There is a higher rated version of this available on my LJ. If you are over 18 you can find it behind the explicit adult content safeguards there. ginchy [dot] livejournal [dot] com. This is the PG version of the interlude, but it still picks up where Chapter 10 left off, with L/M heading to the bedroom. If that makes you uncomfortable, you can easily skip this interlude and pick up with chapter 11.

Interlude 3: Love

He reached a blind hand for the lights as they entered the stateroom, but Mara stopped him. "Leave them," she whispered. He complied, walking into the room steadily even as her lips caressed and nipped at his neck. After a few steps he fell to the bed with her, catching his weight on his arms to hover over her in the dim light that cast into the room from the hall. He didn't allow himself to think, to remember the times he had laid his Mara down on the bed in the stateroom of their ship. All that mattered was the beautiful woman in his arms, how warm and alive she felt under him.

He saw only invitation in her eyes and lowered his head to brush his lips against hers. The slow kisses lengthened in intensity, the wet slide of their lips the only sound in the quiet room. He couldn't get enough of kissing her and feeling her kiss him back, her taste as addictive as always. They moved together as they kissed, hands everywhere as they reacquainted themselves with flesh long denied.

He broke from her lips to kiss her cheek and throat, to let his lips slide against the collar of her shirt. Mara shifted closer as he began to tug at her blouse, ripping at the buttons impatiently. She gasped but brought her hands up to help him, and the shirt fell heedless to the floor. He groaned at the sight of her, so missed, but his eyes were riveted to the gold chain that had been hidden under her shirt. He reached a trembling hand out to pick up the chain, his fingers just barely brushing the soft skin of her chest. He looked at the two wedding bands that hung from the chain, and his heart constricted. He remembered accusing Mara of moving on too quickly, but here was more proof that she had not. He brought the smaller ring, Mara's ring, to his lips and kissed it.

Mara gave him a teary smile, but took the rings from his hand and pulled the chain over her head. She sat it on the bedside table and turned to him. "Always near my heart," she whispered, the words vulnerable and soft as they disappeared into the dark room around them.

Even still, Mara was surprising him as only she could. The desire to make love to her was stronger than ever as he reached out to run a finger down the center line of her chest and over the front of her bra. "Still so beautiful," he whispered, seeking to quell a flash of discomfort he saw in Mara's eyes. They had both been hot and sweaty on Crseih Station and he wanted her to know that didn't matter now. Even with wild hair and little make-up she was gorgeous. But it had been an even longer time since she had been with her Luke, and he wondered if she worried that she was too old or undesirable to him. He kissed her again, casting out with the Force to feed his lust into hers to let her know that she would always be the one he desired.

She gasped at the sensation and let out a ragged breath, raising her hands to his shirt and coaxing it over his head. He threw it to the floor and growled as she rolled them, coming to rest on top of him. Her nails scratched lightly down his chest, but her eyes turned solemn as she rested her palm over the scar where Shimmra's amphistaff had almost killed him, the same scar that had taken her husband's life. He opened his mouth to speak, but stopped himself when she lowered her lips to the spot and kissed it, caressing it almost reverently with soft lips. He cupped her head with the palm of his hand, intending to pull her back into a healing kiss, but she had other ideas and continued her kisses down his chest to his stomach.

He groaned low in his throat at her blatant message to move things along. He grabbed her and tugged her back up to his mouth for a deep kiss, letting his own hands play now, wandering into her hair and then down her back.

"Oh, Luke," she murmured, breaking the silence that had grown between them since they entered the room. And the sound of his name on her lips, spoken in that intimate tone that belonged to him alone, sent him over and edge into an abyss from where there was no return.

The reunification of their bodies was slow and drawn out, even as an edge of hunger spiraled them toward completion. "Mara," he said, just to say her name. "Mara." The pleasure surrounding them was almost painful in its intensity. He was with Mara again and could scarcely believe it.

His eyes opened and burned into hers, seeking the connection of all they had lost. She clutched at his sweaty back, but even through her pleasure he noticed a tear at the corner of her eye. He kissed it away, murmuring to her that he understood. And he did.

Hesitantly, he reached for her in the Force, the absent bond the only thing marring the moment. Without the bond their Force senses could flow together, but not coalesce, and their every thought was not available to one another. It was somewhat of a strange feeling, being without their bond, but even still, she latched onto his Force sense and let her pleasure bleed through. .And in the middle of that blissful haze was her love, overpowering in its purity as it had always been.

Mara grasped his head and kissed him with bruising force, as if she were trying to brand him with her lips, her love. He tore from her mouth and dropped his head into her neck and breathed in her unique scent, still trying to grasp the reality of the situation. "I love you," he murmured to her. She gasped and called out his name in uninhibited bliss.

He followed her, the pleasure so intense that his body collapsed onto hers and he faded out for a moment, content and happy. He was back with Mara again. Back in love.

.

.

Mara dozed against his chest. He kissed her hair, unable to stop touching her. He was addicted to the silky smooth skin under his hands, to rememorizing all the features of her face and body. A few scars that he had known on his Mara were missing here, and there was a new one on her right shoulder that his Mara hadn't had. And yet while making love to her she had responded with the same passionate nature that his Mara always exuded.

He squeezed her to him, suddenly overwhelmed with a feeling of gratitude that she existed, that Mara Jade had not been wiped from the universe completely. When she died he knew that she went on to the Force, and that she had lived on in Ben, but living without her in the cold galaxy had haunted him, the idea that she didn't exist any longer confusing and wrong.

A kiss against his chest pulled him from his thoughts and he looked down into green, mischievous eyes perched above the smirk he loved so well.

"I needed that," she confided, pushing and stretching against him.

He grinned. "Me too. And I'm glad we're not…" He paused to contemplate his word choice. "Awkward."

Mara dropped her head back to his chest and let her fingers wander over his stomach. "What's to be awkward about? You're the doppelganger of my dead husband and you jumped a galaxy in chaos to find me—Luke!" she cried out, her voice rising comically when he goosed her.

He laughed at her reaction and she laughed with him, but landed a stinging blow to his bicep. "It's things like that that make me call you Farmboy," she muttered, but she was smiling.

He basked in the warmth of that familiar nickname. She hadn't called him that since his aborted attempt to leave. "I always loved that you called me that," he said absently, running her hair through his fingers and admiring the threads of white that now intersected the gold in the brilliant red.

"I knew it," she said with a grin.

He couldn't resist kissing that grin and pulled her close, not wanting to ruin this moment by talking about the future or the predicament he—they—were in. He wanted nothing more than to take a few moments for himself, a few moments for Mara. These quiet moments were so rare for the both of them, and to have one together now was more of a gift than he could ever have imagined.

Mara's fingers traced over his face, skating over his jawline to the hair at his temples. She brushed her them into the flare of hair there and gave him a wicked smirk. "I like the gray," she murmured. "I often tried to imagine what he would look like as time went on…I think I underestimated how much I would like it."

He grinned and grabbed her hand, kissing the fingers. "I once told Mara I was starting to look like Palpatine," he said, tracing the fingers over his cheeks. "Too many lines on the face."

She gave him the same horrified and amused look Mara had long ago, during some mission dealing with the Killik threat. "Now you're just looking for compliments."

He barked out a laugh and hugged her close. He couldn't get enough of her, and rolled into her, kissing her softly, teasing her with his lips.

"You taste so good," she whispered. "I've missed kissing you…"

He groaned into her mouth and pulled her onto him, her bare skin so warm and soft under his fingers. They made slow and gentle love this time, caught up in the act of reaquantaince and the pleasure of remembrance.

"I love you, I love you, I love you," Mara cried out in the midst of their passion and her words and inhibition were like hidden treasures to Luke, gifts only for him.

He rolled over and pulled her up against him, sweaty bare skin pressed together as they came down from the high. With a panting breath he kissed her temple. "I love you," he whispered, somewhat surprised that she had said those words to him, but knowing that there was no other word that could encompass it. "Ever and always, Mara…"

Caressing his back, she kissed his neck in acknowledgement of his pledge, and held him close until they drifted off to sleep.