Her fingers stayed woven through his, but her mouth was still. The cantina noise continued around them—glasses clinking, a burst of laughter from the back corner, the low hum of a droid serving drinks—but Jareth heard none of it.
He heard her voice. Inside his skull.
I've been inside your dreams for three nights, Master Kael. Do you want to know what you dreamt?
Not a whisper. Not a thought he could dismiss as his own. Silk and smoke curling through his consciousness, intimate as a finger tracing down his spine. His grip on her hand faltered—not from shock, but from the rawness of it, the way her mental touch brushed places no Jedi should let anyone touch.
The shape of it hung on the edge of his consciousness, heavy and soft as a woman’s thigh pressed against him in the dark. He let it sit there, unnamed. Let her see it—the tangled sheets, the blue-green eyes looking up at him from a bed that didn’t exist, the way his dream-self had already broken every vow he’d ever sworn.
Lyra watched him with her mismatched gaze, one eye cobalt fire, one emerald ice. Her finger traced a slow circle on the back of his hand, the touch so light it might have been his own pulse playing tricks.
You dreamt of me on my knees, her voice slid through his skull. Your hands in my hair. Your cock in my mouth.
His jaw locked. The cantina noise—the clink of glasses, the low rumble of off-world traders—seemed to drop away, leaving only the wet heat of her words inside him.
You came down my throat, and you weren’t sorry.
Jareth’s thumb pressed into the soft flesh of her wrist, feeling her heartbeat accelerate. He could feel her satisfaction bleeding through the mental link, a smoky pleasure at having found the crack in his armor. She thought she’d won.
He reached back.
Not with words—with the Force. He’d spent decades learning to move objects, deflect blaster bolts, sense danger before it struck. Pushing into a mind was forbidden. The Council’s prohibitions flashed through him like a distant alarm and went quiet.
Her mental defenses parted like curtains in a breeze. He felt her surprise—a sharp, bright spike—before her thoughts unfolded before him. The cantina. The smell of her skin. The weight of her master’s threats pressing on her shoulders. The chains she’d worn. The harem waiting if she failed.
Fear. Desperation. But beneath it, something else—a raw, aching hunger she’d buried so deep she barely recognized it herself.
You want me to fall, he sent back, his mental voice rougher than he intended. But you didn’t plan on wanting me to catch you.
Her breath hitched. He saw it—the flutter in her throat, the way her mismatched eyes widened a fraction before she masked it with a slow smile.
He could use the Force. He knew exactly how. A press of energy against the bundle of nerves between her thighs, a sustained vibration no lover could match, and she’d be gasping in front of everyone in this filthy cantina. She’d soak through her robes. She’d scream his name. And he wouldn’t have to touch her—wouldn’t have to break the physical taboo, just the mental one, as if that distinction mattered anymore.
But the image that stopped him wasn’t the Council’s judgment. It was the thought of missing the texture of her skin under his calloused fingers. The sound of her moan would be sweeter if he felt it vibrate against his lips, not just heard it through the Force. The wet heat of her cunt would clench around him, not around empty air.
You’re hesitating, she whispered into his mind, and there was something like hope threading through the silk. Why?
Instead of answering, he pulled her closer. Their interlaced fingers pressed between their chests. His other hand found her hip—bone and hard muscle beneath the dark robes. He dug his fingers in. She gasped, and the sound was real, not telepathic, a soft broken thing that made his cock throb against the constraint of his trousers.
“Because I want to feel you break,” he said aloud, his voice low and scraped raw. “Not your mind. You.”
Her tongue darted across her lower lip. He watched the wet trail it left behind. Around them, the cantina continued its oblivious rhythm—a drunk laughing, a glass shattering somewhere near the door—but for Jareth, the galaxy had shrunk to the space between their bodies.
His hand slid from her hip to the small of her back, pressing her against the rigid length of him. She didn’t flinch. Instead, she rolled her hips, a slow grind that dragged a groan from deep in his chest.
“The Jedi Code doesn’t cover this,” she breathed against his throat. “What are you going to do, Master Kael?”
The title, spoken with her lips brushing his skin, sent a shiver down his spine. He should release her. He should step back. Every maxim, every oath, every silent meditation on Tython screamed at him to retreat.
He pulled her even closer. His mouth found the curve where her neck met her shoulder, and he bit down—not gently, but hard enough to leave a mark, hard enough to make her cry out and grip his shoulders.
“I’m going to make you regret every word you just put in my head,” he said against her skin.
The cantina didn’t matter anymore. The public eye meant nothing. The only thing that existed was the way her pulse hammered under his lips and the damp heat he could already smell rising from between her thighs.
His hand slid from the small of her back, down past the curve of her hip, fingers dragging over the dark fabric of her robes until he found the hem. The material was light, cheap—meant for travel, not defense. He pushed beneath it. His knuckles brushed the bare skin of her thigh, and she sucked in a breath that was half gasp, half his name.
The damp heat hit him before his fingers reached her center. A humid promise soaking through the thin underlayer she wore. He could smell it—musky and sharp and hers. His cock pressed painfully against his trousers, straining toward the warmth his hand was already claiming.
"You're soaked," he said against her neck. "Already. For me."
Lyra's fingers dug into his shoulders. Her hips rocked forward, chasing the contact he hadn't given her yet. "You've been hunting me for five days," she breathed, her voice catching as his fingers traced higher, inner thigh, the crease where her leg met her body. "I've had time to think about what happens when you catch me."
"Tell me."
"I thought about you catching me on Nar Shaddaa," she said, her voice fraying at the edges. "The alley behind the spice dens. You'd corner me against the wall and I'd pretend to fight, but you'd know."
His fingers slid through slick heat. She was dripping. The fabric of her underthings clung to her, soaked through, and he pushed it aside with deliberate slowness.
"Know what?"
"That I wanted you to." Her hips bucked when his thumb found her clit. A broken sound escaped her throat. "That the chase was foreplay. That I let you get close on purpose."
He circled the swollen bud, watching her face. Her mismatched eyes went glassy. Her mouth parted. The cantina noise pressed against them—someone shouting about a sabacc hand, the screech of a chair dragged across stone—but Lyra existed in the space his fingers made.
"And when I caught you?" He pressed harder. Faster. "What happened then?"
"You—" She choked on the word. Her hips ground against his hand. "You pushed me against the wall. You didn't ask. You just took."
He slid two fingers inside her. She was tight and hot and so wet that he sank in to the knuckle without resistance. Her cunt clenched around him, greedy, pulling him deeper.
"Like this?" He crooked his fingers, found the rough patch inside her, pressed.
Her head fell back. The long column of her throat exposed itself, and he could see the mark his teeth had left blooming purple against her pale skin. "Yes. Like that. Exactly like—fuck."
He fucked her with his fingers, slow then fast then slow again, drawing out the rhythm until she was panting, her nails scoring the fabric of his robes. The wet sounds of his hand moving inside her were obscene. Anyone close enough would know exactly what was happening.
"Tell me the rest." His voice was gravel. "What else did you think about?"
Her throat worked. He felt the swallow under his lips, the vibration of a sound she didn't quite make. His fingers kept moving inside her—slow, deep, the heel of his palm grinding against her clit with every thrust—and she was fighting to form words around the pleasure he was forcing through her body.
"I thought about your hands," she managed, her voice splintering. "Not like this. Rougher. You'd tear the robe. You wouldn't care if someone heard."
He crooked his fingers again, pressing that rough patch inside her until her nails skidded across his shoulders and left lines he'd feel tomorrow. Good. He wanted the marks. Wanted evidence that this was real and not another dream she'd slipped into without permission.
"Keep going."
"The wall was cold. I'd feel it through the torn fabric. You'd push my face against it and—" She broke off, gasping, as he added a third finger. The stretch made her rise onto her toes. Her cunt clenched around the intrusion, then yielded, pulling him deeper. "And you'd make me say it."
"Say what?"
Her mismatched eyes found his. Cobalt and emerald, blown dark with arousal, and beneath it that flicker of desperation she couldn't quite hide. The look that had undone him five days ago on a landing platform on Brentaal, when he should have ignited his saber and ended the chase before it began.
"That I wanted your cock." The words came out raw, scraped clean of her usual velvet. "That I'd been thinking about it for days. The weight of it. How it would feel pushing into me. You'd make me beg, and I would. I'd beg for it. In the alley where anyone could walk past and see the great Jedi Master fucking a woman against a wall like she was nothing."
He withdrew his fingers. She made a sound—loss and protest tangled together—but he was already spinning her, pressing her front against the sticky bar. Her palms slapped the wood. Her ink-black hair spilled forward, exposing the nape of her neck and the thin white line of scar behind her ear.
"Like this?" His voice was barely recognizable, even to himself. He pressed against her from behind, letting her feel the full length of his cock through his trousers, the damp heat of her soaking through to his skin. "This wall works. Everyone watching. Everyone knowing exactly what I'm doing to you."
A drunk two stools down glanced over, bleary-eyed, then looked away fast. Not fast enough. Jareth saw the moment the man registered what he was seeing—the Jedi's hand disappearing beneath the woman's robes, the way she was braced against the bar, the flush crawling up her pale throat.
"Tell me you want this," Jareth said against her ear. His fingers found her clit from behind, circling, relentless. "Out loud. Where he can hear you."
Lyra's hips bucked back against his hand. A whimper escaped her—not the controlled, hypnotic sound she'd used on him earlier, but something real and broken. "I want it. I want your cock. I want you to fuck me right here. I want everyone to see what I do to you."
The drunk stood up and moved to the other end of the bar. Smart man. Jareth's free hand found the hem of her robes again, pushing the fabric up her back, exposing the pale curve of her ass to the dim cantina light. The thin underlayer was still pushed aside, her cunt bare and dripping against his fingers.
"You planned this." He slid two fingers back inside her, and she cried out, loud enough that conversation at a nearby table faltered. "From the beginning. The chase. The cantina. Letting me catch you."
"Yes." She was panting now, her hips working against his hand, fucking herself on his fingers with no pretense of resistance. "I needed you to want me enough. Needed you to fall far enough that you wouldn't stop."
"Stop what?"
She turned her head, cheek pressed to the sticky wood, and met his eyes. The desperation was fully visible now—no mask, no velvet. Just a woman gambling everything on what he did next.
"Stop before it was too late to save me."