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Chapter Nine: Game Faces

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The anger and desire swirling around inside Jean spiked dangerously at Logan's crude words. What he said might be true, but she was fed up with his superior attitude and she itched to wipe that smug little smile from his lips. Just because she didn't play dirty didn't mean she couldn't. Eyes glittering, she met his hazel gaze and lifted one brow in a very Loganesque way as she opened her mind to his and projected a very graphic image into his head.

//Covers tangled in a clenched fist. Two bodies sweaty and wanting. One mouth open in a silenced growl. Jean, using her mind to hold him supine beneath her on her bed, immobile, unable to achieve pleasure for himself while she brought herself to release above him.//

Oh, she got a reaction from him alright, but not the one she was expecting. He coughed to cover his low chuckle before sending back a dry retort. {Whatever gets you through the day, Red.} His rich dark laughter infused with male indulgence echoed in her mind, infuriating her.

His reply might have been tinged with amusement, but she'd completely captured his attention. This was the first time in this little game of theirs that she'd ever gone on the offensive, ever deliberately tried to provoke him. Outwardly, he looked the same way he had for the last hour - relaxed and somewhat bored, but inwardly he was no longer relaxed. He was alert, intent, and anticipating her next move with predatory delight.

Jean was aware she held his undivided attention. She might have chosen the wrong image to garner the response she wanted, but she could feel his brief surprise and intense interest at her unexpected move. More telling still, she was aware she'd stirred the animal in him fully awake. She could feel it, waiting, watching... prowling along the edges of her consciousness. He was looking for a weak spot, a chink in her mental armor.

He wouldn't find one. Not today. He might command the physical, but this was her world. She was as confident in her mental abilities as he was in his physical prowess. His vast sexual experience gave him an edge she lacked, but here she wasn't just powerful, she was power. She could feel it buzzing inside her like a great beast on the cusp of consciousness. It was both terrifying and enthralling. And for the first time she brushed her mind against it and understood something of her true nature, saw a glimmer of the raw power she possessed.

The sleeping beast turned, receding back deeper inside her. The buzzing lingered, fading slowly to a low hum and raw sound became a single word, breathed out by the beast in a fiery whisper as it slipped from her mind's grasp.

Phoenix.

In awe, Jean was still a long moment before a knowing smile formed on her lips. She understood now why Charles refused to let her use Cerebro. Tapping into that awesome power without being able to properly control it could scorch her mind and unleash something she didn't think even Charles had anticipated.

Now she understood what Logan meant when he called her a predator. What was it he'd said? 'Like recognizes like'. No wonder the animal inside him reacted so strongly to her. She wondered if he had any idea how much power lay dormant inside her. A dangerous smile teased at the corners of her mouth. He was playing with fire. Literally. She could feel his focused attention buffeting at her mind... not intent on breaching her defenses; it was aggressive and insistent, but more playful in nature - like a predator playing with its food before it moved in for the kill.

She almost laughed. God, she was going to enjoy this. So many images. So many fantasies. What to chose, what to chose? This time she didn't catch his eyes first. This time he got no warning.

Logan closed his eyes briefly as vivid images flashed in his mind.

//His bed this time. Stark white sheets, no longer crisp, clenched tightly in her delicate fingers. The musky scent of hot sweaty bodies and satisfying sex. A tangled fall of red hair and green eyes flashing at him over a milky shoulder. Jean on her hands and knees, glistening and ready, offering herself to him. His rough hands, dark on her hips, pulling her back-//

{Perhaps that is more to your liking?} Her teasing tone mocked him.

Fuck, she would stop there. His body throbbed in response to the erotic images she'd chosen and he knew she could feel his pleasure seeping hotly through the link but there was no way in hell he'd let her have the last word. {You're gettin' warmer, Red.}

An understatement if there ever was one.

His words were flippant but carried with them a heat she hadn't felt the first time. She was getting to him. Armed with the knowledge that she harbored a beast every bit as wild as Logan's, she no longer felt completely overwhelmed by him. They were equals. A matched pair. Heady with this new discovery, Jean had every intention of showing him that the fact they were equals meant he would lose fifty percent of the time and she intended this time to be one of them.

The game had just gotten a hell of a lot more interesting... and more dangerous. The Wolverine didn't lose. He fought, he bled, and he was utterly unpredictable when cornered. The difference now was that Jean was confidant she could take whatever the Wolverine dished out and give it back, just as good as she got it.

This time, Jean let her own arousal bleed through the link first. She felt his in return, growing stronger, more wild, as he fed off her intense pleasure.

{Mmmm... You like that?}

{You fuckin' know I do.}

He'd never experienced mental foreplay with a telepath. Most men found it a little overwhelming, even threatening at first, but Logan was different. He wasn't intimidated. He knew himself too well, was too confident in his own carnal abilities to find this new game anything but exciting. All he wanted to do was play more.

Logan shifted slightly in the chair, attempting to find a position that afforded him a little more room in the restrictive denim he was wearing. His jeans were uncomfortably tight. He grit his teeth against the familiar pleasure-pain and refocused his attention on the blatant feminine arousal seeping through the link.

Even as he explored the pleasure filtering back through the link, he mentally congratulated himself for having the foresight to leave his mission briefing file open in his lap. He wasn't the least bit embarrassed about being hard in a room full of people, but he wasn't the sort of man who liked to advertise - at least when there was nothing to be gained by it - and in this case, he already had the attention of the woman he wanted.

In the back of his mind he could feel her pushing at his subconscious, teasing him. Her laughter rang in his head. {Everything ok over there, Logan?}

It wasn't and they both knew it, but he'd be damned if she was going to win this battle of wills. {Just fine, darlin'.} A touch of dry humor colored his next words. {How 'bout you?} He wasn't the only one unable to keep completely still.

He expected denial or at the very least assurance she was equally unmoved. Her answer surprised him. {Mmmm... I feel good. So good.} She could tell her response had caught him off guard. Oh, how the mighty were about to fall. Without warning, Jean fully opened the link, allowing him to feel the full measure of her naked desire.

It seared through him and pooled thick and hot between his legs. It was all he could do to keep his hips still. He could feel how much she wanted him, how much she ached for him. His hooded eyes closed briefly and his knuckles were white where they gripped the chair.

{Fuck, Jeannie.}

{Exactly.}

Taking into account what she'd felt in his initial unconscious response to the last two images she'd sent, she chose a third, tailor made to get the desired response.

For a split second his vision bloomed crimson with lust as her carefully chosen images flashed in his mind's eye.

//Not a bedroom this time, but this room. Jean, naked, except for her white lab coat and her tailored red silk skirt.//

Some distant part of him realized she had indeed caught his thoughts about despoiling the oh-so-proper Dr. Grey. Good. That fleeting thought was quickly replaced by more base, carnal thoughts as her erotic images began to pour faster through his mind.

//Jean, parting the lab coat with delicate fingers. Gracefully touching herself for him with exquisite abandon. Fingers catching on full red lips, tracing the soft curve of her breasts, running sensually down her stomach and over her thighs.//

Logan swallowed hard as the images kept coming, faster and faster.

//Jean, watching him with glittering eyes and she carelessly pushed her paperwork from the lacquered table top and lay down upon it, drawing her knees up and resting her bare feet on the slick glossy surface. His eyes catching on the instep he'd been admiring earlier before his intense gaze wandered up her calf and higher still - to where she was inching the hem of that red silk higher and higher. Teasing her fingers over the damp skin of her inner thigh.//

Jean paused the flow of images and looked at Logan. His eyes were closed and outwardly he looked the same but she could see his breathing had picked up slightly and there was a light sheen of sweat on his upper lip. God, how she wanted to flick her tongue over that salty patch of skin. To taste him. To devour him.

Abruptly, his dark eyes snapped open and pinned her with an intense heated stare. A single word growled into her mind. {More.} He'd kill her with his bare hands if she stopped now - right after he fucked her senseless, of course.

Jean ignored his empty threat. She was tempted to laugh but the force of his arousal back feeding through the link took her breath away. She hadn't expected to react so strongly to his raw emotions. He hid nothing from her. He didn't try to curb his base response or shield her from any part of his intensely sexual reaction to her mental images. He wanted her to feel exactly what they did to him and to show her he had absolutely no intention of restraining himself with her, sexually or otherwise. The Wolverine didn't do anything in half measures.

Jean's eyes closed briefly and she bit back a groan. It was going to be impossibly hard to keep herself from being caught up in her own little game before she brought it to an end. She hid a wicked smile behind her coffee cup. This time, the images that flashed in his head were accompanied by a telekinetic stroke against aching flesh.

Logan started in the chair at the unexpected physical touch. He recovered quickly, but not before another pair of eyes noticed the small familiar movement. Behind red shades, his eyes narrowed as hurt bloomed unexpectedly in his chest. He quickly shielded himself from Charles and Jean - but by the looks of things, Jean was far too absorbed in Logan to notice his brief flair of hurt. He knew all too well what Jean was doing. In the beginning of their relationship they'd played that particular game frequently. He wondered if Logan would figure out what she was doing before it was too late.

Oblivious to Scott's eyes on them, Jean and Logan continued their dangerous little game. Without pausing the images of her pleasuring herself for him, Jean intensified her telekinetic assault on his body. She'd once told him she could move 'all kinds of things' with her mind... Now he was getting to experience that 'movement' first hand. From the feelings bleeding back through the link he approved. Greatly.

{Christ, Red.}

How the fuck did she do that? Touch him everywhere and yet nowhere. He felt a lingering touch run down his neck and glide over his powerful shoulders. Then a rougher touch, dragging down his chest, stopping to linger over his nipples before moving lower. His stomach muscles tightened in response and damned if she didn't pinch his ass before giving the small of his back a sensual caress. Between his legs he had the distinct sensation of being stroked and swallowed but without the wet heat of a mouth. He fought to keep his hips from arching out of the chair, deeper into the invisible mouth. Surprise, surprise. It looked like Red had a few things to teach him about sex, after all.

Jean felt his wry amusement and redoubled her efforts, wanting to drive him completely over the edge. She too knew what buttons to push. The next image that flashed in his mind drove him wild.

//Jean, reclined on the glossy tabletop, knees raised. Ready. Waiting. Wanting. Himself, fitted intimately between her parted thighs, poised to claim her in front of everyone. The faces of the others, wide-mouthed in shock as he pulled his wet fingers from her mouth and readied himself to take what was his.//

She felt Logan's surprise at the image she'd chosen even as she felt the Wolverine's approval and instinctive primal response to the vivid pictures. That part of him did want to claim her like that - to show everyone she was his. His. Jean withdrew the telekinetic touch and stopped the flow of images in his mind just short of actual penetration... with the desired results.

Logan's irritated growl echoed loudly in her head. {Fuckin' tease.} He could feel how much she wanted him. {If that was real, I wouldn't be stoppin' and we both know it.} Logan saw her shiver at the truth in his words and watched as she shifted a little in her seat. He knew the slight friction was only a bittersweet torture for her at this point. She wanted more. They both did. Her intense arousal scorched his thoughts. She was on fire for him. His every enhanced sense confirmed what he was experiencing in his mind. He could feel her. She ached exquisitely with a strange hollowness that he hadn't fully understood until he'd felt it from her perspective. She wanted to be filled, wanted to be taken as desperately and as wildly as he wanted to take her. Yin and Yang. The perfect compliment.

For a long minute desire hummed suspended between them. He'd played her game long enough to know the rules - and how to break them. Now it was his turn. Logan projected an intensely graphic mental image of his own and pushed it hard through the link. He saw her visibly shudder as the erotic pictures played out in her mind's eye.

{God, Logan.}

He was unprepared for the backlash of pleasure he felt from her but underneath it was a feminine satisfaction that wasn't entirely sexual in nature. Understanding flooded him and he barely managed to keep it from her. Fucking tease was right. She'd deliberately provoked him into sending her an image he knew would push her over. Even now, he could feel her teetering on the edge of release. She was close, so close. He knew with certainty she was going to push her orgasm into his head and when she did, he'd come in his pants like some green kid. He stopped the images for a brief moment to center himself.

{Logan, please...}

Even though he knew what she was attempting to do, it was clear she was caught up in her own game and the pure want in her words was almost impossible to resist. Fuck. He was nearly wild with lust.

{More...}

Oh, he'd give her more. A feral grin lit his features for a brief moment. She'd get what she wanted, just not the way she expected it. He sent her one last incredibly graphic image, followed by a mental growl designed to push her rapidly over the edge. It worked.

Her cry of pleasure rang in his head and the instant he felt her slip over the edge he abruptly slammed the connection closed. He might just as well have withdrawn from her physically when she had just reached the point of release. The effect was the same.

Suddenly bereft and alone, her resulting orgasm was only a weak echo of what it could have been. It left her feeling hollow and unfilled... and utterly furious at him, not so much because he'd figured out the game, but because he'd denied her - denied them - the intense pleasure they could have shared together.

The silent observer on the far side of the room saw the flash of smug satisfaction on Logan's face and realized he had figured out how to beat Jean at her own game - this time, anyway. And for the second time that afternoon, behind red shades his eyes flashed with both anger and hurt before it was swallowed by the ever-present numbness.

A smug smile turned up the corner of Logan's sensual mouth as he reopened his mind to her. He was still intensely aroused and dangerously close to losing control, but his satisfaction at winning this particular battle of wills had tempered his fierce arousal - at least for the moment. His dark laughter echoed in her mind.

{Bastard.} She practically hissed the word at him.

{Whatsa matter, Red? Not the mind fuck you were expectin'?} He couldn't keep the blatant male satisfaction from his mental voice. He didn't even try. {'You pissed because I didn't letcha make a mess of my pants or because I left ya high and dry, darlin'?}

Jean took a deep breath and drew her poised doctor persona around her like a shield. {I refuse to dignify that with an answer.}

{Don't give me that shit, Red. A minute ago you were beggin' me for more.}

She said nothing. She'd learned long ago that one didn't argue the truth with the Wolverine. Jean was surprised when he didn't push his advantage, especially considering she could feel the wildness raging at him as he struggled to control his fierce desire.

He was quiet for a long moment, waiting for her to let her guard down. And he was ready when she did. {You're beautiful when you come, darlin'.} She blushed crimson. {But next time I think I'll watch from inside you, instead of from across the room.} He chuckled at her mental outrage.

His amusement faded abruptly and was replaced by a voice thick with want. {If you think I'm gonna let this one slide, think again, Red. This damn meetin' won't last forever.} His words became lower, huskier. {You own me an orgasm, darlin', and I intend to collect.}