It was a peculiar brand of torture.

Exhilarating and painful all at once, but it never occurred to Logan to complain. If he complained, she might stop. And he rather liked it when Marie decided to waltz around their room naked as the day she was born.

She liked it when he watched her, too; he could tell. Whenever she deliberately dropped a towel or an earring to the floor, it made his blood pressure inch up, because, by God, he knew what was coming next.

A slow bend at the waist, knees straight, her perfect, naked ass on display like a work of art.

Never failed to make him hard as a fucking rock.

Sometimes, he'd sprawl out on their bed and simply enjoy the show. Other times, he would spring off the bed and back her up against the nearest wall, intent on only two things - one, being inside her, and two...

Hearing her scream his name in that shaky, choked voice she only used when it was really, really good.

Lately, it had constantly been really really good, and tonight was one of those nights where he was torn between jumping off the bed and just relaxing where he lay, trying to make turnabout into fair play.

So he stretched out on the bed and grinned wolfishly at her.

She paused by the dresser, hairbrush in hand. "What?" she asked with a quirked eyebrow. "Somethin' funny?"

"No, ma'am," he drawled. "Not funny. More like...interesting."

"What's interestin'?" A sharp tug of the brush through her thick hair caused her unbound breasts to shake beguilingly, and Logan felt a little dizzy. Shit, yeah - tonight was gonna be one hell of a ride. Marie was in a playful mood, and that always meant good things were coming.

Incredibly bad pun intended.

She repeated her question, and Logan blinked. "You are, running around here all bareassed naked."

Her self-satisfied smirk said it all, but she elaborated anyway. "I don't see you complainin', big man."

"Oh, I'm sure as shit not complaining, baby," he assured her. "So long as I'm not gonna spend all night alone on this bed while you brush your hair."

"Would I do that to you?" she asked absently, tapping the wooden handle of the hairbrush lightly against her chin. Logan tensed slightly, recognizing the look in her eyes.

It was the intrigued look.

The curious look.

The "what-if" look.

And Logan didn't like the way she was fidgeting with that hairbrush. "Uhh, darlin'..."

"Hmm?" She followed his gaze to her hands, then glanced up at him, eyes narrowed. "Damn, Logan... I might be a little adventurous, but I'm not gonna spank you with my only really good stylin' brush. Jesus."

He didn't know whether to sigh in relief...or just pout.

He did neither, because Rogue suddenly tossed the brush on the dresser and walked toward the bed, her hips moving slowly, easily. "Logan?" she ventured, twisting one platinum lock of hair around her finger and leaning over the bed slightly.

"Yeah?" His voice was already getting hoarse, dammit. Before the night was over, he was gonna have to think about hockey stats for sure.

Her eyelids dropped to half-mast, and her next words were a whisper. "Never have I ever...watched a man get himself off."

"Christ, Marie..." He eyed her almost hungry expression warily. "That's..."

"What, you've done it before?" she challenged with a saucy wink. "Huh?"

"Hell, no. It's just...not exactly what I had in mind," he admitted.

"Yeah?" She drew her tongue slowly across her bottom lip. "You're not shy, are you, about lettin' me see you get all nice and acquainted with Rosie Palms?"

If he hadn't had a raging hard-on and the woman that he loved hovering naked in front of him, Logan might have laughed. Instead, he growled. "Marie, think about that. I've had my tongue inside you. There ain't a damn thing about either one of our bodies that could embarrass me at this point. If it ever could in the first place," he added after a moment.

She looked for all the world like she was trying not to roll her eyes at him. "So what's the problem, then?"

Looked like he was going to be spelling it out, after all. Damn her gorgeous hide, anyway. "People usually save the solo stuff for a time when they're alone, Marie," he sighed. "Not because it's embarrassing, but because it's not as much fun."

Logan could almost see the wheels turning in her beautiful little head, and he knew the exact moment she decided to change tactics. Her eyes went all soft, and she knelt on the end of the bed between his splayed feet. "Logan."

"Hmm?" He was almost ready to give in to her, just because she was Marie, and he'd never really been able to deny her anything....especially when she was naked.

She reached out a hand and rested it on his lower leg, then slid it up to rub his knee, her fingertips reaching around to the sensitive crease of skin behind it.

He swallowed the rather unmanly gasp that rose in him, but he couldn't stop the involuntary twitch that moved him. "Oh, you're gonna play dirty now, eh?" He squeezed his eyes shut. "That's low, Marie."

"Logan."

The sound of her voice, huskier but firmer, repeating his name opened his eyes. She was staring him down, her chest flushed, her breathing already a little uneven. "Marie..."

"I want to see how you do it, Logan." She didn't stop the soft but insistent rubbing of her hand on his leg. "Show me."

With a muted growl, he drew one arm from behind his head and rested his palm on his chest. If the mere thought of watching him touch himself was turning her on that much, then goddamn... He was going to put on the hottest show she'd ever seen.

Her mouth fell open slightly as he inched his hand down over his flat stomach and into the dense hair that surrounded his cock. Instead of going right for the gold, so to speak, he raked his fingernails lightly across his inner thigh, his legs falling apart a little more.

Rogue's breathing hitched, then quickened.

Logan licked his lips, his eyes never leaving his lover's face as his hand slid back up. His fingers circled the shaft of his penis, and he tightened them, his hips pushing upward automatically. He began to move his hand, slowly at first, then a little faster.

"Doesn't--" Rogue broke off, shifting her eyes to his face. "Doesn't that hurt? I mean, don't you need..."

The corner of Logan's mouth quirked up just a little. "Might help," he agreed unsteadily.

Her hair brushed softly against his thighs as she braced her hands on the bed and leaned forward. "Move your hand," she whispered, and Logan twined the cascading strands of her hair around his fingers, pulling it back to watch as she leaned into him.

The first touch of her tongue on his hardness made him gasp and jerk. "Jesus, Marie." She soothed him with a soft humming sound, then opened her mouth, enveloping him in gentle, wet heat.

For a few blissful seconds, Logan thought that she might abandon her quest in favor of her present activity. His hopes were dashed when she drew away and smiled, her lips glistening and full. "As you were, sir." Her tone was cheeky as she disentangled his hand from her hair.

His growl was instant and automatic, and his groin was starting to ache from the unsated desire pulsing through him. Almost of its own accord, his hand went back to his erection, instinctively seeking to ease the throbbing in his body. His flesh was wet from Rogue's mouth - Oh God, her mouth -and he gave a few unsteady strokes.

She watched for a few moments, her breathing hitching slightly. Then she made a soft sound of protest, her fingernails digging into his calf. "It looks so rough." Her eyes were clouded with passion...and a little concern.

"There's a reason they call it jerking off, baby," he panted, silently willing her to call a halt to his show. The sight of her watching him was more exciting than he'd anticipated, but his body was holding back. Frustration gnawed at him; he wanted to come, but he wanted to come with her. "Marie, come on..." It didn't occur to him to mask the pleading in his voice. Nothing mattered but her joining what was already in progress. "I want to touch you."

He heard rather than saw her acquiescence, a moan wrapped in a whimper wrapped in a sigh. She crawled forward, leaning to draw her tongue across the back of his hand, then skating too quickly across his sensitive, aching erection. His hips bucked, and she soothed him with one hand across the ridge of his hipbone, her other small hand sliding up over his stomach and chest.

"Like this?" she breathed, long legs sliding over his to rest on either side of him. Her knees pressed into the bed, she lowered her hips to his stomach, grinding softly against him. "Or like…this?" With one arm braced on his ribcage, she slid back with a jerk.

He groaned aloud as the softness of her ass hit him, right where he wanted her to be. "Like that, baby." A quick lift of her hips and a roll of his, and he was thrusting inside her, gripping the soft skin beneath his hands, urging her faster, harder.

"Christ, that's... Ohh, that's good, Logan..." she breathed, the muscles in her thighs flexing as she rotated her hips down into him. But she resisted the pushing and pulling of his hands, creating a rhythm of her own, one that - while he liked it well enough - was a little too slow and easy.

"Faster, babe, come on…"

Her face, framed by tousled locks of brown and silver, lit up with an unhurried, measured smile. "Don't think so, sugar," she refused with a quick shake of her head. "You've been a little longer at the party than me, after all." Her last words were half-choked by a gasp as he arched into her, a sharp, quick plunge that he knew always made her insane.

Her head flew back, then forward, and Logan leaned up, the muscles in his stomach tightening as he reached around Rogue's body, his fingers dancing off her shoulder blades, tickling across the tiny bumps of her spine. "Come on, Marie…"

She defied the hands on her back, the pleading tone, and when she lifted her head again, Logan knew what she wanted. He could see it in her eyes.

She wanted to play.

"Make me," she said with a glide of tongue across her lower lip and teeth. "You want it? Take it."

He could play.

Logan caught her hips tight against his as she pushed down, holding her forcefully, fingers jabbing almost hard enough to leave bruises. For one breathless second, his eyes locked with hers, a growl working up through his chest.

And then she laughed.

In one motion, Logan flipped her on her back, pinning her to the bed as the growl emerged, animalistic enough to scare her if she didn't know that it meant he was more than halfway gone. His hands twisted in her hair, dragging her head to one side to expose the gently muscled curve of her throat, his lips and teeth and tongue alternately seeking and ravaging and soothing the soft flesh.

Her laughter had vanished, replaced by plaintive murmurings and gasps as she arched up, her feet scrambling across his back and hips. "Logan, Logan…" His name was a breathy chant against his own ear, and he had to push her further, higher, because he was this close to coming and she was nowhere near--

One hand under Rogue's thigh, lifting her into a particularly deep plunge, and her words faded, taken over by stifled moans and that sweet little sound she only made when he was inside her. He knew she was feeling it, could tell by the frantic way the muscles of her body clung to him, rippling and seeking.

He knew she was there, too.

"Oh, Jesus, Marie," and then speech was lost to him, too, and he could only growl his pleasure into the hollow of her neck, urging her with his open mouth on her skin.

She was getting closer, her moans lifting into screams, and then she snapped, fingernails clawing into his back and arm as she came around him, heat and light and everything he had always sought and never found.

He bit down on her shoulder as a similar madness overtook him, barely hearing the panted endearments she rained on him as he thrust once more, then twice, then home.

He rolled away automatically, gathering Rogue's sweat-slicked to his chest. Long seconds passed before she opened one eye and smiled. "Okay, that was…"

Logan grunted, almost grinning. "Yeah."

"Wow."

"Uh-huh."

"Logan?"

"Yeah, babe?"

"Did you like the little game?" It was a playful question, one deserving of a playful answer.

But Logan wasn't really a playful man. "I liked the second half of it a hell of a lot better, Marie."

"Hmm. You know…"

"Huh?"

Rogue raised up on one elbow. "If we couldn't touch..." she whispered softly. "I mean, if I didn't have control, that might be what you got all the time." She dropped her face back onto his shoulder.

"Bite your talented little tongue, baby." Logan smacked her ass lightly, eliciting a giggle. "I'm more imaginative than that."

"Agreed."

His brows drew together as her face burrowed further into the dip of his shoulder. "So, that really got you hot, eh?"

She giggled again and nipped at his neck. "Logan, watchin' you make Belgian waffles would get me hot. That was...a damn good show."

He was letting a satisfied smile slide across his lips when she raised her head and frowned. "What?"

She sighed. "We didn't fulfill the requirements," she reminded him. "'Never have I ever watched a man get himself off,' remember? We didn't make it quite that far."

"There are rules?" he demanded incredulously. "I thought this whole game was just an excuse for us to go at it like rabbits on speed. I didn't know there were actually rules."

"Well, I like to think of them more as guidelines," she said in a conciliatory tone. "So... You know what that means."

"Huh?"

A wicked grin curved her kiss-swollen mouth. "We have to keep doing it until we get it right."

She waited patiently for his chuckling to subside. "How about this," he suggested only half-teasingly. "Never have you ever...watched yourself having sex?"

Rogue's mouth fell open, and she wriggled closer to him, sliding her leg further up over his. "Oooh... Videotape?"

He squinched his eyes shut for a second. "I was thinking something more like a mirror," he corrected, shaking his head. "You know, something Chuck can't accidentally find one day when he's looking for his copy of Howard's End."

Rogue burst out laughing. "Instead, he'd find Logan's End."

"Ugh, bad pun," Logan groaned, jostling her slightly. "So, whaddya say? Acceptable substitute?"

"Mmm, I'd love to, sugar, but I don't think the Professor would consider a mirror for our bedroom ceilin' worthy of the school expense account."

Logan thought for a moment, then said, "There's always the bathroom..."

"The shower." Rogue's eyes lit up. "We could borrow Scott's defogger and treat the shower door..." She squealed excitedly. "Go! Go get it. He keeps it in the garage."

"Now?" Incredulity weighted the word. "You want me to go now?"

She bit her lip and nodded. "Oh, hell yeah. Now."