Author's Note: Some new French so it is both in the glossary and at the bottom of this chapter. Also, graphic things.
Chapter 33: Carnal Apple
She'd shocked him. Let me be clear, Remy: I want you t'make love to me tonight. The self-confident, highly sexualized, never without something to say Cajun was taken aback by the blatant admission.
"Damnit, Rogue." He'd wanted to give her stages of seduction. He'd wanted to neck with her in the back of a truck with the rollick of an accordion on the radio, to kiss her at the top of the London Eye. He'd wanted to tongue her to climax while she sat splayed on the sink in their bathroom and bring her flowers before a dinner date. Remy'd wanted her to have all those moments, those memories.
But she spoke and his intentions went straight to hell. "En sa beauté gît ma mort et ma vie." One long arm snaked out, drug her to him. For a moment, she was suspended, arched back over the ropy strength of one arm. "You certain, chere? Be certain."
"Damnit, Remy," Rogue echoed, her breath speeding, chest rising and falling rapidly but a smile teasing her lips. "Yes."
It was all he'd needed. Gambit sealed his mouth to hers and sealed their fates, at least for the night. The kiss was rough, need and relief and a keen edge of joy colliding so he wasn't the studied lover as they struggled together. In counterpoint to the rough kiss, though, was his touch. Fingertips, both glove-covered and bare, traced the wings of her shoulder blades, the arch of her spine. The touch was so delicate Rogue shivered in the curve of his always ultra-heated body.
Distracted by the wet point of his tongue behind her ear, under the line of her jaw she didn't notice that Remy guided them from the door to the bed. Caught up in her own micro caresses—lips at the base of his throat, fingers skimming skin and denim at his waist— she only realized they'd traveled when he stopped them and caught her face in his wide-palmed hands.
Rogue grinned in the dark, both playful and impressed. "That was smooth, sugar."
"Ah, petite, that's just the beginning." But he held them there, bodies breaths apart, thumbs skimming her cheekbones.
Rogue thought he stared as if he couldn't believe it was happening, perhaps waiting for her to reverse her decision. Reaching for the small snap at the base of her neck that held her shirt up, she intended to prove her intentions. But Remy, anticipating, nudged her fingers aside and handled it himself. Revealing her inch-by-inch, he drug the shimmering fabric over the fragile line of her clavicle, down nipples beaded with need. He followed the descent of cloth with the burning red of his gaze. When both the fabric and his look reached her navel, the Cajun shook his head.
Exposed, aware of his tracking gaze in a way that scalded her, Anna Marie expected him to speak, to wrap himself around her now she was there and eager for him. But, he didn't. "Is there a problem?"
"Oh, yeah, chere." The raspy southern drawl was mournful. "I don't want t'look away 'cause you're so damn beautiful." His thumb cruised the peak of one nipple. She jerked and his black jack gaze lifted to hers. "But I want to taste you. Ah, God, catin. J'ai envie de toi."
The blush spread along her chest; he traced it with kisses. For a moment, with his head bent to her chest, he looked up through his cinnamon tipped lashes. Then his breath washed her skin and he circled first one nipple then the other in lush heat. He sucked. Anna's hips bucked. Remy was happy to oblige, fitting them together while working from one breast to the other, then back, never lingering over long. He licked a hot path between her breasts, dipped his tongue in the hollow at the base of her throat. She moaned and barely knew the visceral sound for her own.
Dieu, she took his breath.
Remy knelt to peel clothes away, leaving Rogue in soft black gloves and the long chain that dangled a jagged heart half between her breasts. She was supple muscle and lavish curves, his dreams made manifest. He was staring again, his gaze grazing every sleek and soon to be well-loved curve.
Rogue's voice interrupted his perusal. "Remy?" His name was a question both breathless and uncertain.
"Désolé, ma catin. I lose myself when I look at you." It wasn't a line, though her mouth tipped wry as if it were. Ignoring it and the slight sting of her doubt, Remy lifted her to the edge of the bed. She scooted herself back among the pillows.
It was the same bed they shared night after night, but with Rogue sprawled naked in it, with her lips already raw from his kisses and her nipples damp from his mouth, the landscape was utterly changed.
Once he followed, Remy knew restraint was necessary; skin-to-skin for seconds only, the endless tease made his stomach tight, had him throbbing with a savage need. He pushed her arms up roughly, drug a gloved palm over the stretched length of her. She arched, all power and sensuality.
He muttered rough French, a low curse, and succumbed when she lifted and took his mouth with hers. He groaned when Rogue sank her teeth into his lip, then tongued the indentations. She was a wild thing and it was lucky he had been trained to pick pockets; it was muscle memory only that managed to have him peeling scarves out of a side-table drawer.
He slid one between them, along her flushed and sensitive skin. When she pulled away he draped it over the swell of her breasts and all but immediately caught her nipple through the silk, suckled harder than he'd allowed himself when he'd had her flesh between his lips. Anna Marie became a wave, rippling up and into him, pulsing just moments behind the hard stroke of a tongue, the light scrape of his teeth.
She lost that fluidity when lean fingers slide between her legs, found her lips and feathered attention. Contradictory, fearless pop chock. Remy's amused laugh rumbled against her breast. One of her hands tugged his hair too sharply to ignore; Gambit lifted his gaze at the insistence but grinned unrepentantly around the silk covered nipple caught in his teeth. Rogue's eyes narrowed, teeth bared in a snarl, and then she spread her legs.
Small and tight. Remy shuddered as he pumped his fingers, discovering the places and the pressure that made her hips jerk hard, all but dislodging him. He watched her face, those mercurial eyes, through every moan and sigh. He found her with his thumb and swept tight circles until she cried out, all those well-trained muscles going tight. Whispers in French soothed them both through the intimate intensity.
But Anna Marie didn't let him settle or prepare to take her up and over again. His plans, he was learning, meat nothing to the wild-winged heart of his lover. His lover.
She turned on him, eyes bright with design. Remy recognized a wicked purpose there. She attacked buttons, ripping at them impatiently. She fumbled the fastener of his jeans, then slapped him away when he tried to assist her. His laughter spurred her to snap at him and that prompted him to kiss her, affection and desire a sweet tangle.
When the shirt was finally discarded and the zip of his pants peeled carefully back, she hesitated. Remy pulled himself free, distracting Rogue by nipping his way down her body. The thief tongued her belly button while rolling a condom on, bit the slight curve of her belly beneath it while she tugged his hair. Her hips jerked with a demand she backed up by biting his name out. He wasn't certain, but Remy thought his Anna Marie growled.
She definitely shivered when he chuckled low and murmured, "Ah, chere, we got time. Nothin' but time for you, mon coeur." A scarf fluttered to her stomach, another was smoothed over her spread thighs. Only then did he lean above her, weight braced on one arm.
Using one of the scarves, Rogue circled Remy's waist with her arms. She splayed gloved hands on his back. "I don't wanna wait anymore, Remy."
"Ah, Anna." He nuzzled his forehead to hers but didn't delay any further. Narrow hips tipped forward; Remy forgot to breathe as he slid his cock against the wet heat he'd explored with his fingers.
Anna Marie tipped up into the pressure, black ringed eyes fierce with desire. "Yes. Now. Damnit, Remy, I've waited long enough."
God, he loved her. Grinning, impossibly amused in the middle of burning from the inside out, he kissed her quickly. But damn if he'd take her quickly. Pushing forward, teeth grinding from the pure pleasure of her, Remy fought the urge to sink deep and hard, to ride them both to a fast completion. Slowly, slowly he fused their bodies. Anna, of course, smiled, all teeth and ferocity.
She tangled fingers in his hair, moaned loudly. Strong legs tightened around the back of his thighs in demand and Remy found himself laughing against that apple-red mouth. "Ouais! Mon loup."
Rogue's return laugh settled deep in his belly, infused him with her light. "Mon cher, mon chou," whispered. Her voice was husky, laugh-laced and undeniably the most seductive sound he'd ever heard. He twitched inside of her, rolled his hips. Rogue's now multi-hued eyes widened. "Ah, God, Remy."
"Jus' Remy, ange. You don' have t'call me God." When she laughed again, tightening around him, he caught that smile with his mouth and began a slow, rhythmic slide of his hips against hers.
He didn't have to teach her. His Anna-Marie had a store of memories that belied her personal inexperience. It was all the more reason Remy was determined this be burned into her skin, etched on bone. He wanted them to obliterate what any of her psyches might put forth. He wanted her, cellularly, to live this joy, to know it even when she didn't know herself. Dieu knew he would.
"C'mon, Remy, more. Faster." When he refused, Anna bit his shoulder. The sharp and unexpected sting of pain startled a throaty moan from him. Thoughtfully, she licked her way up the straining muscles of his neck. He responded by rolling his hips again, watching her red-and-green gaze go glassy. Mindlessly, she chanted his name.
His fierce pop chock drove him mad with her teeth and her lips, with the hard lift of her hips into every downward thrust. He gasped promises against her ear; begged, in French, as he rocked desperately with her, rocked, desperate to feel her shatter around him, with him.
When she did, bowing from their sheets, holding him fast and deep within her, Remy shook with constraint. But Rogue, untried as she might have been, bit down on his lower lip and locked her legs at his hips. "Remy, damnit, I want to feel you."
He lost all shred of control. They rocked together, hands and mouths everywhere. They rolled, Rogue lifting triumphantly over him once they'd swiftly maneuvered scarves. She rode him fast and hard, gloved fingertips pressed to his stomach, thighs bunching with power. When he came, he bucked up, caught her into his chest, wrapped them together tight enough to bruise them both. Rogue all but howled with it, head thrown back and reveling.
After, they sank back to the bed, tangled up with legs and arms and scarves. Gambit drifted with his face buried in her hair, his softening cock still inside of her. He was loath to lose the intimacy of their interlocked bodies.
Eventually, though, he slid from her and then the bed to tend to practicalities. The condom was discarded. He pulled on soft sweats that hung low on his hips, then a long sleeved tee. Rogue, sleepy and warm, splayed in the tangle of covers and scarves, watched him. Remy could see little red-shot green half-moons where her muddled gaze was mostly shielded by drowsy eyelids.
She frowned when he approached the bed again, started to sit up but the scarves were twisted up with her slender limbs. She tumbled back to the pillows with a grunt.
Remy pressed a knee to the side of the bed and smiled down at her. "What you done to yourself, you?"
Rogue huffed a breath in answer, sending her tangled curls fluttering; the white lock dropped immediately back into her eyes. "I don't think I did this to my ownself, Cajun."
Gently, he helped her untangle the strips of silk while laughing low. Lifting the fabric, he inhaled her scent, theirs. Her hand, still gloved, the only thing she wore aside from that long gold chain, curled against his arm.
Remy raised his brows in question.
"Why're you dressed?"
His mouth curved and he looked over all that inviting gold-dust skin. "'Cause you're not."
Rogue's chin dipped and Remy tracked her eyes. He was hard again, obviously so. When she looked back up one of her hands shoved at the thick mass of her hair. "That was the idea, Remy. You. Me. Naked in this bed."
Catching her face he gave her a hard, smacking kiss on the mouth. "Who are you and what you done with my Anna Marie? Where's the girl said even lookin' was too dangerous?"
A little dazed, the smile on her mouth somehow blurry, she murmured, "Lost her sometime this mornin' when your towel was threatenin' to fall off your hips." Her fingers curled into the elastic band of his pants and tugged. "So where y'at, cher?"
"Anna." Her hand disappeared under his waistband. He thought his heart stopped. "Ah, fuck, Anna."
"Mmm. Yeah, that."
Sleep was forgotten. Anna was eager and Remy was happy to oblige her curious nature. They laughed together and then gasped together. Slick bodies found a way of barely breaking the touch, learned instinctively how to keep her mutation from interrupting while also allowing each touch to sizzle through Remy.
Only when the sun was struggling through the mist on the ocean and their bodies were limp with exhaustion, thoroughly satiated, did they struggle into clothes necessary for them to sleep safely. There was lazy, drowsy laughter to accompany low promises in the dark. There were tender strokes and stolen kisses. There was the drum of their hearts, soft sighs, and a silence for once not fraught with what could be but full of the promise of it.
En sa beauté gît ma mort et ma vie. — In her beauty rests (both) my death and my life. Quote from Maurice Scève, French poet
J'ai envie de toi. — I want you. Note: A way of saying it with warmth, not vulgarly.)
Je t'aime — I love you.
Je t'adore — I adore you.
mon chou — my cabbage (French term of endearment)
mon loup — my wolf (French term of endearment)
Ouais! — Yes. More casual that ouis, rather more like "yeah"
The title comes from a Pablo Neruda Poem, it's one of my favorites (and probably has more to do with this story than I realized consciously):
Carnal apple, Woman filled, burning moon,
dark smell of seaweed, crush of mud and light,
what secret knowledge is clasped between your pillars?
What primal night does Man touch with his senses?
Ay, Love is a journey through waters and stars,
through suffocating air, sharp tempests of grain:
Love is a war of lightning,
and two bodies ruined by a single sweetness.
Kiss by kiss I cover your tiny infinity,
your margins, your rivers, your diminutive villages,
and a genital fire, transformed by delight,
slips through the narrow channels of blood
to precipitate a nocturnal carnation,
to be, and be nothing but light in the dark."
More Notes: You all. You all are so kind and encouraging and wonderful. Heartbreak Lane: Totally FF friends. I was so surprised and delighted by what you wrote. Let ME be clear: I adore you. :) Gigdeygirl: That means so much to me. Just thank you. Lovely Smile: I love your enthusiasm and I'm so, so happy you are still enjoying the story. Butimbroken: Buffy and Gilmore Girls are basically responsible for the way I speak, so of course I have to sneak them in whenever I can. reina13, xan-merrick, redhead36a,craf4sure, ceilidhstewart: Thank you! SO, so happy to have you reading and commenting. Warrior-preincess1980 and MakingT'ingsGoBoom: Ya'll know Rogue. I have a feeling ya'll are both a bit Rogue-ish. E: I hope this was fast enough. (I had to edit a little. I may have started off thinking it should be all serious and sensual and stuff but it didn't feel like them, so it needed some edits.) Roxic-codone, angelz921: No interruptions, all Romy. I hope it was satisfying.
I haven't nearly named everyone who has commented or all the wonderful, wonderful folks with follows and favorites, but I think You Are All The Best. Absolutely, Unequivocally Awesome.
As for what happens next, the next chapter is roughed in but it'll need some revising. (I've been snowed in. So easy to write when you can't go anywhere.) Think it'll be smooth sailing?