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Rey Kenobi froze as the lights in her room flickered out. She waited a beat, then another, then swore softly as she came to the conclusion that they weren’t coming back any time soon. Tucking her feet into her fuzzy slippers, she carefully got up from her desk, groping her way to the closet where she kept her back-up light source.
Not for the first time in the last twenty-four hours, she wished she’d accepted her roommate’s invitation to spend Christmas with her family. Granted, Rose’s family lived in a state that was covered in snow all the time, but at least she’d have had company. Winter all alone in her freshman dormitory was already pretty bleak, but a blizzard had blown up sometime in the morning and Rey had been fretting frantically for hours, preparing for the prospect of being snowed in. And now, snowed in without power.
As soon as she had her reserve light source in hand, she turned off her phone to conserve what remaining power it had. She hadn’t had reception since the storm had arrived, but she might need it later. Fervently, she hoped Finn and Poe would worry about her not replying to their messages and do something.
In the meantime, Rey decided she wasn’t going to sit around and wait for the power to come back on. She knew enough about utilities to check if the problem wasn’t internal to the house and quickly decided to have a look at the breaker box that was hopefully in the basement. If the breaker box was fine, she’d find herself something to eat in the pantry and raid Finn and Poe’s room for extra blankets before figuring out what to do next. Zipping her hoodie up, she made her way out into the hall.
Mercifully, there were emergency lights in the hall—but not nearly enough for Rey’s comfort. There were long pockets of darkness down the hallway, which did not help the somewhat spooky vibe the dormitory already had before the lights had gone out. The building was several centuries old, a former summer home of a fallen Senator that had been converted into student lodging as the needs of the university had demanded. It was immaculately preserved but imposing—a cold, regal monument to faded glory.
The heavy green carpet and dark wood looked black under the pitiful illumination. Rey shuffled through the hallway and down the main stairs with her eyes firmly forward. As someone who’d always had a problem with the dark, she knew it wouldn’t help her to linger there or look at any one spot too long. God only knew what she would imagine seeing if she let herself.
“Kenobi.”
The deep voice had Rey jumping a clear foot off the floor just as she was halfway through the eastern corridor on the ground level. The strangled sound she made echoed shrilly throughout the empty house, reminding her that there was no one around to help her. Spinning around, she couldn’t help the hostile glare or the defensive posture when she realized who had accosted her.
Kylo Ren stood near the other end of the corridor, a tall, ominous shadow among the hundreds that already crowded it. Or the hundreds Rey imagined, at least.
Ren’s towering, hulking frame was relaxed as he slowly approached her, but there was a watchfulness in his glimmering black gaze—what she could see of it, at least—that never failed to set Rey’s teeth on edge. She didn’t know what it was about him, precisely, that made her feel nervous and off-kilter, but she knew that she didn’t like it. She’d bounced around a couple of theories in her head since meeting him the year before, but nothing seemed to sit quite right. Right at that moment, she was mostly bothered by the fact that she’d expected to be alone in the house and was instead alone in the house with Kylo Ren.
“What are you doing here?” she demanded, hating herself for how high-pitched and breathless her voice sounded.
“Waiting out this storm, same as you,” Ren replied in a tone that, coming from another person, she might have thought dry. He stopped about a yard away from her and turned his head almost lazily towards the towering bay windows on his left, watching the blizzard illuminated by the emergency lights. His long, angular handsomeness was rendered harsher by the play of shadows and light. For a moment, Rey was sure she saw delight on his face—in the slight curve of his full mouth, the way he took in the carnage outside with half-open eyes. When he looked back at her a second later, however, his face was expressionless once more. “I thought I heard something and decided to look around. Then I saw your glow stick.”
Embarrassment and indignation swept through Rey at his last statement, though a part of her knew she was likely being unreasonable. It wasn’t a “glow stick”, it was a lightsaber. Of course Kylo Ren wouldn’t know shit about Star Wars—he probably thought it was too bourgeois for him.
“I was heading down to check the breaker box,” Rey managed to say evenly, trying for a response less ridiculous than, “Go watch A New Hope, you tool!”
Ren’s brows lifted in apparent disbelief and his tone, when he spoke, was flatly dismissive. “You shouldn’t bother.”
“I am an engineering student, Ren,” Rey snapped, all pretenses of neutrality evaporating in the face of his condescension.
It was the likeliest explanation for her persistent animosity towards him. Their university was the oldest and most prestigious on the planet—wealthy, privileged students were everywhere and scholarship grantees like herself were the exception, not the rule. Rey got on quite well despite the differences in class and status—mostly she had to deal with the occasional insensitive remark or dismissive sniff. But for some reason Kylo Ren, ward of the state’s Supreme Leader, went out of his way to make her feel every bit like the scavenger she was and would have continued to be if she hadn’t found the strength to haul herself out of Jakku.
“You shouldn’t bother,” Ren said with uncharacteristic gentleness, “because a tree went down over the power lines. The breaker box isn’t the problem.”
Humiliation filled the long silence that followed. Kylo could feel it in the air. His sharp gaze followed the expression on Rey’s face, illuminated by the sapphire blue light of the toy in her hand. Her fine-boned features were drawn, jaw tight, eyes cast downwards in a desperate attempt to shield her feelings from him, and he knew she was struggling to find her composure.
His first instinct, as always, was to reach for her, to hold her close and make her feel better. The shock he’d felt when he’d become conscious of his compulsion had accounted for his initial coolness towards her. It had taken him a while to understand what he was feeling. It had taken him a while longer to understand that just as he had reacted to her with aloof reticence as he’d struggled, she coped with defensive belligerence. She didn’t yet see what was between them, and not knowing frightened her.
Comprehending all this had helped make Kylo marginally more patient, and so he allowed her to master herself rather than rush in before she was ready and overwhelm her. That had blown up in his face before, and he was determined never to relive the experience.
“Well,” Rey said in a brittle tone, lifting her gaze and staring in the direction of Ren’s left ear as she found that she could not manage anything other than a hasty retreat, “I suppose I’ll go back to my room then.”
“Come with me to the common room.”
The command made Rey’s heart stutter. She looked straight at him then, gauging his calm face. The air seemed to leave her lungs as he pulled out one of his large hands from his pocket and offered it to her.
As patient as Kylo was trying to be, he wasn’t about to waste a chance to be alone with her. He tasted bitter regret for an instant, when panic flashed in Rey’s eyes, but that moment sped into another then another and still she didn’t shut him down. Deciding to push his luck, he tried explaining as softly and logically as he could. “There’s a fireplace in the common room. I started it over an hour ago. You’ll be more comfortable in there.”
She couldn’t be very warm in her thin grey yoga pants and the worn, oversized hoodie she had on, and the thought of her garments almost made Kylo’s lip curl in distaste and irritation. Then again, as horrendous as her fashion sense was, it helped keep him from being distracted by her body. Imagining what she looked like under her plain, shapeless clothing was enough of a strain on his self-control. And it didn’t help that even with her hoodie zipped up to her chin and the large hood thrown over her head she still managed to look adorably childish in a way that made him feel like a vile pervert.
Kylo’s hand remained patiently outstretched. Later, Rey would think about how it was always an option for her not to touch him, to accept his invitation—if you could call it that—without putting her hand in his. Later, Rey would also accept that it wasn’t the invitation to the common room that had so absorbed her at that moment, but the other, implicit invitation: to actually touch Kylo Ren.
And so she found herself reaching for him, fire sparking through her veins as his hand closed around her own. She wasn’t exactly a tiny girl, but she became aware then of how much bigger than her he was, how much strength was in that lean, raw-boned frame as he engulfed her clammy fingers in blessed heat. A small voice inside her head wondered if she would even need a fire if he kept holding her hand.
Kylo tugged her gently along, jubilation licking hotly at his insides. It took every ounce of discipline he’d acquired over the years to contain how much he felt from that careful, hesitant yielding. He knew better than to let her see it, however. As things were, she was still half-ready to bolt from him even without recovering her equanimity. So he feigned nonchalance and didn’t even look at her as he led her to the common room at the other end of the corridor, where he’d built a fortress against the cold.
Rey followed Kylo in a blur, her brain hopelessly short-circuiting as it tried to process what was happening.
I’m holding hands with Kylo Ren and letting him bring me to the common room. Where we will be alone. In the middle of a storm. Without help.
As dire as it sounded spoken inside the confines of her head, her fingers remained firmly latched to his.
Rey didn’t realize how cold she was until Ren pushed opened one of the heavy common room doors and pulled her in. The warm air hit her like a blast from a furnace, sending shivers of delight all through her and her eyes closed instinctively against the sudden brightness.
Just then, she felt a pang of longing for Jakku, where she had worried about everything except freezing to death. Only sheer survival instinct had gotten her out—the knowledge that if she didn’t take the scholarship she was being offered, she would die in that scrap heap of a town, barely stirring the dust that whirled around her. For so long she had been terrified to leave it, terrified to leave the old shack where she’d been living since acquiring her emancipation.
Some days she still wondered if she was there and her life now was a dream. After all, there was something undeniably dreamlike about being alone with tall, brooding men with eyes that burned like coal and hands so big that just thinking of them set off a kaleidoscope of butterflies in her stomach.
Awareness snapped Rey back to where she was and she opened her eyes, looking straight into Ren’s face and freezing at the look that was on it.
The first time she’d seen him at their college’s freshman mixer, she’d been struck by his height and captivated by his face. He was handsome yes, but in an irregular way that was more compelling than what she had always imagined it meant to be handsome. His good looks sprang from the intriguing balance between the severity and lushness of his features: lambent dark eyes and full, sensuous lips against the strong, narrow planes of his bone structure; the night-black brow against the stark white skin; that imperfect face framed by impossibly perfect waves of silky hair. Rey had found herself engrossed in cataloguing his features, in watching him as he’d talked down to those he dwarfed—literally and metaphorically, it seemed.
Then he’d turned his head and looked right back at her, an arrested look on his face, and she’d found herself both imprisoned by his stare and terrified.
It was the same at that very moment. Rey could only stare up at Kylo as he leaned forward, his free hand shutting the door behind her. The movement brought him less than a foot from her, his body almost caging her against the door. She could smell the spice of his aftershave, the notes of crisp, fresh laundry from the white shirt he was wearing under his black jumper, and something else . . . Jesus, could you smell body heat? And did it always smell that good?
Kylo knew it was too soon, but it still hurt him to even contemplate letting go of her. A part of him was screaming with frustration. He saw the answer in her hazel eyes, beneath the fear and confusion, in the blood that had rushed to her cheeks and the way her hand was clinging tightly to his. If he bent down and finally tasted her lips, she’d let him. If he pressed her against the door and took more, she might even let him have that.
But it wouldn’t be enough.
He wanted her to want him as much as he wanted her, to be as eager and agonized as he was. He had enough self-control and faith to wait for that distinct pleasure, whenever it might come. So he released her hand and stepped back from her, forcing his mind to focus on more mundane, less intimate things.
“Do you want something to drink?”
The piercing ache of disappointment shocked her. Rey rubbed her hands over her arms, trying to smooth out the chill that swept over her as Ren stepped away. Her throat was tight and dry, so she cleared it hastily before choking out an answer. “Yes, please. What do you have?”
Rey barely heard his response and didn’t understand it at all. She simply nodded at the question she detected from the intonation at the end of what he said, smiling as politely as she could manage. Meanwhile her mind raced, trying to understand what she was feeling.
She hadn’t wanted him to let go. Rey didn’t want to admit it, but the reaction she was having to the physical distance between them was visceral. She’d wanted him closer—close enough for her to press her face against him and breathe in his scent. Her head was level with his broad shoulders. If she had stepped forward, she might have known what it was like to lay her head against that chest, to know first-hand the feel of the tough muscle that she imagined was quilted over his bones.
I want Kylo Ren.
If Rey was honest with herself, the thought wasn’t a new one. She’d considered it before, then promptly discarded it in light of her disdain for and distrust of him. He was spoiled and wealthy, unapologetically haughty, and prone to maniacal outbursts of temper—or so people said. She’d certainly never witnessed him behaving insanely, but she could believe it from what she did know about him first-hand. He looked down his long nose at her—literally sometimes—and she’d heard him say things that revealed exactly what he thought about her.
“So, Ren,” the redheaded boy was saying in a light tone, “is there anyone here worth knowing?”
Rey pressed herself back against the wall, unaccountably shy. It wasn’t like she’d been eavesdropping, really. The hallway that led to the powder room opened up on the left into a private reading nook, where Kylo Ren and a boarding school acquaintance had apparently sought refuge from the roaring party on the floor below. She could simply walk past them and back to the main hall, but the idea of walking past Kylo Ren and alerting him to her presence was inexplicably unnerving.
She slid her damp palms over the front of her dress, wishing to the Force that she had girlfriends close enough to consult about fashion at their university. She’d made friends in the few months since term started, but no one she felt comfortable talking to about trying to fit in. She would never be able to afford the spiffy clothes that set her privileged peers apart, but she would at least feel less like a desert mouse if she was sure she wasn’t dressing like one.
The black dress was form-fitting but decent, showing only her arms and collarbones above the tucked waist and skimming just under her knees. She’d taken out her one pair of sensible black pumps and considered herself timelessly dressed when she’d stepped out of the door, but what did she know about tasteful dressing, really? The thorough sweep Ren had given her with his eyes when she’d walked into the party had almost sent her running back to their house. She had almost seen the thought bubble pop up right over his head: “You don’t belong here.”
“You know everyone worth knowing already,” Ren replied in a voice that told her he was smirking. “It’s almost like they crowded Imperial Academy alumni all into one block.”
His friend laughed. “It wasn’t a schoolmate I saw earlier today and wanted to get to know better. You greeted her earlier . . . Kennedy, was it, that Kellar said her name was? . . . pretty brunette with hazel eyes and a sexy little black dress?”
Rey’s heart skittered then she grinned with relief. Her fashion sense wasn’t a problem after all. She waited in anticipation for Ren to give her name. Not that she was interested in his friend, of course—too posh, too sneering and uptight for her, from what she’d seen—but it was always nice to be appreciated.
“Kenobi,” Ren corrected softly. His voice was cold with displeasure. “Believe me, you’re better off not knowing her. She’s nothing—nobody.”
Rey hardly understood his friend’s discomfited reply. She had the sense to slowly creep back to the powder room, where she locked herself in and cried for a good ten minutes. Then she stole away from the party and nursed the wound from knowing that Kylo Ren despised her because he saw plainly what she’d always secretly known: she was nothing and nobody.
The remembered pain resurfaced from the mire of her mind with blinding clarity, a stark counterpoint to how she ached to be near him. She stepped back instinctively, wanting to retreat again. She needed time to process, to think more deeply about what she was feeling, and most importantly to decide what she was going to do about it.
“Here you are.” Kylo handed her a mug filled with tea, noting with satisfaction that Rey took it despite the new fright on her expressive face. Apparently, she was coming to her senses. She looked down into the bottle-brown liquid in the vintage Pyrex mug, the pinch of her brows telling him that she was trying to marshal her thoughts. Or her courage.
He carefully laid a hand on the back of her shoulder, feeling the muscles beneath his palm tighten in response. Her lashes fluttered and he imagined her thoughts were scattering in time to the movement.
Rey’s thoughts of retreat had already evaporated when he’d handed her the drink he’d prepared—not because she wanted to be there but because she hadn’t wanted him to see how much of a mess he made her. She’d been in the middle of giving herself a talking to, of telling herself to behave like a sensible person who could act normal and be nice, for Christ’s sake, when he’d gone and reminded her how out of her depth she really was.
“Why don’t you sit down?” Ren’s sinful voice coaxed over her bent head. “The last weather report said this storm would be done before morning, but it may take a while after for them to get the power back up.”
“Yes. Yes, of course.” Rey nodded, feeling very much like a dashboard bobblehead, painfully aware of the fact that he was touching her again. And that she very much wanted it, despite knowing what he thought of her.
She all but ran forward, wrenching herself desperately away from him and settling down on one of the long couches facing the massive fireplace. Without thinking, she immediately lifted the steaming mug to her lips and the strong black tea scalded her tongue. Mercifully, the physical pain yanked her spinning thoughts into a semblance of order.
She was still holding her lightsaber, the electric blue jarring against the soft yellow light. Scattered about the room, augmenting the flames in the hearth, were almost a dozen long candles that Ren had found heaven knew where. There was a stack of plush pillows and blankets on one of the sturdy wingback chairs—and was that a cooler in the corner next to the mahogany side table with an honest-to-goodness brass kettle? With the dark hunter green drapes drawn over the windows and a soft haze in the air from the smoke and the frost, the stolid, masculine room was undeniably cozy.
Rey switched off her lightsaber, tucking it neatly behind her feet. She turned her head in time to see Ren settling down on the other end of the couch, his own mug of tea in his hands. The firelight seemed to magnify him in every respect and despite herself she drank in the sight of him folded languorously across from her, one leg propped carelessly atop the other and one of his arms draped over the back of the couch.
Breathe, Rey.
It didn’t have to be like this. She’d had plenty of interactions with Ren before, even following his assassination of her character. It was impossible not to be around him when they studied and lived in the same college. He was pursuing a degree in Politics and International Relations, so they generally had different tutors and classes, but they’d been together in a writing class for one term. Their college’s dormitories had been made co-educational decades before and she’d ended up living a floor above him. She saw him at dinner, in the library, at mixers . . . there was no reason for her to be so thoroughly unnerved by their situation.
Except, of course, the fact that they were alone in the house and snowed in by a blizzard. Her mind was not about to let her forget it.
“So,” Ren’s voice was casual, his sloe-eyed gaze fixed on the dancing flames in the hearth, “no plans to go home for winter break?”
Rey could do casual conversation. It was a bizarre new experience to try small talk with Kylo Ren, but it was better than quietly losing her mind over how much she wanted to crawl under his skin just then.
“It seemed more sensible to stay here,” she replied, carefully sorting through the truth so that she only told him what she felt safe letting him know. “Winter break is so short that hauling myself home and back would be a lot of effort for just a few days’ vacation.”
It was also expensive to travel, and she needed new material for her current classes. And there was nothing left in Jakku to make it feel like home to her except for the fact that she’d been born there. There were no parents waiting to welcome her, no real friends eager to see how she was doing.
Ren didn’t comment on her response and Rey slanted another look at his proud, patrician profile. He didn’t appear to be judging her—but then again she’d never been sure of her understanding of him. He called her nothing and nobody then went and did things like hold her hand and make her tea.
“Why aren’t you home for winter break?” she asked, wanting to shift the discomfort to him. There were people who loved talking about themselves, but in her limited experience that was only because there wasn’t much to them—in the best sense, as far as she was concerned. No problems, no secrets worth keeping. Rey had always envied the people who could talk so freely about who they were and where they came from. She had a niggling suspicion that Ren was not one of those people.
To her satisfaction, he didn’t answer at once. He took a long sip of his tea and seemed to consider the fire for answers. Then he looked at her, and whatever perverse delight she took in trying to make him uncomfortable scattered beneath the weight of his stare.
“I meant to go home today but overslept,” he said evenly.
Liar.
Kylo could see the word flash in her eyes and bit down on the urge to laugh. She didn’t appreciate being lied to, even if she hadn’t expected honesty. She’d asked the question knowing he wouldn’t tell her the truth—much the same as he had known that she would not answer completely when he’d asked her.
Her narrowed eyes making him feel marginally contrite, he gave her a truthful reason, if not the most important one. “And I decided that there was no point braving a blizzard to go home when I really didn’t want to.”
Rey consciously tightened her grip on her mug. She’d expected him to laugh or tell her coldly that it was none of her business, but the earnest follow-up to his first reply had caught her off guard and she had felt the mug slip very slightly against her fingers. Kylo Ren was not earnest. Frank to the point of rudeness, yes—earnest no.
She could imagine that the relationship between Kylo Ren and his guardian, Supreme Leader Snoke, was complicated. Most people—herself included—didn’t even know how Kylo had come to be in Snoke’s care. Snoke was a ruthless, controversial politician who’d managed to hold power for almost two decades despite a solid and growing opposition. In Jakku, Snoke was utterly despised after his soldiers had quelled a rebellion there a few years before Rey had been born. She’d grown up on whispered stories of villagers being rounded up and shot, village leaders being cut down before their people. Official accounts of what had taken place were different, of course, but if Rey had learned one thing in Jakku, it was that the authorities couldn’t be trusted. Rey could barely think of Snoke as a living, breathing human being, much less someone who’d reared a child. No wonder Ren had turned out to be such an insufferable, unpredictable asshole.
“I really hope the storm will clear soon,” Rey said with a polite smile. “So that you don’t regret your decision.”
“Well, this isn’t so bad.” Ren gestured negligently at their surroundings. Then he turned his face to her again. “And I am here with you.”
From anyone else, she would have seen it as a compliment—and a suggestion. As things were, Rey felt a laugh bubble out of her, coated in bitterness. “Me? I’m nobody.”
It was absurd to expect him to remember what he’d said, of course, but what were the odds of him disagreeing? It was what he thought of her—she didn’t need to throw the words back in his face for him to be reminded of his opinion.
To her surprise, Ren’s expression didn’t change. She didn’t know what she had expected, but she certainly hadn’t expected him to keep looking at her like that; like he really saw her and decided that she was more than worth looking at. Holding her gaze, he replied steadily: “Not to me.”
Rey’s face flamed and her lips parted in shock. Kylo was gratified to see that his lapse of control had not sent her screaming for the shelter of her room, cold be damned. He watched her try for a coherent response—something flippant, to try and diffuse the tension; something hostile and explosive so that the tension had some release. Ultimately she simply gave up and drank her tea, tearing her eyes away from his and crowding closer to her end of the couch.
Christ, she was beautiful. The firelight coaxed jewel tones out of her feline eyes and gilded her magnolia-like skin with the glow of expensive champagne. Her heightened color brought forward the sweetness of her round face, called his attention to the freckles that seemed to tempt his kiss as much as the shapely mouth she pressed against the rim of her mug.
Forcing himself to hold back, Kylo went back to finishing his own beverage, trying to think of another safe thing to discuss. Once she was at ease with him, she would be able to properly consider what they were to one another. If she never saw him as someone she could talk to or let her guard down around, she would never be able to acknowledge what was undeniably there.
“Do you like me, Ren?”
The soft question had him choking on his tea. He set it down on the coffee table in front of them, turning his watering eyes to her. If she hadn’t been looking at him just then, just like that, it might have occurred to him to lie. But her hazel eyes were so vulnerable, so frightened yet hopeful, so open to him. She continued in a trembling voice, like she was walking on a tightrope across two precipices.
“Because I don’t know whether you like me or hate me, whether you want me or think I’m . . .” She lowered her gaze, her courage failing her.
Kylo swallowed thickly, praying to whatever force was out there that he didn’t blow it.
“Whatever you’re feeling, I feel it, too.”
The words filled the silence between them in the space of a heartbeat, the impact swelling between them in the next.
Rey’s blood was rushing in her ears. She lowered her mug, the clatter of it against the coffee table alerting her to the fact that she was shaking. Gathering her nerve, she brought her eyes to his face, searching for a sign of perfidy and finding none. The air was suddenly too thick, too hot, and she licked her lips as her mouth went dry.
In that tense moment, that small, insignificant movement was all it took to snap Kylo’s control.
He surged forward, a growl of delight reverberating through his chest as Rey moved to meet him. Finally, she was in his arms, smooth and soft and delicious, her mouth opening under his and welcoming his tongue, her fingers in his hair. They were clumsy in their haste and he had to grab onto the couch to keep them from toppling over as his other arm locked around her. He cupped the back of her head even as he kissed her harder, wanting to swallow her whole. She was moaning, the low, pleading sounds going straight to his blood. Then the shock of pleasure from her throwing her leg over his waist had him gasping.
“We shouldn’t do this here,” Kylo found himself saying even as his hands locked onto her pert bottom. “We should go to your room—”
“It’s freezing in there,” Rey cut in, drunk from the taste, scent, and feel of him. She ran her hands down his chest, delighting in how she felt his muscles jump against her touch. Pulling his shirt free from his trousers, she slid her hands against the bare skin of his back, loving how the movement made him arch against her and hiss. She didn’t want to go anywhere unless it was closer to him. She leaned forward, pressing her lips against the hollow of his throat.
His plans and notions for how it was supposed to be burned away under the heat of that sweet, wordless supplication. Kylo lifted her against him, pulling her hard against his painful arousal, her gasp an echo of the torturous ecstasy he was feeling. Then he took her mouth again as he lowered them both down.
Rey gloried in the feel of him above her, his weight and warmth pressing over her deliciously. His tongue was a maddeningly intoxicating invasion, stoking the fire in her as surely as the slow grind of his hard length against her core. She pulled at his shirt, tugged and tugged until it tore. He unzipped her hoodie and within seconds she arched as she felt the scalding touch of his hands on her back, felt them deftly unhook her bra. Then he was pulling back, breaking their kiss, and Rey stared up at him dazedly.
Kylo’s uneven breath caught at the sight of her, lips reddened from his kisses, eyes bright and blown out with desire. The hood had been pushed off her head sometime in their fumbling and her hair had come undone, the soft chestnut locks spread in a halo around her head. It was a unique affliction, wanting to spend an eternity looking at her even as frustrated desire raked at him on the inside.
Keeping her eyes locked on his, Rey slowly pulled her arms out of her hoodie and sat up slightly. Her innocence and need made a heady, potent combination. She bunched one of her hands in his jumper and he laughed huskily at the unspoken demand. Straightening, he yanked off the jumper and his ruined shirt, tossing both onto the floor. He let her look, inwardly exulting in the way her eyes moved hungrily over him. He reached for her thin shirt, wanting to show her how much she pleased him, too, then stopped as she folded her arms over her breasts. Kylo arched a questioning brow at her.
The pause in their lovemaking had allowed a sliver of reason to sink into Rey’s brain—and that sliver had apparently been heaped with self-consciousness.
“I’m not . . .” Rey wanted to die at how stupid she sounded to her own ears, but she forced the words out. “I’m not very gifted.”
He had the kind of body she imagined any man would want, long ropes of muscle toned and hardened. She didn’t want him to look at her and expect she was as spectacular a counterpart. She didn’t think a woman would want her flat chest, her sturdy calves and strong shoulders, the distinct lack of curves on her coltish frame.
Kylo knew better than to laugh. Instead he tugged at the hemline of her shirt. “Take it off,” he rasped, brushing his fingers against her flat stomach. “Please.”
The soft plea in dulcet tones that husked deliciously over her ears sent a curl of want straight through her that made her resolve to do anything and everything he wanted. Rey swallowed thickly before taking a deep breath and closing her eyes. Before she lost her nerve, she lifted herself up slightly and tugged the shirt off, her unfastened bra following suit. Then she lay back, afraid to perceive Kylo’s inevitable disappointment.
For the first time in his life, Kylo understood why shyness could be appealing. Rey’s body was every bit as beautiful as he’d imagined, her plump round breasts topped by dusky pink nipples that were already begging for his touch. Her body was a graceful length of gentle slopes, strong but supple, her skin smooth and bearing the same delightful smattering of freckles that he’d fantasized about licking. A rosy flush had blossomed all over her and she didn’t seem to know what to do with her hands, clasping them tightly together over her belly. She kept her eyes closed and her face turned away from him and he could feel her trembling.
My sweet, beautiful darling.
The dark possessiveness he felt wasn’t new, but it carried a sharper edge now. A part of him had only hoped, but this part of him, where the darkness lived, had always known: she was his. She had never done this before, with anyone.
Leaning forward slowly, he pressed a soft kiss on the edge of her jaw. As her breasts pressed against his chest he felt the same jolt that zipped through her. Her hands came up against his hard stomach and he braced himself on his arms as he continued to coax her back to the frenzied passion of just a few moments before.
Rey whimpered as his mouth moved lazily over her, every now and then feeling the scrape of his teeth against her skin. He didn’t seem to mind that she wasn’t stacked like the other girls she’d seen him around with, that her body likely reflected her diet of stale bread and over-processed food. When she felt the puff of his breath against her left breast she finally had the courage to open her eyes and look at him.
He didn’t seem upset or disappointed . . . neither did he look mocking or contemptuous. If anything, he looked vaguely . . . teasing. His mouth hovered barely an inch from her peaked nipple, his eyes black as sin and burning.
“Lift your breast to my mouth,” Kylo ordered huskily, goaded by the needy, shamed look on her face. For a moment he didn’t think she would do it, but then her shaking hand slid beneath her breast and pushed it upwards, bringing the temptation closer to him. Smirking in delight, he rewarded her by finally closing his mouth over the tight pink bud.
Rey groaned, her head falling back as the sweet sensation overwhelmed her. Kylo didn’t stop, his mouth hot and greedy, and she let him do what she wanted so long as his mouth was on her. When she felt his breath beneath her navel she recalled herself enough to obey his command to lift her hips so that he could drag her yoga pants off. Then her mind went dark as he hooked one of her legs over his shoulder and kissed her through the soaked cotton of her panties.
Rey yanked at Kylo’s hair as he tore off the ruined white scrap that separated her from him, his fingers plunging deep as his tongue sampled. Her ecstasy nearly undid him, but he kept himself doggedly centered on her pleasure, holding on as she crested, containing her until the spasms had faded. Over the sound of his own heartbeat he heard her sobbing breathing and stroked his hands soothingly over her creamy thighs.
Awareness and sensation came back to her in parts. The copious wetness between her thighs, the sweat that was cooling on her brow, Kylo’s weight shifting as he sat up. Rey leaned into his touch when he reached up and cupped her face, closed her eyes as his thumbs brushed over her tears. He leaned his forehead against her own and their breaths mingled.
“This will hurt.”
Even as the words left his lips in a harsh undertone, Kylo wished he was gentler, more considerate. It was increasingly difficult to be.
In answer, Rey opened her eyes and looked into his as she slid her hands down his body, down the hard vaulting of his ribs and stomach to the band of his trousers. She unbuttoned them and her curious hand slid lower, her eyes rounding as she touched him. Intrigued by the feel of him, she barely registered Kylo’s vicious curse or the way he clenched his jaw.
“Rey, don’t,” he hissed. He gripped her wrist, pulling her hand away. “Just lie back. Please.”
Rey obeyed, realizing that she’d been the only one to find relief so far. New anticipation and tension filled her in equal measures as she watched Kylo shuck off his remaining clothes, kick off his expensive shoes. Her breathing deepened as she finally saw all of him, awed by the beauty of him. It occurred to her that she should have felt threatened and dwarfed by his powerful body, by the sheer, aggressive maleness of him.
Instead, when he settled over her again and his hands gripped her hips, she spread her thighs eagerly, bracing herself for the painful inevitability she was yearning for.
For a moment pain was all there was—swelling to a point where it was overwhelming and total before ebbing away to make room for pleasure. Rey could not help the sharp cry or the tears, but even then she kept her legs locked around him, the dark wonder of having his body joined to hers so necessary to her just then that she was willing to bear anything. She felt his teeth on her shoulder, heard his labored breathing and the sweet words of praise interspersed with vulgarity, and realized that he was struggling to be tender. She slid her hands over his slick torso, pleading and praising him in one movement. Then one of his hands moved between them and reached down to where they were joined.
Rey rocked her hips against him, mindless from the sensation of his thumb swirling against the swollen, tender nub he’d suckled earlier. The undercurrent of pain scored the pleasure, the raw intensity of it making it impossible to control. She bit her lip to try and stifle her sobs, tried to anchor herself by clawing at Kylo’s shoulders as he rocked her inexorably towards another, harsher peak.
“Please,” Rey begged, not really knowing what she was asking for. “Oh please . . . ”
Kylo pinned her hips down, driving her harder as she quivered and tightened around him, losing himself in the glory of giving her as much pleasure as he took. His head was spinning, all control leaving him the instant he’d pushed his aching cock into her hot little cunt, felt her grip him tight even as she struggled to accommodate all of him.
“Take it, darling,” he growled, snapping his hips so hard against her that he could hear the slap of their skin over her trembling cries.
When Rey suddenly arched and screamed, one of her hands raking down his chest as the violence of the sensation overtook her, Kylo grinned and thrust even harder. She gave as good as she got, her body clamping down on him so voluptuously that in moments the long strain of desire snapped and he let go, let her drag him down with her over the jagged edge of relief.
* * *
When Rey awoke, the storm had blown itself out and left a deep silence in its wake. The room was almost dark, the banked fire nearly burned out and only a few of the tall candles remaining. It was still remarkably warm, however—perhaps from the heavy fleece blanket Kylo had pulled over the two of them or from Kylo himself, his long frame crowding her against the back of the couch and warming her from behind.
I actually slept with Kylo Ren.
The foreign aches and twinges, the scent of their lovemaking, the feel of him against her—Rey sighed, knowing she was happy with what had happened even though a part of her was somewhat ashamed and afraid. She pushed that part of herself into a corner of her mind, not wanting to deal with it yet. Knowing she wouldn’t be able to deal with it yet. Not with Kylo still with her, with one of his arms wrapped around her middle and the hair on his legs tickling her feet.
What she could deal with was purely physical: she was hungry and needed to go to the bathroom. They were simple enough needs to meet, but she soon discovered that wiggling out from her lover’s embrace was a bit more complicated. As soon as Rey tried to sit up, he stirred, his arm clamping around her like a vise and one of his legs settling over both of her own.
“Kylo?”
His answer was an incoherent grumble against her ear.
Rey reached up to stroke her fingers beneath his jaw, to tug at a lock of silky black hair. “I need to go to the bathroom.”
Kylo’s breath rushed out of him in a deep exhalation as he pulled himself from his half-dreaming. Much as he hated to let go of her, there was no way to ignore Rey in that instance. He pushed himself up and away from her, his bleary eyes coming into focus as he looked at her and saw the marks of his claim on her—the bruised mouth and skin, the glow on her cheeks, and the look in her eyes as she met his gaze. He imagined he looked much the same to her. He realized a moment later that he was smiling, the unfamiliar expression pulling the muscles of his face in places that felt alien. Alien, but good. Goaded by the feeling, Kylo shifted so that his feet were on the floor.
“Come on then.”
Rey shrieked with surprised laughter as Kylo picked her up in a sudden, sweeping movement. Shivers ran over her as they left the warmth of their makeshift bed and she threw her arms around his neck instinctively.
“We can’t walk naked to the bathroom!” she gasped as he started to the door, apparently planning to do exactly that. “There are monitors in the hallway!”
“That are down with the rest of the power,” Kylo replied dismissively, hitching her higher against his chest. “Stop squirming.”
When he flung open the door Rey had no choice but to do as he said, huddling close to him as the cold air hit them. To her surprise he didn’t carry her to where the common bathrooms were, past the main staircase. Instead, he stopped a few doors down from the common room and managed to maneuver it open while still carrying her.
Even in the darkness, Rey knew it was Kylo’s room. It smelled like polished leather and crisp sheets, spicy aftershave and a musk that she now knew intimately to be his. Apparently knowing his way around even without illumination, he lowered her to his bed.
“Wait here,” he instructed before moving away, and she felt her toes curl into thick carpet on his floor at the way he said it. Only a few hours before she’d been resentful of his masterful treatment of her, but now it sent a sharp throb through her core that she had come to understand much better. Then she flinched as a soft click filled the room with a bright white light.
Kylo couldn’t help the smirk as Rey’s hands moved instinctively to cover her eyes and her breasts, her legs locking together in a display of modesty. As if he hadn’t just spent hours worshipping her, learning and loving every inch of her. Taking the battery-powered lamp to her side, he handed her the rest of what he had fished out of his closet.
“So you don’t freeze,” he said gently when she looked up at him owlishly. “Then you can go to the bathroom.”
Rey examined what he had given her as Kylo began pulling on his own fresh clothes. He’d handed her a pair of boxer shorts and a heavy wool jumper the color of burgundy. She gingerly pulled them on, discovering that the jumper nearly reached her knees and the shorts fell well past them. But she was warmer—incredibly so.
She glanced around, taking in what she could of Kylo’s room, amused by the fact that it was so him. Most rooms she’d been in were like hers—foundationally traditional but livened up by jarring splashes of the modern. She and Rose had opted to keep the wooden panels of their room the muted French gray they’d found them in, as well as the beautifully carved maple wood beds their predecessors had left for them. Rose’s side of the room was surprisingly romantic: glass and metal accents, floral sheets, and elegantly-framed photographs of her and her gorgeous older sister. By contrast, Rey’s half was glaringly utilitarian: blindingly white sheets and a charcoal-colored spread, posters of the places she wanted to visit—Ahch-To, Takodana, Tikehau—and a haphazardly pinned idea board with her sketches and doodles.
Rey couldn’t imagine what Kylo’s room must have looked like before he’d arrived. He’d stripped away everything traditional that he could get away with, it seemed. The walls were a matte, inky black, and instead of the standard twin there was a king-sized bed frame made from polished African blackwood. The thick, inviting mattress was covered in scarlet, the plump pillows and accents atop it a satiny ebony. The headboard looked like it had been built into the wall, the scarlet fabric framed with white wood and tufted with little silver pins that glinted in the light. The nightstands were painted white to match the headboard frame, the moon-like lamps on both likely enough to envelop the room in a silvery glow when there was power available. There was a sleek, neatly-kept desk to the side by the windows, the long, drawn drapes matching the mattress. The overall effect managed to be stripped-down but opulent, masculine but sensual.
“How did you manage to get a room all to yourself again?” Rey wondered aloud, curious but not really upset despite being sure she could guess the answer. There was a class system at their university, as there was in most parts of the country.
Kylo shrugged, but his assessing gaze was trained on her face. Sensing no outright censure as she inspected his space, he answered honestly. “Bribed my roommate to live somewhere else.”
To his surprise—and delight—she laughed. Not demurely or covertly, but gustily and without restraint, her eyes twinkling with mirth.
“You bribe people?” Rey gasped in tickled fascination, unable to reconcile the notion with what she knew of him. Straitlaced, princely Kylo Ren bribing someone to piss off so that he could live alone was priceless.
“Well, yeah,” Kylo huffed shortly—not because she was laughing at him, but because her laughter was managing to turn him on. Again. Like he hadn’t just spent himself inside and on her several times.
“ ‘Yeah’? Did you actually just say ‘yeah’?” Rey practically howled, clutching at her stomach. “Wait—stop! I can’t laugh like this when I have to pee!”
Kylo gestured towards the only other door in his room—his suite, really—and Rey took the lamp and sped gratefully towards it, still chortling. She discovered that Kylo had prepared for the possibility of the pipes freezing by putting the sink and the faucet in the shower on drip, a big metal bucket serving as the receptacle for any emergency water needs.
When she emerged a few minutes later, laughter lingering on her lips as she hopped from the icy tiles back onto the heavenly red carpet, she found Kylo seated on his bed, dressed in a navy blue jumper, charcoal trousers, and thick black socks. There was a small ball of dark wool in his hands that he tossed towards her—socks, she discovered upon catching them. Grinning at him with gratitude, she balanced on each leg, yanking them on with some excitement.
Kylo watched her with pained adoration, hopelessly ensnared by the sight of her putting on his socks while she held up the lamp, laughing to herself about how big his socks were on her. He had given up trying to understand why he felt such a connection, such an affinity with her that the feelings she inspired in him eclipsed nearly everything in his life. They were as different as night from day, summer from winter. They had little enough common ground: a sense of solitude and awkwardness, perhaps, a sense of never fitting in—but Kylo had buried his deep and smoothed away any traces of it. Rey embraced her lack of polish and managed to make it entrancing, wore her longing to belong for everyone to see without fear of the exposure.
Straightening with a flourish, Rey beamed at Kylo—then faltered at the sight of his face. If it was possible to look both incredibly happy and incredibly sad, he managed it just then. The instinct to comfort him bore her across the room and she let him haul her back into his arms, quite forgetting for that little while that she was hungry and still sore.
* * *
“I mean it this time, Ren, stay away,” Rey said ominously, though her eyes sparkled at him beneath the thick fringe of her curly lashes. “You haven’t let me have a bite all night and I’m starving.” She waved the half-sandwich in her hand at him for emphasis, as though the bacon and egg swathed in sriracha mayonnaise would ward him off.
They were back in the common room, seated on the floor in front of the newly-stacked fire, having raided the house’s pantry and the small stock box of dry goods Kylo kept in his room. He’d assembled a small feast for them: sandwiches, dried fruit and sharp cheese, and several bottles of sweetish cider that he’d pulled from his cooler. Decidedly impressed, Rey spent fifteen minutes mowing through their meal before she saw the gleam in Kylo’s eye as he watched her eat.
And here she’d always rolled her eyes at the notion that evil could be sexy.
“Oh, I’ve put plenty in your mouth tonight, don’t you think?” Kylo said smoothly, smirking as she choked on her sandwich. Eyes watering and cheeks stinging with embarrassment and indignation, Rey flung what remained of her sandwich at him.
Dodging with ease, Kylo retaliated by pouncing on her, repressing her wiggling struggle within seconds, impelled by her squeals of laughter to tickle her mercilessly. When she gasped her surrender he immediately gave quarter, bracing himself on his arms so that he lay atop her without crushing her.
Rey looked up into Kylo’s face with wonder, still unable to believe that she’d spent the night making love, talking, and playing with Kylo Ren. Kylo Ren, whom she’d loathed only that morning. Except Kylo Ren didn’t turn out to be as loathsome as she’d wanted to believe when she’d thought that she couldn’t have him. She traced the pattern of beauty marks over his face, enthralled.
“You’re so pretty,” she blurted out helplessly, drumming her fingers lightly over his lips. “I want to kiss you all the time.”
Kylo’s low huff of laughter was quickly buried against Rey’s mouth, embarrassment and delight spurring him to kiss her before she noticed how much her straightforward praise affected him. He’d never been overly preoccupied with his looks—he’d learned early not to think about what he looked like too much and eschewed vanity in favor of focus on what mattered: power, influence, stability.
Rey valiantly tried to keep talking beneath the tender onslaught of his lips, the sweep of his big hands over her body. Really, why did they bother to keep clothing themselves after each time?
“I don’t ever . . . want us to leave . . . I . . . mmmm . . . want to be alone with you . . . fore—oh . . . ”
Her broken sentences filtered back into Kylo’s mind some time later, as they basked in the afterglow of their activities. Rey was on her back beside him, her head pillowed on one of his arms and her eyes closed. With the blizzard gone, the power would probably be back within the day. Some university officials would probably come check on them and unwittingly break the blissful solitude they’d built around one another. The realization had Kylo’s lip jutting out moodily. There wouldn’t be an excuse to trap Rey in the common room with him anymore and do unspeakable, perverted things to her without anyone to interfere.
“Rey?”
“Mmmm?” She was apparently too tired for any more conversation. Kylo grinned privately, finding unholy pleasure in being the cause. He considered just letting her rest, but he was determined to secure more time with her while she was in a pliable mood.
“I have an idea,” he said idly, skimming his knuckles against the underside of her breast. Her breath hitched and her brow puckered but her eyes remained stubbornly closed.
Shifting upwards, he straddled her again and choked back laughter when he saw her lips purse into a determined line. Perversely, he lowered his head so that his mouth was barely an inch from her puckered, reddened nipple. He blew softly over it, smirking when she bit her swollen lip in helpless response.
“What if we just go somewhere this Christmas? Just the two of us?” Maybe somewhere ancient and wild, like Takodana—Kylo had a feeling that Rey would love getting lost in that country’s sprawling forests and spending a few days living by one of its many lakes.
Rey’s eyes flew open in surprise, the implications of his suggestions hitting her too quickly for her to process. She meant to ask questions, to clear up what he meant, but then Kylo’s lips closed over her and all she managed was a soft sigh and a languorous, “Mmmm.”
It didn’t matter where they went or what they did. As long as she was with him.