Sometimes he thinks she’s a liar.

He tries not to think of it, and it isn’t very difficult, not for him, because he has avoidance down to an art form by now and ignoring what doesn’t suit has never really been a problem --- for either of them. He wonders if she got that from him, when he allows himself to wonder about it at all, and thinks that it’d be just a little ironic if she did -- if in saving her life, he’d managed to effectively destroy his own.

Though it just went to show, wrapping up your future in one girl wasn’t the smartest thing to do; especially when she’s young and beautiful, desirable and -- upon his return -- fully, completely touchable.

He’d never asked how, never asked why, never requested she tell him who she’d given up her virginity to or the reason she hadn’t waited for him. Maybe four years was just too long, he thinks. Maybe he just doesn’t want to know the answer.

The one question he *had* asked was why she’d stayed, hadn’t given in to the urge to run (to follow him), to go to college, to be...

Free. And she’d laughed, that husky, sex-tinged laugh that shot straight to his loins -- it was like mainlining heroine, listening to that laugh, or it would have been, if his healing factor hadn’t always kicked in before the rush could become too satisfying.

Uncharted regenerative capabilities have nothing on Marie’s voice, though, or the sharp, faintly bitter taste of the swell of her breast, just underneath, close enough that her nipple rubs against his nose and he can smell her. She’s ripe and ready, quivering excitement and heat, and she answers, softly, that she can’t go, could never leave; because she loves it there, she loves the mansion and the X-Men, the teaching and the children and the life and God-fuck-it-all--

If she’d only said something else, used another word--

But she hadn’t, she didn’t, she never does.

Outside, hidden behind a tree on the grounds, he kisses her, fast and deep, sliding his tongue into her mouth and pressing his hands to her hips, a little more pressure -- trying to show her, tell her, make her *feel* it. She’s his. He’s hers. It’s inevitable, and where once that would’ve been enough to terrify him, to make him run, over the hills and far away, he can’t run anymore. He just... can’t. And that’s her doing, damn her beauty and her laugh and her heart and her soul and those liquid, gleaming eyes that promise heaven and deliver. Every. Damn. Time.

She smiles and her hands slide into his hair, a gentle pressure on the nape of his neck, a sharp tug to his hair and he snarls but releases her mouth, reluctantly. She licks at his chest, finds a nipple and bites, a little harder than he expects and his hands dig into her hips, thumbs prodding at hipbones that he wishes weren’t so delicate, so feminine, so Marie. It’d be easier to imagine leaving her if she weren’t so soft, fragile. It’d be easier to imagine leaving her if she weren’t Marie, if she-- Well, no. He really can’t imagine it at all.

He backs her into the tree, and rucks up her skirt, pauses briefly with one hand on her thigh, the other slipping perilously close to the crotch of her white cotton panties, so practical and demure for a woman as sensual and liberated as Marie, but he likes it. Likes her, whatever she decides to wear, to do, to be.

She says, voice muffled against his jaw, that she wants it, she wants *him*, and nothing turns him on more, can make him lose control faster than hearing her say that. Not even when she tells him--

“Logan,” she breathes as he slides into her, hard and complete and so deep he thinks they’ll be joined together for life. Which wouldn’t really be a bad thing, except that he needs, needs, absolutely *has* to move, to slide out a little, even as she moans a protest, and then plunge back in. In and out, and the motion should be repetitive but it isn’t, because every time he pulls out he’s thinking about thrusting back in, and every time he’s inside her he’s thinking about being a little out of her and yet still a part of her and fantasizing about the moment when he drives back in and her eyes dilate and he knows, knows that this is all she’s thinking of -- him, them, here and now.

She’s honest now, like this, she can’t hold back, can’t pretend, and neither can he, he never could. The difference is, he’s never wanted to.

It’s rapid-fire now, the withdrawal lasting only seconds before he has to be back inside her, with her, together, always together... and it isn’t even about the motion of his hips, or hers, or the distracting bite of her nails against his shoulders, or the rub of his palm over the firm curve of her ass. It’s sensation, pure and internal and all-encompassing, and the colors are like rainbows bursting behind his eyelids and inside his body, spiraling down to ripple against his cock and make her scream. And his teeth clench when he comes, feels her convulse and murmur, drowsily, that she loves this, what they do.

And the colors fade until all he can see is gray, cold and drab and utterly lonely.

He sits, and as he’s still holding on to her, she sits too; he can feel her smile against his neck, the crease of her cheeks and the brush of her lips and teeth against his sensitized skin a sensation he’s felt before, so many times, and doesn’t want to feel again. Right then, he never wants to feel any of it again. Because she loves it all, so *fucking* much--

And the ache of it rides hard and tight in his chest, as though her mouth is on his, in a kiss, deep and dark and hot as she sucks the air from his lungs and inhales it into herself. Always into her. It’s like she senses his thoughts, because she draws back, head against the hard bark of the tree and smiles, blindingly, brilliantly, beautifully, and in that instant he loves her, *loves her*, with a desperation that marks his soul and brands him and he knows, then, he’ll never be able to leave. It’s a sickness, this churning in his gut, this overwhelming rush of pure *feeling* and he... welcomes it. More than that. He *craves* it.

She presses damp kisses to his collarbone, kisses that tickle and make him grunt and make her giggle at his twitching, and she whispers, between lazy grazes of teeth and tongue, that she loves him. Her words are soft and thin as tissue paper, and he closes his eyes against the rend, because he thinks of her words, pretty and sweet and meaningless, thinks of them as lies, sometimes, but when she’s looking at him with her eyes bright and dark and the centre of the universe, then, right then...

He knows it.

~end~