Above Board, Below Deck - Mara

[Morgan Evanar]

Novgorod - Officer's Quarters Common Area.

The Keyensoar spook box, when it came down to it, was a computer. Like any other computer, it had rules, commands, memory, and programs. It just happened to have an AI, a quantum signal generator, and whole host of other tricks. It was a complicated computer, and right now Morgan didn't want to look at it any more. After their encounter and summary dress down by the field commander, Morgan needed a break. Cirr didn't need to say anything to the Jedi. He knew fully well that pulling a stunt like that in a live mission would not work remotely well, unless the scenario called for it. The look they had after Captain Soto Terius had read the riot act said it all. Morgan would have volunteered for the brig, but he knew the big kitty would have had none of it. It was fortunate that no one ended up there. The fact was the Novgorod was far more valuable in the field with it's captain than without.

Right now, the furthest thing from his mind was any sort of AI, script, or signal propagation profile. Right now Morgan was flipping through a mix of used speeders and speeder parts, until he looked up and spotted a familiar, unexpected and welcome face.

[Mara Tallen]

"Right...an entire crate of Cresh-Four. I have no idea when its getting here or if we're picking it up."

"What else, then?"

"Ok. I'm going to need wire, det caps, couple of rolls of det tape...EMP grenades, CryoBans, and RVPs."

"Asking much?"

"Always, G-man. Tallen out."

Her last task done, she dropped her earpiece and datapad onto the top of her desk. There was a pile more paperwork to be done, but Mara decided that it could wait. Specifications for new weapons and read-outs on explosives testing weren't critical.

Running her hands through her auburn curls, she stood and stretched before walking out of her door. She spotted him before he looked up, and sauntered over to join him.

"Hey Morgan...what are you up to?" Mara asked with a bit of her usual purr in her voice.

[Morgan Evanar]

Morgan looked up at the familiar voice. His brain spun as it sought traction for placement of face and voice.

"Oh!" Surprise arrived first, well before the name. Morgan had gone straight to the bridge and the Captain's conference room, and nowhere else. Morgan got to his feet to greet her.

"Hi Mara." He said, the corners of his mouth turned slightly upward. He'd never gotten the chance to really talk to anyone before the rescue attempt. He had been completely preoccupied with Serena's rescue, and so had everyone else.

"It's good to see you. Are you assigned to the Novgorod?"

[Mara Tallen]

"Good to see you too. And yes, I'm afraid you're stuck with me. Glayde needed a second, and the General decided this was as good a place as any for me."

The redhead responded with a smile and a tilt of her head as amber eyes trailed up to meet a pair of green ones. She'd forgotten, oddly, that Morgan was so tall. Then again, she mused, the last time she'd seen him, it wasn't him that was the center of attention. Survival was.

"What about you? I didn't expect to find a Jedi on the Novgorod. Unless of course, you've got secret talents I just don't know about."

[Morgan Evanar]

Morgan grinned slyly.

"I might have a few." He said. Mara raised an eyebrow. He looked into her eyes to keep his from wandering. She smelled... nice. Morgan had never noticed her auburn hair, either. He wanted to run his fingers through it. Oh, delightful lizard brain, you are so troublesome at times. Some higher thought processes kicked back in, and spat a sensible statement.

"Seriously, before I became a Jedi, I was a slicer. I've know the captain for a few years now, and he recruited me as the new E-War specialist. It's very boring for most people until the thing goes live."

[Mara Tallen]

"Just a few?" Mara purred.

The fingers of one hand curled into her auburn locks, toying with the ends that draped over one slender shoulder. Grins like the one Morgan gave her generally got her into trouble. A whole lot of oh-so-pleasant trouble. The kind of which she'd hadn't been in for far too long.

She let her eyes wander, at least for a moment, amber eyes warming.

"Boring enough to make you flip through a speeder and parts catalogue?" Mara winked as she gently tugged on the catalogue in his hand.

[Morgan Evanar]

"Oh, I think I might have extra talents hidden up my sleeves." He said. That purr was distracting. It made his legs feel strange; good strange.

Morgan felt his lips part, again and let her have the catalog.
"Staring at code all day isn't healthy. Let's just say it's good to take regular breaks and think about something else. Like speeders." He said, and then looked into Mara's eyes, but saw a bit of everything. Mara as she existed in space, the echo of her displacement in the universe.

"Or a beautiful woman."

[Mara Tallen]

"Hidden talents...sounds promising..."

She took a slow, measured step forward, dropping the catalogue on the cushion beside them. The once polite distance was soon reduced to nearly nothing, while Mara tilted her head to one side, auburn curls cascading over her shoulder.

Amber eyes went from warm to heated in record time, as her purr echoed the change. The fingertips of one hand trailed lightly up his arm, toying gently with his sleeve. "Careful, Morgan..." she purred softly, her words trailing off as she tried to form a coherent thought.

"...I'm not sure I can resist that pretty of a compliment. Especially not from you."

[Morgan Evanar]

Morgan didn't throw caution to the wind. Morgan forcefully jettisoned caution with a rail gun into a hurricane.

One of his hands found her hip, and the other traced her hand to her elbow and up her back. He leaned down. She rocked up on the balls of her feet. Their lips met with purpose. The kiss was surprisingly non-exploratory: it was mutual want intertwined with biological imperative. He could feel her purr in his throat, on his tongue. Her free hand was on his chest for a moment before it ventured to the base of his skull. They slowly backed into one of the officer's quarter's doors. Hers, actually. Morgan's skin tingled with sensation. Her lips were soft, her backside firm, her hair smelled wonderful.

They came up for air, eyes filled with mutual lust.

"Hi." He said, stupidly. She kissed him again, anyway.

[Mara Tallen]

He tasted ridiculously good. Not just in a its-been-far-too-long kind of way. But...really, really...good. She wouldn't be able to explain it, because no one would understand the nuances of the way her half-breed senses worked.

Mara's back came into contact with a door, and it wasn't until they tried to catch their breaths that she realized it must have been hers. If it had been his, they'd have been through it and the one behind it already.

She did kiss him again, in spite of the 'hi' which she would have thought was adorable had she not been preoccupied. One hand reached for the touchpad beside her door, while the other remained on the back of his neck. Her back arched reflexively as she felt the door open behind her, which also served to press her even more tightly against him.

The door whooshed closed behind them, and mercifully, it also chimed a confirmation when she gave a decidedly breathless command to lock. The words were almost lost in the middle of the very wanton purr Morgan's hands coaxed out of her.

[Morgan Evanar]

He could feel her purr reverberate through his bones. Now out of the public eye, Morgan slipped off his jacket one sleeve at a time. He was noticeably bulkier than the last time they had seen each other, easily evinced by his upper body.

Morgan lifted her up, and part of his brain noted Mara was a bit heavier than she looked. That part of his brain also noted she was a shape-shifter, and chalked it up to that. Not that 50 pounds mattered much when your best gym partners were Wookies.

She squealed through her purr and wrapped her legs around his waist. He kissed her neck, and then worked his way up her jawline. Morgan gave her ear a gentle nibble before he buried his face into her neck.

[Mara Tallen]

He'd picked her up as if she'd weighed nothing.

The thought raced haphazardly across a distant part of her brain, looping around a few times. After about half a second, it didn't matter. The light jacket she'd had on over her olive-drab tank-top soon fell away as she shifted her arms out of it.

Pleasant as the thought was, it paled in comparison to the feel of his lips on her skin. Her head tilted to the side of its own accord, giving him free access to wander. A shudder wound its way through her body as he buried his face in her neck. His lips inevitably fell on the tenderest spot, drawing a breathless purr of his name from her lips.

Fingertips stroked down the back of his neck, while the other wandered across his shoulders. Mara reveled in the sensations, murmuring wordlessly as she dragged a fingernail delicately along the path her fingers had been taking.

[Morgan Evanar]

Yup. That was definitely the spot. The low rumble coursed through her body, intermingled with half-formed words. Morgan sat down on Mara's bed, with her legs still wrapped around him. That was something he could get used to. Her hands tugged at his shirt. They kissed, only interrupted when the garment passed over his head.

A very small part of him was wondering if this was a good idea, but was drowned out by a mix of wet lips and smells and sounds. This was the best idea. It had been roughly a year now. Morgan thanked his lucky stars.

He slipped a long finger into her waistband at the hip, and dragged it slowly from her hip to her lower abdomen.

[Mara Tallen]

It wasn't often that someone managed to take control of a situation the way Morgan had. Normally, Mara wouldn't let them...but somehow she didn't care. She'd been forced to lock her more carnal needs away for the last six months. Unable to indulge the desires that kept her feline side in check.

She'd learned to cope...

...but this was so much better.

Her fingers coursed across his skin, tracing each defined muscle and feature of his shoulders and chest. Her lips trailed across his jaw to his ear, where the tip of her tongue emerged to trail up along the curve of his ear.

Mara paused, her purr deepening as his finger slid across her taught abdomen. She tilted her head back as Morgan's other hand splayed across her lower back beneath her tank-top, brushing against the edge of the scar that wrapped around her side. Finger pulled back from his skin as she reached down and pulled her tank top up and off, tossing it aside along with her ID tags.

[Morgan Evanar]

Morgan and Mara were collapsed breathless in her bed. The sheets were half-undone (Mara) and the bedframe was slightly bent (Morgan). Hurricane Lust had struck everywhere in the small cabin. Morgan was on his side, back against the cabin wall. Mara was splayed out beside him and panted heavily. Both were soaked with sweat. His chest and back were scratched, and even had been bleeding in a few spots. Both floated on a cloud of endorphins and hormones.

"Wow." he finally managed after a deep breath. He leaned over and kissed her temple. His left arm ran across the top of the bed, and the right draped partially over her hips.

"I think we both needed that."

[Mara Tallen]

Amber eyes were dark and half-closed as he kissed her temple, but the feel of it drew a warm smile to her lips. The fingertips of her right hand traced an absent pattern on the wrist he had draped across her skin, while the other was propped up against his chest.

There had been all manner of half-formed words, moans, and purrs coming out of her since they'd begun - but nothing quite like the soft purr of contentment he could hear once she'd caught her breath. It took her far longer than usual to grasp onto a stray coherent thought, though at least it came not too long after he'd spoke.

"I think...you're right." she murmured, tilting her head to look up at him as her eyes finally opened. Her eyes widened slightly, catching sight of the marks she's left on him. Shifting slightly, the fingertips of her left hand traced along a particularly long scratch that had actually bled a bit.

Her breath caught in her throat as she traced another, and winced. "Morgan...I'm sorry..." Mara managed after a moment, her voice trailing off.

[Morgan Evanar]

Morgan laughed, and enveloped her smaller hand in one of his over-sized mitts.

"I didn't even notice till now. I was probably so high on adrenaline it felt good at the time." He said, playful and factual. It a statement without machismo or ego. He gave her hand a gentle squeeze.

"They're already starting to heal. If that's the price of admission I'll pay that ticket every time. You'd have to use your proper claws to hurt me. You won't even be able to see the regular scratches in five or eight hours, and these will be gone in less than 24. Seven thousand calories a day has to be good for something, right?" Morgan added, half explanation, half reassurance.

[Mara Tallen]

She smiled as she tilted her head up and kissed the corner of his mouth. "I'd say they're good for something alright."

Shifting her position to ease a growing ache in her lower back, Mara settled back on the tangled sheets. She couldn't remember the last time she'd so thoroughly lost control with someone. Even in the heat of the moment, she'd maintained some form of it over her feral side. Morgan, however, splintered that as easily as he'd picked her up.

Wasn't that something.

Mara purred softly, splaying her fingers out against his as he held her hand still. Another thing in his favor, she mused...extra talents indeed.

[Morgan Evanar]

Morgan watched her move. She probably hadn't moved her hips like that in a while, and her lower back looked stiff.

"Want a massage?" He offered. Partly because he cared, and partly because he wanted round two. Mara nodded, and rolled over onto her stomach. Morgan's fingers pressed into her various muscles gently. He felt for tightness along her lower back especially, and found it in abundance. Her forearms were tense, too. Sore calves were not a surprise. He methodically worked his hands and thumbs into her skin, eliciting sharp breaths followed by sighs of relief. She purred softly as he worked.

[Mara Tallen]

"Morrrgan, you are a saint..."

She murmured, heedless of how her purr rolled through the words and wrapped itself around his name. Amber eyes darkened and fell closed as his hands worked her over, pleasure rippling through her senses as the last of the knots were chased away. She shifted slightly as his fingers trailed down her sides, a shiver racing its way the length of her spine.

Mara tilted her head and opened one dark, glittering amber eye, gazing at him over her shoulder.