“Has he kissed you since you took the cure?”
Marie blinked in amazement at Logan’s personal question.
“No,” she felt a tongue of shame start to burn in her cheeks. Why hadn’t Bobby tried to kiss her? There really was no excuse for it.
Logan’s hand released her one wrist and he lightly stroked her cheek again with the back of his fingers. “Has anyone kissed you since?”
“No,” Marie admitted, and realized her own voice had lowered to a whisper.
“Do you want to be kissed?” The feral edge was coming to his voice now, but it wasn’t the dangerous edge; it was the sexual one.
“God, yes,” the words tumbled out before Marie realized her mouth was open. She didn’t have time to close it before Logan pressed his lips softly over hers.
Her mind raced with questions: am I doing this right? Should I throw my arms around him? My legs? If I do, will he bolt, or start pulling my clothes off? What if I’m a terrible kisser?!? Maybe I should just go for it and let Nature take her course.... Oh my god, Logan’s kissing me!
Logan’s lips worked slowly over hers, silky skin on silky skin; soft, hungry kisses that she responded to gently, bit by bit, and before Marie could really get a grasp of what was happening, he eased up from her, allowing her to catch her breath.
“Wow.....” Marie breathed the word.
“Yeah....” Logan grinned at her from above, and ducked his head again to kiss her deeply. His hands moved to the carpet by her sides, keeping his full weight off her, but he worked her bottom lip into a suckling kiss, nipping at her playfully, while her arms finally snaked around his shoulders. He had just decided to nibble at her throat when a firm knock sounded on the door.
“Logan? I can’t find Rogue - have you seen her?” Drake’s voice broke the intimate moment between them like the shattering of glass on concrete.
“Fuck,” Logan angrily breathed the word onto Rogue’s neck.
“Afraid not, sugar,” Marie whispered back at him before they both pulled themselves to their feet. Logan started toward the door and Marie quickly checked to see that all her clothing was to rights.
Stopping halfway between the door and the sofa, Logan turned back to Marie, and asked her quietly, “Do you want me to answer him?”
With a grimace, she nodded her approval. “Go ahead - I’ve got to deal with this some time.”
Opening the door with a studied nonchalance, Logan nodded his head toward where Marie stood by the sofa. “She’s all yours, Drake.”
Startled at the words he chose, Marie cast an intense look at Logan who returned it with unmistakable shards of jealousy in his eyes, then exited his own door and shut it behind him. Marie and Bobby stood awkwardly and alone in Logan’s room.
“Figured I’d find you in here,” he began, his eyes inspecting her face closely, his hands jammed tightly into his pockets as usual when he was uncomfortable.
“We were watching a movie.” It wasn’t a lie, just not the whole truth. “What did you want?” Marie folded her arms across her chest, unaware of her own defensive body language.
“I just wanted to....” Bobby stopped in mid-sentence, and stepped closer to Rogue, studying her face intently. She saw his expression go hard, eyes flinty, lips pressed tight together. Three heartbeats later, he stepped back from her. “Forget it. I can see you’ve got other things on your mind.”
Stunned, she struggled for something to say. “What are you talking about?”
He exploded at her. “You were kissing him! All I have to do is look at this room, at your face, your hair!” Drawing one deep breath, he continued in a cold furor, “Your lips are red and swollen, your hair’s messed up, the furniture is shoved around - were you fucking him on the floor, Rogue?!” Bobby’s hands had come out of his pockets and he was gesturing wildly, pointing accusingly at her.
Rogue felt everything falling apart around her. “Bobby, stop this!”
His tone was pure rage, clamped down tight. “Deny it! Deny it if it isn’t true. Were you kissing him? Fucking him on the floor, or on the couch? What were you doing? Why is everything with us changing now? It’s like I don’t know you any more.”
Rogue felt her own rage bubbling to the surface, and her Inner Logan pushed her to let it free. “You don’t know me any more, Bobby Drake. You’ve done everything wrong since I came here! You pushed and pushed to get close to me when you couldn’t, when I was untouchable. And now when you ‘can’ get close to me, you’re avoiding me like I’ve got some kind of disease! This is sick! It’s not healthy for either one of us.” Rogue’s hands were shaking, but she pushed onward with the emotions that were feeding her words. “It’s like you only wanted me when you couldn’t have me, and now since I’m cured, you don’t give a good damn any more, except to make me feel bad for trying to do something good for myself, and for you.”
She stopped cold at the last words, realizing how it sounded, like she’d taken the cure for him. She hadn’t. Had she? Had she loved him enough then to make the decision to risk taking the cure, and in the interim, had all that changed?
“You’re still not denying it,” Bobby was shaking too, but from what, Rogue couldn’t tell: rage, jealousy, heat of the moment? She was unsure. Pushing past him, she twisted the doorknob and flung the door wide open, then stepped aside.
“I’m not talking to you any more tonight. Just leave, and we’ll talk tomorrow, maybe. No arguments. Just go.”
Without another word, Bobby stomped out the door and disappeared down the darkened hallway. Marie eased the door shut and turned back to the shambled room. Turning the table upright again, she discarded the empty bottle and soda can, turned off the TV, and quietly left the room, closing the door behind her.
From an empty room across the hall, Logan listened in concealed silence to the whole shouting match, undetected by either Rogue or Drake. He stood for a long time after they had both left before leaving his cover and returning to his room.
Her scent was still strong in the space, but it was tinged with rage now, instead of arousal. Things were changing.
They needed to change a lot more.
Sighing deeply, he left the room again and headed for the woods behind the school. He needed to clear his head, and the forest always did that for him. In five minutes, he was deep into the old growth trees, the night and the moon starting to heal his turmoil.
Earlier, just down the hall from Logan’s room on the teacher’s floor, Shelly Hanson punched in the numbers and listened while the cell phone connected to Toad’s.
“Hi, honey!” she chirped into the phone, choosing her words cautiously. “Everything’s going well here. I’m all settled in.” She was careful not to mention anything specific, especially names, in case their calls were overheard. Technology was convenient, but there was no such thing as a secure cell phone call. “I’ve got my ‘stuff’...” she accented the word for accuracy, “scattered all over the place, but it’s all good. I’m learning the routine, and getting familiar with the people here.”
“Great work, love. Anything that might tickle your fancy yet, or mine?” Toad liked this girl, and she had liked his accent, which he used to full advantage when they spoke. “Anything I need to pencil into my social schedule yet?”
“Not yet, but I’ve heard some things. I should have more tomorrow. I think things are coming together but I’ve got to confirm. I’ll call you again tomorrow.”
“I’ll handle everything here, and you take care of yourself, right?”
“Right. See ya,” Shelly clicked off the call and tucked the cell phone away in her purse. Sitting before her dressing table in her new room on the teacher’s floor, she picked up her hairbrush and stroked it through her silken blonde mane. Patting every hair into place, she gave a gleaming smile at the framed picture of herself in a swimsuit with the pageant banner draped across her bared shoulders. She had been born for stages and runways, catwalks and cameras. Who could have guessed that pageant committees would start avoiding mutants as contestants? She had hidden her manifesting abilities for years, until one small competition board had required blood and urine tests for drugs, but had also unadmittedly tested for the x-gene. Her beauty pageant career was over from that point on; gossip ran rampant through the pageant community, and she’d been among the first eliminated in every competition she entered after that point.
Sounds from the hallway distracted her from the hurtful memories. Angry voices and opening and closing doors had been sounding for several minutes from down the hall, and she had peeked out just in time to see the retreating figure of Bobby Drake stomping past her doorframe. Minutes later she heard the door shut again, and Rogue quietly left Logan’s room. Her curiosity piqued, she remained staring into the darkened hallway for some time, eventually seeing Logan appear from across the hall, enter his own room, and quickly leave again. This teacher’s floor of apartments was better than a good murder mystery!
Tuning her mutant senses into the path he’d taken, she listened through her body’s cells strung about the mansion, anticipating his path. Hallway, moving south. Stairs, through the foyer, going toward the back door. Patio, footsteps then fading away. He had left the mansion, everything silent in his wake.
Easing the door fully open, Shelly grabbed her hairbrush and moved quickly down the hall, entered Logan’s room, and stuffed a loose hair from her brush under the sofa and another under his bed near the side stand where the phone rested.
With any luck, upon his return the open window and gentle evening breeze would have removed her scent from his room. If he sensed her having been there, she could always cover with a story that she’d had a question about class schedules, but he’d been gone when she’d knocked on his unlocked door. A little flirting always helped with men, too - distracted them from their original intentions.
Checking the hallway once again through her audio-cellular senses, she closed the door and returned to her own room. One more check told her the mansion was quiet, so she turned off the light and crawled into bed. With a yawn and a stretch, she settled in to sleep. Her new classes started early the next morning.
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Author's Chapter Notes:
Rogue gets kissed, Bobby blows a gasket, and Logan makes a hasty retreat. A spy comes out in the night.