Tahiri had no idea why she'd spent half her morning wondering if she should replay last night's radio broadcast a few times, just that the idea had kept occurring to her. She'd also foregone lightsaber practice completely today -- no way she could do that without cutting off her own foot or something, not after what Dinah had said and everything she just kept picking up from people today.

She practically ran all the way to the Preserve to find Ben by the time afternoon rolled around, and . . . wasn't feeling all that relieved to be away from everyone else's emotions, somehow.

She flopped down on the blanket near Ben but didn't say anything just yet, in case his meditation was going better than it actually was.

It wasn't like they didn't do this all the time, so why was her breath catching when she curled her fingers around his hand? Good thing Tahiri was already lying down. "Uh huh. Everybody's gone kind of . . . I don't know. Weird. Again. But differently, only not quite."

"A lot more. You, um, brought a lot of food," Tahiri said, which only brought her conversation with George to mind again, and her Force-sense spiked with embarrassment.

Tahiri squeaked, a sound that was not dignified or suave in the slightest, and her fingers tightened around his hand again. "I'm more worried about people saying things to me."

"Like, um . . ." Tahiri squirmed closer, suddenly fascinated by watching his finger move up and down her arm, but not so completely fascinated that she didn't reach over to start playing with his hair. And maybe the curve of his ear while she was at it. "I . . . was I saying something?"

Tahiri ran her finger along his jawline, now way too fascinated by his eyes to look away. "There might've been something about keeping our mouths busy. Maybe."

"What'd we bring to eat?" Tahiri didn't realize she'd flicked her tongue out against his fingertip, or that she was reaching over to run her free hand along his chest.

The food was not her primary concern at the moment, obviously.

"Sounds delicious," Tahiri teased, and for some reason thought it would be a good idea to follow up that statement by trying to catch the tip of Ben's finger between her lips.

Tahiri made a soft noise of encouragement as she traced patterns on his chest, and wondered what exactly would happen if she pulled his finger a little further into her mouth and then ran the tip of her tongue around it.

Part of her was still flailing over being this forward with him. The rest was telling that part in no uncertain terms to shut the hell up.

Tahiri wasn't even bothering to keep her mental shields up at this point, and her lightheadedness was more than evident. She wrapped an arm around his neck, and if anything she was trying to pull him completely on top of her.

I kind of like this, she tried to tell him.

By which 'kind of' meant 'a lot.'

That little gasp Tahiri let out might have been Ben's name, and if her face was flushed right now as she tilted her head because those kisses felt good and she was all about encouraging more of them, it very much wasn't from embarrassment. She wrapped both arms around him in an almost surprisingly fierce embrace, like he wasn't close enough to her already.

It hadn't occurred to Tahiri before now just how much she really liked the little bit of pain that came with the pleasure when he nipped at her neck, or how much the near-growl made her even more lightheaded than she already was.

Her jumpsuit didn't have the layering problem that Ben's robes did -- although she seemed to be trying to help him with that, with the hand that wasn't running fingernails down the back of his neck -- but it was still very warm out here, and she wondered why she'd bothered buttoning it all the way up.

Tahiri was just fine with letting him do that, really, and was already fumbling with her collar -- why were her fingers not cooperating the way she wanted them to?

She tried to tangle her legs up with Ben's and ran a hand down his arm, not noticing or particularly caring that her Force-sense was just about going haywire.