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Everything in the region of Scaparus Port reeked of mold, moisture, and decay. The planet of Arkanis was known for its rainy climate, but the port had the added benefit of being next to the ocean, so nothing there was ever dry. Ever.
Bo-Katan wrinkled her nose as she stared upwards into the low-ceiling of the pub, her eyes taking in the salt-crusted beams. There were places where the roof perpetually leaked, places where water droplets fell splat, splat, splat, into overflowing buckets on the floor. The sound was enough to make Bo feel as though she was on the verge of madness.
The hour was late. Axe and Koska had long since retreated from the drab, sunken tavern, retiring to their respective rooms. Bo-Katan did not. She couldn’t bring herself to stand up off the bar stool and confront the overwhelming flood of hopelessness that awaited her the moment she was alone. So she took shot after shot of whatever the bartender offered, chasing away any semblance of emotion with the antiseptic of alcohol.
The problem, the source of all her distress, was sitting on the barstool beside her.
The weird thing was, Din Djarin’s presence both aggravated her and comforted her. Maybe it was just that she didn’t want to be alone. But for whatever reason, she didn’t ask him to leave. When she took a shot, he took a shot, meeting her glass for glass. It had become a sort of game. Who will stop first? Neither of them did.
She suspected that he drank for the same reason she did - so that he wouldn’t have to feel anything. His mission, delivering the green child to the Jedi, was completed, but he’d clearly lost something, or rather someone, very important to him. She’d lost the Darksaber, and he’d lost his kid. If he was anything like her, perhaps he, too, felt like there was no way forward from here. The path ahead had seemed so clear before, but now it was clouded. Hazy and uncertain.
“I want to hate you.” Her words were slurred and inundated with the wretched Arkanis whiskey. She knocked back another shot as soon as she’d said the words aloud, as though she could get drunk enough to convince her mind to despise him. Another shot, another burning swallow. It was the first thing she’d said to him all night, ever since they’d docked Gideon’s cruiser on Arkanis for fuel and supplies. Din had indicated that she could drop him off anywhere, and she’d been glad to hear it. Honestly, she’d expected him to head off with Cara Dune and Boba Fett. Unlike her, he seemed to have actual friends, and, in the case of Cara, perhaps something more than a friend. But that wasn’t what happened.
He was sitting there with her still. Cara Dune was long gone.
“Fight me, then,” the mechanical voice next to her retorted. “Take your weapon from me.” Din Djarin’s voice carried the unmistakable tone of someone who had lost everything, someone in a deep abyss of apathy. Apathy, Bo-Katan knew, was far worse than despair. As he spoke, Din unclasped the Darksaber, slamming it down on the bar counter with a resounding crack. Bo flinched at the sound. Several curious onlookers stole glances towards the noise, then quickly averted their gazes. No one was in the mood for trouble, after all, and Mandalorians tended to be exactly that.
Din was right, though. Challenging him for the Darksaber was what she should do. The zealous, overconfident, fool-hardy woman that Bo-Katan had been years ago wouldn’t have thought twice about it. But that was then. This was now. And fighting Din Djarin was the one thing she knew she could not do.
“Wouldn’t be a fair fight,” she countered, brushing the back of her hand across her mouth to wipe off the drops of liquor. She ignored the weapon that lay on the bar between them, the weapon that could have made her queen.
Din scoffed. “What’s that supposed to mean? Am I not worthy to fight you? Not evenly matched?”
Bo turned to face him, outright acknowledging his presence for the first time. Her eyes flashed like streaks of the Arkanis lightning in the sky above them.
Each word fell from her lips like icicles that shattered on the floor. “You. Don’t. Want. It.” She shoved the weapon back towards him, the metal of its hilt scraping on the bar-top. “You’d throw the fight. You’d try to lose. A victory over you would not be earned.” Her eyes were hard as they bore into the dark anonymity of his helmet. “And in case I hadn’t made it crystal clear, I’m done fighting with other Mandalorians. Principle of the thing.”
It was all so sickeningly ironic. There were many individuals out there who wanted the damned Darksaber, but the man to whom it belonged was the one who wanted nothing to do with it. Nor could he get rid of it unless it was through his own death or defeat. Bo-Katan knew she couldn’t challenge him or defeat him properly because she would always wonder if he’d intentionally given in, making her claim to the weapon illegitimate. And she certainly was not going to kill him.
She was supposed to hate him, but she couldn’t. She didn’t. This man was not her enemy.
They were both hopeless, lost, and alone. They were the same.
Din stared for a moment at the Darksaber, as though contemplating whether he even wanted to pick it up. But then he heaved a deep sigh, snatched it up, and clipped it back to his belt.
“Another round?” The mechanized voice of the droid behind the bar drew their attention.
Din slapped his palm on the counter, turning his helmet towards her slowly in a way that made the T of his visor somehow look like an evil smile. Was he angry? Good.
“Another round,” he confirmed. Ah, so it was a challenge, then. Bo-Katan was not one to back down from any challenge. She inclined her head a bit, lifting one eyebrow.
The droid set another flight of shots down in front of them, and Bo dove in. As she brought the small glass to her lips, she watched Din Djarin out of the corner of her eye. Her eyes followed the angle of his helmet as he lifted it up just enough to knock back a swallow of whatever amber liquid was in the glass. Bo swore she saw a flash of olive-colored skin and the subtlest hint of facial hair along his jaw. She rolled her eyes, turning away.
His devotion to his Creed was admirable. But at the moment, it was annoying as hell. She wanted to look into his eyes, make him understand everything that she had lost when she’d lost the Darksaber, and maybe punch him in the face. Yeah, that would probably feel good. It wasn’t his fault. Not really. But damn, if only there was someone to blame. Maybe it wouldn’t hurt so much.
Who was the man beneath that bucket? The fact that, without his armor, she wouldn’t know him from Jabba the Hutt, was both unnerving and… she covered her mouth to hide the hiccup…. Okay, maybe it was a little bit sexy. If one happened to be into the mysterious, masked hero kind of thing. Which she wasn’t. Right?
She didn’t need a hero.
------
Two rounds of whiskey passed. Two? Or three? It was entirely possible that she’d lost count. She was so sloshed, she could barely remember the name of the planet they were on.
Din leaned carelessly against the bar-top, his elbows on the counter. He’d scooted so close to her, their helmets almost brushed when they both leaned forward. He laughed more often than she’d ever heard him. In fact, had she ever heard him laugh at all, prior to this?
She told him way too much about herself. And he told her pretty much nothing about him, aside from a brief mention of Aq Vetina. But he said such lovely things in response to her tales of trial and tribulation, she almost didn’t notice that he hadn’t given anything up about himself in exchange.
Almost.
After Din threw back another drink, Bo leaned in, knocking her fist against his helmet like she was knocking on a door. The walls around her seemed to spin towards whatever direction she looked, but it wasn’t unpleasant. If anything, it was oddly amusing and satisfying, like the kaleidoscope toy she’d played with as a child. “You’re a tough nut to crack, Din Djarin. Who’s in that bucket, huh? Who are you?”
Flinching at the irritating sound of her fist on his helmet, Din swatted her hand away. But Bo-Katan was undeterred. “You give nothing away. I don’t know anything about you. It’s always just this is the Way, and I get that. I fucking get that. But who are you?”
The only response she got was Din cocking his helmet to one side. That was exactly her point. Whenever he didn’t want to answer, he offered only silence. And it made her crazy. She wanted to scream, or shake him, or something.
In the hope of annoying him as much as he annoyed her, Bo brought both of her hands back up to his helmet, grabbing his head in a rough lock. “What does it take to know you, hmm? How does one get beneath your flight suit?” Her own words made her giggle out loud, her head falling back. “I mean…metaphorically. But fuck it. Also literally!”
Din groaned. He shook his head, freeing his helmet from her hands. “I…”
“What?” Now this was a fun game. “Tell me.”
The sound he made over his vocoder honestly sounded like a chuckle. A chuckle.
“It depends who’s asking.”
“Me.” Bo grinned deviously.
“You?” Din drawled. “You’re asking how to get into my flight suit?”
“Mmhmm.”
“All you’d have to do is ask.”
“Is that so?” she mused, leaning forward to blow her hot breath against the visor of his helmet. The temporary fog obscured her reflection from view for a moment. “What do you think? Bo-Katan Kryze would be quite the mark on your bedpost, wouldn’t it?”
“It would, Bo.” He leaned back, jokingly tilting his visor up and down like he was looking her over. “I don’t think there’s any more real estate on my bedpost though.”
Bo? He just called her Bo. Huh. Her head tipped back in a delighted giggle. “Oh, really? You get around? I bet you do. I bet a lot of women go for the ‘mysterious bounty hunter’ thing.” She stuck her lower lip out in a seductive pout. “But you’d make room for me on that bedpost if I begged, wouldn’t you?”
Din took his hand off his glass of whatever-the-hell-it-was. He lifted his hand to her face, lazily tracing his gloved thumb across her pouting lip. The leather was cold and wet from the condensation on his glass…so why did she suddenly feel like a damned inferno inside?
“Why? Are you going to beg?”
Shit. His modulated voice was seductive enough, let alone when he was trying to sound alluring. Was that his bedroom voice? Because she could listen to that low, breathy tone all night long.
“I might.”
His hand dropped back to the table, forming a tight fist. For a moment, his helmet fixated on her with an intensity she could feel deep in her bones, like he was staring into her very existence. Maybe it was the alcohol - it was definitely the alcohol - but the T of his visor suddenly looked like a wicked, dark smile. But then he shook his head, as though internally battling with…something.
“Want to know a secret?” he murmured.
“Fuck yes, I do. That’s what I’ve wanted all along.”
“I don’t want to tell you.” His voice was a groan - a delightfully wrecked sound.
“Tell me anyway.”
He paused, deliberating. And then he must have decided, to Mustafar with it, because….
“There are no marks.” His words were so low, she must have misheard.
“What?”
“On my bedpost. None.”
No kriffing way.
‘Wait…what?!”
Din didn’t repeat whatever he’d said, which only served to make her take his words more seriously. He…he wasn’t joking.
“Are you kidding?” Bo pressed, a wide grin spreading across her face. “You’ve got to be kidding! This is…this is… dank farrick!”
Din’s helmet shook slowly side to side, and he huffed. “And this is why I don’t tell people things.” He kept his visor turned away from her - a marked change from his confidence a few moments before. She thought she heard him mutter a growling curse below his breath.
Self-conscious now, was he? Oh. Oh, she’d touched a nerve.
Her voice quieted a little, and her hand lightly brushed his shoulder, although as drunk as she was, it may have been more of a shove than she anticipated. Couldn’t he see how delighted she was?
“I didn’t mean it in a bad way. I just…I want to know why. Women look at you like you are a quinberry cake – you know that, right? You could probably have anyone in this room. Take your pick. Let’s see…there’s a tall, dark beauty over there in the corner. Nice tits. Oh! And check out-“
“Bo.” Din hissed. The use of her nickname again brought her up short, reining her in from her momentary side quest. “Listen. What you are talking about…it requires trust. And I don’t trust most people. They try to get you vulnerable, but it’s only to get your – well, my – helmet off. It’s like a fucking game. I’ve been there. Done that. Not worth it.”
Bo-Katan’s eyes softened slightly. “I see.” And then she put on the most simmering, seductive smile that she could possibly conjure. Hooded eyes. Batting lashes. The works. “But – you trust me, don’t you?”
Din leaned back on the barstool without looking away from her. He was the picture of sexy repose, and she found that she wanted to climb onto his lap. Wait…she was trying to hate this guy. Right? Right?
“Honestly…I’m a traitor to my Creed. Nothing I do matters any more. Whether I trust you or not. But that doesn’t mean –“
Bo-Katan slid off her bar stool, giggling to herself as she made an ungraceful landing on her feet. The tavern around her spun as she regained her footing, holding on to the back of the stool for support.
“Room 214,” she told him. “I’m staying in room 214. Come on. We need to amend this virginity situation.”
“You’re drunk,” Din pointed out. “And kriff… I’m drunk. We shouldn’t. And don’t use that word. I hate that word.”
Bo snorted, turning on her heel to give him a long look. How dare he sit at the bar with his helmet trained on her, looking so…so fucking Din-Djarin-like. It wasn’t fair that a man could simply exist and yet make her want him like she hadn’t eaten in days and he was, oh what had she said earlier, a berry…a cake, quin… oh whatever. She was starving. And he was going to feed her, she knew.
“What word? Virgin?” She licked her lips. “Room 214,” she repeated, plastered but adamant. And then she turned on her heel and walked away through the bar, her hips swaying in time to the jazzy background music.
------
Din battled with his conscience for only a moment. Once his tribe learned the truth, they were sure to exile him. He was no one. He had no one. What did it matter, now? And once the image of Bo-Katan, red-hair splayed out on a pillow beneath him, taking his body deep inside her, was implanted in his head by her mere suggestion, he couldn’t get rid of it. Was it a trap? It had to be. But…did he even care?
Naturally, he routinely got himself off with his own hand when his body’s physiological needs demanded it. There had been a time when he was younger that he’d run with a gang that included the violet Twi’lek female named X’ian. Proximity alone had brought them together. He’d learned a lot from the experience - dozens of ways to please a woman without even needing his mouth. But she was vile. He’d known it then, and he knew it now.
There had been… a handful of other brief experiences. Without exception, it involved hands, occasionally a woman’s mouth on him, but nothing more. He’d never felt like he was missing out on anything.
Until the moment he’d laid eyes on Bo-Katan Kryze. Something…something unquenchable had stirred within him. And it was that instinct that dragged him mindlessly out of the bar and into the turbo lift. His vision swam with the effects of alcohol – it was difficult just to focus enough to find the number “2”. Second floor. It shouldn’t be this kriffing difficult, he thought.
He strode down the hall, watching the room numbers pass. There was 211, 212, 213…and 214.
He knocked once. Twice.
“Come in. I left it unlocked,” Bo-Katan called from the other side of the door. Din scowled. She left the door unlocked? That was dangerous. Reckless. What if someone else had come in, someone other than him? He stormed in, ready to tell her all of that when…
Dank. Fucking. Farrick.
Bo-Katan Kryze was lying on her stomach on the simple, platform bed, her legs kicked up behind her. She was wearing absolutely nothing.
His mouth went dry as the sands of Tatooine. Truth be told, his pants had felt tight from the moment she’d started teasing him down at the bar, but now – never in his life had he so desperately wanted to mount and ride a woman. Like an animal…animals in heat. Neither her hand nor her mouth would be enough this time, not when she was lying there, looking at him like that.
Was this some elicit holovid? There was no way this was real life.
Bo-Katan smirked, looking for all the world like she could read his thoughts.
Even as he slowly walked across the room towards the bed, Bo pushed up onto her hands and knees and crawled toward the edge of the bed, waiting for him.
Oh, fuck me. Did he think those words? Or did he say them?
At the edge of the bed, Bo sat up to rest her ass on her heels, one of her hands brazenly trailing up her chest, following the swell of one breast. Teasing him. Tormenting him.
He’d seen naked women before. Females of many different species, in fact. But this… this hit him harder than even his wildest of expectations. Nothing could have prepared him. Nothing.
Bo-Katan Kryze in her full Mandalorian regalia was a sight to behold. She was exquisite and powerful - Din had always thought so. Bo-Katan Kryze wearing nothing but moonlight, though? Holy shit. She was a goddess incarnate. His eyes traced the lines of her toned, athletic body, up to her pert, perfect breasts and confident shoulders. Her legs - the muscular yet graceful thighs and elegant calves - he could have written poetry about them. All the while that he watched her, she just stared back at him with a taunting, amused smile. Her eyes dared him to act, to make the first move.
Check mate, Djarin. She didn’t say those words aloud, but he heard them nonetheless.
The thoughts that barraged his brain were far from the honorable, aloof barricade that he often presented. That wasn’t him, though - not tonight. To hell with self-control. What did it matter now? Instead, he considered every which way he wanted to be inside her. It was evolutionary instinct, he reasoned, wanting to implant himself inside her like he did. Wanting to empty himself within her, to lay claim to her. Yep, that’s all it was. Human physiology. One quick fuck, and it would pass. And he would feel like himself again, perhaps.
------
The walls around them were undulating, like they were bunkered down in the digestive system of a giant creature. It should have been deterring, but Din found that there was only one thing he cared to pursue. And he would pursue it single-mindedly.
His gloves were on the floor before he’d acknowledged that he was taking them off. He needed to touch her. He needed his hands on her skin.
His chest plates were on the floor, too. His flight suit unzipped halfway down his chest. Damn, he felt so hard. Miserably hard. He itched to pull the rest of his suit off. He needed her to touch him. He needed it like a dying man needed bacta.
Bo was on the floor. She’d half-crawled, half fallen off in a laughing heap. And then she was on her knees before him, her hands running beneath his waistband, trying to free him from the confines of his trousers.
“I want to taste you,” she crooned. “I want to taste you, Din-fucking-Djarin.”
Oh. Gods yes. Only…
“I won’t last.”
She’d promised him real sex, and he didn’t want to waste himself on her mouth, as tempting as it was.
“Just a quick taste,” Bo slurred her reassurance. “You wouldn’t deprive me of that, would you?”
She wanted this? It seemed unfathomable. Every time he could remember in which a woman had taken him into her mouth, there had always been some kind of underlying reason, and those reasons had a broad range. Gratitude, blackmail, bargaining, bribing, boredom. And X’ian. Force only knew what sick motivations that woman had. But in any case, never once had this been done simply because someone wanted to.
It had to be a trick. But he could pretend otherwise, even if only for a moment. He could enjoy it and let the consequences fall where they may. He had nothing to lose anymore.
So to answer her question, he loosened the front fly of his flight suit trousers so she could pull them lower. Though most of his clothing and armor remained on, she could reach what she needed to. And then he gave her one succinct command, his voice harsh over his modulator.
“Suck.”
------
Her lips settled around him, drawing as much of him into her mouth as she could, and her hand encircled what was left. She sucked him in slowly, making him shudder and gasp with every inch of him she devoured. And then she began to bob, sucking him in and out in languid motions. All the while, her tongue applied pressure to the underside of his shaft. Instinctively, Din’s hands tangled in her hair, making her move faster. He wanted to hear her gag - to feel his cock hit the back of her throat.
“Come on, baby,” he grunted. “Come on, come on.”
Bo-Katan groaned, the vibrations within her mouth bringing him already close to the brink. Her left hand, he noted, had fallen between her legs. As she was sucking him, she struggled to stroke herself with her nondominant hand. She liked taking him in her mouth, he realized. Force, she loved it - so much so that she needed to touch herself while she did it.
“How does it taste?” he slurred. He couldn’t help himself. Bo’s eyes lazily drifted up to his visor. She didn’t release him to answer. She merely offered a slow, serene blink with glassy eyes. At the same time, the back of her throat relaxed, allowing her to take him that much deeper. For a moment, he was transfixed, watching the way his cock disappeared between her plump, pink lips. He didn’t have time to adjust to the feeling of the depth of her throat before she suddenly slid back and back…until only the tip of him was left between her lips. And that…that she sucked hard.
He felt like he’d been stunned. Mind-flayed.
It nearly did him in.
In less than a breath, he shoved her away from him with a harsh grunt, chest heaving. The night air felt uncomfortably cold on his cock; he missed the hot wetness of her mouth immediately. But he’d been too close, far too close, to filling her mouth with his spend.
Still on her knees, Bo grinned. There was a drop of precum on her lips, which she slowly and deliberately swiped away with her tongue. Din felt his cock pulse painfully at the sight. Seeing her lick his fluid off her lip was without a doubt the hottest thing he’d ever seen in his life.
He pushed the thought away. Instead, he filled his mind with the most mundane, unattractive things he could imagine. He needed to start over, to calm himself completely, or he wouldn’t stand a tauntaun’s chance on Mustafar with holding on until Bo herself was satisfied.
“Wait,” he demanded, for Bo was already on him again, raking her hands up his half-clothed body as she stood up.
“Why?” Bo breathed, trying to yank him towards the bed. “I’m done with waiting. What do I get for being patient, huh? Not the fucking Darksaber, that’s what.” Her voice was laced with sarcasm, but there was a cheeky undertone, too, like she couldn’t decide whether she was making a joke or a jab.
The Darksaber. Yes. He had the one thing she wanted, the one thing he couldn’t give her. Because of it, they were destined to be enemies. That thought was enough to chill his desire like a bucket of ice. At least, enough that he was able to release the imminent feeling of falling over the edge, like catching a fish on the line only for it to take the bait and swim away. It was perfect.
Din allowed her to pull him towards the bed, letting her believe that she had won. But it was only a move to lull her into false security, for a heartbeat later, the entire force of his upper body snatched her up from behind and threw her on the bed like she weighed no more than a child. He pinned her on her back with one arm, putting his entire weight on her to hold her still. His helmet leered over her face - he could have felt the tickle of her breath if not for the damned helmet.
“This is what you get,” he growled. One of his knees slipped between hers, pushing her legs wider. “I want you wet.”
“I am wet, Din.” Her whimpering curse met his ears the same time his fingers confidently traced down her belly and dipped between her legs. She was correct, he found. He barely had to touch the outside of her cunt to feel the slick moisture.
But she could give him more. “Wetter. Dripping. I want you to come first.”
“I am dripping!”
His middle and index fingers teased at her slick entrance, but he didn’t push in. Not yet.
“You’re Lady Kryze. I think you can do better, don’t you? Give me more.”
With a beautiful, predatory snarl, Bo pushed against him, trying to move, trying to get more friction, but Din held her fast. Even intoxicated, even not as focused or refined in his movements as a sober Din would have been, his body mass was heavy enough to do the trick. He didn’t let her move her upper body, but Bo quickly realized that she could do whatever she wanted with her hips and below.
Her hips arched off the bed, using her own leverage to sink herself onto his fingers. She cried out, soft and low, as his fingers curled into her as far as he was able.
“That’s it…” Din murmured, chuckling darkly. “Fuck yourself on my hand.”
“I don’t want your hand, Din. Dank…farrick!” She lowered her hips back to the bed, only to slam them back up again, pumping her body on and off his fingers. Her actions belied her words, Din thought, smug.
Surely, she’d thought she’d come into this situation and be in control of him. Maybe she’d assumed he had no experience at all. Well, she was about to learn otherwise.
“You can have whatever you want,” he whispered, low and raspy over his modulator. “But first…”
He began to slide his hand in sync with her thrusting movements. When she’d pushed herself against his fingers up to the hilt again, his thumb ghosted over her swollen clit. Bo’s face went slack in a drawn-out gasp, her chin tilted to the ceiling.
“First, you need to come,” he reiterated. Bo-Katan was unable to compose a response, which he took as a promising sign. So he continued exactly as he was doing, pulsing his fingers into the tight, ribbed slickness of her body. His thumb massaged her clit harder, taking her moans and shuddering gasps as cues.
“All you can do right now is take it. So take it.”
There was no use fighting it, she must have realized. He felt the moment she relaxed, finally giving in to him, leaving her body to his mercy. “Din. Din!”
He felt her cunt strangle his fingers with the force of her climax. The harsh cry that escaped her parted lips went straight to his groin. Every cell in his body screamed to be inside her. Not his fingers. Oh, no. Not this time.
He was blinded by the onslaught of lust that tore through him with a vengeance. There was nothing in existence, nothing in the universe except his body and hers, and they needed to be together. United.
With a ragged huff, Din released his grip on Bo’s upper body. But she didn’t even try to sit up. She merely gazed up at him with hazy eyes, her lips parted in dizzy breaths.
Instead, she merely scooted forward a little, playfully draping one elegant leg over his shoulder.
“Come on in,” Bo-Katan crooned. The movement gave him a perfect view of her tight, bare sex. “But you’ll have to pull out, okay? I don’t remember when I last had suppressants.” That was fair enough. Din registered her words, but he was too distracted to answer.
The opening of her body seemed so small - was this even going to work? It had been tight enough for his fingers alone…kriff. Din gently dragged a finger down her slit again, parting the lips between her legs. Bo answered his touch with a sharp hiss of pleasure.
“Come on, Djarin…” Her voice didn’t beg - it taunted. “You wanna do this thing or not?”
His blood was boiling. He was a thousand degrees, at least. “I want to fuck you senseless,” he heard himself growl. “Can you take it?”
“Can you?”
The words overwhelmed any reserve he might have had. He leaned forward, forcing her leg to straighten on his shoulder and instead bending it at the hip into a tight angle against her chest. It wouldn’t have worked had she not been so beautifully flexible and athletic, like she was made to be fucked like this.
His helmet cocked, boring down into her face as close as he could without the metal of his helmet touching her skin. The look that flashed in her eyes was positively feral. She liked him like this, he surmised - aggressively hot and bothered.
“Stop talking, Kryze.” She was so damned beautiful.
“Or what? You’re being so demanding tonight.”
He’d show her what. “I said, stop talking.” He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been wasted like this. He needed to focus. He took himself in one hand, lining up the tip of his throbbing length to her entrance.
The wetness he encountered, the wetness he’d never felt directly on his cock before, flicked a primal switch inside him. Although his brain wasn’t sure if it was a dream or not, his body took over, easing himself smoothly inside her in one stroke.
He gasped, his facade of cocky dominance slipping. The way her body contracted hard around him, like it was determined to keep him snugly sheathed inside her – even his most vivid dreams could not compare. There was so much friction…so much hot, wet friction. It was unlike anything he’d ever felt before, and the pleasure was paralyzing. And when he started to pump in and out, the drag of her body against him was unfathomably delicious. Her inner muscles squeezed him again with every thrust.
If that wasn’t enough, the mere thought, the mere concept, that he was physically inside her, that their bodies were connected in this way… it unraveled any last shred of restraint that he had.
He should have known that once his body melded with hers, there would be no going back. He was lost.
------
Bo’s hips bucked up off the bed at the sensation of Din’s dick sinking into her. Even the joyous, dizzy spinning of the room seemed to freeze. Every sensation her nerve endings could gather ceased to exist, aside from the throbbing fullness all the way through her core. She felt him deep in her abdomen, occupying as far into her as it was possible to reach.
Move, her body begged Din. Move, damn it! Din’s body responded to her silent plea, as though hormones or pheromones or hell, even the Force communicated to him what her words could not.
She had convinced herself that she would be in control of this situation. That she’d need to guide and encourage Din Djarin.
She was mistaken.
From the moment Din was inside her, he was seeking out a deeper position, pulling her hips up off the bed, squeezing her ass in his hands to mold her more tightly around him.
Perhaps it was the alcohol that shot down his every inhibition and allowed him to just give himself over to his body’s instincts and demands. Or maybe he was just a natural. Regardless, she had the fleeting thought that male virginity was highly underrated, for Din Djarin treated her with more dedication and passion than any other lover to date.
He was rhythmic. Relentless. There was no self-control - only power, heat, and desire that she could feel as acutely as her own.
The words she meant to jab him with, to tease him, died on her lips. The force of his thrusts pushed her body deep into the mattress and against her headboard. Occasionally, the headboard slammed against the wall. Their neighbors were probably pissed. But fuck them.
Bo-Katan would have been more than happy to carry on this way, but this was supposed to be an educational experience, after all. There were things she needed to show him. Taking a moment to muster the entire force of her body, she paused, then using her legs for leverage, flipped them over, shoving Din to his back. It was so quick and smooth that he never even came out of her.
Din grunted, not in protest, but something else entirely. His hands wrenched her hips down over his, even as he thrust up harshly into her. The depth and force of his movement made her eyes roll back into her head, temporarily immobilizing her as thoroughly as a stun bolt.
“Holy fuck,” She whined, voice harsh. When she was able, she began to roll her hips.
------
Din found Bo to be a satisfying and delightful teacher. She guided him through several position changes, all of which were deeply gratifying, but he needed to set the pace. He needed it faster. Harder. So eventually, he stole the lead back, throwing Bo onto her back and thrusting her into the mattress with his entire body weight. She couldn’t speak any more, Din noted. She was only capable of making deep, breathy moans that made goosebumps crawl over his skin.
He couldn’t keep this up. For a while, he could halt the spread of the hot pleasure that kept creeping through him, ready to erupt, with brief pauses and distracting himself with stupid things…a loose thread in the linen beneath them, a crack in the wall. But there was a point when he couldn’t turn back anymore. It was too risky to stay inside her. He didn’t trust himself.
“I need to pull out,” he grunted, chest heaving.
Bo’s jaw clenched into a scowl. “Don’t you dare. I’m so fucking close!”
Yeah, Din thought, same. That was the problem.
“I have to, Bo,” he panted, fighting the feeling even as he spoke. His words had a harsh bite to them. This wasn’t negotiable.
“No.”
She snarled a truly animalistic sound. Her eyes cracked open, giving him the most seething, venomous glare he’d seen in a long time. She was going to murder him, Din thought. What a way to die.
“I’m. So. Close. I need to come, Din!” Her frustration was peaking in conjunction with her fickle climax. He was frustrated, too. He wasn’t at all sure that he could do this, that he could resist his body’s desperate need to collapse into pleasure. For her, though…he would try. She wouldn’t allow him to come yet? He would obey, mind over matter.
He frantically sucked in air, forcing every thought and emotion into his brain behind a brick wall of cold, hard resolution. He wiggled his toes. He focused on the snag of his knee plate on the bed sheets. If he thought about it hard enough, his knee was uncomfortable, slamming into that miserable mattress with the friction of his knee plate for so long. Yes, if he focused on that discomfort, he might get through this. But he needed Bo’s cooperation.
“Hold still,” he snarled, holding her hips firmly still.
“I can’t!” Her voice quivered, desperate and tormented. Unsated. He couldn’t have that.
“Hold. The fuck. Still. And trust me.” His words were disjointed, tangled in his panted breaths. But he was firm.
He had an idea, something he’d learned years ago. If only he could reach one of their gauntlets. Hers were scattered on the floor, far out of each, but his…oh, it was still on. He’d never taken it off.
Silently thanking the Arkanis whiskey for the oversight, Din reached his arm beneath Bo’s hips so his other hand could unclasp the gauntlet. In a practiced move, he disconnected the inner working that connected the flame projector to the fuel tank reservoir. Without it, he knew the projector would hum with the soft vibration of the weapon’s inner workings… minus the firepower. That done, he fastened the beskar back on his wrist. A quick test, aimed away from them both, revealed that everything was working as he wanted it to.
“Din, what are you doing?” Bo hissed incredulously after noticing him reaching his left arm over the top of her. “Fuck me with that gigantic cock, or I will rip you to shreds!” Her demand was a mix of a whine and a scream.
“Trust me,” Din repeated, unrelenting. With that, he let his forearm rest at the junction of their bodies, the cold metal and smooth vibrations coming flush against her swollen clit.
The initial shock of coldness made Bo-Katan gasp, but the sound she made after that could only be described as a sob. Her mouth parted in silent curses, and her back arched up off the mattress. “Din…Din!” The hoarse word that made its way out of her mouth could only have been his name as her body trembled with the heights of her impending orgasm. “Please, Din…please!”
She was incoherent, capable only of gasping and pleading. The bad news was…so was he. He felt the vibrations, too, which he hadn’t anticipated. His lips opened and closed around soundless exclamations of ecstasy. Yet he begged his body to last, to hold on with whatever thread it had left.
Thank the Force for small mercies, though; he didn’t have to do anything aside from remaining inside her and holding the vibration against her just a little longer. She took a sharp, hard breath, and then she came with a keening, desperate cry, a cry that made her whole body convulse and arch for several slow, beautiful, frenetic moments.
It took everything Din had to hold his own satisfaction at bay, to not erupt within her. He had to block out the sight of her parted lips, her head thrown back. He had to ignore the sounds she made, groaning his name under her breath. But… he couldn’t ignore the way the musculature of her body squeezed around his cock like a velvet chokehold. That was beyond any level of self-control he might have possessed. Suddenly, his pleasure slammed into him like a speeder into a brick wall. As much as he wanted to let Bo ride out her orgasm all over him, he had to pull out immediately.
With a sharp gasp, he yanked himself out of her, and not a moment too soon. The sound he made was that of a drowning man who’d suddenly been pulled out of the water and taken a breath, as he immediately spilled himself onto Bo’s lower stomach, his hand mindlessly pumping himself in the absence of her body.
He was flooded with white-hot pleasure, a pleasure that made every other sensation cease to exist. He was blind, deaf, and paralyzed - except for the feeling of his fluid spurting onto her, leaving him gasping in bliss with every surge, every pulse. Hot cum pooled in uneven lines across her flushed skin.
At the same time, as though the orgasm had stolen her soul, Bo collapsed flat against the mattress, limp as a rag doll. Coming down from her high, her hand still managed to reach between them and find him, to replace his hand with hers around his cock and softly stroke him through the rest of his climax. At her touch, he shuddered and lost another tendril of fluid onto her hand. How could there possibly be anything left, he wondered. But it was Bo-Katan Kryze they were talking about – she could always make the most, and then more, of a situation. The gentle stroking of her hand was everything he needed, a bridge between the devastating pleasure and the discomfort of overstimulation.
It was a good thing they’d decided he should pull out, he thought. If he’d expended himself deep inside her…she would have owned him body and soul. How could he ever want another?
As the sharpness of the feeling began to subside, Bo’s hands dropped down against her sides, exhausted. She panted, catching her breath, but the fluid of his pleasure remained on her skin, albeit at great risk of dripping off her body and onto the mattress below. He crouched over her supine form, swiping his thumb across some of his spend.
He didn’t really know what he was doing or why, but he needed her to take it. She smiled tenderly, as though she already knew. Her lips parted, allowing his thumb to slip into her mouth, where she closed around him and began to suck and lick the drop from his finger.
If he’d thought his cum on her lip earlier was hot this was… this was… son of a mudscuffer.
After a moment, Bo released her suction on his thumb with a lazy pop. “More?” she asked, rewarding him with that same, affectionate gaze. Din was far too eager to collect more cum on his finger, placing it drop by drop into her mouth.
That was better. Much better.
Then he collapsed on his back at her side, trying to pull his mind and body back together. He was startled after a moment by the soft sound of Bo-Katan’s chuckle. Well, at least she didn’t want to kill him anymore.
A slow grin crawled across his face beneath his visor. And he laughed, too. It wasn’t a laugh of joy - not on either of their parts. It was the sound of two people who had nothing left to turn to, so they’d turned to each other. And gotten drunk. And screwed. And now…now what?
“You did really well,” Bo-Katan murmured after a moment. She glanced at him sideways, sizing up his helmet out the corner of her eyes.
“Are you being sarcastic?” Though he felt slightly less intoxicated, he was a far cry from sober. And even if he wasn’t, with Bo-Katan, it was sometimes difficult to tell whether she was teasing or not. In any case, he had to assume that she was either being generous or satirical.
“No. I mean it.” She gave him the slightest of smirks. “I always knew you’d be good in bed.”
“Why would you think that?”
“How could you not be? Look at you.”
Din sighed, shaking his head. “I don’t know what you mean by that.”
Bo answered him with an upward tilt of a delicate brow. “Don’t do the self-deprecating thing. It’s too damn cute.” She rolled over, then, and pushed up off the bed. “I’m gonna go to the fresher.”
The exertion and the alcohol (the fact that she’d been aggressively fucked notwithstanding) combined almost made her knees buckle as she tried to stand. But she merely chuckled, and somehow crawled her way to the fresher door.
Cute? What a terrible word, Din thought. It was a word he’d never been called, nor had he any desire to be. He wasn’t cute! It was a wretched word that should have been offensive, but coming from Bo-Katan… he found it…almost pleasant. Endearing.
Din considered for a moment that Bo probably expected him to leave. She’d given him the opportunity. Maybe that’s what she wanted. But… it wasn’t what he wanted. So he decided to wait until she came back, to wait and see if she’d ask him outright.
But before that ever happened, his eyelids grew heavy, and he succumbed to the depths of exhaustion.
------
The first thing Bo-Katan was aware of when her eyes tried to flicker open was the pounding of a hammer against her skull. She found herself trying to remember if she’d gotten the shit beat out of her at the bar the night before. It sure as Dathomir felt like it. But she struggled to recollect anything at all, like the synapses in her brain were trying to walk through knee-deep muck.
The second thing she noted was the cloudy, gray-white light slanting through slats in the window - the closest thing Arkanis had to a sunny day. Even that felt too bright, though, so she shoved her face back into the pillow with a groan. Arkanis. Yes. She was on Arkanis.
Which led to her third realization.
She was on Arkanis, but specifically, she was in a dingy room at an inn at Scaparus Port. The details of the night before came flooding back with a flurried vengeance.
Din Djarin. His name permeated her senses like the heady inhalation of smoke. The memories were muggy and dreamlike, but based on the warm ache between her legs…it hadn’t been a dream at all.
She couldn’t resist. She had to know. Surely, Din had left a long time ago, for that was the typical way of one-night stands, at least from her experience. But the only way to find out for certain - and truly, it was the only thing that could motivate her to pull her face out of the pillow - was to turn and look to see if anyone was on the other side of the bed.
Her red-rimmed eyes were met by the undeniably pleasant sight of the partially-dressed Mandalorian. His cuirass, gloves, and boots were on the floor, but most of his beskar was still in place. Too bad. She would have liked to see all of what he had under there. He was awake, it seemed. His helmet was lifted up just slightly; she couldn’t see anything, but it looked as though one of his hands was beneath his helmet, rubbing his eyes behind his visor. Bo’s lipped twitched in some semblance of a smile.
“You’re…still here.” Speaking felt, and sounded, like she’d swallowed a fistful of gravel. Kriff.
He dropped his hand from his face, promptly resettling his helmet back in place.
“Disappointed?” He sounded just as rough as she did, but somehow, it was still sexy. How did he manage that?
“No. It’s just…that never happens.” She squinted, forcing her eyes to adjust to the light of day. “Men have a tendency to fuck and duck, you know?”
“Not this one.”
So it seemed. A storm of feelings pelted her at his simple answer. Why did he have to be so damn honorable and kind? Why couldn’t he have just left her alone, left her to wallow in her own misery? And yet… she couldn’t deny nor hide the strongest feeling of all, the one that clouded over everything else. Gratitude.
Bo-Katan watched Din’s groggy fingers tried to zip up the top half of his flight suit. It reminded her that she was still wearing…nothing. That was not helpful. She’d pulled all the blankets from the bed over herself, though, which lent her some degree of modesty. Apparently drunk Bo was a blanket hog, she thought with a rueful sigh.
“Thank you.” Thanking Din Djarin was the last thing she expected to do. But…the only thing worse than waking up beside a one-night-stand, a man who was supposed to be her enemy no less, was…waking up alone. The silence. The emptiness. The shame.
Din stayed. He hadn’t made her go through that.
“You’re thanking me?” Even Din seemed surprised. “Pretty sure I’m supposed to be thanking you.”
“I’m grateful - I’m grateful not to have woken up alone.”
“I know.” And he did, Bo acknowledged. He knew exactly what she meant. Was that the real reason he’d stayed? He didn’t want to be alone either?
Bo-Katan cleared her throat, trying to hold herself together with whatever shreds of self-preservation she had left. Although her stomach churned at the thought, she knew they’d feel better with some hydration and something light to eat. “Do you want to get some breakfast?”
“No,” Din groaned. “But we probably should.” She watched as he sat up slowly, simultaneously turning away from her. “You can get dressed. I won’t look.”
Bo rolled her eyes, not that he could see it. Last night, he’d seen all of her. His chivalry was unwarranted. But…it was a considerate gesture. A gesture she would accept.
Or at least she would have, except that as soon as she stood up, her stomach flipped dramatically, and she ended up making a beeline for the fresher, bringing the bedsheet with her like an oversized gown. In the sanctity of the fresher, she promptly heaved the scant contents of her stomach into the vac.
------
The tavern was serving some bland oatmeal-mush concoction, which ordinarily Din would have foregone, but given the circumstances…it actually wasn’t that bad. Clearly, the place was used to catering to hung-over patrons.
Bo-Katan and Din sat across from each other at a rickety table in the corner, nursing their bowls of mush and glasses of water. Bo was angled away from him, so he could tip his helmet up a little to eat. No one in the bar paid them much attention, anyway, but Bo’s body concealed him from the inn's other benefactors. It amused Din - okay, and it warmed his cold, bleak heart - that she had been completely naked last night, yet she was worried about preserving the modesty of his jawline.
They both remained silent for a while, and Din couldn’t help but wonder what Bo was thinking about. Was she replaying the events of last night in her head, as he was? Or was she seething…loathing herself for what she’d done?
When she finally spoke, he huffed a relieved chuckle.
“How did you do that thing with your gauntlet?”
He cocked his helmet, acting as though it was the most normal line of conversation in the world. “Hasn’t your flamethrower ever run out of fuel?”
“Well, yes, but… I never considered…. You know, you shouldn’t do that. It’ll burn out the motor.”
Really? Din rolled his eyes, bemused, behind his visor. Funny, considering she’d been the one begging him not to stop. But there was a twinkle in her emerald eyes that told him she was teasing.
“Good thing you were quick, then, wasn’t it?” He retorted with a devious tilt of his helmet.
Bo responded by lifting her glass of water in a salute before taking a small sip.
She had no right to look so beautiful, Din found himself thinking. She was deathly pale and there were dark, bruise-like circles under her eyes. Yet he found her flawless. Sassy. Powerful. Determined. Even in the light of everything that had transpired in her life. He could imagine waking up to a face like that every morning.
Imagine was the key word. It could never be.
“Where will you go from here?” Bo-Katan’s soft words pulled him out of his reverie. “You could still join me, you know. Serve a higher purpose. You did promise that you’d at least consider it.”
She was correct. It had been part of the exchange for her help in rescuing Grogu. But circumstances had dramatically changed, primarily because of the saber that was now clipped to his belt, not hers.
“I did promise. And I will think about it.” He sighed. “But I don’t… I don’t know what my purpose is right now, Lady Kryze. That’s something I have to figure out on my own.”
She nodded, pursing her lips. “I figured you’d say something like that.”
They lapsed once more into silence.
They’d both eaten and drank to the extent that they were able. There was little to keep them there much longer, Bo-Katan realized. Farewell was imminent, and it was both a relief and a curse.
Bo leaned forward, elbows planted on the table, her face resting in her hands. She stared into his visor with unabashed concentration.
How easy it had been for her to dismiss him as a zealot - this rogue Mandalorian she’d heard so many rumors about before the day she’d actually met him on Trask. A zealot who cared only for collecting bounties, for making money, when his talents could have been so much more worthy and useful in the pursuit of reclaiming Mandalore. He was running, hiding even, from the good that he could do for their people.
It was easy and convenient to think that of him, yes, but… it wasn’t the truth.
Din Djarin was honorable and dutiful, through and through. Even when he had no path before him, and he faced the very real possibility of his tribe no longer accepting him, he remained true and steadfast to what he thought was the right choice. A lesser man wouldn’t have put his helmet back on again. A lesser man would have decided, fuck it, it’s done, and decided to set the helmet rule aside. It was true that Din had teased that thought, that he’d mentioned nothing mattered any more since he’d broken the Creed, but had he taken off his helmet again?
No.
Not for drinking. Not for sex. Not for anything.
Did he cave and join in her quest for Mandalore, even though his conscience and gut told him the time wasn’t right?
No. Again, not for anything.
Din was steadfast and devoted to a fault. Stubborn? Certainly. But not for the sake of being stubborn. He could be flexible when he needed to be; she’d witnessed that. However, Bo-Katan understood without a shadow of doubt that if Din Djarin gave her his loyalty, it was a gift beyond compare - an ally that would never abandon her nor let her down.
He wasn’t self-serving, nor fickle. He wasn’t a man who would run from a fight. It was simply that…he was incorruptible.
Din stared straight back at her through the entirety of her musings, letting her measure him up with the force of her gaze and her thoughts.
“You can still challenge me for your blade. It’s not too late.”
She slowly shook her head side to side. The palm of her hand pressed flat against the table. There were so many things she wanted to say to him. But she didn’t.
“Take it. And get out of here. I have no desire to fight you.”
“My Lady.” The formal tone he took made her cringe inside. It was perfectly appropriate for him to address her that way, but the formality threw a wall up between them. He was putting her at arm’s length.
It was for the best, though.
Until she came to terms with it, she had to keep the space between them. She had to ignore the small, childlike voice deep inside her that called out to Din, that begged him not to walk away.
I don’t need a hero, she reminded herself. I don’t need him.
At that moment, she wasn’t sure what hurt her more, seeing him right in front of her with the weapon that should have been hers clipped to his belt. Flesh and bone proof of her enormous failures. Or seeing the man who she found she had such admiration for push his chair back, incline his head in a polite bow, and turn to walk out the door.
It would have been just as bad for him to stay with her, a constant reminder of what she’d lost, as it was to watch him leave her.
“Next time, my suppressants will be up to date.” She couldn’t resist the words she murmured so quietly, she wasn’t sure if he’d be able to hear them. An olive branch of hope, that maybe, maybe everything that was painful between them could be healed someday.
He paused midstep, tilting his helmet to the side like he might turn around. He must have decided against it, though, for he resumed his pace a heartbeat later. But somehow…somehow Bo-Katan knew that he smiled.
------
It felt wrong to walk away.
But it would have been worse to stay.
For once in his life, Din felt like nothing more than a dust particle in the vast universe, whipped along in the winds of destiny.
He would find his feet again. He always did.