Of all the thousands of ways I had ever imagined Logan's return the one that I had never considered throughout the pendulum of images that raced through my mind - ranging from ecstatic reunion complete with bone crushing hugs to faked indifference and self assured confidence, dependent upon what mood I was in - was the one where I would look up in the middle of faking an orgasm to see him standing in my doorway, jaw slack, mouth open, eyes wide.
God I could kill Jubilee sometimes.
Because of her I was living through the reunion from When Harry Met Sally hell and I didn't even see the point of faking orgasm. Not only because I would never be in a sexual situation in which it would come up, after all I basically wore a sign that said Beware, deadly skin ahead, death to all who venture forth. Mainly I just thought that faking orgasms was stupid.
As I tried to explain it to Jubilee and Kitty, what was the point? Basically there were three types of relationships - first there was the one night stand/casual sex is the only reason we can stand each other arrangement followed closely by the, we don't know each other very well but we are having sex because at this time in our relationship we have run out of things to say and this lust could be love given half a chance, and last was the loving relationship where feelings were in the running and even fucking against a wall was based as equally on lust as love.
Given these three categories I could never seem to grasp why I, or any women, should have to put such energy into faking an enjoyment she didn't feel simply to spare the feelings of someone who was going to have a good time no matter what. That was the true punishment from god, Eve did not damn her sisters through the indignation of menstruation and agonizing pain of child birth, it was the unfairness that women didn't have the ability to come ever time, after all once a man obtains erection its pretty much a done deal that he will ejaculate. Why should he get to have the thrill of the rid without paying the price.
In any case the first scenario was based solely on a desire for sex, no self respecting women would enter into a no ties sexual liaison, solely mind you for SEX, and not get a measure of what they came for, why fake it? Why try to spare his feelings? Obviously he ain't doing it for you, cut your losses, move on, maybe leave him a few hints to work from.
The last two categories are slightly different in that you are in a relationship, if the sex isn't working for you, you really need to speak up, try something new rather than be forced into faked orgasms for the rest of your life which would more than likely turn to disinterest and adultery by one or both of you. And if the situation was only an occasional occurrence then, as the relationship is not solely based on sex, the loving should outweigh the times you don't manage to come. Faking is like lying, it can't end well.
Call me a pessimist if you will but I really didn't see the point.
Of course if I had stuck to my high moral ground on this matter I wouldn't now be looking up into the most beautiful pair of hazel eyes I have ever seen, shocked as they are, whimpering and groaning give it to me big boy.
Of all the fantasies I have ever had of Logan, and believe me they are innumerable; this was not the situation I had imagined those sounds and that phase would appear.
For starters he was always naked.
And I never had to fake it.
I could tell you the embarrassment that flowed between us as our eyes met, my deep brown to his striking hazel; they had a little green in them today. I could tell you that the thud that echoed in through the room after my shock filled `Oh God yes, hardeeerrrrr' had been moaned out of existence was Jubilee falling on the floor. Or that Kitty turned a deep shade of red that remarkably resembled the type of overripe tomatoes that dithery old grandmothers try to fob off on Halloween, as Mrs. O’Sullivan down the river use to say, 'candy will root your teeth, tomatoes simply curl your hair', I had always thought that was bread crusts but what seven year old argues about old wives tales with elderly ladies?
All right, yes I did but it never did any good. I came away with no candy, no tomato and a red imprint of her hand on my arm for my insolence. I called it speaking my mind. Logan called it trouble but he was never one to judge, the kettle calling the pot black and all that.
All of this, along with Jeans shocked gasp went unheeded as I stared into those hazel eyes and he stared into mine, the shock slowly turning into unveiled amusement as a grin broke out on his face. It was magical to watch, how his eyes crinkled slightly at the corners, the check mussels twitching, the corners of his mouth turning up slightly, the lush lips that even from the first called out to me to take between my teeth and lick with my tongue, spreading upwards before being forced down in Logan's male attempt to look stern, his desire to laugh mixing with some adult need to set an example. The desire won out, it had a tendency to do that with Logan.
"So how you been kid", his deep, rich tone was one that my mama would call as thick as molasses and twice as sinful, the type of voice that was the unmaking of a good girl, I was not the exception. Thankfully the previous show could be blamed for my shortness of breath and the husky tone of my voice.
"I've been good Logan, keeping busy you know, school, friends, my part time job as a phone sex operator". Jean gasped again, for a telepath that women never seemed to know what was going on. Logan just smiled, then he laughed, a sound I had never heard, a beautiful, full laugh that sent shivers down to my toes.
Then he did something unexpected, he squatted down next to me and quick as a flash had me encompassed in a warm tight, bone crushing hug, my face pressed to his chest, one of his hands at my back the other in my hair. A quickly muttered `I missed you Marie' proceeded a momentary press of his lips to the top of my head, my muttered 'I missed you more' drifting between us as he pulled back and looked down at me, the twinkle still in his eye.
"So how well does this phone sex gig pay kid, if I'm gonna stay I'll need a job".
AVOIDANCE
Have you ever really noticed how the story of the Turtle and the Hare never really made that much sense? I mean the story itself was intriguing, the moral lesion obvious to anyone over the age of four, the situation amusing in a way, it was just that it was in no way logically. You saw how slow and steady won the race, persistence prevailed over cockiness, hard work over laziness. This is all well and good for a children's story but I could never help wondering why the Hare didn't just run the whole way and win the race, leaving the turtle in his dust. If it was just so he could sleep he could have done it after.
What I never saw in this seemingly harmless tale was the Hare's twisted need to torture the turtle, the need not to finish as fast as possible but to play with the turtle, to string it along with the vain idea that it could have what it wanted by slowing down and giving the impression that the turtle was better off than it really was.
Logan's been home three weeks and I'm beginning to feel like that turtle, that I have a chance at the one thing I want most in the world, Logan. I just have to be sure that I'm not being mislead, strung along, left in the dust.
I won't be the turtle.
One would think that after eighteen and a half years of life, a high school diploma, honors graduate thank you very much; having grown up in the south with the slickest men in the world and one teenage boy and two worldly men wandering around in my head that I would have learnt at least not to talk to myself out loud. But given that life is never as it should be that was not the case.
It all started about a week after Logan had been back. After the initial awkward orgasm situation and the reassuring Jean that I had not turned to phone sex to pay for college everything had kind of leveled out, almost normal, though it is hard to say what normal was with Logan given that as well as I knew him, the real him, his mannerisms where still quite new to me. We had lunch that day, we talked about what I had done and the little next to nothing he had found in Canada, we had dinner together and I fell asleep on his bed while we were still talking, more about me that him but still it was nice.
After that we got into a type of routine, I was doing some correspondence college courses and helped tutor the younger students during the day but each day we would sit outside on a bench and eat lunch together, sometimes talking, sometimes not, the silence one of comfort. At dinner we would also sit together and after we would often watch television or more regularly play pool. The Logan in my head showing me how, the Logan in the flesh refining my game until it was near perfect and he joked that he couldn't wait to take me to a bar so we could hustle the natives out of their extra cash.
It was pleasant, friendly, perfect, I had my feelings under control, I was the maker of my own destiny, I was the keeper of my fate, I was women hear me roar... I was busted in the garage staring at his ass and to make matters worse I think I may have been drooling.
What did make it worse was my whispered voice saying out loud what should have stayed in my head and would have to if the universe didn't hate me and the Wolverine didn't happen to have extra sensitive hearing that picked up my breathless whisper...
"God what I wouldn't give to be able to touch that".
That's when it started, the A to Z of sexual tension. Upon my whisper Logan's head spun around, his eyes locking on mine as he straightening, for a spilt second a flash of something, awareness, desire even could be seen in his eyes as he trailed them up my body. I spun around so fast that I was sure I left half the sole of my shoe embedded on the garage floor as I all but flew back to the house. Locking myself in my room I put the breathy "Ditto darling" I had thought I had heard as a fled down to hormone induced madness and began the first step of sexual tension - avoidance.
BANTER
Ever since then Logan has been stalking me and I have been avoiding him, well as much as you can avoid a determined man with 200 pound of metal running through him.
Yesterday he finally cornered me for the first time, alone, in the library; against the far wall he ambushed me in between Browning and the beginning of the history of World War One. I didn't have a chance you see, I was the turtle but he had changed the rules, he didn't want to talk, to let me down gently, to toy with me and tell me I was a wonderful kid but he just wasn't into me that way.
Instead he began the second stage, he began the banter, he wrapped his index finger in me white lock of hair, twirling it idly, leaning into me, weight on one hip and gazed at me with this look, this look I can't even describe, one that got me angry and wet all at the same moment.
"You know kid" he drawled, "I could help you with the auto-mechanics of that engineering paper you're doing, you know show you up close and personal the inner workings of an engine". And this bit I didn't believe, he cocked his eyebrow up in that sexy way of his, grinned fully down at me and said, straight face and all, "I could show you where the dip stick goes".
Alright, perhaps I have a dirty mind, it comes with the territory of touchless skin, making your own entertainment in a sense, but by god the sexual innuendo was unmistakable, as was the hitch in my breathing and the whimper that I tried to shut down but he caught because he was the Wolverine, a blessing and a curse. It just made the bastard grin wider.
I somehow managed to push past him and run, avoidance still my motto, my head screaming `what the hell is going on here', my body, well it should be illegal what that man can do with a simple eyebrow.
So here I am, cowering in my room trying to work out what the hell is going on, trying to determine whether Logan is the cruelest person I know or heaven in jeans that could all be mine.
It took me six hours to make up my mind, the longest six hours of my life, even given the time I was held captive in that magnetic machine. In the end the answer was so simple that I was ashamed of wasting so much time agonizing over it.
Logan wouldn't hurt me that way; he wouldn't take our friendship and turn it into something dirty, something for his own amusement. He would never hurt me. He wanted me though I was pretty sure he didn't want to, just as sure that this form of blatant tactic was his way of driving me off, showing me that I was just a kid trying to play in the big league, a league he was an experienced leader in. The game of sexual tit for tat, a game that could go no further than what I was ready to give and Logan thought I was way out of my league, he thought that he could show me he wanted me, me Rogue, me Marie, me the girl who no-one could touch, to scare me away so that we would both be safe.
He was right, I was in over my head but I didn't really care. I loved Logan and it was about time he learnt that the sexual game of tit for tat could move up a notch or two when feelings were involved.
I just didn't know if his were.
It was then that I started to stalk him. It was my inning and despite the cheesy baseball metaphors I had a homerun to score.
COTIUS INTERUPTIS
As soon as I left my room I could tell he thought he had won. My rather dramatic exit of the library had cemented in his mind that it was over, he was safe to go back to desiring me from afar, safe to go back to friendship. All the same he didn't sit with me at dinner that night, in fact he wasn't even in the dinning hall, I know, I spent two hours slowly eating my dinner just to see if he would come in. That has to be love for you, the horror of eating two-hour cold cabbage, in fact the horror of actually eating the cabbage at all.
He never showed. A blessing because I had no idea what to do.
I didn't see him for three days. I was too afraid of the questions that would result if I asked anyone where he was, if he had run again, if he was coming back, I was closest to him and I didn't even know.
As it turned out he hadn't run he had hibernated.
O.K the truth was that he was hiding, the big bad Wolverine was afraid of someone less than half his size, terrified even.
"So this is where you've been" and for the life of me I think I frightened him, him with his sensitive hearing and smell, he spun so fast that he fell over in the mud, claws unleashed straight into the dirt that had turned to slush after the rain the day before.
He looked up, one hazel eye covered by a wisp of his brown hair, his lips in a thin line he looked almost pensive and definitely guilty, whether from hiding or from his actions I didn't know and I didn't care. God he was hot.
"Hey kid what you doing out here so late?"
"Looking for you", I thought it was obvious but men could be obtuse on occasion so I refrained from signing in frustration. Even if I didn't know how to play, this was not progressing as it should.
So I did the one thing I always do when I'm nervous, I talked.
"Look Logan, I need to talk to you about what's going on with us" I began, impressed that my voice was still at one level I began to pace before him, walking back and forth trying to do anything but look at him because god he was hot.
"You've been avoiding me and I don't like it. If it's just because of the ass comment I sorry, I never meant to say it aloud, I didn't mean it". My pace increased along with my nervousness, my hands began making those annoying gestures as I talked, those gestures that everyone knows means your nervous, the ones that often hit into people near you, or in my case throw you off balance.
"O.K so to be truthful, I did mean it I just didn't mean to say it aloud. Its hardly a secret that you have a nice ass, in fact probably one of the best I've ever seen, but really if you didn't want people to stare then you should really wear looser clothes. Christ Logan I mean do you think you could find a tighter pair of jeans or are you reduced to going to the children's section now to find them". And on and on I babbled while Logan sat shell shocked, torn between shock and amusement.
"It is hardly a secret that I'm attracted to you but really that's my problem, you are hardly to blame because I can't stop thinking about you naked". Oh Mary mother of Joseph did I really just say that out loud. Swinging to look at him, to check whether I had just entered into my own personal hell, my hands flung out and I fell, not quite sure how but next thing I knew I was lying flat on Logan's chest, knees somehow across his hips, arms next to his head, lips a hairs breath away from his, eyes locked, my wide with shock, his wide with...
I would have ignored his look if it hadn't been for the growl and the fact that he was stiff as a board, tense beyond anything I had ever seen him and I would have thought it was due to my skin if he hadn't been unconsciously moving forward, lips parted, eyes wide, to kiss me.
Somehow between my gasp of surprise, my parted lips and tongue running across the bottom one in anticipation I was able to remember that a conscious Logan was much more productive than an unconscious one and kissing him, as tempting as it was, and believe me when I say tempting, was bound to end in disaster, the worst of which left me alone with a 200 pound unconscious man. So instead I pulled back, quite abruptly, quickly leveling all my weight on his hips as I sat up. The change was better than a kiss as his hard erection was pressing into me at just the right spot and before I could be shocked at the sensation, shocked that he was this aroused, I had to whimper, my eyes fluttering shut and somehow grind against him in a way that was torture and heaven all rolled into one.
Not once but twice.
Then his hands, free of claws where around my hips, stilling my movements, earning a growl of anger from me reminiscent of Logan and a growl of arousal from Logan along with a husky "Marie" as I tried to grind against him again.
"Marie" echoed by another "Marie" as I successfully managed to push against him despite his resistance. "God baby we have to stop", whimper, growl, "we have to stop baby". His feeble attempt to halt my movements was overshadowed by the fact that his hands were now pushing me down harder against his burning erection, the shaft perfectly positioned to graze my hidden clit as he pushed and dragged me along his length. All I could do was whimper and I believe, though I wasn't exactly in my most avid frame of mind at the time, that Logan purred.
I do know that sometime in the craziness that was me and Logan dry humping in the forest, I managed to open my eyes and lock them onto his and what I saw sent another whimper through me. Along with the obvious lust and desire, the arousal that was evident within those hazel depths, now almost black with need, lay a glint of something more, something I knew was reflected in my own eyes, something I wasn't quite ready to believe was love but stopped my breath anyway.
"Logan, oh my god, Logan" I whimpered as he shifted the direction of my slide against him, my eyes rolling back in my head as a tingling I had never felt before started at the base of my spine radiating outward so quickly that I could do nothing but moan and hold on for the ride, I'd work out what was happening to me later, all I cared about was Logan's harsh breathing and my whimpered response as I was flung over a cliff I hadn't really seen coming. His words of encouragement were muffled in a scream that I didn't even realize I had given and as I came down, the universe spinning around me, the tingling of my body so strong that I was shaking, I could hear Logan, his voice soft with affection but harsh with need.
"That's it Marie, that's it darling" a whimper, a purr, a growled "god you are so beautiful baby"... a "WHAT THE HELL" coming from behind me.
Before I could blink I was standing, Logan in front of me, claws out, anger radiating from every pour as he stared at...Oh my god it can't be, shaking my sex clouded mind I looked again, then again hoping that it wasn't true, hoping that my first sexual experience had not been witnessed by my ex-boyfriend, the one who I had never even really let hug me let alone dry hump.
But as I've said before, the universe hates me so who else would it be but Bobby.
DENIAL
I wasn't in denial. I was just busy. What with school, tutoring, shopping with `Ro and Jean for wedding supplies, mental exercises with the professor, avoiding Bobby, vacuuming, ironing, defrosting the freezer at two in the morning and washing everything I owned just to have to iron it again, I just didn't have time to think about what happened; what didn't happen; what could have happened...whatever.
I wasn't in denial; I was just possessed by the sprit of Martha Stewart. Besides, the housekeeper worked too hard.
So that's how I found myself in the kitchen at three in the morning up to my elbows in flour. It wasn't denial that made me cook it was the fact that the housekeeper needed a vacation and I had a desire to poison the whole school by actually forcing them to eat my cooking. The scones that somehow turned out to look like cookies, or were they cookies, who knows, it was a mystery but I wasn't in denial.
One tsp of baking powder, one cup of flour, 2 eggs and cheese to taste, I can do this (alright I could do it once I spent twenty minutes trying to find a tsp, whatever the hell that was), mix the ingredients, add the milk, Logan gave me an orgasm, pour out the mixture, it was the best I had ever had even though the others were only ones I had given myself, cut the dough into pieces, glaze with melted butter, Logan gave me an orgasm...
Oh fuck I really was in denial even if it really wasn't working that well. And then I did the one thing that had gotten me into this mess in the first place; I spoke out loud, my voice breathless to my own ears, echoing in the empty kitchen even though it was a whisper.
"Logan gave me an orgasm". That wasn't so bad, it could have been worse. So Logan gave me an orgasm, an incredible, unforgettable, world altering orgasm and I loved it, every second, every sound, and every sensation. "God I wish it could happen again" I giggled "and again and again and again..."
"That's the wonder of the healing factor, quick recharge". Logan was standing leaning against the kitchen door, his face hidden in shadow, his voice husky. I gulped.
So Logan had given me an orgasm, denial could go fuck itself.
ELUCIDATE
I knew it had been coming, along with the denial I didn't feel, I had also not been doing any avoiding of Logan. While he would avoid me after a harmless flirtation, wait it out to see if I would run, he was too much the gentleman, or at least where I was concerned, to ignore a erotic sexual encounter in the woods, however unexpected. I knew it was coming and I ran from it, the moment of clarification, the moment where Logan back peddles, puts on the brakes and apologizes, remembers that he is world weary, can't remember half his life and looks at least ten years my senior but is probably over a hundred.
I didn't want him to apologize, to make the most singular experience of my whole life into a mistake, to take the perfection and beauty that I had felt and make it simply about sex.
It may have been sex to Logan but to me it was everything.
So I had denied, or at least tried to deny that it had happened. If it hadn't happened it couldn't be taken away. The glory of a touch I never felt I would feel and would never allow another to explore with me, the wonder of each movement, each sensation, each tingle. A perfection that could only be Logan and Marie.
I didn't realize that I was talking until I felt his presence near me, that pesky habit of talking out loud that which should stay private was always worse when I was around him, probably because nothing seemed like a secret from Logan, nothing was really ever real until I had shared it with him.
Gloved hand under my chin he lifted my head until I was staring into his eyes, the windows to the soul according to my granny, if that was true then Logan's soul was anguished. His hands cupped my face, forcing me to look at him.
"What the hell is happening here kid?" his tone was resigned, not angry, not accusing though it could have been since I was the one who had run, the one who had been in hiding, obviously the only one in denial.
I couldn't help it, self-preservation was my first instinct and sarcasm was my weapon as I pushed away from him, eyebrow arching, hips cocked in a way that screamed Logan. "How should I know, you're the one with all the experience, the one that's done all that before, the one that has sex as often as others change underwear and with as many different partners. I should be the one to pull the scared virgin act, you're the one that knew what he was doing, I was the one that was experiencing everything for the first time, I was..."
With a growl I found myself clutched by the arms, Logan's fingers pinching into me almost painfully, my soft curves pressed up against Logan's hard planes, my body almost suspended in thin air as I was pulled up onto my tiptoes, Logan's angry face before my eyes.
"You honestly think that that wasn't a first for me" his tone was so forceful it came out as a hiss. "I've done a lot in my life and probably a lot more in the bits I don't remember that I'm not proud of, that I would never have done if I had even had one second of knowledge that I would ever meet you. I would go back and change them if I could but I can't Marie, I can't no matter how much I wish I could. But never, never think that what we have, what we shared, what we could have is something I have ever experienced before or will ever experience with anyone but you". He was breathing hard as if he had run a marathon, his hands on my arms still biting but the slight pain was forgotten as I felt him shake, his eyes going black.
"You deserve better than me, you deserve so much better Marie" agonized I waited, breath held, would he say it, would he tell me, could he love me. "It wasn't suppose to be like this, you were suppose to see how wrong for you I was, I wanted to scare you out of this crush `cause that's what I thought it was, a simple crush. I left as much to find my past as to give you time to get over it, to find someone else, to see I'm no good for you." It was then that he lifted me right off my feet, forcing my arms around his neck and pushing me up and onto the counter behind, his eyes feral I knew he could smell it, smell me, my arousal, my need and as he pushed me onto the counter I reflexively wrapped my legs around him, pulling him closer.
He wrapped my white lock around his finger again, an action that spoke volumes of his affection even though his words had yet to. I didn't care I could wait.
His face so close to mine that I could make out gold flecks in his eyes he paused a whisper away from my lips and as I ran my tongue over my bottom lip, wetting it so that it glistened Logan whispered so low I almost missed it. "It isn't though is it?", my brain so foggy that it took me a moment to drag my gaze from his lips to realize that it was a question.
"Wha...what isn't?"
And he smiled.
"A crush Marie, this isn't just a crush is it?" His fingers were rubbing patterns on my back, tingles radiating from each touch, an answer on the tip of my tongue was lost in a moan of need as he swooped down, his wet mouth sucking oh so lightly on my collarbone through the silk of my pajama top, his tongue swirling out to wet the material and his teeth nipping at me, just enough pressure so not to hurt before being soothed and lathered with his tongue.
"A crush" my voice hitched, "I'm too old for crushes".
"So what is it then?" He pulled back, his eyes frightened and I instantly knew that while he wasn't ready to admit to love he needed me to, he needed me to assure him that this was not just a passing fancy, to know that what he was feeling wasn't going to kill him if I didn't feel the same. And I smiled, cupping my hands over his face and braced myself to lie to him, not with falsehood but with half-truth, I wouldn't speak of love until he was ready to so I smiled, looking lovingly into his eyes and pulled him towards me with legs and hands.
"This, this is everything Logan".
FALLACY
Lies are bad, bad, bad things. Lies eat away at you slowly devouring you until you think your going mad, slowly rooting away at your soul, even the lies that are true.
I remember when I was thirteen I told my mother that I was spending the night at Lucy Harrison's house that we were going to play barbies and go to bed early after consuming too much ice cream, that Lucy's parents would be there all night looking after us.
In reality I spent the night at a co-ed party held by a sixteen year old who I had convinced that I was fifteen and had gone to parties all the time, drunk, necked and even once popped ecstasy, I had that boy eating out of my hand with the belief that he would get lucky. The only thing he got was my puke on his shoes and my father threatening to have him whipped for touching his little angel. I never lied to my parents again, of course since I couldn't leave the house again for 2 years without one of them giving me the third degree and having Don the local PI following my every move, lying was simply a waste of energy.
With Logan lying was like cutting my heart out and watching it bleed.
Would it really have hurt to tell him I loved him, would it have crushed me if he told me he didn't?
That was my greatest fear, that he didn't love me, not really, that he would get tired of the half way intimacy, tired that he could never touch me, tired of me.
I knew he loved me, he had risked his life for mine, he had come back for me; he had stayed. But was love enough with all the other shit we would have to go through, not just his insecurity, his lack of faith that he was good enough for me; or even hang-ups about my skin. Was love enough to pull us through everything else.
I would have questioned Logan that night if I could coherently think and Jean hadn't come into the kitchen at the wrong moment looking for a glass of water. That excuse rang a little weak to me, she could have got water in her bathroom I just think her and scooter were up to some kinky food sex that in all reality I don't want to think about but I beat that's were all the whipped cream has been disappearing to.
Logan heard her in time though to disentangle himself from around me and step back, his front to the counter in an attempt to hide his erection. I just sat there, shell shocked, my bones liquid, holding my breath that Jean had her mind reading turned off and her senses dulled so as not to smell the arousal in the room.
I don't think she noticed but she stayed, chatting to me about the flower arrangements for her wedding and giving Logan strange glances out of the corner of her eye as he stood, unmoving, back to her, still as a stone, his eyes black and needy catching mine, conveying more than words ever could. All I did was sit there flushed and wanting, stumbling through some lame answers to questions I didn't hear, wondering why she found it necessary to have this pointless conversation at four in the morning. Maybe she suspected or maybe she just wanted to give Scott a moment to collect himself, maybe he had a fast trigger and needed a moment to recharge, after all he wasn't Logan.
Anyway by the time she left I had had enough time to collect myself so that I could stand and walk, enough time to realize the greatest problem with my lie, not that it would come back to haunt me because it was a only a lie of omission not a true falsehood, but the real problem was something more, something I would have a hard time controlling.
So I turned and left with a look and a whispered "Goodnight" to lie alone in my bed and listen to Jubilee snore since she was back from school for a while. Left alone in the dark to realize that I wanted to tell him as much as he needed to hear it. To realize that I didn't really care if he loved me back, didn't care that we were facing great problems and probably a lot of disapproval from those around us.
I just knew that telling Logan I loved him was a need that I couldn't stop and my failure to tell him then may have cost me more than my self-respect.
GUILT
"So how's life as a sex operator kid, need a hand at getting those orgasms ringing out correctly?" Logan's lazy drawl came from the doorway as I cleaned up after my last tutoring session of the day. I knew he would come and I was not avoiding him, I was not in denial, I was in guilt. Guilt that I had not told this wonderful man exactly what he made me feel, that I, the one with the semi-normal background hadn't the courage to give this emotionally scared six foot of perfection exactly what he needed, what I wanted.
I looked up at him, gave him my cheekiest smirk and let my inner self run like a coward.
"I believe you've already done that sugar, but if you'd like to try again I'm always up for more, education's good for the soul they say". And remarkably he wasn't angry that I was hiding it from him. He grinned then laughed, shutting and locking the door behind him before stalking up to me and crushing me in a bear hug.
"Are you sure Marie" his voice no more than a whispered breath on my ear that sent shivers down my spin and caused my neck to arch back and my mouth to open. I knew what he was asking in his own Logan kind of way, he was asking if I was ready for this, not just the sex but the rest that was to come because if I said yes now, this minute he would slowly strip me of every layer and make me his, not just my clothes but my heart, my soul. I was his mate and he was asking permission to be mine.
What could I say but yes.
On the floor of that classroom, pressed down between the desk and the blackboard guilt raged a war with need. As Logan slowly skimmed his hands up my ribs, removing my top; as I pushed his jacket off him, his shirt, leaving his chest covered by a white, skin tight long sleeved t-shirt, my hands going beneath to stroke his stomach, the muscles rippling as he groaned at my legs going around his hips, my full length skirt pushing up to my hips as he fit between my thighs, his erection pushing into me already at a rhythmic rate that was as beautiful as it was brutally slow.
I meant to tell him I loved him when he caught my nipple in his mouth through my bra and suckled after he had spent what seemed like hours gazing in admiration and unveiled lust at the see through lace of my black bra as he cupped each breast in latex protected hands.
I meant to tell him when he grinned at me in awe and whispered that I was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen, the most precious thing he had ever had, but words escaped me as he bucked against my increasing wetness and I could only gaze at his hands as my breasts overflowed onto them.
I meant to tell him everything but he was very distracting.
His mouth on my breasts left me in rapture, his hands stroking my stomach had me bucking against him harder and faster till he growled and slowed my movements with his hands..."Not yet baby, not yet"...His fingers pulling down my skirt, his hands shaking as he pulled down my underwear, his grin at the kittens that covered them, his purring growl as he saw and smelt how wet I was for him, his questioning gaze as he rubbed his fingers around my outer folds. My laugh at his husky "Is this alright baby?", his groan of pure desire and need at my breathless "god yes Logan please".
I meant to tell him, I really did, but then his finger slide inside me, his lips attached to my nipple again and sucked as I bucked into him, his finger twirling agonizingly slowly around then pushing in and trailing slowly out so as to feel every single clutching muscle trying to pull him back in.
I meant to tell him but couldn't as the feeling built inside me, familiar yet so much stronger than ever before, even the last time with him. I tired to but I was afraid, not sure where I was going and all I could do was concentrate on the finger moving within me and Logan's shallow breath as he whispered encouragements.
"That's it baby, I'm here, I'll catch you, come on Marie, you're so beautiful baby" and then the most erotic thing I have ever seen.
"Open your eyes baby, I want to see you darling" and because it was Logan I managed to find the energy to look at him, his eyes smoky with passion, his body taut, he looked into my eyes as I fell and didn't break the connection.
As I fell, sensation coursing through me so did he, the pulsing of his penis as he came without me even touching him, I could feel it against my leg, his shivers as strong as mine as he pulled my discarded shirt from the floor and placed it on my stomach, his face resting there as he curled himself around me, hugging me to him as if I was going to disappear.
The tears were of joy, but the guilt was still there.
It ate at me.
Guilt was good but Logan, well hell, Logan was better...much, much, much better and he was starting to kiss me again, the amazing healing factor kicking in as I pushed him to his back and began peeling off those skin tight jeans, smiling at his self conscious laugh at having come in his pants, he thought it was a bad thing, a testament to his staying power. I assured him it was a complement that he could pay me anytime and wrapping my scarf around his erection placed my mouth at the tip and set about with my education.
I may not be able to tell him I love him, but didn't actions speak just as loud? From Logan's scream I think they just might have.
HABIT
Logan didn't want to keep it a secret but I thought it was for the best, I didn't want to share it with others just yet. I wanted to savor the intimacy without the others having an opinion about it. I wanted Logan all to myself and once I had convinced him that was my only motive, that I wasn't ashamed of him in any way, then he agreed, but only for a little while, "We have to tell them eventually baby" he had purred and I had agreed.
While the sex was perfection, the tension was just as good. Lunch, dinner, anytime I saw Logan was torture because I knew I could touch him, he'd let me, I just couldn't do it when people were around, which was always.
So we had to settle for looks so hot they scorched, grins, brushes of feet against calves under the table, a grasped hand, a finger lightly trailing down a cheek.
That's when the habit began, much like when he had first arrived, but this time I got to have him naked as a bonus to the friendship.
My Logan habit was like nicotine, I needed a fix almost hourly to survive and would have got one too if I weren't so afraid that people would notice. Already the professor was giving me odd looks during our sessions at my twitching, nervous movement and constant lack of concentration.
I could have told him I suppose, but telling a man who is in all essence the father you never had that the reason you can't concentrate is because, well, because you're a Wolverine addict and need to get a fix real soon, preferably one that lands you on your back, naked, flushed and wet, is somewhat daunting.
But he never pushed. Perhaps he did know what was going on, after all he was all powerful mind reader man and I was having enough trouble keeping it from those who couldn't read my thoughts. Either way he never said and I never offered any information, just told him that our normal two-hour sessions needed to be shorter or with a brake, after all I needed a fix.
And what a fix it was.
Every day after classes I did whatever homework I had to do for college as quickly as possible, so quickly that I was actually able to learn the inner workings of Freudian thought without realizing I had read a book about it.
I tell you the worse thing in the world for concentration is to read theories by a strange little Frenchman who thought everything was about sex. I mean really did I need that; I was having enough trouble getting through the day without combusting into a blob of sexually charged goo as it was. The last thing I needed was an excuse to think about sex, which of course always leads from the hypothetical to my favorite subject, sex with Logan.
I would be sitting in the library actually concentrating when I'd read something about everything being a sexual symbol and instead of trying to understand how an everyday object, for example a blender, could be sexual in connotation I would think about lunch that day. Think about how Logan had gripped my hand under the table where no-one could see and slowly, ever so slowly, rotated his thumb across the palm of my hand in a way that was meant to be soothing, in fact I don't even think he knew he was doing it, that is of course until he heard the hitch of my breathing and looked into my flushed face.
I swear I have never seen anyone move so fast in my life as I did when he looked up and saw my face, lips parted and wet, eyes half closed. The next thing I knew we were in his room, on the bed, still fully clothed and I was screaming his name as he pushed against me.
I'm truly baffled at how it happened.
But as I said these are not things you need to think about when you're suppose to be working up to actually passing your courses.
We spent as much time as possible laid out on Logan's bed and while we often spent a great deal of time getting busy, shall I say, we spent as much time just talking. I never knew Logan could speak that much, but he did. We would talk about everything and anything in between small strokes and caresses. We spent an insane amount of time lying with my head on his chest, our legs intertwined, his finger curled in my hair, my fingers slowly stroking in between his knuckles.
It was the best habit I had ever had and if nicotine was even a third as good is no wonder people took up smoking.
I was happy, it was perfect; I didn't even feel that guilty.
But then it happened, the habit that was as much about spending time together as avoiding expressing our feelings was broken.
Ironically I wasn't the one to break it; it was Logan.
It wasn't even after mind-blowing sex where I could rationalize it away as in the heat of the moment, even though I knew that Logan would never say it, no matter what time, if he didn't meant it. I was really good at lying to myself, I could have rationalized it away... I could have really.
I would have too, except he said it while I was washing the dishes from one of our many midnight snacks.
Four little words breathed so lightly by Logan I almost didn't hear them...
"I love you Marie", and my heart stopped.
IGNORANCE
It's official, I am either the craziest person in the universe or else I'm a coward. I think I'm sane so I must be a coward; so much so I put Courage the Cowardly Lion to shame.
I could write a book on stupidity I'm my own test subject for gods' sake. What do you do when the man of every dream you've ever had, the man you love with everything you are, tells you he loves you, well listen close girls 'cause this is what you do...
You ask him for the plate he's holding under the false pretence that its not washed properly and completely ignore what he said.
Good strategy isn't it?
Christ I'm stupid.
That was three days ago and nothing is going well. We haven't been alone together once and I miss him.
Worst of all he never smiles anymore, never twirls his finger in my hair; never lets me touch him.
I've lost him and I don't know why.
I love him, why is this so hard to say? Why is the leap so long when he loves me back?
I believe him but I'm still a coward.
JEALOUSY
That's when it happened, the explosion I had been waiting for, I just never expected it to manifest itself the way it did, never suspected that Logan would take my failure to reciprocate his love as a failing on his part, that I didn't really believe he loved me, believed he could love.
But because the universe hates me guess how it came to a head, this tension that had nothing to do with attraction but everything to do with anger and self-loathing?
That's right, you guessed it, Bobby was there and so were about a hundred other people, you see it was at Jean and Scott's long awaited wedding. Jeans perfect day, the one she had been planning since she was six was interrupted by a growl so loud my mother probably heard it in Mississippi, and Bobby flying twelve feet across the lawn as Logan picked him up and tossed him.
All he had done was touch me, saying something I can't even remember and because I hadn't wanted to hurt him anymore I had smiled up at him and squeezed his shoulder.
Logan saw the smile and pounced and now we are all sitting in the professors office, me in the middle, Bobby tending his wounds beside me and Logan, angrier than I have ever seen him, pacing behind us, waiting for the professor. The only sound is that of Jean apologizing to her new mother-in-law that the cake on her two thousand dollar dress would come out. You see that's where Bobby landed, right in the three-tiered wedding cake.
If I weren't so upset it would almost have been funny.
But before I could think the professor had come in, ushered Bobby out and gave Logan and I a look that spoke volumes and told us in his quite voice to work it out. He knew, he didn't mind, he just wanted us to be happy and less destructive.
And then I was alone with Logan and for the first time in three days I really looked at him. I wish I hadn't, he looked shattered, ruined, animalistic and lost.
I didn't know what to say.
He paced.
I looked around, and still he paced.
I cleared my throat and shifted my weight in the chair.
Still he paced, and paced and paced.
"Logan"
It was met by a growl, and still he paced.
I was nervous, anxious, and he wasn't helping so I sat still humming for some reason, the tune to 'I'll be home for Christmas,' which is even more stupid than you think since it's only May.
No smile, no acknowledgement, just the pacing, the eternal pacing that was getting on my last nerve.
After hours that were really only minutes my patience snapped, not that I was all that patient anyway, and I almost yelled at him, my voice harsher than I wanted it.
"Look Logan if this is about Bobby..." But I didn't get to finish, even if I had known what to say.
Quick as a flash he had stooped down and was grasping the arms of the chair, his chest pushing into my legs, his eyes were green today, green and anguished, much older than even he should be.
"Are you in love with him?" The question was so out of left field all I could do was stare at him in shock. "Are you Marie, 'cause I didn't think you were, I was so sure you cared for me, I mean the way you are with me, so open and honest, caring. Jesus baby the way you touch me, I thought that was love, I know it was for me but you never said it and I thought it was me, that you didn't believe me. I was going to give you time darling, time to see everything we've shared, see I do love you" his eyes filled with such agony that mine watered in response. "I do love you baby, I've never loved anything or anyone before so it took me awhile to see it, to admit it. You are why I came back Marie, this, us and I need for you to believe me, I need to know I have a chance, I need to know you don't love that kid even if you don't love me."
He was anxious, nervous energy laced through him and all I could do, as shell-shocked as I was, was shake my head in denial and whisper, "no of course not, Bobby's just a friend". His relief was instant and before I could even begin to understand that he thought he was the problem, that I didn't believe him, he had swooped down on me, lips inches from mine and purred as sexy as hell...
"Well I guess its up to me to show you then, to prove it to you." And he licked his lips, angling them in a way that should have been familiar and would have been if I'd had any practical experience, whispering "I love you baby, only you, forever" and then he kissed me.
If I hadn't been so shocked and scared of hurting him I would have taken notes. But Jesus, what little sensation I do remember was perfection, but then again, wasn't everything with Logan?
KISS
I've been sitting in the hardest plastic chair ever invented for the last four hours just watching him sleep. He's unconscious but will survive and I prefer to call it sleep as it's the most peaceful I've ever seen him.
He's in my head again, I could tell even without the strong craving for whiskey that I've developed.
He's in my head and he loves me, unconditionally, unending love that I can't quite fathom but recognize because that's the love I feel for him, the love that I haven't been able to tell him.
He kissed me and it was all there, along with the sweep of his tongue came the loneliness he had felt for years, the affection he felt for me at our first meeting, the hopelessness of losing me, the endless nothing he believes his life would be without me. His love humbles me.
I didn't think he would stay with me.
That is what this has been about, I realized it the instant I saw him lying on the floor unconscious, hurt again because of me.
One day he would wake up and realize he couldn't be with me, he'd want someone he could touch, someone who could touch him.
I just didn't know that I already did touch him in a way that was so much more than just skin. I didn't realize quite how much I touched his heart. I was his heart and if he could arrange it, he would open up my skin and live inside me for the rest of eternity, as close to me as possible.
He didn't realize that I felt the same way, he didn't see that I was scared of my own skin, he thought it was him but as soon as he wakes up he's going to know different, he's going to know all of me because I was pretty sure I knew how to reverse the flow, to touch him and show him what I couldn't really put in words. My fear and the endless love I felt for him, the love that was so all encompassing that words sounded hollow.
When he woke up I was going to kiss him.
My third kiss, maybe my last because I never wanted to see him unconscious and hurt because of me again even though I knew that accidents probably would happen I never intentionally wanted to hurt him again, not in any way.
So I started to chant it out loud, my feelings almost boiling over, tears in my eyes.
"I love you Logan, god I love you sugar...so much, I love you, love you. I'm so sorry, please wake up, I love you..."
"Do you baby, do you really?" His eyes were open and he was staring at me with such a depth of love in his eyes my breath caught and I nodded, tears spilling over.
"Yes" and I lent over him, hoping to hell he was well enough for this. "Yes Logan, I love you" and he smiled closing his eyes in relief, opening his mouth to say, what I don't know as I never let him voice anything as I swooped down. My lips pressed to his, his softening after a moment of shock, my tongue sweeping over his bottom lip, his sigh, the connection opening, our joint gasp, me pushing myself inside his head instead of taking him inside mine.
All I really remembered later was his taste, like the sweetest honey you have ever tasted, musky as his scent with a hint of whiskey and smoke.
"Did you see it?" my voice was shaky as I looked at him. He looked up at me, his eyes unbelieving of what he had just absorbed, a lone tear making its way down his cheek and he smiled.
"Yeah baby, I saw it" he whispered before slipping back into unconsciousness. Clutching his hand I leant down to his ear.
"I love you Logan".
And so I go back to sitting on the world's hardest chair, knowing that perhaps love is enough. Logan will help me, we'll help each other and one day we'll touch skin on skin but it will only be secondary to how we already touch each other's hearts.
LOVE
I would still have been sitting there, ass numb, if Jean hadn't come in, she didn't say anything but I knew she knew I'd touched him again but she didn't ask. I congratulated her on her wedding as she shooed me up stairs, she congratulated me on falling in love. She approved and I was glad.
I went to Logan's room and lay on his bed, really it was our bed now, and though I told myself that it was only for a moment, that I had to get back to Logan I was more drained than I thought.
The next thing I remember was waking up with Logan perched next to me on his elbow, finger wrapped in my hair, the biggest smile I've ever seen on his face, his eyes a testament to his contentment.
I signed, I stretched, I looked up at him through half lidded eyes, "so this is love". He smiled, pulling out one of my scarves from somewhere behind him, placing it on my mouth and kissing me. And it was better than lips on lips. It was Logan.
"Yeah baby, this is love" and I grinned, pulling him down on top of me wrapping my legs around him, pushing against his increasing erection.
"Show me Logan" and I swear to god I think he blushed. He cleared his throat and glanced away.
"Show you what baby?"
"You're in my head sugar I know how you wanted to show me you love me. I trust you Logan, I love you, I want you". His eyes darkened. "We have the sheet, the protection, make love to me".
He grasped my head in his hands. "I do baby, every time I touch you I make love to you, actual intercourse isn't going to change that. I don't need it Marie."
I knew that, but it was so good to hear, so good that my last insecurity was pushed away. My skin was an obstacle, not a problem, the Logan in my head had shown me exactly how lacking my education was, my imagination, now all I needed was the real thing.
"I know," my hand stroked his jaw. "I know". I shifted my hips bringing him closer to me and he missed a breath. God I loved the effect I had on him, loved that he wanted me more than anything, wanted me as much as I wanted him.
"I want you Logan" I pushed against him. "I want you inside me". And he groaned and purred, his eyes closing in defeat.
"I don't want to push you"
"You're not"
"Are you sure?"
"Positive."
"I love you."
"I know...I love you."
"I know."
And then he kissed me again, his hands already pulling off my dress, my hands grasping at his naked chest. His hands skimmed up my sides taking the dress with them, his lips on my nipple before the dress was fully over my head.
My tights cushioned his hips as he rolled us over, trying to pull the sheet out from under us only to have to stand to get it free. Then I was on my back, sheet over me, my hands grasping at the waist of his slacks, the only thing he had left on upon entering the room, as he kissed me all over.
It took a little while to get use to it, the feeling of wet cotton on your skin but it was worth it because I could fell Logan, his heat, his tongue, his teeth as he stopped to nip under my breast, his tongue as he swirled in around my belly button, his heat as he sucked on my hip bone.
The rest was pretty much a muddle of sensation and need. I remember certain parts with absolute clarity but others are just a muddle.
I remember every heated 'I love you' whispered against every inch of my skin; remember the look in his eyes, his growled "mine, all mine" as he sat back and gazed at my fully naked body for the first time; his quick laugh at my own possessiveness when I did the exact same thing to him and his purred "always, only yours baby"; the feeling of his tongue through the silk scarf as he kissed me, whispering that I was beautiful, that he loved me, that he had never felt anything like this.
I remember the rip that the sheet made as he sliced it with one stroke of a claw; his tender look as I grasped his hand and massaged his it where the claw had slid home; his anguish at hurting me as he entered me for the first time; the feeling of being stretched, the burning that didn't hurt at all; Logan's concern at my every small gasp until I had to hit him on the arm to get him to move.
The perfection of contracting around him as I came so hard I thought I'd black out; his howl of completion that was the sweetest noise I had ever heard. His laugh at my eagerly whispered, "can we do that again?" and his complete dedication to showing me that we in fact could.
But most of all I remember the love.
Later after two spectacular repeat performances - it would have been three but Logan insisted I would be sore enough as it was and I just agreed, there would be time later for making love, we had a whole lifetime of later now. We were sprawled out across his bed, his finger again in my hair twirling it up and down the length of my white lock when it occurred to me that we were only up to L.
Logan laughed when I explained the A to Z of sexual tension that we had been going through.
"Something you picked up in Cosmo along with those fake orgasms" he asked.
"I wouldn't hassle those fake orgasms sugar, you didn't seem to notice".
He froze and I would have left him to stew if the very thought of needing to fake it with Logan didn't send me over the edge, literally. I was laughing so hard I fell on the floor.
All I got for my trouble was Logan's sexy smirk and a drawled "you're a bad girl" my returned smirk and "don't you know it" causing him to launch himself on top of me on the ground.
"You know baby," he whispered, his hands already sliding up my sheet-covered ribs to my breasts, my nipples hard with anticipation, the concern for my soreness thankfully forgotten for the moment. "Sexual tension doesn't just end after making love".
"It doesn't?" His head came up, my nipple popping out of his mouth.
"No." I believed him, I could never even contemplate a time when I wouldn't want him and him me screamed the Logan in my head. He lifted his head again, smirking down at me while slowly driving me insane with his rotating hips.
"No baby it doesn't. But look at it this way, we ever think its waning we still got M to Z to go." I laughed, pulling him down towards me.
"And then can we start back at A?"
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