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Chapter Three: Hit Me
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Fucking Eve.
His fingers tightened on the spine of the book and he stifled the urge to hurl Milton and his Goddamn 'Paradise' across the room. He was sure that Eve was a red head too. Like her. Temptresses the both of them, enticing men to lose every shred of reason and control.
She was still up there. But even though he knew she was still up there with that arrogant little prick, he couldn't keep himself from wanting her. Perhaps that's why he chose this particular book tonight, to remind himself about the nature of women and sin and expulsion from Paradise. Not that he gave a good Goddamn about sin and this place sure as fuck wasn't paradise, but even he had limits.
He didn't want to leave tonight. Fuck that. Then she'd know how much it bothered him when she and Scott were upstairs for what had to be hours. But there was no sense in torturing himself. He definitely didn't want to wait her out upstairs in his own room again.
That'll be the day.
There was no way in hell he'd ever do that again. Their room was right down the hall from his and even without his acute senses it was pretty obvious what was going on behind that particular door. In the beginning he'd tried to ignore them. Once. His heightened hearing had registered every gasp, every squeak of the bed frame, every dull thud of flesh impacting flesh as clearly as if he'd been standing right beside them.
It had taken the full measure of his monumental control to crush down the rage building inside of him until he'd made it downstairs to the Danger Room. His body shook with the effort to contain it until the door whirred shut and sealed behind him. The soft click of the locking mechanism engaging had snapped the last threads of his control and with a throaty inhuman cry he'd given himself over to the red rage that gripped him.
He took another sip of his whiskey and enjoyed the slow smooth burn. At least tonight he'd found a quiet place, or rather it had found him. The kids had taken one look at his dark scowl and had high tailed it for greener pastures. Fine with him. It was quiet and he was alone. Just the way he liked it. He was enjoying some of the professor's finest and he'd lit a cigar to mask some of the stink the kids had left behind. Yeah, the stink. Too much perfume and cologne mixed with the sweaty odor of dirty gym socks - Bobby, and the annoyingly sicky-sweet stench of Jubilee's strawberry gum.
At least they had gotten his mind off Jean. Jean... he rubbed absently at the heavy ache that had settled between his legs. Christ, he needed a fuck. He would have left to find one but he didn't want to give her the satisfaction of knowing she got to him.
Ice shifted and tinkled against the side of the glass she held. The sharp sound brought his head up instantly and he fixed his stare on her, irritated that he'd been too absorbed in thought to notice her presence in the doorway.
"Go away. I ain't in the mood to play, Jeannie."
Liar.
The problem was he was too much in the mood, too close to losing control. With the way he was feeling right now if she pushed him into reacting and then said no he wasn't going to be able to stop. He knew that Scott would accept any choice that Jean made, eventually, but if he made the choice for her... well that was a whole different animal entirely.
While he didn't have any moral hang-ups about fucking Jean even though she was Scott's girl, he knew that he couldn't just take her. It had to be her choice, completely and without reservation because anything less and Scott would be out for blood. Not that he was afraid of that dick, but they were all part of the same team. As much as he hated the fact that Scott was the team's leader, that was reality, and fucking with that dynamic too much was bound to cause someone to be injured sooner or later. No piece of ass was worth that. Not even hers.
Why the fuck is she still here?
She knew better than to push him when he was like this. They all did. He wasn't exactly known for his restraint. He made no move to get up or to remove his hand from its current position atop his erection. If she didn't want to see that... well then she could just turn around and march that pretty little ass of hers right back upstairs. He'd already warned her once. If she insisted on staying then it damn well was going to be on his terms. Like it or not.
The expression on her face was unreadable but there was something dark and wild glittering in the depths of her eyes. Apparently that little incident in the lab tonight had put a few cracks in her perfectly cultured facade. That thought caused a smug little smile to tug at the corner of his lips.
Well, we'll just see how smug you are when I'm finished with you. She thought nastily in response to his self satisfied smile.
"Milton? Really, Logan, I never would have figured you as the type that liked to read the classics... or the type that liked to read, period."
Of course she knew there was more to him than sex and fighting and tinkering with his bike, but right now she really didn't care. She just wanted to lash out at him for making her feel things she didn't want to feel and want things she wouldn't ever be able to have.
Something that might have been hurt flared sharply in his eyes for a fleeting moment before his cynical mask slammed firmly back into place. He bared his teeth at her and growled softly. A warning if there ever was one, but Jean was far too wrapped up in thoughts of retaliation to notice.
"Don't make the mistake of thinking that just because I kill like an animal and fuck like an animal, that I think like one too. At least not all the time." He punctuated that remark by snapping the book shut, giving her an unimpeded view of his other hand.
Goddammit.
He was furious with himself for feeling that brief stab of hurt at her careless words. He hated it, hated the fact that he even cared what these geeks thought about him. He hated it even more that somehow he'd let it happen. He was the fucking Wolverine for Christ's sake. He didn't need them. He didn't need anyone. Especially her.
"Well?" He narrowed his eyes at her and stroked himself more forcefully, knowing that such an overt sexual display would make her extremely uncomfortable. He knew she wasn't used to such blatant uninhibited sexuality, it was in part what drew her to him. No, he wasn't about to make this easy for her. "What the hell do you want, Red?" He snapped. "I'm busy."
He put down the book and with his free hand reached for the whiskey. His eyes never left hers as he took a swallow of the amber liquid. Fuck he needed this drink. He was holding on to his control with white knuckled fingers and he knew if Red pushed him hard enough he'd snap.
She crossed the room with the same quiet grace she always exuded and stopped a few feet away, just outside the ring of light cast by the small reading lamp beside him. Her movement through the still quiet of the room stirred the air bringing her scent clearly to him. His nostrils flared and his breath hissed quietly through his teeth.
If that small sound wasn't warning enough the tick in his jaw should have been, but still she stayed because she wanted to see the full measure of his reaction. Knowing wasn't nearly enough, not after what he'd done tonight. She wanted to see it with her own eyes.
Holy fuck.
She absolutely reeked of Scott and sex. When he'd scented Scott on her before it wasn't anything like this. That had been more like his scent rubbing off on her because they shared the same small space or because their clothes hung in the same closet or because he'd casually touched her hands or face. It had never EVER been like this. This was infinitely, excruciatingly worse.
She was drenched in his scent. It clung to her skin, her hair, her clothes. Logan's eyes narrowed. Scott's clothes. The stench of him seemed to seep from her every pore. His sweat and saliva was dried on her skin along with the musky scent of sex and there was another scent on her, one that marked her undeniably as belonging to another male. Irrefutable proof that the other male had already claimed her and marked her as his.
It couldn't have been a more clear message. The primal part of him reacted violently as the scent surrounded him and in that instant all he wanted to do was kill the rival male. Irrationally, his mind shouted that this female was his. It was supposed to be his scent drying on her skin. She was supposed to smell like his body. Supposed to belong to him. His every sense screamed it until he couldn't hear anything else.
A crack appeared in the glass cradled in his palm but neither of them noticed.
Anger spiked hotly through him and he rose from the chair, deliberately setting down the glass with the overly precise motions of a person who was dangerously close to the edge. He straightened and stared at her in disbelief. She couldn't possibly be that fucking dumb. She wouldn't knowingly do something as stupid as standing before him half naked smelling of another man's c-
"Act like an animal and I'll treat you like one," she said coldly, interrupting his thoughts, as she took a step closer, into the light.
He could smell Scott on her breath. Fury choked him and his body shook with unspent rage. He clenched his fists and barely managed to keep from striking her. The urge was so overwhelming he grit his teeth and shuddered fighting himself for control. She saw him check the movement and thought about taking a step backward but she was too caught up in the thrill of victory to be completely rational.
She must have felt the dark seething rage bleeding off of him in waves because she curved her lush red mouth into a smile of satisfaction knowing that she'd been correct in her assumption, that her assault on his senses had affected him at the most primitive level. She took a step closer wanting to drive her point home as eloquently as he had earlier with the slow grind of his body against hers in the lab tonight.
"Don't." His voice was flat and utterly devoid of emotion. If she took one step closer he was going to fucking lose it.
She stared into his eyes, a direct challenge to the animal part of him, and she took another step closer because she knew all he needed was one last push to send him over the edge and into the darkness.