the real cactus betty

Https://archiveofourown.org/works/27932719

https://archiveofourown.org/works/25646830/chapters/67325116

I would normally put some of it here as teaser, but almost every line is a spoiler.  😬   🙃

Her eyes land on me and she pauses mid-step, I make a sharp intake of breath and a smile spreads across my cheeks unhindered. Something changes instantly in her demeanor, her pink lips curl and she stares at me transfixed.

One look at her and it reinforces that my universe begins and ends with us.

I walk over to her, eight steps, maybe ten, my gait wide and quick, like I’m floating but also like I need to get to her as quickly as possible, without running.

I want to run.

Veronica and Logan are stuck together on a flight in first-class. What could possibly happen? YOU get to decide! Its the LoVe Choose-Your-Own-Smut-Venture you didn't know you needed.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/26847790/chapters/65503867

As Veronica watches Logan exchange rings with the waiflike brunette she reminds herself that he was her past. Veronica’s future was sitting here with her in a too large tuxedo, playing on his phone, looking bored.

Logan scans the crowd, but his eyes won't make contact with hers. She’s not sure if it's intentional or not. He beams at his bride, like she's the only woman on earth. Veronica remembers that look and it slices a little corner of her lung with a dagger called Logan that she didn’t know still lurked inside her. Like shrapnel still lodged inside, long after the blast. 

It causes her breathing to hitch and her chest to tighten.

I hadn’t yet constructed a viable plan as to how I was going to physically leave. Walk out the door. Of course, I understood the general mechanics of bodily movement. Lift leg, step, heel, toe, repeat with alternative. But whoever created the movement was not walking away from someone, someone like Veronica, for months. The thought of it is unbearable.

I stand before her again, raising my hand for a fist bump with a wry smirk. She looks at me with surprised disbelief.

“Are you trying to fist bump me?” she sneers.

My body shudders with laughter. The kind you force out as a cover when you really just want to cry.

“I hope that’s a fucking joke?”

My laugh turns to a warble and I step forward and wrap myself around her, holding her tight against my chest. She grips me firmly around my torso, very firmly. I lean down and inhale the shampoo freshness of her.

Our bodies have not yet connected, but like always, I feel the electricity surging out of me, out of her, joining between us in zaps. She reaches out and my skin tingles before it makes contact. Ten years after the fact, it still remembers her and I feel it in anticipation.

The muscle memory of her.

Of Veronica, my Veronica.

The lids of my eyes close at her approach.

“I cannot stand any other person on the planet except you. You are my best friend, my worst enemy, you challenge me and drive me fucking crazy Logan. I am going to kiss you. I am not going to let you leave tomorrow without me kissing you.”

“Veronica,” I warn.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/25646830/chapters/63577714

I can feel her presence next to my bed, see the faintest outline of her form above me. Without a thought, I pull back my sheets, shuffle to the side and she slips into my bed, pressing her body against mine, tucking herself into my open arm. Again, I try to hold my breath, to steady my heartbeat for a moment.

Holy fucking shit.

Once, lying on the king-size bed in the Neptune Grand suite, she lay head on my chest, enmeshed in the crook of my arm and referred to it as “my nook.” So from that time, it was etched in my memory. It was, and would forever be, her nook. A few ladies had crossed its path over the years, but they were never permitted to linger there.

I certainly didn’t just let anyone nook.

Chapter 3 up now!

https://archiveofourown.org/works/25646830

Pretty much sums up today in Victoria. 😷