AN:

Ivy – She'll come around soon enough

Guest – Thank youu! So glad you like it!

Thesgttoppinggt401 – here you go!

Devil-May-Care

Loving you isn't really something I should do

Shouldn't wanna spend my time with you

I should try to be strong

But baby, you're the right kind of wrong

"Hi."

Anakin stood at her door, hands in pockets, ready to bargain. An ingenuity to be reckoned with.

"Hey," Padme's voice was always sweet-sounding even when there was friction. Unlike his, which rarely showed abatement of severity.

"How'd you sleep?" He spoke naturally, and the informality of his mannerisms were quite contagious.

"Fine. You?"

She watched him shift backwards, a virtual shrug before he presented her with his spirited taunt of words.

"Could've been better."

She kept her lips sealed, letting the bruises of his ego go by untouched and unchanged. It wasn't her job to nurse them.

He could not erode her zest for a new day. But he did notice her sidestepping the residue of last night; some sparks cannot be diminished; they latch onto your subconscious. And through perhaps an act of compassion, he eased her mind and took her away from the deep silence. "I got a surprise for you."

"What?"

"I'll have to show you." His eyes smiled even though his mouth didn't alter from its small movements. "It's quite a trip so. . .pack a bathing suit."

"No..." She gasped, almost in disbelief. "Is it what I think it is?"

"You said you miss home. It's the next best thing."

Her rounded mouth morphed into the grin of a Cheshire cat. "You're going to tolerate the beach and the sand for me...?"

His eyes crinkled at the sides with a street-smarts, a seasoned awareness, with the capacity to enjoy some self-deprecating humour. Some take their hardship as a qualification to pass wisdom, or to be branded interesting, but Anakin turned his into a funny anecdote. "Endure is more of the word I'd use."

Her dulcet tones had a tinge of coquettishness. "You're gonna love it, Ani!"

He looked doubtful. "Truthfully, if I had to pick one of your hobbies, I'd have gone with the bubble bath but. . .like I said, next best thing."

Anakin and Padme drove to the next town and parked his truck on a glorious white sandy beach. They took off their clothes and left them in the car. And with just their bathing suits and such radiance and vehemence, ran down to the water. The heat from the run made the eventual dip in the water pay off.

They swam out to the deeper parts of the ocean, creating rhythmic motions with every stroke of their arms and every kick of their feet. The sun had coated the deep blue colour of the water with turquoise highlights, which were propelled into white billowing waves by the wind. With shining eyes, they smiled at each other. With mobile arms, they stayed afloat.

Anakin ducked his head underwater to cool off. And watching him was quite breathtaking – the water dripping down his virile chest made him look like art, intriguing, miraculous, ferociously attractive. She couldn't keep her eyes off him and found that almost every time she looked at him she would be met with two contrasting spurs – the weakening of the knees and the frustrations of the mind. The order and disorder coming together to baffle her and arouse her simultaneously. For the first time, she was okay with a little uncoordination in her thoughts.

He swam to her. And the frustrations of the mind melted away. His smirk made her smirk.

"Admit it. You're enjoying this." She cooed as every stroke of his arms in the water were done with a carefree catharsis.

"It's not the beach I enjoy, it's the wet, half naked girl in a bikini." He winked.

She shook her head but with the face of someone reveling in enthusiasm. "Anything to get me out of my clothes."

"What can I say, I'm a simple man."

She splashed him after he spoke, to reprimand, joke, to deny the swept-off-her-feet sensation she felt around him. He splashed her back. And in her final attempt to shove another wave his way, he caught her hand. Giggling, childlike, frivolous, she tried to break free and when that failed, she tried to bury his head underwater. In retaliation, he pushed her head under, of course, winning the battle, but she didn't mind being defeated by strong hands. They swam deftly under the water. She came up to the surface before him and watched him pass under her, through her legs, and he gracefully placed his hands on her waist to pull himself back up — his head inches away from her body as she watches him rise up to meet her at eye level.

It felt natural, like a reflex to wrap her legs around his waist once both of their heads were above water. His arms wrapped around her lower back. She could feel him stiffen in his swim shorts but his hands remained politely around the small of her back, never lowering. They floated together as one with ease, with laughter, with dazzling smiles. Their glistening skin perfectly outlined in the clear blue horizontal openness.

Their lips are close to touching and she didn't think too much about it or consider pulling away. She supposed timing is everything.

But Anakin pulls back and his eyes search beside her head.

"Okay we gotta go." He informed. Facetiously. With mild dismay, recognizing his minor misdemeanor. She turned to inspect what he was looking at, and she saw a scorned security guard dashing towards them from afar.

"Now!" Anakin rushed, grabbing her hand and quickly swimming back to the shore before she could ask for an explanation.

They jumped into his truck and Anakin took off with great speed. She caught the sight of the angry security guard in the rearview mirror, yelling indecipherable words but she didn't need two guesses to figure out that his language was quite colourful – to say the least.

"What was that?!" She called out as she threw her violet sundress on over her bikini.

"Yeah, see. This beach belongs to a compound." Anakin declared with the most illusive innocence. "We don't live in that compound so..."

The look on Padme's face was one of a mother about to scold. Of all the beaches in this town, he just had to pick the one he wanted, whether he was welcome or not. "Have I told you lately that you're insane?"

He grinned. "You gotta admit, it adds a bit of a buzz to the day."

Know all about, about your reputation

And now it's bound to be a heartbreak situation

But I can't help it if I'm helpless

Every time that I'm where you are

They say you're something I should do without

They don't know what goes on when the lights go out

There's no way to explain

All the pleasure is worth all the pain

What happened next couldn't quite be rationalized in her head. She didn't fathom she would act with such little time to evaluate her choices. She had told him to come over after he had showered, that she'd make pasta. She had blurted it out, elongating the curiosity she felt in the hallway when they got back. She has just sacrificed herself to the obscurities, devil-may-care. Oh well, I'll repent in the morning.

The evening went as planned. As expected, they engaged in light flirtation, disorganized conversation, and just a couple of transcendent, prolonged glances.

"You done?" Anakin asked, gesturing to her plate. She nodded as his long fingers were in position, ready to clear the table. He took her plate to the kitchen sink and began doing the dishes.

"You don't have to do that." She said with noticeable appreciation and surprise.

"You cooked. It's only fair."

She found herself admiring him as he stood in her kitchen as sensibly as she could, growing more fascinated by what seemed like two very different sides of him. Perhaps he conceals this side too often to preserve it in the face of the harshness of his life. But he does not eliminate his sweetness altogether. He tends to save it, store it, and reveal it to those worthy.

It was getting difficult to try and give herself time to iron-out the ambiguities of their interactions, especially when everything in her body was telling her to go with the flow of human emotion, the unplanned and unfiltered. And she felt that same inkling she had when she first packed up her car and drove out here – a good kind of scared.

Once Anakin was done, he wiped his hands on the kitchen towel on the rack and headed over to the couch. She quickly snapped out of her thoughts and offered him wine. She placed two glasses on the coffee table. And as she stood up straight, she felt an unusual and dire sensitivity course through her body.

Padme stood in front of him, watching him on the couch. And her mind was flooded with reflections, adolescent dreams, and the lyricism behind them.

The more she peeled back his layers, the more she ended up peeling her own. Anakin seemed to have a split soul that came together for her. And it made her realize she had yet to tap into her other side. She was not just a lawyer, or someone's daughter, or someone's sister. She was a woman. A whole woman. She loved to laugh. She loved to dance. She was finding out a lot about herself. She could finally be herself.

And right now in this moment, as she stood before him with her hair almost dry after her shower, she found the wild woman within ready to be set free. One he helped to set free.

Padme placed her dainty fingers on the ties of her robe, pulling it loose. She let the robe slip off her shoulders to the floor. Suddenly, and surprisingly, it didn't feel as out of character as she thought it would. Instead, the baby blue satin fabric of her robe gliding down her skin felt like a natural flow. It tingled and titillated. She felt authentic, real, and most importantly, alive.

Anakin's eyes lifted, gawking at her. He was thrown into a stunned silence, watching her like the unwrapping of a gift. She was now in only a matching black bra and underwear set.

He leaned forward, eager, ready to receive her as she walked over to him. Once she stood between his legs, his eyes scanned every region of her abdomen – she could hear his unconstrained exhales – licking his lips, smitten, enveloped by nerves of excitement. His hands rested on her hips, memorizing every edge and curve that led to her little waist. He rested his head on her stomach for a moment, taking it all in, her smell, her texture. He kissed along her belly button almost as if for confirmation that she'd taste like honey. His ardor for her couldn't be interpreted as anything less than worship as his hands dragged down her behind. He had waited, impatiently, to grab those delectable thighs, control those hips, taste her silkiness.

It was the most exhilarating moment for her too, to boldly give herself to a gut feeling. A lurid, vivid exposure to a world of desire.

With his hands clutching onto the back of her thighs, he looked up at her with such direct eyes as he urged her forward to sit on his lap. Her legs straddling him, she looked at him with the same anxiety she had the day before. The anxiety of giving yourself to something that has the power to consume you whole. Only this time she wasn't going to run from it. Whether it was right or wrong, she was going to feel it. Use it. Embrace whatever creation may form after she has taken the leap into this penetrating, avant-garde indulgence, this unbridled affair, emboldened by yearning adoration.

And soon she wasn't thinking at all, especially once his hands trailed up her body to lift her hair off the back of her neck – she didn't know what his hands were doing, or even how much of her hair was in his fist, but she knew it felt good.

She leaned in, her face so close to his, and he continued to brush away any loose hair strands when their lips touched. She melts with his tongue in her mouth, his hands in her hair. They are lost in ravenous kisses. Each kiss is intimate – a drug, a vice, a seduction – and to finally seize each other, and quench a voracious appetite transfigured their embrace, turning it into a revelation–

–and then her phone rang.

"Hello?" Padme answered breathlessly as she held the phone to her ear. "Oh, hi Dorme."

Anakin protectively held her, with his hands on either side of her waist while she remained on his lap. But it was a struggle to discern her colleague's words as Padme did her best to sound as un-feverish as possible. But looking at her Anakin felt exploitive, overly stimulated by the way her frantic hand brushed her hair out of her face, and how her forceful inhalations kept her mouth open.

He pressed his lips to the top of her breast and began to tug at the lace part of her bra with his teeth. Bothered by the distraction, Padme placed her hand over his mouth, holding him back – unable to grapple with the perversities of his tongue and the professional conversation on the phone.

"Yes." She replied as calmly as possible. "Give her my eight-thirty time slot." Padme quickly grabbed a notepad and pen from the cabinet beside the couch and propped the pad up on Anakin's chest to write what she said out loud, "Meeting with Scintel 8.30."

Padme said her goodbyes to Dorme and hung up. "Okay you have to go." She said hurriedly.

"What?" Anakin's head protruded forward in protest.

"I have a meeting early in the morning and if you stay, I won't sleep."

Anakin looked at her as though she has stolen something from him — which he would claim she did. She took her away from him.

"This is torture, you know that right?" He argued with exaggerated grumbles. "You're torturing me."

"You'll live." She slid off his lap and pulled him up by his hands.

"I'm not so sure about that."

He followed her to the door, where she turned back to face him, finally exhibiting calm, collected breaths.

"Patience is a virtue." She opened the door and gestured for him to go.

"I hate it when people say that." He mumbled.

"Goodbye." She said, using more air than necessary to push her words out, and shut the door.

As soon as she closed it, he knocked back.

"What?" She cried as she reopened her door.

He silenced her with a forceful, unexpected kiss. Taking her mouth with his as he cups her face. She's drowning again in a state of fulfillment. She'd argue that it was too soon to fall, to fall in love, to crave the drug that cannot be rivaled. But the symptoms seem to line up, from the joy it brings, and how it turns even the smartest people into dependent beggars. It felt like the burst of defiant energy she had earlier drifted away and there was nothing to hold onto. She had no choice but to get swept away by his delicious kiss until he let her go.

"Goodbye." He nodded with the nonchalance of a polite stranger, probably just to piss her off, as he stepped back out into the hall. He closed her door for her as she remained frozen in her spot by a reverie.

You walk in and my strength walks out the door

Say my name and I can't fight it anymore

Oh, I know I should go

But I need your touch just too damn much

Can't do without what you do to me

I don't care if I'm in too deep, yeah

'Cause no one's ever made me feel the way I feel when I'm in your arms

Leanne Rimes - Right Kinda Wrong