This is the sequel to "Aggressive Negotiations," so I would strongly recommend you read that first or else this one won't make a whole lot of sense.
Every single one of Padmé's advisors flinched nervously the first time they walked into the throne room and saw a Sith Lord reclining lazily against the wall. Padmé hid a grin; she always liked to keep them on their toes. Complacent advisors didn't give good advice. She briefly informed them that Lord Vader would be aiding the Empire from then on, but otherwise she spent the entire day ignoring his presence, despite feeling his eyes boring into her every time she turned her back.
This continued for a few more days, until, on her way out one evening, Padmé grabbed his arm and murmured in his ear, "I expect you in my rooms no later than midnight, Lord Vader."
Surprise was palpable in his expression—everyone knew that Empress Amidala never took the same lover twice, and Vader must have assumed their encounter would not be repeated—but there was also a hint of desire there, too, and was that a bit of self-loathing she detected? Padmé smirked at him and continued on her way.
Perhaps he hated himself for it—Padmé thought he probably did—but he came that night (several times, in fact). And the night after that, and the next one, and the next, until it became a habit that neither of them seemed especially inclined to break.
At first, Vader's official duties consisted mostly of standing around looking intimidating during imperial meetings, but that was to change one day after they'd been sleeping together for about a month or so. "I just need a bit more time, My Lady," the imperial ambassador to Bespin was saying. "Bespin is unwilling to forego its neutrality. Convincing them to join the Empire is a difficult task…"
Padmé sighed and shifted in her seat as the woman started spouting some drivel about mining and trade, emphasizing how tricky the situation was and how hard she was working to resolve it. Gazing around absently, Padmé's eyes suddenly fell upon Vader, whose position by the opposite wall made him clearly visible to her, but not to any of the room's other occupants, who sat facing her with their backs to him. As the ambassador continued droning on and on, Vader rolled his eyes and made a face, shaking his head in disgust, and Padmé suddenly felt herself overcome with the most un-Empress-like urge to giggle.
She tried to suppress it, but was unable to stop herself from letting out a tiny snort. Vader looked up, and upon seeing the mirth in her eyes and apparently realizing that he was the cause of it, he grinned at her. Padmé bit her lip, though the corners of her mouth still quirked up slightly, and quickly turned her attention back to the ambassador as she said in puzzlement, "My Lady?"
"Forgive me, Ambassador. I do not doubt your knowledge about the situation on Bespin, and I appreciate the valuable expertise you bring to this discussion," Padmé began diplomatically, and the ambassador swelled with pride. "However, Tibanna gas would be a very valuable resource to the Empire—and a very dangerous one if it were to fall into the hands of the Rebels. This is a matter of urgency, and I am afraid I cannot allow you any more time."
"My Lady, please reconsider—"
"I'm sorry, Ambassador, but we must act now. I thank you for the work you have done thus far, but a more assertive strategy is needed. Lord Vader," Padmé called, and he obligingly stepped forward as all eyes in the room swiveled towards him. "You will go to Bespin and persuade them to ally with the Empire. Use any means necessary."
Vader bowed his head. "It will be done, My Lady."
"With all due respect, My Lady, is Lord Vader qualified for this?" one of her advisors asked doubtfully. "He has yet to even take part in a mission, let alone carry one out on his own. And one of such an important nature, at that."
"Lord Vader will not fail me," replied Padmé assuredly. She looked Vader squarely in the eye. "Because if he does, the consequences will be severe."
Vader steadily returned her gaze. "It will be done, My Lady," he repeated.
The day's meetings ran especially late, so Vader accompanied Padmé directly back to her rooms. "You certainly seemed inspired by what the Bespin ambassador had to say," Padmé remarked in amusement.
"What a kriffing idiot," muttered Vader, scowling. "All of them, not just her, all your politicians. Always talking and arguing and never actually doing anything. It's absurd."
"I suppose you think it would be more effective to solve every problem by charging in brandishing a lightsaber," Padmé said derisively.
"Better than just sitting around and not getting anything done," he countered.
"Speak your mind about the way I run my Empire, why don't you?"
"It's not your fault, My Lady. You know what you're doing. You're easily ten times smarter than the lot of them combined."
Padmé felt her cheeks grow a little pink at the words, and she ducked her head to hide a smile as inexplicable warmth bloomed in her chest. "Well, unfortunately, I can't do everything myself, so I have to keep them around."
When she glanced back up at him a moment later, Padmé saw an unfamiliar softness in Vader's face. He quickly looked away as their eyes met, then cleared his throat and changed the subject.
It turned out that Padmé was right to place her confidence in him: Vader arrived back on Coruscant a few weeks later with the news that Bespin was now under the Empire's control. Padmé rewarded him in her chambers that night, though it felt rather like a reward for herself, as well. In the time he had been gone, some small part of her had missed him. Or at least, had missed the touch that felt so good it made the idea of taking a different lover in his absence wholly unappealing.
Having proven himself capable, Vader was given more and more frequent assignments, though for reasons unknown even to herself, Padmé never sent him away for very long. Vader's assignments were usually solo ones, as he wasn't shy about reminding Padmé that he worked better alone, not to mention the fact that all her soldiers (and even most of her generals) were terrified of him. He didn't really fit into the Empire's strictly-defined power structure; he reported directly to Padmé and more or less ignored everyone else, and as she had promised, no one but her was allowed to give him orders, not that they would have dared to anyway.
In time, Vader became a curious combination of right-hand man and personal lapdog to the Empress, bending others to his will as she bent him to hers. The galaxy's news outlets didn't quite know what to make of him; some were awestruck as they discussed "the fearsome Sith Lord" while others snidely referred to him as "the imperial whore."
It was intoxicating, thought Padmé as she rode him one night about six months after they had first met, knowing that she was the only being in the entire galaxy to whom this powerful man would submit so utterly. While Padmé had initially regarded their nights together with indifference (and faint amusement at how easily she could make him come undone), starting around the time of his return from Bespin, she had begun to feel happy anticipation bubbling in her stomach every time his knock sounded on the door. The implications of this troubled her. She tried to convince herself the feeling was only because she looked forward to a good fuck at the end of a long day, but somehow a niggling doubt persisted in the back of her mind.
Padmé probably would have been even more worried if she had thought to wonder exactly what prompted her to invite Vader back to her bed nearly every night he was on Coruscant. After all, just the occasional encounter would surely have been sufficient to eventually result in the conception of an heir. All of that, however, was far from her mind as she sighed at the feeling of his hard cock inside her, staring with shameless lust at his heaving chest, his swollen lips, his disheveled hair. "My Lady," Vader moaned, gripping her hips tighter.
Perhaps it was because she had been admiring how beautiful he looked underneath her, or perhaps it was something more than that, but for whatever reason, she reached out to stroke his face and corrected him with a murmured "Padmé."
His bright eyes gazed at her in astonishment, and as she moved again he let out a hiss, then whispered, "Padmé."
Desire spiked through Padmé's entire body, and she groaned and began riding him harder. She thought of how strongly he always reacted when she used his real name, and she believed she now knew how he felt. She still thought of herself as "Padmé," though it had been years since anyone else had called her by that name; perhaps it was the same for him.
"Anakin," she said, still grazing her knuckles against his cheek. He covered her hand with one of his, and she let him, twining their fingers together.
Vader said her name over and over again, increasing in volume each time as he got progressively more comfortable with addressing his Empress in such an intimate manner. Padmé climaxed around him, gasping with pleasure, and her name was wrenched loudly from his lips one final time as he followed seconds later.
She collapsed beside him, panting and satisfied. Vader lay there for a moment, catching his breath, before moving to stand and leave as he always did. Then, for the second time that night, Padmé did something she couldn't explain: her hand darted out and latched around his wrist.
Vader froze and turned to look questioningly at her. Padmé returned his gaze, trying to convey her meaning with her eyes. Stay.
His lips parted in surprise, but after a minute of consideration, he slowly climbed back into her bed. Realizing she hadn't thought about what would happen next, Padmé was just beginning to curse herself for being so foolish when Vader tentatively snaked his arms around her, and she instinctively snuggled up against him.
A logical voice in the back of her mind was insisting that this was a terrible idea, but he was so very warm and solid and comfortable, and soon his steady breathing had lulled her to sleep.
When Padmé awoke in Vader's arms the next morning, she was feeling much more in control of herself, and she gave him a sharp nudge before breaking free of his grasp and standing up, some strange sense of modesty prompting her to take one of the sheets with her and wrap it around her body as he sleepily blinked his eyes open. It was irrational, she knew, since he had seen her naked countless times, but there was something about the cold light of day that made her feel uncomfortable to be so exposed before him.
"I expect you in the throne room in two hours, Lord Vader," she said brusquely. He gave her a lazy smile, and she wondered in outrage if he intended to disobey her, but then he stood, retrieved his clothes off the floor, and began getting dressed. He took his sweet time about it, and Padmé huffed impatiently, pulling the sheet more tightly around herself.
At last Vader was fully clothed, and before Padmé could react, he had moved towards her and pulled her in for a long, hard kiss. As soon as Padmé was able to remind herself that she shouldn't be enjoying it, she jerked back and glared at him. He smirked again and sauntered out of the room.
Padmé was in a poor mood after that, and she snapped angrily at her undeserving handmaidens as they helped her get ready for the day, though they serenely ignored her bad humor. She scowled at herself in the mirror while Sabé expertly twisted her hair into a complex style. Padmé had slipped up the night before. Allowing him to use her first name, asking him to stay for the night…she had given him too much power, and now he was getting cocky.
And yet, she couldn't deny how much she had enjoyed hearing him murmur "Padmé," or how content she had felt, falling asleep in his arms and waking up still pressed against him. These admissions only irritated her further. She had always been perfectly capable of separating business from pleasure; why was it so difficult when it came to Anakin?
Vader, she corrected herself sternly, frown deepening. Yes, she was certainly teetering on the edge of a very dangerous precipice. Ruling the galaxy required a clear head, and that was something Padmé didn't have when it was filled with images of the Sith Lord, commanding in the throne room and submissive in the bedroom, both aspects of his persona equally attractive to her…
Annoyed at herself, she gave her head a slight shake, causing Sabé to cluck her tongue disapprovingly as she was forced to readjust a few pins. Padmé wasn't supposed to be attracted to Vader. This was very bad indeed. Unbidden, thoughts of her plan to have him father her child crossed her mind. She hadn't told him of it, nor did she intend to—it was her heir, after all, and whoever its father was, whether Vader or someone else, was no more than a means to an end.
Her handmaidens had reminded her to take her contraceptive pill the first time she'd skipped it, but Padmé had mumbled rather awkwardly that she was aware she hadn't taken it, and they'd discreetly ignored the issue after that. Nothing had come of it as yet, which Padmé was suddenly glad of; perhaps Vader wasn't the best choice, after all. She grudgingly acknowledged that her feelings towards him may have somehow become a bit more complicated than was desirable, and throwing a child into the mix would likely only increase any imprudent attachment she felt towards him.
Still, when she went into the fresher after Sabé had finished her hair, Padmé looked at the bottle of pills, reached for it, hesitated, then withdrew her hand. Another day or two wouldn't hurt.
Preoccupied with her concerns about the Vader situation, Padmé was on edge throughout the day's meetings. Vader himself leaned against the wall, arms folded, as politicians and generals seeking an audience with the Empress filed in and out of the throne room. Padmé strongly considered asking him to leave, but then he would know he'd gotten under her skin, and she couldn't allow that. So instead she did her best to ignore him, which wasn't difficult, as everyone seemed to be bringing her only bad news, and within a few hours she felt a headache coming on.
"Let me make sure I'm understanding you correctly," Padmé told one of her ambassadors to the Outer Rim Territories. "You have, once again, failed to bring the Mandalore system under the Empire's control, despite repeated attempts to do so throughout the past six months?"
The man flushed. "I beg your pardon, My Lady, but it is a very delicate situation—"
Padmé held up a hand to cut him off, then sighed and rubbed her temples. Suddenly, she had an idea of how she could deal with two problems at once. "It is clear to me that you are not up to the task at hand. I am taking you off this mission. Lord Vader will replace you."
"My Lady, this is a matter of politics," he protested. "Lord Vader—"
"Has never failed to bring me results, unlike you, Ambassador," Padmé said sharply, and he fell into an angry silence. She turned to Vader. "You will depart for Mandalore this evening. Prepare for a long stay; I expect this will take about a month, at the very least."
"As you wish, My Lady," he replied calmly.
Padmé was satisfied. This would keep Vader out of her hair for a while, and in the meantime she would be able to shut down whatever was going on in her heart where he was concerned. She was in slightly better spirits for the next hour, until out of nowhere she felt a tingling sensation between her legs.
Odd. Padmé frowned and tried to ignore it, but then it happened again, stronger this time. She shifted slightly in her seat, bewildered, then gasped quietly as she felt what she thought was a finger stroking her clit.
"My Lady? Are you all right?"
She quickly coughed, embarrassed. "Yes, thank you, General. Please continue."
There was only one person in the room who could touch her without touching her, and as soon as everyone was absorbed in discussion once more, Padmé slid her gaze towards Vader. He was still lounging by the door, face impassive, but as she met his eyes, she saw them twinkle mischievously. She gave him a dirty look before turning her attention back to the matter at hand.
Or at least, she attempted to, but it was rather hard to focus when wetness began pooling between her thighs as Vader continued fingering her with the Force. Padmé clenched her hands into fists, gritting her teeth as she felt her face start to redden. Within minutes, she was close to orgasm, and she had to bite her lip to keep quiet, thinking with annoyance that all her years of political training had never prepared her for anything like this.
When she could bear it no longer, Padmé made a show of checking her holopad and said, "I apologize, but something has come up that I must attend to. Continue without me; I won't be long." And she left the room as fast as she dared, ignoring the surprised looks from her companions.
Padmé was wildly planning to find the nearest fresher and finish herself off in peace when she was interrupted by a hand grabbing her and yanking her through a doorway. Blinking, she saw that she was stuffed inside a storage closet, and Vader was standing across from her, looking extremely pleased with himself; he must have slipped out of the throne room just after she had.
"What do you think you're doing?" she hissed angrily even as her body begged for his touch.
"You seemed tense, My Lady," he said innocently, and they were in such a tiny space that with one step he had backed her up against the wall, trapping her as he placed his hands on the stone on either side of her head. "I thought you could do with a little unwinding."
"In the middle of a highly important meeting?" But she couldn't stop the small moan that escaped her as he started rubbing his length against her thigh.
"And," he added in her ear, "I wanted to fuck you one last time before I'm banished to the Outer Rim for Force knows how long."
"Only I get to decide when you can and can't fuck me," she snapped.
"I see." Vader removed one hand from the wall and slid it between her legs, and electricity shot up her body even though the contact was impeded by several layers of skirts. "Do you want me to go, then?"
She should say yes. "No," she muttered.
He smirked and started kissing her, lips roaming all over her face and neck, pressing their bodies even closer together. "Will you miss me while I'm gone?"
"Why would I?"
"I know I'll miss the things you do to me." He was already hard, and Padmé felt herself somehow growing even wetter than she already had been as he ground against her and sucked on her neck. "Won't you miss the things I do to you?"
She tried to scoff, though it came out as more of a gasp. "You're awfully full of yourself."
"Maybe." Vader shifted slightly so that his erection was directly between her legs, and Padmé grimly acknowledged that he'd have her begging soon if he kept this up. "But you've always seemed to like being full of me, too." She rolled her eyes at the innuendo, then moaned involuntarily as he rubbed himself up and down against her clit.
She grabbed at his hair, desperately trying to regain some sort of control over the situation. "You're not allowed—I'm the one who's supposed to decide—" she protested weakly, hating how childish the words sounded.
"You have so much responsibility, Padmé…so much power," he murmured, and she shivered as his hand brushed against the skin on her lower back that her dress left exposed. "Wouldn't it feel good to let go for once? Just for a little while?"
He couldn't do this. He was supposed to obey her, to kneel before her. She was supposed to control him, not the other way around. "Yes," she whispered.
Vader moved his lips back to hers and kissed her so deeply she felt dizzy, and then he was unbuckling his pants, lifting her skirts, and sliding inside her. Padmé whimpered and wrapped her legs around him, clutching his shoulders to keep herself from falling.
He grabbed her hips and began thrusting up into her until she was crying out, too far gone to care if anyone passed by and heard. "I know why you're sending me to Mandalore," he panted.
"What?" she said breathlessly.
"You've started to like me too much." He stilled his movements to gaze intensely at her. "I was just supposed to be 'the imperial whore,' but now you care about me, so you feel you have to send me away."
Could Vader sense her conflicted emotions through the Force, or was she just that obvious? "I always send you away on assignments," she stalled. "That's your job."
"Yes, but never this far, and never for this long." Vader smirked slightly. "Not since the first time, when I was on Bespin for weeks. Do you remember the night after I came back? You hadn't been with anyone in all the time I'd been gone. You didn't say so, but I knew." He leaned in until his face was only a hair's breadth away from hers, breath hot on her skin as his voice dropped lower. "Do you remember how desperate you were for me that night, how much you craved my touch? I barely even had to look at you to make you wet. You're always so wet for me, Padmé…"
Padmé squeezed her eyes shut and let out a soft noise that was somewhere between a groan and a whimper. "What's your point?" she got out.
"My point, My Lady, is that you wanted to make me need you, and you've done that. I do need you, Padmé. Sometimes I think I need you more than I need air in my lungs." Padmé had to choke back a moan as she opened her eyes and saw the lust burning in his own. "But what you didn't count on happening is that you've started to need me, too," Vader continued. "You need me, and it scares you because you've never needed anyone before, and that's why you're sending me away for so long."
Padmé snarled and dug the fingernails of her right hand into the back of his neck until he winced. "Shut up and fuck me."
He grinned, knowing he'd hit a nerve. Padmé glared back, hating him—and, just as he'd hypothesized, needing him. "As you wish, My Lady," he said, much more mockingly than he had in the throne room, and he resumed slamming his hips upward. As the rough wall scraped against her bare back, Padmé wished she had chosen that morning to wear a dress that covered up a bit more skin; she was sure the stone would leave visible scratches. And her hair was an absolute mess. She couldn't return to her meeting this disheveled.
But these worries were abandoned when Vader stopped moving again, just as she was on the brink of orgasm once more. "What now?" she said angrily.
"Admit you care about me."
She stared at him. "What?"
"Admit it," he said relentlessly.
"No."
He removed a hand from her hip and began teasing one of her breasts through the fabric of her dress until she was whining loudly. "Admit. It."
"No."
"Then I might as well get an early start on my trip. Head out right now." He sucked on the sensitive patch of skin just below her collarbone. "Leave you here, alone."
"Anakin," she begged, despising herself. "Please."
"Not until you admit it."
Her body was screaming for release, and as he shifted inside her just a tiny bit, she found herself yelling desperately, "Fine! I care about you!"
Padmé could feel him grin against her skin, and he had barely started to move again when she cried out as her orgasm finally, finally ripped through her. She was so overwhelmed with the intensity of her climax that she barely even noticed Vader come with a groan a minute later.
As soon as Padmé felt that her legs could support her again, she shoved him off and turned away, shoulders hunching, humiliated. How could she have let him force that confession out of her, when she had barely even admitted it to herself? Was this how he had felt their first night together as she had ruthlessly drawn the pledge of loyalty from his lips?
Vader's hand came to rest gently on her shoulder, and she irritably threw it off. "Don't touch me."
"I was just going to help you fix your hair before you head back," he said quietly, all traces of his previous cockiness gone.
Padmé glanced sideways at him. "Fine."
The Force flowed tenderly around her, coiling her hair back up again, returning pins to their rightful place, and smoothing out her dress. As soon as he was done, Padmé brushed past him and returned to the throne room without a backwards glance. He didn't follow her.
This was originally part of a longer fic that I split up into two shorter ones, so part 3 of this AU should be up tomorrow or the next day, as most of it is already written :) Thanks for reading!