“What? No!” Rogue gasped, horrified at the idea.
Logan shut down. That’s the only way she could think to describe the coldness that fell over his face, the careful stillness of his body. He searched her eyes and then nodded once, sharply.
“Fine.” He got up and headed toward the door.
“Logan, wait!” Rogue cried. When he actually stopped, she was rather surprised. He didn’t turn around, though, choosing instead to keep his back to her. When she remained silent, he tilted his head to the side a little as though to indicate he was, indeed, listening. “Will you please look at me?” she snapped. He didn’t. “Fine,” she spat venomously, “I’ll talk to the back of your idiotic skull then. You’re thinkin’ I said no ‘cause I don’t think you’re good enough, aren’t you?” Rogue waited for a response, but when none came, she continued, “You’re an ass, you know that?”
That, at least, got him to turn around.
“You turn me down flat, like the very idea of marryin’ me’s disgusting, and I’m the ass?” he asked in angry disbelief.
Rogue narrowed her eyes, but didn’t argue with the name calling. “I turned you down because my idea of marriage doesn’t include divorce,” she explained calmly.
Logan scowled fiercely. “Who the hell said anything about divorce?”
Rogue’s jaw went slack. “What? I…uh…you mean marry you for keeps?”
His lips twitched at the childish expression. “Yeah. What the hell did you think I meant, kid?”
Feeling a blush rising up from her chest, Rogue dropped her eyes and muttered, “I figured you meant we’d get married and uh…do it as many times as it took to get me pregnant and then we’d get a divorce.”
“‘It’, huh?” Rogue was mortified by the amusement in his voice.
“Yes,” she snapped, going quickly back to anger, “‘it.’ But it still won’t work. I want to marry somebody who loves me.”
“I do love you, kid,” he argued, confused.
Rogue sighed, caught between fondness for him and exasperation that he really just didn’t get it. “Yes, Logan, I love you too,” she said condescendingly. “But it’s not the same kind of love that married couples have.”
He shrugged. “So? Love is love. Means I’ll be there for you, protect you, put up with your annoying habits, same as any husband would.”
“I don’t have any annoying habits!” she immediately protested.
“No?” Logan’s eyebrow quirked. “What do you call tappin’ your fingernails on your teeth when you’re thinkin’? Stickin’ your freezin’ cold feet under my thigh when we’re sittin’ on the couch? Havin’ four different kinds of shampoo and conditioner in the shower, all of ‘em open? Leavin’ the cap loose on the toothpaste? Wakin’ me up when you can’t sleep just so you have somebody to keep you company? What do you call all that if not annoying?”
Rogue offered a jaunty smile. “Endearing?”
He snorted, and as easy as that, all was forgiven. He was still shaking his head at her as he sat back down.
“You know, you have plenty of annoying habits too,” she reminded him.
“Idiosyncrasies,” he countered.
“Annoying idiosyncrasies,” Rogue persisted.
“Like what?” Logan asked, his open expression telling her he really wanted to know.
She blinked when nothing immediately came to mind. She grasped at the first thing she could think of. “Like…like the fact that you’re with a different woman every week. Sometimes several different women a week,” she said tartly.
Logan squinted at her as he thought that through. “I can see how a wife would find that annoying.”
Rogue spluttered. “I didn’t mean from a wife’s perspective!”
His eyebrows shot up. “You mean it bothers you now that I sleep around? Why should it?”
“It doesn’t!”
“Then why bring it up?”
“I…it…never mind,” Rogue said sullenly.
“No, I want to know,” Logan persisted.
She sighed. “I don’t know how to explain it, Logan.”
“Try.”
Rogue sighed again and started tapping her teeth as she attempted to put her thoughts in order. At Logan’s snicker, she dropped her hand and stuck her tongue out. “It’s just that that kind of behavior seems disrespectful.”
“To whom?” he asked seriously.
Shrugging her shoulders in a quick, awkward motion, Rogue tried to explain. “I don’t know. To you, to the women.”
“How do you figure? I don’t pretend to offer anythin’ permanent and I don’t go after blushing virgins,” he argued.
Rogue flushed scarlet. When embarrassed, fall back on anger, she thought. “No, you go after cheap whores instead.” She winced when she heard how nasty she sounded.
Logan, though, well acquainted with how she reacted when embarrassed, kept calm. “Nope, sorry. I’ve never paid a woman to sleep with me. So whores they’re not.”
“Still cheap,” Rogue muttered.
“Nope, not that either.” He waited until Rogue met his eyes in disbelief before winking rakishly and finishing, “Just easy.”
Completely flustered, Rogue sat up ramrod straight and said in her most precise voice, “You, sir, are incorrigible.”
“Guilty,” Logan readily admitted. “Seriously, though. You gonna marry me?”
“I need some time to think about it.”
“What’s to think about? You know me better than anybody, just like I know you. I trust you completely, and you trust me. Seems like a pretty simple decision to me.”
“But we’d be married, Logan. Things would change.”
“Like what?”
“Well, first, I wouldn’t want you sleeping around anymore.” Honestly, Rogue expected that to be the deal-breaker right there.
Logan shrugged. “That’s fine. I can do monogamy.”
Rogue looked at him askance. “You can?”
Another shrug. “Sure. Men aren’t particular, kid. As long as we’re havin’ sex and havin’ it regularly, it doesn’t much matter who with.”
Stung, Rogue snapped, “Gee, thanks.”
“Listen, kid, I’m not tryin’ to offend you. I’m just sayin’, if I’m gonna be havin’ sex with the same woman for the rest of my life, I could do a lot worse than you.”
“Ohhh,” Rogue mocked, “that makes me feel so much better. Did it ever occur to you that maybe I don’t find you sexually attractive either?”
“What? No,” he said.
“Add ‘insufferable ego’ to your list of annoying idiosyncrasies,” Rogue snarked.
“No, I’m sayin’ I find you plenty attractive.”
“Oh, come on, Logan. You don’t have to try to make me feel better. I know you’ve never thought of me that way.”
“That’s true. But now I am thinkin’ about it, and honestly you’re not bad.”
“Oh, do tell,” she muttered crossly.
“Okay,” Logan nodded. He swept his eyes over her body several times, pausing at places of interest. His clinical appraisal was making Rogue acutely uncomfortable. Eventually he nodded once, decisively. “Okay, got it. You’re pretty. Nice face, smooth skin. Pretty color hair and eyes. Great boobs,” he dropped his eyes to rest there briefly before they flitted back to hers, “nice, tucked in little waist. For bein’ so short, you’ve got legs a mile long, and you’ve got the cutest little ass I’ve ever seen.”
Rogue had dropped her gaze to her lap as Logan’s list continued. She felt her skin burning and couldn’t come up with any sort of a reply. Glancing at him from underneath her lashes, she thought that Logan looked incredibly self-satisfied. Wait a second, she thought. “You can’t see my ass ‘cause I’m sittin’ on it,” she accused.
Logan smirked. “Caught that, did you?”
“When have you ever checked out my ass?” she asked in consternation.
Logan shrugged. “Don’t remember when it happened, exactly, but I was walking across the garage one afternoon and saw a shapely little ass leanin’ across the back seat of one of the cars. So I stopped to check it out and damn near swallowed my tongue when I realized it was you.”
Frowning, Rogue shook her head. “I don’t remember that.”
Logan shrugged again. It was beginning to irritate Rogue.
“So,” she said peevishly, “we’ve established that I’m ‘not bad,’ but when it comes down to it, will you be able…” she trailed off and looked at him questioningly.
His eyebrows flew up and his mouth fell slack. “Are you actually askin’ me if I’ll be able to get it up?”
It was Rogue’s turn to shrug.
“‘Course I will,” he exclaimed.
She shrugged again. “If you say so.”
Logan glowered at her and leaned forward until his face was just inches away from hers. “I’ll even make sure you enjoy it,” he whispered silkily.
Rogue’s breath hitched and her face flamed. “Yeah, good luck with that.”
“Kid, I don’t need luck,” Logan returned brashly.
“Well maybe you do!” Rogue snapped. “I’ve never thought about you sexually, Logan, and honestly, the idea of even kissing you is hard to fathom.”
“Never?” he asked incredulously.
“Never,” Rogue confirmed.
“But you used to have a crush on me,” Logan protested, almost plaintively.
Rogue shrugged. “It was more hero worship than a crush.”
Logan got up and took a beer from the fridge. He popped the cap off and drank the whole bottle in a few long swallows. “Score one for you, kid,” he muttered. “You just killed my ‘insufferable ego.’”
Rogue burst out laughing. Logan grinned back at her, and she knew whatever flaws and problems they might have, a life together would also have bright, perfect little moments just like this one scattered throughout it.
Her laughter finally died down, leaving her and Logan grinning at each other like fools as she continued thinking. She seriously considered the fact that she really might not be able to respond sexually to Logan, but oddly enough believed all his earlier assurances that he wouldn’t have a similar problem. So her marriage might not be a passionate one, she acknowledged, but it would be comfortable, and comforting. And it would be loving, although perhaps not traditionally so. And she would have a child. Maybe more than one.
Put like that, it really didn’t seem like such a bad deal after all, Rogue thought. So she shrugged and said simply, “Okay.”
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Author's Chapter Notes:
I promise I haven't abandoned Gauntlet. It's just that this story is like 'play' while Gauntlet's 'work.' Enjoy, and thanks for all the lovely reviews!