Author's note: Sorry for the delay in posting. Confession: I fell asleep on my couch the last two nights in a row. My Christmas knitting/Criminal Minds marathon is clearly taking a toll. I'll try to step up my game, y'all. Onward!
Logan barely remembered talking to the woman he'd picked out. However, the expression on Marie's face when the sweet little blonde heard what he really wanted and turned to look her over was seared into his memory.
He felt branded.
Shot after shot, downed, and then a bottle in his fist when it became clear a single mouthful at a time wasn't going to be anywhere near enough. He took his own advice, drinking to take the edge off and keeping the bottle in his hand as he made his move — and his pitch — and finally his signal to Marie.
She was watching from across the room, absently twirling a longneck in her fingers like she was watching a goddamn movie on a rainy Tuesday afternoon. The tapping of her foot gave her away, though. She was jumpy as all hell and that suddenly made him feel better. He wanted her off balance and engaged, not cold and detached.
The little blonde was into him; not all over him lewdly, but touching him in a way that certainly broadcasted her claim on the Wolverine, however brief it might be. She was the one he'd chosen tonight and there was a certain power in that. A shifting of her place in the pack dynamics.
He'd always had a bit of thing for girls who could pull off a summer dress and cowboy boots. Under the leather jacket she wore, a dress the color of dandelions topped a pair of scuffed western boots. Logan had thought 'co-ed gone slumming' and was surprised when she turned out to be more the 'hippy wanderer' type. He should have known. Only a truly free spirit would wear a dress like that into a place like this.
Honey, he'd rasped into her ear in warning when her fingertips skated over the sweat at the small of his back. No, Jenny, she'd replied, teasingly.
They were always honey, but in this case, it fit damn well. She was golden all over; hair, skin and eyes that lent her a strange sense of monochromatic warmth. Indian summer. Amber ale. Aspen leaves. Honey. He could hear her flirtatious words and her excited breathing, and even the sound of her heart. He felt the warm tickle of her breath and the touch of her hand and the brush of her body; skin smooth and warm and soft. She was the kind of girl whose tan came from a love of nature, not a bottle.
Her natural scent surrounded him, a beachy sort of smell that leaned less to the tropical and more to the fresh salty tang of a fall storm on the Atlantic. It was underscored by cannabis and the warm caramel scent of the butterscotch shots she'd been throwing back at the bar. He should have been completely lost in that golden, sensory experience and yet his entire focus was on Marie, slowly rising from her seat at his nod.
Ah, Christ.
Even when he forced his focus back to the blonde curled suggestively into his side, he could feel Marie moving towards him through the crowd. There was energy there, and power, like a cold front moving before a storm. Only it wasn't cold, but hot. Scorching. He had goosebumps. And a hard-on. And a fucking tenuous grip on the chain keeping his wilder half from announcing himself with a sharp bloody bite and a feral roar.
He didn't remember much of the walk through the bar to the back rooms, either. Only a strange sort of hyper-awareness of the Rogue following them at a distance. Like magnets. One moved, dragging the other, neither of them strong enough to escape the pull even if they'd wanted to.
Logan did recall a deep, wet kiss to distract the blonde while he let one claw out just enough to cut through the lock barring his entry. He hoped what was on the other side would be a suitable place for what he had in mind. Blood burned in his veins, pounding with a primal call he could not ignore. He wasn't going to be able to hold out much longer.
When he flipped on the light, the room wasn't what he'd been expecting, given the sturdy deadbolt on the heavy door. He'd hoped for a private office or perhaps a store room housing the expensive medical supplies he knew they kept on hand for when things went south fast. He'd seen fighters return to the bar with an eyebrow stitched back up or a torn ear sewn back together. He'd not expected to find this small personal space; a strange little oasis in a sea of impersonality.
A cheap table with mismatched chairs sat on one wall, sporting a shitty Mr. Coffee and a small, neatly stacked assortment of non-perishable food. A tall, beat-up dresser with a microwave on top sat beside it. Across from that, perhaps two short, shuffling steps away, an old military cot ran the entire length of the opposite wall. A duffel bag was tucked away under it, along with a pair of boots and a motorcycle helmet. Fast food wrappers in the trash. A set of rickety shelves held a coffee cup, some paper plates, an old Kindle, and an even older iPod. Someone lived here in this converted storeroom. But at that moment, all he cared about was that it had four walls and a door. Minus one lock, but he could take care of that.
Logan pulled the blonde inside and back against his bare, blood-spattered chest, making room for Marie to follow. She slipped inside soundlessly closing the door and moving away as he leaned in, grabbed the closest chair from the table, and wedged it under the doorknob.
"Sit," he growled out to Marie in a voice that sounded rougher than he'd intended, and still far steadier than he actually felt.
She sat.
He couldn't even look at her. Not yet. Everything just felt too raw, like a nerve exposed. Depositing the bottle on the table, he pushed the blonde against the dresser instead, kissing her more to hide his face in her neck than to taste her skin. Musk. Butterscotch. Salt. The faint, briny tang of the ocean, too. She'd been to the beach. Her hair was a wild tangle, carrying the scent of the sea and catching in his fingers.
Her mouth was wide and generous and murmured encouragement as he pushed her jacket to the floor and slid his lips down her neck. Unable to stop himself, he bit here there, hard. She twisted her fingers in his hair and moaned loudly as he rubbed up against her firmly, rocking the microwave against the wall with enough force to jostle the turntable inside.
Turbulent. That's how it felt. A full-on charge over the cliff and then that long blissful drop down, down, down...
It was not at all slow. Or sweet. Or tender.
Fuck.
Logan lifted his head, feeling a hot rush of lust as he took in the bite he'd just made. Taking a deep, steadying breath, he turned his face to look at Marie.
She was leaning back in the chair, head resting back against the door in casual repose. The death grip she had on the bottle in her hand was the only outward sign that she was struggling, too. In that moment, he couldn't read Marie, even with the powerful senses at his command. His mind was far from clear and her scent was obscured by the salty-caramel musk filling his mouth and nose.
Marie didn't look engaged, though. She looked like what she was, an uncomfortable observer, and Logan realized he probably didn't have long to change that before Marie finished her beer and bolted. The blonde shifted against him restlessly, telegraphing both her need and her urgency. Logan was suddenly aware that if he wanted Marie to feel engaged, he had to include her. He couldn't just lose himself in the soft body dry humping against his and hope that would be enough for any of them.
Tender.
Christ.
Closing his eyes, Logan struggled to center himself enough for the hazy idea to crystallize into something he could act on. His cock throbbed, and the world swam, and the weight of Marie's eyes on him threatened to send him crashing to his knees. He'd barely started and she'd already wrecked his control.
His eyes opened. He looked at Marie, but his words were for the blonde. "Turn around."
Jenny's interpretation of his order was obvious; she assumed he was preparing to penetrate her and she was all for that plan, with one caveat. "I have a condom if you don't, big guy. I don't do bareback, even for you."
"Mmph." Logan dug a condom from his jeans, throwing it on the dresser with a nod and a grunt and a dirty leer for both women. "Turn around, honey." He liked it best this way, but the ugly truth was it would be easier if they didn't have to look her in the eyes.
Marie wet her lips. The blonde turned, greedy for his touch, pupils blown wide with carnal expectation as she presented him with her shapely backside. The Wolverine held Marie's gaze and rubbed a large palm down the length of his erection, trapped uncomfortably in jeans dark enough to hide the splatters of blood. His wide thumb lingered on the head, rubbing back and forth until he couldn't hold back the deep grunt of pleasure.
Marie was leaning forward now, eyes wide and dark.
Gotcha.
The blonde pushed her ass back against him, moaning and touching herself. Her hand skated over neck and breasts before pulling up her skirt. She nudged her panties to the side lewdly and slid her fingers between her legs. Logan wasn't sure if she was doing it to entice him or because she just couldn't wait.
Marie's eyes didn't leave him. She wasn't too interested in the woman, or the openly erotic display, only his reaction to it. That realization made his hands shake and he saw Marie smile when he clenched them into fists.
Fuck.
There was no escaping that truth, either.
He'd caught Marie's interest, but she'd caught him up, too.
Logan touched the woman in front of him and kept his eyes on the woman by the door. Both were panting now, flushed and squirming. He wondered if he could make one woman come by touching the other, but he was much too close to the edge for that kind of game just now. Like before, Marie's presence pushed him to the edge faster than he imagined possible.
Instead of ramming into the blonde and pounding her against the dresser until they both came, he drew out the touching — sometimes impatiently — but with an eye to gauging Marie's response. Nothing when he palmed the blonde's small perky breasts, pulling and pinching until she moaned and shoved her ass back at him again, grinding until he groaned and caught her hips in his firm grip before he came in his fucking pants.
It was then that Marie made her first soft gasp. It took Logan a moment to realize it was in response to his loss of control and the rough sound of pleasure that had just been forced from him. He did it again, half expecting he wouldn't be able to reproduce the results. Thinking, surely he couldn't have been right about the connection between his groan and Marie's answering gasp, he pinned the blonde in place and rubbed right where he needed.
Colors exploded behind his eyes and he grunted thickly, bucking his hips helplessly as he fought not to come. Fuck. Fuck. This time, Marie tried to stifle the needy little sound, but it echoed in Logan's ears like a thunderbolt. Dragging in a ragged breath, he struggled for control. For distance.
"Please, please…." The blonde was begging for it now.
"No," he growled. "Not yet."
Disregarding the blonde's whimper of distress, Logan forced his hips away and made his hands move slowly. The touch was too firm for it to truly be tender, but he tried.
Jenny liked having her breasts touched and fondled, but it produced no reaction in Marie, so he moved on. Awareness tickled in the back of his mind that he was more focused on Marie than on the woman he was about to fuck. He felt guilty, but not enough to stop, and they were all enjoying it to some degree. Jenny accepted his touch along her hips, sighing a little in frustration as he trailed his fingertips and then his mouth up her spine. Marie panted.
He did it again to be sure. Neck. Spine. Small of the back. These places produced an observable reaction in Marie, but none so strong as the loss of his control.
Marie liked to hear him.
An experimental bit of dirty talk in the blonde's ear got to Marie too, but not like the rougher non-verbal sounds of his pleasure. Those grunts and growls he could not contain — those made Marie shake. Made her hands unsteady on the bottle and made the sweet musk of her arousal bloom enough that he could smell it, even over the syrupy sweet butterscotch blonde in his arms.
It was wrong and he knew it, but Logan focused on those soft touches that got Marie off the best. The slow drag of his knuckles against the delicate bones of a spine. His mouth, marking the slender nape of a neck. His crude grunts when he couldn't stand the frustratingly slow pace and he opened his belt and pants to stroke his cock firmly.
Marie whimpered, watching his fist pump.
To placate Jenny, he slipped his other hand between her legs, touching and pressing and stroking in maddening little circles that were never quite enough. He knew it felt good, but he could also feel her frustration building. Everything about her screamed out to him that what she'd wanted from him was a good, hard roll in the hay. A hot, impersonal, nasty little backroom fuck that blew his load and her mind and could be easily dismissed by them both, afterwards.
This goddamn tenderness was too intimate. To slow. A bait and switch. Jenny wanted hard and fast and rough, and was none too happy with slow and sweet. Logan tried not to focus on that and instead watched Marie watch his hand slide up and down his cock. It was slick and wet now, and every time he rubbed his thumb over the tip, both he and Marie shuddered. Jenny came mewling, her body clenching on the fingers of his other hand while she twisted and shook and cried out for him to fuck her.
The Wolverine licked the slick precome from the hand he'd been stroking himself with, holding Marie's wild eyes as he did so, wanting her to see the proof of his virility before rolling the condom on.
Like a first time, she'd said.
Logan couldn't imagine any first time being like this; half crazed with lust and up against a dresser, but he doubted the rickety old cot would bear his weight or the force of his thrusts. It didn't really matter anyway. He couldn't much think beyond the throbbing between his legs and that one word held tightly in a white-knuckled grip.
Tender.
TenderTenderTender. It seemed to echo in his head with every wild throb of his blood.
He tried. He really did. That first push into that liquid golden heat was impossibly slow. Sweat stung his eyes, making them water. Marie moaned, biting her lip to try to muffle the sound. Jenny cursed him. Logan groaned loudly, uncomfortable with the honesty revealed there, but unwilling to forgo anything that would heighten the experience for Marie. He was engorged to the point of pain and the body he was invading was small and tight. Not virgin, just petite, inside and out. There was no way she'd be able to take all of him.
"Fuck me!" Jenny's voice was ragged now. Husky from panting. She'd been prepared for a sprint, not a marathon. Her legs were already quivering. It wasn't what she'd imagined — or even wanted. It felt too good to stop, but she was still angry. She wanted him to take her and possess her and hurt her and fuck her like a rag doll. When he didn't do any of those things to her satisfaction, she vented her displeasure verbally, a string of filth pouring from her full lips that finally ended with a plaintive wail and a: "Fuck me, you bastard!"
Logan withdrew, taking his time, shifting his hips so Marie could see the fat, wet length of his cock emerge. He teased the small pink opening with it before he pushed back inside, clenching his teeth and panting through the urge to come. He needed to thrust and thrust until the mindless shuddering spurts blocked out the world.
Closing his eyes tightly, Logan tried to give Marie what she'd asked for. Tried to imagine what it might be like to push his thick cock into a virgin. SlowSlowSlow, he chanted in his head, trying to chain the beast. His control was unraveling.
It didn't work. Opening his eyes, Logan caught Marie's gaze in a desperate attempt to fix himself in the here-and-now. He tried to imagine what it would have been like to push into her untried body, to see her virgin's blood on his cock and to feel her shake and clench around him as they both shattered.
That didn't work, either. The image, fueled by Marie's scent and the sight of her face, flushed and aroused, produced quite a different reaction than he'd expected. He shoved forward almost violently; a primal reaction he couldn't control. One brutal thrust. All in.
Jenny screamed.
"Yes! Harder! Fuck me like you mean it!"
Failed. He'd failed.
He didn't fuck her harder. He forced himself into a slower rhythm that wound them all to the breaking point. The bottle fell from Marie's fingers. Jenny sobbed. The Wolverine howled so loudly in Logan's head that the world swam before his eyes. Jenny came, and then came again, but not like she needed to. Marie's gloved fingers were pressed to her mouth. Logan's lips were pulled back over his teeth.
This was wrong, all wrong, but he couldn't stop.
He knew how to end it, though.
Wrapping the blonde's thick hair around his fist, he pulled hard, twisting her nipple sharply with his other hand and slamming into her like they both needed to finally get off good. Jenny convulsed, spasming under him, and would have fallen if he hadn't pinned her against the dresser as he came.
He didn't look away from Marie's face, roaring out his orgasm with a growl that shook them, Marie most of all. The hand she had pressed to her lips was trembling. For a handful of moments, he couldn't think. There was only gouts of pleasure so intense his legs shook while the world faded in and out to the cadence of the wet, rhythmic spurts.
When the world returned, Logan swore.
The chair by the door was empty and overturned.
Marie was gone.
"You're an asshole," Jenny pronounced, taking a steadying shot from the bottle he'd abandoned earlier. She stood on shaking legs by the little table, watching him with a critical eye while he stripped off the spent condom. He did not miss the heat flaring in her eyes at the sight of his thick cock, glistening and half hard.
"Yeah."
"I feel like we could do it the right way now that she's gone, but I'm too sore."
"No you ain't," he snarled, remembering how she'd wanted him to hurt her. How she'd moaned when he'd pinched her nipple hard. He was in the mood now.
"You got another condom, big guy?"
"Yeah."
He made no move to reach for it. Instead, he fisted a hand in her hair and pushed her to her knees, hating that it excited them both.
She wanted mean. She wanted nasty. He was more than willing. Screw tender. Screw gentle. He just wanted to fuck.
Lies.
He just wanted to be numb.
And to forget.
Up next: Torch. The price has been paid. The Rogue owes the Wolverine her intimate secrets in return. He wants answers. It's her turn to pay up... And her turn to be vulnerable.