Hot and Cold
By Justine Graham and Erin Darroch
An hour after he'd departed, Han darted back through the apartment building's wide glass doors, feeling grateful to escape the darkness and the unrelenting rain after his mad dash around the markets. He paused for a moment as he gained the sanctuary of the quiet, elegant lobby, and then breathed a sigh of relief as the doors hissed shut behind him.
Outside, the wind was howling now, sending white-capped waves crashing up and onto the boardwalk, and heavy sheets of rain driving sideways, reducing visibility to near-zero, and turning the city streets into cascading rivers. The promised gap between storm fronts had diminished to virtually no gap at all, and Han had been lucky to make it to the other side of the harbor before the second wave of heavy weather rolled in from the Silver Sea. Instead of weakening, the rain had only intensified as he dashed from shop to shop gathering the items he and Leia had quickly listed between them before he ventured out. Then, wringing wet and chilled to the bone, he'd headed back over the footbridge as quickly as the raging wind and driving rain would allow. In his travels around the nearly deserted market, he'd heard reports of widespread power outages dotting various locations throughout city, so he felt a touch of relief when he caught sight of their apartment building across the harbor and saw that the lights were still on, at least for now. While he wouldn't mind curling up with Leia in the dark if the electricity should fail—he'd picked up a couple of glow rods, just in case—he really didn't relish the idea of climbing nine flights of stairs if the power went out before he made it home.
With the environmental controls inside the building programmed to mitigate the heat of the Chandrilan summer, the cool air in the lobby hit him with the force of a thunderclap, as brutal and bitter as the storm that raged outside. He suppressed a shiver, and clamped his jaw to keep his teeth from chattering. His thin shirt and vest had done little to protect him from the harsh conditions, and now, soaking wet and plastered to his body, the cold fabric only intensified his discomfort. As he passed by the front desk on his way to the lifts, his gaze flickered to the male Pantoran security attendant stationed there, whose quizzical look and raised eyebrow echoed Han's own thoughts at the moment: you must be crazy to be out on a night like this.
Han smirked at him and jostled his armload of parcels, shifting them to one side in order to free a hand enough to palm the controls of the turbolift. He took the opportunity to rake his hair back with his fingers and then swiped a wet hand over his dripping face before redistributing the bags in both hands. Maybe he was crazy, he acknowledged, but he didn't regret making the foray into the wild weather, no matter how soaked he'd become in the process. Deep in his heart he knew he'd have ventured out into the center of a Felucian typhoon if Leia wanted him to, if he thought it would bring back that look of radiant joy he'd seen earlier.
Han seldom thought about the past—certainly, he never dwelled on it for very long—but every once in a while he was reminded of just how much Leia had lost. She was such a force of nature herself, so strong and focused, so confident and wise, it was easy to forget that she was not yet twenty-four years old. With her homeworld vanished, bereft of family and of all who'd known and loved her in her youth, and having lived and breathed politics and rebellion from the tender age of fourteen, she was almost as lost as Han when it came to the notions of settling down and living a normal life. Between them, Han mused, they really didn't have a clue what that entailed; not really. But this afternoon, for just a few hours, they'd had a glimpse of it, and Han had seen in Leia's face how much it meant to her. And if it meant a lot to Leia, he acknowledged, it meant a lot to him, too.
When he finally stepped inside their apartment a few minutes later, he dropped his parcels on the polished wood floor of the foyer and then took a moment to wipe both hands down his face, giving them a shake to shed the water from them. He stood still for a moment, cocking his head to one side, listening for any sound to indicate Leia's whereabouts in the empty apartment. Hearing nothing—except for the faint sound of water dripping onto the floor from his saturated clothing—he leaned back against the door, braced his lower back as he lifted a foot, and tugged at his boot, only to realize with dismay that he'd even managed to get water inside it. It had soaked straight through to his sock and the normally snug-fitting footwear was proving more difficult to remove than usual. Frowning, he applied a bit of extra traction until the boot came away with a wet, sucking sound. He tossed it to the side, and repeated the motion with the other foot. Leia still hadn't appeared to have taken any notice of his arrival so, deciding she must be too far away to hear the activity at the door, Han moved deeper into the foyer, his wet socks making an audible squelching noise and leaving a trail of glossy wet footprints on the hardwood.
"Honey, I'm home," he called in an exaggerated sing-song.
There was a short pause during which Han wondered if Leia had actually left the apartment while he was out, but then he heard a light peal of laughter floating to his ears from the direction of the kitchen. "I hope you're not going to yell that every time," Leia's voice rang out distantly. "It's starting to feel like we're characters in a holodrama."
Han chuckled to himself, recognizing the truth of that comment; the whole thing still felt surreal, especially when he cast his memory back to what things had been like for them just over a year ago, when they were freezing their asses off on Hoth and matters between them had been far from settled. Though he was a little chilled and shivering now in his wet clothes, it was nothing compared to the bone-numbing cold of the ice planet where they'd been stationed together before everything went to hell. And things had certainly warmed up between himself and the princess since then, Han thought with smug satisfaction. They'd spent half their time on Hoth in heated flirtation, and the other half sniping and snarling at each other because Han wouldn't make a promise to stay, and Leia wouldn't move forward without one. But now…. Han grinned in happy recollection of the afternoon he'd just spent with her, and in keen anticipation of the evening to come. Now, things were so much better.
"You were gone longer than I thought you'd be," Leia continued, her voice becoming more audible as she moved steadily closer to the foyer. "I was starting to wonder if you'd decided to hole-up somewhere. But, good news, the concierge was as good as his boasting and he already brought up some—"
As she rounded the corner of the wall that separated the kitchen from the foyer, Leia halted mid-step, her eyes widening at the sight of Han standing in the vestibule, with water dripping steadily from his drenched hair and soggy clothes, pooling into an expanding puddle at his feet. "Gods, Han, you're sopping wet!"
"Yeah, well," he shrugged, "that's what happens when you run around in a hurricane without a rainshield on, Princess. I'm gonna have to put all my clothes in the autovalet." He paused, suddenly struck by the realization that he hadn't actually seen one of the ubiquitous appliances on his brief tour of the house. "Wait—do we even have one?"
"Two, actually," Leia replied. "One in each fresher, cleverly disguised within the cabinetry," she said with approval. "Luxury accommodation definitely has its perks."
"Speaking of perks, whatcha say to me and you trying out that big bubbly tub together?" Han proposed, crouching down to rummage around in one of the bags. He glanced up in time to see Leia's smile, bright enough to light up the room, and marveled all over again at how gratifying it was to put that look on her face. "And since it's our first night in our new place," he said, "I thought we'd celebrate with this." In dramatic fashion, he produced a deep green bottle from the bag, and then straightened to his full height to hand it over to Leia.
She held the bottle up and squinted to read the tiny print of the gold label affixed to its surface, then looked back at Han with an appreciative lift of one eyebrow. "Nice," she opined. "You're pretty resourceful, even in a hurricane."
"I'm pretty sure it's my resourcefulness that really turns you on," he winked.
Leia laughed. "You may be right about that, although there are a few other things I could add to that list."
"Oh yeah?" Intrigued, Han took a step towards her, always up for a little flirtation with Leia when she was in the mood. "Tell me."
Leia held up a hand, forestalling his movement. She gave him a meaningful look up and down, and then shook her head. "You are actually dripping," she pointed out. "And you must be freezing. Maybe you'd better head to the fresher to dry off."
Glancing down, Han noted with a twinge of dismay the extent of the puddle at his feet. Casting a glance backwards at the trail of wet footprints leading from the door—already beginning to dry, leaving hazy residue on the gleaming hardwood—he decided he'd better divest himself of his waterlogged clothing rather than track the mess further into the apartment. He unsheathed his blaster and bent to set it down on the floor, and then released the thigh strap and unbuckled his holster, fumbling at the clasp with numb fingers. He finally settled for allowing the rig to drop to the floor at his feet, and then he straightened, unfastened his fly and shoved his damp trousers and underwear down his hips to pool around his ankles, turning them inside out as he wrestled with first one leg, and then the other, struggling to free himself of the damp fabric. He stripped off his socks, each one landing with a wet-sounding plop as he dropped them on the floor, and then straightened again to shrug off his vest and strip his shirt off over his head. Then, completely naked and suppressing a shiver, he began rooting around amongst the parcels, transferring a few items from one bag to another, to free one in which to carry his wet clothes. As he crouched and piled his dripping things into the empty bag, followed by the holster and then his blaster, he became aware that Leia was simply standing there, staring at him.
He rose to his full height, hefting the bag of wet clothes in one hand and rubbing the other hand absently across his bare abdomen. Leia's gaze flickered down the length of him and back up again, and then she smiled a slow, sultry smile.
"Like what you see, Princess?" he teased, the corner of his mouth quirking into a sideways grin.
Leia's dark eyes scanned his body again, this time with great deliberation. She bit her lip and raised one approving eyebrow. Though it had been little more than an hour since they'd collapsed in satiated bliss together, Han felt the familiar stirrings in his body in response to her frankly admiring gaze.
She gave a little nod of punctuation, as if making up her mind. "I like watching you strip," Leia told him, her warm voice pitched low and soft.
The candid comment and the matter-of-fact way in which she'd delivered it caught Han by surprise and made him catch his breath so sharply he almost choked. He found himself trying to cough and laugh at the same time, delighted by her revelation.
He knew Leia to be bold by nature, but so far in their relationship she had seldom been as forthright in the bedroom as she was in every other aspect of her life. Although Leia's sexual self-confidence had notably increased in the interim since their life-changing trip to Bespin, she still retained a degree of modesty about certain aspects of their intimate relationship, so hearing her make a declaration like that raised a warm flush to his skin. Seeing her dark eyes rake his body with such frank appreciation made Han feel as though his blood had caught fire, and sent a tingle of awareness and a swift rush of blood heading south.
He edged a little closer. "Is that so, Sweetheart?" he drawled in his deepest voice, conscious of Leia's eyes making another broad sweep up and down him as he moved. "Tell me what else you like."
Leia placed a hand on his chest, stalling his forward momentum again and giving him a playful smirk. "Tell you what, Hotshot. I'll put this stuff away while you fill the bath," she offered. "I'll join you in a few minutes and…," she paused, biting the inside of her cheek in a tiny tell that Han recognized, though he'd never let on to Leia that he knew what it meant; it was virtually the only sign she ever gave when she was a little nervous.
"You'll join me and…?" he prompted.
Leia's dark lashes fanned down for a moment then swept up as she met his gaze once more, a playful sparkle in her eyes. "I'll let you in on a few more secrets."
"Sweetheart," Han rumbled, already backpedaling away from her to head down the corridor towards their room and the fresher beyond. "You got yourself a deal."
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