Archive of Our Own

It became a point of contention pretty early on in the relationship.

They’re in Ben’s bathroom. It’s the cleanest one she’s ever been in. The grout sparkling white between the black tiles. A pristine toilet. One of those fancy sinks where it looks like a giant bowl on a table. But best of all was surely the shower.

It was certainly big enough for Ben (large as he is) with the addition of at least two other people. The water drizzles overhead like rainfall, the fixtures a sleek spotless chrome. All Rey can think is that if she ever were to come in here alone, there’s no way that she’d figure out how to turn the water on herself.

Ben’s walking ahead of her. They’re both only wearing underwear (not including Rey’s bralette, which had been one of the first things to go). As he saunters towards the shower, she admires the muscled curve of his ass under the black boxer briefs he wears. Smiling to herself, thinking about all the naughty wet things they might get up to, she plasters her butt on the toilet seat.

His eyes wander around the room a little bit, looking for something. “I’ll go get you a towel.” He points at her, smiling. “Don’t move.”

“Where would I go with my tits out, Benjamin?”

His eyes dip briefly down to her chest, where her nipples are pink, maybe a little swollen from all the attention previously paid their way. His smile grows wider—grinning, you might say—like he forgot she was topless and is pleased to be reminded. Rey rolls her eyes.

“Be right back,” he calls as he slips out of the room.

Then she’s there, in his giant bathroom, left with her thoughts.

Directly across from the shower, she notices again how clean it is. Like, he must get someone in here fairly often to keep it this clean. There’s no cheap shower curtain like the one in her bathroom, but instead sheets of clear glass, now fogging with steam.

Spotless.

Not a fingerprint in sight.

She imagines Ben with one of those little square microfiber cloths that come with eyeglasses, meticulously buffing out little finger smudges all along the door. She’s still giggling about it when he comes back with a large black fluffy towel.

Ever the gentleman, Ben pulls her up delicately by the hands. He opens the sliding glass door and motions for Rey to get inside. The door closes behind them with a squeak just as Rey is tentatively sticking her fingers under the water to make sure she doesn’t burn her skin off.

Rey has never felt so safe with another person as she does with Ben. He’s tall and broad, yes. Sometimes intimidating with the occasional anger problem (she has to remind him to be kind to service workers more than she would like). He’s older than her by a number of years.

But when she talks he also stops to hear her, head tilted in concentration, like he’s always trying to catch the droplets of all she has to say. Ben treats her like a butterfly in his palm, something delicate and beautiful that he’s trying to protect. He takes her to work in his expensive car and buys her $6 Starbucks caramel lattes along the way.

And when he fucks her, it doesn’t feel like he’s just trying to get his dick wet. Ben is a methodical and giving lover. His dick is big but his heart is (somehow) bigger—at least when it comes to Rey.

Now he trails sweet lingering kisses along the side of her neck. He rubs across the space under her left breast and up to where it curves out at the side. Caught in the moment, Ben seems to forget time and place because he’s unintentionally leaning his massive body weight into Rey and it’s pushing her in towards the stream of steamy water. It flows down the top of her head, over the hair framing her face, down her forehead, and directly up her fucking nose.

She sputters and coughs in short gasps, trying not to choke. Ben murmurs apologies into the space of her neck where he’s lightly sucking before turning so his back takes the brunt of the water.

He leaves a few more open-mouthed kisses on the back of her neck, the side of her shoulder, and finally all the way up to the crown of her head.

Rey doesn’t know if they’re supposed to have sex in here—she’s never had shower sex before, but it sounds exciting. She contemplates this as his hold moved to the bends of her elbows. He pulls them back slightly and she arches her back in response. One thing‘s for sure, she can definitely feel him right up against the small of her back, hard and ready to go. The rub of his skin is making her shiver, despite the hot steamy water.

She nudges herself back into him, head resting against one of his shoulders. Ben’s hands come up from her arms, back up to her chest where his arms coil around her, rocking them gently side to side.

His wet fingertips glide against her breast as they come up to cup it—his thumb lightly flicks at her nipple and she arches back into him more. Then he takes his big monster giant hand, squeezes her tit, and making a playful honking noise.

In a state of shock, Rey pushes away from him, her mouth open. “Did you just fucking honk my boob?”

He leans in closer to reach for one of the nondescript aesthetic shampoo bottles behind her. “Guilty.”

“I’m not a bike! You can’t just toot my horn.” Rey covers her offended breast with her palm, frowning up at her boyfriend. “She’s sensitive.”

“I’m not going to make the joke about bikes and riding, but just know I’m thinking it,” Ben flippantly says, motioning for her to turn around.

Rey can hear the telltale sound of liquid squirting into his palm, the sudsing of hands, and then she feels his soapy fingers make contact with her scalp. Any tension that might’ve been left in her body releases at the feeling of his deft fingertips circling her hairline.

“Mmm,” she moans. The scent of whatever he’s using is filling the closed space of the shower. “Smells good.”

“Yeah? You like that?” he asks, genuinely curious about her opinion of the shampoo, but it sounds like a variation of something he’d said earlier when he was fingering her. So she blushes and tries to ignore the rush of heat behind her pelvis.

“Yeah.” Rey can hardly answer, her eyes closing at the way his fingertips scrub and massage. “I like masculine scents.”

Whatever he uses has that musky cedary smell. She likes those scent notes normally, but this one reminds her of Ben and it’s so good.

“Can we pick some up when we go out tomorrow?” His fingers are gently circling beneath the hair behind her ears, his thumbs lathering at the base of her skull. “It’d be nice to have some for when you spend the night at my apartment.”

Rey wants him to stay exactly as he is, smell exactly how he always does. And maybe she’d like to have the reminder of him every time she steps behind the curtain of her tiny, lonely, shower.

Behind her, he laughs lowly, a private joke to himself. “This isn’t something you can just pick up at Target.”

Rey’s brows furrow. Where else would you get a shampoo? Where else would you buy all of life’s essentials? For that matter, Target had the brands; Dove, Suave, Old Spice. They had it all.

“Do you make it in the kitchen sink? Where does it come from?”

“I order it. From Sephora.”

She turns to Ben, interrupting the flow of his careful scrubbing.

“You mean that place in the mall? The makeup place where little girls go to shoplift?”

Ben rolls his eyes. “Yeah, I guess. But I never go in there, I just order online.”

Look at you, Mr. Millennial.” This from the man who asked her how to use Google Drive the other day; who still reads a physical paper and believes recycling is really saving the planet.

“I’m not completely technologically illiterate,” he says, sounding defensive. “I did use LimeWire, you know. Burned my own mix CDs and everything.”

“Didn’t know I was dating Mark Zuckerberg. Can you help me HTML my MySpace profile later? I want everyone to know the last song I listened to and that I believe in love at first sight.”

On the top of her head, she feels him shaping her hair into a sudsy mohawk.

They haven’t been dating long, but Rey can’t wait to tell him she loves him.

The first moment she’s sure, she thinks, he’ll know.

*****

They don’t talk about it again (the shampoo, that is). It’s not something that would naturally come up in conversation outside of the bathroom.

Until…

“Rey, what the fuck is this?”

They’re pressed against the back wall of her shower, carefully avoiding the little shelves her toiletries sit on. Her shampoo and her razor and a tub of body scrub Rose got her from Lush.

Ben’s fingers are wrapped around the middle of her thigh, holding it up to his hip. The way his dick is resting against her stomach is making her wetter than the shower is (maybe just a result of the shitty water pressure but whatever).

She wouldn’t normally feel good about naked body parts touching any part of the plastic walls of her shower (the bacteria!), but every time she lets Ben come over now she remembers his neurotically sterile bathroom. It motivates her to hose everything down with cleaner.

“That’s my soap. Do you want to clean me up? I’m feeling awfully dirty.” She waggles her eyebrows at him.

He puts her leg down and she whines at the loss of his closeness. The bottle is black, much like something he might have in his own house, but he looks at it with disdain.

“Please tell me you don’t use this.” He holds it up for her to see like she doesn’t know what her own toiletries look like.

“Of course I do.”

He narrows his eyes at her and looks down at the bottle again before looking back at her. “This is 3-in-1, Rey.”

“Yeah,” she says, grabbing it from his hands and squirting a dollop into her palm. If he wasn’t gonna make out with her anymore then she might as well get clean. “Isn’t that convenient?”

“Stop, stop.” Ben quickly catches her wrist and pushes it under the flow of the water and they both watch as the clump of gel runs down to the floor where it collects over her drain.

Rey frowns. “Well, that’s a waste.”

“I respect you too much to let you do this to yourself,” he says, running his hands nervously through his hair.

“Aw. You respect me? Glad we meet the bare minimum requirements of a healthy relationship.”

“This is so serious. I’m being so serious with you right now.”

“Can you be serious and finger me at the same time?” She pulls his hand down to the general area of her genitals, hoping there’ll be some kind of gravitational pull (she has unmatched sex appeal, or so Ben seems to think).

Ben’s hands come up, he smooths them down the sides of her hair, only half wet, despite the 15 minutes they’ve already spent “showering”. He tilts her head back, looking deep into her eyes. Then he plants a small chaste kiss on the tip of her nose.

“No,” he says tenderly. It sounds so loud in the echo of her bathroom.

Rey’s mouth drops open a little at the shock of it all. This is the second time she’s been promised shower sex only to be left soaking wet (in more ways than one) and unsatisfied.

The generic white shower liner is starting to creep towards them with the vacuum of the heat. Ben bats at it with his massive paws to keep it from clinging to them.

“I see I’m going to have to be the adult here,” Rey says solemnly. Ben’s hands come back to rest on her hair. Meanwhile, Rey’s are traveling down his abdomen, smoothing over the wet skin and sleek hairs of his happy trail. One hand lands on his hip, to steady him, the other wraps around the base of his dick.

As soon as her fingers stretch as far as they can around his girth, she gives him a gentle squeeze, and Ben lets out a low groan. She steps towards him so that one of his legs settles between hers. The flat of her palm rubs up and down the underside of his cock a few times then curls around at the tip.

Rey is watching Ben’s face, catching every slight change as her hand slowly teases him. His breath starts to catch and speed up when Rey starts stroking the hot velvet of his skin. His eyes are closed though, she notices, and that won’t do.

“Ben,” she purrs. “Look at me.”

Slowly, his eyes creep back open, just barely focusing on Rey’s face. Together they shift Ben back so that he can lean against the wall. Rey grins up at him when her hand starts to circle the tip at every other upward stroke.

“Rey,” Ben whines at the first quick swipe of her hand along where his precome is leaking. She feels his hands land at the dip of her hips and she pulls out of his grasp.

“Not yet.”

His hands fall back against the wall. There isn’t much in the way of lube in her shower, but the water that crookedly streams out of her busted shower head has done a nice job of slowly coating them with water. That and the mess Ben’s cock is making in her hand seem enough to keep things gliding smoothly.

No one has ever called Rey patient though and while sometimes she can take her time with sex, this is not one of those times. She steps closer to Ben and picks up the pace. He lifts his hips slightly to trap his hands behind his lower back and lets out a whimper at the way the timing lines up with her strokes—it thrusts him forward to meet the circle of her fingers.

He’s so close—she knows because she can feel his toes curl slightly and the muscles in his thighs and abdomen are tensing. He’s getting that look on his face he gets when he’s too far gone to tone down his expression. His eyes squeeze shut again, she feels his cock begin to pulse. She feels some of it splatter just below her right breast.

Rey thinks the mess he makes on her is incredibly hot.

Ben moves to reach for Rey’s hip, trying to bring her towards him, and she pulls out of his grasp.

“What about you?” he breathes raggedly.

Rey shakes her head. “I’m okay. This wasn’t about me.”

Ben frowns down at her, brows furrowed, but doesn’t continue the thread of the conversation. Before they get out, he gently slathers her in that Lush scrub, gives himself a quick rinse, and pulls her out onto the fluffy bath mat.

Her towels are significantly smaller than his are, so he just barely fits his around his waist. He takes the towel she usually uses, which sits on the hook behind the door, and wipes some of the moisture off her skin. It’s worn from years of use and washes, but that makes it soft to the touch.

He’s gently squeezing the excess water from the ends of her hair when she realizes.

“We didn’t actually wash anything.”

“Yes,” he says curtly. No room for discussion.

“Isn’t that the point of a shower? To get clean?”

He secures her towel under her armpit and uses his own to dry off. “I’m not stripping every ounce of moisture from my body and hair with your industrial-strength all-purpose cleaner.”

Rey feels confused and it must show on her face because his hands come up to caress her shoulders. And she’s not sure if this is a money thing—if he feels he’s too good to use drugstore products. “I don’t understand what’s wrong with the things I have.”

“Baby, I want you to have the best. I want you to be taken care of.” His grip tightens. “Trust me on this one.”

Ben kisses her on the nose, his lips so soft and still a little damp from the shower. He doesn’t explain further and she doesn’t ask him to. But his tongue is also in her mouth ten minutes later, so maybe that’s why.

*****

It seems to not just be a shower thing to Ben.

He’s walking her home from the coffee shop around the corner from her apartment. It’s the place they sometimes meet to get the flakiest croissants and the strongest coffee.

Rey knows that Ben knows that she struggles to leave the apartment sometimes. Not because she doesn’t want to, but because something about making transitions locks her in place. Once in a while, if it seems like she’s spending too much free time cooped up inside, he’ll come up with some lazy excuse as to why they need to go to walk around somewhere. She’ll roll her at her phone, pull on her shoes, and head out to meet him.

Rey has to laugh about it because Ben thinks he’s so slick, so subtle, but she knows he’s just trying to take care of her without pissing her off.

And it should (piss her off, that is), but it doesn’t. Not when it’s Ben.

They make it inside the apartment just before the rain really starts to fall. At Ben’s place, there’s a clever little alcove next to the front door that holds all the coats and shoes, but Rey has significantly less money, so they settle for kicking their damp sneakers off next to the welcome mat.

“I’ll grab us some dry clothes and we can throw these in the wash.”

Ben’s already pulling off his black tee from the back of his neck so Rey scurries into the dark nest of her room to find her spare Ben-Sized wardrobe. She emerges with loungewear for them both, places them on the couch, and heads into the closet at the back of her apartment where the wash and dryer live.

Their clothes are pretty damp, muddy in some places from the walk. She’s throwing them in the washer and dumping the detergent in when Ben walks up behind her.

He looks at the bottle in her hand, then to the cap, then into the drum of the washer. “How much of that did you put in?”

Rey cocks her head to the side. What a silly question. “I filled up the cap and dumped it in.”

“The whole thing?” he asks, eyes wide.

“Yeah,” Rey responds, confused. “Isn’t that what you’re supposed to do?”

“No, baby.” He gently pulls her against him, his head perching on top of hers. In her hands, he rotates the giant jug of detergent (she’s never consistent with brand or scent, only picks up whatever she has coupons for). With his finger, he points to the small print of the direction.

“Just a tablespoon or two. See here.” His voice is low, kind. He never mansplains to her like other boyfriends she’s had. Never makes her feel stupid or small—at least not intentionally. Rey can’t help her own inner anxious monologue sometimes that convinces her it’s a cover for how dumb he thinks she is. “It’s high efficiency. Concentrated.”

“Oh.” Rey thinks about that. “So I’ve been doing my laundry wrong this whole time?”

Ben is turning on the washer, switching it to a double rinse cycle to try and fix the mess she’s made.

“It’s okay.” His arms tighten around her now, and he places a chaste kiss at the side of her head. “It’s nothing we can’t fix.”

*****

They’re getting ready for bed, Rey shimmying an old shitty tee over her. Ben heads to the bathroom.

“Hey, where’s your face wash?”

On top of her bedside table is a little pile of hair ties and scrunchies—she pulls one out now to sweep her hair off her face and bundle it messily at the top of her head.

Rey makes a face. Their relationship isn’t new, but they’re still learning about each other. More and more lately Rey is finding herself struggling to overcome this sense of self-imposed shame at her own habits. Things she never would’ve considered as wrong before suddenly seem like a faux pas.

Rey doesn’t wash her face anytime that’s not in the shower, but she knew girls in college who’d had 10-step skincare routines. Girls should wash their face—this she knows now. But in her twenty-five years of life, she’d never picked up the habit.

“Oh, I just use the stuff from the shower.”

She hears a commotion in the bathroom like he’s just dropped something. He swears, spits out his toothpaste, and the sink runs. “The body wash?”

Rey pauses. She’d forgotten about the body wash shampoo debacle, hoped he wouldn’t recall his concern at her hygiene choices.

When he comes out of the bathroom, minty fresh and ready for bed, Rey’s already tucked in tight. The mood feels somber, but he doesn’t say anything to her. Ben gets under the covers and reaches for her, arms wrapping all the way around her body, knees tucked in behind hers.

He holds her through the night.

Even the tips of her toes feel warmed by him.

*****

It’s come up enough now that Rey feels she needs to consult an objective party.

“What kind of shampoo do you use?”

They’re at their weekly friend brunch—her and Rose. They come to a little spot with wide windows facing the sun and homemade corned beef hash (surprisingly hard to find). The $3 weekend mimosas are just an unexpected perk.

“Umm.” Rose sips her drink, cheeks a little pink from her growing buzz. “I think just some Target brand. Why?”

“Okay, thank you,” Rey exclaims, dousing her eggs in more ketchup. “I knew I was the normal one. Ben gets his from Sephora and thinks I’m weird.”

Rose’s eyes widen comically. “Sephora? In the mall? Ben shops at the mall?”

“He has hidden depths,” Rey jokes. She looks out the window next to her, tone turning serious. “He’s making me feel like a freak about it.”

Rose takes another gulp of her mimosa before leaning farther into her arms that’re crossed on the table in front of her. “Why is it so weird to shop responsibly? Not everyone can afford salon products.”

“That’s what I said! I’m being practical. And the all-in-one means I save extra.” Rey sips her mimosa now, still on her first cocktail of the morning. The conversation has distracted her from the morning mission of getting sloshed in public.

“Wait what was that?” Rose asks, her drunken fidgeting suddenly still.

“What was what?”

“All-in-one? What do you mean?”

“You know like one of those body wash, shampoo, and conditioner in one. It’s like Old Spice or something.” And then she adds on, feeling like she needs to over-explain: “I like the way it smells.”

“You don’t use 3-in-1, Rey.” Rose leans forward again, a panicked look on her face. “Say psych right now.”

Not wanting to come clean and disappoint her friend, face the shame of doing the wrong thing again, Rey forces a laugh. “Yeah, totally! Just kidding.”

What Rose normally would’ve picked up on sober, she thankfully doesn’t seem to notice drunk. Her hand moves to her chest and she sighs heavy with her relief.

“Oh, thank god.” Rose flags down a stray waiter and motions to her empty glass. “Can I get another one of these, please?”

Rey’s playing with the food on her plate, moving the bits of egg around with her fork. In an unexpected turn of events, it seems Rey is wrong.

*****

“This is where the little people shop,” Rey comments, her arms widening to gesture at the glory Target.

Ben rolls his eyes and heads over to go get them a cart. “I’ve been to Target before, Rey.”

This is their compromise.

After talking with Rose, Rey knows Ben was right. When she asked him to help her buy new shower items, he vibrated with excitement, puled her into his lap, and brought up the Sephora app on his phone. Rey quickly shut that idea down and drove them to Target.

“What does conditioner even do? I’ve never used it and nothing bad has happened to me,” Rey asks as their feet carry them towards the bright space of the Health & Beauty section.

“It puts back the moisture that your shampoo takes out. It helps detangle.”

And he sounds so hot when he’s being a know-it-all. Rey just nods happily, taking in the information.

Ben immediately heads towards the haircare section. He grabs two bottles from the shelf, turning them over in his large hands. He’s looking at the back of the labels, scanning the ingredients.

She lets Ben pick out the shampoo and conditioner because he knows best and Rey is desperate to not screw things up any further than she already has. None of this really matters as much to her as it does to Ben anyway—she’s just satisfied knowing she’ll smell good.

She detaches from him, runs her fingers over a selection of body washes, searching for one with the most eye catching packaging. Her finger stops on a ginormous bottle of lavender Aveeno with a pump top. It smells like happiness and calm.

Smiling, she brings it back over to Ben and hands it to him.

“What’d you pick out?” he asks, holding it up to read the label. He places it back into the cart and gives her his largest grin. “Good girl.”

A little zing of electricity hits Rey at his praise. She doesn’t want to come off too needy, so she nods and they continue to wander around. She’s overcome with a sense of gratitude at the way Ben picks through the sheet masks, looking for something hydrating for her because he knows her skin dries out sometimes.

The rest of their shopping trip is lighthearted. They run into a child watching YouTube loudly and hurry the other way. Rey looks at the fidget toys for ten minutes, picking each one up to test how well they work.

When he drops her off at her apartment later, she immediately heads to the shower, throws out everything but the Lush scrub, and replaces it with her recent purchases. Then she gets in the shower and jerks off to the memory of Ben calling her a “good girl”.

*****

It just escalates from there.

She can tell he’s not trying to overstep, to offend her in some way, so it starts off small.

And it’s not like he hadn’t don’t things like this before. He would drive her wherever she wanted to go. When they went out together, sometimes with Poe and Finn and Rose or with his friend Hux, Ben always payed. Put his arm around her, held her close, made sure her water glass was filled and sent her home with all his leftovers.

But this was different—more.

Now he’s sending her recipes throughout the week that are easy and simple enough for her to follow. He calls her every night to make sure she gets in okay. If they’re together, he gives her a foot rub, brushes her hair for her.

For the first time in Rey’s little life she feels like someone is putting her first. She gets the feeling that Ben thinks she’s the sun and the moon and the stars in the sky. That if he could, he would keep her in the little pocket of his button-down shirts—close and warm and protected.

While she’s by herself, thinking about all the ways he shows his love through selfless acts of kindness, she gets weepy.

Then she picks up the phone and calls him.

*****

Nothing lasts forever.

It’s not long before Rey does what she does best; she pushes him away.

She doesn’t mean to hurt Ben, doesn’t mean to lash out, but things come to a head when he asks her to move in with him.

It’s so sweet to Rey, how he wraps the tiny box with a key neatly tucked inside. He nervously runs his hands through his hair while he waits for her to pry it open.

“Rey,” he chokes out with an exhale. Body tense with nerves and trepidation. “I want you to move in with me.”

The key sits neatly in the palm of Rey’s hand. She looks from the shiny grooves in the metal to the furrows of Ben’s brow. “Why?”

He must not have expected this response because he seems taken aback, a shocked look quickly smoothed over and hidden away. “Because I want to be with you.”

Rey thinks. She thinks about all the shit Ben does for her already. How his free time and energy revolve around making her happy and safe—entertaining her. What would it be like if they lived together?

There’d be guilt. Resentment. They’d be with each other all the time. Ben would devote every waking moment to her.

And he’d see all her idiosyncrasies, the habits and thoughts she hides inside the four walls of her apartment. He’d see them and he’d hate her. Would wonder why he ever liked her at all.

Ben would grow tired of taking care of her. And Rey, having grown to lean on him, would crumble.

She tells him no.

It was bound to happen at some point—the argument. What goes up must come down and all that. Rey didn’t expect the tears in his eyes, the offer to give her space, the way he shoved his hands in his pockets and hunched over as he walked out of her apartment.

The next day, he texts her. Again and again. And then the next day he texts her more.

This flower I saw on my walk home made me think of you. He sends her a picture of a flower (beautiful), pink and thick-stalked.

Please don’t leave me, he says.

are you still there? he asks. And she cries.

Rose texts her.

Ben’s worried about you, she says. Can you text him back plz.

But she can’t. Her dishes pile in the sink until she’s forced to live on cookies and cheese slices. The laundry overflows because she’d made plans to do it with Ben two days ago, but their fight threw everything off and now she’s clothesless.

She’s forced to wash her underwear, lounging around in her last clean pair. Rey pours a while fucking cap of detergent in again, to spite Ben. Then she cries again because none of this is his fault and why should she be the resentful one?

They’ve made it to the seven-day mark without talking. No one’s ever shown her how to fix things—how to fix relationships. It’s not hard, Rey knows. If she just tried, just answered his texts, Ben would help her.

The couch in her living room feels lumpy. Her feet are always cold. She stares at the wall for a few hours, not knowing what to do.

Her phone vibrates beside her.

I’m here please open the door, he says.

Rey holds her phone close to her chest, starts to hear the desperate knocks against her front door.

She smiles to herself, straightens her top, hurries over to let Ben in.

He’ll fix it, Rey thinks. She knows he will.

*****

Ben peels off her high-neck bra top. He doesn’t stop to look at her tits when they spring out of the cups of her top. Usually Ben is so gentle, so good, but this time he doesn’t slow his movements enough to keep her nipples from catching on the elastic hem of her top.

Crouching on the floor, he pulls down her leggings. Rey sits at the edge of Ben’s bed, hands splayed out behind her, as he flings her leggings off into the void of his bedroom. Somehow, he’s ended up on his knees (she knows they’ll probably ache when he eventually gets up, but she doesn’t say anything, not wanting to ruin the moment).

Ben places lingering kisses up the inside of her leg.

And she doesn’t know if it’s pity or the fact that he’s had his dick out in the shower with her several times now and he hasn’t stuck it in her.

All this build-up, all this frenetic energy, crashes down around Rey when Ben’s fingers ghost over the gusset of her panties. She had the urge to rub her thighs together, but his other hand reaches out to push one of her knees farther out, giving him more room to work.

His fingers are a little more sure and the look on his face is fucking fire as he stares down at where she’s almost bared to him. The anticipation of a harder touch is sending her into fits of frustration and she wants to pull at the ends of her hair.

“I just wanna take care of you, Rey.” The words echo things he’s said before. “Please let me. Just let me.”

His hands snake down to settle at the backs of her knees. Luckily his sheets are so expensive and soft because suddenly he’s pulling her forward, sliding her up enough so that her ass rests right at the edge of the bed.

His thumb presses against her lips and hole

He can probably see the shape of her cunt

Slap?

Rey doesn’t know if she can watch anymore. There’s something so determined about him, so angry and hot and fixated on her. Her body and her needs.

Why does he sound so desperate, is what Rey would like to know.

“Rey,” he calls to her, tapping his fingers on the soft dips of her tummy. Her eyes peek out from under her forearms

“Let Daddy take care of you.”

Oh.

He’s never said that before. Rey’s never heard anyone say that before—not in a sexual way at least.

She doesn’t quite know if she likes it or not, but her blood pressure spikes and her heart rate is going through the roof, so that must mean something.

Rey knows exactly what he wants her to say—it’s obvious. She’s shuffling through their relationship like a stack of index cards in the palm of her hand. The emphasis on self-care, the way he holds her e

Ben wants her to say yes. He wants to be Daddy. And maybe she wants it to—something to ponder after he’s done railing her, she would imagine.

But her lips part and her eyes widen and his hands at the meat of her thighs tighten as she responds:

“No.”

“No?” he asks, incredulously, like he thought it’d be as simple as a call and response.

“I think I take care of myself just fine.” A half-truth. “I don’t need a Daddy.” She emphasizes the word like it’s ridiculous—like it’s a joke.

Rey can take care of herself. She thinks she scrapes. But behind all the whining, the complaining, the hardened exterior—Rey is secretly thrilled when Ben takes care of her. Sometimes she doesn’t see it as that at first, but always works her way around to realize Ben always has her best interest at heart. He does things for her without expecting praise or thanks.

Rey does need Ben, she does need a Daddy. But what she can’t do is ask for what she wants or be honest about her needs in a way that reads as vulnerability.

So she lies.

“I think you do, Rey.” The side of his head rests on the top of her thigh and he’s looking up at her with his big puppy dog eyes.

“But I don’t.”

His other hand strokes her side, just above the hip opposite where he lays. “You don’t like it when I wash you?”

She does like it when he uses her scrubs and buys her soaps. But still, she remains silent.

“Or how about when I cook for you? When I help you clean?”

And she likes that too. She can’t shake her head, doesn’t want to hurt his feelings for a lie. He keeps going.

“How about when I fuck you?” He turns his head to kiss her thigh. “You don’t like it when Daddy fucks you?”

Rey’s lips part. Well, that would just be crazy to refute. Even now, she can feel the wetness in her panties collect in the most delicious way.

Ben must read her fucking mind because his hand at her hip comes down, widens her legs a little to clear his view. His eyes zero in on where she must be dripping.

“You look pretty wet to me.” He smirks. Using his thumb, he pulls the gusset of her panties to the side so he can see. “So wet. You really like this, huh?”

Slowly, he slips his fingers into the elastic of her panties and edges them down her thighs to pool at her ankles.

“It’s okay, baby.” She can feel his breath catch over the slick of her pussy. “You can tell Daddy you like it. It’s okay.”

Rey wants him to lean over, flick his tongue out and lick her. She wants him to taste and to suck and to give her exactly what she needs. And Rey has never been shy about sex. She’s never struggled to say the names of parts and acts like some of her other friends had as a teen. Sex is natural and it’s one of those things that no one taught her about. But the internet provides and if there’s one thing she hates, it’s being taken advantage of. So Rey knew all about sex, always had, and had never been embarrassed by it.

But here, fanned out and stretched open on Ben’s bed while he talks about being her Daddy? Rey feels her cheeks redden and the warmth of her blush. Ben’s usually not one for teasing and it’s driving her up the fucking wall the way she feels him breathing over her.

Suddenly he’s hauling her up from the bed. Large hands cup the side of her arms as Ben marches her towards the on-suite bathroom. Rey stumbles at the steady force.

Like they’re rereading the same script, he pushes her over towards the toilet, setting her down. The toilet seat cover is cold and she flinches at the feeling against her hot skin.

“No moving. And no touching.”

This is new territory for them. In the five or so months since they’d started dating, Ben has never said that word to her. Has never even hinted that this was something that might interest him. But in the sureness of his touch and the warm steady hands under the fall of the water, Rey shivers.

Something is simmering between the two of them. It’s in the way they’re looking at each other. And in the way Ben grips her arms and shoves her into the shower, closing the door behind them and shoving her against the wall. Rey can tell Ben is frustrated, or at least is pretending to be (is this a roleplay, Rey wonders).

Intense is the word most of her friends use to describe him and Rey can’t help but feel that’s a fitting description here.

Unlike every other time they’d been in bathrooms together, the two make direct eye contact. Sustained eye contact. And it’s doing things to the insides of Rey’s stomach. Flipping it around and inside out like a sweater straight from the wash.

Palms press against the tile of the bathroom wall, caging her in. The way he towers over her, the way his stare smolders and burns her from the inside out, makes Rey squirm. She feels viscerally uncomfortable and terribly hot in her skin. She shifts her gaze to anywhere else. Over his shoulder, the strained tendons of his décolletage, the water collecting in droplets on his earlobe.

But Ben doesn’t move. He doesn’t do anything. The water runs down his head, flattening his hair, emphasizing the size of his ears usually hidden by the fluff of his hair.

“What do I need to do to get you to listen to me, hmm?” His voice is low, but loud enough to hear over the shower sounds.

Rey continues to find interesting points in her eye-line around the halo of Ben’s head. Something about this seems to piss him off because one of his hands comes down from the shower wall and grips her chin and the sides of her jaw.

“Look at me.”

The way he growls forces her to gaze up at him from under her lashes.

“Do I need to spank you, Rey?” His throat works over a swallow and his eyes darken at the sudden direction of the conversation. “Is that what I need to do?”

Rey pushes herself harder back against the wall, not in fear but in some twisted anticipation at the thought of her perched facedown on the tops of his thighs. Ben’s fingers fall from her chin as Rey shakes her head. “No, Ben.”

He kisses up the side of her neck before gently twisting her head to the side. Deft fingers tuck her wet curtain of hair behind her ear. He leans down so he can nip where at the top where her cartilage curls. “I’m not Ben right now, baby. I’m Daddy.”

Rey turns back to face Ben. There’s a question in his eyes—in the hint of a frown at the corners of his mouth, at the way his head tilts slightly in uncertainty.

He’s asking if this is okay—if she’s sure. Rey isn’t sure, she never is, but Ben hadn’t steered her wrong yet and what was the harm in a little experimentation?

“Okay.” Her voice is wispy and light.

Ben ducks down, his nose fitting into the underside of her jaw, his hands rubbing up and down her upper arms in a soothing motion. “Okay what, baby?”

“Okay, Daddy.” The words feel weird stumbling out of her mouth.

She feels Ben smile into her. He hugs her to him, pulling her away from the wall. When Ben kisses her, it grounds her. She’s unsure about the daddy thing, about being taken care of, but Rey knows about kissing.

She knows about kissing Ben and how he always holds her head tenderly, moving her into just the right place. His lips are always soft, usually tasting of mint from his toothpaste or mouthwash. Between kisses, he likes to nuzzle into her temple, her hair, her neck.

It’s like that now, in the shower together, but so intense. Ben is pressing hot, heavy kisses to her lips. Their lips are wet with stray drops of water.

He lifts her leg over his hip and it tilts her hips up enough to press her wet center up against him if she stands on the tips of her toes. Carefully, she balances and wraps her arms around his neck, arching her back into him.

Mostly she’s focused on running her hands through his wet hair and making sure she doesn’t inhale any water as they makeout near the stream, so Rey doesn’t even realize that Ben’s hand has crept down her stomach and between her folds.

When he makes contact, she gasps against him.

“I’m gonna make you come,” he breathes into the space between them. “And then I’m gonna take you back to my bed and fuck you like you need.”

Rey nods, panting as one thick finger circles steadily around her clit. Her pleasure at his hands makes her feel out of control. Like she’s hurtling towards the edge of a cliff and she can’t stop it, can only hold on tighter.

“Ben.”

“I know, baby.”

Her hands grip the tops of his shoulders where the muscles tense from the movement of his hand and the strain of his grip on her. He adds another finger, two now swirling around her. They tuck into her cunt briefly to gather the wetness there.

“I’m gonna stick a finger inside you.” He adjusts, taking the finger at her clit, and inserts it into the wet drippy mess of her cunt. Rey’s breath hitches at the intrusion. “Just wanna keep it in there.”

The finger doesn’t move, doesn’t press into that spongey spot at the front wall of her. But he continues to rub her clit with his thumb.

“Your little pussy was aching, huh?”

All the teasing really must’ve set her on the edge because it doesn’t take long for her orgasm to wash over her. Her head thuds back against the tile as she dissolves into a whimpering mess beneath his touch.

Rey is boneless under him. Totally loose and heavy in the aftermath of her orgasm. And while she can feel the hard length of Ben’s cock brush against her stomach occasionally, he doesn’t seem to be much in a hurry to finish up.

Instead, he goes through the process of lathering up a clean wash cloth and rubbing away at Rey’s skin, sometimes stopping to work some soap onto his own body.

“I thought you were going to fuck me,” Rey whines.

He’s rubbing at her elbow with cloth, working at that spot that always gets rougher than the rest of her. “Gotta clean you up first.” He kisses the tip of her nose, grinning. “You’re a filthy girl.”

He thinks he’s so cute (he is).

Rey knows he loves to work shampoo through her roots and scalp, so she lets him, still feeling unchained in her own body, but eager to get done so that Ben can fulfill his promise of fucking her.

They skip right through the conditioner (although Ben looks quite forlorn as he places the unused bottle back) to stagger back out to Ben’s bed. Her skin is still totally damp and her hair still drips, but Rey doesn’t care. She plops herself down on the bed anyway, smiling up at her boyfriend.

Ben doesn’t smile back. He doesn’t look at her. He goes over to the table that sits next to his side of the bed, pulls open the little drawer, and grabs a bottle of something.

“What’s that?” Rey tries to keep her voice neutral, afraid that if she seems too annoyed or eager, Ben will try to prolong whatever’s going on in punishment.

It’s a little orange pot with a thick white cap that he unscrews and places on the bed beside her.

“It’s lotion.” He motions for her to place her foot on his thigh. “Give me your leg.”

“Are you giving me a sexy massage?”

“No, baby, I’m taking care of you, remember?”

She splays back out on the bed, both feet now placed on Ben so she doesn’t have to pay attention. He can probably see her pussy from there, but it’s not like he hasn’t seen it before, at this point.

Fingers knead into the back of her calves, over her knees, on the tops of her thighs. His thumbs lightly dig into the dip of her hips, the crease of her thighs. Rey can smell the lotion and it just makes the sensory experience even better. It’s something warm and vanilla-y.

He lifts one leg, sweeps his lotion-wet hands up the inside of her leg, up to her inner thigh. Rey’s back arches, trying to communicate exactly where she wants his hands to go. He doesn’t take the bait, but he focuses his attention on her inner thighs for longer than he’s spent on any other place on her body.

“Mmm,” Ben moans under his breath.

It feels so good when he grips her arms, working the lotion in with firm pressure. His fingers twist around hers, rubbing from joint to joint, smoothing the skin over her wrists and forearms.

Definitely not a sexy massage, Rey thinks as Ben’s thumbs circle her nipples and over the curves of her breasts. He falls back down to her stomach and Rey’s attention is captured by how big his hands look splayed across her abdomen.

“Turn over.”

At his command, she hesitates.

Immediately his hands are back on her cold with cream. He comes up on his knees behind her, palms digging into the small of her back above her ass. He traces along her spine up to the back of her neck. Rey feels the tight hold of her muscles release when he sweeps back down to her lower back.

This is where she feels Ben’s composure begins to crack. The globes of her ass fit neatly into the cup of his hands. He squeezes

“Seems a little more involved than moisturizing,” she grumbles, voice muffled by the duvet against her mouth.

Wordlessly, Rey feels one palm leave her only to come down with force against the slick surface of her cheek. It’s not that hard, but it stings slightly all the same. The sound echoes throughout the quiet of the room, startling her a bit. Her cunt throbs.

Spanking was something Ben had expressed interest in before and they’d played with the idea a few times. He’d swatted her occasionally during sex and she’d liked it, had told him so, but they hadn’t progressed to anything more intense.

Rey wiggles her hips back and forth against the bed, hoping to entice Ben into doing something more.

“There,” he says, voice hoarse. He smooths his hand over the place where he spanked her, soothing the skin there. “All done.”

Fine, Rey thinks. She’ll bite.

“Thank you, Daddy.”

Ben pauses the circling of his hand on her ass. The weight of him against the backs of her thighs shifts and she hears him stand. No longer trapped against the bed, Rey rolls over to face him.

His gaze is smoldering, and she sees his knuckles whiten as he squeezes his fist around the little orange jar of cream in his hand. The cap gets twisted back on and it disappears somewhere.

Rey would’ve thought the monotony of slathering scented lotion all over her would’ve killed Ben’s boner, but if anything, he looks even more aroused—thick and red at the tip. His pupils are blown so wide.

“Hold on,” he grunts, eyes closing tight. He turns and heads back towards the bathroom. “I have to go wash my hands.”

“We just got out of the shower,” Rey whines.

“There’s fragranced lotion all over them. Daddy’s fingers only go inside you when they’re clean.”

It’s kind of goofy, but when he refers to himself as Daddy in the third person like that, Rey feels herself tremble and ache. Even worse, the way his voice carries the word, not in a whisper or a moan like earlier, makes her blush.

He flips off the light to the bathroom, hands all clean (presumably). His black, thick, hair is starting to curl up as it dries.

“Ben, if you don’t stick your cock in me right now, I’m gonna scream,” Rey says through gritted teeth. Nothing is embarrassing to her about admitting she’s a horny fucking mess—a puddle on the bed.

Without missing a beat, he walks past her splayed body, towards the head of the bed where he sits up against the headboard. “Be a good girl and come sit on my lap.”

Rey crawls up on her hands and knees towards Ben. One hand rests beside him, the other lazily strokes up and down the length of his cock, just enough to tease. He stops when she plops down on top of him and cages him in between the planes of his abs and the soft skin of her stomach.

Rey leans forward and kisses Ben, their mouths slotting together so perfectly that it takes her breath away. His lips part and he pulls her bottom lip into his mouth. His hair feels so soft just out of the shower and Rey acknowledges it must be all that money he spends on his products that does it. Ben deepens the kiss and Rey starts moving her hips back and forth over his lap, trying to get some stimulation.

Ben pulls away from the kiss, just far enough to have the room to talk, but only just. “Do you want something, baby?”

Rey whimpers and nods frantically just as her clit brushes against the muscle of his thigh.

“What do you need?” Ben moves his hands down to the cheeks of her ass (definitely a favorite place for them to go), stilling her movements. There’s no roughness in his movements, in his grip, only a gentle kind of domination when he grasps her chin and forces her to look into his eyes. “What can Daddy do to take care of you, hm?”

“I feel so empty,” Rey whispers, desperate and needy. No longer held in place, she rolls her hips once more over his thigh. Rey groans at the friction.

Ben caresses the side of Rey’s face, his thumb tracing along her bottom lip. His voice is hungry, dark. “Know why you’re so empty, baby?”

He doesn’t wait for her to speak. Must be impatient at this point.

“You need Daddy inside you.”

Rey rests her head against his, panting, nodding.

Then he’s lifting her, leaning her body all the way against him, and reaching down to grab at his cock. He notches the tip against her entrance and begins the slow slide inside her.

The stretch is always incredibly, indescribable. Ben has a big dick—knows that he does. And more importantly, he knows how to use it. Knows how to be considerate to a partner given his size.

Using her knees, Rey leans back to lower herself down incrementally. All those days spent at the gym pay off sometimes. Ben’s not watching her anymore, trapped by the view of his cock sinking into her. Until she makes it all the way down, fully seated.

He breaks character for only a moment. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” Rey sighs.

Then he snaps back into it.

Normally when they do this, Ben gives her free rein. Likes to see her bounce on his cock. Likes to see the way she works herself into a frenzy.

This time is different. Rey feels him grip around the outside of her thighs, her hips, and move her. But he doesn’t go straight into the deep thrusting. Instead, he rocks her back and forth in his lap. The slow grinding makes her eyes cross, her cunt tightens, because he’s hitting those same good spots inside her over and over again.

“Ben,” Rey moans, her nails digging into the skin of his chest where she grounds herself. But Ben likes a little bit of pain with his pleasure sometimes, so he doesn’t chastise her, only seems to speed up the way he grinds into her.

“That’s it,” he says, adjusting his grip so he can start helping move her on his cock like they’ve both wanted all night. “Eyes on me, baby.”

The first time he slams her down onto him, Rey gasps, Ben moans beneath her. The intimacy of the moment intensified by the way they stare directly at each other, mirroring the other’s reactions.

And when he does it again, forces himself deep inside of her, Rey knows that all she needs to do is take it. It’s slower than they normally would be, but he gives it to her hard and deep.

“Fuck,” he shouts. “Your pussy is always so wet and tight, Rey.”

The room smells of her lotion, sweat, sex. It’s making her brain tremble and catch over the sensations. Rey feels herself clenching greedily around him.

Then he’s pulling out and suddenly it seems like they’re done with this position because Ben’s arranging her face down on the bed, shoving a pillow under her hips.

He presses into her again, his forearms holding him up by Rey’s head. It’s a faster entry this time, less of a stretch, and he’s more sure that he won’t hurt her. He doesn’t waste any time, immediately fucking her ruthlessly into the mattress. Rey turns her head so she can breathe, but also so her mouth can drop open with silent wet cries. The sounds she makes are shameless and carry an honesty she wouldn’t normally allow herself. But it seems to rile Ben up, so she lets herself go.

“So hot when you’re desperate.” It’s audible how wet she is—every time he pounds into her they can hear the wet squelch of her cunt.

Rey feels that wet pool of molten heat building inside her and she knows she’s gonna come again, even though he hasn’t touched her clit in a hot minute.

“Daddy,” Rey whines. “I-I I’m-“

“You’re gonna come just like this, aren’t you, baby?” Ben interjects, impatient. “Because you’re a good girl.”

She comes again and melts into the soft duvet. The bed squeaks with the force of Ben’s thrusts. Rey brings her hand up and wraps it around his wrist, wordlessly trying to be with him in the moment.

The wet slapping sounds of Ben fucking into her is almost enough to get her going again, but she’s so physically and emotionally exhausted, she just wants to make it good for Ben.

Things start devolving the way they usually do when they have sex—Ben starts to get desperate, sloppy, feverish with the need to get off. Starts making less and less sense, but lets his mouth run with various descriptions of his come.

“Rey, baby. Please let me come inside you. Please, please-“ he trails off, continuing to beg.

“Yes. Do it.”

Behind her, Ben shudders, gasps. He’s never that good at playing it cool. “I’m gonna fill you up. Gonna fuck you full so that it leaks out of you.”

“Ben,” she groans. Kind of gross, but kind of hot.

Rey’s body is getting shoved farther and farther down the bed each time he fucks into her—so wraps her hands around Ben’s forearms to try and steady herself, give him something firm to slam inside of.

With whatever boneless strength she has left, Rey tilts her hips back a little, trying to get him as deep as he can go.

“Want you so close,” he breathes into her. “As close as you can get.”

“Daddy.” That one she gives to him for free, knows the cooing voice will push him over the edge. And she’s really only capable of single-word phrases at this point.

Then she feels it. Ben gives one last thrust and she feels it like a punch. He stills inside her, moaning softly, panting, and she feels the hot splash of his come inside of her. The pillow under her hips will probably need to be thrown out whenever they separate—sticky and shiny with their combined pleasure.

“There you go,” he says, still coming down from his high. “Took it all like a good girl.”

It’s silent in the room except for their heavy breathing. Ben is a solid weight on top of her, cocooning her in with his sweaty arms and legs and chest and skin.

Ben kisses the back of her neck. “Aren’t you glad you let Daddy take care of you with his cock?”

“Yes,” she sighs.

For a few moments, he stays pressed deep inside of her, cock now soft and messy with their come. They both wince when he pulls out, but he takes his time doing it. Hands pin her hips down against the damp pillow.

“Let me see it. Show me.” Rey feels him gently spread her open, hears his breath catch. She can feel the wet dribbling out of her, still warm. “Pretty little pussy. Pink and warm and full of me.”

He hefts himself off of her, grabs her around the waist, and gathers her into his strong arms. Ben holds her in his lap, not in a sexy way this time, but just to be with her, craddle her against him. Nose huddled into the crook of her neck, he breathes her in. One of his hands rubs her stomach in slow circles.

Once Rey catches her breath, lets herself bask in Ben’s affection and care, she places a soothing hand on his hair at the side of his head.

“We’re gonna have to take another shower.”

*****

“I’m sorry if I was an asshole.”

They’re out of the (second) shower now. Pajamas on, hair brushed, and Ben is braiding her wet strands while she sits on the floor in front of him.

She doesn’t know if he’s talking about asking her to call him “Daddy” while he fingers her in the shower, the aggressively loving, or the shit with her shampoo. But her response is still the same, regardless.

“You weren’t an asshole.”

“I should’ve talked to you first. Before I, you know, pulled out the whole “Daddy” thing.” If Rey could turn around, she knows his ears would be deliciously pink in embarrassment.

It’s quiet, but he’s braiding right next to her ear, so she hears the sounds of strands slipping through his fingers. The consistent light pressure and the tugging of her hair feels so good she’s almost falling asleep.

“I’m sorry no one ever did this for you,” he says in a hushed tone.

“What? Braided my hair?” It’s nice, but she likes that only Ben has ever done it for her. “That’s okay, I think I survived.”

“No,” he corrects, a somber note to his voice. “Taught you how to take care of yourself.”

Rey hadn’t really thought about it like that, but he was right. When had anyone ever taught her to wash herself? Or clean up after herself? Everything she’s ever had, she’s worked for. On her own, no help from parents who didn’t exist or a foster father who hated her up until the point he kicked her out.

“I didn’t need anyone.” Her eyes water with the sad truth. It’s something she always says. To hide the pain of wanting and not receiving, maybe. To cover the stain of neglect.

“I know.” He’s reaching the end of the last braid now, expertly keeping together all the uneven hairs. “But it would’ve been nice. Right?”

The braids are done now. She hates the noise the tiny elastics make as Ben stretches and winds them around the ends of the two matching French braids. With a soft touch, he moves them to the front, over her shoulders, and scratches the back of her neck. His nails aren’t very long, but it still feels good. From her hairline to just under the collar of her tee where her neck meets the rest of her back.

Sometimes, when he’d done this for her in the past, he gives her scalp a scratch, but her hair is already braided, so this time he continues the scritches. Over her shoulders, down, and across her upper back. She’s not wearing a bra, so there’s no strap to get caught on.

Ben always takes care of her. He taught her how to do her laundry, how to use a dishwasher. He’s teaching her how to buy the right shampoo and take care of her skin. Maybe next he’ll show her how to do her taxes or how to make his fancy espresso drinks.

“Why won’t you move in with me?”

Rey sighs. She’d hoped he’d forgotten about that. “I don’t want you to hate me. If I moved in with you, you’d end up hating me.”

“I could never hate you.” He sounds so concerned and sad. Rey wishes he’d let them drop the subject.

“You’re always taking care of me. I love it. But I wish I could do nice things for you.” Rey fidgets, her butt already starting to ache from sitting on the floor for so long. “Like how you do for me. I think you’d get tired of it after a while. If-if we lived together.”

Rey picks at a stray string at the hem of her shorts, trying not to focus on the feelings. Trying not to cry.

“Rey, you do more than enough for me.” Ben stops the scratching and pulls her up off the floor so she’s sitting next to him on the couch.

“Like what?”

She loves his smile and his slightly crooked teeth. His hair is still damp and she tucks some loose hair back behind his ear while he speaks.

“You make me happy. When I’m angry, you talk me through those stupid breathing exercises that I hate, but will reluctantly admit work. When I ask you to, you hold me in your soft little arms. You helped me learn how to use a MacBook.”

Rey giggles at the joke. Ben takes her hands into his.

“I love taking care of you. I wanna do it all the time.” His voice cracks when he continues. “Sometimes I-I feel like you were made for me. You’re perfect for me, baby.”

It’s so startling. Rey’s not expecting such an intense emotional confession from Ben. Most men she’s been with have struggled to communicate so openly and honestly with her. Tears start to build in her eyes.

“I feel the same way,” she says and it barely comes out of her, the feeling so raw.

“Don’t ever question what you do for me.” His hands squeeze tighter around hers. She squeezed back, letting him know she’s with him. “Or worry about why I’m with you. Because you’re the best thing that’s happened to me in a long time, Rey.”

And she’s not ready to say she loves him quite yet, but his words make her wish she was. This seems about as explicit of a confession of love you could get without actually saying it.

Just to make him happy (and maybe to make herself happy too) she kisses him on the cheek and replies, “Okay, Daddy. I’ll move in with you.”