Marie found the switch and turned her skin off, and Remy was sure they'd have sex – make love – that day. Or the next. Or the one after that, at the latest. He told her so mere minutes after she shared the incredible, mind-blowing, life-changing, exhiliration-causing news.

"So," he started, scooping her body closer to his with his arm around her waist, his most devlish grin making him look more rakish and handsome and ever, "does this mean we can finally be *together*, chere? The way we've always wanted?"

He was kissing her and Marie was stunned to realize that she was too stunned to notice Remy was *kissing* her. Not kissing her scarf, or her clothes, but *her*, her *skin*, her *flesh*. And she didn't even notice at first – how could she not notice?! – because the thought of Remy touching her, of them touching each other, being together, being intimate, like *that*, distracted her from noticing what were the first real kisses of her life. Distracted her, and not in a good way.

"Ummm...," she stalled, not wanting to hurt him. Not wanting to hurt him?! Where did *that* come from?! She loved him, didn't she?!! Remy and Marie, Gambit and Rogue, everyone knew they were mad for each other, and had been for years. Right? Right???! "Umm," she tried again, "I'm sorry, Remy, I just....This is all so new to me, and I just don't want to...."

Remy sighed but smiled. "I get it. It's a big deal, you don't want to rush." Marie nodded, smiled, grateful for his easy acceptance of her refusal. He brushed a strand of long white-streaked hair behind her ear gently. "You know I'll wait as long as you want," he said, and kissed her again, this time on the lips, and all Marie could think of was how many times she'd wanted Remy to do that, and how it didn't feel...right.

Logan found out about Marie's control at more or less the same time that everyone else did. He returned from a trip to town just as the mansion was breaking out in mass jubilation (Jubilation Lee, of course, leading the hip hoorays and other endless cheers), and it didn't take too long for Storm to fill him in. Unlike everyone else, Marie noticed, Logan didn't rush to congratulate her, or Remy (Marie was shocked at how many people, not just Jubes, were behaving as if it were as much a triumph or prize for *Remy* as for her). Logan didn't give Remy embarrassing winks or nudges or insinuate that a long, happy night awaited them, as even Scott – Scott! – did. No, Logan heard the news from Storm, stared hard at Marie, and went upstairs. Without saying a word. Well, she thought, that's Logan all over. Best day of an X-Man's life, and it matters exactly squat to the Wolverine. And though it *was* typical of Logan to be so unenthused at something the Xers were *so* enthused about, Marie still sighed over it when Logan's form disappeared from sight at the top of the stairs. A disappointed sigh.

No, Logan didn't say any of those happy, cheery things that everyone else did. He did something else.

He walked into Marie's room at three-forty-five in the morning.

"Wha...?" Marie muttered, sleepy and blinking. She saw Logan's form approaching and knew he must have shut the door purposefully loud, to wake her, because if he'd wanted to come in silently, he would have. Knowing that didn't explain a thing. "Wha...?"

Logan proceeded to walk right up to her bed, so Marie had to turn mostly on to her back to see his face. And then he did the damndest thing.

He took off his shirt.

Not only that, he took off his shirt and waited. He said nothing. He gazed hard at Marie, like a wolf on the hunt. But said nothing. He waited. His finely cut musculature, statue-like except for the movement of his chest with every breath, hovered over Marie, and he waited.

For what? Marie wondered. What's he...?

Then she knew. She sat up in her bed. She pushed the covers down. She locked eyes with the Wolverine and took off her nightgown and then no one was waiting anymore.

When Logan rose from the bed the next morning, his blood was still running thick in his veins. He knew that he could stand to have a lot more of her, hell, he could easily spend all day and all that night in this same damn bed with her, and he wouldn't be *done*. He was satisfied, many times over satisfied, and she was too, he'd made damn sure of it, but he was a far sight from *done*. But it was morning, and they lived in this goddamn house full of people who'd come looking for one or both of them if they didn't do their usual rounds.

They hadn't spoken even once in four hours. They also hadn't stopped, for even five minutes. As he prepared to turn away from her and leave, Logan kissed Marie hard, and Marie thought that Remy's kisses compared to Logan's were like a rainshower compared to a torrential typhoon of a storm. In other words, they were nothing. And this, this mass of muscle and bone and metal and flash beneath her bare hands, this pushing of coarse tongue inside her mouth, this scraping of stubbled chin against her chin, this was everything.

He turned and left and Marie realized she didn't get a chance to see his expression when he went. Was he happy about what they'd done? Upset? What did he think about it all? Why'd he done it?

In the shower, Marie resolved not to think on it anymore. It just...was. That was all. Logan was...Logan. That was all. He was not a complicated man. That didn't mean she could ever figure him the hell out, but there was no point, since the last night wasn't about romance, it was just...sex. That was all. Except why Logan would want to have...except of course it seemed apparent that he did, indeed, want to have sex with her, and more, oh, much more than once, and.... He just acted on his instincts, was all. He was instinctual. And it would never happen again. Therefore, she should – would, would!! that's what she meant – stop thinking about it. At all.

Logan had only a half a clue more about why he'd gone to her room. Scarcely any cogent thoughts were in his head after no sleep and four hours of the most...indescribably good sex...even calling it "sex" wasn't good enough, the very noun to name the act wasn't enough...but Logan knew this: He knew he had taken what was his by right.

"Mine by right." That was the lone thought that skittered through his brain.

Though neither Logan nor Marie expected, on anything approaching a conscious level, for a similar encounter to happen again, or again, or again, it did. They kept happening. Marie went to Logan's room the next night, and he returned to hers the night after, and so on until they were both so tired durig the day from lack of sleep that Storm asked if they'd been on some secret missions together or something, what was up with them both being so insomniac at the same time? Marie gulped with fear that Storm would guess their secret, but Logan reached over under the long dining table and squeezed Marie's knee reassuringly hard.

"Maybe we're just in the same rhythm right now," Logan answered Storm, a strange and ambiguous answer, or so it seemed to everyone at the table, including Logan himself. But that was how he felt these days, and lack of sleep didn't help. He was in strange and ambiguous territory. And having the best sex...more than sex...of his life. For anywhere from four to six hours a night.

It went on for a week more until Marie decided she couldn't bear putting Remy off for one more day the way she'd been doing, with her promise that when she was ready, they'd finally.... It was a lie, and now she knew it had always been a lie. They would never. That was the blatant truth. After being with Logan the way she had, even if Logan left tomorrow and never came back (though the thought left her feeling as if a bullet had shot through her chest), she would never be with Remy the way she kept telling him, the way she kept promising him, she would.

"Stop," she told Logan that night when he came into her room.

He stopped, and tilted his head, like a dog does when it's puzzled at its master acting funny. Or suspicious.

"I mean," she said, "we have to stop." Her voice, no, her whole body, trembled at the awful, soul-destroying thought. "It's wrong."

"You love him?" Logan asked on a harsh note, rage filling him at the awful, soul-obliterating thought.

Marie shook her head. "No. But I hate lying to him. I can't stand lying. It's so wrong."

Logan walked over to the bed and stripped off his clothes. He stood naked before the woman he wanted more than any woman he'd ever wanted...and more than that, the woman who was his, when no woman before had ever been. She was his by right. Fate or the gods or the truckers in Laughlin gave him to her, and now he had rights over her. And he intended to exercise them.

Cupping her face in his hand, he asked, "Is this wrong?"

God, Marie thought, Logan is standing over me, naked as a primal god and just as strong, and ready to come into this bed and love me till I faint, and he is asking me if this is wrong?! "No," she said, and swallowed, but it didn't help anything. "No."

"Then it must be right," Logan said.

That was all, and that was that. They hadn't talked, he hadn't courted her, there'd been no uncertainty, there hadn't even been a question two weeks prior. And yet.... She learned to touch, and Logan made sure he was the only one she ever touched. And that was that.

"It must be," Marie said, sighing. A happy sigh.

"Tell him tomorrow. Then it'll be right." Logan sat on the bed and proceeded to enfold her within his all-powerful, all-encompassing embrace.

"Right," Marie whispered before giving herself over forever without hesitation or regret.