For the first time in days, I was fully dressed, but I'd have given that feeling in exchange for his cock any day.
His armor was on, helmet fitted over his head and blocking any trace of the lust I'd seen in his eyes hours ago. I knew it was still there-or at any rate, it was an easy guess-but I wanted to see what I did to him.
I wanted him to know I knew, and I wanted the longing between my legs sated, if only for the next hour.
Strapped into the hard seat to his left, I watched his gloved fingers glance across the controls as we shifted back from lightspeed as smooth as the ancient Razor could manage. The jolting was the worst part, but his reentry into gravity and through Amra's orbital rings seemed to go without a hitch.
But fuck if I didn't want to strip down the beskar at his waist and suck him off him till the dock droids realized we weren't exiting the ship anytime soon.
"I leave as soon as I secure a docking space," he said, voice muffled by the helmet, but just as maddeningly calm as he'd been the first time I heard it.
The seat dug into my hip as the Crest bucked against the orbit and I squeezed my eyes shut so I wouldn't retch against the back of Din's outfit. "Okay. Safe trip...I guess."
In all honesty, it wasn't okay and I didn't feel like wishing him a safe trip. If anything, I wanted to wish him a terrible trip so he'd be back empty handed and much sooner than if he came toting a bounty along.
Not that I'd actually get in the way of his job. After all, it was his living, and if that living somehow ceased, he wouldn't be able to afford my food and clothing.
As if he heard my thought train, he said, "The shops here are close and safe." He reached into his satchel and pulled out a handful of currency, then handed it back to me. "Take this and buy whatever you need. Clothes, food. It should be enough."
It was enough, by a thousand long shots. It was more than I thought anyone randomly kept in their shirt pocket, let alone someone like him. He should have been a scrooge making me live off ration packs and one set of clothes, that way it'd be better to look at him objectively and keep seeing him as just a ticket to a more interesting life.
Not someone to spend a life with.
But it was the sex again, I knew this, and it was clouding the distance I should have been keeping between him and me.
If all I wanted was his body, I damn sure wasn't gonna make him think it was love, especially when our marriage was founded on sex, despite him never forcing anything and being too reserved to even take what I'd signed over to him.
Yet another reason my mind wanted to like him so much. Out of every guy I could have ended up with from this inherently stupid marriage idea, he had to be one of the best. It was hard to find people like him, let alone people like him who didn't mind Chiss, and my brain was taking that fact and turning it into something it wasn't.
I leaned into the seatbelt as we descended, pocketing the currency and giving a little hum of appreciation. "Thanks."
He nodded, helmet tilting a fraction and exposing a strip of skin at the back of his neck half-covered with locks of hair.
It was odd not being able to see his face after getting used to him without the helmet, and I tried to ignore the fact that I missed the way his mouth parted just before he decided to speak, the way his eyebrows shifted with surprise or confusion. All of him, really.
It sucked he couldn't go around wearing nothing in public, because I could stand a few more days of a nightshirt barely long enough to make it past his waist.
Fuck, I thought, biting the inside of my cheek and forcing my eyes away from Din's back. My pussy was well on its way to soaking through my pants, and they were the only pair I had. Not to mention I'd never made a habit of wearing underclothes-and Mando had washed my clothes in hot water and shrunk them a size-so the seam was hitting my sweet spot with every shudder of the Razor.
As we broke through the atmosphere, the thrill of being on a new planet struck me. I could go anywhere after he left, even run away, and he'd never know where I made off. I could take his money-technically it was mine now-and hire a ship.
Heck, this much plus my meager saving'd probably buy me a junker with enough juice to get off-planet, or if I wanted to stay it'd get me well away from Din's docking space. I'd have to find a job somewhere, but now that I was away from that stupid Exxecril planet, I could actually move freely without paying an insane exit fee.
By the time he docked, I'd worked through how easy it'd be to leave and why not being tied to someone, even by a contract I could easily break, was the best choice.
But I was fucking tired of being alone, and he actually made me feel something. He didn't use me, even though it was part of the deal, and he didn't make me feel dirty when I sought my own pleasure.
Not that he wasn't a moody, picky guy when it came to useless questions, but Force if the resistance didn't make me like him more. I couldn't push him around, and the fact that he didn't push me around even though he most certainly could made respect easy to come by.
He pushed out of the pilot's chair and headed for the door, helmet cocking toward me for a brief second before I unbuckled myself and followed him. His shoulders relaxed as I walked behind him, blinking in the greyness of the planet awaiting us.
I had to make sure I wasn't seeing things or going suddenly colorblind, but when I took a fourth glance around, the landscape was indeed shades of grey.
The plants, while verging on green, were so gray they may as well have been painted with diluted coal. The docking offices were the only non-gray thing in the area, and they were just a blinding shade of white.
"What even is this place?" I asked, squinting into the cloudy, pre-dawn light.
"Eros," he said, voice stringed with discomfort.
Whoever named this hunk was horny, I thought, surprised it wasn't also burning hot to signal passion and lust.
"Huh," I said, forcing my eyes away from his back and the...questionable thoughts that involved my fingers and his skin and-
"I need to check in with the Guild." He stopped and turned to face me, and even though he didn't say it, I knew our parting was imminent, if only for several weeks.
I wanted him to take that stupid helmet off, but out in the open like this, I didn't have any right to ask that of him. "Well don't start crying or anything."
"I wouldn't." He offered me his hand.
What did he expect? A handshake?
I took it and slipped it beneath my shirt, stepping closer so his arm slid up, palm grazing my left breast. By the way his shoulders tensed beneath his cloak, I knew he'd taken this just the way I hoped he would. "I hope you didn't expect a freeloader," I murmured. "I intend to earn my keep."
He slid his hand out as a nearby garage door clanked open. "The Crest has a comm-link to my helmet. No video, but-"
"Ah, Mando! We've been expecting you. You're late." A squat alien ambled from beneath the door, wearing little more than a headset and a leather strap across their chest. "Your bounty's on the move, but not far, eh!"
I blinked at the stranger, pushing away the despicable things I could say to Din in the middle of the night, the degraded ways I could tell him to use me, all while he was too far away to reach me. It'd be torture, and perfect for someone so uptight as this man.
I wanted that power. I wanted to turn the hunter into the hunted and watch him writhe beneath my words. Leaving didn't matter anymore. I wasn't going anywhere, and I sure as fuck wasn't letting him alone for the next several weeks.