Present day

It was a strange sensation.

She had never felt something so like it.

She remembered awkward, fumbling, gasping, panting, moments under tattered blankets and in the backseats of cars and even once in an alleyway, pressed between two dumpsters. She remembered fleeting lovers, many of whom remained nameless: men with rough, calloused hands or smooth skin, dreadlocks she grasped, bald heads she scratched, muscular thighs that tightened their possessive embraces around her. There were women, too; long hair to tug, shaved scalps to nuzzle, the soft, sensuality that a woman's touch only knew how to explore, tiny breasts and pillowy tits, soft asses, hard asses. Every man and woman had an ass she loved, and all of those encounters ended in moaning, sighing, clawing, begging, screaming climaxes, always sweat and smiles and sometimes, tears.

But none of those ever felt like this.

A furnace, stoked, from outside-in, a mysterious force fanning the flames. A massaging, teasing, seduction of her heart, a throbbing deep within. Delicious and delectable sensations that slipped through her defenses and flooded her, occupying every corner, every orifice, fingering and infiltrating every pore, filling her up with a tremendous and overpowering exhilaration of the likes never before experienced. Something powerful on a most primal level held her sensibilities hostage.

A gasp.

Rey woke with a start. Her pulse was rapid and furious and her heart smashed against her ribs, threatening to burst. As she roused and sat herself up, her body betrayed her sensibilities and a most delicious sensation erupted and nearly caused her to tumble out of bed. She shoved her pillow in her face to muffle her panting and glanced over to the other bed in the room, where Leia slept. Rey trembled again – a bodily aftershock seized with ecstasy– but Leia only grunted wordlessly and rolled over. Surely, she detected that turbulent disturbance, even while unconscious.

Rey padded as silently as she could to the bathroom, wearing only a pair of unusually-wet panties and a shirt, and latched the door shut. She snatched a washcloth and ran it under the cold water. Her hands shook as she brought the cloth to her face. She could not shake the memory of him.

It was starting to come clearer. The fog, while still heavy, dissipated in some places in her mind. Some flashes of their encounter manifested in hiccups.

Ben's touch came first: his fingers, lingering on her cheek. A hand on her waist. His breath, hot, sweet, on her ear. Half-lidded eyes gazing down at her, consuming her, calculating her, assessing her, penetrating her. And still, she shied away. She stiffened, she recoiled, she built up her wall, but her desire grew and enraged at every attempt he made to get through to her.

And then he did.

A cold and impatient knife cut through her mind. He decimated the barrier she crafted and slid in with an aggressive and unrelenting force. He pushed in against her will, baring his teeth to tear inside; she did not want him that far in, but he entered without her permission.

Rey cried out and every bulb framing the mirror above the sink shattered.

"Leia!"

In a second, the bathroom door kicked open and the ceiling light turned on, filling the room with a harsh incandescent light. Leia and Chuy stood in the threshold, mouths agape at Rey amidst a pile of broken glass.

"I need to see Luke," Rey said. "I need Luke right now."

###

Rey couldn't believe how quickly Luke arrived at the hotel once he was summoned. After Chuy swept the broken glass away, she stepped in the shower to scald her skin and soul. She didn't think she was in there for that long, but when she stepped out into the suite's living room, wearing a tank and yoga pants, rubbing aggressively at her scalp with a towel, Luke was already waiting.

"That was fast," she remarked.

"Hmm," he responded.

Rey immediately felt uncomfortable. The way Luke looked at her, it was almost analytical and sterile, as if he had never seen her before and was sizing her up like a stranger. He regarded her coldly, a firm line of a mouth framed by that ridiculously scruffy beard, glacier eyes scanning her, arms crossed, and it was positively unnerving. Rey might as well have walked out there naked and exposed and she would have felt less violated as she did in this moment.

"What is it?" she frowned.

"Nothing," he shrugged. She may have only known him a half-year, but she knew it was something. "Will you leave us?" He glanced toward Leia and Chuy.

His sister didn't argue. "Let's go check out the tables," she grinned at Chuy. Her gambling itch certainly needed a scratch and she wasn't about to protest. The two of them hustled out of there and once the door clicked shut, the anxiety surged in Rey's chest and she wished they would have stayed.

"What's wrong?" Luke said. It wasn't a question, but a command to tell him.

"Nothing."

"Rey, come on. You're a terrible liar."

Rey glared at him. "No, I'm not, actually," she retorted. "You think I could have walked into Solocorp's building if I were?"

He crooked an eyebrow. "I'll give you that," he admitted. "Come." He patted the empty seat on the loveseat.

Rey tossed her towel on the floor and eased down next to Luke. She wished she had more clothes on, for some reason, and hoped he couldn't see how she was a bit cold.

"You're going to have to relax," Luke instructed. "No matter how uncomfortable or strange it feels, you have to let your guard down. Don't push me out like you have so many times before."

Rey cast a snarky scowl at him. "Well, the last couple times I remember were a bit unsolicited."

He only shrugged. "Well, you're stronger than I gave you credit for. You're able to detect my presence a lot easier than most."

Rey wasn't sure if that was a compliment but took it for one. "Okay. I won't resist. But don't you go snooping in places you shouldn't be."

Luke raised his hands up in deference. "Scout's honor. I'm only going to access your memories of your meeting with Ben."

Rey sighed, grabbed a sofa pillow, and hugged it to her chest. She exhaled sharply, then nodded. "Go ahead, then."

Luke closed his eyes and she followed suit. His hand rested on her bare shoulder, warm and electric. It was simple as that and he was there in her head.

Rey's every fiber of her being shuddered and rose to resist him, to raise shield and spear against an invader, but his force was powerful, overwhelming, and unsettling. Calling herself to calm down and permitting his entry, she relented a bit. Luke dove in deeper, and she yawned open her mind's abyss to let him in. Everything in her spirit wanted her to repel him, this unnatural and foreign presence, but she had to accept him. She needed him to enter. She wasn't yet as strong as he and she needed to know everything that happened.

Luke tugged and reached around, exploring and teasing out the clouded memories. And then there it was, clear as day, as if she was in the very moment with Ben.

###

"Our planet is also enduring some of the most cataclysmic forces it has ever known and we are dangerously edging toward the precipice."

Her eyes flickered toward the window, where she saw his figure approaching. She straightened her shoulders. "If there should be any hope for us all, you'd be wise to take your resources and our knowledge or else there won't be any place on this earth alive to host your larders."

A rollercoaster of emotions emanated from Ben. Anger. Fury. Truth. Heat. Sensuality. She read all of him at once. Her senses that had been dulled, now sharpened. Luke honed them, perfected them, shined them up. She began to see what she had been blinded from.

Ben's voice was closer, thicker. "Then perhaps, I should investigate this matter further."

The little hairs on her neck and shoulders prickled. The room swallowed her, and she was transported to a place, far, far away from reality. The world around her darkened and all she could see, hear, smell, feel, sense was Ben.

And then, he was on her.

"HOTH were fools if they thought they could get to me," Ben seethed, drawing his body close to hers so that he was right behind her. One arm tightened across her chest, the other at her waist. She sensed his desire, his filthy, Neanderthal brain thrumming to life and she was certain he would throw her to the ground and have his way with her, given how his hands were quaking. But his desires were obfuscated with rage and confusion and his hackles bristled. "They-they thought they could send you - to what? Seduce me? Fuck your way to my secrets and my company?" He swept a hand in fury and there was a crashing sound behind them. One of his decorative display cases shattered. "I won't let them take me for a fool!"

Rey found herself speaking when she didn't intend to speak at all. She felt a tightness holding her muscles hostage but she found a way to summon her voice. Her words came but she didn't feel her mouth moving. "HOTH doesn't rely on exploiting the emotional weaknesses of its perceived adversaries, Mr. Solo," she said, slowly and evenly. "We have ethics that dictate our practices. We don't dabble in slights against human rights. As an outsider, it's fairly easy to see where your company is failing."

Ben laughed, hysterically. "The cognitive dissonance is absurd." He released his grip on her, but she still could not move. Her skin chilled and every hair stood on end as she tried to fight his power but he was so strong. He stepped around to face her and towered over her. She never felt so small and helpless. Still, she focused herself to remain calm. Again, she could not speak but she still reached him.

"I don't understand what you're implying, Mr. Solo."

"Don't pretend to be so clueless," he sneered. His hair fell in his face, framing it and shadowing his eyes. He thrust something into her mind to search around, then he stepped back. "You don't know?"

"Know what?"

Ben laughed. "You poor girl! You really don't know!"

She was getting angry and he could sense it. He wrapped an arm around her, clenching her at the waist in a troublingly intimate manner. With his other hand, he cupped her chin and tilted her face upward. "Let me show you, then."

He dipped his mouth to hers, forcing her lips open with a gasp. Her defenses tempered and he crushed her to him so tightly, she could feel his pulse pounding. His tongue probed her mouth and she released a quiet moan in response. The last of her barriers melted and he flooded her mind with ease. The images and his memories burst out in a heartbeat and all at once.

A crowd of shadows, running through sand. Darkness slashed in heartbeats of fire.

An old man, choking for breath, with eyes disturbingly familiar.

Luke, with fewer lines wrinkled in his face.

A blonde woman, seen from the back.

Leia, smiling with sad eyes.

A group of protestors, holding signs and screaming as they run.

Waves crashing on a rocky shore, washing over a dead body.

A tall man with scruffy brown hair.

His body warmed, his lips were soft, and she was beginning to melt in his embrace, but then her resistance found its way to rise again when she felt him quaver.

The old man, again, fierce and angry, projecting a powerful force. Loud, angry words.

Leia, glaring, disappointed.

Ben, younger but still as handsome. Staring in a mirror, crying unashamedly. The mirror shatters.

He withdrew, holding her at an arm's distance. "You weren't supposed to see that," he snarled. "How did you get in?"

She glared at him, desiring him and wanting to strike him down at the same time. "You were weak," she said, this time with her true voice. She swallowed, moistening her lips briefly then finding the strength to parry. "Because you want me." The darkness around them trembled as his power waned. She saw glimpse of a rainy window behind him, the light breaking through the walls he had raised. "Because you're afraid of me, too. You never thought you'd find someone with whom you'd find an equal." She was getting the feeling back in her limbs and his force withdrew, unwillingly.

"An equal?" he roared. The darkness returned, her body electrified to its spot. He circled her, paced her, and she was a broken gazelle readying for a final death pounce. Blackness rose around them. The terror bubbled inside of her as he fumed and raged. "You? Think you're as powerful as I? As great as I? You're just a little girl. You—you have the audacity to walk in here and act like you know me? Think that you can persuade me? I am more powerful than you can ever imagine."

A peace filled Rey, a sudden calmness she didn't know she could muster. "Not powerful enough."

The room, silenced. The air, thickened. The light, waned.

Two strengths rose at once, racing to overpower the other, coming to a head in a furious, impassioned frenzy. Two fighters, dancing and striking, parrying and slicing, an entire combat parlayed with neither combatant physically moving. He lunged, she eluded. She pierced, he deflected. Still, they came closer and closer, grazing and glancing.

"Who are you?" Ben hissed. His lips did not part; he pushed his voice into her head.

"Are you afraid of me?" she repeated.

"I'm never afraid," he sneered.

"Never?" she echoed. "I think you're lying." She pushed her will harder and he stumbled, just a bit. That infuriated him and his fury bloomed. The walls grew, the light disappeared.

"What do you really want?" he demanded. He was breaking her, stripping her shield, glimpsing her true feelings and secrets. He reached in, prodding at her, then shifted rapidly and teased something better out.

She choked on a gasp. She thought he would go for her memories of HOTH but he was quick to search for something else that she hadn't thought to guard. He began to see her.

A crib mobile, in the shape of stars and planets, spinning from above.

Rey's mother, smiling and laughing.

A tree branch calving, then screams.

Sounds of a heart monitor beeping.

The worn face of a stuffed puffin.

An explosion.

An old man's face, too blurry to see the details, but a malevolence nevertheless.

Little Rey, glaring at a mirror, and the lights bursting all at once.

Officer Dameron.

A drunken, weeping blonde.

A woman and a man, naked, the curves of their bodies accentuated in glimpses of partial moonlight.

"Stop," she exhaled, physically and mentally pushing him away. Her hand pressed against his chest, where she could feel his rapid pulse, and he grabbed her by the wrist.

"Some of those memories weren't yours," he murmured. He stared down at her darkly. He was panting; so was she. A touch of sweat beaded over his brows and a lock of hair clung wetly to his forehead.

Rey's knees were wobbly. She felt like she just stepped off of the Gravitron at a county fair. She would have ripped her arm away from Ben if only the world would stop spinning, but she needed to remain upright. She'd already lost too much of her composure – and herself.

"They've underestimated you," Ben said in a near-whisper. He studied her now, fascinated. She didn't like the look of those black eyes flickering as they took her in. She might as well have been stark naked considering how he was eating her up with his mind. "You're more powerful than you've let on."

The world began to steady and she tried to tug herself away, but he only drew her in closer.

"Rey," he exhaled, his scent tinged with cinnamon. He brought her face closer to his, again.

"No," she whimpered. She wanted to resist him but felt compelled to concede. She tried to force herself to look away, but she couldn't. She thought he was influencing her, but it wasn't him. It was all her, damned her, giving into his temptation.

"Don't deny what the body desires." It's like he knew what she was thinking.

"I can't-" she began to say, but he swallowed her words with his mouth and swallowed her body in his arms. He was that awkward teenage boy again, fumbling and feeling, caressing and grasping, moaning and kissing unabashedly as he hungrily laid claim to her lips and her ass and her breasts and—

-she felt him tighten, in more places than one, her breath became shallow and punctuated by gentle cries and gasps for air as he held her so tightly, he didn't want to let go, she didn't want him to, and she wanted to taste him over and over and again and her teeth clacked against his once and was that blood she was tasting? There was a fire, a wetness, a desire to be taken and –

Rey.

Something beckoned her, called her, drew her from him.

"No," she whispered again. She pushed him away; this time, he did not resist, though he glowered as she turned her back to him. He sidled closer, close enough to barely touch. Their reflections blurred in the window.

"Don't let those fools at HOTH brainwash you," he snarled. "They'll only use you for their own purposes. They don't care about fostering your gift. They don't want to see you become something greater. They fear you and what you're capable of."

Rey smoothed her hands down her skirt and tucked the tail of her blouse back in. "HOTH saved me. HOTH's mission is pure, it's honest. It doesn't seek to destroy you. It wants to save you." The words, unspoken, that she really meant were the estranged Skywalker family members. But he knew. She didn't have to say it out loud. "Perhaps you should reconsider what you're getting out of this blind and hateful allegiance you have to your dead grandfather and the disastrous legacy he has left for you."

He gritted his teeth. He was insulted. He was beyond angry. "Oh, I should, should I?" He raised a hand at her, two fingers and his thumb pointed, and for a moment, hesitated on what exactly he would do. But he only swiped the air, almost with a gentleness. He felt her body jolt, for just a moment, and then it was over.

The little hairs on her neck and shoulders prickled in feeling his breath on her skin and his hearing his purr in her ears, but she stood strong. "Yes, you should."

###

A sharp gasp snapped Rey out from her reverie. It was her own gasp as she tried to gulp down air, as if she hadn't taken a single breath from when Luke reached inside of her.

Luke's hand lifted from her shoulder, slowly, frightfully. He watched as she hugged herself, willing herself out of a full-fledged panic attack.

"It's so hot in here," she finally managed to say.

Luke hurried to the bar fridge and snagged a bottle of water, offering it to her from an outstretched hand as if getting too close to her would make something explosive happen. She snatched it from him and greedily sucked it down in seconds.

"Your, ah," Luke coughed and cleared his throat. "Your hair is dry?" It came out like a question, since he couldn't really believe it.

Rey patted at her head. Dry. Not a lick of moisture.

"How long..?" Her voice trailed off.

"Not even ten minutes." Luke balled a fist and pressed it to his mouth and paced around the room. "This—this is unlike anything I've seen before. Rey, while I was in there, I sensed something so—so— it's—I can't even think straight! It's like, the two of you, together, your force is amplified. Your energies feed off each other. There was this connection stronger than anything. With your powers combined, this could be catastrophic!"

"Then I can't see him." She was getting frightened. "I can't go back to that, I can't see him again, I'm too dang—" Her chin trembled and her words jumbled. She didn't want to cry, not now.

"Rey," Luke exclaimed, hurrying to her side. "No, you don't get it. This could be it, this could be the key." He held her hands and squeezed them reassuringly. "You will go to him tomorrow. This could be a breakthrough. You absolutely must go."