She couldn't believe Logan let her decide on everything they did that day. He'd agreed to taking the bike into town and not the truck, so she got to make with the clinging and that was always nice. He'd gone with her to the zoo and didn't complain when she spent entirely too long in the penguin exhibit. Even when she wanted to "pop inside" a clothing store just to test his limits, he'd patiently waited very close to the door.

Rogue was on cloud nine as they walked down one of the city's streets. Getting away from the mansion was always nice; getting away from the mansion to spend a full day alone with Logan...that was a rare treat.

Thinking of rare treats activated her always on call sweet tooth and an idea immediately popped into Rogue's mind.

"Hey...you wanna get some ice cream?" she asked casually.

Logan cocked the infamous eyebrow. "Yeah, I'm game."

A grin spread across both their faces, although they hid it from each other. Game was an accurate word alright. Somehow ice cream had become an intricate part of their time with each other, but that fact went unspoken. The innocuous little dairy treat had somehow moved them from friendship to ... hopeless flirtations with something less platonic. Maybe sugar just did that to people.

Rogue spotted the familiar sign a block ahead. "Ooo-ooo-ooo," she bounced, flapping a hand. "Ben and Jerry's. Look."

Trying to suppress a laugh, Logan conceded. "Okay, sounds good to me."

She all but dragged him by the hand into the ice cream parlor. They spent a few moments being bombarded with the warm scent of freshly baked waffle cones, before Rogue saw it. It was number 2 on the daily selections. Coffee Coffee Buzz Buzz.

"Oh Logan, they got Coffee Coffee Buzz Buzz," she said, her drawl bumping up a notch in the excitement. She looked longingly through the glass at the chocolatey coffee concoction. "We gotta get it."

Logan leaned forward, placing a hand on her back. He made out to be squinting into the large vats of ice cream, but Rogue knew - the man didn't need to squint to see anything.

"And just why do we gotta get it?" he asked.

"It's so good. I promise, you'll love it. It's coffee ice cream with chocolate bits and chocolate covered espresso beans," she rattled off sounding as if she'd already had a hand full of the beans.

"Okay. I'm sold."

When the ice cream man asked for their order, Rogue was shocked to hear Logan say, "A half gallon of the Coffee Buzz whatever."

That was a lot of ice cream! Then he took the mini-vat, paid the man, and grabbed two spoons. No napkins.

"Let's go," he said on the way to the door.

Rogue followed and they walked another block to the park. Logan sat down on one of the benches, stretched out his long legs, cradling the ice cream in one arm with the other laid casually across the back of the bench. Now that, Rogue thought, was the stuff of day dreams. Logan and coffee and chocolate. She sat down quickly before the goofy grin could give her away.

He handed her the container to peel off the top. In the shuffle, one of the spoons was dislodged and he watched it fall to the dirty ground. They both stared at the fallen spoon.

"Ah well, we'll share," he waved off and dug into their dessert.

"Mmm ths' real mgood," Logan mumbled after stuffing his mouth full.

"Here," he offered her a huge spoonful.

Rogue opened wide, knowing she couldn't possibly fit that much ice cream in her mouth. What was left on the spoon Logan immediately crammed into his mouth. He was eating the ice cream that, for all intents and purposes, had been in her mouth. The afternoon was taking *that* turn again, she pondered. This thought was interrupted by another massive scoop of ice cream bumping against her lips.

Then he did it again! What she didn't finish, he ate. The whole ice cream thing had to be going places. No way was this normal behavior.

Logan dug into the container again and the flimsy plastic spoon broke with a snap.

"Darn," Rogue offered. "It must be too hard."

They both looked forlorn at the loss of fun they were having.

"Oh well, life's too short," she piped up again, removing her gloves and curling two fingers together to scoop out a bite.

When Logan's eyes shot up to hers, she tried to put his mind at ease. "Don't worry. My hands are clean."

It wasn't really what he was thinking at the moment, but he just shrugged and proceeded to use his own hand as scoop.

The whole ordeal turned into a sloppy, sticky mess but neither of them did a good job of hiding their enjoyment of it. The espresso beans took effect about half way through and had them both juiced up and jabbering incoherently over mouthfuls of ice cream. Once he'd emptied the container, Logan sat back with a satisfied grin.

"My hands are wrecked," Rogue laughed, indicating the ice cream still on her hands as it proceeded to run down towards her wrist and into her sleeve. It was then that she remembered they hadn't brought napkins.

It was innocent enough, at the start. To catch the rapidly spreading run of ice cream, she stuck out her tongue, licking all the way from below her wrist to the tip of her pinky finger; the action making Logan sit back up. He watched her move on to suck her thumb clean.

After that, all reason took a caffeine induced break for the afternoon. Suddenly his hand was around Rogue's wrist and he'd taken her fingers into his mouth. Sucking them clean, he thought she tasted like mocha and felt like silk against his tongue. He pulled her wrist away and stared back into her wide eyed face.

Rogue's mind was in a tail spin. Logan had just sucked on her fingers! There were no words. Well, there were words alright. Lots of them. All of them naughty.

"That was...dangerous," she tried.

"Yeah," he replied, watching her intently.

She thought for a minute, about what it all might mean, what could happen, where this may or may not lead; then decided that what she said earlier was absolutely true. Life is too short.

Moving her hand back toward his mouth she smiled shyly. "You...uh...you missed a spot."