Trick or Treat

Posted on Tue Sep 10th, 2024 @ 11:24pm by Scott Summers & Jean Grey

Mission: Episode 5: Days of Fortune Past
Location: Baxter Building | Manhattan
Timeline: October 31st/November1st, 1990

After dropping off Kurt and Bobby at Xavier’s, Scott and Jean were left with an unexpected night to themselves. The fact that it was Halloween only added to the desire to make the most of the suddenly free evening. During their drive back to the city, they bounced ideas off of one another about what to do. From a scary movie to dinner out, all the cliché dates were volleyed and every one of them fell short. By the time they got home, they had given up on doing anything other than eating leftovers on the couch.

Standing in the garage, Jean lackadaisically pushed the button for the elevator before she perked up from remembering something. “Oh! I have to stop in the lobby and pick up a package.” Jean’s smile grew as she spoke. “It’s wedding stuff.”

Scott rubbed his forehead and let the motion go clear to the back of his neck. Yesterday they’d raced nightfall west back to New York from Germany, making for one hell of a long day. After making introductions at the mansion, today had not been much calmer. All he wanted was to get under the hot shower, possibly with company, and wash the grime away.

“Sure, let’s do that,” he said, letting out a weary sigh. “Don’t want that getting misplaced.” He joined her on the elevator and pressed the button for the lobby. “Speaking of wedding stuff, let’s make sure Sal gets an invitation.” The doorman Sal had been the first to congratulate them on their engagement and had been a pleasant surprise in their life at the Baxter Building. “I’m sure that—”

Whatever Scott was going to say dropped off as his mouth fell open. The elevator doors opened to reveal a sea of people in what was supposed to be a quiet, dimly lit, and cavernously empty lobby. “What the f…”

“Fireball for everybody!” Johnny Storm stood on top of the concierge desk with bottles of the cinnamon flavored whiskey in either hand. He shook them up, broke off the necks by clanging them together, and sprayed the foaming liquid all over a crowd of partiers who cheered. Somewhere in the background, “The Final Countdown” blared from portable speakers that were hastily set up at random spots.

The lobby was filled with bimbos. Clad in short, tight dresses and eagerly bouncing in the spray of whiskey, the women standing in the lobby were practically throwing themselves at Johnny. Whatever fame he had gained from being a member of the Fantastic Four, he was taking full advantage of tonight.

“Johnny?” Jean raised a quizzical eyebrow as she approached the Human Touch. “You’re really setting the world on fire tonight, aren’t you?”

“Hell yes I am!” Johnny took a long drink from the now half empty bottle of whiskey in his hand. “Me and Ben finally got out of lockup! Reed and Sue are at a conference call in Denmark and Ben decided to fly them. Something about Halloween being depressing.” He made a face that was half disgust and half amusement. “So I’m finally celebrating the way I should!”

Johnny raised his bottles into the air and the crowd with him cheered in agreement. “Hey! You should totally come.” Then he glanced at the back of the room at the stoic faced Scott who was standing with his arms folded across his chest. “I guess he can come too,” Johnny said with a little less enthusiasm.

“We’ll think about it Johnny. But thanks nonetheless.” Jean noticed the doorman’s office was locked and the crowds prevented her from doing anything about it so she merely joined Scott in the back of the lobby.

“What do you think?” Jean saddled up to Scott as she spoke. He could tell she was going to ask him for something by the way she brushed against him “Do you want to go? It’s something to do.”

“What I think is that Bobby and Johnny should never be left alone together.” Scott’s tone was one of frustration and annoyance. By Jean’s body language and the subtle, mischievous smirk that played at her lips, Scott knew that she was interested. “But we can check it out, at least for a bit.”

~But if there’s any trouble, we’re leaving~ Scott threw a scowl at Johnny who was still living it up to the crowd. ~He can clean it up himself~

“Oooh my gawwwd!” screamed one of the drunken girls soaked down with whiskey as she pointed at Scott. “Are you Mister Fantastic!”

Scott frowned at Jean without restraint. ~I love you. I hope you know that~

~* ‘I promise to make it up to you.’ *~ Jean shared another dirty mental picture with him that she knew would drive him crazy the entire time they were in public together.

“Yes, and I’m Sue… his wife.” Jean possessively placed her left hand on his chest as she mustered her best scowl for the girl.

“Chill out.” She fake pouted up at Scott as her voice took on a childlike tone. “I was only going to ask for his autograph.”

“Ask for Johnny’s,” Jean replied as she took Scott by the hand and led him towards the elevators. “I hear the way he crosses his ‘t’ will take your breath away.”

The drunk girl laughed at that remark and turned her attention back towards Johnny with a newfound vigor.

“We don’t have to stay long.” Jean attempted to barter with Scott as they stood alone in the elevator. She knew he was already over this night before it had even started. “It’s just that… we’ve never gotten to do anything like this before. Our lives have always been so regimented and serious. Sometimes I like to experience what normal people in their early twenties would do.”

Before Scott could answer, the elevator to the thirtieth floor opened to an already raging party. The massive crowd of people had invaded every corner of the Fantastic Four’s living space. It was hot and the music was incredibly loud, the whole place vibrated with dumb, youthful energy.

“Jello shot!?” A blonde wearing only her bra and underwear offered a tray of jiggling paper cups to the two of them.

“Sure.” Jean took one and sucked the semi-firm liquid from its tiny cup. “Hey, that’s actually pretty good.”

“I know! Try the red ones, they are the best.” The blonde thrust the tray into Jean’s face.

Jean took a red one and did the same with it before looking up at Scott. “The red ones are the best ones.”

As little as he felt like partying right now, Scott could see how important this was to Jean. He took a deep breath and summoned all the reserves of patience he could muster.

~They’re all red to me~ Scott smirked at Jean as he grabbed a paper cup. “Bottom’s up.”

It tasted like jello. Scott wasn’t sure what he was expecting, but there it was. “Uh, not bad?” He took another one, totally indifferent to the color, and swallowed it too. “Happy Halloween, Jean.”

“Happy Halloween, Scott.” She stood up on her toes and kissed him, Jean tasted like sugary sweet cherries thanks to the jello. She took him by the hand and directed him through the thumping and loud crowd to the area Jean knew to be the kitchen. In the spacious kitchen were two beer kegs and a countertop covered in liquor bottles of different size and color.

“Here.” Jean picked up two empty red solo cups and offered them to the guy manning the keg. He filled them and returned them to her. She offered one of the now full cups to Scott. “Drink this, it will make everyone else less terrible.”

“I happen to know that is not true,” Scott said even as he took the cup. “Cheers!” After tapping rims, he took a sip and tried not to grimace too much. “Yeah, that’s how I remembered it.” He laughed despite himself though. “But that’s part of the fun, right?”

The emphasis Scott put on the word “fun” sounded entirely contradictory. But there was something funny about his boorish stick in the mud mood. Two shots of tequila, or whatever had been in that jello, certainly didn’t hurt his temperament either. He couldn’t help but laugh a little.

“Okay, so it’s not all terrible,” Scott admitted as he reflexively held out his half-empty cup to the keg master for a top-off. “It’s loud and crowded and the people are obnoxious, but this guy seems cool.” Scott spared a glance as he took the cup back that was filled higher than before. “Thanks, dude.”

“It’s fun because it’s about partaking in the shared energy of the room,” Jean said with a whimsical little smile. Her ability to connect with others was much easier thanks to a multitude of reasons. “Everyone is here to have fun and to flirt, they’re looking to unwind and enjoy themselves.”

She led him back out towards the once formal dining room of the apartment. The large table that had been broken during that awful dinner party had yet to be replaced. The open space lent itself well to a dance floor. Dozens of men and women thumped and grinded to the music and its heavy bass beats. Jean found some space on the dance floor for the two of them where she then began to press and undulate against him in the same sinful manner as the rest of the dancers. ~* ‘See? It can be fun.’ *~

~Fun is one word for it~ Scott concurred with a crooked smile. ~You are so hot sometimes. That's another word~ Even his thoughts were slightly slurred. ~Hot!~

Scott wrapped his arms around her shoulders and started swaying to the beat of the jam, allowing the swift rhythm to move him. The flow between his mind and Jean's always created a fluid synchronization no matter the context. Tonight was no different. Following Jean's lead, Scott could anticipate her next move and roll with it…or push against it, as the mood took either of them.

“We should go do this more often,” Scott murmured aloud. Once he did, he was startled by it and started giggling. “Oh, dude. Did you hear that? I said we should do this more often! I might not be good to drive…”

“You don’t have to drive.” Jean giggled along with him before she took a long sip of her beer. The crowded room was already warm and their dancing made it even hotter. Combined that with the alcohol and Jean’s cheeks flushed pink and a few strands of red hair clung to her skin.

“We just have to take the elevator down a floor and we’re home, dude.” Jean used the word ‘dude’ to draw his attention towards the abnormal choice in words from him. The emphasis she placed on it managed to make her laugh.

“Right!” Scott laughed at his mistake. “We already drove home. This is why I don't drink. It makes me forget things.”

He looked at her and thumbed the intrusive strands of red hair away from her verdant green eyes. “Not this, though. I could never forget this.” His other hand came up to cup the other side of her face. “Not in a thousand years, or a thousand lifetimes, or a thousand jello shots!”

Scott threw back his head and cackled. “I made another funny. Why isn't anyone else laughing?” He looked around at the other dancers. “Come on! That was funny! Laugh already!”

“Stop it!” Jean reached out and placed a hand over his mouth as she laughed at his boisterous behavior. “They aren’t paying attention to us, they’re dancing.”

She leaned into him until he was forced to hold her up. Alcohol made her fuzzy and carefree along with him but her sincerity remained. “In a party full of people you’re still the only one that matters.”

That moved Scott's heart, setting a fire right in the core of his being. “Kiss me, you sexy beast!”

Before she could reply, Scott pulled Jean by the shoulders and stole a kiss without waiting. The thrill of her lips against his own made his heart sing. Whatever song was playing didn't matter. All Scott could hear was the pounding of his own pulse.

~Mmmm… that's good…~ Scott's thoughts turned idle on a singular course. ~You taste good~

Jean continued to giggle through the kiss at how animated yet focused Scott was. Few got to see him this way but when he finally relaxed, there was this mirthful and blithe spirit underneath it all. ~* ‘Thanks, it’s the jello’ *~

~You always taste good though~ Scott grinned at his innuendo.

Her laughter caused her lips to curl into a smile so much so that it broke the heated lock of their lips. They were foolish and carefree in this moment, the weight of the world forgotten just like every other person indulging in this over the top party. “Let’s get a refill of our drinks and I need to find the bathroom.”

They left the dance floor and refilled the solo cups. Jean stole a few more jellos shots from the passing tray and she made sure to give Scott an actual red one.

“I don’t remember which room is the bathroom.” Jean led them down a crowded hallway that they had only ever traversed once before. She opened a random door only to find two people in the throes of passion, right in the middle of Ben’s bed.

Jean slammed the door shut as she buried her face in Scott’s chest and a fit of surprised laughter came over her. “Oh my god, Ben is going to be so mad when he comes home.”

“Definitely,” Scott agreed before trying another door.

It opened to reveal half a sports team being serviced by no fewer than ten fans. Even for what it was, Scott still found it pretty shocking. A large portrait of Reed and Sue hung over the bed with oblivious happy grins.

“I think all four are going to be mad,” Scott said, shocked and slightly embarrassed at interrupting someone else's intimate moments. “And they're going to fight. What did Ben say? Clobber time?”

The memory of Ben and Johnny about to trample over the broken dining table in a bare knuckle brawl made Scott start laughing again.

“But all that did give me some ideas…” Scott waggled his eyebrows in the least subtle gesture of the night.

Scott’s lurid thoughts were incredibly vivid to the point where it made Jean blush through her already pink cheeks.

“Scott Summers!” She gasped and then laughed at the level of detail his drunken thoughts had created. The lack of inhibition not only made the party easier but apparently it made his desires all the more colorful. “Save it for later.”

With some hesitation, Jean opened the next door in the hallway and was relieved to find it was the actual bathroom. She handed Scott her drink before stepping inside.

“You have to stand guard, be my lookout,” Jean said before shutting the door and leaving Scott to stand alone in the hallway.

“You got it, foxy lady.” Scott laughed at the outdated slang that had felt appropriate mere seconds beforehand.

As Scott stood and waited, a woman dressed in black with long platinum blonde hair and a body built for sin approached him.

“Hello, tall and handsome.” She managed to purr the words despite the noise of the party. “Are sunglasses at night the latest craze?”

“They are if you carry the sun inside you,” Scott said, totally deadpan, “which I do. Nice catsuit. All you’re missing is the ears.” Far from clever and completely oblivious to it, Scott bit his lip to keep from busting out laughing. “Maybe whiskers. I know someone with a tail, too, so I can just imagine that part.”

“Oh, he’s creative…” she said with a smirk. “I guess you could do a good job imagining other things then too.” The blonde took a few steps closer and dared to invade Scott’s personal space. “My name is Felicia, what’s yours?”

“Taken,” Scott said, stepping back until he was pressed against the door. Even though buzzed, Scott recognized a threat when he saw one. “But I'm sure Johnny would love some company.” He nodded toward the other bedroom they hadn't opened. “Pretty sure that one's his but there's no telling who or what might be in there.”

“Shame,” Felicia said with a kittenish pout. “I guess that’s what I get for mixing business and pleasure. Have a good night, Taken.” The buxom blonde waved goodbye as she disappeared into the sea of people.

As Felicia departed, Scott felt the bathroom door opening behind him before Jean’s arms wrapped around his waist. “What did I miss?”

“Just had to run someone off,” Scott said. “She said she…”

Business and pleasure. What did that mean exactly? Nothing good.

“You know, I can't honestly say Johnny doesn't have a prostitute up here.” Scott was almost bashful in the way he said it. “Reed and Sue are going to be so…so pissed!”

From the kitchen, Johnny's voice could be heard. “If you think that was rad, check out Reed's Cheese Maker!”

“On the other hand, Johnny sounds like he has other things on his mind…” Scott looked more confused than ever. His buzz definitely put him on a different level.

“That’s too bad for Johnny.” Jean’s hands splayed out across his torso before one traveled up to his chest and the other down the length of his thigh. He felt that subtle twinge of proprietorial desire inside of her that made Jean want to claim him as her own. “How about…”

There was a loud bang from the kitchen followed by nervous and delighted laughter.

“Oh man!” Johnny roared with laughter. “I wasn’t expecting it to explode like that. It’s everywhere! Maybe you should change?”

“I think I disagree with your evaluation of Johnny, he’s got one thing on his mind tonight.” Jean moved them out of the doorway of the bathroom as a timid girl was attempting to squeeze past them. She slinked past Scott and took her beer from his hand. “It’s what almost everyone is thinking about around this place to some degree or another.”

Scott arched his eyebrow, the tingle of Jean’s suggestive caress still fresh in the forefront of his mind. “Almost everybody?” He couldn’t hold back a smirk. Jean was never one to veil her feelings. When she was in a frisky mood, there was never any doubt.

“I have an idea.” Scott handed Jean her drink back and then finished his in one gulp. “Why don’t we head on home, grab as many of those jello shots you love so much on the way out as we can, and then we make our own party downstairs?” He swallowed a beer belch before it could come up. “Before Johnny blows somebody up.”

~Or you put a bimbo through a wall~ The thought wasn’t intentionally put out there for Jean to pick up, but Scott may as well have said it aloud while handing out a Polaroid picture of Felicia. The lame pickup line wouldn’t be hard for Jean to pull from the fringes of Scott’s mind.

“I just need to tattoo ‘Property of Jean’ on your forehead. Then maybe they’d finally leave you alone.” Jean forced a laugh with the comment as she downed her own beer, she was obviously joking but women had a tendency to be forward with Scott. “I think getting out of here sounds like a good idea. People are starting to get a little sloppy.”

They stepped over a man who had decided to pass out in the middle of the hallway as they made their way back towards the front of the apartment and the elevator.

“Oh hey! Can I have this?” Jean found the woman in her underwear walking around with a full tray of Jell-O shots.

“What? Oh sure!” The scantily clad woman gave up the tray a little too easily and Scott knew exactly why.

~Naughty, naughty~ Scott teased. It wasn’t exactly an abuse of Jean’s powers, so he wasn’t scolding her by any means. One way or another, those shots would be gone within the hour anyway.

Once in the privacy of the elevator she helped herself to a pink colored shot. “Oh that was watermelon!” Jean was surprised by it and immediately found another of the same color and offered it to Scott.

“Here, try this one.” There was a sweetness in the way she considered him and included him. Helping him experience the things he couldn’t on his own. “It’s good.”

“I like watermelon…” Scott mumbled as he took the jello blob and put it in his hand. “Hey, that is pretty good!” After savoring the taste, Scott leaned in for a quick kiss. “Thank you for making me do things. There’s no life away from you.” He blushed a little at the admission. As often as he was teased by the other guys in the old days of the team, Scott never really had any defense against it. There was no denying he was a stick in the mud most times. “Pick another.”

“We’ll live life together.” It was a simple statement but it was still sentimental. Jean had once wanted to hide from the world, she had deemed it too cruel and terrible to explore. It was Scott that made her want to venture out again. As an adult she was radiant and outgoing, confident and poised. Even though it was now Jean that dared him to try new things, he had helped her take those first few steps so many years ago.

“This one is orange.” She pushed one towards him and took another for herself. Her nose scrunched after swallowing it. “Oh I don’t like that one.”

The short trip in the elevator brought them back to their condo. The floor was dark and quiet compared to the absolute chaos upstairs. It was a welcomed sense of peace and calm after the admittedly long day they had just had.

“Ah… that’s better.” Scott took a few easy gliding strides into their mostly private space and stretched his arms out overhead. “No place like home.” And then it occurred to him that they had it all to themselves for the night. “Remember when no one else lived here and we just walked around naked whenever we wanted? Feels like so long ago, but it was just a few weeks ago.”

Turning around, Scott plucked another jello shot at random and popped it into his mouth. He made a sour face. “Which one was that?”

“Lime.” Jean said with a laugh as his response. “I don’t mind them so I’ll lump them all together.”

She set the tray down but not before taking another Jell-O shot for herself. “I do miss those days of having the whole place to ourselves.”

Jean didn’t want to dwell on the topic of why, instead she decided to bring them back to the brief moment of total freedom.

“But tonight is like it should be, so we should take advantage of it.” She began to undress as they walked through the apartment, casually shedding articles of clothing across the condo as they walked.

“Good idea,” Scott said as if he hadn’t been angling that direction for the past several minutes. One shoe kicked off against the wall, soon followed by the other. “Let’s do that.”

Getting down the hall was easier said than done though. The polo shirt came off easy enough, though it did manage to snag Scott’s head and turn him around. A few grunts later, he left it on the floor where it fell and unlatched his belt, which allowed his pants to fall down his slim hips but get stuck around his knees. Bending over, he fought to roll the legs of the pants down to his ankles, but try as he might they seemed to be hopelessly tangled.

“Fuck it,” he groused in a flare of uncharacteristic frustration.

From there, Scott decided to march out of his pants. They turned inside out from being dragged down the hallway while he pulled at the bottom of his undershirt and heaved it over his head. The fabric got twisted somewhere around the shoulder and wrapped around his face. Between the twisted shirt on his head and the stubborn pant legs clinging to his ankles, Scott lost his balance and started blindly hopping down the hall.

Jean offered absolutely no help or assistance in Scott’s inebriated demise. Instead she dissolved into a fit of hysterical laughter and snorting that caused her to fall to her knees in the hallway as hysterical giggles took over.

“Look out!” The muffled cry heralded his falling sideways leap onto the bed, flopping like a half-naked mummy. He let out a frustrated groan as he briefly indulged the sense of futility that had overtaken him. “Just what was in those Jell-O shots anyway?”

“Vodka.” Jean shouted from her position on the floor. She wiped away her tears as she tried to gain a fraction of her composure. Getting to her feet, she followed Scott into the bedroom and upon seeing his pitiful state it caused her to fall apart all over again.

He listened to her uproar of laughter as Scott remained still and prone across the bed. Jean laughed until her sides hurt and she could barely breathe, her own intoxicated mind lingered on the absurdity of Scott’s defeat.

“I’m glad you didn’t undress me.” Jean was practically sobbing from her laughter but she moved over to the bed and began to untangle and remove Scott’s clothes. “This is what undressing a giant toddler must feel like.”

“I am not a toddler,” Scott protested, failing to suppress the pout his lips were forming. Fortunately the undershirt wiped it off his face once Jean managed to untangle it from his arm. “I’m a man. A grown man.”

Once Jean helped him with his pants, Scott laid there liberated in just his boxer briefs. He pushed himself up and leaned into Jean’s face. “You are a grown woman too. That’s how this works. It won’t work if either of us are toddlers. Or both.” He turned serious for a moment. “I don’t even know how that would happen…” Feeling confused, he ignored that point and grabbed Jean with his clumsy hands. “Never mind. C’mere, you!”

Jean squealed and tumbled with Scott. The action caused even more laughter in her. She was messy and absentminded in her own drunken way. Wit had left her and she was juvenile in her responses.

Unable to keep his balance even on his knees, Scott fell backward onto the bed and pulled Jean along with him. They landed hard enough to bounce on the mattress. Scott threw out his hands to steady himself, as if he could grab hold of thin air for balance. “Vodka sucks!”

“Maybe you should sleep it off?” Jean dared to suggest as she watched him grope at nothing. Her own tipsy feelings were dwarfed compared to Scott’s stupor. “I don’t want you to break the bed or chip a tooth!” She made herself laugh with that comment as Jean stretched out across him and reached for his sleep mask.

“Sleep is for the weak!” Scott declared. “I am going to storm your castle gates and plunder your booty like a pirate knight of the…the…” Scott thought for a minute and abandoned the metaphor. “I am going to make love to you like you've never seen before!”

Somehow he managed to roll over onto Jean as if to mount her. “Get ready,” he said. “Here it comes!”

The kiss he laid on her was passionate enough. What the kiss lacked was cognizance. Somewhere between asleep and awake, Scott softly moaned Jean's name right into her lips.

“You’re right, I’ve never experienced anything like this before.” Jean chuckled from her crushed position beneath Scott. With a touch of telekinesis she rolled him back onto his back. His coordination was poor at best but Jean felt Scott’s want for more of her, even as his thoughts grew fuzzy and pleaded with him to sleep.

“What if we…” Jean pondered what she was about to say. Even with her lowered inhibitions it seemed a little ridiculous but in the end she decided to throw caution into the wind. “What if we traveled to the Astral Plane together.”

Scott was aware of the Astral Plane; it was a telepathic realm that Xavier used frequently in therapy sessions but Jean had never suggested that they explore it in such a casual manner.

“It would be like having a dream together that we were both in control of.” It was beyond passively watching or influencing the other’s dreams and memories. “We would both be able to control the narrative, I don’t see why that couldn’t be something… romantic.”

“Take me now,” Scott mumbled. “I'm ready for astral sex with Mind Girl!”

Shared psychic rapport was nothing new. Every moment of every day was spent with Jean's thoughts whispering in the back of his Scott's mind. Her comforting presence was as unintrusive as white noise and steadying as a metronome. Telepathy wasn't an invasion for Scott but a normal way of life.

In the end, he could never say no to her. If Jean wanted to take him to the Astral Plane, then that's where they were going.

“Um…what do I have to do?” Scott looked over at her, suddenly wishing he had telepathic abilities too.

“Just relax and wear your sleep mask.” She pressed the need once more for safety more than anything. Scott’s careful diligence slipped a little thanks to the alcohol but she was here to remind him. Jean swapped out his glasses for his mask before planting a heated and hungry kiss on his lips, a brief reminder of how badly they wanted both of each other.

Jean settled into a comfortable position in his arms, it was a familiar position for the couple to be in as they drifted off to sleep.
“Get comfortable and I’ll take you with me.”

There was a moment of silence and stillness between them and as far as Scott could tell, nothing had really changed.

“Open your eyes.” Jean sat up a little and brushed her lips against his shut eyes. The gentle touch made him realized the restrictive sensation of his sleep mask was gone. “It’s okay here.”

As Scott opened his eyes with some hesitation he saw their bedroom in color. The red tinge that covered everything was gone and he could see their home in New York as it really was.

“Oh wow,” Scott whispered. He ran his fingers along his naked temples and said it again. “Wow.”

It was like the tender moment when they had shared a kiss in the Morlocks tunnels after Callisto had seized them. The mutant Leech had suppressed their powers with his own. As horrible as captivity had been, it allowed Scott to look on Jean for the first time.

As he recalled the event, the bedroom around them shifted for a moment, becoming a reflection of the Morlocks tunnels. Jean herself changed a bit, too, with her color saturation getting stronger. The red of her hair was more vibrant, the sheen on her eyes glistened like the sun, even her skin had a glow to it, all reflecting how he'd seen her in that moment.

“Whoa…” Scott said at the sudden transformation. The room flipped back to the safety of their Baxter Building condo, but Jean retained the halo from the brief foray down Memory Lane.

“This is going to take getting used to,” Scott said. His happy chuckle showed the surprise he'd felt was a good one. “Can we really just pick and choose like that here?”

“Yes, it’s a place that’s only limited by your imagination.” Jean looked down at her arms and she dulled the luminous quality of her skin until she returned to normal. “You’re a fast learner though.”

But it was no surprise that Scott caught on so quickly. He had been surrounded by telepathy during his formative years. Jean couldn’t think of another person who embraced it the way he had.

“Technically we don’t even need bodies or any type of physical presence, it can definitely just be an out of body experience. But it doesn’t need to be so esoteric, at least not at first.” Jean looked up at him and caressed his cheek, a dreamy look in her eyes as she did.

Much like Scott, she recalled their time being captured by the Morlocks. But there was no dire urgency in this moment or fear that it might end based on someone else’s whim. Jean could look him in the eyes without fear and on their terms. The color of his eyes, the unobstructed view of his features as he smiled at her. As simple a concept as it was, it was priceless to her.

Scott felt that sweeping feeling of romantic love from Jean as she gazed at him. With just a simple glance, he took her breath away and left her awestruck and spellbound.

“Part of me doesn’t blame all those women for flinging themselves at you,” Jean laughed a little at her statement. “I can’t get enough of you either.”

As Jean spoke, the breath of her mouth, or whatever the medium was that surrounded them, shed light around her like a luminescent fog. Her chuckle catalyzed it with a flare of intense coloration that shot out from her in radial spurts. When it washed over Scott, it felt like when the sun came out from behind a cloud and filled him with warmth.

“There's only one woman who can hold my gaze…” Scott held up his hand to stroke the side of Jean's head. On contact, it flashed with the same color as his optic blast, almost blurring the lines between his skin and her hair. “I don't know how you do it. Every time I think I've seen all that there is to you, you show me something more.”

Running his free hand over her faintly bioluminescent skin, Scott felt her light flow into him like completing a circuit. It electrified his words as he spoke, charging his own breath to glow neon like Jean's did. Leaning forward to kiss her, their colors mixed together like the foggy lightshow of a rock concert. “Even here,” he whispered, seeing Jean drink in the colored breath of his mouth as he hovered an inch away from her lips, “you consume me.”

The following section contains mild adult content. Reader discretion is advised.

And their lips met. Each press and tuck of their kiss made a note, like a bow on a string. Starting off slow and almost mournful, the notes picked up tempo in pace with their kissing. High notes of desperation for more, low notes of satisfaction in one another, the peaks and valleys amplified the melody of their love until it became a symphony playing in time with their frantic kisses that stretched long and cut short while the steamy expression of their love guided them.

Even though this had been her idea, Jean had been hesitant at first. She knew the Astral Plane was nothing to trifle with and in its higher levels it could be dangerous. But Scott had no fear or concern for this space and he explored it with a degree of innocence that Jean found liberating. So when the music began to play and their radiance entwined she finally let go and allowed herself to surrender to their psychic foreplay.

Her telepathic presence began to invade their mental space. The stage of their bedroom disappeared as the environment turned into a lush green space that embodied spring. Warm, soft grass and blooming flora surrounded them, it was an inviting and beautiful space that embodied a return of life and all the hope it provided.

Jean reached out to hold his hands as they tumbled into one another. That simple touch created a crescendo in their song that brought the music to the forefront of their thoughts.

The shift into the lush oasis added wind to the strings in the song of their love. As their hands joined together, the press of their palms together produced a smooth brass tone that followed their every move.

“We make such beautiful things together,” she whispered between heated kisses. Her praise for their relationship went beyond the effects they created in this place, but it did help create a wondrous representation of who they were when they were together. “To see it and hear it in this way… it’s inspiring.”

Jean kissed him roughly as her desire for him surged and the world around them trembled in response to that passion.

When the ground and very air around them shook in quaking reverence of their passion, Scott opened his eyes and let himself drown in the jade pools that were Jean's eyes. Rays of light came together as brown eyes met green. A full spectrum rainbow ignited around them, more than just the traditional colors, but olive and umber and verdant amber in a palette full of vibrant earth tones.

“I always felt…but could never imagine…” Even in the realm of the mind, Scott found himself breathless. “...you love me like this. We love each other like this.”

Scott swept Jean up in his arms, one hand bracing below her shoulders while the other hand scooped her upper thighs. The ground beneath them melted away, having no more need while they were held aloft as if in a liquid suspension.

“I need you, Jean, my love, my one and only and for all time, forever and again.”

Scott’s hushed tones spoke such adoration while he began ravishing her cheek and neck. Either his thoughts became audible or his words were fully pronounced despite his descent into kissing, but Scott didn't care which. In this place, there were no inhibitions or fatigue or even hesitancy. What the heart wanted, his astral form took. Hands were everywhere at once with no regard for the boundaries of space and time. Scott felt the sensation of caressing her breasts, hips, and back all at once, filling his mind with sensory delight that would have overwhelmed his body. Everything around them became irradiated by miniature arcs of ultraviolet lightning that crackled from their every moan.

“Scott,” She gasped his name despite the lack of breath this place required, but the effect that heated tone conveyed still remained as Jean lost herself to that state of flustered arousal. His touch was everywhere all at once, he held her close yet his hands roamed across every inch of her. Scott had learned how to reach her through their psychic bond, he had discovered how to share his own pleasure with her in their moments of intimacy. But that level of connection took effort and focus on his end that wasn’t required here, the full force of his passion moved through her and across her as easily as it built inside of him. “Your touch is electric, it’s like nothing I’ve ever felt before.”

The earth toned hues that filled the space around them began to blush and glow with the warm tones of a sunrise. Gentle light in pinks and oranges that marked the change to a place of shared passion as it began to rise between them. The music that serenaded them began to relay their building desire, its tone and rhythm became sultry as its moody beat and evocative melody conveyed the intense attraction and allure they held for one another. The world around matched their shared want and it practically begged for more.

“Don’t ever stop.” Jean pleaded with him and Scott felt the pull of her need for him. Hands through his hair and across the length of his back, the parting of her thighs and the hold she had on his heart and soul. They all reached for him and clutched him close to her as her fervid lust for more of him took over. There was such desire and love for him inside of Jean, he had felt that force anytime they shared their intimate thoughts with one another but here, it felt so much bigger and stronger. This was the raw power that had caused her to reach out to him in her darkest hour, this was the hope and strength her love for him created in Jean.

“I’ll never stop,” Scott pledged, still speaking and kissing her body simultaneously. It was so liberating for his thoughts to be given form in this place. Everything he ever felt for Jean was no longer hidden within the corners of his mind, waiting for Jean to search them out. Instead it all was on full display. “I could never stop!”

Intimacy in the body was always a thrill like no other because it slammed their minds together with no daylight between them. The simple act of entering her body with his own was a merger of their separate souls into a single composite one. While Scott’s astral form simulated the shape and form of physical arousal, penetration was more than in the middle. Once Jean accepted him inside of her, each point of contact from their hips to their hands and hips began to blend together like drops of water, roving in and out of one another’s beings with every ounce of ecstasy as with conventional penetration. Their entire bodies became instruments of intercourse, their glowing skin sticking and separating in the exhilarating thrill of being one and yet separate.

“JEAN!” Scott cried out. There was no crescendo to reach, no ascending ladder of pleasure that led to a finale. Each and every movement was a climax, one spike after another in endless orgasmic delight that burned like fire yet cooled like water. Time began to lose all meaning, if it ever had any to begin with, as Scott released all sense of self and lost himself in their turgid sea of togetherness.

Jean had anticipated that knotted tension that came from release but only the pure and unfiltered sensation of pleasure consumed her. It was effortless and infinite in its hold over them and she fell into it along with Scott. Their world ignited in shades of red as they held onto one another and allowed themselves to be swallowed whole in their euphoria.

As a day dreaming teenager, Jean had imagined what their forever in the Astral Plane would be like and this was surely it. Scott was with her and inside of her, his presence was felt but it was a seamless transition between the two of them, they were two halves now whole. There was no more want or need for the other, merely a perfect moment of surreal fulfillment and bliss.

“Scott!” She whispered his name as opposed to his bellowing cry. Jean was humbled and in awe of their shared state of mind, she didn’t know that anything like this was possible to achieve. “I love you, Scott.”

The sound of his name carried on Jean’s voice passed through Scott in neverending reverberating echoes. For all the serenity of the whisper, it still struck him with the force of a gale wind. Jean was so mighty in this place while he was as a ghost, his form existing only by proxy to her own. It would be so easy to unravel, to become as nothing or to float back to his body in the land of the waking, but Scott clung to Jean and the intensity of her being like an electrical cord in its socket.

“I love you, Jean…” Scott’s voice turned to pleading. “Take me!” Their environment fragmented like jigsaw puzzle pieces at the cry of his broken undoing. “Fill me!” His desperate cry ignited the fragmented lines and turned them to a glowing stained glass mosaic, illuminated by his desire to never be apart again. “I want you like this forever and ever!” His face was pulled back an ecstatic grin so wide in its yearning that it was almost painful.

In response to his own wish, Scott stretched his limbs wide and enveloped Jean in a broad bear hug that covered as much of her astral form as he could manage. It was like trying to pin Jell-O to the wall or capture water in a net, but Scott could do no other than to try anyway. Any part of Jean that wasn’t his to have and hold became another object of his desire in the everlasting moment of utter unity.

“You have me.” Her voice was soothing and collected in response to his begging, her presence providing that merciful relief he so desperately sought. Like liquid mercury, Jean filled every crack and seam of the broken puzzle until no gaps remained. The fiery breaks his cries had created were blotted out and only a dark and serene peace remained.

Scott felt her presence intertwined with his own and their togetherness created a feeling of tranquility. The symphony of music had faded away and only the sound of unified breathing remained.

“You will always have me,” Jean’s voice maintained its soft tone as she spoke. Their love could be passion and fire but it could also be a place of comfort and rest. In this place, Jean was Scott’s shelter and his solace. She filled and mended every broken part of him until he was made whole once more. “Forever and again.”

Slowly Jean's mollifying presence saturated Scott's heart of hearts, quelling his ardent desire and sating his otherwise indelible thirst. His whimpers turned to silent quivers which soon pacified into contented sighs.

“Forever and again,” he repeated softly.

What happened if someone fell asleep on the Astral Plane? They were about to find out. Consciousness faded from sublime to subliminal. Perfect peace gently took Scott down from the heights of euphoria to blissful slumber, bypassing wakefulness altogether.

When Scott’s eyes finally opened, a ray of sunshine poked through a slit in the curtain where it hadn't been fully drawn lit up his sleep mask. Scott was still wearing his boxer briefs and his tangled clothes from the ride home were still in a pile on the floor where Jean had left them.

Scott rubbed his head and tried to make his eyes focus. Sleep mask. Right. He sat up and fumbled for any sort of eyewear on what should have been a nightstand drawer. Once he felt the familiar shape of his frames, he pulled off the sleep mask, knuckled the sleep out his closed eyes, and slid the ruby quartz glasses over his face.

As far as hangovers went, he supposed it wasn't terrible. The larger than life experience with Jean still pulsated through his head nearly to the point of throbbing. Had all of that been just a dream? Was that just an alcohol fueled delusion? Scott hadn't been drunk enough in his life to say for sure.

“Jean…” he whispered through mouth so dry that the moisture on his breath made his tongue stick to his bottom lip. Scott had to wiggle his jaw around just to get himself salivating enough to talk. “Where…” Blech! His mouth refused to work properly.

~Jean!~ Scott called out in his mind, giving up on talking until he could splash some water into his mouth. ~Where are you?~

~* ‘I’m in the kitchen’ *~ Jean’s mental response was less than chipper.
~* ‘Waiting for coffee to finish brewing.’ *~

Her own head was throbbing and Jean wished that she was still asleep. But the sun was too bright and the buzz of New York City was too loud. ~* ‘I paid Bobby forty dollars to get us breakfast sandwiches from the bodega and then another fifty to actually go to the community college today.’ *~ Scott could tell she wasn’t proud of her bribery but at the same time the peace and quiet was welcomed.

Jean was leaning against the kitchen counter as the coffee pot brewed. She was wearing her short blue robe but it was tied poorly, creating a deep-v of exposed skin. Her thick hair was pulled up into a messy, unbrushed ponytail and there was a smudge of mascara under her eyes from falling asleep with makeup on. “I feel like hell.”

“Jell-O shots,” Scott said, stumbling into the kitchen. “How many did we have again?” He rubbed his head and chuckled in pain. “I don’t even remember Bobby coming home either. Guess there might be a benefit to having him live here after all.”

Even as he said it, Scott chuckled and covered his mouth for a second. “Man, I must be hung over. Pretend I didn’t say that.” He walked over and hugged Jean from behind. His hands wrapped around her waist above the loose belt of her robe. “Hell or not, I still had a good time with you. Once again, you pulled me into another fun excursion. What would I do without you?”

“Become nothing more than a broody, gloomy, sad sack of a man.” Jean provided that answer a little too quickly and the ease in which she described him made her smile.

Scott pressed a finger into her rib hard enough for her to feel it through her robe and gave a light tickle.

“But you're my broody, gloomy, sad sack of a man.” She leaned into his embrace and shut her eyes as she savored the feeling.

“That’s more like it,” Scott teased, relenting.

“I’m definitely hung over and I’m sure the Astral Plane didn’t help. Next time, I’m going to be sober and hydrated.” Jean laughed a little at her new requirements for venturing into that psychic space. “If anything… sober.”

“Astral Plane…” Scott jolted a little as the full recollection of the event returned to him. “You mean that was real? I thought it was just a wild dream from too many Jell-O shots.” He thought about it a moment as the highlight reel played through his mind. “That was something else. Surprised we’ve never tried that before.” Jean was always exploring new things with him that she gleaned from other people’s fantasies. But then what little he knew of the Astral Plane from the Professor always made it out to be a dangerous place. “Was it… you know… safe?”

“Yes, that was real,” Jean laughed from his surprise. “At least as real as a psychic plane of existence can be.” She wrapped her arms over his own as she held Scott close to her.

“As for why we haven’t done that before… I was shown the Astral Plane as a place for therapeutic purposes. It was where the Professor would take me when we addressed my trauma and where he trained me to better control and understand my telepathy. It just hasn’t been a place that I considered to be… sexual in nature. I think a few too many drinks and suddenly all my ideas became good ones.”

Jean looked up and craned her neck so she could kiss his jawline several times before she continued. “But I guess intimacy has its own restorative qualities. As for if it’s dangerous…” she trailed off for a moment and Scott knew Jean was avoiding the real answer. “It’s not to be taken lightly, especially for someone who isn’t a telepath. It’s easy to get lost in the fantasy of that place, you can create that perfect world for yourself. Any hope or dream becomes reality, combine that with another person, it’s so inviting. But your body is wasting away when you’re in the Astral Plane and you risk getting in so deep that you never find your way out.”

“Not sure if that’s heaven or hell,” Scott quipped. He let out a soft hum of approval as she kissed his neck. “Is that why I feel like death warmed over right now? My body wasted away while we became intimate in every possible way?”

“I think that’s the alcohol too.” Jean teased as her own head throbbed.

Scott rolled his head to one and nibbled along the ridge of Jean’s shoulder while she debated between keeping up her kissing or formulating a response. After feeling his dry, chapped lips, he gave her one last kiss before helping himself to a tall glass of water. “I guess that explains why I feel like I’ve gone 10 rounds with Juggernaut. We can try that again but let’s plan for it.” He gulped down the water and then rolled his neck which seemed to only heighten with tension. “I might be completely useless today.”

“You and me both.” Jean chuckled before turning her attention towards the coffee pot and the brown paper bag holding their breakfast. A large patch of grease had already soaked one of the corners of the bag, making the sandwiches inside the perfect hangover meal. “But that’s okay, we can be useless together.”

She poured them each a cup of coffee and unpacked the bagels that had been stacked with bacon, eggs and cheese. “Bobby is a saint for getting these for us.” Jean set them on plates so they could eat in the dining room together. Sitting down and taking a bite, her whole body slumped in response to how good the sandwich was.

“But yes…” she continued their conversation between bites of breakfast. “The Astral Plane isn’t a place to run off to whenever you can. It has to be respected.” Jean took a sip of coffee before the smile in her eyes became a touch mischievous. “It was pretty good though, wasn’t it?”

“The best.” Scott smirked at her as he bit into his bagel sandwich. His eyes rolled behind his glasses in sheer delight. “It was like this but all over my body.” He chewed his bite and washed it down with coffee. “Although… it wasn’t really my body, was it? Or at least not this one.” He shrugged after considering it for a moment. “Um… you don’t think anybody saw us, do you? We have privacy in the bedroom, but I don’t remember any walls.” Flashbacks of hovering weightlessly in an environment that responded to their every whim and rush of feeling came back to him. “Or even a floor for that matter,” he added with a chuckle. “Still…”

“I’ve never encountered another individual in the Astral Plane that I wasn’t personally aware of.” Jean took a few more bites and as she chewed, Scott could tell she was considering more. “However, the Professor has. There is a man…Amahl Farouk. Something terrible happened between them and Xavier has very intense feelings surrounding him.” She took another sip of her coffee before she continued, the meal was so good it was hard to stop for conversation. “He actually has never directly spoken to me about it, the name and the feelings always appear like a whisper and then he quickly stifles them. We’ve always been very respectful of each other’s personal boundaries so I never dared to ask more, it seemed like an intrusion on something he wanted to keep private. But I know there is a connection to that man and the Astral Plane, an uninvited sort of presence that Xavier appears to be mindful of. He tries to hide it but with time, it has become apparent.”

All of that sounded so ominous and intrusive, especially when considering the intimacy of the feelings they had manifested in a shared experience. “But like I said, I’ve never run into someone watching me or passing through my Astral experiences.”

Despite the ominousness of this Amahl Farouk character, Scott was actually set at ease by all of that. “Maybe it's as private as our dreams. Unless someone actively intrudes, then it's just us.”

Of course, that only referenced the ever-present elephant in the room that Scott hated acknowledging. Someone had invaded his dreams once and he had given her everything.

“Maybe we could… I don't know… practice some kind of defensive measures.” He gave an involuntary shudder. “I don't want to go there with anyone other than you.”

“Of course,” Jean reached out and caressed the length of his forearm in reassurance. “I would like to think you wouldn’t be as susceptible to something like that now. You were vulnerable and in a position where you wanted to trust someone.”

Much like her hand across his arm, Jean caressed the length of the psychic bond between them and Scott felt her gentle touch across his mind. “But I understand never wanting to feel that way ever again. Your defenses are better than most but we can definitely do more together. We both know that diligence is key.”

Scott leaned his head back at the touch of Jean's mind against his own. And he smiled.

“Good to know I'm not totally defenseless,” he said, chin still pointed at the ceiling. “Maybe I'm just feeling insecure. We had a beautiful encounter that most people never get to experience. That should be the highlight, not what might never happen.”

Looking back at Jean, his smile remained. “Looking too far ahead or behind loses the present. I don't want to lose sight of right now because now is pretty good.” He stroked his hand up her arm where he rubbed her shoulder. “Whatever comes next, I just want to spend it with you.” His smile turned dreamy as he took the last two bites of his sandwich. “I should get cleaned up. What are you going to do?”

“I’ll clean up out here and then take a shower.” The kitchen and living room still held the remnants of their night out with scattered cups from Jell-O shots and discarded clothes. Jean was also unusually unkempt with messy hair and yesterday’s makeup.

“Eating also helped my head, so I’m not completely worthless.” She got up from her chair and collected their dirty dishes. Jean leaned down and kissed him briefly. “Go clean up and I’m sure the basketball game will be on shortly. That’s a good way to spend a lazy day.”

“Not a bad idea.” Scott downed the last of his coffee and set it on the counter between the sink and coffee pot. It was possible he may need another cup.

“Love you.” He hugged her from behind again and kissed the back of her head, a happy gesture that filled his nostrils with the scent of her hair.

~I’ll carry that with me~ Scott thought to himself as much as Jean.

“See you in a few,” Scott said after slowly and reluctantly withdrawing from Jean and leaving her alone in the kitchen.

While there was a part of Jean that wanted to abandon everything to run off with Scott there was also that nagging part of her that hated mess and disorganization. He had noticed in those early days when they had washed school dishes together as punishment, Jean was tidy and ordered even then. So the two of them were left to clean the condo and themselves until that annoying tug of unfinished business was gone from the back of her mind.

Jean found Scott lounging on the couch with a cup of coffee in hand. He had opted for reading the paper over watching the television, which was a welcomed change from the constant noise of cable that Bobby desired whenever he was home.

After scrubbing and preening, a fresh faced and much more content Jean came back to the living room. With a cup of coffee in hand, she sat down right next to Scott, making sure to invade as much of his personal space as possible.

“Can I have the World News section, please.” Jean requested that part of the newspaper from him even though his hands were full and the entire paper was within her reach.

“Of course, anything for you, dear.” Scott folded up the selected pages and bonked Jean over the head with it. The action was soft enough that the pages unfurled over her head like a blanket.

“There you go,” Scott said, smirking behind the Opinion page as if he had passed the World News section normally. “Let me know if there’s anything interesting.”

“Hey!” Jean groused from under the shade of the newsprint. She tilted her head back and allowed the paper to slide off. The pages fell apart and fluttered across the couch next to her, making a completely different mess in the living room she had just cleaned.

“I thought we were supposed to be having a lazy day at home?” She had taken his playful approach to handing her the paper as a call to action. Without touching his section of the paper, it was jerked from his hands. The thin paper tore as it was yanked away, leaving Scott to hold only a ripped square of newspaper between his fingers. “You weren’t actually reading that anyway.”

“Just the editorial headlines,” Scott admitted. “It’s all the usual trash. This editor says mutants are a menace. Public opinion is not in our favor.” Scott rolled up the ripped paper in his hands into tiny wads and started pegging Jean with them. “Here’s the rest, dear.”

Though he made no move, Scott physically tensed his body in preparation for any sudden moves Jean might make. When she got frisky, all bets were off. At least she was feeling better, as was he, which was good if they were about to have a war on the couch.

Jean watched as one of the tiny balls of paper hit her in the chest and then bounced off into her fresh cup of coffee. Then the second and then the third wad of paper landed in her cup and a look of disbelief came over her face from the sacrilege Scott had just performed.

“You didn’t just do that?!” Her voice was dripping with annoyed sass as her favorite morning ritual had just been ruined. “That’s it… this is war.”

Jean let go of her cup and it floated to safety as she jumped from her spot on the couch and pounced on Scott. His own cup of lukewarm coffee wasn’t spared from the attack and it splashed down the front of his shirt before Jean crashed into him. She lightly pinched and tickled him as her hands and telekinetic touch roamed across his body making it hard for him to defend against multiple strikes.

“This was supposed to be a lazy day!” Jean scolded him like it was all his fault before she began to giggle from his squirming.

“I mean, for us… this is lazy!” Scott laughed beneath her relentless assault. His hands were quick but couldn’t be everywhere at once, especially when Jean summoned countless phantom fingers to poke, prod, and tickle him on all sides.
“Alright, I surrender!” Scott hollered especially loud when his rib took a particularly hard poke. “Hey! I said I surrender!”

Scott made a mock scowl at Jean while she still had him half pinned. “There is such a thing as Just War, you know. No need to be a war criminal.”

“All’s fair in love and war,” Jean replied with a satisfied and exceptionally smug smile. From her position over him, she carefully leaned down and kissed him. Making sure to keep her back straight and her body separated from his as Scott’s coffee stained shirt was beginning to become cold and wet from the spill that had occurred when Jean pounced on him.

“The real question is what am I going to do with you now that I have you?” Keeping his wrists firmly pinned into the couch, she leaned back a little and sat her full weight on his knees. The distance was great enough that she could examine him as she contemplated her own question.

“You’ve been up for only a couple hours and you’re already a mess.” Jean commented on his stained clothes and slightly mussed appearance, all thanks to her. “I don’t know how much I can trust you with.”

“One hour,” Scott corrected with a smarmy grin. “Only been up for an hour and look at me now. I got bushwhacked by this crazed woman who had her way with me like a Greek nymph. Never stood a chance.” He fought the creeping smirk that fought to overtake his grin. “So have mercy.”

She raised a quizzical brow as she listened to his argument. “So you’re just a helpless victim in all of this?”

Jean placed a hand down the front of her silk camisole and she retrieved several balls of newspaper that had been thrown at her and trapped in her cleavage. The act would have been slightly titillating had it not been for the smugness of her expression. Nothing good came from that look of excessive pride.

“I disagree.” Jean chucked the wads of paper at Scott, each one hitting him in the glasses. “I don’t think you were ambushed at all, I think you provoked this attack. That doesn’t sound like someone who deserves mercy.”

“Blaming the victim,” Scott retorted, his smirk turning sly. “That sounds exactly like something an aggressor would do. I might need to defend myself…”

Scott slid free from her grip with a double wrist roll and seized her by the backside with both hands and took full control of her position. And then he flip around, putting Jean beneath him while he sprawled his knees in the sofa cushions out to keep from slamming her.

“Now this looks promising,” Scott purred from a position that pinned most of Jean's body without forcibly holding her down. “Possibilities, possibilities. Where do I go from here?”

“Turnabout is not fair play.” She feigned a pout but the mirth in her eyes gave away how much fun Jean was having. Both of them were a tad competitive and that desire to get the best of the other often appeared in their flirtations. There was something about the give and take that thrilled her, it was an ebb and flow to their relationship that felt so natural and easy. So when he playfully pinned her to the couch it made her whole body electric over all the possibilities, a little titter of excitement that she was sure Scott could feel too.

“Should I draw you a map?” It was impossible to hide her smirk now, so Jean leaned into tempting him to do more. She squirmed a little against the ruined newspaper that covered the couch beneath her, it crinkled and wrinkled as she moved and her thick red hair fanned out around her. Jean slowly bucked her hips up and into him, the languid pace made it obvious that the motion wasn’t intended to aid in freeing her from his restraint. Instead, she felt Scott’s eyes travel down the length of her body in response to the provocative gesture. The silk camisole and its matching shorts both hiked up a bit, exposing more of her fair skin to him.

“My offer for the map still stands.” Her smirk turned into a grin, partially from her comment but also from his roaming eyes. Despite Scott’s talk she knew she could undo him with only a few words or motions, or even better, a single thought.

“Oh, I don't think I need a…ugh!” Scott groaned when Jean's hips bucked against his in all the right ways. “... map.”

The motion made him start breathing heavy, which drained his wit along with some of the blood from his brain. Even so, he wasn't ready to cave in just yet.

“I know the way from here,” he said, kissing her forehead before moving down to her jawline. “The trailhead starts here. Follow the bend…”

Scott greedily clutched her lips with a fervent kiss. Just one. He wasn't done yet. “...and make a pit stop here.”

Scooting backward, he nuzzled Jean's head back with his nose so he could access her neck free and clear. “Then make a descent toward the heartland, taking slow and easy steps along the way.”

His words were slightly garbled as he spoke them through his nibbling, but even if their pronunciation was off, the meaning was clear. When he reached her collar bone, he doubled back with kisses clear to her chin before circling around to the other side.

“Such a meandering trail is fraught with twists and turns. Gotta move carefully. Tumbling down too fast could lead to a hard crash.” His words were emphasized by a soft caress with both hands that scooped her breasts over the top of her camisole in a gentle but firm fondle which teased what was to come. “Slow…deliberate…steps,” he said, enunciating each word while he slipped more kisses between them back down to her shoulder.

Jean bit her lower lip as she stifled the flush of delight that came over her thanks to Scott’s descriptive and narrative trail of kisses. Tilting her head back and arching into him she offered him more of her gentle curves for his exploration. “Yeah, it sounds like you’ve been here before.”

A soft squeak of delight caught in her throat as he placed his hands on her and she too began to lose some of her coy composure. Out of instinct, Jean reached out and touched him, the game of restraint was quickly being forgotten as things heated between them. She buried her fingers in his hair as his lips traveled across the length of her decolletage, her desire for more caused her to hold him close to her as he pressed careful kiss after careful kiss into her skin.

His thumb thrummed one of her now pert nipples through the silken fabric and it caused Jean to stiffen and inhale sharply in response. “Scott…” There was a touch of delightful agony in the way she gasped his name and he felt how serious her want for him suddenly became. Their playfully banter and his deliberate slow foreplay had caused her passion to roar rather than gradually grow from embers to flame. In other words, he had her exactly where he wanted her.

“I can’t… you… don’t play.” Broken sentences that were ruined by the desire that suddenly ached inside of her. Jean pressed herself into him again in a feeble attempt to bring him into the fire with her.

“No playing,” Scott whispered as he rose up long enough to nibble at her ear. “This is war, remember? And I’m on top.”

From his position, Scott lifted up her camisole and exposed the peachy, cream complexion of her fair skin. It flushed pink near her breasts in arousal, which made him grin in satisfaction. Her already hardening nipples pebbled beneath the breath of his mouth, a sensation Scott exaggerated before taking her into his lips. His thumb encircled the other nipple, preparing it for the same suckling once he had his fill. Jean’s throat trembled and released a shrill cry which was the signal Scott was waiting for to transition. He alternated from one breast to the other, playing Jean’s body like a slow-motion wind instrument and delighted in the sounds she made as much as any musical composition.

~I love to make you feel this way~ Scott expressed into the psychic space they occupied together. ~Because I love you. Your joy and pleasure are my own~

Scott increased the tempo until there was a hitch in Jean’s voice, at which point he resumed his almost agonizingly slow and deliberate patterns. “Should I linger here awhile or should I resume my journey?”

“God damnit, Scott.” Breathy laughter that was loaded with antsy sexual tension filled the room as Jean fussed and fidgeted beneath him. Her whole body was on edge thanks to how riled up she had become. Every inch of her body was begging for more and Jean knew he could feel that hungry frustration that was clawing at her insides.

Last night she had brought Scott into a higher plane of existence, sharing with him what their minds could do together when stripped of every confine. But here, in the physical world where everything was tactical and tangible, Jean was gasping and begging him for more. It was that continuing ebb and flow between them and the gifts they gave to one another.

“I surrender.” She whimpered through her smile and a still present fit of tortured giggles. “I’ll do whatever you want, just keep going.”

Scott shared her giggle for a moment. “Anything for you, my love.”

After shedding their clothing, as it was no longer needed, Scott resumed his slow descent down Jean's body. He wanted a full view of all that he was about to do. Caressing was always better skin to skin as well.

“I like this leg of the journey,” Scott said with mischievous delight. “I call it the threshold.”

Scott swept his hands in concentric circles around her midsection, gently sweeping them to the contours of her body's musculature. His kisses reached her navel, which was another stopping point.

“The savvy traveler will stop here for a moment and make ready for the final plunge.” It was too much fun and Scott didn't want it to end, at least not sooner than was necessary. He gave a lick to Jean's lower abdomen and let it rise back to her navel. “Of course, I'm a savvy traveler, so we already know where I'm goingto do, don't we?”, don’t we?”

“Yes!” Jean shouted the word before she retreated into giggles again. Her frustrated need for more and Scott’s playful tease had her squirming beneath him. The flat plane of her stomach and the soft skin of her thighs brushed against Scott in brief caresses and strokes as she fidgeted in anticipation. He felt her joy as he listened to her laughter, it was a rosy feeling that glowed and gently warmed him rather than passion that burned hot or happiness that beamed. Scott filled her with a specific type of elation that fed her soul.

Jean’s giggles stopped and she took a deep, centering breath and he felt her focus on that joy rather than the humor. It made her features soften and she reached out to caress his check.

“I love you, Scott.” Her tone was filled with that same glow and sincerity. “And I am so excited to become your wife.”

“That was the plan.” Scott gave a mischievous grin. “Getting you excited.” But that boyish charm was eroded in the glow of the heartfelt joy in Jean’s expression. “I can’t wait to make you my wife.” He kissed her face. “My actual wife.” He kissed the other side of her face. “My forever wife.”

The next kiss was on her mouth, delayed with smoldering intent that peaked along with his state of arousal. Scott’s hands braced Jean by the hips and lowered himself between her waiting thighs. There was a moment’s hesitation when the tip split her apart, a bittersweet pang of pleasure amidst the intense pressure. With the key having turned the lock, Scott returned back to their loving embrace.

“I’ve got to be honest,” Scott said, taking a breath. “That part always gets me.”

Jean held her breath for a brief moment as her body welcomed him and she merely nodded her head in agreement at first. “Forever and again.”

When he pressed their lips together again, Scott also pressed the same sentiment into their shared space. ~You always get me. No matter what we do, we always end up here because there’s nowhere else I’d rather be~

Scott felt her body, mind, and heart bloom for him as they entwined in that flawless and divine way. That sensation of joy began to burn with that tried and true passion that developed between them.

~* ‘Everything else just melts away and all that’s left is you and how perfect this is’ *~ Jean’s kisses became torrid as any space between them shrank. ~* ‘We are each other’s missing piece. That’s why we always come back to this. You make me whole, Scott.’ *~

Every fiber of Scott’s being resonated in full affirmation of Jean’s thoughts. It was ricocheted and recoiled throughout his body and soul, eliciting a maudlin moan. “Uh huh…”

~I need you~ Scott confessed as he pressed a slow, hard thrust against her hips. The sensation sent a shockwave through him hard enough to make him wince in pleasure. ~I’m so lost without you~

It was a sentiment that brought him to the brink of emotional overload. As physically aroused as he was in the moment, it was Jean’s timeless love that drew him out of this world and let him touch eternity with her. The fingers of her powerful mind that held him in thrall were strong yet gentle and soothing like the bowers of a mighty oak tree that sheltered him with shade from the elements. Her passion consumed yet invigorated him. All he could do was reciprocate with all that he had to give.

~I’ll never let you go~ The angle of the next thrust went deeper and gave Scott pause while his vision unblurred. Once he at least partially returned to himself, Scott quickened the pace to make up for lost time. This new position was too gratifying for them both to take it slow any longer. “Jean…” he whispered, finding himself at a loss for words to say anything else.

“Scott,” she murmured his name in that breathy, soft tone he only heard in the bedroom. It was the voice she used when Jean hinged on being breathless, when pleasure took over and it became the only sensation that fueled her.

She reached out for him as she teetered on the edge of the divine. A touch of desperation in the way Jean held onto him and he could feel that powerful tension that pulled and knotted her with the promise of release. She lifted her hips up to meet him and Scott felt an almost electric shutter pass through her as everything he did perfectly aligned for Jean.

She craned her neck so that she could kiss Scott as her body practically screamed at him to maintain his steadfast pace. The desperate press of her lips to his made the moment all the more sensual. And Jean began to moan and whimper from the early stages of climax.

As Jean began to fray and fall, she reached out and psychically caressed and stroked him across their bond. Like fingers against his manhood, it was a simple but effective touch that heightened and pulled his pleasure out and to the forefront.

Returning her kiss, Scott let his heart rise up and flow through his lips into Jean’s, forming an electrical circuit between them. Everything intensified, from the intimate squeeze that synchronized with his thrusting to the burning flame in the pit of his stomach that compelled him to scream her name.

She plummeted into that ocean of euphoria that their coupling provided. Jean moaned and as her pleasure continued to build the sounds turned into guttural groans of earthshaking delight.

“Jean!” Try as he might to hold out and prolong the experience, the penetrating touch of Jean’s mind into his own sent Scott over the edge. Vivid flashbacks of their time on the Astral Plane seized his mind with total recall. His body erupted in pins and needles along with a brain freeze, a tingling sensation that bordered on burning if not for the extreme burst of pleasure that shot out from every nerve ending of his body. “Ohhhhhhh, fuuuuck!”

Before he knew it, Scott was laying atop of Jean, his body pressed against hers in near dead weight. His lungs were gasping for air in deep heaves. Despite the little death they had just experienced together, Scott had never felt more alive. “Pardon my French… but wow.”

“Yes, how dare you...” Jean’s laughter returned and that almost sacred combination of joy, happiness, love, and satisfaction filled her heart and every space they shared. “Using such crass language.”

She kissed him with a ferocity that came from that lingering heated passion that remained between them. Jean nipped and tugged on his lower lip in between deep kisses that tempted him to give chase and follow her. “You’re practically a sexual deviant.”

“Incorrigible,” Scott said in a mock admission. “Insatiable, too.” The way Jean tugged on his lip rekindled the fire within him. He felt the same flare between his legs as a few moments ago. Still positioned, he began rocking gently while indulging in the smoldering kisses that Jean pulled from him. Heat and warmth surrounded him as a fresh surge of vigor sent him back to plumbing Jean’s depths.

~What you do to me…~ It felt so good that Scott couldn’t even finish his thought. The sheer delight that emanated from Jean was a heat lamp that warmed him from the inside out. Her laughing voice and twinkling eyes enveloped him in an impenetrable shelter of her love. Combining his essence with her own, it became their love, a joint environment that shielded and nourished them both in ways that would starve them to go without.

Jean murmured in approval as they returned to that heated place. The moment had barely cooled and now it was rapidly escalating back to that place where words ran dry and their bodies sang. Jean tugged on his hair to roughly pull his head to the side, the gesture exposed the side of his neck to her to kiss and nip at.

“Oh, feel what you do to me…” Scott propped himself back up with his elbows and lifted his head high while he started pushing a fresh, accelerated rhythm.

Jean’s body scooted across the cushions a few inches at a time with each hard thrust until she lay draped over the arm of the sofa. The sight of her body splayed out in full sensual display only hardened Scott’s resolve, as did the encouraging cries from Jean that kept Scott from slowing. Both of his hands were bracing Jean’s hips, but one of them slid up her body and down her abdomen. With her head dangling nearly upside down, Scott secured Jean with another hand planted firmly on her chest which Scott used to anchor her in place and prevent her body from sliding any further. That didn’t stop the sofa from sliding, though.

Jean’s hand found the arm of the couch and she held onto it as the vigor of Scott’s pace continued to rise. Her grip continued to hold her in place as the couch begrudgingly moved across the living room. Things had been sweet and lighthearted between them but now tensions were lust filled and fiery. With each deep and heavy thrust, Jean’s body shuttered upon impact. Those little tremors from when their bodies collided created a slight jiggle to all the soft curves of her body, creating another lewd but delicious display to encourage his rough rhythm.

“God damn, Scott…” With each crash into her, Jean moaned in a way that was positively pornographic and he watched as her brow knitted in worried delight. Passion that burned white hot emitted off of her psyche as things became so lascivious between them that Jean almost felt like she would be incinerated by it.

Scott grit his teeth at Jean’s moaning. The sound drove him utterly wild and quickened his thrusting all the more. Passion consumed him from the inside out as he absorbed the radiant psychic emissions that Jean blasted upon him. If this had been the first round, he would have been finished then and there. Instead it just ignited an even greater desire within Scott to be as close to Jean as possible.

“I have to have you!” Surging more than before, Scott leaned his hips back to nearly withdraw from their union only to position himself for harder penetration. He withdrew almost entirely and reinserted to full depth with every stroke, each one faster than the last. The near straddle position allowed him to stoop lower and feast on Jean’s exposed curves. With all the rapid bouncing, Scott was unable to take a firm hold of anything for special attention as he had before in his deliberate travels. He was more than happy to kiss, nip, and nuzzle what did bounce near enough to his face.

The earlier hunger for intimate connection became thoroughly mixed with pure libidinous lust to the point that Scott failed to notice the next climax’s approach. Losing himself in Jean in both body and soul made him aware of nothing other than her. And so another climax snuck up on him in a sudden ambush that made him cry out in surprise as much as ecstasy.

Jean squeezed her eyes shut as a flush of heat and pleasure moved through her. Her moans turned into lurid whimpers of ecstasy as Scott watched her succumb to the tiny death his urgent efforts provided. That blazing, euphoric state of her mind mixed with his sex drive and combined in a crash of pleasure that matched with their fervid lovemaking.

“Oh, Jean!” His head threw back as far his spine would allow, making his Adam’s apple bulge taut and dip as he gasped for air, letting his hips continue to fly of their own accord.

Jean reveled in his hard and sudden demise into that well of pleasure. Scott went off like a pistol and the aftermath was a haze of lust and euphoria that made them forget that the world outside of one another existed. His furious pace lost any semblance of rhythm as they lost themselves in each other and that perfect place they always sought was reached once more. In the Astral Plane, that moment of pleasure and oneness was achieved by thought alone. Here, it took effort and focus to find that high.

Jean had to admit that the exertion and mess that the physical world required inorder to achieve the divine had its own charm and appeal. Their heavy breathing and the sweat of their bodies, the gasps and moans of climax, the feel of his body against and inside her own, all of it was its own beautiful experience.

As Scott slowed and fatigue took over, Jean grasped him by the forearms and pulled him into her. One last final crash of his body into her own as their passion cooled and they basked in its afterglow. That last jerk and shift of weight seemed to be the final straw for the poor couch that lay beneath them. The legs under Jean cracked and snapped causing them to tumble back into an awkward slant.

Jean yelped in surprise from the short fall before she began to laugh at the harmless destruction they had caused. “I wanted to buy a new couch anyways.”

“Is the floor okay?” Scott asked the question in as serious of a tone as possible, but once the words were out, he started laughing at the ridiculousness of it all. “I didn’t like this couch anyway. We need to get one of those new reclining ones… or a fancy sectional.” He winked at her in the way that made his cheek dance so that she could see it behind his ruby glasses. “Sturdier and will stay where we put it.”

Despite the shambles of the furniture piece, Scott leaned in to kiss Jean to hold onto the lingering passion of the moment. No number of broken couches could steal the magic of the moment they had made together. If anything, the laughter between them only sweetened the cuddle kisses.

Jean held him close in a tight embrace as she matched every kiss he adorned her with. The way that they loved one another was so dynamic and diverse. Their love was comfort and empowerment, it could soothe their hurt and make them laugh until they cried, it was the support and the home they wanted and needed from one another.

Today she found joy in their intimacy, waves of laughter and playful banter that reminded Jean of when they were younger. To still find that happiness despite the adversity that challenged them meant the world to Jean and helped confirm how right they were for one another.

“I love you,” Jean looked up at him with that adoring gaze. “You and your filthy mouth.”

“You have a point there.” Scott gave her a mischievous smirk. “You never know where this mouth has been.” Despite his attempted deadpan delivery, he couldn’t hold back a laugh. Jean knew better than anyone where his mouth had been. Teasing her with innuendo was almost as good as going through with the act. “So was today lazy enough for you? If we keep it up, I might need a day off from our day off.”

“I don’t know if I would classify this as lazy, especially since the chore of buying a new couch has been added to our day.” She glanced down at their naked bodies pressed together. “But it is the inevitable event that fills our time.”

Jean tilted her head to the side and began to kiss and nuzzle the side of his neck. The warmth of her breath and the tickle of her lashes against his skin added to the sweetly administered affection. “Not that I mind, I meant it when I said I could do this again and again.”

“I was going to ask what you meant by ‘inevitable’...” Scott drew the word out with a light growl as Jean lavished his neck. “... but I think I figured it out.” While she kissed along his neck, he lost himself in the locks of her red hair and let her natural scent mixed with her shampoo and perfume carry him away.

After a moment, Scott chuckled. “I wonder if Bobby will notice the new couch. Maybe it will even be the final hint for him to take a spot next door.”

“We’ll just have to put the crib right next to his bed, then he’ll figure it out.” Jean chuckled, “We shouldn’t tease, you know he’s here because he’s lonely, he loves us.”

Jean’s kisses traveled down his shoulder before making their way back up his neck. Her lips lingered a little longer each time they made contact with his skin

“I can’t help but feel torn about it. I want to take care of him and help him recover. But I also want this place to ourselves, so I can have you to myself.” The graze of her teeth and the playful brush of the tip of her tongue began to appear in each slow kiss she placed on his neck. “So I can do this whenever I want to.”

“Yes, please do that whenever you want to…” Scott felt his breath quicken again. “Bobby can spend time with us. He just needs to go home at night. Maybe we can get him one of those Nintendos. Would that be bad?” He let out a mischievous chuckle before turning it to a soft moan. “That. Keep doing that.”

Scott turned his head to the side, giving Jean full access to have her way with him as she always did. It was a common pattern with them, turning submissive and yielding after being forward and dominant. Jean was returning what he had given in another link in their chain of love. “Seriously…” His speech turned dusky. “That’s really nice. Don’t…” His words were cut off by a mild shudder that shook his entire body. “Yeah…”

She giggled against his skin as a touch of coy delight resonated through her. Jean reached out and cradled his head in her hand as she held him close to her. She gently pressed him into her kisses, making it easier for her to nuzzle and nibble on his throat as each kiss grew fervid in its administration.

“I can’t stop,” Jean cooed between kisses, “because I can’t get enough of you.”

She traveled to the shell of his ear where the warmth of her breath and kisses that tickled until he shivered were provided over and over again. “I want to do this to every inch of your body,” Jean whispered the words in a feather soft voice. “Let me have you.”

“You have me…” Scott whispered, already under Jean’s spell. The surge of sudden arousal against her body only confirmed what she already knew. Scott was hers and there were no two ways about it. “Take me, Jean.” The words were almost a whimper as Scott languished under the tantalizing touch of Jean’s lips and the flutter of the tone that always drove him crazy.

~I surrender~ There was no use even play fighting it. Whenever this mood came over Jean, he was as good as gone under her sway. Trying to tease her back was futile. Instead he just smiled and let himself absorb her loving, winsome psychic ambiance as she had her way with him.

With a gentle push on his shoulders, Jean guided Scott into a state of repose against the now lopsided couch. He rested in a state of recline as she leaned over him with a provocative smile on her face. Jean’s delight in his bewitched state was almost tangible, it added to the smoldering anticipation that was building between them.

Jean kissed across the length of his shoulder but rather than move across his chest she kissed a trail down his bicep. Her lips lingered on the crook of his elbow, her breath a little warmer across the sensitive skin before she made her way down the length of her forearm until she reached his hand. Once there, Jean kissed his palm and the tip of each of fingers. Each press of her lips was slow and deliberate as she allowed him to savor the soft and delicate sensation of her kisses.

With another device smirk, Jean examined his hand before she took his index finger into her mouth. Slowly sucking on the digit, Jean’s cheeks hollowed from the action and it reminded him of how good she could be. She enjoyed watching him come undone from such simple little action, the steadfast and stoic Cyclops diminished to whimpers thanks to her touch. So Jean looked up at him as she slowly sucked on his finger. Hooded bedroom eyes found his own as she gazed up at him and Scott felt more delight from Jean, a rousing little thrill that mingled with his almost throbbing want.

~I know what you’re doing~ Scott had to think instead of speaking because his throaty chuckle would’ve made his words unintelligible. ~And I am totally okay with it~

His breathing intensified as his self-control was put to the test. Jean loved to rev his engine to the breaking point. Letting her amp him up was all part of the dance. If he gave in to the impulses that she was systematically triggering in him, it would only spoil the fun.

“God damn it, Jean…” Scott gasped in desire. That normally sweet, silver tongue of hers was proving positively wicked. The mental barrage of what else Jean could do with it wasn’t helping matters either. Scott closed his eyes and let the burning desire consume him.

Jean felt him surrender to her temptations as his breathing grew ragged and every little thrill provoked a gasp or groan from Scott. She found his demise to be alluring, the way his adam’s apple bobbed from a heavy swallow, how his touch became urgent and needful, how his mind was inundated with thoughts of her. All of it made her own body slick and heated in response.

Abandoning his finger, Jean made her way down the more expected trail of the length of his torso. She was tempted to linger and tease him with even more slow kisses and heavy petting but it was getting harder and harder to resist what both of their bodies were begging them to do.

Instead of baiting him further, Jean claimed him. The soft touch of her tongue and the warmth of her mouth enveloped him. The act had an electrifying effect on both of them and Jean felt the heat of lust that flooded his mind and thickened his body. She allowed him to savor the sensation for a moment, to allow the dirty thoughts that passed through his mind to still and fixate on the physical pleasure being provided. Once he calmed and focused, Jean’s head began to slowly bob as she found a meticulously slow pace to pleasure him with.

Scott’s entire body seized for a brief instant when Jean first made contact with his full state of arousal. As flustered as he had been by her trail of kisses and loving if teasing caresses, there was no preparing himself for the flood of beautiful agony that came from all of his anticipatory longing which came to a head. He practically panted at the twirling of her tongue, sliding against the subtle ridges and contours of his swollen tip.

When her head began to bob, Scott rested his hands on either side, clutching rather than guiding as they went along for the ride. His fingers tangled in her hair just as her tongue had entangled him. The slick sounds from the gradual, measured pace of her slowly ascending and descending mouth failed to convey the utter rapture of she had broken open with him. His hips flexed wide, triggering his pelvic muscles to tense and then release, thickening his already rigid erection.

“Jean…” Scott’s voice whispered so shrill it was almost a hiss of unspeakable pleasure. His head lulled back as his mouth fell open and hung there, his chin quivering ever so slightly.

~That feels amazing~ Scott struggled for words as he often did when Jean dismantled him in the best way. He still needed her to know. ~You’re so good to me. I love you so much!~

A quiver of approval rippled through Jean as his praise and adoration were both whispered and shouted. She was taking Scott step after measured step up towards his apex, a journey she delighted in providing thanks to the commendations of his body and mind. To watch and feel him revel in what she gave him, it made her ache for more.

Jean increased her pace to one that was often found in the early stages of their lovemaking, a cadence that made them both moan in delight before they lost themselves to the throes of passion. Scott’s whole body flexed and tensed from the change and he unintentionally lifted his hips up and into her in response to the building pleasure. His whole body screamed for more as Scott fell apart at the seams. When this pace became too much for him and his finger began to grip rather than merely hold her head, Jean eased up and off of him. The pause in oral pleasure allowed his blood to cool enough before he completely lost himself and it gave them more time to reach their climax together.

Sitting up and straddling his hips, Jean aligned herself with his now unbridled arousal. Placing her hands on his shoulders, she slowly lowered herself onto him and listened from that telltale gasp that always followed with their coupling.

~* ‘I love that sound,’ *~ Jean mused as she returned to kissing his chest and neck. The tease of it was over now and there was a fervent appetite in the way she kissed him. ~* ‘It’s the sound of the beginning of your demise.’ *~

~And my rebirth~ Scott said, drinking passion from her lips all that she offered him. ~I feel reborn whenever we’re together~

Another involuntary shift of his hips forced himself deeper into Jean. Though unintended, he wasn’t sorry. ~I lose control with you~ It was a confession mixed with adoration.

Control was an important component of Scott’s life. From his disciplined lifestyle as the original leader of the X-Men to the extremely essential protective personal equipment he was obligated to wear on his face at all times, there was no aspect to his life where control could not be paramount – except for Jean.

~I like it~ Scott further admitted. ~I always let go and you’re still here~

Scott pulled Jean’s head and shoulders down to kiss him while her hips remained sprawled across his. The angular position forced pressure on the both of them, turning Scott’s kisses into gasps. Still he didn’t release her lips from his. They were hungry for one another’s touch. No break would be allowed. There was only the raw power of their connection and the desperate need for each other that flowed between it.

~* ‘Yes, let go’ *~ That rising need for him created a touch of desperation in her agreement with his words. Jean rolled her hips and slick friction developed between them. The sensation made her moan into their kiss and her whole body trembled from the pleasure it created.

~* ‘It feels so good when you do.’ *~ Jean continued to roll and buck her hips as passion took over and their bodies agreed on the cadence they both needed in this moment. Each kiss deepened and their hands grew hungry and urgent for one another as that fire of passion began to blaze between them.

~I can’t… Jean, I can’t stop~ It was more than a warning that she was shoving him over the edge like a coursing river drops off a waterfall. Scott abandoned all pretense of any resistance whatsoever. He had given himself wholly over to Jean and the love they shared. They were complete together only because he was an imperfect man who needed her. With their love combined, and consequently their bodies following suit in a warm, flesh-pressed union, there was nothing they could not do.

Except, in Scott’s case, to hold on any longer.

“God… fucking… damn it!” Scott barely got the words out before he roared so loud it cracked his vocal chords. His roving hands stopped wherever they had been roaming and white-knuckled Jean’s undulating body as she continued to pump him for all he was worth. “Oh, Jean!” His voice had turned raspy from the strain but the passion resonated all the same.

~Don’t stop!~ his thoughts pleaded, even though the unrelenting pleasure was blowing out his body’s proprioception. ~Just don’t stop!~

~* ‘Never’ *~ Jean practically growled the words as her own pleasure threatened to claim her. The heated release and the disorienting bliss that surged through him only fed her own fire. She abandoned the measured approach she had followed when she tempted him with her mouth.

Her desire shifted from giving to taking in that moment and Scott felt her presence as it washed over him and filled him. His mental self felt small when compared to the powerful force that Jean could be. She consumed him with that aching need that turned her ravenous.

Jean took his idle hand and directed it to their union in a simple request for him to touch her as her feverish rhythm continued. The feeling of his finger across her elicited a throaty moan of approval from Jean and further spurred her hungry quest for climax. With a shift of her hips and small change in position, Jean moved over him until he had to look up inorder to kiss her.

Things became rough and fast paced after that and Scott felt every knot of tension as it tightened and built inside of Jean. Between kissing him and the groans of delight that caught in her throat, Jean became a hellcat determined to achieve that euphoric high that only their coupling provided. Everything finally came crashing down when her wave of pleasure drowned them both in a sea sublime release. Scott felt her whole body jerk and tremble from the force in which her climax overcame her.

Scott felt tossed about in a churning torrent, and there wasn’t anywhere else he would rather be. The vague awareness that guided him to push Jean to her peak and beyond drew his mind out of the disorientation of euphoria into a laser-focused even if staggering view of Jean reaching her climax. The unbridled jostling of her body’s curves and mounds matched pitch with her keening cries of ecstasy, all which joined together with the supernova of the fiery passion within her deepest inner mind to sweep him away. It was a sublime experience that pulled him past the event horizon, not just an active observer but a participant who became swept into Jean’s ascendant pleasure which could have overwritten his own psyche if Jean had had the ill intent. Instead her only desire was for his well-being, to know him and feel him, and for them to be as one.

As a result, the surpassing passion that pulled Scott into the wake of Jean’s climax rebounded back to him and through him. A sudden surge brought him to peak arousal once more only for an immediate release after what felt like seconds stretched into eternity. Scott couldn’t even cry out. His entire body gave a twitch while his mouth opened in a silent rictus of utter bliss. The rollercoaster of lustful desire and consummate connection left Scott flat on his back, spread eagle in the even more shambled couch, fighting for his breath.

~I don’t even know where I am right now~ Scott confessed in their shared psychic space with a joyful bemusement between them. After rocking his world and beyond, there was nothing left but drifting in happy serenity. The dopey, vacant grin on his face said as much even without the benefit of knowing his mind. ~Wherever we are, I’m glad to be with you~

~* ‘You’re on an incredibly broken couch.’ *~ Jean momentarily glanced at yet another broken couch leg, leaving only one remaining. The awkward tilt of the couch was even more obvious now. But she ignored the terrible state of the furniture, choosing to bask in the happiness that followed after they had shared and spent themselves with one another. Jean crumbled against him and into his arms as her heavy breathing began to still and the fluster from their exertions started to cool. ~* ‘But I’m glad to be here with you too.’ *~

She kissed him with a degree of gentleness that was in stark contrast to the rough and deep kisses that passion had inspired. The warm and mild feeling of spring returned to Jean’s psyche, making her that inviting and comforting presence that Scott usually felt when they were together. “I know it goes without saying but I’m happy. Happy to be here, with you. The life we’re making together makes me happy.”

“It’s literally a dream come true,” Scott agreed as he shared a long, soft kiss of his own. “Everything I ever wanted…”

The final leg of the couch finally snapped under the lateral strain of being the last one standing. At least it was a short fall to the floor. Scott held Jean tightly against him to brace her from the impact. The jolt that passed through them was titillating in its own way, a sudden unexpected thrill.

“... and then some!” Scott started laughing at the total destruction of the furniture piece before kissing her head again. “I’ll break a couch with you any day, my love.”

There was a banging on the door. "Hey, X-Factor!" It was Johnny Storm from upstairs. "Help me out! I've been robbed!"

Scott and Jean exchanged mischievous looks. Lazy day, they'd ready agreed. Without a word, they crept back to their bedroom and left Johnny unanswered.