Log Date:
	7/8, 7/9, 7/10/99

Log Cast:
	Webb, Shenner

Log Intro:
	[Continued from shen-webb-date.txt.]
	Shen Veery has come to meet Jonathan Webb on Hideaway Beach, with 
the purpose in mind of his helping her with her thus-far fairly minimal
swimming skills... but as happened between them on the night he snuck
into her apartment, a powerful attraction has sprung up between them. This
time, however, instead of comforting a deeply drunken young bard, Webb has
dealt with a Shenner in full command of herself and just as cognizant as
he is of the way they're being drawn to one another. They've swum together,
and eaten together, and talked with an ease and readiness neither of them
has experienced for some time, until at last the soldier has offered to
walk the singer home...

----------
Webb is quick to nod in agreement, and leaves it at that, as he can't really 
  think of anything that needs to be said at a moment like this. His hand 
  gently wraps about yours, giving a tiny, momentary squeeze as the two of you 
  begin to walk from the beach.

Shen returns that squeeze, on some level aware that the rational back corner 
  of her brain has been entirely drowned out by the absurd delight that has 
  been the result of this entire evening... but not caring in the slightest. 
  And so the two of you wander away from the shoreline, back onto the 
  thoroughfares of Plaxton City; as she goes, the singer is hard-pressed to 
  think of a single thing to say to top those last few words exchanged. But 
  this doesn't mean she's silent. Soon enough she begins to hum, as Fountain 
  Square grows progressively nearer and the breeze on this rare clear jewel of 
  a night in Plaxton City ruffles russet hair that still manages to look 
  disheveled despite being wound into a crown of braids.

Though Webb's eyes scan his surroundings contantly in his usual 'forever on 
  guard' fashion, you do catch him allowing his gaze to linger upon you on a 
  fairly regular basis. Perhaps there's not much that really needs to be said. 
  On a peaceful, beautiful night like tonight, it just might be that the most 
  appropriate communication is that which requires no words - a warm smile, or 
  a gentle touch, or the intrigued expression which Webb dons as your humming 
  reaches his ears.

Just about any sentient who makes a career of getting up on a stage and 
  performing something has to be at least something of a ham -- and Shen is no 
  exception. All it takes is the slightest bit of encouragement from an 
  audience, and it can be argued that this particular audience has 
  demonstrated himself quite sympathetic. So as she heads with you across 
  Fountain Square, aiming for the Residential District with the bubbling of 
  water and the noises of passing beings providing her background 
  accompaniment, Shenner segues from humming into full-blown song, her voice 
  ringing out on its lower register:

        ... ooh what a kiss it was, it really was such a kiss
        Oh how he could kiss, ooh what a kiss it was, it really was such a kiss
        Just the thought of his lips sets me afire
        I reminesce -- and I'm filled with desire

Quite the outrageous thing to be belting out in the middle of the Square, but 
  the redheaded bard's face has taken on a shine of high spirits and good 
  humor that lends it all an air of closeness without fear, attraction 
  uplifted by lighthearted teasing.

Doubtlessly, this behaviour draws a few gazes from other passers-by as the two 
  of you make your way through the square. After all, there's bound to be a 
  few people in these parts who are significantly more conservative than the 
  two of you. At certain points, Webb meets these stares, and at least once he 
  returns them with a certain 'eat your heart out' expression, before he looks 
  back to you, arching an eyebrow and grinning at your particular choice of 
  songs for this musical interlude.

Shen belts out songs for a living -- in fact, in that bar over there not too 
  far away, at which she is not expected to sing tonight. Her absence there 
  and her presence _here_ does indeed catch attention from several individuals 
  out and about in the crowd. Somebody whistles. Someone else yells her name. 
  And the Womprats' lead singer, bolstered up by her companion's wide grin and 
  the heady flavor of the moment, puts a bit of dance into her step, seizing 
  both your hands in hers. Now, granted, "Such a Night" does have rather more 
  punch to it when her band is backing her up, but this doesn't stop her for 
  an instant.

        But I gave my heart to him in sweet surrender
        How well I remember, I'll always remember...
        That night, ooh what a night it was
        It really was such a night
        When we kissed I had to fall in love...

That move does perhaps faintly catch Webb offguard, but don't get the 
  impression for even an instant that he'll stay that way for long. In fact, 
  he seems quite willing to escalate. One of his hands escapes your grasp, to 
  snake around into the small of your back, adopting a basic position utilised 
  in many core world dances. Getting some grasp to the beat of the song, he 
  guides you into a series of turns, then abruptly dips you low for several 
  beats.

A flare of delighted surprise kindles behinds Shenner's green eyes -- but it 
  takes a whole heckuva lot to throw her off balance when she's singing. As a 
  few more entertained whistles sound from somewhere not too far away, she 
  keeps singing, charging right into the finale:

        Well he's gone, gone gone
        Yes he's gone, gone, gone
        Came the dawn, dawn, dawn
        And my love was gone

Her voice scales up to the higher reaches of her range, gaining volume even as 
  she's swung about...

        But before that dawn, yes before that dawn
        And before that dawn, ooh, aaaahh....
        Such a night!

With that, she's dipped down low, and a ring of nearby people bursts into 
  cheers. Panting, eyes aglow, Shenner stares up at you and blurts, "And you 
  can dance, too?"

Webb grins down at you, his eyes glinting in delight as you sing the last bar 
  of the song, and holds you suspended like that for a few more seconds as he 
  answers, "Damn right I can dance!" before he steps back, sweeping you back 
  to upright in one graceful, fluid motion.

If anything, the singer's grin gets even bigger, her green eyes even brighter. 
  And with that, tossing off a jaunty wave to the impromptu audience that had 
  been attracted by the antics, Shenner veritably beams at you. Onward, then, 
  out of the Square and up Mergansar Avenue, hand in hand, strolling in warm 
  companionable silence. Her gaze periodically wanders off, vestiges of 
  street-taught habits still working without her paying attention to let her 
  keep at least visceral attention on her surroundings -- but for all intents 
  and purposes, as far as Shen's concerned, there isn't another being anywhere 
  between the Square and Minutes Road.

Webb slowly shifts his gentle grip upon your hand, intertwining his fingers 
  with yours as he walks alongside of you. The crowd has indeed thinned out, 
  and seems somewhat less attentive to the spectacle of the two of you. Of 
  course, Webb isn't paying them any more heed than you are. He finds himself 
  wondering in the silence just when he last felt this incredibly /good/, as 
  he takes a moment to gaze up into the night sky. Hmm. It's amazing what one 
  can notice at a time like this, like how you seem to be walking just a 
  little closer together with the change in how he is holding your hand, or 
  the way that if he looks closely enough, he can pick the reflections of 
  individual stars in the depths of your pupils.

Amazing too, perhaps, how far and how quickly two people paying no heed to the 
  passage of time can walk. What crosses Shenner's mind, mostly, is how hair 
  in a militarily practically short style can nevertheless manage to get 
  ruffled by that same breeze teasing at her own hair... the shape of the hand 
  holding hers and the strength of its grip... and the comfortable difference 
  between five and a half feet of height and just shy of six. Song still 
  bubbles out of her, but keeping itself restricted to whistling, sweet and 
  pure and clear -- a good substitute when one's flute is stuffed inside a 
  tote bag and one of the hands necessary for playing it is entwined around a 
  bigger hand. Only when the two of you at last wind up closing in on Shen's 
  front door just outside that apartment building on Minutes Road does she 
  subside back down into a warm silence... and that lasts only as long as it 
  takes her to then decide to say, "I've had a really wonderful night, Webb..."

Webb answers in an a soft-ish tone after letting out a long slow breath in 
  hopes of calming the rapid pace of his heartbeat, as he stands looking 
  across at you in front of the door to your building, "I..." he hesitates for 
  a moment, tilting his head slightly to one side as he gazes towards your 
  face, studying your expression intently before he ventures forth, "I'm 
  having a wonderful time too..." with a distinct lack of past-tense.

Yep, that'd be present tense all right! Shenner notices these things -- se's a 
  bard, after all. Words are her trade. And the obvious implication of this 
  little usage of present tense, that the wonderful time under discussion does 
  not need to end here at the door, isn't lost upon her either. Green eyes 
  meeting gray-blue, she grins shyly and then murmurs, jerking a thumb to 
  indicate the general direction of 'inside', "You, um... wanna come in? I 
  still got the holo-player... rented a coupla other new vids...?"

Webb scratches his chin for a moment, as if that were to be a subject of much 
  pondering, before he says, "I /suppose/ we could do that..." in a manner 
  which rather transparently implied that he's both much more certain than 
  supposing that he'd like to spend more time with you, and that he arrived at 
  the conclusion before he was even asked. A tiny, shy grin spreads as he 
  inquires, "Any chance I've heard of any of them?"

Shen's smile flares up in reply, and with that, she somehow manages to reach 
  for and activate the door control while still beaming up at you. "Depends," 
  she answers. "How deep a cave ya been in?" The door whishes open behind her, 
  the sensor keeping it obediently open so that the two lifeforms in its scan 
  range can cross the threshold.

"The exact dimensions are classified," states Webb in a deadpan calm tone, 
  referring to the network of tunnels which composes the underground portions 
  of Trinumvira base, "But picture an Imperator Class Star Destroyer, nose 
  pointed down, encased in rock..." His blank, even expression fades in a 
  ripple of silliness, "So, I suppose that means that the answer to my 
  question is 'no'," as he ventures forth to take that first step across the 
  threshold.

78 Minutes Road (B3) -- Shenner's Apartment(#6474en)
Like the building in which it is housed, this apartment is designed to be as 
  comfortable as the dictates of swift and cheap construction could allow. It 
  is therefore not particularly luxurious, with only a living room, a small 
  kitchen area, a refresher room, and a tiny bedrooms by way of layout. The 
  walls are painted a neutral shade of cream, and the floors are tiled wood, 
  softened by the occasional large throw rug made of some sort of fluffy 
  patterned fur here and there. Every piece of furniture and every 
  technological device in the place is clearly secondhand, from the rumpled, 
  lopsidedly stuffed couch, to the slightly sagging set of bookshelves, to the 
  cantankerous food processing unit in the kitchen area. What few personal 
  possessions and decorations are in view are rare indeed, suggesting that 
  while this place might be lived in, it isn't really yet a home.
                 -=-=-=-=-=-=<<Real Objects>>=-=-=-=-=-=-
=> Webb

In, then, to Shenner's apartment -- which looks much the same as the last time 
  Webb had occupied it, save that there doesn't happen to be a brandy bottle 
  or an empty chocolate box on the table. "Lights!" Shenner's husky voice 
  rings out to alert the room computer, and the illumination flickers a moment 
  before rising up to cast a glow around the place. As you follow her in, the 
  door whishes shut again. Shen turns to watch you, unthinkingly dropping her 
  bag in the first corner that seems handy, and finding herself absurdly 
  flustered all over again. But still, she's grinning. "Uh... make yourself at 
  home?"

Webb peers about for a moment, then follows your lead, and deposits his pack 
  in the same corner, before taking a moment to unlace his usual combat boots 
  and step out of them. A faint, slightly mischeivous smirk crosses his face 
  as he looks towards the couch upon which the two of you spent the night not 
  that long ago, then looks over to you as if to make some sort of silent 
  inquiry, and makes his way over to the couch to seat himself.

To that glance, towards the couch and then herself, Shenner bobs her head 
  several times. And then she's darting into the kitchen area at the back of 
  the apartment, starting to peek into her refrigeration unit, then this 
  cabinet, then that. "I could make a snack or somethin'," she calls over. 
  "And I got some stuff to drink that ain't liquor, if ya want...?"

Webb turns slowly upon the couch, peering over at you, his eyes barely peeking 
  above the edge of the couch in a conspiratory manner, "Still kinda full from 
  the picnic. Something to drink would be nice, though. Preferably not blue." 
  He smirks faintly, "You... uh... need any help in there?"

"Howsabout pink?" Shenner peeks back into the refrigeration unit, comes up 
  with a clear bottle full of something bubbly and decidedly pink in hue.

"Pink?" Webb inquires as his smirk broadens, "That depends..." he rises up 
  slightly to rest his elbows upon the back of the couch, folding his arms 
  together in front of him, "On wether or not you'll ever tell a living 
  soul..." His right eye flashes shut in a wink, implying that he's not 
  entirely serious about that.

Shenner giggles -- an odd sound for her, one might argue, but she giggles 
  nonetheless, low and throaty. She makes a mock-solemn gesture of vowing with 
  her free hand as she nudges the fridge closed with her knee, proclaiming, 
  "Cross my heart!" Then, the bottle in hand, she goes ferreting for and 
  locates glasses, and finally comes back over to join you. "Khilanni redberry 
  soda," she identifies this pink frothy stuff. "It's nummy."

"Well, I don't know," comments Webb in a sage-like tone of voice, before he 
  asks, "You, uh... really think it's better than thyma juice?" He disappears 
  from view again, with the sort of sound characteristic of Marine flopping 
  against couch, before his hands appear at one end, and his feet at the other 
  as he stretches for several seconds.

"About the only thing I've tasted that's worse than thyma juice," Shenner 
  answers, parking herself on the couch's edge and parking the glasses and the 
  bottle on the low table next to her, "is the stuff they call Bantha Pudu in 
  Mos Eisley. And you don't want to know why they call it Bantha Pudu." She 
  pauses, then, taking in the sight of the couch-flopped Marine. A beat, and 
  then she drawls, "Comfy?"

"Very," answers Webb, who is sprawled across the couch in a decidedly feline 
  manner, as if every last muscle in his body just went limp and succumbed to 
  gravity. One of his eyebrows rises faintly, then drops as the other bobs 
  upwards in a somewhat comical manner. One might almost expect him to yawn, 
  then purr, but instead he inquires, "Gonna join me?"

Here in the light of this small apartment, it's rather easier to see Shenner 
  blush than it had been out under the starlight and moonlight. Blush Shenner 
  does, but her gaze stays undauntedly up and on your face. "I seem to 
  remember," she muses, edging closer to you, "that the last time you were 
  here you up and fell asleep right here on this couch."

Webb mmhmms softly and says, "First sleep I'd gotten in days too, and it was 
  very warm comfy, thank you very much," in the most innocent tone that he can 
  muster, which doesn't sound all /that/ innocent, given the events of that 
  night. Still, slowly he sits up, both implying some form of promise to stay 
  awake, and opening up space upon the couch where you might sit down next to 
  him. Of course, the two of you started out sitting up that first night too, 
  and ended up sprawled across the couch, kissing one another.

Very conscious of that prior incident and how it wound up, Shenner sits there 
  for a moment, her pulse hammering out an erratic rhythm in her chest -- or 
  so it feels to her. Her face is still flushed almost as pink as the redberry 
  soda, as she rasps out, "Well, um, good. So. I got a war movie, if you go 
  for flicks about Rebel soldiers fightin' off the Empire... and, uh, this one 
  about a space slug terrorizing a mining colony..." And _Thieves of the 
  Sacred Scrolls_, too. But she doesn't bring that one up.

Webb considers the choices, arching an eyebrow faintly at the description of 
  the space slug-related one. After a moment of consideration, he states, 
  "Umm... let's start with the former. Gotta save the best for last, after 
  all," a spreading smirk indicates that he's being a touch facetious that 
  remark.

"You got it." Shenner, of course, has to actually get up again to fetch the 
  appropriate disc and feed it to the holo-player, but she's not up for long. 
  "Lights dim," she tosses off into the air, to convince the room computer to 
  create a more suitable ambience for holo-viewing, and then she adds to the 
  holo-player as she plops back down on the couch beside you, "Beginning, 
  pause!" As she then pours a couple glasses of the redberry soda and then 
  tugs off her boots, she concludes wryly, this time to you, "Have you ever 
  gotten two different voice-activated systems crossing their directions on 
  you?"

Webb chuckles softly and nods his head faintly, "Yeah," he murmurs as he 
  slowly reaches across to toy with a lock of your hair that seems 
  persistently disheveled after the experiences upon the beach. As his other 
  hand reaches for one of the glasses of soda, he says, "Back when our powered 
  combat suits were first being developed, one designed got the idea that 
  since we couldn't be pushing buttons to control every system, that 
  everything should be voice activated." He takes a tiny sip of the soda, as 
  if to appraise its palateability, and one corner of his mouth curls up in a 
  reasonably pleased expression, "Interesting flavour," before he returns to 
  his story, "Anyhow, they istalled this system in one of the prototypes... 
  since a lot of these systems have to be accessed quickly, the system used a 
  lot of one syllable keywords..."

The soda is light and bubbly and sweet and tastes, well... _pink_. It's 
  definitely a switch from thick vegetable sludge, however, and Shen drinks 
  down the stuff quite readily even as she listens to your tale. The hand 
  playing with her hair reminds her that she is very much within reach of you, 
  though, and her free hand comes stealthily over in search of a suitable 
  Webb-related location to be resting. The knee looks good.

"Annnd," Webb's story continues as his eyes momentarily dip down to track the 
  motion of your hand, "As luck would have it, there were two bugs in the 
  system... first, the voice recognition software was only about 90 percent 
  accurate to begin with... and second, a lot of those keywords sounded an 
  awful lot alike, so... um... things tended to happen at the worst possible 
  time, like say... the jumpjets firing when you were trying to bring the 
  laser targeting designator online." Though he's telling the story, he's 
  obviously paying attention to all that's going on around him, particularly 
  your own actions, and he responds in kind, releasing the lock of your hair 
  that he was toying with, and placing his fingertips lightly against your 
  cheek.

Shen might not be a soldier by profession, but she's had enough of a glimpse 
  into the workings of military hardware that she can get a pretty fair idea 
  of the havoc that must have resulted in the situation her companion 
  describes. She starts to snicker in the middle of drinking down some of the 
  pink stuff, but manages to keep from either inhaling it or spitting it out, 
  but the effort makes her visibly twitch, and she has to lean forward to set 
  down her glass. When she leans back, though, she finds that your hand has 
  located her cheek. Swallowing to clear her mouth, eyes a little watery now 
  from having almost sent redberry soda down the wrong passage through her 
  system, the singer grins crookedly at you. For several seconds, too, looking 
  wired and happy and nervous all at the same time. And finally she croaks, 
  "Um... movie?"

Wired, happy and nervous - yeah, that seems to be a mutual feeling right about 
  now. "Sure," Webb answers softly to your answer about the movie, though it's 
  fairly clear that at this moment he's significantly more interested in your 
  company than finding out wether the Rebels win in this movie. This is 
  emphasised by the way that he scoots over just a little, leaning in slightly 
  so that he might better study the face upon which his fingers rest.

Funny how Shenner's attention hasn't diverted off to the holo-player yet. 
  Under the scrutiny being levelled at her, she begins to look shyer; 
  apparently, she's not exactly accustomed to such a close survey of her 
  countenance. As for that countenance... well, the bone structure just under 
  those fingertips is delicate of line. There's an ever so slight dent in her 
  chin. Her mouth is generous in width, though her lips aren't particularly 
  full. Light freckles add detail to a long, slender nose. A tiny scar might 
  be noted just over the outermost corner of her right eyebrow. And her eyes, 
  deep leaf-green and fringed by lashes a shade darker than her hair, have 
  gone a little wide, unsure but steadily looking back up at you. "Play," she 
  whispers absently, not appearing to notice that she's not loud enough for 
  the audio sensor in the holo-player to pick up upon.

Webb isn't exactly scrutinizing. That would imply that some form of rating or 
  judgement were taking place. Rather, he is just appreciating the details. 
  Sensing your increasing shyness, he plants a tiny kiss upon your cheek as 
  his fingers slide down to that little dent upon your chin, coaxing your face 
  to a slightly more favourable angle before he unhurriedly kisses the corner 
  of your mouth in a spontaneous act of affection.

A tangle of contradictions is Shen Veery: temper and tenderness, shyness and 
  fire. Now, though, her mercurial temperament swings towards the shy end of 
  her spectrum, as that kiss is bestowed upon her. The hand that had been 
  resting upon your knee rises up to curl lightly around your side, and Shen 
  draws in a soft breath.

Webb continues in the same slow, deliberate manner, encouraged by every 
  reciprocated touch to provide still more affection. This makes for a rather 
  interesting way to watch the movie, what with the hand which once held his 
  soda now reaching around into the small of your back as he cuddles up close 
  to you.

Movie? What movie? Oblivious to the still-dormant player over there on her 
  shelf, Shenner draws as near to you as you do to her, eyes closing as she 
  begins to lose herself in the luxury of simple physical closeness. Her other 
  arm comes up in a half-unseeing search for a way to go around you; her 
  breathing's rhythm begins to go off-pace, too, at that unhurried attention 
  to her mouth.

Okay, so this could very well be the second movie that the two of you didn't 
  watch together. There /must/ be something about this couch which inspires 
  this sort of behaviour upon the part of both of you. His lips linger for a 
  moment at the corner of your mouth, before he brushes a soft kiss against 
  that little dent in your chin, and slowly begins to move his way back 
  upwards, planting two more kisses in the space between your chin and your 
  lower lip, before after a pause of anticipation, you find your lower lip 
  gently taken between his lips. Meanwhile, his free hand has been steadily 
  loosening your braid, until finally the mass of hair is freed from its 
  restraints and tumbles down about your shoulders, and whichever way it 
  wishes to go.

Giddily, ridiculously, a small drill-sergeant-esque sort of voice in the back 
  of Shenner's mind barks out, _Brevet PFC Veery! When a superior officer 
  initiates mouth-to-mouth maneuvers, what do you do?_ What she does, when her 
  lip is captured between your own, is what any red-blooded PFC, or even 
  former PFC, in this particular situation would do: commence 
  countersmooching! But there's that hand up there loosening her hair, letting 
  the braid she'd coiled around the top of her head come loose in a thick 
  russet curtain. And it would seem that as far as this particular former PFC 
  (brevet rank) is concerned, a hand beginning to play with her hair is a most 
  intriguing way to sneak in past her defenses. Her breath catches again, and 
  her head tilts towards that hand that has liberated her hair.

Well, it's probably a good thing that Webb doesn't think of himself as your 
  superior officer. Past conversations with his Gunnery Sergeant (none other 
  than Sung, whose armour you borrowed at one stage) would seem to indicate 
  that Webb is not the sort who would engage in this sort of activity with a 
  soldier who was placed under his command. Indeed, he seems to have 
  absolutely no reservations about this kiss, for your response only seems to 
  encourage escalation. Slowly his lips part bit by bit against yours, until 
  his tongue shyly peeks out and runs along your lower lip. His fingers 
  seemingly continuously run through your hair, brushing it back from your 
  face, then twining into its length, until they finally emerge from the 
  russet mass, and start the process all over again.

All commentary about how superior an officer you might be aside, Shenner seems 
  to willingly apply herself to this especially pleasant form of engagement -- 
  if so purposeful a word as 'apply' might be applied here. Between the hand 
  continually running through her unbound hair and the attention being 
  addressed to her mouth, she's beginning to respond far more from instinct 
  and startled pleasure than from any conscious planning. It takes her a few 
  moments before her own hand begins to stroke up and down your back, and even 
  then, most of her attention is on the increasingly fascinating question of 
  how to best to respond to your kiss with one of her own at the same time as 
  keeping her head inclined towards those roving fingers in her hair.

With any thought of watching the holo thoroughly banished from his 
  conciousness. His tongue is now tenderly attempting to delve between your 
  lips, and the pressure of his lips upon yours has grown beyond the previous 
  featherlight brushings into thorough, warm, contact. His eyes seem to 
  continue to alternate between closed, and a dream-like half-open state. 
  Every breath that he takes is slightly quicker than would be normal for him, 
  and each exhalation seems to include a tiny tremble within it. At one point, 
  he inadvertently attempts to inhale through his mouth, leaving the both of 
  you attempting to pull in the same breath. This prompts his lips to draw 
  away from yours, though only for an instant, leaving the two of you to 
  recover your breath before continuing, and allowing Webb to softly murmur to 
  you, "Wow."

A half-sigh, half-giggle escapes the redheaded singer, and by now, she's got 
  one arm twined around your neck and the other about your waist, holding you 
  close. Her face is mere millimeters away from yours, and her eyes are still 
  closed; thus, she doesn't see your expression. But she does feel the slight 
  quivers in your breath -- and her own hitches as she tries to draw in the 
  same little quantity of air as you. _Wh-what, I know you been kissed 
  before,_ she thinks wildly, though what comes out is, "Y-yeah... wow..."

Webb's thoughts are as close to yours as your remark was to his. A soft 
  chuckle is all that he can really manage to emit in response to your comment 
  before the sound is muffled by his lips feverishly taking their place upon 
  yours once again. With a slow squirm, he draws himself up closer to you, 
  tightening the grasp of his embrace ever so slightly, until his chest 
  lightly presses to yours so that you can feel each deep breath that he 
  inhales in attempt to absorb the necessary oxygen for such exciting 
  activities.

Shenner pulls close to you in return, that arm around your waist more snugly 
  encircling you. Her hair spills down over the arms with which you hold her 
  -- so much of it, now that it's unbound, almost as if all the substance of 
  her body has gone into making that wavy mass of reddish-brown. The fingers 
  of her other hand work themselves into your own hair, though there's far 
  less of it. Traces of redberry soda flavor her kiss, and saltwater scent 
  still lingers throughout her russet tresses. When she comes up for air it is 
  only to move her face far enough to rub her cheek against yours, her mouth 
  exploring back to brush against your ear. A tiny sound, then, half-dismayed 
  and half-longing, escapes her as she realizes this situation has developed 
  an alarming potential for going in directions she hasn't explored in well 
  over a year... and almost more alarming than that is the amazed realization 
  that she may well want it to. "W-Webb...?"

"Y-yes?" murmurs Webb shakily as he gazes across the miniscule distance 
  between you, straight into your eyes. His own eyes are open wide now, 
  creating an expression of amazement and excitement, rather than his usual 
  calm, cold, steely expression that is so often his trademark. More kisses 
  are forthcoming as he awaits your response, focussed along the soft skin of 
  your cheek which brushed against his. Quick, warm, moist touches of his 
  tongue intersperses the softer touches of his lips as he tastes the remnants 
  of sea-salt upon your skin. This, of course, makes it /really/ hard for him 
  to pay attention to the thoughts that rush through his mind, attempting to 
  warn him against the emotional hazards of intimacy long avoided.

"I..." That one small word comes out of Shen more as an exhalation of air than 
  an actually uttered word, as the delicious tremor that shoots through her 
  system in reply to the kisses to her cheek plays havoc with her ability to 
  talk. "I... I mean..." And if that wasn't bad enough, that look of wide-eyed 
  wonder you're giving her is calling up a seductively sweet, melting warmth 
  somewhere within her chest. Your eyes, she realizes, are looking rather 
  bluer than normal, and she dizzily wonders if this is simply because she's 
  so close she can see all the blue shades within them. "We've gotta..."

"Y-yes?" comes Webb's response. Hmm. Didn't he already say that? Now, 
  admittedly such things can be as difficult to keep track of as the words 
  which you are attempting to get out as he cuddles against you. For the 
  moment though, he does relent in the kisses, seeing as you are apparently 
  attempting to say something to him and the attention which he lavishes upon 
  you is (quite understandably) creating all sorts of exquisite difficulties.

C'mon, street rat, _think_! She pulls her head back just far enough to get a 
  better look at you, to let her meet your gaze with her own. One arm stays 
  curled tightly around you, while her other hand lifts up to your cheek, 
  cupping it against her palm. Kissed, her lips have gone a little fuller, a 
  little softer, and they're not entirely steady now as she tries to rally her 
  wits. Okay then: get it all out at once. Honesty's a good thing, isn't it? 
  And so she squeezes her eyes closed in a fit of nervousness, bursting out 
  huskily, "I ain't done this with anybody else but... well, y'know, and I'm a 
  little n-nervous okay, okay a lot nervous and I want you to stay..." A sharp 
  quiver shoots along her frame, then. Her face flushes pink, and she abruptly 
  pulls you close again to conclude unsteadily, "But I don't know if I can..."

Webb is content to limit himself to a moment of patient observation as you 
  attempt to explain the situation as you see it. Well, he's not /entirely/ 
  content to, as is apparent in the longing in his gaze, and the occasional 
  readily apparent tremble which ripples through his muscles as he holds you 
  in this embrace. He's actually recognizing some form of restraint, almost as 
  if he wanted to be aware of your feelings before a direction is picked in 
  which to proceed. "Nervous?" he finally murmurs, "Y-yeah, you're not the 
  only one," he murmurs with a shy grin. "Whatever you want," he swallows 
  before he manages to murmur against your cheek, "I'd... really like to stay 
  with you," before he's starting the whole maddening process of kissing you 
  all over again.

Maddening, indeed. Like a thirsty vine twining towards sunshine and water, 
  Shenner winds both her arms around you yet again, diving headlong into the 
  renewed kiss. Those last few words send her reeling along with the kiss 
  itself... you want to stay. With her. You want to stay with her. Shen might 
  have realized in recent days that she suffers an enormous fear that everyone 
  who grows close to her will vanish -- but she hasn't comprehended until this 
  instant how powerful an effect hearing someone vocalize those words can have 
  upon her. Never mind that that desire to stay might only be for tonight; for 
  the time being, duration is utterly irrelevant. Something deep within the 
  young singer, something that's spent years spanning even back past a certain 
  Corellian, abruptly relaxes. Her mouth upon yours grows more ardent, even as 
  dampness wells up in her eyes. "Stay with me," she rasps out when she gets a 
  chance to gulp in the necessary air for that brief whisper. "Stay with me, 
  then..."

"I will," murmurs Webb in a tone which sounds suspiciously like a promise, at 
  the first breathing opportunity which presents itself, before his lips find 
  themselves to be otherwise occupied in a prolonged, dizzying kiss, steadily 
  deepening kiss. Closer still, he presses as he tilts his head slightly, 
  attempting to find the most favourable angle for the kiss, namely one in 
  which his nose isn't going to be pressed against yours in some decidedly 
  uncomfortable fashion as his tongue begins to explore the contours of the 
  inside of your mouth.

Fortunately, Shenner is more than willing to investigate exactly how to orient 
  herself to find that ideal angle. Twined this close to you, it's exquisitely 
  easy to learn a wealth of detail from not only her kiss but also the shape 
  of her slender form. For her own part, her right hand does its stubborn best 
  to thoroughly dishevel your hair and short military haircuts be damned. Her 
  mouth, when she manages to bob up from the depths of that kiss, explores 
  much of the territory of your face: the line of your jaw, the shape of an 
  ear, the arch of an eyebrow.

Through sheer effort upon your part, Webb's hair does in fact end up mussed, 
  particularly as this is one those times where he's allowed it to grow a 
  little longer than is normally considered to be acceptable in regulations. 
  After all, in Webb's line of work, sometimes it's decidedly helpful to be 
  capable of looking somewhat like a civilian. It seems, by the way, after 
  much experimentation, that the most comfortable embrace is arrived at when 
  he draws you into his lap, thus bringing your face to equal altitude with 
  his, eliminating the necessity for excessive neck-craning. The other handy 
  feature it seems, is that his arms don't end up pinned beneath you at any 
  given point, allowing them to roam up and down your back in a steady pattern 
  of coaxing and caressing.

As practically any decent field commander would tell you, there comes a point 
  in any campaign in which, if certain decisions are made, retreat ceases to 
  be an option. And here and now, it is no different. Shenner's body grows 
  inexorably more pliant and responsive under your continual attentions, 
  particularly when your hands are free to do what they well against her 
  shoulderblades, down to the small of her back... and through her hair. Her 
  own hands by contrast remain stationary, one in your hair and the other slid 
  down around your back, clinging to your side. Her kisses, however, range all 
  over your face and brow, around your neck, behind your ears. Her cheeks 
  follow the trails blazed by her lips, and sometimes the other way around. 
  But at last, feeling that point of no retreat looming abruptly in the 
  immediate future, she pulls back ever so slightly to seek your eyes with 
  hers. Those green orbs are moist and bright... and full of a nervous query 
  as she casts an unmistakable glance in the direction of her bedroom door.

Webb's eyes drift open once again at the momentary cessation of kisses, and 
  after a moment of gazing upon your face, he turns his head to peer in the 
  direction in which you've just glanced. Once he figures out just where your 
  gaze is headed, his eyes abruptly turn back to gaze into yours. With your 
  silent question obviously conveyed, Webb begins to feel the sensation of a 
  lump forming in his throat. He instinctively swallows in an attempt to clear 
  it, then manages to give a nervous smile and a nod. A deep breath is inhaled 
  by him, before you find him shifting his hold upon you once again, slipping 
  one hand beneath your legs, then another behind your shoulder-blades, and 
  then... hmm... so this is how it feels to be swept off of your feet. And 
  then, he turns towards the bedroom, picking his way along through the dim 
  light with you cradled sidelong in his arms.

[To be continued...]