Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

I’m so fucking lonely.

The words stood out, black marks on a white background that echoed in Rey’s soul. She stared at them, feeling the urge to cry.

It was the first post she’d clicked on in r/TouchStarved, and already she was a mess. She could still click away and try not to indulge this hungry, needy part of herself…

The breath shuddered out of her as she reached for her wine glass. “Chardonnay pairs well with being a desperate loser,” she said out loud, as if there was anyone around to listen.

There never was.

Since Rose and Finn had moved away two years ago, Rey had been alone. She’d been alone for most of her life, but for some reason it felt worse now. Maybe because she’d gotten used to casual affection. Finn’s bear hugs, the gentle press of Rose’s head against her shoulder as they watched a movie together. It had astounded Rey at first, how casual Rose and Finn were about touching other people, but soon she’d become an addict.

And then, like all good things, that connection had been taken away.

Rey still talked to Rose and Finn via phone and Zoom, of course, but it wasn’t the same. She supposed she could have filled the void with online dating, and she’d tried, at first, but her body and heart didn’t work that way. She didn’t want a stranger touching her, didn’t like the expectations that came with even the most casual contact. Those touches weren’t given out of care, anyway: they were solely a means to an end. Rey couldn’t relax, couldn’t trust, couldn’t fall into the rhythms that came so naturally to everyone else. She was awkward on first dates and a downright disaster on second dates, and at some point, she’d given up.

She’d flung herself into work then, becoming a successful art director for elite fashion magazines, but part of her was withering away.

It didn’t help that the photographer she was currently working with, Ben Solo, was a hardass with a temper and no understanding of human emotion. To survive the pressure cooker of work, she’d had to numb herself to more vulnerable feelings. As a result, the weak, needy parts of her tended to burst out all at once, especially when wine was involved.

KyloRen: I’m so fucking lonely. I work too hard, and I suck with people. I haven’t dated since my sort-of high school girlfriend. I haven’t had sex since some shitty college hookup. I’ve tried to date, but nothing feels right, and the only person I want to be with I can’t have. I need to be touched so badly, but most people repulse me or make me anxious, and the ones that seem to like me are just pretending because of what I can do for them. It’s been years of no contact past handshakes. Are some people destined to be alone?

The post tore at Rey’s heart, because it described everything she felt. There weren’t any comments on KyloRen’s post, so she typed one up, the wine making her brave.

DesertFlower: Same. I’m like… crying into my wine because of how much this resonates with me. I’ve tried online dating, but I don’t even necessarily want sex, even though I do want that in theory? I just need a good fucking snuggle with someone safe, but no one is safe, and there are always expectations. Like no one wants to touch me unless I’m putting out right away, ya know? And like… most people don’t even want that from me. I’m awkward and way too wary and I can’t get over my fucking hangups. Basically, I suck.

She submitted the comment before she could psyche herself out by double- or triple-checking the grammar. If she did that, she’d obsess over every word, and then she would never send it. Rey poured a second glass of wine, then lost herself in America’s Next Top Model reruns. Her phone buzzed two hours later, and she stirred from her half-asleep stupor on the couch. She’d received a message on Reddit.

“Oh, no,” Rey muttered, dreading what she might find when she opened whatever KyloRen had sent her. “It’s probably a dick pic.”

In her experience, Reddit DMs were never good. Nevertheless, she was curious, so she tapped on the message.

KyloRen: Hey. Thanks for commenting. I’m sorry your life sucks, too. And I get what you mean - I’d fucking love to have sex again someday, but at this point, literally any touch will do. But I haven’t seen my parents in years, and I don’t have friends outside work, and my work friends don’t really count. All we do is drink and bitch about work. I can’t remember the last hug I got, much less the last snuggle. It seems so easy for other people. There should be an app for lonely people to just touch each other.

Rey’s chest felt tight at reading words that could have been typed by her. She rubbed her eyes to clear the haze of sleepiness, then typed a response back.

DesertFlower: Ugh I’d love an app like that. But honestly, I wouldn’t want some stranger to touch me. Ya know? Like… I’d always be wondering what they want. If they actually care about me. (Which, of course, they wouldn’t.) If any kind of contact would do, I’d just challenge everyone to a thumb wrestling match. But the kind of contact I want is deeper than that.

He responded almost immediately.

KyloRen: I totally understand. Most people make me uncomfortable, and I can’t imagine letting some random person hold me. Not that any random person would want to. But yeah, I know exactly what you mean. There’s a kind of touch that comes from people actually caring about you - or at least, so I’ve been told. That’s what I want.

Rey felt the urge to cry again, but bitter life experience had taught her there was no point in tears. Whenever she’d cried as a child, her foster father had mocked her for being weak. Rey wasn’t weak, so now she squeezed her eyes tightly shut, refusing to let a single tear out.

When her emotions were finally under control again, she sent KyloRen a message.

DesertFlower: No one has ever cared about me. That’s not hyperbole; I was literally abandoned in a dumpster by my parents, then raised by a horrible foster father. It’s a miracle I have a job and an apartment of my own. I try to live a normal life, but even though I have work “friends,” no one really knows me.

There was something freeing about dumping her troubles on a complete stranger. She’d never have to see his pity, never have to feel the shame of sharing her vulnerabilities with someone who actually knew her. In Rey’s experience, when people figured out your vulnerabilities, they did everything in their power to hurt you.

KyloRen: Shit. I can’t compete with dumpster abandonment.

Rey choked on a laugh, then pressed her fingers hard into her eyes, trying to stop the burning of unshed tears. She hadn’t even confessed this part of her past to Rose or Finn, but for some reason, she felt okay sharing it with this stranger.

DesertFlower: There are lots of ways to be lonely.

KyloRen: Isn’t that the truth.

KyloRen: But for real, I feel like a precious little bitch now. I grew up rich, and sure, my parents weren’t really there, but I wasn’t raised in a fucking dumpster.

This time Rey did laugh.

DesertFlower: I wasn’t raised in the dumpster. That would be pretty fucked up.

KyloRen: But you started there. I started with a silver spoon, whatever that fucking idiom means. My parents might not like me, but I’ve never suffered for money.

Rey bit her lip. She despised the mega-rich on principle--it was hard not to, when the government and lobbyists were full of millionaires whose only priority was protecting their wealth--but KyloRen’s pain was palpable. He had money, but no love.

Rey had grown up with no money and no love, but she suspected no love had been the most devastating issue. It still was, according to her therapist. Rose and Finn were good friends, but as time passed, their calls had grown less frequent, and Rey knew she wasn’t a priority in their lives, anyway.

She got it. She totally got it. Rose and Finn had found completion in each other. Why should they worry about their single friend?

DesertFlower: I am fully in the ‘eat the rich’ camp, but I totally get how you feel, and it’s not your fault you were born rich. I want to punch anyone who neglected you as a child.

The TV was still playing America’s Next Top Model, but Rey’s eyes were glued to her phone. This was the most real connection she’d felt with anyone in ages. Just one more sign of how pathetic she was, she supposed. If no one in her life valued her, at least this stranger might for a few minutes.

After that, he would forget her. People always forgot her. Maybe they were all better off for it.

Kylo Ren: I want to punch your parents.

Kylo Ren: Yikes. Am I allowed to say that? Sorry, I’m told I’m a little intense.

Rey huffed.

DesertFlower: Trust me, it’s nothing I haven’t thought before.

She glanced at the clock, then cursed. It was after midnight, and she had to be up for a shoot in 5 hours.

DesertFlower: I need to go to sleep, but thank you for the talk.

She bit her lip. Maybe it was pathetic to get comfort from a complete stranger, but this was the closest to a real connection she’d felt in years.

DesertFlower: Maybe we can chat again sometime?

KyloRen: Sure. It’s refreshing talking to someone who doesn’t know what an asshole I am.

DesertFlower: You don’t seem like an asshole to me.

KyloRen: I’ll be sure to put the endorsement on my resume.

KyloRen: Goodnight, DesertFlower.

DesertFlower: Goodnight, KyloRen.

#

“No,” Rey said as the shutter clicked. “The angle’s all wrong.”

Ben Solo looked up from where he crouched, camera pointed at a pair of models. His long face held a ferocious scowl. “Excuse me?”

His poisonous tone promised a fight, but Rey wasn’t willing to compromise on her vision. “The angle,” Rey said, whipping out her notebook to show him the sketch she’d made of this tableau. “See? It’s supposed to be head-on.”

The two models were frozen in position, the man’s arm around the woman’s waist, her head tipped up towards his. They were dressed in the latest fashions from the House of Holdo, the draping clothing fluttering in the breeze from an industrial fan. Around them was a bower of flowers, and the lighting held the golden intimacy of late afternoon.

“Am I supposed to care about your scribbles?” Ben snapped.

“I’m the art director,” Rey shot back, “so yes, you are.”

Her scribbles were actually intricate sketches of how she imagined each scene, complete with sweeps of watercolor. This one was one of her favorites: the woman’s dress was a gorgeous fall of yellow blending into pink, then purple, and her silver armbands and collar gleamed in the warm light. In contrast, the man wore a structured black suit. Darkness and light, night and day. 

The sketch was even better when made reality. The models were excellent, and the way they held each other like they wanted to fall into each other brought forth an aching longing in Rey’s chest. No one had ever looked at her the way Poe looked at Kaydel, and even knowing it was an act didn’t diminish its impact.

Ben pushed to his feet, and one of the PAs backed up a few steps. Rey held her ground, lifting her chin. Ben towered over her, but she refused to be cowed by him.

“May I remind you,” he said, “that I am a multi-award-winning photographer who is sought after worldwide?”

This was why she hated Ben Solo. Well, part of why she hated him. He was so goddamned certain of his skill that he refused to listen to other points of view. And sure, his photographs were good. Breathtaking, even. But this wasn’t his home studio: this was a collaboration that needed to reflect the ethos, the very soul, of the House of Holdo, and Rey was the person who had done the research.

“May I remind you,” she said, stepping closer to him, “that I am the art director? You didn’t seem to understand that the first fifty times, but maybe the fifty-first is the charm.”

His nostrils flared. For a few moments, they just stared each other down, both breathing heavily. Rey was distantly aware of the crew making themselves scarce, though the models had no option to flee.

This close to him, Rey was far too aware of the breadth of his chest and the way his muscles strained his black T-shirt. He wore black jeans, too, and even his hair was black, as if he had emerged from the womb ready to claim the title of Prince of Darkness.

“You,” Ben gritted out, “are a menace to creativity.”

Rey was going to take that as a victory. “Noted,” she said. “Now let’s try the shot from a different angle.” She turned her back on him and headed towards the models. She tweaked the drape of Kaydel’s skirt, then smoothed a lock of the Poe’s hair. The sound of the shutter came from behind her, and she scowled over her shoulder. “I’m not the talent,” she snapped.

Ben took another picture. “Then get out of the way.”

Rey rolled her eyes, and Kaydel gave her a sympathetic look. Rey walked back towards her workstation, too aware of the continued clicks of the shutter as Ben kept photographing. Well, if he wanted to sift through even more photos to find a good shot, that was on him.

The thought of Ben having photos of her made her itchy. He’d probably tried to capture her least flattering angles. Rey wasn’t overly vain, but for some reason the idea bothered her. Maybe it was because Ben didn’t seem to have any bad angles. No, all that talent, ego, and temper had to be packaged up in a body that was, quite frankly, sinful. When Rey had first seen Ben, his height, biceps, and intense hazel eyes had sent a shiver through her.

Of course, then he’d opened his--stupidly sensual--mouth, and it had all been downhill from there.

The shoot progressed along similar lines for hours. Rey gave guidance, Ben resisted. Ben ordered the models around brusquely, and Rey objected, Whenever they broke to look at the photos, they bickered over which shots were the most flattering and which best represented The House of Holdo.

During one argument, Ben drove his hands through his hair. “You’re just… holding on!” he said. “You’re such a control freak. You want everything to match your silly little sketches, and you can’t see that it would be better if you just let me take the shot.”

“I’m a control freak?” Rey felt hot all over, and her hands trembled with the force of her anger. “What about you? You refuse to see this as a collaboration--”

“Because I’m the artist,” he snapped. “You’re nothing.”

She recoiled. To her mortification, her eyes grew damp. It was an echo of a sentiment she’d heard far too often in her life and her career. “Fuck off,” she choked out.

Ben Solo’s eyes widened, and she saw the “oh shit” moment when he realized exactly what he’d just said. “I didn’t mean it like that--”

“Yeah, you did,” Rey said, turning so he wouldn’t see tears welling. She pressed her knuckles into her eyes. Crying accomplished nothing; it would just make her look weak.

“You’re not nothing,” he said. “You’re just--I got mad, all right? I’m an asshole.”

She scoffed. “That’s not a personality trait. That’s a choice.”

He was quiet for a moment. “Yeah, I guess so.”

Rey could hear whispers from the assistants, stylists, and onlookers ringing the room. Her pride stung, so she straightened her shoulders, took a deep breath, and turned to face Ben again. “Let’s get on with it,” she said.

His mouth opened and closed a few times. Finally, he nodded.

The rest of the shoot was quieter, if not easier. While Ben took her direction-- some of the time--the tension between them was palpable. Several times, Rey turned to find him staring at her with an inscrutable look. Other times, he would start to argue, then bite into his lower lip as if stifling the words that wanted to erupt. Just fucking say it! she wanted to scream, but that wouldn’t be productive for the shoot.

The next time he bit his lip, she had a graphic vision of herself biting it, instead. Her teeth sinking into that stupid lip, his stupid blood on her tongue, his stupid groan in her mouth.

Rey squeezed her pencil so hard it snapped. Fuck, she was messed up in the head. So lonely and broken that even her hatred for Ben Solo sometimes took on elements of brutal longing. Thankfully, there were plenty of other things to focus on than Ben’s mouth or her own malfunctioning brain, and Rey threw herself into work.

Hours later, she straightened from where she’d bent over a monitor, satisfied that there were more than enough good shots to pick from. “That’s a wrap!” she called out. “Good work, everyone.” As the room burst into a flurry of activity, she stretched, then massaged her lower back. She was sore from standing, pacing, crouching, and bending as she’d examined every inch of the scene.

She heard a click and turned her head just in time to see Ben lowering his camera. “Did you just take a picture of me?” she demanded.

He shrugged. “I like getting backstage photos for each shoot. I put them on my website.”

She hadn’t noticed him taking any other backstage photos--other than the ones when she’d been adjusting the models--but she didn’t feel like arguing, so she let it go, instead focusing on helping dismantle the set and clean up.

“Next shoot is bright and early tomorrow,” she told the remaining assistants after things had been set to rights. “I’ll bring coffee.”

They smiled and waved at her before leaving. Rey sagged back against the wall and closed her eyes, grateful to have peace at last.

“When are we going to review the shots?”

She jumped at Ben’s voice, her eyes flying open. He was standing nearby, hands on his hips and a brooding look on his face. “I thought you were gone,” she said.

He gestured at the table where his laptop and camera sat. “I like to go through the shots immediately afterwards, while the mood is fresh. I’ll come up with a shortlist, but I’ve been informed”--he scowled--”that you get final approval.”

“I do,” she said, taking a certain amount of petty glee from the fact. She checked her watch. There were a few hours left before the end of the day, but she still had work to do in the office. “I’d like to review after the next shoot is done,” she said. “That way we can start to get a sense of narrative cohesion.”

He nodded curtly, then turned and stalked back to his laptop.

Rey rolled her eyes, then gathered up her things. Ben was already clicking through shots, his attention fixated on the monitor. It was clear he had no use for her anymore.

She paused in the doorway to rummage through her purse for her phone. When she looked back over her shoulder, she found Ben staring intently--not at the laptop, but at her.

Whatever. He was just being his usual challenging self, and she didn’t have time for another pissing contest. Rey tore her eyes away from his and made her escape.

#

Rey was two glasses of wine deep on her couch when she opened the Reddit app on her phone.

DesertFlower: hey

An hour later, she got a response.

KyloRen: Hey.

DesertFlower: Do you ever have days that feel like an entire year?

KyloRen: All the time.

KyloRen: Rough day at the office?

Rey snorted.

DesertFlower: You could say that. I work with this real prick.

KyloRen: Ah.

DesertFlower: How was your day?

KyloRen: I was a real prick.

Rey laughed. He couldn’t have been as bad as Ben Solo, and besides, true pricks were rarely self-aware of their prickishness.

DesertFlower: Noooo

KyloRen: I mean, I don’t want to be a prick. Not all the time, anyway. Some people just bring it out of me.

DesertFlower: Maybe they had it coming.

KyloRen: Probably not.

Rey reached for her wine glass and took a sip. This one was a cabernet, though not a good one. Not that she’d be able to identify good wine versus bad wine, but Finn had been horrified to learn she never spent more than $10 on a bottle. Though he’d grown up nearly as rough as Rey had, he had a good job now, and Rose had encouraged him to relax and treat himself sometimes.

The thought of Finn made her heart ache. He and Rose were on a European vacation, so she wouldn’t have been able to text him even if she’d wanted to. And even though she missed him, she didn’t want to subject him to her angst and loneliness. Not when his life was going so well.

KyloRen was clearly miserable, too, and not knowing who he was was strangely freeing. She could tell him her secrets with no repercussions. 

With the wine mellowing her out, she had the courage to ask something she’d been wondering about since she’d seen his first post.

DesertFlower: You said in your post that you can’t be with the person you want. What’s stopping you?

KyloRen: She hates me.

Rey winced.

DesertFlower: Yeah, that’ll do it.

DesertFlower: Maybe she’s just covering up unfulfilled sexual tension...?

KyloRen: Trust me, the only unfulfilled sexual tension is on my part.

KyloRen: It’s fine. I’ve never been great with women. She could get anyone she wants-why would she pick me?

The thought made Rey sad. She didn’t know KyloRen, but she felt protective of him anyway. He was her only confidant.

Fuck, that thought hurt worse.

DesertFlower: I’m sorry. I know what being lonely feels like.

DesertFlower: But you’re never alone on the internet, right?

KyloRen: Sure, ones and zeroes are a real substitute for human affection.

KyloRen: Sorry. I’m in a bad mood.

DesertFlower: Guess we both had a shite day.

DesertFlower: I’m just going to let this wine lull me into a state of relaxation.

KyloRen: Whiskey for me.

Rey lifted her glass to an imaginary companion.

DesertFlower: Cheers!

KyloRen: Not sure what we’re toasting...

DesertFlower: Being lonely losers?

KyloRen: Cheers, then.

Chapter Text

The next day, Rey stood outside a mansion in the predawn, huddled into her battered brown jacket and warming her hands on a cup of coffee. The scene she’d envisioned required the pure light of sunrise, which meant they’d had to be onsite at an ungodly hour.

The models were in place, seated at a wrought-iron table decorated with a spray of exotic blooms. Kaydel’s dress was yellow and off-the-shoulder, with fluttering sleeves and a corset bodice dotted with embroidered purple flowers. Amilyn Holdo was known for stark contrasts as a designer, and true to her aesthetic, the male model, Poe, wore a wide-shouldered, structured black tunic over a deep brown shirt with loose sleeves. It was a marriage of light and dark once again, which was why Rey had focused on moments of transition for the lighting: the gold of afternoon sliding into evening for yesterday’s shoot, with today’s highlighting the fresh glow of dawn.

The night sky was graying, with a sliver of orange rising over the horizon. Rey tapped her foot, feeling anxious. Everything was in place… except for Ben Solo.

He finally showed up right when Rey was about to start snapping photos on her smartphone. “Where were you?” she demanded as he set his equipment bag down on the table where a laptop and monitor were already set up.

“Asleep,” he said, looking not the slightest bit repentant as he assembled his camera. There were dark circles under his eyes, and his hair was messy. He was wearing black, of course: black jeans and a black leather jacket over a black T-shirt. Black like his soul… if he actually had one.

“You should have been here an hour ago with the rest of us,” Rey said.

“Why? I’m here to shoot photos, not watch models get dressed.” He raised his camera and took a test shot.

They were two minutes into their day together, and Rey already wanted to strangle him. “I was freaking out. I thought you weren’t going to show up.”

“Why?” he asked. “You hired me to do a job.”

“Because—” Rey broke off when he snapped a picture of her face. “Why are you taking pictures of me?”

He shrugged. “You look funny when you’re mad.”

Rey’s jaw dropped. “Are you deliberately trying to piss me off?”

“The best art springs from passion,” he said. “You have to feel something real as a creator.”

The word ‘passion’ rolling from his plush lips made her skin prickle. This time when he tried to take a photo of her, Rey covered the lens with her palm. “Somehow I doubt rage is the best emotion to evoke during a photoshoot celebrating a love story,” she said.

“Is it really?” he asked, hazel eyes flicking between her own. He chewed his bottom lip, and Rey’s gaze briefly dropped to his mouth before she caught herself.

“What?” she asked, feeling like she’d lost the plot.

“A love story.”

Rey squeezed her coffee so hard, the lid popped off. “You didn’t read the brief.” The brief she’d spent hours on, detailing every element of the photoshoot from narrative to design. “Oh, my god, you didn’t even read the brief!” She was going to have heart palpitations.

“Oh, I read it,” Ben said. He focused on the models, taking a few more shots. “I just disagree with it.”

“That is not your job,” Rey snapped.

“What is my job?” he asked as he kept taking photos. The sun broke over the horizon, painting the low clouds with rose-gold.

“To shut up and take pictures.”

He snorted. “You could have picked any photographer off the street if that was all you wanted. You paid for Ben Solo. This is what you get.”

It infuriated her that he was right. There was a magic to his photos that no one else could replicate. The images seemed alive, the subjects caught in moments of raw emotion that made the viewer build stories in their head. The energy in his work and the way he exquisitely built tension between elements of his photos was why she’d hand-picked him for this assignment.

Of course, that was before she’d known what a nightmare he was to work with. At their first meeting a month ago to discuss the shoot, she’d quickly realized he was a difficult man. Still, she’d thought at the time, how bad could he be?

Oh, how quickly she’d learned.

Thank God there were only three images to capture in this spread. They were shooting out of order: today’s shoot symbolized the lovers meeting, the previous day’s shoot represented the bloom of first love, and the final shoot—representing midnight—would be the release of passion. That one would happen several nights from now, giving everyone time to rest up in advance.

“They’re too stiff,” Ben said.

Rey tore her attention away from his profile to look at the models. They sat facing each other, hands nearly touching on the tabletop. She tilted her head. “They look fine to me.”

“There’s no energy to it.” He called out to Poe and Kaydel. “I want you to move for me. Start out leaning back in your chairs, then lean towards each other.”

The models did as asked, and Ben snapped a few photos. Then he beckoned Rey over to the monitor. “See the difference?” he asked, toggling between two images.

The first shot was pretty, but the second was far better. Though the models were in nearly identical positions, there was an energy to their bodies. A moment of suspended movement—the second between dreaming of a kiss and reaching out to claim one. “You’re right,” she said, trailing her fingers over the screen to trace the subtle arch of Kaydel’s spine.

She turned her head to find him looking at her with an odd expression. “Never thought I’d hear that from you,” he said.

They were standing very close, she realized. Close enough that she could feel the subtle warmth emanating from him. He smelled like coffee and something woodsy and spicy that made her want to suck in a deep breath. “Well, I’m not unreasonable,” she said, struggling to come up with words. Her skin was starting to ache with the too-familiar desire to be touched.

He laughed, and the spell was broken. “You are absolutely unreasonable,” he said, turning back towards the scene.

Rey scowled. Right. Asshole. “Takes one to know one.”

He shrugged. “Guilty as charged.”

She moved away, needing to put space between them. Her skin still felt too-tight, and she cursed herself for the reaction. It wasn’t him she wanted. She would have reacted to anyone the same way.

Rey focused on the work, repositioning the models, calling for slight corrections to hair and wardrobe. Ben moved around the shoot like a wraith, a tall, silent shadow whose finger worked relentlessly at the shutter button. Sometimes he called out curt instructions to the models, getting them to shift in subtle ways so he could capture those moments of suspended action. Rey’s notebook was burning a hole in her back pocket, and she itched with the desire to show him her sketches again, but she bit her tongue and let him work. The light would go fast, and they couldn’t waste more time on arguing.

Her restraint finally broke when he ordered Poe to look away from Kaydel while Kaydel leaned in. She pulled the notebook out, flipping to the sketch. “No, no,” she said. “They have to look besotted. See?”

He ignored her and kept taking photos. “Now try looking over her shoulder,” he called out. “Like you’re staring at the inevitable end in the distance.”

“Stop ignoring me,” Rey said. When he didn’t respond, she tapped his shoulder. “Excuse me!”

To her surprise, she saw a shiver race over his massive frame. He turned to face her. “What?” he asked. “We don’t have any time to waste.”

“It’s a love story,” Rey repeated. “He shouldn’t be thinking about any inevitable ends.”

“It’s more complicated than that.” He kept moving as he talked, taking photos from various angles, and Rey was forced to follow. “The light and dark, the meeting of night and day… this isn’t an easy sort of love. There’s an edge underneath it, something just a little wrong.” Rey started to argue, but Ben cut her off. “It’s in the attire,” he said. “Her flowing pastels, his black leather. They don’t belong together, and they both know it, but they can’t resist the pull.”

Rey looked at the models, trying to see the scene through his eyes. Now that she considered that approach, there was something a bit… off about the pairing of outfits Amilyn Holdo had insisted on. The black leather over a coarse brown shirt was rough compared to the gauzy yellow dress. The corset gave an edge to the dress, though, the boning an echo of the tunic’s sharp outline. Complementary, in a way, but Ben was right: they didn’t belong together.

For some reason, Rey’s eyes grew damp. She turned away and dug her knuckles into her eyes. Seriously, twice in two days? She wasn’t a crier, and especially not in front of Ben Solo.

“What is it?” His voice was uncharacteristically gentle.

Rey shook her head. “Nothing.”

“This is about emotion,” Ben said. “What the models are feeling, what we feel creating it, what the viewers will feel looking at it. You have to let it flow through you if you want to create art.”

She took a deep breath and pasted a smile on her face before turning around. “That explains your temper tantrums,” she said, ignoring the disquieting softness in his eyes. “But I’m not the photographer, so my emotional input is hardly required.”

His expression shifted back into a scowl. “Suit yourself. At least one of us has vision.”

Rey bit her lip so hard she thought it might bleed. The light was shifting rapidly—they only had minutes left.

She spent those minutes clutching her sketchpad tightly, watching as Ben twisted the narrative she’d crafted so lovingly. Poe and Kaydel were excellent, building a believable tension between them. As Kaydel looked over her shoulder with haunted eyes while Poe kissed her fingers, Rey could see it, too. The inevitable end.

That was life, wasn’t it? Things slipped through your fingers: time, love, possessions, people. A long letting-go.

Rey realized everyone was staring at her, from the models to the makeup artists. “What?” she asked, surfacing from her grim thoughts.

Ben cleared his throat. “I said, the light’s changed too much.”

“Right.” Rey clapped her hands. “Then that’s a wrap.”

The hushed silence that had fallen over the set broke, and people started chattering and bustling around. Kaydel and Poe were both grinning, and Rey felt an odd sense of detachment from the scene. To everyone else, this was just a fun project or a way to make money. None of them felt the same aching hollowness that filled her chest.

Ben was still watching her. She forced a smile again. “Well, I’m sure you’re eager to get away from here—”

“No,” he said.

She blinked at him. “What?”

He stalked towards her, stopping within arms’ reach. He filled her vision: big and strong, dark and magnetic. “Don’t cover it up.”

She was even more confused. “Cover up what?”

“The sadness.”

She stiffened. “I’m not sad.”

“It’s not a crime,” he said. “This is the point of art.”

“What’s there to be sad about?” Rey asked. “It’s a beautiful morning and we’re all gainfully employed.”

His eyes seemed darker, softer. Was he feeling it, too? This strange grief over something that had never even existed?

Rey didn’t want to have anything in common with Ben Solo, so she ignored the look in his eyes. “I need to help clean up,” she said, turning away from him.

His hand wrapped around her upper arm. “Wait.”

Rey stilled, sucking in a shocked breath. Even through her jacket, she could feel the warmth of his skin. His fingers pressed into her, five spots of delicious pressure. He was touching her. Someone was touching her.

She swayed on her feet, and Ben’s grip tightened. “Just… let me show you,” he said. “How I work. What…” He cleared his throat. “What letting go does for a work of art.”

“You just showed me,” she said, not comprehending his meaning. Little tremors raced through her as the pleasure center of her brain sparked at the touch. He was so solid and real. His touch made Rey feel real, too.

She couldn’t feel this way about Ben Solo, but she was helpless. Drowning in the intensity. The pleasure of being touched felt almost like pain to her hypersensitized skin, and she couldn’t help but wonder how the rest of her body would feel pressed against him.

“Come to my studio,” Ben said. His fingers flexed on her bicep a few times, the rhythmic movement almost like stroking. “Let me show you my photographs.”

“I’ve seen your photographs,” Rey said breathlessly. “As you delight in reminding me, you are a world-famous photographer.”

He shook his head. “Not the famous photos. Come see my private collection.”

Rey should go to the office. She should work on her sketches and start planning for the next spread. Barring that, she should go work out at the gym or do something else productive.

But her breath was coming fast, and a wave of tingling warmth was spreading from where he touched her, and Rey knew she wasn’t going to do any of those things. “All right,” she said.

Ben’s mouth tipped up on one side. It was the closest to a genuine smile she’d ever seen from him. “Good,” he said. His fingers trailed over her arm as he released her. “I’ll email you the address. Give me a few hours to review these photos, though?”

Rey licked her lips. “All right,” she said again.

“Good.” Ben was apparently repeating himself, too. They stared at each other for a few seconds, and then Ben shifted from foot to foot. He hitched a thumb over his shoulder. “I’ll just… be going, then.”

Rey nodded, unable to string together a coherent thought.

That ghost of a smile was still there as he backed away. “See you soon, Rey.”

Chapter Text

DesertFlower: Do you ever wonder if you’re actually attracted to someone or if you’re just desperate to be touched and anyone will do?

KyloRen: No.

KyloRen: I know exactly who I’m attracted to. I wouldn’t be able to transfer those feelings to anyone else, even if someone did touch me.

Rey bit her lip. She was currently seated at a coffeeshop, nerves thrumming as she waited for the rendezvous with Ben Solo.

DesertFlower: Oh.

KyloRen: Sounds like you have feelings for someone?

DesertFlower: I don’t know if it’s feelings…

KyloRen: Bullshit. It’s your emotions. You just have to be honest with yourself, otherwise what’s the point of feeling anything?

She snorted. It sounded like something Ben Solo might say. For such a grumpy jackass, he sure did like to lecture about The Importance of Emotion.

DesertFlower: I don’t do well with emotional honesty.

KyloRen: Well, I can’t help you there. I suck at being honest with other people, but at least I’m honest with myself.

Rey rolled her eyes.

DesertFlower: Very virtuous of you. Forget I asked.

KyloRen: No, wait

KyloRen: I’m not trying to judge you. 

KyloRen: Or maybe I am. I just get so frustrated when people can’t even look at themselves with clear eyes. Take me: I know I’m an asshole, and I know I have a temper and that no one likes being around me. I know who I want, and I also know she doesn’t want me. It doesn’t make me any happier, but at least I’m not wallowing in indecision.

DesertFlower: So now I’m wallowing?

DesertFlower: You have, like, zero context for this conversation

Rey was stung by the judgment, even more so because he... wasn’t entirely wrong. She hated Ben Solo, but there had been a definite flare of something when he’d touched her. But if she was attracted to Ben Solo, what did that make her? A masochist? Some kind of starfucker drawn to his talent and intensity? Was she actually attracted, or was she just so lonely that anyone would do? But if anyone would do, why hadn’t she felt that same something while adjusting Poe’s costume on set?

KyloRen: Shit. Sorry. I just… the woman I want is like a locked box, and I guess it reminded me of that. I saw her today. She’s so prickly, and she has no problem fighting with me, but she’s clearly suppressing so much. I see it in hidden moments when she thinks I’m not looking. The way her eyes get sad or the way her posture shifts depending on who she’s with. I see her smile and laugh like she’s the happiest person in the world, and then she turns away from whoever she’s talking with and the expression instantly drops. It drives me fucking nuts, wondering what she’s thinking about, what she’s feeling. I want to unlock all of that, but she does nothing but snap at me and pretend everything is fine.

Rey rubbed her chest. He could have been describing her… if anyone actually liked her. Whatever Ben Solo felt about her, it certainly wasn’t attraction or respect or anything like what KyloRen felt for his mystery woman.

DesertFlower: Okay, maybe you have some context. But what’s the point of opening up when nothing good will come of it?

KyloRen: How do you know nothing good will come of it?

DesertFlower: Good question, Mister She-Hates-Me-And-I’ll-Be-Alone-Forever.

KyloRen: Touche.

Rey sipped her chai latte, mulling over the oddity of the universe. KyloRen was a total stranger she’d messaged on a fluke, but she was talking to him like they were lifelong friends with no problems calling each other out.

DesertFlower: It’s weird that we can talk like this. I feel like I’m looking in a broken mirror. Like, there’s so much that’s universal, but we have these oddly specific commonalities.

DesertFlower: Maybe that’s all lonely people, though.

KyloRen: Maybe.

Rey looked at the time on her phone, then winced. The further she’d gotten from her agreement with Ben Solo, the worse she’d felt about it. What was she thinking, going to his studio? He was just going to lecture her about the creative process, then leave her steaming mad.

DesertFlower: I have to go. Thanks for the… pep talk? Judgment? Words of wisdom?

KyloRen: Fuck, definitely not words of wisdom. I’m a certified mess.

DesertFlower: We should have a club. Messes R Us.

KyloRen: Pretty small and depressing club.

KyloRen: But sure.

Rey smiled. In that moment, she felt a little less alone.

#

Rey’s palms were clammy as she stood outside Ben’s apartment building, gathering courage to ring the bell to his unit. She hadn’t known sweaty palms were an actual thing, but here she was, feeling nervous as a teenager at a school dance.

She didn’t have good memories of school dances, since she’d had to wear a dress two sizes too small and tennis shoes with holes in them, but whatever. Rey was an adult woman now with a career she loved, a few staple wardrobe items that had probably cost more than her childhood clothes combined, and her own apartment. She could go to Ben Solo’s studio without feeling like she was about to vomit from nerves.

Why was she so fucking nervous?

Her finger trembled as she pushed the button next to his number. Shortly afterwards, the lock buzzed to let her in.

Ben lived on the tenth floor. Not the penthouse, which she had almost expected, but this was a very fancy building downtown, so there probably wasn’t much of a difference. During the elevator ride up, Rey fussed with her hair and inspected her teeth in her compact mirror. Not that she needed to worry about mouth hygiene around Ben Solo—even if she occasionally fantasized about biting him—but he was always so well put together, and Rey was… haphazard at best. If she had to engage him in his territory, she might as well look good.

It was why she’d changed her outfit, too. Gone were the brown coat and loose jeans of the morning. Now she wore black slacks and a white button-up with a thin black bow at the neck. Professional and fashionable. Her black stilettos completed the aesthetic of “Artistic, but don’t fuck with me.”

Ben was waiting for her in the doorway of his apartment. He wore the same black jeans and T-shirt from the morning—although she supposed they could be different ones, considering how monochromatic his wardrobe was—and without the leather jacket, she could see how the tight fabric clung to his pecs, shoulders, and biceps. “Maybe consider sizing up,” she muttered under her breath. If those sleeves were any tighter, his arms would probably fall off from lack of blood flow. 

His dark brows drew together. “What?”

“Nothing.” She was damned if she was going to tell him his shirt was nearly obscene. When he shifted his weight, she swore she could see the ripple of abs under the fabric. Of course he had abs. Just more evidence that the universe was fundamentally unfair.

He held the door open for her, and Rey squeezed past. The entryway opened up into a large living room with plush red carpet, black leather couches, and white walls covered in framed, poster-sized black-and-white photos. “So this is how Ben Solo, artiste extraordinaire, lives,” she said. An arched doorway led to a kitchen on the left, and she could see the gleam of stainless steel appliances against black counters. “Nice place.”

“Shoes off,” he barked.

Rey huffed in annoyance. Her stilettos were the only thing putting her remotely close to Ben’s prodigious height, and she didn’t want to lose that small advantage. “Fine,” she groused, slipping them off. She lined them up on the shoe rack, overly aware of her bare feet and the chipped blue polish on her toenails.

When she straightened and turned around, she found Ben staring intently at… her ass? His eyes instantly flicked up, and Rey decided she was imagining things. “So?” she asked. “Are you going to instruct me in proper artistic technique?”

It was his turn to roll his eyes. “It’s not about technique. It’s about making this collaboration more productive.”

Her jaw dropped. “More productive? You’re the one challenging everything I say.”

His rebuttal came instantly. “And you’re the one who refuses to listen to my input.”

“Just because you’re famous doesn’t mean your ideas are better.”

“It’s not about being better, it’s about—”

“Oh, sure, like you’re not just gagging to put me in my place—”

“Will you just shut up for a moment?”

Ben’s voice rose on the last sentence, and Rey was stunned into silence. She stared up at Ben—and shit, when had she gotten so close to him? They were standing a mere foot apart, both of their chests rising and falling rapidly. His brown eyes burned into hers, and she licked her lips.

His eyes dropped to her mouth before snapping back up. “Look,” he said in a ragged voice. “Clearly we… disagree about certain parts of the creative process. But I’m not trying to fight you.”

Rey scoffed. “Yes, it certainly seems that way.”

He pressed his lips together, inhaling deeply through his nose. “Fair point,” he finally said. “But I’m… I’ve been told I’m a little intense.”

Rey felt the urge to laugh. “That’s putting it mildly.”

Ben drove a hand through his hair. “Yeah, well, you’re no picnic yourself.” At her outraged look, he winced, and then more words tumbled out of his mouth. “Not that you’re awful or anything, that’s not what I mean. You’re not awful. But you’re intense, too. And you have a vision you don’t want to compromise on. And I just… can we just talk?”

Something in the plaintive way he said those last words made Rey bite off the rebuttal she’d been about to launch at him. She breathed in, then blew the air out between pursed lips. Ben wasn’t wrong about her being intense. And yeah, maybe she’d come here spoiling for a fight. Her opinions had been discounted for so much of her life, and now that she had something to defend, she’d developed a hair trigger. She could step back for a few moments.

“All right,” she said. “Let’s talk.”

Ben swept his hand out, ushering her into the living room. Rey headed towards the couch, cognizant of the way her bare toes sank into the plush carpet. She was barefoot and alone in enemy territory, and her skin was already flushed hot with anger. She’d known this would be a terrible idea.

“Don’t sit yet,” he said when she made to plop onto the couch. “Come look at this.”

He was standing near one of the black-and-white photos. Rey joined him begrudgingly, though her interest was immediately piqued by the stark portrait of an older bald man with burn scars and pale, frightening eyes. The lighting was harsh, leaving black hollows beneath his cheekbones, and Rey felt a wave of revulsion just looking at the sneer on his thin lips. “Who is that?” she asked, turning to face Ben.

Ben didn’t quite meet her eyes. “My photography professor in college,” he said. “Dr. Snoke. The entire class was afraid of him. He thought I had the most potential, so he mentored me one-on-one.”

“He looks… mean.” It was too mild a word for how uncomfortable Rey felt looking at that photo.

“He was,” Ben said. “Snoke always mocked me for being too emotional about my photos, too sensitive to criticism. He told me true artistry relied on perfect technique, which you could only gain by staying distanced from your subject. And no matter how hard I tried to follow his guidance that semester, my photos got worse and worse.”

Rey watched, captivated by this glimpse into Ben Solo’s early years. He hadn’t always been a star in the photography world. Once, he’d been young and vulnerable, with a mentor who had tried to tear him down. “Why do you have a photo of him on your wall, then?” she asked.

“Our final assignment was to photograph him,” Ben said. His gaze was distant, like he was looking beyond the photo, rather than at it. “He sat in a chair in an empty room, and all we could do was play with light to make our photographs stand out. Twenty students, snapping the same face and pose. When it was my turn, he mocked me mercilessly for the first few minutes, telling me I’d never amount to anything, that he’d tried to build me into a successful photographer, but I was incapable of learning.” Ben’s mouth twisted. “And I felt this surge of pure rage. Utter hatred like nothing I’d ever felt before, burning me up. If I hadn’t had a camera in my hands, I might have strangled him.”

Rey sucked in a shocked breath. “Really?”

Ben grimaced. His eyes returned to her, though, some of the distance leaving his expression. “No. Maybe. I don’t know. But I couldn’t commit violence, so I did the only thing I could do. I stopped trying to photograph him like a man, and instead photographed him like a monster.”

Silence fell. Rey looked at the photograph again, seeing it with the clarity of context. Ben had hit just the right angle and added just the right contrast to make Snoke look like a figure out of nightmares, all sharp angles and cruelty. The image made Rey’s skin crawl for a reason. “How did he like the photo?” she asked.

Ben laughed. “He got quiet for a moment, then blustered on about my lack of talent. I think he gave me a C. But when I saw that photo, I knew everything he’d taught me was wrong. Distance wasn’t the key to making art. Emotion was.”

Rey was blown away by the story. There were more layers to Ben than she’d realized. He wasn’t just a cocksure jackass who thought he was better than everyone else; his talent had bloomed from a place of degradation and helplessness. “So this is the first true ‘Ben Solo’ photo,” she said, making air quotes with her fingers.

He nodded. “I hated the fucker, but I leave the picture up as a reminder to never lose that core understanding. That spark that makes my photos live.”

Rey moved to the next photo down. An old man, face weathered as a well-worn paper map, eyes full of terrible sadness.

“A family friend,” Ben said. “Taken a few months before he died of cancer.”

“I’m so sorry,” Rey said.

Ben shrugged. “It’s been years. Life moves on.”

The next photo was of a middle-aged couple laughing at each other in a sunlit kitchen. The woman’s nose was dotted with flour, and the man was grinning down at her like she was his entire world, his hands resting on her waist. “Who are they?” she asked, intrigued.

When she looked to Ben for the answer, he seemed tenser than normal. His hands were shoved into his pockets, and his shoulders curved in slightly. “My parents.”

Rey tried to remember what she knew about his parents. His mother was someone important—a senator, she thought. She didn’t know much about his father. “They look like they love each other very much.”

“They do,” he said. “When they can stand to be in the same room.”

But the cynicism in his tone didn’t match what Rey saw in the photo. The image shone with light, and even though it was black-and-white, she could envision the colors so well. She painted the gauzy curtains yellow in her mind, the mother’s apron blue. The light would be the warm spill of afternoon, glancing off the cut-glass goblets on the counter. It was a moment of joy, captured with love.

Ben didn’t look like he wanted to talk about it, though, so Rey moved on. She made her way down the line, silently admiring the images. He was right; these weren’t his commercial photos, the ones he took of rock bands or models. She felt like she was seeing something sacred.

The final image was a self-portrait, presumably captured with a tripod and timer. Ben stood with his back to the camera at the edge of a cliff, looking out over softly rolling hills that made Rey think of England. His dark hair lifted in a breeze, and he wore his usual unforgiving black, his hands in his pockets. He seemed disconnected from the landscape, a dark pillar against a cloud-dappled sky.

It was a lonely image. Rey’s heart ached looking at it.

“I think I understand,” she said. “Why it’s important to you to feel what you’re photographing.”

He stood next to her, his pose mirroring the photo. “That’s why I pushed you,” he said. “You’re positioning the models like dolls, rather than digging in to the emotional meat of the scene.”

That quickly, Rey was irritated again. “You don’t have to insult me because we have different processes.”

“I didn’t mean it as an insult.” When Rey looked at him disbelievingly, he grimaced. “Okay, it came out like that. But what I mean is… maybe we can find the emotion of the scene together. You have this beautiful eye for color and staging, but our visions aren’t meshing at the moment because we’re coming from totally different places.”

She wrinkled her nose. “Was that… sort of a compliment?”

He ran a hand through his hair, and Rey watched those long, thick fingers tug on the dark strands. She’d seen him do that before when he was frustrated with something. “Yes, it was a compliment,” he said. “You know you’re talented.”

He said it so matter-of-factly, and Rey felt her cheeks flush at the praise. “I do,” she said. “But few people have ever told me that.”

“No?” Ben looked surprised, which was gratifying, she supposed, but also told her how little he knew about the uphill path for women in most industries.

“I came from nothing,” Rey said. “And that’s not a euphemism. I went to community college with $20 in my pocket, sleeping in an old beater of a car I found in a junkyard and fixed up. To say it was a struggle to get here would be a vast understatement.”

“Shit.”

Ben’s brown eyes held something far too close to pity, and Rey shifted uncomfortably. “Anyway,” she said, waving a hand as if wiping away the past. “That’s old news.”

“Don’t do that,” Ben said, stepping closer to her. He caught her wrist in midair, and Rey gasped. His hand was massive, his fingers enveloping her wrist and making her feel fragile as a twig. When his thumb gently rubbed over the veins on her inner wrist, Rey shuddered at the touch.

Ben looked as captivated as she felt. His eyes darted from her wrist to her face and back. Another pass of his thumb had her biting her lip. She wanted to moan, her pleasure utterly out of proportion to the simplicity of the touch.

“You try to hide,” Ben said, that torturous thumb stroking, stroking, stroking. “But I see you, Rey.”

She let out a strained laugh. “I’m not sure what you mean by that.”

“You feel things,” he said, stepping even closer. Rey tipped her head up to look at him. Her pulse fluttered like the wings of a trapped bird. “Feel them deeply, too. But you’ve convinced yourself that shoving down those emotions and building a wall between yourself and the world is the best way to live.”

Rey didn’t like the way he was dissecting her. “You don’t know me.”

“Maybe not,” he said. “But I can see when someone’s holding on… holding back. You need to let go, Rey.”

Rey shook her head stubbornly. “I’m fine. We can’t all be hyper-emotional artists; some of us have to live in the world of profit and loss spreadsheets and office politics and client expectations.”

“Oh, bullshit,” he said.

Rey’s lips parted. “You’re telling me my personality is bullshit?”

“Your excuses are bullshit. Your job isn’t your personality.”

Rey yanked her wrist out of his grip. Part of her mourned the loss, but she felt too vulnerable while he was touching her. “So what?” she asked. “You want me to weep and rend my clothes on set? Turn into a blubbering mess in the name of authenticity?”

“No,” Ben said, fire in his eyes. “I want you to let me photograph you.”

Rey’s thoughts crashed to a halt. She blinked at him, trying to process the bizarre statement. “What?”

“Forget the Holdo shoot," he said. "We don’t need to worry about the third shot for a few days.”

“Maybe you don’t,” Rey said, “but I—”

“Already have it sketched out in your notebook, right?”

Rey opened her mouth, then closed it again.

“That’s what I thought,” Ben said, mouth turning up at one corner. “You’ve put it in a neat little box, the way you put everything in a neat little box. And you haven’t even asked me my opinion.”

“I gave you the brief weeks ago,” Rey said. “You could have shared your opinion then.”

“Over email?” He shook his head, raven locks shifting where they curled slightly at his neck. “I didn’t know what you were like to work with then.”

She huffed. “Difficult, is that it?”

“Yes," he said.

Rey bared her teeth at him. “Jackass.”

To her tremendous annoyance, he laughed. “Christ, you’re such a firebrand. But yeah, you’re difficult. I’m difficult, too.” He shrugged. “Most of the truly talented people I know are. But what we’re doing on the shoot—it’s like a dance. The balance between what we bring to the table is what gives the photos life. But right now, we haven’t found that balance.”

Rey briefly revisited her biting fantasy. If she chomped down hard enough on that plush lower lip, he wouldn’t feel like laughing at her anymore. “I fail to understand what this has to do with photographing me.”

“We’re going to learn each other’s languages,” he said. “Find out who we are together off set, how our creativity merges.”

Who we are together. Those words shouldn’t have sent a thrill through Rey, but they did. Ben Solo, one of the world’s most sought-after photographers, was standing so close to her she could feel the heat emanating from his skin, telling her he wanted to take pictures of her.

She wetted her lips. “What does photographing me entail?”

She could see the gleam of victory in his eyes. He knew he had her. Rey wanted more than anything to be able to tell him to stuff it, to walk away with her head held high and her pride intact, but her gut burned with a seething, urgent need to know. What he would do. What it would be like to be the sole focus of all that artistic intensity.

“You’ll come back here tonight,” he said. “Wear something you would wear when it’s just you. No corporate armor.” He gestured at her outfit when he said it.

Rey scowled. “How do you know I don’t dress like this when I’m alone?”

His raised eyebrows conveyed his opinion of that question. “Rey, I don’t think a single thing you show the world reflects who you really are.”

“Pompous ass,” she muttered. He was right, though. The Rey who existed alone in her studio apartment looked very different from the one who oversaw glamorous photoshoots. “What if what I wear at home is pajamas?”

“Then wear that.” His eyes trailed over her face. “No makeup. Hair however you want it.”

“I haven’t actually said yes,” Rey said.

Ben Solo smirked. “No, but you will.”

And fuck her life, because once again, he was right.

Chapter Text

Rey paced back and forth in front of her closet, chewing her lip to the point of pain.

Wear something you would wear when it’s just you.

When Rey was alone, she wore ratty pajama bottoms and a tank top with no bra. The white top had a streak of orange across it where she’d gotten careless with nail polish and the armpits were yellowed, but it was the softest shirt she’d ever worn, and she loved it. The pajama bottoms were blue plaid, worn nearly threadbare by time and laundering.

She couldn’t wear that in front of Ben Solo.

He’d worked with the world’s sexiest models, photographing them in anything from haute couture to nothing at all. He’d seen more beautiful people up close than the horniest teenager could even dream of. Rey could not wear her shitty pajamas in front of him.

She was already at a disadvantage with her meager chest and boyish figure. She was far from a bombshell, and that was before anyone looked at her up close. Her skin was peppered with scars from crawling over her stepfathers’ junkyard to find items to fix or pawn, and freckles dotted everything from her cheeks to her chest and shoulders.

How could Rey possibly compete against the other women Ben had photographed?

She stopped abruptly, staring blankly at the rainbow array of shirts and dresses in her closet. Why was she thinking about competing? Ben was a prick, albeit a compelling one, but it wasn’t like she was trying to seduce him. He’d be a pain in bed, anyway, probably as bossy and domineering as he was on set.

Rey shivered.

Her phone vibrated in her pocket. Rey fished it out to find a Reddit DM waiting for her.

KyloRen: I think I fucked up.

Intrigued, Rey typed back.

DesertFlower: Why? What happened?

KyloRen: I’m pathetic.

KyloRen: The woman, the one I can’t have. I’m so desperate for a single second of her attention that I’m forcing her to spend time with me. Like, the reasons are real - we work together and need to focus on a project - but she has no idea of my motivations. And I don’t know how I’m going to be near her without breaking.

KyloRen: Shit.

Apparently it was universal emotional crisis time. Knowing she wasn’t the world’s only disaster was comforting, in a way, though she felt bad for KyloRen.

DesertFlower: It’s okay. Deep breaths.

DesertFlower: What do you mean, breaking?

KyloRen: I won’t be able to hide how I feel. And she’ll reject me, because of course she will. And having her know how I feel and be disgusted or just pity me… I don’t think I can take it.

She needed to be out the door in ten minutes, and she still hadn’t selected an outfit, but Rey sat on her bed and focused on KyloRen. He was her friend, and he needed help.

DesertFlower: Do you know for sure she’ll reject you?

DesertFlower: You seem pretty harsh on yourself.

Rey’s phone buzzed again. This time, it was a text from Ben Solo.

Ben Solo: Are you wearing something comfortable?

She rolled her eyes. Of course he needed to check in and make sure she followed his directives.

Rey: Yes, oh mighty overlord.

She wasn’t, though. She was still wearing her slacks and button-up, trapped in indecision.

Ben Solo: Bring options.

She saluted sarcastically.

Rey: On it.

Well, that at least made the decision a little easier. She left the phone on the bed, waiting for KyloRen to compose his thoughts, and scavenged through her drawers. A purple nightie, jeans, a yellow maxi skirt with a ruffled white blouse… and the ratty pajamas, because why the fuck not. After a moment’s consideration, Rey decided on the jeans and a Wonder Woman T-shirt. Cheeky and plausible as something she would wear at home, but the jeans highlighted her ass, and the shirt clung to her waist and chest. Not bombshell status, but definitely cute.

The phone vibrated as she wriggled into the jeans.

KyloRen: I’m harsh on myself because I’m honest with myself. When I’m anxious, I act like a jerk so no one will realize. And she makes me anxious all the time. So she thinks I’m an asshole, and she’s right. I have no idea how to fucking talk to her, so I get way too intense.

DesertFlower: Why don’t you tell her that? That you’re an anxious person and you’re sorry for being rude?

KyloRen: That sounds way too reasonable.

Rey chuckled.

DesertFlower: I can’t exactly talk. I’m meeting up with that person I mentioned, the one I can’t tell if I have feelings for, and I’m going through outfits like a teenage girl before her first date.

KyloRen: Do you even read what you type? You obviously have feelings for them. (Him? Her?)

She stuck her tongue out at the phone.

DesertFlower: Him. And it’s more complicated than that.

DesertFlower: I react to him physically, but I don’t know how much is just me being lonely and how much is him. He’s sexy, there’s no denying that--pretty sure he has a fan club--but we aren’t exactly friends. And he’s out of my league in so many ways. And I don’t know if I even want to be in his league? And even if I was in his league, I have no idea how to relax and let anyone in.

DesertFlower: It’s all very confusing.

KyloRen: Have you thought about being honest with him?

KyloRen: (Don’t dish it out if you can’t take it.)

Rey laughed.

DesertFlower: Point taken.

DesertFlower: No, I think I will wallow in indecision and horny confusion.

KyloRen: Sounds like a plan. Count me in.

Rey put on her nice purple push-up bra, then pulled the shirt over her head. She admired herself in the mirror. Cute, funky, and mildly curvy. To further convince Ben that this was what she wore at home, she put her hair up in the messy three-bun style she’d chosen as her fashion trademark during university. It wasn’t actually fashionable, of course, and she didn’t wear her hair like that at work, but it was very good at keeping her hair out of her eyes.

DesertFlower: Okay, I’m off. Wish me luck.

KyloRen: You don’t need luck. You need confidence.

DesertFlower: Pot, meet kettle.

KyloRen: Touche

KyloRen: Messes R Us, right?

DesertFlower: Right.

She smiled as she put the phone away. Just talking to KyloRen made her feel better. Even if tonight was a disaster, at least there was a sympathetic ear waiting for her when she got home.

#

“No,” Ben said the moment she stepped off the elevator.

Rey stopped in her tracks. “What?”

He was standing in his entrance to his apartment, muscled arms crossed over his chest. “The outfit,” he said. “You don’t wear jeans at home.”

Rey’s jaw dropped. “Excuse you, how would you know what I wear at home?”

He stalked towards her. Rey braced herself. He was just so big, and he smelled really good, like he’d rolled around in pine needles and then bathed in expensive-sounding oils.

His hand hovered over her shoulder… and then he plucked her bra strap.

“Hey!” Rey said, jerking away from him. She rubbed the skin where the strap had snapped back. “What the fuck?”

“You’re wearing a bra,” he said flatly. “Are you telling me you seriously wear bras and tight jeans when you’re home alone relaxing?”

“They’re not that tight,” Rey grumbled. Except they were, and she knew it. “You know snapping bra straps is something twelve-year-olds do, right?”

In response, he turned and headed back towards his apartment. “Unless you have a change of clothes,” he called over his shoulder, “tonight is canceled.”

Rey followed him, already fuming. She hefted the duffel bag she’d brought with her. “I have multiple changes of clothes, you arrogant twat.”

When he looked back at her, it was clear he was suppressing a smile. “Is one of them something you’d actually wear at home?”

She rolled her eyes and shoved past him into the apartment. “Yes, in fact.” He didn’t like her jeans? Then fuck him, he could see her in all her messy, pajama’d glory. Let him try to make art out of that.

The kitchen was to the left of the living room, so after kicking off her shoes, she headed down a small hallway to the right, flinging open doors as she went. Closet. Office. Bedroom. She shut the door on that last one quickly, lest she get too invested in learning what color sheets Ben slept on. Black, she’d wager. The final door was the bathroom, and she shut herself in to change.

God, what a bathroom. His tub was big enough for two people, with buttons and spouts and gizmos that indicated it could do a lot more than just hold water. His countertop was black marble streaked with white, and his towels were crimson and obscenely fluffy. Rey buried her face in one, inhaling deeply. It smelled delicious, too.

What would it be like to live like this? Rey did well for herself, but she was far from earning “world-famous photographer” money. With that tub and those towels, how could Ben Solo possibly be so grumpy?

She heard footsteps in the hallway, and Rey quickly disengaged from the towel and started rummaging through her duffel bag. From the sound of it, Ben had gone into his office, where she’d spied an elaborate computer setup. That must be the modern-day equivalent of his darkroom.

Rey changed into her pajamas, then examined herself in the mirror. Very quickly, it was obvious she’d made a terrible mistake. Her tank top was white, and without a bra, the darker circles of her nipples were visible beneath the fabric. At the thought of Ben seeing them, her nipples tightened.

A knock sounded at the door, and Rey jumped. “About ready?” Ben called.

“Just a minute!” Rey shoved her jeans and Wonder Woman shirt—RIP to a lovely outfit—back into the duffel bag. Then she stared at the mirror, calculating the best course of action. Was having Ben see her—now very pointy—nipples more or less humiliating than fleeing the apartment before he noticed?

Fleeing would definitely be worse. And fuck it, he’d antagonized her into this outfit, anyway. Rey took a deep breath and flung her shoulders back. He wanted her casual? He’d get her casual.

She marched out of the bathroom. Ben wasn’t in the hallway, so she headed towards the living room, where she found him setting up lights and reflectors. “Well,” she said, holding out her arms. “Here I am, in all my shabby glory.”

Ben turned… and promptly made a choking sound. His eyes were glued to her tits, and Rey’s cheeks burned. This was mortifying, but the sooner they got it out of the way, the better. “Everything all right?” Rey asked.

“Yes!” Ben said the word with a startling amount of vehemence. He returned his attention to the light, focusing intently on angling it just so. “Much more genuine,” he said. “Good… good choice.”

Rey shifted from foot to foot, digging her bare toes into the carpet. “Isn’t it a little grungy?” she asked.

“It’s fine,” he said. “And you’re comfortable in it, which is what I wanted.”

Rey could argue that she was not particularly comfortable. She crossed her arms over her chest, willing her boobs to calm down. “So what will I be doing in these photographs?” she asked.

Ben gestured to the leather couch, and Rey took a seat. She fidgeted nervously, knees pressed tightly together and arms still covering her chest. She could feel the heat of the lights against her exposed skin.

“You’re going to sit,” Ben said. “And look at the camera sometimes, but not always.”

“What a thorough brief.”

His lips quirked. “Forgive me for not having 80 color palettes already spread out for your perusal.”

“Will it be in color?” she asked curiously. He shot plenty of color photography, but black-and-white was his signature.

“Not today,” he said, which made Rey wonder if there was a next time implied. “I find that genuine emotion shines through better in black-and-white photographs. There’s less to distract the eye.”

“So I have to look emotional.” Rey tapped her toes against the carpet, eyes dancing away from him. “About what? You want me to pretend to be sad?”

“I don’t want you to pretend anything.” He aimed the camera at her face, adjusting the exposure and focus. Rey bit her lip, body singing with nerves. “What are you feeling right now?”

“That if I wanted to talk about my feelings, I’d find a therapist?” At his stern look, she sighed. “I’ve never modeled before,” she said. “I’ll probably do it wrong.”

He clicked his tongue. “Impossible.”

“I’ve watched America’s Top Model. I know it’s harder than it looks. There’s all sorts of smizing and angles to keep track of. Like, what if my hands aren’t right? Or my eyes are too wide or not wide enough, or my posture isn’t dynamic enough?” She was starting to babble, but Ben had just taken a test shot of her, and it was really sinking in that one of the world’s most famous photographers was about to use all that talent to document her in her ratty pajamas. “And there’s the freckles,” she said. “Loads of them. And my skin is probably going to look blotchy without foundation—”

“You look perfect,” Ben said, cutting her off. He took another picture, then pulled the camera away from his face to look at the digital display. “It’s normal to be nervous. Just pretend I’m not here.”

Rey repressed a hysterical laugh. “Ben, you’re like… eight feet tall and sticking a camera in my face. I don’t think I’ll be able to ignore you.”

“Relax your posture,” he said. “Take a few deep breaths.”

He sounded soothing, which was very strange, given her experience working with Ben Solo. He was brusque and commanding with the models on set, giving orders that he expected to be obeyed without hesitation. Now, though, he was talking to her like she was a spooked horse that might bolt at any second.

Honestly, Rey wanted to bolt. She closed her eyes and breathed in deeply. The shutter clicked as she blew out the breath. She cracked an eye open. “That’s not going to be flattering.”

“You’re not the art director here,” Ben said. “Leave the photography to the professional.”

“I’m a professional, too,” Rey argued. “And isn’t the point to learn how to work together?”

“The point,” he said, fiddling with more settings on the camera, “is to develop a rapport. An emotional understanding, free from the pressures of set. And right now, you’re my model, which means being good and doing what you’re told.”

Rey shivered. The order was obnoxious, but there was something dark and possessive about the way he spoke the words that hit her low in the belly. “I rarely do what I’m told,” she said, aiming for confidence but instead sounding breathless.

He took another photo. “Tonight you do.”

Rey shifted in her seat. A slight throb had started between her legs, and her nipples were acting up again, pressing insistently against her crossed forearms. Fuck, she should not find anything about this situation arousing. She tucked her legs up next to her on the couch, sinking further into the cushions.

“Arms down,” Ben said. “Relax.”

This was a terrible idea. Rey squeezed herself tighter. “It’s hard to relax when you’re taking pictures of me.”

“Why?” he asked, changing the angle he was shooting from.

“Why?” She laughed, casting her eyes towards the ceiling. “You’re famous, and I’m… well, not.”

“You don’t know how to be the center of attention, do you?” He moved around her restlessly, examining her from different angles. She still hadn’t dropped her arms, but he seemed to be biding his time. “You have no problem building beautiful scenes for other people, but you’ve never let anyone do the same for you.”

“No one’s ever wanted to do the same for me,” she said bluntly. “And this is hardly a beautiful scene. There are sweat stains on my shirt, for God’s sake.”

“It’s beautiful to me.”

Rey was stunned into silence. What did he mean by that? Was it just artsy speak—some variation on finding beauty in the mundane—or was there a chance that he found her…

No, she told herself. She would not start wondering whether or not Ben Solo found her beautiful. That way lay madness.

“Arms down,” he repeated. “Sit like you would on your couch at home. Stop looking at the camera.”

Rey took a deep breath in through her nose, then dropped her arms to her lap. Her face felt hot, and it was a relief to look away from Ben. She focused on his self-portrait across the room, trying—and failing—to ignore the fact that Ben could see her nipples through her thin white shirt.

He didn’t comment on that, which was good, since Rey probably would have decked him. He commented on other things, though, ordering small adjustments as he kept taking photos. Loosen the spine. Chin out. Head tilted to the right. Eyes down. Eyes up. Shoulders angled just so. Try not to look so constipated.

That last one got her attention. She whipped her head around, glaring at him as he took more photos. “I do not look constipated,” she said.

His lips twitched. “No, but it got a real emotion out of you.”

“What, you want a dozen photos of me looking pissed off?” His finger was still working the shutter button, so apparently the answer to that was yes. “Can’t I just smile or something?”

“Do you feel happy right now?” Ben didn’t lower the camera, and not having to look him in the eyes should have helped with her nerves, but instead, Rey was consumed with the knowledge that he was studying her closely through the lens, no doubt marking every small flaw.

“Not really,” she said. “It’s all a bit awkward.”

“Then don’t smile.” He took a few more photos, then sighed and lowered the camera. “This isn’t working. You’re too tense. I can see you thinking, and the whole point is to get you out of your head.”

“Oh, well,” Rey said, moving to get off the couch. “You gave it a try. Some people just aren’t meant to be mod-” She broke off with a gasp when Ben’s left hand landed on her bare shoulder, keeping her in place on the couch. His fingertips were slightly calloused, and when he flexed them, goosebumps raced over her skin.

Rey didn’t even realize he was still taking photos with the camera in his right hand, too caught up in the sparks of sensation shooting through her body. When he gently trailed his fingers down her upper arm, a shudder went through Rey’s entire body.

“There,” he said roughly.

Rey blinked away the haze of need. “There what?”

He didn’t answer the question. Instead, he crouched in front of her, holding the camera in his right hand while he adjusted a lock of her hair that had sprung free. He tucked it behind her ear, and Rey’s lips parted. She leaned briefly into the touch before she could stop herself, and the camera shutter clicked again.

Rey stiffened. “Are you even looking at what you’re photographing?” she asked. The camera was aimed at her, but Ben was pressing the shutter button without even looking at the display screen. His gaze was glued to hers, and she licked her lips at the fire in his eyes. He took another photo.

“I’m looking at you,” he said. “I think that was the problem—the distance. You know how to pretend for a camera, but you don’t know what to do when someone really looks at you.”

She swallowed hard. “People look at me all the time,” she said, arguing for no reason other than to cover up what his intense stare was doing to her. Her lower belly felt tight, and the heavy throb of arousal had started again between her legs. Her skin felt hyper-sensitive, tingling where he’d touched her.

“They look at you,” he murmured, leaning closer. His eyes darted between hers. “But do they really see you?”

Before Rey could muster up an argument, Ben trailed the fingers of his left hand down her neck, then gently stroked the dip of her collarbone. Rey sucked in a ragged breath, eyes half-closing with pleasure. His touch was light as the brush of butterfly wings, but the impact it had on Rey was massive and instantaneous. Her pulse raced, her skin flushed, and her cunt clenched around nothing.

Ben’s eyes were growing heavy-lidded, too, and spots of pink burned on his cheeks. He chewed his plush lower lip, making it redder. Rey’s eyes dropped to his mouth, and she wondered what it would feel like against her skin. Would he be gentle or rough? Was he the type to take his time learning every inch of his partner or the type who overwhelmed with sudden passion?

Both, she imagined. All that intensity would be explosive in the bedroom, but he was also an artist with an eye for detail and a controlling streak a mile wide. He would be meticulous about taking his partner apart.

She didn’t need to think about what Ben was like in the bedroom. She wasn’t even sure why he was touching her now, but she couldn’t find the words to tell him to stop. Frankly, she never wanted him to stop. This was the most she’d been touched in years, and she couldn’t remember a simple caress ever feeling so good.

Ben flattened his palm against her upper chest. The tips of his fingers curved over her shoulder while his thumb played at the base of her neck. Fuck, he was so big. His hand would span her entire abdomen, and an image of those long fingers sliding inside her made Rey whimper softly. She bit down on her lip to suppress the sound, but Ben’s nostrils flared like a predator scenting prey.

His thumb slid to press softly against the side of her neck. “Your pulse is racing,” he murmured as he stared deep into her eyes. Rey felt like he was looking beneath her skin, that clever, intense mind cataloguing every feeling and thought that flashed across her face. His finger worked relentlessly on the shutter button, taking image after image.

It wasn’t supposed to go like this. Rey felt like she was drowning—in the scent of him, in the sound of his voice, in the feel of his fingers pressed against her skin. She couldn’t control her breathing or her heart rate, and with Ben so close, there was no way he could miss what he was doing to her.

Panic filled her chest. If he found out how she felt, she would lose all power in their fraught partnership. He’d feel free to walk all over her, maybe even dismiss her as a starfucker trying to get a piece of his wealth and talent. As Ben lifted his hand slightly, Rey surged to the side, trying to launch herself off the couch before she could embarrass herself further.

Unfortunately, he had just moved his hand to the side as well, and Rey’s panicked lurch pressed her breast into his palm. She jerked away, but she couldn’t bite down fast enough to stop the cry that burst from her lips.

“Fuck,” Ben breathed.

Mortified, Rey tried to squirm past him, but he caged her in with his arms, dropping the camera to the cushion next to her. His palms planted on the leather seat beside her hips. “Where are you going?” he demanded. There was a feral edge to his expression.

“I-I need to leave,” Rey stammered.

Ben narrowed his eyes. “Bullshit.”

“This is mortifying.” She burned all over, and her embarrassment was only rivaled by her arousal.

“What’s mortifying?” he asked. “That you showed me something genuine?”

She shook her head. “You don’t know what’s genuine or not.”

“Don’t I?” He moved both hands to her waist, fingers sliding under the hem of her T-shirt to brush the skin just above her waistband. Rey quivered again. She was right; his hands practically wrapped around her. “You can lie, Rey, but your body knows the truth.”

“Fuck off,” she said in a shaky voice.

His fingers flexed on her waist. “Lie down on the couch.”

Rey opened her mouth to argue, but Ben tipped her backwards before she could speak. “Hey!” she complained as her back hit the cushion. “You don’t just get to manhandle me.” The leather was cool under her back, creaking as she wriggled—towards him, away from him, she wasn’t sure.

Ben climbed onto the couch, kneeling between her feet and taking up the camera again. He took another photo of her, looking up her body. “Much better,” he said. “Not nearly so stiff.”

Rey struggled onto her elbows, blowing at a ribbon of hair that had fallen out of her buns. “I thought I was supposed to be sitting and sometimes looking at the camera,” she snapped.

“That wasn’t real,” he said, taking more photos. “This is.”

“Oh, yes, getting horizontal is the first step to artistic authenticity.” Her sarcasm came out shaky, though. Her entire body hummed with a sick, burning excitement.

Ben scooted forward, and Rey hitched her knees up automatically, thighs trembling as he knelt between them. He was looking through the camera viewfinder again, which was a small comfort. She didn’t know if she’d be able to handle the intensity of his stare right now. “Arch your back a little,” he said as he aimed the lens down at her.

“What is this, a pinup shot?” she asked.

He made a low growling sound that curled her toes. “Just do it.”

Rey did, feeling all kinds of foolish as she arched her spine off the cushion. Her breasts strained against the shirt, and Rey turned her head to the side, too embarrassed to look at Ben directly.

His hand settled on her abdomen, and Rey jerked, coming off the cushion a little. “Yes,” Ben said roughly, the sound accompanied by the shutter click. “Don’t hold it in.” His touch was warm through the thin fabric of her shirt, the pressure grounding.

“Hold what in?” Rey gasped, squirming against his palm. How had she gotten here, on her back with Ben Solo pinning her down and wetness gathering between her thighs? Things had spiraled out of control so quickly.

“You like being touched,” Ben said. “And you don’t know how to handle it.” Click click click went the camera, that round glass lens taking in every second of her collapse.

Shivers raced over her skin, and she shifted, hips rocking instinctively. “I know how to handle it just fine. I… unh.” His thumb had grazed her waistband, dipping just beneath the fabric, and a flood of pleasure spilled over her. Her stomach trembled as he stroked the soft skin of her lower belly, the touch gentle but devastating. Holy God, how did this feel so good?

“Does anyone ever touch you, Rey?” he asked, soft as smoke. “Or do you keep this need locked away, too?”

She was dying, about to fall apart from nothing but his thumb on her stomach. Her cunt pulsed, and she clenched, imagining having him inside her. His fingers, his tongue, his cock… It had been so long.

She didn’t realize she’d whispered those last words out loud until he stopped photographing for long enough to nod at her. His eyes were darker than she’d ever seen them, the pupils blown wide. “A long time for me, too.” He shifted his weight, leaning forward as he rotated his wrist to replace his thumb with the slide of long fingers down her lower belly. “Tell me to stop,” he whispered.

She should, but she couldn’t speak. She just stared up at him, eyes wide and desire pulsing through her veins.

“Say it,” he repeated, voice cracking. “If you want me to stop, say it.”

His fingers wormed under the hem of her underwear, stretching the fabric, and Rey could do nothing but pant and whimper. Just say it, she told herself as the pads of his fingers ghosted over the edge of her pubic hair. Tell him to stop.

But she didn’t want him to stop.

“Fuck!” she cried out at the first brush of his finger over her clitoris.

Ben groaned softly. He was breathing as heavily as she was. She couldn’t see his eyes, since he'd lifted the camera again, but she could see the tension stringing his body tight, and a bulge pressed against the front of his black jeans. He was worked up, too. “That’s it,” he whispered as Rey’s hips rocked towards the touch. “Let go.”

Her head thrashed on the cushion, half denial and half the restless need to move. His hand was hovering just above where she needed it, his fingers resting mere centimeters away from her clit. Could he guess how wet she was?

He finally rubbed her clit again, and Rey keened. Pleasure sharp as lightning shot through her, and words tumbled out of her mouth without conscious thought. “Please,” she heard herself say. “More, please…”

“Jesus fuck,” Ben said hoarsely.

There should have been warning alarms blaring in her mind, but Rey was beyond rational thought. Her focus had narrowed to the relentless circling of his thumb and the fire he was building in her lower belly.

His fingers slid down further, reaching her soaked entrance. “Shit,” he said as he stroked her. “You’re so wet, sweetheart.”

Not your sweetheart, she wanted to say. “Oh, God,” she said instead.

Click click click. He was still photographing her, though the camera shook in his right hand. It must have been awkward and uncomfortable, holding it with only one hand, but he didn’t seem to care. Maybe she should be outraged, but her arousal only ramped up higher.

One finger sank inside her, and Rey cried out. It was so much thicker than her own. Longer, too. When he crooked it and dragged over her inner wall, Rey’s vision grew blurry. Ben touching her felt better than she ever could have imagined.

“That’s it,” Ben said as she gasped. “Let me do this for you. Even if it’s just this, let me do this.”

She couldn’t make sense of his pleading words and tone. All she could focus on was the steady build of pressure and heat, the way her muscles were tensing in anticipation of orgasm. She was close, spiraling higher and higher with every caress of his finger over her G-spot. His thumb rubbed roughly over her clit, and it wasn’t the most coordinated touch, but the combination was going to wreck her. “Ohh,” she moaned, tipping her head back and biting her lip. Just a little more…

“Look at me,” he ordered roughly. “Look at me when you come.”

Rey’s eyes flew open as the orgasm finally broke. She twitched and jerked, crying out as her cunt pulsed rhythmically and heat washed over her. The orgasm stretched out almost unbearably long, a flood of sharp, clenching, hot, glorious bliss. Ben was muttering something as his fingers continued working mercilessly between her thighs, but she couldn’t process anything but the occasional “fuck” grunted in that dark midnight voice. Each click of the shutter seemed to coincide with a throb of pleasure.

Finally, the orgasm ebbed, and Rey collapsed back onto the couch, limbs trembling. She’d never come like that in her life. She groaned as Ben slid his finger out of her. He lifted his fingers to his mouth, and when he sucked them clean, she shuddered from head to toe. She closed her eyes, unable to move or think just yet. She drifted in the dark and quiet, letting the final quivers shake their way loose from her oversensitized body.

When she finally opened her eyes again, Ben was looking at the camera’s display screen. His jeans were still tented, but he seemed more interested in the images than in taking care of his erection. His expression had turned triumphant. “God, these photos are going to be beautiful,” he said.

It was like a bucket of cold water had been poured over her. Rey stiffened. “You’re keeping them?”

“Obviously,” he said, still clicking through the images. “They’re exquisite.”

She struggled into a seated position. Her buns were destroyed, and her hair fell in wild tangles around her shoulders. Being photographed had felt sexy in the moment, but now, seeing Ben clicking through images of her orgasm with glee, rather than talking to her or cuddling or fuck knows what else her lonely heart had expected, she felt dirty. “Does portrait photography not pay the bills?” she asked acidly. “You need a side hustle in pornography?”

He looked up at that, forehead creased. “I’m not going to sell them. The images are all waist-up, anyway. It was about capturing your expressions, your emotions.” His lips tilted in that crooked smile, except now it struck Rey as more of a smirk. “You certainly let go.”

Rey scrambled to her feet, legs trembling. Yeah, she had let go—by coming all over Ben Solo’s hand. Ben Solo, who was famous and rich and handsome and probably had hundreds of women willing to get on their knees for him. Ben Solo the asshole who shouted at her on set and discounted her opinions.

And she’d just let him finger her and photograph it.

An awful thought struck. “Do you do this with them?” she asked, voice trembling.

His brows drew together. “With who?”

“The models.” Rey’s throat felt thick. “All those beautiful models you get to photograph day in and day out. You probably have a private collection, right?”

He stood up, setting the camera aside. “Is that really what you think of me?”

“I don’t know.” Rey rubbed her eyes, which had started to prickle alarmingly, before facing him again. “I don’t know what the fuck to think of you, Ben.”

He flinched. “You certainly knew what to think of me five minutes ago,” he said nastily. “Apparently you have a short memory.”

Rey’s stomach felt knotted, and hot shame washed over her from head to toe. “What the fuck do you want me to say?” she demanded. “Earlier today you hated me, and now you’ve fingered me for your art or some shit, and I’m supposed to… what? Praise your genius and tell you you’re right, that all I needed was to loosen up a bit and do exactly what you say?” She let out a bitter laugh. “What a lesson in collaboration. Give the little lady an orgasm, see if that shuts her up.”

He stood still as a statue, face frozen in an expression that frightened Rey in its very blankness. “Go home, Rey,” he finally said.

She sucked in a breath that sounded more like a sob. “That’s it?”

He turned away from her, stalking towards the window and cracking open the blinds. The lights of the city gleamed below, red and orange and yellow like tiny fires in the night. “Yeah,” he said without turning around. “I think that’s it.”

Rey wouldn’t cry in front of him. That would be admitting weakness, and she’d done enough of that today. So she scooped up her duffel bag and headed for the front door. Her hands were shaking so badly she had trouble putting on her shoes, but Ben thankfully kept looking out the window. He didn’t see when the first tear trailed down her cheek, nor when she looked back at him from the doorway.

The click of the door closing behind Rey felt like an ending. Of what, she couldn’t say. Something that could have been, maybe. A lonely soul’s delusion.

Rey waited for the elevator, far too aware of the wetness in her underwear, the ache in her heart, and the stupid, naive wish that maybe Ben would run out of his apartment to stop her from leaving.

I don’t do this with anyone else, he might say.

This wasn’t about proving a point.

I genuinely like you.

But Ben’s door stayed shut, and the elevator dinged, and then Rey was stepping inside.

She cried all the way down.

Chapter Text

DesertFlower: Why do people suck so much?

Rey sat on her couch, eyes red and swollen from crying. A pile of tissues lay next to her, and she was on her third glass of wine. She’d have a headache tomorrow, but she fully planned to take a sick day and stay on her couch moping.

KyloRen typed back a few minutes later.

KyloRen: Better question: why do I suck so much

She frowned at the phone.

DesertFlower: I don’t think you suck.

KyloRen: Yeah well I do.

DesertFlower: Did something happen?

KyloRen: Oh, nothing much

KyloRen: Just thought I got everything Ive ever dreamed of, only to have it made abnudantly clear she thinks im a fucking monster

KyloRen: I guess I am a monster

KyloRen: fuck

KyloRen’s relationship drama at least provided a welcome distraction from her own. Rey rubbed her bleary eyes and typed back.

DesertFlower: What happened?

KyloRen: I touched her. Like, I actually got to touch her, and it was amazng. I couldnt fucking believe she was lettign me do it

Rey gasped.

DesertFlower: You hooked up with your dream lady???

KyloRen: It wasn’t a hookup. Not for me. It was… I wanted to worship her. Bring out all that passion she keeps inside, and I did and it was so beautiful. I thgout I died nad went to heaven I wanted itto last forever

KyloRen: Soryr am drunk

What a pair they were. Rey lifted her wine glass in a silent toast.

DesertFlower: Same, dude

KyloRen: she felt like fucking… christ i can’t even explain

KyloRen: Sorry

Rey wrinkled her nose.

DesertFlower: Why are you sorry?

KyloRen: Is it creepy of me to talk about this  with you?

KyloRen: I dont want to be creepy. Im just sad.

KyloRen: I didn’t knbow it could hurt this much

Rey’s heart ached for him. He was clearly much drunker than her and arguably more miserable, if that was even possible.

DesertFlower: You’re not creepy. This is what friends are for.

KyloRen: Are we even friends though? Yuo have no idea who I am

That stung. Rey’s eyes grew damp again. Her first real connection in years, and he apparently didn’t value it as much as she did.

DesertFlower: ...I thought we were friends.

KyloRen: Shot

KyloRen: Shit, I mean. Im fucking up again. Im the worst.

KyloRen: you deserve a better freidn than me

Rey took a deep breath, wiping her eyes again. KyloRen was drunk and hurting; she didn’t need to take it as a rejection just because she was still stinging over Ben using her.

DesertFlower: Shut up

DesertFlower: I’m officially declaring it. We’re friends.

KyloRen: You wouldnt like mne if you knew mne

DesertFlower: Didn’t I just tell you to shut up? Now tell me what happened with your lady.

KyloRen: ...cant if I’m shutting up

That got her to chuckle. She settled back into the couch cushions.

DesertFlower: Fair point. Look, I had a shit night too. Don’t expect me to make sense.

KyloRen: Why was yours shit?

She winced. How to even start explaining the disaster of her night? There’s a hot man I hate but am also apparently really into, if my current state of emotional devastation is any clue, and he fingered me and took photos of it and then everything went to shit. She absolutely did not have the energy or emotional resilience to explain the whole saga to KyloRen.

DesertFlower: Hookup gone wrong. I thought maybe… I don’t know.

KyloRen: Maybe what?

She bit her lip. It was hard being honest when she felt so embarrassed, but KyloRen didn’t know her name or what she looked like. Her secrets were as safe with him as they could be with anyone.

DesertFlower: I guess I decided I had feelings after all. And we did stuff, really hot stuff, and I thought maybe he had feelings too, but he just… left me feeling used.

KyloRen: fucker

KyloRen: I’ll fight him

Rey laughed.

DesertFlower: I don’t know, he’s pretty big

KyloRen: bet im bigger

She highly doubted it, unless he was nine meters tall and could bench press a truck.

DesertFlower: It’s weird that we both had shitty hookups after meeting on r/touchstarved. First time I’ve been touched in years and I left crying.

KyloRen: I cried too

KyloRen: after she left

KyloRen: I made her come, felt pretty proud abou ti. Joke’s on me she still hates me

DesertFlower: Want me to fight her?

KyloRen: Noo

KyloRen: I dont want her to be hurt ever. 

KyloRen: I just… thought we shared somethngi special. And she bascialyl called me a womanizer trying to maniplate her

KyloRen: Tu[o[j

KyloRen: Tuping is hard

KyloRen: Typing

Rey drained her glass of wine, then poured another. Her head was foggy, but at least she could still write coherent sentences, as painstaking as it was.

DesertFlower: Did you tell her you thought it was special?

KyloRen: No

Rey rolled her eyes. What was wrong with men? Had they never heard of using their words?

DesertFlower: Why not??

KyloRen: Shed clearly already made up her mind

KyloRen: Shed just think I was lying

DesertFlower: How do you know that?

KyloRen: She never givwes me the benetit of the doubt

KyloRen: benefit, fuck

Rey worried her lower lip between her teeth. It was hard not to project on KyloRen. If Ben had said anything nice or reassuring or even just held her for a few moments after her orgasm, she wouldn’t be tipsy and tragic right now. Instead, he’d kicked her out. But KyloRen actually liked this woman, and it sounded like he hadn’t done a good job of communicating that. Maybe his relationship, unlike her non-existent one, could still be salvaged.

DesertFlower: What if she was feeling insecure? It sounds like she was worried your interest wasn’t real if she thought you were a womanizer.

DesertFlower: Although I guess I should ask… are you a womanizer?

KyloRen: NO. Fuck no.

KyloRen: m too awkward, and I dont wnat it anyway. People have tried, but I dont do casual. Never wnated anyone as much as her.

Poor idiot man. Rey sniffled, wondering why more men couldn’t be like KyloRen. He was absolutely devoted to this mystery woman, and she had no idea.

DesertFlower: You should have told her that during the post-coital cuddle or something.

KyloRen: what?

“Oh, no,” Rey said out loud. It was clear KyloRen’s love interest was insecure and worried the hookup hadn’t meant anything… but had he really fucked up that badly?

DesertFlower: You did cuddle her after, right? It’s like… mandatory when you have feelings for someone.

That was part of what had stung so much about what had happened with Ben. She’d been lying on his couch in a post-orgasmic haze, and he hadn’t bothered to give her a moment’s attention before he’d started clicking through the photos he’d taken of her.

KyloRen: ...no

“What?” Rey screeched at her empty apartment. “KyloRen, no!” She immediately typed a response, thumb punching aggressively at her phone screen.

DesertFlower: Let me get this straight

DesertFlower: You hooked up with your dream woman, made her come… and didn’t cuddle her afterward?? And then when she accused you of being a womanizer, you didn’t tell her otherwise???

It was like a weird alternate universe version of her own night, except Ben didn’t actually like Rey and KyloRen probably hadn’t engaged in an erotic photography shoot with his love interest.

DesertFlower: Dude, I can’t think of a worse way to go about it if you actually wanted to be with her.

KyloRen: But she was very mean and I just… shut down. Lk my heart felt like it ahd been ripped out and stomped on. 

Rey rubbed her own chest. She felt similarly, which was ridiculous, since she’d been convinced she hated Ben Solo up until very recently. But now that she’d crossed that line with him, she had to admit to herself that the attraction had been there from the start. And the moment she’d let herself give in to those feelings, he’d treated her like trash. After the fingering, which was, admittedly, excellent. It had been hot and intense and everything she could have dreamed, and then he’d made his priorities clear when he’d picked his bloody camera over her. He’d prioritized pictures of Rey over Rey the actual human being.

The thought made her mad all over again.

DesertFlower: I refuse to let you ruin this

DesertFlower: One of us has to get a happy ending, dammit

DesertFlower: You’re going to contact her and tell her you fucked up and aren’t a womanizer and that you have feelings for her.

KyloRen: Its just goin to hurt more when she rejects me again

DesertFlower: She won’t if you grovel!

DesertFlower: Bitch, do NOT fuck this up for yourself! Or for me! Give me some good news to be happy about.

KyloRen: Too drnk

Rey rolled her eyes.

DesertFlower: Not tonight, dummy. Drink some water and go to bed. Talk to her when you’re sober.

KyloRen: You rly think she might not reject me?

DesertFlower: She hooked up with you. People who hate each other don’t do that.

Well, normally they didn’t. But her weird lust-hate thing with Ben was the exception, not the norm. Most people had normal crushes and logical hookups that ended in mutually satisfactory ways. Hot, angry photography fingering was something that only happened to disasters like Rey who had poor impulse control and bad taste in men.

KyloRen: maybe

Rey looked at the clock. 1am. Shit, they needed to wrap this up.

DesertFlower: Go to bed. Things will look better in the morning.

KyloRen: they rarely do

KyloRen: but thnks

KyloRen: night flower

She smiled.

DesertFlower: Night, Kylo

#

When Rey returned to work two days later, she was immediately intercepted by Jessika, one of the PAs who doubled as a receptionist for Rey’s department. “Feeling better?” the chipper brunette asked.

Rey smiled weakly. “Just a stomach bug.” Or a mortification bug. She’d spent the previous day hungover and sulking on her couch, watching terrible rom coms. She would have done the same today, but the final photoshoot of the Holdo spread was happening tonight, and she had prep work to do. 

She’d have to see Ben again tonight. Rey felt sick at the thought.

Jessika made a sympathetic sound. “Those are the worst.” She handed Rey a piece of paper. “Here are the messages you missed. Amilyn Holdo wants to know how the shoot is going, but nothing else is super urgent.”

Rey scanned it. A few meeting requests, an interview request from a high schooler interested in fashion, a cold call sales pitch. “How did Amilyn sound?” she asked.

Jessika winced. “She said she heard you and Ben Solo weren’t getting along.”

Rey’s stomach flipped at the sound of his name, and her skin grew hot. “Does anyone get along with Ben Solo?” she asked, aiming for a casual tone and missing by a mile.

“Fair point,” Jessika said. “But you should probably tell her conflict is the key to high art or something like that.” The PA shifted from foot to foot, looking worried, and Rey knew she had more news—and probably not good news.

“Spit it out,” Rey said.

“Speaking of Ben Solo… he was looking for you yesterday. He showed up three separate times demanding to see you.”

Rey bit back a derisive laugh. Ben had never come to the office outside of an official meeting—he probably just wanted to make sure she didn’t spread the word of their disastrous hookup. “Well, he can make an appointment like everyone else if it matters that much.” She headed towards her office, heels clicking over the tile.

Jessika jogged to keep up, and okay, maybe Rey was power-walking a little too aggressively. “He seemed upset,” Jessika said. “Like, he knocked over one of the potted palms.”

Rey’s brows rose. “On purpose?”

“I have no idea, but he stormed off and didn’t pick it up. Poor Mitaka jumped like three feet when it happened.”

Mitaka was one of the magazine copywriters and notoriously jumpy. “What a dick,” Rey muttered. “Ben, not Mitaka, obviously.”

“And the third time,” Jessika said, “he insisted on leaving something for you. I told him to give it to me, but he slid it under your office door.”

They had just arrived at said door. Rey looked at Jessika with alarm. “Did he say what it was?”

“No. It looked like a piece of paper.”

Rey itched to know what Ben had sent her. “Right,” she said, struggling to appear calm. “Thank you, Jessika.”

The receptionist nodded and returned to her desk. Rey took a deep breath, then unlocked her office door. Sure enough, a blank piece of paper lay a few feet inside.

When Rey picked it up and turned it over, she realized it was a photo printed on thick, glossy paper. It was instantly recognizable as a Ben Solo original: black and white with stark lighting. A single rose sat in a narrow glass vase, its white petals just beginning to open. Smoke spiraled towards the top of the image, and Rey realized the rose was on fire. Below a bright lick of flame, the edges of the petals were singed black.

She stared at it, baffled. What did it mean? She turned it over a few times, but there was no note or any other indication of why he had left it for her.

Well, she supposed she could ask him tonight. She winced.

Thinking about Ben was threatening to ruin her entire day, so slid the photo into her satchel, determined to forget it existed. She sat at her desk and turned on her computer. Time to face the day.

#

“No, no,” Rey said into the phone as Jessika laid the day’s mail on Rey’s desk. “It’s absolutely not a problem, Amilyn. We’re both very, ah, passionate about our work. But the photos are going to be exquisite, I promise you.”

Jessika gave Rey a sympathetic look before leaving, closing the door behind her.

Rey started ripping open mail, cradling the phone between her ear and shoulder. “Mmhmm,” she said, throwing an advertisement in the bin. “Oh, of course.” More junk. “I understand your concern, but I’ve always believed conflict is the key to high art.” She grimaced at an invoice—and her own trite excuses. “It adds a certain beautiful tension, don’t you think? I’ve noticed that in your collection…”

As Amilyn Holdo launched into an enthusiastic monologue about the elements of tension in her collection, Rey opened the final envelope. It was large and bore no return address, only Rey’s name and office address inked in exquisite calligraphy. When she pulled out a black-and-white photo, Rey startled, and the phone dropped to the floor.

“Sorry,” she said, scrambling to pick it up. “Just bumped into something. Amilyn, I hate to do this, but I have a very important meeting to head to. To talk about the shoot, in fact. So if you don’t mind…”

It took another minute to get the designer off the phone. Rey breathed a sigh of relief when she finally hung up. She focused her attention on the image.

This one showed a black ceramic masquerade mask lying on dirty concrete. The mask was partially shattered, with the right side disintegrating into broken shards. There was no question who it was from… but why?

“Weirdo,” Rey muttered, setting the photo down. It felt hot in her office; she tugged at the collar of her shirt and shifted in her chair. The images were gorgeous, and for whatever reason, Ben was sending them to her. Were they some kind of cryptic message?

She pulled out her phone and messaged KyloRen.

DesertFlower: Are all men incapable of talking about their feelings?

KyloRen: Yes.

KyloRen: At least, most of the ones I know.

She sighed and shook her head.

DesertFlower: Insane, all of you.

KyloRen: Don’t pretend you’re some great emotional communicator.

KyloRen: Remember wallowing in horny indecision?

DesertFlower: Ouch

KyloRen: I’m just saying.

DesertFlower: Have you talked to your lady yet?

KyloRen: Sort of.

Rey huffed.

DesertFlower: What do you mean “sort of”??

KyloRen: It means I’m working on it.

DesertFlower: It’s not that hard to just pick up the phone and ring her. “Hello, love of my life, please forgive me for not being clear about my intentions. I adore you.”

KyloRen: Don’t you have better things to do right now than criticize my wooing techniques?

Rey looked at her closed office door, then her empty inbox.

DesertFlower: No.

KyloRen: Maybe it’s midnight where you live, but I still have hours left in my workday.

DesertFlower: It’s 3pm

KyloRen: Same time zone, then. You must slack off at work.

DesertFlower: Surely I can take a break here and there to harass you?

The same time zone comment made her curious, though.

DesertFlower: Where do you live? If you don’t mind me asking.

KyloRen: Coruscant

Rey’s jaw dropped.

DesertFlower: No way??? Me too!!!!!

KyloRen: Wait, really?

DesertFlower: Yes, really!

It wasn’t the wildest coincidence in the world, since Coruscant was home to millions of people, but it still blew Rey’s mind. What were the odds her r/touchstarved buddy would live in her city?

DesertFlower: We should get lunch sometime!

DesertFlower: I mean, if that’s not weird

Except then he would know what she looked like, and she’d have to give him her real name, and then she’d lose the safety of internet anonymity. But Rey was also lonely and in need of a friend. Maybe he could fill the void left behind after Finn and Rose moved to Naboo.

KyloRen didn’t respond right away, and Rey started to panic.

DesertFlower: Shit, sorry, I totally made it weird. You do NOT have to get lunch with me

She nibbled her fingernails, praying she hadn’t just alienated her new friend forever.

KyloRen: No, it’s just a surprise. People don’t ask me to lunch much.

KyloRen: At least, not unless it’s a networking thing or they’re trying to get something from me.

KyloRen: I’m not as fun in person.

DaisyFlower: Bold of you to imply you’re fun online

KyloRen: A mortal wound.

Rey giggled. She liked his sharp yet understated sense of humor.

DaisyFlower: Jk you are VERY FUN. The funnest. Just a barrel of laughs all around

KyloRen: All right, enough lying. When do you want to get lunch?

Oh God. She was actually going to meet him in person! The thought sent waves of panic through her. What if he didn’t like her in person? What if she didn’t like him? What if he smelled like unwashed feet and ended up being a serial killer?

DesertFlower: You aren’t going to murder me, right?

KyloRen: …

DesertFlower: I mean, it seems unlikely. If you can’t even get the balls to tell your lady you love her, how will you get the balls to murder me?

KyloRen: …

DesertFlower: Forget I asked.

She thunked her head against the desk. This was part of why she was always alone. She ruined things, made them weird, was too intense or too aloof or too… something. Basically, she had the social skills of a feral raccoon.

Her phone vibrated.

KyloRen: That was simultaneously hilarious and very rude. No, I will not murder you. And my balls are perfectly adequate, thank you very much.

KyloRen: Are you free tomorrow? I’m seeing her again tonight, and I have a feeling I’ll need to vent.

Tomorrow? Rey let out a small but very excited shriek. She was meeting her online friend in person tomorrow! And since she still had to go through another photoshoot with Ben Solo tonight, she had a feeling she’d need to vent, too.

DesertFlower: Deal! Are you near Maz’s on Takodana Way, by any chance? It’s my favorite lunch spot.

KyloRen: I haven’t been there for years, but yes, I know it. Noon?

DesertFlower: Sounds like a plan. Good luck tonight!

KyloRen: Thanks. I’m sure it will go terribly.

She rolled her eyes.

DesertFlower: God, you’re such an Eeyore. Chin up! And remember to use your words!

KyloRen: I will when you will.

KyloRen: See you tomorrow, DesertFlower.

DesertFlower: See you then!

Rey grinned as she set the phone down. She felt warm and happy, the way she’d once felt when Finn and Rose had invited her over for movie nights. Like she was valued. Like someone wanted her around.

Was KyloRen a hugger? Rey hoped so, although she suspected he would be as awkward about it as she was. Still, she vowed that before lunch was over, they’d both get a proper hug. She wrapped her arms around herself, spinning in her chair. Two days ago she’d felt utterly devastated and more alone than ever, but even with the specter of tonight’s photoshoot looming over her, she had something to be excited about.

“Do your worst,” she dared the photo of the shattered mask on her desk. “I have allies.”

All right, only one ally, but that was more than she’d had for a long time.

Rey dug in her bag and pulled out her sketchpad, where she’d documented the poses she wanted to see tonight. She grabbed her colored pencils next, flipping to a blank page. Ben Solo thought her designs were just scribbles? Fuck him. She was the art director, she had a new friend who valued her, and she wasn’t going to let Ben walk all over her ever again.

Chapter Text

Rey bounced on her toes, nibbling her thumbnail. The crew was laying out setpieces while assistants rushed around with makeup brushes and armfuls of fabric. This shoot was in an opulent bedroom in a gorgeous countryside manor—apparently Amilyn Holdo had connections, because this was the nicest house Rey had ever been in.

In the ensuite bathroom, Kaydel and Poe were being airbrushed, contoured, and glossed to perfection. Their outfits were looser—Poe’s a sweep of black fabric open at the chest and Kaydel’s a dreamy, pale blue nightgown. Rey had serious envy for that silky dress, with its delicate straps and the loops of pearls that draped in three tiers over each shoulder. It looked gorgeous, and Rey could confirm from her admiring perusal in the wardrobe earlier that it was heavenly soft. Nothing like what Rey wore to bed.

At the memory of what she did wear to bed—and what had happened when she’d worn it to the photoshoot in Ben’s apartment—she winced. God, how could Ben have possibly wanted to photograph that when there was a world of designer nightwear out there?

She wouldn’t think about his fingers sliding into her pajama bottoms. That memory was locked up tight: tonight was about the job.

“Open the veranda doors,” Rey called out. “I want a few angles with the fountain in the background.”

The four-poster bed topped with a plush blue-and-gold comforter was the statement piece of the room, but Rey was just as enchanted by the environment it was situated in. Gauzy curtains framed a sliding glass door that led onto a patio where a fountain bubbled under the stars. White roses were arranged around the room, continuing the floral motif of the earlier shots while reflecting the purity of moonlight.

Rey stiffened. The photo Ben had slipped under her door. Had he based it on this scene? If so, he would have needed to look at the sketches she’d included in the brief, which seemed unlikely. Then again, it did seem like the kind of gesture he might make: lighting a white rose on fire as a final “fuck you” to Rey’s artistic vision. The thought made her scowl.

“We’re just about set! Are you—oh.”

Jessika’s voice roused Rey from her brooding. She turned to look at the PA. “Yes?”

“You look really pissed off,” Jessika said. “Everything okay?”

Rey forced a smile. “I’m fine. Just got lost in thought.”

Jessika nodded. “Right. Well, Poe and Kay are ready for the shoot, and everything’s in place.”

“Everything except the photographer,” Rey said sarcastically. Ben wasn’t precisely late, but he was cutting it awfully close, per usual.

“I’m here.” The low rumble behind Rey made her jump. She turned so fast she almost fell over, and Ben reached out to steady her. She only had a moment to absorb the pressure of his fingers against her upper arm before he jerked his hand back as if burned.

“I…” Whatever Rey had been about to say dried up on her tongue. She hadn’t been this close to Ben since The Incident. He was tall and dark and smelled absolutely delicious, and she couldn’t tear her eyes away from him.

Ben was looking at her just as intently. His jaw flexed.

“Um, okay,” Jessika said, backing up a few steps. “I’ll just… be going, then.” The PA scurried away, but Rey hardly noticed. Ben Solo gobbled up all her attention like a black hole warping the fabric of space.

He was wearing black jeans, motorcycle boots, and a form-fitting black sweater. His hair curled slightly at his nape, the ends damp as if he had recently taken a shower. There were circles under his eyes, and Rey wondered if he, too, had struggled with sleep the last few days.

“So,” she said.

“So,” he responded.

Two nights ago, he’d been knuckle-deep in her cunt, fingering her to orgasm while she thrashed and moaned. Two nights ago, he’d sucked his fingers clean, eyes half-closed as if the taste was delectable.

Two nights ago, he’d callously flicked through nude photos of her while Rey had lain shivering on his couch, insecure and overstimulated.

That was enough to snap her out of her daze. She turned her back on him, reaching for the notebook she’d left on a nearby table. “Good of you to show up,” she said nastily. “Dare I hope you studied the brief?”

“I studied the brief,” he said, “and I like the direction for this shot. A cool palette for what should be a sexy photo is a great way to introduce tension.”

Rey had been flipping through the pages, but she stilled at his words. She looked up, eyes wide with surprise. “You like it?”

He winced. “Maybe I haven’t communicated my thoughts very… well... in the past. I like all your designs.”

A harsh laugh burst out of Rey. “Oh, please. You’ve done nothing but belittle my art direction.”

This was the part where he would snap back, explaining that if she’d only listen to his brilliant ideas, the shoot would be a thousand times better—

“I’m sorry.”

For a moment, Rey wondered if she’d imagined the soft apology. But no, Ben Solo was standing in front of her, hands in his pockets and shoulders slightly stooped, contrition written all over his severe face. She wondered if that hunch was deliberate, if he canted his head down to try to appear smaller and less threatening. “What?” she asked, head buzzing.

“I never said it the right way.” Ben shifted his weight from foot to foot. “Your colors and staging are brilliant. I just wanted…” He trailed off.

“Wanted what?” Rey asked, feeling like she’d fallen down the rabbit hole into an upside-down world where Ben was polite and respected her work.

“I wanted there to be some of me in the photos, too.” His mouth quirked up on one side, but it wasn’t a happy expression. “You probably think I’m a narcissist.”

Maybe at first, but Rey wasn’t so sure anymore. She cleared her throat. “You wanted the photos to be Ben Solo originals,” she said. “That makes sense. I guess I didn’t think about them that way.”

She’d been so busy thinking about the magazine aesthetic, the aesthetic of the House of Holdo, and the aesthetic of her own sketches that she hadn’t realized Ben himself might have an aesthetic he’d like to impart to the shot. A thread of guilt wound through her. He’d been nothing but a finger on a shutter button to her at first, just the means of making the picture in her head into a picture on paper.

Click. Click. Click.

Rey could imagine that finger now, pressing relentlessly as he hovered above her. A flush raced over her skin, and she tugged at the neckline of her white blouse. When Ben’s eyes dropped to follow the movement, the heat intensified.

“Well,” she said, voice coming out as a croak. “Now that the air is clear, let’s work to make the photo reflect both of us.”

The air was definitely not clear, though. That was made apparent as Rey flipped through her sketches, far too aware of Ben hovering over her shoulder and peering at the drawings. Her skin felt hypersensitized, as if every cell was aware of exactly how near he was.

There were a few ragged edges in her sketchbook, and Rey frowned. She didn’t remember tearing out any of the pictures, but she’d been running on coffee and adrenaline during the busy weeks leading up to the shoot. She probably didn’t remember tacking them to a vision board somewhere. They were all old designs, anyway, and the sketches she needed tonight were at the end of the book.

“This one’s different.” Ben’s finger came to rest on a page. His very large finger. Rey swallowed hard, remembering precisely how large it had felt inside her.

“It’s new,” she said. Most of the sketches involved the couple in a clinch before the terrace doors or looking just on the verge of tumbling into bed. Rey hadn’t wanted to disrupt the long line of the gown, so she’d kept the models upright. This image, though, was more akin to foreplay. The man leaned over where the woman was half-sitting, half-lying on the bed, as if he had just tossed her onto the mattress and was about to climb on top of her. The woman’s arms were braced slightly behind her, and one knee was up. The blue silk pooled at her thigh and trailed over the bedspread.

Ben was just staring at it, and Rey felt awkward. “I’m not sold on it,” she said. “I don’t want the pose to distract from the gown—”

“It’s good,” Ben said. His finger stroked gently over the paper. “Very dynamic.”

A rush of giddy pleasure went through her, and Rey bit her lip to keep from letting the exhilaration show on her face. “I still want upright shots,” she warned. “Don’t think I’ll stray totally from the original brief.”

His lips twitched. “I’m sure you’ll have plenty to say about the original brief.” There was an awkward pause, and then he extended his right hand. “Truce? For the shoot?”

She eyed his outstretched palm. She was still mad at him, and he had some explaining to do about the cryptic photos, but work needed to come first. “Truce,” she said, clasping his hand.

He leaned in. “I don’t have a private collection,” he breathed in her ear as they shook.

When he drew back, she blinked at him, dazed. “What?” She couldn’t pull away, even though she’d been holding his hand for far too long.

Something dark and intense burned behind Ben’s eyes. “You asked if I did that with all the models I photograph. I don’t.”

It took her brain a long moment to catch up. When she realized what he was saying, she sucked in a shaky breath. “Oh.”

The photoshoot in his apartment… that hadn’t been normal for him, either. Rey burned to ask more questions— Why did you do it, then? Do you actually like me? What does this mean?? —but the words stuck in her throat, and she was too much of a coward to force them out.

Ben finally released her, his fingers ghosting over her palm. He turned away to unload his camera bag, the movements so casual that Rey felt disoriented. What was she supposed to do with a man like Ben Solo who teased, insulted, complimented, and seduced, often all at the same time? What was she supposed to make of his intense eyes and guarded words, his volatile temper and lingering touches?

Rey felt a hundred miles out to sea: very much out of her depth... and sinking fast.

She tore her gaze away from Ben, only to find most of the crew staring at her with matching perplexed expressions. “What?” she asked, self-consciously running a hand through her hair.

“Nothing!” Jessika said brightly. She clapped her hands, and startled crew members scattered back to their tasks. “Just glad to see you and Ben getting along.”

Rey slid a sideways glance at Ben… and found him eyeing her, too. Getting along. “That’s, ah, one term for it,” she said.

Jessika chuckled. “Oh, believe me, the office already has a pool going.”

Rey’d forehead furrowed with confusion. “Wait, what?”

But Jessika was already marching away to finish putting everything and everyone in place, so Rey had no choice but to shelve the question of what, exactly, the office was betting on.

Finally, Poe and Kaydel were situated in front of the bed. The light was soft and cool, as if moonlight had infiltrated the room. “Hold each other,” Rey said. “But distantly. We want to see the outfits.”

Ben hovered around the edges of the scene, taking test shots as Rey adjusted the models’ postures. “Hand on her lower back,” Rey said, pressing lightly against Poe’s shoulder to angle his body more towards the camera. “Kaydel, are you comfortable if his pinky finger touches the top of your ass?”

“Fine by me,” Kaydel said, grinning at Poe. “I’ve done way racier shoots than this.”

Poe waggled his eyebrows at her. “Do tell.”

“Stop flirting,” Rey said, biting back a smile.

Ben cleared his throat. “Actually, it might help the shot.”

Rey looked over her shoulder just in time to see him take a photo of the tableau. “I’m in the way,” she protested.

“I told you,” he said, still holding the camera to his eye. “I like taking behind-the-scenes shots.”

Rey turned back to the models, biting the inside of her cheek as she heard the shutter click again. Goosebumps rose on her arms. How many photos did Ben have of her by now? “He has a good point,” she told Poe and Kaydel. “Some flirty energy would lend the shot authenticity.”

“Trust me,” Poe said, biting his lip before releasing it slowly. His eyes went heavy-lidded as he looked Rey up and down. “I have no problem bringing flirty energy.”

“Bring it with Kaydel,” Ben said shortly. “Not the art director.”

Rey’s cheeks felt hot, and it wasn’t from Poe’s bedroom eyes, which had been directed at every person involved in this shoot at one time or another. Ben sounded… jealous.

She ignored the thrill that went through her at the thought and dedicated herself to adjusting Kaydel’s dress. She stood back, eyeing the models with a critical eye. “Good,” she said. “Poe, I want you to lean in slightly, like you’re about to kiss her.”

She returned to the table where she’d left her sketchbook. Jessika turned a fan on, and the gentle breeze wafted through Kaydel’s loose blonde curls and made the silk dress ripple like water. The models instantly switched into performance mode: Poe’s smolder intensified, while Kaydel tipped her head up in anticipation of a kiss.

“Boring,” Ben said after a few shots.

Rey pinched the bridge of her nose. “Ben, we’ve just started.”

“So? There’s no reason to start from a place of mediocrity.”

Rey whipped around, opening her mouth to chastise him, but he held up a hand. “The pose itself isn’t boring,” he said. “The models are just too static. They’re so focused on making the outfits look good that the intimacy isn’t believable.”

Poe tugged Kaydel closer. “Better?” he asked, angling his head so his lips hovered over Kaydel’s neck.

“Marginally.” Ben took a few more pictures, then made an irritated growling sound. “Kaydel, you’re not engaging with him enough. This isn’t about looking pretty. This is about the two of you wanting to fuck . ”

A few crew members giggled, though the sound cut off when Ben glared at them. “This shot is about passion,” he said. He turned his attention on Rey. “Right?”

Hearing Ben Solo say words like ‘fuck’ and ‘passion’ was… doing things to Rey. She cleared her throat. “Right,” she said. “The other shoots were more about longing. This is the consummation.”

“Why don’t you show us?” Poe asked. His eyes gleamed with something that looked suspiciously like mischief. “Demonstrate how we can make the pose more dynamic.”

“Well,” Rey said, feeling awkward, “to start with, you can touch her face—” She broke off when Ben sighed and placed his camera on the table next to her notebook. “What are you doing?” she asked. He’d better not be walking off set just because the models weren’t evoking passion to his satisfaction.

“Demonstrating,” he said, walking towards her.

Rey’s thoughts screeched to a halt. She stared at Ben blankly as he approached. “I don’t—oh!” She gasped when he hauled her into his arms, one huge hand settling at the small of her back, the other threading into her loose hair. He tugged lightly on her hair, and Rey’s lips parted as her head tipped back. Her hands came to rest on his chest, and without conscious thought, she twisted his shirt fabric between her fingers.

“Like this,” Ben said in a low, rough voice, his eyes glued to hers. “Don’t be afraid to grab each other. Make the clothing a little messy. And see how her spine is arched?”

Rey shivered. He was so close: his thigh pressed lightly between her legs, and his hot breath wafted over her lips. He smelled like mint and woodsy cologne, like coffee and sin. Her nipples tightened, and a needy throb started between her legs.

She could lean in a few inches and kiss him. She could twine her fingers in his hair, tugging on those gorgeous black locks until he groaned. She could...

Poe’s low whistle jolted her back to reality. “All right, point taken,” the model said. “Maybe I should be the one taking pictures of you two.”

Ben turned his head to scowl at Poe. “Don’t even think about touching my camera.”

Rey wriggled out of Ben’s arms, ignoring the sharp sense of loss when his hands fell away from her. “That was… um. Yes. Try it like that,” she told the models.

Poe and Kaydel did, and Rey had to admit, the pose was hot. Poe leaned in, looking like he wanted to consume Kaydel, while Kaydel gripped the lapels of his open shirt and arched her back to press her breasts towards his chest.

Was that how she and Ben had looked? Like the entire universe boiled down to the feel of each other?

Ben captured the scene from multiple angles, even taking some close-ups that Rey knew wouldn’t be useable in the spread, but she couldn’t muster the words to tell him off. Her fingers itched with the memory of how soft his shirt had been, the fabric warm from his skin.

She hadn’t touched him two nights ago. He’d touched her—and how —but she didn’t know the feel of him. Was his chest smooth or dusted with hair? Would his skin feel soft or rough? She was pretty sure he had a six-pack, and she imagined trailing her fingers over the grooves of his muscles, mapping out every inch. Would he shudder the way she did whenever he touched her? Would he moan her name?

God, what would his dick feel like?

It took a minute for her to realize Ben was talking to her. “What?” she asked, face flushing hot with embarrassment.

He cocked his head, looking at her with an unnerving intensity that reminded her of a hawk spotting prey. “I said, can we try a new position?”

Well, that just made her cheeks burn worse. “Yep,” she said, popping the ‘p.’ “Let’s, uh, find a new position. For the models.” She coughed, then turned to grab her notebook, flipping through it. “Poe, I want you behind and slightly to the side of Kaydel so we can see your outfit, both of you facing the camera. Hand on her stomach. Kaydel, tip your head back against his shoulder.”

When she dared look at Ben again, she found him focused on the scene, capturing the models’ movements as they got into position. Thank goodness he couldn’t see her blush.

“Good,” Ben praised. A shiver of pleasure went down Rey’s spine. He’s not complimenting you, she chided herself. He’s talking to the models. “Love that parted lip, Kaydel.”

A surge of jealousy took Rey by surprise. So what if he liked Kaydel’s mouth? Kaydel was a model; it was her job to be alluring.

Rey’s nails dug into the notebook paper as she squeezed it tightly, willing herself to chill the fuck out and act like a sane person. She didn’t even like Ben Solo. She was just touch-starved and sexually frustrated, and he was hot and annoying in a way that made her want to mash her lips against his. Totally normal.

Liar, a voice inside her whispered.

Ben crouched, and his jeans stretched tight over his thighs and backside. Rey fumbled her notebook. She crouched to pick it up, swearing under her breath. When she stood back up, she found Ben eyeing her.

“Everything all right?” he asked.

“I’m fine,” she said a bit too vehemently. “Another position?”

They kept working, arranging Poe and Kaydel in various poses. It went easier than the previous two shoots in one way—their bickering was limited to a few testy comments when they disagreed on a pose—but much harder in the sense that Rey was agonizingly aware of Ben’s every movement and expression. He was a large man, but he seemed to take up an inordinate amount of space. Every time Rey came within a few feet of him, she felt his presence like a gravity well, sucking up all her attention.

Finally, it was time to try the last pose Rey had sketched. “You’ll sit on the bed,” Rey told Kaydel, “and Poe will lean over like he’s about to join you.”

“No, no, no,” Ben said when Poe got into position. “Christ, that’s all wrong.”

Poe narrowed his eyes at Ben. The model had been easy to work with so far, but Rey had a feeling he’d bitten his tongue during some of Ben’s harsher critiques. “What’s wrong about it?” Poe asked.

“Look at Rey’s sketch. See the tension in their bodies?”

Startled by Ben’s reference to her sketch, Rey hurried over to Poe, holding out her notebook. Poe studied the image, then shook his head. “Isn’t that exactly what we’re doing?”

Ben huffed. “Your postures ought to imply movement. There should be a magnetism between you, like your bodies are being pulled together.”

Rey was close enough to catch Poe’s subtle eye roll. He and Kaydel exchanged a glance. “Why don’t you demonstrate?” Kaydel asked. “Show us what you mean.”

Rey did not need any more of Ben’s demonstrations, thank you very much. She still hadn’t recovered from the last one. But when Ben looked at her, raising his eyebrows in silent inquiry, Rey found herself nodding dumbly. She put her notebook down on the bed, bracing herself for whatever he was about to do. 

“It’ll help if you actually put Kaydel in the pose,” Ben said, setting his camera aside. “Recreate some of the passion, like you’re actually about to have sex.”

Oh, shit. Rey absolutely wasn’t going to survive this. She hardly noticed Poe and Kaydel moving out of the way as Ben stalked towards her. She instinctively retreated a few steps until the backs of her legs hit the mattress. She watched, heart in her throat, as Ben came close enough to touch. He hesitated a second, mouth working as if he was chewing over a thought, then reached out and settled a hand on her hip.

“Like this,” he said. He tugged Rey close, his other hand settling on her upper back. She felt the span of his fingers across almost her entire frame, the heat of his fingertips sinking through the thin fabric of her blouse. “Look at her like you want to devour her,” he instructed Poe, though his eyes stayed fixed on Rey, burning into her. “Then push her back onto the bed.”

He slid the hand on her back around to her upper chest and pushed. For a moment, his thumb nestled into her collarbone, the way it had when he’d touched her in his apartment. Balance disrupted, Rey toppled back, shoulders striking the mattress. Ben rested a knee on the bed between her parted thighs and leaned in as if he was about to climb on top of her. Rey propped herself up on her elbows, wiggling back until she could rest her left foot on the edge of the mattress in the pose she’d chosen for Kaydel. There was no dramatic drape of fabric, since Rey was wearing jeans, but the sensuality of the pose couldn’t be denied. Ben was looming over her, one hand planted beside her head, the other resting lightly on her right thigh. Her left leg was crooked at the knee, halfway towards creating a cradle for his hips.

Ben’s fingers tightened on her leg, and Rey sucked in a shuddering breath. Her body felt electrified, every nerve singing with want. She licked her lips, and Ben’s gaze dropped to her mouth. “Remember,” he said in a husky voice, “she’s your universe in this moment. And even if the love affair is doomed, you can’t resist the passion between you.”

“Ben,” Rey whispered. She had no idea what she wanted to say to him; she just knew that there was an unbearable pressure inside her, like all her unspoken words and hidden feelings were pushing against her skin, desperate to explode out.

“Wow,” Poe said. “Okay, point taken. Jesus.”

Rey couldn’t move, couldn’t look away from Ben. Her heart raced like a trapped animal’s. They stayed locked in the pose, a tense energy pulsing between them. Whatever this was, it wasn’t just a demonstration for Poe’s and Kaydel’s sake.

“Why did you send me those photos?” Rey asked, keeping her tone low enough that no one would overhear the question.

Ben’s dark brows drew together. “Rey—”

“Well, this is interesting.” A familiar female voice shattered the moment. Rey’s head whipped to the side, and her stomach sank at the sight of Amilyn Holdo herself standing in the doorway. The purple-haired designer studied the scene with bright eyes. “Is there a reason my photographer and art director are posing, rather than the models?”

Ben straightened, and Rey scrambled off the bed. She tugged at the hem of her blouse where it had risen a few inches above the waistband of her jeans. “Ben was just demonstrating,” she said, wondering if her face looked as red as it felt. What was Amilyn doing there?

Holdo arched one artfully-plucked brow. “Demonstrating what? How to seduce the art director?"

Ben coughed into his fist. Rey straightened her shoulders, determined to brazen this out. “The models were having trouble finding a pose suitable to express the… the passion of the outfits,” she said. “Ben was demonstrating the position for the next shot.”

“Hm.” Amilyn pursed her lips. “I’m not sure how I feel about the reclining pose. I don’t want the dress to be obscured.”

Rey rushed to reassure the designer. “It’s just one option. Ben’s taken tons of photos with the models in more traditional poses.”

Ben was standing stiffly, hands laced in front of him. “Good photography is an exploration,” he said in a tone that aimed for politeness but failed. “Sometimes that means trying the unexpected.”

Amilyn looked ready to argue, so Rey hurried to the designer’s side. “What brings you to set?” she asked, hoping her smile didn’t look like a grimace. Having designers on set rarely went well: they loved being backseat drivers, trampling all over the opinions of the people who set up fashion photoshoots for a living.

“Honestly,” Amilyn said, “I was worried about the rumors about you and Ben not getting along.” Her mouth curved up slightly, and she winked at Rey. “Given what I just saw, apparently that isn’t a concern.”

“Ben and I are both professionals,” Rey said, ignoring the innuendo. “We’d never let any personal issues or outside concerns affect our work.” She deliberately avoided looking at Ben or any of the crew members, who knew exactly how fraught the dynamic had been on previous shoots.

“Mind if I stick around?” Amilyn asked. “I love seeing behind the scenes of photoshoots. With runway I’m very hands-on, but this is a totally different art form.”

Rey couldn’t exactly say no. Amilyn Holdo was one of the world’s top designers, and if Rey could impress her, it would be a massive career win. She pasted on a bright smile. “Absolutely! It would be an honor.”

Ben was making a desperate face behind Amilyn’s back; apparently he didn’t like the idea of a designer hovering over their work, either. Jessika quickly took charge, guiding Amilyn over to the snacks table and a spare chair, and Rey took advantage of Amilyn’s distraction to make her own distressed face at Ben. For once, they were on the same page.

“You still owe me an explanation,” Rey muttered as she passed Ben on her way to the bed. “For the photos.”

His Adam’s apple bobbed. “Later,” he said. “When we’re alone.”

Alone. The word sent a sick thrill through her. She scrubbed her dampening palms over her jeans, then grabbed her notebook and pretended to take notes while Ben got Kaydel and Poe in position again.

Being alone with Ben was a bad idea. She knew it was, but she also knew she wouldn’t be able to resist the temptation. What would he say?

What would he do?

The rest of the shoot went by at a crawl, time telescoping unnaturally as if to punish Rey for her eagerness to be alone with Ben Solo. With Amilyn watching, their arguments were quiet and stilted, but their eyes held a separate conversation entirely. It seemed every time Rey glanced his way between shots, Ben was already staring at her. She felt naked under his dark gaze, all her artifice stripped away in favor of the blunt truth.

She wanted him. Fuck, she wanted him. Rey had no idea what that said about her, but she couldn’t stop the wanting. Desire was an uneasy, crackling thing in her chest, its echoes pulsing desperately through her veins and arteries.

Finally, they reached the end of the shoot. “That’s a wrap!” Rey called out. She checked her watch, then winced. Just after midnight. Her eyes were scratchy with fatigue, but the energy drink she’d had at 10pm would guarantee a restless night.

Had Ben meant later that night when he’d promised “later”? Rey subtly sniffed her armpits, then wished she hadn’t. She was a smelly, sleepy wreck; she couldn’t possibly face him in this condition. Then again, she didn’t think she could handle waiting any longer to learn what was going through his beautiful, strange head.

“That was great,” Amilyn said, standing up. She wore a gorgeous puce House of Holdo dress with a high neckline and elaborate draping down the back, and Rey felt a moment of envy for how easily she carried the dramatic outfit. Rey was on the tall side of average, but Amilyn had a few inches on her and an edgy sophistication that couldn’t be replicated. “Midnight pancakes, anyone?” the designer asked.

Rey blinked at the suggestion, which was more along the lines of what she’d experienced as a drama nerd in high school when IHOP had been a Destination. But the crew was already agreeing, and Amilyn was looking at her expectantly, and just like that, the choice of whether or not Rey would confront Ben tonight was taken out of her hands. “Sure,” Rey said. “I love pancakes.”

“Ben?” Amilyn asked.

He shook his head. “I’ll pass.” Rey’s skin prickled under his heavy stare. “We can review the photos tomorrow afternoon,” he told her. “Text me when you’re free?”

Rey nodded, not trusting her vocal cords. At least she’d get a pep talk from KyloRen before she had to face Ben again.

He returned her nod. “See you then.”

Chapter Text

Rey arrived at Maz’s thirty minutes early. She hadn’t been able to focus at work, too distracted by the day’s itinerary. She was excited to meet KyloRen—who was hopefully not a murderer—but then she’d need to head to Ben’s apartment to review the photos and make their final selections for the spread.

Given what had happened the last time she’d visited his apartment, going there again was probably a terrible choice. They needed to talk about The Fingering Event, as well as the photos he’d sent her, but she was terrified of what Ben might say. What if he’d just been generically horny and taken advantage of the situation? What if he was interested in erotic photography as an art form, not in Rey herself? What if he said it was a mistake and should never happen again?

Each possibility hurt worse than the last. Rey groaned and thumped her forehead rhythmically against the cafe table. “Stupid, stupid, stupid,” she muttered. Without realizing it, she’d launched straight from “this asshole is kind of hot” to “I am obsessively infatuated with this hot asshole” in just a few days. Rey had never been the type to fall fast and hard—a lifetime of trauma and trust issues had made sure of that—but for some reason, her feelings for Ben didn’t follow any sort of rules or expectations. She just wanted him with an intensity that scared her.

Wanting things was how people got hurt. No one knew that better than Rey, who had spent her formative years wanting a family and home so badly, it sometimes made her physically ill. As an adult, Rey had done her best to lock away her most fervent, secret needs: the need for touch, for human connection, for love… But somehow, Ben Solo had knocked open that vault, and now messy emotions—messy wants— were spilling out, upending her orderly life.

Her throat was too tight to drink, so she stared into her mug of chai tea, watching curls of steam dissipate into nothingness. What if KyloRen didn’t want to be her friend, after all? What if Ben dismissed her like she was nothing?

“Is the tea all right?”

Rey looked up from the drink to find Maz, the cafe’s owner, looking at her with concern. The diminutive woman looked about 200 years old but was spry as a teenager, and behind her coke-bottle glasses were warm, kind eyes. “It’s fine,” Rey said, swallowing the lump in her throat. “Just worrying about things.”

“Ah.” Maz nodded thoughtfully. “Tea is supposed to soothe worries, but you have to drink it first.”

Rey’s lips tipped up on one side. “All right, I’ll try it.” She brought the mug to her lips, then took a sip. The sweet-spicy chai was heavenly hot on her tongue, and as she swallowed, some of the tension in her throat loosened. “You’re right. That’s really good.”

Maz smiled. “So what worries you, child?”

Rey would have smacked anyone else who called her a child, but when Maz said it, she felt cared for. And besides, everyone probably looked like a child to the ancient woman. “Men,” she said succinctly.

Maz made a tsking noise. “Terrible, aren’t they? Even my husband Chewie has his moments of idiocy.” She pointed at a giant, hairy man working the register, and wow, Rey had some questions about the logistics of that relationship. She winced and tried to clear her mind of any speculation about how tiny Maz and enormous Chewie made... things... work.

“It’s just…” Rey trailed off.

“What?” Maz asked, infinitely patient. Rey was a regular at the cafe, and this wasn’t the first time they’d had a heart-to-heart, but talking had never felt so difficult before.

“I don’t understand him,” Rey said in a rush. “Or what he wants from me. But I know I want something from him, and that’s even scarier.” She shook her head. “I’m not making any sense.”

“Vulnerability is hard,” Maz said, slicing right to the heart of the issue as she always did. “When you risk your heart, you risk getting hurt.”

“Exactly,” Rey said. “And I don’t even know how to risk my heart. I’ve never done it before. But now it’s just happening, and I’m overwhelmed and- and scared.” She blew out a shaky breath. It felt freeing to confess that fundamental fear to someone. Fear of abandonment and rejection, fear of opening herself up to someone whose motives she couldn’t begin to understand. “He hasn’t made any promises, you know? We haven’t even talked about what happened between us, but I have to see him again today, and I’m afraid of what he’ll say.”

Maz cocked her head, studying Rey with perceptive brown eyes. “You’re always running,” she said. “Working too hard, moving too fast, never stopping to breathe or let someone care for you.”

Rey winced. She’d given Maz the broad details of her life story, but there were times she regretted sharing that fundamental pain with anyone else. “I have to,” she said. “I love my job, and I want to be good at it. And besides, why would anyone want to take care of me?” Rey knew what she was: difficult, prickly, damaged. A cactus, not some pretty houseplant to be tenderly watered. Care was for other, softer creatures who deserved it.

Maz tsked again and shook her head slowly. “My child, sometimes running isn’t about getting to a destination. It’s about the place you came from. And if you can’t let go of that place, how will you open yourself to a better future?” She leaned in, brown eyes seeming to stare straight into Rey’s soul. “Dear child, the belonging you seek is not behind you,” she said. “It is ahead.”

Rey’s eyes blurred, and she dug her knuckles in, trying to stop the tears. “What if I don’t belong anywhere?” she asked in a soft voice. “What if I let myself want someone and then find out he’s using me or- or doesn’t even like me at all?”

“What if you let yourself want someone, then find out he wants you just as much?” The old woman’s lips curved in a gentle smile. “There are two sides to everything, Rey. Maybe your predictions are right, and this will end in pain. But if you go into it expecting to be hurt, you aren’t allowing for the possibility that it will end in joy.”

Rey sat with the words in silence for a few moments, staring into her mug of tea. The steam was just a gentle wisp now. Soon, the tea would go cold. Some beautiful things were like that: precious but fleeting. But was the tea any less perfect because it didn’t last?

Maybe this thing with Ben wouldn’t last, either. Maybe all she’d get out of it was an orgasm and a fresh wound on her already-scarred heart. Or maybe they’d hook up again, and it would be a disaster. But if she didn't give them a chance, then what was the point in wanting anything at all?

“You,” she told Maz, “are very wise.”

Maz chuckled. “No, I’m old.” Then she sighed and laid a hand on Rey’s shoulder. “If you live long enough, you see the same eyes in different people. You’re carrying a heavy burden, my dear, but there’s still a chance to let someone else help shoulder the weight.”

The bell over the door tinkled, and Maz gave Rey a final pat before heading back to the register. Rey nibbled her lip, letting her emotions and thoughts settle. Her stomach no longer felt like she’d swallowed rocks, and she could breathe easier. Was she still afraid of rejection? Yes. But for the first time, she felt like maybe—just maybe—she could try to open herself up to the possibility of being accepted, instead.

“I’m meeting someone here. A woman.”

Rey’s head snapped up. She’d know that deep, honeyed voice anywhere. She turned to look at the register, and sure enough, there stood Ben Solo, as big and brooding as ever. He was dressed casually today in blue jeans and a black T-shirt that strained to contain his muscles, and Rey drank in the sight of him greedily.

Except… he was meeting a woman? Her stomach plummeted, even though she told herself there were plenty of reasons a man might meet a woman for lunch. Friendships existed, after all. But if she was about to be the reluctant witness to Ben’s date with another woman, Rey knew she wouldn't be able to handle it.

“What’s her name?” Maz asked. “It’s all regulars in here today.”

Ben ran a hand through his hair, messing up the dark waves. From the look of his tousled mane, he’d been doing that a lot today. “Ah… I actually don’t know. We met online.”

Shit. Definitely a date. Probably some OkCupid bitch with big tits and zero childhood baggage who would just love a chance to fawn all over famous photographer Ben Solo. Blinking back more inconvenient tears, Rey reached into her purse, pulling out her phone to message KyloRen. He was probably almost here, but they’d just need to find another place to meet up, and—

Wait.

Rey’s thoughts screeched to a halt. Had Ben just said he didn’t know the woman’s name?

She stared at Ben’s broad back with wide eyes, calculating the odds that he would be meeting an anonymous person from the internet at the exact time and in the exact same place that Rey was meeting an anonymous person from the internet.

“You young people do things so strangely these days,” Maz said, shaking her head. “In my time, we met in person before dating.”

“It’s not a date,” Ben said, waving his hands frantically. “Not at all. Just a… friend.”

Fuck. Rey’s jaw sagged as she ran back through her conversations with KyloRen. He was a self-proclaimed prick who worked too hard and acted like an asshole because people made him anxious. He was also starved for touch—a thought that made Rey's cunt clench as she imagined touching every inch of that massive body while he shuddered beneath her.

KyloRen was also hopelessly infatuated with his dream woman. The woman he’d hooked up with… the exact night that Rey had hooked up with Ben.

The sound that left her then was some choked mixture of a gasp, a laugh, and a whimper. There was no way Ben/KyloRen had been talking about her, was there? He’d been so vulnerable, so desperate when he’d talked about his dream woman. The woman he hadn’t cuddled after their hookup, who had subsequently accused him of being a womanizer.

The woman who supposedly hated him.

Rey stood up so fast, the table rattled and tea sloshed over the rim of her mug. “Ben!” she called out.

He spun on his heel, bracing himself on the pastry case when he nearly stumbled. His eyes widened, and his face paled. “Oh, um, hi,” he said, walking towards her slowly, as if approaching a predator that might leap up and rip his throat out. “What are you doing here?”

Maz looked between them, and then her face lit up. She waggled her eyebrows at Rey and gave a thumbs up.

Rey was too busy smiling giddily at Ben to acknowledge the encouragement. He was so handsome, and if she was right about him being KyloRen and Rey being the mystery woman, then maybe... maybe Ben could be hers.

“Meeting someone,” she said as he stopped a few feet away. “A friend.”

“Ah,” he said, forehead furrowed. Clearly he hadn’t put the pieces together yet. Rey wanted to smooth the creases in his brow with her thumb, to touch and kiss away the stress lines marking his severely beautiful face. “Well, don’t let me interrupt—”

“A friend from the internet,” Rey said.

“Ah,” he said again, but this time the word was accompanied by the widening of his eyes and a small, sharp inhale.

“KyloRen,” Rey clarified, beaming at him.

Complicated emotions danced over Ben’s face, too fast for her to parse them. He opened his mouth, closed it…

Then turned around and bolted out of the cafe.

Chapter Text

Rey hammered on Ben’s apartment door. “I know you’re in there,” she shouted. Maz’s was six blocks away from Ben’s apartment complex, and once she’d shaken off the shock of his sudden departure, Rey had pursued him there, although she’d had no chance of catching up to his long strides. It had taken a few minutes to find a delivery person to follow into the building, since he’d ignored her buzzes on the intercom, but she was nothing if not determined.

Why had he run? Rey had been ecstatic to learn he was her online penpal—so why had he acted like it was an unprecedented calamity?

A thread of insecurity wound through her irritation and confusion. It was clear now that Ben was KyloRen—the fleeing had certainly confirmed it—but what if Rey wasn’t his mystery woman? What if he’d run because he was embarrassed he’d spilled his secrets to his work nemesis?

That would require Ben to have had another similarly disastrous hookup either before or after he’d fingered her on his couch, though, and while he was attractive enough to get sex whenever he wanted, she just couldn’t imagine him doing that. Besides, KyloRen had been vocal about how much he disliked casual encounters, and there was last night’s photoshoot to consider, as well. They’d both been biting back so many truths, but the tension and heat between them had been unmistakable.

Whatever was happening with Ben, it definitely wasn’t casual.

Rey was tired of dancing around the truth like it might singe her. Even if it burned, she was ready to stick her hand in the fire for a chance at exploring the passion between them.

She knocked again, keeping the rhythm up for such a long time that another neighbor down the hall popped his head out to shout, “Shut up already!”

“I’ll shut up when he stops being a fucking coward!” she called back.

Finally, Rey heard the telltale click of the lock. The door opened an inch, showing a slice of Ben’s face. The one eye she could see looked reddened, as if he’d been crying. “Why are you here?” he asked hoarsely.

She huffed in frustration. “Why do you bloody think I’m here?” she demanded. “You ran away from me.”

“I...” He trailed off, that one eye darting with what looked like panic.

Right. Time for Rey to take control. She pushed at the door, forcing him back enough that she could sidle past him. When the door was closed once more, she planted her fists on her hips. “What the fuck, Ben?”

He winced. “I… sorry.”

She’d never seen him like this before. His shoulders were hunched, and he looked like he was on the verge of tears. Far from the cocky, insufferable bastard performance he put on at work.

And yes, she was seeing now that it was a performance. He’d told DesertFlower that he was anxious, that he ended up acting like an asshole because he didn’t know how to talk to people, especially his dream woman. He’d said most people made him uneasy, that he didn’t want casual contact. So he acted the aloof, arrogant jackass to keep people at a distance, and he’d fooled everyone around him quite nicely—including her.

“I’m not angry,” Rey said, though she was, in fact, a little pissed. She reached out a hand hesitantly, and when he didn’t run, she laid it gently on his shoulder. He shivered and closed his eyes. “I just want to understand. Why did you run?”

“I don’t know,” he said, eyes still shut tightly. “I just panicked. Because I thought I was meeting DesertFlower, and then you were… you.”

Rey toed her flats off, then slid her hand down his arm and gripped his wrist. “Come sit with me,” she said, tugging him further into the apartment. He followed, looking at her warily as she pulled him towards the couch. As she settled in next to him, she suppressed the memories of what had happened on that couch the last time she was here. There would be time for that later… but only if she could shake the truth out of him now.

His camera sat on the coffee table before them. Ben seized it, holding it in his lap like a security blanket. Rey bit her tongue to refrain from making an acid comment about how he couldn’t spend a single second not attached to the bloody thing.

“All right,” Rey said, tucking her legs beneath her so her knees pressed against his thigh. “I need more details, please.”

His throat bobbed as he swallowed. One large finger rubbed the shutter button like it was a worry stone. “I told DesertFlower… you… so many personal things.” He winced. “I told you everything.”

“I told you things, too,” she said.

“But Rey…” He let out a broken laugh. “You must know now.”

“Know what?” she pressed.

He groaned and closed his eyes again. “How I feel.”

Dragging the truth out of him was like pulling teeth. Rey eyed the camera in his lap, thinking about how in some ways, it served as a shield. “Emotional honesty,” her ass. Ben could force passion out of his subjects to create beautiful art, but he always held himself a step removed, that lens providing a glass wall between him and the world.

“To be clear,” Rey said slowly, “am I the woman you were talking about in all those messages?”

His eyes flew open. “Of course you are,” he said vehemently, and the naked longing in his eyes took Rey’s breath away. Then his expression fell back into lines of despair. “And I told you everything, and you told me about some other fucker you’re interested in, and it just hurts, you know? I thought maybe...” He shook his head. “But there was someone else all along.”

Rey blinked, trying to figure out what on Earth he was talking about. “Wait a second,” she said. “What do you mean some other fucker I’m interested in?”

He made an impatient noise, then looked down and started fiddling with the settings of his camera. “The guy,” he said nastily. “The super fucking sexy one you think is out of your league.” He scoffed. “As if anyone’s out of your league.” Then his face twisted with fresh tragedy. “It’s Poe, isn’t it?”

Rey stared at him, torn between kissing his stupid face and slapping it silly. “Ben,” she said, “do you remember what I said the night we… the photography night?” Her cheeks heated just mentioning it.

He flinched. “How could I forget? You thought I was manipulating you with orgasms, that I do that with every model I photograph.”

She shook her head. “Not me, Rey. Me, DesertFlower. In the chat after.”

“Oh. Kind of. Not really.” He winced. “Sorry. I was very drunk.”

The absolute, unmitigated idiot. “Well,” she said, “I told you that I had a bad night, too. Do you remember why?”

“That asshole was shitty to you.” His eyes widened. “Wait—”

Had the penny finally dropped? God, she fucking hoped so. “It was you, Ben,” she said. “You’re the sexy fucker you’re so mad at.”

It was like watching a sunrise as realization swept over his face. First the slight parting of his lips, then the flushing of his cheeks, and then a look so sweet and disbelieving, it made Rey’s heart ache. “You… it was me all along?” he said incredulously.

Did he really not realize the effect he had on her? “Benjamin Whatever-Your-Middle-Name-Is Solo,” Rey said sternly, “you are the densest man to walk this Earth. Yes, I was talking about you. Not Poe.” She took a deep breath for courage. Now was the moment to take Maz’s advice and lean into possibility, not fear. “I’ve been attracted to you from the beginning,” she admitted, “but then we fought so much, and I was convinced you hated me and my work.” When he started to say something, she shushed him. “Let me finish, please.”

Ben nodded, then shifted his legs up in a mirror of her own position so they were facing each other on the couch, knees pressed together. That slight touch felt good: like being anchored. Like having someone to catch her fall.

And this was a fall. A sweet, terrifying, adrenaline-inducing tumble into possibility, too vivid to be a dream. What would happen when she landed?

“I have a hard time being vulnerable,” Rey said, eyes dancing away from him. A lump grew in her throat, but she swallowed past it. Maz was right; if she let her past dictate her choices, what kind of future could she hope for? “I grew up rough. I told you that as DesertFlower.”

He inhaled sharply. “The dumpster.”

Rey didn’t risk looking at his face; she didn’t think she could take pity right now. “Yes, the dumpster. And then foster care, and then I was on my own, working my way through school, literally living out of my car for a year.” She blew out a breath. Her background was a scab, not yet a scar, and picking at it stung. “I want human connection, but I don’t know how to do it myself. How to trust.”

“Oh, Rey.” His hand came to cup her cheek, and he turned her face towards him. She’d never seen this expression on him, either: soft, compassionate, and somehow bright, like he was illuminated from within. “I don’t know how to do any of that, either,” he said. Then he swallowed. “But if you want to try…”

Rey nodded. “I do. But first, I want you to talk to me. Why did you send me those photos?”

His hands dropped to the camera in his lap again, fidgeting with it, and his eyes danced away from hers. “I wanted to tell you how I felt about you, about what happened.”

Bizarre man. “You know words exist, right?”

He nodded, still not looking at her. “But photography is how I speak best. It’s how I get my feelings out.”

Rey eyed that camera, which she was starting to despise. He was still holding it like a talisman, as if it would protect him from any discomfort. “Put the camera away,” she said.

He looked up at her, startled. “What?”

“You heard me.” She tipped her chin at the camera. “Put the camera away.”

He bit his lip, looking torn, which just cemented Rey’s conviction that the camera needed to go. Finally, he nodded and set it back on the coffee table. To reward him, Rey scrambled over his lap, planting her knees on either side of his hips. He gasped as she laced her arms around his neck, and his pupils grew wider.

The touch felt almost unbearably good. She was closer to him than she’d been to another human being in a long, long time. He was so big and solid beneath her, and she could feel the heat of his skin through the fabric separating them. When he planted his hands on her waist, caging her in, she shivered with visceral appreciation.

“You feel so good,” he whispered. His fingers flexed.

Rey felt small in his grip, those long, strong hands nearly circling her waist. A familiar hot throb started between her thighs, but the air wasn’t entirely clear yet, so she forced her thoughts away from that horny track and back to the matter at hand. “The photos. What did they mean?”

He shifted beneath her, and Rey bit back a whimper as the growing bulge in his pants rubbed against her. “I can’t think with you on top of me,” he choked out. His breathing had sped up, and his cheeks were flushed.

“The burning rose,” Rey prompted him, though her thoughts were growing hazy, too. “The mask.”

His hips rocked again, like he couldn’t help himself. “The rose was my guilt,” he said in a rush. “Like here was something so precious, so beautiful, and then I lit it on fire. Ruined it, like I ruin so many other things.”

Her heart squeezed. She played with the hair at the nape of his neck. “You didn’t ruin it,” she said. Then she remembered how upset she’d been at the time and reconsidered. “Okay, you did ruin it a bit. But not permanently. Do you know why I was so upset?”

He shook his head, eyes fixed on her face.

She tipped her head towards the camera. “Because you prioritized the pictures over me. I was lying there, feeling vulnerable, and instead of holding me or saying anything sweet, your first thought was to look at the images.”

He winced. “I’m sorry. I… I hadn’t thought about it that way.”

Rey took a moment to run her eyes over all the beautiful photographs lining the room, stopping on Ben’s melancholy self-portrait. Even his loneliness was confessed through a lens. “I have a theory,” she said, looking back at him. “I think you feel things deeply, but you don’t know how to express those emotions, so you put it all in your photographs."

He was nodding like that was all right and reasonable, but Rey needed him to understand how unhealthy it was. “So because you’re feeling things and putting those feelings into your work,” she continued, “you assume you’re being emotionally honest. And maybe you are with yourself, but Ben… that camera is a wall, too. It stops you from letting those emotions spill over into other people.”

He was silent. Since he didn’t seem upset, Rey took a deep breath and soldiered on. “Whether or not you mean to, you’re distancing yourself from everything else. You demand emotional authenticity from your models, but you don’t practice it yourself. At least, not in words.”

There was a long pause. “I feel too much,” he finally said, so quietly it was almost a whisper. “And I don’t know how to live like that.”

“What do you mean?” She stroked the curve of his large ears. She hadn’t noticed their size before, too captivated by everything else about him—and because of his overlong haircut that usually hid them—but she adored them.

He closed his eyes, and his throat bobbed. “I was always too much,” he said. “For my parents, my teachers… everyone. I had wild mood swings as a child, and it got worse as a teenager. Anger, depression, anxiety… I lashed out, did drugs. Committed petty crimes.” He grimaced. “Even went to juvie for a few months.”

Rey listened, fascinated by this view into a younger Ben Solo. He exuded confidence and control on set, but the reality of his personality was much messier. It was like two people in one body: cocky, arrogant Ben Solo and emotional, insecure KyloRen. The reality of him, she suspected, was somewhere between the two.

“My parents got so sick of my shit, they kicked me out.” His jaw worked. “It was good for me in retrospect—I had to clean up my act—but it didn’t do any favors for our relationship. I’ve seen them since then, of course. But as time passes, we have less and less to talk about. It was weeks, then months, now years between calls.”

Rey glared at the framed photo of the laughing couple in the kitchen. Ben’s parents, who he’d said loved each other only when they could stand to be in the same room. How dare they let their son drift away? “They should have tried harder,” she said. “To maintain a connection.” So should you was left unspoken. Ben probably knew that, and just because Rey was appalled at the thought of anyone with parents avoiding them for years, she didn’t need to bludgeon him with her own baggage.

He shook his head. “They did their best,” he said, sounding weary. “My moods have settled with time and therapy, but I’m still anxious. Still have a temper. I’ll always be difficult.”

“Oh, Ben.” She trailed her thumbs over his cheeks as if wiping away tears. He wasn’t crying, but she could hear the pain in his voice. “You aren’t difficult. Or if you are, then so am I. You think I’m not anxious or angry? You think I’m totally balanced?”

He huffed. “Definitely not.”

Rey might have been offended by that back when she’d been eager to take offense at everything he said, but now she just laughed. “I’m a total disaster,” she told him. “Prickly and wary, wanting things I’m terrified of.”

“What terrifies you?” he asked.

Well, she couldn’t exactly expect him to bare his soul if she didn’t do the same in return. She thought of Maz’s advice, of how Rey had always let her past dictate her future. “I’m terrified of opening myself up to someone only to be abandoned again,” she admitted. Her throat started to close up just saying the words. “I came from so little, but the worst part was not having love. And I’ve wanted love and touch and kindness for so long, but I’ve been too scared to open myself up to it. And there’s part of me…” She trailed off, never having put words to that thought outside her own head.

“What?” he asked, rubbing his thumbs up and down her sides.

“Part of me doesn’t think I deserve it,” Rey choked out.

She knew it was her fundamental wound, even if she didn’t know how to fix it. Rey had been thrown away like trash, then grown up in a literal junkyard. No one had ever wanted her. She knew her own flaws: she was defensive, combative, distrusting. Her own temper was nothing to scoff at. And over the years, the walls she’d built to protect herself had turned into a prison.

Heavy silence fell after her confession. Rey kept her gaze on his chest, feeling too awkward and vulnerable for eye contact.

“Can I show you something?” Ben asked at last.

Rey nodded. She had no idea what he was aiming for, but at least it would be a break from uncomfortable confessions. She felt like she’d stripped off her skin.

He patted her hip, and she shifted off his lap reluctantly. The contact wasn’t lost for long, though. As soon as he stood and helped her to her feet, his fingers laced through hers. “Come on,” he said. “It’s in my office.”

His office was dark, the curtains drawn against the outside sunshine. A yellow light blinked lazily at the base of his monitor. Then Ben flipped the light switch, and Rey gasped.

The walls were covered in photographs. Some she recognized, many she didn’t. Photos of people and places, magazine shoots, concert photos, portraits. But the wall over his computer had been decorated with one clear theme: Rey.

She let go of his hand and stepped closer, goggling at the images. There were countless photos of her from backstage at shoots. She recognized the ones where she’d noticed and glared at him, but he’d taken so many others. Pictures of her smiling or laughing, pictures of her staring pensively at her notebook, pictures where she looked longingly at Poe and Kay embracing. There were even shots from meetings, and she remembered now being irritated when Ben had placed his camera on the table in front of him, seemingly more fixated on fiddling with it than on listening to the discussion.

“What—” she breathed.

“It’s probably creepy,” he said. “Sorry if it’s creepy. I just… wanted you to see.”

She kept looking, astounded by the variety—and by how long he’d been photographing her. There were shots she recognized as being from the beginning of their partnership. Mixed in were a few familiar sketches, torn from a notebook. She whipped her head around to pin him with an accusing stare. “You stole my sketches?”

He licked his lips and shifted from foot to foot. His shoulders were hunching again. “Only the old ones,” he said, gaze darting away. “I wasn’t lying when I said I thought your visions were beautiful.”

Rey looked back at the wall, then gasped when her eyes landed on a series of black-and-white photographs. She hurried over to see them more closely. “Are these…” She knew what they were, though.

“Yes,” he whispered.

Rey stared at the images. The first showed her sitting on the couch, lips parted and eyes wide as Ben’s large fingers tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. The others were of her reclining on the couch, and she knew what the culmination of that series would be.

He hadn’t lied; everything was above the waist.

And the photos were gorgeous.

She barely recognized the woman in those shots, even though she knew it was her. He’d only chosen a few, but they told a story. Her wariness first, the haunted look of someone afraid of letting anyone in. Then the desperate arc of her spine the first time he’d planted a hand on her abdomen. It progressed from there, her torso twisting in elegant lines, her mouth ajar, her eyes hazy with pleasure or squeezed tightly shut. Rey’s cheeks burned when she got to the last shot. She knew exactly what it was.

Look at me when you come.

In this one, her eyes were wide and bright, a look of shocked, pained joy illuminating her face. That had been the point of the photographs, she realized. Not her body or her nipples pressing through the thin shirt. He’d been capturing her expressions.

And Rey looked… transcendent.

“I can destroy them,” Ben said, standing beside her with his hands in his pockets, shoulders still curling in a defensive posture. “I will destroy them the moment you tell me to. But Rey… I’ve never seen anything as beautiful as you, whether you’re sketching or shouting at me or coming with my fingers inside you.” His voice was raw, desperation behind every word.

Rey’s heart raced, and her skin felt hot and prickly. This wall of photos might have been creepy—hell, probably would be creepy to anyone else—but Rey finally saw a passion and a need as deep and obsessive as her own. Just as powerful, just as stifled.

“When I couldn’t say it out loud,” Ben continued, “I said it like this. Just for me, because I knew you’d never want me back. But I needed to say it somehow, all the things I felt for you.”

Her eyes grew blurry. “Oh, Ben.” This time she didn’t try to knuckle back the tears. “They’re beautiful.”

He fumbled for her fingers again. “That’s why I looked at the photos right after, like an idiot. It was the only way I was used to saying what I felt, of… of caring for you.” His throat bobbed. “And it was the absolute wrong thing to do.”

Rey turned to face him, grabbing his other hand as well. How astounding, to be able to touch someone so easily. Profound in its simplicity. He still looked half-afraid that she would reject him, but there was hope in his eyes, too. “Thank you for explaining,” she said as a tear trickled down her cheek. “But next time, I really would like a cuddle after.”

He let out a choked noise, then tugged her close and wrapped his arms around her in the tightest, fiercest, warmest hug Rey had ever experienced. She clutched him just as tightly, savoring the warmth and solidity of him. She felt drunk on just this simple human contact.

“I will,” he vowed into her hair. “I’m not good with words, but I showed you this because I want you to know… you do deserve it, Rey. You deserve care and touch and love and happiness. You deserve an entire galaxy of stars.”

Rey was crying in earnest now, soaking his black T-shirt. “You do, too,” she sniffled. “Thank you for telling me.”

They stood like that for a long time, rocking back and forth slowly as they clutched each other close. He smelled like heaven: crisp pine and male sweat, the fresh notes of whatever soap he used. Rey breathed in deeply, wanting him inside her. If she could melt into his body, she would.

There was only one nagging question left from before. “What about the photo of the shattered mask?” she asked after her tears had dried up, her voice muffled by his pectoral.

He was silent for a few moments. “That’s also how you make me feel,” he said at last. “Like the mask I wear around everyone else shatters in your presence. It’s fucking terrifying, and you might not like what you see underneath, but there’s no going back now.” His lips moved against her hair. “So here I am, mask off. I’m not a perfect man—far from it—but I want to try to be better. To be what you need.”

Rey hit her limit. At some point, words failed and actions seized their chance to speak. She grabbed his face in her hands, popped up on her toes, and tugged him down into a fierce kiss.

Ben made a needy, desperate noise, and then he was kissing her with a voracious hunger that took Rey’s breath away. One forearm banded at the base of her spine, and his free hand sank into her hair, holding her still for the ravishment of his mouth. His kisses were hot, open-mouthed, and overwhelming, like he wanted to consume her.

Rey returned his passion equally, nipping and sucking at his plush lips as she slid her hands into his hair. She wound her fingers through the black strands and tugged, and Ben made a rough sound that sent shivers racing through her body. Her lower belly was hot and tight with arousal.

Ben reached down and gripped her ass, and Rey took the unspoken cue and jumped into his arms, wrapping her legs around his waist. He turned and carried her out of the office, never stopping the deep kisses. The wisdom of that approach was called into question when he knocked her into the doorframe, pausing in his kisses to swear and apologize, but Rey just laughed and kissed him harder.

Thankfully, his bedroom was only a door away, though Ben staggered like a drunk man as their mouths worked together hungrily. A few stumbling steps later, Rey was tipped onto the bed, her legs dangling over the side. She couldn’t even scoot into a more comfortable position, since Ben was bent over her, his mouth still glued to her own. Truthfully, she wasn’t ready to give up their starving kisses, either. It had been so long, and she’d never felt this fundamental need for another person before.

His sheets were black and sinfully soft. Every inch of Rey’s body felt hypersensitive, and though she was already drowning in the feel of Ben, she needed more.

“Naked,” she gasped. She felt like a woman dying of thirst suddenly presented with a pure spring of water. He was touching her, and all her greedy soul could think was more, more, more...

Ben seemed reluctant to release her lips, but finally, he pulled back enough to strip off his shirt. Rey gaped at the sight of his pale, muscled torso, but she didn’t have long to enjoy the sight. He bent over her again, kissing her before moving his lips down her throat with hard, sucking bites.

Rey didn’t care if he marked her. Hell, she wanted him to mark her. She wanted Ben in her lungs, her heart, her cunt. She wanted to wear him on her skin like the finest jewelry. Dark amethyst bruises, telling the story of how much Rey was wanted.

She clawed at his back, needing more. She was wearing jeans and a long-sleeved white button-up, but now she was regretting the modest choice. “Me, too,” she choked out. “Naked.”

Ben drew back and grinned at her wolfishly. Then he dedicated himself to stripping her as roughly and efficiently as possible. More than one of Rey’s shirt buttons went pinging across the floor, but she couldn’t care when he was yanking at her fly so fervently. He ripped her jeans off, and then Rey was left in nothing but blue boy shorts and a soft, nude bralette.

Ben paused, standing beside the side of the bed as an exhale shuddered out of his mouth. “Perfect,” he said vehemently.

Rey had never felt perfect before. Accomplished, yes. Tough, yes. A force to be reckoned with… sometimes. But with Ben’s eyes glued to her mediocre lingerie, Rey truly felt like she was the most desirable woman in the world. She arched her back, enjoying both Ben’s hungry stare and the rub of fabric against her stiffened nipples. “Show me,” she whispered, meaning him and her and them in all their many facets.

Ben’s nostrils flared. But rather than fall on her, he carefully unbuttoned his fly, then dragged the zipper down. Rey watched, mesmerized, as he shed his jeans, then his boxer-briefs. When he stood nude in front of her, Rey exhaled shakily.

“Fuck.”

She’d never seen a body like that before. Big, tall, broad… carved. Rey had taken art history courses, and Ben was no David with a lean, chiseled body and limp dick. Ben was… a lot. The kind of a lot that made Rey squeeze her thighs together, wondering what that big dick would feel like inside her and how those tough muscles would clench over her.

“May I?” Ben asked, fingers dipping under the hem of her panties.

It was laughably polite, considering what they’d just been doing, but Rey grew even wetter. Neither of them did this very often, and he was confirming consent. As far as Rey was concerned, he could do anything to her, but she loved the fact he’d asked.

She cupped his face in her hands. “Ben,” she said seriously, “I want you to strip me naked, eat me out, and let me suck your dick. Cool?”

Ben’s eyes widened. His throat bobbed. “Cool.”

He was still standing at the edge of the bed, though, fingers tucked in her waistband and eyes tracing over every inch of her skin as if he couldn’t decide where to start. Rey scooted to the middle of the bed, head settling on his pillow as she spread her legs. “Come on,” she said, sliding her hand over her panties to rub her clit. She was shockingly wet, and she wondered if he could see the damp patch on the crotch of her underwear. “Or are you just going to watch?”

His nostrils flared. Then he was on her, crawling across the sheets before settling between her legs. He attacked her mouth with ferocious passion, and Rey groaned as his erection pressed against her.

“Fuck,” he said against her lips. He rolled his hips, and the drag of his cock over her clit made her cry out. “I can feel how wet you are.”

Rey couldn’t speak. Her skin tingled and throbbed, and when Ben’s muscled chest pressed against her own, she groaned. Satin at her back, hard, hot flesh at her front. She felt like she might fly apart at the seams, but his weight anchored her, that big body pinning her to the mattress. It felt unbearably good, and she wasn’t even naked yet.

Ben kissed down her neck, then mouthed at her collarbone. Rey shuddered at the brush of his plush lips. How would she survive having his mouth between her thighs?

Ben scooted down, kissing over her breasts. He stripped off her bralette, then stared. “You have freckles here, too,” he said, brushing one on the slope of her breast with his fingertip.

“Unfortunately, yes.” Rey squirmed, wanting him to stop talking about her freckles and start sucking her nipples.

“Nothing unfortunate about it. They’re beautiful. Like little constellations.” Ben followed a few of those stars with his mouth, kissing her freckled skin in an intricate pattern. Then he sucked one tight nipple into his mouth, and Rey jerked, nearly coming off the mattress.

“Gorgeous.” The waft of his breath over her dampened nipple made goosebumps erupt all over her skin. He pinned her other nipple between his fingers, squeezing gently at first and then, when she moaned, harder. Pleasure arrowed between her legs, hot and electric.

“Ben,” she gasped, hands flying to the back of his head.

He kept kissing and sucking all over her chest, and then his lips painted fire down her trembling belly. He tugged her underwear down her legs and flung it to the side, then pressed his lips to the edge of her dark curls. “It almost hurts,” he said, his ragged breath warm against her skin. “Being touched after so long.”

She knew what he meant. The sensations were sharp, exquisite… overwhelming. Her cunt clenched on nothing, and her thighs trembled. She was more turned on than she’d ever been, and they’d barely begun.

He pressed his nose to her curls and breathed in deeply, and Rey’s cheeks flushed hot with mortification. She squirmed, but he held her down with an arm banded over her stomach. He parted her folds with his other hand, fingers holding her wide for his appraisal.

When Ben looked at something, he really looked, and without a lens between them, there was nothing to dim the intensity of his stare. Rey was embarrassed and turned on in equal measure. His brown eyes flicked up to meet hers, and he licked his lips and smiled like a predator. “I’m going to enjoy this,” he said.

Then he buried his face between her thighs, and Rey’s embarrassment burned to ash. All she could do was gasp and grip his hair as he licked and kissed and ate at her, that plush mouth both ravenous and giving. He swirled his tongue around her clit, dragged it over her labia, even prodded the tip inside her, seeming determined to map out her every contour. Rey panted and twitched, hips pumping against his face as her body sought release. She’d never come from oral before—the few times she’d tried it, she’d felt horribly vulnerable and had put a stop to things immediately.

Now, though… She’d never felt so needed, so wanted. Ben was as desperate for her as she was for him, and there could be no doubt he was enjoying this, too. He humped the mattress as he ate her out, desperate groans rumbling from his chest.

Ben hooked Rey's legs over his shoulders, gripping one thigh for leverage as he tugged her harder against his face. He returned to her clit, flicking his tongue over the sensitive bud. Rey gasped when he sank one long finger inside her. It had been so long, but her body welcomed him, her cunt involuntarily squeezing around his finger. He pumped gently, then added a second finger. When he crooked them, pressing her G-spot, she lost her mind. Her heels dragged over his bare back as she writhed, consumed by the feel of his fingers stroking her inner wall while his talented tongue circled her clit.

“Oh!” She was climbing towards the peak, that desperate, almost unbearable sensation making her hips churn and her head thrash on the pillow. It was agonizing, it was amazing, it was unbearable …

Ben sucked her clit hard, and Rey exploded. Pleasure rocketed through her, and her cunt squeezed his fingers in a helpless rhythm as she moaned and bucked and cried out his name. This was beyond the orgasm he’d given her on the couch. Her eyes were squeezed shut, her face screwed up, her desperate whimpers filling the air.

When her body finally stopped pulsing, she felt lightheaded. She pushed at his forehead clumsily.

He knelt up, licked his lips, then sucked his fingers. “Good?” he asked, a smirk on his face.

There was Ben Solo the cocky photographer. Once reassured Rey really wanted him, he’d become just as bossy as ever. As Rey blinked up at him, stunned, she realized she liked the arrogant, domineering Ben just as much as she liked the vulnerability of KyloRen.

She tried to speak, but the only thing that came out was a quavering moan. Ben’s smile grew wider. Smug bastard. This time, she thought the insult fondly.

“You’re a masterpiece,” he said, stroking her hips. Then he seemed to reconsider. “Not like you’re a piece of art or something, though you are to me, but…” He winced. “Sorry. I have a massive erection, and words are hard.”

Rey bit her lip, smiling up at him. She was beginning to understand Ben Solo. His emotional vocabulary was limited because his artistic vocabulary was so large, but that would improve with practice. “I think you’re a masterpiece, too,” she said. “And now I want you to lie down and let me suck your cock.”

He gaped at her, eyes wide, before scrambling into position with comical speed. Rey’s body was still relaxed and humming with endorphins, but she was determined to give him just as intense an experience as she had enjoyed, so she sat up and climbed on top of him.

Rey kissed him passionately. He reciprocated eagerly, hands resting at her waist, apparently just as happy to have kisses as he was to have a blowjob. Rey started sucking down his neck to his chest, as he’d done to her, and she swiftly revised that theory. He was breathing heavily, already letting out broken moans as she savored his pec. When she dragged her teeth down his abs, he shuddered.

“Your body is beautiful,” she told him, flicking her eyes up as she nibbled his hip bone.

“Unnhhhh,” he said in response.

God, she loved this. Ben was fucking built, and various muscles danced as he clenched and shifted, clearly anticipating her mouth. The power was heady. Rey had never felt so in control of another person, and she loved it.

She kissed his inner thigh, which elicited a tremble. When she nipped it, Ben made an inhuman noise, his entire body jerking. The response was addictive, and Rey smiled as she laid gentle bites in a series down to his knee.

She started up his other knee, and Ben thrashed on the bed. “Please,” he gasped.

And oh, that desperate plea did things for Rey. He’d been the architect of her pleasure while eating her out. Now, she was the architect of his. A meeting of equals, though it had taken so much conflict to get here.

“This is a gorgeous cock,” she said when she was close to his dick, her breath puffing against that thick, ruddy column. “Do you know that?”

“Rey!”

She smiled, then pressed a gentle kiss to the side of his shaft. “Yes, Ben?”

He groaned. “Please suck me.”

The plea sent a hot wave of arousal coursing through her. Ben was a controlling perfectionist, but he wasn’t in control now. Rey owned him, and she liked it.

“Poor baby,” she murmured as she kissed her way up his cock. “You must be so desperate.”

“I am,” he gritted out. When she peeked up at him, she saw that he was clenching his jaw, nostrils flared. He wound his fingers through her hair, and although he wasn’t trying to move her in any direction, the message was clear. Get on with it.

Rey wasn’t done teasing him, though. “You’re normally so bossy,” Rey said, licking a stripe up the side of his dick. She followed it with a gentle stream of cool air, and his dick bobbed as his abdomen clenched. “How does it feel letting someone else take control?”

He groaned. “Rey, I swear to God—”

She smiled, then wrapped her lips around the tip of his cock. He shouted, and Rey felt a surge of triumph. She’d barely started, and he was already wound up. She let saliva pool in her mouth, then started bobbing her head, taking him deeper on each downstroke. When her nose brushed his pubic hair, she rested there for a moment, adjusting to the feel. She couldn’t get that final inch—Rey was ambitious, but deep throating probably had a steep learning curve, and after a years-long dry spell, she didn’t have the patience to figure it out just now. Instead, she wrapped her hand around the base of his dick, tugging in time with her mouth as she slid back up.

Ben was making absolutely desperate sounds. His hips twitched and jerked, as if he was restraining himself from fucking up into her face, and his fingers were tight in her hair. Rey would have smirked if her mouth hadn’t been stuffed full of cock. She settled over his thigh, grinding against him as she bobbed up and down.

Rey’s prior opinion of blowjobs was basically “meh.” She hadn’t minded, but it had been an obligation to hurry through to get to the main event, and she’d been irritated the few times a man had yanked on her head, making her gag.

Now, though, she was obsessed. Ben tasted good—a little musky, but clean, laced with the salty bite of precum. She swirled her tongue around the tip, collecting more, before sucking him deep again, and Ben let out a filthy groan. His hand trembled in her hair, but he didn’t try to shove her down or gag her with his cock, so Rey relaxed and let herself play.

She’d never realized the power to be had in this act. With nothing but her lips and tongue, she was utterly unraveling the arrogant Ben Solo. He was sweating and flushed, his pupils blown as he stared at her with aroused awe. His muscles jumped, and his cock grew even thicker in her mouth. When Rey licked the sensitive tip, he shivered. When she set a deep, messy rhythm, he moaned and started babbling praise. “Beautiful,” “Hot,” “Amazing,” “Oh, fuck, just like that,” “You’re perfect.” She bathed in the praise, let it warm her from the inside.

His legs trembled. Feeling naughty, she raked her fingernails down his inner thigh while her other hand twisted lightly at the base of his dick, and Ben made an incoherent sound as his abdominals tensed up. “Rey,” he said desperately, wide eyes glued to hers. “You have to stop.”

Tempting as it was to keep going, Rey believed in enthusiastic consent. She drew off of him, the suction of her lips releasing with a wet pop. She licked her lips, then wiped the excess saliva off her chin with her forearm. “Good?” she asked, giving him the same cheeky smirk he’d given her.

His cheeks burned with spots of red, his hair was mussed, and sweat beaded at his temples. He looked wrecked, and Rey felt a swell of pride. “Holy fuck, Rey.”

The ragged curse was all the validation she needed. Rey preened internally, feeling like a sex goddess for the first time in her life. “Are you sure you don’t want to come down my throat?” she asked sweetly.

“Nnnghh.” He closed his eyes tightly and squeezed the tip of his cock with his fist, as if willing it not to go off. His throat bobbed as he swallowed hard. “Need a moment.”

Rey gave him his moment, though she kept rocking gently against his muscular thigh. His skin was slick and messy with her arousal, which hadn’t diminished at all while she’d sucked him. Her clit was swollen and sensitive, craving pressure, and as she ground against his hair-roughened skin, she could feel another orgasm beginning to creep up on her.

Ben’s hands wrapped around her waist, and then he abruptly tumbled her back on the bed, settling between her legs. He kissed her frantically as he thrust against her, his long, thick cock sliding over slippery folds. Rey dug her fingertips into the bunching muscles on either side of his spine, head tipping back with a gasp.

“Can I— Would you—” The syllables were rough as he murmured them into her ear.

Rey nodded fervently in response. “Yes, yes, yes.”

He kissed her again, then started to shift off her. “I’ve been tested, but I’ll grab a condom—”

She shook her head, wrapping her legs around him so he couldn’t escape. “Do we need it? I have an IUD, and I was tested years ago after my last partner.”

It was like a switch flipped. His eyes were hot, dark pools of lust as he stared down at her. His lips drew back over his teeth, almost in a snarl. “You want it raw?” he asked in a guttural voice. “You want it as dirty and hard as I can give it to you?”

Rey whimpered. Her hips bucked against him, and another jolt of pleasure shot through her. “Please, Ben.”

He cursed, then reached between them, gripping his cock and guiding it to her entrance. Rey helped, their fingers tangling as she notched him inside her. They both paused for a deep breath, and then Ben started pushing in.

It wasn’t fast, but it wasn’t slow, either. His cock sank inside her inexorably, stretching her swollen tissues wide. Rey whimpered as he filled her. There was so much of him to take, and as aroused as Rey was, it had been a long time since she’d had sex. When he bottomed out, the breath rushed out of her.

Ben squeezed his eyes shut, looking agonized. “So fucking good,” he said. “Rey, you—shit, you feel unreal.” He sounded drunk, and she remembered it had been even longer for him than it had been for her. KyloRen’s first post had said he hadn’t been laid since college... at least a decade ago. Rey was coming up on four years, but that was a whole different level of celibacy.

“You feel incredible,” she told him, trailing her fingers over his back. She shifted her hips, loving both the feeling of being stuffed full and the choked noise he made as she moved. He pinned her hips down with one broad hand, the other hand planted next to her head as he held himself above her.

“Be still,” he barked.

Rey was throbbing and needy. She didn’t want to be still. But she could tell Ben was a thrust away from coming inside her, and as gratifying as that was, she really did want him to give it to her dirty and hard. So she stayed put by sheer force of will, though her heels slid over the smooth sheets restlessly, acting out the urge to move.

Finally, a sigh shuddered out of Ben, and he smiled down at her. “How do you feel?”

“Good,” Rey said. “Full.”

The dark, wicked look was back in his eyes. He pulled out, then thrust back in slowly, eliciting a groan from her. “You’re so tight, Rey. Tight and hot and so wet.”

Hearing those words in his dark midnight voice sent a thrill racing down her spine. She felt small beneath his massive frame, her thighs spread almost uncomfortably wide around his hips. She hitched her knees higher, her heels resting on the backs of his muscular thighs.

Ben braced his forearms on either side of her head, then set a deep, even rhythm, pumping in and out of her on long strokes. Each sinful roll of his hips terminated in a hard snap that shifted her up the bed, and Rey clung to him, her hands scrabbling over his back, his shoulders, his muscular ass. Feeling those muscles turn iron-hard with each thrust was insanely arousing. She couldn’t imagine the time and obsession that had gone into crafting his body, and now he was using every ounce of his strength and control to fuck her into the mattress.

He kept talking as he fucked her, a litany of filth that went to Rey’s head like fine whiskey. “I want to ruin you, Rey,” he growled. “I’m going to fuck this pretty pussy until you’re a wet, begging mess, and then I’m going to fuck you some more. I’ll wreck you so hard, you’ll feel me for a week.”

His thrusts intensified, each one knocking a desperate cry out of her. She rolled her hips to match his rhythm, and a shock of joy went through her every time his pubic bone bumped her clit. She’d never imagined sex could feel like this; like she was sparking with electricity as her body melted into a puddle of pure need.

“I fantasized about this the first time I saw you,” he said next to her ear. “You were so sharp and beautiful, and your fucking ass … When you sassed me, I wanted to flip your skirt up and bend you over the conference table.”

“Ben,” she gasped, head spinning with lust. How was he managing to be so coherent? Her thoughts were a blurred mess of desperation and desire, and her body trembled as pleasure coiled in her belly.

He abruptly knelt up, gripping her hips hard as he kept fucking her. The new angle tipped her pelvis up, and his cock slammed against a sensitive spot deep inside her. Rey made a desperate mewling sound.

He smirked. “You like that?” He moved one of his hands so he could rub her clit with his thumb. “You like how I fuck you?” His abs clenched with each powerful thrust, and his biceps bulged from holding her.

“Yes!” Her head thrashed on the sheets. Holy God, she was going to come. Her belly tightened as a warm tingle flooded her, the heat spreading up over her breasts, her neck, her cheeks. A few more circles of his thumb on her clit tightened the coil to an unbearable level of tension, and then…

Rey screamed as the orgasm burst over her. Fluttering, pulsing heat flooded out from where Ben penetrated her, and her vision grew dim as she shook and jerked, riding out the spasms. Her head spun, and she felt like she might faint.

Before the tremors faded, Ben flipped her onto her knees and thrust into her from behind. “Gonna fill you up,” he growled as he pounded into her. “Get this perfect pussy even messier. Fill you with cum and watch it drip out of you.”

Holy. Shit. Rey’s arms were shaking too much to hold herself up, so she dropped her cheek onto the pillow, her spine bent in a low arch, her fists clenching the sheets. Ben gripped her hips and fucked her harder. She could hear him coming undone—it was there in his rasping breath, his gasps and broken mutters. He reached around to fumble at her clit again. It was painfully sensitive, but Rey was flying too high to care.

The last few thrusts were so brutal, she saw stars. Then Ben shouted and buried himself inside her. His entire body shook, and his fingers squeezed her hip so hard, she knew he would leave bruises.

Ben was breathing like he’d just run a marathon, and Rey wasn’t much better. She wheezed and blinked dazedly at her hand where it clutched the sheets in a death grip. Her cunt was still hot and throbbing, the arousal not quite worked out yet.

With a sigh, Ben pulled out, but Rey was too fucked-out to move. Cum trickled down her inner thigh, and she shivered as he swiped through it with his finger and gently pushed it back inside her. “Look at you,” he said roughly. “Jesus, look at you.”

In response, Rey moaned.

Ben’s cum-slicked fingers moved to the bud of her clitoris again. “It’s too much,” Rey groaned into the sheet. “I can’t possibly—”

Ben stilled. “Do you want me to stop? Or do you want to see if this messy cunt can give me one more orgasm?”

She should have known he’d be a monster of a dirty talker once his emotional walls were down. He had that edge to him. Every filthy word sent a delicious shiver through her, and Rey knew she was already an addict for Ben Solo’s overwhelming brand of passion.

Her clit throbbed and her pussy ached. She was definitely going to feel him for a week. And yet… “One more,” she breathed.

In response, Ben started rubbing her clit again. He didn’t press as hard as he had the first two times, and Rey was grateful for that. Even this light circling toed the line between exquisite and painful. But she was still wound up, and it didn’t take long before a final orgasm pulsed through her. It was weaker than the first two, but when it was over, Rey was completely depleted. She collapsed onto the bed in the fetal position, staring dizzily at the wall.

Ben lay down next to her and tugged her into his arms, spooning her. They were both sweaty, and his chest stuck to her back, but Rey didn’t want to move. He held her so tightly, that broad frame and muscled arms encompassing her. She felt small and safe, debauched yet cherished all at once.

He nosed at her hair. “Thank you,” he murmured.

The laugh that burst from Rey’s throat was nearly hysterical. “What are you thanking me for? You only got one orgasm. I got three.”

“Sex isn’t about the orgasms,” he said. When Rey turned her head to raise a skeptical eyebrow, he chuckled. “Well, not entirely. Orgasms are great, but to me, it’s about the whole experience. The passion, the trust, the feel of two bodies coming together. And you just trusted me."

Would this strange, passionate, intense man ever stop surprising her? “I’ve never been with a guy who cared about anything but his own orgasm.” She’d never felt safe enough with anyone to make these kinds of confessions, but Ben made it easy to hand him her broken pieces, trusting that he would be gentle with them.

“Then you were with assholes.” He sighed. “I slept with a few girls when I was younger. A girlfriend in high school, then two horrible one-night stands in college. I hated the one-night stands because it wasn’t about trust and connection at all, just about getting off. And even my high school girlfriend told me I was being way too intense about sex, putting too much meaning into it. Demanding too much.” She felt the shift of his shoulder in a half-shrug. “So I stopped having sex. If it had to be casual, I’d rather not do it.”

“That was a really long time ago.” Rey traced a pattern on his wrist where it rested between her breasts. “How did you manage being celibate that long?”

“Copious masturbation.” When Rey laughed, she felt his grin against the back of her head. “Besides that, though… I think I’m just built differently. To me, sex isn’t about the act itself. It’s conditional to who I’m with. It’s really rare for me to experience intense sexual attraction.”

Intense sexual attraction that he felt for Rey. She felt honored knowing that after so many years alone, he was willing to open himself up to her. “I get that,” she said. “I’ve had sex because I thought I was expected to, but it never felt totally right.”

“Does it now?” he asked quietly.

Did he need to ask? But he wasn’t just Ben Solo, bossy god of dirty talk—he was lonely dreamer KyloRen, too, and he had his own broken pieces to share. Rey squirmed, turning in his arms. She pillowed her head on his bicep. “It does,” she said as she looked up at his now-dear face. “For the first time, really. I’ve never been able to let go like that.”

His eyes were soft, his smile unbearably sweet. “Me, neither. It was… it is... perfect.”

They were heady words, and beneath them was the shape of something beautiful and overwhelming. This was intense, but neither of them knew any other way to be. “So,” Rey said. “Are we… dating now?”

Ben looked affronted. “Obviously.”

High-handed bastard. Rey rolled her eyes. “Excuse me for wanting clarity.”

“You can’t just walk out of here and pretend it never happened,” Ben said. “This means something.”

She caught the edge of vulnerability in his words. She had walked out on him before. She never would again.

Rey caught his hand and brought it to her lips. “I won’t walk away,” she promised, willing him to see the truth in her gaze. “And it means a lot more than something.”

Someday, she knew that “more than something” would be defined with a simpler word. Maybe it was insane to go from despising a man to falling head over heels for him in such a short time, but it was too late. The humid air between their lips was filled with possibility, and in Ben’s beautiful brown eyes, Rey saw the future.

He pressed a soft, lingering kiss to her lips. Rey melted into him. It wasn’t a kiss designed to lead anywhere erotic, but it was an expression of intent. I see you. I know you. I want you.

They finally parted, and Rey yawned, jaw cracking. Ben smiled. “Rest,” he said, guiding her head back down to his bicep. “I wore you out.”

“I’ll rally,” she mumbled. But it was nice to relax. She nuzzled into her new favorite pillow and closed her eyes.

They lay in drowsy silence for long minutes. Rey was half-drifting when a thought struck her, and she giggled.

“What?” Ben asked, sounding sleepy himself.

“I was just thinking… if you haven’t been laid in over a decade, where did the condoms come from? And how the fuck did you hold out that long?”

His chuckle ruffled the delicate hairs at her forehead. “The condoms were optimistic. I bought them the day I met you, then immediately decided I was a delusional idiot.”

“Not that delusional, clearly.” Rey turned her head to kiss his bicep.

“And as for holding out…” He gave a half-shrug. “I like to edge myself when I masturbate. Drag it out. When you’re wanking alone for that long, you find ways to make it interesting. And yeah, that was a lot of temptation to resist, but the mission was to make you come as many times as possible, so I focused on the objective.”

“A mission, huh?” Rey bit back a smile. “Never thought of my orgasms as a military campaign.”

He slapped her bottom lightly, then started kneading it. “You know I’m a control freak.”

“Oh, believe me, I know,” she said dryly.

“Like you can judge.”

“Too true.” The news of Ben enjoying edging was more than a little interesting, and Rey was already imagining all sorts of ways to employ that. Maybe she’d tie him up in her bed and deny him orgasms until he was desperate and swearing at her…

She shifted, then winced as her cum-spattered thighs came unstuck in a truly gross manner. “I need a shower.”

He groaned and stretched. “All right, come on then.”

She held Ben’s hand on the way to the bathroom, even though the distance was short. Now that Rey was free to touch him whenever—and wherever—she wanted, she couldn’t get enough. She’d never felt so good in her life, sore pussy aside. The hollow ache of loneliness was gone. She felt like she was glowing.

Ben didn’t let go of her hand, even while testing the water. Soon he was tugging Rey into the shower with him. He wrapped her in his arms, positioning her with her back under the spray. Rey relaxed into him, enjoying the warmth and the bliss of being held. “You will have to let go of me eventually so I can wash the cum off,” she mumbled into his pec.

“Why do that when I’m just going to add more?”

His hand delved between their bodies, and Rey cackled, grabbing his wrist to intercept his probing fingers. “Please, have mercy on the clit!”

“That’s what I’m doing,” Ben said, fingers still questing. “It’s been neglected for too long.”

And yes, it had, but Rey was a mere mortal, and even the sturdiest clit would need time to recover from all that. “Tell you what,” she said, returning the favor by reaching between his legs. “Why don’t we try to even the score instead? I’m ahead three to one.”

“I’d argue I’m the one ahead three to one,” Ben said, but his cock was already stiffening under Rey’s wet palm.

She sank to her knees, grinning up at him as water streamed down her head and shoulders. “Stop talking and let me suck you off.”

And for once, Ben shut up when she told him to.