Disclaimer: X-men and all its affiliated characters are the property of Marvel Comics, and the movie rights belong to 20th Century Fox. No copyright infringement is intended, and no profit is being made from the publication of this story.
Author's Notes: This story is the result of a late night spent in front of my computer fulfilling a prompt given to me by my friend Miasen as a countdown for Christmas 2008 (And yes, I'm aware that it's January now. I'm slow, I know) Anyway, the prompt was as follows; Well, you know me and my X-men, so I want a X-story from you. Let me see...I want Wolverine and I want him shirtless. Now, smut is not something I've written a lot of, but hey, I couldn't just leave it at the shirt, now could I? Please leave a review and let me know what you think!

The Mansion was mostly quiet. There was the sound of occasional laughter in the distance, sometimes music could be heard, but these were all things that should be expected in a building filled with young people. There was nothing audible that sounded out of the ordinary. She turned another page in the large, leather bound volume that lay in her lap, but she did so absentmindedly, not really paying attention to what she read. There were so many other things on her mind.

The past few weeks had been both agreeable and unpleasant, because of old ghost who came back to haunt her, combined with entering a place that gave her a sense of almost instant familiarity and belonging. She had no idea what the Mansion truly was, perhaps because it was so many different things. A school, a training facility, a tactical base of operations and a sanctuary, all moulded into one building. She admitted to herself that she had never thought it possible to find a place where she was accepted as what she was. In all her years she had never thought to hope for a place where the fact that she had powers most people could only imagine was not the reason for her being the outsider.

The old ghosts that made the discovery of this sanctuary bittersweet were represented by one man. She had only ever known him as Logan. She did not know whether it was his first- his last- or his only name, and after a while of knowing him, she had stopped caring. The man was an enigma, and he always would be, at least to her. Once, many years ago, she had thought she knew him, but after waking up one morning to find him gone she had substantially re-evaluated that sentiment. After that she had not seen him, until a few weeks ago.

It had not been a pleasant meeting, possibly even less pleasant for him than for her. After all, he had ended up with a knife stuck in his shoulder. She had to smile at the memory, or rather the look on his face. A temper was one of the things they had in common, and they both knew it. When they met, those tempers had a tendency to flare, especially when sixty years or so had passed since their previous meeting. But now, after she had calmed down a bit, she thought that after all she was glad to have seen him again.

A sudden racket from the hallway outside made her look up. She heard a string of familiar curses, along with an even more familiar growling. Slamming the book shut, she walked to the door and opened it slightly. Even in the semi-darkness of the hallway outside she saw that she had been right. She opened the door wider, and could not suppress a chuckle.

"What's all this commotion?"

He spun around, saw her and froze. She held her hands out, palms towards him, in an effort to show him that despite their violent first meeting she harboured him no ill will. His face softened when he saw her, and his anger seemed to be temporarily subdued. Seeing this, she smiled.

"What's the matter, Logan?"

"The bloody kids stole my liquor…again!"

She could not help but chuckle, and he took a quick step towards her, for a moment unable to contain his anger, before he stopped again. She gave him a friendly smile to show him a sort of understanding, to show that she knew him and did not think any worse of him now than she had a moment ago.

"Easy, Logan…it's alright. They're kids, what do you expect? They just want to have fun… Come on in here if you're thirsty."

She stepped back into her room and left the door open so he could follow if he wanted to. A minute or so later he did, closing the door slowly behind him. She smiled, and walked across the room where she started pulling books out of a large bookshelf.

"You know, the thing about these gifted kids is…they never bother to look in the obvious places."

She pulled a bottle of mahogany coloured liquid from the back of the shelf, and moved to a cabinet and pulled out two glasses.

"I think I can manage to find some ice if you want it…?"

She sent him a questioning look over her shoulder, and he shook his head.

"Nah, I'll take it straight…"

She shrugged.

"I figured you would," she replied with a small smile.

She gestured towards a table and two chairs by the window, and he settled down somewhat uncomfortably. She noticed this, but made no mention of it when she sat down across from him and began pouring a generous amount of the golden liquid into each glass. He took one, and they toasted in silence before drinking.

They sat in silence, neither could think of anything to say to the other. There wasn't much to say really, after sixty years apart. Sixty years spent living two very different lives. She had married, settled down and tried her best to live a normal life. He had roamed, that had always been his way. She knew now that it would never change, and as she thought back she realised that she had probably known then too, but had been so desperately searching for companionship and hope that she had chosen to forget.

It hardly mattered anymore. They were in a different world, a different time…but still. She watched him in the semi-darkness, comparing his features to those she remembered. His shoulders were broader than she remembered them, his arms just as veined and muscular as they had been, his hands seemed rougher, his skin coarser…all of these were changes barely visible to the naked eye. He still looked like a man in his mid- to late thirties, that was unless you looked into his eyes and knew what to look for. His eyes were the only part of him that gave away that he was one who had seen the world for far longer than thirty years.

"Did you ever wonder…?"

She didn't know how long they had been sitting there when the question escaped her lips. She hadn't really known what to ask, there were so many things she wanted to know. So many… But most of all she wanted to know if he ever wondered, like she did, about what the world would have been like had it been the two of them. Could it have been? Did he ever look back? Did he ever regret?

She looked out through the window, because she was suddenly too embarrassed to look at him. Why was this so difficult? The questions were simple enough…! Of course they were, but it was the answers possible, and not the questions themselves that scared her.

She jumped a little when she suddenly felt a hand in one of her own, and turned to see him bring it carefully to his lips before she heard him whisper a nearly inaudible 'yes'. Just as suddenly he stood, pulling her up with him so quickly that the chairs they had been sitting in were knocked over. He wrapped both his arms around her, and buried his face in her hair, inhaling the scent of her like it was the air he breathed. Again she heard him whisper, but it was more audible now, his mouth being only inches from her ear.

"Oh God, yes."

Her lips sought out his, and all though it was tentative at first, the kiss soon deepened. She felt her heart beginning to beat faster, her blood beginning to race, and she relished the feeling. It was like her senses woke up after being dormant for years. In a split second it was as if no time had passed at all, and he became her entire world. There was nothing worth knowing except him and the fact that she was there in his arms.

His hands wandered, first stroking her neck and shoulders, before they travelled down her body, rested on her hips for a moment and began tugging playfully at her clothes. It did not take long before he became more eager, gripping her sweater and pulling it over her head. All while he continued to kiss all parts of her body.

She sighed heavily with delight and nuzzled up against his neck while her hands worked to unbutton his shirt. With equal speed to what he had exhibited moments earlier, soon both his shirt and the white wife beater he wore beneath it fell to the floor in a heap, and he stood bare-breasted before her. She couldn't help but smile. His physique had not changed, if anything it had improved. She leant in and bit him playfully on the ear as she felt his hands slide up under her skirt, his fingers soon discovering lace and seductively tracing the outlines.

Without either of them really realising it they had begun to move, and when they were halfway to the bed, her skirt fell to the floor, closely followed by a pair of jeans belonging to him. She could feel a layer of cool sweat beginning to form on her skin, but it did nothing to calm her excitement. There was nothing civilized about the lust that now steadily overcame their bodies, and that made her even more wanting. It was nothing but animal instinct, and it felt so unbelievably good.

She hit the mattress first, and laughed because it made her bounce into his arms. Their faces were so close she could smell the sweetness of the alcohol on his breath, and he grinned down at her as surprisingly nimble fingers loosened her bra and tossed it aside, that same wolfish grin she had found so terribly attractive when she first met him, the smile she still found terribly attractive now all these years later. She moaned as his rough hands cupped her breasts and gasped as he bit down on her shoulder, just hard enough to give her goose bumps.

Moments later they were both naked, only half covered by the bed sheets, and their bodies began to work their way into a rhythm instinctively familiar to both. She could taste the sweat on his skin as she kissed him, and hear the low, growling sound seemingly coming from somewhere in the back of his throat, emanating from pure pleasure.

His motions soon intensified and became harder, almost to the point where it hurt her. But instead of pulling away or saying 'stop', she clung to him, because the tingling sensation that now began spreading through her pelvis as well as up through her chest and down through her legs was a sensation she hadn't experienced for God knows how long. It was like suddenly rediscovering an addictive feeling long forgotten, and encouraged by the remembrance her mind seemed to fade out, leaving her body to fall into perfect sync with his. The blood rushing in her veins, pounding in her ears, now sounded like music, a melody that reached a deafening crescendo when the tingling suddenly exploded, only to fade away into nothingness.

When he stared down into her eyes just before she closed them in that single moment of intense pleasure, he knew why those eyes had followed his mind for decades. In them they held a fire he had never seen anywhere else, except within his own eyes. As he closed his own to truly savour the feeling of gratification and release as all his nerve impulses seemed to explode, he wondered for the briefest part of a second if she saw the same in his eyes as he saw in hers.

They shared a single, lingering kiss as he slid down into bed beside her. She lay on his arm, her eyes half closed, smiling as he brushed some strands of hair away from her face. There was silence. The only sound he heard was her soft, steady breathing, and it took him back to the night he had left her. That night hadn't been so much different from this, he thought, before he realised that it would be no different at all. He would leave her again, he would wait until she fell asleep and then leave her as if the past sixty years had not passed at all. That was his way. And her way was to remind him, every time he found himself returning to her, of the unforgettable fire that brought him there.