Title: "Almost Paradise"
Author: monimala
Fandom: "Veronica Mars"
Character/Pairing: Lamb/Veronica
Rating: AC
Word Count: 2630
Disclaimer: I don't own the characters.
Summary: Somehow, Veronica pictured a Hawaiian vacation as involving more fruity cocktails served in hollowed-out pineapples and less actual physical exertion. Written for the picking_losers' "April Showers" Challenge. Gracie had this idea, but couldn’t quite write it, so I took it off her hands!
Spoilers/Warnings: Season three. Let's pretend "Mars, Bars" doesn't happen. Adult language, sexual situations.
"Come on," Parker had said, "this'll be a great time," assuring her that hanging out at a timeshare in Maui was in no way the same thing as becoming the featured performers in a Cancun "Girls Gone Wild" video. Veronica had resisted all the way up until Mac found sweet round trip ticket deals for all three of them and pulled the "please come with us" face.
"You know how Mom gets: Two girls is a walking 'rape me' sign, but three are practically the Justice League."
Veronica had, wisely, not pointed out that two out of said three girls had actually been raped and the third hadn't sported a fetching cape so much as a shower curtain. Instead, she'd sighed, "Okay. Okay, I'll go."
And now here she was actually hiking at Haleakala National Park. Her. Hiking. Complete with backpack and sports bottle, two power bars and an undetermined number of bug bites. Somehow, she'd pictured a Hawaiian vacation as involving more fruity cocktails served in hollowed-out pineapples and less actual physical exertion. She hadn't even been able to rope in Mac for a veto because, for some godforsaken reason, Mac thought hiking was a great idea, too. (It was official… dating Bronson and living with Parker had turned her stalwart antisocial hacker into a pod person!)
And, of course, Parker and Mac had somehow decided they were training for The Amazing Race, because they were now way, way ahead of her on the trail and periodically checking in with their cell phones. Veronica glared down at the latest text message: "Slowpoke." Who said things like "slowpoke"? Well, besides Parker… who, as she'd learned on the plane trip, also said things like "peachy keen" and "neato!" (both in response to the in-flight movie starring Lindsay Lohan).
Veronica grumbled, creasing the pages of the brochure that touted "the natural beauties of Waimoku Falls." She couldn't deny that, yes, being here was like being in paradise. There were fruit trees everywhere and apparently a bamboo forest coming up. It was like being in the Garden of Eden… if you discounted all the extra Adams and Eves wandering around getting their tourist money's worth. She was half-tempted to pick a mango off of what was supposedly the largest mango tree in Hawaii… except that she'd never actually had much mango unless you counted the Snapples she always picked up at the Sac-n-Pac.
By the time she actually reached the falls, her feet were killing her and she had at least a dozen more bug bites. But the sight of the 400-foot tall wonder was enough to melt even her hard heart. "Well, damn," she murmured, softly, nearing the pool at its base. The air was cooler here, heavy with mist, and before she even registered it, she was putting down her pack, kicking off her sneakers, peeling off her sweat-sodden socks and wading into the shallow water until it was roughly at the hemline of her shorts.
The waterfall made a rushing sound that was almost deafening, but after a few moments it became soothing, like white noise…blue-green noise? Okay, so this… this was worth getting dragged here by her two personal life coaches.
She waded back to the edge where she'd left her stuff, shucking off her t-shirt and shorts, so all she had on was her basic black bikini (Whoo-hoo! Girl Gone Wild!), and then headed back into the pool, to where the water was decidedly less shallow and the cascade from the falls was tantalizing close. Mist drenched her face and her hair and she tipped her head back, her eyes fluttering shut.
**
Don hated conferences. Even the ones that happened in places like Maui. Because they, without fail, crammed your schedule up with fucking stupid mixers and group activities and other tourist crap that completely prevented you from enjoying being some place other than Neptune, California.
This one… this was practically the pinnacle of 'em all. They made people *hike*. Who the Hell came to Hawaii to do anything besides hit the beach, drink fruity cocktails and watch babes in bikinis? Apparently the Southern California Sheriffs Association, that's who. Buncha fuckin' dykes, he scowled. Actually, if they'd been dykes, he probably *would* be watching babes in bikinis right now. Buncha fuckin' queers, he amended, glad he'd ambled well past the whole group of ooh-ing and aah-ing dimwits. (They were taking pictures of bamboo, for crying out loud.)
He could hear the rush of the park's main attraction, the giant waterfall, and as he turned on the path, tossing his water bottle from hand to hand, there it was… right in front of him. And, okay, so tourist crap was annoying and he really wanted to be back at the hotel banging that hot redheaded sheriff from up north, but he couldn't deny that was one gorgeous waterfall. "Well, damn," he muttered, feeling pulled towards it like it had a tractor beam or something. (He really needed to quit re-watching his Star Wars DVDs.)
And then he chased the "damn" with an "amen" and a "hallelujah" because someone had answered his conferential prayers. There, beneath the spray of the falls, was none other than a babe in a bikini.
She was blond and tiny and all wet. And she looked way, way cooler than he felt at the moment. He knelt to untie his high-tops and then made short work of his t-shirt and socks, leaving them in a pile by what he assumed was her stuff. Whoever had said Waimoku Falls had "natural beauties" wasn't lying, no, Sir.
He waded in, feeling relaxed for the first time in two days. The pool was perfect, like someone had climate-controlled it (God, probably), and the mist settling on his skin was a million times better than the piss-poor A/C in his hotel room. And the view… well, yeah, the view was definitely better than the one out his window.
That became clearer and clearer the closer he got. She was just beginning to get that killer Spring Break tan and her skin was just faintly bronze against what could've been a smaller bikini. In fact, he wouldn't have been opposed to a thong because her ass was fantastic.
And then she turned around.
Her face was fantastic, too.
Except for the fact that it belonged to Veronica Mars.
"*You*!"
"*You*?!"
They both gasped simultaneously and Veronica blinked water from her eyes, as if that would somehow change what she was seeing… as if, somehow, a shirtless Don Lamb would cease to be standing right in front of her with an expression that clearly telegraphed he'd been checking her out.
"What are you doing here?" she cried, reaching, instinctively, for her clothes but realizing too late that they were on the rocky bank well across the pool.
"I asked you first!" Lamb stumbled back a few steps in the water, tempted to make the sign of the cross. Jesus. God. As if this wasn't some kind of cosmic joke. He came all the way to Maui, all the way to some stupid national park, and the hot little blonde was *the* hot little blonde.
"Gasping a pronoun does not count as asking first!" Veronica crossed her arms over her chest, knowing it wouldn't prevent him from staring… in fact, it seemed to draw his gaze right to her breasts and Veronica felt her cheeks go warm as his tongue darted out and unconsciously wet his lips. Pervert.
"I'm at a conference." Don was trying to stop staring. He was really trying hard to remind himself that the body in front of him was attached to the mouth that ate Neptune… and not in the hot, porno kind of way either. Unfortunately, thinking about porno made his "trying hard" mean something altogether different and he was really glad that his khaki shorts were baggy even when waterlogged.
"They let you people confer? Over what?" Veronica gasped, sweeping her wet, heavy hair back over her shoulder. "Do you have seminars on how to be inept? On the best way to pad your Widows and Orphans Fund?"
He didn't know why he was laughing. Only that he found the description really hilarious. Hell, he'd actually enjoy attending *that*. "Yeah… and they show 'L.A. Confidential' after the keynote speech… which, this year, is by the most ineffectual sheriff of 'em all: Roscoe P. Coltrane."
"Oh my God, Lamb… isn't he your hero?" Veronica batted her eyes at him, all teasing and innocent. And she tried to convince herself that it was one of her "bubbly blonde" routines, except that she really was teasing him and it felt… it felt perfectly natural.
"Uh huh. Him and Daisy Duke," Lamb murmured, gaze slowly skimming down her body, to where her bikini bottoms clung to her hips. "Why are you here, Mars?"
"I'm… I'm on vacation." Veronica shivered even though the pool was still awesomely temperate. She tried to ignore the sheriff's incredibly inappropriate perusal, but just ended up doing one of her own. She'd heard rumors --mainly because Inga loved to complain about how much time out of his average workday Lamb spent working out-- but the man was, undoubtedly, built like a brick house. So much so that she found herself humming The Commodores.
"Do you feel suitably vacated? Or are you itching for some mystery to solve? Like maybe who stole my shirt?" He grinned at her, because now he'd caught *her* staring and even if they were suddenly starring in their own version of Gidget Goes Hawaiian, it was a beautiful thing, a perfect moment, and one he was never going to let her live down.
"So, who exactly hates us enough to do this to us?" she wondered, forcing her eyes back up to his smug face. "God? Mohammed? Do you think this is about that time I snuck into Neptune's mosque to catch that imam embezzling but forgot to cover my head?" she demanded. "Why else would I end up trapped in paradise with *you* of all people?"
With mist on her cheeks and all that frustration curving her lips, Veronica was gorgeous. *The* hot blonde, he thought again, numbly.
"I don't know, Veronica," he shrugged," Maybe it's just fate?" And then he closed the small distance between them, treading water with small splashes. Her eyes widened in shock just moments before he bent his head and kissed her. And just moments later, she was kissing him back… rising up on her toes and floating against him. Her nipples pebbled against the wet nylon of her bikini and he brushed his thumbs over them, eliciting a husky moan.
He dug his hands into her hair, tangling in the wet strands, slanting his mouth against hers… against the mouth that ate Neptune and, God and Mohammed willing, would be deep-throating him at some point in the near future.
Veronica had no idea what she was doing… well, besides kissing and being kissed and winding her arms around a neck that if she had better sense, she'd be wringing. This was Don Lamb. Sheriff Don "Supreme Dipshit" Lamb. But his chest was hard and his lips were soft and his tongue proved it had a use after all. It probably had a *lot* of alternate uses and her toes practically curled at the possibilities.
This… this was probably not what Parker had meant by "this'll be a great time."
But as she locked her legs around his hips and he nuzzled the column of her throat before slowly, emphatically, licking her pulse, Veronica couldn't deny that a great time was being had by all.
She whimpered as he trailed his way down to the tops of her breasts, nudging aside one cup of her top so he could take her nipple into his mouth. There was a joke about Mommy issues just itching to be made, but the bolt of pleasure that shot through her was stronger. She cried out his name before she could stop herself and he chuckled, arrogantly, before increasing the glorious suction and stroking one hand down the curve of her stomach and into her bikini bottoms.
"This… this has got to be illegal," she panted, clutching his head to her in what must have been a death grip. "It's… it's a national… park."
"I don't give a shit," he growled, tugging at her aureole with his teeth. When she made a sound of shock, he quickly turned it into one of arousal by teasing her swollen clit with his thumb as he buried his middle and index finger deep inside her. The waterfall raged above them and the pool felt like it was drowning her, like he was using the current against her. Sure, he was a "one finger, two finger, go!" kind of guy (weren't they all?), but Veronica was finding it hard to complain… to do anything but whisper things like "yes," and "faster," and muffle her incredibly noisy climax against his neck.
Don kissed her once, twice, a third time as she came down from the high. He was so unbelievably hard just feeling her come for him; he was practically ready to pop, but he had the feeling that would *definitely* be illegal in a national park.
It was a feeling that Veronica apparently didn't share. "Aloha," she murmured, fingers closing around him through his shorts.
**
Veronica had revised her opinion of Hawaiian vacations. They were perfect with or without fruity cocktails and beach views… though both of those things, thanks to the fabulous deck at Parker's family timeshare, were great, too.
"Aloha, Mars."
She set down the hollowed-out pineapple, flipping up her sunglasses as the shadow fell across her. "Who let you in?"
Lamb smirked down at her, probably altogether too pleased with himself for saying the one thing that would forever remind them both of how she'd gotten him off… right after he got her off. "Parker, actually. She's a nice girl… unlike present company."
"How was Roscoe's keynote speech?"
"Delightful. He and Flash send their love."
She snorted, flipping her shades back down. "And you?"
"What, you want me to send my love, too?" His eyebrows quirked as he lowered himself to the deck chair next to hers. "I thought I'd do that in person. Save a stamp."
Veronica was glad she had mirrored plastic to hide how she was suddenly fixated on the unbuttoned collar of his polo shirt… how she was entirely too enthralled by the snug fit of his cut-offs. "You're all heart, Don."
"Nancy Wilson or Ann? Which one's the fat one, because I don't want to be her."
She had to clap her hand over her mouth so that the braying laughter wouldn't make Parker and Mac run outside thinking the property had been overrun by hyenas (were hyenas even indigenous to Hawaii?).
"Don't worry," Lamb murmured, scooting his chair closer. "Parker and Mac were on their way to some Mala Ocean Tavern place in Lahaina when they let me in."
"They were leaving me here on my own?!" Veronica couldn't help but huff. "Why do they keep doing that? Oh my God… they beg you to come on vacation and then they ditch you and, seriously, what kind of friendship is--mmmphh!"
Lamb silenced her in a highly unimaginative but highly effective way.
She melted into his arms without much of a fight and, before she knew it, they were both on his deck chair and she was straddling his hips. She pulled back from the enthusiastic kiss decidedly breathless. "Why, hello, to you, too, Don."
"Aloha," he corrected with a lazy grin and a not so lazy hand rather pervily grabbing her ass. "I believe the word here, Veronica, is 'aloha.'"
--end--
April 29, 2007.