In the previous chapter: Ren introduces Rey to several new things – a different way to gather energy in the Force, a fast-paced sport called mech-wrecking, and a parts supplier-slash-mech fighter named Cue. Cue invites Rey and Ren to visit the prep deck underneath the arena as she prepares for her fight against Squalo.
Chapter 12
Ren and I followed Cue across the arena to a metal door that looked like the entrance to a vault. It was guarded by a stocky droid who towered over us, its single ocular sensor glowing orange in the center of its face.
Cue spoke in warbling binary using her synthesizer. "Steelstun reporting in to get suited."
The droid didn't move, instead replying in a harsh cascade of beeps and vibrating hums: "Only fighters are allowed in the pit."
"They're mechanics. I need a quick repair on my suit," Cue lied.
The droid was silent for a moment while it calculated its options, and finally stepped to the side and admitted all three of us. We crammed into a lift tube which zoomed downward. I was standing just close enough to Cue to notice a silver piece of metal embedded in the back of her neck, right along her spine. The lift tube jerked to a stop.
We entered the prep deck, a claustrophobic room carved out of stone directly underneath the arena. The ceiling was low, supported by a grid of squat columns except for an area in the middle of the room. As we passed through the center, I realized that a large, circular patch of the ceiling was missing because it was actually the transparisteel floor of the mech-wrecking cage above us. Two slightly elevated platforms were set into the floor, presumably to lift mech fighters up into the cage. Several droids, all identical to the first one we'd seen on the floor above, were stationed around the room.
The outside walls of the prep deck were ringed in lockers and repair bays stocked with tools. I spotted Zeekee's battered green suit in one of the bays, though Zeekee himself was nowhere in sight.
Squalo was in the next bay over. He'd removed his helmet, revealing a human face with glistening, slimy blue skin. He stood in the middle of a group of rough-looking men, though I couldn't tell if they were his sponsors, fans or bodyguards. Squalo made a lewd gesture, and when he laughed his mouth spread wide – far wider than any human's mouth should have stretched – and revealed several rows of spiny, razor like teeth. I realized he was a Togunn, a shark-like race from a lawless Mid Rim planet.
As the three of us crossed the room, Squalo pinned Cue with a look that made the hair rise on the back of my neck. It wasn't the way a fighter would normally size up his opponent. It reminded me of someone… and though I couldn't put my finger it, I knew something about the look was wrong.
Cue tapped a passcode into her locker's keypad. The door sprang open to reveal her mechsuit nestled inside. It was pitch black, just like her skin, and bristled with dozens of metal spikes on its arms and legs. She exhaled almost dreamily, reaching out to touch the suit, when Squalo suddenly shouldered between me and Ren and came to a stop directly behind her. Her hand dropped away from her suit like she'd donned a glove made of lead.
"Ready to fight me, spazza?" Squalo asked, using a derogatory Togunn term.
Cue completely ignored him, but then Squalo did something unexpected: his hand settled possessively on Cue's back between her shoulder blades, right on top of the metal chip I'd spotted in the lift tube.
It was that exact moment when I realized who Squalo reminded me of: Krewzu, the scavenger I'd been enslaved to on Jakku. My stomach cramped like a molten chunk of metal had just dropped into it. Squalo looked at Cue the exact same way Krewzu had looked at me. It was more than piercing scrutiny, it was ownership.
"Remove your hand or I'll remove it from you," Ren threatened, seemingly unaware of Cue's dark secret.
Squalo and Cue both turned to look at him. I was struck by the mournful sadness and shame in her eyes. But I knew why: she was a slave, and Squalo was her master. Rebelling would likely bring her nothing but pain.
Squalo's flinty eyes flicked to Cue. "They don't know?" he asked with malicious glee.
"Know what?" Ren growled.
Squalo laughed. Up close I could see, and smell, chunks of rotting meat in his teeth. He turned to fully face me and Ren, dragging Cue with him, and started tracing the chip embedded in her skin.
"Cue'ar belongs to me. She's the most profitable slave I've ever owned. I might even call her my favorite." He crooned the last part directly in her ear, and Cue shut her eyes, rigid with disgust.
Ren couldn't hide his shock, his gaze switching between Cue's haunted face and Squalo's hand.
"That's a slave chip in your back?" he asked, tone colored by a forceful mixture of rage and regret. "I never knew."
"You never asked," Cue replied softly.
Ren stepped toward Squalo, his anger starting to spiral dangerously. The Force web shivered against my mind as Ren siphoned power from it with deadly intent.
"Ren, stop," I cautioned him. Though I loathed the idea of Cue'ar being enslaved to this tyrant for an instant longer, I couldn't condone Ren using the Force to murder people – even slavers – right in front of me. I dug up the memory of when I had first agreed to work with him on Potentium, and urgently pressed it into his head. Our intentions will only be good. If you use the Force to cause pain or harm while in my presence, we are finished.
"You can't be serious," Ren snarled at me.
"At least try to end things without violence. You can't always have your way by slaughtering people."
Squalo's arrogant grin slipped a notch.
"Name your price," Ren suddenly told Squalo. "I'll pay it."
"This beauty earns just as much selling parts as she does in mech-wrecking fights," Squalo sneered. "She's made me a rich man. I'd sooner sell you my mother."
Squalo clearly had no clue he was dealing with a First Order commander, especially one skilled with the dark side of the Force. But Kylo wouldn't reveal who he was without his helmet, and Cue had no plans to interfere judging by her subdued silence.
"People who tell me 'no' don't tend to live long," Ren spat.
"She's legally mine by the laws of Skunkt," Squalo warned him. "The guards will give you some new holes to breathe out of if you touch my property."
I glanced over my shoulder and realized Squalo wasn't making an empty threat. Three of the droids loomed behind us, their ocular sensors pulsing between orange and red.
"Give Cue a chance to earn her freedom," I suggested, hoping that Squalo enjoyed gambling as much as mech-wrecking. "If she wins the fight against you, she goes free."
Cue's eyes lit up in excitement, blue light spilling out of her eyes and scattering across her cheeks.
Squalo looked intrigued by my offer, but was clearly a seasoned gambler. His eyes suggestively slid up and down my figure. "What could you possibly offer to tempt me?"
Shit. After escaping Krewzu, I had vowed to die before becoming a slave ever again – but Cue's freedom was worth the risk."Me. As your newest slave."
'Are you out of your mind?' Ren seethed inside my head. 'I'll kill him if he so much as touches you.'
'I have no intention of losing,' I replied, and silently explained my plan to him.
Squalo's hand dropped from Cue's back as he considered my terms, unaware of my private conversation with Ren.
"It's a deal," he decided. His teeth flashed like broken glass embedded in his gums.
My Force senses tingled, warning me of Squalo's intentions a millisecond before he struck, but it happened so fast I was powerless to do anything but watch. Squalo's hand was already dropping back to his side, gripping a dagger with a razor sharp blade. Cue's eyes flared wide in pain as her palms covered a spot on her side. Her legs buckled and she started to sink to the floor. Ren and I leapt forward to break her fall. Azure blood leaked from underneath her palm, vivid and viscous against her dark skin.
Ren swore viciously and an angry black mist started to form around his body. I was positive he would have throttled Squalo had he not been supporting half of Cue's weight.
"You coward!" I yelled at the Togunn.
"There's no rules in mech-wrecking," Squalo said, a wicked, smug gleam in his eyes. "Looks like she needs to visit a bacta tank. Of course, she'll have to forfeit the fight since she's not feeling up to it. Forfeiting counts as losing, by the way."
"No," Cue ground out forcefully.
Squalo shrugged. "See you in the arena, then, spazza."
"You're despicable," I hissed at him. "I hope she slaughters you."
"Doubtful." Squalo laughed and left us holding Cue, bloody and seething. She gasped in pain as we adjusted our grip on her, lowering her to the floor. I snatched a medkit from her locker and pulled out a needle, bacta patch and sterile wipes. Life on Jakku had given me plenty of opportunities to practice first aid.
"I'm going to rip out his spine," Ren vowed, starting to stand.
Cue grabbed a corner of his heavy robe and yanked him back down. "Don't you dare," she spat. "He's mine to deal with."
I discreetly glanced over at Ren's stormy expression. He wanted to help Cue, but he didn't know how to offer a solution that involved something other than violence. And in typical Ren fashion, being powerless made him angry.
I directed his attention toward the wound in Cue's side. "Can you heal this?"
"No," he grumbled. "Only stop the bleeding."
"Do it," I instructed. "It's not fatal," I told Cue, "but that asshole was right, you need a bacta tank."
"My pride hurts worse than this shit does. I hoped you wouldn't find out," Cue muttered to Ren.
"That you were a slave? Why?" Ren asked.
"You're Kylo bloody Ren of the First Order. Slaves are beneath you."
"I was a slave several years ago. When I was a scavenger," I confided to Cue as I gave her a neat row of stitches.
"How did you earn your freedom?"
"I killed my master. Because freedom is never something you earn. It's something you take back when it's been stolen from you." I tied off the stitches and placed a bacta patch over them. "I'm sorry for making such a mess of things. I shouldn't have forced you into this bet."
Her smile, though shadowed by pain, was broad and genuine. She briefly touched my cheek. "You stood up for me, Rey. I would die for you."
"Don't die before we get you to a bacta tank. After you stomp Squalo, of course."
Cue's movements were stiff as we helped her stand and get strapped into her mechsuit. She clipped a powerpack onto her left arm and then grabbed her weapon: a custom-built flail, made of a tri-bladed bludgeon attached to a bulky handle via a strong but flexible cord. I'd seen Stormtroopers carry riot batons that looked awfully similar, and wondered if Ren had sold her one.
We escorted Cue to the repulsorlift platform that would carry her up into the arena. A droid handed her a power pendant which she slung around her neck. Squalo faced her, standing a few meters away on his own lift.
"Let's keep this short like usual, my pet," he told Cue, then snapped his helmet visor down into place.
"Have you fought him before?" I asked Cue quietly.
"Yes," she whispered, revealing the first sign of nerves. "He's always won."
"Not this time," I promised her. "You'll kick his ass, Cue."
She nodded and closed the visor on her own helmet, hiding her fiercely determined gaze.
The transparisteel ceiling retracted and flooded the pit with feverish screams from the crowd. The repulsorlift platforms hummed as they carried the two fighters into the arena above us. We would have a unique vantage point of the fight from down below.
Squalo wielded his electromace in one hand, casually leaning his weight on one foot, then the other.
Cue triggered a button on the handle of her flail, and electricity started to spark and crackle in the empty space between the bludgeon's blades. She hefted her flail and gave it a few slow circular swings, the crackling bludgeon gaining momentum with every revolution. Then Cue pressed a second button that activated a motor and the bludgeon immediately picked up speed, creating a whirling circle that flashed white and blue. Cue spun the motorized flail with fluid grace, able to control it with ease due to the adhesion grip built into the handle.
The announcer's voice boomed through the arena: "Fighters, ready! Wreckage commencing in three… two… GO!"
Squalo and Cue flew at each other like homing missiles, their weapons cracking together so hard I was sure one or both of them had broken in half. Cue pressed forward, her flail's extended range giving her an advantage over Squalo's mace, and I shouted encouragement as Squalo warily danced backward to avoid the spinning circle of death.
Cue advanced on Squalo several times, twirling and spinning her flair with a masterful expertise that was entrancing to watch. But though Cue held the center of the arena, Squalo had enough space around the perimeter to easily avoid her attacks.
"He knows she's hurt. He's tiring her out on purpose," I said, aggravated. Sure enough, Cue stumbled as Squalo ducked away from her swing, and as she struggled to raise her weapon Squalo struck hard with his mace.
The blow caught Cue across her left shoulder, and she would have dropped her flail had the weapon not been magnatomically secured to her hand. Squalo pressed his advantage and swung wildly at Cue. While she deflected most of the hits off of the gauntlets built into her armored mechsuit, one caught her arm and decimated her power pack. The motorized flail stopped spinning, and the bladed bludgeon hung limp against its cord. Squalo's next hit scraped Cue in her injured side and she retreated several steps, gasping in pain from the impact against her knife wound.
Above us, the crowd was going ballistic, screaming encouragement at Cue in a hundred different languages while booing Squalo.
Ren had been quiet throughout the entire fight, his eyes hard and bright and furious, but now he straightened his shoulders and asked me, "You ready?"
I nodded, and we summoned an enormous wave of Force power that rushed at us from all sides. It slammed our minds together, our consciousnesses seamlessly absorbing into one another. Ren's power flowed into the cracks and crevices of my brain and surged like liquid electricity through my veins.
Our gaze jointly lifted up to the arena, where Cue hunched over as pain dominated her exhausted body. Squalo advanced on her, his sparking electromace raised for a heavy blow. Ren and I pushed a surge of energy toward Cue as the mace made its brutal descent.
At the last second, Cue sprang to the side and neatly rolled out of its path. Squalo yelled in surprise as the mace sank through nothing but air. He stumbled forward, thrown off balance by his own momentum. By the time he regained his footing and lifted his head to seek out Cue, she was on the far side of the arena, panting hard but clearly not ready to give up.
We rejuvenated Cue's exhausted muscles and siphoned cool air into her lungs. We lent her our reflexes, our power, our strength. We helped her dodge blows that should have landed, and deflect hits that would have otherwise ended the fight. Ren did a fascinating trick where he partially nullified gravity directly underneath Cue's feet, helping her move and jump faster than humanly possible. I soaked her flail with energy, bridging the gaps where circuits had been crushed by Squalo's blows, and coaxed the motor back to life. If Cue was aware of our help, she didn't acknowledge it in any way. She stalked toward her opponent with single-minded determination, maneuvering her spinning flail with deadly precision, and clashed with him once more in the center of the arena.
Our efforts were quickly draining the well of power we'd summoned. I threw my focus outward to pull more power under our control, but the crowd's raucous energy obscured the Force web. I dragged their energy toward me instead, feeding on their excitement and passion and greed, prepared for it to fight me like it had upstairs in the bar. But as soon as the power met my fingertips, I was shocked by a simple revelation: the crowd wanted Cue to win, and the power vibrated through my body as it was allowed to fulfill the exact purpose for which it was meant.
We pressed the power into Cue's heavy limbs, boosting her speed as she darted under Squalo's mace. It granted her a tiny opening so she could duck, whirl and extend her arm to deal a blow – but her arm was moving far too slow to cause damage until Ren shot it forward with a focused beam of energy. Her flail whipped around and hit Squalo so hard it annihilated the plated armor on the side of his helmet.
Squalo's head snapped to the side and the motion caused his power pendant to swing outward. Without any aid from me or Ren, Cue's hand shot out and her fingers clamped down on the pendant. Then Cue lofted her leg and kicked Squalo square in the chest. His torso jerked back so hard the pendant's leather cord instantly snapped.
The entire arena went dark, and for a long second we all stood in breathless silence and listened as Squalo hit the ground with a satisfying thunk, shattering the rest of his helmet. Suddenly, the arena turned a smoky shade of violet and Cue's figure lit up in a glowing pattern of scales. The arena had activated special blacklights in honor of her black mechsuit, which revealed otherwise invisible designs painted on her armor.
"Steelstun WINS!" the announcer's voice boomed. Cue pumped her fist high in the air, victorious.
The audience went wild, chanting, "Steel - stun - steel - stun!" Their ecstatic cheers were deafening, and the ground trembled under my feet from the sheer amount of noise reverberating around the arena.
Cue removed her helmet and gently set it on the floor of the arena, then hauled Squalo to his feet by the lip of his shattered visor.
"I am free," she growled at him, her voice echoing around the arena. "Remove my chip."
"The fight was rigged!" Squalo screamed in her face. "I want a rematch. This time without your friends helping you cheat."
"You said yourself there were no rules in mech-wrecking," Cue purred with a savage smile. "I won the bet. Free me. Now. Or my friends will deal with you down in the pit. And then my friends outside this cage will deal with what's left." She extended her arm in invitation toward the crowd, where hundreds of people howled their eagerness to tear Squalo to shreds if given the chance.
Squalo's mechsuit shuddered with a mixture of rage and fear, but he ultimately held up his end of the bet. He removed one of his red gauntlets and reached across Cue's shoulder, pressing his fingertip against the silver chip on her back. From our angle it was hard to tell what he did, but a second later he removed his hand and flung the tiny piece of metal to the floor in disgust.
Cue briefly shivered like someone had doused her in ice water as the toxic effects of the slave chip expired from her body. Then she turned and in the blink of an eye had punched Squalo in the mouth so hard he passed out and collapsed to the ground.
"I thought I'd want to kill you," she said to his unconscious form. "But I was wrong. I hope you live so you can suffer just as much as I have."
Then Cue raised her head and began to spin in a slow circle, facing the crowd. "You are all my witnesses. From this day forward, I belong to no one. I am free!" The crowd roared back in fanatical approval.
The next thirty minutes were an absolute whirlwind. The platforms lowered Cue and Squalo back down into the prep deck. Squalo's thugs hauled him to the far side of the pit. Meanwhile, Cue had enough time to envelop us both in a tight hug and thank us before a dozen fighters descended into the pit to congratulate her on winning both the fight and her freedom. Like me and Ren, a majority hadn't known she was a slave to Squalo. Their praise turned to alarm when Cue slowly stepped out of her mechsuit to reveal her side covered in blood. Her wound had reopened during the fight.
I asked where the closest bacta tank was, and the fighters instantly rallied into a bristling pack of personal guards for Cue. They escorted us through a series of underground tunnels to avoid the crushing crowd in the arena. The tunnel dead-ended at a door which let us out into a bustling plaza in the heart of the space station. The fighters led the way around a corner to a medical clinic that rented bacta tanks by the hour. Cue was hustled into a private room by the med droids on staff. Four of the mech-fighters positioned themselves in front of her door, and the rest stood guard out front of the clinic.
Ren told the fighters we'd be back to check on her and then ventured into the plaza, grabbing several kabobs of charred meat and vegetables from a food vendor. The peace only lasted a few minutes before we heard shouts from the direction of the clinic. It was Squalo – now sporting significantly less teeth – and his gang of thugs.
"I don't care about the spazzing slave!" Squalo was yelling at the fighters. "I'm here for the other two!"
One of his henchmen caught sight of us by the vendor stand. "I see them! Over there, boss!"
Ren snarled and started to funnel power from the Force web, murder gleaming in his eyes as his aura turned black and opaque. I ground my teeth. I couldn't let him get away with killing Squalo now, not after we'd successfully used the Force through Potentium to help Cue. I flung a bright burst of energy against his shields, and while he was distracted I grabbed his hand and took off with him into the space station.
Squalo and his thugs chased us through the halls of Skunkt, but they were no match for two trained Force users. We made impossibly sharp turns into side corridors, flew down several flights of stairs with supernatural speed, and once we even hopped a railing on an elevated walkway and dropped to the ground below, using the Force to cushion the jolt upon landing. The thugs cursed us every time we dipped out of sight. The sound of their shouting and footsteps grew more and more faint until the mundane noises of Skunkt had completely swallowed their presence.
We slowed to a jog, and it wasn't until we passed the vendor who had sold me the leather satchel currently slung over my shoulder that I realized where we were. Ren sought out the same maintenance corridor we'd used just hours ago, turning left down the deserted hallway and into the same storage room where he'd removed his helmet.
Like before, all sound had dropped away except for a low, droning hum from a generator somewhere beneath us. We moved deeper into the room, away from the weak, yellow light spilling in from the hallway. I pulled the satchel strap off of my shoulder and set it on a dusty crate, then leaned against the far wall to catch my breath. I could clearly see Ren's outline in front of me, though his back was to the doorway and his face was wreathed in shadows.
The darkness only amplified the restrained harshness of our breath as we gulped down air and slowed our breathing.
"That vermin deserved to die," Ren growled at me. "But you stopped me from killing him. Twice. Why?"
"I told you why. When we're working on Potentium, your intentions must be good. Killing people simply because they anger you isn't right."
"He hurt Cue. He would have hurt us. Tried, anyway."
"That doesn't give you an excuse to kill him. It was Cue's battle to fight, not yours. Besides, you're lightyears more powerful than him. You could have used the Force to teach him a lesson, or defend yourself."
"Supreme Leader didn't teach me the ways of the Force so I could defend myself from scum like Squalo," Ren sneered. "He taught me how to kill."
I could only stare at him in sadness, wondering if Leia's mission was hopeless. Her son seemed determined to stay lost in darkness of his own making.
"You serve Snoke so blindly," I said quietly. "You're more of a slave than Cue and I ever were."
Ren's entire body tensed, eyes glittering with malice in the gloom of the storage room. Just a day ago in the Ramarode temple, he had told me he wanted answers. Apparently, that hadn't meant he wanted the truth.
"Snoke has commanded me to destroy the enemies of the Order, and I do it willingly."
"Then why haven't you killed me?"
He took a slow, threatening step closer to me, his arms rising to cage me against the wall. My heart started to pound so hard in my chest I thought my ribs might crack. I knew his intentions in that instant, and in the very depths of my heart I surrendered, completely, to the inevitable.
"Because you're the worst thing that's ever happened to me."
And then he crushed his lips against mine.
Ren kissed me hard, lips moving insistently as the rough edges of his scar scraped against my mouth. I kissed him back just as fiercely, feeling my skin catch fire from his sheer proximity. My forbidden attraction to Ren, how off-limits he should have been, the guilt of giving in – none of it mattered in this moment. My hands rose and curled into his thick hair, pulling him closer.
He growled his approval and broke away from my lips, biting the very end of his finger and using his teeth to rip the glove off his hand with practiced force. Then his mouth descended on mine once more – hard, rough, demanding – and suddenly we weren't just physically pressed together in this dark, quiet room hidden in the belly of Skunkt, but he was in my head, too, and all of his senses intimately enveloped and overlapped my own. I felt his bare hand threading through the hair at the base of my neck while simultaneously feeling the sensation of the soft strands against my fingers – Ren's fingers. I inhaled his clean, masculine scent, mixed together with my own delicate, slightly floral aroma and undercut by the spicy tang of oil from Cue's mechsuit on my hands.
His mouth pressed against mine, tongues intertwining and speaking our feelings in a way that words never could. I could barely stay afloat of the sensual tidal waves crashing through my brain, and dug my fingertips into his overcoat as if the roaring in my head might physically carry me away from the very moment I'd yearned for in secret for weeks.
I knew that Kylo Ren would not be like the other men I'd kissed and easily left behind at Niima Outpost. He craved me with an intensity that eclipsed all other senses, and reveled in the knowledge that I desired him the same way.
Ren had pulled off his other glove. His fingers moved upward along my head, tugging my hair out of their customary triplet of buns. His other hand ghosted down my back, rounding over the curve of my ass as he ground his hips against me.
His carnal desire flooded through my head, and coupled with the obvious hardness between his legs, made me bold. I captured his bottom lip in my mouth and gently pulled, grazing my teeth across the sensitive flesh.
His hand twisted and clenched in my loose hair just hard enough that I arched my back against the pressure and released a wanton, breathless moan. He groaned into my mouth and a shiver raced across my skin. And then… memories flooded into my mind, but not ones I recognized and it took me a moment to realize they weren't memories at all but fantasies. Ren's fantasies – things that had never happened, but things he'd wanted to happen. Pulling me into his lap in the tiny cockpit of his ship and kissing me senseless, making out with me in the nighttime desert after the violent storm on Gryl, grabbing me in front of Finn, or Cue, and claiming me, branding me as his. Holding me in that deliciously cold pool in the Gryl's temple, hands roaming my body without restraint and admiring the muscle hidden by my graceful curves. Seeing my hair unbound for the first time after waking up from his nap, drunk from the warmth of the sun and languidly pulling me down on top of him, stripping off my wickedly sheer robe and baring my breasts and nipples to the heat of his tongue, my skin forged like pure, molten gold. He knew that I was as strong and untamed as the desert I'd grown up in and Ren wanted to capture that wildness, dominate it and make it his own and no one else's, and seek forbidden pleasure from my body til we collapsed in exhausted bliss.
I pulled my mind away from the torrid swell of emotions, the sudden throbbing pressure between my legs almost too torturous to bear. Ren's lips were still pressed against mine, tongue sinfully moving inside my mouth, his hand roaming longingly, reverently over my curves as if worried this moment would end at any second and we'd bury it between us and never speak of it again.
My hands slid down the front of his overcoat, though their progress stopped at his belt. Another wave of desire flowed through our bond, coupled with a vision of my hands undoing his belt, stripping off his coat and tunic so his muscled chest was bare; my hands sliding lower, down his ridged abs til they were undoing his pants and grasping his thick, rigid girth in my palm, then sinking to my knees in front of him and...
I pulled my head back, startled – seduced – more scandalously aroused than I had ever been in my entire life. My lips parted from Ren's, though he still had one hand threaded through my completely unbound hair so I didn't move far. His black gaze devoured me, his breath and his ardor barely under control. He leaned forward and nuzzled his lips at the intensely sensitive spot by my ear.
"I want you," he murmured against my skin, and then his hand drifted to the electrifying spot between my legs and there was nothing imaginary about the way he rubbed against my core. I was blind to everything but the urgent, primal pleasure that radiated throughout my body from his touch, and then it was my fantasy rolling through the bond with frantic, almost consuming desire: his hands hot against my bare skin, mouth caressing a million other places besides my lips, his hard length pushing into my soaked, quivering core where only my own fingers had ever been…
'Kylo,' I breathed into his mind – but whatever words I might have whispered were forever lost when the comm tucked into my belt blared to life.
"Roony here, do you copy?"
Ren and I jerked apart, the sudden brash voice dousing the entire moment and eradicating the sensuous intimacy I'd been wholly willing to lose myself in.
Ren directed such a furiously irritated glare at the comm that I wondered if Force-sensitive Roony could feel it on his end. He snatched the device from my belt but I gripped his hand to stop him from smashing it against the wall, then pulled it from his grasp entirely.
"We copy," I spoke into it, voice far too husky to sound normal.
"Hope I wasn't interrupting anything," Roony replied in impish delight.
"Do you have an update for us?" I asked as haughtily as possible, glad he couldn't see my flaming red cheeks. I stared intently at the comm, too overwhelmed to look at Ren.
"Exchange is a go at oh-seven-hundred tomorrow morning. Both of you need to meet your contacts at oh-six in the same spots as today. Any questions?"
"No. Thank you," I added.
"You're a doll. Stay safe out there."
I tucked the comm back into my belt. Ren stepped closer again. His fingertips ghosted across my jaw and lifted my chin. His gaze intently searched mine as he wordlessly pressed an alluring idea straight into my mind: a luxurious and discreet inn here on Skunkt where we could disappear for the rest of the night...
Surrendering to a sleepless night in his embrace was wildly tempting, but the logical part of my brain had conjured up an incredibly long – and still growing – list of all the reasons that would make it a terrible idea. No matter what passed between us during moments like this, we were here on Skunkt because of a war and he was on the wrong side.
"This was a mistake," I whispered.
His mood plummeted, frustration making his eyes go hard and brittle. "Fuck, Rey. No it's not," he said, his naturally deep voice rough and husky.
It was so Kylo to stubbornly ignore the truth staring him in the face. I couldn't hold back my tiny, private smile, and smoldering heat surged back into his gaze. His hand cupped the back of my neck and he pulled me close to steal one last lingering kiss from my lips.
"Be careful tomorrow," he told me, and then turned and left the storage room without another word, snatching both his gloves and the leather satchel with his helmet and cloak on the way out.
I remained in the solitude of the storage room for a long time afterward, waiting for the heat in my body to fade even as I relived the memories of his hands, his lips on my body. I'd told Ren that succumbing to the burning attraction between us had been a mistake, but I knew beyond doubt that it was a mistake I'd readily commit again.
.
.
.
