AN: Believe it or not, I finished this chapter way back in February before going on a visit to Galaxy's Edge. After an extended vacation in Florida, within days of returning I fell ill with the coronavirus. I spent the next three weeks recuperating from that, and then, as an essential worker the pace has been nonstop ever since. As much as I wanted to bask in the comfort of Star Wars and Han and Leia, my life didn't have room for anything other than eat, sleep, work. So this update sat untouched on my laptop for nearly four months until this past weekend when I finally had some days off and was able to read through/edit the chapter and get this posted.
Full disclosure: this was a one-time-through edit so please excuse any lingering mistakes you may discover.
Even fuller disclosure: I have no idea when my next update will be, but I promise I haven't given up on this story and will still be working on it whenever I can.
I hope this finds you all safe and well, and can offer a pleasant bit of distraction from unpleasant times.
Peregrination
(n.) a slow, wandering journey; a period of escape and exploration
"What's got that look on your face? You up to somethin'?"
Han was halfway through his shift on watch, standing wedged between the rear chair and the side panel, passing the time by making some tweaks to the board's electrical system, when Leia had walked into the cockpit — not saying anything, just gazing at him with a wayward glint in her bright caf eyes.
"I'm not," she claimed, though it was obvious that wasn't true. The accusation alone had made an adorably pert little smile play across her lips. When he gave her a doubtful look, she explained, "I was reminiscing. Over that cunning move of yours, to latch onto the Destroyer. That was ingenious, you know that, Han. Clever, shrewd, inventive." Her tone dropped sensuously. "Sexy is what it was."
"Yeah?" he said with interest. Casting aside the hydrospanner in his hand, Han sank into the rear chair, spinning it around to face her. "You should see what I can do with a welding torch."
She didn't miss the sly reference to the week before, when a joint welding session on a particularly errant piece of the Falcon had quickly devolved into a different sort of session entirely. "Oh, I have. You're a man of many talents. I'm just beginning to discover them all."
"C'mere then," he beckoned. "Let me show you a new one."
"I was hoping you would." Crossing the short distance to him, she flirtatiously revealed what she had, indeed, been after from the moment she walked in. "I came to live a little dangerously…."
"'S that right?" Sassy, amorous Leia was a relatively newly-revealed aspect of her personality that Han was only beginning to have the privilege of being acquainted with, and he was thrilled whenever she slipped into that manner; it instantly set his blood to running hot and fast.
"I spent the afternoon in improvised cooking lessons, learning to make the most of the ingredients we have on hand," she added wryly, an unfortunate nod to their ever dwindling variety of fresh and chilled foods; another week or so and they would be left with the less palatable canned items and Alliance rations. "At my request, Chewie was teaching me to make a variation on his tribe's variation of Kashyyykian stew. Until, that is, about the fifth time he caught my mind wandering and sent me away. He said I wasn't, and I quote, 'fit for anything but Cub'." Leia shot him a chagrined smile. "You distracted me, so I came to distract you."
Quite pleased with that, both being the cause of her distraction and the solution for it, Han gave a carnal grin. Although he wanted her beyond expression, he remained content to take things slowly, even if that meant returning to levels of restraint and chastefulness he hadn't needed to utilize since he was a teenager. Her mouth sweetly on his, her body pliant and eager against him, was far more than he'd thought they would ever get to have after Ord Mantell. Leia being with him in any way — particularly admitting her feelings for him — was already a dream come true.
Until she was ready for more, Han was following her lead, conscientious in ensuring that Leia knew she had absolute control in determining all intimacy boundaries, without question or pressure. The most noticeable boundary she'd set so far, albeit nonverbally and perhaps even unconsciously, was No kissing in the bedroom. From the first night they spent together, Han noted Leia never initiated anything physical in the bunkroom beyond tender but chaste cuddling in bed. She seemed to see the potential sexual dangers there, while evidently failing to recognize that he would just as readily take her in the lounge — or anywhere else on the ship — if granted the chance. He thought it charmingly proper of her to imagine such a rigid line of demarcation. Of course, he didn't voice how cute he found that virtuous quirk, not when Leia's inexperience in the face of his was already a sensitive subject for her. Instead, he'd privately, silently vowed never to transgress that invisible boundary she'd established.
In steep contrast, everywhere other than his bunkroom things were growing increasingly heated and intense between them. Abundant kissing and exploratory touching, still mostly above clothing and nowhere particularly scandalous yet, but he was more than game to let her up the ante if she so desired — or do anything she wanted to him, really.
Hoping to make that clear, Han spread his arms out, unreservedly offering himself up to her. "Distract away."
Smiling winsomely at that response, Leia placed her hands on his knees and leaned down to kiss him. The now-familiar, yet every bit as pleasing, press of his mouth on hers — soft warmth of his lips in perfect counterpoint with the deliciously erotic abrasion of a days' worth of stubble — was enough to make her want to linger longer than their current position was conducive to, especially following yesterday's acrobatic repair session.
She had spent the better part of the day before in the Falcon's ceiling panel, being the only one tiny enough to easily reach the problem component. It was work that Leia didn't mind at all. She always found physical labor satisfying, and it was an agreeable change of pace besides; there were only so many things one could do while confined as they were in open space. However, she also never did things in halves. Despite both Han's and Chewbacca's repeated insistences that she take a break, Leia spent longer stretched into various gymnastic positions in the elevated panel than she should have, and was now forced to give in to the protest of her aching back because of it.
Straightening up effectively ended their kiss, but Han didn't seem to mind. He merely transitioned his arms to around her waist, pulling her forward to nuzzle his face into her belly while his hands gently massaged the kinks from her back. "So, Princess," he drawled, snuggling his chin into her bellybutton as he looked up at her, "tell me how I distracted you? A good kind of distraction?"
"That depends on who you'd ask," Leia answered drolly, beginning to run her fingers through his hair. "My mother would have said yes. My father and aunts — and Dodonna? Not so much."
"That means the good kind, then," he told her with a wink.
Such a rakishly Han Solo reply cinched it. Even touching as they were, it suddenly seemed unbearable for her to be up here when he was all the way down there in the chair. Cupping his face, Leia set him back away from her, but made up for it a moment later when — to Han's happy surprise — she eased down into his lap, perching herself crosswise over his legs.
His hands, by instinct, found their way to her hips and Leia further melted into him. Winding her arms about his shoulders, she kissed him again, slower and deeper this time, running her tongue over his until it sparked a throb of undeniable longing between her legs and at the peaks of her nipples where they brushed against his chest.
When they eventually had to pull back for air, Han could only shake his head hazily, forever blown away by her. "You told me you lied that first day — right here in this chair, matter of fact," he reminded her, "about me not exciting you. And I know you lied a couple hours later, just before I kissed you, about not being afraid." He exhaled a long, contented breath, marveling at his good fortune to have somehow — finally — ended up in this place with her. "Don't seem like you're afraid anymore, though," he teased, his voice dipping sensuously low. "Here you are, voluntarily sittin' on me, not even screaming bloody murder to get away this time."
"You're exaggerating," she protested pleasantly. "I never 'screamed' to get away. And besides, this is a less compromising position."
"Is it?" He raised an eyebrow doubtfully. "Seems to me there's a lot of 'compromising' we could get up to from here, if we wanted."
"No," she shook her head, cheerfully dismissive. "This is much less suggestive. I may be sitting on you, but the proper parts aren't aligned."
That made him chuckle. "And they were before?"
"Han, I was directly over your lap. Surely, you noticed that."
"I sure noticed you noticing it," he taunted playfully.
"Oh, I wasn't that obvious," Leia demurred.
"'Wasn't that'—?" Han repeated incredulously. "You were worse than a spooked tauntaun, let me remind you…."
TEN DAYS AGO
Sharply jarred by another quake, the worst of them yet, Leia abruptly found herself tumbled atop Han, her legs aligned with his in the navigator's chair. His right arm was entirely around her middle, hand splayed over her abdomen; his left forearm pressed against the side of her breast, his wrist inadvertently brushing over her nipple and setting off an electric charge she could feel even through the layers of clothing between them.
Alarmed, she glanced down at their positioning. The sight of Han's arms wrapped around her as she sat in his lap looked as intimate as it felt, furthering the warm tingles, the swell of desire that increasingly rose to the surface the longer she stayed there, resting intimately on the hard heat of his muscular thighs.
Her body's innate response to his, the potent and primal sensations coursing through her — intensified by years' worth of wanting him — was overwhelming. Panicked, Leia sought to do what she had often done when this occurred: escape him and the uncontrollable way he made her feel. It was either that, or pick a fight. "Let go," she requested, trying to keep her voice steady and not betray her flustered state.
Han hushed her, holding up a finger to reinforce his request for a scrutinizing silence. Romance was the furthest thing from his mind, and he hadn't a clue it was anywhere in hers. Their current arrangement was nothing more than a happenstance of the forceful way she'd knocked into him, in combination with his perpetual need to protect her from bodily harm.
He'd been alarmed from the first lurches of the Falcon. Threepio's unnecessary warning served to further exacerbate his misgivings. Had he made a fatal error and parked them deep within a volatile asteroid that was in the process of crumbling? Or were the tremors a result of their asteroid colliding with others, a different cause that might still lead to the same conclusion? Posing yet another threat, could it be the Imps out there blasting away, hoping to draw them out or rupture their sanctuary, whichever came first?
His analysis of these distressing possibilities was interrupted by Leia, yet again, insisting he let go of her. This time she added in a frazzled "please" as she tried to wrench herself away from him. Her behavior felt disproportionate and unwarranted to Han, even a bit insulting. She'd fallen into his lap; it wasn't as if he was trying to molest her. Bristled, he shot back, "Don't get excited."
It was Leia's kneejerk retort that inadvertently gave her away: "Captain", which she only ever called him in irritation or desire, sometimes a combination of the two; and "being held by you". Suddenly, it dawned on Han the reason for her over-the-top reaction.
He'd been so focused on his larger concerns for their safety that he'd only been half aware his arms were even around her. But the way Leia phrased it, the implication of him holding her in a lovers' embrace, revealed where her mind was at.
And her adamant claim that such a thing definitely could not "excite" her, for Leia, was incontrovertible proof that it, in fact, had.
That realization softened Han's annoyance — and piqued his interest. He still had to get the Falcon back up on her feet, and see to whatever was heaving them about so mercilessly, but not without first letting Leia know she'd just tipped her cards.
"Sorry, Sweetheart," he replied as he bodily lifted her from his lap, with a chance hand placement that was high enough to tantalize even more than he'd intended. Face-to-face, mere inches apart, he delivered his coup de grâce rejoinder in a low, suggestive timbre deliberately designed to entice. "Haven't got time for anything else."
And Han shot her a smirk full of intention, craning his neck to watch the high color rise on her cheekbones even as he walked out the door.
Left alone in an emotional shambles and with a still-racing heart, Leia nodded her head in sarcasm. Because of course: the way her life went something was always bound to pile-on. In this case, her own fallibility where Han was concerned.
She'd overreacted, and in the process, transparently revealed that she wanted him; they both knew it.
Turning back to the wall, she slapped her hand against the control panel in frustration with herself. This was ridiculous! Had she learned nothing after Ord Mantell? Not only was this man literally in the process of leaving her, but their very lives were currently at risk.
Get yourself together, Organa, she inwardly admonished. This was no time to be distracted by lust. What a disgrace to herself, her family, and her vanquished planet if that should be the thing that led to her demise.
Then and there, Leia vowed anew that feelings and attraction would not get the better of her again. She was doubling down; all of her focus and determination would go expressly toward repairing the ship and seeing herself safely reunited with the Alliance fleet.
PRESENT
At the time, she was unaware that it was too late; her telling behavior had already given Han the courage to approach her later, as soon as he found a free moment.
"All right, so I was a bit worked up," Leia relented now, after his humorously unrestrained description of her behavior.
"'M glad you were." Han's arms tightened around her. "Might never have kissed you, otherwise. You weren't exactly receptive when I came to say goodbye back at Echo. But the way you reacted that day proved you still wanted me."
"I did," she admitted, and set her forehead to his, savoring his closeness, sharing his breath.
"Want you to know, Princess, any time you're interested in gettin' excited, all you gotta do is say the word."
"Is that so? And what will you do to excite me, Captain?"
He smirked, eyes alight and craving, inquisitively game. "What would you like?"
She had her hair braided up for practicality, as she still often did throughout the day, and right now, Han was grateful for it; it left her neck and décolletage bare. Bending, he pressed his lips to that magic spot just beneath her ear, where jaw and neck meet, knowing he'd hit his mark when she gave a gratified sigh. "Does that excite you?" he murmured, running the tip of his tongue over her skin in a teasing swirl.
She was wearing one of his shirts, open over the thermal tank she'd had on beneath her snowsuit when they'd fled Hoth — a surprising shade of ebony, not white, as he would have supposed. The tank was meant for layering and never to be seen, with a scoop neckline daringly low for Leia. Han thoroughly appreciated that today she'd left it visible.
Continuing his gentle seduction, he lifted his hand to trace a slow, tantalizing path just north of the garment's upper edge. "How 'bout this?" he enticed, watching the rise and fall of her breath and how it had grown shallow as his touch glided over the swell of her cleavage along her shirt's neckline.
He allowed his forefinger to dip down into the warm softness between her breasts, and Leia whimpered, her voice throaty with need, "Han…you have no idea."
"Then tell me, Sweetheart," he urged, soft and low, as his fingertips followed her shirt back up to her collarbone.
"I—" She shook her head, unable to articulate it beyond the three forbidden words begging to spill from her lips. She moved in to kiss him instead; a much safer answer.
To Leia's surprise, Han stopped her. "Tell me," he stressed.
Dubiously, she nodded. "You want me to say it. How much I want you. Admit what you do to me."
"Yeah, but what's wrong with that? It's not anything I wouldn't admit to you. I'll admit it right now: I've imagined having you in every way I can think of," Han freely acknowledged. His tone dropped deep and heavy with yearning. "I burn for you, Leia. Ache for you. I want you more than I ever wanted anything. More than I knew a person could want."
He felt her shiver in his arms, her eyes locked on his, passionate and ablaze. "I'll tell you then, too: I've been thinking about sex a lot."
Han had urged her on, but he hadn't expected so easy a capitulation, or such candid directness. He nearly swallowed his tongue. "I'm sorry, what?" he asked, fearing his own lustful thoughts had led him to mishear her.
Leia held his eyes boldly and repeated, "Sex. I've been thinking about it, a lot…So much."
Equal parts blown away and utterly thrilled by the unexpected dialogue at hand, he somehow managed to reply, "Hope I've provided that inspiration."
"You have. But not in the way you think."
Han moved his hand down to curl around the top of her leg, his thumb rubbing over her inner thigh in tempting patterns. "No?" he challenged pointedly.
"Okay, also in exactly the way you think," she conceded.
He grinned at that, but tread lightly in his next question. "Don't want to overstep or make any assumptions here, but you mean sex, as in, havin' it? With me?
"Yes." At her straightforward, low alto response, Han appeared like he might go up in flames, giving her a look that seemed nearly capable of scorching her clothes off. Leia laughed softly at his awed, pleasantly devastated expression. "You look a bit stunned. Did you think my lack of experience meant I'd shy away from it?"
"No, no, not 'cos of that," he stammered. "But hells, Leia, I am stunned. 'S….kinda staggering to hear words like that come out of your mouth; for real, and not just somethin' I dreamt up."
"I'm not saying I want us to have sex right now," she cautioned.
He didn't miss the half centim she'd eased back in his lap. "Didn't think you were."
"Or even tonight. Or tomorrow. Or—"
"Hey, Sweetheart." He brought his hand up from her thigh to capture one of hers down from his neck, threading their fingers together against his chest. "You set the pace, remember?"
"I know, but I don't want you to get the wrong idea and be disappointed."
"Disappointed?" Han scoffed. "Now? When I finally get to hold you — and kiss you? It's been years, Leia, without that; I'm obviously willing to wait. 'M not going anywhere."
But you are, the lifelong internal voice that warned of impending danger inconveniently reminded her, effectively putting a damper on things. "No, you're not now. Now that we're trapped here," Leia referenced the bantha in the room: his continued presence with her was purely accidental.
She shook her head, not wanting to fight, not ready to tackle what seemed insurmountable. "Whatever the reason, we have weeks still ahead of us on this ship. It's made you and I, together that way, a real possibility again, and I have been thinking about that, quite a bit. To be honest, lately, those thoughts have centered on you having sex."
"Kriff, Leia," Han swore, overcome, "I like to hear that. 'Cos I'm pretty sure the entire Alliance knows I've been thinking about having sex with you."
"Hmm, that's not what I said, though," she corrected him, firmly but not unkindly. "I said you, having sex. Not now, not here. You without me."
His eyebrows shot up at the insinuation of him having sex alone. Did she want him to recount times he'd gotten off to thoughts of her? There had certainly been enough of those.
But then Leia caught his confusion and clarified, "Before me."
"Before we met?" he reiterated, still unsure of what she was getting at but guessing it had something to do with his past.
"Not exclusively," was her enigmatic reply, leaving him further befuddled.
"Sorry, Princess." Han shook his head ruefully. "I'm just not following."
"What I mean is…." Leia trailed off, bringing their still-joined hands down onto her lap where she began playing at his fingers to relieve her nerves. "I told you all about my sexual history, or lack thereof. I think it's only fair you tell me a little of yours."
"Ah." Finally understanding, Han now bought for time. "Well, Worship, that's—" He scratched at the back of his neck, dread coloring his features. He wasn't proud of everything he'd done in his life; some things he'd never want her to know. Not that he had ever taken advantage of a woman. It was more that too many of his encounters had been base, sordid, unworthy of a man who ever hoped to be worthy of her. "There are things it's best not to—"
"Relax, Han," she stopped him. "I'm not looking for a play-by-play. But you told me once that you were fifteen your first time, and I—"
"Wait, I don't remember that." His brows pulled tight in bewilderment.
"You don't remember your first time," she teased him, "or you don't remember telling me about it?"
"Nice," he credited with a grin. "Y'know I meant the telling you part. Must've been drunk when I did. What'd I say? How great I was?"
"You said," Leia beamed, savoring the disclosure of this next part; all the more so as it was, apparently, first time knowledge for him, "that you lasted all of a minute."
Han made a dumbstruck, sheepish noise. "Had to have been drunk to tell you that."
"Meaning it's true," she asserted around a snicker. "You also promised you've improved since then. So that must be true, as well?" she coyly speculated.
"Sweetheart, with you?" He shook his head in awe. "I'd need a good many days before I'd be ready to come up for air."
"Days, hmm?" She let go of his hand to set hers back to his chest, where she twisted at the garment's hidden button, sliding it free; goddess help her if she didn't miss the way he used to wear his shirts so indecently open. "And here I always figured you for a one-night-stand sort of man."
Han recognized a metaphorical asteroid field in that, and the same look of foreboding settled over his features again. "Maybe….Maybe before. Maybe, with others, I've been—"
"Han," Leia interrupted, taking pity on him, "I wasn't saying there's anything wrong with that kind of arrangement. As long as all parties are game and aware going in. I didn't mean it as an indictment or judgement of you." She gave him a sly smile. "I'm fully aware the infamous captain of the Millennium Falcon, Master of the Kessel Run, has had many assorted trysts between that first time and now."
Han still looked wary, and somehow, his noticeable awkwardness made Leia feel more confident and at ease — to know that she wasn't alone in self-consciousness, that even he still felt nervousness in this.
It left her bolstered enough to hazard bringing up another aspect she'd wondered about recently when it came to his past sexual experiences and their potential future ones.
"Tell me," she coaxed, tracing a fingernail along the nape of his neck, "in all that time, with these game women, maybe you developed some particular thing you like; a fetish, I guess you'd say? I…I'd like to know what you like, Han."
Taken aback and sensing fraught waters here, too, he told her the honest truth. "You. I like you, Leia. You're my only fetish."
An incredulous sound somewhere between a laugh and a scoff sounded in her throat. "That's a nice thing to say, but you can tell me the truth, Han. I won't be shocked. I've already told you, for the record, that being a virgin doesn't make me prudish, or naïve, or resistant to trying the things you like." She brought her face closer to his as she confessed in a sultry whisper, "I'd like to try all manner of things with you. Every way you know, and maybe some you don't."
"Kest." Han shifted uncomfortably beneath her. "Think I might've just combusted. You wanna try it with me every way I know?" Just repeating it made him groan, his eyes glazed over with lust. "Hells. Give a guy a warning before you say somethin' like that."
When he'd recovered, he added, "But I gotta tell you, Princess, I think you're the one who's got the wrong idea here. Whatever weird kinks you think smugglers and criminals and scoundrels like me—" Even now, Han continued to say the word like he absolutely relished her chosen label for him. "—are into, I'm about to burst your bubble. 'Cos this particular scoundrel is pretty straightforward. For my record, this idea of the kind or number of women I've been with? By now, I thought you knew that rep of every woman on base was complete wampa shit."
"You mean the rumor about you, Mon, and Hera Syndulla sharing a night of passion wasn't true?" Leia asked with feigned innocence.
"I've never slept with a Twi'lek. And Mon's not my type. This might shock you, but I've never even been into the idea of more than one at once," Han revealed. "There're only so many things you can do, and only so many parts you can do 'em with, or to. You don't need more than one at a time if you're doin' things right."
"Duly noted. But you were earning your reputation off-base, at least a little bit…weren't you?" she conjectured.
"Not the way people said. But sometimes, yeah, there were women. I'm not gonna say there weren't." He studied her face, carefully gauging her reaction to that admission. "It was better to do it off-planet. There were fewer complications."
Leia nodded. "Easier for one-night-stands."
He let out a long breath before answering her. "You wanna know the truth, Sweetheart?"
"I would, yes. That was our deal, wasn't it?"
"The complication was you. I didn't want you knowing."
"I knew," she revealed resignedly. The knowledge of his dalliances had plagued her, all the more so because she knew it shouldn't. Despite the fact that Han never broadcast his liaisons the way some others on base did — male and female — Leia was far too shrewd not to know what was going on. "It didn't take a genius to guess what you'd get up to while you were away." She matter-of-factly adjoined, the way one would state the weather or any other plain, inarguable fact, "From the moment I met you it's been obvious you're a very physical, very sexual being."
"It is, huh?" he rejoined, amused.
She gave him a look that said he was being willfully obtuse. "You know it is. That hip-roll swagger of yours. The way you enter every room pelvis-first."
"I do what?" Han laughed outright now. "Hate to break it to you, Highness, that's just walking."
"You see!" she triumphed, as if he'd just proven her point. "Carnal physicality is such an innate part of you, you don't even notice you're doing it."
His arms wound tighter about her hips, edging her closer against him. "Gotta say, Princess, I'm happy to hear you been lookin'." He leaned in and kissed her, light but arousing with the way his lips softly stroked hers.
On a faint sigh of pleasure, Han broke their kiss to ask, "So what prompted all this? Could it be you might be the one with a fetish, and this was your safe way of talkin' about it?" he speculated. "'Cos if you do got one, whatever it is — with you? — I'm sure I could be into it."
While that hadn't been Leia's conscious intention, Han's analysis was admittedly spot-on in its ostensible logic, making her consider it more deeply. "I don't think I have a fetish….No, I'm certain I don't," she determined.
But then something particular did spring to mind that never failed to make her mouth water and instantly get her going. "Well, I—" She bit her lip, blushing.
It was such a shy, school girlish reaction, all the more notable — adorably so — because it was so far outside Leia's normal comportment. A beguiled smile overtook his face, and when she didn't finish he prompted, "Well, you...?"
"I wouldn't call it a fetish, per se," she was careful to differentiate. However, a moment later, Leia smirked, feeling quite daring at what she was about to reveal. "I do enjoy that V in the sides of the male abdomen…" She used her hands to demonstrate. "…that points down towards—"
"You think I got one of them?" Han cut in, delighted.
"Oh, I know you do," she purred, affected just picturing it.
"So you have been lookin'," he crowed.
"How could I help it?" she retorted, suggesting it was entirely his fault. "In all the years of knowing you, you've done an awful lot of parading around."
She expected him to deny it, particularly when phrased in such a way. Instead, he went all-in, fully owning it. "Hey, when you got it…"
Leia smiled, a familiar tingle running through her at his cocky grin. "You've got it," she endorsed.
Han tilted his brow encouragingly. "It's yours for the taking."
He let her kiss him for several long moments, but didn't deepen it. Refusing to be distracted, instead, he paused to further suss out what was at the heart of their unexpected discussion. "I'd still like to know what brought this on. Think there's more you're not telling me."
Too vividly, he recalled what Leia had said the night she told him she was a virgin: how she was concerned he'd think she lacked the skills and appeal of more experienced women. That was preposterous to Han, then and now, but it didn't stop the sharp sense of disappointment in himself if this was still about that. Because he'd failed her if he'd ever done anything to put that idea into her head. Just the thought was painful.
Whatever the reason may be, Han knew he must have hit on something when she got up off his lap and started pacing the small area.
While he waited — well familiar with her at this point, able to discern she was merely gathering her words — Leia struggled, not with articulating it but how to put it most judiciously.
Successfully confronting this, the largest and most precarious of her reservations, would be a monumental task, requiring the height of her diplomatic training. To reveal enough so that he would understand, yet without fully showing her cards. And all while doing her best to avoid offending him.
"Sleeping with you," Leia broached carefully, "would be a significant step for me. I think you appreciate that."
Han nodded solemnly.
His earnest gravity threw her off a little, though she was pleased by it. "All right. Good. Well…with that in mind, I need to know what it would be—" She quickly cut herself off. What would it mean to you? sounded too lovesick, too trite.
She took a deep breath, trying again. "I need to know if, while I was agonizing over the two of us, you were out—"
Gods, Organa, she berated herself. Tell me who you've been with! was worse yet.
"This isn't a trap, and I'm not looking for details," she assured him. "I'm not asking for names, or — or even numbers. I only want to know about the last comparison."
"Comparison?" Han repeated, alarmed she would describe it that way. "Leia, I'm not — I've never sat around and compared women. I sure as hell wouldn't with you."
He ran a hand through his hair in consternation that he, evidently, had given her such a grossly false impression. "Don't you know there is no comparison? The way I feel about you, I've never — Nothing can compete with that, alright? You already won."
Leia liked that answer very much, and she believed he believed he was telling the truth. Nevertheless, that didn't negate her need for information; her need to analyze, to feel it out and determine its validity for herself. "That was a bad choice of words. I shouldn't have phrased it as a comparison or competition. But it is important to me to know, when you last…" She wrestled with how to phrase it kindly. "…sought your entertainment elsewhere."
"You're asking when the last time I had sex was?" he bluntly restated.
She nodded with the same solemnity that he had earlier, signaling she was quite serious — although, she couldn't meet his eye. "Yes." In the next breath, she vowed, "I won't be mad."
Han laughed to himself, bowing his head slightly.
"I promise I won't be," she pledged with conviction.
Looking back up, he caught her gaze. "It's not that. Gotta say, I doubt it'd go over well if, before you told me, I'd asked when the last time you'd been with a man was, but it's not—"
"Oh gods, you're right!" Leia relented immediately and with deep self-reproach. She'd known she'd overstepped the moment she said it, even before. It wasn't fair to hold someone's sexual past against them, or judge their character based upon it. Her mother would be ashamed of her; Winter, too. "I'm sorry. That wasn't fair. I shouldn't have — I'm sorry. I haven't any right to ask."
"Now I never said that." He reached for her hand and grasped it warmly, rubbing her fingers assuagingly as he held it between both of his. "Didn't mean to make you feel bad. You can ask me anything you want."
"No, but I shouldn't. We weren't together," she persisted in self-recrimination, though she did allow him to guide her down into the chair across from his. "I had no claim over you. What you did was your own business. You're a grown man, allowed to do as you please and entitled to your privacy."
"Ain't about privacy. I'll tell you, Leia; I got no problem tellin' you." He hesitated. "It's just…."
"You're afraid I'll be angry, I know. I won't be, but of course you don't have to tell me."
The trouble was, while Leia recognized that she shouldn't need or even want to know — and certainly shouldn't require him to reveal it to her as some sort of test — fairness be damned, she did want to know. "But, just so you know, I really won't be mad if…if you did want to tell me."
"And you think you can do that?" he asked skeptically. "Hear about me sleeping with another woman, and you won't be mad?
"I'd have no right to be mad. It was before we were involved," she replied simply; the logic was sound.
"Having a right to feel a way and actually feeling it are two different things. I didn't have any right to be mad whenever I saw you cozying up to Luke or Wedge, but—"
"I've never 'cozied up' to either one of them," Leia objected, finding that claim almost comically absurd.
"—but that didn't stop me from coming close to throwing a punch a time or two. And I consider them my friends. Anger ain't always logical, Sweetheart, and it sure as hell ain't fair."
Leia saw his point, but it didn't change her conviction. "Still. I know myself." She'd thought this through and was confident in her ability to remain objective and even-tempered in her reaction. "I'm prepared. I won't be mad."
Han gave her a dubious look that plainly illustrated how unconvinced he remained.
"I won't be," she insisted. Although, she had to admit, "Now if you said it was…something like right before we left Hoth — or the night before we went to Ord Mantell — that would sting a bit. But regardless, you would have done nothing wrong, so I won't—"
"The night before Ord Mantell?" Han cut in, aghast. "Kest, honey, give me a little credit."
Privately, Leia heartily approved of his horrified response to those scenarios, but kept that intrinsic gratification to herself. She did, however, place her hand to his arm apologetically. "I didn't actually think it was either of those times. I only brought them up as the most extreme examples. Even if it had been then, you would have been within your rights to do whatever, with whomever," she again made clear. "So I won't be angry." When he continued to hesitate, she prompted, "You really don't have to be afraid to tell me; I swear."
"Still don't think it's a great idea to talk about who I've been with and when; can't see how any good'll come of it. But I can see you aren't gonna be able to let this go. And it don't hurt that this is the one thing from my past I know won't make you mad. The real problem is, you aren't gonna believe me." Han gave an ironic snort of laughter, and Leia got the impression he said the next part mostly to himself. "But if you do, I'm about to get some real points for this answer."
She raised a brow, wryly challenging. "Is it the truth?"
Leia expected a bantering rebuttal, but Han answered with frank seriousness, holding her gaze. "Yeah. It is. I wouldn't lie to you about that." He sniffed tensely, long self-conscious of his morals; in the world where he grew up they were an exploitable weakness best kept quiet. "A woman's got a right to know what she's gettin' into, before she shares her body. That's why I've never lied about that kind of thing."
Han had been called 'impetuous' or 'impulsive' more times than he could count, and he couldn't deny there were many things he'd done in his lifetime that he later came to regret. But he never had, nor ever would, do anything remotely close to violating a woman's free choice — not even through less offensive means like lies, deceit, or empty promises.
Feeling the need to slough off the saccharine, he threw in, "Gorgeous guy like me don't need to lie to get a woman into bed."
"There's the Han I know," she simpered. "Now I'll believe you."
He returned her smile with an impudent one of his own. "And would you believe I said that just to get a rise out of you?"
"I know you did. I also know that we both know it's accurate." Sliding to the very edge of her seat, Leia leaned in closer to rest her hands just above his knees. "So, gorgeous scoundrel, tell me the truth," she cajoled, soft and alluring, as her fingers began to idly trace along his bloodstripe, "when was the last time?"
Han watched her watch him expectantly, unwavering as ever in her pursuit of the thing she wanted. It was this level of perseverance in Leia that had all but single-handedly kept the Alliance going. And while he admired the quality in her tremendously, right now, she wasn't after a cache of weapons and bacta, or a windfall of much-needed credits. In this, he couldn't provide her so concrete a payoff.
"That Organa tenacity always turns me on," he told her cheekily. "But hells, Worship, I can't give you the exact moment on the chrono."
"I don't expect you to have been counting down the moments since," she expounded with a smile. "Not anything that precise. I'm not asking for the exact date." He was about to reply with relief when she added helpfully, "An approximate day is fine."
"Oh, well if it's only an approximate," he grinned, shaking his head in affection. Her determined response was all the more endearingly ridiculous as he knew she was being sincere and was wholly oblivious to the outlandishness of such a meticulous request; she truly thought she was letting him off the hook by rounding off the days. "Sweetheart, I wouldn't be able to count it in days. There're too many."
At once, she regarded him with a scrutinizing look that nearly crackled with the intensity of its interest. "Could you count it in weeks?" she cautiously felt out.
Wordlessly, Han shook his head, caught between persistent reluctance at the subject and a budding enjoyment that she was so deeply intrigued. And all the while harboring the exhilarating knowledge that he was about to reveal a hand of Pure Sabacc: unexpected and unbeatable, aside from Leia's virginity Idiot's Array.
"Months, then?" she asked in surprise.
"Months would be closer."
Leia's eyes widened, arched brows shooting up as she grappled to make sense of that.
She looked so adorably confounded that Han decided to give her a break and end the suspense now. "It was on Dunov." With a heavy exhale, he laid out all his cards. "Happened 'cos I was mad at you, at somethin' you said that made it seem like you didn't give a fuck about me, so I—"
"Wait," she stopped him. "Wait, did I hear you? You said Dunov? This was back on Dunov?" At his nod of confirmation, Leia shook her head, pointing out his miscalculation. "No, that couldn't have been the last time. We left that base a year ago. That would mean it had been—"
"Longer. It's been longer than a year, Leia. That was my last time," he persisted, "and it was months before we evacuated. You and me'd had a fight; I know you'll remember the night. When those ensigns saw us outside your room, must've been almost one in the morning," Han reminded her. "I reached over to fix a piece of your hair that was coming out of the braids, and you damn near jumped out of your skin when you saw them. Made a show of stepping away, telling me to leave, making sure they didn't get any wrong ideas about us. Making sure I didn't get any, either."
Everything leading up to that had been gold — drinks and holoprograms on the Falcon, just the two of them, both reluctant to call it a night — until the jarring transformation outside her bedroom. Leia all evening, playful and open, receptive even; then like flipping a switch, unceremoniously reverting to cold and formal dismissal.
Her urgent rejection and instant aloofness had hurt far more than he'd cared to admit, even to himself. It had always been easier for him, anyway, to fuel pain into anger and resentment. "I thought I'd show you. Prove there were plenty of other women who were interested. And I could be interested right back."
How foolish he'd been to think it would matter, that it would change anything, make any strides towards easing his hurt or his wanting of her. All it did was reinforce them. "In the end, I only showed myself…Not nothin' I didn't know; already had been months of an empty bed before that."
"It was Kasari Talon," Leia realized aloud. The pair had been spotted together the morning after the fight Han just described. It had taken less than an hour for word to spread around base that they were sleeping together. It was all anyone talked about for days and a sore spot for Leia. Even now, without realizing it, she'd withdrawn back into her chair, removed her hands from Han's legs.
"Yeah," he muttered, edgy and ill at ease verifying it. Everything that had gone down with the women in his past was so far removed from what he felt for — what he had — with Leia that it made it seem all the more dark and ugly in contrast, not anything he'd ever want to detail to her.
"I hated Kasari, Force help me," Leia blurted out, not intending to say so, but there it was all the same. She'd been insanely jealous and in willful denial about it — while at the same time hating herself for feeling that way, and hating him for making her feel that way, and hating Kasari for getting to be the one who shared his bed, who had intimate knowledge of Han that she lacked. "The two of you were—"
"We weren't," he interposed. "People said that, and I didn't stop 'em — wanted to see what you'd say — but we weren't an item. It was just the once, only that night we had the fight."
"But…" Leia struggled with that; what he was saying didn't line up with anything she'd thought at the time, or ever since. "…But you went on a mission with her the very next day."
"And?"
"And you were off alone together — well, other than Chewie — for half a standard week. I was sure you and she were going at each other like boglings the entire time."
"Nah." The very second it was over he knew he never should have slept with her. He'd been more concerned with what Leia thought about it — Was she jealous? Did it bother her? Did she care at all? — than with anything Kasari had ever done. Rejection and resentment were piss-poor reasons to go to bed with someone, but he'd been hurt and angry, and Kasari had been willing, had been broadcasting that willingness for weeks prior. Afterwards, he'd had no desire for a repeat. "Like I said, it was only the one time."
Leia nodded in understanding. "She said no to any more."
"C'mon now, Princess," Han grumbled. "I did; I said no. That so hard to imagine?"
"A bit, yes," Leia admitted. It wasn't that she thought he was lying; the information was just undeniably astounding. Everyone assumed Han was actively getting his satisfaction at every opportunity. They all led difficult, dangerous lives. Most of the Rebels on base took whatever joys could be found, whenever they could find them — and if they managed to discover a partner willing to go to bed with them and open to further encounters, intimacies usually continued. Many of the men spent the majority of their free time seeking out such arrangements. "Just so I understand this correctly, you slept with Kasari — once — on Dunov, and then…you're saying…no one?"
"It's not what I'm saying, it's what's true."
"If Kasari was the last time, Han, that was…" She did some quick mental math. "…that was nearly two years ago." Only a month shy if she was counting correctly in her shock.
"Point being? Time flies when you're running with the Rebellion?" Han quipped.
"Point being, there has honestly been no one since then? Not out on a single run? That's a lot of planets, a lot of lonely nights." To be fair, she hadn't seen any women around him after that point, or heard any further rumors. Yet, the resultant alternative seemed implausible. "You've really been celibate, all that time?" She lowered her voice, as if someone might overhear. "For two whole years?"
He shot her a wry look. "Told ya you wouldn't believe me."
"Well, I...I — You're right," she stammered, "it is rather difficult to get my mind around."
Han's expression turned sardonically self-effacing. "Believe me, Sweetheart, it was for me, too."
"Two years," Leia repeated in awe. "You abstained, even though you were free to—"
"Was I free?" he riposted. "Didn't feel like it…."
"What do you mean by that?" she questioned gently.
"I mean, don't go giving me any more medals. I don't deserve some morality award; I'm not Luke. I'm a scoundrel, remember? It ain't like it was a choice I woke up and made one day. I still tried." He shook his head. "It was no use."
Leia experienced a stab of disappointment that it hadn't been anything to do with her; he'd merely experienced an unlucky 'dry spell', Winter used to call them. "So you were unwillingly celibate." That fit the Han Solo narrative much better.
"Yeah, but not in the way you think," he put her words back to her. "The opportunities were there alright, but…I couldn't."
"Oh." Damn it, Leia knew she was blushing, could actually feel her face go red. "Oh, you were—" She faltered, trying to be tactful. "—having performance issues."
He knew he ought to be offended, but Han could only huff out a helpless laugh at how very inverse the problem had been. "I almost wish." His desire had been so poorly quelled, in fact, that it had led to many a long night of subsequent physical frustrations. "No, Sweetheart, I could always get it up; you know that."
He'd lost track of the number of times on missions — playing a couple; sharing a bed; watching her move, fight, take out an Imp, masterfully give a speech and completely own the room; hunkering down in small hiding spaces, heightened by adrenaline and their bodies brushing closely together — sometimes in romantically charged moments, sometimes not, when his desire for her had made itself unmistakably known. The first time had been mortifying. By Ord Mantell, it was an accepted given: assumed and, frankly, not unwanted by either party.
"Yes," Leia affirmed, clearing her throat as the blush renewed.
Han bit back the impulse to add that it 'got up' all too often for having nowhere to go. He wouldn't have thought twice about saying that to Chewie — or even to her, once upon a time — but not now that they were involved, when it could come off anything like pressuring or guilting her into something she wasn't ready for.
"It wasn't a physical issue. It was a Leia issue," he said, catching one of her hands and folding his fingers through hers. "I still wanted sex, but it was painfully specific: I wanted sex with you. No one else. I only want you, Leia." He stroked his calloused thumb over the tendon running up her wrist, making her shiver. "The times I tried?" Han shook his head, revolted by the memories. "Didn't feel right. So I stopped trying."
"How so?" Leia was quick to inquire, sharply interested. "How didn't it feel right?"
He shrugged, looking deeply uncomfortable. "The usual way."
"No." She rejected that easy answer for the dodge it was. "If it was as simple as not finding them attractive, you wouldn't have tried in the first place."
She was right that it wasn't about physical attractiveness. It was about feelings — love — and other women weren't the source of his. But that wasn't something Han was prepared to divulge just yet, so he would have to find a less revealing way to explain it. "You keep saying we weren't together, and we weren't, but it didn't make a difference. Still felt like I was cheatin' on you. And just…wrong. It felt wrong." Off-putting. Unappealing. Shitty. Any of those words applied, but 'wrong' felt like the truest, all-encompassing description. "The women, it's not that they weren't — there wasn't anything wrong with them. They just weren't you. That's what made it wrong."
Before Leia, Han had never any experience with falling in love, personal or observed. There hadn't even been a woman who had any particular hold on his heart. Back when he was young, when he was more open to the concept, he'd thought that if you fell for a woman your mind and heart would want only her. But your body? Even back before he'd grown so cynical, he'd still figured any port in a storm. And yet, once he was actually there himself, he'd found that his body couldn't be tricked into coming alive for anyone else. Kisses, touches, even the exquisite wet heat of a soft mouth around his cock couldn't get him there — because they weren't Leia's lips, Leia's hands, or Leia's mouth.
More than just not satisfying him, such encounters did the opposite; the last one he'd tried to have actually made his skin crawl until she stopped touching him. It turned out to be a mixed blessing that he was with Tavi Straden, a cantina owner in a backwater smuggler's port of a no-account town on Faldos. They'd had a long-standing arrangement whenever he was on-planet since they were both in their late twenties. That it happened with her meant at least she didn't call security when he started freaking out like her tongue was a stun bolt and not the rather talented appendage he knew it to be.
Of course, the fact that they did have an acquaintance made it all the more embarrassing when she gave him a look of pity as she got up from her knees, said she'd heard rumors but hadn't believed them. It must be tough, a smuggler falling for a princess, she'd said.
Han had thought it couldn't get any more humiliating, tucking himself back into his bloodstripes around insistent denials, but then she'd silenced him — completely gutted him, was more like it — with the revelation that earlier in their encounter, when he was still trying to make it enjoyable, apparently he'd said Leia's name.
He'd left the backroom of that tapcafe feeling physically ill, and that was the end of seeking relief from his ache for Leia in the arms of another woman.
In the beginning that inability had mystified him, frustrated him to no end. Now he knew it for what it was; understood now what it meant to belong to someone, body and soul.
Leia smiled tenderly — reading him and discerning it all, he could tell, though he hadn't described any of that aloud; perhaps his eyes were an open book? — and in another instant she was out of her chair and back onto his lap, sliding her arm about his shoulder to hold him close.
"It was the same for me, with anyone else. I haven't had much of a social life since I joined the Rebellion," she allowed, "but there have been a few other than you who've tried."
"Yeah, I know all about 'em," he muttered with a scowl, looping his arms over her hips and hoping she would soothe his 'pout'. Until another thought abruptly occurred to him. "Or do I? Who all tried, Leia? I told Luke; I called it all along! Was one of 'em that—"
"Not the point, Han," she broke in before he went off on a tangent over some assumed competitor. "It doesn't matter who they were. I couldn't have been with any of them if I had tried. Other man didn't appeal to me. Not then, and not now."
Back on Hoth, never in a million years — not for all the credits in the galaxy — would she have admitted that to him. But one confession, one vulnerability freely given, deserved another. She rested her forearm against his shoulder so her hand could reach down and play provocatively at the fold of his collar. "That's what you've done to me. My heart only races for you."
Both emotionally moved and carnally affected by Leia's admission, Han grinned at her, his expression soft and smitten but his eyes suddenly hooded and hungry. "Well, let's get it speedin' up." He raised his hand to cup the side of her neck, stroking his thumb over her ear while his long fingers nudged beneath the loop of a braid to cradle the back of her scalp, eliciting a small sigh.
For a moment he just held her eyes, let the heady anticipation build, before he slowly touched his mouth to hers. Han meant it to be an seductive, unhurried build-up to heat, but almost immediately he found himself unable to resist coaxing the seam of her lips with his tongue. She instantly opened to him on a rapacious little whimper, and they were all at once lost in a deep, passionate kiss.
When they eventually paused for air — and a mere pause it would be if Leia had anything to say about it; if she had her way, she would kiss Han all afternoon and preferably into the night — she told him, "I like that we can talk openly now. Admit these things to one another. Own up to what we were thinking and feeling."
One such disclosure on Han's part had left Leia with a lingering bit of remorse over what he said prompted the last time he slept with another woman. She had been ungracious to him that night, though certainly not for the reasons he believed, and she wanted to give him the full explanation.
"As long as we're being so honest, about that night on Dunov: I owe you an apology. I'm sorry I behaved the way I did. It was wrong of me, and you didn't deserve. But it wasn't because I 'didn't give a fuck' about you. Just the opposite. I only acted that way because I felt guilty. I felt caught, and I panicked and lashed out trying to prove it wasn't true."
To Leia, that had seemed embarrassingly obvious, but evidently not to him, so she spelled it out bluntly. "I wanted you, Han. That's why I reacted that way. We were just outside my bedroom, late at night. The opportunity was there; it would have been so easy for you to come inside…and then one thing would lead to another. I wasn't ashamed of what those ensigns might think. I was ashamed of what I was thinking."
Han considered that and nodded, his gaze dropping from hers, his head dipping slightly. "You were ashamed to want me."
"Not you. Ashamed to want." It was an important distinction, one Leia wasn't sure he'd ever fully understood. So many of his comments over the years, both flirtatious and contentious, had focused on her need to resist her desire for him. But while it was true that compulsive need was present and powerful, it went far beyond Han personally.
"That the 'want' centered on someone who refused to join the Alliance did make the guilt a little worse," she granted. "But, largely, it had nothing to do with you. It wasn't even about sex. It was about wanting something — anything — that wasn't strictly seeing the Empire pay. Any other want seemed like frivolity. Like the only thing that should matter to me was seeing the downfall of Vader and Palatine and their like. Anything beyond that was trivial and greedy. I was harder on myself back then. The people of Alderaan didn't get to have a life; I thought I shouldn't get to have one either. That felt too selfish."
Han set his forehead to hers, soothingly nuzzling her nose with his. "There's nothing selfish about surviving, Leia. You preserved when anyone else would've crumbled. The people of Alderaan would be proud of that, proud of you, of all you've done. They'd want you to live a life; a good one, of meaning and…feeling, of joy and not just sacrifice."
"They would," Leia agreed, and she could tell her answer surprised him. Admittedly, she was a little surprised herself to find she truly believed it. "I think I really do know that now. You, and Luke, and Chewbacca — and the Rogues, Carlist, all of you — taught me not just the lack of shame but the importance of still having a life that doesn't solely consist of fighting Imperials. You especially, Han, showed me the necessity of still having something for me, all my own. Just because I wanted it. Because I needed it to be happy. And I do need to be happy. I need more than just to see the Empire wiped away."
"And you're sayin' I'm that thing that makes you happy?" Han ventured, elated at the prospect.
"Most of the time," she teased. "When you're not making me crazy. But all of the time, you make me want you." She brushed her mouth over each of his temples, his cheekbones. "You showed me the necessity of something else, too," she whispered to him. "Having your lips on mine."
Leia kissed his, tender and lingering; only breaking away to pepper a soft trail of further kisses along the side of his jaw. Han hummed, happily desirous at her attentions, and she gave a lustful, answering hum of agreement that rushed hot and tantalizing over the slash of his scar just before she pressed her mouth to that, too. "Your lips on mine...and other places."
His hands tightened at her hips, drawing her closer against him. "Other places, huh?" he questioned suggestively. "Where else do you want 'em?"
"Here, to start." She touched a spot low on her neck, sweeping her fingers down across her throat.
Eagerly obliging, Han bent to hungrily kiss where she'd shown him. "Come to think of it, I might just have a kink. Something I've thought about a lot."
Leia turned her kisses back on him, moving them beneath his chin now, and he helpfully tipped his head back to give her better access. "Us, in the cockpit?" she guessed conspiratorially. "Oh, I know," she purred against his neck, aroused at the mere suggestion. "I've thought about that, too. All the time."
Han made a sound somewhere between pleasure and suffering. "Kriff, Leia, you're killing me. I meant you on my lap."
She paused in her libidinous ministrations, glancing up to give him an amused smile. "Well, I also like that."
"Any more things you thought about?" he drawled, a low and inviting rumble, as his one hand molded to the curve of her waist and the other slid down to grip her upper thigh.
"Mm-hmm. This…." She kissed back up his jawline to his ear, tracing her tongue over the outer rim down to his earlobe, which she tugged at enticingly with her teeth before closing her lips over it and sucking sharply.
That was too powerful an impetus for him; an enflamed Han lunged at Leia, tipping her body back. Taken by surprise, she grappled for purchase, the fingers of her left hand instinctively curling into his shirt. But he adjusted instantly, sliding his spine down low against the cushion and stretching a leg up into the opposite chair that Leia had vacated, using his newly upraised knee to support her back while she anchored herself further by bracing her right hand on the knee of his leg she was perched upon.
His eyes were at once dazed and hyper-focused, ravenously directed on her in a way that made her core begin to ache and throb. Leia bit her lip against the increasingly needful sensation and remarked, "I thought it was my turn to show you what I've thought of." Not actually put-out, but making a mild effort to feign it for banter's sake.
Han, it seemed, was past the point of banter. "Yeah, but this I know you like." He nodded down at décolletage. "Those old lovebites are fading. Time to make new ones." Then his mouth descended like a shot to nibble at her neck.
She gave a breathless laugh, arching into his lips, tipping her head back to give him free reign. "You enjoy putting your mark on me, do you?" Leia surmised provocatively. "Claiming me as yours?"
"Hadn't thought of it that way," he said around a mouthful of her skin, "but now that you say it, it is kinda hot." He drew back just enough to wink up at her, then his lips descended again, brushing over the hollow of her throat and making her fingers tighten on his leg, her breath quickening.
"What I enjoy is my mouth on any part of you." He urged her to lay back further in his lap so he could burrow his mouth into the neckline of her shirt, gliding his tongue over the upper curve of her cleavage. Leia moaned her pleasure, and Han reflexively grunted in kind. "Particularly enjoy that you enjoy it so much," he murmured into her chest.
"Mmm, I do, I really do," she sighed, echoing his distant words from the circuitry bay and their first kiss. "But do you know what else I enjoy? My mouth on any part of you."
Catching him off-guard, Leia was able to maneuver her weight to push them both back upright, where she now buried her face in the open neck of his shirt. "Turnabout is fair play, Captain," she sassed, just as she began kissing along his collarbone.
And Leia took her time, indulging herself: breathing in his scent, nuzzling her mouth against his sensual heat, treating her lips to every centim of the tanned Corellian skin she'd spent years imagining the taste of.
Gradually, she worked her mouth along to lick up the length of his throat, nibbling over to the side of his neck. Her lips outlined each muscular tendon with silken hot kisses until she reached his laryngeal prominence, which she took into her mouth and suckled.
Han groaned, clutching at her ribs and low on her hipbone, his own hips pushing up unconsciously, seekingly, inadvertently causing her bottom to brush over his groin, further driving him pleasantly mad.
Feeling him hard against her, Leia smirked, thrusting the fingers of one hand up into his hair while running her other down his chest. "Maybe this isn't a—" She paused, her mouth now full of more of him. "—good idea if it's been—" Another nibbling kiss. "—so long—" And yet another, this one drawing sharply on his skin. "—for you," she finished, amorously facetious. "I wouldn't want to—" She swirled her tongue over his throat, punctuated by a bite. "—torment you," she avowed in a tone that made it very clear she wanted exactly that: him caught in her lustful thrall.
"It'll only torment me if you stop," Han panted.
Grinning, Leia went back in for more, but there was only so much Han could take before he got so fired up that he again urged her back down against his upraised leg. Leaning over her, he tilted Leia's body at such an angle that his hand, previously on her hip, could slide around to cup and knead her ass while she persisted with the erotic bites and suction at his neck. And it wasn't long before they'd both left their marks on each other.
AN: The ending scene (Leia on Han's lap in the cockpit) was partially inspired by KM Ricker's lovely art piece from Valentine's Day 2014.
Also, the word 'centim' is entirely borrowed and not originally mine. To tell the truth, I have no idea where I initially picked it up. I just know I read it in a Star Wars work early into my discovery of Han/Leia fic, and loved it so much that I use it in all my stories. I don't even know if it's meant to be some GFFA "space" form of measurement, or if it's just short for an actual centimeter. Maybe it originated in the EU (which I'm not very familiar with), maybe it's a fic writer's invention. Whoever came up with it, it's ingenious and sounds so much cooler and more "space-like" than any Earthly measurements, and I thank you, and I will humbly do my part to make it "a thing" (provided it's not from the EU and, therefore, already a thing; I'm still using it though!).