Overlap: Chapter Three
My chest aches. It hurts bad. Really bad. Something's cracking inside me, and with every step I feel pieces of my heart jar loose, hit the carpet.
I'm walking--no, running. Or maybe just walking fast? I'm not sure. Can't think. My vision is blurry, and the patterned rug seems to zoom by. I'm so dizzy.
I haven't felt quite like this since....
My world is rocking, spinning. The back of my hand brushes the wall and I keep it there, trailing it along as I go. It is a connection to solid reality, but a thin one. I'm reaching through smokey pain and this reminder of the dependable things in the world only makes me think of how walls can collapse.
I didn't know it would feel this way.
It hurts.
Why didn't I expect this?
God, it hurts.
And of course Logan is there, right behind me. I barely made it down the hall before he caught up. Fingers sliding over my arms, but halfheartedly, not much strength to them. They pull at me weakly. He is speaking, beseeching, but I can barely hear him. There's a ringing in my ears.
"Get away from me," I choke out. Then again, "Get away from me." My mouth feels like it's been stuffed with cotton.
It hurts.
It hurts.
It hurts.
I want to get away, but there's nowhere I can go that he couldn't, or wouldn't, follow. I think of the the sanctuary of our bedroom--but that's too far and besides, it's Logan's bedroom as well.
"Get away from me!," I shriek.
"No," he says decisively.
I don't want to hear his voice.
Let me go deaf.
Please.
His grip becomes firm, but not hard. Logan spins me around like I'm a doll.
Don't cry.
Don't cry.
Don't look at him.
Don't cry.
Be deaf.
I don't hear his pleas, and I don't hear his explanations. I don't hear the way Logan's voice cracks, or the animal keening in the back of his throat. When John appears, stretching out a hand and asking if I'm okay, I don't hear Logan's murderous threat (an empty show, I tell myself).
He tugs me into a room behind him, closes the door for privacy. Black walnut shelves and different colored paper bricks. The library.
At first I watch his lip move, then keep my eyes open until I see only a Logan-shaped smudge. It's better that way.
He begs me to speak, and then to listen. I do neither. I draw the mist in my head around me, a numbing cloak that's only slightly less painful than his words.
The blurr gestures with his hands, reaches out (I take a step back), scratches a chin that's desperate to see a razor. I think, I'll let him say whatever he feels obliged to, and then be on my way....To do what? I don't know. Scream into a pillow, maybe. Yeah. That sounds good. I can't see too far ahead; I don't know what's going to happen. I just can't...I can't....
One word pierces through, like a knife or a cannon ball. Her name. My lips part and a black bile rises up from the wound, spills out into the air like poison. That's the only way I can describe the things I shouted. I don't know when or how the words appeared, because I had never had them before. I swear at Logan, use every cuss word I've ever heard.
He freezes, gapes at me with what for him passes for meekness.
Every terrible, monstrous thing I can imagine comes out with all the force my sore throat can muster. I call him a worthless beast, who ruined my life and killed my child.
He doesn't blink.
Just stands there, quietly and calmly absorbing it. Intent expression, perhaps waiting for me to finish.
I want--I need-- him to hurt as much as me.
I tell him he's a stupid animal, that I should have known the concept of keeping it inside his pants was too complicated for him to understand.
Deadened hazel eyes and a motionless body. That's not the Logan I know. The Logan--hell, The Wolverine I know would be in the red zone. Would have grabbed me. Slapped. Bitten. And I really must be a masochist, because I want that reaction. I want him to get pissed. Do anything that says he cares enough to be get mad.
But Logan doesn't.
And I'm angrier. How dare he? How does Logan dare to look at me like that. Like--like he's the one who's hurting? How can he make me feel guilty, doubt my convictions like a blind idiot? How the fuck can he refuse me that proof of what a bastard he is?
"You son of a bitch," I sob. "You're disgusting. I-I hate you!"
Breaking. Shattering.
It hurts.
So difficult to get the words out.
"You know what, Logan? You can go ahead and fuck everyone in this place. I don't-I don't c-care. Just go ahead, 'cuz you're sure as hell never d-doing it w-with me again. I've b-b-been waiting for this. I don't w-want to t-t-touch you. I don't wanna see you. If you-you care at all you'd l-leave and never fucking come back. You prick. Monster. I hate you. I hate you. I hate you!"
Logan steps forward, and I think finally. I'm eye level with the cigars tucked into his shirt pocket. I expect hands--maybe his fist. But instead I receive his lips--a soft, chaste kiss on a cheek soaked by tears.
"Okay," Logan tells me, very gently.
&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
"Marie," he calls. Then (because they are not alone), in a louder voice, "Rogue!"
She doesn't wait up for him, and honestly Logan didn't expect her to. Halfway down the hall from the kitchen, Marie's footsteps slow. She hangs onto the wall, her gate as unsteady as a drunk's. He reaches her in seconds.
Her pain burns like ammonia in his nostrils. She seems so frail. Logan reaches out with hands that feel their true age right now--heavy, almost arthritic. He wants to pull Marie back into his arms, nuzzling and holding her until that smell goes away. And until recently, that might have worked.
"Wait." Her shoulders slip free of his grip. She walks toward the staircase without acknowledging him, swaying on her feet.
"Baby, it ain't what it looked like. I-I didn't do anything. I didn't."
Liar, his own mind shrieks. As if it's laying out evidence for his torture, he feels himself kissing Jean, touching her. But that...that was all. It was just a slip up, a moment of weakness. Right? He'd never hurt Marie.
"Just-just stop for a minute. Listen. Lemme-lemme tell you what happened.
Marie gives a choking sob. "Get away from me. Get away from me. Get away from me!," she chants miserably, each repetition louder.
"No," Logan tells her, as perhaps he should have many times before.
He seizes her elbow, places his other hand on her waist and determinedly turns her around. She fights, then goes passive-aggressively still. A standing corpse, refusing to meet his gaze.
"Please, sweetheart," Logan whispers, broken. "I love you. I love you so fucking much."
She blinks, focuses somewhere in the region of his kneecap.
"It didn't mean anything. I swear. I want you. Only you. Always."
The carpet, the walls all around them become a meaningless and unimportant swirl of purples and browns, while her face stays the only thing clear in his vision.
He doesn't know what to say to her, no clue how to start. But correcting this mess is the most vital task in his world, more so than breathing.
"We can talk. It'll be okay. I can-I can fix this."
"Rogue?"
One of the students--that scrawny prick in love with fire--slinks out of the rec room. Narrow eyes, sneering mouth. The sort of concern on his face only hormone-ridden teens can pull off. "Is everything alright here?"
The boy looks from Marie to Logan exaggeratedly, as if he'd just stumbled onto the set of a lifetime movie. When she doesn't respond, the little bastard has the nerve to reach for his--for his girl. Logan growls loudly, a fierce warning.
"Son, get your ass out of my way or I'll chew your fucking throat out."
It's not a flimsy threat. Six claws are ready to leave their casings. And the seriousness in The Wolverine's tone prompts the boy's decision to practice chivalry elsewhere. He excuses himself, back pedals swiftly.
Whatever movie had been playing in the entertainment room is ending. Soon there will be too many eyes and ears lit on them, eager for a new show. Their conversation will be repeated for weeks to come. There's not enough time to get to their room. He glances around the entrance hall, then pulls Marie into the library. The walls inside are insulated for it's reader's solitude. Honestly, Logan doesn't give a rat's ass what the kids say about them. But she has always valued privacy. He doesn't want to embarrass Marie.
As soon as the door clicks shut, she's backing away from him. She hits a small table, and the vase upon it wobbles. Face pale, eyes water, darting everywhere.
"Darlin', look at me." What other endearments can he use?
She's shivering, wrapping her arms around her chest. Sniffling. God, he wants to hold her.
"Please look at me."
Why is she so damn quiet? Why can't she just talk to him, like she used to? Or at least let him know how to make things right. "Marie, say something, sweetie. Come on."
She fixes him with a silent, unwavering glare. Okay. This is his job.
Logan opens his mouth, addresses the hair he's spent so much time stroking--the neck so sensitive to teeth--the eyes that had looked at him so frequently with laughter. He's not a man used to staking his emotions on another's, to asking or explaining. But he tries.
Marie's expression stays cold, far away from this room and him.
"I'm sorry. So sorry baby. Just try to understand, okay?"
Logan listens to the patter of her heart and wonders how many times he'd lain his head on her chest and luxuriated in the sound.
"I was down there in the kitchen an' I was so worried about ya'. An' she was there, sayin' all this shit. I just lost control for a second. Jean--"
Without warning, her face changes. It's livid. Marie's lips draw back.
Logan can't count the number ot times he wanted--and tried--to end his life. Days on road whose scenery never changes, nights when a woman's arms did nothing to minimize his loneliness. He had probably tested every method of suicide that existed--helped, sometimes, by others. Knives, guns, drugs, cliff falls, even bombs. It didn't matter. In a few hours (perhaps a half-day, if he'd been really creative) Logan would find himself conscious again. Staring into a grimy mirror at a face that would never age, never find release in that sleep as others would. It was one of the few things he had envied normal people. His reply, if anyone were to offer him whatever he desired in the world, had only changed slightly over the years. He'd ask for Marie, and then the liberty to die.
Tonight she took away the first, and gave him the latter.
She screams at him--not in the worst of his panic attacks had he considered she thought those things. Marie calls him a worthless beast, a stupid animal, confirms his suspicions about the miscarriage. Uses swearwords Logan had no idea she even knew. (Marie wasn't particularly sensitive, but she saved her fucks and shits for stubbed toes and bad hair days).
A low vein of indignation runs through him, demands he defend himself by any means necessary. Not everything is his fault, after all. Make her love him.
But that urge is silenced by a voice that says he deserves all of it, keeps him frozen in place because his pain is so much preferable to her's.
"I don't want to touch you. I don't wanna see you. If you care at all you'd leave and never fucking come back. You prick. Monster. I hate you. I hate you. I hate you!"
And he knows there's a limit to how much hurt he can smell on Marie. And that he'd do anything, absolutely anything in the world she asked.
Logan permits himself one last taste of her skin. He kisses Marie's cheek softly--an apology and goodbye.
"Okay," he assents, and feels himself quietly die.
~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~
"Kid. Marie. We gotta--we gotta stop. I can't do this."
Whaa-?
What?
What?!
Logan's stepping back, leaving me a quivering, overheated bundle of nerves. A quivering, overheated bundle nerves who thinks stopping is a very, very bad idea. Very bad.
My legs are not prepared/strong enough for the sudden absence of his chest (which had been propping me up). I feel my knees turn to sand, start to buckle but his hand shoots out, steadies me. It returns just as quickly--and platonically--to his side.
Which brings me to the only question in this universe that matters right now:
Why?
Why?
What did I do wrong?
At least that fear draws my thoughts--if only slightly--away from the heat on my skin, the moisture between my legs. I mean, I know I'm not exactly...practiced...at this...but I thought...I thought is was going pretty...pretty good.
Maybe not for him?
I blink back tears of disappointment while Logan stares at me, breathing labored. I must look repulsive: lips swollen, hair all tangled, quaking like a wet loser.
With a kind voice, he murmurs, "Not here." The rough back of his index finger trails over my cheek, down my neck. It leaves a burning trail. Unintentional, I'm sure. I tremble more; my mouth opens and his hand retreats. Again. Jesus--I'm such an embarrassment.
"Just not here, sweetie. I'll--I'll see you later...Soon, okay?"
Logan seems expectant, antsy. Wait. Does he--does he actually think I'm capable of talking? I can't remember where my vocal chords are, let alone how to use them.
My addled little not must satisfy him. Like I've cut some sort of reigns, he dashes away. And I'm cold and aching down low, left to seek an explanation from the gym equipment.
As you can tell, the machines are pretty unhelpful.
_______________________________________________________
'Soon' turns out to mean the next afternoon. Not exactly a lifetime, but I'm a high-strung mess every second of those twenty-three hours. I bite my nails to the absolute quick, brush my teeth for five minutes before remembering to use paste, sit entirely too long between the turn of each page because I can't read them. Each printed word seems to have been reformed, and now spells out 'Logan'.
I'm so sure everyone can tell what we did just from looking at me. Not just that I'm abnormally twitchy, but they know. I worry: did Scott check the video tapes?
Logan's no where to be found--the previous day, or this morning. But I don't search hard. After Jubes asks me for the seventieth time, "Guhrl, what's up whichoo?" (always the same words, same inflection) I banish myself to my room. I don't want Logan to see me this way.
Last night, I stayed awake past one o'clock, running my hands over my stomach, pressing my fingers against my lips and feeling him. When I finally nodded off, I dreamed Logan-dreams.
We run into each other on the stairs, when I'm on my way to the kitchen for some strawberries. He asks if I want to go somewhere for dinner tonight.
That look in his eyes....
Later, analyzing it in my room, Jubilee squeals loud enough that Ororo comes running to our room She knocks on the door and demands to know who's being burned at the stake.
_________________________________________________________
I put on my best dress. White, with black lines like quill ink running across it. (Faux) Chinese silk, off-the-shoulder. I spend an hour trying to match my hair to the magazine photo, before mentally slapping myself across the face. Girl, could you be any more obvious? With a touch of self-pity (I never get to wear that dress), I change. A sea green top with sequin butterflies that go up the side, and my pair of dark jeans. As rain comes down outside, rattling my windows, I twist and turn in front of my bathroom mirror.
I hope he thinks it's casual.
I suck on a bar of white chocolate, and then a peppermint. In case Logan feels like kissing me again.
_______________________________________________________
"I'm sorry, guys."
Ororo stands in the front hall, arms crossed over her chest, blocking the door. Her face is uncharacteristically tight, concerned.
"You cannot borrow one of the cars tonight. The roads are just too bad."
"Really?" Logan asks. Thunder cracks outside.
Ororo looks to him. "Uh-huh. The weather channel just issued a tornado alert for Westchester. The first in years. We should be safe here, but you can never be too careful."
"No, you can't," he agrees, and lets out a long exhale through his nose. He starts to turn to me; I'm readying myself for a 'sorry, kid' and a night not half as fun as I thought it would be.
But Storm makes a 'hold-on' gesture. Her voice carries that peaceful generosity all her students--including me--love. "Oh! Kurt and I had Chinese delivered. But he always gets much more than we could possibly eat ourselves. Would you care for the rest?"
Logan raises an eyebrow at me. 'Up to you' he says wordlessly.
"That's really, really nice of you," I jump at the possibility to still spend time with him. I'm smiling with relief,
______________________________________________________
He makes me wait outside his room for a few minutes, holding the box whose thin cardboard seems determined to give me a third-degree burns. But the food smells incredible--eggrolls and General Tso's and Singapore house noodles. My favorite. But they are not what I can't stop thinking about.
I hear muffled sounds--thumps, a few disconcerting bangs, low curses. Is he hiding a body?
The door swings open, and Logan gives me an uncomfortable grin. He's looking unusually flustered. Takes the warm box from my arms, and calls gruffly over his shoulder to me, almost as an afterthought. "Well. C'mon then."
I have to take a steadying breath.
____________
We lay a couple towels on the bed (freshly made, by the looks of it) to serve as placemats for the food. Logan passes me the remote, invites me to watch "anything I want, as long as it ain't for pansies." By that I assume he means something with blood and guts. I guess I pick rightly, because he doesn't complain. But I couldn't tell you what the movie was, who was in it, or that it was anything more than a swirl of pixels on a screen, while something much more enthralling was sitting beside me. On his bed.
He's wearing a flannel shirt, a darker red and cleaner than his others. It looks so soft I have to monitor my hands in case they reach out to feel him--I mean, it.
My whole left side is electrified, reacting every time he moves--or simply inhales. I wonder if I can get a sun burn from the heat his body is emitting...but Logan's sitting at least six inches away, so that has to be my imagination.
I think I'm going crazy. My heart is beating so hard it makes my chest sore. I can't look at him, can't look anywhere else without desperately wondering what he's doing. Does he expect me to act natural? Did he already forget what happened yesterday? Is that normal for him? Was he just playing around? What if I don't act the right way, and he doesn't want to hang out with me any more? Is he just doing this to be nice?
Logan handed me an open beer when we sat down. The condensation is forming a wet circle in the bedsheets. I've never really...drank...before. I'm just barely nineteen, but something tells me it wouldn't be a smart idea to bring that up just now. I keep it propped nonchalantly in my lap, until a piece of chicken burns my tongue. I take a sip, end up coughing and spluttering everywhere.
It's disgusting! Biting and sizzly...It tastes like orange rinds and wood chips blended into liquid. Uugghh.
I'm entertaining thoughts of a global conspiracy, in which half the world has been lying to the rest to trick them into tying this junk. A huge joke, because how can anyone enjoy this stuff? And Logan's laughing at me. He's laughing at me. If the sound weren't so wonderful, I'd be furious.
"I'll get you a soda," he says, chuckling warmly. "And a fork," he adds, because the fight between me and the chopsticks had been turning ugly.
Logan pats me on the back with one hand, plucks the bottle out of my lap with the other. I don't get a chance to apologize, because all of a sudden we're doing it again. He's kissing me. He's kissing me. He's kissing me. And things are short circuiting, and I don't care one bit about the beer.
Later we'll deal with the spilt drinks, the Chinese food we kicked to the floor. Not now.
Now, he's on top of me, all around me. Pressing me back. Down. Heavy and firm and there. Touching. Twisting. Kissing places I didn't know you could kiss. Asking me if I'm okay, if this is okay, is this--
I can only force out a word at a time. My vocabulary shrinks to a prayer, an assent, and his name.
It's so--
It's so--
Okay.
I don't have time to be scared or anxious. He doesn't give me the chance. But my stomach does jerk nervously when he sits up, pulls something from his back pocket. A square piece of foil. He rips it open with his teeth, removes a...ohmygod. Logan strokes my belly reassuringly.
Ohmygodohmygodohmygodohmygod....
The waistband of my jeans is pulled slowly down my hips, my legs, off my feet. I'm laying sideways across the bed, aware of every thread and a thin strip of wood beneath me. Overwhelmed, a little frantic.
Ohmygod--is this--is he gonna--
He doesn't undress, merely undoes the zipper and pushes things down a bit. I can see his--
Ohmygodohmygod--
And then Logan's between my--between me.
All the books--and Jubilee--said it hurts a bit, the first time.
They don't say how much.
I feel like I'm being impaled, which...well, I guess I kind of am. Haha. It's just, nobody told me it would feel like that. There's so much of him. An unyielding, scorching strip of iron.
Ow. Ow. Ohmygod, ow.
I'm gasping like a fish, making sounds in my throat that prove what a little, childish idiot I am. Logan kisses my cheek,
croons soothing nonsense into my ear, and I don't immediate understand that his lower half is being just as gentle. He's patient, so steady and kind. I can't comprehend how my body can take another inch, a centimeter. It feels already stretched too far. But he doesn't seem concerned. I guess he knows how this works
Am--am I bleeding?
And he moves so, so slowly. Confident. In control. At ease, like he's puzzling out a car's engine or contemplating football strategies.
The pain recedes, drifts back like the tide, surprising me only every once in awhile with a little wave. I find myself fascinated with the tiny cracks in his skin, the way his shoulder tastes like salt, how his eyes can look angry and happy at the same time.
There's something...I don't know...something going on inside me...muscles rubbing against each other in the right way....A twinge, and then another...and another...and another...closer and closer together. They send responding flickers all through my body. Tickling, electrocuting.
He's so...he's so...what's the word?...deep...in me, I can't remember what it was like to shift and not feel him throb a reply. And every time Logan withdrawals, the loss is enough to make me breathless. Not that I can breath anyway.
It doesn't hurt anymore. At least, not in a way I can separate from everything else and label it as such.
I feel his scruffy chin, like sandpaper. His mouth and nose are burrowing into the area behind my ear. Grunting, snarling...and then softly whispering my name.
I'm digging my fingers into his shoulder blades. My nails must pinch, if not cut, but I just can't loosen them. Those twinges have taken me over, making me arch and kick even though I don't want to fight. Somewhere in my mind, an itty-bitty corner not concerned with my exploding nerve endings, I notice that this is making Logan extraordinarily pleased.
Afterwards, he pulls me off the covers (which I decide are the softest, most beautiful covers in the whole world. In fact, this whole room is perfect. Just perfect.) and onto his chest. Everything is sticky, from the food and..and other...stuff...
I feel...great. So comfortable. So happy. Sleepy, but I don't want to close my eyes yet. God. I never ever want to move again. Getting out of this bed is incomprehensible.
Logan's chest is warm and damp. Just big enough for me to curl up on, much better than that mattress, my legs tangled in his.
He stripped of his clothes, and my shirt. I won't be able to get those General-Tso's-stains out, but I don't care.
I feel like I've been opened up. All sorts of things are spilling out of me--what Jubilee said, the dreams I had, how much I missed him while he was away. I'm high. And Logan listens intently, nodding when I ask if it was the same for him. Gazing up at the ceiling and lightly stroking the back of my neck.
I talk about the twinges how he felt inside me, how the chopsticks had been pinned under my shoulder and I might have gotten a splinter if my blouse hadn't cushioned me.
"Mmmmmh," I hear him rumble. Something's moving under me, and--
Oh.
Again?
Already?
He growls, makes me swap positions with him.
&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
Their lips make the faintest of suctioning noises when they part. Logan tries to put an apologetic expression on his face, and space between their bodies. She's gulping, panting, and looking at him like he just ripped the head off her favorite Barbie.
So pretty. Beautifully debauched, with her hair all mussed and her chest shuddering. Hands pressed against the wall to keep herself upright. Ggrrrrrrrrr......
"Kid." Probably not the best choice of nicknames right now. "Marie. We gotta--we gotta stop. I can't do this."
The words are torture, but if he doesn't speak them, they'll soon be doing something very unhygienic on the gym floor.
Those shudders are about to undo him
Marie looks like she's about to topple over, so he quickly grabs her shoulder, helps her find balance. Now she's wounded, close to tears. Her bruised lips (the dark scarlet color he's never been more fond of) wobble. And Logan sighs, scrambles to make amends because that is more painful that the stiffness of his groin.
"Not here," he promises Marie, and touches her softly. Just once. "Just not here, sweetie. I'll see you later. Soon, okay?"
She gives an uncertain, shaky nod. She appears dazed, crestfallen. It kills Logan to leave without making sure she's alright, but he does. He walks (limps) out of the gym, hoping she will understand and that the water in his shower will be cold enough.
_________________________________________________________
After a restless night, in which The Wolverine waged a brutal assault on him, furious that he would leave a female unclaimed and unsatisfied, and many attempts to settle himself down (resulting in a necessary change of sheets but no pleasure) he goes to find Marie.
Logan stalks the halls and staircase patiently, not desiring a repeat of his first night here. This time going to her bedroom is absolutely out of the question. He'd crumple like a badly-made card castle in an environment with so many Marie-scents.
It takes forever. She's been hiding in her room again (he certainly didn't expect her to come wake him this morning)...Logan refuses to entertain the idea that she is afraid of him--at least, not visibly.
He's on the first floor landing, and when she finally appears, Marie is with her friend Jubilee. That irritating loudmouth who drives him up a wall in practice. He'd known Brooklyn hookers who were less shrill.
"Hey." She smells nervous, appears close to leaping out of her skin if he so much as blows hard on her. (Jesus. Wrong image. Wrong image.)
"Hi," she greets shyly.
"You wanna go get dinner later?", he asks bluntly, gruff and manly as he can manage, trying to ignore the way Jubilee is waggling her plucked eyebrows.
Marie's not a woman he can fuck and drop. He knows that instinctively--it's embedded in his DNA, the knowledge swimming through his bloodstream. He's got only two choices: leave, or do things right. As inexperienced as Logan is with the second, frightening option, he figures he'll give it a try.
"Yeah. Sure." That delighted, bashful scent, the way she bites her lip, makes the sissy situation bearable.
Halfway across the front hall, and no where near out of his earshot, he hears Jubilee.
"Dude! He stares at you like you're a kitten he's about to, like, devour."
"He doesn't eat kittens!"
"Totally not the point."
Ororo stops Logan on the way to his room, asks why he's grinning. He can't answerr her.
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"I'm sorry, guys. You cannot borrow one of the cars tonight. The roads are just too bad."
"Really.". Ororo is a horrible liar, one of the worst he's ever heard, smelt, or seen.
"Uh-huh." The touch of amusement in her scent, coupled with her overly sweet voice says she knows she isn't fooling anyone. "The weather channel just issued a tornado alert for Westchester. The first in years. We should be safe here, but you can never be too careful."
"No, you can't." He says mockingly. Should he go ahead and point out the flaws in her story--the ability of the X-Vehicles to tolerate more than foul weather, the fact that a snap of Storm's fingers could bring the sun out--or wait until her motives are clear? He wonders what game the woman is trying to play.He can't sense any maliciousness in the obvious attempt to keep them in the mansion.
Marie smells upset, like she's actually buying into it.
"Oh!" Ororo says, with fake dawning realization. "You know, Kurt and I had Chinese delivered. But he always gets way more than we could possibly eat ourselves. Would you two care for the rest?"
"That's really, really nice of you," Marie says, so eager that Logan doesn't ask Storm why a vegetarian and a Catholic who always insists on preparing his own meals would order Chinese food. He also doesn't bring up the curious fact that everything she gives them is still warm, that it must have arrived moments before the rain.
But the next time he sees Ororo, he thanks her.
_________________
Logan asks Marie to wait a few seconds in the hall, goes into his bedroom and jumps into a whirlwind of hasty cleaning. Clothes, beer bottles, empty cigar boxes, and one or two pornos he picked up on a whim go flying into the dresser. He slams the drawers shut, kicks some miscellaneous items under the bed and tucks in the sheets tight enough to pass army inspection (even if nothing else in the room would.) He imagines her changing her mind, running away, and the absurd thought makes him almost trip over himself in his haste to let her in.
______________
They're watching Diehard and eating on his bed, an intimacy he normally wouldn't allow, because that eggroll-fragrance will stick around for months....But then again, so will her's.
She's nervous, twitchy, and Logan's not much better. How long will he have to pretend to be a gentleman? A week? Two? Right now getting through an hour, a minute of trying to act like he isn't burning from the inside out with the need to touch her, feels impossible. He wants to be that beer bottle between her legs, that drop of moisture sliding down the glass, turning her jeans a darker shade.
That shirt--green and soft and begging to be on the floor--makes her skin glow incandescent.
Logan knows Marie wants him. That's not something anyone can hide from him. But does she understand what that means? What happens when this girl realizes being with him entails alot more than holding hands and walks in the wood?
He'll obsess about those first moments later. But despite his best guesses, he can never figure out how it happened. He remembers Marie choking on the beer, being amused at the look on her face and angry with himself for not bringing something else for her.
And then he's tasting Molson and peppermint inside her mouth.
From that first little moan she gives, Logan is lost. There's absolutely no question of him stopping. It's physically impossible.
Her body is supple and responsive, makes him feel like a train careening off a mountain. Logan can't ready her as much as he'd like, can't do more than stroke her stomach when she flinches. His member is threatening to burst the seams of the denim, and once free it surges forward, like a grey hound going for a walk with it's weaker owner.
Logan does his best to move slow, but later he'll berate himself for not approaching her first time with more tenderness. That smell of iron will keep him awake at night, along with every gasp, every whimper. He'll tell himself that he should have waited, should have made certain she was sure.
But at the moment, those worries are obliterated by the force of his own arousal, and the taste in the air when she comes. It sends him over the edge; he pumps brutally, relentlessly, and empties himself inside her.
Later, when Marie is sweaty and limp and sated (just how he likes 'em), Logan tugs her on top of him.She's cute, half-purring. Babbling on and on, and he nods--says "Mmm-hmm" when it feels appropriate, but he's drifting in his own personal afterglow.
He doesn't pay much attention until Marie begins to talk about the sex they'd just had. Adorable, excited "Remembers" and "Did yous". She doesn't seem to know what it does to him. What she liked, what she didn't. When she describes her orgasm, Logan becomes impossibly hard. He goes from satisfied to starving in a half-second.
Logan rolls them over to wordlessly define the term 'even better'.
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Author's Chapter Notes:
I'm so glad I managed to get this typed up; I had almost forgot what "On-Time" meant! Warning: angst and adult content within. This chapter is dedicated to feedback, Chinese food, nursing homes and bingo games. I'm completely in the dept of reviewers who can keep me writing even when my pen just doesn't want to touch that page. I'm shamelessly pleading to hear your thoughts again. Every time you click that review button, a dollar is donated to the "Beat-The-Writer's-Block" campaign. We're in desperate need of funds.
I hope you enjoy this chapter--I'm reasonably satisfied with it. (Spoiler-haters, stop here!). I can 85% promise a happy ending now.
Oh! Almost forgot. My awesome, sweet, non-murderous beta is in Colorado this week, and apparently my "arms will be cut off and fed to pit bulls if I dare to interrupt her skiing", so this chapter was not edited by her. I did comb over it for mistakes, but I apologize if I missed one or two things.
I hope you enjoy this chapter--I'm reasonably satisfied with it. (Spoiler-haters, stop here!). I can 85% promise a happy ending now.
Oh! Almost forgot. My awesome, sweet, non-murderous beta is in Colorado this week, and apparently my "arms will be cut off and fed to pit bulls if I dare to interrupt her skiing", so this chapter was not edited by her. I did comb over it for mistakes, but I apologize if I missed one or two things.
Chapter End Notes:
Thank you so much for getting down here!
>on hands and knees, shamelessly making fool of oneself< If you liked or hated the previous segment, I would love to hear. You'd absolutely make my day and I will....give you a cupcake? It's invisible but very yummy, I promise.
>on hands and knees, shamelessly making fool of oneself< If you liked or hated the previous segment, I would love to hear. You'd absolutely make my day and I will....give you a cupcake? It's invisible but very yummy, I promise.