Tabitha & Warren | Sunday Afternoon

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Tabitha grabs Warren after another meeting.



Tabitha looked forward to the next X-Men meeting. Normally she was all too eager for an excuse to skip out. Whatever she had going with Warren, friendship, flirtation, whatever, it made the meeting much less boring.

She caught up with him afterward. "Hey Warren."

"Hey Tabitha." Warren returned her greeting with a smile, slowing his step so he could walk with her. "No new bruises, I see. I very much approve."

She grinned. "I decided they didn't go with the new haircut. I'm glad I caught you," she said. Her heart started to thud in her chest and she felt ridiculously young.

"Bruises don't really go with anything, I have to say," he grinned back. "You do know you can contact me outside of team stuff. Email, phone. Even the journals."

That, combined with her intentions for the conversation, did make her blush. "Would you think I'm an idiot if I told you it just never occurred to me?"

"A little silly, perhaps. But I won't hold it against you." When you saw someone in person several times a week, calling or emailing wasn't necessarily the first thing most people thought of. "What can I do for you?"

She bit her lip and tilted her head, studying him. "Walk with me?" she asked.

"Sure." Warren was a little amused by her expression, then offered her his arm. "Somewhere a little more private?"

They ended up grabbing their coats and heading outside for a walk on the grounds. "So, this is probably going to sound very high school, but please remember that I spent my teens picking pockets and trying not to get picked up by pimps."

"So noted," Warren said, trying not to smile too much. "I'm having somewhat of a regression to those days myself. So I won't hold it against you."

She started to talk, but froze before any words could escape. She snuck a look at his profile and nibbled on her lip. "Kissing," she finally said.

"Kissing," Warren repeated, stopping in their walk and turning to look at Tabitha. "You wanted to talk about kissing?"

She almost kept walking. When she did stop, she tried very hard not to stare at his mouth. She shrugged. "It seemed like a good place to start."

"Talking about it? Or doing it?" Warren watched her intently, his hand coming up to brush the back of his fingers against her cheek. "Because they're two very different things."

She flushed, not from embarrassment this time. "I can't say doing it hasn't crossed my mind." Damn it, she was staring at his lips again.

"I see," he said in a low voice, his fingers coming to rest on her cheek. "Is there anyone in particular you want to be kissing?"

She nodded. "You see, there are some exceedingly attractive people in my life. I thought, maybe, if they didn't mind, if they were perhaps also attracted..." She trailed off, she sounded like she was fifteen.

Warren just smiled at that, leaning his head down closer to hers, his free hand coming to slide around her waist, pulling her in close. "Like this?" He dipped his head, brushing his lips against hers.

Oh my, yes, was all she managed to think. She slid her hands up his arms. "I could do more of that."

Warren just grinned in reply, before kissing her again, and this time properly, his lips firmly pressing against hers, teasing him open. His tongue flicked over her lips as he deepened the kiss, the arm around her waist tightening as he did.

She forgot about the cold and the snow. She forgot where they were. And she learned exactly what it meant to be "weak in the knees."

It was quite awhile before Warren drew back from the kiss, a smile on his face as he brushed some hair back away from Tabitha's face.

"Is that more to your liking?"

Her eyes may have drifted perilously close to shut and stayed that way longer than she intended. "That was-" why was her vocabulary deserting her- "very nice."

"I think," he said in a soft voice. "You need to be kissed often. And by someone who knows how." Okay, so he was completely bastardizing a movie quote. But Rhett Butler was frequently misquoted, he could survive it this once.

A hand fluttered over her heart. "How did you discover my cunning plan?"

"I'm a little psychic," he said with a grin. "Though there are places that are far more conducive to kissing."

Her lips twitched. "The idea was plenty of avenues for escape in case of rejection," she admitted.

"Not a bad plan." The arm around Tabitha's waist loosened a little slightly. "But now that we've established that won't be happening, I may have to insist on going somewhere a little warmer."

She was a grown woman, nearly middle-aged, she reminded herself. "My suite has heat."

"Show me the way," he said with a smile and a wink. "And I promise to keep my hands to myself." There was a pause. "Well, at least as long as you want me to."

Her flush extended down her neck. She didn't know what she wanted, but she was intrigued. She studied his face while she thought. With a nod and a smile, she pulled him by the sleeve, back toward the mansion.