A/N: This story was inspired by a piece of art done by Hotside on tumblr depicting Rey essentially sponge-bathing in a small, shallow tin back on Jakku. A few of us wrote stories for it, but this one's mine. I'd link you, but FF hates links, so please head over to hotside's tumblr and take a look- you can't miss it. Enjoy~
When he found her she was back on Jakku, bottom planted in a shallow make-shift tub as she tried to scrub the desert from her skin. The idea that her standards had risen enough that she couldn't stand the grit anymore caused a small, repressed grin to spread along his hidden mouth.
Her legs more than stuck out from over the edge- the tin she sat in shallower than the length of her forearm. Her face was determined as she rubbed with a scrap of cloth.
"So," came his clipped, distorted voice. There was a pause. "This is where you've been hiding."
Rey's eyes flared as her head snapped in the direction of the lamentably familiar voice.
"What are you doing here?" she half growled, gripping her rag as if it could serve as some sort of weapon.
He didn't answer her- not right away. And after a moment, she turned away, willfully ignoring him as she went back to her task. He took two casually paced steps closer to the woman who somehow managed to both incise him and intoxicate him. Slowly he tugged off his right glove and nonchalantly settled it in the grip of his still-gloved left.
"You've been missing a week. It takes two standard days to reach Jakku with the ship you stole."
"I didn't steal it," she protested without looking at him.
"Which means you've been here for only three," he continued, ignoring her. "Didn't you tell me once you never took a bath more than once a month when you lived here?"
Rey scoffed.
"I was spoiled," she spat angrily through gritted teeth as she scrubbed a patch of skin raw, "by all the water you encouraged me to waste."
"I wanted to spoil you," he replied quickly, almost breathlessly. He began again slowly. "I want...to—"
"No. You don't get to do that anymore," she insisted, and threw the rag into the murky water with a loud -splash-. Her arm rose up, cupping water in her hand, to try and rinse the thin suds away.
Seeing her, then, in the filth and the squalor...after everything he could give her, did give her, made him absolutely furious. Something in him snapped.
"Get out of there...get out of there and come home," he insisted.
She huffed in marked irritation. "Home? I was never home with you."
"I said get out," he ordered.
At the tone of his voice, she turned, delicately groomed brow arched in incredulity as she glared a thousand daggers at him and clutched at the edge of the tub until her knuckles turned white.
"You, Ben Solo, do not get to use that tone with me," she bit out as she slowly, dangerously started to rise.
He went ridged at the sound of that name and she could positively feel the malice radiating off of him.
"How many times do I have to tell you, Rey?" he half shrieked in exasperation.
She stood in her small tin now, droplets of water streaming from her skin that had already begun to darken again after three days back under the sun of Jakku. For just one, brief moment he was distracted as he watched the murky water stream across the deceptively soft planes of her body, around the delicate curve of her breast, until Rey took the silence as her cue to ruin the moment and stomped barefoot through the sand and into the fallen AT-AT she used to call home.
Not anymore. Never again.
He instantly chased after her, and as he crossed the threshold, quickly dodging a chunk of metal blocking the narrow path of the floor, he watched as she wrapped a wide, stained piece of textile around her dripping form with her back turned defiantly towards him. With a hiss he took a single step to close the space and ripped the fabric away and grabbed her by the arm, spinning her around and pinning her back between him and what passed for her rehabilitated work table littered with collected odds and ends. He pressed against her, not caring when the water still coating her soaked into his blacks. He held her biceps firmly in his grasp as she tried to give one half-hearted twist to get away.
"What are you doing here, Rey? Why are you doing this?"
"Let go of me!"
"No. Not until you answer me."
She tried again to break free, but he only pressed her arms tightly, uselessly, against her sides and leveraged her chest to press hard into his. He lowered his head until the mouthguard of his mask brushed icy cold against the juncture of her neck and shoulder. Her flesh rippled at the sensation and she gasped. Oh she hated herself for that reaction, but he didn't stop, and her muscled arms hardened in his grasp. His head bowed against her, he let his hands loosen and wind their way around her back. His bare hand brushed down her slick spine until they cupped her ass and sank lower, lower until his fingers grazed lightly against her bare mound.
Her arms were only free below the elbow and she did the only thing she could- raised them until her fingers gripped the fabric covering his back. And her fingernails dug, painfully, as hard as she could manage. It was the only way she could hurt him, until his gloved hand gripped her harder around the waist and his bare one slipped between her folds and her determination wavered.
"Hmm," his distorted voice vibrated through her neck. "Tell me, wife, how is it you say you hate me but I've only been here five minutes and you're already wet."
She did her best to scoff convincingly as he continued to explore between her legs and tried to dig her fingers in again, but all it seemed to do was pull her closer against his hard chest bowed tantalizingly over her- why did that always get to her?- and give him easier access.
"Of course I'm wet, you idiot. I've been in the bath."
He laughed lightly and slowly started to pull away. Desperate for the distance, convinced it would somehow alleviate whatever this was going on between them, she loosened her claws and let him. He kept her hips pulled close to his, however, and as his bare hand came away, it was covered in something transparent and slightly milky that he held out to her on two fingers to show to her, and her eyes were drawn to his shameful evidence before he brought it in front of her and dragged it slowly down the inside of her bottom lip, wiping his fingers clean.
She gasped against his hand and her chest heaved in the space now between them, damp nipples pebbling in the cooling air.
He tilted his head to look at her, as if to say 'See? I know your secret.' He was infuriating.
Rey winced and tossed her head to the side. "What do you want from me? It's been a week without—"
"Me?" he helpfully supplied.
"No," she defiantly shot back. "Sex."
She'd said something wrong. She knew it when the Force began to gather around him. His anger was peaking, and…
His fingers trailed down her chin, down the length of her throat, across her chest and along the slope of her breast until his fingertips stopped at the edge of her puckered nipple.
"And prey tell, Rey," he said so quietly his vocoder almost didn't pick it up, "who else you've been having sex with?"
This -idiot-.
Did he hear her? Suddenly his hand was squeezing at her breast hard and his fingers pinched at the sensitive flesh he found there. She arched back, unable to help herself- he was so close- but whimpered from the pain.
"Tell me," he gritted out, his mask unable to distort that tone she knew so well and she whined as he pinched harder and her hands flew in front of her to grip tightly to the front of his tunic.
"No one, Kylo, Please!"
The Force around him shifted slightly.
"…Please what, Rey?" he asked, his tone no less harsh but his fingers lightening in their agony. His gloved hand began to rub shallow, cautious circles against her back.
She couldn't take this, she thought, as she glared painfully at him. He wouldn't take off that mask, but at the same time it was…gods, did it only take a week without him to reduce her to this? She groaned miserably at her weakness, letting her head fall back. His hand behind her shifted up instinctively to cradle her neck and his hand on her breast relented to caress it in a wide, firm motion, his thumb brushing what Rey could almost mistake as apologetically against her previously tortured flesh. Deciding she had no shame left, she slowly lifted her leg to drag against the tight leather of his trousers and hooked her knee around his thick, muscled waist.
Oh gods, did I really forget how thick this man is?
On the lam for a week since she'd escaped the palace, surrounded by regular, ordinary people again, and their common, soft features had easily lulled her back into complacency. They were nothing like this…nothing like him.
She gripped the fabric covering his chest and snaked her hand up to his neck guard, determined to feel a bit of the flesh of that face that kept haunting her dreams, calling out to her, desperate to know where she'd gone. Her eyes hooded, she bit the corner of her lower lip, but his head jerked away from her.
"What is this, Rey?" he asked. His voice was strained.
"Take it off," she whispered. There was a pause.
"No." came the reply.
"Fine, keep it on," she clipped back. "But if you don't fuck me right now, I swear to R'iia, B—"
Before she could finish saying that damned name with her criminally inviting mouth, he jerked her forward and quickly unbuttoned his trousers with a grunt. It hadn't just been a week for her.
Her hands worked at the belt around his waste and flung it to the ground, but before she could rid him of his tunic, he was dipping down to line himself up with her cunt which had already left a mess against her thighs and oh it was so good to be inside her again.
They sighed together, their oft forgotten connection humming with approval, and he wasted no time moving inside her. Her leg arched higher onto his hip and he grabbed it, holding it against his waist so he could open her further. With one arm wrapped around her, he lifted her up so she sat just on the very edge of her work desk as he pumped harder and harder into her. She wavered in his arms, giving in to the long-withheld sensations he never failed to pull from the very depths of her, and as she rode him her hands found his shoulders and caressed them, held them to her at one point, until she pulled away and her fingers traced along the bright edges of his mask as she stared into his fathomless visor with hooded eyes and sweat beading at her forehead.
The tip of his cock shifted and she cried out. He hit the spot inside her again, teasing that sound out of her again, until she couldn't breath and she screamed out over his shoulder as she came. He pulled out of her suddenly before she could collapse around him in earnest and swept her off the rickety table as she cursed and beat at his back.
"No," he gasped as he spun them around. "I'm not finished with you yet."
"Gods damn you, Ben Solo, how can you do this to me?" she cried, and she tugged and fumbled with the sides of his helmet as he yelped in pain from her careless pulling. He dropped her down to a roughly carpeted bit of floor as he struggled with her. Finally finding the release latches, the mouthguard pushed free and she yanked it off his head and tossed it to the other side of her former dwelling.
Instantly he was on her, sweaty hair lashing her face as his wet lips covered hers, devouring her, sucking the breath out as his tongue assaulted her mouth and she bit at his lip until it bled. Gasping, he ripped off his tunic until only his armguards remained, strap holding them together straining just above his chest, and he lined her up again and pushed in. She screamed beneath him as he came back to her, and instantly picked back up the pace he'd had moments ago. He wouldn't be able to hold back this time.
He planted his hand with a sneer beside her head to brace himself as he used his other to pull her hips up higher to angle him closer to her. He bent down to his elbow, their slick skin gliding against each other and her clit now rubbing roughly against him as her face became pinker, softer at the promise of that blessed crest.
His head bowed as she gasped deeply beneath him with a sharp shudder, and he buried his face in her neck with a shout as he came, spine arching into her, desperate to meld into her, so that she could never ever get away from him again.
Instantly her hands were in his hair, holding him closely to her as she stared widely up at the rotted, rusted ceiling of her AT-AT lost in the high. She cradled him to her; yes, yes, she loved him, always loved him when he was like this, but…
As their bodies quieted, their addiction sated, he slowly, carefully slipped out of her and shifted to lay to her side. He pulled her close, and she acquiesced, tangling her legs with his and running her hand up the length of his arm. He watched her as she closed her eyes, her brow finally unworried, and, risking it all, leaned down to gently, reverently press a soft kiss to the height of her cheek.
"Rey…" he whispered like a prayer, tucking his face close to hers. She sighed, gripping his arm tighter.
"Why can't you always be like this?" she murmured, pressing the side of her face against his. Her nose nuzzled him and his hand came up to brush gently through her hair.
"Please...please, Rey...come home with me."
She mentally huffed. Try as she might, every time she tried to punish him, it never ended the way she wanted. Why couldn't she punish this man…?
You punish me plenty, he replied mentally back to her. I can't think when you go away. I can't... his thoughts faded from her mind, when suddenly I am miserable without you, and try as she might to change it, she could feel it, hear the ache in him.
Her brows knit together as she turned to look up into his distraught face. The tears in his eyes looked as if they'd fall onto her cheek if he moved. Why did she have to fall in with someone so complicated? Why did she love him?
She raised her hand to brush the back of her fingers against his cheek, and the moment her skin touched his he snatched up her hand and pressed her knuckles to his lips. Her entire being still felt hazy and fluid, no better when she was in his grasp like this, but nonetheless she knew…..it had been long enough, and she knew…
"...I'll come home."
