A series by November

Chapter 27: The Tree I Planted

"This thorn in my side is from the tree I planted."
--Metallica

He ran his fingers through his hair and went back inside. Jubilee and John were playing against Storm and Bobby. Rogue and Carter were nowhere to be found.

"Where’d Marie go?" he asked Jubilee.

"Oh, she and Carter took a cab back." Jubilee said. She knew full well what effect that had on him.

He felt the blood drain out of his face and he fought the urge to pop his claws. "Are they like an item or somethin‘?"

"Not really. Why, are you interested?"

"He’s not really my type," Logan said with a smirk.

"Logan, you need to either shit or get off the pot." She said, as if she were the sage adult and he were a wayward child. You little yellow bitch, he thought.

He was angry because he knew she was right.

He growled and walked out of the bar. It was ten blocks to his studio.

.

Rogue was drunk, very happily drunk, and for just a short while she wanted to go with it and forget how beautiful Logan had looked this evening.

Carter’s hand was on her naked breast, calloused, nails softly tracing the curve of her nipple. Good. Heat. She wanted to forget.

"Rogue, you look so hot."

"Hmm, you too." In the candlelight of his room he looked darkly beautiful. She rubbed her thumb along his full lower lip and pulled him in for a hard kiss. "Hmmm, fuck me Carter."

"With pleasure."

She knew that she was using him, but as he thrust into her he didn’t mind. He knew it, knew her feelings for Logan, even. She didn’t want to think about any of it though. She focused on individual sensations, trying hard to exist in sensation only.

He was thrusting hard, rough, stirring her inside. She closed her eyes and her head tossed back and forth on the pillow. She reached down and touched herself.

"God, you look so hot when you do that!" he gasped. She smiled. She felt her orgasm build and heighten.

Suddenly she was imagining that it was Logan, the body moving in hers bigger, heavier, voice deeper. If she closed her eyes and thought really hard she could. He was hitting that spot inside her just right, and her fingers quickened.

Fucking her. Logan. Those long tight legs. Logan. His face, his skin, his hair.

She bit her lip to keep from calling out that name and then she finally peaked and fell deep into mindlessness.

She clenched and bucked around him and Carter went over the edge too.

After, she stroked his hair and cradled him. Tears were forming in the corner of her eyes. What did she feel? She closed her eyes. She didn’t want to deal with it tonight. She was too tired.

.

He knew that Jubilee was right. And he hated being told the truth by someone else. Especially when it was a truth he already knew. But he had made his feelings clear to Marie, at least to some degree. He had done everything right since he’d been back and had nothing to show for it. He was horny and lovesick and frustrated.

He wanted to throw things but there was nothing to throw. He settled for dashing colors together on a palette and painting.

He realized that he was painting one of his fantasies, Rogue naked and on her back. He used color violently - violet in her hair, green in the pink of her nipples.

It didn’t work. Two hours later none of his anger had dissipated, and he was hard. He took his jeans down and finished himself off roughly.

He knew it was his fault. If he had been there. If he had told her. If.

He walked home. It took him forty five minutes and his fingers were cold but it was worth it. He felt some of his anger wearing off, leaving the dull foreign ache of jealousy.

As he approached the mansion he saw that the light in her window was on. Why, he wondered?