A/N: Thanks for all of those readers who have taken the time to review and sorry for the delay in getting this second chapter up. I hope to be more efficient in my posts from now on. This chapter should lend a little clarity to the first chapter and how I managed to get my fabulous duo alone. Please read and review. Oh yeah, I almost forgot: "I'm not making any money off of this." On with the show.

Unexpected Detours, part 2

"What's the matter, princess?"

I still remember the moment that the mood had changed. The moment when I had sensed her growing discomfort. The moment when, much to my dismay, I knew that she was already beginning to regret our fun. And I knew that I didn't want to become another 'regret' in her life.

I don't really remember how we had jumped from the all-out shouting match into the all-out naked match. If I could barely recall making the decisions, how could I second-guess them now? But she wasn't like that. She was too good to do things like we had done. I had known what she was going to say before the words had even left her slightly swollen lips.

"We shouldn't have done that."

"And why not? I seem to recall you enjoying it."

"That's not the point, Han. It doesn't matter if I enjoyed it… and for the record, I wasn't the only one who enjoyed it… it's still not right."

"Why not?" I knew I was frustrating her by questioning her logic, but her logic had been questionable. "We're two consenting adults who needed to blow off a little steam. And, we enjoyed ourselves in the process. What's not right about that?"

"Han, people don't just have sex to…"

"People just have sex all the time, sweetheart, " I had interrupted her moral lesson before it had begun. "And, there's no reason to regret it now. What's done is done. Why can't you just relax like anyone else would, even for just a few minutes."

"But…"

"But, what? You're not like other people? I hate to break it to you, but when you're lying here without your finery, you're just like any other girl who's been here before."

"What!"

Her high-pitched screech had nearly split my eardrum and I had winced in response. She had jumped from the bed, standing royally indignant at its side. Her high emotions had raised her colour and her body had flushed beautifully in response to the anger racing through her.

"I'm just like any of the other girls who've been here before! Exactly, how many girls have been here before, captain?"

Raising myself upright, I had softened my voice in contrast with hers. "Leia, that's not what I meant."

"How many?"

"Not many."

I remember moving to the foot of the bed to stand before her. I had felt a smirk threatening and fought to smother it, knowing how it would anger her even further. The combination of her indignant posture and her flushed, naked body had nearly broke through my defences though. I remember thinking that she probably didn't even realize that she was standing there arguing with me in the nude.

"How…"

I had stepped closer then and reached out to stroke the side of her face, causing her to falter.

"Not many, Leia, and none like you."

I remember speaking those words and I don't think I had ever spoken truer words than that in my life. 'None like you.' I never would have imagined, never would have dreamed of making love to a woman like Leia before then. I remember that moment, remember promising myself that I hadn't just experienced a once-in-a-lifetime event. I remember thinking these strange thoughts while continuing to caress her cheekbone distractedly with my thumb. Then something had changed in the energy between us. The sparks that usually crackled between us had vanished, replaced by an energy of a different sort. It propelled me closer to her and I had wrapped her in my arms and held her near to my heart for many heartbeats.

Han stowed the hydro spanner in his small, but effective toolbox, closing the access panel over the area he had just repaired. He hesitated outside the door to his cabin, debating silently the merits of waking its sleeping occupant. She had fallen asleep after their second round of love-making and it had taken every last bit of his willpower to chase him from her side and back to the repairs they had abandoned earlier. He finally decided to wake her, knowing she'd not want to still be sleeping when Luke and Chewbacca returned with the supplies.

He quietly entered the cabin, uncertain as to how he should wake her. Leia lay tangled in the sheets, affording him glimpses of her naked form. Her leg had escaped its covering and he fought the urge to retrace the path of kisses he had left there earlier. She was sleeping on her side, facing the doorway, and the sheet had slipped, offering him a generous display of cleavage. Her hair had long escaped its intricate braid and lay in dark ribbons against the white linens. The overall picture was more erotic than were he to have found her completely exposed. After savouring the view for a few moments, he reasoned that there was still time before the others would return. Quickly divesting himself of his work clothes, he slid next to her warmth.

She moaned sleepily at the disruption he had caused. Brushing a strand of hair from her face, he pressed a kiss against her temple. "Hey, sleepyhead, naptime's over." She had turned her head toward his kiss, but her eyes remained closed. Determined to rouse her to both wakefulness and desire, he kissed a pathway along her neck to her collarbone. He nipped at it and she shifted her position slightly, granting him further access to her body. He dipped his tongue into her cleavage before using his teeth to tug at the sheet secured between them. She arched her back in answer, freeing one of her breasts from the linen, exposing her nipple for him. He took the prize eagerly, freeing his hand from the tangles of her hair to cup her breast as he suckled greedily. He was rewarded with the sharp intake of her breath. Her hands, complacent until then, tangled in his hair, encouraging him to continue.

Satisfied that he had garnered her interest, he moved his attention onward, smiling against her ribs at her whimper. He brushed a path of kisses along her ribcage, nuzzling her waist before continuing along her hip. He had exposed fully half of her body by then, but chose to pursue his first thoughts upon entering the room. He continued down the side of her leg, pausing to nip at the back of her knee, before kissing his way up the inside of her thigh. Pausing at the juncture of her thighs, he watched her squirm before parting her curls and teasing her deftly with his tongue. Varying his rhythm and pressure, her erratic breathing and whimpering told him clearly how close she was to reaching her peak. Her desire was fuelling his own but he continued to deny them both the release that they sought.

He pulled himself away from his worship of her centre and thought she might scream in her frustration. Her cheeks were flushed and tiny beads of perspiration had gathered along her forehead. Her nipples stood erect, demanding his attention and he gladly answered their demands, capturing first one, then the other in his mouth. The head of his aching shaft was poised at her entrance, teasing them both mercilessly. She raised her hips in an effort to draw him in and finally, he gave in to the waves of desire that had been building in both of them. Once buried deep inside her, he stilled, feeling the building orgasm in her tight walls. Her hands had been pulling at the bed linens, desperate to find purchase in the storm of her climax. He replaced the linens with his own hands, pulling her arms above her head, intertwining their fingers as he slowly withdrew. Her hips raised to meet his as he moved forward and his mouth found hers in a deep kiss. He fought against the urge to immediately quicken the pace, surprised at how near he was to losing himself in her desire. She refused to yield to his leisurely pace and pulled a hand free. Raking her nails down his back, she bucked her hips against his, increasing their tempo, driving them both over the edge.

Leia sat quietly at the hologram board that doubled as a dining table, wordlessly eating the late lunch that Han had prepared for the group. Luke and Chewie were taking turns regaling them with the tale of their trip to the small colony. Han seemed entertained by their story and she feigned the same level of interest but failed to focus on the words they were speaking. She couldn't help but focus instead on how she had spent her afternoon and whether it was clear to everyone present exactly what she and Han had been doing while they had been out chasing down supplies.

In an uncharacteristically chivalrous move, Han had saved her from discovery as they had lingered after their third - third! - session of love-making. The sound of the hatch seal had penetrated the quiet cabin and he had jumped from the bed and began donning his work clothes before her fragmented thoughts recognized the sound she had heard. Handing her a towel and a handful of clean clothes, he pushed her toward the 'fresher that was connected to his cabin. Thus she sat at the table wearing a shirt that was at least three sizes too big and pants that had to be cuffed so many times they felt weighted at her ankles. Despite her ridiculous wardrobe, she gave him credit for his quick thinking. Still, she couldn't help but feel that Luke kept glancing at her sideways and she couldn't even begin to read Chewie's expressions, but knew that he knew Han very well and had probably picked up on something from him. Her cheeks coloured in embarrassment as she imagined the thoughts that must be running through each of their minds.

For both Luke and Chewie's part, neither knew what was bothering the princess, they just knew that something was wrong. Her uncharacteristic silence and lack of appetite served as confirmation. The event that had triggered her mood was anyone's guess, but knowing the volatile relationship shared by the smuggler and the princess, the odds leaned heavily in favour of Han's involvement.

Chewbacca moved to clear the table, having finished his meal first. Leia rose to help him. "Let me do that, Chewie. You should get started on the nav computer. I wouldn't mind getting off this rock."

"You're spending too much time with Han, Leia," Luke admonished. "You're starting to sound just like him."

Han rose to join Chewie in the forward compartment. "She might as well start sounding like me." Reaching around her, he placed his dish on the counter, adding: "First, you wear my clothes, then you start talking like me. Who knows what other habits of mine you might have picked up?"

The comment might have been completely innocent, but when coupled with his lop-sided grin, it caused her to blush furiously with imagined implications. Luke followed Han out of the galley leaving Leia alone with her thoughts. Distractedly, she cleaned the galley, wondering at her reaction to Han and her actions of the afternoon. She still couldn't believe that she had succumbed to her baser desires and slept with him. She knew that she should know better than to sleep with a man like Han and that there was no future in a relationship with him. She also knew that there was no place in her life for a relationship, with him or anyone else for that matter, even if there had been hope for one. What she couldn't rationalize was why, after over a year of denial, had she surrendered to the feelings inside her?

She recalled her first impression of him: his blatant arrogance clearly broadcast, even in the midst of a gunfight with Imperial forces on an Imperial battle station. It was his arrogance that had initially drawn her exasperation, propelling their verbal sparring as she sought to prove that arrogance as unfounded. Soon after that initial meeting though, she recognized it for what it truly was: a combination of confidence that was hard-earned and defence learned from harsh experience. There was something in his arrogance that echoed in her own confidence and it ceased to raise her ire andsoon after that initial impression had been replaced with the man she had come to know.

He was attractive - she had never tried to deny that fact. She could close her eyes and immediately picture him striding down the ramp of the Falcon, his trademark swagger emphasized by his low-slung blaster. He reminded her of the lead singer of one of the musical groups popular in Coruscant a few years back - the Flu'ax, if her memory served her correctly. Something in the way he entered a room, seemingly oblivious to the many appreciative eyes that followed his movements. 'No,' she corrected herself, mentally, 'not oblivious, but indifferent.' It was this indifference that added to his sex appeal. His devil-may-care attitude that made many women wish that they could make him care. Even she had to admit to herself (not that she would ever admit it to anyone else) that she had been attracted to this bad-boy smuggler from the seedier parts of the rim. But she had always been able to control that attraction, to dismiss it to a position of non-consequence. That is, she had been able to, until today. Something had changed today. Something had taken their usual verbal confrontation and escalated it into a physical expression of the attraction that had pulsed between them. She couldn't understand why. Why now, after all this time?

Han busied himself with the repair of his beloved ship and tried not to think about Leia and her apparent displeasure at their afternoon of pleasure. He knew her well enough to know that this was not a usual occurrence for her. Despite his reputation, it wasn't a usual occurrence for him either, but he was older than her and had a few more experiences under his belt… or at least he hoped so.

Her silent self-recrimination during their hasty lunch had been one of the reasons he had been convinced to take advantage of her sleepy state. He knew that, given time, she would regret their afternoon tryst and most likely refuse any offers to repeat it. He also knew that once Chewie and Luke returned with the replacement parts for the nav computer, they would have it fixed and be on their way to the next base. There, things would return to status quo, including his explosive relationship with Leia. Remembering the feel of her body pressed beneath his, he hoped that maybe, for once, his instincts were wrong and it hadn't been the last time he would feel her naked flesh pressed against his own.

Shaking his head to clear his thoughts, he refocused on the task at hand. They had been very lucky that the failure of the nav computer hadn't killed them all. He had heard horror stories of ships lost in eternal hyperspace, or others that had flown into a star. They had safely arrived at their destination - or at least according to the nav computer they had. But the planet they found upon emerging from hyperspace had been a temperate one, graced by large lakes and snow-capped mountains.

"Hey kid," he had said. "I know you grew up in a desert and all that, but just because it ain't a hundred degrees and there's a little snow in the mountains, it doesn't really make it an 'ice planet'."

He didn't recall exactly how the discussion - okay, argument - had proceeded from that comment, but it had included several accusations of incompetence, including Leia's insinuation that he had miss-keyed the coordinates. It was then that he realized the true problem. He hadn't miss-keyed the coordinates and Luke hadn't given the coordinates incorrectly. If either of those instances had happened, the computer wouldn't have indicated that they were, in fact, in the right place. Han might not have ever been to the Hoth System, but the green and brown planet they orbited, in spite of what the nav computer indicated, was definitely not the snow-covered planet the rebels had chosen for their next base.

Returning his focus to the delicate wires in the Falcon's forward compartment, Han lamented the absence of the droids. Even Threepio would have been able to offer assistance in verifying the quality of the materials they had gathered in Mantigua, the small colony that had supplied his replacement parts. Chewie had offered assurances that, although the colony was isolated, it had seemed reasonably advanced technologically. He would have to rely solely on his friend's perception; he had landed in an isolated area several kilometres outside of the colony, unwilling to land in an unidentified hanger in an unidentified town on an unidentified planet. It was the division of labour - one party to guard the ship while the other making the trek to town - that had afforded him his afternoon of leisure with Leia.

Cursing himself mentally at his lack of focus, he forced his attention back to his beloved ship. The Falcon had taken good care of its pilot over the years; even this latest malfunction had spared its passengers from injury. Han only hoped that his ship continued its streak. Not many men were capable of manually calculating a path through star systems at speeds faster than light. In fact, anyone smart enough to do so, would get bored with the exercise long before it was completed. A droid could verify any course the computer offered in a reasonable amount of time. They didn't have any droids with them now and Han was extremely sorry for his earlier celebration of their absence. Once their repairs were completed, they would just have to hope that the computer would function properly and they would make it safely to the rendezvous. There were few things he trusted implicitly, but the nav computer was something that he would have to choose to trust or fail to fly at all. He already knew that he would choose to trust it.

A/N: That's all for now. Please let me know if you enjoy what I've written so far. It makes it so much easier to continue. Scarlet.