Late that night, after the fire had died down in the fireplace and Wolverine had finished entertaining her with another one of his cage fighting exploits, which she loved to hear and had begged for several episodes, they hunkered down for the night. Wolverine turned uneasily on the couch and finally decided there wasn’t enough room for him to sleep comfortably, not that he’d done it much in the past couple of days with those damned disturbing thoughts of Rogue dancing behind his eyelids every time he closed them. He took the quilt and pillow and flopped down on the rug next to the sofa and tried to get comfortable. After a while he dozed, but lightly, awareness of the woman upstairs always at the edge of his periphery.
She might need a drink of water.
No, she wasn’t a kid anymore and she didn’t need big bro to bring her a drink. Maybe she needs me. Nope, not going there. Otherwise his feet might grow a mind up their own and carry him upstairs to sit in that chair again and stare at her while she slept. He grunted into the pillow and ground his face into it, feeling like had turned into a stalker the way he stole surreptitious looks at her all day as she did tai chi, made a clumsy effort at washing the bed linens and quilt at the lake’s edge until he had to take over and show her how to scrub them against the rocks and beat them over the railing of the porch to get them drying. He shouldn’t have told her to wear the shorts, her old baggy men’s jeans would have been much better.
He was seriously considering going outside for a cigar, since sleep obviously wasn’t coming anytime soon, when he heard her soft footstep on the stairs. Pretending to be asleep, Wolverine covertly watched her from lowered lids as she snuck out the door, and he wondered why the hell Rogue was being so secretive. If she wanted to go sneak one of the beers he’d earlier forbade her, he wasn’t her father. No, his feelings towards her were growing decidedly less familial.
He didn’t hear the creak of her body settling into one of the porch chairs and after a few minutes curiosity got the better of him, and he decided two could play at the stealth game as he followed. Her scent was easy to track and he followed it back to the lake. He crouched behind the brush as his eyes scanned the shoreline, seeking her figure, wondering if she’d gone back to the scene of her accident. She wasn’t anywhere he could see then he saw ripples in the mirror smooth surface of the water.
No wonder Wolverine swam in just shorts, this was pure unadulterated heaven, she thought. The wetsuit was history, and she didn’t mind a smidge. The water no longer felt frigid, her teeth didn’t chatter, and her muscles didn’t shake as she broke the surface. The water was invigorating. She’d shucked the shorts and t-shirt at the water’s edge and had at first waded in tentatively, expecting the cold to shock her silly, but instead it had lapped at her calves with a seductive coolness, inviting her in further where she gasped as the water caressed her stomach, filling her with a new sensation.
How did he walk around without an eternal hard on, she wondered. Everything feels so…delicious.
She sighed and dove under, swimming as far as she could underwater until her lungs started to burn and she felt the twinge that reminded her that her ribs weren’t totally healed, not quite. She broke the surface with a shout, laughing her pleasure out loud, diving under and up again and again, reveling in the discovery of the simple pleasure of cool water on hyper-stimulated skin, her skin, a skin she had forgotten could feel anything besides the cloths of the layer she’d always swaddled herself in and the occasional touch of her own hands when the longing for contact with another had been too great.
Wolverine watched, breathing hard, as Rogue cavorted naked as a jaybird in the lake, rolling over and over again in the water, exposing every inch of porcelain flesh to the moonlight. He knew he should slink back to the cabin and try to forget he saw any of that, all of that, every curve and angle, every single damn thing. Instead he moved downwind of her a hundred yards and lit his cigar, crouched back down behind the brush, and watched her intently, his eyes narrowed through the smoke.
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Author's Chapter Notes:
Back to the lake.
Chapter End Notes:
Rogue runs, Wolverine follows.