Captain's Exploration (part 1):

Now that the fire burning in Rex's blood for the last couple hours had finally been quenched, he could turn all of his considerable focus into learning every nook, swell, and erogenous spot on Ahsoka's delectable body.

He already knew that her lekku were highly sensitive and capable of bringing her to the peak of pleasure, so he only skimmed his fingers over them in a prelude of what was to come as he kissed her.

Also while he delved the depths of her mouth with an eager tongue, Rex rose up enough to nudge her over onto her back instead, settling the bulk of his body beside hers on his side for the moment. This allowed his right hand to travel down her lek and keep going.

She growled faintly when he moved to do so, though, the end of her lek curling to try and catch his fingers. He smiled against her luscious lips and pulled back a fraction to look at her as his fingers moved back up and caressed the dark blue tip soothingly. "I know you like that, baby, but there's more to you than just your pretty lekku for me to explore. You have to let me."

Ahsoka opened her eyes and pouted adorably, arms hugging him tighter around his neck. "I know. But it feels so good. I would honestly be happy to let you pet my lekku all day."

Rex chuckled. "And I would be happy to do it if we didn't have a war to fight. Maybe afterwards I can spend hours every day just making you purr; how's that sound to you?"

She sighed against his mouth, beautiful big eyes shining into his. "That sounds wonderful. And I'm definitely holding you to that, Rex'ika."

He pressed a quick kiss to her irresistible lips and then grinned. "Not going to be a hardship, trust me." Another kiss. "Now I'm going to explore the rest of these intriguing markings you've kept hidden all these years and you're going to like it," he said firmly.

She raised an eyebrow marking at him, laughter in her tone as she said. "Oh, I am, am I, Captain Confident?"

Rex very deliberately shifted down the bed far enough so that he could have a better view of her torso area and then smirked as he looked back up at her face. "Yep."

She sighed exaggeratedly and flung her arms out to the sides, closing her eyes as she pouted again. "Fine. Have at it."

"Thank you," he said flippantly.

And then, because her eyes were closed, he surprised her by shifting over a bit more and gently grasping her right hand and forearm to study in depth. She gasped as he kissed her inner wrist where one of her many lightning bolt stripes started, eyes popping open and turning her head to watch him as he licked a path up the pale stripe all the way to her inner elbow. "I was not expecting you to start there," she said a little breathlessly as a shiver ran through her that subtly shook the bed.

Pleased with her reaction already, Rex took a moment to smirk at her. "What, you thought I'd go straight for the obvious parts like an overeager cadet?"

"Well… yes."

He ducked his head and smiled against the incredibly soft skin of her inner elbow before laving it with his tongue once. She gasped again and her fingers curled around his hand which had been holding her arm out for his inspection. "Been a long time since I was a cadet."

Her other hand came over to run over the fuzz on his scalp as she smiled at him. "Right. All of six years maybe?"

"Something like that," he murmured, then traveled back down the lightning bolt with nibbling kisses, finishing with the center of her palm.

After completing the cadet program at seven years old, he'd then gone on to a year of squad training, a year of intensive ARC training when he proved himself more skilled than average, a year of command and strategy training when he proved gifted in that as well, and then three years of an emotionally and physically draining war at the side of his insanely energetic and reckless General, Rex felt about a million years older than his real age of nearly thirteen. If he didn't have the patience to fully appreciate the gift of Ahsoka by now, then he deserved to be shot by the next tinny he encountered.

Rex spent the next five minutes just learning every nuance of her strong little hand.

Mostly with his lips and tongue, of course.

He had her stuck somewhere between purring and giggling by the time he'd examined every line in her palm, every callus from gripping her lightsabre, each knuckle, each blunt fingernail, and the barely visible veins under her skin on the top where it was thinner and more sensitive to touch than he thought even she knew, if her shivers were anything to go by.

Which, of course, led him to follow the lightning bolt that ran up top of her forearm and keep going.

There were no markings on her upper arms yet, but the markings on her face had already expanded from how they looked when he first met her, so he had a feeling the lightning bolts on her forearms might do the same with more time. Nevertheless, he gave her lean bicep a fair amount of attention, feeling the strength in it when she clenched her hand.

Her shoulder was only covered in soft orange skin as well, but there was a new marking following the v of her collarbones that hadn't been there three years ago that looked like it would eventually make it to her shoulders. I hope I get to watch all of her markings mature with her.

The possibility that he wouldn't survive to see her fully grown in another twenty years or so – Togrutans aged very slowly for humanoids (despite having a lifespan only a couple decades longer than the average Human), much to his brothers' envy – was something that he'd resigned himself to long ago, but the dream of living his entire life with her had always been one of his driving factors in fighting so hard to stay alive while still doing his job as a soldier to the best of his ability.

Rex followed the swooping V down and around her neck and back up to her other shoulder, kissing each slightly trembling lek on the way by. Then he gave her left arm the same careful inspection as he had her right, but in the opposite pattern, tugging her hand off his head to do it.

She put her right hand on his head instead, as if she couldn't bear to stop touching him too.

He knew exactly how she felt.

And he very much enjoyed the feeling of her fingers stroking over his scalp, so he let her. (Unlike Miss Bossy Pants, who'd made him keep his hands behind his head.) To be fair, though, she was much more of a sensual species than he was, which automatically gave him more control of his body than she did and a lot less hair-trigger zones to be distracted by. He was in no danger of exploding again anytime soon, even if his decidedly-more-enthusiastic-than-normal decee was already primed and ready for another round.

He was ignoring that, though, in favour of making every second of this precious time with Ahsoka count.

He finished with her left arm by nuzzling his nose into her armpit and inhaling deeply, making her laugh and curl up a little. "What are you doing? Surely that can't smell all that great, even with my deodorant."

Rex wrinkled his nose at her, and grinned. "On the contrary, compared to the smell of my brothers' stale sweaty bodies after being encased in a spaceworthy bodysuit for days on end while on campaign, your scent is kriffing refreshing."

"If you say so," she laughed.

"I do."

"All right." Her left hand joined her right on his head and she tugged him up to her face to steal a kiss. A kiss that ended up being a lot longer than either of them anticipated as they got lost in the sensations of it all over again. Eventually, she pulled him off her with a gentle tug on his ears, since he didn't have hair long enough to do the same. She looked a little dazed, but very pleased with herself, when she said, "For the record, I think you smell good too. Bodysuit funk or no."

Not that he'd been overly worried about that, since he'd just showered and shaved before seeing her for the first time in way, way too long, but it was nice to hear that she liked his scent too. "Thank you," he said, punctuated by another brief kiss. (For real this time.) "Now be a good Commander and turn over onto your front."

Ahsoka blinked at him. "What?"

"You heard me."

"Why?"

Rex gave her a look that couldn't decide if it was pure innocence or worthy of a hedonistic playboy. "Because there's just as many interesting things to explore on your back half as there is on your front and I'd very much like to see and touch every one of them."

She blinked at him twice more than shrugged. "Oh. If that's how you feel about it, who am I to say no?"

My Commander, he thought automatically. Whom I would do anything for. Including never force you to do anything you didn't want to do.

Ahsoka smiled softly then cupped his face, obviously having overheard him again. "That's really sweet, but in situations such as this, I'm not your Commander. And my instincts say I'd like it very much if you not treat me as such… That I might even turn into a puddle if you were to order me to do something for a change."

A flash of possessive heat tore through Rex at her confession that had him groaning her name. "Ahso'ika… Ner kar'ta. Still killing me."

"Good," she smirked. Then she turned over and rested her head on her folded arms, one eye peeping up to watch him through thick lashes. "Now get doing whatever you have planned before I decide to fall asleep like this," she snipped jokingly, completely belying what she'd just said.

Rex's gaze landed on the three nexu stripes across the toned hills of her bottom and he smirked as he smacked one cheek with just enough force to sting a little. "Impertinent brat."

Ahsoka gasped out, "Hey!" and moved to sit up, but he was quicker, putting a hand on her shoulder to keep her down.

"Stay put," he growled in his Captain's tone that even his snarkiest brothers knew better than to disobey. "Or there's more where that came from."

She looked at him with wide eyes for a moment and then just like she'd said, her body suddenly turned limp and a dreamy smile crossed her face. "Yes, Sir."

Rex nearly let his surprise show that she was letting him get away with dominating her, but his years of training kept his stern expression in place. "That's better." In reward, he caressed a hand over her thick back lek, naturally flattened by years of sleeping on it since it couldn't move like the front ones. Gently squeezing it near the base like he'd discovered that she liked, he kissed the marking on her cheek and whispered huskily, "Stay still just like this and I promise you'll be feeling anything but sleepy, cyar'ika."

She settled even deeper into the bed and her folded arms with a little wriggle, a smile of content anticipation curving her plush lips upwards and closing her eyes nearly all the way. "Yes, my Captain."

Rex felt like the ruler of the galaxy in that moment.