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“Go easy on Jubilee,” Rogue told Magneto with a fond smile as the birthday girl retreated from the kitchen. “Eighteen is a big day for a girl.”
“Do you recall your eighteenth birthday?” He countered with a pointedly arched brow.
Rogue’s lashes fluttered and Erik caught the way her gaze flickered towards Gambit, nervously. “Eighteen wasn’t nearly as memorable as twenty-one. But my point stands, Jubilee ought to get to celebrate her birthday.”
“If the girl plans to see more birthdays,” Magneto continued, tersely. “She’d do well to spend the day training.”
From the other end of the table, Morph seized on his words, “Well, if you and Rogue weren’t hogging the Danger Room every day, all day, we’d all be training more.”
Rogue folded her hands over her face and bowed her head in embarrassment. A lesser man would’ve been irked by her insistence to keep their arrangement as a dirty little secret.
Magneto cleared his throat, “With Storm taken out of the picture, I believed it was paramount that I work with Rogue to hone her own abilities. She is undoubtedly one of the strongest among you.” He offered Jean and Scott a curt nod, not meaning to diminish their own, impressive capabilities.
Gambit sat his coffee mug down on the table with more force than necessary, “Remy don’t get why you’re only training in there with her. Shouldn’t she be working with all of us? The whole thing seems fishy to me.”
Rogue didn’t need Magneto to intercede for her, but he would’ve if she’d signaled for him to. “Oh, Remy! Why are you always making a mountain out of a molehill?” She turned toward her beau, a blaze of glorious annoyance. “Magneto is the only one of you who can lose to me without being down for the count for the whole day. I sat on the sidelines watching all of you train, day in and day out, without so much as a complaint. Now I’m finally getting trained and you’re gonna call foul?”
Magneto hid his impressed smirk behind his coffee mug as he brought it to his lips. He studied each of the mutants sitting at the table. Gambit’s defiant jealousy remained etched on his face, but Wolverine and Morph seemed suitably shamed for implying impropriety between their newfound leader and Rogue.
Her righteous indignation didn’t flag. “If any of you would like to spend the day powerless and pathetic, be my guest.” Rogue tore off her gloves. “I’m waiting.”
Without hesitation, Magneto reached out and took a hold of Rogue’s hand. “I don’t believe that will be necessary. You’ve made your point.” His gaze slid to Gambit, who was glaring at their hands. “She’s made her point, hasn’t she, Mr. LeBeau?”
Gambit nearly knocked off his chair in his haste to get to his feet. “I’m going for a run.”
“Remy,” Rogue called after him, but she made neither an attempt to go after him or to shake off Magneto’s hand. Instead she met the questioning looks at the other end of the table. “I’m sorry for ruining breakfast.”
“It’s alright, kid.” Wolverine grunted with a shrug.
“Remy’s got a lot of pent up… emotions.” Morph added with a snicker.
“That’s enough,” Scott interjected, ever the father of the group. “As much as it pains me to say, Magneto has a point. Sinister went down far too easily. He’s likely regrouping and we need to be ready.”
Reluctantly, Rogue slid her hand out of Magneto’s grasp. “While you all train, I’m gonna make Jubilee a cake. It’s the least we can do.” She briefly met his gaze as she pulled her gloves on once more.
***
When Erik discovered that Charles had left the mansion and the X-Men to him in his will, he had had a lot of expectations for what awaited him.
At a distance, he could pretend that Charles wasn’t really dead. That their relationship had once again reached a stalemate that pushed them to silence and separation. Grief and guilt had been chief among his expectations for his new life at Xavier’s, but he had failed to anticipate what it might mean to live alongside Rogue.
Erik didn’t doubt that Charles had known about his short-lived tryst with Rogue—he knew everything, regardless of his willingness to speak on it—but he wished his old friend had left some sage guidance about the path forward with her.
There was no doubting that she loved Gambit, but her abilities, as magnificent as Magneto believed them to be, made it impossible for Rogue to truly act on her feelings in any meaningful way. That wasn’t the case for them, however. Erik knew what Remy would never know: the sweet caress of her soft palms and the taste of her pleasure on his tongue.
Despite her impressive display of innocence at breakfast, Remy was not at fault for making a mountain out of a proverbial molehill. He was simply seeing what was right in front of him.
Erik might’ve been the Master of Magnetism, but Rogue had proven to be the strongest magnet he’d ever encountered. Drawing him into her magnetic field, with no sign of releasing him anytime soon. It wasn’t love, but they both knew it was more than just lust. They had always known that. Since the beginning.
She wasn’t even Rogue when their paths first crossed—not yet. Back then, she was just Anna Marie Raven: the apple of Mystique’s eye, a promising member of The Brotherhood, and the untouchable girl.
Mystique had been power-hungry and foolish enough to think she could send a girl in to do a woman’s job. Her first mistake had been to think that Erik was careless enough to fall for such a blatant trap as seduction. Her second mistake had been to misjudge just how powerful Erik really was.
And her third mistake had been to believe that Anna Marie wouldn’t seize upon an opportunity to be touched, to be held, to be known.
It had been Rogue’s birthday. Twenty-one. A memorable age. A memorable night. The added salt in the wound was the fact that Mystique had forgotten it was her birthday, and had sent her out to take down her nemesis instead of celebrating the occasion. But when she left his headquarters two days later, she wasn’t the aimless who had been sent out into the night.
A few weeks later, he learned that Xavier had taken her in under his wing. The hollow ache that followed had confirmed that he had been right to let her slip from his grasp. But he wasn’t as sure about that now.
***
Erik folded his arms across his chest, leaning against the kitchen counter, watching as Rogue slathered bright pink icing over the sheet cake. “Do you require any assistance?”
Rogue licked a dab of icing off her thumb, “You don’t strike me as the baking type, sugah.”
“A correct assumption to make,” He chuckled with a fond smile. “Have you spoken to Gambit?”
“That old swamp rat?” She bristled. “I tried to. Asked him to help me with this damn cake, and you would’ve thought I’d ask him to marry Bella Donna again.”
“How does that make you feel?”
“Like a dirty liar.” She admitted before sweeping her finger through the icing and popping it into her mouth. “Would you like to try some?”
Erik arched a brow at her. He wanted to question her about the guilt that was clearly weighing upon her, but if she wanted to sidestep those difficult conversations, he wouldn’t back her into a corner.
“I would.” He answered, but he didn’t attempt to move towards her, waiting instead—like always—for her to make the first move.
Rogue gathered up a healthy dose of the sugary-sweet icing on her finger and approached him with a taunting smirk. It stroked his ego to see how much more alive she had become in recent weeks.
Upon his arrival, Rogue had been withdrawn. Still a spitfire, sure, but her fire wasn’t burning as brightly as he knew it could. Now that her fire had been suitably and frequently stoked, she was a far more vibrant version of herself. No wonder everyone could tell that something had changed. She had a new sway to her step. Like a woman who had relearned just how deep pleasure could run.
Erik held her gaze as he wrapped his lips around her finger, swirling his tongue around the digit, licking it clean of the sweet icing. “Delectable.”
“I’ll make a sweet tooth out of you in no time.” Rogue grinned as a blush stained her cheeks a lovely shade of crimson.
“You already have,” He drawled out, dipping down to brush a too-fleeting kiss to her mouth. “Tastes even better on your lips.”
She tilted her head to the side as she gazed up at him, “Pretty words.”
Erik hummed in agreement. “With the Danger Room occupied, perhaps we should continue this conversation in my office.” He trailed his hand along the lush curve of her hip, a tease of what might lay ahead of them—should she choose to take him up on the offer.
Rogue’s lashes fluttered as she considered his words. “A tempting offer.” She reached up to cup his jaw, drawing him back into another kiss. She didn’t allow their second kiss to be a fleeting one, her lips slanted over his with confidence and need.
Erik cradled the back of her head as he sank into the moment, relishing the eagerness she met him with. Her body melded perfectly against his own, like they were meant for this. With great reluctance, he was the first to break away from the kiss, breathless and achingly hard beneath his spandex suit.
“Finish with the cake.” He told her firmly as he traced his thumb along the curve of her jaw. “And then join me in my office.”
“Don’t start without me.” She whispered, and then she was out of his reach, sauntering across the kitchen to the abandoned cake and the icing he could still taste in his tongue. “Go on, get out of here while I finish up.” Rogue shooed him off with a wave of her hand and a wicked grin that made him consider throwing caution to the wind.
But he wasn’t that foolish, regardless of what his baser needs insisted upon. He was already on thin ice with the X-Men, and he doubted they would take well to discovering them entangled in the kitchen—of all places.
As it was, Erik was confident that the truth of their entanglement would destroy what little goodwill he’d established with the X-Men in recent weeks. Though, if Rogue escaped unscathed by ridicule, he wasn’t so averse to taking the brunt of their ire. They were already primed to regard him as a villain, so why not let them make their assumptions?
***
Erik could tell something was off about Rogue the second she stepped inside his office and hesitated before locking the door behind her.
“Did Gambit finally deign to acknowledge you?” He questioned, leaning back in his seat.
“You’re good.” She quipped as she peeled off her gloves, leaving them in her wake as she approached his desk. “He got his ass handed to him in a one-on-one with Wolverine and I guess that knocked some sense into him.”
Erik hummed with interest. He knew she’d say more if he didn’t interject his own thoughts about their situation. She needed someone to listen to her, not tell her what to do. Too many people had tried that, and failed.
“He doesn’t like that we’re close,” Rogue explained, slipping her jacket off her shoulders. “He doesn’t like that out of all the people, in all the world, that it’s you.”
“That it’s me?”
“That can touch me.” She finally met his gaze, brows furrowed. “I asked him if he would really deny me the chance of being touched. If he was so intimidated by the idea that you can squeeze my bare hand without repercussion. Of course, he said no. He’s not heartless.”
Erik wet his lips as he watched Rogue’s fingers twist at the zipper of her spandex suit, exposing an expanse of glorious pale skin as it slid down her body.
But even as his hands itched to touch her, he remained seated on the opposite side of the desk. There was something so delicious about waiting for Rogue to take what she wanted, to be there—ready to touch her—when she was ready. A sweet torture on his part. Especially as he watched her strip herself bare with another man’s name heavy on her tongue.
“Remy doesn’t understand it. He can’t.” Rogue continued. “He can touch anyone he likes. Whenever he wants. I can’t. It’s not fair.”
Erik leaned forward, resting his elbows on the desk. Her emerald eyes shone brighter than they usually did, shimmering with unshed tears. He’d make the Cajun pay for upsetting her. In time.
“Does he take care of you?” They’re both surprised by the fact that his words are free of judgment. She wouldn’t be standing in his office, as naked as the day she was born if Remy LeBeau could give her what she needed.
“We make it work.” Rogue offered, a little too briskly to be the truth. The full truth, that is.
Erik arched a skeptical brow.
“What do you want me to say?” She bit out. “I do love Remy.”
“I don’t doubt that.” Erik clicked his tongue against his teeth. “But we both know that’s not what I was asking.”
Rogue pursed her lips, debating how to answer him. They haven’t had this conversation yet. They’ve been far too wrapped up in the thrill of finding each other again. Of helping her find herself again. He doesn’t know how she’s made do in the years that spanned between her first time. He’s not sure he wants to know, but curiosity has struck hard.
Rogue brushed her hair behind her shoulders, standing a little taller and it took every ounce of his self-control to keep his eyes on her face and not her breasts or the naked expanse of her taut belly.
“It’s easy enough to touch him with my gloves on,” She explained, voice wavering. “There’s plenty of fun to be had fully dressed.”
Erik masked his skepticism with a simple hum of acknowledgment. Any more than that and he might’ve shown his hand.
“Toys were a godsend, but they always reminded me of what I was missing out on.” Rogue gave him a pointed look then. “He doesn’t know. Or didn’t know. I’m sure his insecurities have convinced him that you’ve taken something that was yours long before I even knew Remy.”
Remy LeBeau might be the first man Rogue ever fell in love with, but Erik Leshnerr was the only man to truly know her.
“Anna Marie,” Erik whispered, inviting her to join him on the other side of the desk with nothing more than a look, and a name even he never used.
“I love him,” Rogue repeated, even as she climbed into his lap.
“But?” He pressed, gripping the arms of the chair to resist touching her. Not yet. It’s a game. A well-choreographed dance they both know so well.
“But,” She began, looking him in the eyes. “Curse you for knowin’ there’s more to it, Erik.”
“There always is.” He slowly lifted his hand to cup her cheek, his thumb tracing her plump lips. “Love is a many-headed beast, always nipping at our heels. Following us home. Into the dark.”
“Will you follow me into the dark?” She questioned, shifting to straddle his lap and nearly undoing him in the process.
Erik groaned, grabbing at her hips. “Haven’t I already?” Before she had the chance to answer, he kissed her. Hard. Desperate. How she deserved to be kissed.
If it all ended today, Erik would be content to live the remainder of his life with the sounds she made haunting his memories. He almost pitied the Cajun. Had Remy ever made Rogue gasp and moan the way she did beneath Erik’s practiced touch? Sweeter still was the sounds she made when her thighs were framing his face. Which was precisely where he intended to find himself next.
Rogue’s protests at their kiss being abandoned were short-lived as he hauled her out of his lap and deposited her on the edge of his desk. He was not as spry as he was in his youth, but not even the creak of his knees could prevent him from taking his rightful place, worshiping at the altar of her hips.
Erik sank to the ground before her, ready to devour her. Rogue’s fingers twisted their way into the flowing strands of his silver mane, keeping him right where she needed him most.
Her desire coated his lips and dripped down his chin as he fucked her with his tongue—teasing, and coaxing her towards the first of many peaks he intended to bring her to.
She was so responsive to his every touch that it made him dizzy with want.
Touch was still such a foreign concept to Rogue, even after a handful of weeks filled with stolen moments. The press of his fingers into the soft flesh of her thighs made her keen just as desperately as his tongue laving over her clit. Even the mere rasp of his breath dancing over her slick folds as he caught his breath made her moan like he was fucking her into the desk.
Which he planned to do. Soon.
“That’s it,” He drawled out as he descended upon her cunt once more. He wrapped his lips around that little bundle of nerves and teased it until she came apart for him—and him alone. He could feel the ebb and flow of her abilities reaching for him, desperately trying to find purchase in his own powers. He could taste it like raw electricity on his tongue as her body clenched around nothing. But rather than finding something to leech up, the circuit found its end in him.
“Erik, I need…” Rogue panted out, winding her fingers through his hair. “Fuck.”
He chuckled. “What was that you need?”
“Come here.” She urged, and who was he to say no?
He planted one hand on the desk beside her hip, hauling himself back onto his feet. She looked so small sitting on the desk in front of him. Vulnerable. Erik had always felt compelled to protect the mutants he encountered, but Rogue had always elicited a very different desire to protect. And that deep-seated, possessive desire was at odds with his need to let her take the lead.
Erik cupped her cheek as he leaned down to press his forehead to hers, savoring the gentle intimacy of the gesture.
“You’re overdressed.” She complained as she wrapped a naked leg around his own.
“Because this wasn’t about me.” He reminded her, brushing her hair away from her clammy cheeks. “This is about you.”
“Us.” She corrected, narrowing her eyes as she leaned back on the desk, taking it all in. “I was scared shitless when you showed up here. How did I reconcile our past with the present? But I think I get it now.”
A low chuckle rumbled in his throat as he stepped back to rid himself of the offending spandex keeping them apart. “Careful there.” He warned. “The allusion of clarity that comes from bliss has taken down kingdoms.”
“Whatever you say, Erik.” She snorted. It would’ve sounded crude coming from anyone else. He never minded her rough-around-the-edges attitude. “But you wouldn’t have brought up my birthday, if you hadn’t thought about it too.”
It was not a conversation he desired to have in the nude, but as he kicked off his suit he realized it was a conversation that needed to be had. Sooner, rather than later.
“I thought of that night often, Anna Marie.” He smoothed his hands over his hair, righting the tangles her fingers had left in it. There were other tangles she left, which weren’t so easy to soothe away. “Had you stayed with me then, our powers combined would have been unstoppable. You were wise to slip from my grasp.”
Rogue placed her hands on his shoulders, her gaze never straying from his. “I wanted out of the Brotherhood and you were not my best exit strategy.”
“And look at you now.”
She tilted her head back and laughed. “Yes, look at me now.” She looked between their naked bodies with amusement.
“No,” Erik cupped her face with both hands. “Look at you now. More powerful than ever before and in control. Don’t diminish what you’ve achieved because of this.”
“I’m not.” She assured him, covering his hands with her own as she gazed up at him. “But I don’t want this to end.”
Erik closed the distance between them with a kiss. “Neither do I.” He whispered against her lips.
Rogue needed no further encouragement to take control of the situation. Her fingers wrapped around his cock as her mouth slanted eagerly against his.
He wondered if she knew just how much it took for him to relinquish so much control to her. To be vulnerable and exposed. Only a handful of people had ever rendered him as such, and most of them were gone. He lost everyone he cared for.
Rogue’s nimble fingers guided his cock to her waiting center and he sank into her like it was where he belonged. He trailed open-mouthed kisses down her throat, his tongue hot against her thrumming pulse as he slowly fucked her.
“Erik.” She moaned, rolling her hips in time with each of his thrusts. “Fuck!”
He slipped his hand between their sweaty bodies, teasing at her clit. She twitched deliciously around his cock, still so tender and sensitive from his mouth. Erik didn’t let up, circling that little bundle of nerves and watching, with rapt attention, as her lips parted and her chest heaved.
“That’s it.” Erik whispered, smirking with delight as her inner walls fluttered around him. She was close. She was so close. “Come for me one more time and I’ll give you what you want.”
“I already have what I want.” She panted out as her hands tangled in his hair once more. “But I want to see what you think—what you think I want.”
It took only a precious few more seconds to bring her careening over the edge. She clenched around his length, and it took everything within him to keep from spilling then and there. But he had plans for her.
Rogue looked perfect draped over his desk. Papers and pens and detritus tumbled to the floor as she laid back at his behest. He wanted to burn the picture into his memory—forever. Every time he sat down to read the newspaper or mull over plans, he would remember this. Her.
There was nothing leisurely about the way he fucked her then. His pulse was pounding in his ears, heart racing, as his hips slammed into hers. He chased after his release and her third, all the same. It would’ve been a truly impressive show of stamina for a man of his age, if it weren’t for the simple fact that he was a mutant. He was made different. He was made for this. For her.
Erik came apart with a sudden gut punch of pleasure, and he rutted into her until he felt, at last, her body wringing the last dredges of a release from her too. She was utterly fucked, and so was he. So much so that he wasn’t entirely certain how they found themselves stretched out on the floor beside his desk, with every inch of her supple curves perfectly melded into him.
***
Sometime later, Rogue was the first to cut through the comfortable silence they had been basking in. “I’m going to tell Remy.”
Erik trailed his fingertips down her spine, memorizing each notch of her spine. “When?”
Rogue pressed her face into the crook of his neck, sighing heavily. “After dinner. I’ve gotta put him out of his misery.”
“He’s going to be upset,” Erik warned her.
“He ain’t gonna hurt me. He’s not stupid.”
“I didn’t say he would,” He clicked his tongue against his teeth. “But we’ve hurt him.”
“Don’t remind me. I feel rotten about it, Erik.” Rogue sat up a little, enough to look down at him. Her brows were pinched together and her eyes were shiny like they had been when she first joined him in his office. “Tell me I’m not wrong for wanting this. Tell me I’m not selfish.”
“You’re not selfish,” He assured her without hesitation, even though they both were. And they both knew it. Eight years ago they weren’t hurting anyone, but now? “What are you going to tell him?”
Rogue dug her teeth into her bottom lip before she answered. “The truth. No matter how uncomfortable it’s gonna be, he deserves to know the truth. He might not fault me for wanting to be touched, but he’s going to be madder than a wet hen that I tried to gaslight him about what he was seeing.”
“And about who it is that’s touching you.”
“He’s never been the biggest fan of yours.” She shook her head. “He’s gonna pissed.”
Erik gently rubbed the small of her back, trying to soothe her, as best he could. “Regardless of how the conversation may or may not go, it might be best for us to put some distance between us. At least until emotions settle.” Though, he doubted if or when that might happen. “Once the rest of the team learns about our…”
“Relationship.”
The quick arch of his brows revealed his surprise at her suggestion. A relationship felt far more rigid than the boundaries of their arrangement, and yet he found no fault in that description. Though perhaps an affair was a more apt descriptor for it.
He brushed his knuckles over her cheek, before tipping her chin so he could meet her gaze. “Let me be the bad guy, alright?”
“There doesn’t need to be a bad guy,” She protested. “I’m grown and I’ve been grown the entire time I’ve sought you out. Before and now. The only difference now is that I’ve got Remy and a bundle of emotions I don’t know how to handle.”
“You love him.” Erik reminded her. “You love him.”
“It wouldn’t be so damn hard if that were just the case.” Rogue snapped, swatting his hand away when he tried to soothe her with a tender touch. “It shouldn’t be possible to feel this way about two people at the same time.”
“Don’t,” Erik warned.
“Don’t, what?” She shot back. “You want me to pretend I don’t fancy you? That’s bullshit Erik, and you know it.”
“Everyone I have ever loved is dead, Rogue.” Erik snarled, “You shouldn’t want to join their ranks. I know you’re a smart girl, so let those words sink in.”
“Oh, fuck you. I ain’t never said I was smart.”
Erik set his jaw hard and stared up at her. He wasn’t going to rise to meet her bait, and it stank like swamp bait. He was good at stalemates. If he could back her into one, he could live there comfortably until the end of time. But Rogue loved to be a challenge.
“I’m only gonna say it once,” She continued, undeterred by the silence she was met with. “And then I’m gonna get up, get dressed, and go blow up my relationship with Remy. Alright? Are you listening?”
Erik didn’t answer, but the flicker of his gaze from her eyes to her lips and back again betrayed his attention. Of course, he was listening. He always listened to her.
Rogue framed his face with her hands as she stared down at him. “I love you, Erik Leshnerr. My stupid, foolish, treacherous heart has always clung to you like a lifeline. A memory of what I could’ve had, had I not been born like this. But if I hadn’t been born like this, I wouldn’t have met you and I wouldn’t have met Remy. You see my dilemma. I want how you both make me feel, but I don’t think that’s in the cards for me.” She laughed humorlessly at her own terrible allusion to her card slinger. “Tell me I’m a fool for loving you, Erik. Break my heart so I can go break his too.”
“Fuck.” He hissed under his breath before he dragged her in for a kiss. “I love you too, you foolish girl.” He muttered against her lips, kissing her again. “Your swamp rat better see how lucky he is.”
“I don’t know if he will, but… I’m not gonna apologize for any of this. Because I’m not sorry. I’ve never been sorry about us.”
Erik closed his eyes and pressed his forehead to hers. “There is much about my life that I am grateful for and you are among the highest on that list. Which is why I’m telling you not to ruin what you have with him. Fight for it. Alright? You need him.”
“I need both of you.” She corrected.
And then she was gone. Their limbs untangled, but his heart left in knots.