Moment of Weakness

Teasing Me

Ben returns to the condo later than he had intended around 9 pm after a long meeting with the head of security and his lawyer. The elevator hums quietly and he leans against the back wall looking at Ushar out of the corner of his eye who took over for Kuruk at 8 pm.

The doors slide open to reveal both Vicrul and Cardo sitting in the living room, one on the couch, the other in Ben's chair watching Friends. "You two watch friends now?" Ben teases as he walks in and takes his coat off, Kuruk laughing behind him.

Cardo catches Ben's eye from the arm chair and puts his finger to his lips as he points at the couch a little ways down from Vicrul. "What?"Ben whispers.

"She's asleep," Vicrul says and stands up slowly. "I figured she'd be a little freaked out if she woke up to me gone and some random guy was here. Especially someone that looks like Cardo."

"Fuck you," Cardo whispers at Vicrul.

Ben walks over and looks over the back of the couch at Rey curled up under her favorite white throw blanket with Chewie laying next to her. "Thanks, guys," Ben says quietly as he walks around to the front of the couch and slowly bends over and picks Rey up, wrapping her in the blanket. She sucks a sharp breath in and snuggles up against his chest more.

Ben slips out of his shoes and sits down on the bed, shifting Rey so she lays next to him in the crook of his arm. "You're back late," she mumbles as she shifts and wraps her arm around him.

"Meeting ran long," he whispers back while stroking her hair.

"They always run long."

"I'll work on it okay?"

"Okay," she sighs and leans back, her hazel eyes now open and peering up at him. "I'm scared."

"There's no reason to be scared, you're safe," he says as he studies her freckles on her cheeks. "My security head gave me the report on your apartment after they did a sweep."

"And?" She says as she sits up a touch.

"It was bugged and it was clear someone had hacked into your laptop."

"You're kidding."

"Unfortunately I'm not," Ben says as he adjusts the sleeves of his shirt, his arms still wrapped around her. "You can't go back right now."

"So what do we do?"

"If you're okay with it, we can have all of your stuff packed up and brought over here."

"So pretty much move in officially?" Rey asks, watching his face as it twitches. "Are you ready for that?"

"I asked you at Christmas to start thinking about it, of course, I'm ready for it," he says softly while playing with a lock of her hair.

Rey watches him for a moment, unsure of how to react. 'He casually dropped the word love into a conversation this morning and now he's insisting I move in, like what is happening? I'm pretty sure I love him, I hadn't really thought about it too much, but what if this is just initial infatuation? Not love?'

"Okay, but let's just leave my furniture there, no need to clutter the condo up with my cheap furniture," Rey agrees.

"Done, I'll let my guys know in the morning," Ben says with a smile and pulls her to him for a kiss by the back of the neck.

—

Rey arrives at the office the next morning with Vicrul following close behind her. Ben had gotten up earlier than her and come to work so she had made her normal coffee stop for both of them on the way to the office.