Interlude

Pazaak didn’t work anymore, not for the important things, anyway. Not since he’d told her how to do it. So, instead, he counted the blinking lights of the Hawk’s console in the sweltering Dxun heat. Three red, two blue, four orange – one that doesn’t blink – two green…

The soft shuffle behind him was deliberate – she never made noise when she walked. That was the kind of thing that he noticed. Always.

“Hey, Bish. Can’t sleep?”

She had tied her robes loosely around her body, but they barely skimmed the hard, muscled curve of her bare thigh. Oh, Hell.

“For some reason I have red and blue lights going off in my head.”

“Damn. Sorry.”

“You can stop that, you know. No-one else is on board. They’ve all gone to the camp to raid the Mandalorians’ supplies …unless you’re afraid that I …”

“No, no…it’s only habit, I guess.”

“Atton, habit would be Pazaak.”

“Damn.”

She leaned against the cockpit wall behind his chair. Even seated as he was, she barely stood taller than him. In fact, if he turned around just so, he just about got a face full of nice, soft … plustwoforseventeenopponantdrawsasixforsixteen….

And he was hit squarely with a wave of annoyance, aggravation and … something else.

“Hah! Not bad, Bish! You’re learning.”

She grinned at him, and sketched a little bow. “Thanks. It feels good, actually. I’m not really used to feeling … things …”

He tipped his head back to peer into her eyes. Deep caffa brown, fringed with lashes as black as the braid that swung to her hips, Bish’s eyes were full of … emotion … He reached out and touched the sadness and the hope that mingled around her, but he did not linger there.

“Are you nervous about facing the council again?”

“They’re not much of a council any more, are they?” The corner of her mouth lifted slightly. He couldn’t seem to take his eyes off of it. “Just as well. I’m not much of a Jedi.”

“Atton, I …” She was biting her lip. That was never a good sign. He struggled to tear his gaze away from her mouth and pay attention to the words. “… I’m going to ask if they’ll take on your training. Mical, Mira and Bao, too.”

“What? Bish, why?”

Atton rose from the pilot’s seat. She made a placating gesture with her hands, urging him to sit. He remained on his feet, however, doing his best to loom over her in the confined space – which had nothing to do with the view his position gave him of the way the neckline of her robes strained over her breasts … nothing whatsoever.

“Take it easy. It’s just … well, now that we know I’m not the last Jedi, I think it would be better for all of you to learn from someone more experienced. There’s also this matter of the bond between Kreia and myself. If we have a choice, Atton, I don’t want you getting mixed up in that. It’s not … it’s not pleasant.”

He scowled down at her but had no response. The last thing he needed was that witch having any more access to his brain. “Will you … will you stay with us there?”

She raised her eyes to his and his heart tumbled over, fell and sank in their brown depths. “I don’t know, Atton. I was looking for Ani… Revan before I got stuck on Peragus. It feels like that’s something I still need to do.”

He opened his mouth to protest but she stopped his words with a finger on his lips. He was fairly certain that she stopped his breath as well.

“Atton, we don’t even know if the council will allow me back in the order. In truth, I’m not sure I want back in the order. There’s so much I have to sort out.”

“Like…” His mouth moved against the warmth of her hand and he forgot what he was saying. Dammit! This is important! Feeling very daring, he wrapped his long fingers around hers and held them to his mouth. “Like what? Have you stopped to think that you don’t need to be an exile anymore?”

“I meant what I said, Atton. I’ve been enjoying myself … feeling emotion, care, friendship, joy, anger, lo… I just, I’m not sure I can give it all up again.”

Every sensation in his body seemed to be focused at his fingertips that were now, of their own accord, stroking the back of her hand. If she noticed, she didn’t pull her hand away.

“But you’d ask us to give it up? How is that fair?”

“Atton, you guys…you can all do better than me as an instructor.” She tugged at her hand, but he didn’t let go. “I have been a colossal failure as a Jedi. I won’t ruin you, too!”

The defeat that marched across her face tore at him. “Maybe you haven’t noticed, Sweetheart, but I’m already about as ruined as a man can get.”

“No! That’s not true!” Her full mouth set in a hard, stubborn line that Atton was all too familiar with.

“Then why are you gonna walk away from us like that?” It was a dirty trick and he knew it. But he was past shame where she was concerned.

His other hand found its way to hers and he moved her fingers from his mouth to his chest, where they curled into the clean linen of his shirt. Her round face was serious as she watched him, heedless of the way she was clinging to him.

“Atton, this is bigger than me,” she pleaded. “It’s bigger than us. There are so few Jedi left, and I … I can’t…”

He’d had enough. More than enough, actually. He stooped down and halted the rapid flow of words with his mouth.

She froze and, for a moment, he was afraid he’d overstepped. He didn’t stop, though. If Bish was going to throw him off of the Hawk, he was going to damned well make sure he deserved it. So he released her hand, fingers still tangled in the white cloth that covered his chest – and cupped her face with both hands as he kissed her.

Then, to his relief and utter amazement, he felt her fingers on the back of his neck, pulling him down hard on her mouth. He thought he heard her give a small whimper, but the sound was lost.

For all that Atton had learned to touch the Force, for all that he’d allowed his soul to drift among the glittering cosmos of space and light, he was certain that every single important thing in the universe was right there in that cockpit. The entire galaxy collapsed down into that small space and hovered in their shared breath.

He growled deep in his throat when she broke away, gasping in time to his heartbeat. But she extended her compact body upon her toes to kiss him again – once – on the corner of his mouth, and his vision dimmed.

“I…” She sucked in a lungful of air and tried again. “Atton… I…”

“Don’t, Bish,” he whispered fiercely. “Don’t back away now. This isn’t wrong. It can’t be. I don’t give a damn what the Jedi say. “

She was still pressed to his body and he could feel her trembling. “Isn’t it? How can you be sure?”

He hunched his tall frame over and wrapped his arms around her, taking note of how they fit together, of the fragrance of her hair, of the soft curves that rubbed against him in ways that made it very difficult to concentrate. “It doesn’t feel wrong, Bish. It feels like … like this is how life is meant to be, like this is what we’re all fighting for.”

“Then why does it feel so dangerous?” she whispered.

“Sometimes life’s meant to be dangerous, Sweetheart.”

“That so?” Her familiar grin shone up at him and he felt a weight lift from his heart.

“Yeah, that’s so.”

“And you think you can handle that, do you, scoundrel?”

He tilted his head back and laughed. “Oh, yeah, Babe! I’m more than ready to …”

A sudden sharp push of energy toppled him back into the pilot’s chair. Startled, he glanced up at Bish and the slow mischievous smile that warmed her face shot through his body like electricity.

“Be careful what you ask for, Atton … the Force works in mysterious ways.”

“Ah, now you sound like a Jedi…” He barely managed to push the words out past the lump in his throat that formed as she moved to straddle his lap.

“Lucky for you we both know I’m not a Jedi, huh?”

Atton had a witty and devastating reply prepared, but her legs were pressing against his knees and her rounded bottom was settling comfortably on his thighs, and it was all he could to do breathe. She leaned forward, her chest pressing against his, and touched his mouth with the tip of her tongue. His stomach plunged into his feet and, lightening fast, he grabbed her shoulders and held her away from him.

For a moment only. A man has his limits.

When he pulled her back, she didn’t resist.

His hands cupped the bare skin of her ass and hauled her into the curve of his hardening body, moaning into her mouth. Her fingers were buried in his hair, pulling his lips to hers as she tasted and nipped. She rocked her hips against him, and he nearly lost his mind. He threw his head back against the high-backed seat, teeth clenched, but she showed no mercy.

Her hands, rough and calloused, lifted the now-crumpled shirt, and skimmed over the sweat-slicked skin of his belly and chest. The muscles in his abdomen twitched under her fingers, a fact she seemed to find fascinating as she trailed her nails over the sensitive flesh above his hip until he twisted beneath her. When she finally released the fastening of his pants and stroked the smooth heat she found there, he bucked and captured her wrists in his long fingers.

“I thought you said you could handle it, Atton,” she growled into his neck.

“Bish, you have no idea what I can handle, Sweetheart.”

He pushed her back before tearing the belt from her robes, exposing her heavy breasts and the athletic lines of her torso, honed by training and combat and constant danger. He slid his hands up her spine, under the soft linen, and dug his fingers into her solid shoulders. She arched into the pressure and he took advantage, grabbing the long braid and pulling her head back.

She sat suspended, exposed to his eyes, pale in the Hawk’s dim light, with flashing red and blue and orange and green dancing over her skin from the ship’s console. A quick blur of motion, and he wrapped her braid around his wrist like shackles.

“Don’t leave me there, Bish.” He traced the line of her collarbone, then followed a shining trail of moisture down, over her breast. “I won’t stay if you’re not there.”

She was shaking there, writhing under his fingertips. His tongue followed the path that his fingers had taken only a moment before and she gasped, the sound high-pitched and thin.

“Let the others train. They want something else, anyway.”

He slid his fingers down, over her belly, through the damp, black curls. She was hot, and so wet, he wanted to drown there. But he held back, teasing, tantalizing with light touches until she squirmed.

“I only want you.”

“Atton. Please!”

He plunged a finger deep into her, but withdrew, cupping his palm against her.

“Say it, Bish. Say I’m going with you.”

“Atton!”

Pushing his own will to its very limits, he stroked her, felt her slide across the full length of his erection. The Hawk’s walls spun around him as her heard her cry out on an indrawn breath. She strained against his grip on her hair, but he didn’t release her, held her tighter, forced her to arch and withdraw from him. She sobbed.

“Tomorrow, Bish. After Dantooine. It’ll be just you and me.” Panting, he brushed his face over her chest, her neck, breathing into her skin, inhaling her. “Say you want me with you.”

“Oh Force, Atton. I need you … please…you make me … feel …”

He felt himself pressing, entering her. Bit his own cheek to stop. Tasted blood. “Say it!”

“Yes, Atton,” she whispered, defeated. “Come with me.”

He released her hair, released his hold on himself, and pushed his hips up, sheathing himself in her.

“Always, Bish. I’ll always be there.”

Lights flashed behind his eyes as her ache, her desire, flooded through his mind – red, orange, blue and white-hot. She wrapped her arms around his neck, fingernails digging into his flesh, and clung for dear life. Her bare toes dug into the cold, metal floor, lifting herself and sliding down on him as he thrust up, deep and hard. He cupped her breasts, kissed the salt from her throat, moaning incoherent words, understanding that he was echoing her pleas.

“Don’t leave me.”

“Don’t leave me behind.”

“Make me feel…”

Her rhythm changed, slowed as her body tensed with each long stroke. He flexed again, dizzy. Euphoric. He felt her convulse and tighten around his full length before his mind exploded. White-blue energy flashed through his belly, his spine as he surged into her, pulse by pulse. Heartbeat by heartbeat. He heard his name whispered in his ear, screamed through his brain. So far away.

“Bish.”

“Say it.”

“I love you.”