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Chapter Two: Double or Nothing
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Jean lay back against her pillow and ran a hand through her hair lifting the tangled red mass up off her sweaty neck. Scott dozed beside her, snoring softly. For the hundredth time since Logan had driven her from the lab this evening, she wondered how things had progressed to this point. When exactly had sex with Scott become more about Logan than Scott?
As wrong as that sounded it was the truth. Logan pushed her and she used sex with Scott as a way of retaliating. Oddly enough, their sex life had never been better. Having her wet and wanting him out of the blue had done impressive things to his ego. Fortunately, he wasn't aware that each of these little sex fests were the direct result of an encounter with Logan, that the reason she couldn't tear his clothes off fast enough wasn't because of him at all, but because Logan had already driven her to the edge and she needed an outlet for the desire he'd roused within her.
It was getting worse. Now when they made love she kept her eyes closed. It was easier to pretend that way, especially if she extended her 'gift' just enough to have Logan's presence in her mind. Which wasn't an abuse of her power really... she never read his thoughts. It was more like a heightened awareness of the animalistic signature that was uniquely him. Utterly masculine and incredibly addictive, just the barest brush of his presence inside her was often times enough to push her over the edge.
Bitch.
Her conscience whispered the word in her mind. She knew what she was doing was wrong but she just couldn't help rationalizing it. She was faithful. She hadn't been with anyone but Scott. It was his bed she slept in every night and it was him she always went to when the need became too strong to deny.
She did spurn all of Logan's advances, didn't she? Surely that had to count for something. Jean tried to ignore the vivid memory of pushing her hips back at Logan tonight and failed miserably. What had happened in the lab tonight both excited her and enraged her.
How dare he?
But even as anger and guilt burned through her, she couldn't help the thoughts of retaliation that trickled into her consciousness. He would get his. She'd show him he couldn't treat her like that. This time Jean was successful in ignoring the voice of reason and she squirmed with anticipation wondering what he might do to her the next time if she shoved him hard enough.
This wasn't her fault. It wasn't Logan's fault. She spared her sleeping fiancé a glance. No, it certainly wasn't Scott's fault. None of them could help being the way they were. She loved Scott, she really did. Maybe not in a screaming, howl at the moon, passionate to excess kind of way, but still she loved him. At least that's what she kept telling herself. They were... comfortable. He was a good man. A trifle straight laced perhaps, but a good man nonetheless. It wasn't his fault that the rigid control he imposed on himself spilled over into their sex life.
It wasn't that he was a bad lover. On the contrary, he physically satisfied her every time they made love. He wasn't shy about asking her if what he was doing felt good or if he needed to do something differently. He was sensitive, tender, and thoughtful to a fault. He took pride in the fact that he never allowed himself to take his pleasure until he'd been assured she'd taken hers first. And each and time they made love he would always ask her if it was good for her.
Sometimes she wondered what would happen if she told him no. Would he get mad? Feel hurt? Or just resolve to try harder the next time.
Probably the latter, she thought unkindly. He didn't like to fail... at anything. Sometimes she wondered if that was all that kept them together.
There were two kinds of men in the world, those that asked the question, "So, was it good for you?" and those that didn't. She knew with absolute certainty that Logan was one of the ones that didn't. Jean shivered.
No, he definitely wouldn't have to ask.
She imagined that he was as supremely confidant in his ability to satisfy his lover as he was in his ability to hunt and kill. He threw himself mind, body, and soul into whatever he did with a reckless abandon that she'd always secretly admired... and envied. Why would sex be any different?
Jean sighed audibly and kicked her legs free of the tangled sheets. She had to stop comparing the two of them. Scott was nothing like Logan. Logan's losses of control were legendary, most especially the berserker rages, when his consciousness merged so seamlessly with the animal inside of him that the savage grace of his movements were nothing short of poetry in motion. A flawless melding of primal instinct and ruthless cunning that made him the most lethal weapon in the X-Men arsenal.
Even though Scott didn't disagree, he'd always found Logan's lack of control and discipline disdainful. No, he was nothing like Logan at all. He never lost control.
And therein lay the problem.
Sometimes she wanted him to lose control. To take instead of ask. Sometimes she wanted him to be selfish, to take his pleasure first because she drove him so wild that he just couldn't hold out any longer. She wished that the things she made him feel were strong enough to snap his monumental control, but apparently such was not the case.
It made her feel... lacking. As if she wasn't woman enough, that no matter what she did it would never be enough to break through his rigid control and touch the man inside.
No, he'd never willingly let go of his control and she'd never be able to snap it. Sadly, it bound her just as tightly because if he never let go she couldn't either. She just couldn't do it, no matter how much she wanted to. She couldn't strip away everything and bare her soul to a man that would always hold himself apart.
She couldn't set all her inhibitions aside and respond to him at the most base primitive level knowing he wouldn't respond in kind, that he wouldn't share the most intimate part of himself with her.
That was what made Logan so dangerous. Not that he found her attractive, or that he pursued her with predatory delight, but that each time she looked into his dark hooded eyes and saw the naked hunger reflected in them, she knew what he was offering.
A night with no control. No rules. No inhibitions. No limits. Only raw wild feeling. A night to revel in the uninhibited responses they could wring from each other. It wouldn't be tender or slow or sweet. It would be violent and primal. A night where she would be free to be as savage and unrestrained as he was.
The same offer that tempted her was also what kept her away. A night. Or rather enough nights for him to get his fill of her and move on. He didn't hide what he wanted from her. There were no pretenses, no dreams of a relationship to make what she wanted to do easier. He wasn't that kind of man. He was more than just an animal, more than a killing machine. If that was the sum total of his existence, the attraction she felt wouldn't be nearly as dangerous. True, he was utterly ruthless when provoked but there was more to him than that. He was honor without love, valor without mercy, strength without tenderness, but most of all he was simply a man without hope.
He might have had all those things once, long ago... before the experiments had burned out what little gentleness he possessed. In another time they might have had a chance, but now... now those tender feelings would just be a weakness and he would never willingly make himself vulnerable. Not again. Never again. The scars ran too deep. In all honesty Jean was glad, not that he'd suffered, but glad that he didn't have even a shred of those softer emotions left because if he did she'd never be able to resist him and she knew being with him would change her. Forever.
She was tired of analyzing an unsolvable problem, tired of wishing for the impossible. He would never be hers. Not like that. All they could ever have would be stolen moments, hungry mouths meeting furiously in the dark, bodies straining feverishly against each other with hands that held on too tight and words that couldn't come, given voice only as harsh cries issued brokenly against sweaty skin.
Jean squeezed her eyes shut in an effort to purge her mind of erotic images of her body entwined intimately with Logan's, writhing under his solid weight, digging her nails into his flesh as she clenched around him. Feeling the searing heat of his mouth sliding wetly over her moist flesh, tasting his...
STOP IT, Jean. Stop it. Stop it. Stop it. She threw an arm over her face to hide the telltale flush. Damn you, Logan.
He'd pushed her too far tonight, touching her, taunting her. He'd all but ordered her into Scott's bed so she hadn't even be able to salvage her tattered pride by using that against him.
She could still hear his voice, husky and rough in her mind. "It might be his bed you're in but it's me you're fucking."
Damn him to hell for being right.
Silently she railed at Scott for his shortcomings, at herself for her own weakness, and at Logan for freely offering her the one thing Scott never would. Anger rose abruptly, dangerously infused with lust.
The weight of the choice she'd made, the right choice... even if it wasn't the one that felt right, smothered her. She felt stifled, trapped. Be a good girl. Do the right thing. Sacrifice your wants for the greater good of the team. Follow the rules, not the dictates of your heart. It was a litany that played over and over in her mind, reinforcing her choice, keeping her on the right path... driving her mad.
Suddenly the room was too small, the bed was too small, her body was too small to contain the violent storm of emotions seething inside of it. She had to get out of here. She rose slowly from the bed in a controlled graceful motion. Scott couldn't know about the storm raging inside of her. It would break soon enough and when it did she wanted Logan to bear the brunt of it, not Scott.
Jean reached for Scott's pajama top and pulled it on over her naked form. It was long sleeved, light blue, and hung to mid thigh, plenty of cover for a midnight, no make that two a.m., run to the kitchen. Somewhere in her mind that evil little voice whispered that Logan would never wear anything so... confining, so... geeky, so... Scott.
But then again, she already knew he slept naked. He'd whispered it into her ear the other morning during one of the professor's briefings and then he'd sat back in that arrogant way of his and smiled knowingly as her body responded to the erotic image his words created. Her face heated again as she recalled the mental image her mind readily supplied. Logan's sculpted powerful body tangled in crisp white sheets that rode low on his hips, accentuating the prominent ridge that lay underneath.
With an irritated sigh of frustration, Jean finished buttoning the pajama top and pulled her mane of wild red hair from under the collar. Sensing someone was awake and moving around in their room, Scott turned over and sleepily mumbled a question at her.
"Kitchen, sweetheart," she answered automatically. "I'm thirsty. Want anything while I'm down there?"
"Nnn thanks," came the mumbled reply and then softer still, "love you," before he slipped back into sleep.
How flattering. Lately he'd been delivering that particular sentiment with the same effort he might put into saying 'excuse me' to someone he mistakenly jostled against on the subway.
Jean closed their door softly and made her way unerringly through the dark halls to the kitchen. She poured herself a glass of ice cold tea and added a twist of lemon before taking a long refreshing drink. Tea in hand, she padded back out into the hall. There was a soft glow coming from the lounge so she made a detour. God only knew what kind of trouble mutant teenagers could get into at two a.m. She knew. She'd been one once.
She stopped in the doorway surprised to find the room empty, save for Logan who was sitting shirtless in the high backed leather chair with a whisky glass on the table beside him. He had one hand under the spine of a rather thick looking book and the other hand resting lightly on the noticeable bulge in his jeans. Beside the whisky glass a cigar stub sat in an ashtray sending up curls of rich sweet smoke.
She watched as he lifted his hand from his lap and turned the page before reaching for the glass and taking a sip. She continued to watch in fascination as he set the glass back down and returned his hand to his lap where it unconsciously tugged at the seam on his jeans. Unhurriedly, he ran the flat of his palm over himself before his hand stilled once again. Every so often he would flex his fingers, rubbing absent mindedly at the obvious erection, and breath deeply as he turned the next page.
Jean's body tingled as she recalled, again, how that portion of his anatomy had felt pressed so intimately against her. Slowly the corners of her lips turned up in a wicked smile with the realization that she knew exactly what to do to repay Logan for the incident in the lab this evening, and he was going to be very, very sorry indeed.
He'd pushed her too hard tonight. Everyone knew that paybacks were a bitch... and in this particular case they were a red headed bitch named Jean.