It was true. Damn it. Logan growled as it sunk in. He was one whipped Wolverine. Perched atop a stool in the middle of the mansion’s gleaming kitchen, he glared at the stainless steel appliances and marble counters and wondered who’d picked the decorating scheme. As he pondered the convection oven, he violently shook his head. Yep, he was thinking about the kitchen’s appearance to avoid facing the reality. Only a whipped man would be stripped to the waist patiently awaiting his fate.
Oh, he’d suspected he was whipped since the second month he’d been back at Chuck’s School for the Weird and Wacky. When he first came back, he was still blinded by Jean Grey and her obvious physical attributes. His first clue came about a week after he returned when Jean sent him signals that she might not be opposed to a little groping in the medical supply closet. Oh, he knew she wasn’t going to leave Scott. Normally that wouldn’t have bothered him, but as Jean brushed a hand down his chest suggestively, all he could see was Marie’s disapproving glare in his mind. He’d turned Jean down flat. For which she’d been eternally grateful. She’d even told him so the day she announced her engagement to Scooter. Hell, somewhere along the line, he and Scooter had even become friends — grudgingly — and now, tomorrow, he was going to be One-Eye’s best man. Yeah, that should have been the first clue.
But, obviously, the adamantium in his skull made it really hard for clues to sink in. The second clue came in the form of his dog tags, left for him on his bedside table two weeks after he returned. When he went to Marie to ask her what the hell was wrong, he found her cuddled up with that St. John punk on the couch in the rec room. At the sight, his stomach felt like someone had poured hot acid down his throat. He stalked off to the Danger Room to work out. He’d never admit to himself that he was working out his feelings about a Southern belle, but he’d had to agree to teach classes for Wheels so he could pay for all the damages his workout had caused. After three or four weeks, he’d finally been able to pay for the cracked walls and blown circuitry. Who knew the Danger Room was built for such pansies?
Then there was the night about a month after he returned when he’d found the kids playing strip poker and drinking. A smile crept along his face. Damn, Marie was a funny drunk. Oh, she was still careful to keep her gloves on and not touch any of them, but she’d laughed and joked and teased and looked so much like the 17-year-old she was. Logan enjoyed watching his Marie kick the butts of everyone in the room, until she’d had just a little too much to drink. That’s when she began losing — the game and her clothes. Logan continued to watch the game from his vantage point at the doorway until Marie was forced to strip down to her gloves, panties and bra. The growl that had forced its way from his chest at the sight of her creamy white skin and smooth curves startled the entire group — except Marie.
She’d just looked up at him with her big, brown doe eyes and slurred, “Logan, why, why don’t you pull up shome bed and join ush?”
He shook his head and pulled gloves out of his back pocket (yeah, just another clue he was whipped. He’d taken to carrying them ever since the day he saw Marie gazing enviously at Kitty and Bobby holding hands. He didn’t want her missing out on casual touch just because her skin could kill). He jerked the gloves on, grabbed Marie at the waist and hoisted her into his arms. He glared at the assembled kids and growled, “Game’s over.”
He stalked back to his room, gently laying Marie on his bed and tossing her a shirt, which she clung to. “Put it on.” He went to his bathroom and grabbed some aspirin and filled a glass with water. “Take two and drink this. The hangover won’t suck as much tomorrow.”
She followed his directions without a murmur, still holding the shirt.
“And damn it, put the shirt on.”
She shot him a hurt gaze and began to shrug it on. “What, aren’t I pretty enough?”
Logan shook his head and plopped down on the bed next to her. He brushed back a strand of hair that had been displaced when she’d put on the shirt. Another clue smacked him in the face. He couldn’t lie to her. Even though he realized he was going to burn in hell and Chuck was going to kick him out on his butt if he ever heard about this conversation, he had to tell her the truth.
“Marie, you’re more than pretty enough. If you hadn’t put on that shirt I might have forgotten that you’re 17 and my promise to take care of you and show you just how pretty I think you are.” Damn, the truth was going to get him in trouble.
“Really?” she asked softly, her eyes going big and round and filling with hope.
“Really.” He was getting ready to say more, but a pasty look passed over Marie’s face — a look he’d seen before. He hustled her into the bathroom and held her hair as she retched into the toilet. Just another clue. He’d never held a scantily clad woman in his arms without sex being involved. Yep, he was well on his way to being whipped.
He was pretty sure Marie had been embarrassed by that night and his taking care of her. After all, she’d snuck out of his room the next morning before Scooter or any other responsible adult could ask what was going on and she had gone out of her way to avoid him for a few weeks. He’d tried to seek her out, to talk to her, but she always had one of the twittering girls around or that punk St. John. Damn, he didn’t like that boy. He didn’t like anyone else sniffing around his Marie.
He realized the nail was in his whipped coffin two months to the day after he returned when he’d voiced those thoughts to Ororo. She just stared at him.
“Do you realize you called her ‘my Marie’?’” she asked in her soft, lilting voice.
Logan swore, which earned him a reproving glare which he could have sworn had been preceded by a muffled laugh.
“That’s not what I meant. Hell, Storm, she’s too young. She’s 17. The professor would have me kicked out, and Scott would have me castrated if I so much as asked her to a movie.” He jumped up and started pacing as Ororo continued to just stare at him. “OK. Yeah. I’m chicken shit. Is that what you want to hear? I’m scared spitless by a scrap of a girl who weighs less than my right arm. There, I said it. Are you happy?”
She shook her head. “Logan, what are you scared of? That she’ll hurt you?”
“No.” And he stalked off to traipse through the woods for a few days. More worried I’ll hurt her, he realized. And that’s when he knew. He was whipped by a Southern belle.
Jubilee bounded into Rogue’s room and plopped on the bed. “He’s in the woods.”
Marie stared in amazement at her friend. “How?”
“I have my ways,“ she said mysteriously. “OK. I lurk around closed doors and listen to private conversations. Miss Monroe and Dr. Grey. Ready for the really juicy part?” she asked tauntingly.
“Sure.” Marie missed Logan. He’d been gone for two days. She missed watching hockey and playing poker with him. Missed seeing him. Touching him. Him touching her. Even though she knew it didn’t really mean much, despite her vague memories of him saying she was pretty. She knew she wasn’t the kind of girl to get a MAN like him. Especially since he’d never be able to touch her.
“Earth to Rogue. I’m getting to the good part.”
“I’m listening.”
“Seems Wolvie confided to Miss Monroe that he has a THING for you. Like a serious THING in the Romeo and Juliet way, except for the double suicide. At least I hope we don’t have to do the double suicide thing for you two idiots to realize you have a thing. I only have one really hot black outfit. I can’t wear it to two funerals.”
Marie gaped at her friend. She was moving her mouth, but no words were coming out.
“Rogue, joke, girlfriend. I’d go buy another hot black number.”
“He has a thing?”
Jubilee nodded. She was glad this was coming to a head. She was tired of letting Rogue borrow Johnny trying to make Wolvie jealous. Oh, she knew it was for a good cause, but she was so in love with him that she wanted to shout it from the housetop. Not sneak around so everyone, especially Wolvie, would think Johnny and Rogue had a thing going.
“So, girlfriend, what are you going to do about it?”
Marie smiled a secretive, female smile. “Make him admit it.”
After deciding it was time to leave again — before his self-control broke and he begged Marie to make him her sex slave, he returned to the mansion to pack. He was so intent on sneaking in and getting out without alerting anyone, that he didn’t realize she was waiting for him in the rec room. At least not until she waltzed out wearing black leather pants, a tight red tank top, which looked like it was two sizes too small given the way her breasts seemed to be threatening to spill over the material, and a matching red, gauzy scarf.
“So, you came back, Sugah.”
He gulped and nodded. Suddenly he felt like he’d stepped into quicksand.
“I heard this funny rumor about why you’ve been MIA for the last few days. Want to hear it, Sugah?” she asked as she walked back into the rec room, her hips swaying. Against his better judgment, he followed her, like a sheep off to slaughter.
She curled up on the couch, tucking her feet beneath her and patting the cushion next to her. Logan sat, waiting for her to lay her cards on the table.
“See, how I’ve heard it, you have a thing for me.” She paused and looked at him when the strangled sound came from his throat.
She reached out and ran her silk-covered fingers down the front of his flannel shirt. “Now, I have to wonder why you’re ignoring the thing between us. Yeah, I said between us. See, I have a thing for you, too.”
She smiled and ran her tongue over her red, pouty lips. “I’ve come up with a few theories. And Jubilee and Kitty offered a couple more.“
He choked and said, “Jubilee and Kitty?”
“Of course, Sugah. They know all about this. Anyway. I figure you’re either hung up about my skin.”
“Hell, no.”
“OK. That rules that out. Or you have this thing about my age and thinking I’m too young.”
She took his silence for an admission. “Thought so. You know, that’s just plain stupid, Logan.”
He growled. “Oh, please,” she said dismissively. “We both know you’re not going to hurt me.”
Her eyes lit up as he winced. “Is that part of it, too? You are not going to hurt me. At least no more than any two people stumbling along in a relationship. Yeah, I said relationship. So get over it. I turn 18 in a month. So, I figure I’ve pretty much shot down all your dumb excuses and you’ll have to deal with this thing between us. And I’m going to make it easy for you,” she said, leaning toward him.
The view of her breasts made the oxygen in his lungs clog.
“I’m going to dare you. I know you can’t resist a dare. By the time I turn 18, you’re going to be begging me, that’s right, begging me to come to your bed. If you do, you shave your mutton chops for Scott and Jean’s wedding.”
“And if I’m not begging you by your 18th birthday?”
“You can pick out the ... uhm ... outfit I wear for our first time, which I’d expect to happen in the days immediately after my birthday.”
Logan considered the dare. As he figured it, he was in a win-win situation. Except for his whiskers. But another part of his anatomy was shouting “YES” much louder than his whiskers were saying it was a trap.
“Deal.” He held out his hand to seal the bargain.
“Uh, huh. That’s not how we’re going to seal this deal.” She held the scarf to her face and leaned into Logan until his arms wrapped around her and her lips grazed his. With a growl, Logan ran his hands up her ribs until they cupped her breasts. Marie deepened the kiss, grinding her lower body against Logan’s until she felt him harden against her. She broke away, her lips swollen from her life’s second kiss.
“See you tomorrow, Sugah.”
Logan sat on the couch for several minutes waiting for his body to calm down enough for him to walk to his room and take a cold shower.
It was the first of many cold showers over the next month. Logan would have sworn it was a conspiracy. Oh, he knew Jubilee and Kitty were part of the plot. Especially when Marie started coming to defense classes in skintight body suits instead of her usual sweatpants. Then there was Jean and Ororo. At least he was pretty sure they were responsible for the late-night errands they sent him on that invariably had him running into Marie in the moonlight. And he was pretty sure he’d seen them giggling over a few Victoria’s Secret’s catalogs just days before Marie got an extra-large box from the store. He’d walked into her room one night while she was sorting laundry. If those scraps of silk and lace were passing for her underwear these days, he was in BIG trouble.
And then there was Scooter. He’d assigned Marie and Logan as sparing partners. They were spending hours together each day in class and then in the Danger Room, where their bodies tangled day after day.
And you couldn’t forget Marie. They’d eat breakfast together — usually at a table by themselves. At least they ate by themselves after Marie tried to play footsie with him at the teacher’s table. Playing footsie with a telepath nearby wasn’t his idea of fun.
Then there was movie night. Every Friday. Every Friday he went to the rec room with the best of intentions. And every Friday she waited for him, wearing something tight and clingy, and then she’d snuggle into his arms and plant kisses along his neck and chest until he’d turn the tables and devour her. He really couldn’t remember any of the movies they’d watched.
And then there were the nightmares. He wanted to think she just made them up as an excuse to crawl into his bed, all warm and flush from sleep, but then every so often she came in, really shaken and he’d melt. She’d spent more nights in his room since the dare was issued than she had in hers. And no one said a word. Not even Scooter.
So before the sun rose on her birthday, Logan knew he was in trouble, but he was determined to be strong. He withstood it when she bounded into his room, wearing one of his T-shirts, her dark hair curling around her pert breasts.
He stayed strong when she showed up for breakfast wearing a miniskirt that would have shamed most hookers, but Marie managed to look chaste in it.
But he lost it when he went to her door to take her down for her birthday dinner and party. She opened the door wearing a clingy, scarlet excuse for a dress, held up by two thin spaghetti straps, that ended far short of her knees.
“Uh, don’t you need a wrap or something?” he asked as soon as he could form words.
“Why? You’re wearing long sleeves and, Sugah, you’re the only one I plan on dancing with tonight. But I do need a scarf.” She grabbed one and her long red gloves, giving him a glimpse of her bare back. Good thing he’d picked up a new pair of leather gloves, he thought.
They went downstairs and danced and danced and danced some more. Every time one of the boys from school tried to approach her, Logan growled and she laughed.
She was a little sad when she opened her presents. Oh, she’d gotten several lovely things. But nothing from Logan. She had been so certain this dare would work. That he would finally admit they belong together, but it didn’t seem to be working. Oh, he wanted her. She didn’t doubt that, but she wanted this relationship to be about more than sex.
When he pulled her into his arms for the last dance of the night, he saw the tears clinging to her dark lashes. “Marie?”
She just shook her head. “It’s nothing, Logan. Just me wanting more than life is giving me.”
He brushed the tears away with his thumb and kissed the top of her head. He yelled to the room, “Night, folks. It’s been fun,” and dragged her out into the gardens.
“Logan, what are you doing? That was rude.”
“Marie, shut up. Sit.” He pushed her down onto a bench among the fragrant flowers Ororo babied.
“I was waiting to give this to you until we were alone.” He pulled a small, wrapped box from his pocket and handed it to her.
She gazed up at him, wonder filling her eyes.
“Go ahead. Open it.”
She tore the paper and opened the box. “Logan,” she cried and jumped up and flung her arms around him, almost knocking him over.
“I guess that means I did OK?”
“More than OK. Put them on for me?”
He retrieved the dog tags from the box and slipped them over her head, nestling them between her breasts.
“Now, they’re back where they belong.”
She smiled at him and leaned in for a kiss.
He stopped her with a finger laid gently on her mouth. “And one more thing, will you please come to my bed tonight? I can’t promise you any sleep, but I can promise you the time of your life.” His words had barely escaped his lips when the faint gonging of the grandfather clock in the ballroom started.
“Midnight,” Marie gloated. “I win. You begged by my birthday.”
He crushed her to him, lowering his mouth to hers. “I’d say we both won.”
And that’s why, on the day before Scooter and Jean’s wedding, he was sitting in the middle of the kitchen waiting for Marie to clip his whiskers. Yep. He was whipped. He could have fought her. Argued that he’d have had to beg before her birthday, not on it — but no. This seemed important to Marie. So he’d sit here manfully and let her shear him.
“Marie, hell, can we get on with this?“ He was really hoping to get this over before the rest of the group woke up. He’d made Marie come down fresh from making love. He was pretty sure neither of them had gotten any sleep. But that didn’t matter. It was summer. No classes, and the wedding was tomorrow.
“I’m ready, Sugah.” She walked in with scissors, a razor and shaving cream.
“What are they for?” he asked nodding at the scissors.
“I’m going to trim the hairs until they’re short enough to shave off. This won’t hurt a bit,” she promised as she straddled him and began to trim away his whiskers.
And the funny thing was, it didn’t. Not any more than sliding into love with Marie had hurt.
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