Chapter Text
It started innocently enough, with a barista butchering her name on her morning cup of coffee. Jaime saw it and insisted that she must have taken someone else’s cup, that his staid, serious coworker was definitely a black coffee or macchiato drinker, not the type to indulge a craving for a dark chocolate mocha with whipped cream and chocolate shavings.
He was smiling when he said this, green eyes twinkling merrily, while every word stabbed deep. He didn’t mean anything by it, but he wasn’t wrong, either.
Briena Tart, a porn name if she’d ever heard one, was sexy and fun and a little dangerous, all the things Brienne Tarth most definitely was not.
Brienne knew she was boring. Quiet. As much a wallflower as she could be given that intimidation and violence were core components of her job. Security was a good fit for her. She was meant to be furniture, menacing but part of the background wherever Sansa Stark happened to be.
Jaime Lannister couldn’t blend in if he tried. Over his years as Cersei Baratheon’s bodyguard, he’d been mistaken for her lover on multiple occasions. Brienne had suspected for awhile that Cersei called the paparazzi herself when she was annoyed with her husband. Jaime only smirked when reporters asked about her. It was safer to say nothing than to have his words twisted.
He ran his mouth enough at the office, between assignments. Some days Brienne thought he’d been put on this earth specifically to plague her, and she wondered what she’d done in a former life to deserve it. Whenever she was in the office, he was always around, making little comments, asking about her nonexistent weekend and evening plans. His comments had grown strangely flirty over the past few months, annoying her and disappointing a number of their colleagues. Brienne was certain he was doing it to keep the girls on the office staff from tying him to a chair and having their way with him. Not that it was any of her business if he indulged in extracurricular activities with the staff or anyone else. She certainly had no claim on him.
And then one night he called her.
They were both on assignment, Jaime in Oldtown and Brienne at the Gates of the Moon. The days were busy, but the nights were long and often boring. Brienne usually didn’t answer calls from unknown numbers, but she was tired and desperate for a distraction, and telling off a telemarketer might keep her busy for a few minutes. “Hello?”
“Hi, I hope I have the right number. I’m looking for someone.” She recognized that smooth voice, deep and resonant and somehow charming even without his smile attached. He smiled often, at odds with his fierce public persona. Whenever she saw him photographed on the job, Jaime was serious, aloof, the perfect bodyguard. In the office, he so often seemed on the verge of laughter, his humor drier than the Red Waste and sometimes at the expense of others. He could be fierce in the office, too, when he was working out in the office gym or training other guards. The one time she’d sparred with him, well, they’d been interrupted, which was probably for the best.
Brienne took a hasty sip of the wine she’d been drinking to moisten her suddenly dry mouth. “Lannister, cut the crap. Why are you calling?”
He chuckled. “I told you. I’m looking for Briena Tart.”
Brienne snorted. It still sounded like a porn name. “Right. Goodnight, Jaime.”
“Oh, you must be her. You can’t be Brienne. She never calls me anything but Lannister.” His voice was rough, a little tired. Cersei Baratheon was hosting a summit on climate issues this week. Jaime must have been on his feet all day.
She understood the hours of standing still, staying alert, and the exhaustion that followed once she could drop her guard. That was the only reason she didn’t hang up. “She calls you pest , too.”
He laughed, a gorgeous low rumble that made her shiver. He was so irritating, but so delicious. If he could manage to stay quiet, Jaime Lannister would make a delightful distraction. Not that Brienne indulged in that sort of unprofessional behavior. She didn’t even think of it. At least not very often.
“What are you up to, Briena Tart?” he asked, still clearly pleased with his little joke.
Brienne glanced around the hotel room, the sad remains of her room service dinner, the carafe of wine, the discarded file detailing tomorrow’s agenda and every person Sansa would meet with throughout the day. “Having a drink.”
“Funny,” he said, “so am I. Are you a rule-breaker, Briena Tart?”
“Not usually. I’m making an exception,” she corrected, taking another long swallow. She hadn’t known what to order, that’s how infrequently she drank. But her computer screen, the one she had to monitor this evening for her client’s safety, was currently showing a dim, shadowy hotel room where her sweet but entirely adult client was letting the pretty, useless heir to the Eyrie undress her.
Twenty-four hour surveillance and protection, that was their firm’s promise, but some aspects of the job were more difficult for Brienne than others. This Hardyng kid was a loser, but Sansa liked the look of him, obviously, and it wasn’t Brienne’s place to register more than a token objection. So instead she had a little liquid courage to ease the embarrassment of forced voyeurism.
“What are you wearing?” Jaime asked.
“Really?” Her voice dripped with disdain, but at least he was distracting her from her screen.
He chuckled again. “Come on, what does Briena Tart wear when she’s alone in the evening?”
Brienne glanced down at her tank top and sweatpants. She wasn’t about to describe those, he’d never stop teasing her. “What makes you think I’m wearing anything?”
A choked noise came through the phone. “Did I interrupt something? If so, feel free to describe it in detail.”
She was grateful she had the sound muted on the computer, or he might get the wrong idea. “No, I’m just not a lingerie kind of woman.”
“Please, every woman is a lingerie woman,” he insisted.
No, Brienne was not, though she’d tried once. Lingerie sold in her size tended to come from shops catering to drag queens, so she’d endured her embarrassment long enough to order from a website that still occasionally sent her unwanted catalogs in the mail, and felt more than faintly ridiculous wearing something so delicate and pretty. The reception she’d received had been lukewarm at best, and she’d never worn it again. “Not this one. Trust me, it’s like putting lipstick on a pig. No one wants to see that.”
“Lipstick on a … Are you kidding? You’re not, are you?” Jaime let out a frustrated growl. “Whatever Horrible Hyle told you, don’t fucking believe him. Lingerie… It’s about the tease, sweetling. It’s not so much the wrapping, it’s the unwrapping .”
Brienne shivered again. He had such nice hands, big and strong and a little rough, and it was rude as hell to remind her of the things she would never have. It wasn’t that she couldn’t have a man in her bed, it was just that the few men who found her attractive tended to either bore or repulse her. Jon Snow’s friend Tormund Giantsbane hit on her every time she went to the Wall with Sansa. The way he leered might have flattered other women, but it just made her skin crawl. She couldn’t bear the thought of giving herself to a man who spoke with such crass awe about the size of her biceps.
“Don’t call me sweetling. It’s—” She struggled to find the right words, and finally retreated to professionalism. “It’s inappropriate. We’re working.”
Jaime’s heavy sigh was loud against her ear. “Tart, you’re drinking in your room. Are you really working?”
Brienne glanced over at the computer screen again. Sansa was blessedly mostly hidden from view now, the camera tucked in an unobtrusive corner, but the sheets were undulating in a way that told Brienne exactly what was going on. “I am watching Sansa,” she said resolutely.
“Cersei passed out drunk an hour ago. Shouldn’t Sansa be in bed by now?” Jaime’s surprise was laced with confusion. It was late in Oldtown, and even later in the Vale.
“She is,” Brienne said shortly.
Jaime was quiet for a moment, and then he cursed under his breath. “Briena Tart, are you watching your client fuck?”
“I’m protecting her,” Brienne sputtered. “That’s my job.”
Jaime laughed. “You really are. Wow. I didn’t know you had it in you.” His voice was like honey, dark and sweet, not even the slightest bit mocking for once. He sounded impressed, delighted even.
Frankly Brienne hadn’t known she had it in her to watch this, either. It was embarrassing, after all she had to face Sansa in the morning, but also frustrating in a way that watching Renly fuck Loras hadn’t been. That had only embarrassed her because she hadn’t realized that her client was gay until she turned on the video feed and caught Renly balls-deep in the wrong Tyrell sibling.
“Goodnight, Lannister,” she said pointedly, sneaking a glance at the screen, where Harry Hardyng was still pumping away. She’d tried just listening instead of watching, but oddly enough hearing it was worse than an occasional glance at the screen.
“Aren’t you going to ask me what I’m wearing?” he protested.
“No!” She wanted to, though. Brienne had seen him naked once, when he walked into a sauna in Harrenhal while she was already inside. And then they’d argued, and he’d fainted in her arms. Her face heated just thinking about it.
“I could send you a picture,” he offered.
Gods, he was going to kill her. “Goodnight, Jaime.” This time she hung up.
By morning she could almost pretend that conversation hadn’t happened. Bad enough that Harry Hardyng was doing his walk of shame out of Sansa’s room when Brienne went to wake her up in the morning. Since Sansa was still sleeping, Hardyng was clearly trying to escape without having to pretend he wanted to see her again.
Brienne tactfully avoided mentioning Hardyng and Sansa tactfully pretended her bodyguard hadn’t been surveilling her all night. By evening, Brienne had scowled at a number of handsy Vale noblemen, her feet were killing her, and her stomach was digesting itself because Sansa’s schedule hadn’t allowed Brienne a dinner break.
She’d already dialled room service and ordered an obscene volume of food when she noticed the package left on her bed. Brienne immediately went on alert. Sansa was next door. If the package contained a bomb, it could take out Sansa’s room too when it went off.
She leaned close. It wasn’t ticking, so that was something. Brienne dialled the front desk and asked how the box had gotten into her room, but the answer puzzled her just as much as the package. A woman had hand delivered it to the hotel.
The box was wrapped in silver paper, with a silky blue bow, and a card on creamy cardstock tucked into the ribbon. Brienne pulled a pair of latex gloves from her bag and put them on, then carefully worked the card free and held it up to the light, looking for any wires or bugs inside the envelope. Nothing.
Slowly she worked open the envelope and removed the card inside, holding it as far away as possible in case a toxin had been dusted on the paper.
In unfamiliar handwriting, the card read:
Every woman should have something that makes her feel beautiful. I hope I got your measurements right. — J
Someone was clearly pranking her. Or she’d passed out from hunger and would wake up face down on the bed when room service knocked. Because J could only be Jaime Lannister, and in no universe did Jaime Lannister send her clothes.
Unless it was a joke. Obviously. Of course it was a joke. There would be a Casterly Lions jersey inside, or a new shoulder holster. Oddly relieved, Brienne untied the bow, pulled the ribbon free, and carefully unwrapped the package without tearing the paper, just in case she was wrong and needed to preserve evidence.
Under the wrapping paper, inside a white box stamped with “Donyse Boutique” and nestled in layers of delicate white paper, Brienne didn’t find poison or a bomb or anything else she knew how to handle.
It was a nightgown. Midnight blue silk trimmed in black lace. She picked it up gingerly, feeling more than a little foolish to be wearing latex gloves, but not foolish enough to take them off. The silk seemed to go on forever as she lifted it out of the box. A scrap of fabric fell to one side as she pulled the gown free. Matching silk panties.
They were beautiful. Her cheeks heated, and the heat spread as she laid the lingerie out on the bed.
Jaime Lannister bought me lingerie.