Author Speaking – *blush* So…um…anyone besides Nesa still with me here? Ok then, you brave souls, I must inform you that I've gotten all that really steamy stuff outta my system…. For now. Can't make in promises for where my mind wanders in future pieces or chapters…or paragraphs. I WILL try to behave from here on out. I can swear to that. I always got a C for effort. :-P Ok, now the actual plot thickens!
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The next morning she was stiff, sore and unable to move from the bed.
Sometime during the night she had awakened to find Logan still inside her and once again hard.
Her eyes had opened sleepily to see his burning with the need to take her again as well as an inner battle for the strength not to. Loving the power they had over each other, she had smiled and encouraged him to satisfy them both again.
He had and now she was feeling the effects of her greed, which he had tried to prevent with by coupling again so soon.
Logan, feeling extremely guilty for his hungry use of her virgin body despite her more than willing participation, told her to use her skin to absorb enough of his mutation to ease the discomfort.
"While I would love nothing more that to have you inside my mind as you are every other aspect of my life, soul, and body I don't want to risk either of us getting hurt. I haven't used my mutation on anyone since it went crazy on me and I'm a little afraid to try it again just yet." She replied.
"How about a nice long soak in a hot tub of water, then?" he offered.
The way her eyes lit up was answer enough to send him into his private bathroom and start filling the tub there with warm to hot water.
He returned moments later to lift her gently into his arms and carry her to the waiting water. He lowered he with great care and she sighed blissfully as the hot water and steam sank into her aching muscles.
Her eyes were closed as she relished the sensation, but she was so in tuned to his body now that she knew he had moved to kneel beside the tub.
A hand suddenly brushed her face before cupping her cheek and turning her head toward him.
Eyelids fluttering open, she met the warm brown gaze of her lover.
Her lover.
A happy, possessive smile touched her lips and lit her eyes.
"What's that for?" he asked at her new expression.
"My lover," she lifted a hand from the water to caress his cheek.
A satisfied growl rumbled through him at that and he leaned forward to claim the kiss he'd turned her head for.
He pulled away from the tender caress slowly, his eyes telling how much more he longed to do but couldn't possibly. Yet.
Sitting back on his heels, he ran that passionate stare over her body. He frowned suddenly at the mark on her neck just below the collar she still wore and the hand-shaped bruise on her hips.
"Sorry about that, darlin', it's hard to control with you."
Hearing the regret at his roughness in the gruffly spoken words, she again lifted a hand above the water.
"You see this hand?"
She waved it slightly until he arched a brow and nodded.
"Under these fingernails is skin. You skin. You may have healed right up afterward, but when I orgasmed I tore straight into your butt and shoulders. Don't ever regret showing me I effect you half as much as you do me."
Her passionate words, the glare in her eyes as she spoke them and the wave of hot water that splashed over him when she slapped her hand back down got her point through.
"Yes, ma'am." he smiled, apparently unable to resist another kiss after that.
When he finally rose to his feet again to leave her soak, she watched him while her head sank back against the rim of the tub.
The collar made a dull thudding sound at her shift, making her remember her promise to Hank and the Professor.
"Damn." She sat up in the tub. "I've got to get this to Hank right way."
He frowned as he watched her pry open the collar and remove it.
"Why?"
"I promised them I would if they let me wear it yesterday."
"Aren't you meant to wear it?"
Hesitant to tell him the story about how she came to have the device, she bit her lip.
"What aren't you telling me? You just got real nervous about something."
Half-heartedly cursing his acute senses that could detect such shifts in her emotions, she sighed and tried to think of the best way to tell him.
"The collar was a gift for my birthday, but we don't really know much about it – like how it works and any possible side-effects. I asked to be allowed to wear it for the rest of my birthday in exchange for allowing them to test away on it starting first thing this morning."
"A gift? From who?" he demanded, sensing the answer to that question to be the big one.
Dammit, my man would have to be smart like that.
"Mystique," she muttered sinking down into the water.
"Mystique?"
He repeated her name in a very calm, simply questioning tone.
No snarling growls or unleashed claws.
Surprised by his reaction she sat back up to look at him.
Ahhhh, there's the anger.
Taking in his tense body and the way his fist clenched with the desire to release those claws, she smiled at how well she knew her man.
"Yes, Mystique."
"And you put it on?!"
"Yes, the Professor and Hank agreed that so long as I showed now signs of a serious reaction, there should be no problem with wearing it for a short period."
"We've been together for the past eighteen hours, I hardly call that a short period of time." He growled.
Not really surprised so much time had passed she remembered those hours and simply smiled.
"Don't try to get around me with that look, Stripes, we are going to discuss this."
"Not so long ago, you were calling me Marie," she whispered to pull his thoughts away from the present into the recent past with her.
"You're to good at that for a virgin," he growled once realizing what she was attempting to do.
"Well, that's good, sugah." She flicked some water his way. "'Cause you know as well as I do Ah'm no virgin anymore."
He bent, still growling, to kiss her at that reminder.
Pulling away after a quick, hard peck he glared at her neck where the collar had been.
"What's that?" he demanded.
"What's what?" she countered, having no idea what he was seeing.
He quickly fished the forgotten collar from the tub then roughly lifted her still sore body from it.
He ignored her groan of protest at his actions and stood her before the mirror.
"What did this thing," he shook the collar at her reflection, "do to your neck?!"
Forgetting the aches and pains of her body, her mind focused all it's attention on the mark that so disturbed Logan.
Turning her neck left then right she saw that along every visible inch of her neck that the collar had lain, there was now a grayish-blue dusting of some kind of residue.
Remembering her promise that she'd call for help immediately if she noticed any reaction, she lifted a hand to hover over her neck and screamed in her mind for the Professor.
~*~*~
"Logan, please, if you cannot calm yourself and I will bar you from this room," the Professor said after thirty solid minutes of her worried lover's furious pacing and growls.
"Have you got anything yet?" he ignored the Professor to snarl at Hank.
"Logan, these tests take time. We all need to remain calm and be patient until we begin getting some results." The Beast replied yet again.
He was about to remark again about how much time had already passed, when Rogue sat up on the exam table and called him to her side.
"Baby, let him work," she said gently, stroking the tight lines of his face with glove covered fingers and looking deep into his worried eyes.
"I've never been good at just waitin' around, darlin'"
"I know."
Smiling she pulled his head to her chest and began massaging his shoulders and back.
As this scene had played through once before already, Hank ignored the couple and worked to try and hurry up his tests without risking any results.
The Professor watched them for a moment before turning to monitor Hank's progress.
~*~*~
"From what I've been able to gather so far all I can offer are theories that will need more time and even further testing to confirm." A weary Hank said an hour later, finally turning away from his computer.
"Just tell us something," Logan snarled.
Everyone ignored his outburst and Hank continued.
"It appears that contact with skin, a natural moist surface, interacts with the compounds in the collar. I cannot yet determine if it is all compounds or only a select few. If the contact continues for a prolonged period, a residue consisting of your sweat and traces of the compounds builds up and as in your case, Rogue, leaves it's mark on the skin where the collar touched.
The man dropped his head suddenly before pressing on. "The tests I've gotten back so far on your blood, indicate a change in your X-gene. This is what I most need to study. Your mutation is still there and strong according to your DNA, but it has been altered by something in that collar that had made its way into your bloodstream."
He fell silent and for long moments, none of the other three in the room spoke.
"What all could that mean?" the Professor finally asked.
"Hopefully it has simply lessened the severity of Rogue's mutation, which would not be a completely bad thing." He turned to Rogue, "I want to remove the residue completely now and keep you under observation for at least the remainder of today. I have to be sure that I've stopped any more of the chemicals from seeping into your bloodstream as well as monitor whether those in your system remain, continue suppressing your mutation as they appear to be, or spread further and begin to destroy your advanced X-gene all together."
Gasping at that possibility, she clenched Logan's hand tighter with both of her own.
"Could this kill her?" he demanded hoarsely of Hank, gripping her hands back.
"No, I see absolutely nothing to indicate that as a possibility. It could permanently suppress or eradicate her mutation and while that may sound like a good thing, it would do such work by altering her DNA in ways we've now way to guess or anticipate."
"Find her," Logan growled turning on the Professor. "Find her NOW!"
"Logan, hunting down Mystique will do no good. We must deal with this here, ourselves." The Professor stated calmly, divulging the meaning of her lover's demand from his thoughts.
"While I agree that sending Logan after her will do no good, I have to say we may need her presence here to sort this out. Having been the one to provide the collar, obviously knowing its use, Mystique can doubtlessly provide essential details or pieces for me to work with. Somehow we do need to locate her and bring her here." Hank said.
Absorbing and accepting those facts, the Professor nodded solemnly before turning to leave the lab.
Knowing that the man was heading for Cerebro to try and locate some sign of the shapeshifter, Rogue pressed herself closer to Logan's warm protective body and prepared to simply wait this out.
