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Punching in the code to his quarters, Jyn pushed her way in without bothering to announce herself and exclaimed, “Oh! I . . .” when she saw him.
Cassian was mid-undress, and Jyn turned around quickly because it was the polite thing to do, though no one would ever describe her as polite. But she was the one who had barged into his quarters and found him with his shirt pulled up over his head, barreling into his room for a reason that has since fled her mind.
“Just a minute,” he called, seemingly unperturbed by her presence, and she turned heel and deposited herself into the doorway to the ‘fresher, her hand on the jamb, leaning her body against the frame like she didn’t care when instead her heart was beginning to speed up in her chest like she had been cornered in a firefight.
Though the ‘fresher was dark, she could still see Cassian’s reflection in the mirror, dark but clear, the lines of his body stretching as he pulled the sleeves off of his arms, as the lean lines of his chest and stomach came into focus save for near his waist where it was darker, where a smattering of hair dipped beneath the waist of his trousers. Jyn dipped her head and tried to turn her focus away, but the her eyes wandered north again back to the reflection, back to where she could only see him now sliding the pants from his waist, listening to the sound of fabric pooling at the floor.
He worked quickly, dressing in the way soldiers did: fast, efficient, as though battle was always on the fringe (and as it were, it always was). There was the sound of a zipper, the rustle of him pulling on pressed tunic, hands doing up each button. It was a lie to say that she had not imagined Cassian like this before when she was bored during a long flight to a mission, her cheek on her palm, watching him work as she sat half asleep, strapped into the ship’s crash webbing. And so to actually see him now, fantasy turned to flesh, Jyn could not tear her eyes away despite her better reason, and found herself leaning closer to the mirror to watch his reflection when she saw the flicker of his eyes suddenly focused on hers.
She felt a string of curses plunge into her head though none made it as far as her lips, and froze when she realized that Cassian’s reflection wasn’t becoming clearer because she was nearer the mirror but that he was closer.
“What was it that you wanted to talk about, Jyn?” he asked casually, though the lift of his eyebrow was enough to betray him. They were both approaching a horizon. She only had to take another step if she wanted it.
Jyn’s mind raced and she latched onto the first thing she could recall that made an iota of sense, but he was at her back by then, and when she turned, her hands almost came into direct contact with his chest. Their personal space was almost nothing, and though there was nothing new about that fact, it was new that his tunic was not still completely done up, that if she lifted a finger she could touch his bare skin and find the constellation of scars there: Chandrila. Ryloth. Lothal. Scarif. Others that he hadn’t yet shared, that she hadn’t yet seen from out of the corner of her eye.
“Bodhi was asking about the manifest from the last mission,” she managed, “and I thought that maybe you would remember where it was placed.”
“Is this a pressing matter?” he asked, hands on the bottom button of his shirt, though he did nothing to work it close.
“Nothing that immediate,” she said, mouth dry as she turned her eyes up to him.
Cassian blinked, expression suddenly shy. He cleared his throat, hands still playing with the fabric of his shirt.
“Do you need help with that?” she dared to say, nodding at his shirt, feeling a little bit ridiculous at her question--he was a grown man, a captain--but Cassian bit his lip, looked down then back into her eyes and relinquished control of his clothing.
“You’ll keep me and Bodhi waiting forever at the speed you’re going,” she said, voice bolder than she felt, her fingers trembling as she pushed each button through each button hole. Cassian remained still and watched her until she reached the middle button. Then, Jyn felt his warm hand slide atop of hers, the dry fingertips skimming over her skin, the gentle pressure as they came to rest and stay.
“How long do you think Bodhi can wait?” he asked at last, his jaw flexing, and Jyn saw the way he looked at her ( it was how he always looked at her, she thought belatedly, it was the way he had looked at her in the hangar before leaving Yavin IV, the way he had looked at her in the turbolift on Scarif ). He sounded so calm, but Jyn thought she could see the flush of his cheek, and as collected as he may have sounded, he felt nervous now, too, a good kind of nervous, she thought. She carefully undid one button, then another, each one an answer, each undoing an opening, an acceptance, an offer.
“I think he can wait a while,” she said, her nervous smile breaking through her fear into something unguarded and bright when she Cassian’s head dip toward hers, as he leaned her slowly into the wall and pressed his lips against hers, the pressure of his body a pleasant weight against hers. She gasped, a thrill running through her as it happened, her hands searching for him in the dark, taking whatever she could grab ahold. He was soft in just the right places and perfectly sharp in others; the jut of his hipbone against her hand, his mouth wet and ripe like the fruit that used to make her mouth and eyes water when she could not have it.
“Good,” he said, breaking for just a moment from the kiss before dipping into the next one. “Good.”