Her mouth went dry. She thought about backing away but a part of her, a part suddenly warm and wet and willing, wanted to see where he was going with this. He stretched out a hand, took her left nipple between his leather clad fingers and pinched it. She gasped in shock and then again in mild pain as he flicked at the same spot, her flesh bouncing away from his touch. She drew a shuddering breath, but he simply grabbed at her other breast, hard enough to leave a red handprint when he let go. She felt a rush of heat between her legs, put out a hand to touch him and he smacked it away.

'Keep still.' There was an authority in his tone that he didn't usually bother deploying with her, but her heart was racing so fast by now she decided to let him get away with it, just this once.

His fingers unhooked the catch on her trousers, tugged them down to the tops of her boots, trapping her legs. He simply stared at her nakedness without commenting, and a blush rose on her skin, her nipples hard with arousal. Straightening, he paced around her slowly and she felt his eyes on her all the way.

Then a hand on her back pushed her forward onto the table and she had to catch herself quickly on her elbows, as two hands, two gloved hands separated her thighs. She bit down on her lip, hard, seeing her reflection do the same thing in the shiny table top, and then his fingers were on that special spot between her legs, all leather and rubbing. The pleasure was so intense it burnt its way through her synapses, tightening muscles, shooting sparks behind her eyes. She struggled to breathe through it and then there was something else to concentrate on, his fingers entering her, lots of his mercifully ungloved fingers pushing inside her, testing, stretching, pulling back and rushing in again.

The wet noises her body made as he played it filled the room until the rustle of fabric replaced them, and she braced herself. She couldn't stretch her legs very far apart and when he made his determined entrance, the contact was so tight, the penetration so deep she felt every inch of him inside her, every thrust, every drive.

His fingers bit into the soft flesh of her hips, forcing her back onto his hardness and she thought she would come then, except that he snapped, 'Don't you dare.'

She couldn't see his face, only feel the control he had over her, riding her as forcefully as he wanted, the slap of his body against her when he rammed home, the emptiness when he pulled back. She closed her eyes and surrendered to it, her head down, breasts hitting the table, sweat on her back and fire between her legs.

He leaned over her, hissing in her ear, 'Come now, but don't make a sound.'

She stuffed her hand into her mouth as the orgasm wrenched its way out of her and she felt him come hard into her on a final stroke. He withdrew immediately, fumbled with his trousers and marched back to his bedroom without another word, slamming the door.

She collapsed onto the table, sticky wetness dribbling down her thighs, elbows scraped raw, her hair hanging loose.

'Don't think about it, if you don't want me to do it,' he advised in her mind. 'And don't flounce around my office without your underwear being beautiful and in control or you'll find yourself bent over the table a lot more often.'

'I'm not sure that was flattery.' She was out of breath, even in her mind.

'No, that was lust,' he repeated. 'It happens every time I look at you. If we spent any more time in each other's company, the majority of it would be me just taking your clothes off.'

'That doesn't sound too bad.'

'It would get tedious after a while, I'd imagine. You'd get bored.'

'So, you don't want to spend time with me because you think you're boring?'

There was a pause, long enough for her to stand up and start straightening the kinks out of her back.

'I don't do small talk,' he warned.

'You're managing well enough now.'

'I mean it, Rey. I don't do any of it. I'm Supreme Leader of the First Order, there's no time in that life for romantic trips or weddings or children or running away and setting up home together in the back end of nowhere where no one can find us. None of that is going to happen.'

She pulled up her trousers and refastened the tunic. 'Well, if all you're offering is sex and training, then I'm not going to stay. I don't want much, just a little of your time. Let's try it out, shall we? Give me a few minutes, and I'll come with you to whatever you're doing next.'

'You'd be bored. It's just a regular troop inspection - I turn up and make an example of a few of them. It improves their motivation.'

'Wait for me to get changed then. I can't go like this, or everyone will know what we've just been doing.'

'After yesterday, everyone knows, Rey. Everyone. Even the new cleaner was congratulating me this morning.' He reappeared from the bedroom, eyeing her critically, the post coital flush, the mussed hair, the buttons missing from her top. 'Besides, I think I prefer you like this,' he said out loud.

He was right though; his conversational skills were dreadful. As soon as they'd arrived in the drill hall, he disappeared off amongst the ranks of stormtroopers, berating one or the other for the state of their uniform, bringing a third to his knees coughing for some minor misdemeanour, being frightening in a low key, black suited, sinister kind of way.

He was right about something else as well, even though he'd said it as part of a lust-fuelled sex session. The relationship they had on their own was different to the one they had in company. She moved up and down the rows, complimenting a soldier on the shininess of his armour, listening to thoughts on the new duty rosters, and asking for opinions on the functionality of the replacement blasters on order.

Hux trailed her, a pale ginger shadow.

It was because Ben was different with her than he was with everyone else. With her, he'd already changed. With her, he'd been different since that night by the fire on Ahch-To, but here, here in the midst of the First Order, he was exactly who they'd always expected him to be. He couldn't be Ben here. He was trapped. That was why he clung to the mask, why he prized fear above loyalty, why the minute she was off the ship, he'd decimated the cadre of generals and lost all perspective in bringing the entire fleet to retrieve her. This was his identity – Kylo Ren, Supreme Leader, master of the dark side and Lord of the Sith, homicidal megalomaniac. He'd asked her to let the past die, but he simply couldn't manage it himself. He hung on to Kylo Ren no matter what she did, no matter how hard she tried to show him a different path or demonstrate how much she loved Ben Solo.

He was never going to change.

A stormtrooper flew through the air, hit a wall and collapsed onto the floor.

He was never going to change as long as he was here.

She allowed Hux to catch her up, saw him wince as another solider was elevated towards the ceiling. The General caught her eye and held it and a moment of understanding passed between them.

If he was never going to change as long as he was here, he'd have to leave.