The thing of it was he didn't think about her that way. Nope. Not at all.
Logan lusted after women like Jeannie -- the key word being "women." He lusted after *women,* not girls. Not even twenty-year-old girls in tight denim shorts who happened to be talking about bikinis.
"Don't you think so, Logan?" Marie asked.
He'd stumbled across her impromptu picnic-cum-drinking party by accident on his way back from a nice, long run. She was half-lying on a plaid blanket, her back against a particularly large boulder in the crumbling rock wall that edged the woods. She was also a little more than halfway into a bottle of amaretto she'd no doubt stolen from Jeannie, mixing the liquor and sour into a tumbler.
From her outfit, Logan knew immediately she'd expected to be alone out there in the cool evening. A plain cotton tank top that clung jealously to her curves and little pair of denim shorts was all she wore. A simple outfit, really. Shouldn't have even tweaked Logan's radar. But there she was, all long, lean limbs and happy laughter and pale, pale skin, and he was having trouble following the conversation.
Mostly because he had to keep reminding himself that he did not lust after twenty-year-old girls.
Not even twenty-year-old girls who looked up at him with such vibrant amusement and laughed at him.
"What?" he growled, a little irritated with her for displaying all that untouchable flesh. Not that she'd *meant* to display it, since she wouldn't have known he'd wander past and witness it. But still.
"A bikini," Marie repeated after her small giggling fit. "Wouldn't that just be delicious?"
Logan let himself enjoy the mental image of Rogue in a deep green barely there bikini for a moment. Delicious, yes.
No. No. Not delicious. Deliciously *sinful,* maybe.
"Why are we talking about bikinis?" Logan demanded, hoping that she was drunk enough to attribute the rough edges of his voice to irritation and not lust. Because he wasn't lusting after her -- she was a girl and he preferred women. End of story.
"Because I'm drunk," Marie answered, sounding disgruntled. He chanced a look and she was actually pouting at him. "I'm drunk and I'm so *sick* of these fucking things." She picked up the ever-present gloves and flung them into the trees.
"Marie?"
"Well, I am," she told him defiantly, all liquor-induced false bravado. "I'm sick to death of being bundled up like a damn mummy."
"I know," he murmured, watching her closely. She was drunk and upset and there wasn't a goddamn thing he could do to help.
Tears glittered in her eyes, but she blinked rapidly and gave him a wobbly smile. "You know what I wish?"
"What?"
She reached lazily for the tumbler and took a swig that would've done him proud. Well, would've done him proud if it had been tequila instead of amaretto and sour. "I wish I could move to Tahiti."
Logan's eyebrows shot up. "Tahiti?"
Marie swallowed another sizeable gulp and shrugged one shoulder. Logan's gaze strayed to her chest and he reminded himself that he did not lust after twenty-year-old girls, no matter how perfect their breasts were.
"Or somewhere like that."
Somewhere like -- huh? Logan forced his gaze back up to her face and breathed out a sigh of relief. Her eyes were closed. She hadn't caught him leering at her breasts. Now what was she -- oh. Tahiti. "Why Tahiti?"
"Because," she said, a faint smile on her lips, "I used to want to go north. I was so sick of the humidity and the heat. I'd see pictures of Northerners in their sweaters and scarves and mittens, cursin' and shovelin' snow. Seemed exotic."
Logan, who'd woken up naked in the snow with no memory and a set of metal claws, wasn't nearly as enchanted by frozen water. "Shoveling snow ain't much fun."
Marie's eyes slid open and she gave him a very large, very drunken smile. "I know that *now.*"
He found himself grinning back at her, dazzled by her. "You shouldn't have swiped Ororo's schnapps."
She stared blankly at him for a moment, until she remembered the incident a couple years earlier and the Ororo-made snowstorm that served as their punishment. "Was Jubilee's idea," she grumbled. "We needed it for the mint chocolate chip milkshakes."
Logan snorted. "Buy mint chocolate chip ice cream, darlin'."
"Oh, sure," Marie said to the rock next to her. "*Now* he has the bright ideas."
"I don't remember being asked before you and your idiot friends stole the schnapps, Marie," Logan pointed out reasonably.
Marie rolled her eyes at him. "Right. Like you'd wanna be involved in some girl talk."
"Not unless there's a slumber party involved," Logan shot back before he could stop himself. Damn. Shouldn't be using that playful tone with a twenty-year-old girl.
Shit. That twenty-year-old girl was studying him now, eyes wide and curious. "Logan," she drawled, drawing his name out in that melodious voice.
"Yeah?" God, he sounded strange. Almost strangled. He reached out and snagged her glass, taking a good, long pull of her drink.
Marie grinned at him, and took the tumbler back, turning the glass before she drank from the same place he had, holding his gaze the whole time. "I don't want to go north anymore."
Logan had some trouble recalling what the fuck she was talking about. "Okay," he said.
"I want to go south." She tilted her head, twirling a lock of white hair around one fingertip. "I want to go way down." A bubble of laughter, and then she added, "South."
Nope. No sexual innuendo there. None. Even if there were, it wouldn't matter, because she was twenty and he was not a pervert. "Uh-huh."
Marie closed her eyes and stretched that curvaceous body, drawing his appreciative gaze down, down, down to those legs. "To the islands," she continued dreamily, taking another sip and then frowning at the empty cup. "Somewhere hot and sweaty."
Logan snagged the tumbler from her hands and concentrated on fixing her another drink. That way he didn't have to come up with an answer. Or think about the words "hot and sweaty" dripping from Marie's very sexy lips.
No. Not sexy. Young.
With a dangerous smile, Marie accepted the full glass and held his gaze while she took another sip. "Mmmmm," she moaned. "This is good." She brought her free hand up to her mouth, licking a drip of condensation off the tip of one finger. Logan was pretty sure he made a strangled sort of groan, but she just smiled. "You know why?"
Why? Why what? "No." Seemed like a safe answer.
Marie leaned towards him, lowering her voice. "Because I'm sick of bein' covered up, Logan. I want to feel the sun on my skin."
The sun. On her skin. Perfectly reasonable. He thought he might have nodded in agreement.
Her grin was wicked as she added, "All of my skin."
Logan choked, jerking away from her as she collapsed into laughter. Fuck. The mental images -- God. Marie. Hot sun beating down on Marie's hot and sweaty body. Hot and sweaty and *naked* body.
No!
No, she's a girl.
"Marie," he said, hating the pleading note in his voice.
She half sat up, leaning her weight on one hand and slouching against the boulder. "I'm not kidding, Logan," she said, and while the drunken amusement lingered, he knew there was a real yearning behind her words. "I hate it. Do you know what nylon feels like in 90 degree weather? Or leather gloves over sweaty palms?"
"No."
Tears threatened again as she shrugged. "It sucks."
"I know."
"S'why I'm out here drinkin'," she admitted. "Gets too much sometimes."
"For me, too," he admitted quietly. Moments like these, with that dark, dangerous knowledge in her eyes, it was pointless to tell himself she was too young.
Marie nodded. "I know. That's why I told you." She closed her eyes again, sliding further down, curling up a little on the blanket. "I want that, Logan. I want to go to some deserted tropical beach and peel of my clothes and not be terrified I might kill someone."
"I'll take you."
Her eyes snapped open. "What?"
Yeah, really. What? "I'll take you," he said again, despite himself.
Marie gave him a level look with serious, sober eyes even as her drunken body eased her towards sleep. "Logan?"
"What?"
"If it wouldn't kill you, would you jump me right now?"
No. No, no, no. "Yes."
Fuck. What was with him tonight, anyway?
"Good," Marie answered drowsily. "I want you to jump me."
Logan was pretty sure he whimpered, but if accused, he'd deny it.
"Will you really take me to an island, Logan?" She was having trouble keeping her eyes open, snuggling down into the soft blanket underneath her.
"I'll buy you a bikini," he said by way of an answer. He watched her for a long moment, his gaze drifting over her familiar features. "Marie?"
"Yeah?" She didn't even open her eyes.
"Are you going to remember this tomorrow?"
"Sure," she whispered. "Logan. Beach. Sex."
Logan growled in frustration.
Marie smiled a moment, then her expression softened, her breathing evening out as she drifted off to sleep.
Great. She'd asked him to jump her, then fallen asleep. And fuck if he hadn't just agreed to take a twenty-year-old girl to a tropical beach for sun. And possibly sex.
With a tortured groan, Logan carefully pulled the blanket up around her bare limbs and lifted her into his arms. She wouldn't remember tomorrow, he told himself. And that was for the best.
Really. It was. Because she was too damn young.
And he was not going to lust after a twenty-year-old girl.
THE END
The Wolverine & Rogue Fanfiction Archive
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Author's Chapter Notes:
Thanks to the Crackpushing Evilmuse Devillady (aka Em), for comin' up with the damn idea in the first place.