girl, so confusing

And now, standing in the merchant’s private meeting rooms aboard a hovering palace cruiser, he remembered why he didn’t accept anything from Hutt associates. 

“This is only half the credits.” Mando said, his voice steady, trying his best to now show any kind of frustration.

“I know, I know, Mandalorian” the merchant, a Zeltron with deep cerulean skin, replied. “Money’s tight, but I am a creature of my word.”

And with that, he stood up, walking towards the end of the room, where he pushed aside a heavy curtain embroidered with stars. Immediately, a wave of strong perfume —spiced with the scent of Corellian hibiscus and Coruscant night markets— hit Mando even through his helmet. 

Din didn’t move. He didn’t have to; he knew exactly what the “payment” would be, and it was not something he wanted.

But, then, he saw it: across the veil of smoke, a faint sparkle caught his eye, and a laugh drifted— light, almost musical, melting into the room like the last note of a flute. 

He stepped forward before caution could stop him.

The merchant guided Din across the wide room, dimly lit by flickering fire candles, the smoke from exotic incense swirling in intricate patterns above Persian-style rugs. The cushions strewn across the floor were deep and embroidered with Naboo silks; they seemed to float above the darkness, inviting yet alien. The air smelled of sin, and the dim lights of the candles drew glowing pale orange shadows on the naked torsos of the ladies. 

Zeltron, Kiffar, Theelin and other human-hybrid females, dressed in silk and linen, laid across the room, spread over the cushions like dehydrated flowers waiting for the dew. Their garments left nothing to the imagination, and yet they covered them enough to leave a man, regardless of his species, intrigued.

“This could easily cover the debt.” the merchant murmured, gesturing toward the figures lounging on the cushions. One of the girls stood up, and without breaking eye contact with Mando, moved to the merchant’s side, giving him a side hug. “More than enough, in fact.” the merchant continued, wrapping an arm across the girl’s slender waist. “My girls ain’t cheap. I am giving you more than what I had offered in the first place.”

Din’s hand hovered near his blaster. Despite being in a room full of women, a few men (some human, most of them Zeltrons and Kiffars) were there… receiving the pleasures they had paid for. 

Everyone’s eyes, one way or another, landed in Din’s figure. He was used to it, at that point, and he knew the lingering eyes of the girls were curious and not threatening, yet Din’s instincts screamed caution. He checked every man in the room for their blasters and weapons, he took note of the guards standing in the darkest corners, and their rifles. He counted the windows (none) and the exits (just one). 

Din cleared his throat, ready to demand the credits outright, when that soft, honeyed laugh sounded again. He must’ve reacted in some way, because the merchant raised an eyebrow, and scoffed a dry laugh. 

“Oh, I see.” the merchant said, waving the figures back into the shadows. “You have… particular tastes, Mandalorian.”

The Zeltron, still holding the girl by her waist, guided Din toward a far corner, where the candlelight barely reached. Shadows twisted in shapes that hinted at hidden treasures —or hidden dangers. Din followed, every step measured, his hand outstretched and ready to blast off anyone if needed. 

Together, the three of them walked towards another room, more secluded. The chamber smelled of spice, smoke, and something faintly metallic —the trace scent of a blaster discharge long past… or perhaps blood. They smelled the same to Din. 

He didn’t know exactly what awaited him, but in his line of work, curiosity and caution walked hand in hand. One wrong step in a Hutt-controlled palace, and it wouldn’t just be credits lost —it would be his head, no helmet, mounted as a warning at the entrance of the brothel.

The merchant stopped before a narrow archway draped in sheer fabric the color of twilight. Unlike the main chamber, this room was quiet. No music. Just the soft crackle of a single oil lamp and that honeycomb laughter he had walked to, like a spell.

The merchant hesitated for a moment, unsure if to say anything or not, but instead he just opened the door and pushed the fabric aside. Inside, there were no cushions scattered across the floor. No perfumed haze thick enough to choke. Just a small table, a low bed against the wall, and a viewport showing the skies of Nal Hutta covered in greenish clouds.

And sitting cross-legged on the edge of the windowsill, was a human girl.

She couldn’t have been more than twenty standard years. Maybe twenty-four. Her long hair fell in uneven waves past her shoulders, clearly cut with a knife instead of proper shears. Her clothes were simple, compared to her co-workers —a loose linen tunic, trousers too big for her frame, sleeves rolled to reveal wrists ringed with faint bruises. Restraint marks.

She wasn’t painted in oils or draped in jewels. She wasn’t smiling seductively. She had something in her hand (the cause of her giggles) but she quickly put it away when they walked in. She looked ahead, and then turned to meet Mando’s gaze, hidden behind the helmet. Somehow, she managed to stare directly at him.

“This” the merchant said smoothly as he took a few steps towards the girl “is special stock. Rare. Fully human. No augmentations. No pheromone glands. No tricks.” He crouched beside her, fingers brushing her jaw as if inspecting merchandise. She didn’t flinch, but her jaw tightened almost imperceptibly. “Fresh acquisition from a man who owed me a lot of money. Claims she’s from some backwater agri-world. No papers. No family.”

The girl’s gaze never left Din’s visor.

“She’s not trained yet.” the merchant added. “Her species makes her expensive, but her condition alone makes her worth far more than the credits I owe you. One hour with her and we would be more than settled.”

Din’s hand slowly curled into a fist.

“How old?” he asked, his voice lower than before.

The merchant shrugged. “Youngest you’ll find of her kind in Nal Hutta.”

Din tilted his helmet slightly. “What’s your name?” he asked her.

The girl's eyes widened. It seemed like Din was the first person to ever speak to her directly, or let alone ask her something so personal, now that she wasn’t a person anymore. But, before she could even stutter, the merchant interrupted sharply, squeezing her arm. “Property designation L-17.”

Din’s visor turned slowly toward him. “She has a name.” he said, matter of fact.

The Zeltron forced a smile, shaking his head, as he put his hands together. “Names are sentimental. And you see, I manage many girls, it’s useless for the stock to remember names and surnames.”

And with that, the merchant took a step closer to Din, and spoke to the girl in the entrance of the chamber, the one who had followed them in. “Give notice at the front desk, L-17 is booked for an hour.”

Din took one deliberate step closer, shaking his hesd. The sound of beskar boots against the metal floor rang heavy in the small room.

“I didn’t agree to this.” he said. “I want the credits.”

“And I am offering you something far more valuable.” the merchant replied, slowly and calm, with a tone as sharp as the blade hidden in his garments. 

Din’s hand hovered near his blaster again— but not out of discomfort this time. He was calculating.

He could demand the money once again, and leave most likely empty handed, best case scenario. He could shoot the merchant and fight his way out of a Hutt cruiser swarming with guards. He could walk away entirely without making a scene.

Or—

“An hour?” he asked, moving his fingers to relax his grip, forcing himself to not grab the blaster. 

“More would be too much. An hour… I understand it is enough time for humans.” the merchant smiled, clearly satisfied. “Assuming, of course, you are human underneath that helmet. I heard most Mandalorians are.”

Din didn’t reply. The Zeltron bowed shortly, and walked to the door. “We’ll see you in an hour” he announced as his girl closed the door, leaving Din and the human completely alone in the chamber.

The door sealed with a heavy hiss. The silence that followed was loud, but it finally made Din relax his shoulders. 

He didn’t move toward her. Instead, he crossed the small chamber, removed his gloves one at a time, and set them carefully on the table. Then, he sat on the edge of the low bed, taking his boots off. After a moment, he leaned back against the wall, helmet still on, arms resting at his sides, trying to get as comfortable as possible. 

He did not look at her. But he knew she was staring, expecting an order. “I won’t touch you” he said at last.

The words sat between them, heavy. To Mando’s surprise, the girl didn’t relax. But she didn’t shrink, either. “You paid for the hour” she said.

“I didn’t pay. The merchant owed me.” Din replied, closing his eyes, though of course she couldn’t see it. 

He could feel her gaze on him, studying him. “You’re Mandalorian,” she said carefully. “That means you have a code.”

He didn’t answer. Instead, he opened his eyes, and watched her more closely as she shifted slightly on the windowsill. 

The way she held herself still, the way her breathing evened out on purpose. The lack of fear, or rather her temple-like control of her emotions, made Din raise an eyebrow. Something metallic flashed briefly in her hand before she curled her fingers around it again. Din noticed, of course. 

“Where’d you get that?” he asked, sitting a bit more straight. 

Her chin lifted a fraction. “Get what?” She played fool. 

He tilted his helmet toward her closed fist. After a stretch of measured, skin tight silence, where she realised she couldn’t lie to him, the girl opened her hand. 

It was nothing but a small magnetic restraint clip, bent at the edge and with rough edges— hacked. 

“You’ve been working on that” he observed.

“For three weeks.”

Din nodded, impressed. He imagined most girls, if not all, were held against their will— he had assumed the merchant would’ve had smarter ways to avoid these kinds of situations. And yet, here there was a human girl, with a hijacked clip, waiting for an opportunity to run. 

“That won’t open this door” he informed her, expecting to break her illusion, but her reply surprised him. 

“I know.” She met his visor without flinching. “It opens the service corridor two decks down.”

Now he turned his head fully toward her, standing from the bed. “That corridor leads to—”

“Hangar access.” She finished the sentence. “Or so I’m told.”

Told.

The way she said that, and the slip of an accent —fine and clear like ceramic— made him realize she wasn’t a farm girl. He could hear it in her cadence now, and see it in the straighten of her spine, and the elegant arch of her naked feet. But it was more obvious when you spoke to her, and the way she chose words. 

She was educated, and raised with a purpose much higher than most humans— and definitely not the one the merchant intended of her. 

“You don’t sound like you’re from a backwater agri-world” Din murmured, not sure if he was doing the right thing or not.

She gave the smallest smile. “No, I’m not. And this isn’t my place either— but it’s also no place for a Mandalorian.”

Fair enough. 

Din sat down on the edge of the bed, now closer to the windowsill. “You’re waiting for someone” he said.

“Yes.”

“Who?”

She hesitated, for the first time. But that was just a pause to decide her words. “My people.” She replied at last, something twinkling in her eyes. 

Not family.

Not father.

Not husband. 

People.

That was more than enough to know that she— oh, she was a princess. Or at least nobility. And whatever her heritage was, she was hiding it very well.

“You’re not scared” he said.

She looked at him for a long moment, until she sighed. “I am.” she replied. “I just refuse to perform it.”

Din felt something shift in his chest. It took him a minute to understand it was respect. He hadn’t felt that for someone in a while— truth is, he hadn’t bumped into many people who deserved it. She did, though. At least in plain sight. A noble girl, trapped in a brothel, refusing to break and planning an escape instead of just waiting like a damsel in distress? That deserved respect. 

“Are you going to take me out of here?” she asked, but it wasn’t a plea to be rescued, it was a calculated question, to measure her own plan. 

“No”. Mando replied, and that clearly surprised her. She raised her eyebrows, not a single wrinkle on her forehead as she did.  “I’m not in the business of stealing what isn’t mine.” he found himself explaining— odd for him. 

Her fingers tightened around the clip. “Well, I’m not his property, even if he thinks so.”

Mando swallowed saliva, and nodded. “I know.” He said. She had a point. “I agreed to this” he said finally, voice lower “so I wouldn’t have to kill everyone between here and my ship.” Again, more explanations he wasn’t entirely sure why he was giving— maybe because he hoped she didn’t hate him for not helping her out. “I’ll figure out the credits later. But it was this or bloodshed.”

She studied him, holding herself with her arms. “Then why are you still here?”

“Because if I walk out too soon, they’ll know something’s wrong.”

That earned him the faintest nod. Now she was the one gaining his respect. The Mandalorian was strategic, not hot headed, and didn’t murder for sport.  She liked that. 

Din shifted slightly on the bed, going back to his relaxed pose, resting his back against the bedframe. “You have how long before your people come?”

“It is unknown.”

That made him huff a small laugh. “Then you don’t have a plan.”

“I do” she said, straightening up, holding the chip tight on her fist. “It’s just… delayed.”

Din looked at the bruises, at her clothes, at the bones poking from the hemline of the neck. Three weeks she had lasted, untouched and unbroken, but it was clear her limit was getting closer. If he had been a lesser man, he would’ve been the one in charge to bend that willpower holding her together. 

“You want to get to that service corridor?” Din found himself asking. 

She went very still, her breathing caught on her chest before she spoke. “Yes.”

He sat up. “Then when the hour’s up, you follow me. Don’t run unless I tell you.”

Her eyes sharpened, an eyebrow raised once again. “You’re helping me.”

“I’m helping myself.” he corrected, or rather lied. “I don’t want the merchant to think of me as a partner for business.” A beat of silence followed, and then, once again, Din found himself over explaining. “And I don’t like what this place is.”

That was as close to an admission as she’d get out of him, but it was enough. She slid off the windowsill, stepping closer toward him, but still keeping distance.

“For what it’s worth” she said quietly, “I knew you wouldn’t hurt me— you’re Mandalorian, after all.”

He didn’t respond at that, but his shoulders loosened slightly, almost against his will. Across the hall, distant laughter echoed again. Din glanced toward the door. “We wait.”

The hour did not pass quickly. If anything, they did the opposite. And it got longer with every distant footstep in the corridor that felt closer than it was; with every burst of laughter beyond the walls; with every distant and echoey moan and whimper that reminded them what performance the merchant expected them to be engaging at.

Din checked the time twice in the corner of his visor display. Fifty-three minutes.

She was pacing around the small chamber, not nervously, but thinking. Her linen clothes made a carpet-like sound as they rubbed against each other. “They’ll expect…” She hesitated, then forced herself to continue. “They’ll expect signs.”

“I know.” Din replied, although he hadn’t really thought of it. Their gazes landed on the bed, where the sheets laid pristine. Din stood slowly. The mattress dipped as he pressed a gloved hand into it, then released. The fabric smoothed itself almost perfectly.

“Wrinkle them” he said.

She blinked. 

“The sheets.” He clarified. 

She moved without embarrassment now, pulling at the blanket, twisting the fabric, creasing it sharply near the pillows. She tugged one corner loose so it hung unevenly. While she worked on the bed, Din stepped toward the small oil lamp and dimmed it further. The room fell into deeper shadow, making the green clouds on the window glow like emeralds through the window. 

“Your hair” he added, looking at the pale green glow bouncing off of her curls. 

She hesitated only a second before dragging her fingers through it, loosening the waves until they fell more chaotically around her shoulders. But then, she paused, her face contouring into realisation. “I…” She swallowed, with her fingers still tangled on her locks.

“What?” Din asked, turning around to see her composure flickering for the first time.

“They think I’m untouched.”

He said nothing, but he knew her stomach turned just as much as his. 

“If he checks” she continued quietly, more controlled and collected once again, but thinner at the edges, “there won’t be… evidence.”

Silence filled the room again. On his visor, the clock moved a number. Fifty-six. 

Din looked at the sheets. Then at her. Then at his gauntlet. The idea came to mind before he could even process it. 

He stepped past her toward the table, removing one glove. His hands were calloused, scarred with old cuts and burns, many from work, even more from childhood. It took her by surprise to see they were, as least in sight, pure human. 

“I believe this will be enough” he said.

Before she could ask what he meant, he drew the small vibroblade from his boot. He didn’t hesitate, not even a second, when he rested the blade on his skin and made a quick slide across the pad of his finger, shallow enough to heal… shallow enough to bleed. 

She inhaled sharply, despite herself, as she watched how Din pressed his hand briefly against the rumpled sheets, leaving a small, unmistakable stain. It wasn’t dramatic or excessive. It was… believable enough, hopefully. 

He wiped the blade clean against his glove and sealed the minor wound with a small med-seal from his belt. “All right?” he asked.

She stared at the mark on the sheets for a long moment. “You didn’t have to do that.”

Once again, footsteps echoed in the corridor. But this time, they didn’t pass by. 

Din put his glove on and resumed his place on the bed, leaning back against the wall exactly as before —except now the sheets bore their story.

She moved instinctively toward the windowsill again. “No.” Din commanded. When she turned, he nodded to the bed. 

Quickly, she lowered herself onto the edge of the bed, back partially turned to him, hair falling forward over one shoulder. She sat close enough to suggest proximity, but still keeping distance. She clenched the edge of the mattress tightly. Din couldn’t tell if that was part of the acting or not. But before he could ask, the door lock disengaged with a metallic click, and the Zeltron merchant entered with the same perfumed air and calculated smile he had an hour before. 

His gaze flicked immediately to the bed and a smile of satisfaction struck his face. The sheets, the light, her hair, and the stain, all seemed to be doing the trick. 

“I trust the hour was… sufficient?”

Din didn’t answer immediately. Instead, he rose slowly from the bed. “It was.” he said.

The merchant’s smile widened. “Excellent. Then our debt—”

“I’m interested in purchasing her.”

Din’s words cut through the room like a blade. Through the corner of his visor, he saw the girl stiffening a bit, still on her spot. 

The merchant blinked for a moment, and then laughed— a short, loud laughter that clearly was the only sound he managed to get out as he processed the request. “I’m afraid she’s not for permanent sale.” The merchant informed. 

“I’m offering triple what you owe me.” Din lied. 

The Zeltron’s expression didn’t change, but his eyes sharpened. “You misunderstand. She is an investment.”

Din stepped closer, voice calm, measured. “Everything has a price.”

Now that wasn’t a lie. And yet, the merchant’s pleasant demeanor cooled by a fraction. “Not this one.”

Din could feel guards shifting just outside the doorway now. The shift was subtle but he picked on it right away, and he hoped the girl was smart enough to pick on it too.  The plan had just tilted.

“She’s—“ Din stuttered, not entirely sure of how to continue, but the merchant interrupted his words. 

“She is leverage.” He informed the Mandalorian. 

Not merchandise, or cargo. Not a gift, or a tool, or a working machine. She wasn’t kept in another room from the other girls because of her price, she was separated… because she wasn’t a girl from the brothel. Hence why the merchant offered her to pay his debt— her abuse didn’t have the goal of a profit for him, but clearly served a function for him. 

Leverage.

Din’s helmet angled slightly. “Against who?”

The merchant’s smile returned to his face, but thin this time. “Now that would be telling.” He said as he gestured politely toward the door. “Our arrangement is complete, Mandalorian. I suggest you depart before additional fees are incurred.”

Din didn’t move. The corridor beyond the doorway felt narrower now as guards grew closer, blasters ready. 

A part of him, a more cowardly side of him, knew he could just walk away with half of a payment and a lot of information. 

Lucky for her, though, he wasn’t a coward. 

Din moved before the guards did.

The merchant’s smile hadn’t fully faded when Din’s gauntlet shot forward and seized him by the collar, dragging him hard into the doorway. The Zeltron gasped as Din twisted him sideways. When the blasters erupted, the first bolt hit the merchant instead of beskar.

Female screams followed.

Din fired with clean, efficient shots. One guard dropped. Another stumbled back, clutching his shoulder, before falling as well. The corridor exploded into chaos. It was clear the guards hadn’t been expecting this, and their hesitation cost them their lives. 

“Move!” Din said, hoping the girl wasn’t waiting for this moment to become foolish. She stepped past the fallen merchant without looking down, and ran to the left. 

Din advanced, firing with measured precision, as he followed her.  They reached the first junction before more boots thundered from the far hall. “Left.” she said. “Service access.”

They slipped into a narrower corridor that was dimmer, colder, and scentless. The decorative walls gave way to exposed piping and maintenance panels. The air smelled metallic— both from blasters and blood. 

As they ran, a bolt scorched the wall inches from her head, making her scream. Din caught her arm and pulled her behind him in the same motion, returning fire without breaking stride. 

“Stay behind me.” He shouted. 

“I am!” She shouted back. 

Finally, they reached the ladder shaft, where two clueless guards awaited. Din didn’t slow, and he blasted before the guards could even draw their weapons. 

The girl took her chip, the hijacked one, and placed it on the door. Her fingers trembled, but it was the only part of her body doing so. And when the door opened, she gasped in relief. “Hangar is forward.” she said, breathing slightly faster now. “But they’ll lock it.”

“Not before we get there.” Mando shook his head. 

They turned the final corner, and ran straight into resistance. Four guards this time. Unlike their previous workmates, these ones were prepared and ready to blast. In a quick move, Din shoved the girl sideways, behind a stack of supply crates, just in time the blasterfire erupted.

The corridor filled with light, his beskar armour making fireworks with each hit of a bolt. One guard went down to a clean headshot. Another to a blast that ricocheted off the wall and caught him in the throat. The third lunged forward, and Din drove him into the bulkhead with a brutal shoulder slam before firing point-blank.

The fourth fled the scene. Din would’ve killed him if it wasn’t for the girl. 

He turned his head to locate her, but lucky for him, she was already moving past the bodies and into the hangar. That made the corners of his mouth lift up as he ran behind her.

They burst into the hangar as the massive bay doors were already beginning to close. And there, waiting, sat the Razor Crest. But blasterfire began to rain down from a catwalk above as they reached the ship. A bolt clipped the edge of the ramp controls as Din slammed his fist against them. 

The boarding ramp began to lower, and she climbed up, but halfway up, a bolt grazed her shoulder.

Din turned and fired upward, forcing the catwalk guards back just long enough for the girl and him to climb up and close the ramp. 

Inside, the Crest felt tighter than ever as he rushed to the cockpit. She followed behind, one hand pressed to her shoulder, though she refused to slow or cry. 

Din dropped into the pilot’s seat and ignited the engines. The hyperdrive couplings screamed in protest, and he silently prayed they cooperated one last time.

“Hangar doors are sealing,” she exclaimed, peering through the viewport.

Din didn’t hesitate as The Crest lurched violently upward, scraping hard along the closing doors. Metal shrieked. Sparks exploded across the viewport in blinding flashes. For a moment —one suspended, endless second, longer than the hour they had endured— it felt like the ship wouldn’t make it. 

And then, they were flying across Nal Hutta’s murky sky. Din steadied the controls, guiding them into thick green cloud cover, and as far away from the brothel as possible. 

That’s when she collapsed. 

By the time you awoke, the sounds of screams and blasters were long gone, and the smell of perfume and incense had faded away. 

The ship was quiet. Not silent —ships were never silent— but quiet in the way the world sounds after a thunderstorm, before birds sing again. Quiet, just like when something stubborn settles after surviving. You noticed the faint clicking of cooling metal, and a low vibration under the floor.

You did not open your eyes immediately, as they were still heavy. That was the first thing you felt. The second was pain. Not sharp and blinding like the moment you were shot-- instead, it was a dull, tight pull on your shoulder. You reached your hand to your shoulder, and recognised the gauze to the touch. As your fingers traveled, you touched something else. A blanket, definitely not soft, or washed, but doing its job.

Your memory returned in fragments, then. The corridor. The catwalk. The bolt. The Mandalorian.

Your eyes opened slowly, at last. Around you, the cockpit lights were dimmed. That surprised you-- the fact that you were still in the cockpit, sitting on the passenger seat, instead of laying on a bed. Outside, the viewport stretched not across the green murk of Nal Hutta, but a velvet, deep darkness, speckled with distant stars.

You turned your head slightly, and there he was. 

The Mandalorian. 

Your saviour.

He was seated on the pilot chair beside you, helmet still on, of course, with an upright but not rigid posture . One gloved hand rested loosely against his thigh, while the other hung near the controls.

You sat upright, straightening on the chair. You shifted your weight, the gauze cold but comforting across your shoulder. Every movement reminded you of the fight, of the corridor, the catwalk, the feel of cold metal under your palms, and the smell of scorched walls. Yet, even with pain lingering, even with the adrenaline fading, there was a sliver of relief that wrapped around you like the coarse blanket still draped across your lap.

The Mandalorian didn’t turn, nor moved. He just spoke.

“You’re nobility.”

His voice was calm, and he didn’t say it like an accusation, just like a fact he had assumed back in the brothel and confirmed a moment ago. 

You let out a slow breath, as a deep weight sunk onto your chest. “Yes” was all you said.

When he didn’t reply, nor ask more questions, you moved, folding the coarse blanket back and swinging your legs slowly off the cot, ignoring the slight pull in your shoulder. The cockpit smelled faintly of fuel, ozone, and oil.

“What gave it away?” you asked, resting your head fully against the chair as you watched the stars. 

“Your accent, and certain words you use--” the Mandalorian explained, his voice deep and rich. Now that you were out of danger and enclosured into the cockpit of the ship, it projected more clearly. “No farmer girl has your vocabulary, and the leverage part… men like the merchant love money more than anything, it didn't make sense he wouldn’t sell you to me. So, I searched databases.”

Your stomach tightened, but not from fear. From inevitability.

“I found inconsistencies.” he continued. “No missing persons report matching your description from any agri-world in the sector. No ransom demand listed through known Hutt channels.” His head tilted slightly. “No public bounty.”

You held his gaze through the visor.

“Yet…” he continued calmly, “three encrypted bulletins were issued through private syndicate networks three weeks ago. Diplomatic bulletins.”

The silence that lingered was deep and rich, and it added more weight to the stone that was oppressing your chest.

“Your father...” the Mandalorian spoke, matter-of-fact. “is the King of Corfai”

“Former King.” you corrected softly, and cleared your throat as you looked away. “He abdicated three years ago, my brother sits on the throne now. But the Hutts don’t care about titles.”

The engines hummed steadily. “The merchant said they took you for leverage” the mandalorian repeated.

“For humiliation.” You corrected, again. Gathering strength, and ignoring the pull on your shoulder, you stood carefully, bracing one hand on the bulkhead. The ship swayed subtly with hyperspace corrections. “They wanted a smuggling corridor across Corfai’s southern hemisphere. A permanent passage with unchecked inspections and protected airspace.”

“For the merchant network.” he said.

“For the Hutt merchant network” you clarified, giving him a look that implied a lot. He is a bounty hunter, you thought to yourself, so he must be aware what kinds of merchandise flows in a Hutt merchant network. Spice, weapons, drugs, and more than just women to feed the brothels. 

“Corfai’s economy is delicate, especially now with these turbulent political times.” you continued. “They believed my father would bend and convince my brother, but he didn’t.” A faint exhale left your chest, although it didn’t lessen the heavy sensation you felt. 

“So they made you disappear” Mando said, but you shook your head. Unconsciously, you found yourself clasping your hands together, behind your pack— an old posture from state briefings. 

“I wasn’t meant to be killed or disappeared. Quite the opposite, in fact. I was meant to be seen, and rumoured about my whereabouts. About my dignity.”

“And then returned damaged” he finished.

Your jaw tightened. “I don’t believe they would’ve returned me, but yes. Hand me back damaged, stained, violated. No longer a princess, but instead a living proof of the Hutt’s power, of what happens when you say no.” 

He paused, and for a moment, you dared to let the heaviness settle without moving. The soft vibration of the hyperdrive hummed through the floor and into your bones. The dim cockpit lights cast long, angular shadows across the panels, glinting off the metallic edges of buttons and switches. Outside, the stars blurred into thin, pale streaks, streaks that seemed to echo the chaos you’d just escaped.

Then he broke the silence. “Are you hurt?”

“Just the shoulder.” You shruggle, holding the injured arm with your hand. “Thanks, for patching me up. And saving me.”

Your manners were not the best, you knew, but it made you feel flustered just to imagine the Mandalorian picking you up, ripping your shirt off, cleaning your wound and then carefully setting you beside him. 

“You’re welcome” he scoffed. “But I meant…” His voice softened, almost low enough to be swallowed by the hum of the ship. “The merchant said you were unclaimed.”

His voice was low, and if he hadn't been wearing that helmet, you would’ve sworn he was blushing as he spoke. “You said you were unclaimed. Is… that true?”

The words lingered in the air, heavier than any blaster bolt had been. You knew what he meant, and for some reason --perhaps owing him your life, or perhaps his religion-- you decided to speak the truth.

“No.”

You looked out the window, into the stars, as you continued. “I was claimed long ago, by a knight who no longer works at the palace. I’ve had many lovers since then.” You didn’t meet his gaze, but through the corner of your eye you saw the helmet move. “The merchant thinks he can tell when a human is virgin or not, when he barely even knows our anatomy.”

There was a pause, filled only by the quiet clicks of the ship’s machinery. You hoped he didn’t ask more specific details. 

“Did the lie help?”

“Yes…” you spoke with the truth again. “But it wasn’t going to last long. You came in time.”

You shifted, taking a steadying breath as the hyperdrive thrummed beneath you. The vibration traveled through your chest, soft but persistent, lessening a bit of that heaviness you felt in your chest.

And when you thought the conversation was over, the bounty hunter spoke once again. “Why did you choose the service corridor instead of the main hall to escape?”

“The main hall cameras record to external Hutt archives. The service corridors are internal.” You explained. The smooth, unyielding tilt of his helmet caught the low light, reflecting stars in tiny, fractured patterns.

“You weren’t planning to be rescued” he said quietly, as though verifying a truth he already suspected.

“No.” you admitted, looking back at him. “I tried to keep a low profile, and flee on my own before things could escalate.”

“And now?”

You looked out the viewport at the velvet expanse of hyperspace, letting the stars draw your focus. “Now I need a ship that can move without attracting attention.”

A slight tilt of the helmet, deliberate, made you turn once more. “You’re in one.” he said.

Your shoulders eased slightly. “You realize that if you return me to Corfai, you will not leave quietly, right?”

“I don’t plan to land publicly.”

“And if my father insists on thanking you?”

“I’ll leave before he can.”

For the first time, a small smile flickered across your face, fragile but real. “You could drop me at a neutral system, and erase yourself from this.”

“I don’t abandon assets mid-transport.”

You almost replied back with something silly, like ‘I'm not an asset’, but you knew it'd be pointless. And a lie. You were an asset, a piece of a game, an object for men’s politics. So you just sat down again.

The ship’s hyperspace hummed deeper, steadying the ship’s path, as if sensing the fragile truce forming between you.

“What happens when we reach Corfai?” the Mandalorian asked.

You inhaled, slow, measured, the faint scent of ozone and oil sharp in your nose. “Officially? I was never gone.”

“And unofficially?”

You bit your cheek. “We’ll determine how much of this becomes public. If the Hutts are exposed, it becomes galactic. If it stays quiet… then perhaps we might let it slide.”

For a long moment, the two of you sat in the cockpit, suspended in the silent hum of the Razor Crest. The dim lights glimmered on the smooth curves of metal, on the worn edges of control panels, on the gloved hands resting lightly at your side. Outside, hyperspace stretched, carrying you away from the brothel.

Time moved slowly as the bounty hunter and you traveled through space towards your planet, and the Hyperspace had gone quiet in the way only deep night can feel quiet.

The Razor Crest vibrated softly around you. The lights were dimmed to a low amber glow, shadows settling into corners, the cockpit illuminated only by the wash of blue streaming past the viewport.

You couldn’t sleep.

The Mandalorian had shown you a bed where you could rest more comfortably, the only one in the small ship— his bed. 

You turned in the sheets, trying to pick up the smell left there. The scent, not of his armour, but of his skin. Every time you closed your eyes, echoes of the brothel invaded your thoughts. Long nights where all you could hear were moans and pleasure. Now, those memories mixed in with the scent of what hid beneath the beskar.

You couldn’t sleep. 

You stepped from the bed slowly, your bare feet quiet against cold decking. You took a few steps —it wasn’t a large ship by any means— and found the Mandalorian right where you had expected him, still on his pilot seat, even though the ship was in autopilot. 

“You don’t trust autopilot” you said softly, hoping to not startle him, but he wasn’t asleep. 

“It’s old.” He replied, gloved hands resting on his thighs. 

“So are you.” You joked, taking another step closer. And, to your surprise, he joked back. 

“I’m older.”

You smiled, and stepped into the cockpit.

The air was unperfumed. Nothing like the brothel’s cloying air. And yet, the echoes of the moans continued to run on your ears. You lowered yourself into the co-pilot seat. “Couldn’t sleep” you explained.

“Nightmares?” The Mandalorian asked, making you chuckle. 

“Eh, you could say so” you said with a shrug.

The silence stretched, deep like the black stretching across the galaxy. Not a ship in sight, not a planet nearby. They were so far away even the stars seemed to be out of reach. 

But you couldn't let that distract you. You were on your way to Corfai, to your father and brother, to your duties and responsibilities. To your silk dresses and long hours of work. You had to shift your mind once again, dart it away from the echoes of the brothel, from the scent still trapped on your nostrils. 

“Can I be honest now?” you found yourself saying. The Mandalorian nodded, shortly. “You asked if I was… still a maiden. And I said no. I’d rather we keep that between you and me.”

It took the bounty hunter a long moment to reply, long enough to make you hesitate if the request had been a right call. But he surprised you, at last, when he cleared his throat, and said: “Not my business to tell.”

“Right. But, for nobility, these kinds of things are important.” You replied, perhaps too quickly. You didn’t like the anxiety that was growing on you the closer the ship got to Corfai.

“Why?” 

“Huh?”

When you turned your head, you found the beskar helmet staring right at you, your own face reflected on the visor. You didn’t look happy for a princess that was just rescued. 

“Why is your maidenhood important for nobility?” The Mandalorian asked.  

You had to look away, even if he didn’t. “Well, heritage, I suppose.” You found yourself doubting, even though you knew the reasons. You were taught from birth your body was more important than others, because it had the ability to birth heirs to the throne, to continue the bloodline. That, above all, was your duty and purpose. 

“And… there’s this thing about being… pure. The whole reason I was kept in a brothel and not locked in a cell is because they wanted to take that away too.” 

“But you aren’t pure.” The Mandalorian said, matter-of-fact. 

“No, I’m not” you confirmed.

Your gazes met again. But now, instead of watching your reflection, you forced your eyes to look beyond, to try and spot the human eyes you knew laid beneath the armor. 

You didn’t mean to do it, but your eyes dropped down to admire the rest of the fit-- a big armor, for a big man. Older, he had said. Determined, not hot headed. Respectful. And yet, incredibly dangerous. After all, this wasn’t one of the castle’s knights, this was a bounty hunter who just so happened to bump into you. A man who could’ve abused you if he had wanted to. A man still with the opportunity to do so.

His hand --the one he had taken the glove off to cut his finger for you-- was resting on the control board, but it drifted down slowly, like a snail, to lay on your knee. It was big, heavy, and warm, and his thumb ran soft circles on your exposed skin. 

And when you looked up --to do what? You weren’t sure-- he moved it away, as if he’d gotten a whiplash. 

“Sorry. I don’t want to get it wrong.” he apologized, looking ahead, and straightening his stance --closing his legs, tightening his shoulders, and clearing his throat, his voice more correct now, less warm. It didn’t sound arrogant, nor controlling. 

He was nervous. 

You turned fully in your seat to face him, your legs crossed daintily by your ankles. 

“Get what wrong?” you asked quietly.

The Mandalorian didn’t look at you at first. His helmet remained fixed forward, staring out at the endless streak of hyperspace as if it were the most fascinating thing in the galaxy.

“You” he said after a moment. “I’m a bounty hunter.” he continued, voice careful now, measured in a way that felt more deliberate than before. “You’re a princess.”

The way he said it made the title feel heavier than it had when it came from courtiers and diplomats. From them, it was expectation. From him, it sounded like distance.

“You were taken by Hutt men” he went on. “You were kept somewhere you didn’t choose to be. I’m bringing you home.” His fingers curled once against his thigh. “Wouldn’t be right to...”

“To what?” you pressed, hoping, begging on your mind he’d ask what you wanted him to. That he also couldn't escape the moans echoing on his head, that he was also drunk on your scent --not the incense of the brothel, but your own scent, the smell of your skin.

The helmet turned toward you again. And, once again, your reflection stared back at you from the visor, eyes darker now in the dim amber light.

“Mistake your kindness” he said.

That surprised you. “Kindness?” you repeated, a bit disappointed.

“You’re grateful I got you out” he said simply. “That can feel like something else, to other bounty hunters.”

You bit your cheek, a bit frustrated, and leaned back slightly in the seat, folding your arms loosely across your middle. For a moment you watched the faint reflection of his helmet in the cockpit glass, the broad shape of him filling the small space.

“That’s a very cautious way to live.”

“It’s a necessary one.”

You tilted your head. You knew it was necessary-- it was the way you were raised to. But needs were needs. 

“For bounty hunters?”

“For men who wear armor.” he simply said, and something about the way he said it made your stomach tighten. The odor of his human skin, the one trapped beneath the beskar, still hung on your nose.

You let the silence stretch again, long enough that the hum of the ship filled the space between breaths.

Then you spoke, almost in a whisper. “You’re assuming my kindness comes from being rescued, or because of my manners.” The cockpit felt smaller, if that was even possible, when he turned again. “I spent weeks in a brothel…” you continued, your voice steady but low, your gaze fixed on the visor. “...listening to men think they were irresistible because someone was paid to moan for them.” You leaned forward slightly, resting your elbow on the armrest of your chair. “Trust me, Mandalorian. I know what false interest sounds like. This isn’t it.”

You could almost feel the way he was listening now and how his body relaxed involuntarily-- shoulders loosening, legs opening up again.

“So, if I were grateful…” you said, standing up, “…it would look like this.”

The pilot seat didn’t move when you slowly lowered yourself to sit on his legs, straddling him. 

You didn’t move until you got a sign, of any kind, that he wanted this. Lucky for you, it came rather quickly— his hands, gloves on, moved to hold your waist, and fixed your posture on his lap to a more comfortable angle, exactly where your hips and his met. 

But when he spoke, his words shocked you. 

“I’ve never…” He began stuttering. “I’ve never been with anyone.”

There was no embarrassment in his tone. He just said it, stating a fact. It made your chest tighten unexpectedly.

“You don’t owe me that confession” you said gently.

“I wanted you to know.”

“Why?”

“So you don’t expect something I don’t know how to give.”

That made your smile soften, and relax your shoulders, even if you hadn’t been aware you were so tense. He was a virgin, probably by Mandalorian code, or perhaps due to his own personal experience. A man so correct, so right, so strict, of course had trouble enjoying himself. It didn’t turn your heat off— if anything, it made you feel calmer. And hornier. 

“Sex isn’t about giving or taking— that’s prostitution. That’s what happened in the brothel. We aren’t there anymore.” You explained, running your fingers lazily up and down his arms, moving them up to trace a slow line along the edge of his collar. “You’re very brave in battle” you murmured.

“Battle makes sense.”

“And this?”

The Mandalorian took a pause, exhaling. 

“This doesn’t.”

It made you smile again. “It will. If you want to” you whispered. 

And, to surprise you again, the Mandalorian’s hands tightened around your waist at your words, almost as if he’d been afraid you would’ve stepped away from his lap. 

“I do.”

You smirked. 

The heat pouring off of your core was already too noticeable to ignore it anymore, so you rested your hands on his broad shoulders, holding on to his frame, as you began to rock your hips back and forth. The fabric of his pants made a sharp contrast between the rough linen of your brothel clothing, rubbing you harsh but determined. And the naked parts of your body —yours hands, your arms, and part of your thighs— felt hot against the cool beskar armour. 

But before you could moan, he did. 

His hands grasped your waist stronger, pushing you deeper into his crotch, making the friction more intense. A moan, mixed in with a small gasp of surprise, left your lips. 

You would’ve devoured his mouth now, but he kept his helmet on, your own eyes reflected on them. “Does it break any Mandalorian code—?”

“Leave that to me” he interrupted before you could even finish. His voice sounded worked up, and breath taken. “You… you keep moving.”

That made you bite your lip to hold on a smile. You kept moving, slowly, in a circular pattern. You felt yourself get wet, dampening the linen of your clothes. 

“You feel anything under your suit?”

“I do.” He growled. That made you speed up just a bit, and rub yourself a bit tighter. The Mandalorian didn’t moan again, but you could tell he was swallowing all the noises down his throat.

“And your gloves?” You continued, pushing the edge a bit. You were eager to be touched by real skin, and to get closer to the scent you’d smelled in his bed— his scent, not the scent of the beskar. “You can touch me”

You didn’t expect much, so you smiled when he actually moved his arms from your waist to remove both of his gloves. The cut finger was the first one to land on your waist again, and you felt the small bump of the healing wound against your skin. 

His hands were big, soft, pale white. And they guided you deeper into his crotch. Your linen garments were ruined by your wetness by now, and through his pants, you felt his manhood grow and harden, rubbing you exactly where you wanted him the most. 

“You’re not bad at this” you whispered.

“I’m armored” he replied, making you laugh softly, and the sound broke the last of the tension between you two.

Your hands slid from his helmet to rest lightly at his collar. “If we go further” you said, gently “we go slowly. And we stop if you want to.”

“Yes.”

He looked steadier now. Not overwhelmed. Just focused.

“I don’t want to rush you” he said.

“You’re not.” You replied, a bit surprised. You were clearly the one rushing him, not the other way around. But this man, this Mandalorian, you’ve come to learn, was too well mannered. 

You brushed your thumb lightly along the edge of his helmet, and he pressed his fingers tighter against your skin, pressing on to your ribs. 

“You’re choosing this?” he asked quietly.

“Yes.”

“Why?”

You chuckled a bit, although it was more of a moan than a giggle. “Do I have to explain why I want to sleep with you?” 

“Yes.” He replied immediately. “I don’t want you to do it because you feel indebted.”

“I know i'm not”

“Or because you think you should.”

“I know I shouldn’t”

“Then why?”

You stopped your hips, feeling his cock hard and pressing against you. You felt like you were drowning in your clothes, and seeing him all dressed, helmet on, made the sensation worse. 

“Because I need to get off.” You confessed, and looked down at the spot where your hips met his, where the fabrics had faint stains of wetness. “And so do you.”

That seemed to settle it.

He nodded once, sharp, firm, like the knights of the palace when you gave them orders. “Then I’m yours” he said quietly.

It made you bite your lip. You would’ve devoured his mouth right there, but there was one thing standing in between. 

“The helmet—?”

“Stays on” he cut you off, immediately. 

You sighed, a bit frustrated. “So I can’t kiss you?”

It took the Mandalorian a moment to reply, as if he was measuring his options. But in the end, he shook his head, sharp, but less firm, like this wasn’t an order he was happy to follow. 

You swallowed saliva, the pool of heat on your thighs now unbearable. “Well, lucky for you I can do other things with my lips” you said, and moved. 

He was about to protest when your hips moved away from his crotch when you kneeled in front of him, and worked your way around his belt. 

The Mandalorian didn’t move— he seemed too shocked for it. But when you huffed in annoyance he flicked your fingers off of the belt, and swiftly removed it. You leaned back for a bit to admire it; watching a man take his belt off was a sight you loved to see. 

When he was done loosening the belt, you continued your job. Gracefully, as to not startle him, you moved your hand, cupping his cock before sliding it in to pull it out. 

It was pale, veiny, and you saw a lot of hair at the base. Pretty good length— not too much, not too little. The tip was a soft shade of pink, and you couldn’t help but imagine that was the same color of his lips, hidden beneath the beskar helmet. 

The bizarreness of it all made you chuckle a bit. Here you were, holding a man’s length in all its glory, and yet you were not allowed to see his face as you lowered your lips, and gently sucked off. 

Drowning the moans was too much for the bounty hunter at this point, and his hiss felt like a victory chant. After all, it was the only way to know he was enjoying it. 

You took your time blowing him. He was a virgin, but you weren’t sure if he had ever been given pleasure like this before, so you made the experience worth remembering. 

Your tongue wrapped on his tip all the way through, and sucked hard, making pressure on his nerves. You removed your lips quite often to spat on his shaft, so your hand could slide up and down smoothly. You felt every vein on his cock pump with each stroke of your hand, and by the time your mouth was reaching the base, the Mandalorian was holding your hair, helmet tilted back, and growling like a beast. 

“I—“ he moaned, clearly out of his control. You moved your lips away, holding to his cock but not stroking it. It pulsed, like a bomb, on your grip. You knew exactly what was happening— he was about to come, all the cum gathered right on the tip, waiting for release. 

“Bed?” You asked as you slowly rose. He nodded, and you almost swore you saw him tremble. 

Smiling, licking his taste off of your lips, you took his hand and guided him to his bed, as if this wasn’t his ship and not yours. 

You would’ve loved to ask about the helmet once again, but you knew you couldn’t push it. So, once you reached his bedsheets, you only slipped off of the linen garments, and rested on all fours, chest pressed on the mattress, ass up in the air. 

You didn’t have to explain to him what to do, although it took him a moment to follow. You felt the tip right on your folds, trying to push in— and even though you were wet, the friction made you flinch a bit. 

“Spit on it, and go slow” you told him. You couldn’t help but moan when, after a pause, a wet and cold spat landed right on your ass, sliding down to your core. “That’s it.” 

The Mandalorian moved the tip up and down, parting your lips, before he put a knee up on the bed, and slowly pushed in. The sensation— the first time a cock slides into your womanhood— was as good as ever. But for him? Oh.

The Mandalorian let out a loud huff, something along the lines of incredible pleasure and frustration to not come right away. He stood still inside of you, before he gathered himself and began to rock his hips in and out. You weren’t sure if you needed to give him any more guidance than this, but he seemed like he didn’t need it. 

For a moment, all the sounds on the ship were his and your moans, growing louder, covering the hum of the ship, the sounds of the windpipes on the walls, the drip of the oil or the purr of the engine. That’s why he took you by surprise when he spoke, voice a bit trembling, but holding together. 

“You said let it slide”  

“Huh?”

“Your kidnapping.” He huffed, hips in and out. “Why wouldn't you want to--?

“Take revenge?” You finished the sentence as he drowned in a moan. 

He swallowed. “Claim justice”

You adjusted your hips, raising them up a little. Your chest rose off of the mattress, letting you breathe a bit more, and talk more smoothly. You swallowed another moan. “Some battles are not worth the fight. My planet isn't in the right position, politically and economically, to face the Hutt cartel” you explained as your hand reached down to rub yourself, immediately tightening around the bounty hunter’s cock. It made him hiss. 

“Aren’t you mad?” He asked. 

“I’m—“ you tried to reply, but the Mandalorian moved his own hand off of your hips to replace your own fingers in your cunt. You held them in place, teaching him exactly how to move them, and where. He was a quick learner. “I’m close”

The political conversation ended right the same way it had started— drowned in moans. You moved your hand away, and the Mandalorian kept his movements perfectly paced, synchronizing his thrusts with the circular movements around your clitoris. 

You turned your head, your lips partially open, holding in the tune of the moans, and saw him naked— all except the helmet, of course. 

His torso was lean, strong, covered in hair. Some spots didn’t have hair, though, and instead had scars. He was pale, very much so, but sweat covered every inch of his skin, and you knew underneath that helmet he was blushed and dripping. 

You knew he was making eye contact through the beskar, because he thrusted harder when you turned to face him. “Would you let me do this back in the brothel if I had wanted to?” He asked. 

“No, definitely" you said, although you didn’t sound that convincing as he pounded you in all fours. 

“Then why you let me now?” 

You rolled your eyes. You knew this was important to him— to know that this wasn’t a mistake, that he wasn’t breaking codes, nor your trust. You knew that he, bless his heart, had never done this, and wasn’t totally aware of the subtle, gentle, swift dance around sex. “Consent, reward“ you moaned, feeling your cunt get tighter. 

“Shit” the Mandalorian cursed, loud, as he suddenly pulled his cock out. You hissed at the sudden loss of contact. “Stop that”  he said.

You shook your head— asshole didn’t let you come. Of course, he had no clue what was happening, he only did so because he was probably about to finish as well, just with the grip of your core. 

“Sorry, didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.” You apologized, but raised an eyebrow as you saw him kneel right on your core. “What you what are you--?”

“Close your eyes.” He commanded, and you smiled. He was about to eat you out. Biting your lip, you faced the wall again. Then, the sound of beskar hitting the floor, and a deep breath, told you all you needed to know— he’d removed his helmet.  

“I’ve never done this before” he said, voice raggedy but more clear now that he didn’t cover his head anymore. 

“Remove your helmet or go down on a girl?” 

He huffed. “The latter”

You moved a little in place, and used both hands to spread your cheeks wide, but his own hands covered yours in a second. You removed them, and held tight to the sheets. “Give it a long lick, all across the folds first.” You explained. 

It took a second but then you felt it— the soft, cold, slimy tongue right across your burning cunt. It felt refreshing, like sipping a glass of the coldest and sweetest juice you could find in the galaxy when you are thirsty. Your moans made you vibrate, and you felt him smirk on your sex. 

“Now part them apart, and work your way in with your tongue.” You continued explaining, and he obeyed to perfection. His lips sucked on you, drinking in your fluids. “Once you reach the clit you suck— fuck!”

He’d found it, and he had sucked. 

“You alright?” He asked, parting his lips from your cunt as your knees shook.  

“Don’t stop.” 

The Mandalorian obeyed, and went back to eating you out. His tongue explored every crevice, and moved in and out of your entrance just like his cock had done it before lowering to your clit. It moved up and down, sometimes close to reaching your ass. You would’ve loved to ask him to lick it too, but you didn’t want to push him too much— besides, your cunt was tilting by this point. 

“I need a finger” you murmured, nose buried on his pillow as you inhaled his scent. 

“Huh?” 

“In me.” You clarified. “Do it slow, lick it first.”

You couldn’t help but giggle a bit when, suddenly, his hand was right next to your face. He wanted you to lick his fingers. 

You moved your head a bit to do so, and through the corner of your eye, you saw a glance of him— small ears, and brunette short hair with curls stuck by his sweat onto his skull. But that was about it. 

In your tongue, you felt the small dent of the cut on his finger, the small wound he had taken to himself to free you from the brothel, all because you’ve lied about your virginity. And now here you were, sucking on it, helping him claim his own. 

The Mandalorian removed his hand, now sloppy with your saliva, and you smirked. “You’re naughty, Mandalorian” 

“Din. call me Din.” He corrected, but he didn’t pause to let you process the information. “Now what?”

“Insert them, slow, and when you reach the top, hook them up and move them towards you, like you're calling me” you explained. 

You felt the index and middle fingers slowly get in, sliding with no problem. They were thick, and they easily got all the way in, and hooked like you asked him. It made you shiver as he moved them, calling for another orgasm. 

“Now?”

“Keep eating me too.” You sighed, and moaned louder when his fingers moved faster and his tongue went back to your clit. “Oh my—“

It didn’t take you that long to cum this time, now properly riding your orgasm through his fingers. You felt yourself tighten around them, and you knew he felt it too, and tasted the sweet liquid softly pouring out. 

When he removed his lips, you thought he was just taking a break to breathe through, but he moved his fingers away, and held you by the hips. “Keep your eyes closed” he commanded as he flipped you to lay on your back. 

He barely gave you a second to obey, but he was ahead of it— his hand reached your eyes before your back had hit the mattress. You opened your legs wider, setting them on his shoulders. This time, you didn’t have to give him any indications. 

You moaned hard when he slipped in. You were over-stimulated by this point, and the angle on your hips made his cock thrust even deeper, rubbing against your cervix, making you hiss. His hand, big, rough and sweaty, pressed hard against your eyes. 

“Don’t stop” you begged.

“Wasn’t gonna” he replied, and to your surprise, his voice was just centimeters away from your ear. His breath mixed in with yours when you moved your head a bit. And, still with your eyes covered, you leaned into his mouth. 

His lips were chapped, but the moistness of your cunt had softened them. He tasted like you, but they also had a metallic touch to them, probably from the beskar. You were surprised to also feel hair from a trimmed beard and moustache as well. 

Your hands moved to hold him, to run your fingers on the damp curls, to caress his jawline and feel his beard, to hold on to his thick, strong neck. You were lost, lost in his smell, his touch, his tongue, his cock— so lost, in fact, that you didn’t even realize he’d removed his hand from your eyes at one point to hold your waist, and cup your breasts, and run his fingers through your curls too. 

But his hand returned to cover your vision at the same time he broke the kiss apart in raggedy breaths. “I need to—“ 

“Come? Pull out, then” 

You felt it all, but didn’t see it— his cock moving out of your pulsing cunt, and the hot pool of cum dripping into the skin of your belly. It was hot against your skin, and it came out in small intervals, until it was finally over. 

“Keep your eyes closed” he murmured as he softly stood up, removing his hand from your face, and walking away. 

Of course, you didn’t obey. 

You opened them up immediately to see the mess. His cum, white and thick, was creamy and shiny on your skin. You saw the bedsheets were damp as well. And in between your thighs, just before your leg ended and your genitals started, there was a love bite. 

You couldn’t explore it much before you heard footsteps, and closed your eyes shut again. 

“You can open them” you heard Din speak, his voice a bit drowned now— he’d put the helmet on. He was still naked, but now more freshened up, sweat no longer clinging to his skin. He carried a damp towel, which he immediately used to clean his seed off of your skin. 

He did it slowly, and you knew he was admiring it under the helmet, taking in the scene in front of him.

“How you feeling?” You asked. 

He sighed, and dropped the towel aside as he put his hands on his hips. “Tired” was all he said, and then moved to pull his pants up. 

You smiled, and moved to the side, to leave him room. “Sleep with me.” You said, and chuckled when his helmet suddenly snapped up. “We already fucked, we might as well” 

He didn’t move, not speak, but his shoulders relaxed. He crawled to your side, and laid on his back, stiff like a board. 

Rolling your eyes and smiling, you moved to cuddle him. “This is part of the sex too, Din” you explained, and that made him loosen up, loosely draping an arm around your waist as you drifted off. 

You have never seen him come home so angry, so closed off, and your pulse gets quicker as his helmet hits the floor with a loud thud, his eyes trailing over your body like a predator eyeing up its next prey. His steps echo in the small room, you have to walk backwards, the back of your knees hitting the edge of the bed, and you almost fall back on the mattress.

“Get on the bed.” His voice rings, hoarse like he hasn’t used it in a long time, his tone low, and you can hear the pent-up tension, almost like a string that is ready to snap any time.

“Din, you just got home,” you try to argue, but he doesn’t have any of that, already on you.

His lips crashes against yours, his tongue finding it’s way into your mouth. Your hands fly to his shoulders, the metal cold under your palms, a stark contrast that only increases your want for him.

You let out a loud yelp when he suddenly pushes you backwards, and you bounce on the heavy and soft mattress. But you don’t have more time to think before you feel his gloved hands on your exposed ankles, tugging on them as he turns you onto your stomach. You grip the sheets to anchor yourself, trying to look back over your shoulder.

You feel his hand on the back of your neck, turning your head forward again. “Not now.”

“Damn you, Din,” you curse under your breath.

“Oh, but cyar'ika,” he starts, and you hear how he unbuckles his heavy belt behind you, letting it fall to the ground. Not long after you hear his zipper pulled down too, followed by a low groan, and the thought of him standing behind you with his cock in hand, looking down at you is just too tempting. His weight suddenly envelopes your body — heavier than any time before because of the armor — and you feel his breath next to your ear, his stubble a refreshing feeling against your neck. “You’re cursing me right now,” he continues, a slow roll of his hips against yours, the feeling of his length against your ass, and you are grateful that you only wear a thin underwear. “But in just a few moments you will say my name over and over again like a prayer, like I am your saviour.”

A moan leaves your lips at the sound of his words, knowing fully well that he is telling the truth.

His armor clinks behind you as he moves to straighten out. Cool air dances actoss the newly exposed skin of your back as he pushes the soft material of your shirt out of the way.

He falters behind you for a second, but he quickly composes himself, his hands finding the soft flash of your ass, kneading at them possesively. “Fuck, look at you.”

“Having some problems back there?” you ask in a soft voice, testing the waters by circling your hips back against his, a drop of his precum landing on your panties, staining it.

A low growl breaks out of him, and with a precise movement he reaches down, bunching up the soaked part of your underwear into a thin line before pulling at it gently, creating a friction on your clit that makes you cry out in pleasure. He repeats the same motion over and over again, and your knuckles turn white with the force you are gripping the sheets.

“Din,” you moan his name, reaching back to try to hold onto his covered wrist. Your hips were moving on their own accord, trying to find more friction.

“What do you need cyar'ika?”

“You. I need you,” you say desperately.

“Of course. You’re so needy, huh?” he chuckles, but he’s already pulling your panties to the side, lining up his cock at your entrance. Without a warning he buries himself inside you to the hilt, knocking all the air out of your lungs.

“You’re so tight,” he breathes, his hands gripping your hips, keeping you in place as he waits a few seconds until you adjust to the size of him.

When he feels your walls clench around him, he takes that as a sign, his hips slowly rolling back before crashing against yours again. Moans of his name fall more frequently from your lips, your head buried into the sheets, eyes closed as he picks up the pace and the strength of his thrusts, the cold metal of the plate on his thigh a stark contrast to the heat of your body.

He makes a slight change in his position, leaning a bit forward, allowing him to deepen his thrust even more, and you almost cry out when he hits that sweet spot that instantly brings pleasure. “There it is,” he murmurs under his breath, his next thrusts targeted exactly on that small spot.

You can feel your orgasm building by every passing second, and all you can hear is Din’s grunts behind you. The mattress moves rapidly under your combined weight, the springs of the bed creaking dangerously loud.

You can’t even warn him when your high crashes over you, only a loud whine leaving your mouth, your body shaking as the waves travel over your whole body. Din slows down his movements, letting you ride it out, his hand gently carressing your lower back.

When you calm down, and your legs are not shaking anymore, he starts to move again, chasing his own high. He sets a fast pace, but this time he lays over your body, metal chest plate against your back, forearms planted beside your head. His ragged breathing comes right beside your ear, and you reach back with one hand, fingers tangling into his hair.

You can sense when he gets closer to his own release, his thrusts becoming sloppier.

“I’m going to come,” he warns you, hips moving a few more times before he buries hinself fully into you, his cock twitching as hot ropes of his cum hit your walls. He leans his forehead against your shoulder, placing soft kisses on the covered skin.

“So what was this all about, hm?” you try to break the silence.

He slowly pulls out his softening cock with a low grunt, a low hiss also leaving your lips at the sudden loss of feeling him stretching you out. He stands at the edge of the bed, and you can finally turn on your back, looking at him properly.

Sweat is clinging to his skin as he starts to take off the heavy armor, dropping it to the ground like it worth nothing. He zips his pants back, leaving the button open as he pulls off his undershirt too, leaving him only in his pants. He kicks off his boots too before climbing back beside you.

“We had an argument,” he answers quickly, wanting to get over this as fast as he could.

“With who?”

“With the kid.”

You have to stifle a giggle, hand flying in front of your mouth, and he shoots you a glare that could kill.

“And who won in the end?” you ask curiously, already knowing the answer by the heavy sigh he lets out. He opens his mouth to speak, but you shush him, smiling as you look at him. “Wait, let me guess. Grogu won again, right?”

Din nods, and you finally let out the laugh that you have been keeping in. He sits up beside you, rolling his eyes at your behaviour. “I’ll be in the kitchen. Let me know when you finish having such a great time.”

He leaves you there like that, and you need a few minutes before you can compose yourself. Your eyes fall on the ceiling above you, and a last chuckle leaves your lips.

Din always told you that he would never let the kid win, no matter what, but even after just a few days you saw how the walls that he had built around himself started to fall, making him soften. And that’s how his soft side lets Grogu get away with it again, letting him eat another pack of his beloved blue cookies.

The helmet tilted slightly toward you.

“Quiet,” he shot back immediately, voice low and edged with the same irritation while looking down.

Very much down.

Because while the two of you had been sprinting through corridors trying to shake the men chasing you, this tiny hiding place had appeared during a frantic scan of the hallway. Without pausing to debate the idea, Din had grabbed you by the arm and shoved you inside.

He followed a heartbeat later.

The security panel had slid shut with a quiet thunk.

Only then had the reality of the situation become clear.

The space was barely large enough for one adult standing upright. With both of you inside, it became an exercise in awkward geometry.

Din stood with his back pressed firmly against the sealed panel. One armored arm braced against the wall in front of him, creating a makeshift support so he wouldn’t lose his balance in the cramped quarters.

At least he was standing.

You, on the other hand…

You lifted your gaze slowly.

From the floor.

From where you were kneeling.

Directly between his legs.

“Oh, don’t you dare tell me to be quiet,” you muttered sharply, craning your neck to glare up at the visor. “You’re the one who got us into this mess in the first place.”

Technically speaking, you were right.

Months of working together had built enough trust that when Din proposed the job, you hadn’t questioned it much.

An easy contract, he had said.

Quick entry. Quick exit. Minimal guards.

Simple.

Every single part of that description had turned out to be spectacularly wrong.

The artifact storage facility had recently made local news - something neither of you had learned about until far too late. Apparently publicity had inspired the owners to double their security.

What should have been a short operation had turned into a crawling nightmare.

Air vents.

Abandoned wastewater tunnels.

Forgotten maintenance corridors that hadn’t seen maintenance in decades.

The two of you had spent hours creeping through the guts of the building just to reach the prize.

Still, the effort hadn’t been wasted.

Your hand instinctively brushed your pocket.

Inside rested the object you’d come for: a Kyber Resonance Shard, a fractured piece of crystal rumored to hum faintly with residual energy when exposed to certain frequencies. Collectors paid absurd amounts for relics tied even distantly to the old Jedi traditions.

You had managed to lift it cleanly from its display.

Unfortunately, the display had also triggered a silent alarm.

Minutes later the corridors behind you had filled with guards.

Not just a few.

Dozens.

The careful stealth of the mission had evaporated instantly. Instead of sneaking out quietly, you had been forced to fight your way through the first wave and run before reinforcements sealed the building entirely.

That was when the plan changed.

Getting out immediately had become impossible.

But hiding?

Hiding might buy time.

Eventually the guards would assume you had escaped the facility entirely. Once the search widened outside, slipping away would be far easier.

At least, that had been the theory.

Which was how you ended up here.

Wedged inside a maintenance cavity barely wider than a locker.

Kneeling awkwardly on the floor.

Directly between the legs of a fully armored Mandalorian bounty hunter who filled most of the remaining space.

You tilted your head again to glare up at the dark visor hovering above you.

“Yes,” you muttered under your breath, “this was definitely your brilliant plan.”

“Maybe you should’ve listened when I told you the alarm might trigger,” Din Djarin muttered sharply above you, the words low and tight through the helmet’s modulator.

You snorted quietly.

“Helpful warning,” you whispered back. “Shame it arrived after I had already pocketed the shard.”

You shifted slightly on your heels, trying for the third time to relieve the pressure building in your legs. The cramped position forced your weight awkwardly onto your calves, and the metal floor beneath you was doing nothing to improve the situation.

Your muscles protested.

“Next time a meteor storm smashes into the Razor Crest,” you added dryly, “I’ll be sure to warn you afterward too.”

Din’s right foot nudged lightly against your leg.

You couldn’t tell whether the movement was meant as a quiet command to shut up - or simply an attempt for him to adjust his own balance in the ridiculous configuration the two of you had been forced into.

“If we get out of here,” you continued under your breath, shifting your weight again, “remind me to avoid any future jobs that involve stealing.”

The response came immediately.

“That from the master thief?” he said. Even without seeing his face, you could hear the faint crooked humor in his tone.

Months of working together had trained your ears well. You had learned to read the small inflections beneath the helmet’s mechanical filter. The subtle changes that meant he was smirking, even if the visor hid it completely.

You had seen that smirk before though.

More than once.

Because you have seen his face many times now.

The first time had been an accident - an unexpected glimpse of his face during a moment neither of you had planned.

The second had been necessity, when he’d taken a nasty hit and removing the helmet had been the only way to patch him up properly.

The third…

Well.

That had happened in the narrow bunk aboard the Razor Crest, sometime after both of you decided that surviving too many dangerous jobs together had earned you a more… relaxed way of blowing off steam.

Originally, the partnership had been strictly professional.

Lately, things had become a little more complicated.

“I wouldn’t mind switching back to bounty work,” you murmured, glancing up toward the dark visor. “You know I’m better at luring targets out than you are.”

A faint pause followed.

Then he replied quietly, “A little too good at it.” The final word slipped out in the soft cadence of Mando’a. “Mesh’la.”

Thankfully the darkness inside the cramped storage compartment hid the warmth that crept across your face.

You had never asked him exactly what the word meant.

Something affectionate, you suspected.

Something he said with an ease that made it feel… oddly intimate.

Even filtered through the helmet, the sound carried a certain weight.

“Don’t tell me you’re jealous, Din,” you whispered, voice tilting playfully. “Is that why you picked this miserable job? So I wouldn’t be flirting with half the galaxy while we worked?”

Your hand lifted almost absentmindedly, sliding along the side of his leg. The motion was half reassuring, half teasing as your fingers traced lightly over the armored plating before settling there.

“Focus,” he said quietly. But the word lacked its usual bite.

“Not much focusing I can do down here,” you replied softly. “We’re stuck waiting. Let me keep my sarcasm - it helps pass the time.”

Outside the sealed panel, the facility remained silent for the moment. No footsteps. No voices.

Still, both of you kept your voices low.

Better safe than discovered.

“You could start thinking about buyers,” Din said after a moment. “Once word spreads that the artifact disappeared from a secure facility, the list of interested collectors will shrink fast.”

You shrugged lightly, the movement barely noticeable in the cramped space.

“Let that be my headache.” He knew you would handle it. You always did. “You,” you added, glancing up again, “just focus on choosing our next job with a little more care.” A faint smirk crept into your voice. “I don’t mind spending time alone in a room with you,” you murmured. “But this setup? Less appealing.”

Your gaze lifted.

The visor angled down toward you.

“Think so? I can’t say the view is terrible.” There it was again - that invisible grin you had come to recognize.

Your hand, still resting on his shin, slid a little higher along his thigh. Your fingers tightened briefly in a light squeeze.

“Careful,” you murmured. “You know I like pushing my luck.”

“Focus,” he repeated again, though the command sounded slightly rougher now. “We need to be ready to move the second an opening appears.”

His tone still carried its usual seriousness. But there was something else hiding beneath it. A quiet thread of tension.

“I can focus just fine,” you said softly. “I’m practically meditating down here. Feeling like a damn Jedi.”

You shifted again, trying to relieve the ache building in your legs.

As you moved, you rolled your neck slightly - 

 - and accidentally brushed your head against his crotch.

The reaction was immediate.

Din shifted abruptly, a quiet hum escaping him through the modulator as he instinctively pulled back where little to no space was left.

You blinked, then slowly looked up. A wicked grin spread across your face.

“Well now,” you murmured, lips parting slightly. “Don’t tell me…” Your voice dropped to a playful whisper. “Din Djarin,” you teased, “are you actually getting turned on by this?”

You didn’t wait for an answer.

Instead your hand moved higher along his thigh, slipping beneath the edge of the segmented armor until your fingers found the softer resistance of the flight suit beneath. The fabric was warm from his body heat, taut where it stretched across muscle. You let your palm settle there for a moment - just long enough to confirm what your instincts had already guessed.

And there it was.

A slow, unmistakable firmness growing beneath your touch.

Your mouth curved slightly.

Well. That answered that.

“Cyar’ika…” Din’s voice dropped into a low rumble, the word dragged through the helmet’s modulator like a warning trying very hard to sound stern.

Except the tone betrayed him.

Half caution. Half something else entirely.

“What?” you murmured softly, fingers tightening through the fabric in a deliberate squeeze that completely contradicted the innocence of your question. “Should I stop?”

His breath caught.

“This is not the place,” he said, words slightly uneven now, “and definitely not the time.”

A faint inhale followed, sharp enough that he nearly stumbled over the last part of the sentence.

“Seems to me we’ve got plenty of time to kill,” you whispered.

Your hand didn’t slow.

If anything, the motion became more deliberate - testing, exploring his length through the layers of fabric while your eyes stayed locked on the dark visor above you.

Whatever sharp retort had been forming died instantly when your curious squeeze shifted into a slow, teasing stroke.

Din’s helmet tipped back against the wall behind him with a muted klonk. The hand braced against the opposite surface tightened, his fingers curling slowly into a fist as if he needed the pressure to steady himself.

“You really shouldn’t…” he muttered.

But the growl beneath the words lacked conviction.

It sounded less like a warning directed at you and more like something he was trying to remind himself.

Meanwhile your hand had already found the seam of the flight suit.

You slipped beneath it.

The moment your fingers brushed bare skin, Din’s hips shifted instinctively against your touch. A quiet roll forward.

A reaction he clearly hadn’t intended.

“You keep watch,” you suggested lightly, your voice barely louder than a breath, “I’ll keep you entertained.”

Your fingers wrapped fully around his cock now.

The muffled sound that escaped the helmet in response sent a small thrill down your spine.

You had seen Din without the helmet before. You knew the expressions he tried so carefully to hide from the rest of the galaxy - the tightening of his jaw, the way his eyes darkened when you touched him just right.

But this?

This was different.

With the helmet still firmly in place, you couldn’t rely on facial cues at all.

Instead you found yourself reading the language of his body.

Every small shift of muscle.

Every subtle change in the way he held himself above you.

The signals were clearer than he probably realized.

And right now they were telling you that you were very much on the right track.

His length twitched faintly in your grasp.

Yes.

Definitely the right track.

“You’re being reckless,” Din whispered after a moment, his head tilting slightly as if he was still trying to listen for sounds in the hallway beyond the hidden compartment.

“This entire mission has been reckless,” you replied with a quiet smirk. “I’m just staying consistent.”

Your hand moved again.

With a practiced motion you eased him free from the remaining fabric, the flight suit sliding aside just enough to reveal his length completely.

Especially from your low position you couldn’t help the brief flicker of appreciation that crossed your mind as he stood towering above you.

Your legs had been aching moments ago from the cramped kneeling position.

Now the discomfort barely registered.

You shifted slightly, adjusting your posture so you were better aligned with his cock in front of your face. Your gaze traveled upward for a moment before settling again on the task at hand.

Almost unconsciously, you wet your lips.

Your hand gave him a few slow strokes, deliberate and unhurried.

“You should stop,” he hissed quietly.

You smiled faintly.

“I haven’t even started yet.”

Leaning forward, you pressed a soft, almost reverent kiss against the soft skin of his tip.

The thing was,  you had never been particularly patient. The teasing kisses you had started with didn’t stay gentle for long. As you closed your lips around his tip you could feel a tension coiling through Din’s entire body and you could hear the change in his breathing.

The quiet restraint he usually carried with such discipline began to slip. A low sound escaped him - muted by the helmet but unmistakable.

Above you, his free hand found your hair. Just threading through the strands in slow strokes that felt almost absentminded, as if he was grounding himself in the sensation. The movement sent a clear enough signal on its own.

You were doing exactly what he wanted, that he did not want you to stop at all.

Encouraged, you took him in deeper, the tight space forcing you to adjust carefully as your tongue circled his soft skin. Din’s hand moved from the side of your head to the back of it as you leaned in further, the grip tightening just slightly as instinct took over.

For a moment the two of you went completely still.

The closeness of the compartment left almost no room for movement anyway. The faint hum of machinery somewhere inside the walls vibrated through the metal around you while you both adjusted to the new position.

Din’s breath hitched again.

“Mesh’la…” The word slipped out rougher this time, dragged low through the modulator as he looked down at you. The dark visor tilted slightly, studying you in the dim light filtering through the vent.

“You look… perfect like this.”

The praise landed like a spark and a shiver ran through you.

Your hand slid higher along his thigh to steady yourself while the other braced against the wall behind you. Slowly you began to move your head, careful in the cramped space, finding a rhythm that worked despite the awkward positioning.

You slowly started to move your head, taking him in just an inch more before rolling back, catching a breath. Spit glistened on your lips and his soft skin, even in the shady dark light of this makeshift hideout, the air inside the compartment growing thick and humid as the seconds stretched.   

Your own pulse had begun to race now and heat coiled low in your stomach. You could feel the wetness between your legs growing although he did not even touch you fully.

It was almost frustrating to realize there would be no space for him to return the favor here - not with the two of you wedged together in a compartment barely big enough to breathe in. Not to speak of the lurking danger outside.

But you had no doubt, the moment you made it back to the Crest, he would remember exactly how to repay you. And different to now he would take his time with you.

For now though, the focus was entirely on him.

Din’s grip tightened slightly in your hair as you relaxed your jaw just a bit more, to take him up to the hilt. Before you could settle fully into your pace, he guided you forward with a firm pressure at the back of your head, pulling you closer with a sudden urgency that stole your breath for a moment.

“You take me so well,” he murmured. The words vibrated through the helmet’s modulator, sending another shiver down your spine. Your lungs protested briefly at the fullness, but your mind was far too focused on the effect you were having on him to care much about that.

Just before the pressure became too much he eased the hold, letting you pull back enough to breathe again.

You inhaled deeply before leaning in once more, eyes slipping closed as you focused on the rhythm he gave you. Your fingers curled into the fabric of his flight suit for balance as you let your tongue explore his full length, feeling every vein and twitch. He felt impossibly hard now and you longed for the moment back on the ship when he would bury himself in you, hips rolling in that infuriating slowness he always used to bring you closer and closer to the edge.

Above you, Din’s movements became less controlled now. The subtle tension running through his body and the twitching of his cock told you everything you needed to know.

“I’m almost there, cyar’ika,” he breathed quietly. Then his helmet tilted downward again. “Look at me.”

You obeyed immediately, lifting your gaze to the dark visor looming above you. Your jaw softened slightly, preparing yourself for the moment - 

 - but suddenly he froze.

Every muscle in his body went rigid.

A sound echoed faintly from the hallway beyond the hidden compartment.

Footsteps, distant enough but approaching.

The situation became instantly absurd.

You were kneeling in a cramped maintenance cavity, his cock buried deep in your throat, both of you frozen in complete silence while someone walked somewhere nearby beyond the sealed panel.

Din held himself perfectly still, his grip tightening in your hair in a silent command to stop. To wait.

You felt it.

You understood it.

You ignored it. Your tongue moved again in a teasing flick against his underside and his throb told you how he ached for the sweet release. A strangled hiss slipped through the modulator.

The footsteps grew slightly louder as they passed somewhere down the corridor.

Din’s fingers clenched in warning. Not yet pulling you away, but very clearly telling you to behave.

You didn’t.

Your hands slid around the backs of his thighs instead, gripping firmly just beneath the curve of his backside. Then you pulled him closer, deeper, stealing your own breath, all while keeping your gaze fixed on him.

That was all it took.

Din’s head fell back against the wall with a silent thud as the tension snapped.

The insulation of the compartment and the distant machinery thankfully swallowed most of the sound. Outside, the footsteps continued past without slowing.

Inside, you had no choice but to hold steady as the wave finally broke and he spilled into your mouth, his warm cum coating the back of your throat and dripping down.

True to his earlier command, you kept your eyes lifted to the visor above you as you swallowed around his cock, taking every drop of him.

His fingers dug sharply into your hair now, the pressure almost painful as he fought to stay quiet through the release that rolled through him.

The footsteps faded down the corridor.

Only once the silence returned did Din finally exhale.

The breath came out slow and shaky.

After a moment he carefully pulled his still hardened length away, the movement making his tip bump lightly against your lips as he straightened.

“You…” he muttered, voice still rough. “…are an absolute menace.”

You leaned back slightly, licking the corners of your mouth before flashing him a satisfied grin.

“Happy to be of service.” You gave him a small, mocking nod.

With practiced hands you helped Din straighten himself back into the flight suit, smoothing the fabric into place before giving the front of it a light, almost condescending pat.

“Good as new,” you murmured under your breath.

The grip he had held in your hair finally loosened. Instead of the sharp hold from moments ago, his fingers slid through the strands in slow strokes, brushing your scalp before drifting down along the side of your face, tilting your face upwards by the chin. The gesture carried none of the urgency from earlier - just quiet warmth.

“We’re going to have a conversation about your sense of risk assessment once we’re back on the ship,” he said after a moment. Even through the helmet you could hear the grin in his voice. “Can’t take you anywhere.”

“Speaking of taking me places,” you said, nodding toward the sealed panel behind him, “you think things have cooled down out there yet?”

“I certainly have,” he replied dryly. The helmet tilted slightly as he listened for a moment, the faint sounds of the facility humming through the walls around you. “Seems quiet enough. Might be our best window.”

He glanced down toward you.

“Can you get it open again?”

Your lockpicking kit was still tucked safely in your pocket. After all, the panel had sealed itself automatically once you had picked it the first time and Din had shoved you inside. Your part of the job hadn’t exactly ended when the door closed.

You pulled the tools free with a quiet clink.

“What exactly are you contributing to this mission again?” you asked with a crooked grin.

Din awkwardly stepped over you in the tight compartment so you could shift forward, bracing yourself on your knees while you reached the panel controls.

“Because as far as I remember,” you continued, sliding the picks into place, “I handled the theft, the lockpicking, and the tension relief.”

Behind you he shifted his weight against the opposite wall.

“I’m making sure no one stands between us and the ship so I can repay you,” he replied calmly.

The panel hissed softly as the locking mechanism disengaged beneath your tools.

He leaned closer.

“Now hurry up,” he added quietly, “before I make you.”

You didn’t need further encouragement. You scrambled to your feet quickly - only to wobble immediately as your legs protested the long minutes spent kneeling.

Pins and needles shot through your calves.

“Stars,” you muttered, shaking them out. “Did the Jedi deal with this kind of thing all the time?”

Din didn’t slow.

“Less talking,” he said simply. His hand closed around your wrist and pulled you forward down the corridor. “More moving.”

Waiting had been the right call.

The frantic security sweep from earlier had thinned considerably. Most of the guards had clearly moved their search elsewhere by now, likely assuming you had already slipped off the premises.

Still, the path back to the exit wasn’t completely empty.

Twice you had to flatten yourselves against shadowed corners as patrols passed nearby.

Twice Din handled the problem when stealth alone wasn’t enough.

Before long the familiar shape of the Razor Crest appeared waiting at the edge of the landing platform like an old friend.

You sprinted the final stretch. By the time the ramp lowered you were already breathing hard.

Din reached the cockpit first, vaulting into the pilot’s seat as the startup sequence flared to life across the control panels.

You stumbled up into the cockpit seconds later and dropped into the copilot chair beside him, chest still rising and falling as you tried to catch your breath.

But the grin on your face refused to fade.

From your pocket you produced the prize.

The Kyber Resonance Shard caught the cockpit lights as you tossed it lightly into the air and caught it again.

“Well,” you said, leaning back slightly as the engines hummed louder beneath your feet, “that was an experience.”

You flipped the shard once more.

Din said nothing. His gloved hands moved across the controls with steady precision, initiating the final departure sequence.

The ship lifted smoothly from the platform.

You glanced sideways at him.

“What do you think this thing will sell for?” you asked, turning the crystal between your fingers.

Still nothing.

A small flicker of unease crept into your thoughts. Had you pushed too far earlier?

You cleared your throat. “Maybe we should take more breaking-and-entering jobs,” you added casually.

You tossed the shard again - 

 - but this time Din’s hand shot out and caught it midair before you could.

The motion was so quick it left you blinking.

Without looking at you, he engaged the hyperdrive controls with his other hand. The Crest lurched gently as it entered hyperspace, the blue tunnel of stars stretching across the viewport.

Din turned the crystal over once in his hand. Then set it on the console. Only after that did he rise from the pilot’s seat. His broad silhouette loomed over you.

“Bunk,” he said.

Just one word.

No humor left in it.

The tone wasn’t angry.

But it was unmistakably an order.

And stars help you - you obeyed it eagerly.

You were out of the copilot seat in a heartbeat, heading down the narrow corridor toward the sleeping quarters.

Behind you, heavy footsteps followed.

You reached the bunk and climbed inside just as the familiar sound echoed through the small cabin - 

The quiet hiss of a helmet seal disengaging.

Your grin widened.

Propping yourself up on your elbows, you stretched out on the mattress and looked toward the doorway with open anticipation.

You had worked with Din long enough to know exactly how this was going to end.

He always believed in settling the score.

My Masterlist

Taglist:

You had lit up at the surprise.

Your usual fierce expression melting into something akin to pure joy whilst he’d nervously waited for you to drink it all in. 

And then his cheeks had ached with the force of his grin behind the helmet, relief bursting bright in his stomach whilst he leaned against the Crest and watched you gush to the kid over the acres of stunning meadow.

The flowers that bloomed in an explosion of colours and the towering trees with branches that reached all the way down to sway just above the ground as the breeze swept through. 

His gaze followed you, riveted, as you ran. As Grogu shrieked with delight in your arms when you reached the shoreline of the lake and kicked your boots and socks off before setting him down beside you.

Din heard the sound of the kid splashing, your resulting laughter that drifted through the air to curl around his heart. 

There was something almost unbearably warm unfurling beneath his ribs, swelling whilst he watched you tip your face up to the midday sun. Drenched in golden light as the blue of the lake shimmered around you.

It’s a little ridiculous. He feels ridiculous. Your his friend, his partner, and okay maybe they were fucking but that’s all it had ever been. 

They didn’t do sweet or gentle.

They didn’t do emotions.

It was a release when the adrenaline still tore through their blood after a fight, an offering of themselves to the other so they could take out their rage when a job didn’t go their way. 

Din doesn't know how to deal with those types of feelings. He doesn't even know how you would deal with those feelings. It was the whole fucking reason they'd started their arrangement in the first place. No strings attached, keep things simple. 

And yet this thing with you has never been simple to begin with. 

They're tangled hopelessly together, bound in blood and violence– sex and that startling burst of life when you're dragged back from the brink of death. All the ways that another person can be branded upon your very soul.  

Maker, how had he only just realised now. 

As you called out to him from somewhere with in the aged stone walls of the cottage, voice streaked through with awe, snapping him out of the screaming mess of his thoughts.

‘Mando are you coming in? You have to come see this!’

As he breathed out a ragged sigh before following the sound of your voice. 

He wonders how he'd never realised just how fucked he was. 

** 

You're torturing him. Din's sure of it. 

He's only seen you in your armour. The threadbare clothes that you wear beneath it. And he doesn't know what he expected, you obviously had no need for them here when you were on a break, but whatever it was, it wasn't this.

It wasn't the way he was wholly unprepared for what the sight of you in a pretty little sundress would do to him. The way it fits you so perfectly, slipping along your curves and swishing around the smooth, bare skin of your thighs whenever you move. 

Din's a stuttering mess at the sight of it, face burning behind the shield of his helmet whilst his gaze greedily rakes over you. It's a struggle to focus on almost anything else and the effort it takes to rein in just how badly he wants to devour you, to bury himself inside you right there, is practically herculean.

And what makes it all worse, all a thousand times more difficult, is that those feelings he's suspicious of having will not go away. They refuse to be shoved back down now he's shone the barest hint of light on them.

They swirl around him. In the depths of his chest and his gut, blooming into something completely unmanageble the longer they're here. 

It's the domesticity of it. 

The fact that it all just fits, that it seems right, that they feel so much like a family. Something Din had never even realised he had craved something fierce until you had came along and gave him a taste of what he'd been missing. 

It's the trips to the market where you get to actually take your time for once flitting from stall to stall, dragging him along with you as you point out vibrant, lavish fabrics. Different foods and spices from all over the galaxy.

The many toys you see for Grogu that Din has to steer you away from after the kid realises if he gives you a certain look and coos, you'll buy him anything. 

It's the picnics they have right by the side of the lake and the times they chase the kid through the meadow for hours until he decides he's exhausted and reaches for one of you so he can burrow his little face into your neck and sleep. 

You pull him back outside with you after the kid is put to bed for the night. Lie straight on the cool grass, surrounded by the silky petals of pretty flowers, before you thread your fingers through his and lead him down beside you. 

They watch the stars and just talk, your head tilted so close to his helmet that as the temperature dips he can see each warm puff of your breath in the air. And the whole time Din's heart pulses, the leather of his gloves creaking as he fists his hands to try and hide the slight tremble. 

It feels a lot like intimacy.

Like the rules of their agreement are crumbling around them when a tense silence suddenly falls between you– your eyes flicking from his hands to the pitch dark of his visor. A flash of soft pink as your tongue darts across your lip. 

Fuck.

You whisper his name, gentle with want, and his breath hitches. It makes him hard. The simple touch of your hand stroking the cheek of his helmet. Drifting down to stroke over his chest, the softly tensing muscles of his stomach. 

A ragged noise spills from his throat and then he's snatching your hand. Yanking you forward until you're draped over him, your thighs straddling his narrow hips. There's this feeling of desperation that bleeds through him. Like if he goes any longer without you surrounding him completely, he'll lose his mind. He'll burn up like a dying star. 

He rips his gloves off so he can feel you properly. His fingers digging into the meat of your thighs whilst you slip your hand past his waistband and grasp the thick length of him. When you stroke him his head falls back, knocks off the ground as he hisses and strains to keep himself from thrusting into the soft heat of your palm. 

"Fuck," He mutters. "How do you always feel so good." 

You shiver at that and then you're shoving his pants down, hovering over him whilst he hastily rucks your dress up to your stomach.

You take him in your hand and push your panties to the side before sliding the head of his cock through your slick folds. It nudges against your clit, snags at your entrance where his hips then jerk– a moan shuddering through your throat as the tip slides into you. 

"Mando." You breathe, the sound of it splintered, before sinking fully down. 

And suddenly everything goes slow. Warm. Like wading through syrup.

You fall against him and one hand immediately clamps around the curve of your hip, his other gripping a fistful of your hair to keep you utterly pinned to his body whilst he rocks up into you. 

Every sense he has zeroes on you. The soaked, fever-hot grip of your cunt, stretching and fluttering around him. The smell of your sweet breath as you press your mouth to the place on his helmet where his own lies underneath in the echo of a kiss and your pretty gasp when it makes him lose his head and thrust deep. 

He silently thanked the maker they'd left the light on inside because it poured over you now. Your pleasure-drunk face and the way your tits heave against the tight bodice of your dress. His eyes drop lower and Din nearly bites through his lip as he sees the shine of your arousal painting your thighs, his cock slick with it as he slides in and out of you. 

He wants to get his mouth on you, wants to press his face to your flush, dripping cunt  and drink you down until he can hardly breathe. 

It's a lot. Every part of this is overwhelming. But Din has realised he is nothing but greedy when it comes to you. 

He winds an arm around your waist and surges up, your startled cry at the sudden change of angle making heat spear through his belly.

He curls his hand around your neck to drag your forehead back to his whilst he thrust deeper, buries himself inside you like he's trying to carve you open before he rips down the top of your dress to palm at your tits. 

"Stars– please."  You pant, lashes fluttering as your mouth parts in bliss. 

He can feel you getting closer to your end. The way you're starting to clench desperately around his length, body trembling beneath his hands as his touch drifts lower to wedge between you two and press against the swollen flesh of your clit until you sob. 

You wind around him when it rushes through you. Locking him tight in the cage of your arms, between your thighs, as his name cracks on your tongue and you flood him. It short circuits his brain, a feral noise clawing up his throat as his cock pulses and spills inside you. 

And all he can think as their breathing calms, as the sweat dries on your body and you burrow against his chest when a breeze stirs the still night air, is closer. 

He needs you closer.

**

The sex is different after that. 

They've forgotten the rules, threw them away completely. It's no longer about just stress relief, not now when he can touch you whenever he wants and vice versa. 

Din is insatiable with it. As soon as the kid is napping or preoccupied with food and some shitty cartoon, he's on you. His voice pitched low and husky as he yanks you against his chest. 

"Need to feel you mesh'la, I've been thinking about it all day."

"It's only 10am, Mando."

"Exactly. It's been hours." 

He likes to corner you when you're in the kitchen. When you've been cooking and baking for hours because you don’t get the time to do it when you're hunting and you've told him it relaxes you.

He can't quite put his finger on why he's so entranced. If maybe it's just because you look too much like a damn dream.

Sweet and soft in your pretty little dresses whilst you ice delicate shapes on cupcakes for the kid– like butter wouldn't melt in your mouth when he's seen the kind of violence you're capable of. The way those same hands have torn apart men twice your size. 

Whatever it is–the sight of you humming away to yourself, flushed from the heat of the oven, the various things simmering away on the stove, flour dusting your hands and streaked across your cheek– it makes him slightly feral. Heat snaking through his blood and his belly every time without fail.

He leans against the doorframe and simply watches for a few moments.

Drink in the way the sunlight glides over your hair, your smooth skin, the way your dress flutters around your legs as you move from counter to stove and back again. Smiling softly when he hears you mumbling to yourself. 

You jump when you turn and see him standing there, a sheepish grin tugging at your mouth before you beckon him over. 

And he goes without a word.

Seals his back to your chest and his hands to the swell of your hips whilst you scoop some of the sauce for dinner on a spoon. He tips his chin down as you turn around to face him, chuckling as you blow a lock of hair away from your face before clamping a hand over your eyes and raising the spoon. 

The simple act makes his heart thump, the levels of trust it implied between them.  Din swallows hard before slowly lifting his helmet just above his mouth so he could lean in for a taste and– oh, stars.

A deep noise of satisfaction hums through his chest and he catches the way your lips quirk as he drops the helmet back down. 

"Fuck, that's good." 

The flash of your smile is blinding, pleased and brushed with just a hint of smugness. It was stupidly endearing. It makes him ache with something tender in his chest, his stomach clenching with a soft bloom of arousal. 

He cradles your face in one hand and your eyes flutter closed, contentment oozing from you as his thumb sweeps over the swell of your cheek. The hand curved around your hip squeezes, kneading the flesh that's enticingly warm beneath the thin material of your dress before drifting lower. Fingers dipping teasingly beneath the hem. 

Your eyes blink open. Fixing him with a look that's equally amused curiosity and soft heat. "Is there something you want Mandalorian?" 

Oh– you know that does something to him. 

So he presses forward, crowds you up against the counter whilst his hand snakes fully under your dress to stroke along your underwear. His mouth splitting into a shit-eating grin when he presses his fingers to the damp cloth covering your clit and you lurch against his chest. 

"I want to taste you." He rasps, taunts until you shudder. Your palms twitching against his chest plate. Pupils blown wide. "I want to lick that pretty pussy until you come screaming my name." 

And then Din's dropping to his knees. He pushes your dress up to your stomach and nudges your thighs apart, visor fixed on your stunned face when he slowly peels your underwear down your legs before flinging them to the side. 

Fuck.

He can smell you. How wet you are from just his words and a few simple touches. It punches pride through his chest, a low groan rumbling in the back of his throat when he slides a finger along your dripping slit.

You gasp his name and it drizzles like warm honey down into his gut. It loosens his tongue further until it feels like he can't stop pouring out every dirty little fantasy of you he's ever had.

"Do you know how many times I've dreamed of this?" He murmurs. "How sweet you would taste– sweeter than anything in the galaxy when you finally flood my mouth. Will you let me do it? Let me make you come on my tongue and you can have whatever you want." 

You nod desperately, lips parted, seemingly lost for all other words and he melts with it. Burns all the way down to his fingertips and toes as he removes his hand from your flushed cunt and places it on your thigh. 

"Close your eyes then." 

He watches as they flutter closed and then his helmet hits the floor. He hears your sharp inhale and feels that similar breathlessness in his own chest.

He was bare.

He was giving you as much of himself as he could, more than he'd ever given anyone, and you both knew it. It was undeniable proof that their relationship has become something more.

It swells heavy in the air and paints Din's movements, his touches tender and worshipful as he leads your hand to replace his own in holding the material of your dress. Leaving both of his free to stroke and tease at all of your soft, warm skin. 

He places a kiss on your stomach– presses his face there just a moment and breathes you in whilst your trembling fingers thread through his hair.

His heart is racing. It feels like he's ripping it out of his chest and presenting it to you, like he's laying himself raw and vulnerable at your feet without realising he's done it until it's too late. He can't stop. You just bring it out of him. 

He shifts again. Peppering kisses along your hips, your thighs, the patch of skin above your cunt until you twitch beneath his hands. Your fingers twisting tighter in hair. Not enough to hurt but enough that he gets a sense of your growing impatience. 

"Mando, don't tease." You whine quietly and he can't help himself. 

Can't help the playful grin that you can surely feel against your skin. "Is there something you want, pretty thing?" 

You huff. "Maker, I swear if you're trying to torture me I'm going to–" 

But whatever you were about to threaten him is lost to a startled moan as he hooks your thigh over his shoulder and shoves his face against the soaked heat of your pussy, dragging his tongue from your entrance to your clit. 

He sucks the swollen flesh into his mouth and you nearly buckle, your palm slamming down on the counter beside you before your fingers curl around the edge. 

You taste better than he could have ever imagined, the salt-sweet of you intoxicating. Making him dizzy as he flicks his tongue and sinks two fingers inside the fluttering walls of your cunt.

"Shit." You whimper. "Mando."

He curls his fingers and your hips jerk into his mouth, thighs twitching around his head as you clench around him. He inches back and he can feel it, his skin wet with you. "What is it, baby?" He teases softly, pressing a sweet kiss to your thigh before nipping at the same spot with his teeth. "Do you need to come?"

You let out a choked little sob. Your brow pinched and lip caught between your teeth whilst you tremble as his thumb draws lazy circles over your clit. You nod but it's not enough, he wants to hear you.

"Use your words, pretty thing." 

You soak his fingers at the gentle demand and he files that little bit of information away for later. Wholly transfixed now on the way your chest heaves, the rake of your nails over his scalp. The swell of your lip when you release it that he wants nothing more than to suck into his own mouth. 

You do as he says. Go soft and pliant the second he puts his mouth back on you. Begging. "Mando– please–please make me come. I need it."

He groans into you and loses himself in bringing your pleasure, pace becoming something frantic, messy. He thrusts his fingers inside you, hitting that patch of tissue that makes you cry out and yank his hair whilst he swirls his tongue harshly over your clit again and again and again.

He feels it rise. Feels the rapid build of your orgasm, your walls pulsing around his knuckles and your thighs quaking before it slashes through you and you crash into ecstasy with a strangled scream. 

"That's it." He praises raggedly. "Give it to me, cyar’ika." 

You're a trembling mess when it recedes, your legs threatening to give out but Din is already there.

He withdraws his fingers and presses another tender kiss to your stomach before standing and gathering you to his chest. Your hands find his face and then you're drawing him down– your mouth slotting sweetly over his as he clutches you closer. 

It breaks that last part of him that held any denial, that tried to convince him that these feelings were nothing more than his mind confusing the lust element to their friendship as something else. 

Because when the kiss grows heated and he lifts you onto the counter whilst you drag his pants down to grasp his thick length, stroking him so maddeningly perfect before leading him to your entrance.

As he slowly pushes forward, sinking to the hilt and pulling a ruined moan from you both.

It feels a lot like love.

He was a serious man, not talking much, but if he did then it happened only so he can give out orders. Sometimes you wondered if there was a part of him that was yearning for small conversations too, or if he was just trying to keep his distance from you for different reasons. Either way, you still tried to talk to him, even if the only answer was a soft hum coming from under his helmet.

You did your research during your travels, became aware that the helmet was a part of him. A good mercenary told you about the Mandalorians’ history. How their planet became lifeless and what rumors revolved around it.

And in that moment you understood that Din didn’t wear his helmet all the time because he had to — though it’s true that his Creed required it — he wore it because it brought him peace. It wasn’t that heavy beskar armor that kept him safe, it was the helmet because without it he could only feel guilt for breaking the law of the Mandalorians.

You never questioned him when he walked away to a quiet corner of the ship with Grogu at dinner time, instead you settled into the front of the ship so you could give them their space, so he could lift his helmet just for the time he finishes his soup.

But lately you started to wonder what the man really looked like under that heavy armor, and behind the tall walls he built around himself.

Grogu cooed in your lap as you sat in the seat besides Din at the front of the ship. The small creature reached for the small silver ball in your hand, and you held it out so he could take it freely. But instead of taking it like he would normally do, the ball flew up in the air, and you watched, completely mesmerized how it landed perfectly in his small hand.

“Hey, you’re using your powers better and better every day,” you cheered him on, and the Child only leaned against you, playing with his new toy.

Your eyes lifted from his small frame, landing on the man sitting beside you. Your breath caught in your throat when you saw that he was already turned towards you, and you were sure he watched the whole interaction through his t-visor. You flashed a shy smile in his way, and he quickly turned forward, the seat creaking under him.

You got used to this routine, him not saying anything, you sitting there, trying to pretend like nothing happened, but sometimes this silence grew a little too thick, making you confused.

Your thoughts were broken by the loud yawn of Grogu, and you took that as your cue. You took the silver ball from his hand, placing it on the console as you stood up with him in your arms. Din didn’t hear you, or he just pretended like that, so you walked up to him, placing your hand on his shoulder. His body immediately went rigid under your touch before he relaxed again.

“I’m going to put Grogu to sleep, then I think I’ll call it a day too. Try not to crash the ship until then, alright?” you tried to joke, but you only got a nod in return.

Your hand fell from his shoulder as you walked to the back of the ship, the door closing behind you with a loud hiss, and Din let out a long sigh. He hated to pretend like he didn’t care about you, hated to see how well you could bound with the Child, he hated every part of himself that told him to keep away from you. And still, he couldn’t stop his body’s reaction to your touch.

It was like every cell of his body focused on your hand on his shoulder, the feeling spreading in him rapidly.

He tried to focus on driving the ship, but the growing bulge in his pants made it impossible. With a loud sigh he smashed the auto-pilot button on the console, tearing the gloves off of his hands, and letting them land beside the chair. He gripped the armrest of the seat to try and get himself in control again, but the his needs won, his arousal building with each passing second.

His right hand fell to the tent on the front of his pants, and he threw back his head, the helmet clinking weakly as he started to palm himself through the rough fabric.

His thoughts wandered, imagining you doing this to him. That soft hand that was on his shoulder just minutes ago, pleasing him while he was just watching from behind his t-visor. He was sure that he was going against his Creed’s law, but he didn’t care at that moment.

When he felt like he couldn’t take it anymore, he made quick work with the fly at the front. His hand immediately wrapped around himself the moment he freed his cock, and a loud groan left his mouth as he started stroking himself at a steady pace.

He wondered if it would be the same if you were the one stroking him. Surely not, he answered himself, your hands were softer, his were full of callouses that built up throughout the years. And what if you were using your mouth?

Din imagined you kneeling in front of him, his hand replaced by the warmth of your mouth. His hand moved faster on his length, his precum making every movement easier as he chased his orgasm.

He hated the way the glass of the t-visor blurred with every breath he let out, but he didn’t stop.

In just a few more seconds he was on the edge, and with the last stroke he came hard, ropes of his cum landing on the floor of the ship. “Shit,” he cursed under his breath, his hand slowing down as he looked at the mess he made. He felt frustrated, but relieved at the same time, a feeling that he never got to experience before.

And this went on like this for three more weeks. Every time you touched him, even for the briefest little connection made him hard, and the moment you left, he never hesitated to relieve himself of the pressure.

Until one night at an inn.

Din was skeptical about it at first when you told him you had a friend at an inn where you could stay, but he had to admit that the thought of a normal bed was really alluring for his aching body.

The problems only started when your friend announced that they only had one room left.

Din immediately wanted to back out of the plan. Being in the same room as you for so long seemed almost impossible to him, especially after everything he has done while you were peacefully sleeping rooms away from him. But somehow you still managed to convince him, saying that it was only for one night.

The next obstacle was Grogu. The small creature decided to start his own little life, finding other children that could play with him, resulting in him not coming back to your shared room.

Din was on the brink of losing it, pacing uo and down in the room despite your tries to calm him down. Eventually you both agreed on going to sleep. At least you tried to, but both of you knew that you were just going to lay awake beside each other.

Din started to feel more uncomfortable at the sudden proximity of your body, and he tried to keep a distance, but it was hard when he felt like he could combust any moment if he didn’t get to touch you.

The helmet wasn’t doing justice to him either, the metal pressing into the back of his head as he tried to remain as rigid as he could. He wondred if he would commit a crime if he took it off and slept like that. The beskar was pushing heavily against his skull, and he was sure that if he continued to lay like this, then he would have to say goodbye to a deep sleep.

“Cyar'ika?”

“Yeah?” you hummed, turning your head towards him in the darkness. His armor shone in the light of the moon, and you were sure that you caught just a small glinpse of his eyes behind the helmet as he moved to push himself to a sitting position.

“Can I… Can I take off my helmet?” he asked hesitantly, and your breath caught at the unexpected question.

“But isn’t that against the law of your Creed, Din?”

“Not if you’re not looking at me,” he answered.

You didn’t wait for further questions, only turned on your side, your back facing him, and that was all he needed as a confirmation. His hands lifted the heavy helmet, the metal being placed on the ground carefully, and he finally took in a deep breath. As long as you weren’t looking at him he was fine with being helmetless.

The moment his head hit the pillow he fell into the deepest sleep of his life.

You woke abruptly in the middle of the night when a hand sneaked onto your waist. Your first instinct was to try and turn around, but you quickly remembered where you were and what happened the evening before, so you just remained on your side. Din’s hot breath landed on the back of your neck, and deep down you wished that you could just see how he looked like while fast asleep, when he didn’t have to worry about anything.

Your hand covered his, and he instinctively moved closer to you, his body now pressing flush against yours. You could feel everything. A blush crept on your face when you felt him pressing hard against you, and you tried to put a little distance between you, but he simply pulled you back against him, his head burying into your hair.

You felt yourself grow wet at the thought of him being aroused, and you couldn’t help the small roll of your hips against his groin. He let out a soft growl, his hand tigtening on your waist, and in that moment you knew that you woke him up.

“You’re playing with fire, cyar'ika,” he warned you. This was the first time you heard his voice without the helmet and you couldn’t help, but clench your thighs together at the soft rumble. But you didn’t miss a chance at pushing your ass back again.

He quickly steadied you, pushing you on your stomach and climbing behind you. He leaned close to you, his breath brushing your ear. “You’re not good at taking warnings, huh?”

You were looking at the pillow in front of you, and when you tried to move your head to the side, his hand carefully turned it forward again. His body suddenly disappeared from behind you, and you were tempted to look where did he go and what he was doing as you heard the rustle of fabric and the clink of metal, but he quickly appeared again.

“I’m going to blindfold you, alright? We can’t risk anything here,” he murmured, and he lifted a thin strap of fabric in front of your eyes. Your vision went pitch black as he tied it in a firm knot at the back of your head, and your other senses heightened immediately.

Din lifted you onto your hands and knees, and even though you were still fully clothed, you felt the most naked in your life under his gaze. His palm drew a path on your spine, down to the waistband of your thick pants, and he pulled them down in one swift movement, exposing your panties to his eyes. You were sure he could see the wet patch on it when he let out a quiet curse.

What you didn’t expect though was how suddenly he pulled them to the side, the cool air hitting your pussy quickly replaced by the warmth of his mouth. A moan left your lips, and the sheets bunched up between your fingers as he groaned behind you, the waves traveling up your body.

His tongue drew a path from your clit to your entrance, and he repeated his moves with more firmness, his hands gripping your hips to ground himself. His mouth wrapped around your clit, sucking gently at it, and your moan filled the room.

You didn’t even notice when one of his hands moved from your thigh, but the feeling of one of his fingers dipping between your folds made you aware of it. Before a moan could even leave your mouth, he buried his finger inside you, leaving you completely breathless.

He started to move it at a steady pace, his mouth still connected to your clit, and the feeling was absolutely overwhelming. You’ve never felt anything like this in years, and while in the last few months you often got yourself off at the thought of him eating you out, you never thought that one day it would really happen.

Your thoughts were broken by your own moan of Din’s name as you came on his finger, your body falling forward between the pillows as the waves of your high washed all over you.

Neither of you moved for a few seconds, him waiting for you to recover, and you too spent to even move a muscle.

He was the one to break the silence and peace that settled in. You felt the mattress dip beside you, and you tried to use your hearing to understand what was happening.

“Come here, cyar'ika,” he tapped your side. You weren’t expecting him to let you be on top, and you were slightly intimidated by the task when you clearly couldn’t see anything. He saw your hesitation, so he helped you.

You didn’t expect to meet bare skin, and a surprised moan left your lips when you felt his cock behind you. Your hands landed on his chest, and your palm was met with something cold, almost as cold as his beskar armor usually was. But you didn’t question him, instead you started to move your hips back against him, and a soft groan rolled off of his lips when you covered his length in your wetness.

You reached behind you to take him in your palm, rising slightly from his lap so you could line him up with your entrance. You slowly started to sink down on him, and you felt his hands shot to either side of your hips, helping you. Your mouth opened to a soft moan, and your head fell forward as he bottomed out. You quickly remembered that your top was still on, so you made quick work with the zipper, chucking the fabric to the side, leaving you completely bare for his eyes. You slowly started to move above him, your movements guided by his hold, and the feeling was overwhelming.

Din could only groan beneath you as his eyes were glued to your body. He planted his feet firm on the mattress as he met your moves with powerful thrusts, and you gave control to him completely when you leaned forward, bracing yourself on his chest. He didn’t check twice as his arms wrapped around your body, and his thrusts became faster and harder.

He buried his face between your breasts, kissing up his way to the column of your throat. He delivered a particularly hard thrust at the same time he nipped at your throat, and this was all you needed to fly over the edge again. He felt your walls tighten around him, so he slowed down his movements. Your hands gripped his shoulders as you rode out your orgasm, him softly rocking his hips against yours.

When your grip disappeared from his shoulders, and your body stopped trembling, he started to chase his own high too, speeading up again. He listened to your soft moans as his mouth got closer to your lips, and the moment he sealed them together in a kiss, he came hard, not leaving a moment for him to pull out.

The kiss laste long after he came down from his own high, and you only pulled back from him because of the lack of oxygen. You carefully laid down beside him, the loss of him making you whimper. You felt him shift next to you, and the next thing you knew was that the blindfold was lifted from your eyes. You had to blink a few times before the room came back to you, and your gaze immediately fell on the man beside you — now with his helmet back on.

“Are you alright?” he asked you, and your response was a nod with a weak smile. You moved to lay down on his chest when your eyes caught something shiny. You braced yourself on the bed, your gaze falling to his nipples that were pierced.

“Are these…”

Deep down he was grateful that instead of pointing out his scars, you chose to ask about his piercings. But now he had to explain it all to you. “Piercings?” he finished your question, and you nodded, your fingers lifting to touch the metal.

“Where did you get them?”

“I was young. Got back from my first mission, received my first payment of beskar. I didn’t really think back then,” he explained, stopping for a second as you touched the tiny beskar rod again, goosebumps breaking out over his whole body. “Used most of it up for a new armor, but I kept the scraps. I was curious, so one night I just pierced myself.”

“Yourself?” you asked surprised, propping yourself on his chest and looking straight into his t-visor.

“Yeah. It hurt like hell, and it still doesn’t have any purpose to this day.”

You moved your head down on his chest, leaning to place a soft kiss on the piercing while your gaze remained on his helmet. “Well, I like them.”

“You do?”

“Hm. It was an unexpected surprise, but not an unpleasant one.”

He hummed under the helmet, reaching to pull the sheet over your bodies. He hugged you close to him, feeling the warmth of your body. His hand was resting on your lower back, and you let out a quiet chuckle when you moved, and it fell down to your ass. He didn’t say anything though.

“Din?”

“Hm?”

“What will we do with Grogu?” you reminded him, and he let out an annoyed sigh.

“That damn kid. Sometimes he can be so damn stubborn.”

“He really reminds me of a certain someone,” you teased, and it only earned a playful smack on your ass from him.

“Sleep, cyar'ika,” Din said, and you laid back down with a chuckle, burying your face in his shoulder as he pulled you closer.

Sleep immediately pulled you under, the exhaustion finally catching up with your body. Din made sure that you were alright, studying how your face smoothened, the worries disappearing, and only then did he let his head rest against the soft pillow.

He didn’t even care anymore about the helmet pressing into the back of his head. He had you in his arms, and that was all that mattered to him in that moment.

You could have picked a cheaper casino, but as they say, go big or go home.

You take a look around you, eventually you will have to stop by a table and play, even if it’s just once, you don’t want to spend the whole night standing in a corner, waiting.

You flow around the tables, hearing cheering of victory, poker chips being scattered on the the green tables with people doing all kind of rituals to bring good luck.

You thought you would have been like a lost fish in this big green sea, but instead you’re like a shark, on the hunt, smelling the taste of blood, when instead it’s just money and expensive perfumes.

And as you’re gravitating without ever landing somewhere, a light catches your eye.

An emerald.

And the gold around it, bold, beautiful.

It attracts you, like a magnet, like blood for a shark.

The man wearing it shows your back, and from here you can see his dark chocolate curls and the jacket of the suit hugging perfectly his broad shoulders.

You walk towards him, forgetting about all the tables around you, only that green light is guiding you.

There are a couple of empty seats next to him, looking so inviting.

The ring catches the light one more time, before you’re leaning on his side, leaving behind any shyness.

“May I?” 

-

Harry is sitting at the table, it could be any other day, but in particular today marks two months since his last breakup, the hundredth partner having left him.

That’s how he took his private jet to get some sun in California only to end up in the dusty Las Vegas with his sun kissed skin, switching the sun for the blinking lights of Sin City. He’s no stranger here, most of the times not even betting or playing at the casinos, just enjoying the chaos, soaking it. And too many times he thinks that it just resembles his life: there are so many fake things here, fake monuments, canals, even the glam is all fake. Harry thinks that it’s like his messy life, his emotions often being hidden behind a fake and expensive glaze.

He would for sure choose the most expensive hotels, although those big suites would make him feel even more alone, the big space mocking his loneliness.

So that night he floated around the casinos, wondering if going in or not, but in the end he got in, just to feel something, rather than the emptiness carving his heart.

It won’t fix a thing, he will still come back to an empty suite, but for some hours he will be surrounded by noises and his thoughts will at least be a little silent.

Harry picks his go to casino, he knows that place well, with its expensive tables and floors, and suites too, in case he can’t make it back to his hotel, sometimes being too tired, or too drunk.

He doesn’t think too much when picking a table, just an empty seat will do.

He’s fully focused on the game, on choosing well the cards to play and how much to bet, calculating neatly his moves when he hears a simple question.

And his breath is taken away, as a celestial vision is before him, your dress lingers on your body perfectly, flattering you and Harry should formulate any answer but his mouth is agape, lips parted.

“Of course, please.” He remembers how to articulate a single phrase, wondering what gods have looked down at him tonight and have granted him not only those poker chips coming back to him but also your presence there.

Goddess of fortune and goddess of beauty might have worked a little magic here.

He feels your look on him, glancing at you and still wondering what a woman that beautiful is doing all alone at a casino on Valentine’s Day.

You just watch the cards being unfolded, Harry getting once again more chips to his side.

Harry glances at you, “So, may I ask if you’re waiting for someone? A partner being late to the date?” He asks, truly believing that. He might be lucky to admire you, but you’re probably forbidden to him.

You half smile, shaking your head, “Oh no, no one in sight for me. But I can tell you that I’m here on a quest.”

“On a quest?” He repeats, scattering some chips on the table, at this point not even that interested anymore in the game.

You give him a nod, looking down at his green emerald and then getting lost in those chocolate brown eyes.

“I have lost a bet, and I have to make up for it.” You vaguely say, Harry becoming even more curious, half turning at you, showing the bow tie on his neck. And he really looks like a prince, like he doesn’t even belong in a place like Las Vegas.

“Do you have to win some money?” He tries to guess, he could really help with his skills.

But you shake your head, Harry rising his eyebrow and tilting his head.

“You have to place a bet on the roulette with a particular number,” he tries to guess again, but he’s met with another negative response.

He starts fidgeting with his ring, everything else is blocked out from his ears now, he can only hear and see you, a strange desire blooming in him.

“You have to... you have to find someone who will buy you a drink.” 

Again, another no.

Harry looks more and more amused and he realises one thing: he’s having fun for the first time in weeks, like real fun, with that thrill he was missing so much.

“I’m afraid you have used all your free questions.” You lean onto him, whispering those words.

Harry smirks, “Oh I can guess more if I pay?” He lifts up some chips and you giggle alongside him.

“I can definitely buy you a drink, if you want to, even if it’s not gonna solve your dare.”

You tilt your head to one side and the other, as if you’re thinking about it, when instead it’s an immediate yes.

“Alright, I’ll just finish this round and then we’re going to the bar.” He concludes, his eyes fixed once again on the devilish green table. And if you could never find that game addicting, the way he looks is something that you could get addicted to for sure.

The way his eyebrows furrow, thinking, calculating, and then acting, bluffing, all those things that you have seen doing several times but never in such a fascinating way.

He doesn’t give away any emotion, until he has to take the dice and he brings them close to you.

“Would you mind blowing them?”

The word blow makes you think about another type of situation, but those dice will do.

You purse your lips, blowing on them while you hold his gaze, and you have to refrain from squirming in your seat.

He then throws them on the table, the little shiny cubes scattering and jumping until they land still.

And he wins it all.

A thrill crosses his body but it’s not even from the win, it’s from the way you’re looking at him, and the way you have brought him luck.

Harry paves the way towards the bar, changing though his chips with money before getting there. And it’s for sure a lot of money.

He disappears for a moment in the nearby bathroom, having to wash away the smell of money, hating how it would remain on him and he would hate to have that smell reach you too if he was to touch you.

You sit comfortably at a table, Harry loosening a bit his bow tie only to readjust it right after, meticulously handling it, like he is used to dress like that.

“Do you come here often?” You try to guess, sipping on your mocktail once you got your glass, for sure you want to stay sober tonight.

He doesn’t even know how to answer, without looking like a serious player with a gambling issue.

“Sometimes.” 

“And do you play a lot?” You wonder, Harry shaking a bit his head,

“No, I have watched many people playing and losing, and that is why when I play I always make sure to win. But still, I don’t play that much.” His look wanders through the huge place, shaking a bit his head as if he is judging it, “I work in finance, I know how to place a good bet on a good deal, and how to predict if it’s gonna end well or badly. It’s a game but it’s also a lot of statistics, predictions and stuff like that.” He makes sure to add.

You nod, mixing a bit the ice into the glass.

“But I must be boring you with this, hell is Valentine’s Day and you’re spending it with someone talking about hazard ratio,” he almost laughs at himself, guessing that maybe he bored his previous partners, although they all enjoyed his money for sure.

You shake your head to his surprise, “You’re passionate about it, so you could never be boring.”

And Harry can’t believe that a stranger out of all people is understanding him even more than people who actually know him. 

He smiles at you, playing with his already empty glass, “Now can I make another guess on your dare?”

You half laugh, sipping then on your drink as he keeps on studying you.

“You got me a drink so we can say that you paid for another guess.”

“Just another one?” He’s once again very intrigued by that game.

“Yes, just another possibility and then it’s gone forever.”

Harry nods, loving that game more and more. And he takes his time for a moment, since he knows that the answer might already be in front of him.

His gaze lingers on your hands, noticing no rings and no apparent signs of wearing usually rings on your ring finger, so the dare doesn’t have to do with cheating.

He studies your face and then your dress, trying not to linger too much on the neckline and leaning a bit back in his seat to give you even a better look.

“Anything, Sherlock?” 

He actually chuckles, that question taking him by surprise while he’s all focused.

“Not yet, but I know,” he sets the glass aside, “I know that you have your answer on you.”

You don’t say anything else, giving him the famous poker face.

He’s almost giving up when he finally lights up.

“I think I have it.” He wonders bringing his palms together.

“Well, amuse me,” not giving a single sign of wanting to give him a hint.

Harry is all happy to do that actually, “Correct me if I am wrong but...” he leaves the words hanging for a moment, “Your dare is find someone here, you have to find a Valentine for the night.”

And he notices immediately the slight change on your face, knowing he got it right.

“How... how did you guess that?” You ask, almost speechless.

Harry leans more on the table, proudly smirking, “I saw you looking around the tables when you entered, you weren’t looking at the cards, you were looking at the people.”

You almost gasp at that, how the hell could he have notice you already?

“So you knew it all along?” 

Harry ducks his head a bit, “Yeah, I imagined it,” a genuine smile on his lips, and he’s really enjoying himself.

You finish your drink, “Then why didn’t you guess it the first time?”

He tilts his head, biting a bit his bottom lip, “Now you try to guess.” 

And it hits you, he’s a good player so there is only one right answer, only one reason why he did all of that.

“You were bluffing.” You let out, actually amazed.

Harry this time nods all pleased, clicking his tongue, “That’s right, I told you I watch a lot of people here, I can read them all.”

And well, you didn’t imagine to find someone this charming tonight.

You play a little more with the empty glass, “But did you know already that I was going to pick your table?”

Harry shakes his head this time, “Oh no, that was impossible to guess, way too many possibilities and variants.”

“See? That’s so interesting, you’re not boring Mr...” You just realise you don’t even know his name.

“Harry Castillo.” 

And no other name has ever sounded so good, those words rolling on his tongue like pure gold.

“Well, Mr. Castillo, you’re probably the most interesting person in this place, no wonder that I got attracted to you.”

Harry feels flattered in a way he rarely feels, his personality often shadowed by his own skills that make him just a good worker, nothing else.

“I can’t tell if you’re hitting on me.” 

And you smirk, loving that maybe there is something he cannot guess yet.

“Oh but I thought you knew how to read people.” You coo, almost pouting and you swear that you’re having that man blushing all the way for you.

Harry moves in his seat, this time really loosening up his bow tie, his jugular pulsing way too loudly against it and the collar of his white shirt.

“If you could only read my mind now, Harry.”

The air gets sucked from the elevator as you’re shoving him against the wall of it, thanking that there is only you two.

Thirty floors is a lot, you have all the time. 

Your bodies are completely attached, hitting on the wall of the elevator and Harry doesn’t even protest at that, he lets you do that, he lets your hands go all over his jacket until his arms are embracing you.

The moustache tickles your lips, and those curls are soft under your fingertips, devouring him and Harry lets go of everything, he doesn’t care if somebody else is gonna get on this elevator too, if it’s gonna stop and people are gonna see you two shamelessly making out like that in public.

He doesn’t care because he’s feeling the blood pumping loudly in his veins.

Harry is feeling alive and nothing can take that away from him.

-

And as soon as you’re entering the suite, he’s all over you, the card being dropped somewhere after being barely able to scan it to get some dim light.

And this time he’s the one pressing you against the wall, kissing you desperately as he searches for the hems of your dress, lifting it up until he can palm you through your panties.

The lace grazes his palm as he brushes it there, kissing all up over your jaw and neck now, making you moan already and if this is just a taste of what the night has in its pocket... you have hit jackpot.

Your fingers wrap around his wrist, exhaling over his skin as you guide his fingers where you want them.

Harry keeps you close to the wall, fingers moving your panties to the side, peeking at the slickness between your legs.

He teases you, fingertip collecting the glisten but never going in.

“Come on, you’re a player, Harry, go all-in.”

He smiles over your neck, loving to hear it vibrating with a moan the moment he finally presses his fingertip among the wetness.

“This is all for me?” He teases, feeling the way you’re stretching perfectly around his thick finger, “Is it enough or do you want more?” His finger pressing quicker as you bump against him, gripping his bicep, and you’re sure you could even rip that tissue apart for the way he’s making you insane.

“More, Harry, more.” You urge, undoing his bow tie.

And next thing you know he’s taking out his finger and actually gripping your thighs, letting you wrap them around him, taking steps in that hallway until he reaches the huge bedroom, and you would see all the expensive details, the gold, the wood, if you weren’t being devoured by his lips, hands up in his curls, tugging him to go in you again.

He lands you on the bed, the dress becoming an uninvited guest so he unzips it, fingers careful as he does so, and it soon meets the floor; Harry admires your body, those panties still pulled to the side, your pulse quickening when instead of his fingers this time something rather warm is lapping on your awaiting folds.

You look down, spreading even more for him, his mouth gaping at you, his tongue sinking onto your plush and you can’t help but moving your body against him, against that soft moustache and his patched beard grazing the inside of your thigh.

“Fuck, Harry,” you barely have the strength to exhale when his thick finger is pressing into you again, his mouth though not giving any signs of getting tired of giving you everything.

He licks and kisses, and he literally drinks from you.

Harry might be a good player, but he’s an even better pleaser.

And he’s taking seriously your all-in order, a second finger going in easily and you might be losing your mind for the way he seems to know the way you like to be touched, to be kissed, almost as if he’s known you since forever. 

It suddenly hits you, that cold from the emerald, all against your heat, sliding in and this is even better than what you had imagined.

You tug his soft curls, sinking your fingers there, as he sucks on your clit and he doesn’t need to do anything else.

You squirm underneath his touch, whole body shattering releasing yourself in his mouth, his slicked fingers slowly pumping in you, until he takes them out slowly, that coldness from the ring leaving you; your body releases all the tension, all has gone into his mouth, Harry breathing over you and his lips are all glistened the moment he looks up at you.

Your breathing is shaky, still arching your back, Harry’s hand hovering your chest and falling on your side, kissing your forehead and then your lips, with a tenderness that makes you hold your breath. And you feel relaxed, in the arms of a stranger who looks all content to have done something for you, to have let you use his mouth for your pleasure.

You’re still laying in bed, savouring a little more that aftermath, your gaze finally wandering around the room, all while Harry’s fingers skim over your naked shoulder, kisses being delivered to your neck.

And well, your gaze lands on a slightly opened bag, just on the side of the bed, with something quite interesting peeking from it, the red catching your attention.

“Hold on...” You utter, and you recall your strengths to get up and take few steps to the bag, taking a better look at that object, confirming what you had already seen.

A pair of fur handcuffs.

Your rise your eyebrow at him, “Were you planning to handcuff someone tonight?” You make them twirl in the air, Harry’s jaw slacking because he didn’t even remember he had bought them the other night, while being probably too drunk and laughing at himself when he had come back to the hotel, an empty bed welcoming him.

“I- actually-“ He stutters for the first time of the night, hesitating in the dimmed room, as he’s kneeled on the bed, hands gathered on his naked lap. His black boxers hug his thighs, looking soft and like they might need to be held, just like his tanned skin on his chest peeking from the opened white shirt.

“What, big boy?” You tease, taking his chin with your fingers, thumb brushing on his bottom lip.

He parts his lips, big brown eyes looking up at you, waiting, hoping for you to do something.

“Hold on...” you study his look, hoping to be as good as him to read people’s expressions, “you wanted to be handcuffed.”

Harry has no other option but to weakly nod, why would he lie to you after all?

His jugular pulses and he feels his whole body is turned on when you make those handcuffs brush on his thighs, the soft synthetic fur making him huff.

You watch carefully his reaction, Harry squeezing his eyes shut the moment you let them stroke on the inside of his thigh, almost getting up on his knees just to search any kind of contact.

And you have never seen someone so beautiful and desperate at the same time. He’s aching for any type of touch, he craves it as those handcuffs caress his boxers, slightly moving his hips and this night is only getting more interesting with each minute spent with this man.

“Oh baby, you really deserve someone to take care of you, right?” You cup his cheek, kissing him softly just like the handcuffs still being brushed on him.

Harry nods, having decided to give in to you completely.

“So should I put these around your wrists? Should I handcuff you the the headrest?”

“Yes, please.” His plea leaving his lips, Harry looking up at you like you’re the one who’s gonna fix his whole life. And maybe you won’t, but you’re already fixing his night.

“Alright, big boy, lay down,” you instruct him, Harry doing as told.

You move his arms up over his head, until you let the handcuffs pass around the iron of the headboard, “Alright, let’s go with the first one,” you say as you’re closing the fluffy circle around his right wrist.

“And now the other one, thank you.”

And in just a second it’s all done, Harry’s arms being outstretched and his wrists tied, letting him try to move his hands.

“Are they too tight?” You check, definitely enjoying all of that but cannot helping the idea that Harry is putting his whole trust in the hands of a complete stranger.

He shakes his head, “They’re perfect, thank you.” His voice charged with so much wait, and expectation.

Harry even moves his fingers to show you that his blood is definitely reaching even his fingertips and that he’s not in pain.

You bow on his forehead, kissing him there and descending over his lips, your fingers dancing over his hair.

“Do you promise me to tell me if you’re feeling bad or if you want to stop?” You make sure to ask, kissing his cheek and brushing your thumb on his forehead.

Harry tenderly smiles at that care that you’re already giving him, “Yes, I promise.”

He searches for your lips, starving for some touch, starving to be kissed like a thirsty man in the desert, like the desert surrounding this whole city.

Your hands let the shirt fall more open, gracing his collarbones and his chest with your kisses, his skin being warm under your lips.

You go on, his moans of appreciation just motivating you to kiss him all over his abdomen, brushing on his happy trail until the waistband of his boxers.

Your hands brush on his thighs, gripping then onto the soft plush, glancing at his evident excitement under his boxers.

He thrusts against you the moment you wrap your hand around him, trying to imagine him without those boxers and he already looks mighty, he feels mighty.

His lips are parted, moaning at your touch and hoping that the walls of this hotel are thick enough.

But you won’t take him out of his boxers yet, you straddle him and you decide to ride him like that, the bulge under yourself, under the glisten forming again in your panties.

“Is this alright, Harry?” You check, balancing yourself on his hips, him nodding eagerly.

“Would you like me to ride you properly?” You ask, when he’s becoming to thrust against you, those boxers fighting to hold him.

“Yes, please, yes.” Completely lost in you already.

You take the waistband, beginning to lower it down painfully slowly, Harry huffing at that and trying to move to let them shimmer more quickly.

“Easy, leave it to me.” You warn him, letting the waistband go lower and still slower, until it finally sets him free, letting the boxers leave his legs and dropping them somewhere on the floor.

And there he is, in all his majesty, Harry blushing for the way you’re biting your lip at that sight.

“Oh you’re a big boy for sure,” your hand wrapped around him, Harry mouthing what could be a thank you or a please, either way it’s desperation to be touched, to be warmed up.

“Yeah, tell me all about it,” you follow his moans, as your hand is sliding down on him, sleek with some lube you found on the nightstand, Harry seeing the fucking stars already.

Soon your panties meet the same fate of his boxers, and you keep pumping him as you’re rubbing yourself while straddling his thighs.

You’re still wet from the previous orgasm, so it is no surprise when your finger slides in yourself so easily, aching for something more.

It doesn’t take you long to feel ready for him, Harry wishing though that he was fingering you again, that he was feeling that wetness around his fingers.

But soon his thoughts get shut up by your pussy stretching around his big tip, coaxing it with your glistening.

And this time you are the one to moan loudly as you get down on him, feeling each inch spreading you more open as you sink on him. 

He’s a lot, but your muscles welcome him like he’s always belonged there, the vein around him pulsing inside your walls as you become to slide up and down.

“How is it, big boy?” You moan, although you’re almost breathless, fighting to keep your eyes open and check for any reaction of his.

He tugs at his handcuffs, but he has the brightest smile on his lips, “You feel fucking good, baby, you’re perfect.”

And if you’re making sure to make him feel good, he’s also making sure to remind you that you’re a vision to him, that he’s left breathless by the way you’re riding him yes, but also by the way you’re straddling him like a goddess, a beautiful and powerful goddess able to give him all the beauty and the pleasure of this world.

His words charge you, they really make you feel like you could own the world, starting to getting off properly on him, moving as you please as rub your fingers on your sleek centre, your moans becoming just one symphony.

You rock your hips, getting him inside you just as much as you want to, only to slide higher until you can feel his tip almost getting out of you, only to get down again, your pussy stretching for him and letting him in, wrapping around him; you’re soaked, as you let your hands brush all over your body, giving him a nice spectacle as you cup your breasts and play with your nipples, feeling his look burning on you and the handcuffs slide on the headboard, telling you that he’s dying to touch you.

“Too bad you can’t touch all of this,” you tease him like a devil, smirking at the way he bites his bottom lip and tugs at those damn handcuffs.

You almost cannot talk anymore, for the way he’s thrusting against you, pushing more inside you and it’s just perfect.

A drop of sweat is collected on your collarbones, thinking how Harry must be doing with still his shirt on.

You slide more on him, only to let your hands slide over his chest, feeling his skin burning under your fingertips.

And he’s moaning and panting more than before, “Do you wanna come, uh?” You tempt him, getting off on him shamelessly, reminding him who’s controlling everything right now.

A desperate and needy series of yes yes yes leaves his lips, and soon he’s spilling all his warmth inside you, just making your own orgasm even better, hitting you like the biggest wave of pleasure you’ve ever had, almost blacking out for its intensity.

You let him slide out of you, the slickness sticking between you as you come down on his chest, trying to catch your breath, his heart hammering under your ear.

You take in a sharp breath just for a moment, before kissing his glistened forehead, and aiming for his handcuffs.

“Let’s take these off, baby,” you coo, the aftermath still hitting you strongly but you know that you can’t let him all handcuffed for the rest of the night.

Harry purrs at that, hissing a bit as you free his wrists and you let him lower his arms, his muscles definitely aching a little.

That hissing of pain alarms you though, “Everything alright?” You whisper, rubbing your hands over his arms, those biceps being huge under your palms, with the tissue of the shirt sliding under on your touch.

He nods, “Yeah, just my arms hurting a little.” 

You kiss his lips, Harry finally being able to let his hands around you, cupping your cheeks to let you deepen the kiss.

“You did so good, big boy, so good.” You praise on his lips, feeling him smirking over them as you kiss him again.

He looks all kissed by some bliss as you get up to get a glass of water for you and him.

The water is cold in your throat, taming a bit the heat, and you handle the other glass to him, Harry sitting up in bed, the handcuffs still on his side. 

“Thank you,” he mouths, drinking up all of it, taking then a proper deep breath, still somehow coming down from the orgasm. He can still feel you all around him, and he definitely has all your glisten around him.

“You can shower before me, if you want.” You let out, as you’re sitting again in bed, drinking some more water.

Harry rises his eyebrow, “There are two bathrooms in this suite, no need to take turns,” which genuinely make you chuckle, Harry amusingly laughing to your next words.

“How fucking rich are you?”

You reach him in bed, forgetting that your room in the three stars hotel is waiting for you, when you have a king sized bed with an actual prince on it looking at you like you’re the eighth wonder.

You’ve taken a t-shirt of his and a pair of his boxers, the t-shirt reaching your mid thigh and feeling his perfume onto your skin, never wanting to wash that away.

“Hey,” you let out as you climb the bed, cupping his cheeks to kiss him.

“Hey,” he whispers over your lips, still that blissful look on him, looking like he has been blessed.

“You’ve completed your quest, by the way.” He whispers, brushing his fingers over your covered shoulder, “You got yourself someone for Valentine’s Day.” 

And somehow you had even forgotten about all that, about the reason why you ended up in Las Vegas in the first place.

“You’re right,” you smile all content, “I couldn’t have been luckier.”

Harry outstretches his arm towards you, making you come closer to him, and you notice the little signs on his wrists.

“Oh no, honey,” you frown a little, taking his hands into yours, brushing your thumbs over the slight reddish signs.

“Let me kiss them better,” you offer, placing a kiss on each wrist, Harry brushing his face over the pillowcase, blushing for the hundredth time because you know somehow what buttons to push to make his heart become a puddle.

And as you’re being hugged by him, you think about what people say.

What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas.

Your name’s not embossed on the front of the seventy story building sitting pretty on 57th street, not splashed across the cover of Architectural Digest, not signed neatly at the bottom of those pristine renderings that get passed around in glass boardrooms and land multi-million dollar deals.

But you know the build order of every project in the past five fiscal years. You know which of the project managers can’t be trusted with deadlines, which board members need their egos stroked, and every single name attached to each of the contracts spanning across five continents.

You were three years out of school and six months into a soul sucking accounting job that felt more like glorified coffee-fetching with a minor in emotional labor when Harry called. 

Well—technically, his HR director called, but Harry noticed you, or noticed your resume stacked with respectable internships and juicy recommendation letters. Or maybe it was the fact that during your third round interview, you corrected one of his junior partners on a misquoted quarterly budget breakdown.

Either way, two weeks later you were standing in a glass top floor office owned by one of the most powerful men in the city. 

And yes, you knew who he was before he hired you, of course you did.

Harry had been New York’s golden boy since the early aughts, when his first building went up in Tribeca and every magazine with a spine declared him the second coming of Frank Llyod Wright.

He was a genius, innovative. One of the youngest Pritzker Prize winners in history who got the kind of press coverage that made people think “architect” was synonymous with “celebrity”.

Now, at 47, Harry Castillo is an institution in the world of design.

Castillo Atelier is the best firm in the city, maybe even in the world, depending on which Real Estate Digest cover story you read. His name alone makes most clients practically foam at the mouth and drop seven figures without seeing a single blueprint.

You’ve been his executive assistant longer than it took you to get your shiny Business Administrations degree from Colombia, and if anyone knew Harry better than his mother or his therapist, it was you.

You have every number of his black American Express card memorized, front and back. You have every password to every account imaginable tucked away neatly in a file labeled “BLACKMAIL MATERIAL” on your desktop. 

You schedule his life down to the minute, from site visits in Abu Dhabi to dental cleanings in Midtown. You know his shoe size, the name of his best tailor's teenage daughter, which marble supplier he trusts in Verona. You know the entry code to his West Village brownstone and you’re on a first name basis with the doorman at his Fifth Avenue penthouse. 

You know he drinks his coffee black but only before noon and he switches to espresso, that he smokes Marlboro Golds even though he swears up and down he’s quit, and that when he’s stressed, he starts sketching towers with spiral staircases that’ll never pass code.

It’s morphed into a strange kind of intimacy. Not romantic, but not exactly a normal boss-employee relationship either. 

He's the kind of boss who makes you want to roll your eyes at the word, because it's not that simple—not that sterile.

It's late nights spent in his dimly lit office where he sheds his suit jacket and hands you a perfectly poured wine glass without asking when you're the only two left in the building. It's sitting shoulder to shoulder on a leather couch, going over zoning permits while his arm rests behind you, not on you, but close enough to count.

Harry’s careful with you, in a way that’s not always obvious. He buys you the books you idly mention wanting to read in passing and custom David Yurman earrings fitted with your birthstone. If he was ten years younger and you were ten years dumber, you might’ve mistaken it for something else. 

As it is, you just tell yourself he likes spoiling things that work well. Like his thousand dollar espresso machine. Like his Aston Martin. Like you.

You should feel like an accessory.

Instead, you feel like a centerpiece—like you’re the sun that his life revolves around. 

You can’t tell which is worse.

Today, like most days, starts with you getting to the office an hour before him.

You take the elevator up to the seventy third floor, unlock his office, and flick on the lights. The space is gorgeous, minimalist in a way that doesn’t ever feel cold. Floor to ceiling windows, sleek dark wood floors, and exposed beams. 

There’s an open notebook on his desk from the night before, a few handwritten notes scrawled in sharp, narrow pen strokes that he gave up on halfway through and started sketching in the margins.

You roll your eyes, smothering a fond smile as you walk out of the room and to your own desk. It’s less than six feet from his door, close enough that you can always hear clipped phone calls or the soft sounds of Prince playing from his sound system.

You drop your bag, start up your desktop, and begin triaging the day. Your inbox is in a constant state of full to the brim no matter how good you are at your job—bursting with emails from developers, calendar shifts, a client breakfast cancellation. 

The whole office smells like bergamot and bergdorf. Someone sent over a Diptyque candle and Harry hasn’t stopped lighting it. Luckily for you, it’s strong enough to keep the scent of lemony luxury permeating long after it’s been blown out. 

It’s still not enough to magically cancel out the stress of pushy demands disguised as business and city bureaucracy, but you can still pretend it is.

You’re bouncing between five open tabs and sending increasingly frantic texts to the head of operations about a late shipment of imported glass by the time you finally hear a soft ding from the elevator followed by crisp footsteps coming your way.

Harry rounds the corner holding a pastry bag, Ray-Bans on, hair still wet from the shower and curling around his ears. “Good morning, sunshine.”

You don’t look up from your screen. “You’re late again.”

“No,” Harry tuts, leaning his hip against your desk and dropping the bag in front of you. “You’re just early.”

“I work here.”

“Funny, so do I.”

“Do you?” You finally look up, brow arched. “I forget.”

He’s wearing that suit. The one that makes your job harder in the most inappropriate HR violating ways. Deep blue pinstripe with the burgundy Gucci tie you handpicked last year. It’s fitted like it had been tailored by the hands of God.

He tilts his head, peering at you over the edge of his glasses. “Is that any way to treat the man who bought you breakfast?”

Your eyes cut to the white paper bag, Mah-Ze-Dahr. You don’t need to look inside it to know what it is, a twenty dollar pistachio crunch croissant. Your favorite.

You don’t have time to respond before Harry drops his glasses on your desk, settling into the chair across from you. “Remind me never to take a meeting in Soho before noon again.”

You set the bag aside and continue typing with a soft shake of your head. “You said that last week, and the week before that.”

“And yet I keep doing it.” He rolls his head on his shoulders with a soft sigh. “That’s insanity, isn’t it? Doing the same thing over and over, expecting a different result.”

“That’s Einstein,” you say, pointedly ignoring the way he’s looking at you. “Maybe you just like the punishment.”

Harry huffs, amused. “I pay you too much to psychoanalyze me.”

You open a new tab, click on a high priority labeled email and turn your screen in his direction. “Yet you don’t pay me enough to deal with your ex-wife’s lawyer hassling me before seven.”

That certainly gets his attention, his spine straightening as he leans forward, squinting at your screen. “She didn’t.”

You nod, resting your chin on your palm as his eyes flit over the lengthy body. “She did.”

You watched the divorce unfold like everyone else. It was loud, expensive, and painfully public. She was a former model turned gallery owner with a sharp tongue and better connections than half the industry. When she aired Harry out in New York Magazine the tabloids had a fucking field day.

The headlines were vicious. Castillo’s Castle Crumbles. From Manhattan’s Favorite Power Couple to Demolition Duo. Architect of His Own Downfall?

“Christ.” Harry sighs, leaning back and running a hand through his hair. “She promised she’d keep you out of this.”

“She lied.” You turn your screen back around, grabbing a pen to quickly scrawl the lawyer’s number across the front of a Post-It. “She wants her name off the Lakewood project or she’ll go to the press about the Montauk property.”

He drags a hand down his face, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Fucking hell.”

You slide the Post-It note across the desk. “Don’t shoot the messenger.” 

He doesn’t thank you, not out loud, but the way his eyes linger on the note before he tucks it into his jacket pocket says enough.

“I don’t deserve you,” he says, and it’s almost a throwaway comment—but his voice dips a little, gets low in that way that always makes you want to chew glass or scream into a designer throw pillow.

You shrug. “You say that a lot, but I don’t see any new raises.”

His grin is lazy, charming. “You know I’d bankrupt this company to keep you.”

You roll your eyes so hard it should count as cardio. “Please don’t. I like having dental.”

Harry laughs—really laughs—and it’s unfair how good it sounds, how it worms under your skin and stays there.

You turn away, forcing the warm feeling in your stomach to the back of your mind, and pivot. “You have a conference call with Dubai at eleven, lunch with the Fairstein developers at Cipriani, and there’s some plans in the Berlin file that still need to be signed.”

Harry nods once, shifting into business mode at the drop of a hat. “Well, I’ve got my marching orders.”

He checks his watch, stands, and straightens his jacket with a lazy kind of grace. You hate the way your eyes catch on the curve of his wrist, the way the cufflink glints in the morning light. Custom Cartier, a gift from some foreign diplomat client last Christmas. You remember because you signed for the delivery. Wrapped it, even.

Just before he steps into his office, he pauses. “I mean it.” His voice softens, and for a flicker of a moment, he looks at you like he’s trying to tell you something without saying it out loud. “This place doesn’t work without you.”

You glance up, heart skipping in your chest, ready with some practiced quip, but he’s already gone—door shut, his silhouette framed behind the frosted glass like a shadow you can’t shake.

This is how it always is—business talk sugarcoated in flirtation, or flirtation buried under years of knowing exactly how the other one works. If he weren’t who he is, and if you weren’t so damn good at ignoring how often he looks at your mouth when you talk, it might’ve gone somewhere dangerous already.

Instead, it lives in the margins. Like the ones he doodles spiral towers into. Like the ones in the secret planner buried in the very bottom drawer of you desk where you write down things like:

Remind Harry to eat something before 3.

Book flights for Hong Kong.

Don’t fall in love with your boss.

That last one’s underlined. Twice.

The rest of the morning floats by, you busy yourself with three different screens and sporadic bites of croissant and sips of coffee until one of the newer interns shows up with the mail.

You thank her and flip through the small mountain of envelopes until one catches your eye. A sleek black one with loopy silver lettering on the front. To Castillo Atelier, with a familiar logo stamped on the corner. You rip the gold seal, and slip the card out.

The AIA New York Chapter cordially invites Harry Castillo & Guest to the prestigious 2025 Architecture Gala | The Metropolitan Museum of Art | Black Tie.

You blink, and read it three more times before a deep sigh rips itself from somewhere deep in your chest. You skim the rest, going over fine print and steadily sighing louder the more you take it in.

You really should have known, it’s around that time. Award season, charity galas, old rich people stuff. Only this year, Harry Castillo and Guest are in separate states, in separate houses, and very much not on speaking terms.

Nor will they be on them in time for Friday night, or any other night in the foreseeable future.

You stand, letter in hand. Your heels click against the floor until you’re standing just outside Harry’s office, mulling over how bad it would reflect on your part if the invitation mysteriously found its way to the bottom of your trash. You knock anyway.

“Come in,” came the reply—his voice low, rough like it always is after the lunch rush, like velvet dragged over concrete. 

You stepped inside, closing the door behind you with a soft click.

Harry is at his desk, sleeves rolled up, tie loosened, Dior frames perched halfway down his nose as he looms over the stack of blueprints you left on his desk a few hours ago.

You don’t let yourself look at the tan column of his neck as you lean against the door. “You got a minute.”

He looks up, relaxing in his chair. “For you? Always.”

You hold up the invitation like it’s a warrant, shaking it gently. “You’ve been summoned.”

Harry’s eyes bounce from your own to the thick card stock, you watch the recognition register in his eyes. He sighs, “The gala.”

You nod, crossing your feet in front of you. “You’re being honored.”

He shakes his head with a laugh. “I was hoping they’d forget about me.”

Who possibly could?

You arch your brow. “It’s a lifetime achievement award.”

“I’m not even fifty.”

“Apparently, they’ve run out of old white men to honor.”

Harry chuckles, but it’s a tired sound. He rubs slow circles over his temples, tousling the salt and pepper hair scattered there. “Tell them we’re busy, send a fruit basket.”

You can’t explain the feeling that floods your chest, a mix of something like compassion and pity. It makes your heart ache, just a little bit. Enough to make you really feel it, enough to make you bury it before you can really dwell on why it hurts so much.

Harry puts on a spectacular front, but you know him too well. You know that the divorce has weighed on him, that’s it made him question himself. You know it was a massive shot to his self esteem, as both a person and as a company. 

You also know deep down it’s not the company that you care about.

“No.” You shake your head, making your way over to his desk.

He looks up at you, brow raised. “No?”

“No,” you emphasize, setting the invitation down on his desk. “You may think this is pointless, and that you’re too young—”

“Watch it.”

“—But you deserve this,” you finish, tapping a manicured nail on the card. “You deserve a whole room full of people fawning over you for no reason other than the fact that you’re you.”

Harry's eyes find yours again, slower this time. He doesn’t say anything at first. He just looks at you—really looks at you. And for a second, it’s too much. Too focused, too quiet, too…tender. It’s the kind of look that makes your skin prickle, your stomach twist. 

But you don’t flinch under the weight of his stare. You never do.

He leans forward, resting his arms on the desk. “Okay.”

You blink. “Okay?”

“Okay.” He nods, lacing his fingers together. “I’ll go.”

It feels anticlimactic somehow. You expected more of a fight—more pushback or maybe even a snide comment about black tie events like this becoming less about the accolades and the charity and more about new wave firms bustling around like show ponies scuffling over who signed the best contract with the most zeros tacked neatly on the end.

Instead, he just says okay. Like it’s simple. Like you aren’t the reason he’s saying yes.

You narrow your eyes at him, suspicious. “Just like that?”

“You make a compelling case." Harry shrugs, reaching for the invitation. “Besides, you know I love it when you compliment me.”

You huff, shaking your head, but you can’t fight the smile that tugs at the corners of your mouth as you lean on his desk. “You’re ridiculous.”

“So I’ve been told.” Harry nods, but he’s smiling wide enough to outdo your own.

He looks down at the invitation, scanning over the text languidly. He hums as he reads, dragging his thumb across the raised font. 

You let yourself watch him, cataloging all the details you’ve already memorized a thousand times. Your eyes trace the shape of his brows, the deep set lines that fan out from the corners of his eyes, the strong arch of his nose, the soft curve of his lips.

When he’s done, he taps it against his palm once and looks back at you. “And who, pray tell, is coming as my guest?”

You tilt your head. “I can get you someone,” you offer, even if the words make your stomach churn as you say them. “You want blonde or brunette? Bashful debutante or discreet NDA?”

Harry doesn't answer right away.

He leans back in his chair, looking at you like you're a puzzle he’s not quite finished solving. Like you’re a building he’s still sketching, still drafting, still trying to figure out if the foundation can handle the weight of what he wants to build on top of it.

“I don’t want someone,” he says finally.

The words land softer than you expect, but they still hit like a hammer to the chest.

“You should bring someone,” you deflect, professional, clean. “It’ll look good. The press will be there.”

“I’m aware,” he says, still watching you. “Which is why I don’t want just anyone.”

You don’t respond. You can’t. Not with the way his voice sounds—quiet, certain, threaded with a dangerous kind of warmth that makes your pulse kick.

Harry reaches up to slip his glasses off his face. “I don’t want someone,” he says again, voice even. “I want you.”

He says it like it’s the most obvious thing in the world, like your pulse doesn’t trip itself up three times over.

You blink. Once. Twice. Then scoff, forcing a laugh. “Excuse me?”

“Come with me.” 

It’s too sincere, too heart stoppingly warm. 

Your stomach drops. Then flips. Then rises again in the same way an express elevator does at fifty floors a second. “Harry—”

He cuts you off. “Don’t make that face.” He points at you with his glasses, shaking his head. “You’ll look incredible in black tie. And I trust you more than any PR wrangled plus–one they’d set me up with.”

You shake your head, brows pinched. “This isn’t just some client dinner at Nobu I’m playing third wheel at, Harry. This is extremely important. It’s the goddamn Met for architects.”

Harry just smiles, squinting at you. “When have I ever let you feel like a third wheel?”

“I’m being serious.”

“So am I.”

You just stare at him, lost for words. The city buzzes beneath you, the familiar noise of traffic and life blending together.

Harry doesn’t look away, he keeps your gaze, quietly drumming his fingers along his desk. It’s infuriating, the way the setting sun bathes him in a soft golden light, illuminating the smile on his face. A smile that makes it clear he knows he’s already won.

It makes you hesitate, the weight of it. Because it would be a date. Maybe not on paper or by any certain labels—but in every meaningful, messy, deliciously complicated way it matters, it would be. 

Harry Castillo and guest, you filling the role perfectly. 

You hold his gaze for a few moments longer, dragging it out just enough to make it seem like you’re putting up a real fight.

Finally, you cross your arms over your chest with a low sigh. “Okay.”

He cocks his head, smug grin on his lips. “Okay?”

“Okay,” you repeat, raising a shoulder more casually than you feel. “I’ll go.”

“Really?” His tone is suspicious, but his smile doesn't budge. “There’s no catch?”

“You made a compelling case." You push off his desk, smoothing your hands down the front of your pencil skirt. “Besides, you know I love it when you compliment me.”

Harry laughs, a rich, warm sound. “I should’ve known.”

“I’ll need a dress,” you say, slowly making your way to the door. “I think the rest of the evening off should give me plenty of time to find one, don’t you agree, boss?”

Harry shakes his head, easy as anything. “I’ll take care of it.”

You pause, hand on the doorknob. “Tell me you’re not trying to play sugar daddy, the interns are already gossiping.”

He arches a brow. “If the shoe fits.”

“Harry.”

“Okay, okay.” He raises his hands in surrender, another laugh spilling from his chest to make the room just a few degrees warmer. “I’ll handle it. Trust me.”

You roll your eyes, pulling the door open before you do something stupid like smile back. “Do I really have a choice?”

Just as you go to leave, he calls your name—softly. It stops you mid-step.

You glance over your shoulder.

He doesn’t say anything else right away. Just looks at you like you’re something he’s still trying to figure out how to know, even after all this time.

“Thank you,” he says finally. Quiet. Sincere.

Your throat tightens. Not because of the words—even if you give him shit for it, he’s said them before—but because of the way he says them now. Like he means it for more than just the RSVP. Like he means it for staying. For putting up with the late nights, and the stress, and the divorce fallout, and the birthday gifts he forgets until the day of.

You nod, once. “You’re welcome.”

And then you slip out the door before the silence swells too much and gives you away.

You’re not in love with him. Not yet, but something about the way he looked at you—like you were both a solution and a problem—makes your chest ache in a way you don’t quite know how to ignore anymore.

You’ll go to the gala. You’ll wear something ridiculously expensive, if Harry has any say on the matter. And maybe, just maybe, you’ll let yourself enjoy it.

Just a little.

The package arrived that same night.

A man in a suit knocked on your door and had you sign for a box bigger than your work desk. He had to help you drag it into your hallway and denied the tip you tried to give him, assuring you it was already taken care of.

There were no labels on the box, no receipt or return address or anything other than an obnoxiously large gold bow wrapped neatly around all four sides.

Well, that and a note taped to the front. 

Your name was written in a familiar, looping handwriting that you’d recognize by touch alone. You peeled it off with careful fingers, and with more ceremony than necessary, flipped it open.

“Make them think I built you myself - H.”  

You stared at it for an embarrassingly long amount of time, not bothering to stifle the smile on your lips as you ran your thumb over the ink. You were alone anyway.

The box groaned a little when you finally opened it, layers of black tissue paper rustled softly as you peeled them back.

And there it was.

Midnight blue. Backless. Heavy silk. The kind of thing that knew how to behave under dim lights and the weight of eyes.

You could already feel it—how it would cling to your waist, slip along your thighs when you walked, turn your skin into something luminous. You didn’t even need a mirror.

Of course he picked this one. Of course he knew your size.

You reached for it, fingertips grazing the fabric like it might evaporate, still slightly dazed. There was an overwhelming aura about it—like this wasn’t just a dress, but a thesis.

A statement. An intention, signed and sealed in French seams.

And somehow it still smelled faintly of him. Not in a creepy way. In a way that made you wonder if he’d touched it before it left the boutique. If he’d looked at it and pictured you, just for a moment too long. If he’d smiled when he imagined what you’d say.

You unfolded it like you were handling a newborn, held it against your body and turned toward the hallway mirror, half laughing at yourself, heat rising to your cheeks.

You turned this way and that, staring at your reflection in the dim light, pretending—just for a second—that he was behind you, watching.

Your phone buzzed on the counter. One sharp vibration, tearing you out of your little fantasy world and back to the present.

You crossed the room still holding the dress to your chest, and bit your lip when you saw his name at the very top of your screen.

Hairy

Try not to cause a scene unless you want to make headlines. I’d like to keep your promotion rumor free, for now.

You laughed softly, thumb hovering above the keyboard for just a moment before you started typing.

You know this is deranged behavior, right?

You hit send before you could overthink it, watched the read receipt pop up a second later before the three little bubbles came to life.

They vanished, then reappeared.

Hairy

I’m aware.

But I have impeccable taste. That absolves me of quite a lot.

See you at 8.

You swore softly under your breath and set the phone down like it was overheating. 

You looked back at the dress. At the mirror.

God help you—you were going to wear the hell out of it.

Friday comes both too fast and too slow.

You glide through the whole rest of the week pretending this is normal—just another event, just another night of shaking hands and schmoozing.

You tell yourself it doesn't mean anything, but the butterflies in your stomach don’t listen quite as well.

You hardly see Harry at work, most of his time spent across town busy with clients like he always is near the end of the week. You can’t tell if it would have helped or hindered your nerves to see him before you both showed up to one of the most prestigious events held in his field, together. 

Maybe it’s better this way.

Now, you’ve spent the better part of the evening after work pacing the floor of your apartment in a silk robe, nerves reaching a fever pitch. 

Your phone is blowing up from its spot next to you on your vanity with calendar alerts and panicked texts from Harry about the misplacement of a single Prada tie he just has to wear even though he has hundreds of others to choose from lining an entire wall of his walk-in. You know that, you’re the one who hung them.

You do your hair and makeup on what feels like auto–pilot, the playlist you put on to distract you playing softly in the background until your phone lights up again, buzzing with a text that cuts through the static like a wire to your nerves.

Hairy

Found the tie, crisis averted. 

Just need you now. Be there in 15.

You take a deep breath, exhaling through your nose and sending a quick thumbs up before you're standing on shaky legs.

The dress has been hung safely on the back of your bedroom door since you unboxed it. You take a second to just stare at it, before reaching for it with reverence, like touching it too fast might break the spell of the whole evening. 

It slips from the hanger like water through your fingers, the fabric heavier than you remembered, or maybe that’s just the weight of new expectations.

You slide it on slowly, smoothing it over your hips, tugging the zipper up with a practiced hand. It fits perfectly, almost like it was made to your exact measurements.

Your reflection stares back at you in the mirror. You barely recognize her. Poised, elegant, flushed with anticipation. You look like someone who belongs next to a man like Harry Castillo.

The thought alone makes your pulse thrum a little faster.

You swipe on lipstick last—something deep and sultry, a few shades bolder than you usually wear, because tonight is different.

You’re not just the assistant tonight. You’re his date. Sort of. Kind of. Not really.

But he asked you to come, he wanted you there, with him.

The buzzer sounding from your door slices through your thoughts.

With one last deep breath, you grab your phone, your keys, and the clutch you’re borrowing from a fashion editor you sometimes get drunk with at Bemelmans, and you walk out the door.

The click of your heels echo as you make your way down the hall to the elevator.

Harry is the first thing you see as the doors to your building slide open.

He’s leaning against the limo waiting for you, the door open next to him as a cigarette dangles between his fingers. He looks like he stepped straight out of a GQ spread. His Kiton suit fits him like a glove, the charcoal velvet hugging broad shoulders and tapering at the waist like it was stitched directly onto him. 

You make your way down the stairs until you’re standing on the pavement. Harry looks up at the sound of footsteps.

The cigarette stops halfway to his mouth.

For a moment, he just stares.

You can feel his eyes on your body like a caress, ghosting from your heels all the way up to the Cartier necklace he bought you after you saved a merger in Thailand, resting gently on your collarbones. 

The silence stretches, taut like a violin string.

You clear your throat, fighting the urge to squirm on the spot. “Is it too much?”

Harry blinks, like the sound of your voice broke him out of a trance. “No,” he breathes, shaking his head distractedly. “It’s perfect.”

Your heart lurches in your chest, fluttering wildly like a Monarch trapped beneath a mason jar. “You don’t look half bad yourself, Castillo,” you murmur, trying for playful, but your voice comes out too soft, too breathy.

He smiles at that—slow, crooked, absolutely devastating. The kind of smile that makes your knees a little weaker than heels this high should allow.

“Well,” he says, flicking his cigarette into a nearby trash can. “We’re already late, we might as well make an entrance.”

Harry offers you his hand, and without thinking, you take it.

“We might as well.”

The Met is bathed in glowing opulence—decked in gold and white, chandeliers like constellations above you. There’s jazz swelling from a live quartet near the Temple of Dendur and the room comes alive with it.

You glide through marble halls on his arm, greeting developers and designers and too rich donors who want nothing more than to be photographed with the nights most respected attendant.

Harry is a natural here—effortless. He laughs, he charms, he plays the part of the adored genius.

You also play your role perfectly.

You smile. You exchange polite hugs and shake hands. You whisper names into his ear just before he needs them. 

The two of you work the room like a well oiled machine. Not a screw out of place.

“You do realize they all think I’m sleeping with you,” you murmur as you pass a table full of ancient structural engineers throwing pointed looks at the two of you.

“Let them,” he says, not missing a beat.

“Isn’t that bad for business?”

Harry looks at you sideways. “Who’s going to call us on it?”

You don’t answer. You don’t look away either.

There’s champagne, and a brief moment where a reporter mistakes you for his fiancée. Harry doesn’t correct her. You do, of course, all while violently fighting the heat crawling up your neck. You don’t miss the way his mouth quirks when you do.

Dinner is some overly fussed beet amuse-bouche followed by lamb you barely taste. You’re seated next to Harry at the center of a table surrounded by board members and art world fixtures who all speak in the same Upper East Side cadence that makes everything sound like a question and an insult.

But Harry listens to you. He lets you finish your thoughts. He asks you what you think of the new public art installation in Battery Park and snorts when you call it “egregiously derivative” even when the rest of the table frowns.

“You’re such a snob,” he murmurs, voice low against the shell of your ear.

You smile behind your glass. “And yet here I am, slumming it with my boss.”

He grins bright enough to rival the candle light. “Lucky me.”

At some point, about halfway through a debate about the authenticity of modernism in design, you notice the way his knee brushes against yours under the table and stays there. You don’t move. He doesn’t either.

It’s become a theme. The touch. The contact.

Harry kept his hand on the small of your back most of the night, it was practically glued to the spot before dinner began. This is no different, except for the fact that this touch is hidden. It's shielded from the prying eyes of members and photographers and reporters. 

It’s just for you.

The awards are handed out shortly after. 

Harry’s name echoes across the room to rounds and rounds of applause. The speech is short, tasteful, elegant, moving. He stands under a golden spotlight and says something about legacy, about cities and their hearts and how architecture is just the blueprint of human longing.

You watch him from your seat at the table, heart caught in your throat. He looks radiant on stage, confident and alive in a way you haven't seen in months.

You clap until your palms sting.

When the speech is over, he doesn't have a foot off the stage before many of the other attendees swarm him. You let out a slow breath as you watch him receive hugs and kisses and claps on the back.

You only slip out onto the terrace when everyone at your table has left to join in, clutch in hand.

The cool night breeze is a welcome escape, soothing as it blows across the bare expanse of your skin and seeps into the rich fabric of your dress.

It’s not that you weren’t enjoying yourself, that you weren’t enjoying watching Harry. You just found it, almost hard to breathe all of a sudden. The range of different emotions swirling through your stomach certainly didn’t help, but that was a problem you could repress and compartmentalize for sometime in the near future.

You’re maybe five minutes into your emergency cigarette when he finds you, your heels kicked off as you sit on a marble bench.

“You never smoke,” he says, setting his award down next to you and plucking the cigarette from between your fingers, taking his own slow drag. His lips seal directly over where your own were just a moment ago, circling the ruddy lipstick stain wrapped around the filter.

You look out to the city, exhaling a steady stream of grey. “I also don’t usually wear a custom made, six thousand dollar dress or fake laugh at old men who won’t stop calling me ‘darling’ while they openly stare at my tits.”

Harry hums at that, amused, the smoke curling lazily from his lips as he tips his head back to look at the sky. “You handled it like a pro, you were brilliant tonight.”

He holds out the cigarette, reddened embers float down from the tip, losing color as they fall until they’re nothing but a black speck on the pristine sea of white beneath your feet.

You take it, your fingers brushing against his. “I’m very good at pretending.”

His eyes shift to you, the kind of look in them that settles somewhere deep and heavy in your chest. “I know.”

There’s a beat of quiet between you, filled only by the wind brushing through the terrace hedges and the distant echo of jazz from inside. The city glimmers out past the railing, a mirage of light and motion.

You clear your throat, raising the cigarette to your lips. “You didn’t have to come find me.”

“I know,” he says again, softly this time. “But I wanted to.”

You turn to face him fully. “Because you couldn’t remember Natalie Rebuck’s name, or because you were worried I’d throw myself off the balcony?”

He doesn’t smile. He looks at you too seriously for either of those to be one off jokes. “Because you’re the only person I wanted to see.”

That stills everything in you. Just—stills it.

There’s nothing ironic about the way he says it. It’s not teasing, not playful. Just a quiet truth. And somehow, that’s more disarming than anything else he could’ve said.

“You saw me fifteen minutes ago,” you manage, your voice not quite as sharp as you want it to be.

“Yeah.” He shrugs and says it again, slower this time. “And I missed you.”

It’s that same tone. Soft, reserved. Gentle enough that it makes you feel like the only person in the world and sick to your stomach all at once. The cigarette hangs limply by your side, dwindling to nothing between your fingers. You wonder, idly and far too late, if you can even smoke in a dress like this.

The silence stretches on like taffy. You’re just about to respond when the music starts up again inside. It’s something old and very romantic. Maybe Sinatra, or Ella. You can’t quite place it.

Harry seems to, perking up instantly. He glances through the open door, where many couples inside are pairing off and filling the dance floor one by one. He looks back at you, eyes glinting dangerously under the terrace lights. “Dance with me.”

You can’t help the laugh that bursts from your chest, eyes wide with disbelief. “You’re kidding.”

“I just won a very important and highly coveted award given out only once every single year.” He takes a step closer, offering you his hand. “You’re telling me I don’t get one dance?”

You shake your head, inching back the tiniest bit. “I don’t dance with my boss.”

He winks, warmth sparking to life in his eyes just beside the glow of the lights. “Good thing I’m off the clock.”

You stare down at his outstretched hand for a second too long, lips parted in soft protest, breath caught somewhere behind your ribs. There’s something so deeply unfair about the way he’s always been able to make you feel like the only woman in a city of millions. Even now. Especially now.

You give him your hand.

You still hesitate even as you stand and slip your heels back on. You glance at the terrace doors and wearily eye what feels like a sea of people. “Out here?”

“No,” he says, turning your hand over in his and brushing his thumb along your pulse point like it’s nothing. “Inside. Just one song.”

You hesitate again. Not because you don’t want to, but because you do. Too much. And that terrifies you.

But then his hand tightens just slightly around your wrist, grounding you. His palm is warm, and you realize—of course he knows. He always knows. Knows how to read a room, read a blueprint, read you. Better than he probably should.

He tugs gently, and you let him lead you back inside.

The terrace doors hush closed behind you and the city disappears, replaced again by the ambient, golden warmth of the Met’s grand hall. You weave through the swaying bodies with ease, like they part from the sheer energy you must be oozing as you find a spot in the center of the room.

Harry draws you in close.

Too close for coworkers. Too close for anything you could explain away come Monday. But not close enough for the ache it sparks low in your belly. One hand finds the dip of your waist, the other laces your fingers in his. His touch is elegant. Familiar. A little too knowing.

You slide your arm around his neck and let him sway you into the rhythm. You’re too aware of every point of contact. The velvety fabric of his tuxedo beneath your hand. The graze of your thigh against his leg. The way he smells—Tom Ford, Tobacco Vanille. But there’s something else, something hidden under it that’s just Harry.

The rhythm is slow. Intimate. His hand is an inescapable plane of heat on your back, just beneath the dip of the dress, the pad of his thumb draws tiny, absent circles against your spine.

He hums the melody under his breath as you move together, you can feel the deep rumble of it against your chest.

“You’re trembling,” he says suddenly, quietly—whispered against the shell of your ear.

“No I’m not,” you lie, pulling back to meet his gaze. “It’s probably the nicotine.”

Harry laughs, the corners of his eye crinkle endearingly as he does. “Is it?”

You nod. “It is.”

The music hums all around you, but you hardly hear it. It fades away into the soft air of complete nothingness, same as all the people around you wane and dwindle until you’re almost certain you and Harry are the only two left standing.

You can’t break away from the weight of his gaze, drawn to it like heavy metal to a magnet. His gaze sweeps across every inch of your face, like he’s seeing you for the first time.

“You look so beautiful tonight,” he murmurs, so softly it nearly melts into the melody. “You always do, but tonight…” His voice tapers off as if he can’t quite land on the word. He doesn’t need to.

“Harry…”

He shakes his head. “I mean it, you are absolutely gorgeous.” He spins the both of you slowly, his eyes never straying from you. “And that’s the least interesting thing about you.”

It feels like a physical blow, but it lands in the softest way possible. His words washing over your skin feels a million times more luxurious than the miles of silk encompassing you.

You wonder if this is how it starts—not with fireworks, but with slow dancing in a museum full of strangers with your boss whispering something like worship in the space between you.

It’s nothing. It’s everything.

“Well,” you reply, voice shaking and almost far away. “You did hire me because my resume reads like a Vogue spread. You said it yourself, the firm doesn’t work without me.”

It should ruin the moment, bringing up work—where your relationship actually stands in the real world, outside of this fantasy of a night—but Harry doesn’t let it.

He just shakes his head, brows pinched together like he’s deep in thought. His hand tightens around yours, he’s so close now that you can feel the steady beat of his heart. 

Can he feel yours?

“When I look at you, and I think of all that you are…” Harry trails off again, the chocolate brown of his eyes shining under the twinkling lights as he holds your gaze. “That doesn’t even cross my mind.”

Your breath stutters, and you know—you know—that if you speak, it’ll all come tumbling out. Everything you’ve been trying not to say, not to want. The feelings you’ve tried to laugh away or roll your eyes at or bury under hundreds of deadlines and calendar alerts buzzing from two separate phones and all the plethora of ways you’ve told yourself this can’t happen.

“I…”

And then he kisses you.

And then you can’t speak at all.

It’s slow at first, but not hesitant, not unsure—deliberate. Harry kisses you like he’s been carving space for it, like it’s been trapped in him for too long. His lips are soft, but sure, coaxing rather than claiming. 

His hand slides from your waist all the way up to cradle your jaw, leaving behind a trail of heat along the plane of your spine. His thumb brushes your cheekbone, you can feel the faint callous left behind by countless pens and pencils.

Your hands bury themselves in the soft curls of his hair as you melt into his body. It’s so simple, the shift. You’ve spent so long running, so long lost in the dark waters of denial that you almost can’t believe how easy it is—how perfectly you fit together.

It’s like the last piece of a puzzle finally falling into place, slotting into all the others that came before it.

Harry exhales shakily, lips barely parting from your own. “Christ,” he whispers, forehead touching yours. “You’re—”

You kiss him again before he can finish.

His lips part under yours with a sigh that borders on desperate, and the heat crackles between you now, undeniable. Dizzying. When your mouth opens to him in turn, he groans low in his throat, like the first taste of you has broken something open inside him.

Slow becomes hungry. Your hand slides to his jaw, thumb brushing the rough edge of stubble. He tastes like champagne and citrus and the heady edge of smoke

The kiss turns molten under your fingertips.

You feel it in your knees, in your chest, in your core—the sharp, sudden ache of need blooming within you that has nothing to do with polite society.

When you finally pull apart, it’s only because air insists you do.

Harry rests his forehead against yours once again, his eyes still closed when yours slip open. His cheeks are flushed, his lips slick and smeared with the barest hint of your lipstick. You can feel his breath puff over your skin in short, quick pants that you match.

He opens his eyes, and your knees nearly buckle at the look in them. His pupils are blown, wide and black as ink under the lights. Your pulse is a drum in your throat, beating just as loud and fast in your ears.

He swallows hard. “We should leave.”

Your voice is barely a whisper, but it’s just as firm. “Yes.”

The ride back to the office is a blur.

You’re not even sure how Harry got you out of the Met so quickly, how you made it past the new swarm of admirers once again trying to shake his hand or take a photo or congratulate him.

The limo was already waiting by the time you made it out the doors. You barely remember the valet, just the cool feeling of the seats beneath your thighs and the sharp click of the partition going up behind Harry’s head.

His eyes pin you to your seat, hot and heavy and impossibly dark as the hum of the engine carries you through the city, velvet wrapped and haloed in streetlight.

He hasn’t even touched you yet, not really, but your skin feels like it’s blistering beneath your dress—your pulse high, your thighs pressed tight together in anticipation that makes your stomach twist and flutter.

“Come here,” Harry says, voice low, rasped from restraint and heavy need.

Two words. That’s all he says.

Your legs move before your brain catches up, straddling him in the backseat like it’s the most natural thing in the world. His hands come to your waist as you settle into his lap, and fuck—he’s hard already, thick and burning a plane of heat against your high.

“You have no idea,” he breathes against your neck, mouthing at the skin just under your ear, “what you do to me.”

“Tell me,” you whisper, even as your eyes slip shut, hips rolling forward instinctively against him

Harry groans—deep and pained and real. “You walk into a room and I can’t think. Not clearly. Not rationally. It’s all static, it’s all you. Your eyes, your mouth, your fucking mind—” He nips your jaw, tongue chasing the sting. “You kill me.”

You moan, your hands digging into the strong muscle of his back. It draws a ragged growl from Harry’s throat, his fingers twitching on your hips.

“Are you wet for me?”

You’re nodding your head before you even realize it. “Yes.”

He curses under his breath, burying his nose in the sensitive spot where your neck meets your shoulder. “I haven’t even touched you properly, and you’re already making a mess.” His voice is rough velvet, soaked in lust. “What do you think that says about you, sweetheart?”

“That I want you,” you breathe, already half-gone. “So fucking badly, Harry.”

Harry lets out a slow breath through his nose, his touch slides down your thighs, bunching your dress. “What I want…” He trails off, slipping his hand under your skirt. You gasp as his fingers skim the waist of your panties. “is to spread you open, taste how needy you are. I want to make you come with my mouth before I even think about fucking you.”

His fingers brush over the soaked center of your panties and he groans, low and dark. “Fuck.” He presses the pads of his fingers into you through the fabric—just enough pressure to tease, to leave you gasping. “This all for me?”

You whine, high and light in the back of your throat as you nod frantically. That’s not enough for Harry.

His eyes narrow, lips brushing the shell of your ear. “Use your words, baby. Who made you this wet?”

“You,” you whisper. “You did.”

“That’s right.” He slides the lace aside to run two fingers through your folds slowly. Your hips jolt, and he grins against your throat.

Your head drops against his shoulder, hips bucking against his fingers. He holds you in place with an iron grip, not letting you grind down for friction just yet. You feel the twitch of his cock beneath you, straining against the fabric of his tuxedo pants.

“Harry—” you gasp, breath breaking as he circles your clit with the barest pressure. Just enough to tease.

“Mm, I know,” he murmurs, kissing your throat. “I know what you need, but not yet. I want you squirming by the time we get to the office. Can you be good for me and wait, hm?”

Your stomach clenches in anticipation, your cunt throbbing between your legs. You’re not sure how much more desperate you can get, grinding on your boss in the back of a limo while his hand is up your skirt seems like the highest form of desperation. 

Still…

You nod—barely—because your throat is tight with need, but Harry clicks his tongue.

“I said use your words.” It’s not mean, the demand. The tone of his voice. It’s strong, rich with the same power and authority you’ve seen countless times over the past few years.

“Yes,” you whisper, your voice trembling. “I’ll be good. I’ll wait.”

“That’s my girl,” he murmurs, brushing his mouth over your jaw like he’s proud of you, like he’s already rewarding obedience.

He keeps his hand there the whole drive—just resting. No pressure. No movement. Just the heat of his skin against your soaked center, the weight of his hand where you need it most, while the city blurs past the tinted glass. It’s maddening.

Every bump in the road jolts you slightly. Every turn shifts your hips, makes his fingertips graze your clit. It’s not enough. It’s torture. You bite your lip raw trying not to move, not to grind down and take what you want.

It would be so easy, you’re pathetically close to the edge as is. 

But you told Harry yes, breathed it against his shoulder in soft surrender. 

You promised to be good, and you’re dying to see what it gets you.

Getting up to Harry’s office is a mess of stumbling feet and frantic hands that refused to stop touching any longer than they have to.

Harry kisses you against the door, your back pressed to the frosted glass. His mouth is hot and hungry and unrelenting, like he’s trying to make up for the months of waiting with every glide of his tongue.

You’re the one who breaks away just long enough to fumble for the keycard clipped inside his jacket, but Harry’s already sliding it free with one hand while the other stays around your waist. 

The lock beeps open and you stumble through the door, breath ragged, dress askew. Harry kicks it shut behind you, his lips never leaving yours as he walks you backwards until the tops of your thighs hit his desk.

You barely have time to gasp before you're lifted—effortless—onto the surface of his desk, papers fluttering to the floor beneath you as he spreads your legs apart with both hands.

“Lean back,” he says hoarsely, helping you as your hands fumble for balance. The cold glass of the desk kisses your palms. “Let me see you.”

Your dress is hiked up around your waist, pooling all around you like ink, your thighs parted. Harry looks at you like he’s starved. His eyes drag up your body like a man measuring the cost of ruin and deciding to pay it gladly.

He makes quick work of his jacket, only needing to shuck it off his shoulders after you made quick work of the buttons back in the elevator. He collapses back into his chair with a shaky breath, sliding in between your legs. 

His hands find the waistband of your ruined panties, eyes glued to your core as he peels them down your legs. “Fuck,” he mumbles, running his index finger through the wet mess that greets him. He kisses the inside of your thigh once, then higher, and higher. “So beautiful.”

His mouth is on you in a second—hot, wet, consuming.

He licks a long stripe from your entrance to your clit, groaning like he’s tasting something decadent. 

“Shit.” Your moan is loud, hips jolting off the desk. “Harry—”

“Christ,” he groans against you. “You taste—Jesus. I could stay here all night.”

He takes your legs in his hands, throws them over his shoulders and he devours you—there’s no other word for it. Messy, greedy, reverent. His tongue works in tight, filthy circles, alternating pressure, pulling gasp after gasp from your throat.

He sucks your clit, slow and deep, lips sealing over it and pulling it into his mouth. His tongue flicks once, twice, and your hips jolt off the desk.

“Fuck, yes—right there—don’t stop—”

His hands spread your thighs wider, thumbs digging into soft flesh as he groans into you, like you’re the thing getting him off.

Your head falls back with a cry, hands burying themselves in his hair. “God—Harry—”

“That’s it,” he mutters against you, voice vibrating into your core. “Use my mouth. Take what you need.”

You don’t even realize you’re doing it—rocking forward, grinding down on his face like it’s instinct. His nose bumps your clit perfectly, the stubble on his jaw sending aftershocks through your skin. He hums with satisfaction, like he knew you’d lose control, like he wanted it.

You’re already squirming, already close all over again. Your head lolls back as you cry out, desperate and high and wanton.

“Look at me,” he demands, voice muffled. “Right here. I need your eyes on me, honey.”

You do.

You look down and see him between your thighs, hair mussed, lips slick, eyes nearly black. He’s never looked more beautiful. Or more ruined.

Your fingers tighten in his curls, yanking—he groans like he likes it, grinding his mouth harder against you, tongue flicking over your clit until you cry out, arching into his face.

“Harry—Harry, I’m gonna—”

“Come,” he commands. “Let go for me.”

And you do.

Your orgasm crashes over you like a tidal wave—sharp and blinding. You cry out, thighs trembling, nails digging into the wood of the desk as Harry keeps licking you through it, gentle now, savoring every second.

Only then does he pull back, licking his lips like he’s just finished dessert. He rises to his feet slowly, towering above you.

“Beautiful,” he pants, voice rough and heartbreakingly earnest. “You’re so beautiful like this.”

You can barely breathe, your chest rising and falling with every sharp inhale. But you still reach for him, pulling him down by the collar of his shirt. “Please.”

Harry doesn’t hesitate. He undoes his belt with one hand, the other bracing beside your head as he kisses you again—filthy, deep, you taste yourself on his tongue. “I need to be inside you,” he says, voice wrecked. “Now.”

You shift, moving to turn onto your stomach.

“No,” he says sharply, hands tightening on your hips. “No, I want to see you.”

Your lips part on a soft breath, something dangerous squirming to life under your skin. “Okay…”

The sound of his zipper rings in your ears, and you glance down just in time to see his cock freed from the soaked cotton of his boxers. It’s thick and flushed, rosy tip already slick with precome. Your breath catches when he strokes it once, twice, eyes pinned to your cunt like he’s imagining exactly how you’ll take it.

“You ready?” he asks, soft again, lining himself up with your shaking entrance. “I need you to say it.”

“Yes,” you breathe. “I want you, Harry.”

He pushes in slowly—so slowly—and your back arches, a shocked moan catching in your throat at the sheer stretch of him. He’s thick, unrelenting, and your body clamps down around him greedily.

“Jesus Christ,” he breathes, pressing his forehead to yours. “You feel like fucking heaven.”

You gasp, nails digging into his arms as he fills you. “Oh god—Harry—”

“That’s it,” he groans, teeth gritted as he bottoms out. “That’s my girl. Taking me so fucking well.”

He doesn’t wait long after that. The first thrust is slow, the second is harder. By the third he’s fucking into you like he can’t get deep enough, the desk creaking beneath you, the sound of skin on skin filling the dim office air.

You clutch at him, gasping as he hits every spot that makes you see stars.

Harry fucks you with purpose, with hunger, but he never loses that softness—his thumb on your cheek, his lips pressing kisses to your jaw, your shoulder, the hollow of your neck, the swell of your breast. He cradles your head in his hands so you don’t knock it into the glass.

It’s all too much. Too much and not enough. 

It feels like home, like this is where you should have been instead of running every chance you got, like a coward. Your hands dig into his shoulder, his name falling from your lips over and over.

“Yes.” He kisses you again, bruising and messy like he’s trying to taste the way it sounds right off your tongue. “Say my name.”

“Harry—fuck—Harry!”

“That’s it,” he growls, fucking into you faster now, the slap of skin on skin echoing through the office. “You’re mine now, aren't you? You're finally going to let me have you?”

“Yes—yes—oh my god—”

“Say it.”

“I'm yours, Harry—yours—fuck, I’m—”

He pulls you tight against him, fucking you so deep it’s like he’s imprinting himself inside you. “Come for me, sweetheart. Show me how good I make you feel.”

You come with a sob, clenching around him, unraveling completely beneath his weight and his words and the unbearable sweetness in his eyes as he watches you fall apart.

“I’m gonna come,” he grits out, thrusts growing erratic. “Where do you want it, sweetheart? Tell me.”

“Inside,” you whisper. “Want to feel it. Please, Harry…”

That’s all he needs.

He spills inside you with a groan—deep and raw—thrusting once, twice more before spilling into you, his mouth dropping to your shoulder with a quiet, reverent moan of your name.

New York’s skyline shines through the window, bathing you both in a shimmering light. 

The only sounds filling the office are the light, gentle breaths as you both come down. The dull hum of the city underscores it, muted and fuzzy around the edges.

Harry’s hands don’t stray from your hips, his thumbs absentmindedly draw small circles over your bare skin. The night plays through your mind in flashbacks, each snapshot of all the moments where things shifted like a slideshow behind your eyes.

The stairs of your building, the touch of his hand on your back, the looks from across the room, the terrace. 

“Fuck,” you say suddenly, raising your head off the desk in alarm. “Harry, your award. You left it on the terrace.”

It’s quiet, until his shoulders start to shake and the unmistakable sound of laughter fills the space between you.

“It’s not funny!” You slap his shoulder, but you’re still smiling. “That was the whole fucking point of tonight.”

Harry lifts his head, meeting your gaze. “Was it?”

You look back, puzzled. “Wasn’t it.”

Harry chuckles again, shaking his head fondly. He leans in and presses a kiss to the corner of your mouth, slow and indulgent. “I’ve already got the only thing I wanted tonight.”

Your heart does a small, dangerous thing in your chest. “Well, this is definitely going in my yearly review.”

Harry hums. “I look forward to reading it.”

You don’t muffle your laugh, you don’t turn your face to hide your smile. You only raise your hand, carding your fingers through the sweaty curls laying on his forehead. 

Harry turns his head, pressing one last kiss to your palm.

You’ll email the AIA tomorrow, for now, they can wait.

MINI NAT’S NOTE: if you would have told me a year ago that i would be writing for a pedro pascal character in a movie that chr*s ev*ns is ALSO in, i would have laughed in your face, HARD. oh how the sands of time can change us.

anyway this actually wasn't the harry fic i originally wanted to post. i was working on something completely different when this idea manifested in my brain and i immediately jumped ship…but in my defense this is the fastest i've written something since the semester ended so ofc she's being uploaded. thank you so much for reading, love you!

You’re not even sure why you wanted to do this in the first place. Sure, sitting on Din’s face isn’t a foreign concept at all, but riding his helmet while he can do nothing but knead the flesh of your ass till it bruises and watches your slick pussy please itself on the beskar certainly is new.

Din is speechless; all he can do is admire the sight, taking it in, and grunt. He’s never felt more constricted by his own armor, but he’s never enjoyed anything more than this. Whenever you moan and reach between your legs to play with your clit, Din grows harder, his own grunts modulated and shaky. This is undoubtedly the best view he has ever had the honor of being blessed with, and he already knows he’s gonna want to do this again and again. It’s lewd, borderline obscene and filthy, and yet his mouth waters uncontrollably, more so at the thought of you getting off on a piece of him. His tongue lunges forward in a feeble attempt to taste, but he only senses beskar. He could see you clenching almost, and it’s debilitating to be so close, yet so far.

His hand reaches past the waistband of his pants, almost gasping as he hastily pulls all fabrics down and takes himself in hand.

“Oh, fuck,” he hears you whimper.

You picked up the pace, probably having found the right rhythm to treat your neediest spot. His grunts are concomitant with yours and the sounds emerging from both of you are a mixture of erotic, dirty, needy, anything you can possibly think of, it’s right here, locked in this moment.

There is only so much a man can take, however. Fucking his own hand is both incredible and insufficient. So he chooses the next best thing.

Gloved hands harshly grab your hips, lifting you off the helmet.

“Din, please—“

“Shh.”

“I want—“

“I know what you want, cyare, me too. Just give me a second.”

“I was close.”

You’re on the verge of crying in frustration but you gasp out loud when the rather cold beskar is replaced by lips. The realization that Din has you pressed against his face is dawning on your, sending electric waves down your spine. His mouth is a hot furnace against your pussy, and when he grabs your ass again, moving you more against him, you surrender any power of control you ever had the illusion of holding.

“Oh m-my—Din—“

His tongue is lapping dutifully against your folds, his nose nudging your clit, and you desperately need something to grab onto, but there’s nothing. There’s nothing but you and him and this moment of desperate need of ecstasy.

For a while, the only sounds echoing in the ship are ragged breaths, shaky moans and a faint glib noise emerging from in between your legs. Sweat drips down the small of your back, your mind emptied of all thoughts besides Din’s skilled mouth, and your body cries, aches for him. He’s working you open like no trace of beskar ever could, and this you both know. His helmet lies somewhere to the side, thrown hastily and carelessly in Din’s chase of goodness. Sometimes you think that being able to feel him like this, so intimately and up-close, is far more important and personal than seeing his face.

“Din—!”

You try to warn, but he only grabs your ass cheeks tighter, thus pressing you down on his face even more—if possible—and rides out your orgasm. You ride his face shamelessly, seizing on his mouth as waves of pleasure rip through you. The force of your orgasm takes you out, making it too debilitating to make any sound or to open your eyes while Din’s tongue keeps lapping at your core, collecting every ounce of arousal he can find. He’s insatiable when it comes to you, almost feral, and the thought alone can make you come again.

“Hmm—“you hear him mumble in between your legs, almost as if he’s smacking his lips together on purpose. “No better taste.”

You chuckle. “You okay down there?”

“Cyare, I could drown here and it’d be the best day of my life.”

Flustered, you suppress your chuckle this time and reach around to find his cock out of its confinements, hard as it can be. When you wrap your hand around it, Din winces.

“Let’s take care of you now, shall we?” you tease.

You barely start to jerk him off when you’re being maneuvered so that you’re on the floor, with Din atop of you.

“Later,” Din groans as his own hand is wrapped around his erection, guiding it to your swollen folds. “I wanna feel you come on my cock this time.”

The underworld of Coruscant reeked like someone doused the streets in burnt fuel that leaked from a ship nearby. It stung the inside of your nose, seared the inner corner of your eyes, and left you coughing. Yearning for something crisp to contrast the muggy shit around you. A fresh gasp of air that didn't lay waste to the inside of your lungs—scarring the tissue with each small intake.

You half expected the puddles to be a horrendous combination of leftover ship fluid and what cheap alcohol the scrappers here could afford.

Thankfully the streets were coated in a thick layer of it, leaving no trace of your footsteps when you took off running. Each heaving breath left your body begging for a small moment of reprieve. Or at least until you felt better about continuing on your path.

You tucked the bandanna tighter around your face, masking the bottom half in the hopes it would help, but you knew his tricks. This wouldn't be a difficult chase for him. In fact, you were probably making things simple for him—giving each movement away with your quick pace and panicked actions. Walking slow, blending into a crowd, that was your best option at this point. At least then you might have a chance of skirting around him in your search to find a way off planet.

"Slow," you muttered. "Go slow."

Running a partially leather gloved hand over the hilt of your blaster, you forced yourself to set a nondescript stride. Leisure enough to be considered a local whilst maintaining the speed you needed to get away from him. It wouldn't keep him away for long. But that's just what you needed.

A few extra minutes to formulate your plan.

An engineer rammed into your shoulder, forcing you off your somewhat stable rhythm momentarily. You ducked your head and threw a snipped apology his way; the grumble you got in return went ignored. No doubt they'd bitch and moan about it to someone else later. The short tale of how rude people on Coruscant were—how they lived in their own bubble of havoc and grief. You hoped one day someone might prove them wrong.

But there were other pressing matters at hand—fighting off a tracker being one of them.

Neon blue illuminated an alleyway to your right. Small, barely large enough to fit a speeder, but good enough for you to slip into for a minute or two. You got lucky at the cantina. His back was turned to you, attention preoccupied by the Twi'lek waitress intent on flirting with him instead of answering his questions. Which meant there remained a possibility he never saw you; a small but tiny chance you were free to run.

Perhaps you escaped his grasp once again. A feat that could only be said by the best of the best.

You could hardly even be considered apart of that category.

Yanking down the bandanna, you sucked in a lungful of air—the bitter taste of garbage nearly too much for you to take. Sweat clung to your neck, slipping down your throat where it gathered in a pool beneath your breasts. You couldn't keep going like this. Running with no final destination in mind. This is what nearly got you caught the last time he chose to pursue the bounty that had gotten away.

"Maker," you panted, leaning forward with your hands pressed against your knees. "I fucking hate this place."

Coruscant certainly hadn't been your first choice. In fact, this remained dead last on your list of vacation spots. But the dense population and large quantity of streets held an appeal that couldn't be outmatched by any other place. You could get infinitely lost here. Never find your way to the surface again and simply exist in the underworld, become one with the metal walls and crumbling rusted infrastructure.

Which made it option number one when escaping the most famed bounty hunter this side of the galaxy.

You winced when you stood to your full height, the bandanna set back into place. The nearest transport was on the opposite side of this part of the city, far too fucking long of a walk if you were to make it. A clear window of time that gave him an ample amount to find you in this mess of alleyways and dead ends. You'd be lucky if you got away unscathed—the bolts in your blasters unused and vibroblade (stolen from his ship) still attached to your calf.

Eventually this cat and mouse game would have to come to a close. Leaving you with only one option left.

Find him before he found you.

The slosh of your boots through puddles echoed loudly off the metal grated walls on either side of the street. In a different scenario—when your mind wasn't going a mile a minute out of pure adrenaline and fear—you might have felt claustrophobic. This planet had a way of making you smaller than you were. A faint speck of dust in the vast expanse of the galaxy—insignificant in the face of such chaos.

How he managed to find your trail each time mystified you to this day. You knew a tracking fob existed, but with how often you moved, the piece of technology practically became obsolete to anyone else. He didn't need it though. With his skill, his stubborn determination, he could find you in the middle of nowhere by the gait of your footsteps alone—a seasoned tracker with a reputation that could be held up by the New Republic's words.

There was no outrunning a Mandalorian.

But there you were…stupid enough to try.

A hand clasped your shoulder, spiking your nerves with a frigid wave of fear. You turned, fingers sliding along your holster before the person's face came into view. The black hood obstructed what little you could see, but in the blue glow above you caught sight of a sharply curved jaw—a thin mouth pulled into a frown. Clearly they weren't here to cause you harm. If anything they must have thought you understood the layout of this planet better than them.

"Can you help me?" he asked, voice barely above a whisper. You strained to hear the final part of his questions—head bent to tilt your ear closer. "I'm looking for the tavern Moshi Bar."

You sighed, partially relieved at their meager request. "You're too far North. Head back down the main road. If you've hit the port you went too far."

"Thanks. You should be more careful around these parts. Heard they're dangerous."

"No need to worry about me," you replied. "I'm capable of taking care of myself-"

Silver flashed in your peripheral, reflecting the bring neon you stood under, before melting into the darkness of the alley on your right. Fear gripped your heart, twisting it painfully as you froze on the spot. Eyes wide and hand shooting down to yank out your blaster, you felt your boots attempt to seal themselves to the floor. You wanted to write it off on your imagination. Simply a trick of the light—a long term effect of the fatigue coursing through your body, battling the terror. But the truth struck your chest with a definite blow.

He found you.

"Go," you bit out, barely sparing them a glance before you stepped towards the mouth of the alleyway.

The scramble of their footsteps when they ran echoed in the darkness, masking the soft thump of your walk as you moved closer. Yanking the blaster free, you gripped it tight enough to split pain down to your knuckles. In the past year you grew to understand the concept of fear. You accepted it as a long time companion—lurking in the back of your mind, always ready to flee if the moment arose.

Maybe you should have run.

Found a way to escape off the planet rather than investigate if what you saw was real.

"If you're trying to scare me." You swiftly side stepped the large dumpster, barrel pointed directly in front of you. Only to find the space empty. "You're gonna have to do better than this shit job."

The buzz of the neon lights attracted insects of all species. They fluttered overhead, bumping into the glow to be zapped a foot away. You watched them for a brief moment. A small tick of time before you were forced to start your escape anew. The heavy thump of your heart rammed against your chest, breath harder to come by with your face covered up. But revealing yourself would only bring danger to what little well being you had left.

The plan would have to be scrapped—something simpler now forming in the back of your mind. If he found you this far into the underworld then you were clearly doing multiple things wrong.

You clutched onto the possibility of him being a mere figment of your imagination. A hallucinatory response to being trapped in this fucking chase. You were common prey—an easy catch he allowed to roam free.

He gave you the possibility of escape even when he knew that the end was inevitable. What was a bounty to do when the hunter was this determined?

"You're not here," you whispered to yourself, eyes darting to the opposite side of the alleyway. A shadowed figure stood at the end but in the trick of the light you knew it was merely a pile of trash packed tight against the wall.

The underworld of Coruscant would drive a sane person to the edge of madness if they strayed too far from the path. Predators lurked in every corner, threats hung over your head like a storm cloud waiting to crack open, and you could feel the trepidation in your body begin to build. You had to get out of here. What little time remained would have to be enough for you to finally get off this planet and find somewhere else.

A forest moon might do. Or a far off city on the outer rim.

Anywhere was better than here.

You jumped out of your skin when something crashed behind you—slamming into the wall hard enough to jolt the grates beside you. Spinning on your heel, you held the blaster in front of you prepared to pull the trigger. Yet came up empty. Again. A glance over your shoulder proved that the silhouette vanished faster than you could comprehend what was happening.

It didn't take a genius to figure out what his end goal was.

He toyed with you like a piece of food—a horrific little game that all came to the finality one way or another.

With you in binders stuck on his ship.

"I'll pay you to drop the hunt!" you called into the darkness. "Just let me live."

Another crash sounded against the wall, dragging your attention away from the end of the alley. Your boots slid along the ground soundlessly, the loud drip of water sliding down cracked pipes bouncing in between the walls. The rattling thump of your heart echoed its way up your throat, terror swirling in your stomach like a storm ready to tear you apart.

Perhaps your next choice held no intelligence behind it; it might very well turn out to be the root cause of your death. But you refused to let him win. The gnawing anger burned a fiery pit in your stomach at the very thought. This could not be how you got taken in. Certainly not how your story came to an end. Whoever hid behind that silver beskar helmet would have to try harder than this next time he found you—his talent for fucking with your mind stronger the more he chased you.

You took off running towards the end of the alley, blaster still in hand. If you got out on the other side you could disappear into the crowd on main street. Find your way into a cantina or club and vanish into the crowd of people.

He'd have a difficult time tracking you through that mess.

The pounding thud of your boots on wet pavement ricocheted off the walls like bullets. An immediate tell as to where you were. But the exit of the alley was right in front of you. Forcing your body to run faster, you felt the tips of your shoes graze the cleared ground on the street, before a heavy grip landed on your thigh.

Yanking you back, a leather gloved hand wrapped tightly around your throat, a boot swiping at the back of your knee with a painful kick. You buckled under his weight, your head slamming to the ground hard enough to force a flash of white behind your shut eyelids—a throaty shout ripping from your chest as pain splintered across your skull, black spots swimming in your eyes. Blindly you scrambled for your blaster that clattered to the ground a foot away. But his knee pressed to your outstretched arm, shoving it down against the cold wet floor—a modulated grunt echoing past his helmet.

"No!" you screamed. "You beskar fuck!"

His chuckle mocked you in the lilted rasp that haunted your waking life. You only ever heard him say a few words since the bounty was placed on your head. And they ran through your mind on a loop.

That fucking saying he wielded like a lightsaber, whispering it in your face with the certainty that he would finally collect the debt owed to him. He'd finish the job this time.

I can bring you in warm. Or I can bring you in cold.

He pinned your other flailing hand above your head, his expressionless helmet tilting down to watch you through the black visor. Your reflection stared back at you—the snarl ripping through you as anger rushed to the surface. Where fear once settled deep in your chest rage replaced it.

"I'm going to fucking kill you," you spit out, legs kicking to reach for any part of him you could reach.

In a surprising turn of events, he spoke. "There's no escape this time."

Breath caught in your chest at the sound of his voice, so low and filled with the hoarse rasp of a man. You felt it right down to the tips of your fingers. There had been days you wondered what he looked like beneath the layers of armor. What the curve of his nose resembled, what the line of his jaw was carved out to be. You liked to perceive him with plush lips that pulled into a hesitant smile. Too wary of his own emotions to ever show them entirely.

Or this was merely another trick of your mind in its attempt to keep you stable.

To drag you from the edge of certain death.

"Oh I don't know." He shifted, straddling your legs to keep you from moving. Somehow freeing your hand slightly though his other palm still gripped your upper arm. "I managed to get away from you last time."

"That was a mistake," he grunted.

"I thought you Mandalorians don't make mistakes."

"We don't."

His words burned a hole through your stomach, digging up memories you buried in the back of your mind.

The escape last time…felt too easy. Too fast paced. As if you simply slipped hrough his fingers when his back was turned. No one escaped his grasp—not even the best crime bosses in the business could outrun him. Yet little old you—so inexperienced and frightful—managed to keep him on his toes.

You were the one who finally got free of his hold.

Or so you led yourself to believe.

"Maker-" His grip loosened, body lifting slightly to give you space to breathe. But his helmet stayed firmly above—close enough for your hot air to fog up his visor. "You let me go?"

No response.

"You're messing with me for fun?" you shouted loud enough to echo down the alley.

Silence became his only line of defense, but that was answer enough for you.

"I'm just a game to you huh?" Sliding your hand down, you pulled free the vibroblade from your calf—feeling it rattle against your palm. "Then have fun running."

There existed a small pocket of space between the layers of his armor where his side was vulnerable—free of anything but clothing. You sunk the knife in there until blood hot and thick spilled across your hand. The corners of your lips tugged into a grin at the pained shout that came through his modulator, surprise clear in his movements. He stumbled off you, yanking the blade free with a harsh curse, giving you enough time to scramble to your feet and start running.

His blood coated your forearm, tainted your skin with his warmth, but you couldn't think about his injury. Not when his words played on an endless loop in your mind—blaring loud enough to deafen everything around you. Until the only thing that filtered through was the hammering beat of your own heart and the heavy breaths you sucked in through the bandanna.

He let you go.

He let you believe you had freedom for a brief moment.

But why?

Wire wrapped around your ankles, tangling your steps within seconds. Before you could make it halfway down the alley he was pulling you back, dragging you along the floor with ragged grunts. He remained on his knees, metal grinding along the ground, his gloved hands twisting the wire up his armor clad forearms until you were two feet in front of him. And the same vibroblade still dripped with his blood sliced through the hold he had on your legs.

"Let me go!" you screamed, kicking at his chest.

He scrambled to hold you down, the snap of binders clamping around your wrists as he gripped them stilling your movements. He leveled your face with his own. "I'm not going to bring you in," he bit out, finally getting you to stop wriggling away from him.

The words had their desired effect.

"W-What?"

"I don't want to collect the bounty." He sounded as if he was reading you instructions off a holopad, and yet you hung off each syllable with baited breath.

"What do you mean you're not…" Searching his visor in the hopes it would show he lied, you reasoned with yourself for an answer. Yet only came up with more questions. "Then why are you chasing me?"

His entire body went rigid. "You left."

You'd never before seen a Mandalorian at a loss for words, but maybe this is what it looked like. Awkward, unsure of himself. For a large man who had shoulders wide enough to drive you bit insane, he fumbled to find his footing when it came to speaking. The last time you wound up in this situation you could barely get five words out of him. At first you believed it was because he didn't like to speak to his bounties.

Now you understood he simply didn't know how.

"That was the whole point," you snapped. "To leave before you took me in."

His helmet tilted to the right and you had to bite the inside of your cheek to keep you expression from softening.

"I never planned to take you in," he replied coolly, as if the answer was completely obvious to everyone else in the galaxy. Except you of course.

"Then why-"

"You left before I could ask you to stay."

Air was hard to come by when his words punched you square in the chest. “You wanted…”

To stay.

He wanted you to stay with him, to find a space in his life. To travel planets and moons in the confines of his rusted ship. The knowledge felt like a fever dream, a hit of spice that would leave you ruined and ragged come the crack of dawn. But that festering bite of reality clamped down on your flesh refusing to let up. He wanted you to stay because he liked you—your presence, your quips and biting remarks, the way you never pressed him to reveal too much. It was simple with you. Easy.

To prove his sentiment, he released his hold on your wrists, shifting back to a crouch—blood steadily dripping onto the dark ground, mixing with toxic liquids. This was your chance to run. Make a break for the end of the alleyway; something told you he’d finally let you go, watching in agony as you made this choice for him.

“Why?” you asked, eyes narrowed and hand yanking down the bandanna splattered in sweat and blood.

You would have to rip the explanation out of him, pulling at a thread he was ashamed to have wrapped like a chord around his lungs. He wanted to yank it out, set it ablaze with ease. Your gaze burned into his through the thick glass of his visor—eyes that peered beyond the silver shine of metal and impenetrable armor. He didn’t like it, was unable to find the itch that stung his skin beneath layers of thick cloth.

But then you left.

Disappeared like a ghost he had no ownership of, no true connection with someone like you. You wouldn’t understand his customs, how he complied without question to a way of life so unlike anything in this galaxy. You’d be privy to the darkness, a visitor to the unknown. And he wanted you to stay.

“You remind me…” He sucked in a breath, unable to keep his eyes from latching to the way tongue peeked out to wet your cracked lips. “Of a life I didn’t have.”

You softened beneath him, melted into the tight grip he still had on your limbs, and watched him fumble for words to say. A life he couldn’t have. An existence never meant for someone like him. He wasn’t a predator, or a monster stalking you in the night. He was a man. A lonely individual who found unlikely solace in someone like you—a person who was tired of running, weary of escaping a life he longed to have. He wanted you to stay for his own state of mind.

“They’ll come after me,” you whispered. Two gloved fingers dragged soft—unsure—along the top of your cheek. “You’re not the only one who got a fob.”

“I’ll make them an offer.”

“I’m not special enough for an offer,” you snorted.

Silence filled the cavern between you, his helmet leaning down close enough to brush your nose. “Yes you are.”

Breath escaped your lungs. The stillness of the air weighing heavy on your chest, and for a brief moment you felt that tangible thick need for something more simmer at the bottom of your stomach. Turning your insides molten as he watched you. Waited for you. Nobody saw you the way he did, a person to be cared for rather than an object to obtain. There was nothing to gain by him taking you along, but everything laid before you so simple and pristine.

In a gasp your fingers dug into the cowl at his neck, wrenching him close as a hand clamped over your eyes, another fumbling with the bottom of his helmet. You heard the hiss, felt the slight push of air brush along your chin when he wrenched down your bandana.

Anticipation roiled in your body, seared you from the very depths of all you could possible hope for. Your heart became a thundering beat in the silent alleyway as you sucked in breath after shallow breath, begging silently for him to do something.

A hot mouth sealed over yours, plush lips moving rough with a harsh bitten out groan when you struggled to keep up. He kissed you with uncertainty. A nervous air that sunk into you when he gripped your chin to keep you in place, your eyes still pressed shut by the soft leather of his glove. You pressed up with a soft moan, lips moving against his until air became sparse and the wet slide of spit coated your bottom lip.

“How do I…” he gasped. “Can I-”

You nodded long before he could finish stumbling over his words. “Your armor is in the way.”

“No it’s not,” he groaned, tongue meeting yours in a messy kiss that had your hips bucking up into his.

The bloodied and oil slicked vibroblade sliced clean through the wires tangled around your legs. You heard the clatter as he tossed it to the side, his palm working at button of his pants as your bound hands struggled with yours. The echo of laughter filtered down into the street. Life on Coruscant continued on in a brash manner even as he held you down—his teeth clamping quick on the fingers of his glove to yank it off when you finally wiggled your pants down past your ass.

“It’s filthy here,” you snip, gasping a pitched whine when his bare fingers dug in between your legs. “Oh-”

“My hands are clean,” he offered.

“Don’t you mean—fuck—” A thumb swiped through the slick mess pouring out of you, dragging it up to a throbbing clit that nearly made your head spin. “Covered in blood.”

The double meaning didn’t go unnoticed by him even when two fingers sunk into you right down to the knuckle. Dragging a harsh moan out of your gaping mouth as you sagged onto the floor. It was filthy to be doing this here. Where anyone could find your tangled bodies, a stranger lurking in the distance, someone waiting to strike. But your body trembled with the thought, his fingers thick and stretching your walls with a pinch that ran up your pelvis.

You were at his mercy just as he was yours.

A man coated in blood he was paid to spill—practically drowning in it.

But could you say you were any different? You knew the bite of a blaster bolt ripping through your skin. Felt the trigger pulled tight beneath your steady finger and watched as the person you sought hit the ground before they could say their final words.

There remained a hole in the pit of your chest, gnawing and unfed, that mirrored his own. He longed for connection, you yearned for freedom.

It felt transactional—this relationship. But something darker bloomed beneath the surface of your skin when his fingers curled forward and struck that spongy patch on your fluttering walls. A bright unfurling need to be seen for who you were. To exist in his eyes as more than an bounty; for him to be viewed as more than a hunter.

Slick coated his palm as he grunted into your mouth, his hips grinding down onto your thigh that curled around his hip. You could feel it pull at the base of your spine. Terrifying and all encompassing. A piece of your future that you’d never be able to take back—a vow unwritten in the way his lips molded over yours, a pathetic mewl swallowed by his tongue. You rocked your hips into his palm and he thumbed at your clit with soft circles, a breathless please traded between spit and muffled groans.

His teeth sunk into your bottom lip, spit trailing down your chin, and with a sharp cry your walls clamped down around his fingers. A wave of slick dripping down into his hand. You struggled for breath, the blood rushing in your ears and heat spilling into your face. Even as the air lay thick over the both of you. Coruscant’s darkness shading your writhing form as he pinned you in place with his hips.

“In me,” you pleaded on shaky breath. “I want it in-”

He moaned long and low into the base of your neck. “Are you sure? We can…the ship-”

“Now.” The word was sharp, biting into his skin with a force that left him fumbling. His cock ached. Throbbed against your thigh and spilled precum along the waistband of your pants.

“I’m not gonna—Maker you’re beautiful cyare—” He sucked in a sharp breath. “I won’t last.”

“Don’t care,” you whined. “I need it.”

Shoving your hips up to rest on his bent thighs, he felt your body shudder at the peek of bare skin dragging along yours. Barely a sliver of the man you might one day come to know. The hunter who finally capture his prey. His hand adjusted over your eyes, arm wrapping tight around your waist as you used what little movement you had in your palms to feel for him. To wrap a gentle fist around his cock until he cried out against your shoulder.

Beskar cuffed your cheek, but you ignored the slice of pain. Overlooked the tang of copper sliding into your mouth when your teeth cut through your cheek. He’d become a mess in your hands. Whining incoherent words as he bucked into your hand, spit drooling onto the collar of your jacket—his hand splayed out along your back, fingers digging harsh into your skin. Precum slicked your palm and a part of you wanted to drag your tongue through it, taste him without abandon.

But time was fleeting. The prospect of someone discovering you two grew by the second.

“Gonna be a stretch,” he muttered, feeling you guide him blindly to your fluttering hole. You could practically hear the smile in his voice, the deep rasp no longer blocked by a modulator.

“I’ll make it fi-” A gasp tore through your lungs at the first push.

The muscles in your thighs went taut, pain spilling into your body as he pressed his way into you. A ragged moan echoing loud against your ear. It drove you mad. Sent your mind into a haze until you were clawing at his chest plate and struggling for breath—heat curling tight around the base of your spine. He thrust into you with shallow movements, his breaths coming in pants as his eyes rolled back.

The connection, the touch of your cheek to his bare stubbled jaw wiped his mind of anything that might have existed before you. Before the walls of your cunt fluttered hot and snug around his cock. Before you cried out softly when his balls pressed right up against your ass. He sunk his teeth into your shoulder, fucked his hips quick and ruthless with stunted moans punctuating each movement.

Skin slapped wet against skin, echoing loud in the alleyway. But neither of you heard it. Each too far gone, fighting for some sense while he fucked you like his life depended on it. As if he’d never get another chance to feel your skin this way again.

“You’re so deep,” you rasped, hips rolling down to meet him the best you could.

“‘S perfect,” he slurred—practically drunk on the salt off your skin that melted along his tongue. “You’re perfect.”

He kept going until your mouth fell open, ragged breaths echoing in the night air as he watched you. Took in each flick of your expressions and found his favorite one when his cock struck hard along your walls. You sobbed brokenly, dragged your bound hands up until you cupped his jaw—his lips catching the edge of your palm in a quick kiss.

“Can I have it?” he asked, pounding into you to see your body ripple with it, your face pressing up into his hand. “Can I have you?”

Nodding you felt tears drip down your temples, your stomach twisting and pleasure building. “Yes,” you whimpered. “Wanna be yours.”

“Din.” He pressed the name into your mouth, licking deep along your teeth. You shuddered with it, your walls clamping tight with a strangled cry.

“Din.”

It broke you. Severed you in two, shattered what little remained of the person he chased and replaced it with someone new. A human he could love—someone worth keeping. You gushed around his cock until it poured down your thighs, wet your skin until you couldn’t tell if it was water or your combined fluids. The sticky feel of it clapping along your legs when he sped up sent another wave cracking down your spine, your loud cry muffled by his mouth.

Short stuttering thrusts worked him to his end—his voice a distant echo in your deafened ears as he spurted into you. Rope after rope of it filled you with more than you expected. It dripped out of you, created a thick creamy ring around his cock when he pulled out with a broken sigh—his head buried into your chest. You felt him twitch against your thigh, spent beyond what both of you had left to muster.

Getting back to the ship felt like a feat on its own. But Din click his helmet back into place before removing his hand with a modulated sigh. You blinked away the harsh glaze over your eyes, neon and silver floating back into your line of sight as he pulled your pants back into place. Clicking the button closed and stuffing himself back behind a layer of armor.

You pretended the disappointment didn’t sting. The faint bite of sorrow at not getting a glimpse of his cock, his skin still slick with you.

“I’ll find us a transport,” he said softly, gathering you up into his arms on your unsteady feet. The binders fell away, stuffed back onto his side—his fingers rubbing along the sore skin with a mumbled apology. “You won’t have to walk.”

“Did you mean it?”

He froze, armored body becoming a statue you might have found on Naboo. “Yes,” he croaked.

“You want me to stay?” A jerk of his chin was all you received. “And if…if I do stay…”

“You don’t have to love me.”

Pain flared bright and harsh in your chest. “What if I do? Want to that is.”

“Then I’d do the same.”

Nothing else. No other secrets revealed, no words or vows of forever. Simple and to the point and perfectly him. Din. The Mandalorian who traded in your fob for the hope of something better. You traipsed after him, hand clasped tight in his, with a smile on your face—a giddy echo of more fluttering up into your chest and settling with a promise of this.

Note: Following along with the canon timeline, this chapter takes place at the start of Chapter 15: The Believer. You will notice some dialogue has been borrowed directly from the show.

---

As you had expected, Cara Dune had taken little convincing to agree to assist in your expedition. The moment she learned that Grogu’s life was at stake, she had put in for a temporary leave of absence with Karga, packed a small duffle bag, and boarded Boba Fett’s Firespray without a second thought. Using her leverage as a newly-minted New Republic marshal, she had managed to locate an ex-Imperial officer that Din seemed to believe would have the knowledge and access codes needed in order to locate Moff Gideon’s cruiser. Thankfully, you wouldn’t have to travel far to find him; he was serving time on the penal moon Karthon, which was only about 10 standard hours in hyperspace from Nevarro.

Regardless of the brevity of the trip, however, having Cara on board was a welcome addition to the Firespray. Throughout the week’s journey from Tython to Nevarro, the interpersonal dynamics of the ship’s passengers had been…odd.

Boba, you had found, preferred to spend the majority of his time in the cockpit behind the helm of his ship, and although he was always cordial and pleasant with you when you encountered each other in the makeshift mess or on the landing outside the ‘fresher, he was a man of few words, and something about him intimidated the kriff out of you. You weren’t certain if it was the age gap, the sharp, knowing glint of his dark eyes, or the competent, powerful way he carried himself, but everything about him screamed dangerous, and you couldn’t decide if that frightened you or if you were fascinated by it.

Fennec continued to be an enjoyable companion with which to pass the time. However, when she wasn’t actively kicking your ass during your daily hand-to-hand combat lessons, she spent a great deal of time in her bunk cleaning and maintaining her impressive arsenal of long-range blaster rifles, and you could only bring yourself to intrude on her solitude so often.

Din, of course, remained as elusive as ever. Although he had stopped outright avoiding you, you still got the sense that he would prefer to be anywhere other than in your presence, and any conversations you had managed to have with him since your emotional confrontation had been short and painfully shallow. He also still refused to share your bed, choosing instead to stand vigil in the navigation room while the rest of the ship slept, staring into the depths of space and catnapping for brief stretches during the day. You knew he had to be exhausted by now, running on fumes, but in spite of your concerns, you refused to say anything to him about it. If he was going to continue to hold you at arm’s length, you weren’t going to go out of your way to be his caregiver.

The warm, brusque, take-no-shit attitude Cara brought to the group was a comforting reprieve. She and Fennec got on like a house on fire, and once the latter had brought her up to speed on your training regimen, she was quick to shuck her armor and join the day’s sparring session. With a ready smile, she put you through your paces with a ferocity that had you pouring sweat in record time. If Fennec was a sleek, nimble vulptex in combat, Cara was a reek, and when you faced off against her, you found yourself so concentrated on keeping air in your lungs and your feet under your body that you didn’t have a single thought to spare for Grogu’s whereabouts or Din’s mental state. It was shockingly liberating.

By the time you arrived in orbit around Karthon, your body felt pleasantly wrung out, your heart felt lighter, and you had settled Cara into the bunk directly below yours. With Fennec across the way and Cara just below, the lower decks of the Firespray were starting to feel like a cross between the shipyard barracks and the sleepovers you had had with your friends as a child. Both recollections made something in your chest feel soft and tender.

You hovered at the top of the ramp as the others went down to the surface, choosing to watch from the sidelines as Cara, back in full armor, escorted the prisoner in question out of the chop fields and into the ship. A human male in a worn, yellow inmate’s jumpsuit, you could hear his bright, sharp voice carry across the distance, distinct and clearly aggravated.

“I mean, it’s-it’s common courtesy,” he was saying as he and Cara came into view. “A common courtesy to tell somebody where it is that you’re takin’ ‘em. I don’t think that’s so hard to ask, do you?”

He looked as though he was about to say more, like once he got going, he wasn’t going to stop any time soon, but then he caught sight of Boba and Fennec descending the ramp, and his words died on his tongue.

“Oh. You know, for a second, I thought you were this other guy,” he stammered after a moment’s silence, a look of relief coloring his pale, freckled features as he took in Boba’s freshly-painted sage green armor.

Then Din breezed past you to join the others, and that relief disappeared.

“Mayfeld,” the bounty hunter greeted him coolly. A ripple of tension traveled through the group, one that could be felt even from where you stood, propped casually against the doorframe, and for the first time, you wondered about the history of these two men – what had happened between them that had left such animosity behind?

“Hey. Mando. Long time.” The man called Mayfeld glanced down at his boots, looking as though he would rather be anywhere else. “So, what? You came here to kill me?”

Din said nothing, simply continued to size him up as Cara replied, “All you need to know is I bent a lot of rules to bring you along.”

Mayfeld scoffed. “Why am I so lucky?”

“Because you’re Imperial.” The venom in the ex-shock trooper’s tone could not be mistaken, the sound sending a chill up your spine even though her words weren’t directed at you.

The inmate didn’t seem to appreciate the reminder. “Hey, that was a long time ago, all right?”

“But you still know your Imperial clearances and protocols, don’t you?” Din asked pointedly, as though he already knew the answer. Something in the other man’s eyes shone like resignation at that, and you couldn’t fight the smirk that tugged at the corner of your mouth.

Gotcha.

---

Back in the navigation room, you lingered against the holoprojector console as Boba excused himself to begin the Firespray’s take-off sequence while the others each settled in a chair. Their eyes never left the suspicious face of the dust-covered New Republic inmate, the tension of the atmosphere steadily ratcheting up as they studied him wordlessly. He appeared to do the same, wary and hesitant, and you watched as his gaze snagged on you, seemingly noticing your presence for the first time. His sharp, blue eyes felt like a brand on your skin, trailing from the top of your head to the toes of your boots, and you found yourself crossing your arms over your chest in an instinctual, protective gesture.

Just as you thought he might speak to you, Din spoke first.

“We need coordinates for Moff Gideon’s cruiser.”

Mayfeld’s brows shot up, wrinkling his forehead as a shocked laugh burst from his throat. You got the sense that whatever reason he had imagined for being turned over to Marshal Dune, it hadn’t been that. “Moff Gideon? Yeah, forget it. Just take me back to the scrap yard, I’m not doing that.”

For some reason, his immediate, flippant dismissal struck a chord with you. You had never met this man before today, he did not even know your name, and yet it felt almost like a betrayal. He was supposed to help. You had come all this way for him…

“They have his kid,” you said sharply, the words on your lips before you could question them.

The antagonistic expression on the inmate’s face softened somewhat at that. “What, the little green guy?”

“Yeah. The little green guy.”

“So…” His eyes darted around the room, flicking from Cara to Din to Fennec to you. “I help you guys get him back, you guys let me go?”

Cara shook her head, a sneer on her lips. “That’s not how this works.”

“Well, then, what’s in it for me?”

“You get a better view,” she snapped, and you felt your eyebrows raise. You hadn’t seen this side of her before, the barely-restrained contempt and vitriol giving you your first glimpse of Cara the shock trooper, Cara the Alderaan survivor, Cara the Rebel. You would be lying if you said you weren’t impressed and more than a little intimidated.

Mayfeld, it seemed, had nothing to say in response to that. Sighing to himself, he said, “All right, but here’s the thing: I can’t get those coordinates unless I have access to an internal Imperial terminal. I believe there’s one on Morak.”

“Morak?” Din echoed dubiously. “There’s nothing on Morak.”

The other man waved the concern away. “It’s a secret Imperial mining hub, okay? If you can get me there, I can get you the coordinates.”

The Mandalorian scanned the room then, silently checking in with Cara, then Fennec, then you. Only after he had a wordless nod from each of you did he reach over to the console behind you and activate the internal comm system.

“Fett. Punch in the coordinates to Morak.”

There was a brief pause, and then the low, gravely voice of the older man replied, “Copy that.”

As the telltale streaks and spirals of hyperspace engulfed the Firespray, casting the navigation room in a wash of blue and white light, most of its inhabitants dispersed to their various corners of the ship. Now that he had agreed to assist, it seemed that the others had determined that Mayfeld was safe to be left to his own devices. There was only so much mischief he could get up to confined to the ship, you supposed. And, if he decided to do anything foolish, there were four warriors aboard who would all be perfectly happy to hand him his ass for his troubles.

For his part, however, the inmate appeared to be perfectly content with passing the time lounging in his chair in the navigation room, arms folded behind his head, eyes fixed on the swirl of passing star systems through the massive forward viewport. Some of the tightness, the wariness that pinched the corners of his eyes had relaxed since you had departed Karthon, and to you, he had the look of a man who had been on edge for so long that the concept of being allowed to relax for a moment was almost foreign to him. He looked like he had forgotten how, like he was trying to remind himself.

Approaching him cautiously, arms still folded over your chest, you offered him a wary half-smile and said, “So. You’re ex-Imperial?”

Mayfeld sighed heavily. “In another life, yeah. But like I told your shock trooper friend, it’s been a long time since I put on the old plastoid get-up.” Tearing his eyes away from the hyperspace horizon, he gave you another one of those head-to-toe looks that made you feel as though you were being examined under a microscope. You weren’t certain what he saw there, but when he was done, his impatience with the question softened, and he returned your smile. “But what about you? You look like you might be the only person on this ship who doesn’t wanna kill me.”

“Well, I don’t know you yet,” you quipped, leaning back against one of the nearby support beams. “Maybe I’ll change my mind.”

The man let out a surprised burst of laughter, his smile morphing into a sly, flirtatious grin. “Oh, she’s got jokes. All right, I see how it is.” Extending a broad hand in fingerless leather gloves, he said, “Name’s Migs Mayfeld.”

You accepted the handshake and introduced yourself in turn.

“Tell me somethin’, sweetheart. What the hell’s someone like you doin’ mixed up with this motley crew? Two Mandos, a Rebel dropper, and an assassin?” He scratched his short, ginger stubble, dragging his thumb across his bottom lip in a gesture that appeared both nonchalant and intentional. “One of these things is not like the others.”

You suppressed the urge to roll your eyes at the obvious line and instead simply shrugged. “Same thing they’re doing. Just trying to get the kid back.”

“Oh, you know him?”

“I’m his nanny,” you replied. His eyebrows rose dramatically at that. “Well, technically, I’m Mando’s engineer. But I did an…awful lot of child-minding on the side.”

“No shit.” Mayfeld studied you for a moment, fist tucked under his chin, a faint smile playing at the corners of his mouth. “Ah, I see. Huh. Wouldn’t have pegged Mando for the type to go after the babysitter, but…” His gaze flicked from your eyes to your breasts to your hips, and you willed yourself not to squirm under his blatant perusal. “…I get it. Don’t think I could say no to you, either.”

A flare of self-righteousness licked its way up your spine, spilling over before you could school it into passivity. “What is that supposed to mean?”

The inmate’s smirk widened, victory flashing in his eyes as he finally managed to get a rise out of you. “Means you are way out of his league, sweetheart,” he crooned, and you lost the battle with your better judgment and rolled your eyes at him.

“Don’t you think I ought to be the judge of that?”

“Sure, sure.” Snickering, Mayfeld brought up both of his hands in a placating gesture, palms out in surrender. “So what’s your part in all this? What’s an engineer gonna do for Operation Baby Frog Rescue?”

“Actually…” You trailed off, weighing the risks of what you were about to ask him. The thought had occurred to you the moment you learned that the individual you would be retrieving from Karthon was a former Imperial soldier, and you had been preoccupied with it since. It was a big ask, what you were considering, and so far, Mayfeld was proving that he might be a…challenging person to work with.

Ultimately, the question you really needed to consider was whether the benefits would outweigh the potentially unpleasant experience.

Steeling yourself, you continued, “Actually, I was hoping you might be able to help me with that.”

A look of pleasant surprise passed over the inmate’s face. “Is that so? Well, I’m all ears, baby. What can I do for you?”

“I want to learn everything there is to know about Moff Gideon’s ship. Layout, weapons and defense capabilities, power grid design, internal systems accesses, the works.”

“Ha. How much time you got?” Mayfeld scoffed, dismissive.

With a glance over to the flight path readout on the navigation console, you replied, “About…five standard rotations, give or take a stop for fuel. I’m taking hand-to-hand combat lessons from Fennec, but otherwise, it’s not like there’s much else going on.”

“…oh. You’re serious.” You watched as the cocky smile on his face began to melt away, his expression slowly becoming more hesitant and uncertain. “Look, you gotta understand, I was a sharpshooter. Not a whole lot technical about what I was doing on those ships. I was just stationed on one. If you wanna talk systems and schematics and shit, I’m probably not the best guy for the job.”

Now it was your turn to smirk at him. “Maybe not, but you’re the guy we have.”

“Oof.” In a dramatic gesture, the inmate slammed the side of one of his fists into his chest with a dull thud, as though he had been wounded. “Tell me how you really feel, sweetheart.”

“Look, I’ve been building and repairing starships since I was 18 years old. I’ve got enough technical knowledge for the both of us,” you insisted. “What I need is someone who has seen the inside of an Imperial cruiser first-hand. If I can get a good enough understanding of their systems, if I can figure out their vulnerabilities, their weak points, I can actually help when it comes time to face them.”

Mayfeld appeared to consider the request, though his hesitance did not seem to ease even after a beat or two of tense silence. So instead of waiting any longer for him to come to a conclusion on his own, you decided to press your advantage.

Drawing your brows up in the middle, you hit him with your softest, widest eyes and added, “Please, Migs.”

You could see the moment the sharpshooter folded, and you could see the moment he recognized what you had just done to him, what levers you had been willing to press to get what you wanted. With a grin that seemed almost to congratulate you, he said, “Fine. But only ‘cause you asked so pretty.”

A surge of satisfaction swept through you, and you offered him your first real, genuine smile. Patting him once on the shoulder, you quipped, “Meet me in the mess in an hour. We’ll get started right away.”

“Yes, ma’am!” The mocking salute he gave you in return nearly had you chuckling on your way down the ladder.

Migs Mayfeld was definitely a skughole, but you had a feeling you might actually grow to like that about him.

---

Din Djarin had been given one task. One single, simple task. And he had failed.

Find a Jedi. Return the child in his charge to his people. And, until that time, care for and protect that child like his own.

He had done everything he could to complete this task. He had searched the galaxy for clues on where he might find a member of this mysterious tribe of sorcerers, following every lead, completing every tangential quest placed in his path with nothing to show for it but mere scraps of information. He had run the Razor Crest into the ground (quite literally on one occasion), spent every last credit to his name more times than he could count, and when he finally found a Jedi, she had wanted no part in the caring and training of the boy.

But even then, even when he was certain that he had found the last Jedi in existence only to be turned away, he did not relent. He took the child to the ancient temple. He placed him on the seeing stone. He fought until his body was battered and bruised to keep the boy safe while he broadcast his message through the Force into the vastness of space.

He did. Everything. Right.

Except it hadn’t mattered.

Except now the child was gone. And not into the care of a benevolent protector, one who could mold and shape his ever-growing powers, one who could help him achieve his greatest potential. No. He was gone into the hands of the Empire, of Moff Gideon. Din Djarin had failed the naur’alor, and he had failed Grogu.

It was one thing to disappoint the expectations of the leader of his covert, his spiritual guide, the keeper of his culture. It was quite another to fail to protect a foundling. It flew in the face of everything he believed, every value he had ever held sacred. The care and the protection of children was the very foundation of the Mandalorian way of life. To harm a child was the ultimate crime, the cardinal sin. To be granted the privilege of being a caregiver to a foundling only to be found wanting? It was the deepest shame.

Watching the squad of Dark Troopers retreat through the atmosphere with Grogu in tow, Din had felt a helplessness the likes of which he had never known. It had been a fear that had rivaled the day the Separatists attacked Aq Vetina, the day his parents were slaughtered trying to save him from the invading battle droids. But then he had turned to see you, limp and exhausted and covered head-to-toe in dirt and ash, and somehow, the anguish had only grown stronger. Your skin glowed bright red and raw everywhere he could see, marring your smooth forehead, your sweet nose, your graceful neck, your capable hands. Blood spilled down the side of your face from a cut on your brow, and you were clutching your ribcage, curled over on yourself like it hurt to stand up all the way.

Gods. He had sent you to the Razor Crest, he suddenly recalled, horror washing over him in a cold wave that nearly had his knees buckling. You could have been killed. You could have been killed, and he wouldn’t have realized. His mind had been on keeping the Storm Troopers at bay, then on the loss of his ship, then on Grogu, where it had stayed, consumed. If you had made it to the Crest, if you had been on board during its destruction…

How long would it have taken him to notice you were gone?

The sickening thought kept him up at night, kept him standing vigil by the navigation room viewport and far from your bed. It had him fighting nausea every time you looked at him with your wide, bright eyes full of grief, every time you offered him your kindness. It had him recoiling from your touch, shunning your boundless empathy. He left you alone and cold in your bunk every night because the idea of allowing you to comfort him – him – made him want to collapse inside of himself and dissolve into nothingness.

You did not need him – Din Djarin, the failed buir. Din Djarin, the thoughtless, heartless riduur. You did not need him, and he certainly did not deserve you.

And yet…

Just as he was certain that you were too good for him, he perhaps was even more certain that you were too good for that slimy, ex-Imperial frag-head Migs kriffing Mayfeld.

From the moment he had come aboard, the two of you had been nearly inseparable. They were three days into their journey to Morak, and if you weren’t sparring in the middle of the navigation room with either Fennec Shand or Marshal Dune, you were holed up somewhere with Mayfeld, the two of you huddled together over a pile of datapads or clustered around a console, talking animatedly and taking notes. He had no idea what you could have to talk to him about or what the two of you might be working on together that demanded so much of your time. All Din knew for certain was that the sight had him silently seething behind the impassivity of his helmet every time he came across it.

Though he tried to take comfort in the fact that these conversations often devolved into arguments, the two of you snipping back and forth at each other at increasing volumes as you debated something or other, that surge of satisfaction could just as easily be overtaken by raw, roiling rage every time he heard you laugh. Mayfeld made you laugh. Often. It had him wanting to break the sharpshooter’s jaw before throwing him out the airlock. And, stars, the way he looked at you, something covetous in his eyes, something hungry. It was more than he could bear.

Didn’t he understand? Couldn’t he tell? You were his. Mayfeld may have thought he had seen what Din was capable of on that prison transport, but he hadn’t seen anything yet. If that Hutt spawn ever touched you…

Not that he thought you would allow it, not really. Even in the throes of his guilt and shame and grief, the Mandalorian knew that you loved him, knew that you were loyal to him. But did Mayfeld know that? Or perhaps he just didn’t care? Either way, the thought filled his chest with slick, black fury, nearly choking him every time he was in the same room as the ex-Imperial inmate.

Din Djarin felt at the end of his tether, his own self-loathing and his longing for you and his resentment of Mayfeld building up in his body like a pressurized tibanna cartridge in an overheating blaster rifle. It was only a matter of time before he exploded. He only hoped he could keep it together long enough to find Grogu. He knew himself well enough to know that if didn’t find somewhere constructive to put all of this emotion, there was going to be collateral damage, and he wasn’t certain he would be able to do anything to stop it.

---

“So.”

You glanced up from your datapad to find Migs studying you with interest, a sharp, antagonistic gleam in his bright blue eyes, and you swallowed a sigh before it could make itself heard. Three days into your hyperspace journey to Morak, and the same number of days into your unexpected partnership with the Firespray’s newest passenger, and you were getting rather good at picking up on his tells. This one – the significant shift in his tone of voice, the sparkle in his gaze, the needling look he sent you from his seat on the deck at the foot of your bunk – told you that any work you had been accomplishing moments before was going to need to take a pause. The man was bored, and his favorite pastime seemed to be taking the piss out of you.

“Hm?” you hummed, quirking a weary eyebrow in his direction.

The sharpshooter smirked. “How’s Mando feel about how much time you been spendin’ with me?”

Shrugging, you shifted atop your bunk mattress, bunching your pillow beneath your chest as you rolled onto your front and continued reading through your notes. “If he’s bothered by it, he hasn’t said anything,” you replied truthfully.

You thought you might have caught the Mandalorian in question watching the two of you on a few occasions, hovering on the outskirts of whatever room you had decided to camp out in for the day or passing through on his way to somewhere else on the ship. You could feel the tension radiating off of him in those moments, could tell that whatever he saw when he looked at you, he didn’t like it, but with the way he had been stonewalling you lately, you couldn’t bring yourself to be too concerned about it.

If Din had an issue with Mayfeld, he could grow up and talk to you about it like an adult.

Migs scoffed at that, setting his own datapad aside with a clatter. “That guy hates my guts, sweetheart. Trust me, he’s bothered.”

“Well, then, I suppose it’s a good thing he doesn’t get a say in who I spend my time with.”

“Ooo, feisty,” he groaned, eyelids lowering and a wide, lascivious smile spreading across his face. “I like that.”

You shot him a reluctant half grin at that, amused in spite of yourself. The man was relentless, had been flirting with you mercilessly since the moment he stepped on board the ship. You weren’t sure when it had stopped being gross and started being funny, but somewhere along the way, during the many hours the two of you had spent in each other’s company since then, you had started to find his utterly shameless, boorish behavior entertaining rather than disgusting.

Most of the time, anyway.

“Nice try. But I’m not interested,” you said, just as you had every other time he had come onto you.

“No? You sure?” From his seat on the floor, he shifted and rolled up onto his knees, bringing his face level with yours. He leaned his elbow into your mattress, the thin padding dipping under the weight of him. Cupping his stubbly chin in his palm, he encroached on your space without an ounce of regret in his eyes. “You know, I been watchin’ you two, and I gotta tell you. He sure doesn’t seem to give you a whole lot of attention. Nowhere near as much as you deserve.”

You pushed down the immediate pang of hurt at his words, too accurate for your liking, and reminded yourself that Migs didn’t really know you, he definitely didn’t know Din, and he most assuredly didn’t know your relationship. Choosing to ignore his presence weighing down the edge of your bed, you flicked your gaze back to your datapad. “His kid just got kidnapped,” you replied with a shrug. “He’s got a lot on his mind.”

“Maybe.” You felt more than you saw him lean in just a bit closer, and you fought the urge to roll your eyes. “Or maybe those pesky Mandalorian morals are destined to get in the way of bein’ able to treat you right.”

“Mando treats me just fine, Migs.” A flash of genuine irritation made its way into your voice, and you could have kicked yourself for the way just that tiny show of weakness had the inmate grinning like  a madman. He could see that he was getting to you, and it only made him push harder.

“Girl like you deserves more than ‘fine,’ sweetheart. Besides, how do you know he’s not repulsive under all that armor? And who knows what he’s got hiding under that helmet?”

You chose not to dignify that with a response. This topic had come up more than once over the last few days – Din’s helmet, his armor, his Mandalorian culture and practices. Something about them seemed to grate at Mayfeld in a way that felt deeper and more real than anything else that came out of the man’s mouth, particularly the helmet. You didn’t understand it yourself, but you knew that it made him distrustful of Din, that it put him on edge.

Of course, you would never reveal that you at least had some idea of what was under that helmet. The floppy curls you had run your fingers through, the scratchy stubble that had burned your cheeks and inner thighs. The soft, downturned mouth you had kissed so thoroughly, the strong, hooked nose you had felt dragging along your neck and collarbones. Under his helmet, he was just a human man.

Your man, and one you were convinced was devastatingly handsome, but still, nothing especially remarkable. Whatever image Migs had concocted in his head, you were sure it was far more extreme than the reality.

As you recalled those precious hours you had spent wrapped up together and felt your heart squeeze in response, something must have flickered across your face, some tell that you hadn’t been able to push down. Migs seemed to go still next to you, suddenly serious.

“Unless…you do know what’s under it,” he murmured, something like awe, like jealousy in his voice. “You seen his face, sweetheart?”

Too far.

You shot up onto your knees, finally putting some distance between the two of you and meeting his gaze with a cold, sharp look. “No, I haven’t. No one has. And no one will,” you snapped. Waving your all-but-forgotten datapad in his face, you added, “Now, can we please get back to the internal surveillance systems?”

The sharpshooter narrowed his eyes at you for a moment, seemingly studying you, before leaning back off of the mattress. A light, easy smile slipped back over his face once again, and you found yourself sighing audibly in relief.

“Yeah, sure. For now,” he purred, that insatiable, flirtatious tone back in a way that felt almost comforting after such a close brush with something real, something personal. “But I’d be stupid if I didn’t try my damnedest to turn your head while I got the chance, baby.”

A soft, breathy chuckle burst from your chest, and the sharpshooter sent you a wink, over the top, shameless.

“Mayfeld.”

You startled at the gravely, modulated sound of Din’s voice, suddenly so close, and your eyes flew to the entrance to your bunk. Tall, broad, and impossibly intimidating, the Mandalorian took up the entire narrow doorway, one of his gloved fists wrapped snugly around the bars of the open cell door.

You hadn’t heard him climb down the ladder, hadn’t sensed him on the slender platform outside your cell. How long had he been standing there? How much had he heard?

And why did those questions have your heart speeding up in your chest?

For his part, Mayfeld appeared entirely unbothered. If anything, the shit-eating grin that split his face grew even wider as he turned to take in the unexpected visitor. “Speak of the devil,” he said, and that kriffing tone was back, bright and joyfully irritating.

“Take a break. There’s caf in the mess,” Din said, taking a slow, measured step into your bunk. His frame loomed over the both of you in a way that made you feel a bit like running. A bit like prey.

The inmate frowned a bit at that, clearly not appreciating the idea of being ordered around by the Mandalorian. “Hey, we’re in the middle of a – ”

“I said. Take. A break.”

His low, rumbling words left no room for argument. Mayfeld glanced back and forth between you and Din, as though confirming that it was safe for him to leave, and you nodded once. He seemed to understand, and a smooth, practiced smile slipped back over his face as he got to his feet. “All right, all right. Three’s a crowd, I gotcha.” Tossing you a short wave over his shoulder, he added, “Catch up with you later, sweetheart.” Then he was swinging himself up onto the central ladder and climbing for the upper decks.

The moment you were certain Mayfeld was out of earshot, you were scrambling to your feet, tossing your datapad onto your pillow with a soft thump. “Din!” you hissed, wrestling a shout into something softer but no less venomous. “What the kriff is your problem?”

The bounty hunter seemed entirely unaffected by your indignation; if anything, it seemed to make him dig his heels in. Drawing himself up to full height and crossing his arms over his armored chest, he growled, “Mayfeld is bad news. You should keep your distance from him.”

Anger rose in your chest at the audacity of such a statement, as though the man before you hadn’t been skirting his way out of your presence for more than a week now, as though he had any right…

“Well, maybe you should have thought of that before you insisted we bring him on board.” You took a handful of quick, pointed strides, coming to stand directly in front of him, your chin jutting outward defiantly as you glared up into his visor. “Besides, you don’t get to tell me who I can and can’t be friends with. That’s not how this works.”

“Friends?” Din’s voice vibrated low and dangerous through his vocoder, and you suppressed a shiver at the sound. Goosebumps broke out along the back of your neck and down your arms as he tilted his helmet down another inch, bringing himself even further into your space. “You think you and him are friends?”

You swallowed thickly. “So far, yeah. He’s agreeing to help you track down Gideon’s cruiser, he’s been helping me brush up on my Imperial starship design. He’s been nothing but nice to me – ”

“Migs Mayfeld is not nice, not unless he wants something from you. And trust me, cyare, what he wants from you is anything but nice.”

And there it was. You knew it, had felt it in his burning gaze, seen it in his menacing body language. You had even heard it in his voice – that barely restrained fury, that primal possession.

Din was jealous. Acutely, poisonously jealous.

“Oh, yeah?” you taunted, biting back a grin. “And what does he want from me, exactly?”

A rasping, animalistic sound rumbled somewhere deep in his chest. “I think you know.”

You felt a smirk tug at one corner of your mouth, the heat of your anger suddenly morphing, transforming, racing along your nerve endings, pooling in your belly. Maker help you, but this was working for you. You could feel the apex of your thighs starting to throb, to dampen. How long had it been since he had touched you? You couldn’t remember anymore. Too long.

Your next words were barely a whisper against the cool beskar of his helmet, close enough now for your warm breath to fog up the reflective surface but still not touching. “Why don’t you enlighten me?”

At first, only silence met your taunting, needling question, and it was almost enough to drag you out of the moment, to have self-consciousness and shame rearing their ugly heads behind your ribs. But then you heard his breathing pick up, suddenly audible through his vocoder. A flush bloomed on your cheeks at the sound, spilling down your neck, darkening your chest. He seemed to follow the path of it with his eyes, his visor angling down to watch your breasts heave, to witness the way his proximity affected you, the way you had begun to ache for him.

Just as you opened your mouth – to curse him, to beg him, to whine for him – the Mandalorian tilted his helmet back up to meet your eyes, and you were certain you could hear it even though no words left his lips.

Can I?

You nodded weakly in answer to his unspoken question, and then he was on you, driving you inexorably back toward the wall of your bunk with the breadth of his body and the grip of his large, leather-clad hand on your jaw.

All of the air rushed out of your lungs as your body collided with the durasteel bulkhead, the chill of the metal and the force of the impact arching your back instinctually, and Din was right there when you did – pressing his chest into yours, driving an armored thigh between your legs, pressing the central ridge of that armor firmly, inescapably into your core. The hand on your jaw wrenched your head back, forcing your gaze up, up, forcing you to look him in the eye, to take in the image of your own reflection in the shining blackness of his T-shaped visor. His other hand came up to slam against the wall near your head, and just like that, in the span of a single breath, you were trapped. Pinned. Utterly at his mercy.

The realization had your stomach dropping, your knees going watery beneath you. A rush of heat washed over you, thick and sweet and addictive, and you watched your own pupils blow wide and dark in your reflection.

“Enlighten you? You’re too smart to be that naïve, gotabor’ika,” the bounty hunter growled, grinding cold, unforgiving beskar into the tender softness of your cunt. “He wants this.”

You let out a gasp, mouth dropping open, and fuck, you already looked wrecked.

Din must have thought so, too, because the next thing you knew, that hand on your jaw had shifted so that he could slip his thumb between your lips, pressing the pad into your tongue and groaning as you automatically began to suck.

“He wants this pretty mouth, too, cyar’ika. I see the way he watches you, how he stares when you speak. I see the way he follows you from room to room like a fucking shadow.”

He sounds enraged, his voice dark and his words heavy in a way you have never heard, but he keeps his emotions on a tight leash. You can feel it in the tension of his limbs, hear it in his panting breaths. He’s holding back, and the thought that this is somehow restraint has you trembling.

In his thick, leather gloves, his thumb felt huge in your mouth, and you felt saliva swell under your tongue at the sensation. Combined with the musk and the tang of the leather, it reminded you so viscerally of his cock in your mouth that it had you soaking your panties and grinding yourself harder against the press of his thigh.

If Din noticed your increasing desperation, the way you were melting beneath his hands, he didn’t comment on it. Instead, he simply thrust his thumb deeper, forcing you to suck in a breath through your nose as you fought back a gag.

“But he doesn’t get to have this mouth, does he?” Something hard and taunting crept its way into his voice, and you found yourself shaking your head around his intrusion, a whine trapped high in your throat. “No, he doesn’t. He doesn’t get to have this sweet little pussy, either, does he? Hm?” He pulled his thumb away, dragging a slick string of drool with him as he did. The orange leather tip of his glove had been stained a dark umber. “Answer me, cyar’ika.”

“No, Din, never,” you whimpered, breathless. Your body writhed of its own accord, dragging your clothed cunt against his thigh armor once, twice, three times, the ridge of it catching on your swollen clit with every thrust in a way that had you absolutely fucking shaking.

“Why not? Why can’t he have you?”

The words were out of your mouth before you had even formed them, spilling into the tight, humid space between you in little gasps and sighs. “Because I’m yours.”

Immediately, his hand was in your hair, weaving through the strands at the base of your skull, loosening your braid as he yanked your head back once more. “Yeah? You’re mine?” he ground out, his words rough and clipped like he was speaking through a clenched jaw.

“Yes. Just yours. Always, Din, always.” You tried to nod but instead pulled your own hair against the harshness of his grip, and your eyes nearly rolled back in your head at the feeling.

A pleased rumble vibrated through his chest, like the purr of an overgrown nexu, and he released your hair, instead placing both hands on your shoulders and bearing you down onto your knees. “Then prove it, mesh’la.”

You put up no resistance, your legs folding easily beneath you as you collapsed onto the deck at his feet. Back still pressed to the bulkhead, your fingers went to his belt immediately, releasing the center buckle and catching the heavy weight in your palms as it loosened and then slipped from around his narrow hips. Swiftly discarding it onto the nearby bunk, you tackled his flight suit pants next, tucking your hands up under the bottom of the padded bib he wore under his cuirass to release the button and drag down the zipper.

The Mandalorian groaned at the relieved pressure, and you bit back a whine at the sight of his thick cock pressing insistently against the fabric of his underwear. Even in the narrow space created by his open fly, you could see how he tented the black cotton, how the impressive length of him nearly had his flushed, weeping tip poking out of the waistband. You squeezed your thighs together, feeling your walls clench around nothing as he watched him twitch. He was throbbing for you, and you for him.

You drew him out without preamble, too impatient now to tease, too desperate to draw it out any more, and then your mouth was on him, and you loosed a groan that would have embarrassed you had you been in you right mind. Dank farrik, he felt good – his skin hot and smooth, his musk slick on your tongue, making you drool, making your cunt drip. Din dropped a series of curses intermingled with warm, lilting Mando’a, and you snapped your eyes up to him, watching him watch you take him. His fingers returned to your hair then, cradling the bowl of your skull in his palm, pressing, pulling, drawing your forward.

“Shab, that’s it, cyar’ika,” he panted, thrusting shallowly. “Just let me use my mouth. Let me fuck it a little, hm?”

You moaned a muffled, affirmative noise, wrapping your hands around his hips to steady yourself as you relaxed your throat. Taking deep, steady breaths through your nose, you felt your eyelids start to flutter as he began to thrust into you. Dragging the underside of his cock along your tongue, probing past your gag reflex, the plush tip of him sliding along your soft pallet, bumping into the back of your throat. Tears welled at your lash line, a single one bursting the dam and tracking down your cheek, and you could tell that salvia was staring to pool in the corners of your mouth. Gods, he was so thick – hot and slick and smelling like salt, like man. It was making your mind fuzzy, your thoughts loose and sluggish. He was fucking them out of you, forcing them from your body with every hitch of his hips, and you felt all of the fear and the anxiety and the grief inside you soften as he did.

Distantly, you wondered whether he was experiencing that same relief, that same unburdening with the soft heat of your mouth, but before the thought could fully coalesce, it was gone, dissolved with all the others.

You felt him start to twitch on your tongue then, his balls drawing up and tightening against your chin, and then he was using his grip on your head to pull you off him. You whined in protest, feeling bereft, but he shushed you before you could put words to your disappointment.

“Shh, shh, mesh’la. On your feet now.”

You obeyed as quickly as you could, your legs feeling a bit numb after being folded up beneath you on the cold durasteel floor, but the moment you had your feet under you, his hands were back on your body. He yanked the zipper of your jumpsuit down with an urgency that nearly had the mechanism catching on the fabric, then he was working the sleeves down over your shoulders, shoving the fabric down your torso until it caught on the plush flare your hips. Tucking his thumbs into your panties, he dug his fingers into the undergarment and the jumpsuit and tugged them both all the way down to your knees, leaving you abruptly bare but for your thin, black breastband.

“Turn around. Hands on the bed,” the Mandalorian rumbled, and you stumbled to do what he asked.

Blood rushed to your face in mortification at the thought of how you must look right now, clumsy with your clothes around your knees, boots still on your feet, braid half undone, shining slick dripping from your pussy and coating the insides of your thighs. But your debauched helplessness only seemed to turn Din on more. The moment your palms hit the flimsy mattress, he landed a quick, sharp swat to the meat of your ass, and you gasped at the sting. The feel of his leather gloves on your skin in such an intimate place had you squirming, and you thought you heard him chuckle breathily as he watched you writhe.

“Oh, sweet girl.” With the tip of his boot, he kicked your feet wider apart, forcing you to spread your legs for him while you bent over the bed. Dragging two fingers through the mess between your legs, he groaned indulgently. “You get this wet just from my cock in your mouth?”

You sobbed out a sound that you hoped sounded like a yes, but Din wasn’t having it. Wrapping what was left of your braid around his fist, he pulled, making you cry out.

“Use your words now. Is your pretty pussy dripping like this because of me?”

“Yes!” you whimpered weakly. “It’s all for you, Din.”

Two leather-clad fingertips appeared at your entrance, stroking your fluttering hole with a gentleness that felt almost out of place in this high-intensity moment, but it had your thighs trembling nonetheless. “Not for him, though. Right, cyar’ika?”

You were shaking your head before he had even finished his question. “No, no, just you! I swear!”

“That’s right. You know why?” Those two fingers thrust forward then, filling, stretching, and you felt your mouth drop open on a moan. “Because no one else can make you feel like this, can they? No one else can give this pussy what she needs. You’re mine, mesh’la. Only mine.”

The bounty hunter continued to mumble lewd, greedy nonsense as he fucked you with his fingers, but you couldn’t make yourself focus on his words. That far-off, foggy feeling was coming back; with every thrust, every curl, every scissoring stretch, you felt yourself releasing rhythmic, involuntary moans, your slickness gathering at the base of his fingers and slipping down his palm. He was going to make you come like this, just with his fingers. It had been building since the moment you realized he was acting out of jealousy, since the moment he started bossing Mayfeld around in that wicked, possessive voice, and there was no stopping it now.

Not when you had been deprived of him for so long, not when he played your body and your mind like a finely tuned instrument.

“You going to come for me, sweet girl? S’okay, you can come.” Running a warm, soothing palm across your spine, Din drove you further forward, urging you to drop your upper body onto the mattress. “Come on my fingers, and then I’ll give you my cock and fuck this pussy the way you deserve.”

Shit. You would never get used to that – the way he talked to you, the way his low, rasping voice curled intimately around every word. The distortion of his helmet modulator somehow only made it hotter. It made it feel illicit, added a forbidden element that had you sweating under his touch.

With the promise of his thick, swollen cock lingering at the back of your mind, you fell apart on his fingers, your legs shaking so violently that Din had to tuck an arm under your stomach and hold you upright.

As you caught your breath, head resting on your folded forearms, you felt his fingers slip from your body, replaced instead with the wide, blunt press of his cock. Groaning low in your chest, you shifted your feet apart even wider and arched your back, presenting yourself to him in wordless submission.

“There we go,” the Mandalorian sighed. He wrapped both of his hands around your hips then, pulling you slowly, steadily back into him, splitting you open one perfect inch at a time. “Who’s pussy is this, mesh’la? Who’s the only one who gets to fuck you like this?”

“Just you, Din.” Your voice sounded foreign to your own ears – low and breathy and whimpering. You sounded completely fucked out, completely pathetic, and somehow it made you even wetter, made your cunt clench around him.

“Shaaaab, that’s right.” One hand slid from your hip to your spine, settling firmly between your shoulder blades, pinning your top half to the bunk. “Now all you have to do is take it. Just take what I give you.”

Then Din fucked you like he wanted to ruin you, and you thought he might have succeeded.

Deep, rough, and relentless, he pounded into you with utter abandon, no longer the focused bounty hunter, the unflappable warrior in complete control of his faculties. This man was just as strung out as you, and it lent a flavor of desperation to his thrusts that had you rocketing toward your peak with a speed that left you feeling lightheaded and dizzy. Burying your face in the mattress, you moaned and whimpered and cried out each time his hips connected with your ass, each time the tip of his cock kissed your cervix, each time he dragged himself across that soft, spongy spot that had you seeing stars.

“Such a good fucking girl for me, cyare,” he grunted, the sound coming out staticky and warped as he gritted his teeth inside his helmet. “Such a perfect little cunt. Love how she drips for me. So soft. And sweet. And fucking messy.”

“Stars, Din, please – ”

“That’s it.” Draping himself over your body, the Mandalorian wrapped one of his hands around your throat and tugged you up, bowing your body into a dramatic curve that had your head coming back to rest on his shoulder, your hips still pressed to his as he continued his merciless, reckless thrusts. “You want to come? Can feel her squeezing me.”

You nodded furiously. The constant, gentle pressure at the base of your throat as he held you in place was making you crazy. He wasn’t choking you, not really, just holding you, but even that was enough to have your vision blurring.

“I want you to ask me,” he said, just as breathless as you. His other hand wrapped around the front of your body then, the pads of his gloved fingers immediately massaging your throbbing clit, and you moaned at the sensation. “Ask me to come on this cock.”

“Can I come? Gods, please, Din, can I come on your cock?”

The cool press of beskar knocked against your forehead, and you got the distinct impression that if he had been helmetless, Din would have dropped a kiss onto your sweaty hairline as he replied, anguished, “Yes, mesh’la. Come for me.”

It was as though his words made it so. With an involuntary cry that might have been his name or might have just been a string of curses, your walls seized around him as a fresh wave of wetness soaked you both, every pulse sending you thrusting back against him, trying to take him deeper, harder, rougher. Your eyes rolled back in your head, your vision fading around the edges, and your hands flew up to dig your nails into the arm that held you upright. They skittered and scraped over his vambrace as you rode out your high, and just as you started to come back down, you felt the hot, wet bloom of his release deep inside you, making you start twitching and trembling all over again.

You slowly regained awareness when Din slipped his softening cock from your body, and you immediately swayed on your feet, feeling like a dugar dugar fawn, weak and wet and spindly-legged, unable to support your own weight. The Mandalorian was there in an instant, murmuring soft, gentle Mando’a as he guided you onto the bunk mattress. You sat heavily, boneless and bleary-eyed, and watched as he tore off a tattered corner of his black cape and used it to clean himself and then you, the worn fabric surprisingly gentle against your swollen, puffy cunt.

“Thank you,” you murmured hoarsely, and the softness with which he looked at you told you that he was probably smiling behind his helmet.

“Don’t need to thank me,” he replied just as softly, tucking himself back into his pants, adjusting his slick-stained underwear, zipping up his fly. “S’the least I can do after…all that.”

You offered him a small, tired smile. “Don’t feel guilty. I liked it. A lot.” Before you could second-guess the impulse, you reached out and ran your palm across his still-heaving chest, the beskar body-warm under your touch from where he had pressed against you. “And it felt like…maybe you needed it.”

Releasing a bone-deep, weary sigh, the bounty hunter covered your hand with his own, threading his fingers through yours. “I did. Maybe I should be the one thanking you.”

You squeezed his hand with a smirk. “How about you help me get dressed, and we call it even?”

Din was silent as he gently, tenderly helped put you back together again – bringing you to your feet, kneeling before you, tugging up your crumpled panties and your boilersuit, holding out the sleeves to help you slide them on. He pulled up the zipper slowly, careful not to snag on the soft curve of your breasts, and then he started unweaving your struggling braid, running his fingers from the roots to the ends as he detangled it as best as he could.

You reveled in the feeling of his care, savoring every gentle touch and caress after so many days without an ounce of softness from him. For the first time since leaving Tython, your mind felt blissfully clean and quiet, like you had been shut down and rebooted and you were back to running at peak efficiency. You thought he might be experiencing the same refresh.

Still, however, he surprised you when he took your face in his hands, cradling your cheeks in his palms, and said, “I’ve been unkind to you, cyare.”

You blinked up at him with wide eyes, murmuring, “Yes. You have.”

Sweeping his thumbs across your cheekbones, Din dropped his forehead to yours. “I…don’t know how to do this.”

“Do what?”

“Be…vulnerable. Let people in. Let them see me when I’m in pain. Let them help.” His voice dropped then, barely a whisper, as he added, “And I don’t know that I deserve it.”

You swore a fist reached through your ribcage and squeezed your heart at his words, and emotion welled in your throat. “Din. What happened wasn’t your fault. You did everything you possibly could.”

His reply was quick, as though he had been anticipating it. “But it wasn’t enough.”

“You don’t deserve to punish yourself because you were outnumbered and outgunned. You’re a powerful warrior, but you’re still only one person.” Bringing your hands up to cup around his, you stared into his visor with all the fierceness you could muster, silently pleading with him to hear you, to take your words to heart. “But we have help now. We have our friends. And together we are going to find him, and we are going to bring him home.”

“Cyare, I’m so sorry.”

You shook your head under his grip. “Don’t apologize. Just…I just need you to try. I know it’s hard, that it’s not something you’re used to. But you can’t shut me out like that again, Din. I hate knowing that you’re suffering, and you won’t let me help you.” That well of emotion threatened to choke you then, and you felt a couple of tears work their way down your cheeks, quickly swept away by his thumbs. “And I know Grogu was yours, but…but he was mine, too, you know? So was the Crest. I’ve been grieving, too, and I needed you.”

A shudder passed through the bounty hunter’s body, and the next thing you knew, he was gathering you into his chest, wrapping his arms around you and cradling the back of your head in one of his hands. “Dank farrik,” he swore, voice broken and rasping. “I know, baby. I know. You’re right.”

For a moment, you simply stood there in each other’s arms, holding one another, drawing strength from one another, and you felt something tight and tender inside you release at the contact. This was what you had needed, what you had wanted from the beginning – just to love on him and be loved in return. As his own muscles loosened and relaxed under your touch, you thought he might understand now.

“I swear to you,” he murmured, pressing his helmet into the warm crook of your neck. “I will do better. I will be better. And I will bring him back to us.”

You nodded and smiled into his shoulder. “I know you will.”

---

After you had both collected yourselves a bit, the two of you decided to make your way up to the makeshift mess deck. You both were desperately hungry after your unexpected tryst, and you found yourselves in need of a change of scenery, otherwise running the risk of falling back into the bunk, getting tangled up again, and not reemerging until tomorrow.

For his part, Din expected to simply grab a ration pack at random, heat it up, and then retreat back to the lower decks so he could eat his meal in peace. What he didn’t expect was that he would be greeted at the top of the ladder by all four of the ship’s other passengers, all of whom seemingly had similar ideas and were milling about preparing their own meals and chatting amiably. However, the moment the group spotted the two of you dismounting the ladder, all activity in the room ceased, falling into a weighty, significant silence.

“Oh,” you breathed, eyes wide, taking in the pointed stares of your crewmates as a flush bloomed high on your cheeks. “H-Hey, guys. Dinner time?”

From her seat at the table, Cara Dune snorted into her cup of caf, amusement rolling off of her in waves. Fennec simply looked you both over from head to toe, shook her head, and went back to preparing her portion bread with a smirk. Even Boba, stoic and serious as he was, seemed to be smothering a grin as he took a pull from his canteen, his dark eyes twinkling with good humor.

“What?” you asked as you looked from one face to the next. Your blush darkened instinctually, and Din resisted the urge to turn right back around and crawl back down the ladder.

Gods. You didn’t know.

If the crew had been here the whole time… If you had been as loud as he thought you had been…

Sound carried on a vessel this small, and this one had a central shaft that traversed the entire length of it. The bunk door had been open the entire time. And your friends had been right at the top when you had –

“Heeey, there he is!” Mayfeld crowed, a shit-eating grin splitting his pale, smarmy face in a way that had Din’s blood pressure rising instantly. “Damn, Mando! Didn’t know you had it in you! I’ll back off, okay, buddy? Don’t know that I can compete with whatever you’re packing under that armor, you know?”

Manda fucking take him.

Everyone’s restraint seemed to expire in the same moment, and the room erupted in raucous laughter – Cara nearly snorting her caf through her nose, Fennec’s shoulders shaking, Boba’s head dropping back on his neck as his deep chuckles rumbled through the mess. Din glanced over at you to see your jaw dropping open, your hands flying to your cheeks in mortification.

“Fucking hell,” you swore, palms sliding up to cover your eyes. “Oh my god, Din.”

The bounty hunter didn’t even flinch at the use of his real name in this context. Instead, he wrapped an arm around your shoulders, drawing you close to him, pressing his helmet into the top of your bowed head.

“S’nothing to be ashamed of, cyar’ika,” he soothed softly. His stomach dropped as he felt your body begin to shake against his, and he was quick to draw your hands away from your face, searching for any sign of distress, for the tracks of humiliated tears down your face.

But to his great surprise – and joy – instead he found your cheeks stretched in a wide grin, your shoulders shaking with laughter. Every bit of your skin he could see glowed with embarrassment, but still, you smiled, and happiness swelled in his chest at the sight. It was the brightest, purest smile he had seen from you in days, and Din couldn’t seem to stop himself from laughing right along with you.

---

Notes: There's some Mando'a that shows up in this chapter that hasn't been used in a while as well as one new term, so I have put a refresher here for your reference!

Mando'a Translations:

The attachment began to form slowly until it became a month later and you were stuck in this very predicament. Trying to keep your eyes off of his thighs as he shifted around the ship, making repairs where they were needed. Meanwhile you stayed with the child, keeping him occupied and making an attempt at focusing on something other than the man’s beskar covered limbs.

“What’s wrong?” His modulated voice yanked you out of the daydream you were currently having; giving you some form of clarity. Enough at least to give him a response.

“Nothing why.” You tossed the metal ball lightly in the child’s direction, only for him to keep it floating in midair.

“You keep watching me.”

Of course he would notice that. You’d practically spent the entire afternoon slowly taking off every piece of beskar from his body in your mind. Clearing your throat you picked at your pants, trying to appear somewhat calm. As if you hadn’t almost asked him to let you get off to the very thighs you were face to face with. Since when has he gotten so close to you?

“Well it just so happens that you’re in the same space as I am.” Trying to tell if you had convinced him or not was like attempting to shoot a moving target with no problem. His helmet didn’t let you see anything and the head tilts never seemed to help your citation. They only made it worse.

A noise that sounded eerily similar to a scoff came through his modulator before he was turning away from you; going back to working on repairing the wires that controlled whether the door opened or shut. It seemed that during his last altercation the person he was fighting somehow managed to kill the switch. A nuisance in its own way, as well as something that took forever to fix.

“How is he doing?” he asked, nodding his head in the direction of the child who had decided to make your lap his new resting place. You glanced down at him, seeing that he had begun to blink slowly. The sleep he was fighting finally caught up on him.

“He’s sleepy.” Brushing a finger across an ear, you smiled at the reaction you got. A twitch followed by a gurgling noise; his body surrendering to the exhaustion from the day.

For hours you’d been giving him things to keep himself busy, helping him to maneuver around the ship that seemed to now have scattered tools around it. And finally you would be able to have a small break. Just enough time to hopefully eat, rest, and do everything you could to get him off your mind. You’d have to find something to distract yourself, and you figured rewiring the comlink that he had given you two days ago would do it.

“Fuck,” you shouted, tossing it to the ground as you electrocuted yourself for what felt like the fiftieth time. He said it was nothing but a simple rewiring job; one you could easily do. And yet there you were, an hour into your tenth attempt and nothing seemed to be working.

The sound of his boots echoing across the floor had you turning your attention towards him. All the previous attempts at shoving him out of your mind, now gone, because he was crouching down beside you. His hands reached for the comlink and you wanted to curl in on yourself. Unable to do even a simple task as this, but he didn’t pin that on you, didn’t blame you. Instead choosing to sit fully on the floor beside you, his back resting against the wall of his ship as he focused on the wires that were slightly frayed from your actions.

“It’s harder than it looks,” you mumbled.

He nodded, simply choosing not the respond. At this point you weren’t sure if that was a good or bad thing, but you didn’t care enough to question it. He wanted to help you so you let him do just that. Let him teach you how to rewire it carefully in order to not shock yourself, before reattaching the back of it.

“Wiring is not your strong suit.”

A laugh left your lips, your elbow coming out to jab him lightly in the side as you stared down at the comlink he’d placed back in your hands. “No it’s definitely not.”

“We’ll work on that,” he replied, resting his hands in his lap, his helmet turned towards you.

You wanted to say that things didn’t spiral from there. That you remained civil with him; continuing to ignore the feelings that had built up until you could practically feel them in your chest. Except even you couldn’t say that. Couldn’t ignore it anymore, because it physically pained you to do so. Reaching out you took one of his gloved hands and intertwined his fingers with your own; content to remain sitting there for as long as he’d allow it.

“I’m looking forward to it.”

Three days. That’s all it took for you to end up this situation.

Three days of constant banter, touches that shouldn’t have meant more than just that, and those niggling feelings that kept you on edge. Three days is all it took for you to be in his lap, arms around his neck as you pressed your forehead to his helmet. And not even you were surprised that it was happening. That he had dragged you towards him, a gruffly whispered sentence echoing in the air as you fell into his lap.

“I can’t work,” he grumbled, hands squeezing your hips as breathed out harshly. “Not when you’ve been acting that way.”

You fought the smile that nearly showed. “Acting, what way?” It was an empty question. Because you know what you did; knew that everything you’d been doing wasn’t merely as simple as it seemed. And it looks like he finally caught up on that fact.

“Like you want me.” His words were whispered - borderline hesitant - and it made you smile. A hand reaching out to brush against his helmet. You wondered what he looked like; what he truly sounded like without the modulator in the way.

What he tasted like.

“I’m glad it’s working,” you replied, pressing yourself closer to the chestplate he wore. The cool feeling of metal against your skin refreshing compared to the stuffy air in the ship.

It took three days for you to both come to that one realization. To finally understand that the want was no longer one sided, and once the words were said, he seemed to have lost control of the patience he held so reverently. The string had grown taut enough to snap, until he was feral with a different type of need.

Pushing your hips down you rolled them downward, angling yourself against his thigh to feel something. Any small amount of satisfaction that you could manage on your own. It’s when he pushed you off did you feel like you did something wrong. Maybe you had. Maybe you’d gone too far, and you were about to apologize. Tell him that you didn’t mean to go in that direction; except his hands were reaching for the waistband of your pants.

Shoving them down your legs in rushed abandon, his breath coming out in pants as you kicked them off. Already beginning to step out of your underwear as well; hands reaching out to steady yourself on his shoulders as he dragged you back. It was a vulnerable state to be in. Straddling the cold beskar of his thigh as he sat in his chair; fully clothed and watching your every movement.

“Mando,” you murmured, clit throbbing as you felt the cold sensation of metal against it.

“What do you want?” he asked, hands gripping your hips so tightly that they’d be tender tomorrow. “Do you want me?”

You meant to say the word clearly, tell him that you wanted him like this as well as more than just this, but him bringing his thigh up to grind against you had your head falling back. A moaned out yes breaking through the hum of the ship that echoed around you. Coherent words were beyond you at this point, and so you took what he gave you.

Began to roll your hips quickly in order to feel that euphoric high again and he seemed intent on getting you there. His hands shifting to caress you anywhere he could reach; shoving your shirt off in order to tug at your nipples. Until you were crying out from the feeling; the leather of his gloves only adding to his touch. It wasn’t until he began to toy with your clit did you jolt forward, hands pressing into his chest to keep yourself steady.

A chuckle broke through the euphony of your sounds. “So desperate for it,” he murmured, thumb running along your bottom lip as he continued to press against your clit.

“I need more.” Your voice didn’t even sound like you. The words whined out, fingers curling in an attempt to find purchase on his pauldron. “Please.”

Pinching your chin he dragged you forward until your forehead was pressed against his helmet, mouth going slack as he brought his knee up at an angle. Giving you a chance to feel the edge of the beskar on his leg; catching it exactly how you needed it. Words escaped you; nothing but sounds that no longer sounded like you - escaped your throat. Giving him quite the view.

“Come on. Cum for me.” Pressing on your clit again he watched - addicted - as your eyes rolled back, a cry of the only name you knew him by rang around the room.

“Oh fuck!” you cried out, teeth digging into your bottom lip so hard you were sure you had broken the skin.

“That’s it.” Pulling his hand away from your clit he allowed you to catch your breath, dragging the slick covered finger along your bottom lip for you to taste. “So good for me, mesh’la.”

Some part of your preened under his praise. Wanted to do it again just to hear him say those words one more time, and you were sure that he’d happily watch. Happily tell you how beautiful you were. How he couldn’t seem to get you out of his mind for even a second. Yet you couldn’t move. Only having enough energy to sink into his body, head falling against his shoulder as he ran a hand along your bare back. Humming in contentment.

“All that because I distracted you,” you breathed out, curling a hand into his cowl.

You couldn’t see it, but he was smiling down at you beneath the helmet; his body alight with a different feeling. “Do it again and you’ll get a lot more than that.”

“We’ll work on that.” You smiled, tucking yourself into his arms.

He huffed out a laugh, resting his head back against his chair. “I’m looking forward to it.”

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When you were a child on Chardaan, your parents had acquired an extensive library of starship reference manuals. Hull configurations, engine builds, weapons arrays, life support systems, and just about every flavor of modification you could imagine for nearly every model of ship ever designed – all organized by manufacturer, design purpose, and years of production. It had been your father’s favorite pastime – collecting, sorting, studying ship design, one that he passed on to you at a young age. You could recall sitting on the floor of his office, small enough to fit in the snug little nook under his desk, with a portable holoprojector, swiping through model after model, watching them spin in the palm of your hand. Even then, they had inspired your imagination, and the fire that imagination had lit in you led you to acquire far more than your fair share of ship design expertise long before Orron Halcard ever called you up for service in the shipyards.

And yet, even with such expertise, you found that Boba Fett’s ship was unlike any you had ever encountered.

Under different circumstances, you would have been falling over yourself for an opportunity to review the schematics, to examine the power generators, to get your hands on the hyperdrive reactors or the clearly heavily modified weaponry. As it was, when Din deposited you unceremoniously in one of the chairs that lined the edges of the ship’s navigation room, all you had the energy to do was watch, dumbstruck, as the ship’s walls began to rotate 90 degrees around the stationary platform under your feet. The cockpit, which had once been parallel with the navigation room, now sat above you, and had you not already been sitting, you thought you might have lost your balance at the vertigo-inducing visual of the two-story viewport suddenly dropping from the ceiling to the forward wall. Instead, you simply allowed your head to drop into your hands, elbows resting on your knees, refusing to look.

Fennec offered you a sympathetic smile and assured you that you would get used to the ship’s…unique design. She also directed you to a yellow-painted ladder that led to the lower decks, which filled the long, narrow body of the ship now that it was “vertical.”

“It’s not much,” she said wryly, “But if you take it all the way to the bottom, there’s a ‘fresher you can use. Why don’t you go get cleaned up? You’ll want to get that dirt out of your burns before we try to treat them.”  

You glanced over at Din, reluctant to go off on your own and leave him alone when he clearly was not himself. However, rather than the nod of approval or the request to stay that you had been expecting, you found him standing with his back to you at the edge of the room, arms folded across his chest, visor fixed on the approaching blackness of space.

He was somewhere else entirely, and he was entirely unaware of you.

Swallowing against the lump that had formed in your throat, you sent a half-hearted smile in Fennec’s direction before rising slowly to your feet and descending the ladder.

As you would expect given the size and function of the vessel, the lower decks of the Firespray proved to be rather cramped and utilitarian, but you were, nonetheless, impressed by the variety of functions Boba Fett had managed to account for in such a restricted space. Directly below the navigation room, you found what appeared to be a multipurpose common area not dissimilar from the Razor Crest’s cargo hold. You spotted what looked like a kitchen counter complete with a double-burner hot plate that had been bolted to its surface, a wall lined from floor to ceiling with anonymous-looking cargo bins that had been lashed into place with tactical netting, and a little rusted table with two well-worn chairs mounted to the deck plating. The next level down featured nothing but a closed door behind which you assumed was Boba’s personal bunk, while the following level included six low-ceiling bounty cells arranged into two columns of three. The first one on the left had clearly already been claimed, as the cell door had been left open, and you spotted a small arsenal of blaster rifles and an open bag full of jet-black clothes stacked in the corner. The others remained closed, their insides visible only through the gaps between the bars that crossed the narrow doorways.

At the sight of them, you felt a rush of belated gratitude for the Razor Crest’s mobile carbonite freezer. You couldn’t imagine toting around multiple, conscious bounties at a time as this ship was designed to do, like some kind of deep space prison warden.

The ‘fresher Fennec had referred to was at the very bottom of the ladder, the last stop on the long way down. It was, somehow, even smaller than the one you had built on the Razor Crest, as this one featured only a durasteel privy and a single-person sonic shower stall, but in the state you were in, you were in no position to thumb your nose at it.

Your whole body ached as you stripped down to your skin, sore from the hurried climb down and then back up the side of the mountain, sore from the impact of the Razor Crest’s explosion, sore from your abrupt collision with the hard ground as the blast knocked you off your feet and into the air. The vibration of the sonic waves was soothing on your muscles, allowing them to finally unclench, though by the time the cycle ended, the angry, red flesh on your face, neck, and hands had become even more so. Though now clean and suitably sanitized, your skin felt more inflamed than ever, and it throbbed with the incessant stimulation of the sonics. You opted for leaving your boilersuit undone as you redressed, tying the sleeves around your hips so you didn’t have to drag the coarse fabric back over the protesting skin.

As you ascended the ladder to rejoin the group, you found yourself taken aback at the sight that greeted you in the common space. Stiff and rigid in his chair sat the broad, beskar silhouette of Din Djarin. On the little table before him sat an unlabeled, sealed jar about the size of his fist and a reflective silver packet you recognized as medical-grade disinfectant wipes. He glanced up at you as you came into view, saying nothing, but you dismounted from the ladder just the same.

“Din,” you acknowledged, surprise and something like relief coloring your tone. You hadn’t expected him to seek you out, not after how you had left things on Tython.

However, there was no warmth in his gaze, no softness in the way he turned to face you. The set of his shoulders remained tense, and his raspy voice held none of its characteristic fondness as he said without preamble, “Fett gave me some ointment for your burns. He says it’s not bacta, so the effects won’t be instantaneous, but it will get the job done.”

You blinked at him. “Oh. Right. Thank you.” You found yourself approaching him cautiously, as though he was a wild animal you were wary of spooking. It had been months since you had felt this kind of unease in his presence. It was wrong, on a fundamental level, and it left you feeling unmoored, adrift and painfully alone even though he sat only a handful of feet from you. “Din… Din, I’m so sorry – ”

But he did not allow you to finish offering your condolences. He broke your gaze instantly, angling his visor away from you and interjecting, “No. Don’t apologize.” Gesturing toward the other rickety chair at the table beside him, he added, in a tone that brooked no further argument, “Sit. I’ll help you put it on.”

You drew your lower lip between your teeth, chastened, and did so without protest, watching as he removed a couple of those disinfectant wipes from their package and used them to wipe down his leather gloves. The wipes came away dusty and stained and left the faint scent of antiseptic behind, burning your nostrils. Unscrewing the lid from the jar of ointment, Din dipped his first two fingers into the oily salve, streaking the dark orange leather with its residue.

You frowned at that, taken aback. “You sure you want to get that all over your gloves? You could just take them off.”

The Mandalorian shook his head sharply, the dim light reflecting off his helmet. “Not here.”

Ah. You should have known. Even just that small scrap of skin was too much exposure, too much vulnerability on this unfamiliar ship with its unfamiliar crew. Internally, you mourned any potential glimpse of his body you might have hoped to see on this journey. You doubted he would even be removing any of his armor pieces for any longer than it would take to use the sonic shower until you arrived on Nevarro.

He gestured for you to lean forward in your seat, and you obliged, allowing him to begin swiping the thick salve across the burns on your face. He did so silently, not even his breathing audible through his vocoder, and though his touch was gentle, he felt to you like he was a million miles away, as inaccessible as the other side of the galaxy.

“We’re going to find him, Din,” you murmured, eyebrows drawn inward in sympathy.

His reply was quick, cold. “Don’t. Please.”

You swallowed, feeling the stretch of the scorched skin of your neck and wincing slightly. “Okay. We don’t have to talk about it.”

“No, we don’t.”

Stifling a sigh, you continued, “Can you at least…tell me how you’re feeling right now? If there’s anything I can do to help?”

Din’s fingers paused at the hollow of your throat, having moved on from your face, and he hit you with a stare so impenetrable, so stern and yet so detached that you felt your heartrate spike with anxiety under his touch. The man looking back at you through his visor was as much a stranger to you as he had been all those months ago when he had first clapped you in binder cuffs, and you swore a part of your heart withered in your chest.

“Okay. Understood.”

He finished applying your ointment in utter silence, moving on from your neck to your chest, then from your chest to your hands. The familiar touch of his gloves on your skin felt alien to you now, and although the warmth of him was pleasant, and he was never rough with you, somehow this almost clinical approach was more disquieting than comforting. By the time he completed his task and began wiping down his gloves and resealing the ointment jar, your stomach had tied itself in knots so tight you felt nauseous, and you found it difficult to breathe.

Sliding the jar across the table to you, he said, “You’ll need to reapply twice a day until we get to Nevarro. Should be all healed up by then.”

You nodded your understanding and accepted the container, feeling more than a little lost.

After a beat too long of tense silence, Din rose to his feet. “You should get some sleep.”

“Do you…want to join me?” A spark of hope made its way into your voice, but you knew the moment the words left your mouth that they were foolish.

“I’m fine,” he replied curtly.

He wasn’t fine. He wasn’t. Neither of you were, not after everything that had just happened, not after all of the ways in which the last few hours had gone so horribly, disastrously wrong. Beloved ship gone, beloved child gone, hurt and exhausted and broken. He wasn’t fine.

“You’re not,” you snapped, feeling anger begin to broil in your gut at his determined detachment, his forced distance.

“I’m not bleeding, am I?”

You clenched your teeth against a growl of frustration. “You’re going to need your rest.”

“I have the whole flight to rest.”

“Din.”

“Cyare.” He held your gaze steadily, not rising to meet your level of ire, not moving an inch. “Go to sleep. I’ll be here when you wake up.”

Gods damn him.

“…Fine.” With a defeated sigh, you rose to your feet, suppressing a groan at the stretch of your weakened muscles. You found yourself suddenly hesitant to allow him to see your pain, and you knew you wouldn’t be seeking out his assistance with your burn ointment for the remainder of the trip. Crossing the narrow room to the ladder once more, you offered him one final brush of your hand against his pauldron, fingertips catching on the outline of his Mudhorn signet. “I love you, Din.”

The Mandalorian sighed deeply at that, his chin falling to his chest as his tense shoulders dropped. “Good night, cyare.”

You chose the bounty cell across from Fennec’s, crawling into the narrow bunk as exhaustion suddenly weighed heavily on your aching body. And if you permitted yourself a few tears as you curled up alone under a threadbare blanket, dampening the pillow beneath your cheek, it hardly mattered. No one was there to witness them anyway.

---

When you woke several hours later, you found that while your muscles felt somehow worse than they had the day before, the burns on your skin had already begun to heal. Making your way down to the ‘fresher was a chore, your limbs feeling weak and gelatinous, but as you applied a thin layer of ointment to your face and neck in the mirror, you swore you could see the dry, scaly skin soaking up the greasy substance, calming the redness and easing the inflammation. You were even able to pull your rumpled boilersuit all the way up today, the abrasive fabric nowhere near as irritating against your neck and hands as it had been the day before.

It took you longer than you would like to admit to climb back up the ladder. Your arms and legs trembled by the time you reached the deck with the makeshift mess hall, and you determined that you would pause there and catch your breath before making your way up to the navigation room. However, as you stumbled off of the ladder to lean against the nearest bulkhead, the metallic sound of a closing cabinet door caught your attention. Whirling around, you found Fennec Shand, already dressed for the day in her sleek black and orange tactical gear, standing at the counter. She had a worn-looking steel mug in one hand and a tall, unlabeled cannister in the other, and she looked as though you had caught her in the middle of something.

She inclined her head at you in acknowledgement, offering you a small smile. “Good morning. You’re looking better.”

You dragged yourself away from the bulkhead, standing on unsteady legs. “Thanks. That ointment Boba gave me is powerful stuff.”

“Well, if anyone would know about burn treatment, it’s him,” she replied wryly. “I was just about to make myself a cup of caf. Can I get you one?”

What had that meant, Boba knowing about burn treatments? You would be lying if you said you hadn’t noticed the uneven texture of his skin, the slight discoloration that stretched from his forehead to the top of his bald head. Burn scars, perhaps? They looked old, long since healed, so you hadn’t given them any thought when you had noticed them the day before, but now you wondered whether the ointment he had lent you was something he had concocted himself, rather than just choosing to stock such a thing in his first aid supplies.

Before you could think to ask further, you realized that Fennec was waiting on a response from you, and you startled back to yourself. “Oh, you don’t have to,” you said.

“Please, I insist.” Reaching into one of the cabinets below the counter, she pulled out a second mug and got to work assembling two cups of the dark, bitter beverage. “Have a seat.”

“Okay. Thank you.” Gingerly, conscious of your weakened muscles, you lowered yourself into one of the two chairs at the little table, and a companionable silence settled over the room. The other woman’s movements were even and methodical as she scooped generous helpings of the powder concentrate from the cannister into the two waiting mugs. A kettle of water steamed on the surface of the two-burner cooktop you had noticed the night before, and once she was satisfied with the temperature, she removed it from the heat, pouring a measure into each mug.

Although you had hardly known her for more than a day, you didn’t find the quiet uncomfortable or awkward in any way. Rather, it was nice to be in the company of another person and feel no pressure whatsoever to strike up a conversation. She seemed perfectly content in the silence, and there was an air about her that you found soothing. She felt…steady. Competent. Safe. After the events of the last day, it was a welcome reprieve.

As she handed you one of the steel mugs, now full to the brim with steaming brown liquid, you found yourself saying, “You know, I wanted to…thank you. For helping me yesterday. And for agreeing to help us go after Grogu.”

Fennec slid into the other seat across from you and propped her elbows up on the table, bringing her own mug to her lips. “We keep to our word. We agreed to protect him in exchange for Boba’s armor, but we failed to do that on Tython.” Something that looked suspiciously like regret shined in her dark eyes. “Until we can live up to our end of the bargain, we’re at your disposal.”

You nodded, opting to study the furls of steam pouring from your cup rather than meet that empathetic expression. That was what you had gathered from the conversation yesterday – that the familiar green armor you had seen the older man wearing had, indeed, come from the armaments storage on the Razor Crest, that it had, indeed, belonged to Boba Fett. You couldn’t help but respect the commitment the two of them were showing to this bargain they had made with Din. If you had been in their position and you had witnessed the person you were charged with protecting being kidnapped by an Imperial light cruiser, you weren’t certain you would have been as conscientious.

After all, what could two Mandalorians, a sharpshooter, and an engineer hope to accomplish against such a warship?

“You know, I saw the way you put yourself between him and those troopers, up on that henge,” Fennec recalled, pulling you out of your own musings. “You’re very brave.”

You felt your eyebrows raise to meet your hairline, scoffing. “Mando is brave. I was terrified.”

“I know. I could tell.” The other woman smirked and took a sip of her caf. “But you did it anyway. As far as I’m concerned, that’s the definition of bravery.”

You waved the compliment away, feeling your cheeks burn and your tender skin prickle. “Well, luckily, no one ever made it up there until after I was gone. Doubt I would have lasted long if any of those troopers made it past you guys.”

“I take it you’re not exactly experienced in combat?”

Returning her smirk, you shook your head. “Not at all. I could count on one hand the number of times I’ve even held a blaster.”

“And hand-to-hand?” Something like concern tightened the corners of her eyes, and you struggled to maintain eye contact with her suddenly sharp gaze.

“Never. I’m an engineer.” You shrugged, trying not to let on just how inadequate this conversation was making you feel. “I’m a fixer, not a fighter.”

Fennec’s reply was quick, almost as though it had been rehearsed, like it was something she had said often. “You don’t have to be a fighter to learn how to defend yourself.”

She wasn’t wrong, you supposed, but that feeling of inadequacy deepened in your chest all the same. This situation with the Storm Troopers, with Grogu – it reminded you of why Din had been so insistent when you accepted the position on the Razor Crest that you shore up your combat skills, why he had demanded to train you with a blaster. He led a dangerous life; both Fennec and Boba clearly did, too. You, on the other hand, had never even left the star system in which you were born until you were well into your adulthood, until you had taken it upon yourself to sneak your way out. You were no stranger to a little risk taking, but what these people did, the lives they had found themselves living – it was on a completely different level. You had never felt so woefully unprepared.

Before you could come up with a suitable response, the sound of heavy boots on metal rungs echoed through the room, and a pair of long, armored legs appeared on the ladder, climbing down from the navigation room above. Silver, you noticed quickly, not green. Din. Your eyes went to his face instinctually, drawn to him in a way you couldn’t have prevented even if you had tried, and as though he could feel your gaze on him, he turned slightly, pausing his descent a handful of rungs above the mess hall floor.

You caught a glimpse of your own reflection in his ink-black visor, your eyes wide, your injuries still more visible than you would like, marring your forehead, your nose, your cheeks. Tension stretched between you, thick and palpable, and somehow you knew then that he hadn’t been coming down to look for you. In fact, he probably hadn’t intended to run into you at all, though in a ship this size, you wondered how he thought he was going to accomplish that.

You forced your expression into some semblance of a smile, but the words to invite him to join you died on your tongue as he gave you and Fennec both a stiff, silent nod then continued down the ladder. Your heart sank at the clear dismissal, all of the anxiety and the uncertainty and the hurt from the night before surging back to the forefront of your mind, and you swallowed against a sudden lump in your throat.

“Something on your mind?” Fennec asked after a beat.

Sighing, you raised your mug and took a deep drink, willing the caf to seep into your bloodstream, to fortify you against the abrupt wave of emotional exhaustion Din’s arrival and immediate departure had triggered.

“He never went to bed last night, did he?”

The other woman shook her head, a sympathetic downturn quirking the corners of her mouth. “No, I don’t think so. I know that after you went to sleep, he spent some time talking with Boba in the cockpit, but by the time I went to turn in, he was in the navigation room, staring out the viewport. When I came up this morning, he hadn’t moved an inch.”

“Dank farrik.” You scrubbed your hands over your face, immediately wincing as you disturbed the still-healing wounds on your skin. “I hate seeing him like this.”

“Mando is a man of action. Sitting on his hands, stuck in hyperspace? Doesn’t really seem like his style.” Fennec leaned back in her chair and downed the remainder of her cup in one swallow. “Though I’m sure you know that better that me.”

“Yeah. It’s something he and I have in common, actually,” you confessed. “Neither of us do well without something to keep us busy. Even in the best of circumstances.”

“Well, you’ve got almost a week before we get to Nevarro.” Rising to her feet, the older woman offered you a dry smile. “I’m sure you’ll find something to keep yourself occupied in the meantime.”

You huffed a laugh through your nose at that. “If you see me starting to climb the walls, you’ll know what happened.” Raising your mug in her direction, you added, “Thank you again. For the caf.”

“Anytime.” With an easy grace, she swung one of her long legs up onto the closest ladder rung, hooking the shallow heel of her knee-high boot around the metal rod. “Try to take it easy today. You got the kark beat out of you less than 12 hours ago. You’re allowed to take a break.”

An unexpected wave of emotion swelled in your chest, chief among them being an immediate fondness that warmed you from the inside out. You were going to be fast friends with Fennec, you could already tell.

“I will,” you promised.

---

By day three of your journey, you were dangerously close to making good on your threat of climbing the walls.

Your body was slowly recovering from the impact of the explosion, your muscles and joints feeling less like you had run headlong into a duracrete wall every day and your burns steadily receding with every application of Boba’s ointment. As relieved as you were for the improvements and the promise that you would soon be back to normal, you found that the better you felt, the more difficult it became to tolerate the extended period of inactivity. The more the trauma of your body healed, the more the trauma in your mind made itself known.

The image of that red laser burst streaking through the atmosphere was burned into the backs of your eyelids. The ruthless way it tore through the Razor Crest, the way the blast had momentarily deafened you as it flung you off your feet, the helplessness and the disorientation that followed. The smoking crater it left behind, the way you were certain your heart bore a matching scar as you watched the only real home you had known in your adult life go up in flames.

And Grogu.

Stars, Grogu.

You had been preparing yourself for the eventuality of saying good-bye to him ever since Din had revealed the boy’s Jedi origins. But you hadn’t been prepared for this – to know that the people who had taken him intended to do him harm, to be powerless to stop them. And now to not know where he was, to not know if he was hurting, if he was afraid, if he was even still alive. You couldn’t allow yourself to think on it for too long. If you did, you would surely fall apart.

You thought it might have been easier to cope if you did not feel as though you were doing so on your own. As it was, even days later, Din had hardly spoken more than a few words to you. He hadn’t been outright hostile, nor had he given any indication that he was angry with you for any reason. However, he had refused every attempt you had made to connect with him; every well-meaning question after his wellbeing or offer of dinner or even a shared cup of caf had been turned down, and although he had been sleeping in the same bunk as you, he had taken to do so in alternating shifts so that by the time you were ready to turn in for the night, he was only just waking.

You were certain that you would have felt less lonely had you actually been alone, and you would have given anything for someone to put a hydrospanner or a fusion cutter in your hands and give you something else to occupy your thoughts.

But this wasn’t your ship. It wasn’t even Din’s ship. So there you were, worry eating away at the lining of your stomach, mind racing and yet somehow numb, sitting on your ass in the navigation room with nothing to do. Again.

“You’re sighing.”

Fennec’s dry voice pulled you from your thoughts, and you glanced over at where she sat studying some star chart or another at the console to your right. She faced away from you, the streaking blue and white lights of hyperspace illuminating the complex twists of her long, black braid, but you could tell from the tense set of her shoulders that she was growing annoyed.  

“Sorry,” you replied meekly, feeling yourself flush. You needed to get ahold of yourself. Sitting on your own for so long in silence was only making the situation inside your mind worse. Fennec had been more than kind to you since you had departed Tython; she didn’t deserve to be on the receiving end of your melancholy.

However, after quiet once again descended on the Firespray, you couldn’t seem to stop yourself from slipping back into the same state. Grogu, Din. Grogu, Din. Over and over, in a never-ending spiral with no way out, no way to break the surface, to breathe. You felt helpless. Useless. Alone.

A sigh slipped from your lips before you could smother it, and then Fennec was closing down her program and spinning around in her seat.

“All right, stand up.”

You startled, cursing yourself at the dark flash of aggravation in the older woman’s eyes. “Oh, kriff, I’m sorry. I’ll shut up – I promise.”

But she wasn’t having any of your empty promises today. “Stand. Up,” she repeated, her sharp tone brooking no room for argument. You were on your feet in an instant, aware for perhaps the first time that this woman was lethal – a master assassin and a deadly sniper, someone who commanded respect with both her actions and her demeanor. She had been kind to you, yes, but you didn’t savor the idea of testing her patience any more than you already had.

“What are we doing?” you asked, tentative.

Closing the distance between you in a handful of long strides, Fennec beckoned to you with both hands, gesturing at her own chest. “Try and punch me,” she said.

Your eyebrows shot up, and your jaw dropped open dumbly. You were sure you had misunderstood. “What?”

“You heard me. Try and punch me.”

“Fennec – ”

She advanced another step toward you, her gaze hard, and you stumbled back despite yourself, feeling a rush of intimidation flood your system. “You told me you’re woman of action. That you’re an engineer, a fixer. But there’s nothing we can do for the kid until we get to Nevarro, and Mando won’t let you put him back together right now. I’ve watched you try for days, and it’s going nowhere. So instead of focusing on them, you’re going to focus on you.”

“By punching you?” You could feel a wave of defensiveness rising at her words, but you couldn’t deny that she was right. There was nothing for you to fix here, and it was not-so-subtly driving you mad. But punching her? You would never. You wouldn’t stand a chance!

“Yes. You’re feeling restless? Helpless? Afraid? Then do something about it.” She took yet another step toward you, driving you across the deck until the backs of your knees hit the next chair over. “You need someplace to put all that energy? Put it right here.” She patted her chest, the sound muffled by her leather gloves and padded jacket. “Let me teach you how to fight.”

Her words had you taken aback, but you couldn’t deny the wisdom of them. Perhaps at one point, Din had planned to teach you himself, but clearly, he was too preoccupied at the moment to do so. You had nothing else to occupy your time for the remainder of the journey; your daily routine of babying your injuries and moping around the ship wasn’t doing anyone any favors, least of all you. And no one could deny that in an expedition to track down a child that had been kidnapped by a fully-armored Imperial light cruiser, you were far and away the weakest link of your band of misfits. If you were being given the opportunity to shore up those skills, even in the smallest of ways, you would be foolish to turn it down.

Steeling your nerves, you nodded once to Fennec. “Okay. Where do we start?”

The older woman smirked, pleased, and brought her fists up in a ready stance. “Put your hands up, girl. Let’s see what we’re working with.”

You took a brief moment to take in the angle of her body, the way she had spread her feet apart, one in front of the other, the position of her fists up near her face. You tried to emulate her as best as you could, and then, after a deep, steadying breath, you swung.

---

Your muscles were sporting a new kind of soreness as you emerged from the ‘fresher later that evening, hair long and loose around your shoulders, boilersuit hanging onto your hips with the sleeves framing your legs. Your eyes were heavy, exhaustion weighing on your joints, but it was a good kind of tired – the kind that felt particularly satisfying after a long day of physical activity. You were almost looking forward to finally collapsing on the thin mattress of your bunk; you knew you would pass out the moment your head hit the pillow. However, just as you wrapped your palms around the ladder to climb up and do just that, a familiar pair of brown boots appeared above you, and Din dropped the last few rungs onto the deck below.

“Din,” you acknowledged, surprise coloring your tone. “Hi.”

He turned to you then, extending his leather-clad hands to you without preamble. “Let me see your hands.”

You frowned in confusion. “What?”

But the bounty hunter did not repeat himself, nor did he wait for further reply. Instead, he simply snatched each of your hands from down at your sides and brought them up to his eye-level. You winced at the rough handling, your hands more than a little tender after Fennec’s lessons, but if he noticed your discomfort, he didn’t let on. He simply studied your fingers in the dim light, running the pads of his thumbs across the ridge of your knuckles.

“No split skin. Nothing looks broken,” he murmured, voice low and raspy, almost as though speaking to himself rather than to you. “A bit of bruising and swelling, but no more than I’d expect for a novice.” He dropped your hands and took a step back out of your space. “Looks like Fennec is a good teacher.”

“She is,” you replied. You cradled your fists close to your body, feeling suddenly, inexplicably self-conscious at his cool appraisal. That was the most he had spoken to you in days, the first time he had touched you since he had helped you with your burn ointment that first night, and the lack of warmth was almost more disquieting than the avoidance.

“I did say I wanted to work on your combat skills,” he said, matter-of-fact. “If you wanted to learn how to fight, cyare, all you had to do was ask.”

You drew back sharply at that, feeling something acidic and bitter begin to roil in the pit of your stomach. “Really?” you hissed acerbically. “How would that have gone, exactly? You’ve been avoiding me for days, Din. You haven’t hardly said two words to me since we jumped to hyperspace.”

The Mandalorian cocked his helmet at you, taking a step back in your direction, then another, driving you back toward the ‘fresher door. Had your hackles not already been up, you might have found the way he crowded into your space intimidating, but as it was, you were completely undaunted. You kept your eyes on his, jutting your chin our defiantly as he rumbled, “Forgive me if I haven’t exactly been in the mood to chat. I’ve been a bit preoccupied, if you haven’t noticed.”

“Oh, I’ve noticed. You’ve been sulking so loudly, I couldn’t not notice.”

“Sulking?” His modulated voice had taken on a dangerous edge, and something deep inside you, something animal, suddenly registered Din as a threat. It was a side of him you had rarely seen, something usually reserved for quarries, and it made a primal part of your psyche crack open an eye, watching your exchange with lazy interest.

“Yes. Sulking.”

For a moment, the bounty hunter appeared at a loss for words. You could hear his breathing through his helmet, so close and yet refusing to touch you, hands balled into fists down by his hips, also very carefully not touching you. But then, just as you were sure he was about to snap back with a quip of his own, he released a weighty sigh, spun around, and headed back in the direction of the ladder.

“Din, wait – ” Your hand flew out to snag on the sleeve of his flight suit, wrapping your fingers him somewhere between his pauldron and his vambrace. “I’m sorry. I know I can’t imagine how you’re feeling right now.” The words poured from your mouth before you could stem them, everything you had been wanting to say to him for days all bubbling to the surface at once. There was no holding them back any more. “Losing the Crest, losing Grogu, not knowing where he is, not knowing if he’s safe – ”

“Don’t.” Din pulled his arm from your grip, but still, he didn’t retreat any further, and in spite of his warning, you took it as a sign to keep going.

“I don’t want to fight with you, Din. I want to help you. Please. Please just let me help you.” Thick, hot emotion rose in your throat, flushing your face, pricking the backs of your eyes with the burn of unwanted tears. “You don’t have to bear this on your own. We’re in this together, okay? Please don’t shut me out anymore. I…” You hiccupped, a single tear breaking free of your wet eyelashes, spilling down your cheek. “I love you.”

For a long, tense moment, he said nothing. He continued to face away from you, though now rather than looking ahead toward the ladder, he stared at the deck, chin pressed to his chest, broad, proud shoulders hunched inward on himself as though to shield himself from your fraught confession. Almost too softly for his helmet vocoder to pick up, he whispered, “I know, ner kar’ta. I love you, too.”

Another tear slipped down your face at the endearment, the gentle, lilting syllables of Mando’a settling over your shoulders like a warm blanket.

Ner kar’ta.

My heart, you recalled, and you swore the sound of the words made your soul ache.

And then you watched as all of the softness and vulnerability seemed to wash away, the Mandalorian drawing himself back up to full height, straightening his shoulders and his gaze right before your eyes.

“Get some ice on your hands before your next sparring session,” he said, once again cool and detached. “It will help with the swelling.”

In two long strides, he was back at the foot of the ladder, and that ache in your soul became a physical pain, one that had you clutching your hands over your chest, pressing on your breastbone, willing it not to split apart under your palms.

In two short minutes, he was gone, and you lost the battle with the remainder of your tears.

---

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