***

The muscles of his arms rippled as he unbuttoned his shirt, casting off the sleeves, and hooking the collar over the bedpost. A smirk spread across his thin lips, and a spark of mischief appeared in his weathered blue eyes. Her fingers were cold against his nape, and her feather light kiss tickled the hot skin that peeked between his shoulder blades. Exploring the fluid highways of his veins as they crisscrossed over his chest, she discovered the awkward sensation of pocked, swollen flesh blistering his pectoral. Surprised, she ducked over his shoulder, drawing her hand away.

Curiosity widened her emerald glance as she gazed upon the unmistakable black inks of a fresh tattoo. A canine, sewn from a single knotted thread, had been hammered into his otherwise unscarred flesh. Rapid blinking brought a teaspoon of liquid to her eyes, making them glint and glimmer in the low light of the bedroom. Her fingers probed the puffy red skin in sheer amazement.

“I…I don’t understand…” Rogue gasped, stuttering over the syllables.
“Won’t last long, but thought ya might like it.” Logan chuckled gently, smoothing his rough palm over the soft jersey of her tee shirt.
“It’s beautiful, Logan.” She whispered; her voice softened with awe.

Enamored by her quietude, he crooked two fingers beneath her chin, lifting her jaw until her eyes came to gaze upon his face. Though her attentions were drawn away, she continued to probe the welted flesh with agile fingertips. The smirk returned to Logan’s worn features, and his mouth melted, at last, into hers. An eager tongue pushed between her rosy lips, stalling the movements of her curious hand. She mumbled an easy purr of pleasure, and allowed her stiff figure to relax in his sturdy arms.

A rough grasp pulled the tough but fragile woman into Logan’s hold, one burly arm supporting her shoulders, and the other scooped up beneath her knees. She felt soothed and safe in those arms, wrapped so tightly around her once wicked skin. Only he had ever had the courage to reach out to her, to trust her. Only he would ever know the feeling of her immaculate skin.

Instinctively, Logan reached for the small lamp on the bedside table, his fingers clasping the plastic screw that would plunge the room into shadow. Rogue reached out, staying his hand with an embrace around his wrist. Her fingers tangled in the curly fur on his arm.
“How will I see it if you turn out the bulb?” She smiled daringly, though a hint of anxiety set her lips to trembling. Still, her glance fell once again upon the deliberate scarring of his skin, and her hand rose to touch it, to determine if it was still as real as it had been a moment ago.

Their exchange of quiet phrases ended then, and Logan’s experienced hands displayed a language all their own. He slid his palms within the girl’s shirt, stroking each half of her ribcage with the tender but deliberate massage of his thumbs. In return, Rogue followed the unending line of the canine tattoo, bringing a slight rush of endorphins to her lover’s brain.
The movements from clothing to nudity were small and calculated. His mouth ducked beneath a tumble of cocoa brown as he pulled Rogue’s shirt over her head. Her small, athletic body swelled with deep breaths while he nibbled at and toyed with her skin. The release of her breasts from her lace brassiere sent a gasp of delight exhaling from her diaphragm, and the sensual nuzzlings of his nose and tongue drove a wave of shivers up her bare arms.

“Logan,” Rogue gasped between ragged breaths of air. Her half-slit eyes gazed dreamily at his chest. “It’s fading.”

Logan’s attentions diverted briefly from the suckling of her breast, and the devilish grin of an aroused beast slid over his mouth. He inhaled deeply, drawing the heady scents of iron, Irish whiskey, and a woman’s natural musk into his nostrils. For a moment, he forgot why he had moved away from the succulent taste of her flesh. The pricking needle sensation of her stealthy fingers on his healing skin brought him slowly back to Earth.

“Hm, yeah,” he grunted, dragging the legs of her denim jeans down around her ankles. She assisted him, squirming against the twisted sweets, raising her lower body off the mattress entirely when needed. Shadows played on the musculature of her thighs and calves as he revealed the remainder of her skin. His tongue darted across his chapped lips, reigning in a careless drip of saliva. His voice was barely a sigh beside her cheek.
“Better hurry while you’re still enthralled by it, eh darlin’?”

One large callused mitt shifted through her plume of ivory, while the other cupped the small mound of flesh that lie between her thighs, sprayed with curls of chestnut brown. Rogue’s lithe figure rose to meet her lover’s touch, a deep sigh catching in her constricted throat. She chewed at her lower lip while her fingers intermingled with the onyx fur of his chest. The inked beast rose and fell with each thump of his ancient heart.

Mewls of pleasure swept from her larynx as Logan at last descended upon her, one gnarled hand clutching her wrists above her crown. Rarely did her eyes divert from the pounding breath of his waning scar, and then only to admire his determined sapphires glinting in the lamplight. The sound of straining mattress springs dissolved around their ears. The unflattering fluorescent bulb degenerated to a crescent of midday sun. All in the chaotic mansion mellowed to silence.

Vigor drove the couple into the heights of bliss.

***
End.