Marie's eyes fluttered closed but she slid the glove off, meeting Logan's gaze again as she folded it once and laid it carefully on the table between them like a flag of surrender. The delicate silver rings she wore gleamed in the low light. A tiny one on her pinky, hammered metal that caught the light. On her ring finger, an old family heirloom. Her great-grandmother's wedding ring, elegant and simple. A line of tiny diamonds across a plain band of white gold. She had a heavier silver wrap ring on her thumb, shining in the darkness.

That one was his favorite.

He knew from memory she had five on her other hand, three thin hammered bands on her middle finger and two on her pinky. A secret only the two of them knew about. He was the only one who saw her without her gloves these days. The rings also added a layer of detail to a fantasy he had all too frequently; her touch on him. Those small, capable hands on his skin. Rings shining and smooth against his flesh. Her hands in his hair... and on his body... and between his legs.

"Be careful."

Logan nodded once to acknowledge her soft warning, but to her surprise, he made no move to touch her naked arm.

Marie had told him she thought she understood the notion of erotic restraint — in theory. She just didn't understand the 'why'.

"The 'why's' easy, darlin'."

"Tell me."

"You ever wish you could be taken outta your head?"

"All the time," she confided breathlessly. She was never alone.

He knew that would be a compelling, salient selling point for her.

"If the rigger knows what he's doin', he can take you to that place if you let him. Rope drunk, they call it," his voice had dropped. It was huskier now. The conversation was affecting him, too. "Somewhere beyond thought where it's nothin' but euphoria and sensation."

That sounded too good to be true.

"Have you ever done that?"

Logan shook his head. "Never trusted anyone enough to be that helpless." The admission was quiet but carried a hard edge. "But done the riggin'? I lived in Japan a lotta years, kid."

Maybe that's what he did in the Nagasaki room upstairs? Her mind whirled with possibilities.

"So that's a 'yes'?"

He still didn't make a move toward her bare arm. It was making her a little crazy. What was he waiting for?

"It's more'n aesthetic. The pressure of the ropes and the placement of the knots is very specific," he offered instead. He took a slow sip of his drink and her breath caught in her throat as he set the glass down and deftly manipulated the end of her scarf into a simple slip knot. His eyes never left her face. That he had enough skill to do it so fluidly without looking spoke to the breadth of his experience.

He slowly, deliberately, dragged the loop over the skin on the inside of her wrist, an echo of how she'd touched him earlier. It was the same place she'd put her mouth on his wrist.

She sucked in a quick breath, a stifled sound of shocked pleasure.

"It's about sensuality." He slid it over her skin again, smiling as she shivered. She was very responsive. "N'vulnerability." This time he let it tickle up her forearm and back down. "Strength, too." With a practiced motion, he slid the simple noose up over her hand and tightened it in small increments. He adjusted the knot's angle on her wrist and then pulled. The pressure increased by slow degrees. First a little. And then a lot.

A touch that was not a touch.

Marie could feel her pulse pounding wildly under the simple loop. She never would have guessed he could make her gauzy sheer scarf feel like an iron shackle. Or that something so simple could be so wildly erotic.

His fingers moved. The following coil lay next to the first, snug and precise, increasing the pressure exponentially. She was very aware of the blood flow in her hand now. It was beginning to feel heavier. How long before it started to tingle? Or go numb? It was only a small leap to imagining what that delicious pressure might feel like all over.

"Trust," he continued, his words pitched low. "Power." The inflection was slow and hypnotic. Her fingers twitched. He smiled. Below the noose, her skin was beginning to grow deeper in color as the moments ticked by. "How aware are you of your hand now?"

It wasn't a question that required a response. He just wanted to make her think about it. And she was, if the look on her face was any indication.

The implication was clear and deliberate. He could make her aware of any portion of skin he wanted, simply by how he arranged the rope and applied pressure. Her breasts. Her thighs. What would a rope between her legs feel like? Or around her neck? The room swam a little. So much sensory input would make it impossible to focus on anything else. Freedom from the prison of her mind. It was almost enough to bring her to tears.

Holding Logan's eyes, Marie moved her wrist experimentally, pulling against the steady pressure, and felt the delicate bones of her wrist shift slightly.

"Careful, darlin'. This ain't the right rope to be playin' that sorta game." Too much give. Not enough structure.

"But if it was the right kind of rope?"

Jesus. She always had to push.

"Then sky's the limit. Bound. Suspended. Trussed. In a harness. Dangled like a puppet. Held up. Held open. Revealed for my pleasure. Or yours." He enjoyed her soft gasp. "Friction and rhythm and pressure and motion. S'all fair game."

With a playful light in his eye, he tickled the shivery bit of skin on the inside of her elbow with the softer, floaty end of the scarf that he hadn't yet twisted into a slender green cord.

"What happens now?" she asked, feeling the world begin to spin out of control.

"Now the lesson's over, darlin'." He let didn't let her go completely, but the pressure on her wrist eased a little. Her hand throbbed pleasantly.

"And if it wasn't a lesson?"

He searched her face and considered what he found there before carefully answering. "Then we woulda had a real deep conversation long before the rope ever touched you, baby."

"About?"

"About where you wanted me to take you."

God, she was melting. He knew it too, the bastard. Marie blushed to the roots of her hair, but the Rogue, the Rogue wasn't about to let him call all the shots.

"And what about you, sugar?" she purred. Christ, that sound went right between his thighs, as sure as any touch.

"What about me, kid?"

She drew her hand back sharply, forcing him to put pressure on the strip of green sliding through his long fingers until they reached equilibrium. The length of iridescent green cord quivered tautly between them.

"You feelin' the rush yet, cowboy? Adrenaline and power, was it?" Her eyes sparkled.

For a moment he wavered, but he thought better of answering her with the unvarnished truth at the last minute. He wasn't going to put any of his shit on her. They had time. If anything ever happened between them, it would be because she initiated it, not because he took it. Tonight was about her. He'd flirt, sure. Definitely more than he should, and probably way more than was healthy for either of them…. but he wasn't going to push this somewhere that couldn't later be explained away as two tipsy friends having a wild night on the town. He kept his answer carefully ambivalent, as all his responses had been tonight.

"You've seemed to make it your life's mission to drive me demented, baby. You think this is the first time I've thought about tyin' your sassy ass up?" His tone implied his mental picture possibly also included a gag, a bridge, and a long fall into a cold body of water.

She punched his shoulder with her free hand and then winced as the noose pinched her wrist painfully with the unexpected shift in position. Logan let it go immediately.

"Shit."

He was not in the right headspace to play these sorts of games with her tonight.

"It's fine." She moved to massage away the ache but he pushed her hand away, carefully loosening the knot and unwrapping her wrist, as was his right. It was his rig, simple though it was.

"This is a part of it too," he murmured softly.

"The unwrapping?"

He nodded. "And what comes after." Those words didn't need to be expanded upon. There were two beautiful pink impressions in the creamy skin of her wrist. It took more of his monumental control than he cared to admit to keep his mouth off them. "Put your glove on." A mark like that, his mark, was one temptation too many.

She did as he asked, smoothing the silky black fabric back up her arm.

"I get it now," she said quietly, taking a healthy sip of her drink.

"Good." They fell quiet.

It was Logan who finally broke the silence. "Do you still feel it?" Was her skin throbbing under that damned black glove?

Marie bobbed her head, not quite trusting her voice. The satin of her glove shifted against her oversensitized skin, making her very aware of that part of her body. It was a mark of his pleasure, not of protection like the teeth on the back of her neck.

"S'like a secret." Logan's thumb ghosted over her wrist, directly over the hidden mark.

"Nobody knows but me," she whispered.

"And me."

Marie shivered. "And you."

"Now imagine it was all over, not just under the glove? Or some place with more nerve endin's than a wrist? Or that I'd used a finer cord — silk maybe — and you were still wearin' it under your clothes..."

"God."

"Or maybe they're gone, but whatcha feel ain't just the lingerin' sensation of the ropes."

Her eyes were very wide. She made a soft sound, not even a word. A gasp. Her spicy scent suggested pleasure rather than surprise.

"Could be you feel what happened between the ropes."

"Between?"

"Teeth. Nails. Sucking bites. Bruising kisses." Jesus, he was getting hot. The sweat was gathering at the small of his back and between his legs. "Rough scrape of stubble. Brush of soft lips. Slap of a hand. Sting of ice." He wet his lip. "Tickle of a feather." His voice grew lower, huskier. "Trickle of come—"

"The whisper of claws, warm and smooth and sharp."

Logan jerked in the chair.

The Rogue smiled.

"Fuck."

Fuck indeed.

Up next: Push It. The Rogue has always been a little wildcat. She can't help pushing the Wolverine. You can't know how much room you have to play until you find out where the hard edges are...