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She had only ever meant it as a taunt.
Taunting was easy. Mockery was natural.
She had grown up believing that words were power. You could twist the minds of even the most powerful men with sweet lies and poisoned truths. You could have them hanging off every word if you had pretty enough of a face, doing your bidding on their hands and their knees, and Emma Grace Frost certainly had that in spades.
Heads swivelled to her wherever she went. Boardrooms, government councils, galas—it mattered not. Men were simple creatures of lust, at the end of the day. Their gazes, leering and hungry, would be drawn to her perfect, porcelain face. Full, cherry-red lips. Plunging neckline and the ruby that decorated her breastbone. Those long legs, accentuated by thigh-highs and sharp heels.
To be a woman was to wield femininity as armour and sexuality as a weapon. Because power was all there was, at the end of the day. Power was all there was, when the world was run by monsters wearing the visages of men. Power was all there was to protect yourself and to protect those you cared about.
Power would have helped save her Hellions. Power would have helped save Cordelia. Power would have stopped people like Nathaniel Essex and Sebastian Shaw.
Emma Frost never wanted to feel powerless again.
But she had only ever meant it as a taunt, because she had been sick and tired of Jean Grey. She had been sick and tired for years of the perfect telepath and the perfect friends. She had been sick and tired of refusing to put a name to that acrid, bitter feeling in her throat whenever she looked at Jean Grey and Peter Parker, and their soft touches and adoring eyes and the ease with which they orbited each other.
She had been sick and tired of the easy acceptance despite the history. Emma Frost knew the facts. Peter Parker had torn open the multiverse and erased everyone's memories of him to protect Michelle Jones-Watson, the girl he loved. Then, Jean Grey had possessed Michelle Jones-Watson's body, wielded false memories against him as a weapon, kissed him with her lips, then thrown her off the roof. And somehow, there had still been forgiveness. There had still been love.
And so Emma Frost had been sick and tired of it all. Or perhaps it had been the alcohol talking, or that bitter feeling she still refused to put a name to, as she leaned against the marble balustrade, staring down at the gala below, a glass of champagne in hand. Photographers tried to catch her eye. Politicians simpered. Sometimes their wives would come and compliment her shoes and dress. Some of the braver men would proposition her.
She gave all the sycophants a smile—that practised, plastic one she always wore in public. And sometimes she'd say yes. But tonight she had not, because she was sick and tired of it all. Part of her—that dark, desperate, hungry part—wanted to wear the skins of everyone in the room, just like she had all those years ago, Shaw at her side. Make them claw at each other's throats. Make them tear out each other's hearts. Make them rip off each other's masks and reveal the rot underneath.
But not tonight, because she had only been eyeing the blur of green, red, and black on the floor below. Jean Grey, in a dress of rich emerald green, auburn hair loose and flowing. Peter Parker, in a black tuxedo that was probably rented, knowing the type of person he was. They were twirling, laughing. Hands intertwined. A soft murmur here, a dopey smile there.
She had been so fucking sick and tired of it all.
And so Emma Frost had decided to taunt Jean Grey, while Peter had gone to get water. Like she had done for the past four years, because it was easier than putting a name to unwanted feelings.
Contempt was easy. Contempt came easy, because all Emma Frost had known was contempt, and at some point she didn't know whether the contempt was directed at Jean Grey or herself.
She didn't remember everything she said. Because the poison had flowed, and at some point she stopped trying to distinguish barbed comment from barbed comment.
It was worse, because Jean Grey had met it all with a cool expression, as if she were the one in control. Of the many things Emma Frost hated, she hated losing control the most.
She didn't remember exactly what she said. It had been something about Peter. Something about the shape of his mind. Something about his kindness and how Jean Grey did not deserve him, and something about how he would discard her like dross one day. She had believed none of those words. She had said them anyway.
It ended with—
"Maybe I'll take him for a spin one evening and give him something you never could," Emma said lightly. "You would never be able to keep up."
Jean met her with a blank expression, then shrugged. "Okay."
Emma blinked. "I'm sorry?"
"I said okay," Jean said, arching an eyebrow. "As long as I'm there. Come home with us."
The gala air went hot and still suddenly.
"One night," Jean continued, lips curving into a smile, sharp and dangerous. "You've been eyeing us like some sad thing all night. We'll show you how it's actually done. And you will not speak of it to anyone afterwards."
"You're bluffing, Grey," she said with a scoff. "Little Princess Grey and Prince Parker in bed with the wicked Emma Frost?"
"Am I?" Jean said coolly. "I think you're the one bluffing, Frost."
Emma Frost had seen bluffing. She had seen men in boardrooms backpedal. She had seen the faint flicker of unease on their faces, the subtle tremor in their voices, the slight shake of their hands.
Jean Grey was not bluffing. She had plucked the knife Emma Frost had thrown at her out of mid-air and was handing it back to her hilt-first.
She ran through her options. Every other door led someplace worse, and Emma Frost had never been one to back down. She would certainly not be starting with Jean Grey.
"Fine." She laughed, a brittle sound. "Saturday it is."
"Don't be late," Jean said pleasantly, sipping from a glass of water. "You know the way to our apartment. This time, knock."
So here Emma Frost was, standing in front of an apartment door somewhere in Manhattan on a cold December afternoon. A pale blue blouse, a skirt, her favourite fur coat, and a pair of heeled knee-high boots. Makeup—sharp eyeliner and sensual, cherry-red lipstick. The ensemble had failed to keep out the cold. She had shivered her way from the station, cursing under her breath.
She knocked. It echoed in the enclosed space.
The door swung open to the living room of the blissfully asbestos-free apartment. Unblemished white walls, light streaming in from floor-length glass-paned windows. A plush white carpet lay underneath a coffee table. There was the low rumble of television and the smell of something baking. Cosy warmth from a radiator and the oven.
"Er—" Peter Parker said after a pause, blinking at her. "Hello, Emma."
Her gaze raked up and down his body. He was barefoot, scuffing his feet slightly. Black shorts and a dark blue T-shirt that hugged his frame. His floppy brown curls were still as unkempt as ever.
"Nice place, Parker."
"Oh, yeah. Thanks." He gave a nervous laugh. "Come in."
Boots clicked, and then they came off, because she knew Jean Grey was prissy like that.
"You, uh—" He paused to clear his throat, shutting the door. "You look nice."
"Nice?" Emma eyed him with an incredulous look.
"Uh. Yeah?"
"I am here to fuck, Parker, not trade compliments," she said bluntly. Her lips twitched into something victorious as she beheld his slight wince. He shifted uncomfortably as her gaze roved up and down his body again, sharpening into that practised hungry expression. "You look nice too, I suppose."
The same laugh. "Okay. Uh, thanks."
Emma snorted. "Where's Grey?"
A shout. "Kitchen!"
Jean Grey rounded the corner, red oven mitt in hand, carrying a glass oven tray.
"Crab cake?" she asked.
Crab cake. They were the most ridiculous, infuriating couple Emma Frost had ever had the displeasure of meeting, and she had borne firsthand witness to the extramarital affairs of presidents.
She accepted one anyway. They were adequate. She chewed slowly.
"Hello, Frost," Jean said mildly.
"Hello, Grey."
She took the time to study Jean Grey. She was barefoot too, in a maroon sweater—Peter's, she knew—and grey sweatpants. Wavy auburn hair hanging loose, face bare, green eyes bright, a portrait of effortless domesticity.
"You're dressed up," Jean said.
"When am I not?"
"Just an observation."
Emma didn't reply, instead opting to stride along the length of the living room.
"Ororo gave us those flowers," Peter was saying from somewhere behind her, toddling after her like a duckling, pointing at a vase of lilies. "The motorcycle figure was from Anna Marie. The artwork—uh, I'm not sure what it is actually. But Kitty gave me that. She also made the little lamp over here," he said, pointing at a flickering desk light that read 'LOVE'.
"Not bad," Emma said, making a half-turn. "Certainly beats the asbestos."
Peter laughed again. "Yeah. I know."
Another awkward pause. Emma arched an elegant eyebrow. "So. You agreed to this, Parker."
A huff, and a faint hint of red blooming on his cheeks. "I, uh—"
"Let's eat and talk." Jean again, now carrying a different tray. Lasagna, it looked like.
"Right." Peter let out a breath. "That's what normal people do."
Emma rolled her eyes. This was ridiculous. They were going to talk about the terms and conditions of a threesome over crab cakes and lasagna.
She slid into the offered seat anyway.
"So, my conditions," Jean said. She dumped another serving of lasagna onto Peter's plate. "One night, one time only. Then Peter and me go back to the way we were."
"Of course," Emma replied smoothly. "Why, were you scared I would steal him away from you?"
"No." Jean didn't rise to her taunt. "This is so you don't get attached, Frost."
She barked a laugh, high and cold. "Attached? I don't get attached. This is just a transaction."
"It's not a transaction," Jean said. "You started it. And there's nothing you can give Peter that would be worth what he can give you."
"I wouldn't be so sure, Grey."
"Well, consider me intrigued, Frost. You said you could give him something I never could. I'm curious whether you can put your money where your mouth is." Jean's mouth curved. "I'm sure Peter is too, though he's far too polite to say it."
"I'm right here, you know," Peter said with a deep sigh, spearing a crab cake.
They ignored him.
"You're welcome to try and out-seduce me," Jean continued. "Just don't come crying when you realise you're not quite the prize you think you are. You're only here because you looked so forlorn up on the balcony at the gala."
Emma snorted. "If this is your attempt at pity, I don't want it."
"If I wanted to show pity, I would have picked someone I actually liked."
Peter made a choking noise.
"Good," Emma said. "We are in agreement. You can't stand me. It's mutual."
"Oh, it is. I can't stand you. Your little veneer. The way you dress yourself up in white and act like everyone is beneath you." Jean tilted her head. "But I also saw you up on that balcony and the way you looked at us. Like you'd been locked out in the snow. Like you'd been picked last in class."
Emma Frost could handle an insult. She could trade barbs. She had gotten into the minds of far greater men and women than Jean Grey and used their worst fears against them.
But Jean Grey seeing through her performance at the gala was a whole different story. She hadn't known she would be spotted backstage.
"As I said, we are in agreement," Emma said after a brief pause. "And I can't stand the way you prance around the school as if you own it, even after all that you've done. But I suppose that's not why I'm here."
"No, I suppose not," Jean said evenly, gazing at her steadily.
Peter went after another serving of lasagna. He chewed quietly, not looking at either woman, as if trying desperately not to draw attention.
He had no such luck.
"And you." Emma fixed Peter with a stare. He dropped his fork with a clang, cursing. "Why have you agreed to this? You, the person who makes jokes at bank robbers and jumps in front of bullets for psychopathic girls?"
"She's not—" Peter breathed a sigh. He glanced momentarily at Jean. "Um. She wanted to?"
Emma rolled her eyes.
"And," Peter continued, "only if you want to as well, Emma. If you don't, we just eat, and you leave. We never speak of this again. It's awkward, but I'm good at awkward."
Emma Frost had never been asked if she wanted to do something because it was awkward before. She raised an eyebrow. "It's not awkward. But I will not be managed. And I will not be gentle with you. Either of you."
Jean scoffed. "Of course. You wouldn't be you otherwise. I want honest. So be honest. No performance. No mask."
"I'm always honest."
"Sure."
Emma met Jean's stare head-on.
"One more thing," Jean said. "You stay for all of it, start to finish. You see what it looks like."
"I know what sex looks like, Grey."
"Sure. Then you'll have no problem staying." That smug tone again. Emma wanted so badly to wipe it off her face.
"Fine," Emma said eventually. She paused for a moment. "My conditions now. We make it a contest."
Jean studied her for a moment, unblinking. "Sure."
"Peter begging is one point," she said. Peter made a strangled noise. "An orgasm is worth two for the other."
"Make it three," Jean said, lips forming a smirk. "And one point for whoever makes each other moan first."
"Spicy. Have you even been with a woman before?"
"I can handle it," Jean said. "Unless you think you can't?"
Emma scoffed. "I've been with more women than you can count. Now, the loser?"
"Loser concedes in front of the war room, apologising on their hands and knees to the other."
"Not bad, Grey. You think you can handle apologising to little old me?"
"Can you?"
"We'll see," Emma retorted. "I can't wait to see everyone's faces when they see you on your hands and knees in front of me."
They shook on it. Jean's palm was warm and dry. She held on for a heartbeat longer than a handshake required, and neither of them looked away first.
"Um. Guys?" Peter interrupted. "I'm not a trophy, you know."
Jean patted him on the head. "There, there," she cooed. "You're keeping score, too, baby."
"What?"
"Shush," both women said at once.
"Cool. Okay," he said weakly, flushing a bright red.
Emma Frost had been fucked in a great many bedrooms. Not just bedrooms, either. She had had sex in private jets and boardrooms and infinity pools, but none of them was as ridiculous as Peter's.
None of them had made her as nervous, either, but she chose not to acknowledge it.
"Rose petals?" she said incredulously. "And are those candles?"
"Er—" He scratched his neck. "I wanted to set the mood."
Jean laughed fondly, bumping his shoulder. "I told him it was stupid."
"Really, Parker?"
"I couldn't think of anything else." He shrugged. "And you should just call me Peter, seriously. That applies to Jean, too."
She chose to ignore him.
It was an ordinary bedroom. A book face-down on the nightstand, spine creased. A lamp, dimly lit, flickering with yellow warmth. Windows, peering out over the Manhattan skyline, blinds half shut. White covers, tucked haphazardly into the sides. It smelled like Jean's coconut and vanilla shampoo and Peter's sandalwood freshener. It was lived-in, devastatingly domestic, and it made Emma feel like a trespasser.
She had shed her fur coat somewhere along the journey to the bedroom, leaving her in just a blouse and a skirt.
"So, er—" Peter began.
Emma didn't let him finish.
She surged forward, taking Peter's face in both hands and kissing him, hard. She kissed him like a collision, and there was nothing kind about it, all lips and teeth and bone. She went first, because she always did.
He made a surprised noise, falling back towards the bed.
"Hey! Frost, you—" Jean protested, lunging towards her.
"I take the first round," Emma said. "You can have the seconds."
Jean clearly wanted to protest, but then her mouth curved into a smirk. "Afraid of being the follow-up act?"
"If that makes you feel better, sure. I'm going easy on you by going first, if anything."
Peter and Jean shared a look. Jean nodded slightly.
Emma kissed him again so that he would only be looking at her.
She pressed her hips flush against his and slid her arms inside his shirt. He made a small, involuntary noise at that, one that she swallowed with another bruising kiss. He kissed her back after a moment, tentative, his mouth slowly mapping out the contours of hers.
Emma pulled back slightly, staring at him. "Kiss me like you mean it, Peter."
He blinked up at her for a moment before something in his gaze shifted. Then, he reached for her again.
The kiss was hungrier this time. Mouth frantically against hers, one hand cupping her breast, and the other leaving a trail of warmth against her waist. Hips, flush against each other. Nails, up the side of his neck. Tongue, slipping into his mouth.
She pulled away again.
A whine. Emma smirked.
"Emma," he gasped, eyes dark.
Emma looked up and arched an eyebrow at Jean, who was sitting cross-legged on the bed.
"You finished?" Jean asked.
"Not even close," she replied with a snort.
She leaned down again, this time grasping the hem of his shirt. She lifted it over his head in one fluid, practised motion. He was leaner than she'd expected and harder, all long wiry muscle under warm skin, a scatter of old scars across ribs.
She pushed him back against the pillows none-too-kindly, then kissed down his chest, his nipple, and the flat plane of his stomach, tongue dipping into his navel, licking, sucking, nipping. Peter strained, breath hitching, stomach clenching under her mouth.
When she reached his pants, she looked up the lean length of his body and met Jean's eyes, then held her gaze as she reached inside.
His cock was already hard, thick and straining against the fabric of his boxers, a dark wet patch against the cotton. She peeled his boxers off him with another swift motion, revealing the flushed, angry head of him, slit weeping. He let out another groan as she wrapped a hand around the tip, hot and heavy in her hand, then moved down, smearing it with his fluids until the base, gripping tight enough that Peter's breaths came out as choked gasps as he stared at her.
He made a sound like he had been punched when she took him into her mouth.
She took him in, inch by inch, tongue flat against the underside. Because she knew how to do it, the rhythm, the pace, the technique—she had brought men far more powerful than Peter Parker to their trembling knees, secrets spilling in moans and gasps from their lips. She would not be outdone here, either. Eyes, gazing steadily into his dark pupils, as she hollowed out her cheeks, lips swirling around the head, a lick up and down his frenulum that had his hips bowing off the bed.
From the corner of her eye, she saw Jean shift at the edge of the bed. Emma angled her head so that Jean could watch every inch of Emma's motion—the frictionless glide of her mouth, the way her lips stretched around him, the gleaming shine of his shaft as drew all the way back to the tip.
"Emma," he rasped, hand reaching for her white-blonde hair. She let him gather her hair from their roots into his fist.
"Yes?" Lips curving into a smirk, mouth pulling off of him with a wet pop. He cursed.
"Don't stop." An insistent tug on her hair.
"I don't intend to," she said. "I haven't heard any begging yet."
A laugh that turned into another whine as she licked up the side of him.
Again. Up, down. Up, down. The slick, sinful slide of her mouth down the length of him, watching his face the whole time, his eyes glassy and unfocused. Lips pressed tight, tongue swirling, cheeks pulled taut, a punishing rhythm that had Peter torn between gripping her hair and the sheets. She took him all the way down to the base, throat fluttering, and he let out a strangled moan that went all the way to her core.
"Oh God, Emma. Fuck."
Her lips curved. She did it again. And again. And again. Until she could feel him reaching the brink, the muscles of his stomach going tense and rigid, his hips stuttering erratically, the hand in her hair clenching and pulling harder, his cock swelling and throbbing against her tongue, the first pulse of pre-come hot and salty.
She pulled off him again, licking the side of her mouth. She smacked her lips.
"Emma," he groaned, sitting up halfway, trying to push her back onto him.
She huffed a laugh, shooting Jean a glance. Her expression was still blank.
She paused for a moment. Peter yanked on her hair this time. Needy.
Again.
The slick velvet of him in her mouth, hand gripping the base. The heat of him—heat and salt and sweat. She hummed slightly, in time with the staccato pulsing.
Clenching of the muscles. Another desperate grip of her hair.
She pulled away again, lips shining.
"Fuck!" he cried. "Emma, God, I swear—"
She did it again.
She edged him patiently, as if she had all the time in the world. She brought him close to the ledge. Tensing, and a whine. Then she would pull away, smirking.
One, two, three.
She did it three more times until Peter glared up at her, eyes dark and wild, his voice spilling out of him, ragged and helpless.
"Please. Please, I can't. Emma, fuck, I swear, please—"
She stilled. His eyes had closed. She pulled off him in a slow, unhurried drag, savouring the sound it tore from his throat, a thin thread of saliva and semen still connecting them, wearing a victorious smile that she aimed at Jean.
"The round's mine."
"One," Peter gasped.
"For now," Jean said with a huff, aiming a glare at Emma. "My turn."
She eased off Peter, taking Jean's place. Jean slid into place next to Peter. He reached for Jean, a mindless action, something learned, dark eyes softening at the edges.
Emma looked away.
Jean didn't try to match Emma. She didn't put her mouth on him. She didn't even touch his length.
Jean kissed Peter softly, sweetly, and he melted into it, sighing. She let him tug off her sweater and help her shimmy out of her sweatpants, leaving her in black lace.
Then—
Arms around his neck. A soft kiss on the neck, and then the cheek. A lick of the ear, around the shell. Peter shuddered, cock twitching. Emma could see Jean's smile from here.
She still didn't touch him.
Words. Murmurs, whispers, promises in his ear that Emma could not catch. A low voice, soft and sensual, that Emma could barely make out.
But Peter was straining. He twitched. Neck flushing red, vein pulsing. Eyes, dark with lust. Desperate motions, reaching for Jean, fingers squeezing into her waist and the flat plane of her stomach, gripping, grasping, clenching, reaching under her bra and for the curve of her ass.
Jean was still talking. The low rise and fall of her voice, a private language built up over the years. Of shared history and acceptance, longing and regret, yearning and trust.
She still didn't touch him, but Peter shuddered as though she had. His cock jerked. Once, twice, thrice, still glistening at the tip.
"On that rooftop that day," Jean murmured, and now Emma could catch fragments of speech. "You remember what you said you'd do. What we did. How you bent me over and fucked me with the skyline down below."
A small, broken noise tore itself from Peter's throat.
"I think about it all the time." Jean, still whispering into his ear, punctuated by the occasional lick. "I think about it in meetings. I think about it in class. I think about it in training. When Scott's doing his stupid speech and telling us to run the stupid drills, all I think of is your hands on me and your cock in my cunt and how you say my name when you can't hold it back anymore."
He groaned, twisting, turning, trying desperately to mash his mouth against Jean's.
She pulled back.
"And before we got together. Sometimes I'd think about it," she continued in a devastating purr. "The good, heroic Spider-Man setting the evil Jean Grey straight. Maybe you'd punish me. Maybe you'd tie me up with webs. Maybe you'd fuck me so hard I'd see the light."
"Fuck." A whimper. Eyes pleading. "That's not fair, Jean."
"Tell her, baby," Jean said, loud enough for Emma to hear fully. It was Jean, now, wearing that victorious expression. "Tell her what you want."
"I—" Peter's eyes were glassy again, expression twisting into despair. "Jean," he whispered finally, like a prayer. "Jean, I want you. Please, Jean, I'll do anything."
She hadn't even touched him once. Not once, and Peter was still begging her, shaking, shuddering, trembling harder than anything Emma's careful ministrations and hard work had gotten him to do.
Nothing but her voice and the shared weight of language.
Something hot climbed up Emma's throat. She squashed it down immediately.
"One for me," Jean crowed, staring right at Emma. "And I didn't even have to touch him."
"Break," Peter rasped, as Emma turned her ravenous gaze towards him again. "I need a break."
Jean shot him a baleful look.
"Fine," Emma said, turning to Jean. "Let's do this then."
They knelt, facing each other. Fire against ice. The bed creaked under the weight of four years of bad blood—cruel barbs and spiteful insults and vicious taunts.
Jean moved first.
She slid her hand into Emma's hair, twisting, pulling Emma to her, taking her mouth, hard, like she was picking a fight. Emma kissed her back with teeth and tongue. It was a bruising kiss, nothing kind, nothing warm, four years of contempt and anger and bitter jealousy sharpened into something with a mouth.
Jean made a small noise at the back of her throat. Emma chased it, biting down on her lower lip hard enough to taste copper, her tongue not giving an inch against Jean's. Jean groaned in response, clenching Emma's hair tighter in her fist and dragging her closer, body flush against body.
Clothes. They were discarded. Jean, ripping Emma's blouse off her shoulders with a tug that nearly tore fabric. A glare in response. Then, Emma's hands, underneath Jean's bra, unclasping it from the back. Forceful, accompanied by a withering look. She tossed it somewhere. Nipples, hard like glass, dark against the pale, creamy expanse of breast and bare skin.
Jean squirmed, the first sign of nervous unease.
Emma thought she looked prettier than she had any right to be—warm pale skin, a scattering of freckles that never saw daylight, and full, flushed breasts.
A kiss, a lick, and a suck at Jean's nipple. A laugh.
Then, they came together skin to skin, breast to breast. Kissing again, as if it were a weapon.
"Contest," Jean gasped between kisses.
"First to moan loses the round," Emma panted into Jean's mouth.
"I won't moan for the likes of you."
"We'll see, darling." A smile, sharp as a blade, against Jean's lips.
They reached down at the same time. Emma's hands slid down the smooth expanse of Jean's stomach. Thin wisps of hair, and the edge of black lace.
"Off," Emma barked. A roll of the eyes. Jean's hips off the bed. Underwear off in one smooth motion.
Jean's movements were much less practised. Emma's underwear snagged on her knees, then her ankle. Jean's mouth crashed into hers in lieu of an apology.
Hands again. Reaching. This time, they found the slick heat. Warm, voracious, threatening to swallow up each other's fingers.
"You're wet," Emma said, with vicious delight.
"So are you," Jean replied with a huff, pressing experimentally.
Emma arched an eyebrow. "Considering I mostly leave you alone these days, it's surprising."
"You started it," Jean said. Her middle finger slipped between Emma's folds, then joined by the ring finger. A circling of the clit. Emma's breath snagged.
"You—" Emma's voice came out uneven. "You escalated it."
"Did I?" Jean's voice stuttered into a gasp. Emma's fingers had found Jean's clit too, ghosting over it with a teasing, gossamer touch. "You—you kept saying you wanted to see his mind." A groan, breathy and real. "You. Frost. You—you even went inside that day with the—"
A curl of Emma's fingers inside Jean—then, a stroke and a press—stopped Jean's words in her throat. A gasp, swallowed by Emma's mouth.
"Not fair," Jean choked out.
Emma replied with another stroke that drew out a strangled sound.
They worked at each other. Emma's deliberate, mean precision, with a cruelty in each motion; Jean's relentless enthusiasm punctuating each eager move. Fingers stroking, dragging. Thumbs circling, rolling. Eyes on each other's face, trying to spot the first crack.
Emma had done this before. She knew the angles, the tricks. Two digits into Jean's slick heat. A clench, then fingers curling, pressing. Jean's eyes widening, hips jerking, a breathy sound that threatened to turn into a moan. Jean responded with the rolling of Emma's clit in an incessant rhythm between her thumb and index finger that had Emma's breath puffing out in short, staccato bursts.
Emma's senses narrowed to just the slick drag of her fingers across Jean's folds and the hard bud of her clit under Emma's thumb for what must have been a long time. Thighs, trembling ever so slightly, pressing against each other, the searing heat of skin at the contact. Pulse in her throat, eyes blown wide, face contorting but neither of them giving an inch.
"Um," Peter said in a small voice. They had almost forgotten he was still there. "I think this is the hottest thing I've ever seen."
"Oh?" Emma said, grinding the heel of her palm against Jean, drawing out a muffled sound. "Then you haven't seen this."
Emma changed the angle. Thumb still circling Jean's clit, but two fingers pushing deep inside her, curling, finding the little spot up there, pressing just so. Jean's mouth fell open. A helpless, sharp sound escaped involuntarily. A moan, surprised and real, one that she had failed to swallow.
"Another one," Emma said.
"That doesn't count," Jean spluttered, glancing at Peter.
"Sorry," he said with a wince. "Rules are rules."
A glare that turned cold. "Fine."
Revenge came in the form of Jean grabbing a fistful of Emma's hair, and pushing her head down close to Peter's thighs. He was still breathing heavily, face flushed, but he looked more put together than before.
"Let's see who makes him come first," Jean said with a razor-sharp smile. "Since you're apparently so good at this."
"That wasn't in our scoring."
"Too bad. It is now."
It was not graceful. There was no grace, no elegance. It was entirely a fight, two women fighting over the last lifeboat in a capsizing ship, conducted entirely by open mouths and hands over a man who could only stare wide-eyed.
Emma got there first. Lips over the head of him, taking him deep. Then Jean, palm to Emma's forehead, scratching, clawing, shoving her aside. Jean took her place and swallowed him all the way to the base.
"That's mine," Emma snarled.
"Is it, now?" Jean hummed through a mouthful of him.
Emma took it back. She caught Jean by the shoulder and hauled her off of him, mouth wrenching off his cock with a wet noise, then took him into her mouth again, licking, swirling, sucking. For the next furious minutes it was a tangle of hair and tongues and open mouths jostling for position, neither wanting to give an inch. Jean's nails dug into Emma's thighs, hard enough to draw blood. Emma's teeth grazed Jean's wrist and she was almost tempted to bite down. Peter made a noise like a drowning man in between it all.
"Ten seconds each," Jean gasped, holding Emma at arm's length.
"Fine," Emma snapped.
"I—uh, okay," Peter said, voice unsteady. "One, two, oh fuck, Jean—"
Jean had wrapped her lips around him. She was good, Emma mused. Hand pumping, mouth tight and unhurried, setting a relentless rhythm. Jean's eyes met Emma's, shining in undisguised satisfaction.
"…eight, nine…"
Emma crashed into Jean, pawing, snarling, teeth snapping. A fight again, in earnest, all hair and limbs and furious words.
"You changed the rules."
"You cheated."
"You were off by two seconds."
"He can't fucking count, can he?"
A hand yanking Jean's hair. A hand gripping Emma's jaw.
Then—
Two mouths descended on him at once. Peter let out a ragged noise at the sight. Emma took the crown first, licking the dew off the drooling tip, lips swirling. Jean went for the shaft, long broad strokes from base to tip, tracing the bulging veins. They traded, alternating, then went at him again at once, crown and base to tip. Their mouths met midway, a hostile kiss encasing his cock like a vice, tongues entangling, sliding over each other and the hot length of skin between them.
They still fought for it, each one trying to take more than the other, more than was offered. Jean wrapped her lips fully around his head at one point, nearly sinking all the way to base before Emma stopped her, nudging Jean with her own mouth, forcing Jean to wrench her lips away. Each tried to squeeze another gasp, another moan out of Peter's throat. A swirl of Emma's tongue and press into his slit. A humming of Jean's tongue against his thick length and the gentle cupping of his balls. The slick, hot brush of their tongues against each other.
"He's mine," Jean snarled, nudging Emma away again to pounce on him.
A huff. "I don't think so."
Emma took him deep, nose pressed to skin, throat fluttering. She held it, eyes fixed on Jean's. Daring, questioning. Jean hauled her off in reply and took her place, going just as deep and staying for even longer, throat working all the while. She surfaced with a gasp, lips glistening, eyes burning.
"Beat that."
"Gladly."
Peter's hips shook. Hands, at the back of their heads, one fisted in white-blonde, the other in auburn, gripping both as if they were anchors in a storm.
"Hands off her, Peter," Jean growled, reaching for his arm.
"No, here," Emma snapped, fingers closing around his wrist and moving his hand firmly back to the back of her head.
He tried to be fair, because Peter Parker was ridiculously saintly, but he was rigid and flushed and quivering and had probably stopped caring whose mouth was on him by the third fight. Thighs, trembling under Emma's hand. Stomach, clenching and shaking under Jean's palm.
"God. Fuck," he groaned again, hands twisting tighter into hair.
Mouths, on him again. Noses, pressed against skin.
"You're not doing it right," Jean snapped.
"I'm doing it better than you," Emma shot back.
"He doesn't like that."
"He's quivering, look at him."
"For me, Frost, not you."
"Fucking—hands off, Grey!"
"Fuck you, Frost!"
They were too busy fighting to notice how far gone Peter was.
A long continuous sound that might have been a word. A keening noise that began in the back of his throat but seemed to emanate from his whole being.
Peter's whole body went rigid, joints locking.
"Oh, fuck," he said to no one in particular. "Both of you. I can't, oh, fuck, I'm going to—"
Emma could feel it. The helpless tightening of muscles, the swelling, the pulsing, and the erratic breathing of a man starved for oxygen. She dove after him gracelessly, mouth open and begging, lips only brushing his swollen crown and settling instead for sliding down his length because Jean had shoved her partially out of the way at the last second, closing her mouth over the head of his cock, intent on swallowing every last drop of him—and for a singular, furious moment they were both trying to rip him away from each other to claim for themselves, but neither budged in the end.
"Mine."
"Mine."
"Jean. Emma. You, fuck—" Peter moaned, in a voice like a prayer.
He came with a shout.
It was thick and hot and endless, spilling over their lips and teeth and tongues, a spurting, gushing fountain of white, striping Emma's cheek and eye and Jean's nose and chin, one long pulse after another. Neither of them backed away. They stayed just like that, open mouths on either side of him, swallowing, licking, chasing after each pulse, both wanting more than what was given.
When he finished shuddering, Emma's tongue darted out swiftly, licking the head of his cock. He jerked back with a hiss and a curse. Emma turned to Jean with a triumphant smile, breathing hard, come glistening on her face like a challenge.
"I made him come," Emma said.
"No, I made him come," Jean retorted.
"He was moaning for me."
"He moaned both of our names."
"I got more of his come."
"We both swallowed. It's literally impossible to tell."
"Guys," Peter rasped, voice somewhere far away. "I don't think this round counts."
"No, it counts," they said in unison, but neither could come to an agreeable conclusion.
"Well," Emma said. She wiped her cheek with her thumb, then sucked it into her mouth with deliberate slowness. She looked first at Peter, who gulped, and then Jean, who met her with a cool stare. "Shall we end the contest there? A draw?"
Jean scoffed. "You wish. Give him… ten minutes?"
"Ten. That's not—"
"Er. It's a mutation thing." Peter looked embarrassed. Emma wasn't quite sure why. "I recover really fast. It kind of just, you know, enhanced everything."
"You're not serious."
"He is." Jean wore a cat-like smile.
"You—" Emma sighed. "Not bad, Grey."
A laugh. "Water?"
Emma stood, naked, flushed, and slightly off-balance, and took the glass that had been on the nightstand, next to a pitcher. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Peter's gaze travel to her nude form for a moment. She smirked inwardly.
She drank, trying to wrestle back all of her composure. Sounds behind her. Peter's low murmur. Jean's light laugh. The soft whisper of fingers brushing skin. The shifting of blankets. An arm around a waist. She refilled her glass, pretending as if the wall was the most interesting thing in the room.
Five minutes. The slight creaking of the mattress. Emma finally turned around.
Peter was hard again. He was propped up against the pillows, wearing a sheepish expression. His hand was in Jean's, and she was grinning at him like the cat that ate the canary.
"Told you," Jean said. "Your turn, Frost. Unless you need longer than he does?"
Emma scoffed. "Not a chance."
Emma went first again.
She placed her palm on Peter's chest and pushed him onto his back, clambering over him, swinging a thigh over the width of his body.
She liked to be on top. She liked control, illusory as it may be.
His hands were warm as they gripped her hips. Warm and a little rough, tight but not hard enough to hurt.
Jean was just sitting cross-legged to the side, eyeing her coolly.
"Not going to interrupt me this time, Grey?" Emma shot over her shoulder.
"Nope. Let's see what you can give him."
She huffed, turning back to Peter.
His eyes were half-lidded, gazing at her face, then flicking to the apex of her thighs, where she had taken him in her hand, smearing moisture from the tip across his length. He let out a shiver and then a noise that she swallowed with lips and tongue.
Emma positioned herself over his cock for a moment, tip ghosting against her folds, rubbing against her slick heat, feeling the heat and pulse of him against her, blunt and searing. One, two three. Peter squirmed, straining. Emma's lips curved into a wicked thing.
Then—down she went. Sinking—a slow, deliberate motion. A long, wet slide down the length of him that stretched her, ripping a gasp from her throat.
Peter's mouth opened in a soundless moan. Pupils blown wide. He gripped her hips tighter.
Then—up, down, up, down. A frictionless glide against the walls of her tight heat, slow at first, building into a steadier, relentless rhythm that had Emma gasping and arching and Peter clawing at her hips.
"Emma," he rasped. Her name devolved into a helpless moan.
He was looking right at her face. Eyes heavy with lust—but he was looking at her face. Not where their bodies were joined. Not at her breasts. Her face, as if she were the only thing worth looking at in the room.
Her rhythm stuttered.
She bent down to kiss him, because it meant she could swallow whatever was rising in her chest. She told herself it was nothing. He met her mouth with fervor, panting.
"Emma," he groaned again. "Fuck."
She responded with a slow grind, and then another kiss, hot and open-mouthed.
She shot Jean a glance. Still unmoving, a mask of calm indifference.
She gradually found her pace again. Long, deliberate, perfectly controlled, the kind of pace that Emma Frost was used to setting, the kind of pace that spoke of poise and purpose. She rode him slow and deep, sinking down to the hilt, gyrating her hips, breaths hot and mingling. He groaned all the while, grip tightening, abdomen clenching, but his gaze never left her face.
She didn't notice Jean until it was too late.
No whisper of sheets. No creaking of the mattress. Just a tongue and hot breath against her ear, and a sudden warmth against her back.
"You're holding your breath," Jean murmured against her ear, drawing a shudder. "Your rhythm is getting unsteady."
"I'm—" Her eyes shuttered. "You said you wouldn't interrupt me."
"Oops. I lied."
"That's cheating. Grey—"
"Let me help."
A hand, slow and unhurried down Emma's spine. Jean's other hand slid between Emma's thighs and found her clit, already swollen and aching, and rubbed in a slow, maddening rhythm that matched the roll of Peter's hips.
"Fuck," Emma cursed.
It was an ambush. It was cheating, but it was dirty and effective, and it had her clenching around the hard, thick length of him, breath stuttering. The rhythm was off completely, and she had stopped trying to pretend it wasn't by the third stroke.
Jean's fingers were not as practised as hers, but they were no less effective. They were slick and sure, a tactile symphony alongside Peter's motions. They pressed and slid and probed, and Jean learned from the little noises—unpractised and authentic—that fell out of Emma's throat, head lolled back onto Jean's shoulder, puffs of air against her cheek.
She rode Peter in long, deep strokes, shuddering down his entire length. Each time she rose, Jean's fingers circled, compensating for the loss of him. Each time she sank down deep, Jean's fingers pressed down. There was no stopping it, this unceasing dance of theirs, and Emma could feel him—all of him—inside her, thick and hot and pulsing, filling every inch of her, filling every crevice, that slick, shameful drag, his thumbs now applying a bruising press to her hips, breath coming in ragged pulls.
"Look at you," Jean crooned in her ear, tongue flicking, breasts pressed against Emma's back. "Come for him. Be a good loser."
"Fuck." A gasp, a sound from somewhere within her she failed to bury. "I hate you."
"I know." There was no stopping Jean's fingers or Peter's rhythm. "Keep going."
A motion. Peter sat up halfway, arms encircling Emma's waist. Chest to chest, her thighs bracketing his. Jean's mouth now at her neck, but fingers still continuing their maddening march. The angle changed. Something that was a quarter of the way to a sob tore itself from her throat, her vision whitening at the edges. A smirk from Peter that she could see even though his face was contorted in pleasure and effort.
Hands—his hands. They came up to the side of her face. Cradling, almost tenderly. A swipe of a finger across her cheek, a thumb at the corner of her mouth, and she almost leant into the touch.
"Hey," Peter said, in an infuriatingly soft tone that made her want to kiss him and claw at him at the same time. "Stay with me. Emma."
Her name again. Another gasp. A sound that was more than a quarter of the way to a sob, now.
"Fuck." She clenched against him, involuntary and poiseless. Eyes screwed tightly shut.
Emma Frost had been desired by millions and been looked at by more. She had been looked at by presidents and dictators alike in this position—riding on top, but none of them had cradled her face and beheld her gaze in this manner, like she was something precious, something worthwhile. She could feel it all, the heat of him, the sweat of him, the heartbeat of them, but underneath all of that there was something she had no name for, something terrible and devastating and entirely unarmoured.
He moved inside her still, each thrust a question that he desired an answer to; each thrust a chink in the armour. A truth, then a lie. Hope, and then despair. She kissed him through it all, her being entirely unmoored and adrift within the storm that was them. She kissed him with no technique, no flair, no grace. He kissed her back, deep and unhurried as if they had all the time in the world, as if she were worth all the time in the world. Just like that, just like that, and when she moaned he slowed and then sped up, ripping another gasp from her from a place she didn't know existed, a place she hadn't wanted to share. She felt Jean's lips on her ear and her jaw and her neck, warm and sure, and then a bite on her shoulder that made her cry out.
"Emma." Came Peter's guttural rasp again. "I've got you."
Her body responded like a chemical reaction. The heat pooling low in her core thrashed and coiled until she came apart without warning. She clenched against him, furious, her orgasm rolling through her in long, shuddering waves, going on and on and on, forehead pressed against his, cunt pulsing and fluttering, thighs shaking, voice breaking into a ragged cry that she was too blissed out to feel mortified by. Jean's fingers worked her through it all, circling, rolling, and her other arm held Emma's body up as it shook and shivered, not stopping until Emma was quivering and spent.
Peter held her through it all, one hand against the small of her back, the other cradling the side of her face, forehead against hers all the way, murmuring her name like it was something sacred. And for one long moment—a long, dazed moment where nothing meant everything and everything meant nothing, wrapped in the warmth of them, the safest she had felt in her life—she hated it, because she knew it wasn't destined to last.
Finally. Slack and spent, Peter still buried to the hilt. Her hair falling around her face, buried in the crook of his shoulder.
"No fair," she gasped, voice weak, almost needy.
"You never said there were rules," Jean said, grinning.
"I—"
"Three points, Peter."
He shuddered inside her. "Four two."
"Fine." Emma huffed a laugh into his shoulder.
He twitched. Once, twice, inside her. A gasp from her lips.
"Jesus, Parker."
"Sorry," he said, voice rough and not sounding remotely contrite. "I just—"
"Told you." Jean's voice was smug.
"Jean," he gasped, and Emma hated that sound, so she clenched against him, squeezing another choked sound out of him.
Jean eyed her like she knew what Emma was thinking.
"I think she has another one in her, Peter," Jean said, voice taking on a goading lilt.
"I—"
"I didn't know the White Queen could make those noises," Jean continued, pressing her face close.
"Fuck. You."
A dark laugh. Then, Peter shifted, turning. She lifted off him, shivering at the emptiness, mourning almost. A glance, loaded and heavy, between him and Jean.
Emma looked down.
"Emma." His voice came soft again. She shuddered. "Can I try something?"
"What is it?"
"Hands and knees." Rougher with arousal, now. "Please? If that's okay."
Emma blinked at him. She had been told to get on her hands and knees by a great number of people. Told, ordered, commanded. Flattered, bargained with, almost begged. But none of them had asked her if it was okay and then waited patiently for the answer, all earnest eyes.
"Is that a request?"
"Only if you're comfortable."
That infuriating kindness again. Still, he waited. Thumb, brushing her hipbones, tracing light circles over the smooth skin there. He didn't move, didn't push, didn't press the advantage, even though she could see plain as day his arousal—the roughness in his voice and the slight tremor of his thighs.
She smirked at him instead, because that was easier for Emma Frost to do.
She got on her hands and knees in the middle of the bed. She told herself it was because she wanted to, because she was in control, because it was her who had led to him wanting her in that position. She found herself annoyed that she didn't particularly care for the circumstances of him inside her.
A movement. She looked up at Jean, an indulgent smile still on her face. Then—hands on her hips, sliding up her spine, and the gentle gathering of hair out of her face. A kiss—lips on her bare shoulder and down the arc of her spine, soft, tender, reverent. She shivered. A push—the blunt head of him against her slick entrance, and she hadn't realised how sensitive she still was from the orgasm Jean had just wrung out of her, sensitive and tender and humming, her thighs trembling before he was inside her.
He pushed in. Slowly, deliberately, with aching sweetness.
She cried out.
It was too much. It was far too much. Her clit, still swollen and slick. Every inch of him dragged across shrieking nerves, impossibly sensitive, a bright, sharp edge of almost-pain wrapped in pleasure so hot it made her vision spark and whiten at the edges again. Her arms trembled as they gripped the sheets, and she tried to move away, almost instinctively, but the grip on her hips stopped her—gentle, not immovable, but there nonetheless.
He stopped, and she could feel how much it cost him to do so.
"Too much?" he murmured, pressing another kiss to her spine.
"Yes," Emma gasped. "Maybe. No. Peter. Fuck."
A curve of lips against her skin. A laugh, from Jean.
Emma Frost would not be outdone.
"Don't you dare stop."
This time, it was Peter who laughed. He pushed in again, and she cursed.
He went slow. Achingly slow, every long, slick drag of him filling her to the hilt before leaving her empty, each drawing a broken noise from the depth of her lungs. It was unbearable. It was exquisite. She clenched around him with every thrust, every stroke, helpless, inevitable, mindless, too sensitive to stand it yet too hungry to stop it. Every nerve of her being set alight, the whole length of her being pulled taut like a stretched wire, balancing on that razor edge, all of it rhythmic and obscene—the collision of skin and skin and the creaking of the bed. He reached below them to the bundles of nerves at the apex of her thighs, swollen and raw, far too swollen and too raw, and she cried out, again, again, into the pillow, hands fisted into the sheets, twisting, trembling, moaning.
"Fuck," she half-sobbed, and this time it really had gotten to half a sob. "Oh God. Peter. Fuck—"
"You okay?" Peter's voice was like gravel. "Is it good? Too much, or—"
"No," she snarled. "Fuck you. Don't stop. I'll kill you, Peter—"
A startled, breathless laugh from Peter and a delighted noise from Jean. He didn't stop. He didn't fucking stop, instead driving deeper, harder, further into her, until she could feel the whole length of him, hard and unyielding and torturous, hitting a place deep within her she did not know existed. There were phosphene lights like stars in her vision, and she was drowning, drowning in this feeling, because she could no longer tell where the pleasure ended and the overload of it all began, every nerve lit up, a livewire, screaming, echoing, blazing. There was a sound from her throat she did not recognise and did not want to claim, but it was hers and hers alone, high and broken, but her hips kept pushing back at him as if her body had detached itself from all rational thought.
Peter—mouthing at her spine, then over her ear. Whispering, murmuring, muttering, voice low and unsteady, coming out in breathless gasps. Words she could barely make out over the pleasure building and building, from her core up to her spine, a whip coiled tight being set free. She didn't make out any clever words, just her name, murmured over and over again. Emma, Emma, Emma, like a prayer, like a chant, like she was the only thing that mattered. I've got you and you're okay and you're so good, and no one had ever said to her, not in that way, not sincerely, not like he meant it with every fibre of his being, because Emma Frost had been told she was beautiful and magnificent and perfect by men of all classes, but no one said it in this unguarded way like Peter Parker, like it was the simplest fact in the world, like it cost him nothing to give, and he would give it over and over again. It unsettled her, and it went through her like a blade, but she didn't have time to analyse it while every nerve ending in her body was being set alight.
A rustle of sheets, and Jean knelt in front of her. A smirk, and Emma reached for her, because she needed something—she needed something to grip, something to hold on to. Jean took her arm for a moment, then pulled back, eyes wide in delight. Jean's lips were parted, face flushed, fingers wet with her slick from where she had been watching, touching herself.
"Look at me," Jean said, cupping her face. "I want to watch what he does to you."
"Fuck you. You're enjoying this."
"A little too much." A smile, slow and wicked, one that wouldn't have looked out of place on Emma's own face. "You make the most extraordinary sounds." She bent and caught Emma's lips between her teeth, biting, kissing hard. "Say his name again."
"Go to Hell."
"Say it, Frost."
"I won't—fuck. Peter."
He changed the angle. He tilted her hips higher, hand under her stomach, back arched, hair flailing, and she said it again. And again, and again, and again. His name, against Jean's mouth, teeth gnashing, biting, snarling, Peter, Peter, Peter, voice cracking over each syllable, both a plea and a curse, as he drove into her, inelegant, wild, erratic, his own breath catching in his throat, and the wave built and built, hot and low and merciless, climbing, rising, cresting—
Her core detonated. It broke over her with such a force she bit down hard onto Jean's shoulder, who gave a pained yelp Emma could not give less of a fuck about. Stars, somewhere in her vision, and heat, somewhere in the furnace of her core. The orgasm didn't stop when it should have. It rolled on and on and on, a long, wrenching, agonising crest that became almost unbearable. It was a sob now, dialled all the way to one hundred percent, ripping itself gracelessly from her throat, cunt clenching around his length in long, hard pulses, body quivering and shaking. She tried to twist away, but Peter's grip was firm yet gentle, fucking her through it with long, deep strokes that drew every shuddering aftershock out of her, each one a frisson of electricity along her veins.
"Peter," she gasped, voice breaking. "I can't, I can't, it's too—"
"I've got you," he said into her ear. "I've got you. Say stop if you need—"
"No," she said, her voice a thin, wrecked thing. "Don't."
She thought it was over. Her body thought otherwise, as if it wanted to prolong this moment, fragile as it was.
Before the last aftershock had faded, Peter shifted her hips again, finding the angle again that was just right, and the next wave began where the last one left off, a great winged thing rising out of the wreckage of her core, sharper, faster, with nothing to hold back against. She made a sound she had never made before in her life, primal and defenceless, naked of any diamond armour. One of Jean's hands tightened on her face, the other clutching her arm, teeth against her lip, and Peter strengthened the arm braced against her stomach, because she was boneless as she came again, harder than before, her whole body bowing, nails shredding the sheet, voice breaking on his name until there was no sound at all. Peter didn't let up—merciless, relentless, unforgiving, and each stroke came with a whimper until she was shuddering and limp, hair plastered to her forehead, but she still did not want him to stop. She couldn't, she wouldn't, because she didn't want to think about what it meant if he did, if she was no longer between the warmth of Peter Parker and Jean Grey.
He was close. He had been close for a while, because she could feel the hitch in his breath, the jerkiness in his rhythm, the tremor in his arm as he held her. The staccato of his pulse and breath against the skin of her spine. The way he throbbed inside her.
Then—
"Jean," he gasped, in the voice of a dying man.
A smirk, and then a palm to his chest.
Telepathy. Emma could feel the thread of telepathy. Maybe because her own was leaking from the orgasms that had just barrelled through her. But she could feel it, whatever Jean was doing to him, prolonging his orgasm, taking him off the ledge.
"Not in her," Jean said evenly. "That one's mine."
A hiss. He pulled out of her, gasping, holding himself together by a thread. Emma trembled all the way, forearms shaking, mourning the emptiness inside her.
"Grey," she snarled, but the venom was lost to the tremor in her voice. "I wanted that one."
"Too bad." Eyebrows raised, arms crossed.
Emma Frost had never hated Jean Grey more.
"Territorial." Emma settled for, flushed and furious. "The score—"
"Try me."
"Fine." She knew she wouldn't win in a contest of telepathy. She turned, eyeing Peter. His cock was still hard and wet against his stomach, twitching. "Not inside then. But I get him until he begs."
"Emma—"
"Shush."
She put her mouth on him, a lazy, slow lick from base to tip that had him grasping for her hair, and then climbed on top of him again, slowly, trembling slightly, settling between his thighs, spreading her knees, his arms circling her waist.
She took him in her hand again, heavy and slick. The first press of him against her made her breath catch. She manoeuvred him until he was pressing against her folds, in full sight of Jean.
Near, but never inside.
The hot length of him pressed flat against her, away from the too-sensitive bud of her clit. She rolled her hips, long and cruel and precise, taking her time, letting him feel every glide of him against her. He mouthed against her shoulder, fingers cupping her breast. He shook, every muscle pulled taut, straining against himself, the tip of him brushing her entrance but not slipping inside, a cruel, tantalising torture.
"Emma," he gasped.
She was going to win this. "Tell her," she muttered. "Tell her what it's like."
"Fuck." Eyes screwed shut. "God. You're so—fuck. Wet. You feel—"
"Go on." She ground against him, hard, drawing out a hiss.
"Inside." He shook. "I can't—inside. Please. Fuck."
"There's another," Emma said, turning to Jean. She tried to keep her voice even.
Jean's jaw tightened. "Peter? That was fast."
"Sorry. Emma three, Jean four," he groaned. "Fuck. Jean—"
Emma ground down on him again at Jean's name. Another ragged whimper.
Jean lunged at her. She went down cackling, letting the other woman push her off him.
"My turn," Jean said, voice dark. "I've been waiting."
Jean moved like a predator, as if she had been waiting, hungry, all night—which she had. She pushed Peter back onto the pillows, clambering over him with the grace of someone who had done it a thousand times. She hovered, for a moment, gazing down at his lidded eyes, still dark and wild, something softening in her emerald gaze.
Then—an unhurried motion. Jean took Peter in her hand and inside her, and her head fell back and her back arched and her mouth opened up in a moan that lit up Emma's core from where she was watching.
"There you are," Jean murmured. "I've been waiting for you."
"Jean," he said hoarsely. "I'm not, I can't—"
"It's okay." Jean braced her arms on his hips and moved, slow and deliberate and practised, rolling her hips in a long fluid wave, eyes finding Emma's, mouth curving. "Come in me, Peter. I want you to come in me while she watches."
Emma watched, transfixed.
She watched Jean ride him, the pale curve of her spine rolling, the flush spreading up her chest, the gyrating, grinding motions of her body. She watched his cock disappear into her body, up, down, up, down, glistening and obscene, accompanied by the rise and fall of her body. She watched Peter's hands slide up her sides to her hips and her breasts, reverent and gentle.
She heard him say I love you, I love you, I love you, Jean in a voice stripped of all pretence or armour, soul-bare and real. Emma's pulse was in her throat, thighs slick with wetness, and her core still sensitive enough that the graze of the bedsheet sent a shiver up her spine, and she told herself it was the arousal that made something hot, sharp, and sickly bloom in her chest.
Jean's pace quickened. There was the wet, sinful slap of skin on skin, her breath coming in sporadic gasps, and every time she sank down, there was a repetitive oh, oh, oh that came out unguarded and helpless. She ground down on his pelvis in tight, desperate circles, and Emma watched as Peter slid his hands to her ass and pulled her down, hard, drawing a sharp cry from her throat, head thrown back, auburn hair wild and streaming.
Peter came with a broken moan, bucking up into Jean, hands gripping her hips tight enough to leave a mark, whole body shaking, I love you, I love you spilling from his lips. She followed him off the edge a heartbeat later with a ragged cry of his name, desperate and pleading, whole body clenching around him as she rode it out, nails scoring his chest, shuddering through wave after wave as he held her. It went on and on, the shaking and shivering and the almost reverent way in which he held her, before she folded forward over him, hair around his face, lips against his in a kiss that was slow and sweet. For a long moment they stayed like that, breathing hard, two bodies that had learned each other.
Then Jean opened her eyes and looked straight at Emma, body still shivering. Glazed yet smug.
"Three for me," she said. "He came in me."
"On my work," Emma shot back, and she thought she had every right to be sour. "I had him at the edge. You're stealing the credit."
"Bite me," Jean said with a scoff. "It's still three."
"And what about the one you just had?"
"Well, it's not your points, obviously. Peter's, I guess."
"I think," Peter interjected with a strangled gasp. "I've already won regardless."
A smack from Jean, eyes fond. "Idiot."
Emma snorted, eyeing him for a moment, before her gaze flicked back to Jean, still flushed and quivering. "Then I want the moan."
"What moan?"
"This one."
Jean let Emma raise her off Peter, hissing at the loss of him. He sank back against the pillows, spent and trembling, eyes wide. A long thread of him followed, pearling on the inside of Jean's thigh and sliding in a slow line toward her knee. Emma caught her by the hip, nothing gentle about the motion, pressing her down onto her back against the sheets. Emma knelt between her, thighs still weak from earlier, and spread Jean's legs wide with both hands.
"Frost, what—"
Emma put her mouth on Jean.
A jerk of a knee, almost instinctive, and a sharp intake of breath. Emma held her down, hand rippling crystalline momentarily.
She tasted heat and salt. She dragged her tongue up, then down, over slick folds and the swollen bud of her clit, collecting every pearlescent drop of him from the thick, creamy white dripping out of Jean. She pressed the flat of her tongue against the entrance, then traced a teasing, tantalising circle around her clit, before drawing back and dipping inside, tasting, flicking, and Jean's hips jerked off the mattress with a sharp, shocked sound, still sensitive from the earlier orgasm that Peter had wrung out of her.
A hand in Emma's hair, fisting hard. Peter, still shaking, but with the look of hunger returning to his dark eyes, rolled onto his side and found Jean's mouth, clumsy but tender, one hand sliding up to cup her breast, thumb brushing her nipple, drawing a whine out of her as she kissed him back as if she were drowning.
"Fuck," Jean moaned, after Peter had drawn back slightly. "Peter. Frost. Emma."
"That's a moan," Emma said against her thigh, wet-lipped and with vicious satisfaction. "Who's the easy one, now?"
"You bitch," Jean gasped, arching, but did not let go of Emma's hair.
"Seven four," Peter said with a chuckle, hand still tracing Jean's skin, staring at the two women with ravenous, undisguised fascination.
Jean tried to move away, but Emma held firm, yanking Jean back towards her, arms on her thighs. She buried her face in Jean's slick heat, taking it slow, licking her with thorough strokes, tracing every fold and every crevice, a flick on her clit before pulling away, dragging a whine out of Jean, thighs shaking against Emma's shoulders and breath coming out in desperate pants. One finger inside, joined by another, still tasting and licking all the while, feeling Jean clench around them, hot and slippery and taut as a bowstring.
She was on the verge. Emma could feel it, in the desperate tremors of her body and the small whines escaping her throat, and this time Emma did not let go. A curl of the fingers. Mouth, sealed over the swollen bud of Jean's clit. A suck, hard.
Jean shattered with a hoarse cry that Peter caught gracelessly in his mouth, lips moving to swallow the broken sound, hands cradling her face. Her thighs clamped around Emma's, jerking, flailing, her whole body arching off the mattress, fist locked in strands of white-blonde as she bucked against Emma's mouth, again and again and again, on and on and on, clenching and pulsing around Emma's long fingers.
When it finally ebbed, Emma looked up, lips and face glistening, a portrait of savage satisfaction.
"Seven seven," she said. "Right, Peter?"
A laugh, as Peter brushed strands of hair out of Jean's sweat-slicked face. "Yeah."
Jean gasped, chest heaving, head on Peter's thighs. "Fine," she managed. "A draw."
Emma looked at Peter, propped up against the headboard, staring at them as if he had just witnessed a miracle, waking from some sort of dream—flushed face, half-lidded eyes, cock wet and hard again. She smiled, lazy and wicked, then crawled up the bed a little unsteadily, taking him in her hand once again, then her mouth, cleaning him with languorous licks, tasting herself and Jean and him together. He hissed, hips twitching.
"Shit," he cursed. "You're going to kill me."
"It's only fair," Emma murmured, before Jean's hand closed around her wrist, dragging Emma away from him.
An eyebrow raised, Emma braced for retaliation, but Jean simply collapsed beside her, flat on her back, one arm flung over her eyes, curling slightly into Peter's side. Peter made a noise that sounded like gratitude, and Jean let out a laugh.
They lay there, the three of them, sticky, spent, and shivering, staring up at the ceiling. It was a draw, Emma knew, but she also knew midway through the night she had stopped caring about the contest and the forfeit and revenge.
Emma lay there for a long moment, trying to work out how she was supposed to feel.
Satisfied, yes. But Emma Frost was good at satisfaction, and the tender ache between her legs was proof enough of that.
But not like this. It was a draw, but she knew it was a draw in name only. She had climaxed three times—and they had been amazing, mind-blowing even—and had both Peter and Jean moaning her name, but somehow she still felt like a loser.
Then, a faint rustle of sheets.
"Hey," Peter said in a soft voice, and it was not directed at her. Emma turned her head.
It was for Jean. She rolled onto her side to face him. He had moved without being asked, reaching for her in the dim light of the bedroom, an arm sliding over her bare hip, shuffling forward until they were nose to nose.
The temperature of the room changed.
"Hey," Jean said back, equally softly. "You okay?"
"Yeah." Peter grinned. "More than okay. I did say I was winning regardless."
"Idiot," Jean repeated, pressing a soft kiss to the side of his mouth.
"Apparently ready for more, too," he said, face flushing.
Emma could feel the eye roll from where she was, watching them like how one would watch two colliding trains.
"I was counting on it." Jean touched his face, then his jaw, then his neck. Another soft kiss. "I want to be there for all of it this time."
"Okay," he whispered back, already moving.
There was that feeling again. Of course. Of course Jean would get the rest of the night. Emma had known this from the start, but she still wasn't prepared for the sharp, sour twist in her gut.
They kissed. There was no competition, nothing hurried, nothing performed, nothing to prove. It was slow and a little sleepy—hands sliding into hair, thumbs tracing cheekbones, mouths sliding over each other in a way that was so effortlessly intimate that Emma looked away, and she had never been a prude.
She forced herself to look back. Jean had told her to stay for all of it, and Emma Frost was not one to back out.
And so she stayed. She stayed, propped on one elbow, a trespasser in someone else's private property.
She stayed, as Peter eased Jean onto her back and slowly kissed down the length of her, mouthing her collarbone, her ribs, and then the soft skin below her ribs. She stayed, as he took one nipple into his mouth and Jean arched with a gasp, fingers sliding into his hair.
"Don't make me wait, baby," she breathed.
"Never," Peter mouthed against her stomach. "Not you, Jean."
She stayed, as he settled between Jean's thighs and took his time. She stayed, as he spread her open gently and kissed the inside of her thighs, softly, sweetly. She stayed, as he found Jean's warmth—another kiss there, then a lick, slower, deeper, tracing every part of Jean, patient, before returning to the clit.
He was in love—it was plain as day. It was unbearably, achingly tender, the way Peter touched and looked at Jean. There was something murmured—something private that Emma could not and did not want to hear, and then a laugh, from Peter, against Jean's thigh. Jean's hip rose to meet him as he continued to stroke soothing circles on her thigh, fingers curling in the sheets, breath hitched and ragged, and she said his name in a voice Emma had never heard Jean Grey use—not even in the softest moments, like after a mission, when she was embracing Peter and making sure he was all right. It was open, unmistakably open, the openness of history and love.
"Peter," Jean gasped. "Baby. Right there. Don't stop."
She was wet and flushed and shameless, fingers tangling in his hair, laughing when he scraped somewhere ticklish, whining when he stroked somewhere sensitive.
And Peter was laughing lightly too, fingers tracing her like a map, like she was a journey he had taken a thousand times, like he had mapped out every scar, every fault, every regret, like they were two people who had already weathered it all to reach that destination. He slid two fingers inside her, curling, mouth still on her, attention never leaving each other, and her head tipped back, throat working, moan escaping.
When Jean came, it was loud and ragged, back bowing off the mattress, hand yanking his hair, clenching around his fingers, the I love you's spilling from her lips like instinct, and Peter murmuring you're so beautiful in reply. She was still shuddering with frissons of pleasure when she pulled him up by the shoulders and kissed him, tasting herself on his mouth, wrapping her legs around his waist.
"Now," she ground out. "Inside. Please, now."
Another laugh, and then a kiss. Peter pushed in slowly, both of them letting out the same shuddering breath, eyes locking and holding, gazes soft. Emma watched it all, the slow slide of Peter's cock inside Jean, inch by inch, slow and unhurried, drawing back and sliding in again. She watched Jean run her nails down his back, gripping his hips to pull him deeper. She watched Peter's muscles bunch and release as he shook with effort.
There was that same sharp feeling in Emma's chest now—this time too sharp to ignore.
Emma Frost had spent the last hour treating this like a game. Every move was aimed at an audience—the angle of her mouth on Peter, the way he disappeared inside her, all culminating in the satisfaction of the points being scored.
But no one was performing to an audience now. There were no masks and no armour. These were two people who performed only for each other and for no one else. These were two people who were doing something else entirely, and it was beautiful in a way that Emma had no name for, but she felt something split deep within her chest anyway.
She had spent years believing sex was something one did. She had wielded it like a blade, like a shield, like something to give away as a means to an end.
These two did it for each other and solely for each other. It was poetry and gravity in motion, a continuous conversation neither wanted to end.
Peter laughed when Jean's heel dug into his back harder than he had expected. Jean laughed back, then gasped when he shifted his angle and hit something within her that made her eyes go wide.
"Oh," she gasped. "Do that again, baby."
And he would, repeating the motion, swallowing her cry with a kiss. Then she rolled him onto his back to straddle him, and they both laughed at how clumsy it had been, Peter wincing slightly as his knee bent at an awkward angle, but then she sank down, and neither was laughing, the sound replaced by gasps and whines and moans, right there and yes, please and I love you. She braced her arms on his chest and rocked, slow and deep, hair around his face, holding his gaze. None of it was graceful or practised. It was all sweat and murmured nonsense and the shameless slap of skin, but not once did either of them stop seeing each other.
Then Emma saw something pass between them that she could not hear, and she knew it wasn't telepathy, because Jean Grey did not need any telepathy to have an unspoken conversation with Peter Parker. She saw it happen—Jean's eyes going soft and unfocused, Peter's breath catching, and for a moment neither of them moved, suspended in the gravity of each other. A look held a whole sentence, and a touch held a whole poem. Peter smiled, brilliant and real, and pulled Jean down to him, pressing their foreheads together, murmuring without sound, and it was more intimate than telepathy, whatever was passing between them, older than words and older than time, and Emma Frost had started reading minds as a little girl but she knew she was not invited to this.
They came almost together, waves crashing on a shore. Jean first, quiet, shattering, mouth open against Peter's jaw, whole body clutching around him. Peter dove after her with a broken groan, driving up into her, burying his face into her neck and whispering something Emma was not supposed to hear and pretended not to.
They lay together afterwards in a shaky, sweaty tangle, kissing and laughing at nothing at all.
This was what love looked like, Emma knew.
She pretended the tightness in her chest was just an aftereffect of her own orgasms.
Her hands were shaking, and that wasn't the worst part. Nor was it the fact that Jean and Peter both saw it. No, the worst part was that they were kind about it. No taunting, no jeering, no mockery. Just a silent look between the two, a mug of hot tea in her hands, and then Jean draping a blanket over all three of them, tucking it around Emma's shoulders with casual, unthinking kindness, not a word said, and nothing asked for in return.
She would rather they have been cruel. She would rather they have been cruel—maybe make a joke at her expense, maybe gloat and tell her she had lost the contest, tell her she was unwanted and unneeded and unloved, that it was all an elaborate prank to get back at her for all she had done—the four years of insults and belittling and the time she invaded Peter's mind.
But no, it was the kindness that did it.
Emma lay very still under the blanket, shoulder close but not touching Jean's. She felt the thing in her chest again, like a crack spreading through ice. She had been desired by presidents and kings and a man who had once tried to buy her a small island, but none of them had tucked a blanket around her shoulder afterward or handed her a mug of tea, because afterward was when she would put the diamond armour back on, and afterward was when she could see how little of her a man had actually seen.
But they had seen her. They had seen her, and that was the problem. Peter had looked at her and said her name like it was something worthwhile. Jean had looked at her and held her with an arm against the back of her neck. Four years of sneering at Jean Grey and trying to get under Peter Parker's skin and somehow they had been the gentlest things that had ever touched her.
She reached for it. The poised smile. The cutting remark. The diamond skin, cool and impenetrable, waiting beneath her skin like a promise.
Nothing. The armoury was empty.
And so she found her hands shaking. Shaking, as she tried to clasp her bra, but she missed the latch, once, twice, thrice. She had made a room of men rain gunfire on each other without batting an eye, but somehow she could not even manage a fucking bra.
Because she kept thinking about it. About the way Peter's hand had reached for Jean's in the dark, about the way he had come back to her after every round, about the incessant gravity between the two. About the way no one had ever done that for her and no one ever would, because Emma Frost was not the kind of woman who inspired the same kind of devotion that Jean Grey did.
And the worst part was she could not bring herself to hate them. She had not hated them, not for a long time now. The hate had just been part of the armour, part of the act, because it was easier to reach for someone than to reach within yourself.
"Emma." Jean's voice was a whisper. Then, fingers against her skin, taking over. The soft click of a bra being clasped.
"Don't." She tried to make her voice sharp. It wasn't.
"Do you—"
"No. The conditions were met. Nothing else needs to be said."
"You don't have to—"
"Jean. Please. I'm fine."
Jean looked like she wanted to push. Instead, she simply nodded once and let her hand fall. Emma didn't know if this second kindness was worse than the first.
"I need a minute," she said to no one in particular.
She got up in just her bra and underwear, back straight, and shut the bedroom door behind her.
The living room was dark but faintly warm. The Manhattan skyline glittered down below, the pinpricks of light cold and sharp.
Emma sat on the sofa, knees to her chest, staring at nothing in particular.
She didn't cry. Emma Frost had lost the habit sometime in her teenage years. But she still felt it somewhere within her chest, a weight heavy as stone, a dry grief pressing against her eyes.
She didn't know how much time had passed before a door opened and then closed again. Then, footsteps.
Peter sank down next to her, wearing his T-shirt and shorts again, wordlessly passing her the same mug, still warm, and a woolly jacket that smelled faintly of coconut and vanilla. She accepted both after a glance.
A beat of silence, where Peter simply nursed his own mug.
"You know the viral pizza place around the block?"
Emma blinked. Of the things she had expected him to say, that wasn't it, and it startled her out of her reverie. "What?"
He shrugged. "We have leftovers. Well, I mostly want to put the air fryer to good use."
A snort of laughter escaped despite herself. "You have an air fryer."
"Yeah?" He eyed her with a smile. "Been moving up in the world."
She rolled her eyes but nodded.
He eased back up, and she watched as he walked to the kitchen, soon accompanied by the sound of electronic humming.
When he came back, he began regaling her with the story of his new purchase. It was inane and pointless and mundane, but she was grateful for it nonetheless.
"Peter," she eventually said, interrupting him, because even though he had been talking, it still felt like there was a heavy silence between them.
He stopped mid-sentence, a slice of pizza halfway to his mouth. "Yeah?"
"You asked me earlier," she began, aiming the words in front of her, "if it was okay. If I was okay."
"Yeah?" he repeated.
"No one has asked me that. Not once, not ever."
He blinked at her. "That's not right. Seems like a thing someone should've done."
"I told Jean I was fine." She looked at him now. "But I think I owe you some honesty. Like we discussed."
There had always been something about Peter Parker that made her feel naked. Maybe it was his insufferable kindness and irritating moral fibre. But she knew that he was the one person who wouldn't act on whatever she was going to say.
"I've lost count of the number of times people have told me they loved me. None of them meant it, of course," she continued, picking at a slice of pepperoni. "I've also lost count of the number of doors I've walked out of. I've always left first, every time, because I've been afraid someone would see who I was. I told myself it was strength. Turns out I've just been locking myself out."
He nodded. He didn't say I'm sorry or that's not true. He simply nodded, eyes still on her, as if she had handed him something precious and heavy and he was looking for a place to set it down carefully.
"I understand," he said simply. "You've been in my mind. You know I used to do that too."
It was her turn to nod. "I know," she said. "I hoped you could tell me how to stay."
"The answer's Jean, so it probably won't be to your liking." He gave a small laugh. "But she stayed first. She stayed, even after all that she had done. She called me, two weeks after Roosevelt Island, and then kept calling me afterward. She left the door open when I was being an idiot, when I didn't realise how much she had already meant to me. She stayed, because she realised how much I needed her, and even though I told her she had me, I needed to have her just as much."
Emma stared at the slice in her hand. The edges of her eyes felt dry and hot again.
"I don't think anyone is going to stay for me," she whispered.
"Maybe not yet," he said. "I told you once, didn't I? That you were worth loving? You don't need to be fixed, Emma. You just need to stop leaving before the end of a sentence. You just need to stop encasing yourself in diamond around everyone."
"You make it sound so irritatingly simple."
"Maybe it is. Maybe you just think it's not because you've never tried."
She let out a breath that was half a laugh and half something else. Peter said nothing. He didn't touch her but didn't look away either. He had held her and been inside her tonight, but this was different—this was sitting beside and listening and understanding.
"I wanted what you have," she said eventually, and she wanted to hate herself because of how weak her voice sounded. "That's it. The reason for all of this. Everything."
"I know." And of course he knew. He had known for a long time, but having Emma Frost admit it was a different story altogether. "You're allowed to want things. I get it. I wanted MJ for four years from a distance, and it nearly killed me."
She lifted her head. "I was always like her. That's the part I never understood. Our parents both gave us up. We're both telepaths. We both lost our sisters. We both got experimented on for our powers. We've both used our powers to do horrible things." She sucked in a breath. "But I never understood why she could find someone like you, and I—" Her voice cracked on that last syllable.
"Emma," he said softly, and now he did reach for her, greasy fingers and all. She grasped his hand tightly. "I'm sorry. For tonight."
"What?" She blinked at him. "Why?"
"It was cruel," he said, and something within her twisted at that truth laid bare. "We both knew you were hurting, but we still used it against you. I'm sorry. We're sorry."
Her eyes shuttered. That feeling again, prickling against her eyes.
Because maybe that was the cruellest thing anyone had ever done to her. To hold her with such tenderness, to press his mouth against her hair, to tell her it was okay to stop, to tell her I've got you, even though she knew he didn't love her and never would because she knew where his heart lived, and she would leave when the sun rose. She would leave, and she would be alone again. And there would be men after this, both men and women, and some of them would probably lie and tell her they loved her, but none of them would look at her the way he did.
She didn't want his body; she didn't want him. She wanted to be looked at the way he looked at her, like the world had narrowed to a single face. She wanted to be chosen on purpose, not kindly, not by accident, not out of pity, not because she was convenient or pretty or useful, but because she was wanted for who she was.
"It was," she replied. "It was cruel. But I initiated it. I only have myself to blame."
He shook his head. "Still. You still didn't deserve it."
"Peter, I—"
"No. Just take it. We're sorry. We wanted to help you, but you're not an easy person to help."
Emma eyed him from under a curtain of hair. Part of her wanted to snap at him. She didn't need help. She wasn't some damsel in distress.
She didn't. She looked down. "I know. I'm not."
"We know who you are, Emma." Peter smiled at her before his tone turned tentative. "Jean won't admit it, but we both care about you. And I like to think we're friends now. This is the second time we're having a heart-to-heart."
Emma snorted. "Friends. Really?"
"Sure," he said, as if it were the easiest thing in the world. "Why not? You know everything about me. You're the only one in the X-Men, apart from Jean, who knows my name and what I look like."
She stared at him for a moment. "Fine."
He beamed at her. "So? Don't go back to your penthouse tonight. Stay, please? You can stay with us. Or you can have this couch, if you'd prefer. Jean says it's too leathery or whatever, which I don't agree with."
She thought of a dimly-lit reception and a robotic greeting. She thought of a glass elevator and the long ride to the top. She thought of a cold, silent apartment and the empty white corridor of the rest of her life.
"I'll stay." She surprised even herself at how quickly she had said it. If Peter was too, he didn't show it.
"Okay." He didn't make it a moment. He didn't make a comment, he didn't thank her, and he didn't praise her. He just handed her the last slice of pizza.
She ate it, chewing slowly, looking down at the sea of city lights. They were clearer now, warmer.
"I'll stay," she repeated after a while, more to herself than to him. "I only mean—to not leave. Just once."
"Okay," he said again, nodding and looking at her. Then, his expression turned sly. "I think Jean still wants payback, though. For that last one."
A laugh escaped her, real and unguarded. "You are the most ridiculous couple I have ever seen."
"I know. I've been told that by a lot of people."
Eventually, after Peter had returned to the bedroom, she finished her tea and her slice and washed up in the sink.
She looked down the hallway. The bedroom door was ajar, a shaft of light shining through. There was the sound of laughter, bright and clear.
She had spent years believing that wanting to be loved was a weakness. Tonight, she had watched two people who were brave enough to be vulnerable with each other. It hadn't looked like weakness. It had looked like trust and devotion and the strongest thing she had ever seen.
She wanted it. Not their version. But her own, with someone who would reach for her hand in the dark, with someone who would look at her as if she were the only thing worth looking at, with someone who would stay, even after seeing her for who she was.
She didn't know who. She didn't know when. She didn't know whether the woman she was could learn to hold a door open or at least leave it ajar instead of closing it. But the not-knowing felt like a road now, instead of a brick wall.
She smiled and walked towards the door.
For the first time in her life, Emma Frost would stay in a room that wasn't hers because she wanted to.