Prologue: Post-game
Jean Grey peeled the synthetic leather costume from her body, ignoring the aches and pains that came with her chosen profession. Once free from her salty flesh, her clothes found their own way to the cleaning bin, held aloft by the distracted power of her amazing mind.
She stepped into the shower, and let the water carry away the sweat and ash and grime of her team's latest mission. As the water shifted from stinging hot to soothingly warm, she sensed another presence. Her teammate entered her bathroom. Jean's eyes closed as she let the water soak her waves of heavy red hair, and she reached out with her mind to her guest.
Ah, she thought sadly, it's him. This never gets any easier.
He was wearing a towel, his wide shoulders set square. He simply stood, watching the water fountain off her head into fine spray over her neck, her shoulders, her breasts and belly. He watched each prism droplet refract a vision of her perfect form. Saliva came unbidden, his nostrils flared, his pupils widened as every sense strained to taste her, touch her, see, smell, feel her with his body the way he felt her in his mind.
"Jean," he said, taking a step towards her, towel dropping to her floor.
His second step never came. She held him, immobile, with her mind even as her body yearned to reach out and welcome him. To welcome him into her bath, into her arms, into her. But her heart, her heart was still too full of another to welcome Logan there. So she stopped him, holding him with her telekenetic powers just inches from the falling water that surrounded her.
"Logan," she said sadly, "No. Not tonight. Not... ever."
She kept her eyes closed under the shower, afraid to look at him, afraid to see the dense mat of hair covering his chest, knowing how it would feel scrubbing against her breasts, the wiry pelt that covered his body. She was afraid to see the desire burning in his eyes that she already felt burning in his mind.
He stopped, leaning for a moment against her wall of resistance. They both wondered what would happen if he ever pushed, exerted his indomitable will against her defenses. Would she stop him? Would she go so far as to hurt him to stop him? Or would he burst through her ephemeral shield and fall on her like the savage animal that he so obviously kept restrained inside?
He leaned, for just a moment, and then he stopped. He stood, and rolled his head, cracking his neck. He turned, batting away the towel she had floated back up towards his waist. He left her room, not bothering to dress.
As Jean finally opened her eyes, regarding the towel lying on her bathroom floor still pungent with his musky scent, Logan was walking down the hallway towards his room. His naked feet hissed softly across the berber carpet, and he stalked, his body still hard and optimistic. The man they called the Wolverine slipped into his room, a scowl on his face and an ache in his balls, brooding over the woman who once again had told him, No.
He settled onto the edge of his bed, a Spartan slab with a rough cotton sheet and a thin blanket. He looked down at his hardness, still arching skyward with his desire for Jean. He was about to take matters into his own hands, when his heightened senses kicked into gear.
He heard her heartbeat, speeding up as she watched him sitting in the darkened room. He didn't just hear her soft breath, he felt it, felt the sugar and spice mixture of woman and double-mint as she breathed, sighing his name.
"Why, Logan," she drawled softly, languorous and wicked and very grown up, "is that fo' me?"
"Christ, Rogue," he begged softly, suddenly wary and sad and more than a little frightened, "not again!"
Chapter One: Delinquency
"Oh, Logan," Rogue sighed, slowly coming to her feet from the chair where she had been sprawling, waiting for him again. "Don't tell me you are going to play hard to get, again."
She advanced, and he saw her in the dim light, seemingly naked but for long gloves and thigh-high stiletto-soled boots. As she got closer, he saw that her flesh was covered in some sort of sheer body stocking. He must have reacted, because she stopped, inches in front of him, and turned girlishly.
"Do you like it? Hank made it for me. Mononecu- Momonucul-, anyway, super-sheer fabric. It's about a half-dozen atoms thick, and feels lovely." She raised her arms over her head and shook her red hair off her seemingly-bare shoulders. She stood, arms raised and one leg slightly in front of the others, hips cocked in a pose as old as Mother Eve.
Logan leaned back, trying to get some distance, as her posing had nearly pressed her pert young breasts into his face.
"Hell, kid, we can't do this." His voice was a rough rumble, but there was a slight hint of desperation, of pleading.
She pouted, dropping her arms to her sides and moved a step closer. Her stockinged thighs opened over him, and the smooth cool leather of her boots ruffled the hair on his thighs as she moved over and around him, pressing her knees to the edge of the bed.
"Now, what did I say about calling me 'kid'?" She held up one hand, and he could see that the elbow-length gloves had the palms cut out, exposing her flesh. He winced as she pushed him, palm to chest, back down onto the bed.
When her flesh touched his, there was a connection, a closing of a circuit or the opening of a gate. Energy, emotions, powers, even the frustrated desire he'd had for Jean all siphoned, flowing into her palm and up her outstretched arm into her heart. She arched her back and rocked her hips forward, knocking him the rest of the way down to the bed and breaking the contact, both of them gasping.
Logan lay, grey clouds at the corners of his vision. He was starting to get angry. Messing with powers, that was serious business.
Rogue looked at him with heavy lidded eyes, and slowly licked her lips.
"My. Oh, my. You did want that girl tonight didn't you? I can feel the desire, the hot, hard animal need." She lowered herself down, trapping his erection between them as she slid her stocking-clad body against him. "It's just so unfair, to want someone who doesn't want you back, isn't it?"
