Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

His phone is ringing when he unlocks the door to his apartment.

Ben looks at the offending object, which is currently blaring a song (a term he uses loosely in this context) called Telephone by someone named Lady Gaga - not his first choice of ringtone, but that’s apparently what friends are for - and then down at his sodden clothing.

His run had been great, leaving him weary and pleasantly aching and dripping with sweat and now that real life once again comes banging on his door he can’t help but be slightly dismayed.

Today Ben has gone the extra mile (and then some) in an effort to outrun his problems, and while he’s old enough to know that that never works, he’s also young enough to still occasionally try.

As it is - and no matter how far he runs - his job is still stressful (if, admittedly, better than it was a year ago), his mother is still a menace (not insignificantly contributing to problem number one) and his love life is still a mess (which, ironically, contributes to problem number two), and the weekend ahead is going to be boring and lonely and interminably long (which could be made better by fixing problem number three.)

It’s like his life is a rube-goldberg machine for emotional pain.

But right now all that is rendered somewhat distant by the post-run endorphin-high and he feels tired and sweaty and everything hurts and Ben really just wants to take a long shower.

Lady Gaga (what kind of a name is that anyway?) seems to disagree with his plans as launches into another refrain and Ben eyes his phone balefully before picking up.

It’s probably just work, asking him to come in on a Saturday and truthfully Ben dreads the weekend ahead enough that he might just say yes.

“Solo?”

“Hey.”

It is not work.

Ben’s heart stutters, because as of late he needs to brace himself a little before he can talk to her without making a fool of himself.

“Hey,” he answers, more softly now.

“Ben. Hey.” She chuckles nervously. It doesn’t make the weird feeling in his chest any better. “I think I said that already.”

“You did.”

“I was afraid you weren’t home.”

“I wasn’t. Went for a run.”

“Oh, I hope I didn’t…?”

“You’re not interrupting anything, Rey. What’s up?”

“Oh,” she says again, in that melodic voice of hers. She sounds troubled, and one part of Ben’s mind is already drawing up a battle plan for what to do if she’s in trouble, whereas the more primal part of him wants to just break some bones and ask questions later.

“Are you alright?”

“What? Yeah,” she laughs reedily. “I’m fine. Uh…listen, Maz has offered to take Noah for the day and I feel like I haven’t been out of the house since March and even that was just because Noah had his tetanus shot, which… you know, potentially life saving but not exactly riveting stuff and… Ben, I feel like if I don’t get out of the city for a few hours I am going to combust. Please please please say we can go for a hike?”

There’s a part of Ben that’s hardwired to never say no to Rey, even when he’s dripping and aching and all he wants to do is take a long shower and eat his weight in lucky charms.

“Of course.”

“Really?”

“Yeah,” Ben tugs his clammy tanktop away from his chest and grimaces when the fabric only gives with a wet squelch. “Just let me jump in the shower and I’ll meet you outside of your place in thirty minutes?”

“You are literally the best.”

“Yeah?”

“The bestest.”

Ok, so what if that makes his heart flutter? That’s not a crime. He should know, he’s a lawyer.

“Feel free to tell me more.”

“Don’t push it, Solo.”

He laughs, even though a part of him wishes that she would, actually, tell him just how good he is for her. In great detail. Every day for the rest of their lives.

“Ah, well,” he finally says, “it was worth a shot. I’ll see you in a bit, Rey.”

When he turns onto her street, Rey is already waiting at the curb, a ratty backpack by her feet and squinting down the road until she spots his car. She’s wearing an emerald-green t-shirt, skinny jeans, and a pair of sneakers that Ben would have thrown out months ago if they were his. It’s not exactly ideal clothing for hiking, but then again it’s not like they’re planning on scaling Mount Everest.

She’s bouncing on the balls of her feet, which is frankly adorable, and her hair is up in her customary three little buns. Which is also adorable, really.

But then again… few things about her aren’t.

“Hey,” Rey says again as she hops into his truck. Up close she’s even more gorgeous. Her hair is messy and a little curly, like she went to bed straight after her shower. The green shirt compliments the hazel of her eyes, which Ben anyway spends too much time thinking about. A stylized owl, the sort you’d usually find painted on the wall of a nursery, is printed across the front of the shirt and Ben has never wanted to be shitty clipart of a bird more in his entire life.

He does his level best to look at Rey’s eyes, rather than the owl’s, even though it’s a struggle. Her t-shirt strains across her chest, because now that she’s nursing her previously tiny breasts are plump and full and utterly delectable.

(Not that he's noticed.)

(Ok, he has noticed.)

(He is, objectively, going to hell.)

Rey’s smile is radiant as she clips on her seat belt and turns to him and she's sunshine and light and he loves her.

(Absolutely, without a doubt going to hell in a handbasket. She’s his best friend, for crying out loud. She has a kid. She has 99 problems and he doesn’t need to be one of them. Rey doesn’t need him to make everything more complicated than it already is.)

“So, where are we going?”

“Virdugo park,” Ben mumbles, eyes on the traffic to find a gap big enough for him to pull away from the curb. “Have you been?”

“Nope.” She scrunches her nose, and Ben really needs to stop thinking about how beautiful she is before the situation in his pants becomes a problem. “I don’t know if you noticed, but I don’t get out of the house a whole lot.”

Because of her kid - Noah - who’s absolutely adorable but also thirteen months old and because of her dead-beat ex, who is not in the picture anymore.

Ben had lov-

Ben had liked Rey from the moment he’d been introduced to her by their mutual friend Poe almost three years ago, but he had also hated her boyfriend at an inversely proportional rate and felt an immediate and all-consuming need to deposit Temmin ‘Snap’ Wexley in the dumpster behind the cantina. (Where he so very obviously belonged).

Alright, maybe Ben had been an angrier man back then. What of it?

But when Snap had vanished in a puff of hot air - like an exceptionally annoying vampire - the moment Rey announced that she was having a baby, Ben had been more than a little sad that he hadn’t followed through on the impulse that first day they’d met. On all his impulses, actually, especially the ones that involved dragging her into a dark corner and kissing her silly.

“It’s nice,” Ben says, while he tries to discreetly white-knuckle the steering wheel. He loves Noah, but he hates that Rey has to take care of him all on her own. “The elevation is minimal, but the parking space is near the river bed, and it’s quite the climb to get all the way to the top. And on a day like today the view should be spectacular.”

“Sounds like you’ve been?”

Ben shrugs.

“Dad and Chewie used to take me up there when I was little. I haven’t been in years. But it’s a mountain. I expect it hasn’t changed much.”

“No, mountains don’t really do that,” she says with a smile. “Must have been nice.”

Yes. One of the few nice memories that he has of Han. Ben glances over at Rey, and he can tell by her forlorn expression what she’s thinking about.

“Hey. You can take Noah up there, once he’s gotten the knack of walking without face planting every three steps.”

She’s still looking lost, so Ben forges on, maybe unwisely.

“I’ll come.”

Which sounds way too much like he’s expecting her to take him and only him and it’s not like he’s opposed, but as previously mentioned… Ben doesn’t want to make this any more complicated than it already is.

“Or Finn and Poe, I’m sure they’d love to come. They adore Noah.”

Rey chuckles bleakly.

“Then I’d just have to watch them make-out the entire time. No thank you.”

“How about Hux?”

“I don’t really picture him as the outdoorsy type?”

“True, Rose might have to threaten him a little.”

“A little?”

“A lot. Don’t think she’s not capable.”

“Oh, I know that she’s capable. I’m just not sure if Hux could survive in the wild.”

“True, he’d probably spontaneously develop an allergy to trees… or rocks.”

“Rocks?” Rey scrunches up her nose.

“Nothing is beyond him,” Ben says with a grin. “My point is: Noah will have so many uncles, he won’t even have time to miss anything.”

“I know,” Rey sighs. “I just… want him to have a dad, you know? A real father? With the way I grew up, I always wanted my own kids to have a proper family. Mom, dad, golden retriever and a minivan?”

“You forgot the picket fence.”

“That too, obviously.”

“Listen, Rey,” Ben swallows and dares to reach across the center console to touch her arm. “Your son has the best mom any child could ask for. He doesn’t need a dad.”

But, Ben thinks not for the first time, if the position is open he would not mind filling it. Among other things.

Rey sighs.

“I had no parents. Noah just has me.” Rey muses sadly. “It’s like there’s this curse hanging above my family.”

“Well, there’s an upwards trajectory,” Ben jokes.

“So maybe when his time comes, Noah will find a partner that doesn’t leg it at the first sign of trouble?”

“One would hope so, although, if the trend holds, your grandchildren will be in a polycule.”

“Would that be so bad?”

Ben laughs.

“No. It’s just that, by that logic, the phrase ‘it takes a village’ will take on a whole different meaning a few generations down.”

“The more the merrier?”

They’re both joking, but underneath all these quips, Rey is serious too. He can see it in her eyes.

“Yeah, sure it is,” he murmurs.

Rey nods and throws her head back with a groan.

“God, look at me, yammering on about my fucked-up love life again. You must be so sick and tired of it.”

“Nah, it’s fine.”

She rolls her head to give him a strained smile. Her small hand flexes in her lap, and Ben wants to find Snap Wexley and methodically break every single bone in his useless body.

It’s a recurring dream of his, one Ben has almost as often as the one where he’s the one who gets to change Noah’s nappies and wake up to Rey every morning for the rest of their lives.

Ben feels suddenly a lot less happy than he did a minute ago.

Because in the end, no matter which dream, he always wakes up.

Virdugo Park is exactly like Ben remembers it, even if the trees used to look a lot bigger as a regrettable, if inevitable, side effect of having grown two feet and a couple of inches since he last was here.

Rey is ahead of him, practically bouncing up the steep path, while Ben follows at a more sedate pace. It's not like he minds, because the view is spectacular, but also his glutes have been low-level cramping since they left the car an hour ago. He really should have done some stretching after his run.

Ben considers himself fit bordering on athletic - sport as a coping mechanism for work related stress, family drama, and sexual frustration will do that to a man - but this hike might not have been the wisest choice he's made.

Not that he's going to tell Rey any of that.

"How are we doing back there in the peanut gallery?"

Her smile is brighter than the sun as she skips backwards to look at him.

Yup. There is no way he's going to tell her just how much his calves ache.

"Fine. Just keeping an eye out for wildlife."

Rey falters.

"Are there bears up here?"

Woodpeckers. Rabbits. Maybe a deer if they’re lucky. Cute, fluffy things that would make Rey smile if she saw one. No bears that he’s aware of.

But this opportunity is too good to pass up.

"Loads. But I'm not worried."

"How come?" Rey’s eyes dart to the left and the right of the path, looking for wayward ursines, and Ben struggles to contain his smirk.

"Oh, I'm like 97% sure I can run faster than you."

"Just because you have stupidly long Sasquatch legs. A bear would probably think you're part of the scenery."

Ben laughs.

"But seriously,” Rey is biting her lower lip, which - if he’s honest - does things to Ben. “… are there bears?"

"Further up in the Appalachians, I think,” he mutters, subtly adjusting himself. “But not down here. Too many people, not enough privacy."

"We've literally not seen anyone," Rey grumbles.

"Might be too early."

Rey hums thoughtfully.

"I think I like it better this way."

"Alone, accompanied only by a cryptid and the looming fear of getting eaten by a bear?"

"When it's just the two of us." She sighs coming to a stop so that Ben can catch up with her. "I love the air. City air doesn't smell like this."

Rey closes her eyes and Ben, through sheer force of will, looks solely at her face as she inhales deeply.

"Love the breeze and that it's quiet. So tranquil. Like the light is more than just photons and electrons, but something I can touch,” she scrunches up her nose, eyes still closed and pointed skywards. “Good God, on a scale of 1-10, how naive did I just sound?" "

Ben might have been staring - possibly staring slack-jawed, which is even worse - at the play of shadows across her features, at the way her freckles seem to glow in the muted sunlight - which does look indeed like he could, if he wanted to, just lick it off her cheek like so much honey - and he quickly looks away pretending to adjust the straps of his backpack when her eyes suddenly open again.

"Adorable." He murmurs, the word slipping put before he can stop it and maybe, just maybe, there's a chance that she hasn't heard-

"That's not a number."

Nope. She heard. And now she's squinting at him.

"I just think it's cute," Ben says, trying to salvage the conversation. "Little city girl, afraid that the big bad wolf is going to get her."

"A minute ago it was bears I had to worry about." She sticks out her tongue at him and Ben wants to bite it. "You’re terrible. I just think this is nice. I haven't been in a proper forest since… actually I'm not sure I recall. A while ago. So don't make fun of me just because I'm enjoying the quiet."

"Good to just hear yourself for a little bit?"

He winces, because he can be such an ass, but Rey just nods, albeit a little mournfully.

"I'm going to sound like the worst human being, but sometimes it’s so loud at home. I can hardly hear myself think."

"Hey," Ben reaches out to touch her shoulder, "you're doing great, you know? You're a great mom and Noah is so lucky to have you.?"

"Aye, aye, sir." Rey gives him a smirking salute. "So, are we gonna climb this mountain or what?"

"It's barely a hill, actually."

"Ah ah… don't squash my budding sense of achievement, Solo."

"I stand corrected, this is definitely a mountain."

"Atta boy."

Ben Is about ready to eat his words when they reach the top over an hour later.

Actually, eating just about anything would be good at this point, even if it's humble pie.

No, that’s not true either. The thought of eating anything makes him feel queasy and slightly nauseous. Sweat is beading at his hairline and between his shoulder blades, even though the climb wasn’t strenuous at all. He recognizes these symptoms as the early stages of hypoglycemia, which is not good at all.

He should, in hindsight, probably have had that bowl of lucky charms.

Ben forces himself to ignore his roiling stomach to focus on Rey, who is looking out at the vista sprawled out in front of them with glowing eyes. The baby hairs that frame her face are dancing in the wind, her t-shirt is tight in all the right places, her smile is luminous, and there’s a little bit of sweat on her upper lip that he wants to lick despite his budding nausea. Even if he keels over right here and now and tumbles all the way down the hill to the car park, this will absolutely have been worth it.

"Wow, would you look at that? I can see all the way to the river. Is that New York over there?"

Ben squints against the sun. The ‘river’ (it’s really more of a stream), is probably one of the tributaries of the Solleu, and he’ll eat his shorts - don’t think of eating, Ben - if New York is actually visible from up here. Ben tries to remember the names of the towns that they drove past and comes up lacking.

"I’m not sure? We're like 30 miles from the city, I don't think you can see that far, even in this weather."

Rey turns from the view to critically survey the small plateau that they're on.

“And here I thought I was hiking with a native.”

“Hey,” Ben shrugs. “I used to know this crap, but the last time I was up here was like 20 years ago.”

“Right, sometimes I forget that you’re ancient.”

“You’re an inch away from being left alone on this hill.”

“Mountain.”

“My mistake.”

Rey laughs and leans against the railing, facing him.

"What was it like? Coming up here?"

"Still after the quintessential American dad experience?"

She shrugs.

"I might have to take notes. I’m sure there will be a test at some point."

Ben sighs. But he still answers her, because - as mentioned before - saying no to Rey just isn’t in his genetic makeup.

"Han wasn't always the best dad, you know?"

"Believe it or not, but you mentioned that once or twice."

One of their few points of contention. Ben sighs again.

"Han… he took me up here when things were bad at home. I didn't realize it at the time, I was too little, but I sort of figured it out later. Mom would… talk more than usual, and he’d talk less and less. And when it got too much he'd bring me up here and drink beers with Chewie, sometimes stronger stuff too, and we'd pretend to be smugglers, hiding from the law. My contraband was pinecones and interesting rocks.”

“Veritable treasures.”

“Priceless gemstones and rare spices from the east,” he laughs. “I bet mom still has a few of them. It was… pretty good, all things considered."

Rey has that far away look in her eyes that tells him she's thinking of her son and of the experiences she can’t give him. Ben wants to point out that she’s perfectly capable of coming up here and splitting a few beers with a friend - he knows the right man for the job too - but he suspects Rey doesn’t want to hear that right now.

"I know I said this before too, but if you ever wanna sue Snap, then I happen to know a good lawyer."

"It's not quite up your alley, Mr hotshot corporate lawyer?"

"I meant my mom. She's a lot scarier than me."

"Don't I know it." Rey mutters. Ben laughs at her petulant tone - Rey has nothing to fear from Leia, who wants her to date her son almost as much as the man in question - and he sways a little as his world suddenly tilts on its axis. Rey’s hand, small and calloused and surprisingly strong, shoots out to steady him. "Whoa. You're OK, big guy? Air too thin all the way up there?"

"I'm perfect."

"Sure you are," Rey says with an odd inflection, before she cocks her head at him. "No offense, but you look terrible. Pale. Well, paler than usual. Are you sure you're OK?"

Rey steps closer to touch his cheek - which is really no biggie between friends, but nuzzling into her palm definitely would be - and Ben freezes, afraid that he’ll give himself away.

Rey pulls her hand back and frowns.

"I don't think you're running a temperature. But maybe you're coming down with something?"

"My blood pressure might be low,” Ben clears his throat and wishes fervently that her small, hot hand was still on his cheek. “I technically haven’t had breakfast."

Her frown deepens.

"Define technically?” She says. “I thought you went for a run this morning?"

"Yeah, but then you called." He shakes his head when he sees her look of dismay and again the world goes blurry for a second. "I ate a banana and a bit of trail mix. I should be fine."

He isn’t. He knows it. Judging by the still deepening frown on Rey’s face, she knows it too.

“The one day I forget to pack snacks," Rey grouses, patting her pockets. "Damn it, Ben. I didn't even have chewing gum."

"You are such a mom."

"Apparently not."

"Don't worry about me, Rey. Seriously." He gives her his bestest, bravest smile. "If you feel guilty, you can always let me take you for dinner later. At the cantina, I know you haven't been in ages."

"Don't distract me with tacos, Solo. This is serious."

"As am I."

Please say yes.

"It's not like I can carry you if you faint on me."

"It's downhill, so you could always try dragging me by the ankle."

"Might scuff up your chest,” Rey says absentmindedly, still frowning up at him with a worried expression. “Not sure if I can risk that, it's your best feature."

Part of Ben wants to concentrate on the fact that Rey has noticed his chest - say 'thank you bench presses' - while the more survival oriented part of him wants to concentrate on not keeling over.

“Have you been noticing my chest, Niima?” Ben asks, and he must be feeling even more light-headed than he’d thought, because that’s absolutely an inside-voice sort of thought.

But Rey merely gives him one of her patented 1000 megawatt smiles.

“That’s a bit like asking me if I noticed the Statue of Liberty.”

Ben gulps.

Well, right back atcha, Niima.

The owl on the front of her shirt is giving him a disapproving look as his eyes dip lower for one delicious, absolutely ill-advised second.

“I’ll," Ben licks his lips hungrily, “I’ll keep that in mind, but only if you say yes to tacos."

"When have I ever not said yes to tacos?"

"Ok, I set the bar too low."

Rey laughs and punches him lightly in the chest that she apparently finds aesthetically pleasing, only to immediately grab onto his elbow when he sways.

"Christ, Ben, we need to get you off this mountain."

He wants her to enjoy the view and the air and the quiet that she's so very much earned, but his pulse is racing and just for once it's got nothing to do with the fact that Rey is touching him, so Ben has to reluctantly agree. Her day will be even more ruined if he faints up here and knocks himself unconscious.

"Yeah, right. Let's go. We can be back at the car in an hour and at the cantina in two.”

It becomes clear alarmingly quickly that Ben is probably not going to make it back to the car in an hour. Or in two hours. Or at all.

His pulse is thready and weak and he’s sweating all over, which is just unfair because somehow he also feels like he’s frozen to the bone. He shivers under his thin henley and fervently wishes he’d brought a jacket.

Rey is ahead of him, again skipping down the path, even though her previous cheerfulness has been replaced by frequent, anxious looks back at his stumbling form.

He’s ruined her day, just because he didn’t have the good sense to pack some food. All she asked was to get out of the city for a few hours and Ben can’t even get that right. It makes him want to cry. Rey is all that is good and light and he’s-

“Ben!”

He snaps out of his spiral of self-recrimination - top three symptoms of hypoglycemia, anyone? - to find that he’s knee-deep in the bushes lining the path, without the faintest idea of how he got there.

Rey is by his side in an instant, which is a blessing because Ben suddenly realizes that he is two heartbeats and a stiff breeze away from falling over like a freshly felled tree.

"Jesus, Ben, you're heavy. Don't hold back on my account."

"Sorry," he slurs as he sags against her.

Rey curses under her breath. Her body is small and hard against his flank as she ducks under his arm to lead him back to the path.

"Fuck, fuck fuck. Hey, stay with me big guy." Rey is gently urging him to the ground. Truthfully, it’s more of a controlled descent than sitting down, but it’s not like Ben can do anything about it. Currently he’s happy not to just fold over her shoulders like an accordion. There’s an awkward moment when her chest is right in his face - and future Ben will absolutely curse current, half-conscious Ben for not paying more attention - and then he’s sitting on the slightly damp, packed soil of the footpath .

"That’s it,” Rey murmurs. “Your blood is having a tough enough time reaching your thick skull without having to travel all the way to the upper stratosphere."

Ben is vaguely aware that he’s leaning against a tree, but he doesn't entirely remember what happened between him standing knee-deep in the underbrush and Rey sinking to her knees next to him.

She looks so worried and he wants to tell her that he's fine, really, but all that comes out if his mouth is a slurred groan.

Rey curses again, even more colourfully than before.

"Ben? Hey, Ben, stay with me, ok?" She cups his cheek and where normal-blood sugar Ben had the good sense not to nuzzle into her palm, this hypoglycemic version of him knows no such qualms.

Her fingers are so soft against his stubby cheek that he wants to sigh… or purr.

" 'm fine," he finally manages to say.

"Yeah, sure. You're a picture of health."

Ben nods, even if it's just an excuse to rub more of his face against her palm.

"This is silly," Rey huffs. "I got food."

"Huh?” He blinks sluggishly, eyes falling to her discarded backpack. “But you said…"

“No, no,” her hand pushes against his cheek, forcing him to look at her and not at the ground. “here.”

And then Rey shows him.

"Right here," Rey murmurs, withdrawing her hand from his cheek, which causes him to whine pathetically, and her face flames scarlet as she cups her breast. “You can have this.”

Oh.

Oh.

Oh dear God.

Ben should probably say something.

yespleaseohdeargodthankyouyes

No. Not that.

He blinks sluggishly and forces those thoughts to the back of his brain. The dizziness is making it hard enough to think, even without all the blood that is currently merrily surging towards his cock.

“You can't be serious… "

His mouth is dry and he faintly wonders if that's another symptom of low blood sugar, or if that's just a side effect of how - inappropriately, terribly, stupidly - turned on he is.

"I am, actually."

"That's not food."

"Hey, my son would beg to disagree."

"You're acting like you're offering me a snickers."

His panic has given him the illusion of a second wind and he tries to get up, but as soon as he tries to rise the splotchy blackness behind his eyes is back with a vengeance.

Ben groans and flops back down.

Rey touches his shoulder as if to steady him. Her thigh is against his own, her other hand rests on his knee. Every point of contact is deliciously warm.

"I don't see why you're acting so weird."

Because you're offering me to suck your tits. You're perfect divine tits that I have been dreaming about for months. And, sweetheart, if I put my mouth on any part of your body, how am I ever going to stop?

All of that would be spectacularly stupid to say, so he doesn’t.

"Really? You don't?"

His attempt at levity falls flat when Rey just looks at him with a deep crease on her forehead.

"It's just milk, Ben. Babies drink it all the time."

"I am definitely not a baby, Rey” Ben scoffs. “Christ. I mean… I'm not complaining. I just… I'm sure it tastes great. Not that I think about it. But it… shit. Fuck. Rey… you know what I mean. This isn't about what it is, it's about who we are."

Now it's her turn to arch her pretty eyebrows.

"A man who very selflessly drove his best friend out to the mountains and is now paying the price and his best friend, who happens to be a woman, who happens to be lactating, who has it in her power to help her very best friend in the whole wide world?"

Best friend.

Ben bites the inside of his cheek until he tastes copper.

Right.

Because that's the crux of it.

How deep down the friendzone do you have to be to get breast milk fresh from the teat and it's 'no biggie'?

"Rey…" He tries again, even though he knows the expression on her face. It's the same one she gets when she sees a nice piece of furniture by the curb that is absolutely too big to carry up three flights of stairs to her flat, or when she wants pizza at 2am, or when Ben has said something stupid about British snack foods. It's Rey's 'you're not going to change my mind' expression.

"Don't be silly, Ben. It's not like I can carry you back to the car."

She has a point. He hates when she has a point.

"If you…" he tries weakly. "If you give me a few minutes I'll be good to go."

Rey gives him the sort of pitying look that's reserved for idiots, small children, and Poe.

"I don't really see that happening."

She leans back, away from him, taking her warmth with her, and rucks up her shirt before he can protest any further. The bra underneath is not what Ben would consider sexy lingerie and it looks a lot more complicated than a bra has any business looking.

“It’s a nursing bra," Rey says, sounding a little self-conscious. She needn't be, really. She'd look perfect in a length of sackcloth.

Ben bites his lip. He just knows that he’s been staring. But how can he not, when this literal goddess is kneeling before him, shirt rucked up under her armpits and miles and miles of freckled skin exposed and so so close that he can smell the faint strawberry scent of her body wash. And her breasts right there, separated by nothing more than the thin fabric of a weird bra. He can see her nipples, for crying out loud.

More importantly: He is going to suck on her nipples.

The panic rises again, like the tide, and Ben digs his fingers into his thigh to push it back down. Because, apparently, this is actually happening.

The day could not get more strange if it tried, and Ben suspects that it’s already trying quite hard.

“I know it's not sexy...” Rey adds with a small smirk that Ben doesn’t notice on account of not looking at her face. And then she unhooks the front of the complicated looking bra, exposing one of her breasts.

His throat may have been dry before, but now he’s suddenly parched.

“Rey…” he rasps. Her nipple, darker than he expected and engorged and the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen in his wretched life, pebbles in the cool air.

“Ben,” Rey says, and her voice is low and urgent. “Let me help you.”

His body is slack when she grabs his shoulder, pulling him forward until his face is level with her swollen nipple. Absent-mindedly he wonders if he’s hallucinating. That’s a symptom of extreme hypoglycemia, isn’t it?

“Don’t be afraid. Just take what you need,” Rey coos and tugs at him again.

Ben has little choice but to close the last few inches remaining between them. Her skin is hot and impossibly soft against his lips, except the tip of the nipple itself, which is a hard little knot. Without his permission his tongue swirls around the peak, chasing the taste of her skin.

Rey makes a small sound and her hand fists in the hair at the nape of his neck.

“You need to, ah, suck.”

Is her breathing heavier?

Ben can’t tell anymore. All he knows is that his heart is racing and his mouth is on her tit and if he doesn’t get to truly taste her he will surely die.

So he wraps his mouth around her more firmly and gives her a tentative, gentle suck.

Nothing happens, no milk spills into his mouth like he expected, but Ben does hardly notice, too engrossed in the feeling of her silky skin against his lips. He sucks again, slightly harder, and Rey jolts and groans.

Ben immediately pops off her nipple and pulls away to look at her.

“Am I hurting you?”

Her eyes find his, slightly unfocused, pupils blown and dark, and she works her mouth a few times before she shakes her head.

“No no, just sensitive.” She smiles faintly. “Noah doesn't take any prisoners when he feeds. You can… you know… harder. I’m used to it.”

Her hand, still on the nape of his neck, pulls him closer again and he goes oh so willingly.

Ben swirls his tongue around her peak again, it's wrong and he's disgusting for wanting this so much, but he can't help himself, before he opens his mouth further to pull as much of her breast into his mouth as he can and starts sucking hard. Her dainty fingers splay flat against his neck, angling his head just so and he can feel her shudder before him.

"Just - oh - just like that, Ben. You're doing so good."

And then her milk fills his mouth. Hot and thick, much sweeter than he anticipated. It’s creamy and perfect, and she is perfect, and all of it assaults his senses until he feels like he might pass out. Ben moans unabashedly from the pure decadence of it and doubles down, slurping and sucking greedily.

"Ben," Rey murmurs as her fingers card through his hair. "That's it. That's so good. Keep going."

And he does.

His hand cups the underside of her breast, gently squeezing the swollen, taut flesh. Her tit is perfect. Where he used to think his hand were just another stupidly large part of his generally awkward, impractically outsized body, he now realizes that they’re just the right size and shape to cradle her divine, perfect breast in his palm. Rey pants above him and arches her back, pushing her chest more firmly against his greedy mouth.

Without asking for permission, Ben switches to the other side.

The bra is a foreign, unwanted thing, the tiny claps too fiddly for his shaking, clumsy bear-paws and there's a moment of awkward fumbling as she rushes to help him free her other nipple.

Rey whimpers as he latches on. She gasps when he suckles her. She groans, needy and deep, when her milk starts to flow.

"Can I… I need…" she stutters. "Let me… the angle, it will be better for you if…"

It takes his milk-drunk mind a second to comprehend what she wants, but then he helps her scramble into his lap so that she's straddling his thigh.

She’s right. The angle is better.

Her hard little nipple is just the right height for him to latch on without bending forward awkwardly. And her small hand cradles his head just right, pulling him closer, closer, and closer still, until his senses are flooded with nothing but Rey.

His Rey.

His generous, perfect, adorable, goddess at whose altar he'll gladly worship until the day he dies.

His hand cups her breast, massaging her skin gently to stimulate the flow. She’s so soft. So full and ripe.

Ben thinks, with the tiny part of his mind that is still capable of such things, that he’ll die if he has to stop now.

Rey moans - and it is a moan, he's sure of it. Not a sigh, or a grunt of pain or a groan of embarrassment, but a moan of pleasure.

His heart swells, knowing that he's giving her pleasure.

Other parts of him swell too.

Ben tries to angle his hips away from her - more easily said than done with his face glued to her chest as it is - to spare Rey the unpleasantness of being confronted with his sizable and still swelling erection, when he becomes aware that her hips are rocking mindlessly against his thigh.

Just small, almost imperceptible motions - back and forth, back and forth - but her breath is hot and moist against his crown, and she’s whimpering, and her hips are angled just so… and he knows what she is doing.

Fuck.

Without any conscious permission from his brain his hands wrap around her waist. She’s so tiny, so lithe and firm, that his fingers almost touch on the small of her back.

Ben groans against her, his baritone mingling and melding with her breathy moans as she arches against him. He helps her rock against him, pressing her down and dragging her over the ridge of his leg. Letting her take what she needs.

His hands are busy, meaning that he can’t lift her nipple to his mouth anymore, and he strains to reach her still, but then her own hand is cupping her breast, squeezing and pressing them upwards, into his mouth.

“Ben,” she gasps as he latches on more firmly. "Go on. Please. So good... you're doing so good."

All he can do is grunt helplessly, completely lost in her. A part of him is sure that he’s hallucinating all of this, but since it’s hands down the best dream that he’s ever had, he doesn’t especially mind.

He licks at her nipple, around her areola, and the line between drinking from her and just straight up worshiping her tits has become blurred. Ben doesn't care. Can't care, too lost in her smell and her taste and his own, unbearable arousal.

Rey isn't faring much better, apparently. Her breath stutters and a sharp little crease of concentration has formed between her brows. Her lower lip is trapped between her teeth as she grinds and writhes on his lap.

“Ben,” she whines again. “Ben…”

All thoughts of low blood-sugar and milk and even - lo and behold - her gorgeous, perfect tits are forgotten as Ben leans back against the tree to watch her grind on his thigh.

Rey is so beautiful, with her spine arched and her head thrown back. Her chest is flushed, nipples juicy and red and pebbled into tight little buds. She's still squeezing them, even though Ben is no longer drinking from her, and twin streams of liquid are running over her fingers, down the underside of her breast, across her flat abdomen, until they soak through the cuffs of his shirt where he is still holding her.

Ben himself is hard as rock. As hard as he's ever been in his life. His cock throbs against the zipper of his jeans, bordering on painful, but he won't give in to the temptation of freeing himself, even though every inch of him is begging for release.

This needs to be about her.

"Ben," she whimpers. "More. Please."

That, not that he can give her.

He shifts his leg, even if his still-cramping muscles scream in protest, spreading her thighs across his lap, opening her up. Giving her a better angle to grind against and moves her hips faster. And faster still.

He can feel her heat, burning brighter than the sun, through the layers that separate them as she rides him.

"I… I… oh…" Rey sobs, the tendons in her neck stark and taut against her tan skin as she desperately chases her orgasm. “Oh God…"

The pace of her hips increases, a rolling motion, like crashing waves against his shore.

She is so beautiful as she comes, panting and shivering above him.

Rey collapses against him, bones less and shaking. She blindly mouths at his neck.

"Ben," she whispers. "You did so good."

And apparently that is all that Ben needs for his balls to tighten to the point if pain and then his vision is whiting out as he comes in his pants like a fucking schoolboy. The sound that escapes him is inhuman, drawn out, and he mindlessly pulls her closer against his body and thrusts his hips up against her clothed center - seeking warmth, seeking friction, seeking something that only she can give - as he comes in waves and waves.

It doesn’t seem to want to stop - Ben doesn’t want it to stop - as he holds her as tightly as he can. Like, if he only held her hard enough, she would never leave.

They sit like that for a few seconds that feel like hours, Ben breathing like a freight train, she whimpering into the curve of his neck, as they both come down from their high.

"Rey," he murmurs, mouthing at her temple. He wants to apologize. Wants to ask if he can keep her. He wants to ask her when they can do this again. If she would like to have dinner with him. Or breakfast. Or if it's too soon to ask her to marry him.

If he can keep her forever.

But Rey stiffens when he kisses her temple, before she frantically scrambles off his lap and out of his arms.

"Rey?" Ben asks, instinctually reaching for her, but she just scrambles back further. She pulls her t-shirt down hastily without even properly straightening the cups of the bra first and he can still see her nipples through the material, can see the circular wet splotches that form where she is still leaking for him. "What…?"

"I… we should get back to the car," she mumbles, eyes looking everywhere but at him. "I need to check on Noah. I… we've been gone too long already."

"Rey, I…"

… I'm sorry.
… I didn't mean to.
… please.
… I love you.

But he can't bring himself to say any of that so he just leans bonelessly against the tree, watching her as she stands on still wobbly legs, shaky and nervous line a newborn fawn.

"Can you walk?" Rey asks brusquely.

"What? Yeah, I think so,” Ben mumbles, his brain struggling to cut through the post-orgasmic haze to understand what's happening. “Rey, can we…"

"We really need to go." She cuts him off.

Rey doesn't offer him a hand to help him up, and when she turns to walk down the hill it's more like she's running from the bear that he teased her about, than as if she’s hiking with a friend.

Which, Ben realizes with a sinking feeling, they probably aren't anymore.

Rey cranks the radio up the moment the engine is running - a classical station that he knows for a fact she hates - and Rachmaninoff floods the cab at a deafening volume, rendering any attempts at talking to her moot.

The drive back is almost automatic - it’s not like New York is hard to miss - not requiring any conscious thought, and Ben’s mind is still spinning from everything that happened in the last two hours.

When he looks over at Rey he sees her sit up ramrod straight, her hands twisting and pulling at the strap of her backpack. She’s staring fixedly out of the passenger side window and Ben knows that she's crying - he made her cry - and… he's an animal. A monster.

This woman is everything to him and as things stand she’ll never speak to him again and it’s all his fault.

Ben wishes that he could do something to help her, to sooth her, but the inches dividing them might as well be miles.

Rey only snaps out of it once they're in front of her building.

"I…"

"Rey…"

"Ben…"

"I…"

"I should go. Thanks for-" she falters, bites her lip hard enough that Ben winces. "I'll see you around, ok?"

Ben wants to talk to her. To apologize, to finally tell Rey how he feels about her, to grovel and beg, but in the end he just snaps his jaw shut with an audible clack. He’s made his bed, it’s time to lie in it.

"Yeah, see you."

Please. Please please let that be true. Please don't vanish. Please don't leave me.

The car door falls shut behind her before Ben can reach for her and he's alone with his regrets and the cold tacky mess in his pants.

His hands still shake against the steering wheel when he puts the car back into gear, but this time it’s nothing to do with his blood sugar and everything to do with the mess that he’s made of both their lives.

Chapter Text

In the last four days Ben has:

• had two (2) panic attacks.
• slept zero (0) nights.
• tried to call Rey three (3) times.
  (The first attempt had gone to voicemail after a few rings.)
  (The second attempt went to voicemail immediately.)
  (The third attempt, around midnight on the second post-hiking-gate day - an attempt which had admittedly been ill-advised, rash, and possibly made while slightly inebriated - had gone straight to voicemail and shortly after his fist had gone through the nearest wall.)

Since then, Ben has

• taken an uber to the emergency room at one in the morning.
• gone to Costco to buy a new phone.
• gone to Lowes to buy a drywall repair kit.
• composed sixteen texts to Rey and subsequently deleted fifteen texts to Rey.
• sent one (1) text. To Rey.
• masturbated to the memory of her sweet little tits and her soft moans more times than he cares to count.

He’s not proud of any of these things, but especially not of that last item.

But then again, it's not like he can possibly make their relationship any worse at this point.

’Rey, can we talk?’ He finally sends on the third day, fingers trembling slightly from either too little sleep or too much caffeine.

Her reply is almost immediate and it's all Ben can do not to drop his very new, very expensive phone when it chimes cheerfully after hardly ten seconds have passed since he sent his own text.

The little bubbles are still there, appearing and disappearing, until Ben is gripping his phone strongly enough to make his knuckles stand out.

’Yes’

Yes, please. Anything to make this torture end.

His answer is typed so quickly that the three letter word gets mangled beyond the ken of autocorrect, and he had to start over twice all-the-while cursing his clumsy, meaty, nervous fingers.

That had been yesterday.

Now Ben sits in his usual seat - at their table - in the coffee shop just around the corner from Rey's flat.

He has, again, not slept a wink and the two cups of coffee he's downed since arriving half an hour early haven't done anything to soothe his nervously galloping pulse.

Rey is going to leave him.

He just knows she will.

Or - actually - no, she won't.

Leaving him would require them to have had some sort of relationship beyond both belonging to the same friend group. Beyond both of them liking trashy sci-fi movies and cronuts and European beer.

Everyone likes cronuts. That doesn't make Rey and Ben special. And European beer is superior. End of discussion.

They're friends. Just friends, like she's ‘just friends’ with Poe and Rose and Armitage and Zorii.

He has no special claim on her. No magical connection that ties their souls together. No red string of fate. No soulmatism. No shared destiny that he can look forward to.

He's just a guy that sometimes manages to make her laugh.

(Ben knows they're more than that. She's his best friend and he is hers. She's the first person he thinks of calling when he's had good news or when he’s read something funny or when he has bad news. Actually, especially when he has bad news. He's the one who gets to rub her back and buy her chocolate - dark, with whole almonds and raisins - when she's on her period or when Noah has kept her up the entire night. And he’s the only one who knows that she likes chocolate with raisins, which in his opinion might just be her one true flaw. Ben knows all that, and he knows that makes them at least a little special, that makes him a little bit more than just one friend among many, but he's not feeling very charitable towards himself right now.)

And at any rate that will all be over after today.

It’s not me, Ben, it’s you. You ruined this.

Maybe those won’t be her precise words, because Rey is all that’s good and kind in his world and she wouldn’t be that cruel, but that’s what she’ll mean when she tells him that they shouldn’t hang out any more.

And he can’t blame her, because he’s not sure either if he can still look at her without instantly remembering the way Rey‘s chest had bowed towards his mouth as she was riding his thigh to completion.

The thought alone, bitter as it is, makes his cock stir and Ben scowls at his lap.

Now is definitely not the time.

Ben sighs and turns his coffee cup by 90 degrees, until the handle is lined up with the little complimentary sugar package on the saucer, just to give his hands something to do.

His fingers are shaking a little, as a result of too little sleep and too many nerves.

They'll have to split up their friend group like a divorced couple would split a CD collection, Ben thinks miserably. Kaydel, Jannah, Finn and Poe for Rey; Gwen, Zorii, Hux and Rose for Ben. They’ll draw straws to see who has to take Mitaka.

And she'll break his heart clean in two. A cut so sharp that it'll never heal and Ben will be left to live a half-life, a shadowy existence without his light, for the rest of his days.

Because he's a rotten, terrible liar.

They were never 'just friends'. Not by a long shot.

Rey is his everything.

Ben is torn from this increasingly desolate train of thought when the door chimes and Rey spills into the room. She almost immediately stops on the threshold like she's been caught in a tractor beam and her head swivels around, scanning the room. Ben feels the precise moment her hazel eyes meet his across the crowded cafe like a punch to the gut.

She gives him a faint smile and an even fainter wave and then, maddeningly, goes to the counter to place her order before making her way to their table. Ben feels like he’s about to vibrate through his seat.

"Hi," she murmurs as she sinks into the plush green armchair opposite him. It's her chair, she's sat in it hundreds of times.

Images tumble through his mind, wholly unbidden, a maelstrom of colors and sounds. Cherished, carefully cataloged and labeled impressions of Rey.

Rey, still a little jet lagged and a little hungover, the day after they'd first met.

Rey, tearstained and sniffling from the news of her breakup with Snap (Ben had been secretly elated and had also felt terrible about it for weeks after) and terrified of being a mom (Ben hadn't been, he'd know that she'd be brilliant).

Rey, glowing and flushed and gloriously round through the later months of her pregnancy, sipping decaf tea with a petulant scowl.

Rey, tired but happy, with Noah in a sling.

And now…

Rey hasn't slept much either, Ben thinks. Her eyes are puffy and reddened and she looks somehow smaller in that familiar chair. Her hair is messier than usual, and there's a bright green stain on the front of her baggy sweater, which Ben suspects is regurgitated spinach.

She's still absolutely radiant.

Ben drinks in her features, trying to sear every strand of her chestnut hair into his memory, drinking the constellations of her freckles like a traveler readying himself to traverse the desert.

"Ben," Rey says softly, and he blushes when he realizes that he's been staring at her unabashedly for at least a minute.

"Rey."

"Thanks for meeting me." She says. Slowly, like she's rehearsed this. Knowing Rey, she probably has.

"Of course," Ben rushes to say. "It's the least I can do."

They lapse into silence again, their nervous energy spent on that one, abysmally awkward exchange.

There’s an elephant in the room, and it’s brought some friends. It’s making Ben feel dizzy, claustrophobic, like he can’t breathe. He clears his throat, but doesn’t say anything. Because what is there to say?

Sorry I ruined the one good thing I had?

Rey looks like she wants to say something, but just then the waitress appears by her elbow, placing a cup of coffee - Ben knows that it’s some sugary sweet monstrosity that's more cream than caffeine - and a danish on the table between them.

Rey thanks the waitress and pushes the plate with the pastry away from her, almost to the center of the table, before taking a dainty sip of her drink.

"That's for you."

"Huh?"

"The danish."

"Oh. Thank you."

Ben stares at the danish like it’s about to bite him. He wants to say something more meaningful than just ‘thank you’ or - failing that - anything. Anything would be great right now, because otherwise they’re just going to continue staring at the damn pasty while this painful silence grows and flourishes around them like a maze of thorns. Ben isn’t sure if he can take that.

It’s Rey who saves him.

"Just so that you don't, you know..." She gestures weakly with her hand - the mimed movement of a tree toppling over, a penguin losing its balance.

…faint again.

The quip falls flat. It hangs over the table, like a specter, and Ben looks at her - more like 'stares at her, utterly aghast' actually, because she can't be joking right now - and Rey gives him the tiniest, faintest of smiles. It’s gone before he can properly register it.

"Thank you."

Ben isn't hungry. If anything he feels a little sick, in a way that has nothing to do with low blood sugar.

Still he reaches out to pull the plate closer and Rey's delicate brows furrow as she sees the purple bruising around his knuckles.

"What happened to your hand?"

"Lost a fight with a wall."

His own attempt at levity falls just as flat as hers and Rey merely purses her lips.

"Oh."

And just like that they fall silent again, mutually exhausted by even this token effort at small talk.

"Where's Noah?"

"Maz."

One syllable, that's all he gets.

Ben frowns, wanting to talk to her, but also well aware that good conversations never happen in coffee shops.

Soft conversations that end in caresses and shared confidences happen in seedy diners at 2am, or on a bench by the river on a sunny afternoon, or on a couch in front of a TV that’s playing a long-forgotten movie, but not in a busy place like this.

You go to a coffee shop to end things.

Rey sighs and fidgets with the sleeve of her sweatshirt. She looks so uncomfortable, so unhappy, and Ben - the part of Ben that doesn’t want to acknowledge what has happened between them - yearns to comfort her.

But he can’t do that, so he drinks his own bitter coffee - it might just as well be turpentine for how much he's actually tasting it - and resists the urge to reach for her wrist.

"Ben-"

"Rey-"

They break the awkward silence simultaneously and Rey bites her lip before she swallows visibly.

"You go,” she says quietly.

"No no, you go first. I can wait."

"No, Ben, please."

"Rey, go first,” Ben sighs. “It's OK. Please. I…"

...I just want to get this over with.

That sounds callous, and doesn’t even begin to express the mixture of dread and self-loathing that he feels at this moment. Ben shakes his head. He wants her to start, because…

Because if I start, I’m going to cry.

Rey must sense his resolve, or maybe she just sees the sadness pooling in his eyes, for she nods slowly.

“I…,” she bites her lip. Frowns. “I wanted to… no, actually, I need to apologize. I'm so sorry for what happened, Ben, and I-”

Ben's brain has briefly shut down once he's registered that she's apparently, improbably, not angry with him, and now he's scrambling to catch up.

“Wait. What? Why?” He barks, jostling his coffee hard enough that some of it spills over his fingers.

“Why ‘what’?” A napkin is pushed in his direction, almost automatically, like Rey is as frazzled and distracted as he feels.

“Why do you want to apologize to me?” Ben winces as he dabs at his tender knuckles. “That… that makes no sense.”

“It does! I… you did a kind thing, and you didn't do anything wrong except maybe forget to pack a snack, but that's on me too.” Rey frowns and waves his objection away. “At least partially, ok? I’m Rey, I always carry snacks. Snacks are practically part of my personality.”

Ben chuckles hollowly, because she’s right.

“And,” Rey continues, and she’s gripping her coffee cup so hard that her knuckles are the same color as the porcelain. “I know I shouldn't have put you in this situation in the first place, I should have asked if you were ok to go for a hike, and then you… you needed me and I-”

She struggles visibly to find the right words. Her face is bright red as she grapples with how to phrase whatever is bothering her.

“... and I… I molested you.”

“Excuse me?”

“Yeah… uh…” Rey is, improbably, still blushing brighter. “The legal term is probably non-consensual thigh riding or something like that. I’m sure you’d know better than me.”

“Sexual assault, or battery. It depends,” Ben says absent mindedly. He’s still struggling to catch up with her line of reasoning, and the fact that she’s just mentioned… that isn’t helping his higher brain functions one bit.

“If I tried to tell the average, octogenarian judge about thigh riding, they'd probably have a coronary,” he mutters, before he becomes aware of the fact that the legal terminology applicable to what had happened between them was the last thing they should be quibbling about. Ben frowns. “Rey… you didn't do anything wrong.”

“I did everything wrong, Ben!”

“You? You did everything wrong? Rey, I was sucking on your t-”

Ben bites the last syllable off before it can escape. He's too nervous, too tense, and his voice is way too loud for a coffee shop at 2pm. The pair of yoga moms at the next table is frowning at them, and it's really none of their business what part of Rey he's recently had in his mouth, so Ben forces himself to take a deep breath and continue more quietly. "I had your breast in my mouth, Rey. You weren't the only one taking things too far.”

Her previously bright pink flush gets a level up, all the way to magenta.

“I asked you to… you know.”

“And I…,” Ben’s lips form a firm, hard line, “shouldn't have enjoyed it.”

There’s that adorable little crease between her brows. The one that means that she’s getting angry.

“Ben, I-” her own, wide eyes skip to the yoga moms and Rey swallows reflexively, before she forces herself to continue in a much calmer tone. “I came on your thigh. I ruined everything. I… I let my desires get the better of me and I ruined the one thing I want.”

Her expression goes - immediately and without a measurable transition - from angry to ghostly-pale, and Rey looks like she’s about to bolt from the room as they both stare at each other, mouths slightly parted in shock.

Ben isn’t sure if he’s heard her right. He’s had an aneurysm. Or a stroke. Or maybe those are the same thing? Ben isn’t sure. But he knows that those happen to men his age. And he certainly feels a little bit discombobulated right now.

Because to him it sounded like Rey just said that she wanted him.

Rey hollows her cheeks, like she’s trying to suck that last sentence back in, where it can’t be heard. Like she wants to take it all back. Or maybe to get ready to bolt after all.

Ben can’t let her do either of that.

“What if I liked it?”

“What if you…?” She frowns, aping him hollowly. “What do you mean?”

“What if I liked… what you did? You were perfect.” Ben swallows to work some saliva into his mouth. It’s now or never. Buckle up, buttercup. “I like you, Rey.”

“You… like me?”

“I do,” Ben says. And then he adds, because he can’t allow any ambiguity to creep into this moment. “And not as a friend. I mean, that too. You're my best friend, Rey. You’re the best person I know. But I think… I think you could also be my person.”

“Oh.”

He can’t quite tell what she’s thinking. Her face - usually so expressive, so easy to read - is shuttered. She worries at her lower lip, which is a nervous tell, but is she nervous because Ben is digging himself a hole deep enough to crawl all the way to China, or because this is something that she’s been wanting for just as long as he has?

What if she just meant to say that she wants to fuck him, rather than be with him? What then? Because three-days ago Ben might have considered that as a viable option, but that Ben has aged two lifetimes since and this older, wiser Ben that is sitting in this coffee shop today knows that he could never settle for less than all of her.

Well, in for a penny, in for a pound.

“I hated seeing you with Snap. I hated him when he left you. The thought that he had you, and that he… just threw you away. That anyone could ever willingly throw you away…”

“It was to be expected,” Rey interjects listlessly. “People don't keep me.”

She’s so wrong.

“I want to keep you,” Ben bites out. The yoga moms are staring again, but Ben doesn't give a flying fuck. “I want to keep you forever. Rey, you are so precious to me. I would never leave you.”

“Ben…”

“I mean it. I don’t think I’ve ever meant something this much in my entire life.”

Her eyes meet his again. Rey stares at him, like she’s trying to read his soul. He’d let her, if that’s what she needs. If he could, he'd write it all down for her, every secret thought and every hidden feeling and every single, vibrant memory that he has of her, but there’s no book on this planet that would be thick enough to hold it all and no lifetime long enough to write it all down.

After what seems like an eternity, Rey gives a tiny little nod, so miniscule that he hardly catches it.

“I believe you,” she whispers.

That’s not a weight that drops off Ben’s shoulders, it’s surely an entire mountain range. That’s how relieved he feels.

“Ok.”

“Yeah.”

“Can I… touch you?”

“Please.”

But before Ben can reach for her, Rey comes to him willingly, even if she's trembling so fiercely that he can see her hands shake as she grasps his shoulders to ease herself into his lap.

It's a little awkward, because Ben hardly fits in the chair to begin with, and apparently she’s set her heart on burrowing into the skin of his neck. The angle is all wrong and she growls when she struggles to bend further than is strictly speaking comfortable. Still they manage to somehow arrange themselves, their bodies curved around each other like two pieces of a puzzle. Her breath is moist against his neck and her icy fingers dig into his shoulders. He's so happy that he could cry.

“Why did you run from me?” He asks her temple.

Rey sniffles.

“I just… started thinking.”

“A terrible idea.”

Her teeth scrape warningly against his Adam's apple and it makes him shiver.

“I thought,” she says, speaking against his throat. “That you mean so much to me. And that I had ruined it.”

“Hardly.” Ben huffs a laugh. “I wanted to ask you to do it again.”

“We never talked about… well… you know. Liking each other. Wanting more. I thought maybe you didn’t want me that way.”

“I want you every way, sweetheart.”

She laughs wettly.

“Me too. But then I started to think of Noah and how you can't possibly want that. Us, I mean. Me and him. Because we come as a package deal, and dating someone with a baby… you know I still don't sleep through most nights.”

“I'm a very light sleeper. It's like I was made for nappie duty.”

“I smell of sick most of the time.”

Ben takes an exaggerated inhale against the crown of her head.

“Agree to disagree.”

“I leak at inopportune moments and all my bras are hideous.”

“I don't know if you noticed,” Ben growls, because his cock really disagrees with that one, “but that isn’t exactly a turn off. It's more of a perk, really.”

“Ben, I'm serious.”

“So am I,” Ben says, before adding a little bit more quietly: “I’m sorry if you think that's disgusting.”

“I don’t,” she admits. “Far from it, but… a baby is a lot of responsibility. I’m not like your average 22 year old.”

“Rey,” Ben pushes against her shoulder, peeling her away from his torso so that he can look her in the eye. Her nose is reddened and her eyes are wide and liquid. She’s terrified, and so is he, but it’s okay, because maybe now they can be terrified together. “I know that, but I want it. I want you. I love Noah, you know that I do. I'm all in if you'll let me.”

“Are you sure?”

“Very.”

“I… it’s just… I need you to be sure. I don't… I don't think I could bear to let you in, only to lose you.”

“I am very, very sure, Rey. I’ve had a lot of time to think about this, not just in the last three days,” he falters, afraid that he’s said too much, but Rey just continues to look at him with that wide-eyed, spell-bound expression, and Ben knows that he needs to be honest about this. “I’ve been thinking about us for a while. And… it’s not like it’s just your heart that’s on the line. What you just said, that goes for me too. The thought of hurting you… it’s intolerable. It’s like thinking of hacking off my own arm.”

“Don't say that.”

“But it's true. You mean everything to me, Rey. You have all the power here. If you want me to go, I’ll go. If you want me to never speak of this again, to just be your best friend, I’ll do that too, or I’ll try at least. But if you want us to be more, then I'll follow you to the ends of the earth. You and Noah.”

“I just…I have to look out for him too, you know.”

“I know.”

"And I…" she falters, looks lost and worried, and Ben dares to cup her cheek.

"I know, sweetheart. I understand. But I won't leave you."

She nuzzles into his palm, her eyes slowly fluttering closed like she’s a sleepy cat and he’s a heated blanket, and sighs.

"Ok."

"Ok?"

"Yeah."

"Yeah?"

"I believe you."

"You believe me?"

She cracks open one eye and glares at him.

"If you don't stop doing that,” she growls, and it’s possibly the most adorable thing Ben has ever seen her do, “I am going to change my mind."

"Stop doing what?" Ben asks innocently.

"You know what."

"Alright, I’ll stop," Ben says playfully. “Under one condition.”

“Huh?”

“Let me kiss you?”

She doesn't answer, not with words, but her lips are on his an instant later.

It's their first kiss. They've done quite a bit of other stuff at this point - stuff Ben wants to do again, if at all possible - but this is the first time they kiss and even though they're doing it all backwards, it's perfect.

She's soft and pliant. When he pushes against her seam, Rey opens readily for him. Her mouth tastes of coffee and cream and caramel and her tongue melds and slides perfectly against his own. Like she was made for him. Ben could lose himself like this, and he'd be contend if he was never found.

"Ben."

Rey sighs his name into him, and it only makes him more ravenous for her. Ben deepens the kiss, eager to explore every crevice of her slick mouth.

A chair scrapes against the tile next to them, startling Ben out of his thorough investigation of the topography of one Rey Niima. It's not easy to push an armchair angrily, but the yoga moms from the next table still somehow manage. One gives him the stink eye as she breezes past their table, but Ben pays her hardly any mind.

"I think we're annoying the other customers," he whispers conspiratorially.

"Sounds like a them problem to me," Rey answers with a small smile.

"It does, doesn't it?"

"Yeah." Rey dives back in for another kiss. She cups his face, and her thumb digs into his dimple, because apparently Ben is smiling widely enough to make his cheeks ache. "I like the way you taste," Rey declares with some finality.

"What a coincidence. Me too."

He starts nibbling down the side of her yaw, where he skin is thin and tender, and she tilts her head to give him better access.

"Ben."

"Mhm?" He's found a little patch under her ear that makes her shiver, and he's mostly paying attention to that if he's honest.

"I was thinking," her small hand fists into the hair at his nape, tugging lightly. "Maz has Noah for the rest of the day."

"Mhm… and?"

So what if he's not paying attention? He's busy.

“And I thought…”

“Yeah?”

Her skin is so soft, so silky. He wants to learn every inch of her.

"That I want you inside me."

That gets his attention.

"Oh?"

"Is that alright?"

"Sweetheart," Ben growls. "That you even have to ask."

Rey's smile is like the sun.

"Come home with me, Ben?"

He’s very close to just slinging her over his shoulder like a caveman, but when he stands up, with her still nestled in his arms, Rey makes a dismayed sound.

"Ben, the danish!"

"What?"

"We can't leave the danish, you didn't even try it."

"Fuck the danish."

She smacks his arm. "You’re not going to fuck anything if we don’t take it along. They're just going to throw it away!"

Ben hesitates, because Rey is alway serious about food, and she might just mean that.

Ben groans and sets her down and waits for her to go to the counter to ask for a paper bag. He'd go for her, but he can't, not if he doesn't want to get arrested for public indecency, so he stands awkwardly behind the headrest of his chair with his jacket held closed in front of his crotch, where his erection is reluctant to wane.

She comes back, holding a to-go bag aloft like it's a hard-won trophy, and then they finally, blessedly, leave…

… with the fucking danish.

Rey, tiny Rey who barely comes up to his chin, pins him against the door the moment they're inside her flat.

The damned pastry is discarded on the small table next to the door, instantly forgotten despite Rey's earlier insistence that saving it is paramount to all else.

“You have… no idea how long I have wanted you,” Rey growls, as she sucks a bruise into his collar bone.

“Oh?” It seems Ben has become a one-syllable kind of guy - assuming that ‘oh’ even counts as a syllable - but it’s hard to concentrate when the love of your life is sucking your neck like she’s searching for oil.

“You…” Rey continues, almost conversationally, as she noses at his collar. “...used to drive me insane, with your rolled up sleeves and these fucking dress shirts and your five o'clock shadow when you picked me up from my parenting class on your way home from work.”

“Oh,” Ben says again, intelligently. Rey is plastered to his front and he can feel every dip and swell of her lithe body. Frankly it's a miracle that he's responding at all.

“Yeah. Damn pregnancy hormones. All you had to do was smile that bloody dimpled smile to get me going. I used to think it would stop maybe, once Noah was born, but it never did.” Rey pulls away briefly, to look at him with furrowed brows. “Sorry if that's gross.”

Ben wants to laugh. But that would be time wasted that he could spend kissing her, so he does that instead.

“Nothing,” he says, briefly breaking the kiss. “And I really mean nothing about you could ever be gross. Definitely not that.”

Ben captures her lips again, kissing her until they’re both gasping for air. And even then he can’t keep away from her, placing a flurry of kisses on her cheeks, her chin, on the tip of her nose. Against the shell of her ear. On her neck, where her pulse flutters under her silky skin.

His hands touch her waist, her stomach - the place where she carried Noah - the soft swell of her breasts.

“You were… so hot,” Ben growls into her ear.

Rey squirms in his arms and for a second Ben thinks that he overstepped.

“I'm sorry if that was too…”

“No, no it wasn't. We need to stop apologizing to each other, I think, otherwise we’re not going to get anywhere tonight.” Rey chuckles and looks at him with a mischievous, if flushed expression. “I just think we're uncovering a whole plethora of Ben Solo’s hidden kinks.”

“To be fair, I think I just have a Rey kink.”

“I'll take it.”

“Mhm… I just want to take you.”

Rey giggles and pulls him down by the neck. Her tongue pushes insistently into his mouth, and Ben allows himself to get lost in her. He spins them around, until her back hits the door, and grinds his hips into hers, letting Rey feel how hard he is for her.

Rey tugs on the hair on his nape almost to the point of pain, encouraging Ben to grind into her again, and again, and again.

“Fuck,” she gasps as he abandones her mouth to kiss sloppily down her neck. “You feel good.”

“Tell me about it.”

“I… ah... ok. You feel big. I like the way you dwarf me. How strong you are. Like you could pick me up with no effort at all.”

“Like this?”

Rey squeals as he grabs her ass, hoisting her up against his body. Her legs wrap around his waist without further prompting and like this his cock is nestled right against the apex of her thighs. He fists his hands into her hair, scraping his nails against her scalp, and she likes that very much if the way she’s grinding her center against his length is any indication. Ben groans and thrusts against her again, lost in the feeling of closeness and her burning heat.

Her mouth finds his again and Ben swallows her moans. They’re all his anyway.

“Sweetheart, I need to fuck you,” Ben growls against her lips. Her own needy whine is answer enough. She wants him too.

But when they break apart for air, Rey pushes against his chest with a grimace, wordlessly asking him to let her down.

“Everything ok?”

That old, familiar feeling of panic and uncertainty nips at his heels, but he wrestles it down. She wants this. She wants him. He didn’t do anything wrong.

And at any rate, Rey is smiling up at him with kiss-swollen lips and gloriously mussed-up hair as she places the flat of her palm against his sternum. She’s not pushing him back, just holding him there, with her fingertips resting against the sliver of exposed skin at his throat.

“I’m fine,” she murmurs. Her fingers tingle across his skin, just lightly caressing him. It’s only mildly distracting. “But I promised Maz that I'd check in when I get home. I'll give her a quick call, alright?”

Ok. Right. He can let her do that.

“Of course.”

“Don’t go anywhere, alright?”

He barks a laugh.

“Do I look like I want to go anywhere?”

Her eyes deliberately settle on his crotch, where his cock is tenting his pants, and she - equally deliberately - licks her lips.

“The bedroom, maybe?” Her fingers tighten reflexively on his collar.

“Yes, that,” Ben carefully brushes her arm aside and kisses her again. “But nowhere else, I swear.”

“Ok.” Now she’s kissing him, just as tenderly. Little nips and bites and pecks. It’s more sweet than hot, but that’s fine with Ben. He likes her both ways. “I can allow that.”

“You can?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s good.” His mouth leaves hers and he trails kisses along her throat. Gently. Searching, licking, sucking. She tastes perfect.

“It is,” she says softly, pushing half-heartedly at his chest. “But Ben… the sooner you let me go, the sooner we can both go to the bedroom and have sex.”

Ben pulls away from her pulse point, where he had been sucking his mark, with a wet pop.

“You make a compelling argument.”

“I know.” Her eyes crinkle at the corners as she gives him the briefest, chastest of kisses that they can manage under the circumstances. “But now I really need to call Maz. Make yourself comfortable, ok?”

Chapter Text

Ben is left to his own devices in Rey’s small living room, which is barely large enough to fit her bedraggled couch and a second-hand TV, while Rey slips into the bathroom to call Maz and freshen up.

The sofa, a green-upholstered two seater that she’s found on the curb a year back and that Ben and Finn had dragged up the stairwell to her 3rd floor apartment while re-enacting that scene from Friends, seems tiny all of a sudden, although he’s sat on it before. Damn nerves, he thinks, as he fights to fold his large body onto the saggy, corduroy surface.

Part of him wants to wait for her on the bed, like she suggested, but that seems like he’d be moving too fast. Ben wants to savor this.

Also, there is - he supposes - a slight chance that she’s going to come back and tell him that she has to pick up Noah right this instant. And since he’s made such a big point of wanting to be there for her and for her son - which wasn’t just a hollow promise to get into her pants, but is something he truly means - he’ll then be left with no other choice but to go home and, probably, jerk off until his cock is raw.

So Ben settles for taking his shoes and jacket off - yes, alright, and maybe he also unbuttons his shirt a little bit, what of it? - and unsuccessfully tries to suppress the impulse to fidget again.

He can hear Rey through the door, just the timbre of her low, melodic voice, but not what she’s actually saying. Then he doesn’t hear her anymore, just the sound of running water.

Ben tries not to think of the fact that she’s probably naked right now, because the situation in his briefs is bad enough as it is. A losing battle if he’s ever seen one.

But she’s not coming out, which means that Noah is still sound asleep at Maz’s. Ben has never wished this much for a toddler to have a good, long, uninterrupted nap in his entire life.

His knee jiggles, and he forces himself to sit still. He’s a grown man, for fucks sake. He’s had sex before. Not with Rey, and to be honest it’s been a hot minute, but there’s no reason for him to be this much of a mess.

But when Rey emerges, it becomes clear that he’s not the only one who is a little bit impatient.

“Noah is fine,” she murmurs, cheeks slightly flushed and eyes pointed towards her feet, like the square foot of hardwood floor that she’s standing on has suddenly become unbearably fascinating. “Maz just put him down for his nap.”

Ben, who is currently terribly busy choking on his own spit, nods jerkily.

“You… changed.”

“I did.” Her blush deepens. “Do you like it?”

She is wearing a sheer, light-green camisole, a pair of panties and - as far as Ben can see (and right now he can see very far) - nothing else. Her hair is freshly brushed and flows freely over her shoulders. Her legs are… divine.

Her delicate blush, Ben is interested to note, goes past her neckline. Which is something he should probably investigate further.

“Ben?” She asks again, and that delectable blush that just begs to be licked deepens further. “Are you ok?”

“I like,” he croaks, nodding like a damn bobble head.

“So this is ok?”

“Christ, woman,” Ben rasps. “Yes. Of course. Come here.”

And she goes willingly, coming to stand between his spread legs. Close enough that Ben can feel the heat of her skin through the fabric of his jeans.

“You are,” he reverently runs his hand over the outside of her thighs, “so beautiful.”

Rey shivers visibly.

“Are you cold?”

“No.”

And she’s really not. If anything, Rey is burning.

Ben strokes his palm up to her hip, slightly lifting the hem of her camisole to reveal the off-white, lacy fabric of a thong.

“So beautiful,” Ben murmurs, fingers skimming the crease of her thighs, the front of her panties, where the lace is wet with her arousal. “Fuck, Rey, you’re soaked.”

“For you,” she whimpers, pressing her hips forward to get more pressure on her clit, but Ben withdraws his fingers with a soft tsk.

“Ben,” she whines.

“Patience.”

Rey snarls - literally snarls - and Ben has to bite back a laugh.

“Good things,” he murmurs as his fingers dip towards her covered clit again, giving her just the softest of pets, before he runs his hands down her legs to the back of her knees, “come to those who wait.”

“I’ve been patient for a very long time, Ben.”

He leans forward, nuzzling her hipbone through the soft silk.

“Just a little bit longer, alright? I’ve been patient too.”

“Do I have a choice?”

“Not really,” he hums, still idly stroking her silky thigh.

“You’re an evil man.”

Ben chuckles again.

“Sorry,” he says, and he’s really not sorry at all. Ben trails his fingers across the back of her knees, where her skin is the softest he has ever felt, before he gently pushes her legs apart.

“I love your legs, do you know that?”

Rey shakes her head, unwilling or incapable of speech, as he pets along the inside of her thigh, stopping just short of where she wants him.

“Your ass.” Instead of going the long way around he reaches between her legs to palm her ass cheek. It’s no accident that his wrist presses against her slit and she gasps at the contact. “I love your ass.”

“Th-thank you,” Rey grinds out. She sags a little, lowering her center against his forearm, and he lets her rub herself against him until he feels her wetness seep through the sleeve of his shirt.

“Gods,” Ben whispers hoarsely, watching her grind on his arm, “you're so gorgeous.”

Rey whines again, increasingly desperate.

“Please, Ben. Please take me to bed.”

“Mhm... not yet.”

Ben pulls his arm back, fingertips deliberately dragging against the crease of her ass, over the gusset of her panties, across her apex of her thighs. Her underwear is slippery with her slick and his fingers glide easily along the sodden fabric.

“Ben!” Rey folds forward, hands finding his shoulders as he focuses on her swollen nub, now finally rubbing in earnest. Ben watches her, slack jawed, and her eyes flutter closed as she sinks deeper into her pleasure.

“Can you come like this?”

Her delicately arched brows draw together.

“I've never… not standing up.”

“Mhm.”

Ben briefly abandons her clit to pull her panties down her legs. The wet fabric falls quickly, pooling at her feet, and then she’s gloriously bare to him. Her cunt is perfect. Swollen and pink. Only a small, neat nest of curls covers her mound. Ben wants to chomp.

But instead his fingers return to her core, gathering slick and spreading it around her engorged clit in small, slow circles. Rey whimpers.

“But you can? Come like this?” Ben insists.

Rey’s frown deepens. “I don’t know… maybe?”

This is the precise moment in which Ben Solo finds out that he likes a challenge.

He dips between her legs again, circles her hole with his index finger.

"Ben!"

"You want me here?"

He dips inside, quickly, just to the first knuckle and Rey hisses above him.

"Yes, yes please."

"Then come for me."

Ben returns his attention to her clit. She's quivering above him as he runs small circles around her nub.

"You're doing so good," he murmurs, mesmerized by the way that her thighs are flexing, by the sound of her quickening breathing.

"Oh…oh Ben. Feels so good. Can you…?"

"Inside?"

Her thighs spread further to make room for his other hand. Ben gives her two fingers, all the way to the root, and the way her slick channel clenches at the intrusion nearly makes him come in his pants like a fucking virgin.

"Fuck, sweetheart," he grunts, scissoring his fingers. "Like this?"

When Rey doesn't answer straight away he wrenches his eyes away from where her cunt is greedily swallowing his fingers and looks up to see Rey, with eyes clenched shut and her lower lip trapped between her teeth. Her face is a study in tension.

Ben pumps his fingers slowly, testing her limits. She's gloriously tight. Wonderfully responsive.

"Are you close?"

She nods. Gasps.

"Yes."

Ben gently rotates his wrist, searching for the spot that will make her come undone. He knows when he's found it, because her whole body jolts upwards and forwards, both away from the sudden sensation and deeper onto his thrusting digits. Her fingers dig into his shoulders, near the point of pain, but Ben ignores it, just pets and prods at the slightly rough patch while his thumb continues to rub steady circles around her clit.

"Look at me, sweetheart."

Slowly, oh so slowly, her hazel eyes flutter open.

"Ben…"

"Look at me, Rey."

"Oh, Ben…"

She's starting to flutter around his fingers and Ben thrust into her harder, faster.

"Come on, sweetheart. Come for me. I wanna see it."

He presses his thumb to her clit, crooks his fingers just so, and then he can feel her seizing around his hand.

"Oh, dear God." That's not a moan anymore, but a full blown scream.

Rey writhes against him, grinding her core against his hand, and he lets her ride out her peak, letting her take what she needs from him. Her cunt squeezes his fingers, again and again, as her climax ebbs and flows through her, soaking his fingers with a new wave of slickness. She's absolutely radiant, flushed and panting, eyes focused on him throughout her climax.

This… this is the most beautiful thing he has ever seen.

Rey collapses on his lap once the last aftershocks have faded, utterly boneless.

"Better?" Ben asks, nuzzling her neck.

"Perfect."

Ben himself is far from perfect. His cock is hard to the point of pain and his zipper has apparently turned into a medieval torture device. He groans when her thighs shift against his crotch, somehow both worsening and alleviating his predicament.

"Oh," Rey says, sounding a little sluggish. She looks down between them, and - because he's not being tortured enough already - reaches for his cock to stroke him softly above his pants.

"Christ," Ben curses.

"Should I stop?"

"No!" There's an edge of panic to his voice, which makes Rey laugh.

And then she strokes him more firmly. Minx.

"If you continue like that, I will have to take you to bed."

Her clever, small hands continue teasing him.

"You make that sound like it's a bad thing," she murmurs.

"Is it - ah, God Rey!" She's petting his cockhead, and it makes it surprisingly hard to form sentences. "Is that what you want?"

"Mhm,” her tiny, strong hand wraps around his length best she can through his jeans, and she gives him a firm squeeze. “What do you think?"

Ben might have been teasing, but he thinks that’s an excellent idea. Possibly the best ever. Nobel Prize worthy, even.

He wordlessly picks her up and carries her to her room where he spreads her out on her bed like a sexy starfish. Her chestnut hair fans across the pillows, her whole body is limp and pliant, and she looks so luminous that Ben doesn’t think he’ll ever get enough of seeing her like this.

He takes his time as he crawls over her. Kisses her ankles. The small patch on her shin where she didn’t shave properly. Her knee, then the inside of her thigh, where the skin is thin and ticklish.

“That’s… not fair,” Rey gasps, wriggling to get away from his questing lips.

“Hmmm… not sorry.” Ben says, as he nips and nibbles up her leg. He can smell her arousal and it’s making his mouth water, but right now there’s so much more soft, silky skin to discover.

Crawling further up her prone form, he pushes the hem of her camisole up her body, and he would happily continue on until he finds her mouth, if Rey didn't make a small, distressed sound when he brushes the silky fabric up past her navel.

"What's wrong, sweetheart?” The jut of her hip bone is pronounced, her skin golden and luminous. Ben can’t resist scraping his teeth across her hip.

Rey mumbles something that he doesn't catch and, although it's the hardest thing he's ever done, Ben wrenches himself away from his thorough exploration of her body to look at her.

"What was that?"

"Stretch marks," she whispers, the rest of the sentence too quiet for him to hear, but Ben's heard enough.

"No." He says firmly.

Rey's eyes fly open.

"What?"

"I said ‘no’. You don't get to do that."

"Do what?"

"Be ashamed of your body."

Rey makes a pained sound, her voice flat and lifeless. It makes him mad that a divine creature like Rey worries about irrelevant shit like this. That someone - some magazine feature, some asshat at the gym, some jerk on the internet - made her think that she was anything less than perfect.

'"I just… I'm not as pretty as other girls my age."

Ben smirks.

"You're right."

Her eyes fly open, and - oh - the fire is back in her eyes. That's his girl.

"Excuse me?" She rears up on her elbows to better glare at him and Ben can't help but smile at this gorgeous, fierce woman that he loves.

"Why are you-mpf!"

That's as far as she gets before Ben silences her with a hungry kiss.

"You," he whispers against her lips, "are so much more gorgeous than any other woman on this continent. On this planet. In the entire galaxy."

His lips trail a path down the column of her neck.

"I think it’s physically impossible to be more sexy than you. I love your freckles," he tells her collarbone. "And your perfect, tight little tits."

"They used to be a lot littler," Rey grumbles.

"Shush," his teeth briefly dig into the underside of one of those aforementioned perfect mounds, and Rey gasps. "They were perfect then. And they're perfect now. Your ass drove me insane on Saturday, skipping up that path, wriggling and bouncing like you wanted me to bite. I was half-hard the entire way up that fucking hill.”

"I thought it was a mountain?"

"I'd climb ten mountains if I get to kiss you on the top," Ben says, emphasizing his point by licking around her belly button.

She's right, there's a silvery spider web of faded scars on her lower abdomen. Ben couldn't care less. They’re part of her.

"Just look at you," he growls as he nips at her skin. "Every inch of you is beautiful. You have no idea what it does to me, to see you like this. I've never been this hard in my life, Rey. And it's all for you."

He licks across her belly, pressing the tip of his tongue into her abdomen until he can feel the faint lines on her skin.

“I love these scars, sweetheart,” he whispers against her belly. “That you had a baby, that you made a life. If you had any idea how fucking sexy that is to me…”

The sentence peeters out, because in truth Ben is a little disturbed by just how much that turns him on, but Rey merely laughs, even though it sounds a little watery. She cups his cheek, forcing him to look up at her.

“You don’t have to say that.”

“I’m not just saying that,” Ben grumbles. “Rey… you are everything I’ve ever dreamed of, I swear. There’s not an inch of your body that isn’t conspiring to slowly drive me insane.”

Rey bites her lip.

“Alright,” she says quietly. “I believe you.”

“Good.” Her thighs have fallen open, exposing her beautiful, dripping center to him, and Ben finds himself mesmerized. “Now... can I eat you out?”

"Oh," Rey frowns and reflexively tries to close her legs, but Ben won't let her, scooting down her body and wedging his shoulders between her thighs.

“It’s just that…” she mumbles, “Noah could wake at literally any minute, and then Maz will call and I’ll have to pick him up. And if we don’t have much time, I’d rather…” her voice has gone a bit funny, “I’d rather if you fucked me.”

"Well," Ben smirks and bites the inside of her thigh, hard enough to make her yip in surprise. "I have excellent news for you, because there's a good chance that once I’m inside you this will be a two-pumps-and-it’s-over kind of deal. Let me make you come first. Please?"

"Aren't you the charmer?"

"Just," his teeth scrape her skin again. Lower, close enough to her center that he can smell her thick, sweet arousal. His mouth waters, unbidden. "Just trying to set realistic expectations, sweetheart. It's been a while."

Her legs fall open a little, and he knows that he's won, even if she still plays coy.

“You really don't have to." Rey says softly." I mean, I’ve already come once. You can just… you know.”

Ben places a firm kiss on the crease of her thigh. It makes her squirm, and he doesn’t think it’s because she’s ticklish.

“What if I want to?”

“That… I mean… no one has ever…”

“Please,” Ben says glumly, “please, Rey, tell me that this isn’t the first time someone is eating you out. Right now I have better things to do that to find Snap and brutally murder him.”

“No, no… don’t worry.” Rey’s laughter is silvery. “But this is... you know... the first time that someone is begging to eat me out.”

“Men,” Ben says firmly, “are such fucking idiots.”

And then he bends down and languidly drags his tongue across her folds.

“Complete idiots,” he repeats, as her flavor floods his senses. She tastes divine - sweet and a little salty, with a hint of her strawberry body wash - and he immediately knows that this is his new favorite flavor.

“Ben…” He also knows that he loves it when she says his name, especially in this breathy tone of voice, so he licks her again.

“Feels good?”

His only answer is a staggered exhale, and Ben decides that there’s probably a ‘yes’ hidden in there somewhere, and at any rate Rey’s lovely thighs have fallen open even further, and who is he to say no to this obvious invitation?

She’s still pliant from her first orgasm, and wet and swollen. Her cunt is so soft and it's positively burning against his eager mouth.

“Fuck, Rey,” Ben murmurs, before he firms up his tongue to push between her folds, seeking the hard little nub of her clit. “Knew you’d taste perfect.”

She squeals when he finds it, and bucks her hips against his mouth, chasing friction.

“Can you… your fingers?”

Of course he can.

Rey moans when he gives her two. Her channel grips him perfectly and Ben has to grind his hips into the edge of the mattress to seek some relief for his poor, throbbing cock. The sooner he gets to be inside her, the better.

He attacks her clit with renewed vigor, swirling his tongue around the little bud in tight little circles while he thrust his fingers in and out of her cunt.

“Ben… oh God, Ben… don’t stop,” her small hand finds his head, fisting in his hair and pressing his face more firmly against her mound. “Please don’t stop.”

Never.

Not a chance.

Not in a million years.

He needs her to come for him.

Ben scissors his fingers and Rey… she’s so responsive. An almost startled-sounding whine escapes her and the grip on his hair turns near-painful, but he can stand to lose a few strands if it means that he gets to taste her as she comes on his tongue.

Ben slings his arm across her hips, forcing her back down.

“Are you gonna come for me,” he murmurs as he laps at her swollen flesh, and the vibrations must drive her mad, because she tries to buck against him again, but this time he’s got her pinned. Spread underneath him, open and glistening and just where he wants her.

“Yesyesyes,” Rey whimpers. “I’m so close. Pleasedon’tstoppleasedon’tstop!”

And he doesn’t. Instead assaults her clit again, sucking it deep into his mouth, as his fingertips find that rough, spongy spot on her front wall and push.

“Ohfuckohfuck… Ben!.”

Now he’s definitely lost some hair.

But he couldn’t care less. Not when Rey’s thighs are clamping around his head and her back bows off the bed despite his best efforts to hold her down.

A gush of her slick floods his mouth and wets his chin and above him she’s just saying his name, over and over again - BenBenBen - as she writhes underneath him, deep in the throes of her climax.

He releases her clit and strokes her through her orgasm, gently but steadily, lick after lick in long, broad swipes of his tongue, until her legs relax and her breathing evens out.

Her fingers are still in his hair, no longer holding on for dear life, but gently scratching over his scalp.

“Are you ok down there?”

“Yes,” he licks at her slit, cleaning her up with his tongue. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

“I think I almost suffocated you?”

Ben shrugs and licks her again until she squirms away from his mouth.

“What a way to go,” he mumbles, pressing kisses into her thigh instead.

“You don’t get to die until you’ve fucked me,” Rey says dreamily.

“How magnanimous.”

“Post-orgasmic high, don’t get used to it.”

Ben chuckles and lifts himself up on his forearms to look at her. He’s about to say something clever, something to coax her dimples to her cheeks, when his eyes snag on her chest, where two circular splotches have appeared on the pale-green silk of her camisole.

“Uh, Rey?”

“Hmmm?”

“You’re wet.”

She frowns, her expression somewhere between amused and confused.

“Uhm… yeah? Isn't that the point?"

Ben’s nostrils flare. He reaches up and slowly and deliberately traces his index finger over her pebbled nipple.

"No, sweetheart, you're wet here."

"Oh." Ben will never - never - get tired of the way her blush highlights her freckles and the green of her eyes. "Yeah, that, uhm… that happens when I get… you know… horny."

Now it's Ben's turn to gulp.

"I see."

Rey bites her lip, taking in the way his eyes are glued to her chest, the way he knows his mouth is slack and gaping as his finger traces across the wet fabric. Her smile turns sly.

"You could," and now her hands are cupping her breasts, more roughly than Ben himself would have dared. Squeezing and massaging and if Ben doesn't blink soon his eyeballs are going to dry. "You could help me with that, if you want."

"I could?" He gulps again. His cock is so hard that he thinks he might lose his mind.

"Seems like a waste." She winks at him, and if she had any idea what that does to his poor heart she probably wouldn't be doing it. "Besides, you seemed to like it last time."

Ben takes a shaky breath.

"I swear I'm not a pervert."

Rey throws her head back and laughs.

"It was kind of hot, to be honest."

"Oh, really?"

"Really really." Her hand cups his cheek, gently drawing him closer to her heaving chest. “Will you… please?”

Of course he will.

“Anything, sweetheart,” Ben rasps.

Reverently he peels her camisole down until her nipples are exposed.

They're dark and wet. Taut. He can feel how stretched her skin is, can feel how heavy they are… how full. Ben traces a finger around her areola, mesmerized by how the skin pebbles further under his touch.

"You are such a tease."

"Sorry," Ben murmurs, even if it’s a lie.

He bends down to take her nipple into his mouth. Her skin is hot and so so sweet. Slick too, slicker than sweat and spit alone would make her. He sucks experimentally, getting a feel for how much pressure he can apply, what she likes, what will make her gasp.

"Ben!" Rey moans and her back arches, pushing her tit more deeply into his mouth.

Ben is definitely beyond teasing her now. He cups her breast, massaging her flesh to stimulate the flow, and sucks deeply. Warm, thick milk spills into his mouth almost immediately. It tastes even better than he remembers.

"Oh, that's it," Rey moans. "Keep going."

Her small hand fists into his hair, anchoring him to her breast, as if he had any intention of unlatching as long as a single drop of her sweet sweet milk remains.

Rey is wriggling her hips against him, seeking friction, and Ben slots his thigh between her legs, giving her something to grind against.

Her milk is coming easily now. Each time he suckles her a thin stream flows into his mouth, flooding his senses. His cock throbs in his pants.

"I feel," Ben says conversationally, pulling back to watch her breast, and how small drops spill from her nipple when he does nothing more but cup the tender mound with his palm. "That I'm not really making this any better."

“It's... mhm... it's a vicious circle," Rey murmurs. Her slender hand pulls at his hair, pulling him back to her breast. “You should try the other side, maybe that will help.”

Ben regards her chest critically. One breast is still taut and full, the other softer and noticeably smaller now that Ben has drunk from it. He tongues at her neglected nipple and smiles against her flesh when she whines needily.

“I suppose it’s worth a try,” he says solemnly before he latches on again.

Her hand is still in his hair and she presses down on his scalp, pushing him closer to her chest, deeper into her engorged tit.

“Harder, Ben,” she begs.

It’s such an easy thing to obey her. He sucks with abandon, drawing almost her whole breast into his mouth. Her hips grind mindlessly against his thigh, seeking friction and soaking his pants.

“I need… I need…” Ben is intensely interested in hearing how that sentence ends, and very motivated to give her whatever she’s about to ask for, but instead she suddenly pushes at his shoulder.

Ben stops quickly, afraid that somehow, in his eagerness, he’s crossed the line between harder and too hard.

“Shit,” he says, wide eyed. “I’m sorry, did I…”

But Rey is already shaking her head.

“N... you’re fine, I just….” She’s blushing again and squeezing her breast rhythmically, and if Ben is honest with himself he doesn’t know which of the two is more distracting. “You’re wearing too much. And…”

Her blush deepens.

“I believe you said you would fuck me.”

Oh. Right.

Never in his 31 years on this planet has Ben Solo stripped this quickly.

Once he's completely bare for her he stands at attention at the end of the bed, suddenly a little nervous. Because surely he’s too wide. And too pale. And he has too many moles. That can’t be attractive.

And Rey… Rey is so very perfect. Ben still doesn’t quite understand how he’s come to be in her life, in her bedroom, and half expects her to draw the same conclusion at any minute and throw him out on his ass in his birthday suit and with an embarrassingly hard cock.

Although, judging by the look on her face, he has nothing to be worried about.

"I knew you'd have a gorgeous cock," Rey murmurs.

"Yeah?” Ben cracks a small smirk. “Did you imagine it?"

Her nod is almost shy. Adorable, he thinks.

"Frequently." Rey licks her lips. "Come here."

The mattress dips under his weight as he settles on the bed in front of her, between her spread thighs. He’d be happy to just sink into her, because surely they’ve waited long enough now, but she stops him with her palm against his chest. Ben whines, embarrassment be damned, as her other hand closes around his erect cock.

Ben looks down to where she is holding him, and… her hand is so small against his throbbing cock, the sight threatens to make him dizzy with want.

Ben has to bite back a moan as she gives him an experimental pump.

"I've literally had a human being come out of me, so I won't say that I don't know how that's going to fit,” she says in a maddeningly conversational tone, as she pumps him, “but I am glad that you've warmed me up."

Ben is just a flesh and blood man, so he preens at her praise, and because most of said blood is currently keeping his cock hard as rock, he can't do much more than grunt unintelligibly by way of response. Frankly, it’s a miracle that he even manages that.

Rey continues to stroke him slowly.

"I never thought of a penis as something beautiful," she murmurs. "And I've never seen an uncut one… at least not in person. Are you very sensitive?"

Ben wants to laugh, or maybe beg her to jerk him off in earnest, but again all that emerges is a truncated whine.

“What do you think?”

“Mhm,” another maddeningly slow pump. “Maybe?”

“Yes, Rey, yes,” he growls as he kisses her exposed neck. “My cock - that hasn’t been touched by another soul in more than a year, if I might add - is very sensitive, because the most beautiful woman in the fucking world is apparently also the devil and I really need to fuck her right now.”

“Then what are you waiting for?”

Excellent question that. Uhm… Ben’s mind feels sluggish what with all the blood currently pooling in his cock, as he desperately tries to muster a single coherent thought. He's pretty sure that there was something that they need to discuss.

“Ben?”

Right. Rey. She needs him to fuck her, which is a great coincidence, because he needs that too. But first…

“Do I need a condom?”

As soon as the words have left his mouth Ben squeezes his eyes shut with a truncated whine, because… he hasn’t got one. Ben has never been Mr. Smooth, and he certainly hasn't exactly planned for this to happen - hasn't imagined anything like this in his wildest, most secret dreams - so depending on her answer he’ll probably die of blue balls in the next five minutes.

But Rey - blessed, gorgeous, divine Rey - shakes her head.

“It's the wrong time of the month,” she murmurs, blushing again, which is a sight that Ben definitely will never tire of. “Plus, I'm breastfeeding, that…makes it less likely.”

Ben gulps. His cock throbs painfully. She wants him to raw her.

His expression must register as nervous, rather than what is actually is (unspeakably eager), because Rey hastens to continue.

“A lot less likely, really. Trust me, I’ve… learned the hard way to pay attention to this shit. I’m nowhere near my fertile window.”

Fertile window.

The phrase threatens to make his brain short-circuit. And a deviant part of him thinks that it’s a pity. He squishes that part down, where it belongs, together with all thoughts of Rey being round and swollen with his child. It’s a bad, bad thought, and not only because he’s going to come right here, right now if he continues to think it. He's moving too fast. Even in his addled state he can tell that much.

“I,” his throat constricts as he swallows again. “I can pull out.”

“Maybe…” She sighs. “Yeah, sure, It's probably for the best.”

There's an unhappy crease between her brows that tells him that she wants this as much as he does, all of it, but he doesn't want her to feel bad about any of this. Their mouths meet, gently but insistently.

“Don’t worry,” he murmurs against her lips. “There will be other times, sweetheart.”

Her hand falls away to be replaced by his and he notches himself against her. She’s so slick and swollen that he has trouble finding purchase and despite his best efforts his cock slips upwards and slides across her clit.

“Oh!”

“Good?”

He does it again, back and forth across the little hard nub and watches eagerly as Rey’s breathing turns ragged.

“Please, Ben…”

Ben bites his lip as he realigns his cock with her entrance and this time he doesn’t miss. His hips flex and then he's sinking inside her wet heat, one blissful inch at a time.

“Christ,” he grunts against her cheek. “You’re so tight, sweetheart.”

His hand falls away as he gently pushes his hips forward and Rey sighs as his cock finds a home in her body.

“Ben…” she sighs as he curls his spine to slide even deeper.

“Rey.” His chest feels too tight all of a sudden. “Fuck, Rey… I never thought… I never thought I could have this.”

He can’t find it in him to lift his hungry mouth off her cheek, away from her soft lips, so he whispers his confessions against her skin. Continues to pump inside her as he speaks, finding a rhythm that she seems to like, finding everything he's ever wished for in the cradle of her thighs.

“You’re everything I ever dreamed of. I could live a thousand lifetimes, under a million suns, and I don’t think I’d ever meet anyone that I want as much as I want you.”

“Ben...” she whimpers again. “I… I - oh fuck - the same… I feel - ah - the same…”

“You feel so good, sweetheart.”

“You too. Oh, God, Ben, you too.” Rey's blunt nails scrape against his back after a particularly hard thrust, and she moans obscenely, loud enough that it's almost a scream. “More, Ben. Please.”

"You like that?" Ben asks into the damp skin of her neck. He thrusts again and again, hard and fast, angling his hips just so.

Rey rewards him with another hoarse scream.

"I thought you, ah," she hiccups as she's pushed further up the bed with each deep thrust, "I thought you would come quickly. Not that I'm complaining."

Ben gives her a wolfish grin.

"Set low expectations, aim to surprise."

Her laugh is like music.

"I like the way you think."

"I like you." He levers himself up on his forearms so that he can look at her as he says this. There's sweat beaded on her upper lip, her hair is deliciously tousled - sex hair, if he's ever seen it - but her smile is the softest he's ever seen.

"I like you too," she murmurs, reaching up to brush his hair back from his eyes. "I like your stupid, perfect hair and your eyes."

Her fingertips slide down across the bridge of his nose.

"Your nose."

"Big nose," Ben grumbles.

"Big man," Rey agrees. She pushes against him, forcing him to roll over so that she’s on top, and somehow they manage this feat without him slipping out of her. But, to be fair, Ben is very motivated that his cock stay where it is. Where it belongs. "I like that, too. I like your lips."

Rey looks down at him for a minute, eyes scanning his face. His torso. Like she wants to drink him in just as much as he wants to memorize each little detail about her.

“I love your moles,” she whispers, dipping down to kiss the prominent one next to his nose. “I love your mouth.”

Her lips, her soft, perfect lips, trail lower. Across his neck, across his collarbones.

“Your chest…” she hums. “If this was a different age, Ben, people would write songs about these pecs.”

He laughs.

“Really?”

“Epic ballads,” Rey murmurs as she brushes her thumb over a flat nipple. “Poems long enough to fill entire books. And none of them would do it any justice.”

“I…”

“I know you think poorly of yourself, Ben Solo.” Rey wriggles her hips, riding him languidly, and this is possibly the most perfect moment in Ben’s entire life. “But you’re beautiful too, to me. I look at you, and I can’t believe that you’re here with me.”

Ben feels his eyes water. He can’t help it. His chest - no matter what Rey might think of its size and splendor - is just too small to contain all these feelings that well up inside him at her words.

“I changed my mind,” Rey whispers as she leans down until her face is buried in the crook of his neck. “I don't like you… I love you .”

Now the tears are spilling over, running down his cheeks and pooling in the shell of his stupidly large, ugly ears. His thrusts slow, until he's barely flexing his hips.

“I love you too…”

Rey’s teeth scrape over the sensitive skin over his pulse point.

“Not fair, only one of us gets to change their mind,” she grouses.

“I didn't,” Ben mumbles, feeling dazed and stupidly happy. “Change my mind, I mean. I always loved you. From the moment I met you. I just didn't want to scare you.”

“Scare me?” Her elbows dig into his song-worthy chest as she props herself up on his torso. Rey frowns and wipes at the tears that still strain his face. “Why would that scare me, Ben?”

He shrugs helplessly.

“I'm told I sometimes come on too strong.”

“I like that too about you, you know?”

No one has ever liked that about Ben. No one, not even his own family. And yet, she somehow does.

“That would be a first,” he mumbles.

“Get used to it, you stupid man.”

“Stupid?”

“Slow on the uptake.”

“Mhm… true.”

“Positively idiotic.” Rey braces the flat of her palms on his chest and rocks herself on his cock. The undulating movement of her thighs is mesmerizing and Ben groans.

“You got me.”

“I do.” Another slow roll of her hips. “My idiot.”

“Yours,” Ben agrees. He thrusts up into her and she whines and increases her pace. “Fuck, how are you that perfect?”

“You’re not so bad yourself.”

“Stop, unless you want me to cry again.”

Rey laughs and throws her head back. Her chest is flushed, her hips are rising and falling steadily. Her cunt is squeezing his cock and this is what heaven must feel like.

"I wish… I wish it had been me," he pant between increasingly sloppy thrusts. His balls feel so tight, almost painful. He knows that he's not going to last much longer. "I wish I'd filled you up. Wish I'd given you Noah."

Ben is afraid that he's said too much, but then he feels her tighten around him.

"You like that, sweetheart?" He grunts as he grinds his pelvis into her pubic bone. "You like the thought of my come in you? Of being filled?"

"Uh-huh," Rey moans.

"I'm… so deep inside you, Rey.” Ben groans as he pumps into her. “I'll paint your womb. Stuff this little cunt with my spend."

"God, Ben." Her breath is coming in distressed little pants. If she wasn't raking her nails across his chest like she is, he might think she was in pain. "Please. Please, Ben. I want you to."

"Can I, sweetheart?" He mouths at her exposed throat. Her pulse hammers under his searching lips. This isn’t what they’d talked about. "Can I come inside?"

"Please, Ben."

He grips her hips, forcing her to stop bouncing on his cock, because otherwise, he’s going to come now and waits until she’s actually looking at him.

“Rey…”

“Ben… I want this.”

“Earlier you said…”

“I know what I said,” she bites her lip, and then she leans down until her mouth is hovering right over his ear. Her breath is hot against the sensitive shell. “Please, Ben Solo, come inside me. Fill me up with your stupidly large cock. I promise it's safe. I'll buy plan B. It'll be ok. Please Ben... I want to feel you.”

Ben should ask again, or he should take the high road and say that this is a terrible idea, but fuck… he really doesn’t want to. He’s never been God’s strongest soldier, and definitely not when it comes to one Rey Niima.

“Fuck, sweetheart,” he grunts as he rolls them over smoothly. “You have no idea what that does to me.”

“Show me then.”

And he does.

Ben sets a punishing rhythm as he curls his spine until he can reach her stiff little nipple. His mouth latches on almost aggressively, sucking like his life depends on it. Rey shrieks and bows her back, and it only spurs him on to fuck her harder.

It's too much. She's so hot and slick and tight. Ben feels his balls tighten, feels that telltale tingle at the base of his spine that heralds his impending climax.

He suckles her, hard and fast, eager to taste her sweet milk, eager to make her come with him. Her fingers twist in his hair again, anchoring his head to her chest. The slight sting just spurs him on.

"Fuck, Rey,” he whispers against her weeping nipple. “I'm going to come."

The first burst of warm, sweet sweet milk is like ambrosia. Ben groans against her, and his thrusts devolve into a messy staccato that can barely be called a rhythm. He's going to come. He's going to fill her to the brim, so deep that her perfect little pussy will be dripping with him for days.

"Yes, Ben. Please," she whimpers.

Ah, crap. Apparently, he said that out loud. Mhm… there's no helping it, the only thing left is to lean into the filth that's filling his brain like static.

"Come with me. Come for me, sweetheart. Let me feel it as your pussy squeezes me.” His balls are slapping against her butt with each hard thrust, and the sensation is driving him mad. “Fuck, Rey, I'll fill you up if you come on my cock. Come for me. Come for me, my love."

Rey bows off the bed, nearly bucking him off, and she yells hoarsely, breath coming in harsh pants. She's grown so impossibly tight. Ben wants to fucking live inside her.

"That's it, let me feel it."

"Oh God, Ben!"

Her inner walls constrict rhythmically to draw him deeper and deeper still. The pressure on his cock is exquisite, and before he knows it, Ben is coming too, emptying inside her in long, almost violent spurts.

"Fuck. Fuck, Rey. Oh, fuck, you’re so perfect,” he babbles, but that’s fine. He means it all anyway. “So good. Taking it all… I love you… fuck, I love you, Rey."

Ben continues thrusting, continues pumping into her until he is spent, and then - after his balls are empty and the tingling at the base of his spine has receded - he's still fucking her in slow, lazy, deep thrusts, just to push his seed deeper into her tight channel. To stuff it all the way inside her, into her womb, where it belongs.

It's bliss. It's perfect. He's so fucking in love that he wants to scream it from the top of her building.

Rey holds him close until there's barely an atom of space between them, with her arms across his shoulders, with her heavenly thighs around his lazily rocking hips. She sighs and cards her fingers through his hair.

"We should do that again."

Yes, they really should, Ben thinks hazily.

The mattress dips, startling Ben back into wakefulness.

He must have dozed off, he's not really sure. All he knows is that he feels warm and sated and iridescently happy and that Rey's lithe shape is slipping under the covers next to him.

And that her feet are fucking freezing.

"Ngh," he says eloquently. "Fuck!"

"What?" She's giggling, so he suspects she knows what's up.

"Did you stick your feet in the freezer?"

"Nope," she hums. "Better get used to it."

"Mhm..." he presses a kiss against her bare shoulder. "I think that can be arranged. You're lucky I run hot."

He hooks his calf over her foot to pull the icicles at the end of her feet deeper onto his side of the bed, where it's nice and toasty.

"Love that for me." Her lithe shape burrows more deeply into his side with a happy little sigh.

"Where did you go?" He mumbles, his brain still sluggish from his orgasm and impromptu nap.

"Had to pee," Rey whispers, mouth grazing his shoulder.

Right. She had to go to the bathroom, because they had sex. The thought that he fucked Rey, finally and after all these years, brings a slow smile to his lips.

“Mhm,” he hums, and his arms wrap around her middle to pull her fully flush against him. The rustling sound of a crushed paper bag stops his movement halfway through. “What the…” Ben mumbles.

"I got snacks."

The to-go bag with the dratted danish emerges from between their bodies, only slightly worse for wear, and Rey shoots him a sheepish smile.

"I didn't eat anything this morning. I was... too nervous. I thought… I thought it would be… you know."

The last time she saw him.

"Me too," Ben says and presses a kiss to her forehead. "You'll get crumbs in the bed."

Her lips quirk up, all thoughts of last times and broken hearts forgotten.

"If that's a deal breaker, this might have been a mistake," she says before she provocatively pops a piece of pastry into her mouth. Ben has no idea how he can find this hot - because yes, alright, Rey knows him well: he might be a tiny little bit of a neat freak - but his cock twitches with interest at the sight.

He grins.

"I'd let you have Cheetos in bed," he says earnestly, rolling over to loom above her. His thumb brushes her temple. "I'll feed you tacos and chicken wings, sweetheart, if that's what it takes to keep you."

But Rey doesn't laugh, instead she grows quiet.

"Did you mean it?" She finally asks, her voice suddenly small and brittle.

"Mhm?" Ben props himself further up on his elbow and looks at her intently. He cups her cheek, and she shivers under his touch.

"About Noah,” she says. Her fingers worry at the pastry, raining flakes on the covers. Ben pays that no mind. It’s just crumbs, after all. “About wishing he was yours."

Ben freezes.

He did mean it. He truly wants it all with her. He also, desperately, doesn't want to say the wrong thing.

"I did," He says carefully. "And I didn't.”

Rey’s eyes shoot up, wide and worried, and he feels her whole body tense, so Ben hurries to continue.

“I love Noah. More than I thought was possible. He's perfect and beautiful and, weirdly, he smells really good,” Ben smiles, despite the tenseness of the moment. “Didn't expect that, to be honest."

"Yeah, babies smell good. It's weird." She shakes her head and leans forward until she’s snuggled against his chest, the poor danish a casualty of her need to be as close to him as humanly possible.

"Go on," she murmurs.

"I really love him,” Ben continues slowly, “and I… I need you to know that's not conditional on him being mine. I don't look at him and think of his deadbeat dad, or resent you for being with Snap in the first place. None of that enters into the equation, I swear. But… I also loved you from the day we met, when Noah wasn't in the picture yet. And seeing you with Snap was uncomfortable on a level that I can't explain without sounding absolutely insane. And I wish it had been me. I wish he was mine. I know that's contradictory, but I can't help it. I should be allowed to feel both."

"I get it," Rey murmurs against his pec. "It's OK."

"If you say so."

"I do." She grunts as she rolls on top of him, straddling his lower stomach. Her lips find his in a chaste kiss. A kiss that says that it truly is alright, as long as they're together.

"Listen," Rey starts, even has he's chasing her lips. There's a brief moment where they're kissing, both knowing that they should probably talk more but too lost in the sensation of soft lips and clashing tongues to stop, but then she pulls back with a sigh and places her fingers against his lips, pushing his head deeper into the pillows. "No, listen, please. I don't regret Noah, and at the same time I wish that… things had been different. That it had been you. Or that I hadn't gotten pregnant at all, that my first baby was a choice and not an accident, no matter how happy. And that makes me feel bad, because Noah is a fucking gift. And then I get angry at myself, because I should be allowed to be happy about a thing, and sad about how the thing happened, but instead I either feel bad about the one or the other and it's this vicious circle that I can't seem to break out of."

She draws a shuddering breath. Her hazel eyes seem to look all the way into his soul.

"We can feel conflicting things about the past, as long as we're alright in the here and now, do you understand? We are allowed both, Ben."

He nods against her fingers, too overwhelmed to speak. She's said everything there was to say anyway, everything he's been thinking. His clever, brave girl.

"I am happy where I am right now," he finally says, and his tongue feels heavy in his mouth, his throat too tight. Happy doesn't even begin to cover it, really.

"Yeah?"

"There is no place I'd rather be," Ben says. He reaches up to card her hair back, and she melts into his touch. "I love you, Rey."

“I love you too.” Her smile is like the sunrise. “I can’t believe that I finally get to have you.”

Rey leans in to kiss him, and before long this kiss turns into something a lot more heated.

Ben Is a little surprised when his cock begins to twitch and swell, but then again this is Rey - his Rey - that he's kissing and if his dick feels a burning need to make up for lost time, then Ben is not one to argue with that.

Men are anyway often accused of thinking with their dicks, and as far as Ben's concerned it's high time he starts leaning into that

“Mhm”, Rey murmurs as she drags her cunt over the ridge of his rapidly hardening cock. “I was thinking.”

“Yes?”

“Lately Noah has been sleeping very well. So... I think it might be a while before Maz calls.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“Yeah.” She rolls her hips again, tantalizingly, and Ben is sure that he’s died and gone to heaven. And he’s not even mad. Heaven sounds great. “And I'd really like for you to fuck me again.”

Yes. Definitely heaven.

“I think that can be arranged.”

“You better make me come before we need to go,” Rey says with a smile that is somewhere between fond and lascivious. Ben returns it with a matching one of his own.

Her hand sneaks between their bodies, gripping him just right, firm enough that his eyes threaten to roll back into his head, and she gives him a slow pump. Ben groans.

“Fuck, sweetheart, I love you.”

“Mhm,” Rey purrs, lining him up with her slit. “Prove it.”

And he does. Over and over again, for the rest of their lives.