There was no beginning really. It was like dropping into the middle of events already in progress. The meeting, in that bar in Canada might constitute a beginning… but she was a kid and scared. And he was an asshole and unconcerned.
On the road, in his beloved camper - now decimated and gone forever - he had noticed something else about her. She was a flirt. Oh, not like some he'd met. She was just a beginner, but she had real potential. Her teasing about the shitty trailer, the constant questioning…Yeah, she knew what to do. It had taken real guts for her to climb into the back the way she had, too. Guts or an instinct for survival … he knew a bit about that. So, while he made it a point never to pick anyone up, her sheer bravado had somehow won him over.
Then, the shit hit the fan and the next time he talked to her… well, things didn't go so well.
He'd never really remembered caring whether he hurt someone else. He'd beaten many men to a bloody pulp and hadn't stopped long enough to feel a smidgen sorry for them. That was a new experience for him - when he saw her wide eyes, face contorted in pain, he felt completely overwhelmed and impotent and… sorry. And she touched him and he didn't really feel much after that.
Fast forward to the night he became a hero and saved her life:
He wasn't a superhero. That was bullshit and he knew it. Saving the planet was the last thing on his agenda. If he wanted to be honest, he would say that he allowed himself to be propelled through the air like a damn paper airplane because he wanted to relive it. He wanted to remember what it was like to care. When he saw her in that contraption, screaming for help and dying, he did care. He wanted to save her. And he wasn't saving her just to save an anonymous fellow mutant; he wasn't saving her for ‘the cause' or whatever. He was saving her because he knew her, because she'd somehow made an impression on him, one he hadn't ever felt before. He didn't want her to die.
When he went back to his life of searching and of beating men for money, he thought about her. He tried to remember her face but after two years it got really tough. After five it was damn near impossible.
One night, he killed a man in the cage and had to take off. That he didn't feel anything about that man's death was something he was too aware of. He thought about her and felt the urge to remember. He wanted her to help him remember.
It wasn't sexual, not at first. At first it was the mere act of caring that satisfied him. When he saw her again after six years, it all came flooding back and he remembered. She was the same person and she was different… so he still cared, but he felt something else too. Disconnected.
She was nice to him, the way Jean had been nice to him when he'd first come to the school, but that wasn't what he wanted. He didn't want her to be civil and nice. He wanted her to be what she had been. He wanted her to be the person he cared about.
One day, not too long after his second arrival, she sat down next to him as he was eating. She smiled and he almost told her. He almost asked why she wasn't exactly who she had been…and couldn't she be again? Instead, he said, "You've changed."
She smiled again. "Have I? Maybe you've changed, too."
He swallowed his food and replied, "I don't change."
She was still smiling when she leaned forward and ran a naked finger down his cheek. "Everything changes, Logan."
There were subtle - and not so subtle - hints that she was interested in him. Interested in being more than his friend. She was still flirting, but she'd gotten better at it. More adept. Like maybe she'd had practice. When she looked and talked to him, there was something in her eyes - a twinkle of mischievousness, a sparkle of temptation. She'd stroll up to him and wrap her arm around his, sit as closely as possible when he was watching television. He should have been uncomfortable with her attentions. He should have dismissed her. But he was entranced. He observed her and every day she became more and more what he had envisaged when he'd first met her. She had become what he had expected… and she was still the same person he could care about.
He took her to dinner. He let her clothe him, so he was in a nice suit and shoes. She was wearing a red dress. During the main course, she asked, "Is this a date?"
"Is that what you want?"
"Sure, that'd be nice."
He nodded and went back to his steak. "Okay."
They skipped dessert and went back to the mansion. Instead of parting ways they both entered his room.
They were silent as he closed the door behind them. Then he heard her laugh. "I don't always put out on the first date," she said.
"When do you?"
A brief pause. "Never."
He pushed her up against the wall almost violently, pressing his body as close to hers as possible. He felt her tremble in response and it was almost enough to make him want to pull back. Almost.
"This is what it's like?" he heard her whisper shakily. His mouth was on the base of her neck, his hands searching, finding fastenings, and undoing them. He went for the skin. He didn't answer her question. He didn't have to.
His hands found bare flesh and he sighed roughly. That he had touched skin before was a given. But he had never touched hers - not like this. He ran his fingers up and down her back, tracing the line of her spine, the curve. She was clutching at his waist, waiting. He found his voice. "You scared?" he murmured, the sound barely above a whisper.
She didn't answer his question either. She just kept her hold on him, squeezing his arm, pulling at the fabric of his shirt. He was still right up against her, almost no space separating them at all. The room was dark except for a tiny stream of light filtering underneath the closed door. No sound, except their heavy breathes.
Her dress was open from the back and all he had to do was pull it forward, off her arms, and down. She stood completely still as he did. He knelt down and pulled each heal off her feet, too, taking the opportunity to caress her legs through her stockings. A few tugs and those were off as well.
When she was left standing in her underwear, he moved back up her body, enveloping her in his embrace. His mouth was on her face - her cheeks, her nose, her forehead, her chin... His hands - his hands were everywhere. He was touching her stomach, running smooth fingers up her torso - over her ribs and to her breasts. He watched as she leaned her head back against the wall. She kept her hands on his forearms. She squeezed them, maybe to let him know she was still there with him, still feeling - feeling too much. He pulled one cup down, exposing her bare breast to him. His hand massaged, tugged at the soft skin. She was gasping for air. He was still kissing her face but not her mouth so she had to turn her head, find his lips in the dark. Jesus, he'd never kissed her before, wasn't prepared for the urgency with which he responded to his mouth on hers. His lips were slanting across hers, his mouth wet, tongue greedy. Tearing away, she said, "Less" before he was on her again. This time, he had moved down to her breast, sucking it into the heat of his mouth. His teeth scraped against a nipple and he heard her moan softly, the sound so inadvertent and strange, he barely recognized her voice in it.
He was tasting her, tasting as much as possible, because she was there and available and his… and he remembered. He heard the sound she made, felt the tensing in her body, and reveled in it. It made him want to take more of her, swallow her whole if possible. Her hands were finally moving of their own accord. She had wrapped one hand through his hair, not pulling or pushing - just holding him in place. Her other hand had moved from the back of his neck, down beneath his shirt. She was pulling on the skin of his back. He'd had enough of her bra and reached behind her, finding the clasps and undoing them, tossing the garment to some darkened corner. "You're still dressed," he heard, her voice high and tremulous. Saying nothing, he moved back enough to pull is shirt over his head. He tossed it the way of her bra and moved to unfasten his slacks, setting his fly open in one swift motion. The slacks and his underwear were pulled off as one. "There," he said. "Not dressed."
He moved against her again, hard and insistent; it was exciting and frightening at once. His mouth was on her earlobe, biting and licking, when he moved a hand between her thighs. He started caressing her, over her underwear, and he felt dizzy. His mouth was dry and sounds were coming from deep within his throat. His hand moved beneath the elastic and one finger found her, slick and hot with desire. He couldn't breathe. He could hear her struggling for breathe as well. He lifted her, half-carried, half-walked her to the bed and he was on her - on top of her and ridding himself of that last piece of clothing. His hands were on her thighs, moving them apart, then on her backside, pulling her hips up to meet his. Kissing her lips, he pushed inside. She squeezed her thighs together, nearly pushing him off. The word "Shit" rolled off her tongue, just as a tear threatened to slip down her face. He stopped moving.
"Sorry," she muttered. "It hurt."
"Yeah," he replied. He wasn't moving. "Tell me when, okay."
"When?" He was shaking above her, holding himself at arms distance, connected only at the one juncture. "I don't know what to do," she told him. "Do I do something?"
"Shh." He dropped down onto his elbows, so that his face hovered above hers and he could feel her breath on his lips and her breasts brushing against his chest. He placed a brief kiss on the corner of her mouth as he began moving his hips slowly.
He closed his eyes when he couldn't decipher the look in hers. He thought of her as she had been the first time, in his camper - young, a little scared, but determined. He remembered her as she'd seen him off, asking him not to go. Would she be different, he wondered, if I had stayed?
Everything changes.
He opened his eyes to find her staring back up at him - her eyes that deep brown he knew he remembered. They were the same. They would always be the same. "I love you, Logan," she whispered.
That, then, was the look. The look he couldn't make out, didn't know how to register.
Leaning down, he placed his face in the crook of her neck. He began to move inside of her again, waiting for the end.
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Author's Chapter Notes:
A purdah is (was?) a silk screen used in India to keep women hidden from the sight of men, strangers. I kept this story filed under "unsmutty smut". You've been warned.