Enough
It was enough, in the beginning, to touch Marie and feel the faint tremor of her body beneath his hand and to have her turn and smile warmly at him. It was enough to know there was someone who liked him. Not wanted him, or wanted to use him, but liked him as he was, for who he was. It didn't happen often, especially not with someone like her.
It stayed enough through his and Jean's first kiss, Jean's death, his fights with Scott, Jean's return. It lasted through Scott's failed attempt to keep Jean, through Jean giving in to her desire for Logan, and through their relationship. It might have meant something that it started to change after he lost Jean. It might have been supplanting his still painful desire for Jean on Marie, or it might have been a desperate, misguided attempt to stop thinking about Jean, but that delicate quiver that was always followed by a slight hitch in her breathing stopped being enough. Instead, Logan needed to trace lines along Marie's shoulders and down her back until her scent thickened and she shifted in her seat, cheeks pinking.
It was like a roller coaster then, where he lingered indefinitely at the top of the hill until the moment when it all let go and he began to plummet. He couldn't stop after that first time. He touched her, a little longer each time, a little more suggestively. He made her cheeks flush a little darker each time and made her squirm a bit more, made her breathe heavier, made her eyes darker.
It was a steady transition where things moved in his mind until he didn't ever really think of Jean any more. All he could see, or smell, was Marie and the flush of her arousal.
He dragged it out, the time when he'd touch her long enough to drive her to her room so she could finish what he wasn't ready to. He would follow her to her room and stand outside her bedroom door and breathe in the scent of her completion and listen to her quiet gasps and the moan that was his name. He stayed afterwards, listening as her breathing evened out and sometimes as her breath hitched, this time in quiet sobs.
It was the only time he wondered if it was right.
He dragged it out, but it didn't last, and she ended up in his lap, head resting on his shoulder, hands clutching his shirt, panting to catch her breath, the smell of her orgasm driving him crazy.
Once wasn't enough. He had to touch her again and again, had to be touched in return. It didn't matter where they were as long as they were alone: In the living room, on the couch, the television playing. In the garage, against a wall, the voices of students echoing from outside. In a car, in the backseat, music playing softly. In the jet, on their turn to stay behind, the radio crackling in the background.
He never took her to his room though, or went to hers. They never talked about it, and she still dated. He thought it would be enough, that he could live half in her arms, half out. She never smelled as happy as when she was with him, and that was enough too.
It was enough, and might have always been enough, until Marie had a nightmare, one of his--it was always one of his, he thought—and she crept into his room, smelling of tears and pain and sick humiliation. Logan opened his arms to her and cradled her, hands smoothing her hair, whispering softly to her.
He lost himself in her scent and the way she responded to his comfort and how she looked at him. His hands and his mouth moved across her, wanting to give more than comfort. She let him, moving into him and against him. He touched her and used his body instead of his hand this time and knew he would never have enough of her, knew she would have to die before he could let go, could consider letting go.
She was too much a part of him, too much in him, for him to let go, and there was so much of her that he wanted and could want until the day he died. Like everything else after her, it was easy to hold her and to keep her, and it was easy to make another promise. It was easier to hear the promise made in return, and he fell asleep, her head resting on his shoulder, her fingers twined with his.
It was enough for now.