Chapter 20: All of You
No one missed that the smiling girl who'd entered Muir Island did not arrive at the breakfast table the next day. A rather less charming version of her did.
"Guess she didn't like your choice in rooms, Gumbo."
"The room is great," Rogue inserted flatly before Gambit could retort and get a verbal sparring match going.
Moira, having joined them in the kitchen on this floor, looked from one person to the other. Apparently unconcerned with her patient's mood, she jumped right back into work, "I'd like to resume our sessions today. "
Rogue's green eyes, Mississippi muddy, thick with secrets, settled on the scientist's face. It was Gambit who objected. "Mebbe we rest a day or two? Been on de run awhile now, 'bound to catch up wid us."
"Even better. We'll find out how emotion and stress can affect her siphoning abilities." That effectively ended the over breakfast conversation.
But, as it turned out, Moira was ecstatic with the variable interval she observed. Remy didn't get the two breaths before the sharp tug of Rogue's mutation had him pulling back. The fourth time the doctor said "Again" over the intercom, he considered going to the control room and charging all her equipment. Instead, the Cajun snapped, "Assez. We done wid dis portion of de trainin' today. You got anything new you wantin' to try, doc? 'Cause if not, I need a drink."
Remy could've sworn he heard a growl cut her off when the doctor unwisely seemed about to broach further activities. Gambit grabbed Rogue's arm and hauled her up, dragging her the two floors to her room. "What's going on, Anna Marie? You like a live wire, cain't no one get close at all." Hell, he was beginning to wonder if, in this mood, she couldn't siphon his life force by mere proximity.
"I'm tired."
"Bull shit."
"Watch your language."
Remy laughed, richly, while she slammed onto the small couch near a window and scowled. "You don't fuckin' care if I curse, Anna Marie, you got your own mouth on you. Now stop all dis. What the hell happened between last night and now? You ain't even seen anyone or talked to-" Remy paused, scrubbed a hand over his hair, damp with sweat. Having the life sucked out of you was strenuous, even if it was by a belle femme. "You finally talk to your special snowflake?"
"Shut up, Gambit."
Remy crouched, crooked a finger under her chin to force her gaze up. "What did he do, petite?" His tone was softer, compassionate now.
And she didn't deserve compassion. "He didn't do nothin'." Remy did that thing with his eyebrow and his obvious skepticism just pissed her right off. "I did it. I broke up with him. That make you happy?"
"It sure don't seem to have made you happy. So why you do it, petite?"
Tense silence followed his question, and then the outburst: "Because! Because I like bein' your pretend girlfriend!"
Very carefully, gaze riveted, he asked, "Why's that?"
"Because it's pretend, Remy. 'Cause you ain't gonna get mad that I'm not able t'do anything with you; 'cause you can just find someone to give you what I can't. Because it don't matter that every time you kiss me it's on my hair or through a glove. And that means I'm not gonna accidentally kill you because I want to be touched so much that when someone finally does I can't let go.
"When we're lyin' in bed talkin' I don't think about how you probably wish we could do any other damn thing but we're stuck talkin'. Again. So, yeah, I love bein' a pretend girflfriend," one of those gloved hands gestured wildly at him, "your pretend girlfriend."
"You know how to make a girl feel beautiful and special and I'm such a dumb, lonely hick that it don't even matter that I know it don't mean anything. Don't even matter that I know that I can enjoy it because it ain't real. How fucked up is that, Gambit? And how is that fair t'do to anyone else?"
His heart ached and it wasn't just for her. There had been a moment, when she'd said she liked being his that everything in him seemed to still, to quiver, to wait. He had no right to those hopes. They were just friends. Had no right to be hurt that she just meant she was happier having a pretend relationship than a real one and not that she was happier having a pretend relationship with him than a real one with Bonehead or anyone else. "So you just give up and blame me?" He stood, looking down on her and there was nothing playful about him just then. "We're not gonna be pretendin' forever, Anna Marie. Then what? Gonna try to find someone else to be your neuter stand in for a relationship?" A harsh pause as if he was really waiting for the green-eyed girl to answer. "Don't put that shit on me and don't sell yourself so damn short."
"I did the right thing! I set him loose so he can have a real life! And, damnit, you're the one asked me to help you! You're the one-"
"I'm the one you're hidin' behind. Do you want Bobby? Hm? You wanna kiss him? Fuck him? It ain't impossible, chere. " Remy moved in closer, predatory and lethal. Absolutely irresistible. He put a knee near her hip on the couch, braced a hand just behind her head on the back of it. "If this weren't a pretend relationship, if you wanted me, I'd risk the pain and the pleasure of touchin' you."
His breath feathered her cheek, her ear, down her neck as he caged her in. "I'd make love to you with my voice, have you sprawled beneath me in the thinnest silk and touch every curve, every sharp edge with my hands, my mouth." He didn't touch her now though, his body hovering over hers, an inch, a centimeter, close enough his heat washed into her. "If this were real, we'd keep practicin' every day to make it so you could control your mutation, and every night I'd show you why it wouldn't matter a damn to me if you never did.
"Satin, leather, something sheer and soft. We'd take turns on who stayed dressed and who didn't, or maybe just on which half was dressed and which wasn't." That smile, it was a sensual promise, just the other side of sex from the ones he gave her that teased. "We'd find out if water was a good enough barrier or maybe oil or whipped cream; experimenting would be half the fun. And you'd never doubt for a damn minute that I wanted anyone but you, mon amour. You'd never wonder if you were 'worth' it because neither of us would be giving up a damn thing."
Beneath him, her breathing was shallow and rapid, the tips of her breasts so close to touching his chest with every inhale that it wouldn't even require a noticeable move to have them brushing against him. Green eyes were wild, dark and needy. And confused. Remy could have her, now, could bend down and take her mouth and show her what he meant. His Anna Marie was that lost in him, that eager, that starved for what he'd painted that she'd take it when it was offered, however briefly, however falsely. She'd told him as much.
Remy'd hate himself after. "When you want someone that much, chere," he murmured it almost against her ear, then nuzzled into her hair, hiding his face and breathing her in before he gave in to those green eyes, the curve of her glossy lower lip, the tip of her pink tongue. "Then nothin' gonna matter but him and you. Your mutation? That ain't nothin', not when a man has a woman like you." When he drew back, thinking he was in control again, her eyes were wet. Le Bon Dieu. He didn't want her to cry.
"Anna Marie," it was a whisper, a plea, and then Remy couldn't help himself. He bent his head. Her mouth was soft, pliable under his and eager. He caught her plush lower lip, the one she'd stroked with the tip of her tongue. They were long, delicious seconds, their mouths pulling apart and pressing together as if knowing how long it could last before her mutation would pull too hard. He didn't move his hands though he wanted to slide them into wild cinnamon and lightning curls, didn't frame her delicate face because the grip on the couch was a tether. And maybe she felt the same, because only their mouths touched, breaking apart and eagerly reuniting.
But, finally, knowing soon he wouldn't be able to stop, Remy pushed away; on his feet, the Cajun didn't look down to see if she was now spitting mad or if his own mutation,any part of it,had gotten the better of her; he didn't check to see if, still worse, she was crying. He was gone like the thief he was and all he could think as he went was What the hell have I done?
Author's Note: So, vacationing is great for writing. Also, the chapter title comes from the John Legend Song "All of Me" because I think of Remy and Rogue, or at least the Maybe We Could version of them, every time I hear the song.