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“Septa Roelle gave me counsel today”
Jaime all but bites back the insults that are eager to fly from his tongue when it comes to her wretched Septa. Good thing the old crone is leaving Tarth on the morrow. Ever since she arrived, there was a tension in Brienne’s shoulders that simply wouldn’t leave.
Closing the door of their chambers, he makes his way to their bed, stripping off his tunic and breeches. His hair is still wet from the bath he took at Evenfall Hall bathhouse. He would have preferred to bathe with Brienne in their chambers, but she was nowhere to be seen after they had dinner with The Evenstar earlier.
Now he knows why.
“What did she say?” he asks while sitting beside her, naked as his name day.
Brienne keeps gazing at her bare legs, too long to be covered by her night shift, and Jaime fights to not stray his gaze to the two white pillars stretched along their bed. When she’s still silent, he lays his hand on her thigh, caressing the freckled skin. Her eyes drift up to his.
“You promised me no more of your silence if I could be of help” he says, knowing it’s a low blow to remind her of Stoneheart and what they swore to each other after a sennight of bitter resentment and hurt from his part and self flagellation from hers.
Brienne nods, taking a deep breath before reproducing Septa Roelle’s words.
“She asked me if I have ever met your sister, and when I confirmed I had, she told me then that I understood why you couldn’t resist her-“
Jaime groans out loud, cutting her short. Perhaps he could throw Roelle down the path that leads to Evenfall Hall and make sure she rolls down until the docks. Perhaps he could get away with throwing an old wretched Septa to the sea, one that has no business meddling in his marriage, and worse, reminding Brienne of her insecurities as if anything that comes out of her decrepit mouth is worth listening to.
“Cersei asked me to come back for her. To save her life or die beside her, as she always said we would. I threw her letter in the fire, and next thing I knew, a certain wench came marching through my camp asking me to follow her and I left everything behind to do just that. Mayhaps your Septa needs to receive a full report of our adventures together before she gives her unwanted opinion where she hasn’t been asked to give.” Brienne is still silent, looking at him with big blue eyes, waiting for him to finish so she can keep talking, Jaime sighs. “You haven’t finished and I apologize. What else has she said?”
“That I… that I could never replace her.”
“Thank the gods you can’t. I don’t want you to replace her.”
“Jaime, she… I know I must not consider everything that leaves Septa Roelle’s mouth as true or wise. But she… doesn’t she have a point? We have been together for no more than two turns of the moon. I don’t know enough to… I fear that you might… I want to know how to please you better. What you like. What…” she flushes even more, shifting her weight and sitting straighter. She chews on her lips, working her jaw while she gathers her words.
And then:
“I want to know how to please you the way she did” she blurts out, finally.
Then he understands it. What this is about.
Jaime considers his next words carefully, not only because it is something he learned to do for Brienne when he realized his words had the power to cut her deeper than any swords ever could. But also, because the truth is that he never gave this much of a thought. He never stopped to catalogue the things he liked or didn’t… he just accepted what they should be, because that was what he was told so, in words as much as with actions.
“I love you like I have never loved before.” He starts. “It’s…” how to tell her that he can scarcely remember how it was, what he felt for Cersei? The mirage that was his sister was shattered to the point he doesn’t recognize what it was, what it was supposed to be What drew him to her. My own creation, the Cersei I made up in my mind, that’s what I loved. And not even his own fantasies, of the innocence Cersei was supposed to represent, of the goodness she was supposed to embody, of the softness she was meant to have in her… not even his fantasies got close to the reality that is Brienne. “You feel like… like my own pulse. Like the blood running in my veins. I feel you everywhere. At once. Like my lost hand, a phantom limb. I’m aware of you as if you’re part of me. As if you were me. It was nothing like that before. With her”.
Her eyes soften, some of the tension lifting from her shoulders.
“Jaime…” she whispers.
“For that alone, there would be nothing else that could compare. No one”. That seems to put her at ease, for now, but Jaime knows her too well. Those doubts will come back, the words will haunt her, and the wound they’ll make will fester until they become an almost unshakable belief. He could tear those walls down once they grew, heal whatever wounds she caused herself by building them. He knows that now. But he won’t allow it to go that far. “But that’s not all. I…the truth is that I didn’t know what pleased me. Not until you”
Brienne’s brow furrows, her expression endearingly confused and somewhat curious. In moments like these, he’s reminded of how young she still is, despite everything she has seen already. He feels a tenderness for her that makes his heart ache.
“What do you mean?” she asks.
He tries to find words to explain it to her. His mind travels back to Cersei’s touch, to her body and his, and he grimaces, almost recoils. It feels a lot like disgust, and something unpleasant pools in the pit of his stomach. Jaime will never be ashamed of what he felt. But he mislikes reminding himself of the things he made himself believe, just so the fantasy wouldn’t crumble to pieces.
“When we fucked, it was never about us. And the times I believed it was, it was about what she thought I should like. We were supposed to be two halves of a whole, so how could I not enjoy what she did? What she told me I should?”
He never truly understood that he disliked the way she yanked his hair to the point of pain until Brienne’s grip on his golden strands showed him that he found true pleasure on a much gentler pull. He never understood he could eat Brienne’s cunt for hours, for his own pleasure as much as hers. That he could tease her to the point of madness and still be rewarded with lazy kisses while he fucked her languidly afterwards. He liked the way Brienne’s thick lips wrapped around his cock tentatively, how she slowly lost control, how she seemed hungry for him as much as he was for her, that want seemed to be the only intent behind her touch. That his pleasure wasn’t a reward for a job well done or the price to pay for something she would ask of him.
Brienne's strength left his body sore and his skin marked, and the bruises they left on each other in moments of passion felt delightful under the light of the day. That pain carried no punishment or sense of wrongness. And because of that he craved it, instead of just enduring it for the sake of something he thought was love.
The ghost of Cersei’s touch leaves him feeling as if he needs another bath, despite the still damp hair at the base of his neck.
Brienne moves closer to him, turns to face him, her calloused hand caressing his beard before coming to rest on his neck.
That alone puts him at ease.
“Unless you want it, let’s not speak more of this”
And just like that, he knows she understands. She knows me well too.
He pulls her into his arms, until her face is resting between his neck and shoulder, and he presses his nose on her hair.
Jaime wakes in the early morning, already hearing sounds of life around Evenfall Hall. He turns his face to see Brienne sleeping with the sheets thrown at her feet, her night shift pushed up and revealing the white creamy freckled skin of her legs. Her hair is spread on the pillows, almost white where they rest under a few rays of sunlight. One of her arms is across her stomach while the other rests on his chest.
His cock hardens at the sight of her.
He knows she promised to take Septa Roelle to the docks early this morning. He knows if they fuck right now, she’ll be late. A better man would let his wife sleep some more instead of waking her.
Jaime is not that man.
He gathers Brienne in his arms, kissing her neck. It doesn’t take long to wake her, her eyes soft and so so blue in the morning light. She mumbles, asking about how late is it - early, he tells her - and when he tries to kiss her, she flushes bright red and turns her head, telling him her breath is stale - so is mine, I don’t care, he tells her - and then he captures her lips with his. Kissing her deep until she’s writhing beneath him, panting against his mouth, please and Jaime leaving her lips as he pulls her night shift up and out of her body and rids himself of her small clothes.
He trails his hand down her chest, squeezing the soft flesh of her breast, diving his head down until he wraps his lips around a pink hard nipple. Her tits fit perfectly in his hands and in his mouth, and the thought makes him shudder. While he feasts on her breasts, his hand dips between her legs, and he lets her tit slip free from his mouth to look down at the blonde hair that guards her cunt. Feeling the wetness of her flesh with the tip of his fingers. He slips one inside of her, then another. Above him, she moans, and he looks back to her face to see her head thrown back, eyes closed as he curls his fingers deep inside of her.
He pulls out of her then, and the protest on her lips sounds sweeter than they have any right to be. He wraps his hand around his cock, guiding it inside of her with a slow, deep thrust, until he’s buried to the hilt.
Beneath him, Brienne is already shaking, her thighs trembling when she wraps her legs around his hips. Jaime doesn’t move, not yet. Instead, he takes his time, sucking his middle finger clean. Brienne’s cheeks redden, but her eyes don’t leave his face. The combination of her eyes on him and the taste of her on his tongue... his hips buckle against his will before he can control himself and Brienne gasps. He stills again.
Then he trails the remaining finger, still wet with her, on her swollen kissed lips. She’s sweaty and pink already, freckles standing out against her skin.
“Taste yourself” he tells her. Her pink tongue licks the tip of his finger that rests against her bottom lip. His hips buckle again, and this time he doesn’t fight it, thrusting hard inside her before leaning down to kiss her deeply. A wet, messy kiss. “See how good you taste wench?” He asks, panting against her mouth. “I can’t get enough”
Brienne moans again, louder, and wraps both arms around his shoulder, moving her hips in contend with his own.
Something primal takes over their bodies, her legs barely allowing him to leave her at all, her hands digging into his shoulder to keep him close. Jaime wraps his arms under her back, his only hand closing around the back of her neck for purchase, baring her throat to his mouth and tongue and teeth. He marks her skin, claims her as his, all the while chanting her name like a prayer, again and again. Grounding against her and pinning her to their bed, not holding back. He doesn’t have to. Not with her. His Brienne. Mine, all mine. He wants to drown in her, wants to fuse himself until he doesn’t know where he ends and she begins.
He feels her cunt pulsing and then clenching around his cock like a fist half a second before she moans loudly, almost a battle cry. It’s enough to make him come, so hard that his vision whitens for a second.
Jaime collapses, spent, on top of her.
She’s breathing hard beneath him, but he knows she can bear his weight, just as much as he can bear hers.
Is much, much later, while Brienne is dressing herself quickly and trying to adjust her tunic so it covers the marks he left on her neck, that Jaime notices the door to their chambers half ajar.
Jaime waits by the carriage as The Evenstar finishes the preparations to take Septa Roelle to the docks, Brienne by Lord Selwyn's side. Brienne’s father will ride with his men down the road that leads to the docks, and Jaime knows Brienne would like to do the same. But she’ll be inside the carriage with her septa.
And because of that, so will Jaime.
The old crone stands beside him, waiting as well until both Brienne and Selwyn are done.
“I thought you would ride with The Evenstar, my Lord” Roelle comments, and those are probably the first words the woman has said in his direction ever since she arrived, a fortnight ago. “I was hoping to ride alone with Brienne my Lord, if you don’t mind”.
Jaime would much prefer to ride his horse indeed. But because of the Septa's age, she can’t mount, and he refuses to let her poison Brienne’s mind again. So he’ll be damned before he leaves his wench alone with this creature.
“It happens I do mind, Septa. You see, me and Brienne, we don’t spend time apart from one another unless there’s no other way. We swore vows to each other that go beyond the ones said at our wedding ceremony”. Jaime flashes her his brightest grin then.“Besides, I happen to be quite tired this morning, as you might have seen”.
The way her eyes widen and she mutters a praying to The Seven is all the confirmation he needs.
Septa Roelle looks at both of them with disgust all the way down to the docks. Not that Jaime cares much. He’s certainly not doing a much better job in hiding his contempt for the woman, if Brienne squeezing his arm where she holds him to draw his attention in hopes he stops glaring at the woman is any indication.
It’s no matter. Soon that wretched Septa will be far away from Tarth and from Brienne, and if he has any luck, The Stranger will take her before she ever thinks of returning to their home once more.