Chapter Text
“Arch your back,” Jon murmurs, trying again, failing again, biting back a curse. “Bit more?”
This time, the angle's just right, finally allowing him to guide himself inside her and staying inside too.
Their sighs of relief flow as one.
With his forehead resting against her spine, he wraps the arm she’s lying on around her body and holds Sansa flushed against him, one hand cupping her breast and the other her sex. Only a heartbeat ago, he felt desperate to race toward their high together, but now he wants nothing more than to float in this feeling of embracing, of being embraced, and stays just like this, his only movement a sleepy teasing of his middle finger, as light and delicate as a breath.
They were still lingering in the last vestiges of sleep when she rocked her bottom against him, and his hand started wandering, caressing her breasts, her stomach, her hip and thigh, the soft patch of hair he’s yet to feel against his face. He’s tired, still. Can’t’ve slept long. Could almost fall back asleep, still inside her, but when she lifted her thigh to give his hand room, he found her soaking wet and swollen, and now, each time his finger grazes her, she’s giving these hushed, frustrated whimpers, as if she dreamed her naughty dreams again and woke up already on the cusp. As if she’s desperate to have the real him finish what the Jon in her dream must’ve started.
Smiling into her sleep-warm skin, he makes his touch a bit firmer, enjoying the sound of her already heavier breathing. Aye, he’s tired, but how could he return to sleep now? Why would he ever choose to when she reaches behind her to drag her fingers up his thigh and clutch at his hip? How could he do anything but leisurely thrust into her and revel in the moan she rewards him with? That low, drawn-out moan of hers that’s so unladylike and unabashed and real, it that makes him feel like the greatest lover in the realm.
When he starts playing with her nipple too, she’s so quick to peak it’s almost disappointing. She really was on the cusp, then, but he’s not ready for it to end, resists the delicious pull of her clenching around him, keeps his thrusts as slow and measured as his caresses, savoring it all. She doesn’t push his hand away this time, either. She simply stays with him in this calm pace he’s set, still humming with pleasure every so often.
It’s the humming that gets to him, really. It’s hearing it get needier and louder and turn into moans that makes his hips move faster. It’s what she wants, what she’s telling him with those sounds she makes. He knows it is from her breathy yes when he murmurs an, "This all right?" as he guides her to lie halfway on her stomach with one leg pulled up so he can go rougher still.
It’s only when Sansa’s hand leaves his hip he notices the cover’s slid down his back and presented their sweat-coated bodies to a brisk air eager to bite at them. He’s just about the pause his touching to help her grab it when he realizes where her hand’s going. It's not to fumble after the cover. It's not even to lay flat on the floor to help her in pushing back against him. No, it’s snaking under their bodies where it joins his still cupping her, still teasing her.
Without ceasing his thrusting, Jon leans to the side and takes in what he can of her face: her closed eye and open mouth, her quick tongue wetting her lips, her dewy skin gleaming in the daylight. She’s too lost in pleasure to notice the chill in the air and soon he’s too lost too, lost in the hot and slick feel of her gripping him, lost in the noises filling his ears. The quiet panting, the low moaning, the dull smacking of her arse hitting his thighs. Her needy whining followed by her fingers pushing against his, shifting the way they lie against her. His pleasure-addled mind's just caught on that she needs more when she starts rubbing his fingers against her in a tight, unwavering pace, using them to pleasure herself, as if she’s so close she needs to steer him onto the right path and keep him there until she reaches her high.
He nearly peaks right then and there, has to stay still for a beat to gather himself.
Sansa’s hand disappears. The panting stops. The one eye he can see opens, but she doesn’t turn to look at him over her shoulder.
“It’s all right,” he whispers. “I liked it. What you did.” He leans down and ghosts a few kisses over her shoulder-blade. “Just needed to catch my breath. Put your hand back.”
It’s a timid movement, Sansa’s hand returning. But it does return and stays atop his as they resume, slowly increasing the pace of their fucking until the slaps of flesh kissing flesh mingle with their moans and ragged breaths. Soon her fingers become brave again, showing him the rhythm she wants, keeping him firmly in the same spot as she climbs higher and higher and it’s so fucking hot he’ll lose his mind if she doesn’t peak soon, the pressure in his cock almost unbearable. When she finally tenses up, he sends the gods another thanks and falls together with her, his body collapsing against her back and his eyes sliding shut as he lies atop her, relishing the feeling of her twitching around his pulsing cock until they're both spent.
It doesn’t matter, then, that it only happened because he once more managed the feat of holding back until she was ready. Falling together still feels like magic, as if they’re so perfectly matched this was always meant to be.
She’s lax beneath him, so satisfied it’s turned her body boneless, and that feels like magic too. This woman, who’s so often restrained and wary around others now lie naked and sweaty beneath an equally naked and sweaty man; yet, there’s not even a hint of tension in her body. The breaths she draws are loud, aye, but calm and steady. She even hums, as content as a wolf in a pile of summer snow after days of scorching sun.
Had Daario not lain in wait, this never would’ve happened. But he did. He grabbed her— easily too—and had Jon never bonded with Drogon…
A shiver nips its way down Jon’s back.
When he lies back on his side, he still holds Sansa flushed against him, ignoring how his left arm is starting to feel a bit numb.
What Drogon did was dangerous and reckless and Jon does feel guilty about it—he’ll feel guilty about it for the rest of his life—but as he presses his nose against Sansa's skin, filling himself with the scent of her, he can’t help but send the dragon a wave of gratitude anyway.
He almost lost her.
“Jon?” Gently, Sansa starts extracting herself from his arms. “Would you let go? I feel disgusting.”
She doesn’t mean it in that way. He knows she doesn’t. This is not a woman whose mind has cleared from lust, and now expresses regret. She doesn’t like being sweaty. That’s what she means.
(Still, Jon rolls over on his back so quickly she might just as well have pushed him.)
“I really need to wash,” she continues—and it’s only when immense relief floods him that he knows just how much he doubted his own thoughts. “And drink something. And eat. And make water.”
“So do I,” he says, smiling. “We’ve got some grilled mushroom left and there’s the stream. It’ll be cold, though. We’ll have to huddle for warmth again once we’re done.”
“We’d have to do that either way,” she says, wrapping herself in one of the skins while scooting off the other to free it for him. “At least now we’ll be clean.”
They won’t stay clean for long, though, he thinks, his smile turning into a filthy grin. She’s a wanton woman, his Sansa. So wanton it’s left her sore, apparently, for when she tries to get up, she falls back with a cry and ends up on her bottom, the pelt flapping open and giving him a mere glimpse of bare flesh he’s still not properly seen before she snatches it closed with a shudder.
“My thighs! Do your legs always feel like this after…?” She frowns up at him. “Why are you grinning like that? Does this amuse you?”
“No,” he says, still grining despite the dirty look she shoots him. “You’ve probably used muscles you’ve never used before.” He pulls her to her feet and gives her grumpy lips a soft peck. “It’ll get better. Now, let me do my duty as handmaiden and help my lady into her boots.”
With the skin tied around him and his arms full of damp clothes, Jon jumps down from the platform and finds Sansa waiting for him in the sunlight pouring from a cloudless sky, her eyes taking in the splintered wood littering the ground and the fallen branches surrounding the shelter. The light breeze plays in her hair, in the near-curly locks that have escaped the braid she usually keeps so neat. Now it’s half undone and rubbed into a tangled mess haloed by copper wool. This is not the first time he’s noticed that rain coaxes faint curls from her hair, but he can’t remember ever seeing it this messy. That’s his handiwork, that. And when she cranes her neck to sweep her gaze over the top of the trees too, he spots something else for which he’s responsible: two red splotches adorning the pale skin of her neck. Love bites, left by his mouth.
Perhaps he should feel stupid at the pride swelling in his chest, at the smile about to split his face in two, but he doesn’t feel stupid in the least. He feels as if he could lift off the ground, sweep her into his arms, and soar toward the sky, as if he were that prince in her book who had the wings of a bat sprouting from his back.
“We were lucky,” she says, still taking in the destruction while he can’t take his eyes off her. His woman. His. “Incredibly lucky.”
She turns to look at him, then, and even though he surely looks pathetically besotted, her brow knits and one hand flies to her hair.
“What?” She begins a clumsy attempt at detangling the braid one-handed without dropping the skin. “I must look awful.”
Jon shakes his head, chuckling fondly at her. “Leave that. I’ll help you later. Come on. Better find some place to hang our clothes.”
They break their fast in a sun-washed spot by the bank of the stream to a song of birds and water neither interrupts. The silence lasts through the untangling of Sansa’s hair, the rushed bathing in water too cold for playfulness or even ogling, and the scurrying back to the shelter. But every single breath of it feels peaceful, whenever their eyes meet, they share the barely-there smile of two people with a wonderful secret, and when they lie down between the sleeping skins again, her dry shift remains on the wall.
She didn’t so much as look at it.
Shivering, Sansa snakes her feet in between his calves and tugs up the cover to her chin.
“We’ll get warm soon,” he murmurs, rubbing a hand along her back. “Did you sleep well?”
“I did. Better than I thought I would, considering the floor. Did you?”
He smiles, crookedly. “Woke up even better.”
She rolls her eyes at him, but he doesn’t feel particularly admonished.
“You didn’t seem to mind waking up that way,” he says, brushing a lock of hair from her face and tucking it behind her ear.
“Jon?” Sansa leans back a touch, biting her lip as she observes him. “You… You spilled in me. Twice.”
“Don’t worry.” He strokes his thumb over the freckled apple of her cheek before cupping it. “As soon as we’re home, we’ll marry.”
“We will?”
Jon nods.
“And when did we decide this?” She slides a hand up his chest, tapping her fingers against his breastbone to emphasize a word here and there as she continues, “Have you already forgotten why I left? I’m done having my decisions made for me. By men.”
She enunciates that last word in a way that draws his eyes to her mouth, to the flash of tongue behind her teeth at the n, and he can’t for the life of him understand why he hasn’t kissed her properly yet this morning. What does it matter that he’s made her peak twice when the little peck on the lips he gave her was so chaste it barely even happened?
That’s not right. That’s not right at all.
“What if I don’t want to marry you?” she asks, lips pouting more than necessary when forming the last word.
“Suppose I’ll get you moontea.” He leans in closer, closer, staring at those pouting lips. “Send you on your way.”
“Is that what you want?”
He answers her with a kiss, one gentle and loving and unrushed. He answers her by deepening that kiss, his hand tangled in the hair they just untangled and his mouth only ever breaking away for the briefest sip of air before returning to hers. He answers her by barely letting go, despite their teeth clashing and noses bumping, even as he rolls over on his back and pulls her with him. Only once she’s deliciously sprawled atop his body does he give her one last, lingering kiss before lying back with one arm folded under his head and gazing up at her.
When Sansa flutters her eyes open, there’s a dazed look in them, and when she draws in a breath, it's with a drunken smile on her lips. It's even a bit shaky, that breath, and her happiness hums in the exhalation.
“You all right?” he asks, doing absolutely nothing to hide the smugness celebrating in his chest. “You look a bit dizzy.”
She clears her throat, blinking the focus back into her eyes. “Someone”—she arches an eyebrow—”barely let me breathe.”
“Aye, that must be it.”
She gives him another eye-roll. “This can’t be comfortable for you. Am I not heavy?”
“You? You barely weigh a thing. Besides, been lying on my side for ages. My hip started protesting. Like yours did last night. Unless…” He lifts the cover and peers into the dark. “Did you really hit your hip? Or was that part of your seduction?”
“Seduction?” She looks as innocent as a lamb, her voice tooth-achingly sweet. “If you’re hoping to distract me with your accusation to avoid answering my question, you should know I’m not falling for it.”
“What question?”
“The one I asked barely a moment ago. Surely, you haven’t forgotten it already.”
“You’re naked in my arms and you’re very pretty. Forgive me if I’m being a bit distracted.”
She turns her head as if to hide that she nips a budding smile that would've made him smugger still.
(Her eyes still glitter when she looks back at him.)
“I forgive you.”
“Thank you, Sansa,” he says, pushing himself up to give her another kiss.
“You’re incorrigible," she murmurs against his lips, but she kisses him back anyway before nudging him back down and cutting him a look too impish to be truly stern. “I want an answer.”
Jon rests a hand at the small of her back. “I have no idea what you asked."
She gasps, offended, and swats him on the chest. "Would you listen this time or do I need to put on my shift?"
"No need for threats," he says, holding her firmly against him. "I'll listen."
Though she bites her lip, it does little to kill the smile telling him she rather enjoys his stupid flirting.
“What would you prefer," she says, enunciating each word very clearly, "marriage or moontea?”
He shrugs. “I rode out to save a beautiful maiden. Dropped everything too, even though I am a king. Only right I get to marry her too.”
“I see,” Sansa says, fingers skimming his beard from ear to chin and back again. “I’m to be your reward?”
“It’s how the songs go. The knight gets to bring his prize back to his keep. The maiden gets to marry her knight. You find that romantic, remember?”
“I don’t. Not anymore.”
“Did the leather armor ruin it for you? Suppose I can find a suit of armor and prance about if it helps. I’ll have it polished and all. How’s that?”
“The armor isn’t the issue. I don’t find it romantic to be a reward. I’m not a prize to be won.”
Perhaps doubt should hit him now, but she’s still draped over him, her fingers still comb a beard that by now must be rather unkempt and unappealing, her eyes still glitter like water in sunlight, and his gift still hangs around her neck, the medallion resting on his chest. Just like her pretty tits.
Being confident has never been easier.
“I still think you should be mine,” Jon says. “Or my heart will break.”
“Not getting a reward for your bravery will break your heart?”
“If the reward is the woman I love? Aye, it would break my heart if she drank moontea and left me. But I don’t think she will.” He hooks a finger around the silver chain and slides it down to the medallion. “Something tells me she loves me too.”
“You are conceited.”
“Maybe I am. Doesn’t make me wrong, though.”
“And when did this happen?” She follows the whorls of his ear with the tips of her fingers before burying them in his hair and giving his scalp the lightest of scratches. (It feels so good he’d wag his tail if he had one.) “This falling in love. Last night, when we danced?”
He shakes his head.
“Then it must’ve been when you saved me. That’s how the songs go, after all. The brave knight saves the maiden, they fall madly in love, and live happily ever after.”
“That’s not how the songs go. Thought you knew that.”
“Tell me, then. How do the songs go?”
“Out of all the knights who try to save the maiden, only one succeeds—and it’s never one of the knights who ride out to be a hero. A man hungry for glory can’t defeat the beast. He can’t win the maiden’s heart. It wouldn’t be romantic.”
“Then what motivation would be romantic?”
“I don’t know, Sansa. You tell me. Why would he drop everything and ride like a madman for days and days? Why would he walk all the way home with her instead of doing the sensible thing and throwing her over his dragon's back so they can fly? Why would he follow her around like a damn fool when she’s being too stubborn for her own good?”
“Perhaps he has nothing better to do?”
“He’s a king. He has plenty to do—and he left all of it to save her. Wouldn’t rest until he did. Because he already loved her.”
The smile curving her lips is so beautiful he has to cup her cheek again, has to feel that smile by tracing it with the pad of his thumb
“It’s the maiden who falls in love when she’s saved, Sansa. Not the knight. He fell long before she did.”
“I think you might be wrong about that,” she murmurs, her eyes softer even than her voice. “The maiden has dreamed about the knight for a long time. She didn’t know it, that’s all. Not until he came for her.”
“A long time, eh? How long?”
“I’m not sure. I’ve not examined that too closely. I don’t think I’d like the answer.”
“I might like it.”
“I’m sure you would. You’re a very vain man.”
Jon laughs, quietly. “So, it was him all along?” he asks, caressing her cheek. “The maiden didn’t just have some idea in her head of the man she’d like to marry one day and this knight happened to fit well enough? It's not just gratitude and relief she's feeling?”
“It's not."
"And she's not just living out a fantasy? Pretending life's a song. Playing her part."
"She's not. It was him all along. But it wasn’t something she wanted to admit, even to herself.”
“Until he saved her and she threw herself in his arms.”
Eyes downcast, Sansa blushes prettily. “No, she was still lying then. Not for long, though. Remember that first night, when he told her he’d keep her warm? It felt as though…”
Her blush deepens into scarlet, her head wilting like a neglected flower and coming to rest on his shoulder, her cheek hot against his cool skin.
“When you whispered in my ear,” she says, quietly, her nervous fingers running along his scars, “that you would keep me warm, it made me feel things I’ve never felt before. Never that strongly. And never all of it at once.”
“All of it?”
“In my heart—and in my body. In every part of me. It was overwhelming. Frightening, really. So I still lied to myself, using the same excuse I’d used ever since I was taken. Every night, I dreamed of you—of us—and every morning I woke up alone and miserable. Every day I stared out over the world and felt hopeless and afraid. It made it easy to decide it wasn’t real, what I felt. That it was nothing but a fantasy to comfort myself with. But then, the next morning, after a whole night of dreaming of you, I woke up and I wasn't alone anymore. You were there. You were real and I… I wanted it. All of it. I wanted you to take me home and marry me and love me. And that frightened me as well. It terrified me.”
“You weren’t ready?”
“I thought you didn’t like me. And if I couldn’t hide it, what I felt…? I didn’t want to make everything even worse.”
“That’s why you were so cold that morning.” Jon laughs under his breath at his own stupidity. “I should’ve known.”
Sansa lifts her head and gives him a puzzled look. “Why?”
“Why do you think I distanced myself?”
Her mouth drops open. “You’ve known that long?”
“I’ve known for that long that I want you, but I’ve been lying too. Told myself it's all it was. Want.” He slides his hand down to cup her bum. “Desire. But then you were taken and I knew it was more than that. That it always was.”
“Always?”
“I still think I fell first,” he says, only half-aware of his lips moving, of the words leaving them. “I think I’ve loved you since I saw you at Castle Black.”
They sound true, his words. Feel true. Feel like a horrible secret he’s hid even from himself that now's laid bare for her to be shocked by. Repelled by. But the panic dispels as quickly as it struck for red hair falls to frame his face and soft lips capture his in the sweetest of kisses. The first one she’s given him since she kissed him in her sleep. He feels this one in his whole body too, but instead of stirring questions and doubts, it soothes them so well his mind goes entirely quiet for one blissful moment.
“Still awake?” he whispers once she pulls away.
“You don’t have to ask me every time,” she whispers back.
“Well,” he says, nuzzling her nose, “someone once told me ladies only ever kiss their intended. And you just kissed me. Just making sure it means what I think it means.”
“Your memory is very poor this morning.” She gives him another sweet kiss. “Someone once told you that while ladies can allow their intended to kiss them, the only kisses ladies initiate are with their husbands."
“We’re not wed.”
“No, we’re not.”
“Suppose I’m just irresistible, then.”
She lets out a breath through her nose. “I blame the storm. There must’ve been something in the rain that turned me a bit wicked.”
“A bit? You were no lady last night nor were you one this morning. Can’t say you’re very ladylike now, either.” He gives her bum a good squeeze. “The storm must’ve washed it right off you.”
It’s only then Jon realizes how happy she’s looked all morning. How she’s been all aglow with it, for now a cloud of wariness dulls that glow and it feels as if the storm’s returned to paint the sky the dark shade of shame.
“Would you have preferred a lady?” she asks, her voice carefully even.
“Didn’t say that,” he says, softly. “I wasn’t complaining, Sansa. I'm a very happy man."
“And what if we return home and I become a lady again? Would that disappoint you?”
“I wish I had an answer, but I have no idea what that means.”
“What did you mean when you said I wasn’t a lady?”
“I don’t know. I thought it would take longer. Much longer. To get where we are. And in a different order. Was inside you before I’d even kissed you." He lets out a chuckle, cheeks feeling awfully warm. “Never imagined that. Never imagined you’d show me what you wanted. Not that soon. I thought you’d be too shy to do the things you did. But I’m glad I was wrong. I am. You surprised me, is all.”
“I did feel shy.” When she averts her eyes and draws in a breath to continue, he can see her lady’s mask flickering on her face like the shadow of a flame, can feel the tension returning to her body, and the chill of the impenetrable wall she puts between herself and the world whenever she’s uncomfortable. “I was shy,” she says in a tone ill-suited for pillow talk. “Shy and insecure. But I decided to—”
Their eyes meet and whatever she sees in his must’ve pulled her out of her defensive habits, for with a deep sigh, she lets it all fall and turns back to the soft Sansa few in the realm ever get to see anymore.
“We don’t have to talk about that,” he says. “I know it’s difficult for you.”
“It is. Difficult for me. But I want to talk about it. I want to learn to be comfortable with it. I don’t want to become a lady again now that I know how you feel. Not when we’re alone.”
He hasn’t the slightest clue what she means and must look as confused as he feels, for with another sigh, she slides off him and tucks herself into the scant space between him and the wall. But though she turns her back to him, she reaches for his hand and tells him with a tug that she doesn’t want distance. She wants him closer, wants them to cuddle in the safety of their cocoon.
It’s why, when she stays quiet for a spell, he stays quiet too, waiting patiently for the words she seemingly can’t share if she has to face him.
“I was shy,” she whispers after a while, pressing his hand against her chest, allowing him to feel how her heart races. “I was so nervous and so insecure. I didn’t know what I was supposed to do. I only knew what I wanted to do. But there was this voice, in the back of my head, telling me I was being wicked and bad. That I needed to stop. But I didn’t want to stop. I wanted to enjoy myself and feel good for once. I still couldn’t say what you felt, but it didn’t matter. I knew it might be my only chance to experience something good. I knew it might be my only chance to be with you and I really wanted to be with you. No matter what that voice told me, I refused to let that moment go to waste. So I pretended that I was brave. I pretended I couldn't hear it.”
“Did it work?”
“Not at first. But…” She hums, hugging his arm closer to her. “You made it easier. The way you looked at me. No one’s ever looked at me that way before. It wasn’t desire—”
“Oh, it was.”
“Well, yes,” she says, a smile in her voice. “But men have looked at me with desire before and it’s always unsettling. It always makes me feel… less. As though I don’t matter. Only what they can take from me. It wasn’t like that with you. You made me feel more. As though you wanted...”
When she falls into another silence, he lets it be, once more waiting for her to find her words and her courage, supporting her wordlessly with tender fingers caressing her arm.
“Before we… did that,” she continues, “there were moments when I thought maybe you wanted me. Or at least were frustrated enough I’d do. That I’d be nothing but a warm, convenient body. And I—”
Jon smiles through his nose, shaking his head.
“It’s true,” she says. “I really did believe that.”
“I believe you.”
“You shook your head. I could feel it.”
“Aye, I did. At myself. At the both of us. I had similar thoughts. That maybe you found me safe enough to be with, safe enough to satisfy your needs. That it wouldn't be anything other than that. Even as we did it. At least until you fell asleep and I noticed the necklace I gave you.”
“I knew it,” she murmurs. “I took such care to hide it, because I knew you’d know.”
“You weren’t hiding it then. Did you want me to see it?”
“I wasn’t thinking about it at all. I wasn’t thinking about anything, really. Finally. All night, I’d wondered and wondered and wondered. It was exhausting. I was trying to find out what you wanted. What you felt. And that’s all. You can accuse me all you like, but I was not trying to seduce you.”
Jon bursts out laughing, can’t help himself.
“I wasn’t! I wouldn’t even know how.”
“Must’ve been beginner’s luck, then.”
“Honestly. I didn’t think anything would happen. I only wanted to know how you felt. But then you got hard and I—”
“Started your seduction.”
“—wanted to find out whether your predicament had anything at all to do with me—and whether you were hoping to do something about it. Whether pleasure was enough for you to do something stupid.”
“Don’t say that. You’re very clever, Sansa.”
“What— Oh.” She tuts with a shake of her head. “Are you always like this after you've gotten your needs met?”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know. Incredibly pleased with yourself?”
“How could I not be? You’re the perfect lady. All prim and proper and well-behaved. And yet you wanted me so badly you spent a whole night seducing me and we weren't—"
“I didn’t! I didn’t even know whether I wanted something to—”
Jon interrupts her with a snort. “You should be glad this isn’t a trial. Your defense needs work.”
“How would you know when you won't hear it? Yes. A part of me wanted to do someone stupid, it's true, a very—”
“Wet part?”
“Jon!”
“Not wrong, though, am I.”
“You’re really enjoying this.”
“You going on and on about how much you want me? Aye, I could listen to that all day.”
“And yet you keep interrupting me.”
“I’m teasing my woman,” he murmurs. “Could do that all day as well.”
“I’m not your woman yet.”
“You are.” He holds her closer with something akin to a growl purring low in his throat. “You’re mine. My fair maiden, my prize. I saved you and now I’m going to carry you back to my keep and make you my wife too.”
He feels her giggling more than he hears it, her stomach jumping against his arm, her laughing trilling quietly, like the faintest of birdsongs, and it’s still such a novel and wonderful thing, it pulls him along, making him chuckle too.
“You do it on purpose, don’t you?" she asks, toying with his fingers. "That thing with your voice.”
“What thing?”
“Oh, stop it. You know perfectly well what I mean. It’s not the first time you’ve done it.”
“No," he says, "it’s not.”
“You noticed, then. That first night. That it… affects me.”
“You gasped. Heard that. And you were acting a bit strange. So I thought... Maybe. Maybe I'm really lucky. And then we were flirting? At least it felt like it. Then we woke up and you were cold and I didn't know what to think. It kept being like that, day after day. I thought I knew things and then I didn't and then it seemed as though maybe I was right after all and then it didn't and then it turns out I was." He blows out a breath. "You’ve been rather confusing.”
“So have you. Most of all, last night.”
“Was brave of you, then. To seduce me. Doing it now too, aren’t you? Lying here all naked, talking about what we did last night. Trying to get my blood hot again.”
“I am not trying to seduce you!” she all but yells, but there's a hint of laughter in her voice that tells him she’s not truly upset. That she’s enjoying the banter as much as he is. “Last night, I did something I never thought I would do. Something that changes everything. I feel so different and I have all these thoughts and feelings and I want to talk about them before I burst. And I want to talk about yours! Your thoughts, your feelings, and all the—" She quiets, suddenly, her hand leaving his. He doesn't need to see her face to know that the smile she wore while talking now is fading. "Suppose it's not like that for you," she mumbles. "None of this is new to you. It’s not special. Not the way it is to me. This must be tedious. You've done it all before."
"Not with you. It's different with you. And… Sansa, two weeks ago, I thought I’d never see you again and now look at us. If you think this is boring to me, you couldn't be more wrong. This is special.”
“Really?” Her hand finds his again and the excitement makes a careful return to her voice. “You understand what I mean, then? How it feels as though… I don’t know. The last time I can remember feeling anything even remotely close to this was when I finished that book. I didn’t want it to end. So I went back to the start and read it all over again and it was wonderful. I understood things I hadn’t before, enjoyed things I hadn’t before, and found answers to all these questions I had. It made it even better. Does it… Does it feel like that to you?”
“Aye. It does.” He rubs his face softly against her back. “I want to know everything as well.”
“Then perhaps you should be a good boy and behave this time.”
“All right. I’ll be a good boy for you.”
“Will you really?”
“Aye, if you want me to.” He pauses, lifting himself up a little to look at her. “Do you, though? Last night you said it made you feel better. When I said that thing about kissing and making up. And now…” He shrugs. “Couldn’t help but notice you’ve forgotten to be shy. Telling me to be a good boy and all. Trying to seduce me again.”
"I'm not," she says, laughing.
He drops a kiss to her shoulder, murmuring, "Maybe you should."
"I... Jon, is this only banter or do you truly expect me to seduce you now? I can't tell. I can't tell whether you believe I did last night or whether you were only teasing me. I don't know this game well enough to play the part you're expecting me to play."
"What part?"
"The... seductress. I might not seem very ladylike to you at the moment, but that doesn't mean I've stopped being one and ladies are not taught that particular... art."
With a fond laugh, Jon gives her shoulder another kiss before settling back in. "I know. I'm not expecting you to play the seductress. We'll just keep talking. I do want that."
He does. He wants to hear the happiness, the tenderness in her voice when she talks about her feelings. He wants to assuage whatever worries linger within her, wants her to assuage the ones lingering in him. And he needs her to confirm, once and for all, that all those moments when he thought that maybe she wanted him too weren't all in his head. Besides, he thinks, filling his hand with the wonderful weight of his woman's breast, smiling to himself when she moves her arm to accommodate him, by the time they're done talking, he has no doubt that she'll have managed to seduce him again. Just like she did last night.