Xavia had poured over information about politicians all day since the last bribe went on. She was very restless and wanted to go home. She had to keep reminding herself that she had a job to finish, and money to line her pockets… Why, she could go home to Michigan for a few days to say goodbye to her parents.

She had decided it was time to be out on her own, away from the sheltering, away from the over concern for her well being…. She was growing up and experiencing adulthood, stretching her wings, testing the air flow. It was hard to tell if she would ever want to go back to Michigan for good. Being able to get out and travel the world was a golden opportunity to her. The best part was the thrill of the mission, even if she was homesick.

Ah, now she needed to get up and walk around, stretch her muscles. The plant manipulator stood and went to the closet, grabbing a button up dress that was tailored to fit her. It had cost her a pretty piece, but it was her reward for landing a job and this was the first time she got to put it on. The bodice was somewhat tight, but not painted on, and showed off her chest area better than any clothing she had worn. The crimson fabric flared at her hips into a thigh length skirt to show off her toned legs. She quickly pulled her riotous curls back and pinned it with a matching rose.

Completing the outfit was a pair of old fashioned stockings with the seam in the back, and a pair of second-hand pumps in the same color as her dress. She didn’t put any jewelry on because she didn’t own any, but she did put on some light make-up.

One must dress nice when going down to the hotel bar to listen to the gossip. Maybe there would be some info on certain politicians that she could relay to Martin later. That would be good.

She descended from the fifth floor where her room was, then, grabbing a handbag on her way out. Indeed, when she walked, heads turned, and she had quite the audience in the lobby. It was as if a Hollywood starlet from back in the 30’s had graced the hotel with her presence. Yet she continued to walk as if she didn’t notice, even though she did… And as she headed into the bar, most of the men, even if they were with a female, checked her out in appreciation, which she ignored, as well as the glares received from some of the females.

Xavia sat at a random, empty table, and waited for the waiter to come and take her drink order.

Jupiter might as well have been on vacation for how much he was enjoying this trip, He had been laying waste to human organization and human’s alike, Haters of their betters. He had learned three words in Romanian, “Purge, Purify, cleanse” He had taken to saying one of the three as an announcement before he decimate everyone within sight. He had spread the word to the mutants that if they were in the are and heard him say that, they were to freeze in place and close their eyes and not make a sound. It was something the humans could not manage to do , stay still and not scream. HE had left wearing a suit today but came back in torn up rags. It was amusing. He strolled into the hotel that had kept quiet about his presence so far and went into the bar and there she was, his mouth went dry and as he closed in on her, he couldn’t help but get a little excited. His arms went to either side of her and his voice rumbled pleasantly.

“Little Nymph, Little Dryad. I have caught you again.” His tail snaked out hoping to close on an ankle. “ Do you know how long I looked for you?” his fingers pressed on the table. He was sure that a dashing gentleman would have faced him, to defend her honor, if he hadn’t been himself and more so looking like he had just single handily razed a town of racists.

He took a deep breath, breathing in her scent, he had missed it. He had missed her. “ my goddess, you look good.”

She had just ordered a virgin daiquiri, the waiter leaving her behind, when she felt the strong and familiar arms go on either side of her, and a tail wrap around her dainty ankle. Surprise found the light in her eyes, and Xavia didn’t turn around just yet, seeing as her heart went into overdrive, beating a staccato against her ribcage.

>> “ Do you know how long I looked for you?”

“I wondered when you would find me…” she whispered. “What took you so long?” In other words, she missed him a lot, and had been impatient to see him, even though she thought it wouldn’t happen until she got back in the states and started to fix her life.

She turned around, finally, and gave a gulp as she looked at him again after the month or so since she had last seen him. Still, she did not get up. She didn’t trust her knees, they felt kind of weak at the moment. He always seemed to have that kind of affect on her.

When she finally got the nerve to get up, she did so, and hesitantly moved closer, tilting her head back and resting a palm on his chest, a myriad of emotion showing themselves in the depths of her caramel gaze. Her lips sort of quivered a little, but she wasn’t about to cry. “Jupiter…”

“I wondered when you would find me…” she whispered. “What took you so long?”


“You, Love. Are in Romania.” His nose wrinkled and he knew it was more than likely because of one group or another. Kabal or xmen. Where was the upside here?

“You lost your self in that city so thoroughly. I looked for any hint I could and still you remained elusive.” The frustrated tones rang clear and true, but the under lying emotion of pain and relief were a lion’s roar to the mouse squeak of frustration.

“Jupiter…”

“Xavia.”

Slightly aware of the fact that she was sooo clean and he was so filthy at the moment he refused to embrace her just yet, but his lips said to hell with it and his mouth closed on hers. He picked her up with thumb and pointer on each hand and set her on the edge of the table she was just sitting at his hand planted firmly to her sides….They were in a hotel. “Do you remember what I told you, when you tricked me last? I am very dirty right now and I want to shower. You look great so I don’t want to get you dirty. Or make a scene but if you try to get away again, I am going to throw you over my shoulder and keep you there, from now on. Come with me up stairs so I can clean up and get into something decent. Or?” he left that or as hers to fill in, he had told her he was going to tie her up and make her his….but he wouldn’t force anything it was idle threat that resulted from being tormented by a beautiful woman.

Any reply she was about to give to his words were lost when he kissed her. Her whole body turned to pudding in that instant, and she nearly fell into him. But he kept grip on her with his hands, and had sat her on the edge of the table.

She hardly heard a word he had said after words, she was concentrating too hard on not throwing herself at him because he looked like he had been dragged through the pits of Hell. Smelled like it too, she thought, but didn’t comment because, damn it, she had missed him and thought about him when she wasn’t thinking about business.

>> “Come with me up stairs so I can clean up and get into something decent. Or..?”

His voice broke into her foggy brain, and she nodded. Yeah, sure, whatever. God, he is so… Uhmmm… “I won’t be running.” She said instead, and didn’t move from the table. She grabbed a napkin, though, and gave him her room number. “I have too much work to do to leave Romania right now…” And she left it at that. She wasn’t about to give out that information, even to him. She trusted him with her life, but she didn’t trust the Kabal with her life just yet, if she were to blab, even to the person whom she was falling for, who knows what they would do? And what if the information leaked to the wrong ears? There were spies everywhere.

“Go ahead and go take your shower, and I will be in my room in about ten minutes after I finish my drink and doing some last minute business for my job. We can go for a walk or something?”

She should be very happy with her decision to not argue and comply with the Smooching, he needed it damn it, she had disappeared just as quick as he got her well enough to do so, and while no, she didn’t have to kiss him. he wasn’t above throwing a super strength sized tantrum and since they weren’t in new york, he might not even hold back on his strength… Romania needed a good shaking. But she had indeed placated him with her pale pink lips.

~~“I won’t be running.”

~~“I have too much work to do to leave Romania right now…”

His jaw wanted to drop a little, she wouldn’t be ruinning, because she had too much work to do? Was this woman teasing him. she didn’t kiss him like she wanted him to go away? Maybe he needed a shower more than he knew.

~~“Go ahead and go take your shower, and I will be in my room in about ten minutes after I finish my drink and doing some last minute business for my job. We can go for a walk or something?”

“Bussiness?” His eyebrow rose slightly…xmen didn’t call their work business. Which left his other assumption sitting, there. Then again perhaps there was a fourth group that he didn’t know about, it was a possibility.

“Ok ten minutes and a walk or something in your room.” He stood for a moment, planted one more firm kiss on her lips just incase, she was tricking him, and she was indeed going to run like heck. He turned around with out another word. He proceeded to his room grabbed a change of clothes and a bag, acquired a maid from a different hallway, a large tip and a threat to her pesky life got him what he wanted which was into dryads room. He then went into her bathroom and began to shower and would be doing so in ten minutes as well. He had essentially switched the roles that they had last time. He left the door wide open and only a foggy piece of plastic would separate her imagination from the real thing.

She kissed him back as he kissed her, feeling the familiar quiver she had felt whenever he was around her. She watched him go, and felt a little sad, even though she knew she was going to see him in a little while anyways. Her drink was given to her about a second later, and she had trouble concentrating on the task at hand: Gathering information.

Still, Xavia sat there for the time she said she would be, and nobody started gossipig about politics. What kind of a bar was this? Huffing, she got up and casually strolled back up to her room. When she found the door open, she went wide eyed and hesitantly entered. Nothing seemed out of place, she checked under the bed for her briefcase, it was still there in the exact spot where she had left it. She then noticed the sound of the shower, and figured out who the intruder was.

Oh, could she be mean? Nah, she wouldn’t do that to him. Flushing the toilet when one was in the shower was just rude. But then again, he did get into her room without asking before hand. All he had to do was get the key from her! Sheesh.

While he was still in the shower, she closed the door ever so gently so as not to alert him of her presence, and wiggled out of her dress until she was left standing in a filmy, black slip, and went to sit on the bed to wait for him.

Jupiter grinned as the door made it's quiet way shut, WHy was she playing mind games with him? he wasn't good at this in the first place, he knew darn well...or atleast from what Venus told him, he would come off as too pushy, too agressive for most women. and then Venus would make some smart comment about, then again sometimes women loved a jerk....argh, why couldn't she just let him know what she wanted. I'll be in my room, meet me there? we could talk a walk....what? every time she kissed him, he felt like they should throw caution or decency to the wind, and follow through with what every kiss suggested, but there was always an emergency brake? was he doing something wrong?

he slipped into his boxers after drying and then his pants...his shirt, his shirt could wait. he opened the door and saw a puddle of a sexy dress on the floor,his eyes followed the carpet cautiously hoping for a trail of other garments and found none, but what his eyes ended on, made the trial moot, he could find his way there. He tried to take the predator out of his gait but he failed miserably and made his way to her with all of the possessiveness of a carnivore to its query. he stilled himself at the bed side, he would give her a chance to calm him before he was more enticed.

"A maid offered to open the door for me while I waited." he offered. "I hope you didn't mind." his hair was down and fell to a bit past his chin, the fresh shower giving him the rare visage of lacking his spikes.

She almost swallowed her tongue at the sight of him without anything except a pair of boxers, and that was it. Xavia moved to her knees and closer to him, wrapping her arms around him and kissing his chest. Her fingers trembled a little as they skimmed the skin of his back and she looked up into his eyes. “I’ve missed you so much. And I would have given you the key if you wanted in.” Amusement tinged her voice, even though it sounded thick and husky at the moment, and her accent sounded a bit thicker as well.

Xavia was sure of what she wanted tonight… She wanted her Jupiter, she wanted to give herself to him and become his Xavia. Her every fiber wanted it. These passed months had been hell without him in her life, she had always watched for him, hoping he HAD followed her, even though she deserved to be abandoned by him after tricking him. She lifted her arms and looped them around his neck, pulling herself up and almost shyly finding his lips. “No games.” She murmured against his lips, “I want you. I am not going anywhere.”

She meant it too, no more running, no more torture. They had been through enough of that, and it was time to stop. She had realized that she had been afraid to let herself go with him, just like she was afraid of everything else in life. But she had figured out somewhere along the lines, perhaps while walking the streets of the beautiful capitol of Romania, or perhaps while seeing the mutants walking around with the horrible collars and the dispirited gaze in their eyes… Perhaps while seeing one or two resisting the placement of said collars and getting treated like scum for the things they couldn’t help…

Romania was a turning point in her life. She was no longer that girl who showed up a year or so before in the winters of NYC. She wasn’t the same girl who Jupiter stumbled upon in Central park, then later saved from a bunch of meatheads. No, she was a changed woman. She’d grown up. She looked a little different, even, less skinny, more calm, more brave… She looked mature.

Knowing that he had followed her footsteps, that he had looked everywhere for her, made her realize that she needed him in her life, as a protector, as a lover, as a friend. He was a cornerstone to her foundation, and without that rock, she was a pile of sticks and siding. She smiled as the thought came to her head.

He sighed devilishly as she rose to her knees and came towards him. He was still holding back all the passion and emotion that wanted to crash down on her, like a tide coming in, claiming more of a shoreline then it held previously.

~~ “I’ve missed you so much. And I would have given you the key if you wanted in.” Her small finger moving cautiously over him as if he were delicate was maddening. The wanting tone in her voice pushed him towards a wildness that he knew before only in his riotous love of battle. There was war to be waged in the form of soft kisses and the exploring of one another.

“I thought perhaps a surprise might be nice, I didn’t know if you might want to join me in the shower.” His breath heavy as he did everything he could to steady himself and not ravage what he intended on cherishing.

~~“No games.”

He rumbled with pleasure, and hoped it wasn’t another trick. His mouth found her shoulder and kissed her appreciatively.

~~“I want you. I am not going anywhere.”

With that he lifted her and dropped her on the bed her head toward the pillow. Appreciative kisses weren’t only meant for shoulders. His eye looked toward hers one last chance to wave a white flag.

“ I want you too.” And he needed her.. for years he had killed his liver hoping to fill a void in his heart. His fists dealt out frustrations on the world of having no one to love or be loved. Loneliness ate at his soul and embittered his mind. Xavia was the needle and thread that promises to stitch up every bruise and scrape this world had dealt him. He knew she needed him too and thus he chased her for all he was worth.

He realized that with the expression that must have been on his face seeing the nymph laid before him in only a small soft piece of cloth or two that he might need to clarify.

“not just here and now.” He paused in and with all sincerity he stated. “everywhere and always.”

Her smile was soft, and she buried her face into his neck as he lay her down. She only pulled back to look at his face, and traced his cheeks with her fingers. He said exactly the right thing, she gave a soft hum in her throat and curled her arms around him. They still had yet to go on a right and proper date, but she didn’t care at this point. She was intent on the scent of him and his beloved, red face.

Xavia half closed her eyes and she wound her fingers into the hair at his nape, and she gave a soft sigh. The relaxed state she was in was obvious and meant she was true to her word, that she wasn’t going to bolt any time soon. Indeed, her look was less fearful than any she had given him back in NYC, when he tried to have her.

Her arms soon wound around him and she half lifted, her mouth hungrily capturing his with the sweetest, most passionate sort of kiss she had ever given him. It lasted quite some time unless he pulled back, and if and when he did, or if she did, his bottom lip was caught between her teeth and nibbled on for a moment more before she lay back and looked up at him with adoration.

Her hands reached up then, and she started getting rid of the hair clips that bound her hair, and the butt length mass is freed to spread across the pillow, but really, the hair clips had to go because they were uncomfortable to lay on. She wasn’t intentionally trying to get at him by letting her hair loose, even though it might have. Never know with guys.

When she could, she began to touch him again, every inch of his muscular chest, a suspicious sound in the back of her throat that resembled a purr?

He was playing near a five foot six wonderland, she was amazing. Her petite hands went up to her hair and he was torn between watching and taking advantage of the undefended skin. His natural instinct was to simply tear the flimsy cloth from her body, but one: it might hurt her and two: if he didn’t he very well might get to see her in it again and take her out of it. speaking of which her her hands were already up… He planted a palm under her on the small of her back and lifted, the pulled the clothe up up up and over… and he was stunned by the sweet shade of her skin, She wore nearly nothing very, very well.

The dark mass behind her head, the lack of most essential clothing, the way she tilted her chin down and managed to look up at him through her lashes, the way her lips parted just barely, slowly moving apart…

His hands moved down her sides as he set her back on the bed and after he had flung the clothe across the room. His mouth found her now bare shoulder and worked its way down to her belly button and back up to her other shoulder in the best way possible. Taking his time and thoroughly claiming every inch for himself.

She had never wanted something so badly as she wanted him now. It was driving her mad for him to do what he was doing. Her eyes fluttered closed after a time, and she shifted restlessly underneath, indeed, clad scantily now. Funny, she had never taken her shoes off either. It didn’t occur to her to do so at the moment.

She wanted his kiss on her lips, now, and whimpered a little, tugging at him and inclining her head to capture his mouth again with her own. She moved her hands to his back and downward, ever so slowly, until she reached her destination, and the lights faded to black…

Sometime later, Xavia was curled against him, half asleep and smiling. She seemed to fit perfectly against Jupiter, the niche of him curled against her back was perfect. She rolled over when she could move again and gave a heavy sigh, slowly stretching out her legs and peering at his face through half closed eyes. Cheeks still flushed, hair mussed, she was quite content when she smiled at him and said, “Hi.”

Indeed, this night had been in the works since their meeting, maybe it was fate that brought them together, maybe not, but she was glad to have him in her life. Her feet twined between his and she closed her eyes completely for a moment. “Hmm.”

The “nymph” then started to bite at his shoulder, and mumble in his ear some things that could not be put into written word, and the world faded black again.

Glorious, she was exuberant. And he was more than happy to encompass her small form in a circle of his own. What his body didn’t cover his tail closed the gap possessively. Flicking about at the end as if he were an overly spoiled cat. His eyes closed and sprawled around his most precious prize.

~~“Hi.”

“Hello Gorgeous.” He said in a sleepy but intrigued tone.

~~“Hmm.”


“Hmmm?” his inquiry still held a bit of sleepy but a lot more intrigued. Then she was whispering the most amazing things into his ear. He rolled to his back and wondered at who was not paying the electricity in this fine hotel.

Fade to Oh My.

A few black outs later……


Jupiter rolled out of bed, He had to get something for them to drink… maybe eat? He went to the mini bar and grabbed a couple of drinks out of the fridge at random and presented them to Xavia. He grinned sheepishly standing naked before her and after she choose he settled on the bed. They might actually not burst into oblivion this time. Possibly.

“So.” He tested the water, “what brings you to Romainia?”

At last… My love has come along…. My lonely days are over…. And life is like a….. Screech![/b] The record in her head scratched to a halt with his question.

>> “So… What brings you to Romania?”

Oh crap! She had forgotten completely that she was still in Romania, and still had an assignment to do. Xavia sat up abruptly and looked at him. She answered honestly, “I was hired for a job that took me here. I should be going back to the states as soon as it is done. I was also thinking about going to Hungary to see my extended family when this job is done.” She didn’t say anything specific about the job, which was real smooth. Hopefully he wouldn’t ask for details, because she was not supposed to give details. In fact, she didn’t know that she had just slept with one of the “enemies.” Shame, shame.

She accepted the drink with a sigh, and sipped. If he started asking for specs, she might have to make the world fade again and hopefully make him forget. Not that she wasn’t thinking about it now, after all, he was one, hot tamale. Ah, and she started to stare at him again, and another song popped up in her head…

I can’t get enough of your love, baby. Barry White was the perfect song in her head at the moment.