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The first time they slept together, they didn’t speak until after. They were too rushed, too consumed by need for each other and fuelled by adrenaline, and Cassian was sure that if they had stopped even to catch their breath then fear or sense might have gotten the better of one or both of them. There had been gasps and sighs and swallowed moans, but he could tell Jyn had been holding back just like him.
The marks of lives lived in the shadows showed in their mutual reluctance to make too much noise. Even as she came, once, twice, Jyn bit her lip as she choked back her cries. Cassian’s back stung with the marks of her blunt nails as she fought to control her body. He had buried his face against her neck to mute the ragged groan that was pulled right from his core. After, there had been soft whispers in the dark, confessions of inexperience and past hurts, and soft touches that spoke of safety and affection and a reluctance to be parted.
The second time, the next morning, they slowed their pace. The line between friends and lovers had been crossed, and after a night pressed closed to each other some of the anxiety and fear had faded. Cassian had never felt a happiness quite like what he felt when he woke up next to Jyn, warm and naked in his arms. A bright spark flared in his heart when she smiled sleepily, and he laughed - actually laughed - when she wrestled him to his back and climbed on top of him. He wasn’t going to run, and it seemed neither was she, so they took their time exploring each other in the light of day.
After a time, he pressed himself deep into her, and that was when it happened. His name slipped from her lips as her head was thrown back and her body arched into his.
“Cassian!” It was a gasp, a breathless cry, as if she had just been pushed from a precipice into a free fall, but there was a joyful edge to it too. Cassian found himself so transfixed by the ecstasy of her expression that his hips had stuttered in their rhythm briefly, and Jyn pried open her eyes to look at him. She looked, he thought, as surprised as he felt.
No one had known him before. Marks he had slept with never knew his real name. Colleagues did, but none of them knew the man who lay beneath it, even if they thought that getting him into bed meant otherwise. Jyn looked at him and he knew she could see right through to his soul. Slowly, her mouth curled up into a smile so sweet that he had to taste it, to kiss the lips that had said his name as if it were a prayer. Jyn gripped him tight, let her hands roam over him greedily, rose her hips up to meet his as they recovered their rhythm and lost themselves once more in their pleasure.
He let her name fall from his lips, over and over again, pressed it into her skin with tongue and teeth, and turned Jyn into I love you with his final sigh.