Chapter 1: Looking For Love
Author's Note: This is going to be the much longer version of a short, 'request only' story I wrote some months back. Some of my regular readers may have gotten it; some of you may not have. If you'd like to read it, please email me. If you have read it, thanks for the feedback; your interest was what encouraged me to write this long version. Enjoy! And please review if you liked it, and even if you don't! I love reviews! --Jaenelle
Logan paused outside his bedroom door. Sniff.
His lips curling into a smile, he pushed open the door and looked in. The room was dark, but he didn't need light to see, given his enhanced senses. And the moonlight from the full spring moon flooding in at the window illuminated the intruder in his room nicely, showing who it was even if his nose had picked up her unique scent before he even walked in.
Jubilee had draped herself across his bed, in an open, seductive pose. She was wearing a smooth, sheer garment made of some soft stuff that covered every inch of her body and yet left nothing to the imagination. He groaned as he saw those curves, and the pale skin under the garment. If he could concentrate on those sexy woman's curves, maybe he could avoid looking up into that face, and be able to give her what they both wanted that night.
"Hey, Logan." The voice was slow, sensual, with a deep, throbbing cat-like purr to it, but the sound of it brought his eyes up to her face, and there he went again. He groaned as he sat down heavily on the end of the bed. "Jubes…"
She bit her lip. "I did it again, didn't I."
He sighed. "I tried, Jubes. I was all set…and then ya talked, an' I just couldn't…I keep rememberin' the voice ya had as a little girl, an' I keep thinking o' ya as a little girl, and I can't sleep with you while I'm thinkin' that. I'm sorry."
Jubilee sighed as she sat up and flicked on the switch on the bedside lamp, then moved across the bed to sit behind him. "I guess I'm trying to push it too," she said as her hands started massaging the tense muscles at the nape of his neck. "I love you, Logan, I really do. And I know you do too. But I guess it's just going to take a little time for you to come to grips with the fact that I'm not a little girl anymore. Hell," and she laughed a little, and Logan very nearly told her to watch her language, like he'd told her numbers of times when she was thirteen, then had to bite his tongue. She's twenty-three now, you idiot! He shouted at himself. She can say anything she damn well likes!
"—it's going to take everyone a while to figure out that I'm not a little girl anymore." Her tone hardened. "I haven't been a little girl since Bastion. But nobody seems to recognize that, except Remy. With everybody else, it's 'Jubilee, will you do this' or 'Jubilee, will you take this' or 'Jubilee, can you do this, dear'?" She made a face, and her fingers dug a little harder than necessary into the muscles at the top of his shoulders. He winced. Jubilee must be pissed.
"Hey," he said, turning and capturing her chin in his hand. "I know yer not a little girl anymore. But ol' habits die hard, even with us. An some o' us don't wanna think about yer becomin' a woman. Chuck, fer one. Scotty boy, for another. An' even Jean. Yer a reminder that we ain't getting' any younger, an' for most o' them, that's somethin' they don't wanna face." He kissed her, as quick, gentle peck on the cheek, and tousled her hair. "Now go on back ta yer room an' get some sleep. Don't want Scotters draggin' ya outta bed fer trainin' tomorrow, do ya?"
Jubilee giggled, and if he hadn't lost it before, he'd definitely lost it now. She still had the same, mischievous little-girl giggle he'd come to love over the years. "I dunno," she said. "Might be fun. I want to see what you're going to do. Hey, he's probably wondering too. After all, you did threaten him yesterday with bodily harm if he walked in on me and made me scream like that again."
"You scared me," Logan grumped. "I heard ya yell, I thought ya were in trouble, an' I went ta find Scott standin' there with his face the same color as his glasses an' you naked as the day ya were born. Stop sleepin' naked, then Scott won't catch ya unprepared with a glass o' ice water again. And I won't have ta hurt him."
Jubilee giggled again. "I'm going," she said. "Sleep well." And she got out of bed, walked across the room and opened the door.
'Hey!" Logan yelped, startled. She paused, and Logan tossed his robe at her. "Don't walk out in the hall wearin' nothin' but that, darlin," he drawled. "Want everybody ta see ya?"
She made a face. "Maybe it'll drive my point home," she said, "that I'm not a kid anymore." She noticed, however, that she did put on the robe over her negligee. "Sweet dreams, Logan." She stepped out and closed the door.
Logan fell backwards on his bed. "What the hell's wrong with ya?" he growled at himself. "Ya got the most beautiful woman in the world throwin' herself at ya, an' ya can't get yerself ta touch her because of what ya remember she used ta look like. Oh, damn." And he rolled off the bed, shrugged off his clothes, and lay back down, pulling the covers over himself and trying to ignore the bump in the covers halfway down the bed.
* * *
Jubilee dropped the amused mask she had worn as soon as the door closed behind her. Her blue eyes filled with tears. "Damn," she whispered, feeling the hollow ache inside her expand at the thought of going to bed alone, without him, again. They had tried four times over the last two months; she had even taken to teasing him and leaving naked photos of herself in odd places around his room where he would find them; most of them taped to the pages of the well-worn magazine he thought he'd hidden so cleverly in the bottom of his travel bag. None of it had worked. They had been unable to get past the touching stage.
Angry and upset was not the way she wanted to fall asleep. After standing in the dark hallway for a while, thinking, she headed downstairs toward the kitchen. It was two in the morning, everyone was pretty much asleep, and she could help herself to one of the guys' beers without having to feel Jean or Ororo looking at her disapprovingly.
They had, fortunately, restocked the fridge with beer and alcoholic drinks the day before, and it was still reasonably full. She looked through it, making a face at all the choices, until she saw a bottle of Smirnoff, away back in the corner. That should be strong enough to fill, or at least make her forget, the hollow ache down inside her that longed for Logan's touch.
She was plunked down at the kitchen table, leaning back in the chair with her feet resting on the table in a position that would have shocked Jean if she'd seen it, when the back door slammed. Remy, clearly somewhat the worse for wear, came slouching in. "Hey, p'tite," he grinned roguishly at her. "What you doin' still up?"
"Havin' a beer." She eyed him speculatively. "You look like you've had a few."
"Eh," Remy said, walking over to the table in a more or less straight line. Then he paused. "I guess Logan still havin' trouble, non?" he indicated her attire. Jubilee looked down at herself. Logan's robe had fallen open, leaving much of her front 'covered' only by the transparent negligee.
"Yeah," she growled, taking another sip. "Still havin' problems. Can't see the forest for the damn trees."
Remy slid around the back of her chair, placing his hands lightly on her shoulders. "Remy havin' no such problems," he said silkily. "I t'ink you look better now dan you did b'fore."
Jubilee blinked at the bottle in her hand. How much alcohol was in this? Because she could have sworn she'd just heard Remy, of all people, coming on to her. Maybe she was just imagining things. "Well, least someone does," she said after a moment.
"Oh, dat Remy is," he said tranquilly, his hands applying more pressure to her shoulders. "I don' know what Logan's problem is. Don' know what everybody's problem is. You grown into a beautiful woman." His hands pushed under the robe's neckline and started to massage the muscles at the junction of her shoulder and neck. "Fact," he said as the warmth of his hands penetrated through the thin fabric and started to heat her skin, "Remy could just kiss you right now." And deed followed word, and Jubilee's eyes fluttered closed as his lips pressed against the sensitive skin of her neck.
"What you goin' to do 'bout dat?" he asked with a wicked smile.
"Mmm…I could hit you for comin' on to me.." her words were starting to slur, "Or I could kiss you back. Since I don't really feel like bruisin' my knuckles, I guess I'll take door number two." She turned and kissed him.
Remy grinned as he pulled her up out of her chair. "Don' need to hit Remy, chere," he said, his voice husky with desire. "Logan gonna do dat tomorrow morning anyway."
Jubilee broke the kiss to frown at him. "Why would Logan do that?" Her mind fuzzily tried to wrap around the idea. After a moment, she gave up. "You're a big boy. Logan won't hurt you."
Remy grinned wolfishly. "Oui, he'll hurt me…but at leas' it'll be worth it." His hands came up under the robe and he caressed the smooth, warm skin of her back. "Come on. Let's go up to the bedroom."
"Yours or mine?" she asked hazily.
Remy giggled. "Yours, p'tite. Don't t'ink you goin' to remain vertical long 'nough to make it to mine." He ran an arm across her back and hauled her close to him as they headed out of the kitchen and ascended the stairs. They seemed terrifyingly steep, and her feet for some reason didn't want to cooperate, but Remy was there beside her, helping her up, and they got to the second floor without incident.
Remy's room was further along the second floor's right wing than hers was, so when he got them to her room he stopped and nudged the door open. He was thankful that the piles of clothes and the perpetual mess had gotten left behind when she grew up; with her in this state, and himself not much better, he wouldn't have been able to navigate the piles. Getting across the room was tricky enough; her feet wanted to go in the opposite direction. He grinned. "Guess ya never tried vodka," he said, dropping her finally on the bed. She scrambled backward and made room for him as he paused by the bed, fumbling with his clothes, and when he was fully nude he slid in between the cool sheets with her. She shrugged out of Logan's robe, followed by the thin negligee, and climbed in beside him. Her hands started caressing, her lips fluttering and teasing.
Then she stopped.
Remy opened one eye. "P'tite?" There was no answer. "P'tite, you okay?"
A soft snore answered him. He lay back against the pillow and laughed gently, then pushed her sleeping body off him. The bed wasn't wide enough to put a respectable amount of distance between them, so he pulled her close to him instead, snuggled her legs between his long ones so she wouldn't accidentally kick something in her sleep, and closed his eyes.
He knew nothing more until a torrent of cold water struck him full in the face the next morning.