Chapter Text
“There are four beds in this beach house, and you still fucked me on the floor.” Rey nuzzled her nose against the tip of his.
They were tangled now, together, under the sheets of one of the aforementioned beds in the rental. Each with a hand woven through the other’s, they lay face-to-face, smiling stupidly across a mass of soft pillows.
“Didn’t know there were four,” Ben quipped through the guise of snark. This time, it made Rey’s chest swell, in an entirely new way. Like he was putting on a performance, just for her. Pretending to be grumpy and hard, to distract her. From how much he —
Ben nipped at the very tip of her nose. And then, he kissed that place, gentle and quick.
“This house is deceptively small upon first entry.”
Rey rolled her eyes, in false bravado, too. Played her part, of the literary ingénue, private and standoffish.
She could like this game now, Rey thought. Love it, even. Because she knew what they really were.
The lovestruck writer — voice of her generation — as they liked to say. Hopelessly obsessed by her editor’s son.
The literary critic of the decade — perhaps, one day, the century — with the syllable of her name seared across his bones, his heart.
Rey grazed her nails at the side of his ribs, where she held him close.
“Would it have made a difference?”
Ben’s covert smile bled into a full-fledged grin.
“You’ll be happy to learn, little brat, that the moment I tasted you on my tongue, my patience snapped. There was no hope of us making it past the living room.” His words came so sweet, so endearing and full. And little brat sounded closer to little lover.
Rey inched closer.
Ben brought their laced fingers to his face, kissing the back of her hand.
“I… Thought it was romantic.” His smile turned sheepish, and he looked down at her thumb, where she stroked the back of his knuckles. “The fire and everything… I hoped, at least. I’m not... well practiced, in this kind of thing.”
Rey pulled her hand from his, so she could take his face in both her palms. She leaned over him, so that Ben laid on his back, her forearm resting across his chest as she tilted her face over his.
“It appears, like everything, it comes to you naturally, then.” She pressed a chaste kiss to his lips, and swallowed a laugh as he chased her mouth, his eyes still shut when she pulled back. “It was romantic.”
And her voice was smaller, timid again, when she said it.
“I loved it.”
And his eyes were open, catching hers in spilling pools of dark matter.
“Rey,” he whispered. Pulled gentle fingers through her hair. Stroked a touch down her bare spine under the thin sheet.
“You said — before, you said…” He continued, a heavy swallow breaking his words as he gathered something.
Rey waited. Finally, patient. A breath locked in her throat.
“Do you want that?” He asked, his voice so quiet and thin. “Do you want me to?”
Rey loosened her breath, trying desperately to read his face. Her finger traced the light hairs at the center of his chest.
“Ben… Could you?”
It was his turn to hold her cheeks, to secure her gaze to his.
“Love you?”
Rey nodded, just once, tentatively. Her lips slightly parted. Her eyes unblinking in that shadowy, midnight room.
“I could — I can. I do.”
It rushed through Rey like a lightning storm, her skin lit from the inside as she moved to take his kiss.
But Ben stopped her, his palm at her jaw, fingers on her cheek. Tilting her chin close, so her lips hovered just over his.
“And you?” He asked, his breath a pant. His words so rushed. “Could you love me, too?”
Oh. Her heart was a puddle in her chest. Rey pushed back the dark hair falling over his eyes. Traced a finger over the hot, pink flush of his cheeks.
And then, she did that thing she’d so longed to do. Dropped the tip of her finger to that dark, little fleck, just above the corner of his mouth. Traced up to the next little freckle. And another, and another. Drawing invisible constellations across his heated skin. She said it in a whisper, steady — but a secret, just for the darkness of the room, the low-hanging moon, and him.
“I was always going to love you, Ben.” She felt a heavy breath empty from his chest. Rey smiled, soft. Safe. Finally. “I was just waiting for you to let me.”
His smile was wide, his eyes bright. And Rey wanted to laugh and to cry. To scream at them both for wasting so much time.
He kissed her, hard. Full lips hungry across hers. His nose, his brow, pressing. His tongue licking into her mouth. Rey sighed into him. Melted over him. Welcomed every touch, every breath and suck and nip and stroke. Whole, like this. With him.
When they parted, with shallow, airy breath, both of their eyes were open. And they stayed like that. Smiling at each other some more in the dark. A brat and a monster in love.
And then, Rey remembered something.
“Ben?”
He traced the dip under her bottom lip with the pad of his thumb, eyes glittering like stars in the dark night.
“Sweetest thing.”
Rey flushed. Traced gentle fingers down the inside of the wrist by her face.
“Why tonight? Of all these events, all this time… Why come to Maine?”
Something in Ben’s face fell, and Rey swore her heart stopped beating.
He must have seen her worry, because Ben was pressing fluttering kisses to her forehead, her jaw, her cheeks. She ended up tucked under his chin, and Rey traced small circles on the inside of his arm, waiting.
Eventually, he whispered.
“A dream.”
Rey’s ears pricked up. She turned in his arms, pulled back to face him. But Ben wouldn’t meet her gaze. He touched at the lowest part of her neck, just to the side of her heart in her chest.
“I don’t remember much. We were somewhere bright. Sunbleached... A desert, I think. It was sandy.”
His brows pulled together as though he didn’t fully trust the memory.
“We didn’t do much of anything. Just stood, as if we were… waiting. Forever, waiting.”
Ben blinked rapidly. Swallowed thickly.
Finally, he met Rey’s waiting gaze through a ring of dark lashes.
“And then you said it. You said you loved me.”
He must have felt it. Her heart stop. Stutter. And jolt into a rapidfire beat.
A smile started to tug at the corner of his mouth.
“I woke up with you, with that world, still near me. Your voice, those words, like honey in my head. The dry breeze through your hair. Your skin, a little pink, from the sun. Actually, I think there were… Two…” His eyes shifted quickly, and he looked back to her, finally.
“And, like she knew something was shifting… My mother called me, early. To invite me tonight. She never… She knew I wouldn’t come, especially at the last minute, and from the city. But she said she just felt the urge to tell me.”
Rey shook her head, just slightly. Her breath like wind in her throat. Her lips parted as she listened to Ben’s story.
“I packed a bag, got in my car, and drove. I…” Ben paused, loosed a heavy, scratching breath from deep inside his chest.
Rey pushed gentle fingers though the strands of hair falling across his shadowy eyes. Offered him a small, encouraging smile. Brushed her thumb back and forth across the back of his hand, holding it flush to the center of her chest. And when he was ready, Ben spoke low and even.
“I was there for hours before the reading even started. Rey, I sat in my car, a block away. Knowing you were there, your voice, your words, aloud… You were sharing them with the world and I was… Sitting in my car, afraid.”
His voice was shaking, and Rey brought Ben’s palm to her lips. Kissed it. Tucked it between both of hers. And then his words rushed out like the pour of a waterfall over its cliff.
“I got out of my car and walked up to the door three times before I met you outside. Gave up, turned back, before I made it in, each time. I wanted to — Rey, I tried. If you hadn’t been there, if you hadn’t stepped out for air, I might never have…”
“Ben,” she was shaking her head, hard, trying to understand. “Why?”
With a pained sort of smile, he took her hand. Brought it to his lips and kissed. Held it to the side of his face. And Rey loved it — the feel of his voice echoing through his skin. The soft pull of his cheek under her palm. The feel of his rolling jaw as he told her.
“You were right, before, Rey. I have been a monster to you. Failing, miserably, to keep all of this — all this longing — at bay.”
Rey swallowed, half-nodded, felt the tiny quiver of his lip under her thumb.
“All this time, I thought it would be better. Easier, to want you from a distance. At least, that way, things were relatively safe. I could see you so regularly, at my mother’s. Dream of you all I liked. But if you saw me in the audience at your readings, saw all of it written across my face…”
Ben took a slow, steadying breath.
“Once I was… found out in my feelings, I expected you to turn me away. Why wouldn’t you? The way I’ve behaved…” Ben’s brows pinched, his mouth twisting into a frown, and Rey traced the crease of his pout. Smoothed them away.
“And then… That would be it, forever. No more Rey, in any way.”
She was climbing into the cage of his arms, rolling to catch his hips between her thighs. Pressing slow, wet kisses along his neck, the underside of his jaw. Combing her fingers through his hair. Stroking his chin.
And that’s when she felt it. Wet, under her fingertips.
Rey pulled back to see his face in the dark bedroom, flooded with the faint light from the waxing moon.
There were slow, thick tears falling over Ben’s cheeks.
“Oh, Ben.”
She caught a tear with her lips, and then another. Ben breathed against her cheek, his strong hands wrapping tight around her body, pulling her hard and close against him.
“I was so afraid.” His voice was raw, almost a whisper in her ear. “Of losing you before having you ever, at all.”
“You have me,” Rey whispered. Caught his lips with her own. “And I have you.”
Ben kissed her back, hard. Suddenly, urgent. Suddenly, skin prickling, rolling Rey onto her back, his hips between her thighs like before.
Suddenly, his length, hard and heavy, growing thicker across her belly.
“I’m yours,” he swore. Licked at her bottom lip, sucking it between his teeth.
She gripped him in her palm. Stroking slow as he nipped at her. Released her mouth with a low, scratching moan.
“I want you,” she whispered, writhing beneath him with hardening nipples, chasing friction against his chest.
A quick fumbling, a rearranging of hands and hips, and Ben's fingers were inside her again. He was holding her wrists above her head, pinning them away from his cock, his pleasure. Everything for her. So her back was arched further, her neck long and arcing, receiving a line of wet, open kisses.
Rey was already squirming under him, her desperate hips snapping to find the rhythm of his fingers, her breasts grazing against the heights of his hot, hard chest, tender and sensitive.
“Need you to come for me again, sweet thing. One more time, now. Do you think you can?”
“Yes,” she panted, nipping at his jaw, where she could reach while he held her, hovered over her. “Yes.”
He was so clever with his fingers and his thumb. And he liked her like this, Rey could tell. Where he could fully watch her. Scroll his eyes along her body, see each chapter of her pleasure tear. The snap of her stomach as she gasped for breath. The shake of her thighs as he brought her closer to her edge. Her wild, half-closed eyes fixed so closely to his, flickering every other moment to his parted lips. He watched a blush bloom across her chest as she cried out.
“Please,” she panted, begged. “Ben.”
He was suckling at her neck, his fingers stroking, long and thick. And the sounds of it, of him fucking her with his hand, the mixture of her wetness and his come from before, making each pump of his hand so slick… Rey was gasping for breath, almost babbling, a string of yes and please painted on her lips.
He was so right. So much. And she was so close.
“Wait!” she cried, a breath away from breaking.
She could feel him, hard and heavy, at the inside of her thigh. Ben froze over her, his parted lips, his cheeks, pink.
“Ben — I — all of you. ” She begged, stuttered. Wriggling her hands in his fist, and he instantly let her go. She reached for him. He was throbbing and thick in her palm. “I want all of you.”
And his hand was gone.
Ben was shifting already, watching her stroke him as he settled between the parting of her thighs. He traced her bottom lip with the tip of his wet finger.
“Want to come on my cock again, little love?”
Rey sucked his finger into her mouth, tasting herself. Felt another wave of twisting desire. She nodded at him through her lashes. Dragged his tip across her center, and Ben shivered. Pulled his hand back to hold her jaw.
“Need to,” she whispered. “Need you.”
There was a quick fumbling, an alignment of hips, grazing of hands and thighs. He was hilted inside her in no time.
And it was faster this time. No waiting — no need — for her to adjust. Just Ben’s sharp thrusts, Rey’s hips rolling desperately to meet them. His damped brow pressing into hers, Rey’s lips pulling unspoken secrets from his. Their mingled, acute need and desire.
“Ben,” she breathed, her fingers knotting in his soft and tangling hair, keeping him so close. Panting around her confession. “I love — the way — you fuck me.”
“Yeah?”
Rey nodded, her nose against his throat as she swallowed a cry.
“What else, sweet thing?” His hips bowed deep, a hand snaking between their writhing bodies.
“Love it when — oh, God —” Her voice broke off with a whine as his thumb worked expert circles at her center, slow and dragging just above the place he buried deep inside her. “Love it when you touch me.”
It spurred something in him, something sharper and driven. He was rocking against her like he was trying to merge them together through the boundaries of her skin.
“More,” he begged of her, his breath heavy in her ear.
“How you —” Rey remembered her earlier request. Don’t tell me. Show me. Her chin tipped, searching, and Ben caught her mouth quickly, his tongue lashing against hers. His teeth worrying the plush of her bottom lip.
“Ben,” she whispered his name again, like it was scratched onto the tip of her tongue. A perfect syllable, round and whole. A coda. A place for her to come back to, always.
Home.
Rey scratched gentle nails down the length of his shoulders, his spine. Wrapped her heels around him, pulling him closer, deeper. “Want you here, always — need you — please.”
He was heavy over her, low and close.
“Look at you,” Ben simpered, his voice thick with awe. “My perfect Rey. So undone. So full of me.”
“Ben,” her face scrunched, focusing on her peak. She arched her neck, her jaw tipping toward his lips. Should could see it, just on the other side of his tongue. He knew what she needed.
He kissed her. His tongue stroked hers as he thrusted once more, meeting her so deep, so right, everywhere. His thumb rolled over her clit in that perfect, precious way.
Give yourself to me, she thought she heard him say.
She clenched around him, with a silent scream, and Ben pulled back to watch it break across her face.
Rey’s hand reached up to hold his jaw, hard. To lock his gaze to her half-glazed eyes as she shattered beneath his thrusting, feverish body.
Ben fell fast, his face dropping to the side of hers. His moan, his whisper caught in her hair as they shook around each other, stroking and tender.
Love you — here. Keep you here. Always.
Rey nipped and kissed at his neck as Ben caught his breath. As she steadied her own. Until he pulled back, stroking the side of her cheek, watching her through full eyes.
“My sweetest thing.” He kissed at the corner of her open mouth. Nuzzled his nose against the curve of her neck. Kissed at the hollow of her throat. Dropped his cheek to her chest. “Mine.”
And Rey curled her tired fingers through the thick, gentle waves of his hair, holding his cheek by her slowing heartbeat. It was a low, rasping whisper. A breath of relief.
“Yes.”
When they had both somewhat settled, breathing had steadied, a glaze of satisfaction bounced between them, across their skin. Rey’s heart was full, her eyes heavy, as Ben softened and calmed between her quivering thighs. He slipped out of her, rolling them both onto their sides.
Ben nuzzled his nose against hers. The pad of his thumb traced along the line of Rey’s cheekbone.
“Hi,” he whispered.
“Hi,” she grinned.
“I’m Ben.”
“Hi Ben,” she smiled conspiringly, holding back a giggle. “I’m Rey.”
“Rey,” he played. “What brings you to Maine?”
“Oh, I’m a writer,” Rey played back. “I gave a reading tonight, actually.”
“A reading? Sounds exciting. You must be a big deal, then.”
“Oh, yes. One might even call me a literary darling.”
“Oh, a darling.”
“Mhm,” Rey sighed, dropping her cheek into the curve of Ben’s neck. Lacing their fingers together again. “But I prefer to be called sweet thing.”
“Cute name. Who came up with it?”
“Some critic.” Rey tipped her head back, so she could see his face. “But he also calls me brat.”
“Hm,” Ben pouted exaggeratedly. Rey pinched back a laugh through tight lips, her eyes dancing across his face, shining in the shadows of the night. “He sounds like a real monster.”
Rey wiggled closer into him, and Ben’s arms locked, safe and strong and something of home, around her.
“He is. Sometimes.” Rey nuzzled into his neck once more, kissed his throat. Feeling the hum of Ben’s slow, quiet laugh. “But he’s mine.”
Later, half-awake. Half-tucked into his naked body. Half-covered by the tousled cotton sheets. Rey couldn’t quite fall asleep.
Because she was already writing it, in her head. One novel; two stories. Two Bens. Two Reys. Of course, she’d give them different names. Two first kisses; one sweet, the other pained. Two different endings. One with love, one with hate.
She would leave it ambiguous to her reader. Separate the author from the story, and all that.
They didn’t need to know. Not yet, anyway.
That her story, Rey’s story — not Rey Palpatine, Literary Darling — but Rey Nobody, quiet and private and secretly sweet… It already had its ending picked out.
And her ending curled around her hip, her shoulder. Pulled her closer to his stomach with a warm hand, flat and soft and tracing along her body. Breathed sleepy proclamations of love you here, and also here…
I love, I love, I love…
Over and over her skin.
Rey turned her face over her shoulder in the cool, dark bedroom on the beaches of Maine. Reached for her ending’s sleepy, love-soaked kiss.