Rey has been kissed by these lips before, many times, but she does not know this kiss. This kiss is searing.
She cannot explain exactly what he is doing to the inside of her mouth, but it feels good, as good as the way his hand is pressing into the small of her back, low enough to push her hips subtly against him, as good as the solid feeling of his chest against her breasts. It takes her a moment to understand why she doesn't recognise this kiss – it is because he knows what he is doing. He doesn't have to learn it, he has done this before. The realisation releases some of the tension she is carrying; she does not need to hold back, she can go as quickly as she needs to.
He makes a noise, a low rumble in his chest as she moulds her body against his, acknowledging the passion which is building low in her belly. She has no desire to wait. He is warm and alive and in her arms at last and she wants as much of him as she can get, as soon as possible. Her fingers slip away from his neck, weave down the expanse of his chest and begin to unbuckle his belt and the speed and the ease with which his clothing hits the floor sends its own signal. This is how it will be the first time, this is how she wants it, she will take, and he will give, and it feels like the spark between them catches fire, a conflagration of shared lust which pushes mouths together, sets tongues delving deeper, causes hands to wander willing bodies. She is hot for him because she has waited such a long time for this and thought that the chance was lost forever, and he has given himself to her and is ready to acquiesce.
She reaches blindly for the bottom of his tunic and tugs fruitlessly at it for a minute until he steps back and breaks the kiss, yanking off the offending fabric and the black undershirt beneath and tossing them away. She spreads her hands possessively over his naked flesh, pushing on his skin with the pads of her fingers to watch the little indentations form. She bends forward to press a kiss to the centre of his chest. His hands come up to release her hair from its three-celled prison, spreading it out across her neck as his fingers sink into it.
She starts again, kisses her way across his chest, flicks out her tongue and licks his nipple, before her hands drop to pull at the gauzy fabric which is covering her body.
He steps back and examines her clothing with a critical eye. Her belt comes off first, and he yanks the loose material it is securing away from her shoulders while she is still trying to kick off her boots; together they manage to manoeuvre her white top over her head. She removes the breastband herself and when she flings it onto the floor and she is exposed he stares at her for a minute, taking her in. There is an almost palpable heat in the air between them and she senses that this is a turning point, a moment which has been long in coming, and after which there will be no going back.
His fingers trace a path down her arms and he gets as far as her elbows before she reaches up and links her hands around his neck again. Her breasts are bare against his chest. His palms stroke her back.
'Ben,' she whispers, trying out the word, because she has so rarely said it out loud. She needs to banish the memory of the last time she spoke his name, on the terrible day on which she died, and loved and lost. 'Ben.'
Her fingers seek out his cheek, and she drags her thumb over his lower lip, the plump press of it yielding to her touch. Stretching up on tiptoes her nipples trace a deliberate path across his chest and she presses her lips to his and heaves herself off the ground with the power of the Force, wrapping her legs around his waist while his arms jump reflexively to support her bottom. She takes control of the kiss, invading his mouth, running a hand up into his hair, telling him with tongue and fingers and body that she is ready. Very carefully, one step at a time, he paces towards the bed, depositing her onto the covers and following her down. His hips come to rest between her legs, a heavy weight but one that is most welcome and she wraps her ankles over the back of his knees, rubbing her pelvis against the bulk of his body. He abandons her mouth and his lips navigate the side of her neck. Her nails scratch his scalp. He tongues her clavicle, goes lower, circles her right breast and then pulls her nipple into his mouth.
She catches her breath, a loud counterpoint to the wet sucking noises that escape his lips, the faint murmurs that indicate his appreciation for this task. Deliberately, she inserts her hands into the space where their bodies meet, seeking the waistband of her leggings. She is quite sure of what she wants, and it includes all of him, all his past and all his future and he takes the suggestion she offers, rolling off her and stripping her of any remaining clothes with a couple of sharp jerks of his hands.
He doesn't touch, he just looks, those dark eyes shifting across her skin with a palpable heat. There is something building, the throb in her groin becoming more acute. At length, his hand comes up and he slides his fingers over her stomach although it is the expression in his eyes as he watches her that makes her wet rather than the assured approach of those thick and powerful digits. She reaches for the front of his trousers.
There is a long moment of shared exploration marked only by gasps, the rush of a hastily indrawn breath, by the opening of legs and the springing release of rigid flesh. His long fingers brush across her clitoris, delve into the space between her legs, then return full of wet warmth to slick up and down. Her grip is firm and her rhythm even, his initial response a sticky mess over her fist within a few short seconds. She bends over to taste it, lapping the thin fluid off his cock with a few expert sweeps of her tongue. His eyes are very round as he watches, his breath panting through lips which are red with kissing. She throws her leg over his hips and straddles him.
Rey is familiar with the stretch by now. She no longer thinks his size unusual, and she isn't anxious as he feeds her his cock. She rides him, slowly and carefully at first, with her hands resting gently on his chest while he lies as if stunned, an expression of absolute wonder crossing his features. He recovers quickly though, and that moment of vulnerability disappears under a slow growing smile. Shoving one hand beneath his head the other finds her waist, holding her down while his hips thrust upwards and she gives a little grunt of surprise. The hand shifts, and his fingers are now in play, strumming away at her clitoris with such instant effect that she bites her lip and goes faster. She impales herself on him, glorying in the tight squeeze, the hot jab as her body swallows his cock, focusing on nothing but the orgasm which is coming in the next few seconds. He rams into her with a few short, sharp jerks and the speed of his hand increases to the extent that she cries out with it, and her muscles clench on his cock in preparation.
Then the space behind her eyes turns to white fire and she can only brace her hands on his chest and hang her head as she shakes in the throes of the climax he is giving her.
She clambers off him the instant she comes back to herself and sprawls face up on the bed, recovering. Beside her he lies on his back, the pant of his breathing loud in the stillness of the bedroom.
That's what it would have been like. The thought comes swimming up from the depths of her consciousness and she considers it. If he had never died, if we had left Exegol together and found somewhere to be alone. It would have been exactly like that.
It wouldn't.
She muses on the contradictory thought. Maybe it wouldn't. If I'd taken him back to the Resistance it wouldn't have been like that at all. It would have been impossible to find somewhere we could be alone on the base, I'd have had to wait. For months at least, maybe years while Poe decided what to do with him.
You don't like waiting. The last few minutes have amply demonstrated that.
She frowns to herself. Impatience isn't usually a fault she acknowledges. She is familiar with waiting for the things she wants – for her parents to come back, for her to be well trained enough to earn Luke's lightsaber.
That weapon always belonged to you, you didn't have to earn it. It came when you called.
True, she thinks, although that isn't a perspective that has occurred to her before. Although the first time I touched it I had a vision of Ben, so maybe it was meant to be his too, in a way.
I found it quite disappointing, actually. I'd gotten used to the crossguard.
She tenses, screws her eyes shut and tries to make her mind completely still. He can't possibly be hearing her thoughts. She can read his emotions, she gets a sense of his mind through the link they share but she can't actually hear his thoughts. And now she considers it, she isn't sure that the connection between them is even open. She was so focused on getting him into bed as soon as possible, and she was so used to having sex without it, that she hadn't taken the time to switch it on. She can feel that there is something between them but the more the urgent desire for him fades from her system, the more she thinks it may just have been physical attraction, rather than anything more mystical.
That's why it would have been different if we'd left Exegol together.
The voice in her head is back, and it doesn't sound like her own voice any more. Now she is sure it belongs to someone else.
It would have been more like this.
Beside her, Ben rolls over and his hand lands rather possessively on top of her stomach. She glances from it to his eyes and what she finds there sticks her tongue to the roof of her mouth. His eyes hold an expression she has only seen before in glimpses and while she drowns in it he opens the bond between them and the world changes around her.
There is so much more behind his eyes. There is so much he wants to tell her, so much he wants to share, and while her first thought was to strip him naked and ride him to climax – her own climax, she now realises, since he is still unfulfilled – he was thinking about something else. It is more than sex he wants from her, although he wants plenty of that as well, it is connection, partnership; it is a life. And very little of it has anything to do with the strange cosmic power that binds them together.
The feeling and images that the bond provides are broken, not the coherent inner monologue of conversation but she can make sense of them nonetheless. He would like to share his childhood with her and find out about hers, he wants to talk about coming to adulthood and the problems she faced, so that he can compare them to his own. He is interested in the plans she has for herself so that he can shape his future around her and he would like to train with her, because he thinks he can improve her technique. He wants to learn everything he can, from her views on politics to the food she prefers, from the size of her shoes to what she looks like when she sleeps. His fascination with her is inexhaustible and as she looks into his eyes she sees that the dyad he has in mind, the joining of two that he wants, is not really to do with the Force at all. It is far more mundane than that, and far more powerful.
She looks into him, she sees his heart and in that moment she is sure that his past will cast a long shadow, and there will be fights and arguments and life will not be easy all the time. He is fierce, and difficult and damaged, and he has done things of which she will never approve, but there is so much strength in him, such courage and intelligence and there is a capacity for love that makes him utterly compelling. He shows her who he is. And she loves him, for all the faults and errors, because he chooses her, and she chooses him, and when it comes down to it, that is what love is. That is the power of the dyad, that is what it means.
There is a faint smile on his lips as he leans closer and she closes her eyes and surrenders. Anything he wants she will provide, anything he asks for, she will deliver. But he only wants one thing.
He wants to kiss her back. She sees that this has been on his mind since he woke up on the floor of the courtroom. The last thing he remembers is that she kissed him and then he died, and he never got the chance to kiss her back. He never had a chance to show her how he felt, or what that kiss meant, or how happy she made him, or a vast multitude of things which all have to do with how different his life is going to be now that she is in it. He wants to tell her all of this, and he wants to do it right now, in a language that doesn't use words.
He shifts position, and she spreads her legs to accommodate the width of his hips, opens her mouth at the first brush of his and receives his tongue. He kisses her giddy, he makes her feel wobbly although she is lying down, because his kiss is so slow and so gentle to start with, and builds into such passionate intensity that her hips are rising off the bed beneath him with the force of her need before he has finished. He makes her wait. He doesn't enter her until he is done with her mouth and when he finally sinks inside her it is with his dark eyes locked on hers, their fingers intertwined against the sheets and the power of his love for her running through her head.
Sex with him is long, deliberate strokes delivered with full eye contact and an indirect pressure on her clitoris, punctuated by short, staccato bursts at a different angle that leave her panting on the edge of orgasm, before he returns to the languorous technique of before. He brings her to the brink of climax four or five times and then slows down again, and her encouraging moans and frustrated whimpers only seem to prolong the experience. She can't hear his thoughts, but it is obvious he is enjoying himself, she senses that he enjoys having her writhing under him, he enjoys the control it brings. There is far too much of the dark side in his nature.
She drags her mind out of her groin for a few brief seconds, just long enough to consider what she can do to match him, how she can fight back, and then she takes care to articulate the thought slowly and carefully. I love you.
His face changes, his shoulders tense, his hips flex upwards and his control cracks wide. With a few powerful, unco-ordinated strokes his orgasm explodes and takes her with it and she comes, brim-full of cock, with Ben's long, sweaty limbs covering hers, as he repeats the words into her ear.
Afterwards he rolls off her but one arm clutches her to his side and she pillows her head in the hollow of his chest.
How is it that you can read my mind? I can't tell what you're thinking unless you want me to.
We're a dyad, Rey. His answer is silent, and unnecessarily cryptic.
I've come to the conclusion that's not a very helpful description. Every time I think I understand what you mean it changes into something else.
It was obvious after Crait that you and I were still linked. Didn't you wonder what was going on? I did. I researched. I read a lot. I looked for answers. You must have done the same thing. You've got the Jedi texts. Didn't you look it up?
She seethes, without using any words at all and she is silent so long that he answers himself.
It means we're one. We're two halves of the same whole. The Force bridged our minds to bring us closer, and now we're standing on the same side. We're together now. We're joined.
She concentrates, reaches out for the part of her consciousness that holds the power of the Force and does her best to see his thoughts, to bridge the gap and make the link that he has made, but she doesn't know what she's doing and she hasn't spent enough time studying her books to really understand.
Apologies for repeating myself, but you need a teacher.
I think I liked you better when you were dead.
He reaches over for her hand and links their fingers together. There is a certain amount of ceremony in the way he does it and there is an echo in his thoughts, a memory of the amount of times he has imagined this moment. 'I'm not going anywhere,' he says out loud, and when she glances over, she sees he is smiling. 'This is forever.'
But something in what he has said about the Jedi texts, and the unguarded happiness of that smile makes her wonder. Earlier today he smiled at her, earlier today, she looked at his clone across a crowded courtroom and caught him smiling at her before the mob pulled him down. She remembers him, her clone, that clever, brave, honest man who loved her. A man who had read the Jedi texts. A man who had recognised the strange similarity between her and Ren, who knew how Ben had died and who had maybe, just maybe, put the pieces together.
He hadn't defended himself, he let someone stick a knife through his heart, not long after she herself had done the same thing and rejected him for not being enough like her lost love. He went down with a smile on his face, which seems odd, now that she considers it. He knew she had the ability to heal him, and he may have gambled on what would happen if she did. He may have given his life deliberately to make this moment possible. He may have sacrificed himself because he loved her. It wouldn't have been the first time.
She stares at Ben's profile. He talks like a textbook sometimes, exactly like his clone. He runs his fingers through his hair when he is nervous, exactly like his clone. He wasn't actually dead before she brought him back to life.
Maybe somewhere deep inside Ben Solo lurks the ghost of Project Thirty Four, lurks the ghost of the man he could have been – the good, clean, pure, innocent Ben who was lost so long ago. She has seen the worst of him, but she has also seen the best, and that isn't a bad foundation for a marriage. She snuggles into his side and his arm tightens to hold her close.
No one is ever really gone, after all.
Thank you for reading this story. If you want to read more, my romance novels The Car Crash Bride and The Postman's Daughter are available on Amazon.