, right? I thought I saw that silver monstrosity of yours on my way up."
"Don't worry, I'm not compensating for anything." Veronica shot him a withering look as she flapped the ends of her jacket, trying to dry it out a little.
"Nah. You'd be driving a Hummer if you were."
She laughed, actually laughed, at the joke. Probably because she didn't think about it. And when he watched her head tip back and followed a residual droplet of water down the column of her gorgeous throat, he felt steam rise from his own skin. She was beautiful. So, unbelievably beautiful. He couldn't stand it.
Why the Hell had he suggested giving her a ride? Why had he stopped? Why had he splashed? Why was he even doing things like seeing her from a mile down the road and slowing down?
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. And in conclusion, Jesusfuck.
He did what any self-respecting high school guy would do: He drove straight towards Lovers' Lane.
**
Veronica had just gotten the surprise chuckles under control --it was the word "Hummer;" it was inexplicably funny-- when she noticed they were speeding up.
"Hey... hey, you passed the car, Deputy."
"You and I... we need to get a few things on the table." Lamb's voice was a gravelly growl, decidedly lacking in the quippage of before.
"Really? I thought we had it all pretty clear: you Coyote, me Roadrunner. Meep meep."
"Yeah? Well, consider this my ACME anvil." His jaw was tight as he turned them towards the beach, so tight it seemed ready to snap back like a rubber band. "You're driving me fucking insane, Veronica Mars."
"A-actually, you're the one driving." Veronica was startled by the intensity in his voice. In all the years she'd known him, she'd never seen him be intense about anything except the Sharks, browbeating powerless teenagers, and ferreting her dad's chicken marsala recipe out of him during one Christmas when her mom was still around. (He'd failed.)
No. No, wait, she was wrong. She remembered how he'd been looking at her as he rolled to a stop. How he was *still* looking at her. Like he liked what he saw. Like he *wanted* it. Oh. Oh (bleep) God. She instinctively crossed her arms over her chest, as if that was going to somehow stop the triple X-ray glare. "This is kidnapping, you know."
"Not until you've been gone 24 hours," he murmured, glancing at her arms and then lower. His gaze was hot and she could almost swear that her clothes were drying --no, *melting*-- from the force of it.
"So, this is what…? Your idea of sweeping me off my feet? You get me drenched to the skin, insult me and then ravish me in your car? I'd ask if you were reading too many Victorian novels, but that implies you read to begin with."
"If I wanted you wet, Veronica, it wouldn't take a book to teach me how to do it." He braked to a stop just a few feet from the curb. And then he was slowly, emphatically, taking his hand off the wheel and counting off his fingers. "All it would take are these."
She registered that his middle finger was longer than the other three --but it was a definite "fuck me," not a "fuck you"-- before her stomach clenched and she fumbled with the door handle. "Go to Hell."
It took her two tries to turn the latch and then she was practically tumbling out of the car, back into the storm. No, away from it. Away from Sheriff Don Lamb, Asshole, and the undisguised lust in his eyes. And even farther away from the fact that it didn't completely gross her out. Damn it. What was she even thinking? She'd somehow skipped from 40 days of rain and the ark to the ten plagues of Egypt, with Lamb being #11. She skidded down the dunes, into the wet sand, hearing him call, "Veronica, wait…" but ignoring it.
The rain was coming down harder, or maybe that was just her imagination because she so desperately wanted to wash away the cardinal awkwardness, the Police lyrics that were running through her head, and the last ten minutes. She'd looked at Lamb a million times. She'd seen the worst kind of hatred in those lightning blue eyes. This... this was, yeah, absolutely fucking insane.
And, suddenly, his hand was on her shoulder, because, of course, he'd followed her. And it was *that* hand. The one he'd shown her. Four fingers and a thumb that could... that could... "No. No, this has got to be a sick joke." He was pulling her around, away from the rain meeting the ocean, and his fingers went sliding against her neck. She shivered from the contact and then shivered because she'd shivered. "I don't get it. Where is this coming from? How could you possibly *want* me?" she gasped, stumbling back, almost tripping, but since he was still holding on, she didn't fall.
"Jesus Christ, Veronica. Look at your fucking entourage --Echolls, Kane, Navarro, Leo D'Amato, the cashier at the fucking Sac 'n' Pac-- you really think I'm somehow going to be immune?" Water dripped off his nose. The brown polyester of his uniform fitted to him like he was headlining at a wet T-shirt contest at MTV's Spring Break. But the expression on his face was something that belonged on a premium channel. "Bitch," he called her again, only this time it sounded like an endearment. "You're a cold little bitch and you have no goddamn idea how long I've wanted you."
She and Lamb were enemies. They loathed each other. They wrapped their hate in tissue paper thin propriety and snark. It was a rule. Veronica hadn't exactly ever *read* this rule anywhere, but it was one nonetheless. Like "walk to the right" or "always root against the Yankees."
When he tangled his hands in her hair and dragged her close, he didn't just break it, he kissed it into oblivion.
**
He'd clearly watched The Notebook too many times. That was what Lamb was going to tell himself tomorrow. Even though he'd never actually seen the movie at all and just knew that one dumb scene from the commercials where the guy and girl made out in the rain like they were going to die if they didn't. He was going to tell himself that and burn his old Whitesnake mix tapes, and make an appointment with the departmental shrink, but, right this moment, he was kissing Veronica Mars and she tasted like spring. She was insanely small in his arms, barely there, and he wondered how that was possible when she was such a fucking huge pain in his ass.
Her mouth was soft and salty and wet and he didn't want to stop drowning in it, but he had to… since he didn't have gills and needed to come up for air. As he pulled back, practically gasping, she stared up at him, blinking away rain and shock. Then, her hand was snapping into action. The slap was too fast for him to avoid, the sting too sharp to ignore.
"You're such a bastard."
"Assaulting an officer of the law is a felony, Veronica," he reminded, softly, rubbing his knuckles against his throbbing jaw.
He didn't know it was possible for her to get paler, for her to look more fuckable, for her to do both at the same time… but, Hell, this was Veronica. She was practically Supergirl. And he felt like she was seeing right through him.
Her fingertips pressed against her lips. Her knuckles were white. She'd looked like this standing out there by the photo place: soaked to the skin and vulnerable and… and waiting. "What are you doing, Lamb?"
"Why'd you get in my car, Veronica?" he countered. He had no idea where the gentle impulse came from --probably from The Notebook-- but he pushed her hair back off her face and felt slightly encouraged when she didn't flinch or slap him again. "It's not like you could get any wetter than you were."
"That's not what you said earlier," she reminded, softly, her voice barely audible over the freaking deluge. Her hand covered his where it was resting against her cheek… and her fingers spread out over his.
He couldn't quite read the look in her eyes. Maybe it was her spiky lashes and smeared mascara; maybe it was the fact that she was right, he couldn't read at all. "What are *you* doing?"
"Taking Parker's advice."
Her half-chuckled and half-choked reply didn't make sense to him. What she did after it was a different story.
She turned her face just a few millimeters. He felt the tingle all the way to his toes when her mouth pressed against his palm and she trailed upwards to kiss his index finger, his ring finger, and then his middle one. She lingered the longest there, actually using her tongue.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. And, oh yeah, Jesusfuck.
**
Lamb was better than a silver bullet. He was warm and solid and touching her and suddenly the fact that it was raining like the world was going to end didn't seem to matter that much. Maybe later, it would. Later, she was probably going to rethink a lot of this and claim her brain was waterlogged. But right now? This instant? All she cared about was the fact that Sheriff Don Lamb was the best kisser she'd met her entire life and she could consider her femininity suitably embraced. Groped. Caressed. And completely awakened.
She knew how much he wanted her now. She got it. She could taste it. She could feel it in the way he cupped her face and pulled her tight against him and groaned her name. He'd called her cold, but he was wrong. Temperature of her drenched skin aside, she was practically on fire. The fact that it was Lamb sending her up in smoke… it was something she would have to angst about some other time. There was plenty of time for self-loathing, for recrimination, for regret… for things she couldn't explain away with a freak thunderstorm.
Her thumb traced over the finger-shaped redness on his jaw. Her thumb and then her mouth. "Is it still a felony if you're out of uniform?"
"Y-yeah."
"Arrest me later."
She worked the buttons of his shirt. They were thick and heavy against the holes and her fingers were slippery, but eventually they gave. His hands moved restlessly up and down her back and then he was pushing off her jacket, tugging up her t-shirt and diving one palm beneath the waistband of her cargos, squeezing a handful of her ass.
The heavy sand around their feet and the elements finally got the best of them and they tumbled to the beach with anything but cinematic grace. They were awkward and sodden and dirty and whoever thought that reenacting that famous scene from From Here to Eternity might be romantic was wrong. It wasn't romantic, it was hot and desperate and needy. She kissed him while she tugged off his shirt --discovering no MTV wet T-shirt beneath, while she grappled with his belt and his zipper. She kissed him while he held true to his word and got her wet with just one hand. Because if she was kissing him, then she wasn’t thinking about hate, about insanity, about how this was totally out of character and stupid and reckless and… "Oh my *God*."
"I want you, too," she murmured, since her body was already telegraphing it. His middle finger sank deep, a "fuck me," not a "fuck you," and his index finger curled against the perfect spot, the one that made her keen his name, while his thumb stroked her clit. "I want you *now*."
"You have me Veronica. Damn you."
**
They had sex just once out there at Neptune's ocean view make-out point before the storm drove them back to his place. One gloriously crazy, dirty fuck that was going in his Top Five Sexual Encounters of All Time.
She'd turned down his offer to shower together, saying, "I think we've pretty much covered that, don't you?" And Lamb wasn't necessarily disappointed, because it meant he got to watch her come out of his bathroom wearing nothing but one of his shirts. He had sand in his hair, in the crevices of his elbows, and he didn't even want to think about the front seats of the cruiser, but when she came out into his bedroom all enveloped in white cotton and smelling like his shampoo, it made him hard for her all over again.
The rain was still coming down, pounding against the bedroom window, and he was glad it was almost always sunny in southern California… because he was never going to be able to see storm clouds without remembering how it felt to have Veronica beneath him.
He watched her root through her messenger bag, check her phone for messages, tap some sort of obviously illegal device to make sure it was still working… and then her cheeks went red. Redder then when she'd come for him that first fan-fucking-tastic time.
"What is it?" he asked, the fresh shirt in his fingers forgotten. "Already getting to the 'this was a mistake' part of the event?"
"I think we both knew that going in," she murmured, absently finger-combing her hair but still not looking at him.
He shook his head, making a sound that was equal parts disbelief and total agreement. "The unspoken rule, huh? We fuck each other blind and go our separate ways?"
"You know what they say about rules, Don…" Veronica finally raised her head. Her smile was for him, just for him, as she pulled her other hand out of her bag. A small silver object buzzed against her palm as she emphatically counted off her fingers. A small silver object with a cord and a battery pack. "…They were made to be broken."
He thanked Jesus when she kissed him. He thanked Pam Anderson when she shrugged out of his shirt, proving that his odds of seeing her naked were better than he'd thought. And when she made him come his brains out in the most embarrassing possible way, he slumped against the pillows and copped to loving Donna Summer… almost as much as he was beginning to love Veronica Mars.
**
Three days after the freak rainstorm that washed out a couple of roads, left some trailers in the barrio completely flooded, and led to the craziest night of her life since nearly being murdered on the roof of the Neptune Grand, Veronica actually got around to picking up her dad's photos. They were the lurid exploits of a cheating wife and she stuffed them back into the envelope hoping Jimmy in the lab had enjoyed himself… particularly since the cheating spouse was, as he'd suspected, his.
She'd actually circled the block a few times until a spot opened up, so there were no treks across town in her immediate future. Not that she would've minded. It was gorgeous out. There wasn't a cloud in the sky, and it was a perfect, balmy 77 degrees. All was right with SoCal and, thus, the world.
The patrol car still rolled up at a sedate five miles an hour.
By the time Lamb buzzed down the window and smirked, she was on her fifth or sixth unprintable adjective.
"So, Veronica, you getting in or not?"
"What do you think…?" She sighed, swiped her hair out of her face, stalked over to the window and scowled. "Asshole."
He just barely ducked her messenger bag and grinned. "I think you're starting to warm up to me… Bitch."
--end--
April 14, 2007