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Hera set her wrench back in the toolbox and wiped the sweat off her forehead with her arm. She was finally done fixing the temperature system in the rear hold and thoroughly sick of the stale, sticky compartment. Wiping her hands on her pants, she set off in search of Kanan, who had been working on repairs on a different part of The Ghost for most of the day.
She found him screwing a panel back into place in one of the corridors. His back was to her, and he was bent over to hold the panel in place, giving Hera a well-appreciated view. Heat and energy from more than just the day’s work thrummed beneath her skin.
When Kanan straightened up slightly, Hera made her move. She wrapped her arms around him from behind and stretched up just enough to caress the end of his ponytail with her tongue…
A tongue that couldn’t seem to escape back to her own mouth fast enough. It was like licking a bar of soap that was…sharp? Prickly, maybe, like the rind of a fruit you shouldn’t eat, but it also stuck to her tongue and her lips. Hera made a noise of horrified surprise and lurched backwards. Her face screwed up automatically in disgust, and the astringent soap taste dried out her mouth, making the strands tacky and harder to remove.
Kanan turned, looking at her with disbelieving, mirthful eyes.
“Did you just lick my hair?”
“Tho wha’ ith I dith!” she said as defensively as she could with her fingers in her mouth to sweep away a stubborn hair. “And why the hell does it taste so terrible?!”
“Because hair isn’t supposed to go in your mouth!” Kanan sputtered. “Neither is shampoo or conditioner! They’re cleaning products!”
“So is dish detergent, but you’re supposed to rinse it off!”
“Hair is porous— Over-rinsing can damage—” He rubbed his temples. “I’m not going to be able to explain it all right now. What’s more important is why the hell you tried to lick my hair?!”
“I thought it might feel good! You like it when I touch your hair. I like it when you…” She trailed off, blushing profusely and fiddling with the end of one lek.
Kanan smirked. “When I what?”
Hera curled in on herself slightly and frowned. “You know what.”
He moved closer, slowly, predatory, until they were toe-to-toe and he towered over her. He kept his hands deliberately behind his back but leaned in until she could feel his breath when he said, “Nuh-uh. Need to hear you say it, darlin’.”
With the bulkhead at her back, there was no easy means of escape – not that she wanted to. She huffed petulantly and pretended to ignore him, even as her body shivered from the close proximity. One lek curled up at the end as if to reach out to him. Hera gave it a sharp reprimand and set her jaw stoically.
“Come on, Hera, say it in that gorgeous voice of yours.”
She took a deep, shuddering breath. “I like it when you kiss my lekku.”
“Kiss?”
He pulled his head back so Hera could see his expression. He was striving for confused but only pulling off smarmy, with one eyebrow raised and his gaze resting heavily on her.
“Mm-hmm.”
“So you’d be perfectly happy if this” —he gave the side of one lek the barest brush of his closed lips, more fleeting and chaste than tapping a pen to your lips in thought— “is all I did, forever?”
Hera looked up at him defiantly. “You’re an ass.”
Kanan merely grinned and did it again. This time, he took his sweet time bending back up, letting his breath ghost over her ear cone. He braced one arm against the bulkhead as if he was going to keep leaning in, but at the last moment, he whipped upright and used it to push off and back toward his work.
From the back of her throat, Hera made a noise of confusion and annoyance. One slender, green hand grasped his brown one before it could stray too far. Kanan flopped back to his original position with a rock of his heels. He kept hold of her hand and tried to hold back a sly smile.
“Yes?” he said. “Did you need to tell me something, Hera?”
“I like it when you lick my lekku,” she said resolutely, willing her voice to stay steady. She took a deep breath. “Or nip or suck or stroke. And since you like it when I stroke your hair—”
Of all the things, this is the one that brought a blush to Kanan’s face.
“—I thought maybe you’d like it if I tried other things. That I like. On you.”
He tugged her a little closer, and she took advantage of the opportunity to take a break from the eye contact and let herself cringe a little at the leap she just took.
“Thank you for telling me,” Kanan said earnestly. “And that’s very sweet, if not really the correct use of the transitive property.”
Against his shirt, Hera snorted. “Well, Mr. Jarrus, would you like to explain to the class why it doesn’t work?”
“Besides the reasons you felt in your mouth? Humans don’t have feeling in our hair. We feel movement where the hair is attached — which is why I like you touching my hair and moving it around — but there isn’t any actual sensation in the length of the hair itself.”
Hera hummed thoughtfully and tilted her head to look up at him and she dragged her hand up along his body. When she reached the hair at the back of his neck, she scritched lightly with her fingertips and said, “So you’d rather I do this?”
His breath caught in his throat before answering. “Yeah.”
“What about this?”
She tightened her fingers in his hair and pulled him down to her lips. He followed his captain’s lead and returned the kiss with equal passion. One hand cradled the nape of her neck while the other arm lay across the small of her back.
“You know, we should find someplace more comfortable,” he said, the vibrations of his voice and the puff of his breath palpable against the corner of her lips. “This might take a little while to sort out.”
The laughter against each other’s lips was a joy that transcended every difference.