Author's Note: "Ride" is a kind of post-script to Mighty Things, but no knowledge of that fic is needed to have fun with this story. "Ride" is in two parts and contains filthy language and explicit sexual content. It is also my fiftieth posted story on FFN and I thought I'd celebrate with utter depravity. Sound good? Good!
Ride
"Yeah," Han Solo said, eyeing the pieces of machinery ahead of him with tempered glee. "Yeah, those'll do nicely."
Barren, rocky terrain crunched under his boot as he sauntered to the swoop bike hovering meters ahead of them. A beautiful sky perched above: wide, blue and expansive. Heat suffused the atmosphere around them, a dry crackling heat that edged over the exposed skin of her upper arms like tidal waves. Red canyons bookended the open land in front of them, creating incredible natural splendor against the backdrop of the wide open sky.
Leia Organa had to smile at her husband's tone: not childish, not exclamatory, but youthful. Excited.
He looked magnificent in the pure sunlight, the brown-red of the clay mesas a fine backdrop for his prepossessing silhouette. Broad shoulders, defined biceps, his hair blowing in the wind; it was enough to ground her ribs into nothing, to heat the blood in her veins. And he walked to the swoop bike as if he knew the kind of image he presented. A swagger: definitive; she hesitated to think mouthwatering but, well …
He was.
At thirty-seven years old, he was the most magnificent thing on this planet and, god, he was in his element here.
"They're good rigs," he shouted back to her and she smiled at him, strolling to his side.
"I'll take your word for it," she murmured. "Is this like when the Falcon's hyperdrive is a good rig?"
Breaking down at inopportune moments? Reliable most of the time, with that hidden thrill of danger that meant every trip could take three times longer than intended?
"Nah, you don't understand," he said, running his hand over the leather seat with a kind of parental pride. "She could win a race or two, I bet, with the right person at the controls."
She smiled. "You mean you."
"Yeah, me. In my heyday." He walked around the bike, hand still affixed to the seat, until the swoop hovered between them. "Luke could probably still do some damage on this get-up."
"Luke?"
"I'm telling you, put the kid on this bird here and she'd take the Boonta. Easy."
"I thought you said the Boonta Eve was for podracing?"
Han grinned, delicious, devilish. "Exactly."
Leia tried to picture it, tried to imagine a universe in which Luke Skywalker, the last scion of the Jedi, gave up his birthright of power to join the podrace circuit on a swoop bike. "I'm afraid you're out of luck, Solo. Your sure thing is off meditating about the nature of good and evil."
"I dunno," he said, patting the bike, softly, like a pet.
She loved this side of him. Loved it. The mechanical wizard, the orphaned kid whose only goal in life was to fly and fly fast. It was a part of him he held close to the vest, that he'd let her see sparingly before they'd been trapped aboard his ship for a month while en route to Bespin. Boyish glee, unmanly excitement; like a true north he only saw in his internal compass.
"Well then," she said, hefting a helmet in her right hand and tossing it to him. "Show me how, general."
It'd been six months since their career-ending jaunt to Sluis Van. Or was that career-founding jaunt? Somehow the trip had taken their priorities—careers: military, political, decent—and made them into independent agents of the NRI. And Leia was still shocked when she remembered what had happened, the chaotic viscera of events that had brought them here. Head spinning changes, self-realization on a massive level, confrontations with each other about who they were individually and who they were as a couple. A married couple, no less.
But it was good.
It was so good. Good to work with Han like this. Good to use her instincts, the skills she'd earned through hard work fighting a hopeless, bloody war. Good to see the difference in the eyes of the people they saved, the good they were doing with their hands and brains and intuition.
She finally felt free.
Their assignments came through to them with bare spots between, times to explore the far reaches of the galaxy, themselves, each other. Last week they had taken down an Imperial-allied hyperdrive manufacturer who had been selling the New Republic inept parts, leading to a string of unexplained ship failures that had stumped Starfleet Command. And since they'd been out here, on Clairat, the mecca of swoop-racing, Leia had inquired about Han's mysterious reputation as a teenaged swoop-bike prodigy in these parts.
He'd grinned, checked his comm, and brought her out here to learn to ride.
"Alright, Organa," he said, setting down his own helmet. "Climb up. You need a lesson first."
Leia was skeptical. She'd ridden speeder bikes before, of course, and hadn't she proved to him that she was fully capable of flying anything he could, albeit with less finesse?
"These babies can go 550, maybe 570 kilometers an hour," he explained, eyeing her with careful patience. "You'll be a mess on the side of a canyon if I don't give you some pointers first."
Leia raised her eyebrows but relented, strolling to the swoop Han had petted and hopping astride it. She reached out a hand for Han to pass her the helmet he'd dropped on the ground, expecting his usual insistence on her own safety gear even as he adamantly refused his own.
"Yeah, no," he said. "You're not gonna go fast enough for that yet. Move forward."
She gave him a look that she hoped told him how suspicious she found his desire to sit behind her for a racing lesson, but relented. The swoop's saddle was intended for one human by design; as Leia flexed her legs and moved her hips forward, Han climbed behind her and settled with a low grunt, legs pressing into the backs of hers, knee behind knee, snug and dangerous in their fit.
"Why do I have the feeling that you will take advantage of the situation?" Leia asked, turning her head slightly to mock-glare at his shoulder.
His left hand smoothed across her stomach, igniting the gold ring on his finger with the light of the red dwarf star above them, against the nerf-hide leather of her sleeveless vest, above the spark of internal light his ring always drew from her. Mine, it whispered and Leia knew exactly what would happen here today. She'd be lucky to last through the lesson.
"Probably because I'm going to take advantage of the situation," he said, lowering his voice to his deepest register.
Of course you will, she thought, trying to suppress the instinct to shiver against his voice. He knew what he did to her when he dropped his tone. This was little more than a thinly-veiled attempt to touch her and whisper in her ear, to say ridiculous, sexy things under the guise of instruction. As if he was barred from doing such things in real life. As if he didn't already do such things in heated, chilled, invigorated, sweet, hilarious, intense moments on a regular basis.
My husband: the eternal sexual opportunist, she thought.
"Alright then," she said, and pressed her hips back against his, the slightest of thrusts to ostensibly prepare for flight. "Show me what to do, Slick."
His left hand tightened on her stomach, his right sweeping beneath her arm to point to the knob between the hand-grips. "Throttle."
She brushed her hand against the knob, felt the swoop kickstart beneath her. Warm vibrations echoed between her legs, golden thrills at the junction of her thighs. She pressed her inner thighs against the metal between them instinctively, like she would if it were Han's hand. Or mouth. Or hips.
She cleared her throat. "Throttle," she echoed. "Steering?"
His free hand grabbed her right and set it on the hand-grips. "There," he said, then crossed her body to lift her left to the other set. "And there. Standard steering. Makes a forty degree turn with a snap. Anything more than ninety degrees and you'll have to lower the thrust."
"Where's the thrust?"
Low chuckle, dark, devious. Like seduction itself. "You already found 'em," he said, almost laughing. "On the swoop body next to your legs."
Damn it, she thought with a smile. Got me there.
And then, as if she hadn't understood his meaning, his right hand slipped between her thigh and the body of the speeder, twisting his palm to lie flat against the fabric just above her knee.
"Here," he muttered. "You wanna go fast, you squeeze here."
This was already spinning wildly out of control; if she let him continue to touch her like this, she was going to kill the lifters, set the swoop down, step off and pull him by the hair to the ground. He was driving her absolutely crazy. And while she doubted he'd mind skipping the flying lesson, Leia knew Han wanted the thrill of a long, drawn-out, seduction. She'd long become accustomed to his fits of foreplay, the way he liked to string her along, see her unravel.
Power: a tradable commodity between them in sex.
But Leia was just as experienced in this game as he was by now, and she knew how to drive him crazy, too. She slapped his hand away, feigning discipline where she had little to spare. Denial, both Han's undoing and what drove him on. He wanted to work for this. As long as she was comfortable—and whatever else he made her, she was always comfortable—he'd have to prove himself worth her regard.
"Brake?" she asked, proud of the lazy tone in her voice, the one that told him she knew very well what he was trying to do, that he was being successful, but that she refused to give it up that easily.
You have to work harder than that, my love.
He moved his palm to the hand-grip: squeezed her stomach with his other. Then he nudged her right foot with his. "Here," he said. "We're gonna take this slow. Top the throttle."
Careful not to the squeeze the thrusters, Leia brushed her hand over the throttle again. A low hum rose around them as dust whipped into her eyes and Han gripped her waist in support.
"Good, good," he said, ducking his head to whisper in her ear, the throttle's hum too loud for any other kind of instruction. The hair at her temples sprung free of her braided coronet, fell into her eyes. "Now slowly ease off the brake."
But Leia didn't want to go slow.
She lifted her booted heel and they flew. The terrain around them blurred into dark and light colors, the only constant the beautiful clear sky above. Like a flash the outer world melted and sensation narrowed into sleek speed and the arm wrapped around her stomach.
For two glorious seconds they were like a shockwave, blustering past red mesas and scraggly desert foliage, the air whipping her into a frenzy of hums and bursts of rumbling as the swoop accelerated into milky red and endless blue.
But then the arm wrapped around her disappeared and the warm weight of her husband fell off the swoop. Shocked back into reality from the adrenaline high of pure velocity, Leia stomped her heel down on the brake and flipped the swoop around.
"Han!" she yelled as the world settled into its normal line and shape.
She twitched, ready to jump off the swoop and run toward the heap of husband where he lay in the red dust of the desert. Before she could get very far, he sat up.
"I told you," he yelled, standing and dusting off his trousers with false annoyance. "Go slow to start with. But did you listen? No."
At the first rotation of his hips Leia settled into back into the saddle, worry dissipating. "You said go. I went."
"I said ease off the brake, not leave your husband in the dust," he griped. "Hell, I'm about to go get the helmets."
That made her laugh, still astride the swoop as he made his way back to her. She could tell by his walk that he wasn't actually angry, that his good-natured muttering was purely for her entertainment.
"Are you alright?" she asked once he reached the swoop.
He rolled his eyes at her, leaned his head to kiss her temple and then hauled himself back behind her on the swoop. "If you wanted to kick my ass, you could've just said so."
He settled into her again, his larger frame shadowing hers, left hand reaching around her. With a muffled grunt he pulled her bodily back into himself, fitting their hips together like puzzle pieces. A trill of anticipation ran down her spine as she felt him nestled close, felt him nudge her temple to the side with his lips. Not protective, not now, not when they were in-between assignments. More like treasuring. Appreciating.
"Okay," he whispered into her ear. "Let's do this … real … slow-like,"
She blinked, wiggled her hips against his and then said in her closest approximation of girlish shyness, "But darling. What if I don't want to go slow?"
He paused, then lifted the hand wrapped around her waist to her chin and turned her head to the side to kiss her. Soft, enticing, heavier than a brush but without the powerful presence of his tongue, the kiss swept through Leia like starlight on her skin. She shifted her shoulders to accommodate him, pressing her hand to his knee and twisting with slight discomfort at the waist.
He disengaged with a breath against her lips and Leia found his eyes: bright green, sly and mischievous.
"Slow is the name of the game," he said, releasing her chin and easing her back against him as they faced the controls together. "Riding a swoop is like sex. You gotta start soft, work a little, find your rhythm. Build up the tension a bit. Fast is not good."
"Oh?" she answered. "And what if you don't want slow? What then?"
He eased his arm around her again, squeezed her stomach. "Start slow. Get a handle on it. And then punch it."
Alright, flyboy, she thought, stroking the throttle, easing her heel up a bit and ducking her chin. With a nice, soft hum—almost a purr—the swoop eased forward: manageable, tame.
"Good," Han murmured. "Nice and slow."
She tested the steering, got the feel for air drag and the whip of dust in her face, listening to Han's cues and the ever-present rumble of the swoop beneath her. It wasn't so different from a speeder bike, she reasoned. Just faster.
Faster.
The temptation to open the throttle and squeeze the thruster pads against her thighs was omnipresent. The capability of the machine beneath her body sang to her, hypnotizing in its possibility. The canyon was enormous and they were utterly alone. Her blood ran hot and she didn't know if it was because of Han's slow stroke of fingers at her waist, the freedom of the canyon or the speed itself that called.
If riding a swoop was like sex, then Leia didn't want to go slow. She wanted it hard, fast, passionate and just past the proper side of dangerous.
She'd long ago abandoned the idea of decency in her private life when alone with Han.
Minutes ticked by and Han showed her thrust capacities, the hard turn radiuses that gave her a taste of speed she so desperately wanted. Comfortable now, he tested her instincts, gave her benchmarks (get to the outcropping in two-point-six seconds), taught her hovering heights and dips and shakes, defensive maneuvers, the sensitive nub of the throttle, the pressure pad of the thrusters between her legs.
That she had liked.
And then finally, finally, Han directed her back to the idling swoop in the distance, back to where they came from, where their packs were set. As she brought the rig to its twin, slowing down from their leisurely pace, she noticed the wind picking up, the red dust blowing across the canyon floor with flurries and gusts. The magnificent sky swept over them like a cerulean brush stroke.
Beautiful, beautiful.
"There you go, sweetheart," he said after she killed the lifters and he eased off the swoop. "Kinda fun, right?"
She swiveled in the saddle, both feet hanging down one side of the swoop, facing Han with an arched brow. "Very fun. It explains a lot about you, actually."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah," she said, kicking her feet idly and tilting her head. "Teenage you with that much speed? That's trouble with a capital T."
She imagined a gangly, long-limbed, slightly awkward adolescent version of her husband, desperate to prove himself as anything other than a street orphan or a pickpocket. She imagined his drive to win, the need he seemed to possess for speed and danger. The way he'd earned his cocksuredness, the sly, knowing look he gave her when he recognized the same kind of confidence in her. She imagined what teenaged her would have done with teenaged him, what her father would have said if she'd run away with a swoop racer at sixteen.
That last thought made her laugh. She had never been one to run away with anyone, particularly at sixteen when her political career had begun to heat up.
So she banished the fantasy and asked the question that had been on her mind since they'd hiked up here more than an hour ago.
"Now explain to me why there are two swoops, Han."
She knew. But she wanted to hear him say it.
He pressed his lips together, eyed her carefully. "Why do you think there are two?"
Leia stared at the second swoop, sitting innocently less than ten meters away, then switched her focus back to Han.
"I think you want to race."
He paused, eyeing her without changing his expression. Then he took three steps toward her, knees bent, shoulders back, a look on his face that she could describe as predatory. They were the same height as she sat on the saddle of the swoop—convenient access and the very reason she hadn't hopped down after him—and she knew exactly what he was after. His eyes gave everything away: burning a hot challenge to her without saying a word.
She parted her legs, cocked her head to the side and watched him come to her: blithe, tall and in total control of the situation.
His hands reached her first, landing on her knees and sliding up to the outside of her thighs as he stepped between them and brought his nose centims away from her own. She didn't dare blink, didn't move, didn't breathe. Oh, yes, this is what she wanted.
"Fuck yes, I want to race you," he said, low and hard.
His hands squeezed her legs and pulled them to wrap around his thighs. Leia didn't move, kept her hands braced on either side of her hips, leaning back in the saddle.
"I wanna race you," he continued. "And then I want to take you back to the Falcon and fuck you."
She raised an eyebrow, grateful to her years of political training to keep the nonplussed look on her face while her stomach broke into happy, nervous flutters and her skin felt like someone had run an electric current through it from head to toe.
"Really," she said, dry and unworried.
"Really," he repeated, stepping farther into her to press his hips against hers, his hands ghosting up to her waist, thumbs edging under her vest to stroke the skin of her belly. "Care to make a wager?"
She breathed a laugh, pushed off her hands to lean into him as he moved back to give her room. "General, that doesn't sound like fair terms. I only just learned how to fly this thing."
"I was thinking of terms that you obviously—" and here he rolled his hips into hers, erection clearly present against the cradle of her body, "—wouldn't mind."
The feel of him hard and wanting made her eyes flutter closed. "Maybe," she breathed. "Maybe."
"And I'm not a general," he murmured. "Not anymore."
And then his lips were on hers, hungry and warm, and though she wanted to continue the hard-to-get facade, she couldn't help the hand that swept up his jaw, stroked softly as he kissed her. His tongue swept past her lips and Leia had to pull back for a ragged breath before pulling him back down to her. She flexed her legs, trapping him, and wrapped her other arm around his neck. The world around her faded away. It was just Han, all Han, and the way he made her feel.
Too soon he pulled his lips away and stepped back from her, breathing hard. Leia's legs dropped to the side of the swoop beneath her and she swept a hand over her braid, checking to make sure he hadn't messed with it too much.
"Fine," she said. "Let's race."
Han nodded, put his hands behind his head and turned his back to her. Walking it off, she thought with a small grin. He made a circle in the red dust, a pathway of deep breaths and focus.
"Terms?" he asked, loud.
She was amused to see how he carefully regulated his breathing, walked with a kind of stiff-kneed wobble in an elliptical path to cool his blood down. What does he do to tame himself? she wondered. Think about dead pittens and nav calculations?
The thought made her laugh and wince at the same time, pride and empathy combining into a soft muffled chuckle.
"Position," she answered him. "And location."
He stopped his walk to give her a look, glint in his eye and quirk to his lips. "Awfully brave of you, sweetheart."
She shrugged. "I have faith."
Han pursed his lips but nodded and Leia knew he assumed she had faith in her own abilities. But that wasn't what she meant at all. She was an untrained Force-sensitive Skywalker descendant, sure, but winning a swoop race against Han Solo? Who flew starships like a madman and had made a name for himself on the swoop circuit before he'd been able to legally consume alcohol?
She didn't have a chance in hell.
Her faith was rooted in trust in her husband, that however he demanded payment, it would be discrete and pleasurable on all sides. She'd already made plenty of references to a hard, fast cumulation to this activity, and despite what everyone seemed to think, he listened to her well enough.
Particularly about sex. Especially about sex.
"Deal," he said, reaching to shake her hand with laughter in his eyes. "You're gonna lose, Organa."
Of course she was. He didn't actually think this was anything but a ploy to get him as desperate for her as he could be, did he?
"Just hand me the helmet, hotshot," she said.