Worthy
In their rush to get behind solid duracrete walls-where no Wookiee or droid could hear them-they managed to hit the hatch-frame with a dull thwack. Han wasn't sure who would wind up with the bruise, and frankly at this point he didn't care.
Their movements were hurried and ravenous; so close to feral that he felt like they weren't so much kissing as devouring each other whole.
Leia.
He didn't know what was happening. He didn't understand the genesis of it, didn't understand the scope or breadth of what she wanted from him tonight. This was some tangled and potentially dangerous shit.
He didn't know what to do about that.
On one hand, he was desperate for her. He always was. There didn't seem to be a limit to the amount of time and attention he was willing to pay the princess, because she was goddamn near everything to him. The past few weeks had been torture, like he had been in a slugging match against a thick sheet of durasteel; he had pushed her away so far that they might as well have been on different planets. Nothing he had done or hadn't done had brought any relief from the dimness around him.
No Leia, no light. He'd been a quick study with math back in the academy, and it wasn't a complicated equation. You take the sun out of a star system and everything else falls apart.
But it was even worse than that. He hadn't been right in the head. Probably still wasn't. There was no denying his culpability, or how awful he had acted, or how much he didn't deserve her forgiveness. He had hurt her badly, and that was the one thing he had promised her he wouldn't ever do. And so every step down the corridor had been its own brand of torture, some careful recipe of pain that hit him sideways. The more he tried to ignore it, the more he hurt.
But then she would kiss him again and nothing else mattered.
The hatch slid closed behind him, and he had his hands beneath her shirt and around her waist, skin warm and soft against calloused fingers that shook like naarpas. And her hands were in his hair, pulling him close. And he had nothing in his head except what the fuck, what the fuck-?
He wanted her so badly that it hurt, like a punch to the gut. He felt drunk, like reality had slipped out of his hands and he was just holding onto whatever sense he had. Which, in this case, was mostly about not causing bruises where his hand desperately wanted to pull her closer to him than the laws of physics allowed.
"Hang on," he said against her lips, a triumph of self-control if he'd ever seen one.
She pulled back just far enough to see him clearly. It was nearly pitch-black in his cabin, because they hadn't thought to turn on the lights and all that was left was the eerie blue glow from the emergency deck lighting, leaving dark, boxy shadows on the hulls. Cold air blew through the small distance they had crossed between the hatch and the bunk, and they were both breathing hard into the stillness.
The ambiance wasn't ideal, and neither was what he was about to say, and he hated both. It would be so easy to just let things go the way they were going. He wouldn't be at fault, and she was clearly willing. But he also felt the brand of red-hot guilt under his shirt, marking him as unworthy.
Unworthy. He almost laughed, shaky and panting. There isn't a damn thing in this galaxy you could do that would make you worthy of Leia.
Leia, whose eyes looked black in the unhelpful light and whose lips pursed in confusion. Devastating there in front of him, flushed and swollen and sinfully beautiful even in all her disarray.
"This is going fast," he said, rushing to get the words out. "Are you sure you want this?"
Fuck. It would kill him if she said no. He was hard, absolutely raging with the taste of her tongue on his lips and the warmth of her body against his hands. Things hadn't happened for him since Ord Mantell, and it probably hadn't helped the situation at all. Sex calmed him down like it did for most beings, bringing lucidity when it was good and consensual and fun. But he'd fucked things up with Leia and there was no remedy for that particular withdrawal.
Felt weird to compare intimacy with Leia as an addiction, but whatever. It didn't quite fit, but they did, and the loss of that connection had haunted him.
So he was beyond ready. Embarrassingly ready, if he had been a man prone to embarrassment. Every nerve was firing, every blood vessel was pounding. His heart felt like it might beat out of his chest.
But it was up to her. And she looked like she was three seconds away from killing him.
"I wouldn't be here if I wasn't sure."
Well, that was nice. But her words also reeked of desperation, and they had seen precisely how well desperation had worked for them in the past.
"You wouldn't even sleep in here last week."
Was that surprise in her eyes? Like he hadn't been paying attention to what she had said and did every time he was anywhere in her vicinity?
C'mon, Leia, give me a little credit, here.
"Hmm," she agreed, looking up at him with all that preternatural confidence of hers. "I couldn't, you're right."
He could smell her shampoo and it was doing things to his brain. What had he been saying?
"I just don't want you to jump into bed with me just because I said I would stay. You could think about it, if you needed to, you know..."
He was being sincere, honestly. Cross his heart. He hadn't meant to make a joke or to make light of it. And yet the next sound after his awkward, lingering trail of words was Leia's sharp laughter, ricocheting off the hulls like blaster-bolts. He frowned, confused, and it almost seemed to set her off more.
"Jump into bed with you?" she choked out the words. "We're talking in synonyms now?"
"I just-"
She snickered in a decidedly un-princesslike manner. "Is it Corellian? This phrase of yours?"
"-fucking honest here and you're making cute little jokes-"
"And when have I ever jumped into bed with you?" she asked. "I am far too sophisticated for such vulgar seductions."
Oh, this. The haughty increase in the length of her words. The prodigiousness, the biting acumen. Why was this somehow working in her favor? How was it pissing him off and turning him on at the exact same fucking time?
Narrowing his eyes, he shot back: "On Home One, in the supply closet. You remember the time."
Not a question. She remembered. It had been hard and fast and she had come twice.
"That doesn't count, Han, and you know it-"
"You jumped," he interrupted.
She scoffed. "I did no such thing. I would never."
"You did. And doing that now isn't gonna help us here."
The humor in the quarters died as surely as a stormtrooper failed at target practice. He hated that he had to break the spell-damn it, nothing was better than verbal foreplay with her, and they'd perfected the art-but he couldn't let any ambiguity exist between them. He might be toeing the line a little too well, based on her obvious frustration with him, but he had a lot to make up for. Outside of the heat of the moment, she would definitely agree that he had to be clear about any expectations they did or did not have.
He was repaving the foundations. Any cracks would not be tolerated.
In the dim light, he could see the swift downturn of those perfect lips, and he knew she was about to tear him apart. Again.
"If anyone is the jumper, it is you," she retorted. "And the entire reason we haven't been doing any jumping at all is because you made an idiotic decision to leave. If you aren't leaving anymore, I see no reason why we can't … jump."
She was giving him those half-angry bedroom eyes and he was about twenty seconds from just pushing her against the hull in full agreement. But he had one more thing to clear up before he would feel comfortable pursuing any kind of sex with her.
"There's no way you can just forget that, though, sweetheart. I know how you operate."
Knew the trust she had placed in him, the preciousness of her faith. Knew how he had stomped all over that faith. Her brain was like some kind of organized data storage facility: she kept everything tightly sealed and carefully preserved until the opportune moment. And he had no business being here with her if some part of that facility included resentment or distrust in him. He wasn't going to play that game with her. It wasn't worth it.
Quiet, she looked up at him. The fire was gone, and whatever obstinate command she had been about to issue had disappeared. What was left was a kind of calculation, a list of pros and cons. There were always lists, mountains of evidence she collected like the Alliance collected sad, lost people.
"I don't plan on forgetting," she murmured at last. "But we've talked about it and I've forgiven you, and that's enough for me. You are enough for me."
His chest felt too small for his heart. He hadn't realized how much he had needed to hear that. Unworthy? She was telling him the opposite now, and was that enough to combat that ugly voice?
No.
But it was a start.
"You aren't perfect, Han, but I know what I want. Who I want. And I know more about the demons he brings with him than you are probably comfortable with me knowing."
He frowned at that, but she continued before he could ask about it.
"So we move forward, Unless there's something else I need to know?"
"Like what?" he asked, perplexed.
At this point, he was sold. Hanging off every word she spoke, like a damned genuflector. She could have told him to walk out the airlock and he might have agreed. He was all in.
"I don't know. You're the one being conscientious, not me."
What a statement that was. What the hell was happening?
"You're out of your fucking mind," he murmured, while he slipped his hands around her waist, tugging her into his chest.
She looked up at him and nodded. "Oh, definitely. And I'm not convinced you ever had one to begin with."
And that was that. He kissed her with a brutal sense of lost time, the indefatigable loss disregarded like so much trash. Pulling her tightly to his body, he reveled in her softness, the power that lay beneath, and the rising urgency in her movements. He knew her so well, knew exactly how she felt, and had the distinct knowledge that they were on the same page for the first time in weeks.
His heart stuttered into a quicker rhythm, tripping all over itself in its haste, when she began to walk backward toward the bunk with sure, knowing steps. When she sat, he kneeled, not done with her lips. Slipping between her knees, hands tangled up in what was left of her braid, he felt dizzy with want. And then she fell backwards against the mattress and he was in such a rush to cover her body with his that he hit his head against the side hull that lined the far side of the bunk.
"Han," she whispered as he nipped at her throat, and at first he thought it was one of those breathless Hans he liked so much. The kind she made when he put his mouth to the only good use it had, kissing up the soft line of her thigh, spreading her open with his fingers, pressing his tongue against her as she bucked her hips so much that he had to press his palm against her the warm space between her hip bones to keep his lips where they obviously needed to be.
But no. Fantasy time was over. And it was a challenge she was after, not empty seduction.
Fine, then.
"Leia," he mimicked her tone.
"A concussion is not going to help either of us."
Gods, he loved her. Everything about her, really, but specifically that dry humor of hers. He hummed and moved to the shell of her ear, flicking just enough to elicit a warm exhale against his shoulder.
"If you're still talking," he rumbled, "then I'm not doing my job right, am I?"
She moaned when he bit the lobe of her ear, and he had to hide his grin against her throat. Predictable. Utterly predictable.
"Am I, Worship?" he repeated, stoking the flames with casual insouciance.
"You're stalling."
"Oh?" he said, catching her eyes with farfetched innocence that neither of them had any experience with anymore.
He pushed his hand under her shirt at lightspeed, brushing over her breast at the same time as his tongue swept the shell of her ear. He was gratified by the soft arch of her back, one long line of beautiful skin. He doubled down on the effort, enjoying how quickly she responded, how predictably he could affect the woman who was always in control.
A heady feeling, that. No one else could move Leia Organa a centim, the epitome of staunchness, intelligence and stubbornness.
Except for him.
And with a small smile, he realized how true that was in reverse, too. Fuck. They really were destined to destroy each other. Who the hell needed an empire?
Enough of that talk. He had a job to do.
Her clothes were ripped off her in record time, littering the deck around the bunk like flying embers around an open fire. And that was what they were, fire and heat, as he kissed the skin he had missed so desperately. Whatever plans he might have had about taking their time or making this last were quickly dashed by the long, smooth length of her leg as it slipped over the blanket beneath them.
The image was so powerful that he stopped. A simple thing, rendering him motionless. Her thigh in the darkness, his hand there, indecently high. He watched his tanned palm brush over the outside of her leg, looking for all the world like the pearl for which she was nicknamed. And he could clench his fingers and watch that skin warp into wrinkles and then back to smoothness, as he pulled her knee around his hips and felt the heat and evidence of her ready acceptance of him.
"Are you stuck?"
He looked up at her. How beautiful she was, naked as the day she was born, hair a tragedy on the flatter pillow she preferred over his fuller one-the one he had held to his nose, ravenous for just the smallest hint of connection to what he had lost-and couldn't find the words.
Stuck? Yeah. And overstimulated. And nervous and happy and also feeling like a complete asshole.
"Blue," she murmured, and he didn't know what that meant, but he swallowed and slipped his lips up the valley of her torso.
It was almost too dark to see her features clearly, but her eyes were fucking enormous, and so he focused on those. Her ribcage expanded against his and he wasn't entirely sure when he had undressed himself but the cradle of her hips rested at his bare lower abdomen and he could feel the skin of her legs against his calves. He let that knowledge sink in as he watched her, waiting for some clarification.
But none came. Instead she ran a hand through his hair, kissed him softly, and then whispered one low word into his lips. Please.
Digging his knees into the bunk beneath her, he held her waist in one hand while he found himself in the other. With one very quick movement, he was inside her and holy fuck, he thought he might pass out from the sheer bliss of it. How warm she was, how much he had missed this, and her, and feeling like any kind of worthwhile human being at all.
His name was on her lips and her leg wrapped around him at the same time that her hand grabbed at his back, and this was going to be quick and momentous and there was nothing he could do to change their trajectory. It was a lock, a straight shot into the sun, and he didn't a single fuck about it as long as she came with him.
The air was cold on the sweat on his back but it was nothing compared to the sensation of being inside of her again. And she gasped as he thrusted, slow but sharp, feeling heat swallow him whole. They moved in rhythms that were well-rehearsed but slightly unhinged, every small jerk reciprocated by the other, a private choreography they had perfected and yet somehow still surprised him. This was unlike anything else he had ever experienced with her, one thin line of reality holding him in place as the string strummed as if plucked.
And he thought about nothing, no simmering self-hatred, no lurking aloneness, nothing like the past weeks. Simply enjoying the moment with her, not a lurid fantasy but the absolute truth of her body and her murmured encouragement and the sweat on her chest that he brushed away with shaky fingers that burned for her.
This position left them separated in some crucial ways, namely that he was too tall to kiss her like he wanted to. He was simply too tall. But when he tried to reposition them, leaning to the side to roll onto his back, she resisted, looping her hand under his shoulder and digging in with nails that would leave marks tomorrow.
"Stay," she whispered, kissing his sternum just above his heart.
Well, who was he to argue with her? He quickened his strokes, sensing the rush in them both, knowing hard and fast was exactly what she was after, too. And she was breathing loudly, and his thrusts were coming apart, arrhythmic, a senseless abandonment to whatever power it was that allowed this utterly aberrancy to exist in a universe of pain and death. Nothing felt like this.
Nothing.
He was talking. He didn't know what he said, trusting her to find meaning in the muffled truth that fell out of his mouth as he felt the line tighten. Some of it was in Corellian, some of it Basic, but he didn't care. She understood. She made that low sound in her throat, the one he recognized as impending release, and flew through three more hard, fast movements before he came.
Absolute, uninterrupted pleasure.
He flew through it, shaking, thoughtless and completely free. And it was such a relief, so good, that he tried to hold onto the feeling as long as he could, savoring it for some day of reckoning when it would end, as all things eventually did. But then Leia slid her hand down his arm, buckling his elbow, and gripping his wrist as he collapsed, spent.
"I'm here."
A knot released, some small, impossible thing, and he felt the rest of his breath leave him in a gush.
And he decided he didn't care why, or how, she had known what to say at that moment. He slid out of her warmth and settled more comfortably face-to-face with her, on their sides. Her smile was gentle and her face was flushed, the vestiges of her orgasm so readily apparent to him that he grinned in self-satisfaction. And then he saw her tears.
"No," he whispered, horror already on his lips, his hand raking through the cascade of hair on the side of her head. "Oh, baby, no-"
Shaking her head, she was quick to correct him. "I'm okay," she said, breathless.
"You're not okay if you're fucking crying."
He was horrified. It had been so good, so complete a reunion that he must have ignored something. He racked his brain, trying to remember a single moment where he hadn't been in complete control, despite the animalistic need that had swept over them both.
"No. I just …. I missed you."
He swallowed and the guilt prowled at the periphery, but he fought against it. With a shaky hand, he ran his fingers over the soft lines of her cheek, over the wellsprings of tears, and stopped at the fullness of her lips, helpless against her.
"I love you more than anything. You know that?"
Such a bold statement, after what he'd done. But he needed her to know, needed her to understand that at the root of it all was his need to keep her safe, at the expense of all sanity. And he'd learned the hard way what vulnerability actually was and what it was worth, and that there was a certain amount of uncertainty to come with feeling that way.
But that was okay. He trusted her.
She had a watery smile, bright eyes, and a voice that was too confident for a moment like this when he felt like he might shatter into a million pieces. But then she spoke, and he knew exactly why she felt that way,
"I know," she said, and kissed him.
Author's Note: And there we are. Thank you for your faith. I hope you find this worth the anger and frustration and sadness. We start now on a more solid foundation, and I think that makes us all happier, considering what is upcoming at Bespin.
The next chapter of Specter will be posted on Tuesday, February 1st. Happy New Year, my dear friends, and thank you! -KR
