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ludi-ling · 1 year

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Sunday Morning

Rogue and Gambit Week 2023, Day 6. Prompt: Valle Soleada

*A little treat for all you guys. My brain is firmly stuck on my longer form fics at the moment, but here is something I wrote back in 2004 and has never seen the light of day. No one, apart from angyxoxo almost 20 years ago, has ever read this saucy little (long?) drabble. Have fun!*

“Remy, darlin’…”

Her hand slides across my chest, stopping midway over my heart, fingers spreading out, one, two, three, four, five, as if to relish the simple sensation of skin upon skin. Her face is nuzzled against my side, but her eyes are closed – I have no idea whether the words she has just spoken have been uttered while awake or asleep.

“Oui, ma chere?”

She doesn’t answer for a long while. But her fingers contract, then open again, rubbing me gently, a familiar exercise in substantiating that what she touches is, in fact, real.

“…Dontcha evah leave me, y’hear?” she finishes off, in a voice less hoarse and sleep-bound than it had been before.

I chuckle briefly, taking her hand in mine, knitting our fingers together, holding them tight.

“Now why’d I want t’ do dat?” I ask her. She shifts, ever so slightly, so that one green eye pokes out sleepily from the behind a strand of white hair.

“Ah’ve lost yah too many times before t’ take moments like this for granted, swamp snake,” she drawls huskily. Hmm, morning conversation, you gotta love it. There’s nothing sexier than waking up to that lazy Southern drawl of hers.

“I don’t t’ink neither of us is likely t’ be goin’ anywhere fast de way t’ings stand now, chere,” I answer, running my free hand through her auburn locks. Funny, this. We’ve known one another for too long, but we’ve never known one another enough, or as much as we would’ve liked to; or at least as much as we would’ve liked in certain, shall we say, aspects. How many years was it that this was a fantasy of mine, to wake up beside her in the morning, in a bed we called our own, lying flesh to warm, naked flesh? And here we are now, and we’ve been waking up like this every morning for the past five months and the novelty of the fantasy-become-reality still hasn’t worn off. I wake up beside her and it’s still the most goddamn exhilarating, whimsical, cozy, sexy and passionate thing I’ve ever experienced. And let me tell you, this Cajun’s experienced a hell of a lot of things in his life.

“‘Bout time,” she remarks between a yawn. “Been runnin’ away from each other enough t’ put an escapee convict t’ shame.”

“Y’ still tired?” I ask her, brushing the tousled white strands of hair from her forehead.

“Hmm. Didn’ get much sleep last night.”

Neither of us did. There was a good reason for that. The previous night had been Valentine’s, and we’d naturally indulged ourselves with a three course meal at a fancy restaurant, some –ah– energetic dancing to live acid jazz, naturally fuelled by rather too many bottles of vintage wine; not to mention three hours worth of gourmet lovemaking afterward... Nope – life doesn’t get much better than that. Or this. And I thought I’d experienced all that Valentine’s had to offer.

“Heh. I hear that.”

“Lucky it’s Sunday,” she comments, eyes closed.

“Yeah. We get t’ lie in an’ sleep off our hangovers.”

“An’ have some time for other things,” she returns, rather cheekily. And not a little suggestively.

“Are you proposin’…?”

“Ah ain’t proposin’ nothin’,” she retorts petulantly. Women. ‘When they say no they mean yes’ and all that. But she’d already given herself away. I let go of her hand and stroke the length of her arm with a cajoling air.

“O’ course you weren’t, mon coeur,” I reply slyly. Slowly my fingers creep up her arm towards her shoulder. By the time I’ve got far enough to tickle her armpit she’s already left it too late. With a gasp she swivels away from my grasp, pounding her fists playfully into my chest. If there’s one thing she hates it’s being tickled under the arm. The past few months I’ve learnt through bitter experience that if you want to make her angry, that’s the fastest way to do it. Unfortunately for her, I happen to find her peevish expression endlessly appealing.

As soon as she sees me laughing she knows what that ruse had been all about.

“Damn you, Remy LeBeau, if you do that again, you are so dead!” she scowls, teeth bared.

“You wouldn’ hurt me, an’ you know it,” I counter brazenly, looking back up at her insolently. She glares at me, emerald eyes blazing. Honest to God, I don’t know which version of her looks more arousing:- sleepy, angry, bed-head Rogue; or jazzed up, femme fatale Rogue, complete with lacy black underwear, stockings and suspenders, evidence of which lies about the bedroom floor from last night’s little –ahem– adventure.

“Oh? An’ what makes you think that Ah wouldn’t?”

“Because, mon bijou, you love me too much to lay a finger on me.”

“Ah’ll lay a finger on you all right,” she levels fiercely at me, although she can’t stop me from noticing the decidedly naughty sparkle that’s suddenly entered her eyes.

“Oh, an’ now I’m so scared,” I return smoothly, goading her.

“Forget it, Remy,” she seethes, eyes narrowed. “You ain’t gonna have your way wit’ me, not this mornin’. Your stupid tricks don’t fool me!”

“Maybe not by usin’ stupid tricks, chere,” I reply. “But dis t’ief always has other methods hidden up his sleeves.”

“Oh yeah?” she half-grins. “Like what?”

“Like bein’ the irresistible, lovable rogue that he is,” I answer with an outrageous wink. She laughs, all trace of her anger gone.

“Dontcha evah get tired of bein’ so full o’ yourself, Cajun?” she asks.

“Not when I can have my fill o’ you, chere.” Technically, any man would be pushing his luck by now, but not me. Not with my in-built charm. It’s come in infinitely handy in the past, and now is no exception. The thing with Rogue is, she knows when I’m using it on her. She could just as easily turn it all round back at me. What she doesn't admit is that she loves it when I try to seduce her. The more suggestive I get the less she can resist. I can see the conflict in her eyes right now. Those gorgeous eyes… Mon Dieu, I want her right now.

“After last night,” she begins, leaning in playfully, finally giving in to what, in the end, we both want, “Ah woulda thought you’d already had yah fill o’ me and then some, swamp rat.”

“Chere,” I begin, chancing the risky maneuver of slipping an arm round her waist and gently rubbing the small of her back, “this Cajun ain’t never gonna get tired o’ you, no matter how many times he has his fill of you. Or how many times he fills you, for that matter.” Another gamble and we both know it, but I ain’t called Gambit for nothing. She doesn’t give in grudgingly. What would be the use in that? She’s loved me for too long, she’s been without me for too long. Now she can have me all she wants, and Rogue’s greedy for love just as much as she’s greedy for touch. She’ll take all she can, but she’ll never buy or sell herself cheap. If she won’t put out, I sure as hell will. Don’t forget, it takes two to tango, and she’s not the only one who’s been starved.

“Remy,” she purrs, half in reaction to my innuendoes, half in reaction to my tender ministrations, at the current moment concentrated solely on her back though admittedly creeping rather dangerously low, “you are a very naughty boy.”

“O’ course,” I murmur in agreement. It isn’t lost upon me just how close her lips now are to mine. And the way her breath tickles my cheek as she enunciates every little word drives me crazy. Steady, Remy, steady. Connoisseur of the seductive arts I may be, but Rogue has an annoying way of beating me at my own game. “And whatcha you gonna do about it, hmm?”

“Hmm,” she pretends to think about it, tracing an intricate pattern along my cheekbone and my chin and across my lips. “It’s like they always say - one day yah have t’ make good on your innuendoes. An’ Ah do believe you’ve made several years worth of un-acted-upon innuendoes.”

“So how long before I work dem all off, sweet?”

“Well, Ah think after last night, we’re probably about…hm, halfway there, shall we say?”

“Only halfway? Still a long ways t’ go, chere. Might as well work off a few more while we’re here.” I bolster the suggestion by placing a tender kiss on the tip of her finger while rather adventurously groping that cute li’l butt of hers under the covers. Goddammit I want her right now, and she knows it, she has that funny little gleam in her eyes that tells me that, once again, it’s me that’s fallen victim to her charms and not the other way round.

“Ah don’t know, sugah, maybe we should string it out some, y’know…make it last.”

Merde! She definitely knows she’s killing me here! Suggestive banter is never so goddamn fun as it is with her, but for some reason, today, this morning…I haven’t felt this horny in a good long while, and that’s saying something. And for some reason, she’s never looked so indescribably gorgeous as she does right now.

“Mon Dieu, you’re beautiful,” I murmur, brushing away the perpetually falling locks of that white skunk stripe from her cheek. “What’d I ever do t’ deserve you?”

“Remy,” she murmurs back, leaning in closer. “Shuddup an’ kiss meh.”

Me shut up? She was the one doing all the talking. But, in such situations, the best thing to do is not to argue. So I shut up and let her do the rest.

I could go on forever about what it’s like to kiss Rogue. There’s two types of kisses that she’ll give you – the one that steals your powers, and the one that steals your soul. Both so similar, both so different. The first is a kiss of life and death, the second is a kiss of passion. I’ve tasted both – I’ve tasted both mingled, so that I couldn’t even tell where love and life and death begins. I’d never tasted anything so wonderful and sweet and deathly as the kiss she gave to me in Israel, so many years back. I’ve danced with death before, but never in the way I danced with it when she first put her lips, her mouth, on mine. For that one moment, I would gladly have died. Just as, whenever I make love to her, I feel the love-death, and I can’t explain it, the feeling’s too intense, too incandescent, and yet so subtle I can hardly distinguish it from the shuddering starbursts that are our shared climaxes.

Now she puts her mouth on mine. Now we kiss, and it isn’t like the first time, but it’s like our first time should have been. She has a kiss so charged it could set Antarctica ablaze – and let me tell you, I’m one of only a few who could tell you just how cold it is out there. But it’s best not to think about that, not here, not now… It’s only so much water under the bridge, and to be honest, mentioning Rogue and Antarctica in the same sentence usually conjures up images of a less than arousing nature…

The kiss pushes all further thoughts of anything out of my head, let alone thoughts of Antarctica – save for the irresistible, primeval urge she always unfailingly seems to invoke in me. Both of us are caught up in the stupid notion that somehow we can make this moment last, that it doesn't have to end, that if we kiss one another hard enough somehow we’ll stay that way forever. I run my fingers through her hair, brush her cheek – the tactile never feels so special, so novel as it does when I touch her. The fifth sense, so underrated, so taken for granted, is nothing short of a godsend to the two of us.

She breaks away slowly, nipping my lower lip playfully as she does so. She’s goading me, and I know it; she sees the understanding and lust in my eyes, smiles, nuzzles her face against my cheek, presses light kisses to the corner of my mouth. In response to her invitation I grasp her by the waist, swivel round; she gasps as I capture her beneath me and bury my face into that soft, succulent dip between her neck and shoulder. God, she smells good – traces of last night’s perfume still cling to her, but it’s more than that, a mingling of that lavender scent with her shampoo and that unique aroma that she continually carries around with her regardless… I think of the fine sheen of sweat on her as we danced last night, the heaving of her chest as she pants for breath and laughs in pure delight, in unadulterated elation… The memory of her scent is tied to this recollection, this fleeting instant in time photographed so neatly in a three-dimensional imprint of touch and smell and sight and sound.

And now taste:- I taste the memory, I lathe my tongue over her soft, warm, scented skin, I suck in the flavour of her, the flavour that’s so familiar and yet so indescribably elusive, so that every time I taste it, it seems new, it seems inspired.

“Remy…” she begins, she wants to make it sound like a warning, but she fails – instead it comes out as a plea and a concession, a note both of supplication and permission, a giving and a taking. Her voice is soft, wistful, whimsical; her arms encircle me, her hands rub my shoulder blades, surrendering herself yet ensnaring me in her trap, the delicious trap that is her body.

“I want y’, chere, I want y’ so much…”

The words come out incoherent to my own ears, an unnecessary articulation of a train of thought that involves actions, not slow and ineloquent speech. She has already yielded to me anyhow; her thighs rub coyly against my own, she surrenders her lips to mine eagerly: we kiss, we fall.

I thought I knew all there was to know about love. Of all the women I ever shared my bed with, none of them were ever playthings to me – I will not lie and say I loved them, but, during those moments, those long, fervent, passionate nights that I spent with them, I cared for them, each and every one. Maybe I even made believe I loved them. Maybe I thought I did, or maybe I pretended I did, or maybe it seemed like love at the time. Sex is, after all, sex, wherever or however you do it, or whoever you do it with. How then, can I hope to convince you that with her it’s different? That with her, it’s not just about desire, or the gratification of a sexual pleasure that one or both of us share? That it is not even simply just a giving or a taking of one another, or that it is a mutual and intimate sharing that only we, lovers, lovemakers, can understand? There’s nothing so safe, so secure, so warm, so personal as holding her in my arms, as relishing her flavour and her fragrance, of feeling her tender limbs against mine, the subtle delicacy of her fingers in my hair, of the warmth of her smooth skin against my flesh. Sometimes, the quietest, most torpid of encounters are the best; they are the moments I can savour what we share in manifest form, moments when I can measure the sum and strength of our love, and I could lie there in her arms forever and try to analyse it, and the answer would never come to me. Morning sex, sleepy sex, the languid exchange of our bodies, is the subtle equation of our love, an enactment of this strange bond we share in slow motion, a thing which opens itself as a book yet cannot be read. I will never be able to grasp the meaning of this act – its significance eludes me – but I catch a glimpse of it, during this one precious, passionate act.

One thing I learnt was, I never knew what love was until I met her, until I waited for her, until I touched her, until I tasted her.

Now we are locked together. Our kiss is slow, soft, as if the world could wait for us, as if it had already ended and no longer mattered and no longer owned us. As I kiss her I slide into her, softly, softly: this is a pivotal moment in lovemaking, any man would tell you that; the pleasure of penetration involves no sacrifice: we infringe, we take, always. But for her there is pain-pleasure, the beginning of love-death… I feel myself enter her, I feel her receiving me; I watch that reception on her face, in the dim pallor of her eyes drawn back; but I feel it too, on her mouth, the way she imbues our kiss with the lowest, softest of moans; it excites me, to feel the echo of her pleasure on our conjoined lips, our embracing tongues… There is nothing so sweet.

We barely kiss now, the kiss is broken and yet continues; our lips touch, but it is our cries that own our mouths, not one another. We make love slowly, finding more pleasure in the analysis and synthesis of each other, in the lazy journey of mutual discovery. My hands travel her body, her breasts, her stomach, her hips…It is always the same ritual, I never tire of it. Sometimes, she’ll be on top; but Rogue’s an old-fashioned girl, and when it comes down to it, she prefers the good old missionary position. Whether on top or not, I never fail in this ritual, this exploration of her body – in either instance it gives me equal pleasure (although admittedly, to see the way she arches her back when she straddles me, when I touch her there, has always been something of a personal turn-on). The number, the equation, the perusal of her amounts to this and yet so much more. On mornings such as this, I will take the lead, I will be on top of her in order to understand why it is that I love her the way I do.

My hands grip her hips. I draw back, I look into her face; I try to see in her eyes what I do to her, what she does to me, what we do to and for one another. She looks back at me, wordless, but not voiceless – what I look for I see, but it always remains elusive and just outside my grasp. Her expression changes. Her eyes roll back, her pupils dilate, her breath comes short, ragged; our ministrations become more fevered now; we push, I groan, she sighs; I remember my pleasure, my lust, where I had forgotten it: and yet I exacerbate it in gazing at her beautiful, agonized face. I bury my head into her bosom, smell the lavender scent, smell the sweat, smell her fragrance, smell our mingled fragrance… I feel her hips beneath mine, grinding… Desperation… The quiet wonder of our exploration has been shattered; now the journey finds itself disrupted; our movements are hurried, urgent; we have lost the importance of meaning, only the destination matters for us and we strive for it, we strive so goddamn hard…

She laces her fingers in my hair, I hear her call my name, in a voice so far-away, so delicate it hardly seems real. Why does she do that, why does she make it sound so beautiful? I grunt with the exertion of my effort to take us both there, but she eases me, she holds onto me and eases me, balancing out the rhythm of our bodies, slowing me, guiding me, trusting me. My breath shallow, regular, I lick the sweat from my upper lip, I raise my head and look into her eyes; she half smiles, encouraging. Her legs wind about my waist, pulling me deeper into her; I gasp, but her cry is long drawn out, half wail, half moan; her hands grip my hips, my shoulders, my hair… And as for me, I keep her rhythm, I follow the soft melody of her cries, I match the rise and fall of her hips… Slower, more focused, in perfect harmony the pleasure increases tenfold. I’m nearly there, I can feel it. I’m nearly at the sum of that simple equation, that one and one makes two.

I tell her so, or think I do.

“Wait,” she tells me. “Oh, wait…”

I renew my efforts, gritting my teeth, giving myself into the torture of loving and waiting for her; ten seconds seem to last forever during this one key moment when we end the equation, and, if we can, we end it together. She presses against me hungrily, her cries as laboured as her breath – I know when she approaches the moment, when she pauses, when she clasps me to her, when she arches back; I allow her to hit the climax first because, inevitably, she draws me in; we orgasm together, bodies straining so that it is not only our very existences that seem to shatter, but everything else, the moment, the time, the space, our beings, the only things that exist inside and out of that one jangling, earth-rending instant. I hear her voice, the triumph, the ecstasy, the bittersweetness of it all; I cannot recall what I sound like – what is important to me at that moment is the thought that, if I could die, it would be here, now, with our bodies joined… That here, now, with our bodies joined, it feels like death, it feels like love and it feels like death, and it feels like dying and being reborn all over again.

The moment itself is shattered, splintered – it is cut short, in the earliest seconds of its earliest stages; yet, strangely, it lasts a lifetime. We barely know when it is over. For a long time after, we lie there, still somewhat entwined, each privately experiencing the last vestiges of the orgasm we have gifted to one another – the present, first shared, now savoured. Meanwhile we comfort ourselves with the security that is the cradle of our naked bodies; we nestle into one another, like birds come home and settling in for the night. The peace, the unreality is only broken when the sound of our voices brings us home.

“Ah love you,” she murmurs into the side of my chest, and somehow the words seem painfully inadequate; they don’t even go halfway to describing what love is, not after the both of us have seen it and felt it somewhere in the maelstrom of our fervid lovemaking. We both know that. But I know what she refers to when she says, ‘I love you’. And she knows what I mean when I say ‘I love you too’ in return.

“I love you too,” I say.

We don’t need to prove it. But vocalising it into these simple words, that simple sentence, somehow gravitises it; it is no longer simply something imperceptible and inexplicable, a mood, a passion, a whim that floats freely in the air and blesses whoever it may chance upon. It is as solid and real as our bodies, it is as tangible as our flesh-to-flesh embrace. This is how I first knew that I loved her, and that I’d never truly loved another woman before her. In vocalising it, what I feel becomes the ultimate in expressed reality.

She smiles. Her expression is sleepy, full of wonder; her cheeks are still flushed. She looks so beautiful, so radiant, so earth-bound…

“Why do you love meh?” she drawls. It is less a question than an expression of wonder. Her accent tends to get stronger in the mornings. It’s undeniably sexy.

“Does there haveta be a reason?” I whisper back. We do this often. Whisper. Murmur. Maybe it’s because we don’t want to lose a hold of the moment, because we don’t want to shatter it any more than we have to with unwieldy words.

“There’s always a reason,” she replies seriously. She pauses, goes into another line of questioning. “What makes me so different from all those other women?”

I can tell she’s not going to let this one slip by. She can be vain like that. She loves to hear the compliments I have to give her. I could tease her badly if I wanted. But she’s giving me that look. The one that could disarm a whole platoon of heavily-armed soldiers quicker than her fists could.

“I dunno,” I answer at last, perusing her face thoughtfully. “Your eyes. Your smile. Your laugh. De way you sass me. De way you make coffee. De way you always put de toothpaste on my brush b’fore you come out de bathroom. De way your accent gets heavier in de mornin’s. De way you leave de toilet seat up for me…”

“Only ‘cos you leave it down for me, sugah,” she interrupts, grinning and stroking the dip between my chin and lower lip with an index finger.

“…Not to mention dat gorgeous bod o’ yours. You want me t’ go on?”

“Ah could just listen t’ your compliments all day long, sugah,” she smiles, disengaging herself from my arms and propping her cheek up with the palm of her hand, drawing lazy circles on my chest with the other. “But Ah think we should save some up for another time, jus’ so’s you don’t run outta things t’ say.”

I stare at her, grinning inanely. Why do I let her toy with me so much? If Lapin and Theoren and all those others back the Guilds heard about this, they wouldn’t let me hear the end of it.

“You know what Ah’ve been thinkin’?” she asks whimsically.

“What?” I’m trying to concentrate on the patterns she’s drawing on my chest. Right now they appear to be figure eights.

“Do y’ reckon, if we were t’ go an’ see the different versions of ourselves in all those alternate realities out there… In how many d’you think we’d be t’ogther? Or d’you think that this is the only reality in which we’re t’gether, an’ that us, here an’ now, in this world… that we’re just an anomaly?”

I stare at her. This is Rogue being unusually and overly philosophical.

“You t’ink dat’s possible?” I begin, running a hand through her hair pensively, “Funny dat. I always thought it was de rest of dem realities dat were de anomalies, not ours.” I pause momentarily, start again. “I don’t believe we could be an anomaly, chere.”

“Why not?” she asks, with the peremptoriness of a child.

“B’cause this jus’ feels too right, p’tit,” I reply. “B’cause nothin’s ever felt so right, ‘cept for us. We made for each other, Roguey. I can feel it in my bones.”

“An’ it’s that simple, huh?” she asks, a humorous smile on her face.

“Yes, it’s dat simple,” I reply, a wry grin on my face as stroke her bare thigh playfully. She laughs, husky, free, easy. I love her laugh. She never used to laugh like this. But then, she’s never had a lot of things to laugh about until a few months ago. Before then, simply laying a bare finger on her skin would have been impossible, nothing short of a death-wish. It’s a miracle then, that we are both able to do this, to have a relationship in the fullest sense of the word, to be lying here, face to face, talking, laughing, being ordinary…

“Well, if it’s so simple, then Ah guess there’s no point in me hangin’ around an’ talkin’ ‘bout it,” she replies, sitting up, but I quickly put out a hand and grasp her wrist, stopping her.

“Aw, Rogue, y’know they say afterplay’s as important as foreplay, chere,” I whine plaintively. “Stay a few more minutes.”

“Ah need a shower,” she pouts at me. “An’ you’re not invited. We been goin’ at it like rabbits the past twelve hours, an’ if Ah put out anymore, it ain’t gonna be healthy.”

“Au contraire,” I remind her suggestively. “Sex is just about one of de healthiest activities out there.”

“In moderation,” she counters heatedly.

“Ain’t no limit, chere, as long as it’s wit’ only one partner.” Dieu, am I sounding desperate yet or what?

“Ah can’t believe we’re havin’ this conversation,” she sighs in irritation, getting up. I should’ve known that last remark would only make her more mad. I sigh. Pushed your luck there, LeBeau. She’s right anyhow. We should quit while we’re ahead. Too much of a good thing can get bad. And we have had fun the past twelve hours…

I watch her sashay into the bathroom. She’s doing it on purpose to punish me, showing off that cute butt and that sexy walk of hers. I groan as the door slams behind her and I hear her lock it. Usually, I’d be the one carrying her into the shower; I’d tenderly wash her clean of our mingled juices; inevitably we’d become excited once more and end up making love all over again right there in the shower. We both know that if we step into that bathroom together that’s eventually what’s going to happen. And I don’t blame her for putting her foot down, to be honest. After last night… Well, like I said, too much of a good thing can get tedious after a while. Right?

So why am I not convincing myself? The truth is, I could be with Rogue whenever, wherever, and however, and I still would never get bored.

“I t’ink you misunderstood me, chere,” I shout in the general direction of the bathroom. “Gambit was only anglin’ for a hug an’ a kiss… Chere, are you hearin’ me? Maybe I can join you in dere, non?”

Her only answer is to turn the shower on full blast.

She emerges later, while I’m in the kitchen cooking breakfast. While frying the eggs she steals up behind me with a stealthy silence that would put any ninja to shame. I start only briefly as she wraps her arms round my waist and buries her face against my back. Her embrace is too warm, too delicate to startle me for long. I delight in the thrill that her touch sends across my bare skin. I know then that all traces of our previous quarrel have been forgotten.

“Is this good enough for you, sugah?” she asks, purposefully trailing her warm breath along the line between my shoulder blades. I shudder involuntarily.

“Good enough for what?” I ask, my voice suddenly thick. See what this femme does to me! One touch and I’m crazy for her again. Remy LeBeau ain’t never been in a trap so helplessly reinforced before. Especially not one built and orchestrated by a woman. Not that I’m complaining or anything…

“Y’ said you wanted a hug an’ a kiss, baby,” she murmurs, pressing a lingering kiss with just a hint of teeth against my right shoulder. I get the impression that our little spat has definitely been forgotten.

I pause, setting down the spatula and swivelling round to slide my arms about her waist. She looks great, wet hair tousled, and wearing just a simple white T-shirt I’d left discarded somewhere about the bedroom. And the scent of the shower gel is so soft and light it makes me want to bury by face in her neck and drift away without a care in the world.

“Hm,” I say, passing her one of those broad, suggestive smiles that always works so well on women. “I was t’inkin’ more of me wit’ my arms around you, an’ a kiss on de lips…”

“Ah think it’s a little too late for afterplay, Cajun,” she murmurs seductively, yielding to my embrace and sliding her arms up my shoulders and around my neck.

“Well, howzabout we engage in a little more foreplay den?” I propose a little too optimistically, while leaning forward quickly to kiss her before she has a chance to say no. We lock lips feverishly in a blistering kiss that takes our breaths away, while our hands wander not a little too boldly. By the time we break apart her fresh underwear is already sopping wet, and we would probably have ended up making love again right there on the kitchen table, if not for the fact that the eggs had begun to burn, and had threatened to bring the house down in an inferno almost as heated and passionate as our own.

Unspoken rule of the house: if it can be helped, I’m the one that does the cooking.

Rogue is a terrible cook. The mess I’d made of the eggs due to neglect looked more like something she’d come up with, even with unreserved concentration. Rogue tackles food like it’s her worst enemy – she’ll hack at meat like an axe murderer and chop up potatoes instead of peeling them. Watching such horrors in action is like torture to a culinary master such as myself; so much so that, after the first few days of our living together, I had effectively banned her from the kitchen under pain of death. That had earned me several day’s worth of enforced celibacy as a punishment: yup, she’d actually held her body to ransom on account of that little episode. Four days later, I was on the verge of insanity, wondering how I was ever going to compromise the idea of no sex versus food poisoning for the rest of my life. Women are clever like that. Rogue is no exception. And when she’s mad, let me tell you, she’s mad.

Eventually, we came to a compromise. She could have access to the kitchen, under the condition that I not have to eat anything that was made by her fair hands; and/or her cooking should be a joint venture between the two of us. Because I can tolerate hacked up veggies in my gumbo, as opposed to gumbo that leaves me bed-ridden for a week or so. She had begrudgingly agreed to my terms; ten minutes after agreeing to them, she’d been all over me again as if nothing had happened at all – which had irked me more than just a little, and had convinced me that the best course of action was to beat her at own game and show her what a bit of enforced celibacy felt like. This had, of course, lasted all of half an hour, by which time I had already caved in and we were making up for four days worth of abstinence very vigorously on the living room sofa. She had had a smug smile on her face for days after that, and, being the couyon that I am, I just didn’t have the resolve to snub her, or, perhaps more humiliatingly, to keep my hands off her.

Now she helps me clean up the burnt eggs with a vicious frown on her face that seems to be accusing the poor scorched things of ruining all the recalcitrant little schemes she had had in store for me for the day. And there’s something oddly satisfying in the notion that her continued seduction of me has been thwarted by that most unassuming of her enemies – food.

Yup – forget Joseph, Longshot and Mags – if there’s anything that’ll nail the two of us, it’s burnt eggs.

Having re-cooked breakfast, we snuggle up on the sofa and watch TV. I like to stretch out and take up as much room as I can; she, invariably, will sit in my lap and lean her head against my shoulder, while the breakfast tray teeters precariously in her own lap. Rogue’s a sucker for French toast, and I have a feeling that’s half the reason why she decided to make it up with me. And bad cook she may be, but she makes a mean cup of coffee. So, all things considered, we’re pretty much quits.

Outside the sun is shining with full force – it’s midday, and outside the bright young things are going out to play. This is, after all, California. Rogue, however, has pulled down the blinds – the room has a cozy atmosphere as we settle down in true bohemian fashion in front of the TV. I’m not deceived. She wants to snuggle, and her pulling down the blinds is a way of shutting out the world from our embrace. Rogue’s like that – she can be capable of grandiose gestures when she wants to be, but when it comes down to it, she prefers her displays of affection to be private, secluded things, where she can secretly open them up and gorge herself on them like a box of chocolates. Understandable, for a woman who’s had to sacrifice so many of the things we take for granted.

I let her lower the blinds and snuggle into me without questioning. I understand her need to close us off from the outside world, if only for a little while. After so many years of pushing one another away, and a more or less utter inability to touch her, I am as grateful for her displays of affection as much as I enjoy them. There is so much warmth and passion inside her that I always knew simmered beneath the surface of her Southern Belle facade – to actually experience it, after all this time, physically as well as emotionally, is something that never fails to pleasantly surprise me. In many ways, the notion of us actually being a couple still hasn’t sunk in yet – we are living in a sort of dream period, where nothing exists but us. We live as we please, we take what we please, we love as we please. This is as much a new experience to me as it is to her. I’ve never made this type of commitment to any other woman before Rogue. I never knew that living with the girl I loved could be so fulfilling or rewarding. To both of us, this honeymoon period is one that could never end. We’ve spent too much of our lives running around being superheroes to appreciate the simpler things in life. And goddammit, we ain’t gonna let go of moments like these, moments that so many other, normal couples take for granted.

“So, I take it I’m forgiven,” I decide to blurt out, midway through breakfast, while my loving girlfriend dutifully passes toast over her left shoulder and into my mouth.

“’Bout what?” she asks, changing the channel with the remote. The news disappears only to be replaced by the Powerpuff Girls.

“Y’know, dis mornin’…”

“Oh, that.” Her voice is distracted. “That wasn’t an argument. Ah’d already f’gotten about it.”

Oh, of course, naturally. While I think she’s still sore and making me suffer over it, she’s all but gone and forgotten about it. Typical.

“Mon Dieu, femme, dis Cajun jus’ can’t keep up wit’ you,” I groan.

“How d’you think Ah manage t’ keep you interested?” she states slyly, giving me a wink and a grin over her shoulder.

“No need for dat,” I reply, leaning forward to nibble the lobe of her ear playfully. “You have other assets dat keep dis Cajun more n’ jus’ interested.”

“Like mah dancing skills?” she chuckles, switching the channel over again.

“Dat n’ more,” I answer, more absorbed in her than in what’s on the TV screen. It’s true though – after last night, Rogue proved once again that she is one great dancer. She enjoys teasing me about that, for some unfathomable reason. Okay, well maybe not so unfathomable. Before we came to Valle Soleada, back in one of the Southern states (I forget which – I don’t think we’d reached Texas by that time) we were at this bar where they were having a dancing contest. Now any femme that knows me knows that I dance a mean dance. Unfortunately, I had decided to brag about it that night, and Rogue had insisted that she could beat me in a competition without even having to make any effort at all. Naturally I’d scoffed at that, at which point she had literally dragged me onto the dance floor in order to prove her point.

Now to be honest, I’d never really seen Rogue dance before. Kurt had once told me that she likes to dance when she wants to cut loose, but unfortunately, I’d never been around to witness such an event. Kurt had said she dances like a demon. I hadn’t believed him. Until that night. She beat every other dancer roundly, including my own oh-so-talented self, and had even won a trophy for her troubles – which now stands conspicuously in a shelf facing the window, where it taunts me cruelly every morning when I come downstairs.

Last night her dancing skills had been used much more to my benefit than to my shame; besides which, latin jazz is always so much sexier than country or zydeco. She’d really jazzed (no pun intended) herself up for Valentine’s – I don’t even know how she managed to move inside that slinky green dress, let alone dance. But hell, she did it. It makes my heart flutter just thinking about it. I have the feeling that half the time she enjoys torturing me whenever we find ourselves in such situations. I’ve already had several years worth of such tortures, but she still puts me through them – I guess she knows they keep this Cajun in line. Last night she’d flirted like hell, just enough to drive me crazy with anticipation at the innuendoes she was throwing at me. A look, a wink, a touch, a peck on the cheek, a flick of the hair – that girl uses them all with the subtle refinement of a torturer with his bloody implements. But when she dances – Dieu, when she presses her body against mine and moves those hips the way she does… well, let’s just say that any hot-blooded male would be slavering over her in a matter of seconds.

Yup – my girlfriend gets a helluva lot of attention these days, especially now that she doesn’t have to worry about killing someone if they touch her. She’s knows I’m jealous and likes to tease me about it. But then, I know she’s jealous, although she tries to hide it – and yes, the levels of attention I get puts Rogue on the defensive whenever we go out together, wherever that happens to be. I always tell her jokingly – you wanna keep dis Cajun in line, all you gotta do is dance wit’ him. You dance wit’ him, he’ll be hot for you any time of de day or night.

Last night was no exception. In fact, the Valentine’s celebrations were effectively pretty much over the moment we’d got onto the dance floor. As soon as we’d tired ourselves out dancing we ran out the restaurant without another word and straight back home. And once we’d got home, well, it was straight to the bedroom. Now, let it not be said that Remy LeBeau takes his time to wine and dine and romance his woman. Let it not be said that he strings things out and woos a femme in the appropriate way. Remy LeBeau is debonaire, calm, suave. That is, unless he’s been dancing with Rogue in a slinky dress. Then, all sense of propriety is robbed from him completely. As soon as we’d slammed the bedroom door shut we were at it. What can I say, we were hot for each other like a warm day in Hell.

And once I’d unwrapped my Valentine’s present, it turned out I’d been in for a little surprise as well. Yup – underneath that slinky green dress, Rogue – who’s usually the no-nonsense, practical type in her dress-sense – had kitted herself out in the most expensively exquisite French underwear: black lace bra, panties, suspenders, silk stockings, garter, the whole damn works.

“Mon Dieu,” was all I could manage to splutter.

“You like?” she’d replied, doing a coy little twirl and flashing a hint of derriere at me like only the best of those Parisian girls can do.

“Like?” I’d repeated, giving her several eyefuls up and down. “Chere, you look simply…delectable.” So sue me, it was the only word I could find to describe her. She looked so damn fine I could’ve eaten her.

“Great,” she’d grinned, standing straighter again. “Now can you get these damn things offa me? These suspenders are chafin’ like no one’s business.”

I’d only been too happy to oblige her.

An old rerun of Buffy is now on, but I’d be willing to forego a whole season of Buffy for mon amant belle. She chuckles, dodging my lips so that the kiss I’d planned for her neck lands somewhere on her upper arm.

“Lemme guess – it wasn’t the dancin’,” she says, eyes sparkling as she looks over at me slyly. “You’re thinkin’ of the underwear, aren’t yah?”

“How’d you guess?” I answer, before leaning in to make another attempt to kiss her throat.

“Remy, you think Ah don’t know yah? Men are perverts. Y’all like seein’ women dressed up in horrible underwear that makes ‘em feel uncomfortable.”

“You didn’ look uncomfortable to me, chere,” I murmur, finally scoring a bullseye in the kissing department. “You looked like Gambit coulda eaten y’ right up.”

“Hmmm.” She agrees on that point, her eyes suddenly wistful. Probably because Gambit did eat her up once he’d got rid of those lacy black panties, heh heh.

“An’ Gambit’s crazy for silk stockings,” I continue, taking advantage of the distraction to plant more kisses along her neck and shoulder. “Did he ever tell you dat? You should dress up more, Anna, chere, we could make t’ings real fun.”

“What, ain’t spandex good enough for yah?” she replies, her tone half-accusing, half-cajoling. She’s allowing me to kiss her anyways, which is always a good sign.

“Personally, Gambit prefers de leather,” I reply.

“Ah bet he does,” she levels at me, knitting her brows and frowning. On the one hand she’s annoyed that I’m trying it on with her again; on the other hand she’s enjoying it, so she’s having a hard time telling me where to lay off. Speaking of hard…

“Dammit, Cajun!” she swivels round, glaring at me. “What is it with you this mornin’? You on viagra or somethin’??”

I return her scathing look, somewhat offended. “Chere, does dis Cajun look like he needs viagra t’you?”

“Hmph.” She pouts, before biting savagely into her toast. Dieu, I could think of other places where that sweet little mouth of hers could be put to better use, but I know that if I tell her so it’ll be bad news for yours truly.

“What?” I ask innocently, trying to put away the lewd thoughts currently running round my head and not entirely succeeding.

“You may be Valle Soleada’s resident love machine, Remy LeBeau, but Ah ain’t your bitch, an’ Ah ain’t gonna be putting out for yah whenever yah want me to, y’hear?” she answers heatedly.

“But I wasn’ even suggestin’…”

“Yes, you were!”

“No I wasn’!”

“Oh really?! Well that li’l friend o’ yours down south was sayin’ somethin’ else entirely!”

I burst into laughter. I can’t help it. She looks so mad and sexy it’s hilarious. And just what the hell are we arguing for? Trust her to make an issue out of something so harmless.

“Oh, so it’s funny now, is it?” she grumbles, not even allowing herself to join in with me. I sober up quickly and put my arms back round her, sensing that this is more than just a little banter gone wrong.

“I didn’ know I was Valle Soleada’s ‘resident love machine’,” I tease, cuddling into her neutrally, trying to signal to her that the white flag’s been raised.

“You should hear what the gals in this town say about you,” she mutters darkly, still scowling.

“What?” I ask, nuzzling my nose against her perfumy hair, but resisting the tactical error of kissing her. I can’t help but ask. Come on, a guy likes to know when he’s appreciated.

“Just about what every gal thinks ‘bout you,” she replies, punching the remote and switching back to the Powerpuff Girls. It’s on the rolling credits, but she still stares at the TV anyway. That should’ve broadcasted to me loud and clear that she really was mad.

“What, dat I’m an overbearing bastard?”

“No.” She’s trying to sound patient, but the word comes out from between gritted teeth.

“Rogue, are you jealous?” I can’t resist poking at her.

“Hah!” Her voice is heavily lined with sarcasm. “What, like you were jealous when Joseph an’ Ah were together as friends, so much so that yah knocked the livin’ daylights outta him fer no reason whatsoever?”

“No reason?!” I splutter. See what I mean ‘bout femmes being clever? My darling girlfriend’s just gone and turned everything round on me in a single sentence. “De guy was hangin’ outside your bedroom window like de regular peepin’ Tom!”

“It was totally innocent, and you know it!” she seethes.

“Yeah, now I know – I didn’ know den,” I mutter. “An’ besides, I wasn’ about t’ lose ma chere to a long-haired pretty boy. Even if he was one of de only guys dat ever treated you wit’ respect.” I pause. “Not even Remy could do dat proper.” I finish on something of a sigh. I haven’t thought about Joseph in a long time. He was probably the only guy I was ever truly afraid of losing Rogue to. What made the whole thing even worse was that he’d treated her with all the love and respect that she’d deserved, whereas me – who’d told her countless times he loved her like he’d loved no other woman – I couldn’t even bring myself to show her that love. I was a fool. Even when we’d told each other how we felt, I couldn’t stop playing the field. I couldn’t stop hurting her.

She sees the woebegone look on my face, swivels round and places her hands gently on my face.

“Remy darlin’, it’s all in the past,” she murmurs. “Ah’m sorry, Ah shouldn’ have brought it up.”

“I was an idiot back den, chere,” I mutter, not without a hint of a sulk in my features. “He deserved you more n’ I did.”

“Ah loved you,” she says, touching her nose against my own. “An’ besides, Ah didn’t exactly treat you too kindly either.”

We both know what she’s referring to when she says this, the words ever so delicately put. For the moment we let the memories linger between us – painful memories, bittersweet. But we say nothing – everything that has needed to be said about this shared memory has been said. After a moment, she smiles sadly, presses her forehead against mine, kisses my lips chastely. Our past has been nothing if not torrid; and at times, it has been both brutal and hurtful. I suppose the people you love are always the ones that are easiest to hurt. And Rogue and I, having had an inability to commit for so long, whether physically or emotionally, have hurt one another almost as violently as we have loved one another. There were even times when I think we would have killed one another in order to express both the pain and the passion we have put each other through. But it’s over now. At last, we’re the way we always wanted to be – together. It’s a privilege we know we can’t take for granted. And now she kisses me as if to say she understands – it’s her way of saying sorry.

She pulls away, giving me one last little peck for good measure. The mood is still subdued; the room is quiet.

“So,” she begins after a short moment of silence, gently rubbing my chest, her voice nothing more than a notch above a whisper. “Y’all wanna know what the gals round here really say ‘bout you?”

A small grin plays across my face as I wrap my arms snugly round her waist again.

“Gambit t’inks he already knows what you’re gonna say, Roguey,” I reply in the same tone of voice, all quiet and softly-like, thinking we’re going to destroy the closeness we share otherwise. “But you go ahead an’ indulge me anyways, chere.”

“Well,” she begins innocently, “They think you got the most beautiful, gorgeous, cute, sexy…” She pauses momentarily as if to find another adjective, grinning broadly, “…an’ patient girlfriend they’ve evah seen, an’ they all wish they were her, b’cause…”

“Because you got me in the sack,” I finish for her in mock exasperation, sighing theatrically. “I know, I know! Y’know, sometimes it’s real hard playin’ de Casanova part. De ladies don’ give y’ a moment’s peace.”

She giggles, giving me a playful slap on the shoulder. “An’ you’d know all ‘bout that, of course,” she remarks, eyebrows knitting.

“Chere, you know I only have eyes for a certain green-eyed, brown-haired Mississippi river rat wit’ de world’s cutest skunk-stripe in her hair, right?” I reply, brushing a few white strands of her hair back over her ear and letting my fingers linger there a moment. “Y’know, de one wit’ de cutest tush dis side of Mason-Dixie, and dat sexy li’l mole on her…”

“Only Mason-Dixie?!” she echoes in feigned indignation, eyes wide.

“Okay, I take it back – howzabout de galaxy?”

“Sugah, we been a lot further than just this galaxy,” she pouts playfully. “Are you really sayin’ that Lilandra has a cuter butt than Ah do?”

“…De universe…?”

“An’ speakin’ of moles, you’re one t’ talk!”

“Heh heh.” I chuckle at that one. The whole ‘mole issue’ has landed me in some very –uh- interesting situations in the past. “You’re such a tease, p’tit.”

“So are you,” she pouts. It’s such a cute pout that I have to kiss it. She mutters ‘what the hell’ and caves in. I swear, life for us is like some crazy, deranged roller coaster. First we’re at it, then we’re not, then we’re at it again. Damn this girl! She’s only the most irresistible thing I’ve ever seen. Trouble is, she knows it. Like I said – she’s a like torturer with his bloody implements. Lucky for her I have a masochistic streak in me, heh heh.

It was as things were starting to get interesting that ...

*And that's where I stopped writing! Anyone wanna finish it? You're welcome to! 😂*

#rogue/gambitweek2023 #Romy fic #Rogue and Gambit #Rogue #Gambit #Remy LeBeau #Anna Marie LeBeau #Valle Soleada #rogue/remyweek2023

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