A/N: One-shot (I think?) between Padme and Anakin. This came to me as something between two diffrerent characters, but I quickly figured out it was Anakin and Padme I was writing. An odd story idea that just needed to be told.

Disclaimer: I own nothing. Please do not sue. This is purely for fun!

His fingertips traced a gentle arch across the back of her shoulders, bringing about a rise of goose bumps in their passing. Padme shivered deliciously, her body tensing, waiting for the moment when his touch would return to her flesh. It was wrong, she knew, so wrong to want his touch. He was her captor, a military general from another world-from another galaxy, no less-and yet she could not stop the desire that rose within her, the way her breath quickened.

"These are the last hours we will spend here together, Padme," he whispered. "The last time we will touch on this planet."

She closed her eyes, not trusting herself to speak right away. How she had hated him but two weeks before... how she wanted him now more than anything. "I know," she whispered in return, her voice barely audible. A slight smile touched her lips. "Soon you'll be back to conquering in the name of your Empire. The mighty Lord Vader will reign supreme."

His laughter caressed her more intimately than any touch could, bringing about another shiver. It wasn't a charming laugh, a sound that would wash across her like liquid silver. No, that sound belonged only to a man she had never met, had only heard across the communicator device Anakin used. Anakin's laugh was as rough as it was quiet, controlled and bathed in a sense of command that she could not ignore. It was a real laugh, a sound born of the knowledge of harsh battles and breath-taking landscapes. It was the sound of someone that knew pain and pleasure quite well.

He was still behind her, standing so close she could feel him like static in the air. The faint whiff of spice filled her senses, mingled with an undercurrent of soap and the delicious spicy scent that was all his own. Her nostrils flared slightly, rolling his unique smell through her mind, memorizing it. If this was the last time that they were to be together...

His hand reached out, seizing her wrist and pulling her back against him before she could react, bringing her other wrist to cross against the first so that her arms were pinned across her heart. She closed her eyes again, breath coming faster. It was the same position she'd been in when they'd first met... The day her belief in the universe had been forever changed. Earth wasn't alone in the galaxy. There were humans that had spanned the length of it long before the apes on this planet had developed opposable thumbs.

Anakin had landed his shuttle quite literally in her backyard. He and about fifty or so of his men had turned her luxury home into a command base, and had taken her prisoner in the process. For two weeks she had worked alongside the "Imperials" as they called themselves, searching for a man named Obi-Wan. Anakin had explained that this "rebel" had crash-landed on the planet after an entanglement with a "Star Destroyer." Padme had had no idea what a "Star Destroyer" was, but if finding this Obi-Wan meant that Anakin and his buddies would leave her in peace, she was all for helping them.

She was not "all for" falling in love with Anakin, himself.

His lips blazed down her neck, his breath hot against her skin. A sound not meant for words left her lips, her wrists straining against his grasp reflexively. His hands contracted tightly, holding her firmly against him. "Padme..." he whispered.

He would never love her like she wanted. He'd been very up front about that from the beginning. His heart was already claimed by two devotions. The first belonged to a woman long dead, his first wife and the mother of his son. The second was to the Empire. But there was enough left for this, she knew. There was enough left to find comfort and solace with someone for a short amount of time.

She tried to respond, to whisper his name aloud, but found the sounds too degrading, too profane, for what she wanted to remember. All she wanted to hear was his voice, to commit it to memory for the rest of her life. Never was she going to meet a man like this again. And never would she taint these final moments with the vulgarity of her own voice.

He picked up on that as she knew he would, and one of his hands gripped her layered wrists, holding her arms pinned as they were. The other disappeared, and the sound of silk ripping filled the silence. She shivered as the cool air touched her exposed back, as the delicious torture of his warm mouth closed over the nape of her neck. That one free hand pulled the shreds of that shirt forward, until her clasped fingers held the fabric to her chest in a false attempt at modesty.

His mouth continued across her shoulder blades, until she was drawing in air in long harsh gasps. "Padme…"

She whimpered as his lips returned to her throat, as that free hand of his slid down her arm until it joined the other in front of her. Deft fingers twisted the remains of her shirt around her wrists, binding her tightly. Another deft turn of his hands and her own were drawn up over her head and forced down to the sensitive skin of the back of her neck, the flesh he had just tormented until every nerve was alive with need.

His thumb made quick work of front closure of her bra.

"I should take you with me," he murmured, spinning her around to face him at last, his mouth moving down to the most tender, most alive flesh on her body. "Would you like that, Padme? Would you sit in my quarters, on my bed, and wait for me every night?"

He was bluffing, she knew. He would no more take a permanent lover than she would willingly submit to such a life. It was the game they played every time, the what-if's and the could-be's if Fate had placed them both in different circumstances. She responded to his words as she always did.

"Yes," she mouthed, the words barely a hint of a whisper. "I would serve you, be there for you. Make you my world. Please… take me."

He moaned softly, the sound becoming a growl at the end. She closed her eyes, waiting for it, for the crushing of his mouth on hers, the sweeping of his tongue over and over as it dueled with hers. He didn't disappoint. And the hand that wasn't holding her wrists behind her neck went down, ripping away the last of her clothing, letting expensive linen pants tear and fall like so much rags.

"Padme…"

She screamed into his mouth when he pulled down on her bound hands, forcing her up on tiptoe, and his fingers entered her. Plundered her roughly. There was no sense of tenderness in this, no sharing of feelings or emotions. He demanded the surrender of her body, commanding her as he commanded everything else in his life. The more she resisted, the harder he pushed. Her tears ran hotly down her cheeks as she came, mingled pleasure and pain almost too much to contain in her skin. His mouth broke that life-sustaining contact to let his tongue lick away the salty droplets.

She had no words to give voice to, no breath for anything other than quiet whimpers as the aftershocks of her orgasm quaked through her limbs. Again, it was as he wanted, as always happened. His eyes touched hers, filled with dark delight as hers filled with a touch of fear and beneath that true sorrow. This would be the last time he claimed her, and he would be gone. And she would be lost on this planet that had suddenly become too small for her, searching for another man like him, another strong enough to dominate and even stronger still to know when to let go.

When his mouth touched hers again, it wasn't like always.

She started against him, against the tenderness that had never been there before, against the gentle sweep of his lips. The contrast was jarring compared to the strength of that hand pulling down on her wrists, against the quiet screaming of her muscles as he held her locked up on tiptoes. Helpless to do anything, helpless with just one hand holding her. Such things were so divine, so pleasurable. So sacred.

The kiss lasted so much longer than before, his tongue caressing hers instead of dominating, softly urging her to new warmth inside.

She was unaware of when they tumbled to her bed, of how he managed to undo his belt and pants. But her hands were still bound, the binding looped over the hook he'd installed on her headboard when he'd decided to take her as a lover. How many nights had she lay beside him, sleeping with her hands bound over her head, her legs similarly stretched out and tied to a matching hook on the footboard. He was a cautious man, her Lord Vader. And no matter how she protested her loyalty, he would not allow her to sleep beside him unbound.

The times he took her on the bed, as opposed to the wall or the floor or any other surface that struck his fancy, she was always bound.

He forced her legs apart with his knees, and a glance across his body let her know that soon, oh so soon, he would fill that ache in her, put out the flames he had started and set new tormenting ones to life the moment the others were extinguished. She waited, breath frozen in her lungs, pelvis lifting fractionally of its own accord. Wanting… needing… Always he would smile that darkly possessive smile at that, smug that he had tamed her to his hand, approving of her eagerness to please.

So different from their first meeting, when she had been the fiery US Senator, defiant at every step. Forcing him to chain her, to stun her, to practically execute her just to complete the smallest of actions for his unit. The debates had raged between them, heated words turning into heated glares that turned into heated desires. Which lead to heated kisses… Only for him she had yielded, and only in their private moments. He knew this, appreciated it even, when he heard her yelling at other senators over her phone. Trying to keep her own career afloat while remaining a prisoner of his whims and needs.

Yielding only for him. Like always, only for him.

He bowed his head, hands sliding down her body instead of up it. And when he kissed her, unlike all the other times, it wasn't on her mouth.

She arched up, screamed, bucked against his tongue, against the hands like iron wrapped around her hips, holding her in place. Her head thrashed from side to side, her body shattering on the knife-point of his tongue as it did to her what his fingers had. When her tears fell this time, when the sounds left her lips, they were begging. Begging for freedom from the pleasure sharp enough to become pain. In that, he relented.

Only to return to her mouth, to taste her tears. His hands shifted their grip on her hips, and when his mouth affixed to hers once more, he thrust into her.

She had nothing left inside to deny him, nothing left to resist. But in this he wanted neither. It was time for him to take his pleasure, and the violent forceful pumps of his body were a familiar, welcoming anguish. He drove her to that precipice where pleasure transcended pain and back again, all the while swallowing her cries. Until his pleasure was upon him, and he threw back his head and roared.

He collapsed against her, body trembling, eyes blurred from the mind-emptying experience.

For the first time, she wanted to hold him. Never before had he allowed it, for they were not lovers, for there was no emotion in their relationship. It was physical. That was all. For him. For her. Merely the release of strong attraction. They had silently agreed to such.

But one of her hands had managed to slip free of the bonds. And even though she knew she would pay dearly for doing it, she let that hand trace softly over his hair.

He didn't move. Didn't react. If anything, continued to rest his head against her breasts, breathing ragged from the exertion. Until one hand captured her wrist gently, bringing her palm to his cheek.

"I should take you with me," he murmured against her fingers, eyes rolling up to stare into hers. "It is within my power to do."

A new game, she thought. New round of make-believe, where lust could be as powerful as love. Where they could live on it and tell the rest of the universe to be damned.

"And then what?" she murmured back, heart thundering in her chest. Not out of fear, but out of the coming pain. The pain of loss. "What would you do with me, my lord? Settle me in a house on some planet, or keep me hidden on a ship as your mistress? How long would that last, how long until the inactivity would destroy me, and you would lose interest?"

Those eyes flashed, and for a moment she felt as if she had misjudged him. Had he been serious?

His arms tightened around her, almost crushing the breath from her body. But then he let go, pushing away from her to lie on his back at her side. "You are correct. It would not last."

Something in her died at those words. A tiny hope she hadn't realized was there, a spark of wanting that fizzled and died. "If I close my eyes now and sleep," she whispered. "You'll be gone when I wake, won't you?"

"Yes."

The lump in her throat was infuriating, as was the searing feeling of tears behind her eyes. This wasn't about emotion! This had never been about permanency. Why now, all of a sudden, did she want such things?

She turned on her side, facing away. "Then go," she said, shaking inside that her voice could sound so… ordinary. "I wish you well in your search for this Obi-Wan character. When you find him, thank him for me. This has been a most enjoyable reprieve from the duties of my life."

His hand moved so quickly, ripping her bound hand from the hook and yanking her until she was on top of him. Sudden anger raging in his eyes. "Is it really so easy for you to forget me?"

For the first time in months, she lashed out, hands forming into fists, battering at this man and his audacity. Puny, flailing smacks that he easily deflected. "Bastard," she hissed. "No, it's not that easy. But what do you want from me now, Anakin? You were very clear on what I should expect when we started this. So do not expect me to weep and wail at your departure if you can so easily walk away from me."

A shift of his body and they rolled across the bed, his form pinning her down beneath him. "It is not that easy for me, either. So I expect a little warmth from you when we say our goodbyes."

"I'm not a solider under your command. You can't order me to react as you see fit."

"Can't I? I could leave you here, bound to this bed, and put up a perimeter around your house that no one on your planet can cross. I can leave you to starve to death, whispering my name until your last breath spills across your lips. There are so many things I can do to you, Padme, to get what I want."

She glared at him, remembering why they would never work out even if they tried. She would never surrender her will to him. Her body, yes. But never her will. And he would never do the same. Never give up the ghost of his dead wife.

"No, you can't," she taunted. "Because you'd have to know what you wanted first. And you don't know that."

His eyes narrowed as he leaned down into her face. "Don't I?"

The cry that left her lips as he penetrated her anew was one of shock and desire and pain. He rode her hard, no tenderness this time. Which was fine, as this time her hands were free. Her nails scored down his shoulders and back, down his arms, leaving bloody trails that would scar. Violent and passionate, and as equals this time, turning the sheets into tangles, ripping them here and there. When they screamed out this final, heartbreaking time, it was in unison. It was in pleasure. It was in a pain that had nothing to do with the flesh and everything to do with the heart.

Some long hours later when she regained her senses, sunlight was streaming through the windows of her bedroom. Sorrow and fear squeezed at her heart. Had he truly left her behind? Was he lying on his side of her bed, sleeping? It took every ounce of courage to lift her head, and look over her shoulder…