A/N: Confession Part 1: My heart and head don't want to go back to the headspaces of angst and heartbreak for the time being. All other WIPs currently sit at those crossroads, so to allow myself the necessary time away to recuperate, I allowed myself to wander a different writing path.
Confession Part 2: I've teased long enough that there would be more adventure to follow here. Consider this a steamy little sneak peek (yes, that means there is even MORE after this) just in time for Valentine's Day. :P
As always, reviews are greatly appreciated.
Part II: Anakin Skywalker
Sometime later, Anakin's grumbling stomach pulls him from sleep. Drier than the desert sands, his throat itches for water adding to the chorus of bodily demands. Ignoring them, he stretches out of slumber's dwindling reach, wincing when his right arm pulses in protest, no doubt still taxed from his earlier exertions.
Awareness seeping in at his edges, Anakin turns his head to find Padmé peacefully asleep next to him. Lying on her side, her disheveled brown curls fall delicately over her exposed shoulder.
His angel.
His wife.
Smiling at the thought, Anakin rolls toward her, a seeking hand hoping to smooth over her soft skin. Before his flesh fingers can make contact, his right elbow twinges insistently beneath him, aggrieved by its sudden role supporting his supine weight. Grimacing at his arm's incessant shrieking, he sits up, tosses back the sheet, and summons his sleep pants from their haphazardly discarded spot to his non-aching hand.
As Anakin slips out of bed, Padmé mumbles at the mattress' movement, snuggling deeper into her pillow, her small hand coming to rest in the warmth he left behind. He smiles at her sleepy sigh, and tiptoes over the floor, stealing quickly from their bedroom so as not to disturb slumber's reign.
Varykino is completely quiet. Not an eerie quiet, Anakin thinks, wandering down the villa's hallway, but a calm quiet. Serene. The still, restful darkness seems reflective of his current mood, his mind for once completely content.
Chuckling at his wistfulness, Anakin pulls a hand through his short hair, remembering the events of the night and wondering how spending the evening doing the most un-Jedi like things with Padmé had centered him better than any sunrise meditation ever had.
Or likely ever would.
Probably not something to mention to Obi-Wan, Anakin thinks, walking past Artoo and Threepio standing guard just outside the kitchen. Just as instructed, C-3PO had indeed powered down for the night, but R2-D2 whirs, his dome swiveling to track Anakin's motion questioningly.
"It's okay, buddy. I just needed a drink."
Artoo chortles in response before settling into neutral, the slow on and off glow of a red light on his front paneling the only indicator of his continued low power status.
Smiling, Anakin places his metal hand lightly on Artoo's dome and leaves the little droid to his unofficial sentry duty.
Sensors automatically raise the overhead lights in the kitchen to a muted glow when Anakin makes his way to the conservator. Vexed by the weight of the conservator's door, his right arm throbs angrily in the background as he surveys the food before him. Anakin does his best to ignore its ongoing ache - he really doesn't want to take the blockers the healers prescribed- but when he tries to massage the meeting of flesh and metal, he hisses at the tenderness there.
"Need these?"
His head whips up, the conservator closing itself on an automatic function.
Scrutinizing him carefully, Padmé holds out a plastoid bottle in her small hand. She's dressed herself in his undertunic, the length of it falling tantalizingly to midthigh, her legs clearly bare beneath. As she moves past him, she presses the pill bottle into his palm before re-opening the conservator, her eyes skipping back and forth between its contents and him. The interior glow highlights her exquisite silhouette through the thin fabric. He can see the rest of her is bare as well.
Smiling at his gawking stare, she tilts her head, her tousled curls dancing around her face. Anakin reaches out to pull at one with his left hand.
"What?" she asks at his own goofy grin.
"You're beautiful," he says.
Still unused to his adoring compliments, Padmé ducks her gaze away. Anakin's stomach takes the opportunity to insert itself awkwardly between the nascent lovers.
"And you're hungry," she says, turning her attention back to the matter of food.
Padmé retrieves the bottle of wine that Threepio must have put away after finding it abandoned in the sitting room. The prepared charcuterie tray is there as well. She places both on the island, and grabs a sleeve of crackers from the pantry.
Setting the blockers onto the counter, Anakin eyes them warily as he uncorks the bottle and takes a direct swig.
Tracking his line of sight with her own, Padmé frowns. Removing the wine from his grasp, she replaces it with her own hand. "No one is going to think any less of you if you need them," she says gently.
"I don't think you're supposed to mix them with alcohol," Anakin replies. Despite this feeble protest, he uncaps the bottle and dumps two pills onto the marble surface.
"Oh? And since when do you follow rules?" Grinning, she arches her eyebrow wryly at his supposed good schoolboy charade. "Besides," she continues, walking around behind him and peppering his shoulders with deft kisses, her arms slipping comfortably around his waist. "I don't think any assassin would dare try anything with my Jedi husband sleeping right next to me."
Anakin wrinkles his nose at the novelty of her words, spinning in her arms so she can see his amusement. Padmé smiles up at him, and he shudders when he feels her press herself fully against him, reaching purposefully around him for the pills. Anakin loops his arms about her waist to keep her close. She lets him entrap her, but brings her fingers to his lips, waiting until he parts them so she can place the medication on his tongue.
"Take them," Padmé whispers into his ear, waggling the wine bottle at him when he tries to steal a kiss for himself.
Anakin does as she says and is rewarded with a quick peck on the cheek for his compliance.
They munch on cheese and crackers, working slowly on the wine as their nerves seem to escalate. Halfway through the bottle, Anakin's tongue loosens.
"How… um," he hesitates. "How was it…" His voice trails off, suddenly unsure. Swallowing a grape almost whole, he find some bravery. "... for you?"
"Oh, it was terrible," Padmé says, popping a cracker into her mouth.
Paling considerably, Anakin flounders, completely at a loss for words, until her mouth quirks into an impish smile and the serious expression she's trying to keep on her face cracks through with her hidden mirth.
"I think we're going to need a lot of practice."
Catching on, he narrows his eyes at her and pulls her to him.
"You're making me fun of me," he pouts.
"No, no, I'd be much too frightened to…"
Padmé doesn't get to finish parroting the old joke back to him. Her words die in a blended groan and sigh as he silences her with a kiss, spinning them around, his body effectively pinning her to the island. Anakin's hands slip from her waist to her thighs, his fingers bunching the loose hem of his shirt higher and higher. Laughing at his tickling touch, Padmé squirms a mock resistance in his embrace, but allows him to hoist her up onto the counter. Slowly, Anakin slides his hands from her bottom to the inside of her legs, parting her thighs and dropping to his knees in front of her. Innocent giggling abruptly ceases as shameless realization widens doe-brown eyes, though, she doesn't protest.
The first touch of his lips makes Padmé gasp. Her legs clench tightly together against the new sensations below, though Anakin is quicker catching the backs of her knees and smoothly drawing them aside again. Her eyes close against the onslaught of his mouth. Her breaths coming in short harsh pants, a whine escapes her when he slides a long finger inside.
Again, her legs try to clamp back together, when Anakin adds another and the stretch of it all becomes too much to bear, but something resists her.
Confused, Padmé looks down and confirms his right hand grasps her left calf while his left hand is otherwise still preoccupied, and yet, her legs are firmly held apart by...
Anakin's hard pressed to continue his endeavors as he sees understanding dawn on his wife.
"You cheater," she says. He's never heard her voice sound so beautiful – all throaty and breathy.
Fixing his expression into one of dopey innocence, Anakin releases her with an audible pop. He doesn't miss the way her eyes can't seem to tear themselves away from his mouth. When he deliberately rolls his lips inward, letting the bottom most drag languorously under his teeth, he isn't certain what's more tantalizing – the scandalized flush to her cheeks or the exquisite taste of her on his tongue.
Her brown eyes emblazon with abrupt boldness, before she reaches her hand down to gently but purposefully ensnare his left wrist. Entirely entranced, he stares back.
"Use your other hand."
His lower lip still serving him her delicious flavor falls away in stunned silence. When he doesn't move, Padmé pulls his left hand away, releasing his flesh wrist and reaching for his mechanical fingers. Gently but firmly, she pries his fingers from her knee and repositions his hand almost where she wants it.
Their eyes meet, and though he can read her intent clearly in her eyes, Anakin waits to hear the command in his head, expecting their ethereal connection to materialize as it had earlier in the evening.
He's left with silence.
Impatiently, Padmé growls and scoots herself closer to the counter's edge. The blistering heat of her teasing along his fingertips is almost his undoing. With his control slipping, Anakin sinks his metal fingers in.
He'll never get used to hearing the grateful moan she makes whenever he enters her, though it's fast becoming one of his favorite noises in the entire galaxy.
The tactile sensors in his finger pads working on a slight delay, his own groan of pleasure chases hers when they suddenly send the sensation of her silkiness surrounding him up the intricate network connecting inorganic wires and organic nerves. Anakin is glad he's kneeling because the heavenly feeling would have brought him to his knees.
With a thirst that no longer needs water to answer its call, he drinks her in, a push and pull cadence easily finding its way between the tips of his fingers and the tip of his tongue.
Padmé's body starts to fight harder against his Force grip the closer she gets. He relinquishes her captive hips a little, letting her undulate them in seeking rhythm with his fingers. Anakin's mouth asks her for more, and Padmé sobs an incoherent noise in response, throwing her head back, her loose curls cascading in a dark waterfall to brush along the countertop.
The telling quiver starts deep inside of her, the smallest vibrations barely detectible against his mechanical digits but there, spreading outward until her thighs tremble and her skin shakes. He still has much to learn, but already Anakin recognizes the desperate pinch to her brow, the silent plea underlining her panted sighs, the flickering moment as Padmé's whole body tenses, bracing for the ultimate unraveling he's about to unleash upon her.
Just before she shatters, the aurora of indigos and blues that constantly surrounds her coalesces into a color he's only had permission to see once before. Intrinsic to Padmé, the enchanting hue sings in the Force at the apex of her surrender then dissolves into vibrant violet relief.
Straightening so fast his own head rushes with his ascent, Anakin catches Padmé in her spine-curling, bone-melting free fall, stilling his fingers when her hand clasps his wrist in wordless request. He doesn't withdraw, letting her descend until she's soft and compliant around him. Knuckles still white from her relentless hold on the counter's marble edge, she raises her damp forehead from its home in the crook of his neck and smiles at him through her sated haze.
Anakin soaks in everything about the moment, a moment that will only ever belong to his eyes, will only ever belong to them.
Sliding off the counter, Padmé drapes herself about him, leaning unashamedly into his solid support. The excess hem of his undertunic modestly veils his fingers slipping out of her. The satisfied hum she makes morphs into a bereft sort of whine.
All too happy to indulge her again, Anakin starts to lift her back onto the island, but Padmé resists and shakes her head, planting an enticing and grateful kiss on his mouth. The woozy head rush nearly buckles his knees when she deliberately rolls her tongue over the sheen of herself now smeared on her own lips. Whatever Padmé sees on his face makes her lazy grin widen with sudden daring, and she draws him down to her with a subtle tug on his Padawan braid and an unmistakable slide of her free hand.
"Your turn," she whispers against his lips.
...