A Thread of Gold – Part 5

Disclaimer - The characters in this story are owned by Lucasfilm. I'm only borrowing them for my amusement and hopefully yours. My thanks to JT, Angela and Mona for suggestions and help. This story is for Sheyla as she once told me she liked it.

Ash

The questions caught Mara unprepared. 'Damn Skywalker. He always got you where it hurt'. Her tongue flicked again over very dry lips. "What do you think you're missing?" she croaked barely audible as he moved a little nearer, his pupils dilating making his eyes seem very large.

"This…" he whispered and his head blotted out the light as his mouth covered hers.

Mara's stomach lurched as Luke's well-shaped lips coaxed a response. "Mmph…" She tried to say, but he pulled her on to his lap and began to kiss her in real earnest. She was alluringly soft, enticingly sensual.

He gasped for breath as they finally came up for air. "You see, Mara Jade, I thought that out of all the people I knew. You would understand."

Mara looked confused. "Understand what?"

"The dreams we've been sharing." He coloured, but even in the dimness of the single light Mara had lit earlier, she saw him flush awkwardly.

"The dreams?" Her tone amazed.

Luke nodded. "I've been experiencing such…. Feelings."

Mara disengaged herself from Luke, but perversely wishing she could stay within his arms.

"These feelings, Luke, they're not real." She moved to the other side of the room.

"I told myself that, Mara, but I was lying."

Mara closed her eyes as something twisted deep inside her gut. She wasn't ready for this.

Luke stood up and walked towards her placing his hands on her shoulders. "Can you look me in the eyes and tell me those dreams left you satisfied? They didn't leave you wanting, craving, needing? Can you - can you tell me that?" His voice had deepened, the colour in his blue eyes intensifying.

"Don't do this Luke. This is not us." Mara trembled in his grasp.

Luke shook his head. "No?" he questioned. "No?" He dropped his hands from her shoulders and moved away from Mara and paced, running his hand through his hair. "Search your feelings, Mara. Peel back the emotions layer by layer and then tell me it's wrong. I won't believe you." Suddenly he swayed and the colour in his face drained away. "Sorry," he mouthed. "Feeling sick."

Immediately Mara moved to support him. "Come on - lie down."

"No… I'll just…"

"You need to lie down. Just for a few minutes."

She led him through to her bedchamber and helped him lie on her bed. "Stretch out, Skywalker, and I'll get you a blanket."

"Mara?"

"What?"

"Don't tell Leia."

"But you're ill, you can't look after yourself."

"Of course I can. This only happens when I overdo it a bit. Leia will fuss and worry. That's not what I need right now."

"I worry too." Mara wished the words unsaid as soon as they had left her lips but something in Luke's expression told her that he was pleased without wanting to seem too obvious.

"Do you? I'm touched," he whispered.

Mara tried to regain her distance from the Jedi. It was difficult because she was fond of him and since she'd tried to help him in the medicentre he'd been constantly in her thoughts and dreams. She frowned. "Skywalker! I take it the overdoing bit has happened several times."

His guilty look confirmed her suspicions. "Leia doesn't know."

"She will when I tell her." Mara brushed his hair from his forehead with a gentle hand.

"You wouldn't?

"What do you think?"

"If I asked you to, you wouldn't. Leia doesn't need to have me hanging about her like a mynock."

"She does, you know. Your sister is overjoyed to have you in one piece, in one place. Do you know how rare that is for her with you?"

"Well… I…"

"Let her fuss." Mara walked to a cupboard and brought out a warm bantha hair blanket. "Here," she covered him with it, then perched beside him on the bed when he caught her hand. Luke brought her hand to his lips kissing it.

"So what do you need?" Mara asked, knowing what the answer would be and half dreading, yet hoping that she was right.

"You!"

Luke reached up and placed his hands on Mara's face. Bringing it down, he kissed her, his hands tangling in the fire framing her beauty. Mara let him kiss her - it was pleasant and she felt as if she was home – somewhere she belonged at long last. Her hands connected with the bed and before Mara Jade realised it she was lying full length next to the Jedi Master. He was so warm, so giving of himself. Her lips parted, allowing him access and oh… it was achingly sweet. He gently pushed a lock of hair back behind her ear and continued to taste her, deep… hot kisses. Mara's eyes were closed, her hands clenched or were they? When had they wound around Luke's neck? When had she started to play with the hair which grew at the nape of his neck?

Luke began to nibble at the corner of her lips and moved over her smooth cheek to bite gently on her ear. Mara reacted by arching abruptly upwards.

When had their positions reversed? Luke was pressing her into the bed, his hard length heavy, but strangely she didn't feel it. When had the sweetness turned to passion, the pleasure to desire?

He brushed his lips gently against her neck and his hands began to explore her body, tentatively at first but with increasing confidence as Mara's breathing quickened. She made no demur as he began to ease off her sleeping shift.

"Your tunic, take it off." Mara whispered.

Luke pulled back a little and removed his tunic and his vest. Mara stretched a shaking hand and traced a pattern across his pectorals, stopping to circle his flat male nipples. She hesitated.

"Go on, touch me," he murmured. "Please."

Mara bit her lips and her eyes darkened to sage, but she obeyed his request and almost shyly replaced her questing fingers with her lips. Luke groaned as his self control started to waver. He lay back on the bed his eyes closed and could only breathe deeply as Mara kissed her way around his chest. She looked up and caught her breath at the expression on Luke's face. His skin was flushed, red spots of colour staining his cheekbones, his eyes tight shut, head tipped back.

"Luke," she said softly. "You okay?"

He opened bright blue eyes and smiled weakly and then stared at the beauty before him. Mara sat on her knees, her hair glowing in the light of the bedside lamp. The light caught the shadowed hollows of her feminine shape, the soft curves rising to the pink tipped breasts, spilling from the protective arm Mara had wrapped round herself when she'd noticed his hungry gaze.

"I am now," he murmured. Tugging gently, he pulled her towards him and she fell in a tangle of warm, soft limbs into his waiting arms. She felt his fingers drift over the tips of her breasts as he urged her close to his firm naked chest.

With her head pillowed on his chest, Luke pulled the cover over them. Mara tried an experimental wriggle.

"Ssh…" Luke soothed as he ran a tender hand over her shining curls. "We've time. I need to sleep…" He yawned and in an instant his breathing had calmed and the regular rise and fall of his chest indicated slumber.

'Time for what?' Mara felt indignation surge to the surface. He'd gone to sleep. He'd really gone and fallen asleep on her. One minute he was driving her insane with his touch and his kiss and the next second fast asleep. She was lying, practically naked, in bed with a half-naked Luke Skywalker and hadn't killed him! She was getting soft. Mara scanned his face quickly and was shocked to see the dark circles under his eyes. His body was still beautiful but thinner and paler. He'd lost his golden tan he sported. A fleeting thought crossed her mind. Was that tan all over?

'Stop it!' she told herself sternly. A sense of remorse gripped her. Luke had just come out of hospital after almost facing death and she was lusting after his body like an overly hormonal teenager? She shouldn't think of Luke like that. He was the Jedi Master, her friend and frequent companion – not a lover. But if he'd been having the same kind of dreams that she'd been experiencing… stomach churningly erotic visions of them entwined in the dance of love, he hadn't been getting a lot of restful sleep either. She wriggled to remove herself from his embrace, but his arms tightened around her.

"Don't… leave… me." The words were slurred and indistinct.

"I won't." Mara whispered knowing he didn't hear her. "I'll never leave you." The fatigue crept over her and too tired to move she melted into Luke's safe arms.

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Luke shifted a little as he began to awaken. His room felt different - very different. It was still dark but something about the position of the open window didn't feel right.

"Uh-oh!"

He wasn't alone. The corner of his eye had seen the tangled red-gold curl creeping across his bare chest. Luke's eyes widened as any vestige of sleep left him. "What the hell had he done last night? The hair in question could only belong to one person, but what was she doing in his bed?

"Re-phrase that farmboy. What are you doing in mine?"

He looked towards the owner of the voice to find himself being pinned in place by a baleful green-eyed glare.

Luke jerked to a seated position and gave himself a quick once over. All the relevant parts seemed to be intact and he was still wearing his trousers. What about Mara?

Slim smooth shoulders rose from a white frothy confection of sheets wrapped securely around her, but Luke would swear on Yoda's green ears that Mara Jade wore very little under the sheets she was holding so protectively to her chest.

They stared hard at each other for a second before Luke closed his eyes and slumped back onto the bed with a muffled thump, his hands shielding his eyes. Had he really tried to seduce Mara Jade last night? The memories came flooding into his mind. He groaned. He had - he really had.

"I'm dead," he muttered. "I'm really dead this time".

Mara was almost inclined to agree with him but not for the reason he thought. She glanced out the open full-length windows catching the faint glimmer of the lights of the city. They'd only slept for an hour or so. The night was still young.

Mara yanked her slipping coverings firmly up over her chest. She might as well not have bothered. Luke was still lying flat on his back still muttering, paying her not the slightest bit of attention. A wicked glint appeared in her eyes. She took in his sculpted chest rising and falling with each breath, his flat stomach… Something warm trickled through her body and a tide of desire began to rise. Mara moved, the rustling of the sheets around her the only sound. The memory of every time his arms had surrounded her in every one of the dreams she'd had surfaced in the front of her mind. She wanted to know if the real thing was as good as she'd imagined.

Kneeling beside him, she bent over his chest and touched her lips delicately to his nipples. Jedi reaction times were fast, but Luke reacted quicker than she expected and yanked her into his arms and covered her mouth firmly with his own. Mara hungrily returned his kiss, fiercely moving into his warmth. Luke unwrapped her from the sheets like a favoured present and groaned again when her soft breasts touched his naked body. His hands moved up to touch and caress, his thumbs teasing her nipples into aching hardness. Mara's hands moved to bury themselves in Luke's hair, moving down over his skin, sliding over his shoulders and finally finding the small of his back.

The Jedi moved back and with a heavy lidded glance at the woman before him, he removed his trousers and his briefs, leaving him naked before her. He swallowed nervously and Mara just stared. The city called to them but in the dark tension filled room the two were ignorant of its demands.

"Mara?" Luke questioned quietly.

That was all he said, just her name, but it was enough.

"Yes Luke," she answered softly and moved into his embrace.

The passion was instantaneous. There was none of the careful learning about their bodies needs of a couple of hours before. They already knew each other from their dreams. Their mouths touched and separated, tongues licked and parted. Luke lowered them both until they lay on the bed, his tanned body covering Mara's paler one and for the first time there was nothing between them only skin.

"So beautiful," Luke whispered reverently as he traced the length of her torso over the swell of her breasts and lower to where Mara had to bite her lips to stop from crying out. His lips followed the path his fingers had taken until Mara decided she wanted his mouth covering hers once more.

Again he placed his hands on her soft warm skin and began to minister to every part of her body. Through the Force he could feel waves of pleasure begin to radiate through her body. She began to pant breathlessly. She was so soft and warm it had been so long since he'd experienced these kind of feelings, in fact he didn't know if he'd ever experienced these kind of feelings at all.

"I never have either, Luke," she answered his thought so closely had they linked through the Force by their passionate union.

The entire galaxy seemed to swirl around inside his head. This delight would be for Mara and him alone. Setting up barriers against any intrusion by others, Luke prepared them for what was to come.

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