"I wanna get lost in some corner booth
Cantina Mexico
I wanna dance to the static of an A.M. radio
I wanna wrap the moon around us and lay beside you skin on skin
Make love 'til the sun comes up, 'til the sun goes down again
'Cause I need you

Like a needle needs a vein
Like my Uncle Joe in Oklahoma needs the rain
I need you
Like a lighthouse on the coast
Like the father and the son need the holy ghost
I need you." (I Need You- Tim McGraw feat. Faith Hill)

For the first time in days, Maia felt alive. Logan's arms were wrapped tightly around her as he carried her to their boathouse like a caveman, and it was the most perfect thing she could imagine. "You don't have to be so caught up on my age anyway." She whispered into his ear, "We're Canadian, and the age of consent in Canada is sixteen. Every bit of what we did back then was legal." Maia sunk her teeth into his neck as he fumbled to open the door, only releasing to suck on the skin she'd bitten, overly satisfied by his pained groan.

"Son of a bitch!" He exclaimed, "You can't do shit like that!" He was panting now, still struggling with the key in the lock.

"Why not?" Maia asked coyly, taking the key from him and unlocking the door. He'd more than likely been seconds from breaking the thing down, but it needed to stay between them and the rest of the world.

Logan just took her straight to the bed, and laid her down. "You're mine."

Maia smiled up at him, bracing her hands on his shoulders, "Always." She pulled him down and into another kiss. Logan moved from her lips after a few minutes to kiss down her neck, "I could have gone home weeks ago. The Professor offered to let me go back to Valleyview, said I could pose as a niece or something so no one would question, but I told him no." He paused over her collarbone, waiting for her to continue. She was more than willing to oblige the man, "I couldn't leave. And it wasn't even about being away from people looking for Laura or accidentally hurting my mother. You've been it, Logan, since the moment they threw me to you and you chose not to eat me. I didn't fit in at home. Not in my family, not in my stupid little town where my peers would rather get run over than listen to me. I never fit in until I was with you. We fit. You and me. The two of us and Laura."

Logan kissed her lips again, "Of course. I've got my head out of my ass now."

They began scrambling with their clothes, and at some point in the scuffle, Maia got dizzy and nearly careened off the side of the bed, "Shit!"

Logan caught her though, his hand warm under her arm, "Easy. You okay?"

She nodded, moving her hands up the arm that he'd grabbed her with, "Yeah, just a little ungrounded."

"Your eyes?"

Maia nodded again, "Everything is blurry as hell, makes balance hard when you're heart's racing. But that's okay. I'm okay. Just grab me again if I get too far off track." She all but attacked Logan, with such ferocity and force in her kiss that she barely recognized herself, and slammed him up against the headboard so hard that the painting hanging behind them rattled, settling herself into his lap, completely naked save for the tank top she'd been wearing instead of a bra under her hoodie.

He gave a low grunt of surprise against her mouth, but didn't pull away, and her hands held on to his open button down to hold him in place. Her kisses were harsh and biting, like she wanted to devour him, with just enough teeth to make him moan.

Possess. Consume. Make him hers. Let him know who he belonged to. It repeated over and over like a mantra in her head, as if she was a madwoman. Maybe she was. Maybe that's what he'd turned her into over all the missing years, because somehow, now, having him with her here like this isn't enough. She wanted him to belong to her.

After a moment, Logan pulled away, breathless. "The hell you doin'?"

"Reminding you," Maia hissed back, before capturing his lips in another searing kiss and running her fingers through his thick hair.

"Of what?" he managed between kisses, sounding amused. She didn't mean this to be funny.

As if to prove it, Maia bit down on his lower lip – hard. Logan groaned, and moments later she tasted a hint of metallic blood trickling into their kiss. It coated her lips, the tangling of their tongues, and only drove her on, until the pulsing between her legs was unbearable. She'd never been this rough before; never even wanted to. But it'd been too long, too many years apart, too many years terrified that what she is about to willingly give to him was going to be taken unwillingly by someone else. That's the root of it, she connected distantly: She didn't feel like she was in control of her own body anymore, and this was her taking control back.

She finally pulled away, wishing more than anything that he was more than a Logan colored blur. With his healing, his lip wouldn't still be bleeding, but she could imagine crimson droplets blooming where her teeth had punctured his skin. She could imagine his pupils dilated with desire, eyes full of bewilderment.

He reached up with one hand to dab the blood away from her lip, and Maia finished her earlier statement with a dark sort of pride coursing through her veins, "That you're mine."

"Christ, Maia," he practically whimpered, the sound of her name pulled from his lips sounds like a prayer.

She moaned in need, hand searching below his waist and finally wrapping around him, making him groan. And God had she missed that sound most of all, of L, her Wild Man, falling apart just by what she did with her hands and lips and tongue.

His fingers inched inside of her, going slow, gentle, and it was simultaneously the most agonizing and pleasurable experience of her life, feeling his long, nimble fingers move in a way he has to distantly remember she loves. She came in no time, panting at her first release in nearly a decade.

"I missed you," she said breathlessly. "I don't know how I survived a day without you."

"I'm not sure how I went so long without you either," Logan whispered

"From now on you'll never be alone again." Maia told him. She couldn't help but kiss him at that, sure he was tasting tears, but he didn't seem to care as he kissed her back with equal fervor.

"Neither will you." He murmured in her ear, wiping away her tears, "Promise."

Maia smiled at him and said, "Promise me something else?"

"Anything."

Sitting up, she pulled her tank top over her head, and she felt his warm hands slide up her hips to splay just under her breasts. "Promise me we won't stop until we pass out."

Logan chuckled darkly, and it was the most beautiful sound in the world to Maia. He was probably smiling, which was possibly what she'd missed the most in the last nine odd years, because his eyes would light up and the corners of his mouth upturn and his nose would scrunch a little, and damn if that didn't totally do it for her too. His smiles were so rare, but she could imagine he was smiling now, "Well, darlin', you'll have your work cut out for you if that's what you've got planned. I'm known for my recovery time."

Maia grinned maliciously, raking her fingernails down his chest, "Well, good thing I've got the advantage of remembering exactly what you like."

It took them a while to properly find their rhythm, but when they did it was total bliss, feeling Logan inside her as he trembled towards his first, second, and then third orgasms. She marked his arms and back with the half-moon indentations of her fingernails, lightly bit the inside of his thigh and when he took her for the third time that night her teeth sunk into the flesh of his shoulder and she thanked her lucky stars that his stamina had not been underestimated at all…by either of them.

He won.

By the time the morning light spread across the room into her eyes, Maia was completely spent. "Damn."

He stroked a hand up and down her arm, his chest rumbling with a self satisfied noise under her head. "You remembered quite a bit, but…"

"You have the refractory period of a teenager." Maia finished for him, reaching down for the blanket she could feel lingering somewhere near her thigh. Logan stopped her from pulling it up with a hand on her arm, and Maia groaned, "Seriously, not even you can recover…"

He splayed a hand over her lower stomach, silencing her words. She knew what he was looking at, could remember the way her scars shimmered in light, in the light of a sunrise they'd be almost beautiful. "I hadn't noticed these." He said, voice soft. In the dark he'd kissed the raised scar from the bullet wound, brushed his fingers gently over the still healing scar from her feeding tube, and laved his tongue across the raised ridge his claw had etched into her body, but, without light, the other scars were easy to miss.

"Stretch marks." Maia supplied, putting her right hand over his, slotting her fingers between his as she looked up at his face. Even though she could only tell hair from skin, she could imagine the wrecked expression he probably had on his face. "I carried her inside of me for nine months, there were going to be marks regardless of how she ended up being born." Maia snuggled closer to him, tucking her face into his chest, "I used to look at them to remind myself that she'd existed. You can't hallucinate stretch marks."

"You're beautiful."

"So are you." Maia said with a small giggle, "You and all your hair and rock hard muscles."

"Not sure anyone else would have the balls to call me beautiful." He replied, urging their joined hands to the blanket and pulled it up over them, "You need to sleep."

Maia shrugged, "So do you, even if Little Logan thinks otherwise."

"Did you just…"

"Call your dick 'Little Logan'? Yup, I did. You can punish me for that later, sleep now, right?" Maia closed her eyes and held his hand tight.

Logan pressed a kiss to her forehead, "Right."

They settled into sleep, and for the first time in a long time, they both slept peacefully. Maia had odd dreams though, but by the time she sat up in bed, they'd fled her mind. Logan was sitting up already, and something metal clicked off to the side of the bed, "What's that?"

"Phone." He said shortly, "The Furball got a lead. We're heading to Mexico. Ever been?"

Maia shook her head, "Nope. As far as I know, I'd never left Canada until I was brought here. Laura?"

"Some murders. Victims were torn apart by blades."

"Oh." Maia said numbly. "I'm gonna need a shirt."

"You're staying here." He growled.

Maia made an impressive show of standing up from the bed without face planting into the floor or the nightstand. "Like hell are you going after our daughter without me. I'm coming. With or without your help."

"You're crazy." Logan muttered, sweeping her naked body off her feet so he could kiss the hell out of her. He let her go with a groan, "Shit, stay here while I get you some clothes."

As it turned out, Maia and airplanes didn't mix…at all. Logan held her hair back while she vomited up the food he'd fed her before they'd piled into the plane with Rogue, Scott, and Jean, and she was so disoriented and nauseous she barely knew her own name. By the time they got to Mexico, Maia was completely exhausted. Jean fussed over her as they settled into the motel Scott had acquired, "You need to rest, Maia. We're going to go see what we can find. If any of us find anything solid, we'll come get you."

Maia laughed weakly, her head spinning and stomach clenching, "Least you brought the glasses. I can almost see to read billboards with them on."

Jean ruffled her hair gently, "Rest, Maia, or Logan'll be a pain in all of our asses." She hesitated at Maia's thoughts, "I promise, Maia. Scott and I are going to the police to see where they are with the investigation, and Logan and Rogue are going to the scenes. We shouldn't be gone more than a few hours."

"I'll hold you to that." Maia mumbled, taking a tiny sip of water from the cup Logan had just placed in her trembling hands. "Go find out where our girl is."

"We will." Logan told her before he kissed her forehead, "Stay inside and rest. We'll be back soon."

'Soon' was apparently a relative term, either that or she hadn't been as weak as they'd thought. A seemingly short nap later, and Maia was feeling much better, completely gross, but better. She made it into the shower with a change of clothes without too much trouble, and even managed to turn the thing on without hurting anything. She'd just finished rinsing the soap from her hair when she heard something.

Maia stepped out of the shower, listening again and hearing footsteps across the motel room floor, "Logan? Jean? Don't pitch a fit. I was just in the shower. Even managed to shave my legs right!"

No one answered, and Maia stepped out into the bedroom. Logan's form stood near the doorway. She smiled hopefully, "Did you find her?" No response. Dread filled her. "Logan, did you find her?" Nothing. She had to see more than just his outline. Holding her towel tight around her, she reached for the glasses Jean had set on the nightstand. Before she could discern glasses from nightstand with her fingertips, a warm body pressed up against her. "Logan?" His arms wrapped around her, forcing her to drop her towel.

Teeth pressed against her shoulder, and a low familiar growl rumbled through his body and into hers. She could feel his arousal pressing into her backside. Maia took a deep breath, "Did you get shot again?" No response. She turned in his grip, skittering her hands up his chest. "Okay, Wild Man. It's okay, we can talk later, when you're feeling better. Take what you need."

She let her hands move farther up, let them dance across the muscles of his neck and up into his hair. Maia froze. His hair was short. She gave into what her instincts had been telling her. "You're not Logan."

He jerked her back with a snarl, tossing her onto the bed. "No!" Maia yelled firmly despite her fear, scrambling across the bed, headed for the door. He beat her to it.

Let me know what you think!
-Jenn