"Daryc talyc laar," he murmured as she moved over him.

The softness of her body against his was the most exquisite torture.

"Walon," she called to him as she sank against him.

He couldn't draw a deep enough breath to stave off the insanity that coursed through him when he was inside her. His body felt like it could break, crumple into a million pieces, the force of his culmination was so incredible.

He lie there, gasping, with his hands still fisted in her hair and her shuddering exhalations burning against his neck. Would have paid any price to keep that second moon from setting when daylight meant he'd have no more excuses.

.

"Come back with me," he offered once he was armored up and all his gear had been catalogued and cartoned back up.

N'Dara was swinging on a suspended branch, one of the grove's babes on her lap. She sent a sad smile over her shoulder. Played with the sleepy toddler's fingers.

He cursed himself the fool the minute he let it slip past his lips.

"Kiss me goodbye," she said instead of arguing. She'd said her piece. More than she cared to repeat it.

"Will you be here if I comm you?"

She nodded. "Unless I get a better offer," she teased. Tried to make light of it. Her face went serious and she looked up at him again. "Walon… I just… can't."

He nodded. Grim-faced.

Swallowed his disappointment.

At least he'd not fekking proposed.

"If I head off-world or hear anything I'll message you."

So he agreed to that instead. "Same goes."

"You could just comm me, you know," she told him. "Just because."

That made him laugh. "Don't do anybody I wouldn't," he told her with a yank on her braid. When he offered his lips to her cheek the little beastie in her lap leaned up, pursed it's lips. The muzzle was soft and he loved the sound of pleasure the babe rumbled as it settled back against his girl.

"Try to avoid anything uncomfortable," the woman called as she watched her man shoulder his pack. Hers was beside it, a trunk of things she'd accumulated on their brief stop-over there, too.

Vau was frowning at her when he turned. "Avoid anything uncomfortable? What the kriff does that mean?"

She shrugged, an easy smile still on her lips. "Hangnails, pinching armor, blaster fire, opening your mouth and putting your foot in it, take your pick. I want you to avoid anything uncomfortable. And same goes with the troopers. You tell them I said so. If they can keep their heads in the game you can come back to me and whine about their little paucities to your heart's desire."

He shook his head and looked away. She felt the smile he was trying to hide and patted the youngster she held.

It was oddly reassuring. She might be crazy, but she gave a damn. And that, in and of itself, meant something.

.

He commed her from the shelter of a half-sunken shed in the pouring down rain.

"Miss me?"

"More than I can countenance," he drawled in that superior tone she hated.

"Find anything interesting?"

"As a matter of fact… want some work?"

"You're going to hire me?"

"Oh, darling, you know I've made that offer before. Come earn a laundry'resher worthy of sullying my sheets."

N'Dara couldn't help but be intrigued. "What are you driving at?"

"I'm after some sun and some sea and some wind and some cred. Feel like a game?"

"Always. Where?"

"Why, beautiful Manaan, of course. Where else for the best gal, ori'skraan, riduur, yaim'dab'ika?"

"I don't know what that is. But Ahto is a dump."

"I thought you liked a city with an underbelly."

"Underbelly, yes. That place is built on top of a giant sea-rift. One wrong wave and it goes crashing down. There are better places to find a game if you're looking to get drunk and deal, Walon."

"Ahhh. But there, love, is the crux of my problem. Because Ahto is exactly where the man I'm looking for deals his cards."

"Fine. I'll meet you there. Play your cafarel. But then I want to go somewhere legitimately nice."

"Don't pack a dress. I want you playing my bodyguard, not my body-for-hire."

He watched her lips turn up at that. Snapped his gum in pleasure at the idea of having her under him. And, if she was posing as his guard she'd be in a position to take orders from him without argument or opinion offered.

.

Except he knew her better.

"Now, now, cyar'ika, don't argue with Daddy in front of the nice bad man."

"False pretenses, Walon," she countered. "You got me into this now you're going to have to watch how I deal with it."

He made a show of baring his hands to the man at the table after tucking his blaster away.

"Oh, wellll… you heard the lady…"

"What?"

She gestured with the laser sword she'd had strapped to her thigh when he met her. Not that he was objecting. For today's little show-and-tell-it she'd added custom weaponry from nine different worlds. Star-slicers clinked together softly as she'd stalked down the hall on heeled boots. Not a man with a pulse left in his body could have ignored the sway of her ass in those form-fitting leggings of brown tanned skin. His daryc love-laar indeed.

A pair of Nimbanels who'd gotten in her way.

That's what she'd said when he'd taken her hand, twirled her, and admired the fit of said trousers. Asked her where she'd found them.

A pair of Nimbanels who'd gotten in her way.

So. Did that mean she taken them off of the big-brained reptilian sentients? Or taken the skin off of them? Either way, the end result was spectacular. Especially as she leaned over the table to which the man was strapped.

.

N'Dara chewed on her lip, pleasure on her face when she cut her eyes over at Vau.

"Do you know the history of these gaming tables?" she asked him.

"Enlighten us both, darling girl."

"Well." She trailed a knife over the felted suede, leaving the faintest of lines in it. Paced back the way she'd come. With each point she made the knife kissed the surface with a tiny nick in the weave.

"You can deal cards anywhere. But professionals decided a long time ago that some surfaces mar the edges of the deck more quickly. Not a big problem, but if you played enough, if you dealt enough and then shuffled and paid attention, you'd notice the wear from the game start along the long and the bottom corners. Everybody has their own deck. Likes the feel of their own things under their hands." Dara looked up at him from under those long, dark lashes. "Isn't that so, Daddy?"

Enacca hummed a deep and amused little sound behind him.

"I know I do."

"We pick what feels good. Each deck is hand-painted. Worth protecting. Luck of the draw, luck of the deal… sometimes it gets to where you can actually feel which card is in your hands before you flip it. Play enough solo and your eyes learn the marks… what rough edges each muse has, how the hearts get a little ragged. Where the points on the diamond are."

She drew the diamond shape between the man's first and second fingers.

"So no good. Your friends don't trust you because maybe you know your deck. You can't trust them, they know their own. But-" She wrinkled her nose like the next was the most despicable part. "Maybe you slide a card out of the deck here and there. Maybe you want that Solar, that Red Mage. Might need it for your trump card. But… if it doesn't get played in with the deck enough… now it doesn't fit in, yeah?"

"I follow."

The man in front of her gulped. His necktie was stuffed down his throat.

She'd been the one to force it in so hard he gagged.

Of course, when she'd come into the room he'd decided she was pay-to-play and when she wouldn't he busted up a suite maid and laid into her pretty good. The girl had been offered a cash-advance and the first shot at the shabluir's gett'se. Punched pretty good. Was probably halfway to Doruuma by now.

Generous employers and bonuses and all.

"So they needed a way to even the field. The good stuff, not only is it soft, it's clear. The good places, maybe they frame it out in an exotic fruit-oak or vshevia or something, but the fibers are worked so carefully and woven so thinly you can see through them. Just when you dye them, they take on this rich feel."

She hopped up on the edge of the table facing Vau. Beckoned with one finger.

The She-Wook behind him moved around to stand in front of the blue-haired devil.

"You look so pretty tonight, En," Darrie cooed. The muted yowl confirmed the Wookie's estimation of herself. Mird lashed it's tail in pleasure at the sound. The woman's words were barely audible when N'Dara leaned forward to speak in the Wookie's ear. "Let's take apart a couple tables. See what we find."

The proprietor looked decidedly worried as the two women made to leave the room.

"Are you after abandoning him, then? After he burned his fingers on you?" Vau querried.

"I imagine you know exactly what I'd like to do with his fingers," she told him coldly.

And flipped the damn table cover. A yank of a single thread had it bunching, pulling, and coiling.

The man let out a high-pitched scream when it closed up around his fingers and she walked behind him, cutting off the circulation of each of the digits.

"Hard to make a living skinning people when you can't feel your marks. Hard to hurt a girl when you can't lift a finger, much less make a fist."

"You make your point," Vau agreed.

He nodded. Jerked his head toward the door. "I'd like a moment of the director's time before we go downstairs, loves."

She smiled sadly at him. Enn patted his cheek.

Vau grinned coldly at the man when they'd secured the door. The transparisteel window showed the pair in very believable poses… alert and hands on weapons, feet braced.

"Good looking team, eh?"

The bound man was quick to agree. A mite too quick to Vau's tastes.

"Let's say we release this here, so you and I can chat, yes?" He jerked the gag from his throat. Watched the spittle and snot spray the mangled table covering in front of him. "Shall I loose one of these as well, just as a show of intent?"

The man nodded eagerly. Started to say something. His voice changed to a high-pitched wail as Vau cut the first digit free.

Of course, it was from his hand, not the tight binding, so there might have been a miscommunication.

"Mirdalon!" he called.

Flipped the offending thumb to the strill, who crunched it noisily.

"I want to know where you're getting some of your display pieces, ner vod. And I want to know now…"

Thirty minutes later he emerged from the room still wiping his hands.

The sobbing had ceased long minutes before. A glance from the doorway had Enacca grunting.

"Let him bleed out," Vau hissed. "Even if he gets medical right now he won't be causing anyone else any grief."

The woman with them just arched a deep blue brow. He liked the gold and brown she'd done on her eyes. Thick lines of kohl circled them and the lashes were darker, longer, more extravagant.

"I want nothing more than to see you in a bathing dress- - or less- - with nothing to think about or worry over for days and days and days."

She smiled sorrowfully at him. "I'm sorry you got dragged into this lifestyle," she told him. "I wish everyone waging wars was as honorable as you."

He'd just scrubbed the blood of a dying man from beneath his nails. His guilt wrecked the expression on his face.

"Some of them won't understand what's going on. The simpler clones- - the Centax-bred ones? They're good, smart, gifted lads. But they're not the same as the Kamino clones."

"We'll give them the option."

Enacca's sounding was affirmation. She threw her head back.

"Hey, is it okay if I give somebody a head's up about some of this?"

"Daveed?" Vau snarled.

She rolled her eyes at him. "Daveed doesn't- - Walon Vau. Are you jealous? Why the hell would you leap to Daveed? RIS could give a good holy rip about small arms? That's SSIF territory."

He had to laugh at the incredulity on her face. Yanked her forward.

"Make me sane again," he begged her. Tipped her head back forcefully and fused his mouth to hers.

The kiss was briefer than he'd intended as her laugh bubbled up.

Enacca, not to be out done, demanded his attention. He made both women howl by sweeping her backwards, bending her over his arm, and smacking a noisy kiss to the lips that curled in her snout. Mirdalon thrashed his tail and lent his own voice to the merrymaking.

"Move out," he ordered, setting his friend upright again. They flanked him as he strode purposefully down the corridor and punched a secure code into the tubolift's pad. N'Dara tried not to think about it when he pulled an item wrapped in his handkerchief from his pocket and held it up for a scan.

She couldn't help but shake her head when he tossed it to the strill, who ate it with relish and licked its beautiful lips, already drooling for more.

Vau crossed his arms.

"We might have needed that."

"Nah. I ordered the yacht up topside for servicing. Rundyyyshk is probably getting ready to slot some droids."

"What if there's surveillance?"

Enacca nodded and gurgled her agreement with that concern.

"If you were that kind of fekking predator would you want your employees to see you having to strong-arm women in here? Or getting shot down by private guests? Or make any wardrobe adjustments if you were playing with a loaded deck?"

He gestured to a small slot near the control screen. "I'll bet you every cred you paid for those daryc pel'gam that leads to the incinerator."

She looked interested.

"What's a Dare-eeeshhh pey-ull gay-um?"

He shivered. He honestly shivered at her pronunciations. There was a tick starting behind his ear, high in his cheek, and he couldn't control it.

It made his teeth hurt.

"Maybe I'm premature in encouraging you to relocate to Mandalore," he admitted.

Enacca growled and huffed. Her eyes flashed in her skull.

"Accent needs work," he agreed quietly. His curiosity got the best of him.

He'd have lost the bet to fund a new pair of tanned-flesh pants. A tumble of cards, scribbles on flimsy, and key cards came out in his hands when he prised open the false facing in the compu-console.

"Okay. So he's still an ass. Just not as smart an operator as you gave him credit for…"

He grinned over his shoulder. Started ordering the items and tucked them in the inside pocket of his suitcoat.

She thought the chocolate brown button down he'd paired with a shiny umber-colored coat flattered him immensely. Somehow even without a tie he outclassed every starched shirt in the casino. She laughed when he shuffled the 'deck' he accumulated with grand motions as they exited the lift.

"I think I'd still have cams in the corridors," she told him, reflecting on their earlier conversation as he amused himself with the exorbitant trickery. "Where did you even learn that?"

"If you killed a guy slowly would you kiss your bodyguards, laugh, and dance? Or would you put your head down and get out of there?"

"Head down, take out the comms, quick exit."

Vau turned to walk backwards, fanning the cards toward Enn.

"Tower?" he guessed.

She made a face at him. Most of the cards he'd pulled from the stockpile were the high card.

Flipped it so he could see it and tossed it behind her.

He laughed and winked at her. The cam in the corner beside the canteen would have caught it, he was sure. He offered the same flourish to Dara.

"I'm on to your ways, sweet cheeks," she told him. "You have to guess suit, too."

He split the deck, offered her the top to replace her card, then shuffled broadly. She was going to learn that trick. How was it possible to have them suspended mid-air like that without use of the force?

"Me'suum'ika."

"I don't know what that means," she complained.

He handed her the card she'd chosen back. Handed it to her when he'd turned to face front again, pulling it from his back hip pocket.

"Walon Vau! Are you a card shark?"

"I spent more than a decade on an island with no entertainments and no one so sweet as you for distraction, Lippy. Plus I'm lifetime military. Yeah. I'm good with a deck of cards." He winked over his shoulder at Enacca. "Good with my hands, too, I hear."

She reached forward like she'd smack his ass. Grabbed at his cards instead and flung them out sideways. Pinned three in rapid succession with selections from the small kad collection at her belt.

"I'm pretty good myself, there, boyfriend."

"I stand corrected."

The Wookie had something to say about that. She always did.

Looked sharp as hell, though. He liked her in the oversized armor pieces. Sharp bronze against her dark fur- - the katarn epaulets and gauntlet bands, double breast plates, angled belts that were his and dangled with his matched Mer Sonns, and the heavy-duty knee pads that extended halfway up her muscular thighs.

.

"It's a damn shame I could get Enn fitted by a goran before I could talk you into something worthwhile," he told N'Dara after he'd stripped her and reminded her that his hands weren't just good with a card set.

He thought he'd felt better getting back into his beskar'gam. Washed and armored he was himself as he expected when he met his own eyes in the mirror. It was comfortable, being Mandalorian. Soothed him. Turned out there was some room for improvement. Nobody would blame him for sealing the hatch when she swung those long legs over his and slid onto his lap.

He doubted he'd ever shed and dropped his besbe faster.

"Why don't you come with me? We can upgrade some of your gear. And the more people working on a problem… you'd have access to superior tech."

"Maybe I'll ride out with Enacca sometime. You told her she should bring Havyyyk and Pashyyr to come see Etain's baby."

"Do you remember her?"

"Vau… I'd have been long gone before the younger ones you know would have been a blip on my radar."

He nodded. Let out a long breath. "You'd be a welcome part of the contingent out there. The boys all like you."

"Better than they like you," she teased.

He lifted his face skyward. "Everybody likes you better than they like me. It's my cross to bear—the only man on this planet who sees you for the brat you are."

She beamed softly at him.