TEN YEARS AFTER PREVIOUS CHAPTER'S TIME: Jedi Padawan Anakin Skywalker and Senator Amidala have just arrived at the isolated lodge on Naboo.

What Was Almost the First Kiss

By Rose-Arwen-Padmé

Ten Years Later

Ever the gentleman, twenty year-old Anakin nearly leaped out of the speeder boat, anxious to help Padmé up. If he had still been angry with her at all for embarrassing him in front of Queen Jamillia and half the Royal Court, it had disappeared the moment she had emerged from the room at her parents house in that dress. Yellows, purples, and pinks all blended together to form a beautiful, flowing gown, but the real beauty was the woman wearing it. But that back… or rather, what back? The back of the dress that didn't exist! He had gone dizzy when he had first seen her in it, and he was going dizzy again, seeing that perfect, tanned skin glow in the warm sunlight. His fingers yearned to touch.

Does she know how much she tortures me without even saying a word?

He offered his hand to her, and she graciously accepted it. Her small hand fit perfectly in his own. Did she feel that too? Once again the intensely pleasuring electric bolt shot through him, like it did every time his skin made contact with hers. He pulled her up to him, tempted to bring her all the way up to collide with his broad chest, but stopped her pull at a respectful distance. Well… maybe a little closer than what was considered normal.

Padmé walked ahead of him, giving him a clear view of every inch of her bare back. He didn't notice the servants or mild security at all. She led him up the walkway, and when the concrete path widened enough for the two of them to walk side-by-side, he wasted no time in taking one very long step around Padmé to walk next to her. She smiled brilliantly at him, beaming. Then her expression changed to worry and concern, and he wondered what was so important that it would cloud her mind on such a beautiful day.

"Anakin? Aren't you hot? I'd think you'd be baking in those Jedi robes under the sun."

He laughed, and Padmé tried to control the fluttering of her heart at that magical sound.

"Padmé, you're forgetting thatI grew up on Tatooine, a planet a lot warmer than this." He looked around as their steps moved in a smooth rhythm. She took slightly larger steps, he took slightly shorter steps, and the end result was them moving together in perfect unison. "So, tell me about the lodge."

Her eyes glittered, full of memories that she yearned to share with Anakin, and the spectacular smile returned to Padmé's lips.

"We used to come here for school retreat," she started, remembering those happy times from her childhood. "We would swim to that island everyday." She briefly looked at him, before looking back towards the island far off shore. Anakin tried to smile, but he was too mesmerized by her beauty as they continued walking. "I love the water," she finished.

I love you, Anakin thought, wishing he could say it aloud to her.

By now they had approached a balustrade that gave a magnificent view of the surrounding lake. The water glimmered as if it was full of diamonds, reflecting off the bright sun. All around them it was either green or blue. Blue of the sky, green of the lush trees and wildlife, and sapphire blue of the water.

Padmé's voice sang like a melody to Anakin, who had situated himself close to her as they leaned against the balustrade. "We used to lie out on the sand and let the sun dry us, and try to guess the names of the birds singing." If Padmé closed her eyes, she could see her joyful memories play out in front of her. Those were very happy times.

Anakin remembered his own happy times as well, but they all included his mother back on the far away world of Tatooine. And when he thought of sand, he only thought of the blisters he had received from it, the sand that had blown into his eyes, or the sand that even managed to find its way into his bed, scratching him.

"I don't like sand," he remarked firmly, a stout contrast from her previous blissful words of happy memories. However, Padmé listened patiently. "It's coarse and rough and irritating." He threw a twig he had been playing with before adding, "And it gets everywhere." He threw her a crooked grin, the one she knew so well, and she felt a smile automatically tug at her lips in response.

Anakin looked at the young woman in front of him intensely, his eyes drinking her in. Her cheeks were rosy from their small hike uphill from the boat. Everything, everything about her features was perfect. From her crystal eyes, the velvet lashes above and below them, her petite nose, her red lips…

Anakin had to force himself to look away, or else he feared what he might do. More than likely he'd go through with something that would make Master Obi-Wan give Anakin the longest and roughest lecture of his life. He doubted even Padmé knew what kind of hold she had over him, what kind of power. "Not like here," he continued. He looked back to her and her spell over him was cast again, but he couldn't shift his gaze from Padmé this time. "Here everything is soft…." his blue eyes lingered on her arm, "….and smooth…" Hesitantly, he lifted his right hand and trailed it along her arm slowly, feeling the electricity pulse through him again, but now it was magnified ten times larger than it had even been. With each passing second he expected her to object, but in response she only kept her gaze directly forward. She wasn't looking at him, but she wasn't moving away. Anakin continued further, relishing in the touch of her smooth skin under his warm fingers.

Padmé, though she was looking forward, was hypnotized by the touch of Anakin's fingers on her. As she anticipated every movement further, a part of her wondered where his caresses would go if she continued to not protest.

Anakin let out a breath that he had not been aware he was holding. All he knew was that his lungs had been screaming for air beside his thumping heart, and when he opened his lips his sigh came out shaky.

Suddenly, Padmé shifted, and the distance Anakin had made across her back with tantalizingly slow movement was extinguished, leaving his fingers back by her arm. But Anakin had felt something; he knew she hadn't wanted to pull away. He had simply felt it, as if she had materialized her wish to allow him to continue and placed it upon his chest. Now she was looking at him, and for the first time, Padmé Amidala was waiting for someone else to make the next move, as she stood apprehensively. He offered a small, nervous smile, trying to assure her as much as he was trying to assure himself, and acted on that instinctive feeling he had felt from her.

Padmé watched him lean closer and closer into her with agonizing slowness. She watched, mesmerized, as his motions brought his lips nearer to her own. She could feel the hesitation emanating off of him, but in her heart she knew he had nothing to worry about. This was right, a part of her knew. She knew what he was doing, and she wasn't going to back away.

Anakin closed his eyes first, the warmness in his heart and soul overflowing. This was where he wanted to be forever. This wasn't some palace room ten years ago when Padmé had no idea he was going to kiss her this was Padmé looking him straight in the eye with those deep, brown pools of emotion, knowing what he was doing and not backing down. Padmé followed instinct and closed her eyes next, her lush lashes fluttering shut.

Three centimeters… Two centimeters… One…

Padmé let out a small, almost inaudible gasp.

When their lips made contact the whole world melted away for both of them. There were no duties, no rules, no oaths, no assassins, no weapons, no councils or senates. There was only Anakin and Padmé, kissing, like they had meant to be all along.

Though Anakin had never kissed anyone before, or been kissed, it was the most natural feeling in the world to glide his lips across Padm's. He pressed closer, stepped closer, and pressed even more. And still! To his shock and extreme joy, she did not pull away. In fact he had felt her head fall back, and was she kissing him in return?

It was too good to be true. Anakin wanted to see this, so he opened his heavy eyelids briefly. He saw Padmé's closed eyes, her eyelids no more than an inch from his, and he was indeed kissing her. He was so overcome he pressed further, letting passion enter the threshold of their first kiss.

Padmé struggled to come back to earth, to come to her senses, but it was as if she had never been kissed before. If her lips had a mind, they would be asking her why she did not have them on his every moment of every day. She was his angel, and he was the man she lov—

"No!" She pulled away abruptly. She could not, should not, and would not love Anakin. She took a deep breath to compose herself. "I shouldn't have done that."

Anakin stared at her, still dizzy from the kiss. He blinked several times, trying to bring himself out of this dreamy state. He still felt the pressure of her lips on his, and she felt the taste of his on her own, not that she would reveal that knowledge outside the confines of her mind. Hoping Anakin did not see, and indeed he was looking away in utter confusion, she ever so discreetly licked her lips, enjoying the foreign, sweet taste she found still there.

Anakin looked from the scenery, which was blurry to his present vision, to Padmé, who was a clear as day, to the scenery, to Padmé, to the scenery, to Padmé… trying desperately to make sense of it all. Hadn't she wanted that too? Hadn't she not pulled away when he had slowly, questioningly leaned in to kiss her? Hadn't she silently given him permission? Or maybe it was his fault! Maybe there had been some fear, some great hesitation in her eyes that he had not seen, had not wanted to see.

"I'm sorry," he muttered, and took a shaky step away from her.

Well, in truth, Anakin wasn't sorry he had kissed her. That had been his first kiss, and up until the tragic moments when she had pulled away and declared it to be wrong and a mistake, he had been higher than he had ever been before in his life. Already, despite her now stiff posture and eyes fixed ahead again, he was falling back into the quicksand she had around his feet whenever she was near. He had nothing to hold on to the pull him out. No, regret was not something he could use pull himself out of this endless drop of falling in love. Regret came with thoughts of his mother.

No regrets came with kissing Padmé.

The nine year-old boy inside of him shouted, "Yippieee!!"

The twenty year-old man inside of him moaned with desire and yearning.

But Padmé still wasn't looking at him, and the hurt from her rejection started to gnaw away at his gut. He took a step backward again, not believing he was actually putting space in between him and Padmé as apposed to filling it.

Padmé's heart cried out when he stepped away again. The first time he had shift away from her after she'd pulled away from his drowning kiss it had been a relief. She had needed the distance to continue the procedure of clearing her head and becoming rational. But now that he had moved away again, her heart couldn't bear it. With every thunderous beat, her heart pleaded with her arms to wrap themselves around his neck and kiss the air out of him. But as it had in many cases in the past, her head conquered over her heart, and it only took one more deep breath to squash that urge like a bug…a very big bug.

"Perhaps we should go inside; you'll want to see your quarters." The tension had been terrible between them, and she had battered her brain to come up with something to say. Without waiting for a reply, Padmé briskly turned and headed in the direction of the main lodge.

But as she walked, and heard the steps of the Jedi following behind her, she wondered, "How much longer will my head be able to win over my heart when it comes to Anakin?"

Finis

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