"You're so good looking," Jaran frowned at him.
Victor patted the couch next to him. "Wrong brother to try that tact with," he countered. "Logan's the one who got all the charm, all the savoir faire, all the class."
"Eh. Pretty boy. You're the one who got the solidness. You're taller, your shoulders are broader-"
"That's right-I'm the big bumbling one. The maniac mutant. He's the lady killer."
Jaran sank down onto the table in front of him. Her eyes met his and she reached out to take his hands in hers. "You've had your share of relationships with women."
"Women throw themselves at Jimmy."
"He doesn't throw them back, either."
"What does that mean?"
"That it takes your sexiness to a whole other level knowing how careful you are about who you take to bed."
"Doctor, you've got it all wrong-if one of us is up for easy sex it's me. He's the one who clunters in all the rest of it."
"Which means that a woman is far less likely to be hurt by you. To let her feelings lead her where you're not willing to follow."
"Baby-"
Jaran slid closer, then shifted her weight onto her knees, now on either side of him.
"Oh, Jesus," he moaned, looking up at her.
"Victor, you are every bit as worthy as your brother. What's in you is different. Your attraction is different as well. Not less because it is, just different. No, you'll never be the one with that narrow-hipped cowboy look. Yours is more sophisticated. It's the way you wear your clothes. The way you walk into a room. The quiet sarcasm in your humor. Your tendency toward understatement."
"I look like a damned beast dressed up for Halloween."
"There is something primitive to you as well. He's...folksy-"
Victor laughed. "Folksy?"
She nodded, her hands brushing through the hair at his temples. "Folksy. You know-not primitive, but sweetly, timidly, old-fashioned."
"Great. Primitive would be better, then?"
She nodded. Then she shrugged. "I don't know. I just know the reaction I have to both of you-two hugely capable, highly intelligent men of very similar coloring and vocation."
"I'm not going to bother arguing that one. Surely to God you of all people know the difference between the cadet and me."
"You're not as dark as you wish you were," she smiled at him.
"I'm certainly no creature of the light."
"You're perfect."
Victor offered no argument to that one. He was distracted by the presence of her lips so close to his. Of her narrow waist and the flare of her hips and the scent of her perfumed lotion where the collar of her shirt had been left open. It was black. She was wearing jeans and boots, and her hair was pulled back into some sort of tail so that the loose waves of it hung halfway down her back-all streaks of red and gold and blonde. Her face was clear, unfreckled, unmarred. And he was willing to bet that her underwear matched. It had every time he'd taken her clothes off so far.
"Bedroom," he murmured as his lips caught hers.
"You have forty minutes of your session left," she told him.
Victor frowned. "Then you'd better cancel your next session," he told her.
"Why?"
She let out a little shriek as he stood straight up. His hands caught her below the hips as his mouth closed over hers. "Because I don't believe in letting anyone rush me. And I'm even less fond of people telling me what to do."
She was laughing up at him when the door came crashing in.
Victor half-turned, shifting her away from whoever had barged in.
"Oh. Good," he sneered. "I was going to call you. The witch doctor here needs you to clear some of her afternoon up," he told the young man who stood in the doorway.
"Oh. Um. Uh."
Jaran ducked her head to look at her assistant. "It's okay, Tommy. I think Victor's only teasing."
"Yes, ma'am. Mr. Creed, sir?"
"Look, son, you have two choices. You can stand there and blush like you've-"
"I thought I heard her scream, sir. And, since I knew she had you down on the books..."
Victor rolled his eyes at Jaran. "See? Even your shrink puppy over there realizes that sleeping with me is a terrible idea."
"He's never done it."
Victor arched one brow. "He assumed that if you were screaming it had to be because I was on the edge of dismembering you."
"People don't like psychologists. I don't take it personally."
"You will if I lose it and rip you to shreds."
"And see, I just don't anticipate that happening," she told him.
Victor let her slide down his body. Jaran accepted the rejection since the mood had been broken. Especially since she'd been the one to cause the shatter.
"Your car's arriving this afternoon," she noted, slipping behind her desk. Victor looked over his shoulder at the man still standing in the doorway.
"Do you want me to go get the director?" he asked.
Both patient and doctor shook their heads.
"I'm not going to throw Mr. Creed down and have my way with him, Tommy. You can leave now."
"Yes, ma'am. I'm right outside if you need me."
"You got it," she muttered under her breath.
Victor waited until the kid closed the door and turned a chair around so that he could straddle it facing her desk. "You know he's going to report that."
The woman in front of him lifted one shoulder. "And I could really give a fuck? If Xavier fires me I can go back to doing my real job."
Victor just looked at her. "This isn't real work to you?"
"This isn't really making much of a difference. But, since we've gotten back on track, I guess we really should talk about your last mission."
"You want to go pick up my car with me?"
She hesitated. He saw the desire, then he saw the shutters in her eyes clamp down. "I really want to. But I really do have an afternoon full of patients. Will you take me for a drive later?"
He nodded without any of his usual wisecracking or sarcasm. "You want to go get dinner?"
She shook her head, slipping on those sexy half-glasses she wore to read when her eyes got too dry for contacts. It seemed that after a couple dozen centuries even elvish eyes blurred the fine print. "I'd rather eat here. I'm going to put Gambit through the wringer and I want him to be able to see me as normal again afterward." He watched her pick up the microfilms with data analysis of one of their genetic codes and hold the thin black sheets up to the window. He squinted his own eyes to make out the details. No wonder she had to wear glasses.
"Who is that?"
"Me, actually," she told him.
"What are you looking for?"
"Certain alleles hold a hereditary tendency toward the development of mutant oncogene cells which lead to cancer..." she began absently.
"Jesus Christ! You have cancer?"
She shook her head, still absorbed more in the DNA graphing than the conversation. "No. None of us seem to randomly develop it like mortals do. Lung cancer, gum cancer, and mesothelioma are the only kinds I've ever seen the elder race develop. And only in one subject for the first two-a man whose smoked and chewed practically every waking moment for the past two and a half thousand years."
"How long's he had the cancer?"
"Six months."
"How long's he got?"
She shrugged. Finally she turned around to look at him. "How the hell should I know? I'm no oncologist and no pathologist. I'm just trying to figure out if some of the same genetic twists and turns on my double helix are present on some of yours."
"Me, personally?"
"Nope. You're impervious. I don't know if lung cancer could get you-I know your brother can only get drunk if he drinks sufficient quantities of a high-proof fast enough and even then it doesn't last long and doesn't leave him with side effects. I suspect that cancer would be the same. You simply self-heal too fast for it to damage you."
"Hmph. So basically I'm just taking up space here."
"You don't like when I probe."
"So you're trying the passive aggressive route?"
She looked up at him again. "We've still got twenty minutes if you think that bit on the couch was too passive for you and want me to try it again."
Victor chuckled uncomfortably. "I prefer to do the asking. And I'm not into quickies."
"Probably the self-healing again," she murmured.
"Are you talking sex or chromosomes now?"
"Both," she told him, sitting down to flip open a notebook. She made marks, but nothing he understood or cared to ask about. "I imagine what leaves mortal men feeling appropriately hulled out wouldn't have the same effect on you. Your body would be almost instantly aroused again before you could withdraw. Thus you'd be good for a few more rounds before any true satisfaction registered."
"So your smooth talk about the differences between Jimmy Logan and-"
She looked up, slipping the glasses off as she fought and lost the battle with a grin. "Jealous? Don't be. I've never slept with anyone for my work before. I really and truly am genuinely attracted to you. And, if you forgot, most of the men I've slept with have been elves. We've been known to shack up and not surface for several moon rotations-we're not going anywhere, so what's the hurry?"
"You have issues."
"A few resentments. Some untapped desires. Perhaps my fair share of psychoses. Yeah, okay, maybe issues."
Victor shook his head and stood, spinning the chair so that it sat facing the fireplace again. "I'm leaving."
"Have a good afternoon," she called pleasantly.
