SUMMARY: Jean's gotten what she wanted—but now that she's started, can just walk away? Will her reluctance to do just that threaten all the relationships and ties she's spent her life making? Warning, angst ahead!

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Chapter 3: Breaking Points

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I only lasted three days and then I was back again.

It was wordless, we didn't even say hello, he just saw me and took me into his arms.

We made love on the grass, my back pressing into the twigs and leaves, moving together in fluid, silent motion, like a beautiful and twisted ballet. When I finally opened my eyes to the world I saw him kneeling over me, naked, with a cheeky grin on his face. You got no idea how long I've been wantin' to do that, he thought at me.

I pushed him back down on the ground, watched the beautiful feral pleasure suddenly take over his face, the undisguised fall over the edge, the way he suddenly frantically grabbed me, forgetting his gentleness and caution, and taking me the way he wanted to.

He loved to hold me afterwards, to breathe me in. I would let him, for a few minutes, the most precious minutes these days, and then I would leave.

He would always follow me with the same words, "I love you Jeannie."

I was always walking away when he said it, and I was glad my back was turned and my psychic shields were up because that way he couldn't see me crying.

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It all started to unravel because I couldn't stop. It wasn't part of my plan. This was supposed to be a one time affair, the one dalliance to satisfy the lingering craving I'd always felt right there beneath the surface, but in a very short amount of time I felt hopelessly addicted.

The next night, I found myself out in the field, moaning as Logan was on top of me, against me, kissing my neck, licking down my shoulder, tasting my mouth like a delicacy, running his fingers up and down my thighs, drawing it out, making the sex slow and agonizing and so intense I felt us both beginning to burn. I heard his breath catch in a sob, saying my name, his hands cradling my face.

I loved the expression on his face, expressions I never saw in the daylight. He was always so guarded, but not here. Not with me. The pleasure and pain mingling, and then the split second of utter vulnerability as he shuddered and said my name, his heavily muscled shoulders tensing, then releasing. I relished those moments, daydreamed about them, thought about them all day long as I carried on through the normal, dreary day.

"You're so fucking beautiful," he'd murmur to me afterwards as I lay against him, stealing his warmth. "I want to do this with you forever. Jeannie, you set me on fire,"

I wanted it forever too, but I couldn't say it. I just kept coming back, until every week turned into every night and I was trying to hide bruises—his thumbprint on my hip, his smell on my skin, the dazed look I wore everywhere as the pleasure slowly dissipated in my body.

I swore that it was over, that I quit. And then, the next night, I'd come back.

I knew he loved it when I said his name out loud, I could feel the satisfaction radiating from him. Afterwards he would always kiss me so slowly, so deeply that I felt dizzy.

It happened so fast, so strangely, so secretively that I felt like I was two separate people, living two separate lives.

I was falling so in love with him, and at the same time I was falling apart.

I couldn't believe that no one seemed to notice it, since I felt like I was walking around with a big sign that said, "JUST HAD SEX WITH LOGAN!" around my neck. I could barely concentrate enough to speak normally in classes, I would just be thinking eagerly about what would happen when midnight came around.

I stopped sleeping with Scott altogether—I was afraid to, afraid that if I let him close to me the images, the feelings, would come spilling out like a broken dam and he'd see it all. He didn't say anything about it. I wondered if part of him was relieved he didn't have to pretend anymore.

In the house, Logan and I avoided each other like the plague. He would see me and quickly turn the corner, eyes downcast, expression a scowl.

And I, I was constantly thinking of a lie to tell Scott when we awoke to find me gone. I was hungry. I was on a walk. I felt sick. I'd gotten up to go to the bathroom. He couldn't have believed it—if he'd been paying attention or cared. He wasn't, he didn't, and that's how things between us stayed.

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I knew it wouldn't last.

The night before, Logan had made love to me, and afterwards he stroked my hair and we just looked in each other's eyes. He whispered my name and it sounded so sad that I reached forward and kissed him on the lips.

It was a slow kiss, as I let my tongue feel its way around his fangs and breathed in the sweet smell of our sweat. The way he kissed me—God, it made me weak. His whole body was fully trained on me, all his attention and focus poured into moving against my lips, stroking me with his tongue. I'd never been kissed like that before and I gave myself up to it, let the intensity wipe my mind clean until the whole universe was reduced to just him and me.

He pulled back and kissed me on the face again, silently, stubble scratching my cheek.

And then I almost said it. In my mind, Logan I love you was clear. But the words choked in my throat.

"Logan I…."

He was holding me against him, and I loved how solid he was, how the ridges of his muscles stood out in the low light, how his heat seemed to bathe me in a warm, pleasurable cocoon. I love you, I wanted to say. You have me. I am yours, completely. I can't stop. I can't deny this anymore. You and me, Wolverine and Phoenix, we were always made to fit together like this and I understand now.

Logan, I'm yours.

I said nothing.

I couldn't finish the sentence and he just looked at me with unreadable eyes, and then turned away, running his hands down the small of my back, through my hair, feeling the smooth skin and brushing the red strands out of my eyes.

"Jeannie, it's almost light out. You should go."

I tried to look him in the eye and he refused. He looked down. He looked anywhere but at my face, and at that moment the shame, the guilt, the cowardice I felt overwhelmed me. I was disgusted with myself, hopeless.

That time I didn't even bother to hide my tears as I picked up my tattered clothes and began the now familiar walk back to the mansion. I looked back, my face streaked with salt and I saw him standing there in the beginning of the dawn light, head hanging, arms dangling at his sides, a man defeated.

He knew he couldn't win this. He'd always known. He loved me anyway.

That next day we practically stayed on opposite sides of the mansion, avoiding any chance social encounters. That night I didn't come. I couldn't face him. I knew that I had pushed too far at my own game, and now it was me who was about to lose. I'd taken a gamble and fallen in love with a man who was not my husband, a man who was part animal, part wild, and all I wanted to do was give all of myself to him, to be with him really, not just under cover of night. I couldn't. Everything I'd ever learned, all the rules, said I couldn't. I couldn't do it. I felt like I'd been ripped in half. I felt so hollow.

I stayed away.

Sometimes at night after Scott was asleep, I hid my behind my psy-shields and I thought about it and burned. I remembered like vivid footprints, his hands all over my body, the way he smelled, the way our minds bled together when the pleasure got too intense and it would set us both off. But I could never get the last time out of my head, those sad eyes as he looked at me, his soul bare, and I'd turned away.

And still, I stayed away.