Chapter Twenty-Seven

Mara deepened the kiss as she slid her hand up his chest and over his shoulder. She lowered her mental shields so he could feel just how much she wanted this with him right now and forever.

Luke dropped his own shield. And I thought I should apologize. His desire for her sent a tremor through her legs. He let go of her hand to wrap his arm around her waist. I'm not in the habit of cutting off what anyone is saying, but no second thoughts. I will never stop wanting you, Mara.

She was so out of practice with speaking mind to mind like this. Same. Only you. She wrapped her other arm around him and dug her fingers into his back.

He liked that and tightened his grip around her before moving his mouth over her jaw and down her throat. He supported her weight with his arms, so she drew her leg around his. She found a little friction against his thigh and ground her groin down on it.

Luke bit and sucked where her shoulder met her neck. Sparks slid under her skin so she moaned with it. His thigh rose, so she straddled it. His hands dropped to her ass and squeezed.

She worked her fingers up his shoulders and neck. They carded into his hair that draped over the collar of his tunic. She tugged her handful. His grip around her tightened as his head reared back. She darted her lips forward, kissing down until she reached the notch in his collar.

He set her down on the edge of a bunk and pulled back. She let her hands fall away. His blue eyes focused on her face as he undid his weapons belt and let it fall to the floor.

She raked her gaze up and down his form as he unfastened his tunic. "I love watching you strip. Always have."

His hands stilled as his face reddened. "Do you want a show?"

She unfastened her jumpsuit and peeled it off her upper body. Saying what she wanted made her needy, made her vulnerable. But she promised to tell him the truth about everything. "I… I want touch. Your touch."

Luke dropped his tunic on the floor and shed his undertunic before moving closer to the bunk. His fingers tracing her ribs shouldn't send shivers through her, but they did. He leaned in closer. "I missed your touch too."

She ran her hands up his arms and over his chest. He had tremors to match her shivers. His nipples pebbled under her fingers and she pinched them the way he liked.

He scraped his teeth against her jawbone before kissing his way to her ear. "It is often I don't want to do anything but touch you."

His hand flat on her lower back seared her.

She pulled him closer for a hard kiss. He returned it as he slid his hands and arms around her back. She wrapped her legs around his waist. The ridges created by his belt rubbed against her legs. She broke off the kiss and looked down. "How do we keep forgetting trousers?"

He chuckled as he leaned his forehead against hers. "You forgot more than that." His hand slid up her back to her supportive basic.

"I didn't forget; I want you to take it off me." She pulled his face in for another kiss before he could ask to follow through.

He sank into the kiss and ran both his hands up her back to the supportive basic. His tongue slipped into her mouth while he unfastened the garment and slid it off her shoulders.

She lifted her hands to slide it off her arms, but he shifted and ran his hands down her back instead.

He continued down, tucking his hands into the rucked fabric of her jumpsuit and past the waistband of her basics. She floated now as his callused hands cupped her ass and moved her clothing as he slid his hands down the back of her thighs.

He was floating her with the Force while he undressed her, and she was dripping with desire over it. She pulled back from the kiss. "Take them off me."

Luke's swollen lips smirked at her. He seized fistfuls of fabric and pulled; his thumbs' knuckles running down her legs.

She tried to make an appreciative murmur, but it shifted into a moan. She dropped the supportive basic to the deck plates before it could get in the way.

He tugged off her boots and her clothes, then wrapped his hands around her ankles before running his hands up her legs. His palms stroked against her inner calves, then her inner thighs.

His head was in reach again, and she combed her fingers into his thick hair. He shifted to press against her fingers. His lips touched her inner knee, then kissed her inner thigh.

"Luke."

He inched his lips along her thigh.

She tugged on his hair. "Luke, please. All of you, Luke. I need."

Her weight pressed down on the bunk cushions as his face peered up. Blue rimmed the black of his eyes. "Lay back, pateesa." He dropped a kiss on her hip bone before he moved back and unfastened his trousers.

She lay back along the bunk as soon as he retreated from her legs. She didn't want to give her overheated skin a chance to harden into the shell she maintained for everyone else. But Luke was back before that happened, sliding his warm skin against her body. He stopped moving up at her breasts and enveloped her right nipple in his mouth. She arched into that touch and opened her legs to cradle his hips.

He scraped his teeth against her nipple and chuckled at how her hips bucked against him.

"Don't… please don't… tease!" Mara gasped out. His cock pressed against her, tantalizingly close to where she needed it. How could he not know she was ready, so ready? Damn, why wasn't she on top? There wasn't enough room to put him exactly where she wanted him, not without spilling them both out of the bunk, but she still made a grab at him.

His mouth popped off her breast as he grabbed her hands and came up even with her face. "No teasing. I'm not. I never." He took a deep breath and nuzzled her. "I always want it good for you." He kissed along her jaw to her neck. "I didn't think you'd want me after you knew."

"You said…." She remembered the word, even if she wasn't sure of its exact meaning. "The dead dotkohu don't come between us." His teeth scraped her pulse point, and she regretted choosing that one for Vader. He was Luke's father, despite all his shabuir at the galaxy at large. And he wouldn't like—

"I know what my father was." He whispered. "Don't worry. They don't come between us." He lifted his head and looked down at her. "Never come between us." He squeezed her hands.

"Never," she agreed. "Please, Luke," she was reaching the point of begging and she arched against him.

He braced up on his left arm, sliding it under her to hold her more, and finally pushed himself inside her. Her rapturous moan was matched by Luke's, "Mara." He pulled her closer.

She wrapped her arms around his shoulders and her right leg around his thigh. His thrusts hit her pleasure center the way she taught him. But she felt pressure on her clit and his fingers were under her back. Had he figured out how to add the Force to kriffing? Her orgasm spiraled through her and took that question with it.

Luke's thrusts stuttered as his own orgasm shot into her. He lowered her back on the bunk cushions and brushed her hair back as he looked down at her. "Wore you out?" He smiled.

She felt boneless with the aftershocks of pleasure, and she pried her eyelids up while she smiled at him. "Everything has, but I enjoy you." She couldn't stifle her yawn.

"Go ahead and sleep, pateesa." He shifted off her and pulled a blanket out, but she drifted away before he unfurled it.

---

Luke pressed a soft kiss against Mara's forehead before he slipped out of the bunk. She shifted in her sleep as he covered her with the blanket, but didn't wake. He pulled on his trousers and undertunic. Han kept the Falcon warm enough, or Luke had finally acclimatized to the coldness of space, but he didn't need more layers now. He left the crew bunk, heading toward the main hold.

Chewbacca had the door to his bunk locked open and called Luke back as the human passed. Luke stepped into the doorway. Chewie put aside whatever mechanical thing he was working on. "{You both said Grakkus. That is when you met her?}"

"Grakkus imprisoned both of us together." Luke felt his face heat, but it was obvious what had happened between him and Mara. "For almost a month."

"{Mara Jade is why you wanted to go back into the Palace, not the Jedi artifacts.}"

"I wanted to make sure Mara got out, but I would have tried to grab as many artifacts as I could." Luke could still remember all the activated holocrons floating and speaking when Grakkus had forced him to do something with the Force. The 501st probably made sure they were all destroyed.

"{I am sorry, Luke, to keep you from your mate. I didn't mean to do that.}"

"It's all right. It has all worked out now."

Chewie cocked his head. "{Han is sulking in the cockpit. He's worried your mate's affections are not true.}"

"But you're not?"

The Wookiee shook his head. "{She is fierce for her cub and willing to fight you when you're wrong.}" He picked up a small spanner and pointed it at Luke. "{You need that. Too many will not challenge your beliefs or actions because of history and reverence. She is willing to keep you pruned.}"

Luke frowned. "What have I been wrong about?" He asked, half expecting to hear C'baoth in Shyriiwook.

"{You are often very wrong in how you see yourself, Luke. Go talk to Han now so his trigger finger won't be itchy.}"

Luke continued through the main hold. Lando had snagged the bunk above the dejarik table and had some kind of audio device plugged into his ears. Han had thrust himself into the pilot's seat, and Luke could feel his scowl even though he aimed it out the viewport. He dropped into the co-pilot's seat and twisted it to face Han.

Han only moved his head to look at Luke. "I don't know where to begin with you, Kid. She's forgiven after a really good kriffin'?"

"I forgave her before that part, actually. You all came to the wrong conclusion over Lucinda's conception."

"We weren't the only ones. What the hells; you're saying rape and she's blaming Grakkus."

Luke looked down at the control panels between the seats. "Mot bpuoiaee." Han had spent enough time on Tatooine to know what that was, and he sat up straighter. "It wasn't Palpatine's bright idea; it was Grakkus'."

"You were his prisoner, not his slave."

"There was no difference!" Luke's bitterness made his voice sharper. "I was just another part of his collection, the first freeborn Skywalker forced to do tricks in hopes of learning something and making it through another day until I could get out. And when Grakkus had the opportunity to get a Force user from birth, he manipulated everything so it would happen."

Some instrument ticked in the cockpit's silence before Han spoke. "So he threatened you both… no. He threatened Jade, that'd be enough to make you comply."

"I gave the choice to Mara, every time. If she hadn't wanted to comply, I wouldn't have." Luke flexed his hands. "And that was enough for her. That and kindness." He supposed he followed Aunt Beru's instructions on how to properly woo a partner. "Anyway, Palpatine had nothing to do with anything."

"I read her debrief about meeting you. She edited out getting pregnant by you. What else did she leave out?" Han crossed his arms over his chest.

"The New Republic can stay out of my private life. But Palpatine sent her there for an artifact not to get close to me."

"You've been lied to before, Luke."

"I know. But she's not lying about this. Or about Palpatine; it matches up with what she dared tell an avowed Rebel about her old Master. And she's not working with Thrawn." He looked up at Han's still suspicious face. "So, be nice? For my sake."

"Nice is asking for a lot."

"Civil at least. I know Leia's been working on getting you up to civil."

Han's lips twisted. "I won't shoot her in the back or leave her on this Wayland if we actually get there. But I'm keeping an eye on her."

Luke sighed, suspecting this was the best he was going to get but had to keep pushing. "If she had wanted back in the Imperial good graces, all she had to do was give Lucinda to Palpatine. Between how he treated her and Force warnings, she ran the other way. That's as good as enlisting with us."

"She shouldn't have kept a kid from you, Luke."

Luke stood up to get out of range of the raw sympathy on Han's face. "I believe she was working up her courage to tell me. She's been afraid of losing Lucinda for nine years." He headed to the cockpit door.

"And you're not a winbekhia father." Han twisted to ensnare Luke. "Everybody who has seen you with Lucinda knows that."

He winced before he could stop himself. "The war was raging. Mara's right about that."

"But?"

"Stupid stuff from when I was a kid. How I wouldn't be like my father and not be there for my children."

"You are nothing like your father." Han countered hotly.

Luke supposed he was right in the ways that truly mattered, like falling to the Dark Side and becoming a homicidal monster. But that wasn't easing the aching bruise on his heart. "I missed Lucinda's birth. I wasn't there to hold her or help Mara when Palpatine tried to kill her. That was a Skywalker tradition I was promising myself I would break. So when you feel inadequate at the whole fatherhood thing, Han, remember you were there for Leia and your babies."

Han's protective anger melted into sympathy, but Luke couldn't focus on that right now. It wasn't fair to Mara or Lucinda. "Get some rest while we can," Luke said before Han mentioned anything else and left the cockpit.

Mara had flattened herself against the wall of the bunk while he was gone. He chuckled as he stripped again. "That can't be comfortable."

"Hoping you'd come back," she said in a soft, slurred with sleep voice.

"I just had to talk to Han." He lay down on his back in the space she had left, then drew her and the blanket over him.

She started to arrange herself against him before freezing. "Why? He decided throwing me out the airlock was easier than a custody battle in the New Republic courts?"

"He's not throwing you out the airlock." Luke tightened his arms around her, pulling her closer. "And there will not be a court custody battle. I want Lucinda's documentation changed, so I am listed as her father, but I'm not taking her from you. Please stop being afraid of that."

Her head settled against his chest. "It's hard. I was trained to look for the worst potential outcomes and to circumvent them. And that has kept us alive all this time."

He adjusted the blanket over them both. "Focus it on Thrawn, will you?" He rubbed her back. "If anyone tries to make a political sandstorm out of you and our daughter, they will find out just how fast they can go pound sand. I've got your back, okay?"

"Okay, Luke." Her arm snaked around to embrace him in return.