She's not sleeping.
I haven't called her on it yet, but I've noticed. Six days in and I doubt she's gotten more than ten hours of sleep throughout; she gets up each morning and moves like she's underwater, like she's having to fight a force stronger than herself. Her eyes were fever-bright the first couple of days and she trembled with a sort of manic energy, but now she just looks dull and wasted, her fatigue showing like bruises under her eyes. She barely talks to me, and when she does, her voice is listless and weak.
She's so fucking exhausted I'm damn near tempted to knock her out myself, and she's not acknowledging any of it. Not complaining, not whining, not even *saying* that the twenty miles a day we have to walk is too much for her.
It is. We only made twelve yesterday, and the day before, but I didn't tell her that. I didn't tell that I could cover more ground carrying her, even if she kicked and screamed.
Not that she'd have the energy to fight me for long. It's an idea, at the very least.
I have to wonder if she thinks she has me fooled, what with actually being asleep by morning every day. But I wake up several times a night, on instinct, taking note of our surroundings with just a few seconds of conscious attention, and she's usually still awake. Her breathing, uneven and shallow, is a giveaway.
Every time I look at her, I wish for some fucking sedatives.
We build a fire when we stop for the night; it's bitterly cold and she can't handle it anymore, even with her layered sweaters. She looks like she's vibrating, she's shaking so hard, and the chattering of her teeth is giving me a headache, so I say fuck it all and build up a fire large enough to put off plenty of warmth.
It works well enough. She sits near it for a long time, silent and still, hugging her knees and staring at the flames. "We're not gonna make it," she finally says.
I frown and shove a tin of soup at her. "Don't be ridiculous."
"I'm not." She looks straight at me, her eyes lazy and shadowed. "I've been paying attention, Logan. We're not covering enough ground, and it's my fault. You should leave me here, come back for me. You can travel fast enough to make up for the time I've cost us."
"Eat your fucking soup," I snap at her. "I don't want to hear that kind of shit anymore. You know it's not an option."
It's not; the whole reason we're doing this is that it's too much of a risk to bring the jet in. But she's right about the rest, and we both know it. I can cover forty miles a day easily and sustain it for as long as necessary, assuming nothing goes wrong; when we were planning this mission we cut it to twenty to account for her long-term endured pace and any potential delays. And even that left some room for maneuvering, but not enough to make our actual pace acceptable.
Ordinarily I wouldn't hesitate to agree with her. *Ordinarily* I would have yelled at her at least four days ago, gotten to the bottom of whatever the fuck is going on and gotten the mission back on track. Ordinarily we never would have gotten to this point, where she's talking about staying behind and I'm biting my tongue and trying to figure out how the hell to verbally tap-dance around the elephant in the forest, so to speak.
But nothing is ordinary right now. She's not talking to me like she usually does, and I'm not speaking my mind like I usually do. I haven't the slightest fucking idea of what's going on, or even why I'm so goddamn hesitant to deal with it, and that's pissing me off as much as anything else.
"We can still make it if we really push it from now on," I finally tell her, and I watch with approval as she drinks down her soup and then tears open a power bar without being told. "Are you going to be up to that?"
She chews slowly, staring at the fire again. "Maybe. But if I'm not, you will have to leave me. You have to make the rendezvous, Logan. That's more important than me."
She's right again, but I don't actually give a damn. "We'll talk about it in the morning," I say, and when she just nods I start seriously contemplating the idea of punching her lights out and carrying her the rest of the way.
The thing is, everything about this went wrong long before the mission ever existed. It went wrong, I think, right around the time I decided Marie had as much a right to be on the team as anyone else, and acted accordingly. The only way I ever treated her differently was in making sure she never went fucking anywhere without me -- and making sure Summers knew how serious I was about that.
So when this came up, there was never any question about how it was going to be. I was the only one who stood a chance of completing this leg of it and it was too risky to take in more than one other person --who I needed for backup, anyway -- so it wound up being me and Marie, dropped off with a two week schedule of border-crossing and intel-gathering.
And it went great -- until we did what we came to do and then Marie suddenly fell apart on me. It was that it went so slowly that caught me off guard; first I thought it was just a bad night, and then suddenly it was two, and I was worried but gave it another night, and then I apparently turned into the biggest fucking moron ever because I got stuck in a cycle of not saying anything, and Marie just kept getting worse.
I shouldn't be surprised, though. When it comes to Marie, the burden of keeping our friendship vibrant has always been on her; I've never been much good at anything other than keeping her alive. And while those are definitely the stakes right now, there's something different.
I need to talk to her.
I just don't know how.
When she finishes eating, she gets up without a word and goes to lie down, unlacing her sturdy boots and toeing them off just before stepping onto our sleeping bag. We have just a single bag with us, large enough to fit us both comfortably. It's more a matter of dealing with reality than trying to be practical; the nights are so cold that we're better off combining body heat. So every night we stretch out together in those close confines, and I won't deny that there's an appeal to having an excuse to keep her close for hours, to draping my arm over her and holding her against me with no interruptions, no awkwardness.
But she's been tense lately, and tonight is no different. I put out the fire and join her, both because she needs the heat and there's nothing else to do, and she trembles slightly until warmth sets in and her last chills fade away. Even then she's rigid for a long time. I'm about to say something about it -- what, I don't know -- when she rolls over to face me suddenly, and she touches my shoulder, her fingers spreading across my shirt. "I can't sleep," she whispers. Her hand presses down a little, clutches at me, and I tighten my arm around her waist, keeping her close against my warmth.
"I know." I'm trying to figure out how to have this conversation without yelling at her -- because she's finally fucking *admitting* it and I don't want to waste that -- when she leans in and presses her lips to mine. Soft and tentative, but bold enough to move a little in several fast kisses that keep catching my lower lip and pulling on it. "Marie," I mumble, knowing I have to stop this before it gets to be too much to stop.
It's a damn close thing already.
"Shut up," she mumbles against my mouth, and kisses me harder. She tilts her head for angle and when she licks delicately at my lips I can't do it anymore, can't *not* do it. I push forward and press her back down onto her back, against the unforgiving hardness of the ground, and there's nothing nice about the way I slant our mouths together and sweep my tongue against hers. She gets her arms around me, hands splayed and moving across my back, and she pulls and I know, I fucking know, that I can't do this. Not with her, not *to* her.
But then she pulls some more and she tastes so fucking good, slightly stale from too many days roughing it, heady and strong and rich, and I'm going to regret this later but I don't fight it anymore. I shift on top of her and settle into the juncture of her thighs, and she immediately starts fumbling with my jeans, her knuckles brushing cold and dry across my stomach. When she gets them open, she turns her face away and says, her breathing fast and unsteady, "I'm asking you for this, Logan. Please."
I have to wonder if she's always known it would be as easy as that. I've kept a long list of reasons at the ready, reasons I shouldn't touch her, shouldn't do everything I've wanted since the day I looked at her and realized she'd finished growing up when I wasn't paying attention. Reasons like: grown up doesn't mean old enough. And: she deserves better. And: you'll wind up hurting her.
But all those reasons hinged on the uneasy truce I figured we had: I didn't neglect our odd relationship, and she didn't ask for anything more. We never said as much to each other, but I thought she might be as fiercely protective of what we had as I was.
And sex would fuck it all up. I've known it all along and I *still* know it, but she's gone and broken the rules and I can't -- I never kidded myself that I'd be able to say no.
From the day I met her, I haven't been able to do that. This is no different.
So I struggle to get out of my jeans without getting up and letting too much cold air into the cocoon of the sleeping bag, Marie helping even as I press my face to her neck and suck at her skin. She cleaned up earlier with a wet rag, like she's done every night, but there's still the slight tang of dirt and sweat, a sharp, bitterly sweet taste that I lap up because jesus fuck, it's her no matter what, and I've wanted and I've wanted and I've stopped myself, but it's no fucking use anymore.
I can't get enough of her. I always knew I wouldn't be able to, if it came to this.
Once I'm in the last stages of kicking my jeans off, crumpling them into a wadded ball at the foot of our sleeping bag, Marie starts in on her own, undoing the button and zipper and wriggling around under me. I shift to the side long enough for her to shimmy them off, but only that long; as soon as I can I wedge myself back between her legs, and Christ, but the feel of her bare thighs, coming up and wrapping around me --
I'll hate myself for it later, I know, but right now I've got to be in her. I reach down and guide myself into position, and two hard thrusts get me all the way in.
She winces slightly, but she's no virgin. I have no idea who it was; she had this new confidence about her once when I came back to the mansion after some time away, a different sway to her hips and a charged glint in her eyes when she looked at me, and I knew she'd finally made use of her control but didn't know with whom. It's probably the best-kept secret in the joint -- she wasn't seeing anyone, and she never has told me who it was. I think she knew I wouldn't be able to help but hold it against him -- that he took what I wasn't willing to have.
I couldn't care less now. Her face clears quickly as she adjusts to me, and then she slides her hands under my shirt to caress my back and urge me silently to move. As if I need urging; it's all I can manage not to fuck her senseless, not to hurt her by giving in to the rush of instinct and need and *want* that's overcome me. As it is I'm not all that careful: I take her harder than I should, fast and forceful, and I only hold off long enough to shove a hand between us and get her off as quickly as I can. Then the clench of her thighs, the bite of her nails, the spasming of her body around me -- it's too much and I kiss her hard as I come, slamming into her one last time and groaning into her mouth.
It's too soon that my brain starts working again, that I start contemplating all the reasons I shouldn't be softening inside her, why I shouldn't be indulging in wet, lewd, *lazy* kisses as if we hadn't a care in the world. But I also realize that this seems to be what she wants; she's tangled her fingers in my hair and is keeping her mouth hungrily locked on mine, is sucking greedily on my tongue and keeping her legs twisted around my waist.
Some part of me, a big enough part, doesn't want to ruin this. For her or for me, though, I'm not really sure.
So I go with it, until she loosens her grip and lets me go. As I pull out of her she grimaces, and reaches over to her pack to find a cloth to clean up with. Once she's done, she rolls onto her side without a word, burrowing up against me with her arm slung across my waist and her head resting on my chest, and I've never been as sure of anything in my life as I am of the fact that I'm completely, utterly screwed.
I can't not be, not with the way I automatically wrap my arms around her and resent the thought of ever letting her go.
I'm so caught up in my thoughts that it takes me a while to realize that she's gone to sleep. She stays like that all through the night, and when I wake up in the morning I let her sleep longer than I should, until the sun has actually risen. I tell myself it's only because she needs it, even as I refuse to even try to disentangle myself and get up.
When I do finally wake her up, she lifts her head and peers around blearily. Then she mumbles, "Coffee," and rolls over, away from me, and goes right back to sleep. I just grin and let it go; she's rumpled and her eyes are crusty from sleep, but in that brief moment I can see that the rest has done her a world of good.
Sure enough, she sits up on her own while I'm heating water on our tiny gas stove. "Hi," she says, sounding grumpy. She's never been much of a morning person; a little attitude is a welcome change from the zombie I've been dealing with the past few days. She rubs at her eyes and then blinks at me. "Sun's up."
"Yeah." I mix in instant coffee, making it strong. "We're getting a late start, but it's fine. That is, assuming you're up to making time today."
She gazes at me for a long moment, then nods once. "Yeah, I think I am." Yawning, she starts making the right moves towards getting up, getting dressed, breaking down all traces of our presence here. "You have any idea where we are?"
"Thirty miles from the rendezvous. We've got forty hours to make it," I tell her evenly. "Manageable?"
She nods again, reaching to sweep her hair up and bind it into place high on her head. "I'll be fine, I promise." She comes over and accepts the cup of coffee I hold out, and even though it's chilling rapidly in the cold air, I'm impressed by how fast she drinks it. "Thanks," she says quietly, and when I cut off the stove and stand up, she touches my arm. "Logan...I mean it. Thank you."
"Don't," I snap. There's no fucking way on earth I want gratitude for breaking every promise I ever made where she's concerned. But she looks at me evenly, and then steps closer and slides her hand up to curl around the back of my neck, and she pulls me down and kisses me firmly.
"When we get back," she says quietly, when she finally lets me go, "I want you to let me into your bed. I want to make it smell like me. Think about that, okay?"
She turns away and goes to finish packing before I can react; it's just as well, since it's all I can do to keep from grabbing her and going at it again right there.
I'm so fucking screwed.
We make good time all morning and I stop worrying quite so much, and we stop at midday to catch our breath -- to let her catch her breath -- and eat. After she finishes her power bar and gulps down the water I've measured out for her, she crawls into my lap before I can stop her and catches my mouth. I want to kill her, just a little bit; she rubs against me and kisses like she means to start something, and I know she knows we don't have time.
But then she presses me down on my back and opens my jeans with more dexterity than the night before, and I think about killing *myself* when she scoots down and takes me in her mouth. And then I change my mind: I need to find out exactly who she's been fucking around with and kill *him*. Slowly. Because there's no way she learned this all at once and some little shit has had more of her than I have, has done things with her I haven't.
It's not fair of me, but I don't give a damn. I haven't been admitting it, but she's mine. She always has been, and she's making it pretty damn clear that she intends always *to* be. And if she's going to do this, if she's going to cross this line and pin me down and work me over, I'm going to cross some lines of my own..
I'm going to be a possessive son-of-a-bitch. I figure she's got to know what she's in for, anyway; she still shows an uncanny memory, sometimes, of what it's like in my head. Surely, I think, she knows what's she's doing.
I don't really want to consider the alternative. Not when she's curling her tongue around me and swallowing easily as I come with a strained groan, not when she's lifting her head and smiling a lazy, killer smile that probably could have gotten me to do this a long time ago, had she ever flashed it in just this way. She tucks me back into my jeans and zips them carefully, and then crawls up to kiss me with my own taste on her tongue. "We should get moving," she finally says softly, and dips her head to nip at my ear. "I want to be able to stop at nightfall."
Which is what we do, after making it even farther than I thought we would. We actually have the luxury of time, even after all the delays; we'll be able to practically stroll the final few miles tomorrow.
And I fuck her again that night, fast and hard and desperate, near-awkward rutting in the confines of our sleeping bag. She goes straight to sleep again, curled against me, and as much as the thought makes me uneasy, nothing has ever felt so right as this.
I jolt awake in the middle of the night, and she stirs when I shift slightly. "Something there?" she murmurs sleepily. When I reassure her she mumbles something against my chest, and I think she's nodding off again until her hand slides down my stomach and coaxes me quickly to hardness. She slides a leg over me and sighs softly as she takes me in slowly; I grip her hips and guide her motions but let her keep most of the control, and she rocks down against me lazily. She eventually goes still except for roaming, suckling kisses across my neck, and I wrap my arms around her in a vice grip and hold her in place as I thrust up, over and over again, grunting helplessly each time I slam home. She presses her face into my neck as I come and goes limp on top of me, and goes back to sleep just like that, so that I have to carefully pull out and settle her back beside me.
And Christ, but again in the morning; she wakes me up by scraping her teeth across my chest, and she grins in triumph when I roll on top of her and get both of our days off to a good start.
Over breakfast, she gazes off into the distance and smiles slightly. "Tonight," she says, "I'm going to take the longest shower of my life. And then I'm gonna take a bath, just for good measure."
I watch her fondly and put some more water on to heat; we have time and plenty of gas left, and I figure we could both do with more coffee. "You'll turn into a prune."
She glances at me, a teasing glint in her eye. "You care?" I shake my head, suddenly thinking of her skin, scrubbed clean and water-soft, exuding the familiar smells of her soaps and lotions, and she laughs as I swallow hard. "All right, then," she says decisively. "After that, I think I'm going to come find you."
"Yeah?"
"Yup." She looks off at the horizon again. "I'm going to come find you, and you're going to take me to bed, and we're going to fuck all night. You okay with that?"
I stare at her, startled by her frank boldness. "What if I'm not?"
She shrugs. "Then I'll have had this, at least, out here. That's something."
"But not everything."
"Not enough." She looks straight at me. "I'm done, Logan. No more hiding. You've seen me at my worst out here, and I -- I'm sick of pretending about everything. I'm telling you how it is for me, full stop. If that's not...if this isn't what you want, fine. I'll deal with it. But it's time to face up to things now."
I finish up the coffee and pour it, and start packing up. "Do those things include what the hell has been going on with you?"
She's silent for a long time, just sipping at her coffee. "There was a guard at the facility," she finally says. "He was heading your way and hadn't seen me...I turned on my skin and dropped him. Seemed like there was at least a chance of it seeming like there was just something wrong with him, like he just collapsed. I took a lot, too; there's no way he's woken up yet to say otherwise."
I stop everything and stare at her, anger rising for about a million different reasons. "Jesus fucking *Christ*, Marie," I snap, and she flinches at my tone, "why didn't you tell me this when it happened?"
She bows her head. "I wasn't finished. There's no way he's woken up yet -- if he even survived. I'm not sure I didn't take too much."
Fuck. *Fuck*.
For all that she is a mutant, and dedicated to what we do, Marie hates her skin. I've known that from the beginning, and I was the only one who silently accepted her decisions once she got it under control. She went a little crazy then; she threw herself with undisguised obsession into making her body a different sort of weapon, making herself strong enough and capable enough to compensate for her determination to never, ever use her mutation.
I understood that. So while Xavier and the rest had their concerns about her self-image and all that other fluffy crap, I just made her swear up and down to turn it on for me if she ever got hurt, and then set about helping her become what she wanted.
And she did it; she's fucking deadly, a bundle of honed muscle and every filthy trick I knew to teach her, and she's proven more than once that she's capable of holding her own against me if I keep things fair by holding the claws in check. She had to do it that way -- there was no way in hell I'd put up with her being out in the field if I didn't know she could take care of herself without her skin as a weapon.
But this -- I get why she did it. I do. This mission is important, and if an alarm had been raised by our presence at the facility, we wouldn't have stood much of a chance of making it this far. We'd have been found by now, and we'd be dead.
So she probably saved both our lives, but that doesn't stop me from being pissed. Because she should have told me when it happened, and she sure as hell should have told me when it caused her problems. When it kept her awake, left her wondering if she'd killed a man, drove her to the verge of collapse and pushed her into laying everything in her life bare.
She should have told me because that's who we are and what we do; she should have told me because telling me everything has always been a big part of what sets her apart from everyone else. What makes her special.
What makes her *mine*.
Instead of yelling at her, though, as tempting as that is, I go and crouch next to her. "What made you think this...thing, with me, would help you sleep?"
And she looks up at me, her eyes wet and shining, and laughs shortly. "I didn't. I just thought I'd already screwed everything up and if we weren't going to make it out -- I wanted you. Thought I might as well do something about *that* regret, at the very least. And now we're gonna make it after all, but it's done and -- and I'm not gonna go back to the same old lie, Logan. I could do it when we'd never put it out there, but..."
"Yeah." I sigh and reach to rub the back of her neck gently, and she bows her head again under the pressure of my hand. "Look, here's how it's gonna be when we report. You took out the guard, yeah. But the rest -- didn't happen. We made decent time the entire way and you're tired but you're *fine*, and everything else went according to plan."
"What about me and you?"
Yeah, what about us. "You ever pull this kind of shit again, I'll make you fucking sorry, Marie, don't think I won't. You have to let me protect you; that's the deal. You know that." She turns her head a little, slants her eyes to watch me warily. "And you know exactly where you can find me, whenever you've run out of hot water."
I hear her breath catch in her throat, and then she lifts her head and stares at me, her eyes full of this awful, hesitant fear. "Logan...don't. Not if you're not -- do you get what I'm saying?"
"Well, you're not actually saying it, darlin', but yeah." I tighten my hand on her neck and tug her forward, and she shifts awkwardly to her knees. I pull her in, between my bent legs, and I slide my hand up into her messy, dirty hair and hold her still so that I can try to kiss her worries away. "There's part of me wishes you hadn't done this," I tell her at last, when I let her loose enough to catch her breath. Because I do get what she's trying to say: she needs me to be honest, and I'm going to be, even if she won't like every word she hears. She blinks at me and waits. "You're...fuck, Marie, you're you. This wasn't supposed to happen."
"I know," she says softly. "I mean, I knew you felt like that; it's why I never did anything for so long. I wanted...I wanted to let us be however you wanted. I thought it might be one of those things where you've got to just go with the lowest common denominator...It wasn't hard, just being your friend. That was worth ignoring everything else, always. Still would've been, if I hadn't screwed everything up out here. I don't want you to think I was ever unhappy with --"
"Hey." I kiss her again, and let my lips trail across her jaw. "Looks like that's just how it is with us. Didn't I have to stab you before we actually got to be friends?"
And she laughs and presses her face into my neck. "Failure precipitates change, I guess," she mumbles. "We're a couple of losers, you know that?"
"Yeah," I mutter into her hair, "I'm starting to figure that out."
For all the worrying, everything goes smoothly after that. We make it to the rendezvous point with time to spare, and within hours of our pick-up, we're back at the mansion and reporting in -- with the slightly edited version -- to Xavier.
And then Marie disappears, and I head up to my room to shower and try not to think about what everything means. It's a losing battle, though; things have changed and it scares the hell out of me, but in the end I figure that this is just where we are. I've made her promises, tons of them spoken aloud over the years and at least a few implied today, and I never have been able to break my word to her.
So when she knocks softly and lets herself in, I've come to a point of determination. I'm going to be good for her. To her.
For tonight and however long she wants.
And I can't help but be amused by the sight of her, and pleased. Her hair is combed out but still wet all the way through, and she's bundled up in her practical winter pajamas -- a clinging tank top with a sweatshirt over it, sleeves pushed up to her elbows, and drawstring flannel pants that are absolutely huge on her, bunched up where she had to cinch the waist tight. She closes my door and leans back against it, chewing her lower lip as she watches me thoughtfully. "Hi," she says simply, and smiles at me slowly. "You don't mind that I didn't make myself all pretty, do you?"
I shake my head; I really, really don't. I wouldn't mind seeing her in any variety of slinky things, of course, but right now -- right now she just looks like Marie, like the girl who likes to spend Sunday afternoons watching movies with her head resting on my leg, who I trust with my life and every secret in my head, who's always been as risky and attractive to me as a flame is to a moth.
She looks fucking perfect, and I think she knows it. Her smile gets sly, and she pushes away from the door to shuffle towards me. "I thought about it, though," she adds. "I have a few things I think you'd like."
"Do you now."
"Mm-hmm." She stops in front of me and fiddles with the zipper on her sweatshirt. "But know what I realized?"
"What's that?" I growl. I'm itching to reach out and yank her to me, but I want to wait and see what she has in mind.
What she has in mind is to smirk at me. "Just that it's a little cold for stuff so...revealing."
And then she's laughing as I give up and grab her, lying back fast and rolling to get her under me. I shove one of my knees between hers and roll my hips against her, and I love the way her body tenses and shivers. "I could turn up the thermostat," I murmur, and lean in to mouth gently her neck.
She sucks in a shaky breath. "N-not quite the same. You'll just have to wait for summer."
"Yeah?" I find the hem of her shirt and slide the fingers of one hand under it, just barely grazing her stomach. "Yeah, okay."
"Okay?"
"Okay," I repeat. I push up and sit back on my heels, and I grab handfuls of her sweatshirt to pull her up as well. When she's up, gazing at me with her head tilted back, I push the thick gray cotton off her shoulder and down her arms to where the sleeves catch in the hooks of her elbows. "See, all this takes longer to get off."
She licks her lips, and for a moment they're wet and shiny and still, slightly parted. *Inviting*. "That's a good thing?" she teases lightly.
"Mmm." With one hand I cup the back of her neck and lean down to kiss her deeply; her tongue meets mine readily and she moans softly into my mouth, making me groan in response. "I'm gonna have to teach you to appreciate anticipation," I mutter against her cheek, and her jaw, and the soft skin under her ear. I find her wrist with my free hand, and guide her hand up my thigh to my groin. I'm only wearing sweatpants and the material gives easily, letting her curl her palm up to lightly squeeze and rub. "*Jesus*."
She suddenly lets go and eases back slightly, smirking. "Anticipation, huh? I never thought of you as a remarkably patient guy."
"Not patience." I pull her arms, one by one, out of the sleeves. "Just being aware of the value of rationing."
"But you're not going to run out of me."
"I better fucking not," I mutter, and pull her tiny scrap of a shirt up and off. I shift a little to straddle both of her legs and sit on them. "Still, haven't I taught you about planning for every contingency?"
She has some smart-aleck answer for me, I'm sure of it. But I push on her shoulders and make her lie back again, and whatever she's about to say can't compete with her shuddering gasp for air when I dip my head down and lick a long stripe, from the damp curve under one breast to her nipple. It tightens up in my mouth and I suck hard, and it makes her arch her back and bury her hands in my hair, trying to hold me there.
I'm happy enough to comply for awhile, trust me on that. I switch back and forth readily enough, giving each breast plenty of attention, but I stop when she wriggles between my legs. "You're interrupting," I tell her dryly, lifting my head to look at her.
She laughs even as she reaches brazenly for the waistband of my sweatpants. "Sorry," she says insincerely, breathlessly. "I'll let the three of you get back to it a little later. Right now..."
"Right now *what*?"
She snakes her hand into my pants and gets herself a good grip. Flicking her thumb over the head of my cock, she smirks and then outright grins as my hips jerk involuntarily. "I want to suck you. Right now."
Jesus *fucking*...I don't know if I want to kill her little boyfriend or thank him profusely. I close my eyes for a second and somehow find the will to carefully pull her hand away, then shake my head. "No."
"*No*?"
If I weren't so goddamn painfully hard right now, I would let her. I lift up and sit back on my heels again, and slowly pull on the tie of her pants. Her breasts lift and her stomach draws in as she sucks in a sharp breath, and I press my hands to the base of her ribcage and drag them down, across her belly, finally angling to catch her waistband with my thumbs. I expect to catch some elastic, too, but I don't and she wiggles her eyebrows at me before winking saucily.
And that's pretty much it, the end of my rope. I crawl back in a hurry, off of her and the bed, yanking those pants along as I go and knocking her slippers off in the process. "No," I finally reply. "Absolutely not, no way, dream on, not a fucking chance."
She puts on the fakest pout I've ever seen, even as her eyes fix on me, sparkling and bright, as I get rid of my sweatpants. "But I *want* to," she whines. She pushes up and leans back on her elbows. "You're a guy, dammit. You're not allowed to say no to that!"
"Guess again, baby," I mutter and kneel on the bed again, between her knees this time. "I'm definitely allowed. Special circumstances and all."
"Oh yeah? Like what?"
"Like," I say, and grab one of her ankles to pull her leg up, extended in front of me, "it being my turn."
She shuts up at that, flopping back down even as I kiss the bottom of her foot and lightly mouth the delicate skin of the arch. Her leg tenses in my grip, shaking slightly. "That -- tickles," she hisses, and I see her fingers dig into the blanket on either side of her. I chuckle and work her nerves some more on purpose before moving along to her ankle, licking along her Achilles' tendon, catching the back of her calf in a gentle bite. I push her leg further back as I go so that I can get to the sensitive spot behind her knee, and along her inner thigh, and at the same time I push her other leg out with my free hand, moving it aside.
By the time I'm bent over her and licking at the silk-smooth skin in the crease of her thigh, she's breathing hard and shivering, eager for it. I can't help but smile against her; this is turning out far too easy. Serves her right, though, trying so brazenly to get the upper hand with me. Not that I haven't enjoyed being led around by her the past couple of days, worry and confusion aside, but I figure it's time to remind her -- or teach her, if she doesn't get it already -- exactly who and what she's in for. Time to show her the real deal, instead of whatever's been fueling her imagination for years.
She gasps loudly when I finally let go of her leg and flick my tongue over her clit, and I realize suddenly how quiet she's been during sex. The most noise I've heard her make is from breathing more heavily, and I resolve to coax out the sounds I know she must be holding in. No hardship for me, anyway; she tastes fucking amazing, initially almost *too* clean and neutral but getting wetter and headier the longer I lick and suck at her, and I'm all too happy to use every trick I know to work her into a frenzy and keep her there.
It works. She's breathing in hitching gasps and her hips are moving restlessly, rhythmically, and when I caress her legs the muscles are taut and trembling under my hands. Every breath starts carrying a mewling, pleading sound, and then she starts babbling, *begging* me to let her come. I finally slide two fingers into her and pump them in and out for a few seconds, then apply more pressure in upward strokes, and *there* is what I want to hear. Her cries are sharp and loud, in tempo to the twitching jerks of her body as she comes, and only when she settles down and starts to relax, quiet again, do I start slowly licking my way up her body.
"I hate you," she mumbles when I reach her neck, which I suck hard, not caring about leaving marks. I don't give a damn if I do, or if anyone sees them, or if they know exactly how they got there. I *want* to mark her, make sure everyone, including her, understands that I'm finally laying claim.
I should have done it a long time ago. I get that now.
"Not nice," I mutter against her skin. She just laughs a little and winds her legs around my hips, and with a little prodding I'm sliding slowly into her. She's all slick heat and grasping muscles, and five deep strokes is all I can take. She holds me there again, like the first night, and she cups my face in her hands to guide me to kiss her. Deep and urgent and weirdly sweet, a kind of kiss that I'm not actually used to because it's drawn out and charged with emotion.
And when her hands start to roam across my skin I get hard again, and just keep kissing her as I fuck her slowly this time, torturing us both with my tightly controlled pace. With her legs high around my hips and her arms around me, and her tongue sliding hungrily against mine, I have to wonder how I ever managed *not* to do this.
And then I just have to admit that I'd been an idiot, because she tears her mouth away and kisses her way across my jaw to my ear and whispers, "I've loved you forever," and there's only one response to that, whatever the words I use.
"I know," I tell her, lifting my head to gaze down at her. She looks content and relaxed, her face flushed and her hair drying in thick waves, and I can barely fucking deal with the realization that I could have been making her this happy for years. I could have been the only one ever to have her like this, could have been what she wanted me to be, and it would have been okay. "Sorry about being so slow on the uptake," I add, and kiss her softly, "but me, too."
She blinks at me, looking startled, and I hate knowing that I made all these assumptions and guesses about what she knew, didn't know, wanted and decided, and I was wrong about a lot of them. She should have known; I should have let her know. I should have taken better care of her, and her feelings.
I can't go back and fix it. The most I can do is do it right from now on. I lean and suck gently on her earlobe, and I mutter, "love you," into her ear. "You're why I've stayed here so long, you get that?"
Her cheek bumps my face as she shakes her head rapidly, and I can tell from a tiny wheeze in her breath that she's starting to cry. I hesitate for a second, then roll us onto our sides and get my arms around her, hold her against my chest and rub her back as I continue to rock into her. "This okay?" I ask, feeling her leg pinned beneath me, and she nods, her eyes closed against tears but her lashes still shining and wet. "I love you," I tell her again, and she squeezes her eyes shut tighter. "I'm an idiot, thought this wasn't a good idea. I thought I'd wind up hurting you, but...I did that anyway, didn't I?"
Her eyes fly open. "No! Logan, I told you, it was okay --"
"No, it wasn't. Not if you're so fucking freaked out by the truth."
"I'm not," she whispers. "I mean...I am, but I knew, you know? I always figured, but -- I didn't expect this. Any of this, and hearing it out loud -- I couldn't hope for it. That's what would have hurt, if I let myself think...and then if I was wrong. "
"You weren't wrong," I tell her, my voice coming out rougher than I intend. "Marie...tell me what happened out there, with the guard."
"What?"
"Just tell me. Exactly what happened."
She frowns at me, but I tighten my arms around her and wait. Finally, she sighs. "I saw him on his approach and waited -- I thought he might go the other way, and I could go get you and we could get out of there. But he headed straight for you, and he had a fucking radio, Logan, I could see it. And I just...I don't know. I didn't *think*. I just snuck up behind him and grabbed him by the neck, and...nobody's ever gone down that fast. It was like my skin was *starving* for it, you know?"
"You did good, Marie." I slide my hand down her side, and the curve of her thigh, pulling her leg higher over my waist; she tilts her hips helpfully and curves as close to me as she can, and starts brushing soft kisses across my lips. "He still up there?"
"Course he is," she mutters against my mouth. "But I think he must be alive. He's fading pretty fast now."
"Good." I bring my hand back up and tangle it in her hair, clutching a damp fistful and letting myself take a minute to explore her mouth and slide into her harder, faster, as best I can with the limited leverage I can get. "We gotta stop being so stubborn. It's okay to use your skin when you need to, got it? And it's okay to expect things from me."
Curling her calf around my back, she moves against me, her breath coming faster again. "What -- what about you? You said 'we'."
Just thinking about the answer does me in. I roll her onto her back again, letting her body pin my arms beneath her, and I press my face into her neck and let go, let my sudden urgency take over. Only when we're both shaking through the aftershocks do I move my lips to her ear and murmur, "S'okay for me to have this. I'm not gonna hurt you, not if I can help it."
"You're an idiot," she say gently, and when I ease off of her she moves automatically to curl up against me, in the curve of my arm. "That's exactly what you've always done."
I press a kiss against her hair and close my eyes. "Then here's to the end of idiocy."
**end**
The Wolverine & Rogue Fanfiction Archive
Barely Legal Since 2000
Author's Chapter Notes:
Title gakked from Veruca Salt.