He had her scented out within moments of his return to the mansion, and within minutes had her cornered and backed up against a wall. He heard her breath hitch in her throat as he leaned down and breathed her in, nose lightly brushing against the heated pulse point below her ear. His pants tightened almost uncomfortably as the scent of clean, warm female saturated his senses.

“Aren’t you going to welcome me home?” he murmured against her neck, unable to stop the rakish grin that spread across his lips as the soft skin flushed bright red under his breath. He heard her pulse skip, speed up a notch.

“Home...” Brown eyes flickered up to meet his gaze. “Is that what we’re calling it these days?”

A smile tugged at the corners of her luscious mouth, and he had to fight the sudden urge to lean down and crush it under his own.

“I suppose it’s as good a place as any,” he said, shrugging. “Miss me?”

“Hardly.”

“Yeah, me too.” He tilted his hips forward until they brushed against hers. “Really, really hardly.”

“God, Logan, do you have to be so...crude?”

“You love it.” He brought a hand up to twirl a lock of red hair around his fingers. “Bet Scooter never talks to you like that.”

Jean’s gaze tilted down as he said it, half-smile quickly fading.

“Hey...” He put a hand under her chin, turned her face up until she looked at him again. “Why so blue?”

She looked into his eyes a moment, as though internally debating whether or not she should open up to him. Opened her mouth, then closed it. Finally decided to dip a toe in.

“Scott’s...’attention’...hasn’t exactly been focused in the right place lately.”

He tried. He really did.

“What...is he too busy shinin’ his Hot Wheels?”

She let out an annoyed breath as he bit back a chuckle.

“I’m being serious, Logan,” she said. She pushed him out of her space and walked over to the window of Scott’s office.

“So am I.” He dropped the wry grin and pulled a cigar from his jacket pocket. Lit the tip and took a deep draw. He tapped the ash from his cigar into Scott’s leather chair, then crossed the room to where she was standing.

“Okay, I’ll bite,” he said, slipping an arm around her from behind. “What’s got one-eye so distracted?”

“Not what,” she said, giving him a meaningful look.

“Really...?” He raised an eyebrow at her. “Who’s the other guy?”

Jean rolled her eyes, turning away from him again. He was unable to hold back a slight chuckle this time as he tightened his arm around her, pulling her back into him.

“Aw, come one, Jeannie...I was just yankin’ your chain.” He felt her abdomen tighten ever so slightly as he flattened his hand against it. “Besides...you really expect me to believe any man would look elsewhere when he has a sweet little piece of ass like you waitin’ at home for him?”

Her breath quickened as he pressed into her from behind, her shoulders softening just barely as she leaned back into him. He splayed his long fingers over her belly, his fingertips brushing the underside of her breasts.

“Seems to me if Scott’s not...appreciating you,” he breathed against the pulse point where her jawline met her neck, “You should go about findin’ someone who will.”

She straightened up slightly, turned her face to his. Logan looked into brown eyes that had gone serious again, and knew what was coming next.

“I love him.”

And there it was. Logan exhaled a long, deep breath.

“Yeah, I know,” he said.

Jean broke his gaze again, looking out of the window and down at the courtyard. Logan took another long draw from his cigar as he glanced down at the students milling around below them, gossiping and giggling as they scurried to their classes.

He noticed that annoying yellow-wearing kid leaning up against the steps, talking – did she ever stop talking? - animatedly to a young brunette he couldn’t remember ever having seen before.

“Who’s the new kid?” he asked, nodding in the direction of the two girls.

“Her name is Rogue. Or at least that what she says,” Jean said flatly as Logan assessed the newest arrival.

There was something odd about the kid, something that stuck out against the other students, and it took Logan a moment to put his finger on what it was. It was her clothing. She was dressed way too warm for early fall, and weirdly to boot. Corduroy jacket with sleeves that stopped at her elbow, long opera gloves covering the rest of her arms and hands. She had a scarf wrapped around her neck and stuffed into the breast of the jacket, and her red plaid skirt stopped just above knees covered in dark-colored tights. As she turned her head to look somewhere, the sunlight gleaned on a bold streak of platinum in her long, otherwise very dark hair.

“What’s her deal?”

“We rescued her from the brotherhood a few months ago,” Jean said. “The professor has her hiding out here and finishing up her high school diploma while the feds search for Magneto.”

A mildly interested 'hunh,' was Logan’s only reaction at first, but there had been something lingering in Jean’s tone as she spoke, a certain disdain that could be heard every time she said ‘she’ and ‘her’. And the way she was looking down at the kid, almost...glaring....

Logan looked at Jean, then down at Rogue. Looked at Jean again. Then he just about choked on his cigar.

“Jesus, Jean, you can’t be serious,” he coughed through the puffs of smoke that shot out of his lungs with his reaction. “Christ, the kid must be – what – eighteen? Nineteen? Cyke’s gotta be real hard up if he’s bangin’ a –"

“She’s twenty. And he’s not ‘banging her'.” She paused ever so slightly with ‘banging’, almost treating the word like a piece of dirty toilet paper she peeled off the bottom of her high-heeled shoe. “No one’s banging her. That’s the problem.”

“Okay.” Logan shook his head. “Now you’re really not making any sense whatsoever.”

Jean pulled out of his embrace and crossed the room again to lean against Scott’s desk.

“She’s got this whole ‘untouchable’ thing going on,” Jean said. “You’d think that would turn most men off, but it doesn’t. It works like bees to pollen, and she knows it.”

Logan walked over to Jean, eyebrow raised. She gave him the ‘don’t-look-at-me-like-I’m-crazy’ look as he came to stand before her.

“I’m a woman...okay? I can see right through her,” Jean said, crossing her arms over her chest. “She tries to act all innocent about it, like she has no idea what she’s doing, but I’ve seen the googly eyes she gives Scott when she thinks no one’s looking. I’ve seen the way she giggles at all of his dumb jokes. I’ve seen the way she lingers in the doorway after class to ask for ‘extra help’ with her papers. And Scott’s eating it all up.”

Logan raised a hand to thumb her chin as he spoke. “Jean...Somethin’ else is goin’ on with him, alright? Yeah, the kid’s okay lookin’ and all – “ (fuckable for sure, he almost added, but didn’t... ) “ – but I really don’t think you got anythin’ to worry about here.”

She didn’t look convinced.

“And as for the whole ‘untouchable’ shit,” he added, “Baby, I could have that tight little pussy of hers wrapped around my cock faster than you can scream ‘Cyclops’.”

Jean looked up at him, a glint of something he couldn’t quite place in her brown eyes as she met his gaze.

“Is that so...?” she mused. It was her turn to raise an eyebrow as she pressed her palms into Scott’s desk and lifted herself onto the edge so that she now sat on top of it. She crossed one long leg over the other, the toe of her high-heel brushing lightly against the inside of Logan’s denim-clad thigh. Logan breathed in sharply at the sensation, a stirring beginning once more deep in his loins.

“Care to make it interesting?” she asked.

Logan looked at her, incredulous. The glint in her eyes glowed pure mischief now as she rubbed her foot ever more deliberately against his leg. He knew what she was doing, and it wasn’t going to work. He wasn’t going to screw the sense out of an awkwardly-hot-barely-out-of-her-teens girl just to prove a point to her.

“Maybe. What kinda stakes are we talkin'?”

Funny. That didn’t sound at all like what he was planning to say.

“Hmm...” Jean chewed on her lower lip, making a big show of deciding on a worthy prize. “If I win...” She gently reached a hand forward, perfectly manicured fingernail running against the seam of his fly as she pondered. “I get...” A tingle of anticipation curled at the base of his spine as her nail clicked softly over the ridges in the denim.

“...your ‘48 Panhead.”

No fucking way.

He must have made some subtle face gesture to give away his bluff, or else she gleaned his internal reaction telepathically, because a smile ticked at the corner of her mouth, the mischievous glint in her eyes darkening.

“What’s the matter?” she taunted. “Afraid you might not have the chops?”

Logan stepped closer to her and placed a hand on her thigh, stilling her leg’s movement against him a bit. He pressed his fingers gently yet deliberately into her thigh, rubbing the tense flesh. Jean’s shoulders rolled back and down, body visibly softening under his touch.

”Like candy, Jean,” he said. “From a baby.”

But it didn’t really matter, did it? He wasn’t going to lose his bike, because he wasn’t gambling his bike, and he sure as shit wasn’t taking any stupid bet.

“So what do I get when I win?”

Funny. He hadn’t been planning on saying that, either.

“If ...you win...” Jean had now flattened her palm against the growing bulge at the front of his jeans and was rubbing slowly through the rough fabric. His hips shuddered as he fought the urge to press them forward. “...I’ll give you what you’ve been wanting since the day we first met.”

Logan looked deep into her eyes for a moment, testing her, searching for any sign that she was being anything but absolutely straight with him. He couldn’t find any, and his hardon pulsed even harder against his jeans as she continued to work him over. Fuck it, he thought, finally giving in and pushing his hips forward, completing the movement of her hand on him.

“Jean...” he said, voice cracking slightly as he struggled to regain his composure. His hand came up to her face again, thumb tugging gently at her lower lip as she smiled knowingly at him. “She’s a student. And I’m...well, I’m me. Some people might look at that and call it...preying.”

She was nodding her head slowly as he spoke, her smile broadening with each word.

“I mean...somethin’ like this could really get old Wheels’ panties in a knot if it ever got out,” he said.

“Uh-huh,” she replied, her eyes locked on his as she continued to nod.

“Might even get my ass kicked outta this place. Like, for good.”

“Y-up.” She nodded.

He was pretty sure he’d never been harder in his life. She was pushing all of his buttons, and she knew it. He continued to rub himself into her palm for a few moments, enjoying the delicious friction their combined movements were creating. He snapped back to reality then, snatching her wrist and pulling her hand up and away. She gasped at the sudden movement.

“Let’s cut through the bullshit, alright?” he growled. “You know damn well you don’t have to beat around the bush like this to get me in your bed.” He leaned right into her, testing her scent. “And we both know you could give a fuck about the Panhead. So how about tellin’ me what you’re really gettin’ outta this?”

Jean dropped her gaze.

“Scott and I are getting married in a few months,” she said, acquiescing. “I just...I want the first year of our marriage to be perfect. Free of any distractions.”

He glared at her, considering her words carefully. Suddenly wondered if any of this was worth his time.

“And...” she added, eyes rolling back up to his again, “What faster way to get a woman off of Scott’s radar than to have him find out the person he hates most got there first?”

Christ if the woman didn’t just roll a hard six. He was like granite under his jeans now as her leg began moving again, foot slowly inching up to wedge itself right against his crotch. This was beginning to look more like a win-win situation for him with each passing second.

“So...” she purred, mischievous smile returning, “We have a deal, then?”

She flexed her foot so that the pointed toe of her shoe pressed gently against his anus. Logan grunted softly as a sharp bolt of pleasure shot up his back. Barely holding it together, he managed to reach forward and grab a fistful of her hair, turning her face up toward him until their lips almost touched. He forced back a growl as she bit on her bottom lip.

“No quickie,” he said. “I mean it, Jean. I get you for one night. All night. I don’t give a fuck how you get rid of Scooter, you make it happen.”

He watched her for any sign of wavering, and was pleasantly surprised when there was none.

“Anything else?” she asked.

Why the hell not?

“Yeah,” he said. “I get to put it...anywhere.”

She was smiling broadly, almost catlike, as Logan silently accepted her offer. He didn’t know what had gotten into her over the last few months while he was away, but he knew he liked it. A lot. He leaned in, preparing to seal the deal with a kiss, but she suddenly straightened up and hopped down from the desk.

“Scott,” she said, stepping out of Logan’s space and heading toward the doorway mere seconds before he appeared there.

“Thought I might find you in here,” Scott said, greeting his fiancee with a kiss. His gaze flitted toward Logan then, and he made a vague gesture with his hand that Logan could only guess meant, ‘You’re smoking in my office. Again.’ Logan looked down at the long column of ash hanging from the end of his cigar and tapped it onto the desk. Looked back at Scott and smiled.

“I was just testing the new P.A. system,” Jean said to Scott. “All packed?”

“More or less,” Scott replied, turning his attention back to Jean. “I just can’t seem to find my passport. Have you seen it?”

“Goin’ somewhere?” Logan chimed in. Scott ignored him.

“Scott and the professor are leaving for a conference on Monday morning.” Jean placed her hand lovingly on Scott’s shoulder. “They’ll be gone for a week.”

There was an almost imperceptible nod that followed that last remark.

“I’ll go have a look around for that passport,” Jean said, leaning over to place a light peck on Scott’s cheek before she turned and left the room.

The two men stood staring at each other as Jean clickety-clacked down the hall.

“Well...it’s good to have you back, Logan.” Scott was lying.

“Good to be back.” So was Logan.

Logan reached into the pocket of his jacket and pulled out a set of keys. Tossed them to Scott, who just barely caught them.

“Your bike needs gas,” Logan said.

Scott looked incredulous as he tossed the keys back.

“So fill ‘er up,” he said.

Scott turned and left the room, following Jean down the hall. Smiling to himself, Logan turned to look out of the window again. Rogue was waving goodbye to her friend now as she bounded up the steps and into the doors of the mansion, pleated skirt swaying with every movement of her young hips.

Oh, Scooter, Logan thought to himself, hand absently rubbing over the now painful ridge in his jeans. If only you knew just how literally I plan on doing that.