H | currently asoiaf pilled

maekar took a deep, steadying breath, trying very hard not to snap at his newly betrothed. or throttle her. was it truly too late to call the arrangement off? a prince of the realm could do as he pleased, after all.

“it excites me in the same measure as a court meeting about grain taxes does, wife,” he grunted, fingers tightening onto the half-empty goblet of wine in his hand. he would need way more than that for what was to come in a few moments. maekar would drown himself in numerous barrels if it would spare him from having to pretend to fuck his wife in front of tens of courtiers and ladies in waiting. oh, and a maester. how could he have forgotten? the gods also needed to be witnesses to such a sacred arrangement. the more people see the proof of his virility, the better. they should invite the whole realm if they are so eager to see him perform his husbandry duties.

“grain taxes,” was heard from his right, your voice deadpan as you sneaked a glance towards him, a huff falling from your lips. “it pleases me that my lord husband would associate us having a moment of unbridled passion with the ever ardent intricacies of grain taxes,” your lips twitched, a little smile in the corner, cheeky.

he could feel the vein in his temple pulsing. a headache was on the way. and even then, it couldn’t even come close to the one that was already in his presence. he could’ve asked all the healers in the seven kingdoms, and none of them would be able to cure him of the ever-lasting migraine that was his wife.

a wound without a cure. a curse without benediction. a grueling fate without end, at least for now.

“unbridled passion?” he almost bristled at the words. the assumption that there will be anything but a poor attempt at make-believe on his part grated on his nerves. “i would have hoped that you would not delude yourself into believing we shall be doing more than a farce of this, wife.”

maekar was not about to engage in any intimate endeavors with his new wife. the court should be more than pleased that he was even willing to go along with this to begin with. having sycophants linger near their royal chambers while they were supposed to get lost in the throes of passion was unnerving enough. he will have to make it seem like the consummation happened, like he was on the other side of the door, pleasing his wife and proving the realm he was still a man in his prime, capable of desire. figures.

“a farce?” you probed, eyebrow raised, the arch of your mouth thinning in displeasure. “you would make a sham of our consummation?” the tone of your voice seemed almost… offended, as if you couldn’t believe your husband would even go to such lengths to avoid bedding you.

that timbre of your voice made his brows furrow, lifting the goblet of wine to his lips to stall his response, glancing to the side over the rim of the cup. he allowed himself a furtive glance towards you, enough to notice the slight narrowing of your eyes. you were opposing him, just as you have been doing since ink touched scroll a fortnight ago, when both of your fates were tied by duty and vow.

“not a sham,” he corrected, although he was not sure it held much truth. “i am sparing both of us of the dreadful act of having to touch one another more than necessary, which i was of the impression would please you. not make you look like a scorned child.”

there was a long, tense silence before you spoke again, voice barely above a whisper. “you would think it dreadful to touch one another?”

maekar paused for a moment, taken aback by the note of disbelief underlying your words, making him turn to look at you fully now, needing to see why you would have that reaction to such a simple truth. “by the looks of it, wife, you do not seem to share my sentiment?”

there was a sharp glint in your eyes now, the poise in your posture faltering for a moment, giving way to tension, before you gathered yourself. “not in the slightest. i deem it preposterous that you would even think of it in such a manner,” you retorted, chin lifting, proud. “or, is it perhaps a ploy to conceal your dignity, my lord husband?”

“my dignity?” his voice dipped low, almost cautionary, making it clear that your next words should be chosen very carefully, lest you wish to start something maekar was not sure you had the wits about you to see through.

but you did not seem frightened in the slightest by his attempt to dissuade you.

“yes,” you reinforced, head tilting just so to the side, feigning innocence. “are you so unassured in your virility that you would devise such schemes to keep it from being questioned? i reckon it is normal for a man of your station to care so deeply about these things, but such lengths are truly ridicu—”

your words were cut off by rough, calloused fingers pressing into your cheeks, hard enough to stall your speech as maekar leaned into your space. he was gripping your face, keeping your gaze on his, not giving you an inch of room to even tilt your head one side or the other.

“one more word out of you, and i swear to all the seven,” he snarled, purple eyes slanted in a glare so scathing it could burn you whole, like dragon-fire. he felt the moment your breath hitched, the short puff of air brushing his fingers. “i will throttle you right here, in front of all these good-for-nothing lickspittles.”

he was expecting your demeanor to change. for fear to cloud your vision and reason to come back to you. for apologies to tumble unbidden from your mouth, hoping to appease and coax him into being merciful.

no wife, no woman of his will look him in the eye with so much fervor, insulting one of the qualities he was boastful about. his virility? maekar had sired six children. a feat worthy of praise. a testament to the strength of his seed, to the potency of it. to how easy it was for it to take root in a fertile womb and conceive heirs for him.

his newly betrothed had some nerve trying to undermine the one thing the whole realm knew to be true.

with that same nerve, you looked maekar in the eyes and smiled. a quirk of your lips, eyes lowering as the pressure of his fingers rose, half—lidded with something akin to satisfaction, as if you wanted this to happen, waiting for your husband to lose control and exert that temper you knew flared at the slightest provocation. too quick now, after a fortnight of constant instigation from you, feeling like his fuse grew shorter and shorter, and now it was only a matter of time before all hell broke loose, inevitably.

your tone was soft, but the challenge beneath it was unmistakable. “did i perhaps touch a nerve, my lord husband? is it truly so easy to have you rattled? enough to grasp me like a brute, where anyone can see? and at our wedding feast, no less.” the more you talked, the more honey weaved through your words. but it wasn’t sweet, not in the slightest. it burned. “have manners been forgotten by a prince of the realm? i would've thought you more courteous than this.”

you were toying with him, like a cat would a mouse. and maekar targaryen had never been faced with such a thing, with a woman who dared bare her teeth back at him after he showed his. it made the ancient blood that flowed through his veins sear under his skin, hackles raising as if he was a dragon in human form, ready to breathe fire onto its enemies and leave smoke and ash behind.

the gods knew to take dragons away, for if they were still roaming around them now, maekar wouldn’t have hesitated to feed his novel betrothed to his own and watch from the sidelines, not missing a moment.

the thought made his fingers dig even harder into her cheeks, the soft skin dimpling under his blunt nails. your lips were pursed because of the pressure, and maekar will not admit to himself how his scathing glare flitted to the way they formed a pout, glistening still with the wine you were drinking prior. you looked ridiculous. that’s why his eyes lingered before returning to hold your gaze.

“you don’t deserve my manners,” he downright growled, a sound so deep and rumbly, like a dragon made flesh, leaning in until your noses almost touched, but he won’t allow more contact between you two than what he was willing to offer. “you don’t deserve anything that i have to give,” he almost spat, his broad chest heaving slightly, as if restraint was becoming hard to grasp. “i do not want to give you anything, you insufferable wench.”

your eyes widened for a moment at his words, but yet again, there was no fear, no offense, not even a sliver of rebuttal. only pure delight, as if his harsh words were music to your ears.

maekar did not understand. why were you not cowering? why were you not mellowing out? why in gods name were you tipping your head forward, close enough for your breaths to mingle.

“but you will, my lord husband,” came your whisper, brushing against his rough lips, as if you wanted him to taste the resolve in your words, the defiance in your tone. “i am your lady wife. what is yours, is mine.” another twitch of your lips, now higher, more pleased, like a cat that got the cream. “and i shall have it, even if i need to take it from you by any means necessary.”

“you know not of what you speak—”

“and neither do you,” you interjected, firmer this time, your gaze lowering to his lips for just a moment, as if pondering a secret only known by you, before lifting to make eye contact again. “your riches do not interest me. the crown i could do without. your name is nothing but an ancient thing that binds me to you,” you had his attention, to his absolute dismay, and it visibly pleased you.

“what i want,” a pause, leaning in enough to let your lips brush his, making him recoil, before he stubbornly held his place, not wanting to show how much the contact unnerved him. “is you, my lord husband.”

you must’ve had too much to drink, maekar thought. what you were saying made no sense to him, sounding like a lie the simpering women would whisper into one’s ear when they wanted to climb into their beds and rut on their cocks to solidify their station. it must be a ploy to try and soften him, to make him pliant and susceptible to future indulgences of yours.

you wanting him? why in gods name would that interest you in the slightest, when many other things should garner your attention, those which were mentioned by you. it should’ve been his gold, his station, his name, his connections.

not him. never him.

“do not think yourself so clever,” he spat, feeling his frustration mount, underlined with a begrudging sense of confusion, which he chose to ignore. “to believe that i shall fall for these empty words of sentiment,” maekar continued, fingertips squishing more of your now flushed cheeks, but not enough to bruise. he was not a brute to mar a woman, let alone one tied to him by marriage, contrary to rumors and whispers. “so do not waste your breath, my lady. it will do you no good, and i am not inclined to listen further.”

he thought that would be sufficient to shut you up, to make you see reason for once since you wed, and stop you from pushing nonsensical notions like they were fact. but you didn’t. his words seemed to only fuel the fire in your eyes, and he could feel the way your jaw clenched just so under his grip, resolve surging.

“i will prove it to you,” fell from your lips, solid and resolute, as if there was not an ounce of apprehension beneath your tongue. “one day, you will see that i speak truth,” a deep, steadying breath passing between your mouths, as if you were holding back something of great weight. “you will rid yourself of this meaningless whim of yours and accept what i am willing to give.” you spoke it as if the future was as you saw fit, and he had no say in it. it enraged and perturbed him in equal measure. “or you won’t have a sliver of peace in my presence.”

as if that was any different from how things have been since the papers were signed. maekar has not had any modicum of repose since he was cursed with a bothersome woman like you. the gods must jest at his expense now more than ever for the hand he was dealt.

“you have a lot of nerve for a—”

“and now, as the night grows near, we shall encourage the lord and lady towards what they surely are most expectant of! their bedding!”

the words boomed among the feast, ripping them apart from one another as every pair of eyes in the hall turned towards them, more attentive than ever.

maekar almost winced. he hated bedding ceremonies, for he would rather walk on glass barefoot than be subjected to such foolish nonsense. but alas, the court demanded it in fear of maekar showing reluctance towards another bride after many years of being a widower. so, he relented, kicking and screaming internally when it was brought to his attention, but anything to shut the mouths of courtiers and realm alike.

maekar did not look to his side. something in his chest pulled him away from meeting your gaze after the charged conversation you had. he hated that your words had been enough to unsettle him, even the tiniest bit.

instead, his eyes followed a group of way too eager lords who were rounding their high table to hoist you up and out of your seat. had they no shame in being so zealous? to let their hands grip at you, lifting you above their shoulders, fingers too rough against the fine silk of your wedding gown. where had decorum gone?

the sight made irritation spark in his gut, especially when he could hear your squeals of delight and the lilting sound of laughter that spilled unbridled from your lips as you were carried away to the royal chambers. it’s like you reveled in this whole travesty. in men touching you so shamelessly while hooting and hollering ribald jokes, one more salacious than the other.

in his case, being tugged on by simpering ladies was nothing but a nightmare come to life, but he had to bite his tongue and go along for the sake of tradition. maekar would’ve rather your hands on him, trying to rid him of his ceremonial cloak and vest, than a bunch of unknown women with too much nerve and too little propriety. he knew you better than he did these squealing birds.

your mirth was ever present when maekar made it to the chambers, his eyes narrowing to slits as he saw the way one of the lords was handling you, too ambitious in the way his fingers were nearly ripping your gown to the floor, leaving you clad in only a thin chemise. and he wasn’t the only one. the rest of the mindless, idiotic sycophants even dared to let their grubby palms smooth down your curves as they hollered more japes.

the ladies tending to him were more reserved, probably sensing maekar’s prickly nature, his body language so stiff they could barely get his tunic off, now half open, letting the broad expanse of his chest peek through, smattered with fine white hairs.

“a sword needs its sheath, don’t it, my lady?” exclaimed one of the men as his rugged fingers jerked your chemise down your shoulders, exposing the soft mounds of your breasts to the air, nipples hardening into dusky peaks. maekar’s breath stalled for a moment at the sight.

and like a beacon, every lord in the room had no shame in taking it all in, mouths open like panting bulls, some even licking their lips as if wanting to taste, making maekar’s restraint thin.

“gods, i wish my mother hadn’t weaned me, for your breasts are a sight to behold, my—”

“that’s enough,” slipped from maekar’s mouth, regretting it for a moment, before he pressed on. “keep your hands and your words to yourself if you wish to still draw breath where you stand.”

his tone was sharp, brooking no argument, if the people in attendance were smart. enough to cut every single jest, straightening the backs of every man in the room like clockwork, their mouths shut so tight their jaws trembled.

“y—your grace—”

“get the fuck out of the room before i decide to turn my wedding night crimson with the blood of the lot of you,” he barked, taking one step closer to where they stood, and it was sufficient to make them scramble, almost tripping over themselves to stand on the other side of the door.

the ladies remaining were uncertain of what to do, how to proceed. they haven’t undressed the prince like they meant to, hovering near maekar, almost trembling themselves.

“ah, ladies, do not fret,” you lilted, sweet like honeysuckle, stepping towards maekar, one hand lifting to press against the opening of his shirt, fingers spreading, brushing through the fine chest hairs. “i shall have the pleasure of undressing my husband myself. these muscles will know my touch alone.”

and for all the bravado he showed earlier, maekar could barely breathe under the bold touch of your hand, soft fingers brushing through the smattering of white onto his skin, reverent, as if you liked the sensation. and your words, spoken so saccharine, but he could tell it pleased you. having him to yourself. gods, what was wrong with you?

“now, off you go,” you continued, leaning into maekar’s space, pressing your bare breasts against his arm, his bicep cushioned between them. “my husband is ever eager to consummate our marriage, and i do not have the heart to make him wait any longer.”

maekar’s breath left him in one fell swoop, half from the feeling of your lush flesh pressing against his arm, and half from your words. you were a temptress, and the want to throttle you was coming back full force now, just as it was at the feast.

the door closed no long after, leaving you alone in the shared room, but not without company, for the lords and ladies, accompanied by one maester, had to hover on the other side, awaiting no doubt sounds of pleasure to waft through the mahogany wood.

“i’m pretty certain one of them was drooling while looking at my breasts,” you whispered, as if it was a secret, as if maekar hadn’t seen the hunger in their eyes and wanted to rip out each eyeball from their sockets with his bare hands.

“that does not concern me,” came his response, narrowed gaze dropping to where your hand still caressed his chest.

“mhm,” a pause, before your chin lifted, peering at him, a quirk to your lips. “i’m also certain one of them was eager enough to grope at them. i felt it.”

“which one?”

he hated the way he bristled, eyes traveling even lower now, to where your breasts were pushed up against his bicep, cushioning the corded muscle. god, but you had nice tits. they looked good squished against him, but he didn’t give that thought too much attention. he just liked tits a lot, is all. yours held no significance than, let’s say, a whore’s would.

the smile you gave him as soon as the inquiry left his mouth was so self-gratifying, he almost took his words back.

“i thought it did not concern you, my lord husband,” you reminded him, pressing even closer, the hand onto his chest drifting down, deft fingers slowly popping open the buttons on his tunic. “why the sudden interests, hm?”

maekar’s hand shot up to stop yours, halting your progress in undressing him, chest heaving slightly as he grit out, feeling tense as a coiled spring now that you two were alone and so, so close.

“stop it. we are not going to—”

and his words dissolve into a punched out groan as your hand trailed down to his crotch, where you seemed delighted to find him half—hard, and have no shame to press the heel of your palm into the growing thickness, rubbing in a slow downward motion.

“no?” you breathe, and the smile you give him is syrupy. he swears he can taste it, your words almost mocking him for his weakness, for the reaction his body had to… all of this. “then why are you hard, my lord husband? was the touch of all those ladies so satisfactory that it aroused you?”

and maekar wants to say that, yes, he got hard from those stupid court ladies feeling him up and tugging at his clothes, and not from the sight of your breasts pressed up against him, pebbled nipples brushing against the satin of his tunic. and definitely not from thinking how well his mouth could fit around one of them to suckle and lap at like a dog.

these feverish thoughts were just a result of not having seen a woman half—bare in years, and his body was betraying him by plaguing his mind with debauched scenarios that would never happen. that should never happen. he couldn't let himself show intimacy in such a way.

“because you keep touching me,” he snapped, harsher than he would have wanted, but he was so tense, and your hand felt too good, a fact which would never reach your ears. “even though i expressed no desire to want such a thing.”

your hand did not stop, whatsoever, continuing to rub slowly over the now fully hard cock in his breeches, making his breathing come in short, angry puffs against your cheek.

“then stop me,” you offered, only leaning closer, as if goading him into trying. “you’re a strong man. i reckon you could overpower a lady if you wanted,” then your lips pursued, thoughtful, and you continued. “unless… the stories i’ve heard about the anvil’s prowess were only tales for sleeping children?”

maekar knew what you were doing, playing him like a fiddle, making him lose all reason and succumb to your whims against his will, as if he were a weak man. as if he couldn’t discern between what he wanted to do and what you wanted him to do.

and still, he was powerless when challenged, like you knew his visceral need to prove himself to you, or anyone else. the gnawing ache in his chest whenever someone dared question him in any aspect of his life.

but more so, when his strength was disputed. undermined.

it did not even take a blink of an eye until he had grabbed you by the arm, hauling you over to the bed, pushing you backwards until you fell, sprawled against the furs and pelts, which cushioned the fall.

his weight pressed you into the mattress like the anvil itself, his knees bracketing your hips, holding you where he wanted you, wide-eyed and breasts jiggling with every breath. for a moment, he reveled in the surprise etched onto your face, before it turned into a cheeky smirk as your hands wasted no time before brushing down his chest again, seeking to undress him.

“so eager, my lord husband,” she whispered, still a bit breathless from the rough manhandling, but delighted beyond measure. “do not tell me that you’ve been secretly aching for this?”

maekar scoffed, scowling down at her from above, even as his breath hitched. gods, no one had touched him like this in so long. not with this teasing familiarity, and not on a night meant to be cold and ceremonial, even if they had never lain together. hell, even stood next to each other for more than duty demanded in the last fortnight.

your hands were warm, picking at the buttons like you had all the time in the world, and it grated on his nerves, even more so when he saw the smirk on your plush lips widening the more skin you uncovered.

he caught your wrist, firm enough to stop your exploration, holding it over his chest for a tense moment, before releasing it, brushing it to the side so he could take over, undoing the buttons himself. maekar rationalized that it was because you were agonizingly slow, and your touch annoyed him, the feeling of your fingertips brushing his skin prickling, leaving gooseflesh behind.

the tunic fell away swiftly, leaving him bare-chested, a mountain of corded muscle and sinew, veins traveling along his forearms and down his throat from how tense he was. your eyes drank him in, mouth parting in a sigh, overly pleased, as if the sight of him alone unraveled you.

it did not take long for your hands to follow the same path your gaze did, pawing shamelessly at the broad expanse of scarred skin, brushing over the smattering of thin white hairs onto his chest and down his navel.

maekar’s skin prickled further under your touch. he could feel your fingers over every scar. the one from dragonstone’s training yard when he was still a boy, the thin line across his ribs from a valyrian steel sword graze, now traced by curious, gentle fingers. but equally desirous.

the low rumble from his throat slipped without his permission as you continued, now groping at the thick muscles of his biceps and pectorals, sighing while you did it, breathy and satisfied, as if the feel of his muscles pleased you. being audacious enough to sink your fingers into the skin, to squeeze and feel every inch you could get under your palms. and he couldn’t do anything but watch you, feeling his breath hitch as he saw you lick your lips, slow and habitual, as if you didn’t realize you did it while feeling him up.

the prince could not get his bearings anymore. his breath came faster now—shallow, uneven. each one of your touches burned like fire, leaving behind a scorching trail. your hands were not those of a shy, hesitant maiden. no, they felt like a claim, like you were worshiping his body with shameless delight, exploring every hard ridge and dense muscle as if you’d been starved for it, as if you’d been waiting to do it.

“gods, husband,” slipped from your mouth as he felt a particularly lingering touch down his abdomen, your nails scraping along the skin, making the muscles ripple. “but you are a sight to behold,” you almost moaned, gaze half—lidded with nothing but unrelenting hunger. “you look delicious enough to eat,” you continued, downright purring now, like a feline playing with your food, daring to brush your hands down his shoulders, and along his arms, nails prickling at the protruding veins along the way. “so big and strong.”

you must’ve had way too much to drink. there was no other explanation as to why such words would come out of your mouth, why your palms touched him like you wanted him. that could not be. no one wanted him. no one should’ve wanted him. he was a hardened warrior, a widower, a father of six, a man who didn’t need—

gods above… delicious? how could you call him something so absurdly ridiculous? as if he were a feast laid out for your personal consumption. as if his body was made to be admired—devoured in its entirety—by her shameless gaze and persistent hands.

“how come no lady pounced on you sooner, hm?” you had the nerve to question—still touching him, mapping out his body like it was yours alone to do with as you pleased—as if there was a line out the door of ladies wanting nothing more but to jump on his cock and have their way with him. what preposterous notions had you in that head of yours? you must’ve hit it when you were a child, to think such perceptions.

his jaw tightened, trying to regain some sort of upper hand against you. “no lady is as impudent as you,” he reproached, his lip lifting in a half snarl, like a beast held at bay. “as adamant to touch something that isn’t yours—”

“isn’t?” you interjected, nails digging into the meat of his abdomen, hard enough to leave red crescent moons behind. a mark of yours, as if punishing him for even daring to say such a thing, when he knew you were bound by vow beneath the old gods and the new. it made maekar hiss, like a dragon challenged, ready to retaliate. “you are mine, by law and by vow,” you firmly stated, nails biting at skin anew, scraping down, painting red indent lines along ivory. “just as i am yours,” maekar had half a mind to snap, to bite, to do anything to stop the words coming out of your mouth, but you did not waver. “yours to have, yours to take, yours to touch.”

a beat, your chest heaving now, too, just like his was, only softer. “so touch me, husband,” provocation again, in your tone, in your gaze, in every single inch of your body. “unless you do not know how? has your prowess deserted you in the years of widowing?” maekar was moments away from strangling you, his fingers twitching with the urge to just wrap them around your throat and squeeze until not even breath slipped past your lips. but he had no such luck, for your next words stalled him, unmoving.

“shall i scream for all those court vipers to hear?” you incited, eyes narrowed, nails still deep into his skin, but he could barely feel the sting over the pounding in his ears over your goading. “shall i let the whole realm know that my lord husband is incapable of even touching his lady wife? of being man enough to make her feel good? instead of standing there gaping at a pair of tits like a green boy in his first whorehouse, incapable of—”

maekar’s eyes flashed—anger. humiliation. and something he couldn’t name, but it burned in his gut, spreading all the way down to his cock, hard enough to split stone now. it was surely the adrenaline of it all, his nerves on high alert, heart pounding so hard in his chest he could taste it in his mouth. nothing else. it couldn’t be anything else. not with you.

you were baiting him again. mocking his hesitation and reluctance to touch you, tone biting, just as your nails have been on his skin. words spoken like a commoner, not even close to the speech of a highborn lady, now wife of a prince of the realm. a targaryen.

he couldn’t continue like this. not with your hands on him, with your eyes watching him like you wanted him, like you desired him. with your—gods, with your tits bouncing with every breath, enticing him to forget all about your insolence and dip down to mouth and slobber all over them like a fucking dog until you moaned and arched against his tongue and teeth and—

his hands were rough, not enough to bruise, but firm as he grabbed your hips, holding onto the fat there and flipping you in one swift motion. not gently, not romantically.

dominant, like he had no doubt you would stay where he put you, where he wanted you, face down into the furs and pelts, hips angled backwards by his steady grip, bare breasts squished against the mattress, as was your tummy.

“m—maekar—,” you shrieked, surprised and muffled into the bed now, but he didn’t want to hear a word from you now, one palm dipping towards your shoulders, pressing down, keeping you in place. a silent command—stay there or else.

he was breathing hard, like a bull after a good run, nostrils flaring, broad chest heaving, eyes trained on the way your body looked beneath him now, arched, at his mercy, under his strong hands, held in place exactly as he pleased. no longer playing by your whims, no longer unnerved by your gaze or touches. no longer making him question things he was not ready to untangle.

his face was hot, hotter now, as his eyes traced the curves of you, the way your chemise hiked up your thighs, letting him get a peek at your rear. gods, what were you doing to him? maekar wished he could forget the way your ardent gaze devoured him whole, as if he were a god among men, as your tone dipped into sweet honey, sultry and purred.

nothing could unnerve him anymore. he was no longer shackled by—

a whine. pitched and demanding, slipped from your lips as your hips wiggled in his grip, pushing your rear back against him, brushing against the bulge in his breeches, ample flesh jiggling from side to side, catching his gaze like a beacon. “d—do something, you useless brute!” you demanded, back arching with the grace of a feline, pleading for attention without much preamble. still shameless, still without an ounce of decorum.

maekar’s breath left him sharply at the sight. your hips swaying, arse sticking out in unabashed invitation, like you were a cat begging to be scratched, petted—or worse, claimed. how dare you? he thought, incredulous as to how a woman could be this unashamed in her desires—in her want for… him. for this brute, as you called him so brazenly.

a brute, was he?

well, if he were such a brute, then he would act like one, and put you in your damn place once and for all, solidifying his place in this marriage and proving you wrong.

slowly, akin to a predator stalking his prey, his hand moved back towards the fat of your hip to join the other, thumbs digging slightly into the curve where waist met ass, feeling the warmth of you through the silk. you were burning, and he barely touched you yet. what a debauched creature you were.

and then, because you begged with that wiggle and sway, he answered. no longer useless, as his hands slid lower over plush cheeks, palm flattening over one rounded backside, and gave a sharp, resounding smack, making the silken flesh jiggle from the impact.

maekar expected a yelp, a rebuke. not a loud, pleasured moan, like a woman possessed, mouth parting against the pelt under your cushioned cheek, eyelashes fluttering, as if savoring the sting of the strike.

“gods, yes, yes,” you sighed, already pushing your arse back towards his palm, wanting more, like a greedy little thing.

his eyes darkened, the purple obscured by the black now, a flush crawling up his throat at the way you sounded, as if he offered you salvation and damnation both. like you’ve been waiting for this very moment since the wedding feast—his hand smacking your ass like a fucking degenerate commoner. and now you want more.

he didn’t hesitate.

smack. another sharp spank landed, not harsh enough to hurt deeply, but firm and stinging through the fabric of your thin chemise.

“look at you,” he grit out, mocking but reverent in equal measure as he hiked up your chemise to your hips, revealing the heated skin of your arse, where his palm smacked, marking you with ardor. it gave him a thrill like no other to see the labor of his punishment on you.

“arching and begging for it like a fucking cat in heat,” he continued, palm smoothing down the flush of your skin, but not to soothe. just to feel the heated pulse of the flesh there beneath his fingers.

it made his cock twitch in his breeches.

even more when he realized you weren’t wearing any small clothes, as a lady should. like a bride would on her wedding night.

gods, you were audacious beyond measure. he didn’t know if it angered him more than it thrilled him.

“no smallclothes,” he noted, tilting his head, as if assessing the expanse of bare flesh now at his disposal. maekar could even see a peek of the folds of your cunt as you continued to arch into his touches. and you were wet, almost dripping onto your thighs, onto the bedding underneath. his spanks have gotten you aroused. “not even a commoner would be this immodest.”

“don’t need them,” you retorted, only trying to push backwards more, relentless and needy. “they’ll only get in the way of you putting your cock in me.”

all the gods above, that mouth on you was lethal.

the words made a ragged, bitten-off curse fall from his mouth as his fingers moved to spread the globes of your rear enough to expose your pussy better to his gaze.

“drenched,” maekar breathed—still hang up on the way you mentioned his cock in such a raunchy manner, unbefitting of a lady—not being able to tear his eyes away from how soaked you were, and only dripping more, your hole clenching around nothing, as if already taunting him inside. “making a mess all over yourself, like you belong on streets of silk than in the bed of a prince.”

he couldn’t help but lean down, but not towards where you were softest. not yet. his rough lips pressed to the warmth now seared onto your arse, only hovering for a moment, before he pulled back his lips to bite, sinking his teeth into the ardent flesh. gently at first, just a slight press of canines. a dragon claiming what he marked.

then he kissed it. a hot, open—mouthed press that warmed the aching skin even more. no finesses, no romance. just raw possession now, letting you know with teeth and tongue that you belonged to him entirely now, and not the other way around. gods and vows aside. he was not yours. but you were his.

you couldn’t help the soft sounds falling from your lips, every touch from your husband burning. a true dragon’s claim on his hoard. no longer distant, no longer resisting that primal instinct you knew lay dormant within him, just waiting to be taunted out.

“a—ah, you could always move your mouth lower, my lord husband.”

lower.

said in such a sultry, daring way, as if you thought he wouldn't, as if you needed to coax him towards your cunt.

maekar exhaled slowly, the flush on his throat only blooming more insistent with every word from you, each more sweltering than the other. he even forgot about the courtiers lingering on the other side of the door. the thought only made his flush deepen, traveling all the way to the tips of his ears, reddening his cheeks along the way. he’s sure they heard the spanks. gods, they’re gonna think him a barbarian who slaps his wife around for pleasure. and it was only your fault for goading him into such things.

he couldn’t let shame burn too hotly in his gut, choosing to distract himself by slowly peppering kisses up your thighs, tongue laving across the skin, pulling more breathy sounds out of you. every press of lips was deliberate, each one slower than the last, inching where you wanted him most, where you smelled strongest. tangy, musky, and just a bit of sweetness, all dripping out of you, the more attention he gave.

for a prince of the realm, the way he comported himself tonight should’ve been shameful, but he couldn’t think about propriety and etiquette as his nose brushed along your folds, inhaling deeply, searing your scent to the back of his throat as he groaned aloud. fuck, fuck, fuck.

it felt perverted to trail the tip of his nose along your drooly folds, spreading them just so, nudging them apart, coating himself in your juices, mouth dropping open in a near growl.

the sound that got out of you was more like a yelped moan than anything, but you pressed your hips back, as if itching to hump your pussy against the bridge of his nose. and maybe one day, he would let you do just that, but today he had other plans, as he let the tip of his nose bump against your chubby clit, brushing against the silky skin.

“yes, yes, yes, right there,” you whined like a mantra, having no qualms in moving your hips, grinding down helplessly in hopes of pressing the tip of your husband’s nose more firmly against the bundle of nerves at the top of your pussy. “feels good, husband, gods—”

just this. just you humping his nose like a fevered whore, getting him soaked with your slick, enough for it to drip onto his reddened cheeks and even down to his lips, urging him to lick at them, tasting you on his tongue.

that was enough to urge him to stick his tongue out and lave at your pussy, a broad, firm flick of it, greedily soaking up all the wetness he could. maekar would drink from you if he could. if such a thing as the nectar of the gods existed, he was sure it wouldn’t come close to the taste of your cunt on his tongue.

your moan was loud, pulled from deep within your chest, melting you from head to toe as your husband continued to lap at you with a greed rivaling a thief's, stealing the sweetest sounds from your throat, the combination of his nose bumping into your clit and his tongue parting your folds almost making you go cross eyed from pleasure. “don’t stop, don’t—fuck, maekar, don’t stop licking.”

even like this, you were demanding and bossy.

“y’taste good, wife,” came muffled from between your thighs, accompanied by wet, slurping sounds, so lewd and arousing, it only made you drip onto his awaiting tongue more. “if i knew this was all i needed to do to keep your mouth shut,” a suck against your quivering hole, obscene enough to make even you flush. “i would’ve had you spread open right after we signed the papers,” a huff against your wetness, before he nudged his nose against your clit anew, grinding it in slow circular motions, making you shake. “it would’ve saved me a fortnight of peace.”

his words only made you seek his touch more, hips grinding with more fervor, seeking as much pleasure as he could give. “you should’ve,” you retorted, airy and soft, molded around a mewl as his tongue replaced the tip of his nose, circling your clit firmly, your eyes almost rolling back into your head from how good it felt. “should’ve taken me, too. put your cock to good use and render me speechless.”

as always, you were relentless. here he was, drowning in your pussy, and you wanted more. he should’ve left you like that, a sprawled mess onto the bed, aching and whining, showing you the importance of patience. of gratitude. of restraint.

but, alas, he has lost the will to make you suffer, to want to see you crumple, and now only desired this version of you. needy and pliant and pleading for every inch of him like a good wife would.

and even then, he couldn’t forget all the lip you gave him, all those jabs and ceaseless fussing.

your husband was not going to give you everything you wanted when you wanted it. not on your terms.

maekar drew back from between your folds, your juices smeared over the bottom half of his face, coating his beard, glistening in the candlelight, and twirled his tongue around his mouth for a few moments, before spitting right onto your quivering hole, thumb following to spread the wetness around. it was vulgar, but it made you whine louder. so he did it again, a bigger glob of saliva this time, dripping from your entrance to your clit, before trailing down onto the bedding.

“filthy,” he rebuked, as if he wasn’t the one dirtying you with such unabashed lewdness. two thick, calloused fingers swiped through the mixture of slick and spit, gathering it generously before feeding it into your hole, slow and methodical, all the way up to the second knuckle.

and curled, brushing against spongy walls.

“gods—,” you cried out, clenching around his fingers, as if sucking them deeper. it made your husband growl, punishing your greed by curling the digits again, dragging the rough pads along those spots which made your pitch higher, your thighs quiver. “more, maekar,” you pleaded, pushing your hips back, grinding onto his fingers, ass jiggling from the way maekar’s wrist slapped against the bottom of your rear. “need more, ah, need your cock. p—put your cock in me already, you brute—” you tried again, but he ignored you, only adding a third finger, stuffing you more full, placating you. but teasing you in equal measure, like the brute he was.

that seemed to frustrate you more, whine gurgling from your throat, hips gyrating with more insistence. “n—not enough!” you gritted, so, so impatient, focused on getting the only thing you truly wanted. “a true husband would’ve had his cock in me by now! a—are you, ah, fuck,” a harsh flick of his wrist interrupted your protests, deterring you for a moment, before you continued, brows furrowing. “does your prick not work anymore, my lord husband? are you afraid i won’t be satisfied?” the words tumbled out of your mouth unbidden, throwing every taunt at him in hopes of him biting.

“is it so small that it’ll leave me asking for your fingers again or—”

silence.

before a weight settled over your back like a blanket, so warm and sturdy, pinning your upper body onto the pelts ruthlessly, stealing the breath from your lungs, leaving you winded for a few moments.

“shut up,” was growled against your ear, so low and vicious it made your now empty hole quiver and drip even more slick. gods, where had his fingers gone? “you insufferable, wanton wench,” his words dripped with so much venom it made a delicious shiver run down your spine, more than delighted to have him pressed along your back, shoulders to hips, feeling the hard length of his cock press along the folds of your pussy through his breeches.

one of his hands fumbled with the fastenings, pulling himself out, thick and girthy, guiding the head towards your folds, smearing his precum all over the silky flesh as he panted against your ear. “you don’t deserve this,” he rumbled, gliding the cock-head slowly along the wetness, before slapping it against your clit. once, twice, like small love taps, barely giving you any stimulation. “but i’ll give it to you anyway,” he inched back towards your entrance, repeating the lewd motion, precum coating the throbbing hole with each slap of the head against it.

his arms moved, one settling by your head, elbow pressed into the mattress so he can curl all that muscle and sinew against your neck, cradling your head between his forearm and bicep, the crook of his elbow pressing softly against your throat, making you gasp, choked and whiny. your husband had you in a headlock, squeezing just so, just enough for you to feel his strength and what he could do with it, if he wished.

it made you moan shamelessly, palms coming to curl around the muscle there, nails digging in, making maekar hiss, and flex just a bit more in retaliation, before relaxing the squeeze.

“please, husband,” you pleaded, a little breathless from the hold of his arm, pushing your hips back against him. “take me, fuck me, have me.”

music to maekar’s ears. having you so desperate, begging for him so sweetly, letting him place you how he wanted and keep you there, his weight keeping you pressed to the bedding, your hips tilted up by his other hand, which now slowly pushed the head of his cock into your glistening hole, still careful, even with all the pent-up frustration and arousal. he never meant to hurt you, no matter how much you infuriated him.

a loud, suffering groan brushed your ear as he bottomed out, feeling how tight you were, how wet and warm and gods—he could die in your cunt. in this greedy, hungry thing, which pulsed and throbbed and squeezed around him like it wanted him deeper.

you were no better, practically drooling over his bicep, shameless moans spilling freely, loud enough to be heard by the courtiers, perhaps the whole castle. pleasure overtook you, urging you to babble, fingers gripping at his muscles like a lifeline. “have me, husband,” you repeated those salacious words, clenching around him tightly. “t—take me like a real man, not a green boy who—”

the hand that guided his cock inside snapped upwards, clamping over your mouth, thick fingers pressing into the flush of your skin, rendering any more comments to silence.

“shut,” he ground out, dragging his hips back before snapping them forward, thrusting inside you. “your insolent mouth, woman,” rasped against your cheek now, as he set a firm, ruthless pace, navel slapping against the flesh of your ass, making it jiggle, the sound echoing through the room.

your sounds of pleasure were muffled by his hands, slobbering all over the inside of his palm from how much you were drooling, moans and cries barely making it past the rough fingers pressed to your lips. maekar could’ve winced at the feeling of wetness, but it only thrilled him more to have you like this, mindless with bliss from how deep his cock reached, the tip hitting that one spot inside your gummy walls that made your nails scratch at his bicep and your tongue lolling out, pressing against his palm, even daring to lick.

every thrust brought him closer to the edge, feeling the telltale sign of heat at the base of his spine, spreading into the pit of his stomach. and by the way your sounds could barely be silenced anymore, so were you.

his pace quickened, hips snapping against your ass harder, rutting into you with fervor, close to snarling against your ear from how good it felt. gods, your pussy was made for this. for him. coating his cock, making tendrils of slick stick to his navel and the backs of your thighs from how wet you were, the sounds squelching and filthy. “pussy so good, wife,” maekar rumbled, the praise slipping from his mouth. “so good for your husband’s cock.”

his wife was getting close, he could tell; her hands now clawing at the one of his onto her mouth, making him slacken it just enough for her to cry out, garbled and supplicating.

“spend in me,” you mewled, little ah, ah, ah sounds muffling against the inside of his palm, now coated with your drool. “give me your seed, maekar,” the pleading continued, making his thrusts falter minutely. “let me have your seed, husband.”

you sounded so desperate, so… earnest, as if all that happened led to this, to you asking for something a husband should give freely, without a shroud of doubt. like a future where you might end up round and full with his child was something you would be pleased with. it was too much for him. he won’t be made to believe that such a forthcoming was meant to be sound, especially when you were overcome with pleasure.

maekar found himself shaking his head, palms pressing back against your mouth to silence any more begging, to cease such ramblings from a woman who didn’t mean what she was saying, even if your words almost made him cum inside of you moments ago.

“i—i can’t,” he groaned, low and shaky, as if pained. “i won’t, wife.”

Maekar was floating in that peaceful half-awake, half-asleep realm that he wasn't blessed to feel often. Between work and his children, sleep used to be a rarity, but then you came into his life with the sweet smiles and polite words. His nephew, Valarr, was the one who introduced the two of you; you were a close friend of his and had a background in babysitting. Maekar wasn't too fond of the idea of a college student watching his children, but then you walked in with that pretty smile and smarts. 

His eyes were heavy-lidded as he lay sprawled out on his back, his body sinking comfortably into the expensive mattress. Only clad in a pair of black briefs that clung lowly on his hips, showing off his happy trail, God, you had such a strong urge to tug them off. You could tell by his slow, heavy breaths that he was so close to falling asleep. 

You stood in the bathroom doorway, admiring how handsome he looked under the soft glow of the bedside lamp. How could you not want to go and bother him when he looked that good?

As soon as he felt the mattress dip under your weight and the feeling of you crawling up between his legs, your hands moving up his legs with your movements, he let out a dramatic groan. You roll your eyes playfully and move to straddle his lap, his warmth spreading to you. 

“No, don’t,” he groaned sleepily in protest as he felt you press against him, already knowing that your sticks would keep him up. His body betrayed his protest, his hands instinctively moving to rest on your bare thighs, his thumbs gently caressing your warm skin. 

“M’not even doing anything.” You purr, giving him a faux innocent smile when he looks up at you with his half-lidded eyes; he clearly doesn’t believe you. You slowly leaned down, moving your hands to rest on the side of his shoulders to keep yourself from completely falling onto him. 

You felt his breath hitch as you placed a feather-light kiss on his shoulder, before leaving a trail of soft kisses across his chest and up his neck, leaving goosebumps across his skin in your wake. Your lips twitched up into a smirk as you felt his body react to your touch. You place a soft kiss on his forehead before moving down to his cheeks and then the tip of his nose. You smirked and whispered, “I’m so hungry I could eat you….wait fuck I did the trend wrong.” 

He felt a sense of confusion at your words and the mention of a trend; he never did understand the ‘silly’ videos you and his daughters showed him. ‘What the fuck am I looking at?’ was a common response. His hands squeezed your shirt as he sighed tiredly, “Doll, please, I need to sleep.” 

You pout playfully and move off his lap to flop down on your side next to him, holding your head up with your hand so you can look down at him. You bit your bottom lip absentmindedly as you admired his side profile, his defined nose, the faint scars across his face that you loved to place soft kisses on, and his maintained beard, which you loved to run your fingers through. 

The warm glow that reflected on him disappeared as he reached to turn off the lamp—a tired groan leaving his lips at the movement—but it was quickly replaced by the deflection of the moonlight that slipped through the curtains to his floor-to-ceiling one-way windows. 

Maekar let out a mixed sigh of relief and tiredness as he rested his head back on the pillow, closing his eyes once again as he tried to relax and fall asleep now that you were by his side and the room was silent and peaceful. But you, of course, had impeccable timing, breaking the silence after a couple of minutes. 

Your voice was soft and airy as you mused over it, “Would you love me if I were a cow?” 

Maekar turned his head to look at you, his face ridden with tiredness and his eyebrows furrowed in deep confusion and slight worry at your absurd question. Was this another one of those ridiculous trends? If he remembered correctly, Daella had asked Daeron the same thing, but if she was a worm. It had ended with a crying Daella and Daeron, who was ducking from Aegon's blocks she was throwing at him. And maekar with a headache. 

Maekar grunted, “Is this a trick question? That feels rude—“ 

“Omg wow, calling me rude now?” You gasped dramatically as you brought one of your hands up to rest on your chest, shaking your head in faux disappointment and hurt. He rolled his eyes and gave you an unimpressed look, making you bite your lip to hold in your giggles at how cute and grumpy he looked. 

He stretched one of his arms behind his head while his other hand rested on his stomach as he tried to blink the sleep away, already knowing that there was no use in trying to fall asleep until you got the talkativeness out of you. He’d go along with it…just for you. 

“I’d take you to the farm land, get that white fencing you like, and put a big umbrella because I know you hate being in the sun for too long, you get all bratty,” Maekar mumbled tiredly, not even sure why he was even entertaining the topic, but it was entertaining you, so he did what he must. He watched as a big smile spread across your face. 

”That is like one of the most romantic things you have ever said to me.” You cooed with a big smile as you moved one of your hands to grab his that rested on his stomach, interlocking your fingers with his warm ones, squeezing softly. 

You leaned in to place a kiss on his lips, an annoyed huff leaving him when you pulled away before your lips could touch. Your eyes widened, and you quickly asked, “You wouldn’t let anyone else milk me, right?” 

Maekar nearly choked on his spit in shock at the absurd question, exclaiming in disbelief, “Darling, what?” 

“You heard me.” You poked at his chest a few times, making him raise his eyebrow. Both of you must be delirious because what was happening? He grabbed your hand before you could poke him again, pulling you so you were fully lying down, head on his shoulder, as he moved his arm from behind his head. He mumbled tiredly into your hair, “Enough of this, please.” 

You pout but nonetheless listen to him, watching as he let out a small sigh and closed his eyes, his body relaxing as you placed a few kisses on his jaw. You blink a few times, not liking how sleepiness had crept up on you now that you were in his warm hold. You hum and move around a little to get more comfortable, tilting your head on his shoulder so you can still admire him. 

“You’re getting tired,” Maekar whispered after a couple of minutes of silence. It was more of a statement than a question. Fluttering his eyes open, watching as you slowly blinked and nuzzled the side of your face against his shoulder, he could see and feel how your body was relaxing against his.

You hid your face in your shoulder as you yawned, your voice muffled, “No, I’m not.” 

“Liar” 

“My pants aren’t on fire,” you feign innocence with a smile as you tilt your head to look up at him. Maeker rolled his eyes at your sassy response, wrapping his arm around you tighter so you were fully pressed against him, your legs intertwined. 

His eyes fell to your bare legs before giving you a pointed look, “You’re not wearing any.”

“Oops, you caught me,” a sarcastic smile decorating your lips, soon followed by a small laugh. The corner of Maekar’s lips twitched up into the faintest smile at the sound of your laugh and silliness, the bed squeaking as he moved to lie on his side, adjusting so he could hold you more comfortably. He brought his hand up to fix your slightly messy hair from moving around, resting his hand on the back of your head as he leaned in.

He kissed your cheek, your temple, then your neck, then your nose as if he was trying to memorize every inch of you before he pressed a tender kiss to your waiting lips. You bring your hand up to cup his warm cheek, melting into the kiss. He slowly pulled away and placed a long and soft kiss on your forehead before you nuzzled your face into his neck, the sleepiness finally getting to you. 

Maekar hummed lowly and closed his eyes, stroking your back softly, knowing that it would help make you fall asleep. His lips twitched up in amusement as he thought back on the silly things you asked him. You truly did bring something special into his life. Making him feel things he never thought he’d feel again.

He whispered sleepily in your ear, “I wouldn’t let anyone else milk you.” 

“Promise?” You asked quietly, a sleepy smile on your lips, happy that he went along with your silly antics. Maekar grunted tiredly as he squeezed you, mumbling into your hair, “Promise.”

You smile and finally allow yourself to fall asleep, knowing that the morning will come soon, along with the sounds of footsteps and sleepy children. Maekar’s warmth and soft touch lull you into a sweet sleep. 

┊࿐ ❛❛ continue on to my…. 𝙗𝙖𝙗𝙮𝙨𝙞𝙩𝙩𝙚𝙧! 𝙢𝙖𝙨𝙩𝙚𝙧𝙡𝙞𝙨𝙩 & 𝙢𝙖𝙞𝙣 𝙢𝙖𝙨𝙩𝙚𝙧𝙡𝙞𝙨𝙩

Ი𐑼 GUYS SOFT MAEKAR 😵‍💫😵‍💫 i actually need him so bad , the amount of edits that i have of him are actually insane and i keep rewatching them , i need to make a playlist for him !! this is short but sweet , i really hope you guys enjoyed this. please please let me know your thoughts , it helps me stay motivated. reblogs and comments are always appreciated <3

۶ৎ taglist is open

you roll your eyes hearing your little sister whisper with her friends in their little circle. the hall was being prepared for the feast tonight, and you couldn’t interrupt the servants cleaning it up by lounging there. your room was suffocating as it is, and the solar was your only place of refuge. which so happens your younger sister decided to pull her circle of friends in the wrong moment. 

“should we do it?” her friend asked, too giddy. 

“we should!” her other friend excitedly exclaimed. 

your sister and her friends giggle loudly as they blabber about who they think might appear when they do the ‘ritual.’ the book you’ve been reading becomes boring as you try to become immersed in it. the sound of their giggles and hushed whispers continue to annoy you as you finally let out a loud sigh. they didn't stop, and you stood up, deciding to take a quick walk around the hall to see what the fuss was about this feast being prepared tonight. it was all hushed whispers from your father to your mother. about how important it was to have quality meat and use the best ingredients even if it will cost a month’s worth of coin. 

scandalous, you think. your mother merely told him that if all of you were to die of hunger the next month, it’s on his head. 

ridiculous. you think next, remembering your father told her that if they do not make a good first impression, then the family might not live to see another generation. 

absolutely confusing is what you think now. who are they inviting later anyway? 

the hallways are even busy as well, and as you step in the grand hall, although not really grand, the chaos is what you expected. you see your mother in the middle of it, servants usher to her, asking where to place this and that, where should the main table be placed, and if they should inquire for more cutlery since the silver they have doesn’t fit for the amount of people coming tonight. your mother answers them all with quickness and patience. and her eyes land on you at the very moment you’re about to leave. a single gesture of her finger makes you stop as you come towards her with reluctance.

the servants around her disperse once you finally stand before her. your mother suddenly has the look of worry and nervousness you can’t quite understand why. 

“i need you at your best tonight.” she stresses, and you cannot argue with her seeing the seriousness etched across her face. “tonight will be an important shift for our house- for this family. your father talked about this a million times so i need you to be prim and proper, and help your siblings be ready.” 

you’re about to ask why, but she cuts you off. 

“you are my most established child, girl. i need your help with this because i am this close to slapping your brothers for not taking my words seriously. do you understand?” your mother’s tone grows desperate, and you blink dumbly and nod.

“…may i ask who’s coming, mother?” you finally uttered out your impending question. your mother had the audacity to look at you like some fool, as if they didn’t tell you about who the important guests are. 

“the princes of house targaryen, child!” 

ah. you now know why this feast seems such a chaotic shithole now. 

・゜゜・．

“ow!” your little sister winces in pain as you tie her hair into a neat updo. she winces again when you finally place the hairpin in her updo to secure it at last. 

“hold still or i’ll ruin your hair. mother needs us in the hall after this.” you say plainly as you step away to take a good look at your doing. your sister huffs as she pouts. 

“will i be able to go to bed before midnight after this?” she asks, and you shrug. 

“possibly.” you say with a tease, knowing about her little ritual she wants to do. 

“it’s no fair! i don’t want to go! i thought mother said this dinner was for old people!” you roll your eyes as she crosses her arms. 

“old you say, huh?” you mumble as you gesture to her to stand up. she reluctantly stands with a pout and frowns as she follows you outside of the bedchamber. you carefully fluff up the sleeves and skirt of your gown while your sister tails behind you. you two finally head in the hall, and are stunned to see how… marvelous the once grey hall it was. candles… beeswax, not tallow, are everywhere. making the hall look warm while the food is already sitting on the long tables, enticing and delicious. it’s roasted ribs and you can smell spice that you never smelled before. possibly imported from essos. new silverware you can tell are placed neatly, and the seats are polished. 

you wonder how much coin was spent to make this feast possible. 

your father and mother are already briefing your older brothers, which seems to be more serious than what your mother said to you earlier. you usher your sister and told her to stop pouting as your mother released a sigh of relief seeing you. 

“thank the sevens you two are here now!” she exclaimed loudly. “see! your sister knows how to dress herself, while you three buffoons can’t even tell what colors don't go together!” 

your older brothers rolled their eyes as you patiently waited for further instructions from your parents. 

“this feast is important. proper appearances are a must, we are welcoming royals into our home. princes! the hand of the king at that!” your father blabbered as he tells you all about what it means to have a direct alliance with the crown itself. and he hopes tonight and the days they’ll be staying will be fruitful. for they will take a look at the prosperous town your father has been keeping steady, and the port that’s been the main interest. for it’s easier access of trade routes to dorne and the nearer lands of essos. 

and now you all stand in the courtyard, lined up as you hear the trumpet blaring loudly as hooves of horses are heard arriving. you see your father inhale sharply as you spot the banner of house targaryen between the arriving people on horses. it’s intimidating, you confess to yourself, seeing how much a banner could install a sense of unease in all of you. you can see the black armour of their soldiers and two white ones with capes, the kingsguard. and then finally, you see the familiar face of the young prince baelor. the oldest of the princes come into view. he’s handsome, short dark curls rest on his head. not of silver which made him the unique one. 

the stewart announces him as prince baelor stops his horse with ease before mounting off. the stable men react quickly to guide the horse to stables. the stewart then announced the name of prince aerys, who’s long silver hair catches your eyes. a complete opposite of his older brother. prince baelor was the first to greet your father with a smile and firm handshake as your father greeted him with the same enthusiasm. the stewart then announces the final name of the last prince to arrive. 

prince maekar. the youngest of the brothers. 

his white stallion is a beauty as he effortlessly guides it to a halt, then dismounts with ease. his hair was of silver as well, like his other brother, but cut to his shoulders with short bangs on his forehead, making him look younger. handsome as well. your eyes caught his the moment he stepped forward to join his two brothers to greet your father. from the way he held himself, you can clearly see the swagger and cockiness. your gaze tears away from his, feeling like you’ve been caught. 

“it’s a pleasure to be welcomed, i assure you.” prince baelor spoke to your father as he then introduced all of you to the princes. you did your courtesy flawlessly while you greeted each prince formally like what you were taught. you glance again to prince maekar, only to see him with a faint scowl on his face while he mutters something to prince aerys, indicating he might be tired from the journey or something else. your first impression of him is how he doesn’t hide his expression like most people with his status do. 

you don’t know if that’s good to you or disrespectful- in the sense that they are the ones who came here. and with some decency, he can show his gratitude in some way without looking like he doesn’t want to be here. 

and as you take a good look at the three princes, their black coats laced with hints of red make them intimidating as it is. the rawness of power is evident, and you see your brothers are staring as well. like children who’ve seen a prince for the first time. you quickly gesture for them to stop it as all of you finally head inside. 

and you think this feast will be interesting. 

・゜゜・．

the feast goes smoothly as expected. the remaining guests invited have already filled the hall. from the wealthy merchants alike in the town and notable high figures that are close to your father. you are seated between your mother and little sister, quietly enjoying your meal and wine as lively music and chatter fills in the room. you can see your father beside prince baelor, engrossed in a conversation that looks promising. the other princes are quietly enjoying their meals as well. you wonder why the other two are here, considering prince baelor seems to be the one who’s been doing all the diplomatic chatter. 

“why do they have ashen hair, sister?” your little sister whispered beside you, staring at both prince aerys and maekar across the table. you don’t blame her for her wonder and curiosity. 

“that is the hair they are born with.” you tell her plainly, and your mother shushes the two of you with a glance. you both shut up as your sister pokes the roasted potato on her plate with boredom. 

“i want to go to my room now. when can i?” your sister whines, and you shake your head. she pouts again, and you ignore her as you glance back where your father is talking with prince baelor. 

your father is boasting loudly like the merry man he is, cracking jokes while he sips his pint. the surrounding men laugh loudly at him. prince baelor seems oddly amused, you wonder if it’s for pleasantries or he actually likes your father’s jokes and stories. you then cast your gaze to the other two princes by his side. prince aerys seems to be reading something… which was peculiar, and the younger prince seems to be in a fouler mood. maekar empties his cup as he looks around for the wine bearer. 

and what comes next solidifies the inkling impression you have on him. 

“pour me some wine, would you?” maekar suddenly looks at your father who stops mid laugh and scrambles to grasp the pitcher near him. your father is already tipsy as he is, and your brows furrow seeing the young prince hold his goblet out like your father is one of his servants. everyone is still drunkenly laughing, unaware of the certain shift as your father poured him some wine shakily, and some spills. 

“so sorry, my prince. there we go now!” your father gives off an awkward laugh. prince maekar holds his gaze, not a word comes out of his lips as he sips his wine. your father awkwardly turns back to his seat, and you watch the whole thing with embarrassment and anger coursing through your veins.  

a call of your names eases you back slowly. 

“straighten your face and eat your meal, girl.” your mother whispers calmly like she didn’t just see that as well, and you look at her with disbelief. 

“mother, but-“ 

“do not. please. not tonight, and not when their graces are here.” she stresses, and you see the crack in her stern expression for a moment. your brows furrowed as you looked back at where the princes and father were. prince baelor seems to not interfere with the situation as he looks at his younger brother with only a stern look before your father finally sits down. prince maekar merely ignores his brother as he sips his wine, and then… 

he somehow finds yours amidst the crowd. 

again. 

you hold his gaze longer than before. 

you don’t know why, but an arising feeling of challenge replaces your anger for a moment. the prince’s expression is unreadable, and you cannot help but feel intimidated despite your own feelings. but the sound of your father laughing loudly finally makes the both of you look away from each other. and you finally exhale the breath you don’t realize you’ve been holding. 

you’re now dreading the days you’ll be spending time with them- with him. and you keep that in mind as your sister whines again. 

“can i go to bed now, please?” 

・゜゜・．

the pressure of housing royals under your roof has been the dire effect of what you call a… crisis that’s happening in your own home. you’ve noticed it since the day after they arrived. it was subtle for the staff, like there’s this tension going around when you walk in the hallways. murmurs and whispers instead of the usual loud banter became the sudden norm. sometimes people were too afraid to even pass by the princes’ quarters. like there’s a plague infesting, and you felt like you’re in a different place rather than comfort. a place where you have to watch your every step or else one mistake would cost you. 

seeing your parents, on the other hand, be like nervous fools in their own home was awful. never had you seen them this frantic and desperate, almost like pigs vying for food to their slaughterer. your father was always the butting end to the endless requests the princes have been making. your family’s tower was small compared to the great houses, big enough to hold a great hall and such, but other commodities weren’t present. you guessed the princes were unfamiliar to the functions which you grew to see as normal. and now they demand for more just to feel comfortable? it was humiliating, but it was reality. 

you hate it. you hate the sudden change, the sudden bow of your heads just to house these tyrants. as much as you want to rant your hatred and distaste for the targaryens, you know well enough to keep it to yourself so as to not be charged with treason. and the boiling point of your hatred was majorly directed to one prince in particular. 

prince maekar’s presence didn’t take long to be noticed.

unlike his older brother’s pacifistic and diplomatic personality, and his other one’s more of a quiet type, he was ruthless. ruthless in a way that he doesn’t care what people think of when he acts in a brash and aggressive manner. like he expects people to cower beneath his scowl and sharp tongue. the staff feared passing prince maekar’s room more than his older brothers. you’ve seen him spit fire like the dragon that he is. 

fucking targaryens. 

it happened in the courtyard, wherein you happened to stumble upon him sparring with one of your brothers. you didn’t hear everything, but you can surely make out the sudden animosity your brother had let out when the ashen haired prince smirked like a wolf after saying something that triggered your poor brother. his grin was cocky, almost to the point he was enjoying making people around him uncomfortable. your other brothers had to hold him down to avoid him delivering a blow to the arrogant prince. and no one spoke about that incident the day after… just quiet ignorance.  

you’ve learned to avoid him to not end up bursting out like your brother… in subtle ways. 

and maybe you liked the reactions you get out of him, the ones you get to notice with your little rebellion with him that he isn’t aware of. 

until now… of course. 

it was a fleeting moment that happened a while ago. you were going into the library or your father’s study room, and so happened prince baelor was in there, looking around as well. while prince maekar was sat on the far end, blabbering about to his brother with nonsense you didn’t care to hear. although you did hear some bits and pieces before you came in. 

“why must i come with you to the docks? the blasted fish smell reeks so much.” maekar grumbles while baelor looks at him pointedly. 

“it will do you well to know what goes on there, little brother.” 

“i joined you to come to this miserable place on father’s command, must you torture me further?” you roll your eyes at that. 

“aerys says the seaside looks promising. aerys is coming with me, can you imagine that? and you’re not?” baelor teases as you wait for a moment to join in, just wanting to return the book you borrowed. 

maekar was about to retort until you opened the door, cutting him off. your presence is immediately noticed as you feel maekar’s eyes dart towards you. 

“good afternoon, my prince.” you greeted as always, and the charming prince baelor smiled at you and noticed the book you were holding. “apologies, for the intrusion. i hope i wasn’t interrupting anything-?” 

“not all, my lady. please, go ahead. this is your home, after all. we’re the intruders here.” the dark haired prince smiled. you nod kindly as you look for the shelf where the book was placed. you can feel the other prince’s gaze burn through you, expecting a greeting from you as well. but you don’t give in until he shifts in his seat and stands up all of the sudden. 

and there you greet him with a faux surprised expression. 

“oh! your grace. i did not notice you were here as well.” you smiled at him with a sweet and high pitched tone. maekar’s jaw tightened as he merely nodded at you. 

“you have to forgive my brother. it seems he has lost his voice somewhere.” baelor interjected, sensing something as he looked at his younger brother with an expecting expression. you look back at maekar, expecting the greeting as well. and you want to laugh seeing his ears turn red.

“my lady.” maekar grits his teeth. you smiled back at him mockingly. 

“good read, my lady?” baelor takes over the conversation, gesturing to your book you’re placing back as you turn away from maekar. pouring all your attention to him. 

“not my cup of tea, i’m afraid. i was merely curious about these epics about knights and such.” you blabbered, which was true in a sense. “i’ve read my father’s whole shelf now, and ended up with this.”

baelor chuckles. “not fond of knightly tales of bravery and honor?” 

“perhaps when romance is involved, your grace.” you laugh, putting the book back in. 

“ah, so you favor softer tales of courtship, stolen glances, and the gist of it all?” 

“something of the sort.” you grinned. “reading about a knight's longing for his unreachable princess is far more interesting.” 

baelor eyes you with intrigue. you don’t lie to yourself how handsome the older prince is. but the seeding thought of them indeed being intruders in your home makes you think what he really is behind closed doors. and for how he lets his youngest brother behave like that and such, you don’t expect much from him either. after all, them coming here was an act itself. just to gain your father’s and townsfolk’s favors to spread their image. 

“is that so?” 

“i think so, my prince.” you say sweetly. “honor is admirable, of course. longing, on the other hand, is more entertaining to see how a knight grapples with his conflict of preserving his honor or admit his love for a woman he’s sworn to protect. don’t you think so, your grace?” 

a scoff interrupts the both of you. and you don’t need to know who it came from. 

“entertaining?” maekar questions. “you speak as if it were a game to see a man be a fool.” 

oh. you blink, and turn around slowly to face him. as if you remember his existence now. 

“is it not, your grace?” you finally spoke back. 

“a fool’s game it is.” he strongly says. “fantasy destroys reality, no true knight would be weak for a woman to break his oath.” 

you look at him pointedly. 

“how fortunate for a true knight to never be tempted, then.” your tone drips with honey. a small pause settles between the two of you as his light eyes stare back at yours. 

“though, i fear-“ your smile sharpens, like a bee’s sting. “he would make such a simple story.” 

an uncomfortable silence follows behind your words. you don’t break your gaze from the scowling prince until he exhales loudly that your smile deepens. 

“you think of yourself as very clever, my lady.” he spits those words out like he’s forcing himself not to say anything else. 

“only when i am given something to read into, your grace.” you hum lightly. his eyes narrow, catching on. 

“and what is it that you’ve read from me?” he challenges. 

you’ve snared him now. 

“very little.” you reply almost instantly. “though, it leaves much more for intrigue, my prince.”

his scowl almost falters but he doesn’t look away. in fact, his gaze sends a chill down your spine. but a quiet laugh from baelor breaks the tension. you shyly turn away, feeling you’ve done enough now to get on his brother’s nerves. 

“well…” baelor huffs out, glancing between the two of you. “i had not expected a debate on tales to turn something far more… spirited.” 

you take a step back, smoothing your dress as if nothing happened at all. 

“apologies, your grace.” you turn to baelor with an easy smile to ease your own tension. “i did not mean to liven your afternoon at your grace’s expense.” 

maekar then lets out a humorless breath, making your brow twitch for a moment. 

“you’ve done quite enough.” he mutters. 

you dip your head politely, but the sharpness in your gaze remains. 

“i shall take my leave now, your graces. thank you for your time.” you curtsied gracefully before moving past them swiftly. but you feel it, his gaze burning holes through your back. you finally leave, still feeling his gaze lingering- sharp and strong. the beat of your heart is the only thing you feel when you walk away with a shaky exhale. 

・゜゜・．

“i like her.” 

baelor says to his brother who’s scowling beside him as the sea breeze sweeps past them. aerys cocks a brow, wondering what his older brother is pertaining to all of the sudden. maekar, though, feels a rush of blood course through his veins. he knows exactly who his brother is talking about. 

“your taste in women is unearthing.” he mumbles and his older brother grins as they lean against the wooden railing. 

“not in that way, brother.” baelor says as maekar rolls his eyes. “the lord’s daughter is an educated girl with peculiar opinions.” 

“the older one?” aerys asked as maekar grumbles. 

“aye.” 

“i suppose you’re right.” aerys suddenly agrees, which maekar cocks a brow at that. “our conversations in the library were enlightening. smart girl that she is.” 

“enlightening.” he repeats flatly, remembering your little spit at him the other day. the way your smile pierced through him as he resist the urge to wipe it off. baelor merely chuckles, amused and unbothered. aerys watches him with veil amusement, wondering what happened. 

“she speaks her mind freely. it’s refreshing.” the dark haired man continues. “not many would dare to do so in front of us.” 

“more like a hindrance that she manages to do so. a lack of restraint for a lady like her.” he spits out. the way you looked at him, like asking for a challenge, has him feeling relentless these days. the way you only seem to direct your attacks on him while you give this innocent act in front of his brothers. it infuriates him yet at the same time… he can’t help but not think of you, which added to his misery. 

“is it?” aerys chuckles. “or simply honesty, little brother?” 

he does not answer his older brother for that. his jaw tightens. honesty? if that were true, then why did your words feel so deliberate? his fingers curl against the wooden railing, and a sound of a squawking seagull passes by. 

how fortunate for a true knight to never be tempted, then. 

the way your lips sharpened, the memory returns unbidden. how you cocked your head to the side, and the way your voice sounded so sweet despite its sharpness. and the way you looked at him-  like you’ve already decided what sort of man he is. 

his grip tightens, the wood almost bruising him. 

he would make such a simple story.

simple, huh? his muscle ticks in his jaw. 

“she provokes. unlady-like of her.” he mutters at last. 

“but you allow it.” baelor hums thoughtfully. “and i’m surprised she didn’t cower away like they usually do with you.” 

maekar glares at him. “i do no such thing.” 

“did you not?” baelor’s smile widens. “you took every word she said.” 

“that was not-“ maekar grumbles. “i was merely expressing my opinion as well! she speaks nonsense. this romantic preference over knightly honors was idiotic to compare-“ 

“and yet…” aerys interrupts him. “you remember every word she said.” 

maekar grunts, embarrassed. 

“our brother seems to be ensnared.” baelor adds as both older men chuckled. “this is good for you. a woman who can finally challenge that temper of yours.” 

“gods know we need someone to finally tame you.” aerys mumbles while maekar glares at him. 

he does not like you one bit! he knows that, but his brothers seem to have other ideas. conflicting as he is, you are a beautiful maiden. too beautiful in fact that he seethes in anger remembering your attitude towards him. you’re a temptress, that’s what you are. drawing him into madness since the day you laid eyes on him in that courtyard. 

“i need a fucking drink. and fuck the two of you.” he finally breathes out while his brothers chuckle loudly as they agree on getting a drink. 

the thought of you lingers in his mind… and he can’t help but indulge that he’ll be the one to tame you. 

not him that will be tamed. 

・゜゜・．

“why didn’t the ritual work, sister?” your sister pouts as you brush her hair. you purse your lips, thinking of what to say- or what to say again. since she has been pouting the past few days telling you that little mirror ritual she did never worked. 

“i do not know as well.” you merely say as she pouts even further. she has been complaining that she didn’t see anyone in the mirror other than her own reflection. you blame whoever told her of this ‘ritual’ to get her hopes up. 

“i won’t ever marry, won’t i?” she frowns, and you kiss the side of her head to soothe her disappointment. “mother said marriage is the most important thing to achieve when i grow up.” 

you want to roll your eyes, but you resist the urge to do so. you can see your little sister do much more than marry as her end goal, it pains you that she’s subjected to this tradition like you are roped into as well. your mother’s insistence on pushing you to court has been a debate that’s not been settled between the two of you. you’re grateful your brothers are betrothed which shifted your mother’s attention to them as of lately. 

“get some rest and put that pout away, okay?” you say softly as you put the hairbrush down. she silently nods as you kiss the top of her head again and guide her to her bed at the other side. you tuck her in, quietly telling her to dream sweetly. she eventually drifts off as you busy yourself unwinding for the day. 

the princes were finally leaving in a few days. the wide smile on both of your parents’ faces indicated that this visit was a success. you can’t help but think about the occurrences that happened as of lately. it… bothers you more than you can admit. 

prince maekar kept his distance, and you did as well. it’s what you wanted in the first place. although it bothered you how much you’ve been seeing him since that little incident in your father’s study. somehow you always bump into him in awkward times. and in those times, only greetings were exchanged and nothing more. but the hardest part was why were you so fixated on it? 

sure, you may have grown amused in your treatment towards him. you still thought of him as the arrogant man that acts like a child when someone finally challenges him. the lingering glances may be the reason… you think. he never was the one to break his stare at first, and you happen to be the one who always looks away. you sigh, grabbing your candle to go back to your own room before a sudden clang outside makes you jump. 

“what in the seven hells-“ you muttered, quietly opening the door. your head peeks out and you’re met with the most hilarious sight. 

“for f-fuck *hiccup*… where the hell…” prince maekar stumbles, knocking off one of the candle holders as he mutters where his room is. you raise a brow and scowl. what an annoying thing he is to disturb the peace in front of the room while your sister is sleeping. you wait for a moment, hesitant whether to step outside or to let him pass. he seems to slump against the wall, and you took the courage to leave your sister’s room. you hold your robe tightly against your chest as you try to walk past him. 

“is someone there? help me! i can’t find my room-“ you don’t know why you didn’t just walk away. maybe it was his tone, his pompous fucking tone that he demands someone to help his idiotic self. 

“fucking miserable place this is-“ you turn around, walking over to him as maekar’s head sprung up at the sudden warm light encompassing the dark hallway. 

“your grace. your quarters are on the other side.” you say quietly, and the man blinked dumbly as he squinted to adjust his vision to the candlelight. his drunken self seemed to recognize you now as he scowled. 

“you…” he drunkenly whispered. “you… you can fuck off.” 

your brows furrow. did he just- 

“as you wish, my prince. idiot…” you roll your eyes as you step away. maekar suddenly becomes acutely aware that you’re leaving him as he grips your wrist all of the sudden. 

“w-wait!” he hiccups, and you stood still. glancing at his warm hand wrapped around your wrist. didn’t tell you to go away? you blame the stench of wine and mead on him which makes your nose crinkle. his slumped form suddenly straightens, and he looks down at you with glassy eyes. an uncomfortable feeling settles in your chest, seeing how tall he is.

“let go of me.” you whisper, a bit shakily. he immediately complies and he runs a hand over his face. as if… as if he’s conflicted with something as he stares at you. 

“what the fuck did i do to make you like this to me, woman?” he suddenly asks, drunken mind spewing out his thoughts. his bangs are more swept away than his usual well-kept form. his silver hair shines against your candlelight… he looks pathetic. handsomely pathetic as you swallow in the heat trapped in your stomach. 

but you scoff. “that is your concern?” 

“fucking hell… yes!” he says, almost a whine. “i-i have done nothing! nothing! i am a guest in your home! and you- you treat me like i’m a pest other than my brothers!” he spews out as he angrily rakes his hand through his hair, making him more unwild. 

“maybe you are a pest, your grace.” you snapped, stepping closer to him. “you come here with the attitude of a spoiled prince, which you are.” 

his jaw tightened. “you know nothing of me to warrant that observation.” 

“oh, you’ve given me plenty enough, my prince.” you whispered as you looked into his eyes. “you are a self-pompous, arrogant, spoiled, selfish, and brash man who knows nothing of manners! you treat everyone here as your servant when, yes, you are a guest in my home! but you are not in your fucking castle-“ 

he defends himself. he did not treat you that way. he is sure of it. “i have done nothing to you-“

“you have!” you seethe in anger as he blinks dumbly at your outburst. “my father welcomed you with open arms, and the treatment he gets is like a servant.” 

“that-“ he tries to say. “that… that was nothing. he is the host-“ 

“it means something to me. and all i could see was a spoiled prince who doesn’t know how to ask- but only demand.” you finished, feeling your whole body warm from that. and he stands there… silent. as if you’re the first one to tell him that- and it may as well be true. but when you look into his eyes again, you feel a chill run down your spine. his gaze is half-lidded, warranted with this- want. 

huh. 

your cheeks heat up, and maekar stares back at you. 

“i know.” he finally whispers back. his gaze swept from your fresh face illuminated by the candlelight down to your exposed neck that makes him imagine things that he fought hard not to think of every night. “tell me… tell me how i can make it up to you, then.” 

“what?” your eyes widened. 

“tell me… my lady, tell me how to make amends for you.” he almost begs, and you don't know what the hell he’s talking about. 

“you are insufferable.” you say, wanting to step away but he suddenly moves forward. you take a step back until the wall behind you hits your back. 

“you are as well.” he chuckles. “and yet you keep finding your way to me.” 

oh. you want to retort back, but his looming presence as he leans over, makes you stand still as you wait for his next move. but he doesn’t do anything but stand still, patiently waiting as you look at him through your lashes. for a drunkard, he sure knows how to control himself. the beating of your heart thumps loudly against your chest. his scowl was long gone, his gaze softer than before, it makes you want to- 

no! you say to yourself. you hate him! you hate him so much! but why are you thinking of kissing him everytime- 

“tell me… please.” he breathes out, and your mind goes blank. 

you let the candle you’re holding drop to the ground as you surge forward, gripping his cheeks with your hands as you kiss him. his lips taste like wine and you devour it. maekar is now the one who stays still. his head is all buzzed and dizzy, and the soft register of your lips on his own makes him reel back in as he grips your waist. he kisses you back with the same ferocity, thinking this must be a dream. you clumsily kiss him harder, liking the way his hands hold you as he moans in your mouth. 

he feels like he’s been put in a spell. a fucking confusing one because he doesn’t know how the hell you managed to make him this vulnerable. he’s gone, he’s completely gone and utterly destroyed. you finally pull back, having to take a breath. a string of saliva connects the two of you as you let out a tiny sigh. the man in front of you looks more pathetic as he stares at your glistening lips. your eyes stare back as well then going lower… and- 

the evident bulge in his trousers makes your pupils darken. you can feel your own arousal pulse, but reality starts sinking as you’re now aware both of you are in the hallway and anyone could see the two of you in this state. you push him away all of the sudden, and he stumbles back, confused and more drunk. you’re about to break the silence, but he beats you first. 

“f-forgive me.” he merely says. “i’m drunk- fuck, i’m drunk. but please forgive me, my lady.” he mutters, reaching gently to grasp your hand. your breathing doesn’t simmer down as you let him take your hand. he pulls up to his lips, kissing your knuckles gently. “please say you forgive me.” 

“no.” you lie. you pull your hand away, and that makes him stumble forward as you finally rush to get to your room. 

maekar slumps against the stone wall. he sits down, feeling infuriated with desire as he touches his lips. he remembers the softness of it and your taste… but then you pull away, going back to square one. he scowls, he wants you so much but you had to make it difficult. thoughts run through his almost sober mind… he’ll get back to you. if you don’t want his forgiveness then he’ll play your little game. he’ll have revenge, he’ll have you in this state you’ve left him as well. 

・゜゜・．

the days after were suffocating. 

you avoided maekar completely. you stayed in your room more than you normally did. yet the sensation of his lips on yours still lingers. it tears you apart that the man you seem to now want is the same man you thought of lowly. it irritates you, and yet… you don’t even want to think about it. it only makes you mad and… ugh! 

you put your book down, getting off your bed as you try to walk it off. trying to get rid of this feeling, this feeling you aren’t supposed to feel for him. never you had a man tick the inside of your brain this much- let alone a pompous prick of a prince. but it was no matter, he’s leaving in a day. and all will be back to normal. 

although… 

you don’t know why it makes you frown. him. leaving. after all that. you have to admit… he’s the first man that intrigued you despite his sloppy attitude. maybe that was why… maybe he managed to spark something in you that never came until now. and now you expect more, more than just some kiss you know he’ll forget. his drunken ass. 

maybe he does this thing to every woman he comes across, you suddenly think, and maybe you’re one of the unfortunate victims. 

a knock and opening of your door pulls you out of your anger all of the sudden. 

“yes?” you breathe out. 

“father wants to see you. says he needs to talk to you… at this instant.” your brother says, and you’re frazzled. you only comply, following him to your father’s study, worried what this is about. when you enter, your father is sitting in his study with a joyful expression, as if he was told something even more profound than having a direct alliance with the crown. your mother sits on the chair in front of him, also looking ecstatic. 

“ah! there you are!” your father jumps up, ushering you to come in. you hesitate until your mother practically leaps up from her seat to pull you down to sit instead. 

“i am so proud of you.” your mother tells you all of the sudden. you raise a brow, confused. 

“i don’t how you did it, my girl. i am already pleased with the business we have with their graces, but this… you did a good job.” your father now praises you. you sit there, dumbfounded, wondering what this is about. did you won a tourney or something without knowing- 

“i… thank you?” you finally say. both your parents smiled widely. 

“i knew my daughter would one day become a princess.” your mother says, and your blood turns cold. 

what? 

“pardon?” you blink. 

“of course, my love. prince maekar chose exceptionally well! he knew our daughter’s worth.” your father says and you want to run. “he asked permission from us to court you, saying you two have been spending quite a lot of time together. i am sure within weeks he’ll ask for your hand!” 

a vein almost pops in your head, but the feeling in your chest says otherwise. that cunning piece of shit- 

“huh.” you don’t know what to say, if you tell them the truth, you don’t want them to be upset. you don’t want a whole argument to turn into who’s telling the truth, because what the hell was that man thinking? 

why? is your next question in your head. what is he doing? you don't know what the hell he’s getting out of this- you really don’t know. both of you ignore each other that night, and now this? 

was he plotting against you? just for fun? 

you want to scream, but you smiled. forced a smile as your parents praise you indefinitely. 

this was not over. 

・゜゜・．

maekar feels smug… smug that he’s managed to grin today. tomorrow he’ll leave, and never speak to you about what he told your parents. it was something out of the whim that he told your father that. as childish as it was, he was hoping you’d take the bait. but it seems your distance grows further. he rarely sees you the days after that night. 

and it was killing him. 

laughable it was, he doesn’t expect that you’re now this close to being snared in his trap. 

like right now. 

you were livid, finally cornering him that night. you secretly waited, just enough to corner him in the stairs at the dead of night. this time you had no plan, no motive, nothing- but to just… strangle him if you could. and this is how maekar ends up pressed against the wall in the spiral stairs with you pushing your finger on his chest. 

“you are a lunatic!” you try not to yell as the prince smirked. “how- how could you say that to my father? are you mad?” 

“watch your tone, m’lady.” he merely says, mocking you. your eyes widened as you don’t know what else to say. “i bet you liked it, didn’t you? you kissed me first from what i remember-“ 

“shut up!” you cut him off, cheeks warm, and there he looks at you fondly, and you deliver the final blow, hoping it would gain a reaction from him.

 “i hate you.”

silence. only the wind outside can be heard. maekar’s jaw tightened as he looked at you, his hand came up to cup your jaw… and you let him. he smirks, shaking his head. 

“i know you do.” he whispers and all hell breaks loose. he surges forward to capture your lips, and it felt damn better than that night he was drunk. you pull his collar forward, deepening the kiss as your mind goes blank. you moan between kisses when his hands grasp your hips. 

it was all a blur, your hands went to his trousers, untying them. he followed your every move as you pushed him to sit on the stairs. his hands grasped your hips then reached up your skirt, looking for your drawers to pull down. you slap his hand away, still angry as you push them off. 

“you said you wish to court me, right? marry me?” you breathe out as he pulls his trousers down, his arousal evident as it springs out. you look down at his cock, all thick and hard, the wetness in your center annoys you. maekar dumbly blinks but nods at the same time. 

“i hate you. so this is your way of forgiveness.” you say sweetly as you grip his chin. “or else i’ll tell everybody how you soiled me then left the next day.” 

he laughs as you grip his cock, and you’re not entirely sure what you’re doing as you grip it before hovering over his exposed lap. maekar watches seeing you fumble until he gently guides you. his fingers brushed against your entrance, and he made a pleased noise feeling your wetness. all for him. you shudder at his ministrations until he gripped and pressed himself against your entrance. you sink down, welcoming him, but it stung, making you place your hands on his chest to keep you steady. 

“easy now.” he whispers. “slowly.” 

you nod as you slowly take him in, fighting the burn as your warm walls welcome him. 

“fucking-“ he groans out when he’s deep in you. you let out a whine as you sit on his cock for a moment, adjusting to his size. after a couple of minutes, you begin to move, a little clumsy but you grind your hips, feeling the pleasure like no other. it was all so new, and you can’t wrap your head around the idea that this is wrong. 

what the fuck are you two doing? 

you want to cry out as maekar lets you set the pace, but he leans forward, kissing your exposed neck as he pulls the strings of your top to reveal your chemise. he pulls it down, kissing your exposed breasts. you grind against him as his hips matched your pace. you moan out, the new sensation making you dizzy as he lets out a few groans of his. your hands went to his hair, and you pull him forward for another kiss. 

“i hate you.” you mumble between his lips, grinding harder, feeling like you’re close to something. his hand comes down to bully your clit which makes you whine loudly. 

“i hate you.” you repeat again, and he chuckles before pounding upwards to chase the impending release you’re both having. 

“i hate you!” you grip the back of his neck when you feel yourself coming, and he sighs out as your walls clenched around him. he moans out, loving every second of it as his own release follows after. he cums deep inside you, and fuck does it feel so good and so wrong. 

the gentle high dies down, and you slump against his form while he lays back on the stairs. he looks at you, softly this time. you look back at him as he merely grins. 

“am i forgiven?” 

・゜゜・．

“i really do hate you, you idiot.” 

it’s the first time in six years since you said you hate him again. maekar looks at you fondly as he wipes your stray tears. you carry your little aerion in your arms while daeron grips your dress below, staring silently at the two of you. you hate to see him go this moment, when you’re not sure he’ll come back to you alive and you don’t know what to do with that thought. he was commanded to lead the siege near king’s landing, and you didn’t like the idea of your husband so close to the rebellion. but duty was duty. he needed to go and join his brother. 

“i love you.” you say finally, kissing his lips one last time. “come back to me- to us.” 

“i love you as well.” he utters softly, and you’re reeled back in the past the first time he said that after the incident you two caused back in your hometown. 

“come back or i’ll never forgive you.” you warn him, the nostalgic feeling makes him chuckle as he kisses the head of aerion and bends down to daeron, muttering to your little boy to take care of you when he’s away. 

“i know. when haven’t i made amends for you?” he grins, and you can still see that boyish grin of the pompous prince you grew to hate… then love back then. 

Nothing with his mind, but more with his body. At first he had some issues with seeing things- more like processing them, with following the Maesters’ fingers as they tested his injuries. He’d see and hear things that weren’t truly there, but after a week, he was well and fine again. 

Mobility was still a bit hard, he always felt sore as if moving his limbs and he always needed assistance with basic things, like bathing, clothing himself and sometimes walking (though he was mastering it now).

Baelor felt lucky, because all the people he loved were worried about him and by his side. He was sure that Lord Ashford couldn’t imagine that his daughter’s nameday would have the whole royal family in the castle. 

As Valarr took his duties as hand, he rested and recovered at Summerhall. It was the closest to Ashford, and Maesters deemed it fitting as he could not do long journeys yet, so King’s Landing or Dragonstone were off limits.

There were two people who never left his side. 

First: his wife. You were always fussing about him, making sure he was wellfed, that he felt worthy and always assuring him that everything will be okay. He felt invincible when you soothed him with encouraging words, telling him how much you love him, how you'll get out of this together, how you’ll help him no matter what. 

You slept by his side, careful not to bother his weary body, you woke up earlier than him and he broke his fast with your help. Even if he insisted on doing it on his own, most of the time you did it yourself. 

The second: was Maekar. He left his kids at King’s Landing, leaving in Aerys’ care and so he could watch over Daeron and his three youngest. It was rare for Maekar to welcome anyone at Summerhall willingly for long periods of time: it was his home, and he didn’t like to bring outsiders (perhaps only his brothers and parents, yet not for more than a moon…). Yet now, being with the burden of consequences… He delivered the blow that almost killed his own brother and he couldn't imagine a world without Baelor in it. 

Even if Baelor had forgiven Maekar, he didn’t forgive himself. He tried to make up for it, to help him in any way, to be there, to help him shave, to help him bathe, he was almost as worried as Baelor’s wife. 

And you had not forgiven him. When the three of you had supper, if looks could kill, you could have easily murdered Maekar long ago and Baelor wasn’t blind of how you scoffed or seem more irritated whenever his youngest brother was nearby.

“You shouldn’t be cross at him” He said once, as you fed him late at night. 

“Hmm” you grunted, not really agreeing with him.

“I have forgiven him. He did not mean it,” Baelor added, gently coaxing you into the idea. “We used to train together, and even younger than I, he always has been strong. It is not the first time I received a wound from him…”

“And did he also give you a brain injury when you both trained in the Age of Heroes?” Your tone was sharp, and perhaps too abrasive. 

“We did not live in the Age of Heroes”

“My point is the same. Is this not the first time he smashes your head to the point of injury?”

“Maekar is my brother. I love him dearly, always have. He is my favourite brother.” Baelor said, stopping those thoughts in your mind. “And he is your brother too.”

“My good-brother,” you say, almost bitterly. 

“Nonetheless,” he said simply, “you are to forgive him.”

“I’ll see to that,” you fed him another spoonful of soup.

“I have never understood this rivalry between you two.” he sighed, looking at you. “Was it because of his comment?”

You look at him, not understanding where he was going with that.

“About you being too young for me.”

The roll of your eyes was enough for him to understand that since then you had not liked him. When announcing your betrothal, he remembered that Maekar, in his perennially sarcastic manner, had said something along the lines of “would be a better wife to your son, not to an old man.” Baelor didn't take offense, being used to his brother’s antics and whines. 

You did. Baelor had seen how you pursed your lips, trying to keep the composure, yet you tensed. Since then, you weren’t exactly his number one fan, always answering half-hearted answers about his brother. If Maekar was coming with the kids, you’d say “how nice”, if he had sent letters “how considerate of him”, and when the Anvil was invited along to Ashford, you simply said “if you think is wise”

Maekar was pretty much indifferent as well, never going out of his way to please you or apologise. He thought of your actions as a tantrum over not being fussed over. 

And Baelor didn’t understand why two of his favourite people loathed each other. 

With his injury, everything changed, Baelor knew that much. 

You were a dutiful wife. You waited for him, you took care of him. “She’s much younger, she will have to take care of you when you are old,” his father had said, and Baelor had rolled his eyes, speaking on how long it would be from now. 

Not very long, it seemed. It made him feel guilty, having a young woman by his side, who should be at feasts, enjoying the finest luxuries that a future Queen should. Queens had duties, but princesses… not so many. And Baelor wanted you to enjoy many things that his mother never could, on account of his grandsire and his love for debauchery. Baelor wanted it to be different for you, as he had with Jena, and as his brothers did with their wives. 

“You have many scars” you told him, helping him button his linen shirt. Fine-motor skills were still a bit stiff for him. Even if he practised, he was always too tired when night came. 

“From many battles,” he had answered. “Haven’t you heard about…”

“The Hammer and The Anvi?” You finish for him. “I have” 

“Well, there is a song about us for a reason.” 

You rolled your eyes, amused, looking at his exposed chest, the buttoning up stopping for a second to look at him. “I always thought that it was hot. I like that nickname of yours.”

Baelor was just a man. And as every man, no matter where or when, he loved a compliment from the woman he desired and loved. 

“Which one? The Hammer or Breakspear?”

“Both.” 

When you kissed him, he moved you closer to his lap. It was a great effort from him to have you atop of him, where his hips burned just because he was alive, and his lower back muscles feel like he had taken a million blows there. Yet Baelor wanted you, always making an effort to make love to you, to show you how dear you are to him; more now than ever, taking care of him. 

He kissed, nibbled and caressed your body. Baelor felt like he should compensate you for everything, for being with him, even if he is a broken man. 

“You think we can?” You ask as he places a kiss on your neck. He pulled down the chemise, slightly to keep going. “The maesters will be upset.”

“Let them. I am alive to enjoy life, not to be a rock.”

“Can I ride you then?” you said to him. “I miss riding you”

It was an excuse not to have him move too much, but Baelor knew you loved riding him. He enjoyed it too, especially after a long day of meetings and council. Perhaps with time he’d be able to gain energy and fuck you from behind. He surely could do it, he had little to do these days. 

No matter how many kisses he gave your chest, your face, how you touched him, undo his breeches, lick and kiss his cock, stroke it, speak dirty to him… 

Nothing.

He was limp, his cock making no effort to get up, soft and a bit dry in your hands. Baelor wasn’t small either when he was soft, just not to the full capacity.  

You had never seen your husband so embarrassed and disappointed, because no matter how much you tried, nothing worked. And it wasn’t like he didn’t desire you, but your touch meant nothing 

“It is alright,” your tone was comforting, as you didn’t mind. “You’re still coming back to yourself.”

“I know that. I still disappoint.”

“You could never,” you assure him, sitting by his side on the bed now, and holding his hand “I am blessed to have you”

It felt like a pity party.

“I could not do the very thing that makes a man… a man. Even the lowest criminal, or the mightiest lord.”

“I do not care. I have no need for that, it is better this way. If you take care of your health.” 

Maekar remembered when Baelor was still mostly unconscious. Living by the milk of the poppy and other things Maesters gave him to be practically laying all day without having to feel.

You would be glued to his side, working on embroidery or reading, no matter the time, you wouldn’t leave him. 

Maekar had been  embarrassed to look you in the eye, but you never left Baelor’s side and he needed to apologise. He knew that much, to ask – beg to him and you to forgive him.  

He had dared to stay at the end of the bed, watching your hand in Baelor’s, looking like the image of a widow. 

“I…” he started, “I came to apologise. To him, and to you.”

You did not answer him, looking at him with pure hatred. He knew he deserved it… his son had demanded a trial of Seven, as it was his right… but why did Baelor have to take the bloody Hedge Knight’s side? Why did Maekar have to hit his beloved brother with a mace? 

“Maesters say that he will wake.” 

“I shouldn’t have let him go to that tourney,” you say bitterly, looking at your husband. 

“It wasn’t your fault.”

“I need none of your absolution, goodbrother,” your tone was poisonous, not even faking how much you recoiled against him. “Begone with you. My husband might forgive you, if he wakes up.”

And so he did. His benevolent brother, not holding a drop of resentment against him. It was as if all of those feelings were within you, looking at him as if you wanted to stab him. You were there when Baelor had forgiven him, thanked him for allowing them a stay at Summerhall. For every coldness you gave him, Baelor melted it right away.

They were on the bed, Maekar had been reading to him some letters from King’s Landing, from their father and the council. It had not been a fun afternoon, but he made sure to read them all outloud. 

“Can I ask you something?”

Baelor’s voice made Maekar look up from the letters he had been reading to figure which one to read next. He had been busy bathing Baelor before laying him in bed, not minding working as if he was his valet, dressing his brother up in his linen chemise, as Maekar simply laid with his robe. 

“Yes,” he said, his tone gruff.

“Did you ever have problems with Dyanna?”

Maekar raised one eyebrow, turning his face to look at his brother. “We did sometimes fight over this and that.” His tone is nonchalant, as it was natural of a marriage to fight from time to time. “Is your wife giving you problems?”

“More like the contrary, I am the one with all the problems” 

“I doubt so. She’s always complaining non-stop… That you’re too fragile for that, that I am doing a poor job, that-”

“I fail to understand why you two hate each other,” Baelor cut Maekar as he starts whining about his complaints. 

“We do not.”

“You do. And I do not understand why. My two favourite people cannot get along.”

“It is not that,” Maekar groaned. “She is… She simply is…”

“Please, do not call her something improper for my wife.”

“I was not planning to do so!” Maekar said, his face red in embarrassment. “She is simply… insufferable, thinking herself above everyone else, and she makes these comments, full of envy and pettiness.”

Baelor seemed half amused, seeing his brother so passionately ranting about his wife. He should do the honorable thing, take a side between this rivalry, but he could not choose between his two favourite people. He simply would ask for you two to not pursue any damage to the other, and shut down any hurtful comments. 

“She is my wife,” Baelor started diplomatically. “She deserves your respect.” To that, Maekar rolled his eyes and grumbled. “She has done nothing but be at my side-”

“As have I,” Maekar interrupted, looking at him with his frows burrowed. “What is the problem you had, you said?”

“I might need a favour.”

Coming back from the sept, your lady-in-waiting had informed you quickly. Two of them were kind enough to come to Summerhall willingly to be by your side — and Gods knew you needed them. 

“Prince Maekar is again at your solar, my lady,” one of them said, as she came closer to you. 

Great. The last thing you needed: to face him today. 

“Poor you, my lady. You are so strong” 

Their words  were comforting and  gave you more security in this strange place. You were far from home, in the castle of a man that not only you disliked, but had almost killed your husband. 

You decided enough was enough. It was your husband, you had to take care of him, not Maekar, it was his fault. You wished Baelor would recover quick enough to go to Dragonstone and be alone.  

Yet you couldn’t hate Maekar. No… it wasn’t hate. It was more like… aversion. 

“Darling.” 

Baelor calls for you, sitting up in bed with Maekar by his side, both under the coverlet of the bed as if they had not a care in the world. You made a face looking at both, your husband in his usual clothes these days, a linen tunic for sleep, and Maekar… with an open robe with his chest at full sight. You bit your lip, swallowing the sigh of annoyance. Maekar was practically warming up your husband's bed while you were gone. 

“Hello,” you muttered, moving to take off the headpiece of your head with harsh movements. It takes you no effort to undo the braid your handmaiden did in the morning. 

You wait for your good brother to go away, to say his goodbyes and get out of your side of the bed. Yet he doesn’t. It was not late, the sun was still in the sky. Still, Maekar had his own life to attend to. 

“You can go now,” you say, coming to the bed, not daring to take off your dress as he was here. 

“He’ll stay.”

Baelor had never received a look so stern as yours but he wasn’t one to back down. 

“What?”

“Darling, can…, can you come closer?”

Maekar didn’t quite meet your eyes as you squinted at him, but Baelor did. He had infinite patience, that’s true, but you had your convictions. 

“What is this?”

“Just… Let me talk to you about it”

As you sit on the edge of his side, looking at him as he tries to pull you closer. 

“Brother, you shouldn’t…”

“Allow me,” Baelor said, and Maekar backed off without a complaint. 

You gave in, because you did not wish for Baelor to overexert himself trying to pull you in his lap. You had no idea what he planned, perhaps he finally will set peace between both of you. 

He set you on his lap, and you made a face at how undecorous that is to do with his brother present, sitting right next to him (and worst of all, he was still in your side of the bed).

“Don’t frown at me,” Baelor said, his tone is always soft yet could easily be condescending when you got bratty.  “I have missed your face all day.”

You look at his mismatched eyes, as he presses a kiss to your temple. Unsure of what his game was, you turn to look at Maekar, as if trying to seek any response in him. He turns his head away, his face becoming red as a tomato as Baelor moves his hands to unlace your dress. 

“Husband-”

“Allow me,” Baelor said, looking at you “to explain.” 

Your eyes don’t leave Maekar's face, suspicion evident to this whole setup. There was something strange about it all, something Baelor was yet to tell you. 

“Since we have come back from Ashford, you know I am at half my capacity.” 

Maekar didn’t look at you, you hope he’s ashamed of it. Perhaps that’s why the redness of his face. 

“Yeah” you murmured bitterly. 

“And you’ve been such a caring wife, as always… I am very grateful for it. I am rather ashamed that there is so little I can do for you now.” 

You want to reassure him that it was fine, that you do not mind his impediments, yet he raised a hand to signal that he wants to keep talking. 

“Like, the other day. It is shameful for a man… more so a man of my age, to not seem fazed by his wife’s beauty, body and nature.” Baelor’s tone was a bit sheepish, as he looked at you, “even though I  feel it more for you than for myself. It is you who I leave unsatisfied, and you already do so much, I feel like I give you nothing in return.”

“That’s nonsense” you say quietly “You being alive is everything you could have given to me.”

“That is very sweet,” he said, his hands still keeping you in place.  

Okay… Why is Maekar needed here, then? you think, not really wanting him to speak about such matters in front of his youngest brother. 

“I know that you and Maekar have your differences,” Baelor started then, looking over at Maekar who did not face him from shame… and some grumpiness too. “But, my brother was generous enough to do me a favour.”

“How generous,” you muttered. 

“Stop it.” He said to you. “Listen to me”

You grumble, just as Maekar had when Baelor proposed his idea. He couldn’t understand how two people so alike could despise the other that much.

“Maekar is mine blood. He is a part of myself, and I of him.” He explained gently. “I want nothing but to give you back what you have given me. I know it makes you frustrated to not have a husband who can fuck you properly anymore” 

You frown, feeling your cheeks redden. It may be true, but still, you didn’t want either of them to know that. 

“Because I know you,” he said quietly, his hands absent mindedly caressing your thigh. “And Maekar owes me. I do not trust anyone but him for this task.”

Then you realise what your husband really proposes; at first you thought of something of the sort, but surely you were imagining things… right?  There was no way that your own husband was trying to get you to agree to allow his own brother to fuck you. 

“What? But… But he’s your brother.”

“He is.”

“And you are my husband. Not him.”

“I know that” Baelor said “But it is what I want. For you to keep enjoying it. You have told me yourself, it is your favourite married activity.”

“Yes, but…” your face was hot, and Maekar was red in the face, still as a statue as he pretended not to hear a thing. It was a surprise for him to be quiet and not cursing. “married activity. Between you and I.”

“Indulge me, then” He said, pressing a soft kiss on your cheek. “Yeah? Just… Think about it, pass your dislike of Maekar and really think about it. Hm?” He asked, his hands moving to wrap his arms in your back. “Wouldn’t it be nice? I would be right here, making sure you feel good. And you’ll feel so good, my love.” 

“And you would… enjoy it? Seeing me with Maekar…” 

“I would very much do so.”

As Baelor peppers your face with coaxing, sweet kisses, your eyes lock with Maekar’s.

There was a harshness in Maekar that Baelor lacked. Not to take his kindness as a weakness, but he tended to be softer, more lenient. The younger brother was more stern, more temperamental in his emotions. 

“And your brother has agreed?” 

Baelor hums, and after a long silence from his part, Maekar speaks. 

“I have”  

Your nose scrunched in uncertainty. You were not sure, yes, you miss having your husband in your bed, as you would demand him almost every night, giggling in his ear as you sat on his lap, asking him to fuck you once again. He always said that you were a woman obsessed, one that loves to be bedded, more than any woman in a bed house. 

It all seemed distant now. 

You felt like a septa now, more pious in your lack of emotions in your marriage. Baelor could hardly do what he did, most of his time was dedicated to help him go back as before, to help him walk, sit up, even eat on his own. During the first weeks he couldn’t even read more than three lines in a scroll without his head hurting. 

And yet Maekar… He was the bane of your existence. Aerion had been bruised, his pale cheek cut open. Daeron lost half his ear. Ser Duncan had a grotesque swollen eye, your husband with a blow on the back of his head, even the new apple knight had wounds to be tended and yet… The Anvil had barely had any scratch. What were they? A small redness around his cheekbone? A bruise on the stomach where Baelor had unhorsed him with his lance?

“I am feeling better” Baelor said quietly “Perhaps I could prepare you for him. If my fingers don’t fail me” 

He undid your dress with a rather practised slowness. No, he was still recovering, you thought, he was still gaining finer motor skills. 

You had your reservations, surely. Being in your chemise in front of a man that was not your husband… but surely you could indulge Baelor in this. It won’t kill you.

Besides, Maekar might be many things, but he didn’t seem like a horrible lover. He had six children, and you had heard how his lady loved him. Surely, he knew how to please a woman into having six children willingly. 

“You’re so pretty” Baelor said, kissing your skin gently. “Isn’t she, brother?”

You cringed inwardly, not wanting to hear it. Gods give you patience. 

“Hmm.” Maekar hummed, only to amuse Baelor. 

You squint your eyes, trying to think how you will endure to bed him. Baelor was more enthusiastic than both of you, once your gown was off, and only your chemise remained, his hands moved all over your body. 

“Look at me” he said quietly, looking up at you. “I love you fiercely.” His tone is honest, absolutely smitten over you. You softened slightly, as you nodded. 

“I love you as well. Fiercely.” 

It was strange to kiss passionately in front of someone else, but Baelor made it easy to forget. As if you could merge into him without a worry in the world. As his hands moved to caress your thighs, you started to feel aroused, feeling the needy pout forming in your lips.  

As usual, he peppers your cheek with kisses, tailing over to your neck as his hands move under your chemise. He was still warm, and so gentle as always, which only helped to spur you on.

To be pretty honest, you were horny with so little. These few weeks you had felt the ache between your legs, which lasted so little because of how busy you had been. And now, with your husband kissing you, touching you and lavishing with affection, you were whimpering quietly against his chest. 

“Hmmm,” Baelor hums quietly. “So wet.”

It was true, you were shivering and dripping like a maiden.  His palm ground against your center, teasing you slightly as his fingers were probing against your folds, his touch just the way you liked it.

“Let’s show Maekar, hm? Come on, let him see” Baelor said, maneuvering you so Maekar could see all of it. Pulling your dress up with his other hand, his fingers didn’t stop their maddening ministrations on your cunny.

You felt a bit sheepish as Baelor exposed you, feeling vulnerable. You hid in Baelor’s neck, a bit shy, not wanting to see your good brother seeing your cunt… 

Fuck, you were so wet. Even more so knowing that Maekar was watching your husband touching your cunt and pleasuring you… preparing you for him.

As you peek to see Maekar, you can see his red face watching you. If you hoped to see an erection, the blankets and furs from the bed block the view. Still, you knew when a man was aroused. 

“Isn’t she pretty?”

“Yeah… she is.”

“Why don’t you sit on Maekar’s lap, love?” Baelor said, coaxing you to do it as he moved his hand to the back of your back to push you gently.  

You huff slightly, yet moving to comply with your husband’s wish, settling in Maekar’s lap. You felt the warmth in him, as the bed cracked from settling into his thighs. You have never shared honest kind words, it was always either too fake or as an insult. Maekar knew you found him dour, and he found you dull. 

“Careful-” he muttered as you accidentally pressed your knee too hard on his thigh. 

“I am settling,” you grunt, the air still hostile. 

“Do calm down, no one is dying” Baelor said, as he leaned back in his pillows. 

Sometimes you and Maekar could agree. About Baelor, mostly. You two cared for him, you two wanted only but the best for him, and it was a small concession that was shared… yet Maekar broke it, he smashed Baelor’s head, and you can’t look past it 

The gaze between you has always been hostile, and it is… yet now it is changed. You’re sitting atop of his erection, and he is going to fuck you. And you want him to. 

His hands were foreign on your body, they are big yet not quite as soft or warm as your husband’s. Baelor had less callouses in his hands now, and definitely has grown softer from his recovery. The Anvil was still as ruthless, it seems, as his hands were little rougher, and you had seen him training since you’ve met him… whereas Valarr and Matarys were mostly trained by a master-at-arms, Maekar was more hands on when teaching Daeron, Aerion, Aemon and Aegon how to fight. He would deem them to be passable knights only when they could defeat him at least once. 

He was so different, and yet, you could see Baelor in him. He was his brother, and they had the very same parents and blood, which shouldn’t surprise you to find them similar, but Baelor was more like their mother and Maekar resembled their mother. 

“Do not be shy, love,” Baelor coaxed you as you remained still, looking at Maekar as if you’d like to choke him. “You give very pleasant kisses.”

Oh, fuck off. You think, as it was cute once, but now it is getting annoying. Your nose scrunches, as you comply… for whatever reason. 

You are pleasantly surprised when kissing Maekar. It started stiff, to be sure, but as you decide to only enjoy the feeling, it came naturally to have such a sloppy kiss with him. His tongue is all over yours, his lips move on its own in a messy way as you grip his hair to keep him however you like. 

You loathed him, but you couldn’t deny that feeling his hard cock against your cunt while kissing was amazing. Much more after moons without any action, since you had no mind for that. And you thought that it could be the same for him, in a way, after widowing and having to care for six kids. 

“How should I take her?” Maekar asked Baelor, separating from your lips. And while tried to move his head, your hand was still gripping the hair on the back of his head, and you did not allow him to move. 

“I am right here,” You said through gritted teeth. “You think you can decide about me without consulting?”

“It is not-”

“You two agreed to allow my goodbrother to fuck me. I was not present” You repeat to Maekar. It came so easily to be mean to him. “You ruined my life and now you ask my husband how I want to be fucked? Fuck off.”

Maekar, for a moment, thinks that you will push him away and leave him with a pathetic erection in his brother’s bed… Baelor thinks the same. You don’t, simply staring at him angrily, with hatred in your gaze. 

You were telling him to fuck off, yet the words simply made his cock heavier and hurt even more. 

“Fuck off,” you repeat, as if telling yourself that. The grip on his hair was gone when you move your hand away, but he doesn’t dare to look away from you.

Feeling your hand on his cock, Maekar has to bite back a groan. He was no maiden, yet you make him feel like one, taking him by surprise as you decide to take matters in your hands, guiding his cock to your entrance. 

Maekar’s hands held your waist as he helped you sink onto his cock, the sensation making him groan from the overwhelming pleasure, more so when you moaned just the same, gripping his shoulders tightly. 

“Fuck me,” he grunted, leaning back in the pillows as you rode him however you pleased. He feels somewhat like a toy, being used for your pleasure. And he did not care one bit. 

“Shut up”

The stretch was delicious, feeling Maekar’s fat cock inside made your head spin and your eyes shut close. Settling on his cock, getting used to his size made your toes curl and forget, only for a second, that your husband was watching you both. 

You hated him, you had dreamed of him having an illness, of him disappearing and never coming back… And as he thrusts up inside your cunt, you moan loudly, eyes glassy as you could feel his balls as you sank all the way down. 

“You brute,” you said, trying to keep composure while bouncing on his dick. His eyes do not leave your face, watching your every expression as his hands resin firmly between your waist and hips, not deciding where to be. “I hate you.”

“I hate you too” he said, equally spiteful as he fucks you. The scowl on his face, his purple eyes intense and following your face, and how he had your breasts swaying with every thrusts, centimeters from his face.  

There wasn’t any gentleness in the way you bounce on his cock or how he takes you however he wants. And Maekar was sure that you also preferred it that way. 

“Fuck, fuck, fuck” You muttered, followed by whimpers and moans. What a mouth, he thinks. “Harder, fuck me harder.”

Maekar complied, moving you up and down on his cock however he wanted, hard and fast. He could feel his balls sticky from all the gush, he could hear as he hilts his cock inside,  the wet, rhythmic slap of their bodies together. 

You watched his face, he was enjoying this as much as you were. He was pretty vocal, grunting, groaning and moaning, and of course, you could hear the insults coming from his mouth. His eyes were haunting, so bright against the light that it made you nervous, almost as light as his hair and beard. 

You faintly remember how Baelor’s beard felt against your cunt. Still, Maekar’s hair seems more silky, softer to touch. Would his beard feel softer against your cunny? His nose would feel delicious, you know it, as he had a much more prominent nose than the Hammer. No, your husband has a beautiful nose, but the Anvil had a bigger one. Imagining that nose rubbing against your clit, makes you moan loudly. 

“Ah, Gods! Fuck, fuckfuckfuck- ” you muttered, feeling your body simply give in as he hits a delicious spot inside you. And Gods, he notices it. His arms hug you against him,  wrapping them around your waist as he keeps you still to thrust inside that very place inside you. 

You rolled your eyes in pleasure, collapsing against him with no shame at all. You two were past shame at this point, especially since he was so deep inside you. Your head found his shoulder perfect enough to rest there as the fire in your cunt makes you see stars. 

The sticky sounds made it obscene, but you loved that sound. How you missed hearing it, feeling it, feeling strong arms keep you in place as you were fucked right. 

As your head was lolled against Maekar’s skin, your mouth slightly agape with a thin thread of drool as you gasped for air, you saw your husband. Baelor was perfectly against his pillows, with a perfect view of his wife getting fucked by his brother. 

There was no shame in your body, there was something vulnerable about being observed while Maekar fucks you. With Baelor, it has always been passionate, but very loving, safe and sweet. He has always been careful, kissing you everytime, adoring you. Maekar fucked you like he hates you, which he did, and he was not sweet, or considerate. It was primal, animalistic, and so good. 

Different than fucking your husband, either better or worse; just different. And when your eyes meet the mismatched eyes of Baelor, you are slightly afraid he might think otherwise. Instead, you find the pleasant sight of your husband finally roused by the spectacle of his brother taking his wife. 

You watch as his hand strokes his own cock, red and fully erected, which seems almost painful. The heat that Baelor must feel was almost agonizing, his own cock aching and weeping against his own hand, not able to look away; mesmerised by the way his wife’s body was against his Anvil. 

The bed creaks slightly, too much weight, too much movement, and you moan loudly.

“Maekar,” you moan softly, feeling the heat in your belly intensify with the new information. 

“Hmm” He grunted, not taking your words into consideration.

You moved one hand to make him look at Baelor, as if that was something you both should know. It was not the main purpose, surely, but not less important nonetheless. 

It was impossible for you to decipher Maekar’s thoughts, seeing his brother reduced and aroused by seeing his wife being fucked. He feels a surge of pure pleasure at the perversion of taking his brother’s wife, a forbidden act in any law… yet, in this room, no one cares. 

“Look at him,” Maekar grunted, looking at you for a moment. As he said that, he gives you a small, passionate kiss. “Look what we do to him,” he whispered against your ear, helping you to sit up straight. 

You really were enjoying being all limp against Maekar’s chest, but seeing Baelor jerking off, made you gain more control bouncing on his brother’s cock. The squelch of your cunt sliding up and down on his shaft was louder now, or perhaps it was your own impression. 

Maekar’s head fell back against the pillow, also unable to tear his gaze away from Baelor, moaning as you bounced with more force, your weight crushing him deliciously in place. His cock, nestled inside your warm pussy, was near cumming inside and filling you up. 

It was impossible for him not to look at you again, so pretty while getting fucked. Your mouth was finally to good use, perhaps even better if you could, at least once, suck his cock. And by how this was going, he hoped you would. 

“She feels so good,” he said outloud, as if to help Baelor to know what it was like. “She is gripping me deliciously, and she is so wet.” 

That makes you turn your head back to him, locking eyes with his. Your hands moved to caress his chest shamelessly, much less hair than Baelor, but so firm and hot. 

“I know she will cum in a few moments” Maekar added looking at you, arrogant prick. You want to hold back just to prove him wrong, but you are not willing to sacrifice your orgasm for that. “I will, too.”

“Cum inside me,” you demanded, and since Baelor had no objections, you kept going, “fill me up.” 

Knowing that Baelor was enjoying this as you were, made you already on the brick of pleasure. And knowing that Maekar was there as well was simply enough to cum with loud moans all over his cock. 

You liked having the attention of both men, enjoying far more than you realised of being fucked while your husband watches (how perverse!) and you are actually glad he thought of it. It had been a long time since you had been fucked in such a passionate, animalistic way. 

Maekar glanced towards Baelor and in the Hammer eyes there was no protest, he nodded in permission to encourage him “I’m gonna fill you so fucking much” The Anvil said to you.

His arms held you tight in place as you felt the way his cock emptied himself in you, the warm seed filling your womb as you wanted. You heard his grunts, the way he panted, how his thighs slightly trembled as he came. 

Laying against his chest, you let out a satisfied sound. Maekar sighed, accommodating you as he was unsure what to do now. He wanted to fuck his brother’s wife again and again, until he was utterly spent. 

Something catches your attention, because before he knows it, you’re crawling to Baelor’s side without notice. Maekar watched as you descended your head to Baelor’s hard cock, taking it in your mouth to suck him.  

Watching you, as his own seed drips from your cunt, makes him feel a small twitch on his cock. You were still young, being insatiable was in your nature… yet he feels too old for this now, his limbs and his lower belly are burning as he leans back, his eyes not leaving once the way you blow Baelor. 

The sight was obscene, yet the way Baelor locked eyes with him was perverse. Maekar has never found himself in such a strange position, and he has done many odd things to amuse Dyanna. And it spurred him on, once again. 

Baelor came in your mouth, and you’re quick to cuddle in his arms once again. It makes Maekar wonder… was that it? shall we go back and pretend this never happened?

“I do thank you,” Baelor said softly, as you simply are hugging him blissfully. How happy you were after being fucked, contrary to the frown you always had around Maekar. “It was pleasing enough for all of us”

“You enjoyed it?” He scoffs slightly surprised. 

“I did,” Baelor admitted, caressing your naked back slowly. He was too comfortable, as usual, too calm for a man whose wife had just been fucked by another man. “Did not thought it would arouse me”

Maekar raised his eyebrows, looking at the ceiling. What an odd situation, he thought to himself. Yet in all honesty, it had aroused him more than he thought, being watched by his brother, knowing that it had worked to harden his limp cock. 

“Hm?” Baelor hummed, as you whispered something in his ear. “Brother, my dear wife wants to know if you’d fuck her again… now.”

As the words hung in the air, Maekar froze for a second. You, the very same bane of his existence, a woman that had taken a jest so personal it made him scowl every time you were mentioned, only interacting with you by hostile words. You actually wanted him again. 

You, who were so reluctant at first, now were looking at him with hungry eyes, starving even. Perhaps it would take a long time for Baelor to get rid of his limp dick. 

“You insatiable wench,” the Anvil muttered.

It’s then that he noticed that you weren’t just difficult or stubborn. You were starving, craving this for a long time. During the moons of Baelor’s recovery time, you were left mostly alone.  You were insatiable because you have been empty for far too long now… yet now, here he was. 

Maekar always had felt second to his brother, sort of a shadow behind him… not because of anything that the Hammer ever did. Baelor was often praised by court and singers for their efforts in the Redgrass field, whereas he felt unappreciated, compared to his perfect brother. Now, you wanted him again. 

And Baelor, Seven bless him, was willing. Not an ounce of jealousy in him, looking serene and secure, granting Maekar freedom with his own wife. It was only natural for him to help his beloved big brother. 

“Alright.” Maekar agrees. He was not as honourable as Baelor, and you knew it. And you wanted him for it. “If it makes you happy.”

“It does.” Baelor said simply. “Go on darling, make everyone happy.” 

That you will, with no protests. As you tell Maekar that you won’t be under him, Baelor only smiles. He was a wise man, and every problem had a solution. He only needed his brother to do the task, as a Hammer needed its Anvil. 

In your sleep you’ve heard mutters. Him, speaking under his breath, the low foolish murmur he keeps for beasts. You’ve wondered often whether he talks to every living creature because that is simply his way, or because you will not give him words and he must spend his somewhere. You’ve heard him soft-spoken before, just never towards you. When you wake, it’s with strange hope. You reach for that softness like an idiot and it shatters as soon as you see him. Confirmation comes next as your loose chest and your bare legs.

To you, it’s written plainly. Now he knows, so he ought to deliver you to where you came from. A knight with the truth in hand. A woman on the road in borrowed shape. There is only one end to that tale and it points backwards. Home. Fathers. Bargains. Hands closing. Doors shutting. The fear of it breeds such fury you need no mirror to show you how ugly you’re turning. Good. Better fury than tears. Better to bare your teeth at him than let him see you beg.

If he had only been stern, you could have endured it. Nobody welcomes being made into a fool. If he had only been kind, you might have cried—you haven’t even noticed your foot blackening. It’s the self-righteousness in him that sends your words into slurs and your body into an upright stance. I had every right, he says and it turns him, in your frightened mind, from careful travelling companion into every man who has ever assumed authority over your body.

And you know damn well that without him you’d most likely have become eternally cold and your teeth would never rattle again. But gratitude cannot get a foothold because shame and fear are louder. He has seen. He is angry. He speaks as if he may decide what is done to you.

The second layer is the anger itself. To you, it comes from the entitlement of someone who’s never had to despair over taking up space in the world. It prompts you to spit every nasty thing your head supplies, because all else was swallowed for weeks. It’s gone now. Every time you’ve held back from telling him he’s pretty and saved it for the never, you’ve been sure the never wouldn’t come. Well, it has arrived and you have nothing left. Things you wouldn’t have assigned to him a day ago sound alien in your voice. You hate the sickly rasp in it. You hate having to fight him nearly naked. You hate that he looks at you with concern because it makes you feel small. You yell so you don’t cry, because crying would be death to your cause. You mock him, because that’s the only blade you’ve got. You haul mud at him, because you have no blade.

You see, for the first time, what this man is like stripped of sweetness, and it is all your doing. You hate too that it captivates you. As though anger shrinks him to something more touchable. Shows you there is wildness in him, something for you to tame.

Before this he had been timid. Respectful. Now, the anger helps him find the petty human edge, and you like it. It’s exciting, that spark. That one you hate as well, because falling in love means falling.

When his arms reach for you, you curl your hands into fists so you will not grab him by the neck and kiss him. When he catches your shoulders, you brace because otherwise you will grab him by the neck and kiss him. When he comes through the last of it and lays hands on you proper, you strike because otherwise you will grab him by the neck and kiss him. His strength is infuriating. It goes on and on. Shows you with humiliating clarity where you would be in a true fight with someone his size: nowhere at all but where he put you.

Then he closes around you in earnest and panic gets mixed through the want till you cannot sort one from the other. You kick because you cannot bear to be held so close and so easily, weak and known through at last. You writhe because his body makes a prison too natural to him. You hiss and spit and stamp because there is nothing to reach for and no decent pride left to you. His whole body thrums against yours.

You want free of his hands. You want to wound him. You want him.

So you kiss him, and—oh, Gods.

He changes under your mouth. The force of him stays the same; the anger goes molten. Want takes its place so fast the words fuck me rise near to the back of your teeth. He tastes of it. Smells of it. Holds you so hard the strength of him bleeds between you, and he is kissing you back before your own madness has time to cool. His mouth is hot and eager and clumsy in a way that goes through you like pity’s crueler cousin. You think, wildly, whether anyone has ever touched him with tenderness enough to teach him better. Whether he would know what to do with gentleness if it were offered. Whether he would like your fingers in his hair. Whether he would cling. Whether he would mutter against your skin. Whether he would spend in you. Whether he would want holding after.

Then, his palm spreads between your shoulder blades and your legs almost answer, wanting to climb him, but despair gets there first. You bite him because you do not know how to stop yourself without stopping him. You bite him because if he keeps kissing you like that you will forgive him everything. You bite him because you do not know how to live inside this much affection with nowhere safe to put it.

Next thing you know, you land on your arse hard enough to knock the breath up short in your chest. With each slow blink he is farther away. Walking, hunched and steadfast, toward the stream. “Dunk,” you whisper, but your throat has tightened too much for it to come out proper. Then your eyes sting. You hide them in his dirty bedroll and it almost undoes you. The smell of his sweat makes you cry harder, makes you think this is the last of him you will have. It hides your face well enough, but sharpens the knowing too: you have just ruined the one good thing that has happened to you.

Tears run out of you till your body feels dried of them. Once, between sobs, you could swear you hear a scream, but the trees swallow it whole. The fire threatens to die down, so you feed it a log too large for it and think for a moment you have killed it, till it kindles back up again. Mouth stinging and eyes swollen, you beat the dust from Dunk’s bedroll and lay it closer to yours than he would ever place it himself.

When he comes back it is dusk. You watch the sky bruise purple and wither to the grey-blue that says the sun has gone to the hells, and it makes the flame burn orange as fresh-cut fruit.

He stomps. Drags himself uphill. The shape of him stays in shadow till the fire finds him and paints him warm again. He looks worn out, tired to the bone, and like a man done in by female whims, he does not spare you so much as a glance. That is new. The anger from before you could have met blow for blow. This quieter thing, this care with which he keeps himself from looking at you at all, hurts worse. It makes you feel the damage in full. He drops to his place and turns his back on you, shut and cautious as a door barred for the night.

“Dunk,” you say. Try to—the first one comes out mute. “Dunk,” you say again, louder this time, all phlegmy rasp, and still he does not stir. “Ser Duncan.”

“Hush,” he says. “Sleep now.”

“But—”

“There’s naught to mend,” he says, while all you can see are the broken bits requiring mending exactly. “Sleep the rest of the fever off. Tomorrow we get back on the road.”

Sleep, he says. You do, brittle with it. Lie on your back and stare up into a sky pricked through with endless white points, with that faint pink glittering spill dragged across it. Beside you Duncan rasps heavily. Hums. Tosses and turns. When you glance over to see whether he is awake after all, his eyes are squeezed shut so hard the lids nearly swallow the whole length of his lashes. He looks in pain. Your palm itches to rest on his forehead and see whether your fever has passed into him through the mouths.

Dawn finds you as it always does: cold first, then angry with yourself for whatever small comfort you denied yourself the night before. You curse under your breath for not dressing back into all your layers. The air bites. Your fingers ache. Still you wake before him, as usual, and turn to look.

He is not soft in sleep this time. His face is all drawn tight with strain. The bedroll has bunched itself round him in a hard knot, and under the collar of his shirt a dark patch of sweat has spread. His hair sticks damply to his forehead. Again you want to touch him. Again you do not.

“Dunk?” you say. “Are you all right?”

He drags in a breath. “Mm. Jus’—” One hand comes up to wipe across his face. “Too warm.”

For one half-moment he sounds almost like himself, still caught on the lip of waking. Then you watch his mind catch up. It happens plain. The softness leaves. Whatever had slackened in him goes back under lock. By the time he opens his eyes proper, the distance is there again.

“Pack,” he says. “We’ll eat on the road.”

You sit up on one elbow. “Will you speak of yesterday?”

His mouth pulls into absence of expression. “Preferred it when you weren’t so set on speaking.”

It hurts. You let it hurt. Some part of you thinks it is no more than you earned.

You dress back into every piece of yourself and find the old shape sits wrong now. Shirt, binding, leather, gloves, neck-cloth. Each thing goes on like a lie you have already been caught in. You pack in silence, lash your things to the horse, and trot after him when he sets off.

He hardly stops the whole day. Once to water the horses. Once to piss. That is all. Whenever you try to speak, he picks up the pace and rides a little farther off, as though distance might do the work of deafness. You keep your jaw clenched round all the things that do not get said. You are certain there are people in this world you have hurt worse than Duncan, but none of them has taken to hating you half so briskly as him.

By evening he makes camp well away from you. Rolls his bed out at a remove that feels intentful even before you begin measuring it. He starts the fire, spits the rabbit, sets it over the flames, then walks off without a word. When he comes back he looks worn through again, some inward part of him scraped raw. He eats barely two bites, tips the wineskin high for longer than thirst calls for, burps with ugly force, and drops to his chosen place as if the ground has yanked him there. He says nothing. Before long he is snoring.

You lie awake listening to it and wondering what has wrung him out so thoroughly that half a skinsack of wine is enough to fell a man this large.

The next day repeats. He rides, you follow. The gap between you feels ceremonial. It could be disgust, could be resolve. Given the choice between the two, you would rather not name either. The whole of you has drawn so tight it feels there is nothing left to lose. At last you shout after him. He stops. You tell him the stream you’ve been following runs close again, that you need to wash some things, and surely you may stop a while. He looks at you long and cold, then nods and turns toward where the water hums.

When you are knee-deep in it, armour off, only linen left on, Duncan says, “We’ll need to find you somewhere safe.”

You look up. “What?”

“I’ve business to see to.” He does not look at you when he says it. “I’ll ride off a few days.” A beat. “After that,” he says, still working at whatever is in his hands, “we’ll speak. Of parting.”

Your hands stop moving. You look down at your foot, gone the sickly yellow of spoiled yolk. So he can no longer bear your company. You keep staring at your toes, warped in the water, praying your eyes will not worsen it. A tear forces out anyway.

Dunk’s at his wit’s end. At his strength’s end. At his body’s final gasp.

That kiss took him and shook him and wrung him through muscle and bone and other parts Dunk has no names for. When he heads for the stream his shoulders ache with the effort of pushing you off, and his cock is so hard he can barely call what he is doing walking. He gets no farther than the bank before tearing his boots off and stepping into the cold water clothed as he is. Then he lets himself drift in it, flat on his back like a corpse the current has not claimed yet, and screams at the sky. The rest of the day he spends drying in the sun, so when he comes back soaked through and sour with himself you do not ask why.

That afternoon Duncan has no notion how much more strength will be required of him to withstand your clumsy attempts at mending matters. In his head there is naught to mend. He desires no mending. Mending would mean speech, and speech would mean laying the wretched part of his nature out before you proper and waiting to see whether you flee of your own accord or finish the bloody work you started at his bottom lip.

Because that kiss has done more damage than any honest blow could. It found him where he is weakest. A mean little thing, angry and full of teeth, and still his body took it for mercy. He loathes himself for that worst of all. For the way he answered. For how quickly he turned. For being so starved of touch and so lonely in the marrow that one ugly bite of a kiss leaves him sweating through his bedroll till the ground beneath goes dark and ripe with it.

So he is scant with you after. Stern. When the spoiled blood rises in him at the first whiff of your scent, he cuts off the beginnings of your blabber by riding farther off. Just to breathe air that does not remind him what it was to have his mouth on yours and your body fighting his.

By the second day he knows there is no stopping what has already begun. Water mutes smell, so when you ask to stop by the stream he agrees to the whim of it. There he tells you he must go. For one short moment he thinks he might simply keep riding and not come back at all. Then the knight in him speaks where the rest has gone ragged. He hears himself promise the matter will be settled cleanly, cold if it must be, and in a way that leaves his honour standing.

You go strangely still with the shirt clutched in your hands. Duncan keeps his own at the water a moment longer than need calls for, wringing and rinsing and wringing again, though his eyes have gone sideways. You are looking down into the stream as if it has said something to you and you mean to hear the end of it.

His mouth asks before sense can stop it. His heart asks too. His head calls him ten kinds of fool. “What did you mean,” he says, “by ‘I’ve too much left to tell you’?”

You sniff once. It sounds as though the question has pulled you up sharp from someplace worse. “Guess you’ll never know now.”

Frown finds him at once. Rightly enough—how much more stupid can a man grow in two days’ time. “Beg pardon,” he says, bitterness making him stiff all through, “I’ll seek forgiveness forever for saving your life, m’lady.”

Your mouth pulls hard, as if he has gone and jabbed a bruise on purpose. “Do not call me that,” you say. “Not when you mean it like this.”

Duncan straightens a little in the stream, water dragging off the cloth in his hands. “What should I call you then? Boy? The name you gave me? What is your real name besides?”

You stare at him. Long enough to make him think you mean to keep that too. Then, at last, you tell him. The name sits in the air between the two of you, small and real and too pretty for the road.

“It’s pretty,” he says dimly, souring himself. He looks back down to the shirt in his hands as if the water might take the foolishness out of his mouth for him.

You move first this time. “Why are you going?”

Because I cannot trust myself around you. He scrubs harder at the cloth. “I’ve told you.”

“I didn’t take you for someone to hold an eternal grudge.”

“It is you who won’t stop reminding me of the crime committed,” he says. “You can go about fooling another bastard then.”

“Gods, just—” Your hands drop. Then pick the shirt back up. You go at it with a vicious little scrub, jaw set, breath sharp through your nose. Duncan watches, waiting for the rest of the sentence as if waiting might wring it out of you. It does not come.

So he stands. Water runs off him in sheets. He throws the rinsed cloth onto the heap on the bank and, with the meanness of a boy-man already too far gone to be proud of it, drags his foot hard through the stream and sends a fan of water at you.

You go still as if burned. Then your face changes. “Oh, you are getting on my nerves,” you grunt, and fling water back at him with both hands.

It catches him across the chest and jaw. Cold. Petty. Deserved.

He answers. So do you. In two breaths’ time the stream has become a poor ugly battlefield, all slaps of water and stumbling feet and shirts forgotten in the shallows. There is no play in it. No flirtation. Only temper. You are quicker than he is and meaner with your aim. One splash gets him square in the eyes.

“Ah—Seven hells—” he grunts. Lunges blindly where you were a blink before and finds you by luck, by sound, by scent, by the little cry you let out when his hands close at last. You buck against him with slippery fury and sharp elbows.

“That’s not fair!”

“Cease this writhing,” he grunts, blinking stream-water out of his eyes. “You’re worse than ten cats to hold.”

Your palm shoves at his face. Wet and furious and small. “I did not plan this to hurt you!” you snap. “I’d no idea if you were decent at first.”

It stops him cleaner than a kick would have. For one beat the stream keeps moving round his legs and neither of you does anything at all. A second later he hears you screaming.

“Why are you leaving me?”

Duncan looks down. You are bound tight to him. One arm round your waist. One hand at your neck. Your heart is going wild under all that wet cloth and bone, beating hard enough that he can near feel the shape of it through his own forearm. There is water on your face and more than water in your eyes.

He loosens his hand. Not enough to lose you. Enough to know the difference. “Because—”

The breath he takes to finish his sentence gets drowned in the sound of a thunder. The growl of it rolls close over the hills. Both your heads turn by the same instinct. The light has changed without either of you marking when. Everything round the stream has gone dimmer, flatter, with that waiting look the world gets just before a storm breaks proper.

Duncan swears under his breath. “We need shelter,” he says. You keep staring up at him as if the rest of the answer is still owed. “It’s near evening,” he says, more roughly. “And you’ll not spend another night in rain if I can help it.” He lets you go then, fully. The place where your body was in his arms stays hot.

“There’s no inn for miles,” you say.

“Aye.” Another peal of thunder. Nearer.

He wades for the bank and snatches up the wet heap of clothes. “Then we’ll find a roof that isn’t an inn.” There’s no need in looking back to see if you follow. He can hear you doing it. That has to be enough.

After that he rides hard and with his eyes peeled for anything the shape of shelter. The rain begins in earnest before long. First a scatter, then a sheet. It drives at his face and soaks the horses dark. Thunder keeps pacing them from one side of the sky to the other. Duncan leans low over Sweetfoot’s neck and keeps searching.

Then you go past him. Quick on that little horse of yours, shirt plastered to your back, head bent to the weather. For one miserable instant his heart drops. He thinks you have had enough of him at last and picked this very moment to flee where he cannot very well chase and hold you to account through storm and failing light.

Until he sees where you are headed. A low black shape hunched beyond a field gone to muck. Half a house beside it, walls standing where the roof has not. And farther off, a barn, dark and sound enough at first glance to keep rain off flesh and horseflesh both.

By the time he reaches you, you are already in the yard, sliding from the saddle. No word for him, only action. Duncan takes that gladly. You both get the horses into the stalls between. Thunder stamps and tosses. Chestnut keeps shuddering. Sweetfoot blows hard through her nose. Duncan rubs them down as best he can with the edge of his cloak and gets what tack he may off before the storm worsens. Your hands move quick beside his, clumsy only from cold.

When the beasts are settled, he enters the main room of the barn after you. The hay in it has gone wet with humidity and dry with heat so many times it gave its gold to light grey. You push dripping hair from your face and say, “Take the wet things off before you worsen.” And then, as if your own words oblige you equally, you begin doing the same.

Duncan goes rigid. You have got as far as dragging your breeches down over your boots when fury catches him by the back of the neck. He wheels half away from you and grits, “You stay. I ought to go.”

You laugh at him, full mad from strain. “Have you lost your wits entirely? Whatever has you so cold at heart ought to wait through this weather.”

So you know he’s rotting. The look he gives you then would flatten lesser creatures. It only makes you wetter round the mouth with irritation. “It is you who is witless,” he says, “if you mean to keep me here.”

In his turning, he catches you throwing your hands up. “Duncan!”

He has got as far as the door. Rain beats the roof in a thousand hard little fists. The wood is wet, the straw old, there’s mould in the beams and Duncan can smell all of it. Your scent pushes itself through the others and takes him and holds him. Behind, Duncan can hear your fast breathing over nature's hiss. As though you were the largest thing in here, while in fact, you are the smallest. Your boots shift on the packed earth and he knows you’ve taken a step after him.

Before you can reach him, he snaps. “What do you know of this?” His fist beats the damp-rotten planks of the door. “You know naught of it!”

Rainwater drops off the hem of your shirt and he hears it joining the pool of a puddle under your feet. There’s a pause. Cautious, you say, “I don’t. I don’t—but I see you hurting and it rubs me wrong! What is it?”

He puts one hand on the doorpost and bows his head to it a moment. It is cool. His skin is not. Heat has him by the spine, but the gut and the roots of his teeth. He’s close to retching with it. Shirt sticks between his shoulders. Every place the wet has touched him feels coarse with it. He should have gone sooner. Should have left you in some holdfast with a whole roof and a locked door and a woman old enough to cuff sense into you. “An affliction,” he says thickly.

Your waiting he can feel at his back. “What kind?”

“The sort wants me alone.”

“And what is to be done for it?”

He turns fast enough for the barn to be pulled sideways with it for a blink. You stand three paces off with your hair damp at the temples, mouth parted and hands empty and hanging uselessly at your sides. The sight steals his patience outright.

“What is to be done,” he says, “is I leave before it takes hold proper.”

“What takes hold?”

“Must you have every bit said plain?” he scoffs.

“Yes!”

It is a cursed way of yours—to be frightened and stubborn alike. Duncan wonders if this is courage or merely temper, and if it is temper, he thinks that you ought to have it dulled. He grips the heel of his hand into his eye till the vision blanches.

“I’ve the breeding curse,” he tells you, twisting, as if the words taste of something sour. “There. Have you enough?”

You stare at him, all unwitted. The rain keeps drumming. Somewhere in the farters a bird flutters and settles again. He can see you trying to fit the thing into what you know of the world. Some old wives’ tale. A fable, a whispered country warning. A shape of danger that has no name and one that you’ve ostensibly never touched.

“What does that mean?” you ask.

He drags a hand through his hair. “It means I’ve a fever in me that doesn’t break clean. It means I’ll not be fit company. It means I need to be gone from you before I do something I’d sooner cut my hand off than do!”

You let fear live on your face for a span of one breath. It bleeds off to something softer and worse. “What do you need?” you ask and it hits him so low and arduous he nearly bows with it. Nearly hates you for it.

“A mate,” he says. “Which I do not have.”

The stillness of yours makes him swallow and push on because there is hurt in him already and once a hurt starts speaking it wants to finish. “So I ought to be alone before someone like you feels compelled to take pity on me.”

Your brows pull hard together. “Pity?”

He sees the offence in you and knows he should stop there. Instead the sore place in him opens wider.

“Aye, pity. I’ve had it before.” His mouth grimaces terribly. “And disgust after. There’s always one or the other with men like me. A woman may be sorry enough to help the first of it. Then the rest comes and she learns better.”

You take a small step and move your arms. They’re rising towards him. “I’ve no pity for you—”

He answers by wrenching his neck forth. “I’d rather go fuck myself sore in a ditch,” he spits, “than stay and suffer someone who hates me forcing herself to kindness.”

Hurt clouds your face and you flinch as if he has struck you. Good, some foul little part of him thinks. Better this way.

Then you say, very fast and very raw, “I do not hate you.”

Dunk turns his back before he has to look at you again and see whether that is mercy too. “Best leave it.”

“I do not.” A step. One, then another. Straw whispers under your boots.

His eyes squeeze shut. “Do not come near me.”

Insolent as ever, you keep coming. Flippant. Brazen. Disrespectful, he’s busy thinking when your hand touches his shoulder. Light; barely there. He jerks under it as if the place has burned through cloth. He has been touched by women harder than that, bolder than that, with clearer purpose than that. None of it has crumbled him the way this does.

“Ser Duncan,” you say. “Duncan.”

It sobers him from the ire. He blinks, and finds his manners back amongst all the dust. “Beg pardon,” he mutters. “I ought to—I ought to go.”

Your fingers tighten in his shirt. Small grip. Desperate one. “Dunk.”

It near buckles his stomach, the name said like that. Without mockery and a single fever-mad scrap of possession, you say it as if it belongs somewhere softer than either of you has let it belong.

“It is not pity,” you murmur. “It is not.”

He laughs once, breaking halfway out. “You loathe me one hour and offer me your body the next. What should I call that?”

You move him round, slow enough to let him stop you if he means to, but he does not mean to. He only stands and sways where he is, hands opening and closing at his sides like a fool’s, until he’s facing you and he learns the hunch has taken him so low you’re almost level. Storm-light from the door catches your face in pieces. Wet lashes. Mouth bitten sore. A smear of dirt near the chin. You look half-wild yourself—not pretty in the way court songs would have it. Better than that. Real and roughened and staring at him with more heart in it than he knows what to do with.

“I’d kiss you too,” you tell him. “Without fists.”

All of the four eyes drop where they oughtn’t—his to your mouth, yours to his fanning lids. You know he’s looked and you know he’d want to, but save him the misery of admitting.

“Here,” you whisper. Take his hand and against your skin it’s hot as iron and twice as clumsy. You put it to your chest where your body’s beating fit to crack itself. “How’s this hatred to you?”

Your collar stretches open under his fingers. Palm large enough to span you sternum to clavicle, he lets himself just feel it a second. The thud of you under—hard and fast and alive and wanting. The cold of your skin strikes him next. He frowns down at it as if the thing were a wound.

“You’re freezing,” he says. Starts rubbing warmth into you before he knows he has chosen to. Over your breastbone, then higher, then both hands on your shoulders, thumbs working. The care unmakes him faster than lust. He bows his face close and breathes against your temple. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” Embraces you whole and inhales the scent off your wet hair. Earth sits there, dark soil with potence in it. Summer rains that make the air smell fresh. Zeal that needs to be coaxed out.

He feels you making a sound and wrapping your arms round his waist. “Don’t leave me. I want to help,” you say.

His head lifts. Your face is so close it fills his sight with bits of you again. He counts the clumps of your lashes and watches the pulse in your throat. “What do you know of coupling, girl?” he asks, and the word girl snags in his mouth. “If you’re inviting me, not much, I reckon.”

“Enough to flee home and pretend to be a boy,” you say.

The answer leaves him bitter and tight in the face. He sees more in it than you meant to show, perhaps. Or exactly what you meant. Either way it puts another grief in him.

“How is this not pity, then?”

Your hand comes up slow. You touch his cheek with the backs of your fingers first, as if gentleness is a creature likely to startle. Dunk goes still under it. There is too much of him for stillness to look natural, so he bears it looking like effort instead. Great effort.

Then, you rise a little on your toes and put the smallest kiss on his mouth. It is nothing like the first one—rid of teeth and spite. A careful press, as if you are laying something brittle between you and asking him not to waste it. His throat brews a pitiful sound for him, and Duncan means to make himself start gently. What he doesn’t want is to frighten you back out of your own bravery. Your mouth is cool from the rain and from being cold clear through so he makes sure to eat the cold for you. His hands stay at your shoulders, thumbs still when you’re shivering under them. He feels the way your breath jumps when he tips his head and comes at you again with a little more conviction.

By inches, he deepens. Heat has had him mean and restless all two days, clawing through his skin for a way out, but this part comes almost sweet despite it. Awkward too. Duncan has kissed before, but he has never kissed with this much tender mind to it. The wanting is all snarled up with the need not to scare you, not to break the strange bright thing that has appeared between one heartbeat and the next.

A hand slides from his cheek into his hair and Duncan shudders so hard the soles of his feet tingle. Your fingers tighten and tug and he hears himself whimpering.

“Ah—” He breaks on it. A sound small and shameful enough to make a lesser man pull away from it. He only comes closer. “You want me, then?”

You nod. Yank him. His chest comes to eclipse you. In his sullen mind he sees your thighs split open already, your arse warmed with the force of his hips, your mouth twisted in pain and eyes wounded, so he reigns himself back to here, where none of it has happened yet. He finds the back of your neck with his palm and holds there as if he can keep your head safe in it whilst he kisses you senseless.

The noise from you turns his blood over. “Gods.” His breath saws. “Gods help me,” Duncan mutters and goes at it harder.

Carefulness begins to flee. Not out of cruelty, but relief and long hunger. He has spent too much of himself holding back from the whole of life. The taste of being let in goes into his head like a hammer to a nail, and he finds himself in a dire need to touch more of you. His hand slides down your side, and he’s surprised by the difference between seeing the shape and feeling it. His devotion keeps giving way to greed: your waist first, then higher. Then lower again because he does not know where he is permitted and is trying to know without asking and failing badly at it.

Your fingers tighten in his hair. “Duncan,” you mutter.

He stops at the width of a whisper from your lips. The air he exhales runs over your face and comes back to him. His eyes shut, when he says, “Tell me.” Hoarse. “You ought to tell me.”

It takes you a moment to gather enough breath for speech, which apparently he’s kissed foolish out of you. The knowledge of that puts an odd little pride in his chest before shame follows after and stomps it flat.

“Yes,” you say.

“Yes what?”

“Yes, touch me.”

He rests his heavy forehead to yours and laughs, deranged. “You say such things to me now,” he hums, “and expect me to keep sense.”

His hand goes to your ribs and spans them near entirely. He rubs his thumb there over the shirt as if the bones under it concern him. Then, he gets back to kissing. The corner of your mouth. Your cheek. The line beneath your ear. Each place slower and more saturated with your scent than the one before, while the rest of him has gone taut as a drawn rope. Restrain frays him, shakes through him.

He feels your palms at the laces near his throat and shudders again. “Girl,” Duncan warns.

You look at him, straight on. Rain-light and dusk and straw-dust have made your face into something soft enough to kneel for.

“Tell me if I’m wrong,” you say.

He swallows and lets his jaw work under your eye. “You’ll not be wrong,” Duncan says. “Only mayhaps sorry.”

But sorry you are not yet. The first knot pulls loose and he makes himself blind again. The second one goes easier. The cloth parts under your fingers and his throat opens to sight, then the notch below it where he’s damp with sweat. You touch there with one finger only, curious and light. He flinches as if struck.

“No one’s touched you kindly,” you say as if it’s a thought that was not supposed to be spoken at all.

His eyes open at that, feeling naked by half already. He sees a shadow walk your features and it tells him you’ve been touched kindly seldom yourself. “Some have tried,” Duncan says. That is all.

You do not press him and he doesn’t press you either. You only lay your palm flat over the hard beat in his chest, and kiss him again. He gives way with a sound that seems dragged up from much deeper than the throat. His arms close around you in earnest—one at your back, the other under your arse before he thinks better of it. He lifts you with absurd ease and sets you on an old hay-strewn ledge. It puts your face level with his. Puts the breadth of him right between your knees.

Sorry you will be, he thinks. Draws back a breath. “I ought to tell you,” he says, forcing the words through a mouth gone clumsy. “Before anything more. I’ve a—” He grimaces. Starts again. “When it takes me foul, I swell after. Too much. You understand?”

Your brows pinch. He can see you trying to make proper sense of it, and his face heats darker. “At the… root,” he mutters, furious with himself for having to say it. “Like a knot in a rope. It can hurt if you’re not ready for it. Hurt a good deal.”

You stare at him another beat, then nod once. “All right.”

Your patience is a blade drawn hot from the forge to him. He puts a hand on the wood beside your hip. The other cannot stop touching you. It has taken to your knee as if it belongs there. Broad, kneading palm, soaking the cold in you and trying to work it out. “You ought to send me off,” Duncan says, and drops to his knees between your legs. The boards shudder under the weight of him.

From there, his eyes travel over your face and now he’s certain it is worth kneeling for. He’s humbled by it and he’s asking and promising at the same time and does not know how to do either without his whole body getting involved.

“Still time,” he says.

“For what?”

“For you to think better.”

His knuckles pale where they hold your knee. Your eyes sweep him, thorough, and he realises you’re humouring him. “I have thought better,” you say then. “This is it.”

It catches him somewhere he’s sure is visible. His head bows a moment, while the want in him goes darker and fuller. Alongside it there’s care and Duncan chooses it. To not rush you or crowd you. To stay where he is till you are the one who moves first, and he hopes you can see it in him.

Then, your fingers find his cheek and he turns his face to the touch at once. A little. Involuntary enough to get hurt with your tenderness.

“Oh,” you say, thumb on his chin.

His mouth twists. “Do not make a marvel of me.”

“You are one.”

The answer lands in his throat and fails to make it farther. He kisses the inside of your knee instead, because his mouth must go somewhere. A kiss awkward and too warm, and open by half, and so earnest your legs quake some. Then another, higher. Then one on the other side, because fairness lives in him alongside the instinct to break pretty things like you.

He finds your boot with the free hand and frowns at it when it won’t come off with just a tug. “All these damned buckles,” he grumbles, then smiles all helpless when you laugh above him. It’s a sweet honest sound, a kind of laughter he hasn’t heard from you yet. So he grumbles some more. 

The boots come off with less cursing than before, though not no cursing. The shirt is next, so he stands and fists the hem into fingers stiff with hope, because hope does stranger things to a man’s hands. He lifts it only after looking to your face and finding leave there. Your arms rise. The cloth goes over your head and your skin blooms with gooseflesh at once. Dunk’s eyes do not know where to settle and for once it is not embarrassment in him but too many places wanting to look at once.

“Seven be good to me,” he says, reaching for the binding. He unwinds the cloth and watches how every loosened pass lets another breath into you. By the time the last of it comes away you are both breathing harder. Duncan sets it down beside him as if it might bruise from rough handling. And then, he just looks.

He wonders, dimly, if a creature like you knows anything of shame at all because to him, it shouldn’t. Then, he notices the smallest twitch at your arms, like you’re fighting the urge to cover yourself and finally decide to live through it. He’s puzzled as to whether it is your choice entirely or if his face has changed so strangely you let him have it.

“Have you done this before?” you ask, breaking the silence.

His mouth goes crooked. “Mm.”

There’s a childish frown to your brow. Duncan would think it jealousy if his wits were gone entirely. Two urges fight in him—one to tell you each of them made him regret he’s alive, the other to say nothing at all and watch you simmer with it a little.

“With many?” you ask.

He blinks. Takes immense joy from the tightness in your face when he rules to make a show of thinking on it. “No,” he says finally.

You huff an adorable puff of air through your nose. “How many, then?”

He goes back down. Looks up to you and rubs the back of his neck. “Enough to know I ought not be on my knees talking when there’s this before me.”

That ought to satisfy you. It does not.

“Were they kind?”

The question leaves your mouth and hangs there naked with the rest of you. Duncan stills. His hand, halfway to your thigh, closes empty.

“Some,” he says after a while. “Some not.”

You look down. “I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“That they were not.”

It alters him whole. The shape of your words, the tone of your voice, the look on your face. Still no pity in it, but kinship so total Duncan near presses his face into your belly and begs you to let him put a baby in you so you’re his and with him for the rest of his miserable days. His hunger somehow gentles at the edges. Instead of disgracing himself like this, his hand lifts that dumb broken foot of yours and brings it to his mouth. “I am here now,” he says against your skin.

The barn goes quieter after that. You put your hand in his hair again. He exhales through his nose, lets your foot free, and opens his mouth against you in a way that seems to make your back arch before you’ve decided on it. His hands follow the movement, one spanning your waist, the other settling warm in the hinge of your thigh at the ready.

He kisses lower by inches, inept and long-suffering as he ought to be. Learns this foreign country by touch and mouth, from your navel to the hollow beside your hip. It makes him pause and look up as if he has found something improbable there.

“Do not stop,” you whisper, guiding his head where he’s most scared to go.

A hot line is drawn with his tongue. Your knees fall wider and he grunts a sound into you that makes him think lowly of himself. He tries to go slow where it matters and rough nowhere, though the wanting in him has reached such a pitch his hands tremor in the fingers. You’re wetting for him. Get warmer still. You’re warm for the first time he remembers and it’s all his doing and he makes certain every inch of him keeps asking and that is the shape he takes.

“Here?” he asks, fingers brushing but not yet parting.

“Yes.”

His head drops. Forehead rests against the inside of your thigh for one heartbeat, while he braces to go under. Then, his mouth and hands learn you at once.

The taste of you he assigns to what kindness tastes like. He knows he’s artless and lacks polish, but he uses his body’s hunger and its steadfast build. Kisses you as if cunt were mouth, because the mouth he kissed with love and here love is owed more than anything else.

The only mean thing is your hands. They’ve nails to them that pinch his shoulder and scratch his scalp when his fingers stretch you. The pain of it rests sweet in him and goes down his stomach until his cock stirs and kicks under braies. When you gasp and try to close your legs he only holds you open with a murmur so rough it barely counts as language.

“That’s it,” Duncan slurs. “Aye. Give it ’ere.”

He lifts one palm off you to find your breast, as if he cannot bear leaving any part of you untouched. His thumb passes over the nipple and your whole body jerks. Duncan groans like he has been wounded.

“Sweet girl,” he says, astonished.

Astonished he remains, when you show him what a body like yours can do. How it seeks and guides him, how you know where pleasure lives and present the route to him. Steady him with a tug to his roots and take from him. Half of your weight rests on his face, and your hips move and you take his fingers deeper, and his nose and chin are smeared with you all over. He stays where you tell him to and feels the end come on you hard with your hand turning cruel in his hair, and the knowledge he’ll be cruel to you soon enough if this is how tight you can get.

You push him off when he goes too far with wanting to be good. He slides his hand out of you and rests it idly on his thigh, denying himself another taste of you. Down there, he can see the cloth round his legs dampened in the crotch and the outline of his cock throbbing in the rhythm of your breathing.

Your palm coaxes him to look up. He wipes his mouth with the back of his wrist and is ashamed of the gesture at once. You laugh weakly, and tell him, “Come here. Come back up.”

Before he’s fully straightened, you catch his face and kiss him. Lick yourself out of him. The wood creaks. His hands do not know how to settle, so you help him by putting one on your waist, and one on your breast. He nearly stops breathing.

“Tell me,” you say, rubbing his cheeks. “What hurts. What helps.”

Duncan closes his eyes. “All of it hurts,” he says. Hides in your shoulder for a beat. “You help.”

Saying it costs him dear, but he cares not. You see him, all this broken mountain of a man, and want him all the same. And being wanted eases him greatly. Not gaped at, or treated like a curious little rabid dog to tame and play with, but wanted. He feels almost loved with you around him like that, and he’s never even touched the almost with the others.

“All of it?” you ask.

He nods once. Opens his eyes. His hand leaves your waist and presses flat to his own chest, then lower, as if the body there is some beast he means to hold in place by force of palm alone.

“It starts under the skin,” he says. “Then in the blood. Then there is no place left in me that sits easy.” His mouth twitches, ugly and ashamed. “And now I’ve gone and had my mouth on you besides. That has not helped.”

You almost smile. Almost. The strain in him seems to cure you of it. “Tell me what to do.”

“You say that as if there is some decent order to these things,” he laughs, feeling his ears burn. His gaze drops to your body and catches there, held. “I told you what comes after. The hurt of it.”

“I remember.”

“You remember the words. That is not the same.” His jaw works. “If I take you, I’ll be rougher than I mean. Even doing my best. And my best is not always clever.”

You reach for the hand he has braced against his own middle and pull it away. He comes unwillingly, like a horse checked on the bit. When his palm lands on your thigh again the heat of it makes you jump.

“I would rather have your best,” you say, “than somebody else’s clever.”

That catches him wrong-footed. Duncan lets his face open with it in a way that’s almost boyish if there were not such strain all through him. Then he bows over you sudden and heavy, unable to stay upright with that much feeling in him. “Seven hells, girl,” he says into the hollow of your neck. “Do not say things to me I’ll remember all my life.”

You put your arms round him as if there’s nothing else to do. He has his size settling over you piece by piece. Shoulders first. Then chest. Then the careful weight of his hips held off by effort. He shudders once when your hands move over his back.

“Dunk,” you hum.

“Mm.”

“Take it off.”

He stills. “My shirt?” he asks after a beat and melts when you chuckle.

“All of it, if you like.”

It turns out he can afford one more strangled, brief laugh. He pushes himself off you and gets at his laces with hands gone youthful in their artlessness. When he fumbles, you help. The shirt opens, parts from skin. Then he drags it over his head and throws it somewhere blind.

Your hands fly to his chest at once. Fingernails brush through the coarse hair on it, then move lower where his belly is soft enough to move when he breathes. You touch lightly but he feels it as if you were touching the deeper make of him. He sucks in a sharp breath. “No one’s taught you manners at all,” he mutters.

“You’ve just had your mouth between my legs.”

“Aye.” His hand closes on your wrist and keeps it where it is, spread flat over him. “And still I say it.”

You bring the palm lower. He catches it before you get far. “Easy,” he says. “Easy, or I’ll spend before I’ve got into you and die of shame.”

The coarseness of it makes heat flash through your features afresh. He sees it happen and goes dark with glee for one bare second before the guilt comes back overtop. Strange how often those two things live so close in him.

He undoes the rope-for-belt one-handed. Kicks free of the rest with less grace than speed. By the time he stands before you naked he feels as though there is no room left in the barn for anything but you and him. His cock drags hot and heavy and furious with neglect over his thigh and when your breath hitches at the sight, Duncan backs out into slightly crestfallen. “There,” he says, gaze down, fixed on a speckle of dust. “That’s what I meant.”

When he looks back up it is too late. Your eyes have gone already, taking in the thick weight of him, the flushed strain in it, the root he’s warned you of swelling. He turns his face aside as if he expects revulsion on viewing alone. Instead, you reach and his whole body flinches.

“Do you mean it?” he asks.

“I mean it.”

So he lets you put your hand around him. Careful, because you are not witless after all. He grunts through his teeth and drops his forehead to your shoulder, every inch of him going tight. “Don’t finish me yet,” he says.

“Would that be so terrible?” you ask, thumb parting him gently at the slit.

“For pride, aye,” Duncan says and smiles anyway. His hips move, helpless as a struck thing, and the drag of him through your palm makes him grunt out an ugly animal sound much like the ones he makes when he’s all alone. “Enough, girl. Enough,” he says. “I am sick with wanting you already.” He comes closer and sets a palm to your face. “You tell me stop and I stop.”

You nod.

“That easy.”

You nod again.

His thumb strokes once under your eye. “Say it with your mouth.”

“Yes,” you whisper.

A shadow of impatience goes through him at the smallness of it. “Yes what?”

“Yes, Duncan.”

He shuts his eyes briefly as if the sound of his name in your mouth is another blow to a body taking too many already. The wanting in him deepens and so does the tenderness. His hands find yours to guide you off the wooden ledge. “Turn round,” says the instinct in him. “Only if you will,” says Duncan. “Only—”

You hop off and turn before he can finish, which wraps a fist round his gut and holds, tight. Your back comes to his chest. He gathers your hair over one shoulder, exposing the nape of your neck. Stares at it some and feels the itching in his gums to clamp hard and mean on it. Then, his mouth finds it with teeth blunted. The first kiss there is almost chaste. The second less so. By the third, he’s breathing into your skin like a man trying to survive on the scent of you.

The shadow that sits on his nature whispers into his ear to bend you over and take you raw. His boyish heart beats its fist against his ribcage and tells him to keep you instead, and wins.

One arm wraps round your middle. The other hand slides over your belly, up between your breasts, then back down again because he cannot seem to settle. Every path he takes teaches him something and inflames him for having learnt it.

You go slack for him. That simple. That willing.

He tightens his hold before he remembers himself. His hips rock against the curve of your backside, helpless as a struck thing. “There you are,” he mutters, half to himself. Lifts you until your toes barely touch the tops of his feet and walks you both deeper into the barn. He sits on a hay bale with your arse pressing his cock and his arse getting scratched by dried grass.

His knees part and spread your thighs with it. You wriggle on him and Duncan can feel every part of you go alert at the head of him pressing your entrance.

“Wait,” he says, hearing the change in your breath. “Easy. Let me set you.”

He gets a palm between your legs, slicks you once more till your body softens again. Your head lolls back with a blissful sigh. “You said you’d be rougher with me,” you murmur.

“Not inside you yet,” Duncan says, lining himself up. Once that’s done, he uses both hands on your hips, broad and steady. You seem to be lost for words then. Tighten around him before he’s barely through the threshold. “That’s it,” he says. “Take what you can. I’ll mind the rest.”

The angle is cruel and he knows it, but remains solemn in it. First press uses up all the wit in his thick brain, and he’s taken over with it. With heat and pressure and the blunt tightness of your body that fights him for its dear life but its owner has enough mercy to tell it otherwise.

You clutch his forearms and whine out, “Dunk—”

Duncan freezes behind you the instant your cunt resists. “I know.” His voice sounds pulled through gravel. “I know. Little by little.”

When you swallow and nod, he tries to give you that. Little by little. The crown of him works in and your body clenches as if to throw him out again. He waits, breathing hard, bracing through it with his eyes blinking slowly.

“That’s it,” he says, cuddling his nose into the back of your neck. “Curse me if you need.”

He’s certain you almost do—can hear your lips shaping around it and choosing not to speak in the end. Instead, you drag air into yourself and he answers with one more. Then a little more, each inch won by patience. His thighs tremble and sweat with the labour of not being a bastard and a beast, fingers bite your hips and ease, bit and ease again. He wants to drive upward into you. Knows that you know it and hopes the fact that he does not you read as unbearable tenderness he carries for you.

“So much,” you whisper.

Duncan’s mouth twitches despite the state of him. “Aye. Sorry,” he says knowing how absurd the apology sounds right now, with half his cock inside you and the rest of him quaking with want. Laughter bursts out of you, bright and weak and disarmed, and loosens something in you. Your body changes round him. Takes him deeper and stranger, and Duncan swears softly into your shoulder.

“There,” he says. “There you are.”

When he is finally seated enough to stop shaking quite so badly, he stays. Breathes with you. Mouth keeps seeking your neck because it’s hard to keep all that strain in his body without somewhere to pour it. One hand leaves your hip to spread over your belly, feeling where he is inside you as if he cannot believe the truth of it any other way.

“Can you bear more?”

“Yes.”

He tests the answer with one small thrust. You make a sound he feels thrumming from your ribs to his chest.

He stops again at once. “Did I hurt you?”

“Yes,” you tell him honestly.

Duncan goes stricken.

“And keep going.”

He bites you to stop himself from groaning like a mad man. Shudders and sweats some more. For a moment he only breathes, rough and uneven, trying to gather enough sense to move without undoing both of you. Then his hands settle again on your hips and he just accepts the tremor in them as a thing that happens with you. “As you wish,” he says, voice gone hoarse as old leather.

Slow still. Slower than his body wants. The first few strokes seem timid on so large a man, but the angle makes each one count. He gets to know the places in your body that he has no names for and feels where he’s making you sore along the whole span of his cock. He’s sorry for it, and keeps going. Graceless, and you are too, and thank the gods for that, because grace would have ruined it. 

He lets small words flee his mouth unattended. Once your name. Once sweet girl, because if you aren’t sweet he doesn’t know what is. His chest expands with a new kind of breathing. Fuller and calmer amongst the storm of it all. He has a mate. She knows him shortly and likes him enough to suffer through it knowing the suffering doesn’t end with just him grunting over her. In itself, it is the kindest thing that’s ever happened to him and Duncan doesn’t let his thoughts get ahead of themselves and dream bigger things than this.

It makes him band you tight with his arms across your middle. He leans over you so his chin settles into the crook of your shoulder and lets his hips roll a notch deeper. Another sound breaks from you at that, and it does for his patience what your laugh did before. He finds a truer rhythm, lets himself get lost in it if only for a second. Closes his eyes again. Your hand comes to his head and scratches the back of it. Duncan shivers like a horse under the brush and drives deeper by accident.

“Dunk—!” you yelp. And this time you do curse him. “Fuck!”

“There,” he says, half dazed with it. “That’s better.”

You tighten around him and loosen and accept him, near making him spill right then and there. Then again, when you whisper, “More.”

“Aye,” he says and obeys in the same instant. Moans as though you’ve struck him in the stomach. He works his hips hard into yours, breathing audibly, and goes back to palming your belly where his body distorts your womb. The shape he has, he gives to you. The strength he has in his legs, he gives to you. His breath spills over your skin, and that is yours too.

You start to answer him with your body. Your hips push back for more. He catches the movement at once and nearly loses himself over it.

“I’ll breed you tonight, girl, you know that?” he says. “Or try, at least, before I die while you keep doing that.”

You make a laugh of it, breathless and broken. Duncan’s next thrust lands harder for hearing it. His apology follows close behind.

“Sorry. Sweetheart, sorry.”

“You keep saying that.”

“Aye.” His teeth graze your shoulder. “And I’ll keep saying it.”

The rhythm has him fully now. Steady and increasingly rough with need. He tries to keep some gentleness in it for you. It remains there in pieces: the hand on your belly easing the force when your body tightens, the kisses at your neck, and the way he keeps listening for hurt in every sound you make and for the no that is yet to come. The rest is all appetite and strain.

He has no idea how he’s got you there, but knows you are close. Your mouth becomes unrestrained. He doubts he’s said fuck as many times as you have today. In the sensing of it, he finds the place he’s learnt with his tongue and brings his fingers to it. “That’s it,” he says. “Let it come. I want you mine, girl. Let it come.”

He thrusts. “Duncan—” Thrusts again. You near hiccup on it, go so tight around him fire spills hard and burning in his gut. He follows you suit, holding fistfuls of your flesh and jerking with it and spending hard inside you as he dreamed having. Pulse after pulse he feels the weight being taken off his sack and for each one he grunts out sounds that are neither knightly, nor fit for company.

His eyes go shut. One laboured breath goes through him from throat to heel. He braces. For the thickening. For hurting you. For his body turning further monstrous and needful inside yours. It comes with a life of its own and to Duncan it feels rightful to do so, natural and inevitable, and he hates it all the same. The primal part of his heart wants his seed locked deep in you, the other—the soft one, the valorous one—contemplates ripping himself apart just so he can spare you.

You gasp so quietly he barely hears it. “I’m sorry,” he says, as earnestly as he can, holding you still. “I know. I know. I’m sorry.”

Your body goes so rigid and taut he knows damn well the pain is difficult for you to bear. “Tell me,” he says. “Tell me if it’s too much.”

“Stay,” you whisper, though the word breaks in half. “Keep still.”

He folds over you. One arm locked around your middle. A hand trembling at your jaw as if he might somehow soothe the ache from your face alone. His head hangs so low the cheek he presses into your neck. Knot settles by degrees, each one dragging another involuntary tremor through the both of you, till at last his body seems satisfied with its own trap and the movement dwindles out of him. He hums against your throat, battling the guilt over how impossibly good it feels to be locked with you.

After a while, it comes back to him that it’s raining. The wetness of it seems to soak through the barn wood to his skin. He’s holding you so fiercely, you tap his arm once.

“Dunk?”

“Mm.”

“You may let go. I shan’t run.”

At that he gives the tiniest shake of his head, cheek still pressed to you like a tired child’s. Duncan makes no sound grand enough to call crying, only a rough broken breath and then a second, but his face stays hidden in your throat and the wet keeps coming. Every part of him is repentant with it except the part too tired to care.

You turn your head as far as you’re allowed. “Dunk. You’re crying.”

He goes rigid. “Leave me that much pride,” he mutters.

“No.”

The answer is so quick it startles him into a small breath. You turn further still and wince for it. He lifts his head, opens his arms from around you to let you. Watches the strange face on you as your palm comes to cup his jaw. Another slides into his hair. You stroke it once. Then, because there is no wit left in either of you and because tenderness has outrun shame by miles, you crane your neck up and lick the salt that is not yours from the corner of his eye.

He lets out a laugh so cracked it hurts more than the tears did. “What sort of girl are you?”

“One that doesn’t want you crying over shame if there’s no shame to be had.”

“You’ve no idea—” Duncan starts, and stops himself. He doesn’t know how to tell you that you’ve opened his chest wide. That he’d rather die next time than go through this without you now that he’s been given the sort of girl like you. “It eases,” he says instead. “The pain of it. In a bit. Only have to wait it through.”

“So we wait.”

“Aye.”

Your knees have begun to tremble with the awkwardness of the position. Duncan feels it and swears under his breath.

“Easy. Easy.” Very carefully, he shifts the both of you. The knot makes that difficult and your hiss at the first movement tears another apology from him. Still he manages it in the end, inch by stubborn inch, till you are lying on your side on the bed of straw with his chest to your back and his arm around you.

This close, with the violence spent out of the weather and his own body quieting under stages, the tenderness he has for you keeps bleeding out. He keeps touching you in little absent ways—a thumb at your wrist. Knuckles over your hip. His mouth at the nape once more, softer now.

“Did I hurt you overmuch?” he asks.

“You hurt me some.” His hand stills. Stubborn creature, you twist again, and he has to rise on one elbow to indulge you. Satisfied with obedience, you brush his split lip with your fingertip. “I bit you some.”

“Aye,” he says. “Vicious little thing.”

After another little while his breathing evens. The trembling leaves him by strips. The knot remains, though less punishing now than before, more an anchored fullness than a fresh assault. Duncan senses the same easing in you.

“What now?” you ask. Your hair is full of straw grass. Face softened and tired.

He paints a circle round the ball of your shoulder with his thumb. “Now I lie here till my body remembers how to behave.”

“And after?”

He goes quiet. Thinking. Wary all over again. “I’ll go hot again,” he says. “But you’ve quenched the worst.” Shame roughens his voice. “Enough that I can go and do my business elsewhere.”

Your mouth frowns and you give him one impatient huff. “What else do I have to take,” you ask, “so you understand I want you?”

It leaves him staring. No one’s ever put anything quite so plain into his hands before and he should have half a mind to suspect a trick in the plainness of it, but doesn’t. “You said you were sore,” he says.

“I am.”

“And still you—”

“Yes,” you say. He’s grateful that after blinking and opening his mouth uselessly, you decide to spare him the struggle and mutter, “You can put your mouth to me again. That helped.” Dunk stares some more. You roll your eyes, his insolent sweetheart. “How long?” you ask. “How long are you like this?”

Duncan drags a hand over his face. “Till the moon shrinks or gathers by the width of my little finger. Thereabouts.”

You frown. “Two-three days.”

“Aye.”

“And you would go away now for two-three days?”

His eyes search yours, still wary in spite of everything. “Are you not letting me?”

You hold his gaze. The whole barn smells of rain and spent heat and the old straw under your bodies. He has gone very still waiting for the answer.

“I forbid you,” you say, and Dunk could weep with it.

You do not know half of what you agree to or want in the instant of agreeing. When angry, he’s truly frightening. Large and trying to shrink himself into something you can’t touch and something you most likely can’t hurt. For misleading him into believing the affection is disdain you can only thank your foul mouth and short temper, you think bitterly.

But then, Gods—he shatters under one touch. One tug of his shirt. One palm on his shoulder placed there with hope, and he looks at you bracing for vileness where there isn’t one. A breeding curse, he tells you. A sickness to the blood that makes him animal and selfish. You’ve heard some and met none like him. He speaks of himself as if he were the most egregious man walking the sullen earth while all you see is a knight cut to be one and a boy you wish to cradle and kiss and save from this misery.

He kisses like he believes it’s the last kissing he’s going to be given. Up close he seems larger, made all over from the same blunt earnest substance that built him elsewhere—thick wrists, square shoulders, neck gone tight with swallowing. Pale as milk in the storm-light. His hair is coarser than you imagined. Strands of it keep working loose and hanging over his brow when he kneels and mouths at your legs. You have the stupidest wish to smooth it back.

Once, the old fear of being opened against your will rises and breaks apart because he does no taking. He keeps asking. His gaze makes you feel seen in a way that has no mockery in it. His appetite is held on a very tight rein.

There’s hurt in being split by him. Plenty. Again and again, it hurts and you let your body take it and hone it into something stranger. His effort of holding back is visible through every second of it, so you let yourself accept the too much. Tell him outright he’s hurting you and then tell him brazenly to keep going, and that look on his face then is the one you will carry to the grave. Hunger and astonishment and the wreck of gratitude. You’ve never been wanted so openly and by someone who’d stop if you told him to. You know that with certainty stronger than fear. The knowing of it lets you bear more and makes you want him more in return.

When he says he’ll breed you or die trying, you nearly come from his words alone. He follows after you like a dog and makes all those sounds you’ve wondered if he’d make if you tried hard enough. They spill from his opened throat, shameless and loud. You love him most in that instant.

Then, the knot takes hold by inches. The place where it has fixed you together burns and aches and feels impossible, and still some feverish part of you thrills at the sheer finality of it. Duncan, caught inside you with all his body’s ugly need made plain is the most gorgeous thing to you. He soothes you through it, too. The endearment catches you by surprise nearly as much as the pity in his voice for your hurt. He sounds more miserable over causing it than you feel under it. That alone makes you gather him in harder.

When he refuses to ease off you silently, the knowledge lands soft and terrible. He is not holding you there because he fears you fleeing. He is holding because he cannot yet bear the parting. Under your touch he goes still in a way you know means feeling too much rather than too little.

You steal all of it from him. The strength from his muscles, his sweat, his seed, his tears, and still he disbelieves that you want him. He wants to go alone again, and you cannot stand it so fiercely, you nearly go furious with it.

“I forbid you,” you tell him, with as much authority as you can gather while being twisted on some old barn’s floor.

His face changes in stages. First disbelief. Then a kind of startled softness. Then something darker and more dangerous, because you have just spoken to the deepest, crudest part of him in a language it understands too well.

“Girl,” he says, raw.

“Do not ‘girl’ me.” Your voice is tired, sore, stern with it all the same. “You do not get to flee into hedges and holes in the ground after making me take all this on faith.”

Duncan’s brows go up a little. “Making you?”

“You heard me.”

His hand on your middle tightens by instinct, then eases again before it can bruise. “You’ve a brave mouth all of a sudden.”

“I have had it all along. You simply would not stand still to hear it.”

That earns you the smallest, strangest ghost of a smile from him. It vanishes at once beneath the strain in his face.

“You do not know what you’re forbidding.”

“Then tell me.”

“There will be more of this.” His voice drops. “More need. Less sense. I may be more ashamed after. More sorry while it’s happening and no less set on it for that.”

You listen as if he is listing weather to you. When he has done, you say, “All right.”

Duncan actually lets out a little breath of temper. “That is no answer.”

“It is mine.”

He stares another moment. You can feel him wanting to argue, wanting to save you, wanting to be saved from the wanting altogether. The effort of all three shows in him plain.

At last you lift your hand and put it to his face. His eyes close. No resistance in him to that any longer.

“You are not leaving me in a barn to go suffer by yourself,” you say, quieter now. “I will not have it.”

“Will not have it,” he repeats, the words almost foolish in his mouth.

“No.”

He opens his eyes. Looks at you long, as if trying to find the pity there and failing.

“What if I ask proper?” he says.

“You may ask.”

“What if I beg?”

Your thumb brushes the split in his lip. Mind plots a thing despite yourself.  “I would like the sound of it and still say no.”

That finally pulls a real laugh from him, though it breaks with weariness halfway through. He bows his head once, beaten in some tender, unlikely way. “Seven save me,” he murmurs. “You mean it.”

“I do.”

Duncan studies you another little while, then lowers his forehead to yours with a heaviness that feels like surrender. “Then stay I shall,” he says. “Just do not say that now, and then think better when I’ve gone and worn the skin off your patience.”

“My patience is fine.”

“It is not. I’ve seen you with a glove.”

That draws a laugh out of you, unbidden. Duncan goes still at the sound, the corner of his mouth pulling with something faint and dazed, as if laughter from you is still a thing he half believes he imagined once. His hand moves over your belly and lower in a restless, thwarted pass. He doesn’t test the luck further—just goes down onto hay and nuzzles into your hair and sighs deeply. A great deal of man to lay quiet at another’s bidding.

“There,” you say, content. “Better.”

“There,” he echoes and you could swear the bastard is grinning. “Very fearsome.”

“Mock me again and I’ll bite you harder.”

“Gods preserve me,” he says, eyes closed and head tipped back onto straw so when you turn yours you can gape at him as openly as you please. The spent strain has loosened something in his face. He looks younger for it. Younger and used through in a way that makes you want to keep him again. This is what he’s supposed to look like after, you think. Not the frightened, frazzled thing he was back when you first found him. Malleable in a way that doesn’t make him weak. Mouth soft at the corners and heat coming off him in waves, while the knot eases by slow increments.

The deep, strange pressure gives up some of its iron. His body mellows further, as if some inward grip has at last begun to unclench. When he slips free of you, the absence startles. Your body had wrapped itself round the burden of him so fully that the leaving feels wrong for one curious instant with the sensation of some important weight being stolen. A small upset sigh leaves you.

“I mislike it too,” Duncan says, making you smile into your palm.

Then, he shifts. Lifts onto all fours and you get to see him, hanging heavy between the legs and reaching as low as his mid-thigh. He’s milked all over, the skin on the base shiny and reddened from when blood has made him girthier, hairs on his navel and circling the root damp and disturbed with moisture, sticking to him wildly. He comes awkward and stiff to kneel between your hips, and leans.

You prop yourself on elbows. Your knees draw closer with the effort of it, and Duncan’s shoulders stop them from closing. He stares right at the apex of your thighs and murmurs, “Gods, but you’re pretty.”

Before you can throw any of his own abashed modesties back at him, he leaches farther down. Splays himself flat on his belly and brings his hands to you again. One palm holds you in the crease of the thigh while the fingers of the other gather what you have lost of him and press it back inside.

“Keep me, girl,” he says. “I’ll give you all I’ve got. Which is not much,” he adds, sheepish. Then he looks up at you with those round child’s eyes and says again, “Jus’ keep me.”

Your mouth goes so dry the yes doesn’t make it out. You beg him with gaze alone, and he understands at once. Climbs back up on his arms and legs and lands braced above you, rubbing his nose along yours. “Hallo,” he says, very softly.

The foolishness of it breaks something tender in you. “Hallo.”

A kiss. A proper one, free of fever-struck taking and half-mad gratitude. Just lips on lips and kind tongues. It turns out he has sweetness enough for ten men when there is nobody in him trying to outrun shame. He kisses as if he has time now. As if he means to acquaint himself with every corner of your mouth by patience alone.

“There’s my girl,” he murmurs, half to himself.

Warmth climbs into your face. “I am not your girl.”

His eyes drift shut briefly. “No?” It’s fond enough to make argument feel useless.

He presses another kiss to the corner of your mouth. Then your cheek. Then the place beneath your eye where the skin still feels tight with unshed tears.

“I’m sorry,” he says quietly. “For the fever. For the shouting. For the foolishness of me.”

“You were not the only fool.”

“Aye, but I am the larger one. It stands to reason I should answer for more of it.”

That earns him a little smile. Duncan sees it and his whole face alters round the sight.

“You frighten easy,” you murmur.

“So would you, if your body did half the ugly things mine does.”

You touch his lower lip where your teeth broke it. “I did that.”

“You did.”

“Sorry.”

His mouth turns against your fingertip. “I am not.” Then, the weight of him settles itself on you until air puffs out through your nose, and he stays. Rain ebbs overhead and you wonder how much time has passed between him snarling at you and him nuzzling his cheek between your breasts. How a person so big can feel so breakable where you have him.

You let him rest. Yourself, too. Against your thigh where he lies the beginnings of him wake again. Your fingernails scratch his head once. “Dunk.”

He lifts his head. “You are looking at me like you mean trouble.”

“I do.” You nod. “Get on your back.”

Duncan shifts with a grunt. All that largeness unspools over the straw and boards till he lies sprawled with one forearm shielding his eyes a moment. His chest rises, heavy and open. You can feel his attention on your skin even through the hand over his face.

You look at him and think: so this is what a giant felled looks like.

“Do not stare at me so,” he mutters.

“You stared enough at me.”

“I could some more.”

You smile and put a hand to his wrist to reveal him. Duncan lets you do it. That is the marvel. He lets you and looks up and gets back to touching you and every touch says mine a little, though he has not the boldness to say it again with his mouth.

Like this he’s breathtaking and it’s something you can never tell him in abundance. Too broad for grace, too weathered for prettiness. Hair wild and skin satin with dampness. The flesh of his belly loosens now he’s on his back, soft enough to look warm. His thighs spread without elegance. All of him laid plain. You yearn to take advantage of that honesty before it thinks to gather itself up again, so you swing a leg over and straddle his middle.

He sucks in a breath so hard his whole body answers it. “Girl—”

“Hush,” you tell him. Settle carefully, because despite all his size he looks for one endearing beat as if he might bolt from the force of being looked at and mounted in one movement. His hands come asking again.

“You are trouble,” he says.

“Yes.”

“And pleased with it.”

“Yes.”

He scowls. “I can stop you still,” he says, though the words have a shape of a hope he would hate you to call.

“Can you?”

Duncan considers the question with pained sincerity. “No.”

You smirk. He watches your mouth through it and grows harder under you by visible degrees. The sight gives you a mean little thrill. You shift your weight on purpose, slow enough to feel him strain.

“Careful,” he says.

“Of what?”

“Of me.”

You lean down enough that your hair falls round his face and the world narrows to the two of you under its curtain.

“I am,” you say. “Why do you think I’m going slow?”

Duncan’s eyes close for one beat. Open again with the look of a man trying hard not to beg before he has been made to. You kiss his chest first because it is there and because you have wanted to since the first day by the stream. The little sound he makes belongs to a much younger man. You keep going. One broad side of him, then the other. His hand goes into your hair in pure need, no thought to where it belongs or what it looks like. Fingers careful by force of habit and blundering from feeling.

“You can come higher than that,” he says after a while, shy.

“Can I?”

Duncan’s mouth twists. “You know you can.”

You rise just enough to look at him. “Then ask.” He stares. The rain has weakened to a far hiss. In the quiet, his breathing sounds huge. Yours too. “Ask,” you say again.

Colour lifts under his skin. His eyes sharpen with it. Pride and want pull at him from opposite sides till you almost pity him. “Do not play with me overlong,” he whispers.

“Beg me,” you say, with a stare so dead your cheeks sag with it.

One hand covers his face again. “You wicked little thing.”

“That is no begging.”

He drags the palm off and glares up at you with all the seriousness in the world. The effect is spoiled entirely by the way his chest keeps rising harder and harder under your hands. “You know what I want.”

“Say it.”

His lips part. Shut. Part again. The struggle in him is so plain it almost feels unfair. Almost. “Put your—” He stops. Starts over, glaring still. “Put yourself here.” His finger points to his mouth. “Put yourself on my face.” The words come out like stones hauled uphill.

You hold his gaze another beat just to see what it does to him. It does plenty. Then: “Good,” you say sweetly.

Duncan’s eyes go half-mad at the praise, but when you finally move his hands know what to do. They help without seeming mean to, guiding your thighs and settling your knees. When you rise over his mouth at last he turns his head once and presses a kiss to the inside of your thigh so cordial it steals the air from you before any true touch has begun.

“Dunk,” you whisper. He answers by pulling you down.

His hands leave all gentleness behind in that first moment, then find it again a second later. The hunger in him outruns manners. His mouth does not. He learns with it as he learned with touch before. A broad sweep of tongue. Gawkish eagerness. He settles in as if this, at least, is a labour he was born understanding.

You put a hand to his shoulder. The other goes into his hair. Duncan groans under you and the sound goes straight through your spine. You had not thought a man beneath you could feel so in command. Yet he does. Great body sprawled in the straw. Mouth working with grisly devotion. Hands spread wide at the backs of your thighs like he means to keep you there forever.

“Fuck,” you gasp. He gives you no speech in answer, only doubles his effort as if praise were instruction.

The pleasure comes quicker this time. Your body knows him already. Every motion of his mouth says take, take, take, and every answering tremor in you says yes. You rock against him before shame can catch up. Duncan’s hands tighten. One comes off your thigh long enough to press flat over your belly, feeling the muscles straining there. The touch is so absurdly intimate you go weak with it.

He feels the weakness. Holds you steadier. Works you harder.

When you try to drag back just to keep from spilling too soon, he follows. It is half blind and wholly determined. His hair is a wreck under your grip. Breath comes fierce and wet and loud. If he could speak, you think, he would say give it. Since his mouth is otherwise occupied, his whole body says it for him.

So you give it. Let your legs shake around his head and your palm drive his face into you so hard he chokes a little. He drinks it all as if it were owed. When the worst of it passes and you’re trembling too hard to sit straight without outright smothering him, he eases you down his body, but never off himself.

You come to rest against his chest. His mouth is wet, face looks stunned and pleased and a touch dazed with triumph. You brush his cheek with two fingers. He kisses them once. Then, you feel him under your thigh.

Still hard. Harder, if anything, for what he has just done.

You lift yourself enough to look down between your bodies. His cock lies hot against his belly, flushed darker now and lifting with the blood stumbling through it. The sight of him like that after your weight on his face turns your mouth dry. Duncan watches you watching him and goes very still.

“Do not be cruel to me,” he says.

That is exactly when cruelty would have been easiest. You know you could leave him there and he would suffer it because he thinks he deserves suffering from you if pleasure comes in the same hand. Instead you put your palm round him and feel the whole of him jolt under you.

“S-seven fu—” he strains. Your hand lifts before he can lose his wits entirely. You raise yourself and line him up with a care that is no innocence and all intent. Duncan lies under you and understands too slowly what you mean to do. Then he understands.

“Girl—”

“Hush.” You set the head at your entrance and hold there. His jaw tightens with the effort of not thrusting up.

“Now beg me,” you whisper, and feel yourself slickening with it.

He looks at you as if the asking might kill him quicker than the rut. For one heartbeat he says nothing. Pride holds. Barely. Then your hand shifts on him, only a little, and the last of its poor thinness buckles and he becomes humble all over again.

“Please,” he says. His eyes shut once, hard. Open, darker than before. “P-please,” he mouths, and this time the word drags. “Girl. Wee thing. Have mercy.”

To you it’s a blade heated white driven through the very essence of yearning. You ought perhaps to be frightened of teasing a man like him. Instead the thing that rises first is a wild, astounding fondness. He is trapped on the precipice. Spent and near another spending. Sweating. Trying to stay inert while all of his muscles pull him forth. You hold him poised there one moment longer only to feel the full violence of his want shake through him. Then you sink. It shrinks you to a single breath.

The size of him feels impossible at once. You lower by inches and still he keeps going, hot and broad and stretching you till your thighs quiver with the struggle of bearing him. Too much of him. Not enough of him. Through the pain, promise of pleasure threads and under it something opens.

“There,” Duncan gasps, throat tight with it. “Gods. There.”

You mean to go slowly. You do, for a moment. Your hands brace on his chest. His heart pounds beneath, huge and wild. Every inch you take changes his face, and the power of it goes to your head. So does the sight of him sprawled and yielding, all that heft gone obedient.

“Look at you,” you murmur.

Duncan’s eyes open at that. They are feral enough to frighten. “Do not mock me now.”

“I’m not.”

He believes you, because he has to. Because from his body’s speech it seems like he would not survive disbelief. His touch runs over you, heels of his palms and big thumbs roughened by reins and weather and all the life he has lived without gentleness enough in it and he looks too naked to live under a roof with rain pounding it and no priest to witness it.

You rise. Sink again. Learn the drag of him from above. The angle gives you a strange new mastery of it. You can feel where he catches hardest and where your body opens sweetest. He lets you have it for longer than you expected he could. He lies there and takes what you do to him with gratitude and torment painting his face.

“Again,” he says once, before shame cuts him off.

You smile a little and give him exactly that. Harder this time. “There now,” you say. “You can beg proper after all.”

“Cruel,” he says. “But it sits on you well enough.”

It warms you lower still. You keep riding him, a little mean with the delight of seeing how thoroughly he can be unmanned. The discomfort becomes something you await. A bright harsh pull that reaches right through the pleasure and makes its home there. They run together like fish in the water when they’re too fast and sparkling and you can’t tell whether it’s one or two or plenty of fish tricking your eye.

He has ache written all over his face. On Duncan it only makes him more himself. More touchable. More yours for this little span, and it makes you feel less alone in the world. The knowing that both of you have to suffer some to gain some.

Your body lifts, and he holds it by the waist. His hips begin their answering. Two stronger strokes to remind you the power under which had felt so conquered, never was. He’s only been still because he chose to.

You put a hand to his chest to steady yourself. “Easy.”

He tries; you can see it. The effort shows in the cords of his neck, the tight set of his mouth, the way his fingers spread hard enough over your hips to leave their shape. The blood in him has gone too bright. The need too deep. When you sink down on him again and linger there, wringing another helpless sound from him, the last of his chivalry gives way.

“Come here,” he says. Low. Dangerous.

You ought perhaps to listen. Instead, the insolence rises so fast you do the opposite. Lift almost clear and hold him in the wanting of the next descent.

Duncan’s whole body arches under you. “Gods damn it.” It snaps right there. He sits up with a force that makes you yelp, both arms wrapping round you tight. The barn tilts while boards sigh under sudden shift. Then, your back hits them and Duncan is over you, the vast heated storm of him blotting out the dim light.

Through a startled gasp, you stare at him. He sees it and breathes hard through his nose. A flash of shame cuts his face in half, and abashed like a boy that lives in him, he tells you, “You should not have done that.”

“Mm,” you hum. “Because you asked nice?”

“I did.”

“And?”

“And I’m done asking nice now.”

Where fear ought to appear, there is little. It runs hand in hand with a hotter thing and neither lets go. Inside you, a pulse answers all through your middle, like hot iron poured into a mould. On the back of this worry thrill rises strangely, borne up by the helplessness of his action and the fact that this great man menaces you while shaking in the arms because of what your body is doing to his. Whatever claws at him, he’s still making sure he is welcome. His forehead nearly touches yours.

“As before,” he says, voice scraping. “Tell me no and I’ll hear it.”

You put a hand to the side of his face. His skin burns under your palm.

“No,” you say, and watch him hollow out for one terrible blink before you finish. “Do not stop.”

He sucks his lip between the teeth and the split you gave him almost opens anew. Relief rattles his chest. He kisses you hard, and the next thrust comes with all his control stripped down to what is necessary to keep from harming. Gentleness of real kind, made of strength leashed as tight as it will go and still threatening to break.

He rides you into the boards with a rhythm that belongs more to his shadow self than to any choice in him. Still, you can feel how much he’s holding back. It lives in the tremor of muscles beside your head and the rough checks of his breathing and the way his strokes end on the edge of something wilder before he pulls back by force. The hand at your thigh keeps trying to open you wider. One at your jaw keeps at your face in case it gives him something your words won’t.

“Duncan—”

“Yeah,” he says. “Take it. Take it from me.”

Your legs tighten round him. The hurt has changed shape. Turned molten. Every place he touches lights. Every place he does not touch begs to be next. You cling because there is nowhere else to put what he is making of you. His hair sticks damp to your face. The vein in his neck beats under your mouth when you turn and kiss there. Being with him is the first thing that has felt right in days upon days.

“You are driving me out of my head,” he says against your skin. You would answer if you had breath enough. It feels good enough to become unintelligible from actual peak. You’re just trapped there, exist there, where your mind and heart confuse themselves and the only thing that exists clearly is the rapture of being taken.

He goes without warning beyond one broken “f-fuck,” and the sudden brutal deepening as he drives home and spends with a groan that sounds wrung from his marrow. His whole body goes through a succession of hard bright shudders and then a deeper one that leaves him near limp. Then comes the shaking. Twitching. Mouth opening at your throat, perplexed. He floods you and in the wake of his spending comes the swelling again.

It shows you where the peak has been all this time. Gets through you like a warm knife. Fullness, so astounding and grand it should unmake you, but puts you back together instead. Your belly thrums with it and it spreads warmth all over you until your fingers feel strangers to your palms. You come so hard on it, a sound you’d never make in daylight leaves you. You have no idea how torn you must look when Duncan mistakes pleasure for pain and answers with such care you could near weep yourself.

“Don’t hate me. Don’t hate me,” he says. “I’m sorry. Sweetheart, I’m sorry.”

“I don’t—” You gasp. “I never do.” Then, you weep yourself. Tears push out with violence so unbearable you have to bring a palm to your face. You hate them at once, the weakness of them and the mumble when your breath snags and starts breaking wrong.

Duncan stops moving. Then all his care changes shape. He eases down close, slides one arm under your shoulders and tugs your hand off your eyes with the other. Patience over force. When you resist, he only waits you out, breathing against your hair, till your strength gives over.

“Hey,” he murmurs. “Hey now.”

You squeeze your lids shut.

His mouth finds your cheek. Open kisses, gathering your salt just as you gathered his. He kisses one eye, then the other, then the corner of your mouth where your face has gone gnarled from trying not to sob.

“Stop,” you tell him—it only makes the weeping worse. A wail gets out of you, ugly as anything, and Duncan hushes you at once and gathers you closer.

“Hush, wee thing,” he says. “Hush now.”

You’re bawling. Everything comes together, from the past and the present and future that’s going to be miserable if lived without him, and being held through it opens the flood wider. He keeps his mouth to your face and you can feel how hard he’s trying not to lose his senses. Keeps taking the tears as if he can lessen them by sheer stubborn attendance.

“Does it hurt so much?” he asks. “Girl, tell me. Does it?”

You shake your head.

He frowns against your skin. “Then what is it?”

You drag in a breath and it breaks in the middle. Another sob takes the first words with it. At last you manage, “You spoke of parting.” His hand stills. You swallow and feel all sorts of scorn for the fresh wetness that comes with the saying of it. “B-before. By the stream.”

Duncan lifts his head enough to look at you. The storm-light is gone thin now, the barn all dark boards and damp straw and the little wash of moon seeping through the cracks. His face in it looks wrecked and bewildered.

“If you keep being sweet like this,” you say, and your voice goes ugly on the last words, “I won’t—I won’t bear it when it c-comes.”

He gapes. Gasps with surprise so bare it hurts to watch. “You said,” he begins, slow, as if stepping into deep water, “you said you’re not my girl.”

“I’m n-not.”

Duncan waits. 

You drag your wrist under your nose, furious with yourself, and glare at some point over his shoulder because looking at him feels worse. “I do not want to be anyone’s girl.” His jaw works once. “I want—”

It feels larger than your mouth.

“What?” he asks.

You make yourself look at him. “I want you—” you say. “I want you to be my man, though.”

Duncan understands at once. You watch it happen. Going into him clean and taking root because possession is a tongue his body learnt before speech ever got wise enough to shame it. His eyes darken, but the face gentles around the darkness of them.

“Aye,” he says, wisest he’s ever been. “You can be my moon then.” His thumb strokes under your eye, not wiping anything, just spreading it. “My whole world. Not just a girl.”

Inside you, your heart stitches itself back together. By his hands—neat, careful work delivered with large, honest fingers. Then, your man looks at you as if you’ve hung the moon and were it in the same breath, and says, “Now you may tell me all the things you meant to.”

Maekar’s peace of mind was officially, absolutely, utterly, royally, fucked.

It had only been a year since you moved into the apartment right below his, and, at first, he had not noticed you.

It was not personal. He merely lived his life by routine; a treat he allowed himself after so many years of laying it on the line, he’d often say.

In the years since he’d retired from in-ring wrestling, he lived quietly, and he lived simply, and Seven fucking hells, that was just the way he liked it. His kids were all independent adults now, living their own lives while he still tried to learn to build his own in their absence.

He had found balance in repetition, he had found solace in familiarity.

He would wake up before the sun rose and run his obligatory ten kilometers on the trail by the coast. He would stop by the same restaurant and place the same pick-up order: coffee (one sugar, no cream), a small green juice (with extra lime), and an egg white omelette with wild mushrooms. Sometimes he would be stopped and asked for a picture or an autograph, sometimes not. He always took his food back home and ate it while watching the morning news and completing a crossword, ignored his brother’s texts, and went along with the rest of his day. He'd eventually text Baelor back around mid-day, anyways.

It was not personal, it was routine. It was careful, guarded, intentional. It was how he quieted the ghosts. There were no more limelights, no more cameras, no more crowds, and there was no more Anvil. There was just a man learning to manage the stillness that came after a lifetime of motion.

But him not noticing you right away did not mean you did not want him from the first time you saw him.

By the seven, it was not your fault! He was returning from one of his runs, looking downright heavenly in a black compression shirt and sporting a deep scowl, with a series of slightly faded tattoos cascading down his arms, and you all but drooled. He grunted a quiet ‘good morning’ to you before the elevator stopped at your floor, and you decided, right then and there, that the seven heavens were real, and he was an angel made flesh.

Maekar Targaryen, you noticed, was quiet. He was grumpy. And, to your dismay, would not give you the time of day, no matter how much you vied for his attention.

No matter how many cookies you gifted him under the guise of needing an opinion on a new recipe. No matter how many times you lent him your umbrella when he would forget his. No matter how many stores you’d visited to find a salve he mentioned in passing the days he said his joints were hurting.

And so, this time, you had come to ask him for help building a bookshelf.

It was ridiculous, you knew, but at that point, you had exhausted all of your options. You needed time alone with him! You needed to have him look at you somewhere that was not inside a busy elevator, or the middle of a grocery store, or the smoker’s area in the shared neighbor lounge. So, because desperate times called for desperate measures, you had paired the cutest lace panties you owned with the shortest mini-skirt on sight, and had slipped on a tank-top with no bra on.

Not that you had not played that trick before.

Unbeknownst to you, Maekar had begun to pay attention. It was somewhere along the elevator greetings, and the mail room run-ins, and the fact that you had somehow befriended his eldest son, with the two of you becoming inseparable in the last few months.

He had noticed the times you bent down in front of him after ‘accidentally’ dropping your keys, and the times you wore thin, flimsy tops with nothing underneath. He remembered the times you leaned far too close to his frame, smelling like fresh tangerines, and he had not been able to stop noticing.

You were about the same age as Daeron. His son would go on and on about you every time he visited, and he would commit every detail to memory. You were about to finish a phD in early Westerosi history, owned two cats, and smoked mentol Dragon reds. You liked watching nature documentaries, growing your own herbs on your windowsills, and attending rock concerts. And he liked you.

Seven above, he liked you far more than he ever thought he would. More than he should, probably.

And so the moment you knocked on his door with a printed page of instructions in hand and looking like the sweetest of temptations, Maekar knew there was no escaping the fact that he was just as crazy for you as you were for him. 

You looked up at him through your lashes while biting on your lower lip, and that had been how his mouth had found yours: desperate, hungry, completely uncaring of anything that was not the hunger building in the bottom of his stomach.

So, yeah. Maekar’s peace of mind is officially, absolutely, utterly, royally, fucked. But when you drag your fingers down the soft, supple skin of his abdomen, he cannot find it in himself to give a single damn about anything else. He nips at your lower lip and runs his tongue over the inside of it before it enters your mouth, and his heart threatens to explode inside his chest.

He guides you back through his living room while his tongue massages yours, his hands running down your sides over the fabric of your top. He angles your head upwards and revels in your taste, kissing you deeper, walking you towards the sofa. He sucks on your tongue, swallowing a moan before it can threaten to interrupt the kiss, and grinds his growing erection against your middle.

His mind floods with desire, and it all shifts. Want is building in his abdomen, sending shivers through his skin. He takes your lower lip between his teeth and pulls, ever so gently, making you whimper against his panting mouth.

Anything else but this is completely irrelevant, the world spinning on an axis consisting merely of your touch. And your scent. And the way you look when you’re moving until you’re on your knees in front of him, looking up at him as your fingers find the waistband of his trousers.

They’d been made just for him: tailored to his precise measurements, rising one finger bellow his belly-button, with two centimeters of ease around his waist. They have a slight break, the hem covering the back of his shoe, and he’d chosen the fabric to be a deep blue linen—Gods, he really does not give a single fuck.

His hands meet yours as they undo his belt, fingers lithe and agile and way less careful than yours in their movements, as he undoes the buckle and pops the button of his trousers open. He does not even care about removing the belt from the hoops before he slides his pants down and kicks them back, out of sight, out of the way.

Your hands continue moving down until they rest on the outside of his thighs as you raise yourself on your knees just enough for your nose to reach his belly button. And Maekar lets out a breath, ragged and desperate, as your tongue flattens against his abdomen and you lick down, slowly as if to cause him the most blissful of deaths, down over the path set by a silver happy trail. Down until you reach the bulge growing under his briefs, deep gray and sinfully fitted, already damp with pre-cum; and you don’t stop, sucking on his arousal over the fabric.

“Fuck,” he curses under his breath, hands shaking at his sides. He fists them once, twice, and then extends his fingers again. 

Again they shake, and he waits.

He clenches his jaw and breathes in, deeply. He keeps his eyes on yours, patience thinning as his pleasure begins to thicken, and he all but moans the moment you finally pull his briefs down his legs.

His cock hangs with borderline obscene weight, throbbing with so much need that makes your mouth water. You move your hand to his base, fingers struggling to close around the thickness of his shaft, and you give him a slow, experimental pump.

He hisses, and you lower your mouth towards his waiting cock, pressing sloppy, open-mouthed kisses down his body. You pump him again, teasingly, as you look up to lock your eyes with his and press a soft, fleeting kiss to his reddened tip.

Your lips are wet with slick when you grin up at him, and he scowls.

“Don’t be a fucking brat,” he spits from between clenched teeth. “You wanted my cock so bad, huh? Practically begged for it for months, and now you’re not going to give it a proper suck?”

“You made me work for it for way too fucking long, as you said,” you smile, eyes shining with playful mirth. “Should I not return the favor?”

Maekar scoffs. His jaw sets tighter, and he rolls his eyes in annoyance. His moodiness has always been weirdly entrancing, but it does not compare to the downright heavenly sight of his relief when, finally, you take the tip of his cock inside your mouth and suck.

He has never been a pious man, has never thought of himself as a fervent believer, but the wet heat of your mouth envelops his length and he knows he’ll spend the rest of his life singing praises to this very feeling.

“Just like that,” he whispers under his breath. “Fuck, sweet thing, just like that.”

The nickname comes out of nowhere, born in the depths of his pleasure and expelled in a low, grave noise that knocks the air out of your lungs.

You take him deeper in your mouth in retaliation, eyes closed in the bliss that is the throbbing of his shaft against your tongue. The corners of your mouth burn at the stretch as you lean forward, taking a deep breath before the tip of your nose brushes over his lower navel. 

Maekar curses above you, hips moving ever so slightly as if with a mind of their own, and your eyes roll back as his cock pushes back against your throat. You lean back, pumping from his base to where he leaves your mouth before you dive forward again, bobbing your head along his length. You swallow around him, and he shivers. You look up at him and wink, and he all but dies where he stands.

And it’s the stretch, and it’s the heat, and it’s the way he’s holding back from thrusting inside your mouth, and your mind is spinning with how good it feels.

He exhales out his nose and throws his head back, allowing his eyes to flutter closed. His fingers trail up your back until they reach the crown of your head, weaving themselves within the strands of your hair tight enough for him to close his fist and pull upwards, ever so slightly.

You whine, the sound hoarse and ragged around his cock. He pulls again in response and your cunt clenches around nothing. It is a wet, messy affair; rivulets of slick dripping down your thighs as you pull his thick cock out of your mouth, a string of spit bridging the fat of his head to your parted lips.

He pulls back on your hair again and your gaze meets his, smile saccharine and completely unrepentant as you give his cock a slow pump before licking up the side of his shaft. Your tongue traces up a vein and he hisses, cursing under his breath as you smack the head of his cock against your flattened tongue once, twice — three torturous times before you close your lips around it and suck.

And Maekar has had enough.

“Come here,” Maekar grumbles, moving his hands down from your hair to your shoulders, hoisting you up on your feet.

Your lips are wet with saliva and slightly swollen from his girth. He grunts as he angles your face upwards, large hands cupping your jaw, and he guides your mouth up to his. 

He doesn’t kiss you. 

He stills against the side of your mouth, no doubt paying back for your teasing, flicking his tongue against the corner of your lips as his hands run down your back. And down over the curve of your ass. His breathing grows deeper as he cups the flesh in his hands, caressing slowly over the fabric of your skirt, and drinks in the gasp that leaves your lips when he lays a quick, gentle spank on it.

“You look like pure sin in this skirt,” Maekar mumbles, his grip still tight. “This is what you wanted, hm? For me to touch you like this?”

You nod, eyes darkened with desire as you keep your gaze on his. His cock throbs painfully against your clothed middle, coated in a mixture of spit and arousal.

“Or perhaps you wanted me to do more?” He asks. “Wanted me to fuck you hard, did you? Split your pretty pussy open with my cock?”

It is a strange thing.

You have been attracted to him for months. And in all that time, all throughout the torturous year where he had been nothing but your upstairs neighbor, nothing more than your friend’s ridiculously hot dad, you had managed to form what you had thought to be a somewhat clear picture of him. 

You have come to the conclusion that Maekar is quiet but polite (for the most part, ignoring the fact that he cusses like a sailor at the minor inconvenience), grumpy but attentive. He is disciplined and athletic, intelligent and collected. He is, also, pretty much what Michelangelo’s David would look like if it were to walk alongside mortals, you think. 

You thought you knew what Maekar Targaryen was like. And you had never imagined he’d be this fucking good at talking dirty. 

“That’s it, isn’t it?” Maekar hums, and tilts his head to the side. “You want me ruin this fucking pussy, pretty girl? Stuff it full of me?”

The warmth of his touch as he squeezes your flesh makes you feel like you’re on fire. You drink in his words as if they alone would quench your thirst.

“Please,” you whisper, words breaking past a moan that begins to form.

“Please what, pretty?” Maekar teases, voice deep and quiet. “Please fuck you stupid with my cock? Come on, use your words for me.”

“Yes. Fuck, yes, Mr. Targaryen—”

A moment. He stills, grip tightening. His breath hitches, almost imperceptibly, against your skin. And then he moves with a deeper hunger, with a deep noise that grows with his chest as he turns the both of you until the fabric of the couch grazes the back of your legs.

You look up at him as you fall back onto the couch: eyes wide, glazed with unadulterated lust, lips parted in anticipation. He has not seen a prettier sight. 

“Kept my hands to myself too fucking long, pretty thing,” he grumbles, and it is, finally, his turn to kneel. Finally, the moment he lays worship to your figure, and your touch, and the warmth of your skin that makes his head dizzy with want. 

He leans closer to your body as it lays against the cushions, and feels blessed once more. “Had to see you prancing around with Daeron and pretend my cock did not harden every time you wore one of these slutty little tops. Had to see you bend over in the elevator, the hall, the fucking fruit aisle at the supermarket, and pretend I did not want to take you right then and there. You see how you’ve ailed me?”

His words are slow and deliberate. The rhythm of your heartbeat is not. Maekar takes his time, running his big fucking hands up your legs, digits coarse and calloused from all of the years spent in the ring. He leans forward, hooking one of your legs over his shoulder, and presses a kiss to the soft, tender skin of your inner thigh. 

You can barely refrain from closing your eyes. His touch is unrepentant and intoxicating, and you don’t want to miss a second of it. Not when it feels like being struck with lightning.

“You don’t have to hold back any longer,” you reply, and he kisses you again. “I want—No, I need you to touch me.”

Maekar hums. Low, teasing. He lets his teeth scrape over your skin as his fingers trail up, up, up… until they hook around the soft lace of your panties. They fall to the side with a quick, sudden riiiiiiiip, baring you to the hunger in his gaze.

He looks at you the way a predator would at its prey when it is just about ready for the taking.

His pupils are blown wide, eyes hooded with desire. Soft, wild strands of platinum hair fall over his forehead, over his brows, over his eyelashes. It is a beautiful sight, the ease with which he allows himself to exist in the moment. It is only yours for the taking. You bite softly upon your lower lip, and decide you will treasure it forever.

“Look at you, pretty girl,” he mutters. His fingers graze over your lips, mesmerized by way you leak just for him, and he parts your folds to fully expose you to him. “All I’ve done is let you suck my cock and you’re already dripping. Must’ve wanted it too much, didn’t you?”

He pairs his words with a caress. His fingers press softly on your clit, and your hips buck towards him, desperate for his touch. For his warmth. For anything, please, Seven above, please —

“Answer me, sweet thing,” he says. You feel him circling your sensitive bud with a painstaking level of patience, digits coated with your slick. “Keep your eyes on me, and answer my question.”

Your mouth parts as your brain scrambles for a response. You wet your lips with a quick flick of your tongue, and he circles his finger slightly faster. Harder. Rougher.

He is looking for words and gets a moan instead. He decides, right then and there, no other sound could ever compare.

“Yes,” you breathe out, finally. “Yes, fuck. Maekar, I—”

He stops, retrieving his touch from where you need it most, before his fingers trail back down your slit until they reach your opening. And keeping his eyes on yours, and moving so painfully slow, he introduces a finger inside your clenching hole.

You moan, ragged and hoarse, leaning closer to him as he begins pumping his finger in and out. In and out. In and out until you’re aching for him.

It’s barely enough to make you feel full, his index larger than it is thicker, but you barely have enough time to dwell upon your woes when he slips a second finger past your folds and curls both digits deep inside you. Maekar grunts, and presses another skin upon your thigh as he continues his ministrations.

His free hand curls around your hip and presses down when he feels you moving against his fingers, keeping you just where he wants you. He opens his lips to suck on your skin, his tongue flat upon your thigh as he flicks his fingers inside you even deeper, even faster.

“Take your top off,” he grumbles, breath hot against the spot he’s just sucked on. It’s sure to leave a mark. You’re to wear it like a badge of honor. “Come on, pretty. Let me see them properly. You’ve teased me too much, don’t you think?”

You do, breasts falling free, nipples pebbled and aching to be touched; so you do just that, and the sight has Maekar almost bursting where he stands.

And you’re so close. You’re so, so close, and your eyes are just about to fall shut with the promise of relief. You let out a quiet moan as you knead at your breasts, and there’s a sheer layer of sweat covering your skin as you repeat his name under your breath like a prayer. Because it’s so good, the stretch and reach of his digits so fucking delicious, and his gaze so godsdamn electrifying, and you’re seconds away from finally letting go.

Then, again, he stops. 

He retrieves his hand, long fingers completely coated in your slick.

He brings them up to his lips and sucks, keeping his eyes on you the whole time, and you moan again. You think it is cruel, and you think it is downright wicked, and he looks none but absolutely satisfied by the action.

“Maekar?” He hums, tongue flicking down the side of his finger.

A pause, and you realize your mistake. You're eager to correct it. “Mr. Targaryen.”

And he does not smile, nor does he smirk. But his eyes glisten with mischief, and your breath catches in anticipation.

He straightens, using one hand to pull you closer to the edge of the couch while the other fists his leaking cock. He pumps it, slowly, almost as if teasing himself the exact same way he teased you.

Almost as if reveling in the slowness, almost as if feeding from the wait. Almost as if trying to commit the look on your face to memory, almost as if trying to engrave the sight of you on his skin.

You wrap your legs around his waist as your cunt clashes with his navel, and the friction that comes from the contact sends a shiver down your spine.

“Look at her, all but begging for my cock,” Maekar hums, and as if to doom you to a certain kind of hell, drags his thick, throbbing length along your sopping slit. “Y’think she’s ready, pretty thing? Think we prepped her just enough? Oh, she’s fucking dripping for me.”

His tip presses against your opening, and he’s thicker, much thicker than the fingers he prepped you with. A moan leaves your lips, your body moving as if called forth by his.

“Oh, fuck,” he pushes forward just an inch. His voice breaks and his breath falters. He looks beautiful like this. “Fucking hell, that’s it. Taking me so well.”

He continues, cock pushing inside you until he’s sheathed in completely, until your clit grazes the place where his happy trail begins. You’re completely stretched around his length, absolutely full of his girth, and it has you closing your eyes in pure, pure bliss.

Maekar stills for a moment, and lets out a breath. 

“You just needed this, huh? M’doll needed my cock,” he mutters, more talking to himself than you, but his words burn through you just the same. “You just—Fuck, you just needed my fucking cock.”

Your head falls back against the couch, hands gripping onto his forearms like a lifeline. He’s breathing heavy, ragged, lowering himself until his chest pushes down against yours, and your arms wrap around his torso when he does.

And it’s heavenly, an absolute miracle, the way this beautiful, gorgeous man looses himself in you. 

Maekar’s lips find your neck, kissing and sucking on your skin as he quickens his pace. The scrape of his beard against your skin tethers you to him like an anchor, and he is everything you can see, and everything you can feel. Your lips part and a moan slips past them when he does, your nails digging into his back as he moves, thrusting faster. Harder.

“I—Maekar, I’m gonna—” you whimper, voice much quieter than it had been.

“S’okay, pretty,” he replies, with a grunt. He angles his hips just slightly before he thrusts again, and you gasp against his hair. “I got you. I got you, I—Oh, you’re squeezing me so fucking tight. My pretty doll’s gonna cum? Let go. Let go, I got you.”

You don’t answer. You cannot. But your hands grip even tighter onto his back, gentle fingertips grazing over a myriad of scars, and you’re in ecstasy. 

He keeps moving, thrusting, the sound of skin slapping against skin filling your ears until it all goes away for one blissful, perfect moment.

Your legs lock around his waist as you cum, and he keeps thrusting, and all you can smell is the depth of his aftershave and the musk of his cologne. The back of your eyelids are painted with stars, your heart explodes inside your chest, and you moan his name like a prayer. There’s only pleasure, and there’s only him, and he’s holding you through it all. And fuck, if it’s not a beautiful, all-consuming feeling. 

“Yeah. Yeah, just like that,” he whines, sound foreign and unfamiliar, but barely noticed in the peak of your orgasm. “Keep squeezing me like that. Taking my cock like you were made for it, aren’t you? Gonna make me cum, fuck!”

He thrusts one, two, three more times, and your nails dig into his skin again. Suddenly, he’s falling, and he closes his eyes, and he does not give a fuck about anything that is not the wave of pleasure that courses through him and wrecks him down to his bones.

His brows furrow, nose scrunched up in beautiful agony, body locking in and drawing tight as he rides his peak. He moves, shaking slightly when his legs begin to burn, and he moans against your body before it breaks into a sharp, sudden silence as he spills inside your spasming cunt. 

His chest rises and falls rapidly against yours, both of you trying to regain your breath as you revel in a world that consists only of each other. He keeps his eyes closed, forehead buried against your neck, breathing in your scent, and he feels warm all over. Your hands, still resting on his back, trail lower, caressing his damp skin as you come down from your high.

Not that you want to. No. Maekar pants over you, and his hair falls over your face, smelling softly of cedar and oak, and he’s still holding onto you oh so tightly. You’d stay like this forever if you could.

But it all begins to come back in small doses: the ticking of a clock nearby. The golden light seeping in through thin linen blinds. The softness of the fabric under your body. It is all there, a world eagerly awaiting for your return.

Your voice breaks through the stillness. 

“I always knew you liked me back.”

He opens his eyes and purses his lips.

“No, you did not,” he answers, quietly. “Brat.”

His voice is a different kind of deep, not the same sort of guarded that comes to him like a second nature after years of pulling walls up. Maekar hums, sated and content, and tightens his hold around you. He runs his lips down the outside of your ear, catching your lobe between his teeth, and you shiver against his arms.

Seven above, it is all absolutely perfect. 

“Maekar?” You speak again, voice dripping with amusement. He adores the sound of it. “You are going to help me with my bookshelf, right?”

“Fuck no,” he scoffs, but there is no bite. There are just mellowed, softened edges that have replaced the sharpness of barbed wire. Surrender. “I’ll just ask my brother, or something.”

You laugh, and he rolls over. He slips out of you, and you wince. He notices, and kisses your navel before he straightens. His back cracks as he stands up, and he groans. Tired. At ease.

“He’s an architect,” he elaborates. “Builds houses and all that, y’know? He can build your fucking bookshelf if you want it so bad—fuck off, no, I’m not talking about my brother right now. Fuck him.”

“Fuck him?” You tease, wiggling your eyebrows as you laugh. “Is your brother also a DILF?”

“A what?” He narrows his eyes and fights back the urge to roll them back. Oh, forget the beatitude. He looks exasperated once more, back to his prickly, moody self, and he’s and so, so beautiful. “Actually, I don’t even want to fucking know. Spare me the fucking pain. We’re taking a shower before you stain my sofa any further, and then I’ll get lunch delivered. Prawn linguine sounds good?”

Your grin only widens, and you’re in heaven.

Maekar’s peace of mind is officially, absolutely, utterly, royally, fucked. Luckily, so are you.

Filming a video with pornstar!Baelor, who, despite being the top performing artist in his company, is still sweet, and gentle, and mindful of everyone he records with.

Who started filming when he was a young man, fresh out of resigning from the family business, tired of holding the world on the palm of his hand, and wishing for a life that did not come with expectations. Baelor, who never settled down, never listened to the noise that came with the crashing of the waves he stirred, and was never shamed for living a life that was shaped by his hand alone.

Who chooses his partners and vetoes his scripts, and always films with his co-star's pleasure and comfort as a priority. Who never behaves in a manner that is not professional, setting firm, clear boundaries for himself and always respecting those of others. Baelor, who believes in communication, and manners, and behaves like a gentleman even when he does not fuck like one.

Filming a video with pornstar!Baelor, who’s (finally) got you, the one performer he’s kept an eye on for months, with your legs bent tight against your chest, eyes closed shut and head thrown back in bliss as he fucks you silly in the meanest mating press.

"God, pretty girl, just like that," he whispers, softly, barely loud enough for his words to be picked up by the microphone that hangs above. "Gripping me so fucking tight. 'm I fucking you good?"

He keeps your arms locked over your head, holding them together with one big, veiny hand, while he uses the other to reach down and caress your clit. Leaning back, he opens his mouth, and lets a ribbon of spit fall directly over your swollen pearl before he circles it with his thumb again. He’s already made you cum twice: once with his fingers, once on his tongue; but the script calls for him to do it a third time, and so a third orgasm he will give you.

Baelor angles his hips as he thrusts into you again, gaze glued to where your pretty, puffy pussy lips stretch around his cock as he dives in and pulls out, repeating the motion with enough force to pull a whimper out of your mouth with every thrust. And when he gazes upwards, where the outline of his cock, painfully long and unbelievably thick, becomes visible at the bottom of your tummy? Oh, he all but has to bite the inside of his cheek to stop himself from blowing his load forty minutes into what is meant to be an hour long video.

"This is how a real man's supposed to fuck this pretty pussy," he spits from between clenched teeth, voice low, rough, ragged. "You feel that? My cock's all the way up your belly, hm? Making this tight cunt gape so perfectly for me."

And you do not need to play it up for the cameras. You do not need to fake a moan, or force out a whine, or pretend to be submerged in the woes of pleasure. You’ve done it before; after all, one does not acquire the stats you have without being able to successfully sell an orgasm that does not always come.

But there is no need for that at the current moment—Not when Baelor's cock is stretching your tight cunt wide open, pounding into you hard, and deep, with his big, heavy balls slapping obscenely against the plump of your ass.

He’d read through the script and rehearsed his lines. He'd memorized his role. The studio specifically asks him to be vocal whenever he films, but you’re moaning so beautifully, drooling at the corner of your mouth while you throw your head back against the mattress, and he swears his mind goes blank.

He doesn’t remember a fucking word—You’re supposed to be playing his, what? His best friend’s young, pretty daughter, or something of the sort? Yeah, he doesn’t have a clue.

Not when he can still taste your pussy on his lips. Not when he makes you sees stars and your cunt, tight, and hot, and downright delicious, starts squirting out jets of clear, warm fluid all over his torso as you come undone around his length.

"Oh, I'm gonna cum—Gonna make me cum, hm?" He groans, punctuating his words with quick, sharp moves that have the edge of his happy trail slapping against your throbbing clit. "Squirting all over me like that? Gonna make me—mhm, gonna stuff you full of me."

Not when he’s throwing his head back, breathing heavily, thrusting his throbbing cock into your perfect pussy. And God, you’re gripping him so fucking tight, walls clenching as you ride out the bliss of your orgasm, and he blocks out everything that is not you.

Pornstar!Baelor, who blocks out the cameras, and the crew, and the lights, and lets himself think that he is not merely playing a false role in the middle of an artificial studio.

No. No, for a moment, he lets himself imagine. He moves, snapping his hips against yours as tears form at the corners of your eyes from how good it feels to be pounded into the mattress by him, and he lets himself think of a different world.

One where he’d fuck you after a first date, perhaps. One where he would have taken you to a nice restaurant, paid for your meal, and then scrunched your favorite dress up against your hips as he took you on the backseat of his car. He'd make you squirt then too, he thinks.

Or, maybe, in this other, perfect world, you'd already be his girlfriend. Maybe he'd be eating you out after coming home from work, with you spread out beautifully on a couch you'd both picked out when moving in together, and he'd be on his knees, thrusting against the linen cushions until he came in his pants.

He lets himself imagine of a world where you'd be his young, pretty wife, even. He would have cooked a dinner to celebrate your wedding anniversary, and it would have been your favorite, and he would have made a joke about how the dessert would be even tastier. He would have opened a bottle of wine that costed the same as a month's mortgage payment and gifted you some equally extravantly-priced piece of jewelry. And then, afterwards—After kissing you slow, and loving, and tender, he'd be taking you in your shared bed, cock stuffed deep inside your pussy, with a stunning rock of a ring adorning a finger on your left hand.

He imagines having the real thing, even if for a second: complicated, unpredictable, sharp. And so, so perfect. He lets himself feel all of it.

And, fuck, he cums like that. He does not stop the moan that slips past his lips—rough, and raw, and unrepentant. He does not care about the cameras. He feels his cock explode with thick, hot ropes of cum, flooding your tight, pretty cunt with his seed, and he does not give a fuck about anything that is not that feeling. He does not care about anything that is not you.

He gives himself a moment. You're panting under him, a thin layer of sweat covering your body while you try to regain your breath, and he thrusts slowly, lazily, aware that the tape is still roling and the lens is zoomed in on where he's fucking his cum back inside your clenching hole. And then the cameras cut out.

Filming a video with pornstar!Baelor, who pulls out, cock spent and leaking a mixture of cum and squirt, and breaks character to press a soft, gentle kiss to the corner of your mouth.

“Will you have a coffee with me?”

He stills and stares. You have your cloak thrown round you and the hood half up, all that cloth and leather making you into a bundle of angles by the fire, but your hands are bare for once. For a moment, before the buckskin comes back on and seals everything shut, save for the face.

Long hands. Quick when they are warm enough for it. Not soft hands, neither. He has seen the nicks over your knuckles, the little white seam near the thumb where some old cut healed badly, the dark half-moons of cold under your nails on mornings like this. You keep the rest of yourself put away as close as any maid in a sept, though no maid ever rode so hard or slept with boots so near to hand. High throat, gloves, sleeves, hood, all of it. Even in heat you do not loosen much. A queer little habit, he had thought at first. He lingers on it more than he means to.

You are quiet too. Unlike Ser Arlan, who used to get drunk and chant and dance round the fire in naught but his tunic till he fell over face-flat, arse-out. Dunk misses the noise, sometimes. The menacing joy of Arlan’s madness. Your silence is sparing and words seem to cost you something.

He’s had near a month of your company and still knows the sound of your boots in the leaves better than the sound of your voice. He tells himself he is looking now for no more reason than that you are there and awake before him, and because a man will always look hardest at what is least shown to him. Yet his eyes go where they always go of late: to the bend of your head over some small task, to those clever palms worrying laces and buckles, and the patch of skin at your wrist when your sleeve rides back and you are too cold to mind it quick enough.

Mild things. Fool things. Still they have grown familiar in him. Stranger than that, he cannot rightly call to mind how the road felt before there was another pair of footsteps with his. Another shadow across the fire, another body breathing on the far side of camp. Ser Arlan had been dead only a little while when he first took to riding alone, yet those days seem barer to him now than all the long years before him.

Under his eyelids, it replays. He meets you just after one of his bouts has wrung him near empty. Duncan has taken himself off beneath a great elm and let the storm break over him, too dazed to ride farther, sore to the bone and fever-hot in all the thick places of him. His size turns against him at such times. More muscle to cramp, more skin to burn, more weight to drag once the worst passes.

The rain comes a mercy. It beats the heat from his face and neck, soaks his tunic through, turns the ground beneath him to cool mud. He might have slept there longer if Sweetfoot, good girl that she is, had not started at the thunder and pulled free.

You are leading her back by the reins when he finds you, or else when the horse finds him first and you after. A boy, Dunk judges, from the swagger you wear and the smooth face that has never yet wanted a razor. Squire’s armour, cloak plastered dark with rain, hair tucked out of sight. Sweetfoot comes willing with you, which is recommendation enough in itself. Dunk thanks you, rough and short for ignominy of the state you have seen him in, and you nod as if there were nothing strange in a half-sick hedge knight losing horse and wits in the same afternoon.

You might have parted there. Only when he asks where you are bound, it turns out your road and his run one and the same a good ways on.

“D’you mind a companion?” Dunk asks.

Your eyes are on him. He shifts his weight. “I’m a hedge knight. Carrying on after Ser Arlan of Pennytree’s passing. I was his squire. He knighted me—” He puts a hand to his chest, then thinks that foolish and lets it drop again. “I can build a fire, hunt a bit when there’s aught to catch, and keep watch well enough. Might be of some use to a—”

He breaks off, not knowing what to call you. Squire, mayhaps. Some lordling’s boy run lean on the road. Or just one more hard little scrap of a lad with no business being out alone.

A look askance. “You ill?” you ask after a beat. Your voice is softer than the sight of you proposes.

Dunk scrabbles for something to say that is neither lie nor truth entire. “N-no. Just worn some.”

“Fine,” you say. That is all. His hand, held out for yours, stays where it is a moment before Dunk takes it back.

Right before that, well. Dunk knows what he is, though the world has a dozen names for it and half as many fool notions besides. Old women mutter of moon-pull and bad blood and such. Dunk knows only the misery of it. He feels it coming when he does and dreads every hour till it has done with him. It burns him through, leaves him sore, stupid, and mean with the ache of it, and cursing his own good nature for not being the sort to toss silver at a whore and use her to help himself. Make her his for a moment, if only by that queer bit of business that comes after he spills—his cock swelling thick in the girth, hard and ugly as a bruise, more than any soft flesh could welcome easy, he reckons, and fouler still when it has nowhere to house itself, which is most times.

He was taken pity on twice. Once, before he knew any better, there was a barmaid at a place so mean and low he cannot now call the sign to mind. Sweet-faced girl, broad in the hips, easy with a laugh, and kind to him for no reason that he could see beyond that he was young and big and grateful for a smile.

Dunk had thought it was Ser Arlan’s ale turning in his gut that night. Thought the heat in him came of bad drink and worse stew, and the way his skin would not sit right on his bones.

She kissed him first. He remembers that. The surprise of it and how hard he answered, near ashamed of himself even then for wanting so fast and so much. She took it for flattery, and opened for him. 

Her thighs spread on their own. Her shirt unlaced and yawned open round her waist because she wasn’t bothered to shrug it off completely. He kissed her ineptly and wedged himself between her legs, gasping like he’s dying and there was a kind of death ahead of him but not the ending kind. It was the boy in him dying so the man in him could learn the burdens.

Her mouth, full of blissful sounds, called his name and him a pretty boy, and soon enough Dunk felt his relief coming like it was going to shred the skin off him, and he came grunting like a man. Then came the rest.

The odd growth, thick and merciless, too much all at once. Her face changed under him. Hurt first. Then confusion. Then something worse, as if he had played some sly trick she had not agreed to. Dunk frightened at that near as badly as she did. He got off her in a clumsy rush when he finally could, with apology and no sense to it, and left before she could speak plain on what he had done. After that, when the feeling came over him again, he took himself off alone. Better the hedges, better the mud, better to sweat through every loathsome hour of it by himself than have a person look at him like that again. Ser Arlan never marked the pattern, or else did and had no mind to ask where his squire vanishes to. He was drunk more often than not, and kept the boy at arm’s length even sober.

Only once after did someone stop him on his way to the trees. That was near a tourney, when Ser Arlan lay foxed in a ditch and Dunk had a horse to see to, arms to polish, harness to mend, and that old sick feeling already licking up his spine. He thought he had hidden it well enough. Kept his hands to himself. Spoke to no one. Ate little. Sweated plenty.

Still a woman older than him caught him at it, one who had been about the tourney grounds long enough to have an eye for all sorts. Not pretty in any way songs bother with, but handsome yet, with smart hands and a plain face that did not waste kindness on cooing.

Dunk tried to shake her off out of politeness. Said no, stumbled over it, went red as a beet. She only looked him over and told him there were three more like him inside the lists already, and if he meant to suffer in the hedges like a kicked dog, that was his own foolish business, but he need not think himself cursed for it. A mutual favour, she called it after, and mayhaps it was.

She knew what to do with him in ways he had never guessed a body could know. Told him plain to stop fretting. Told him where to put his hands. Bent for him because she thought he would like it, and he hated how right she was. Talked him through the worst of it in a low voice that made him burn harder. Told him to take her, keep her, stay where he was once his body had fastened and would not yet let go. Most of all she did not flinch. Not at the size of him, not at the force of it, not at the animal part after.

When it was done, Dunk was sick with shame for how much ease there had been in submitting to it, and sicker still for wanting every bit of it again. Yet he learnt something there all the same. That he was no lone monster hatched wrong under a bad moon. Only rare, perhaps. And blind in the matter, for he could no more tell one of his own kind at a glance than name every bird in a rookery. Since then he has borne it mostly by himself, same as before. Only now he knows what it is he is bearing, and that there are bodies in the world that would welcome such foulness, though he cannot think on it long without feeling mean for wanting one.

Ser Arlan gave him a clout to the ear and a smack across the head for disappearing during a tourney, and for once it felt like a welcome reprieve from all the thoughts in Duncan’s head, which otherwise are not too many.

So, right before that—the horse and the meeting—Duncan has done what he always does. Taken himself off where no one need look at him. The linen on his back is sweat-soaked before the storm breaks, and when he fists himself it is with contempt more than want. His cock throbs and jumps in his hand. Set right enough to Dunk’s eye, though only because Ser Arlan had long since spoiled his measure for such things.

First he sits with his palm clamped round the root and breathes through the shudder of it. Spits on himself for want of a better thing, and even that comes thick and tacky, not near enough to cover him fully. The skin of him is so little used otherwise that Duncan hisses when his calluses catch at the crown. He slides a thumb through the slit and winces to find the half-moon under his nail gone dark with wet. He shuts his eyes against the sight and waits for the next throb to pass through him, hard enough each time to make him feel for one foolish moment as if his heart has dropped there instead and means to beat itself to death.

There is a brief moment, usually, when Duncan forgets where he is and what he is doing. His not-too-many thoughts prove useful then, because it is easier to find a thing in a mind that is not all clatter. There, he fishes for images to ferry him through it and make it as sweet as bile can be sweetened. He thinks of that first girl then, her thighs and her mouth, and her hair between his fingers when he leans over her. He imagines her unfrightened. Imagines her with the voice of the woman from the tourney, saying good, calling him a lovely lad, telling him he is bigger and feels better than any man she has ever had before. Then she says fuck me harder, because not all parts of Dunk are innocent. He wishes, ardently, that there were a body with him he could touch and kiss during, and hold onto after, instead of shivering alone and wiping the cum from the creases of his belly.

He comes like he is fighting it, because he knows what follows. The skin drawn over the knot shines with the strain. The swell steals so much blood it leaves him woozy, and for a moment he can do nothing but sit and breathe and wonder whether the others like him are fated to the same loneliness, the same loveless wanking in the dirt. Then the thunder breaks, and the rest is history.

“To hells with it,” you mutter at the glove.

Dunk opens his eyes. He is back here. His first thought is to help, and his second knows better. Weeks on the road have taught him that much. You would rather climb for your own apple than let him pluck it down for you, and rather wash alone in a freezing stream than suffer so much as his back turned nearby. He tries not to mind it. Tells himself he does not. A man may have company by accident and still not be wanted close.

“Wait till your hand warms,” he says instead. “I’ll put more wood on.”

Dawn brings you the usual misery: stiff bones, clattering teeth and cold that gets into the joints and sits there mean till even drawing breath feels like work your body resents. You wake with your shoulders locked and your fingers curled stubborn into your palms, as if they have spent the night trying to hide from the rest of you. For a little while you lie still under your cloak and hate the world in a quiet, practical way. Then you get up before it can wake him. 

The fire takes sulky. You crouch over it, feeding it patience and little else. No point knocking wood about and rousing Duncan before there is warmth enough to justify it. Sparks catch at last in the old ash. The faintest orange stirs. You hold your hands near, close enough to know how little help there is to be had. The cold has you viciously this morning, a deep kind. It seems to freeze thought midway to action. Your body feels half-stalled with it. Even the glove in your hands turns contrary, fingers of leather refusing fingers of flesh. Makes you angry before the day has properly begun.

The lace slips. Your hand trembles. You mutter at it under your breath and glance back: he is still asleep then, or near enough. This is the only time you can look at him plain.

Duncan softens in sleep. That is a shocking thing about him, and the one you keep discovering anew. Awake, he is size and rough usefulness, made of shoulders and knees and hands too big for neat tasks till suddenly they are not. Sleeping, the strain goes out of him. The lines pressed into the corners of his eyes smooth themselves fine. His mouth, so often set stupidly brave or awkward with whatever thing is about to come out of it, rests easy. Even his lashes change under your eye. In the first blue light they are colourless as old straw. Then the embers wake and a little warmth finds his face, and there it is again—copper-brown hidden in them, as if he keeps small hoards of summer in ridiculous places.

You look too long. As usual.

The first time you saw him the softness sat wrong, as if he was wrung down into it. He had looked beaten half to death by storm or fever or both, mud to the thighs and rain flattening him into the earth like the world meant to reclaim him. Sick to the gut, you had thought. Or foxed on bad wine. Too big to be thrown there with such obvious want of strength. Men that size are not meant to look used up. There had been something ill-bred in the sight of him—some private ruin brought out into the open. His horse found you first, and then he did: all long limbs and soaked wool and that face, honest as a church wall and twice as weathered.

You had helped because there was no sense not to. That is what you told yourself then. A skittish horse was worth helping. A man in no fit state to keep hold of one, too. And he had taken the help, which surprised you more than the rest. Most men would have put pride before sense. Duncan had shame enough for three men in that moment, you saw that at once, but not so much he would let it kill him.

When it turned out you were headed the same way, he had asked—offered—you still do not know which it was, only that he stood there with his heart beating plain in his throat and his hand held out and his size bent inward, trying somehow to make itself smaller for your sake. That was the moment you should have thanked him and gone the other road. Instead you stayed.

Useful, you told yourself after. He is huge. He can swing a sword. He can lift what needs lifting and frighten off the sort of men who see a small traveller alone and start counting the ways to profit by it. All true. Only not the whole truth.

There was something in him that snagged at you. Beyond gentleness exactly, though there is that. Not beauty either, though the gods know that part has grown into a nuisance. Something exposed. A queer sense that he had been found in a moment when he ought by rights to have been hidden away from every eye, banked up somewhere warm, tended and tending in turn, not left to stagger with rain in his face. You had no words for the feeling. Still have none. Only that the sight of him had struck you as wrong in a way that made you want to cover him up, and that wanting frightened you nearly as much as he did.

The fire gives a soft spit. Behind you, Duncan stirs.

And there—you can feel it before he says a word. A fact of him waking, entering the air like another weather. Your own body answers with its usual treachery: a jump low in the gut, a tightening through the chest, the sharp foolish wish to look again when you should be busy with the glove and the fire and all the other safe things in front of you.

He is both easy to be around and not. Keeps the distance as if it is no strange thing to travel with someone and never brush nearer than need requires. Fills the silence with tales of Ser Arlan who, by your reckoning, sounds half old fool, half madman, and not overburdened with kindness beneath either. It leaves you wondering whether he knighted his squire at all, if what Duncan had of him was mostly clouts to the ear, hard ground for a bed, and a head full of cobblers about honour. It explains a good deal besides—why he is so used to want of warmth in other people that he takes your hums and grunts for proper company and your silences for no insult at all.

Truthfully, even the sound of his voice is hard to bear. In the mornings it comes rough with sleep, hoarse in a way that’s too intimate. Private as a sort of sound that belongs to lovers or people who wake in the same bed more than once. His lips smack before he fully wakes. Sometimes he talks in his sleep, and most of what comes clear enough to catch are apologies of one sort or another. After drink, he snores. In a cheap inn room he snores louder still, and it warms something foolish in your chest to hear it and know he is comfortable for once—right alongside the irritation of his endless insistence on hedges and ditches when there is a roof to be had.

Such trouble to have about for a woman driven by dreams unfit for her and all the stubbornness of an ox to see them through. You remind yourself daily, past counting, that you are on the road to learn and flee the fate of a brood cow, not acquire all manner of fuzzy feelings for an alleged knight and certain overgrown boy-man.

“Wait till your hand warms,” Duncan rasps. “I’ll put more wood on.”

With that he sets about rising from his bedroll, not half so stiff as you. You watch him lengthen and broaden through the chest when he takes his first full breath of the day, and with it comes an audible exhale, deep and manly and dragged up from the throat. You reckon it smells of sleep and catch yourself wondering absurd girl things, like what it would be to have it wash over your neck.

There’s an odd ritual with him: thinking things first, only so you can never say them. They want out all the same, so you catalogue them for the never when you might be able to tell him.

Wait. Do it for me. Lace it for me. Touch my hand and forearm and tie it up, or better still, hide my hands in yours and breathe on them in a cradle, the way mothers do for children frozen stiff.

All you say is, “Mm.”

He comes round the fire half-awake, consisting of creak and wool and big careless palms that are never truly careless, and he crouches to feed the embers. The simple business of it should be equally simple to watch—it is only a man with kindling in his hands. Just Duncan, rough-haired and sleep-marked, pushing life back into the morning. Yet your thoughts go running, tripping over one another for the privilege of never reaching your mouth.

His hands first. Always some woe with them. Too big, you think, till they are not. Thick fingers made for reins and hilts and hauling wheels from ruts, and then he does some neat quiet thing with the wood: sets the pieces just so, shields the spark with his palm, coaxes the little flame up without smothering it, and you have to look away as if the sight were vulgar.

Which it is. Not the fire. The competence. The ease of him. The fact that he can be blunt force one moment and then mend a strap finer than you can, set stitches neater than some wives, talk a beast through skittishness as if it were a child with bad dreams. You do not trust men who surprise you kindly. It feels like the start of losing ground.

The fire catches better under his hand. Heat licks a little nearer. You ought to be grateful, and you are, in the stupid furious way one is grateful for rescue one did not ask for and badly wanted all the same.

Then, he looks at you. Worse than merely a glance—one of those horrendously plain Duncan looks that land full on a thing and stay there till he has done thinking about it. You lower your eyes to the glove and hate that you have done so.

“What?” you ask.

His brow goes a little pinched. “You look pale.”

I am pale, you think. I am cold. I am trying not to think about your mouth. I have slept badly for a month because every time you breathe near me my body takes it for an omen. You have no idea what pale is.

You say, “It’s morning,” which might have passed for wit in a warmer person. From you it comes out flat as a shut door, and your stiff shrug doesn’t help it in the slightest.

Duncan only squints at you harder, as if daylight were not explanation enough. “You’re shivering,” he taunts.

I have been shivering since birth. I shall die shivering and be buried with my teeth still trying to knock sense into one another. “It’s cold.”

A pause. The fire pops between you. He reaches for another bit of wood, snaps it across his knee, lays it on. Show-off, a mean inward part of you says, though the uglier truth is that the ease of it makes something in your belly turn over.

“You were warmer yesterday,” he says.

Intolerable. And that only adds to your plate—being watched so carefully that he can tell yesterday from today when there isn’t much difference at all. Being taken for a boy is work that can never be set down. It lives in the wrists, the throat, the way you sit, sleep, take food, laugh, reach, swear. The reserve is labour, and harder one the more he stares.

On that list, bathing is too. It is another matter entire. Privacy has little to do with it by now, or not the sort Duncan likely thinks. From his face the first time, you reckon he took it for prickliness. Some weird little road-boy habit. A desire to be difficult for the pleasure of it, and you let him think so. Better that than the truth, which is nastier and far less simple.

For you, washing is campaign work. Strategy. A thing to be won by inches. Knowing where he is, where his eyes are not, what can be got off and on again quickly, how much river-water your body can bear before the cold takes your wits out at the knees. Every bath asks something of you: keep your shirt close, turn half-away, be quick with the laces, never bend wrong, never let wet cloth cling where it ought not. Never let your voice go soft with the shock of cold. Never look hurried, because haste breeds notice, and notice is death to such arrangements as yours.

When it came to a point, he had meant nothing by it. “I’ll keep watch, if you like,” he’d offered. Useful and decent.

“No.”

Your refusal came quicker than you could dress need as preference. It made him stop and look at you in perfect stillness that carried no asperity, nor offence, only a yawning question to explain yourself.

“No need,” you had added, and managed to make that no better. “I’d sooner wash alone.”

A perfectly ordinary wish, save for the way you said it, as if he had proposed something filthy rather than pragmatic. Heat prickled your neck and shuddered you down to the heels at him seeing it prickling and, being Duncan, mistaking it likely for sullenness or shame of the common, harmless sort.

“Aye. All right,” he said after a beat, and stepped back as if you had put a hand to his chest.

You washed in misery. Half crouched in the shallows with your jaw rattling and your wet shirt trying to cling traitorously where it ought not. One arm forever at your chest and the collar, at the fall of the cloth. Your skin tightened to the chill till you felt skinned alive by it. The body becomes all edges at such times. Shoulder first, then wrist, then the small hard points of yourself you pray no eye ever learns too well.

When you came back, Duncan was sitting with his back turned broader than a door and his eyes very firmly on the horses. So he had kept watch after all. Only in the one shape you could bear.

Once, you let yearning get the better of you. Only once, and that was enough to make a coward of your conscience for days after. He had gone to the water in the heat of afternoon, stripped with the same blunt brightness he does all things, and waded in as if his body were no more notable than a horse’s flank.

You saw him in pieces first. A pale back between the reeds. One broad shoulder. The blunt jut of an elbow. Then all of him. Naked as day and near white in the sun, like some overgrown fae thing dragged out into the honest world by mistake. His hips flexed when he bent, catching the light on the curve of them like a dint in beaten metal. Enormous thighs. Great square shoulders broad as a barn door. Flesh enough through the belly to wrinkle when he moved, and sparse hair fuzzing his chest so fair it nearly vanished unless the light struck right. Torso with tits that would have made many women envious. His back kept its muscles for certain turns and certain light; otherwise it only looked what it was—large. All of him large. So large it made something feeble in you go warm. Your cheeks heated where you crouched hidden like a creep, and your legs crossed of their own accord in the grass.

He had stumbled on the pebbles coming out, too. That was where the wanting turned tender. The size of him had been plenty. The nakedness more than enough. Still, it was the graceless ordinary part that stayed. Him hissing under his breath when the stones bit his feet, scrubbing water from his face with both hands, blinking round as if the world had never once thought to look at him. You had turned away then, too late by far, sick with guilt and with the stirring need for him taking a seat on you.

A blink. You huff at him. Scramble up so soon blood rushes down your body in a wave so ice-cold your toes become numb. What you’ve meant to only think comes out. “Maybe I was warmer,” you grunt. “Maybe not. What’s it to you—oh—”

The meadow tilts before you have so much as taken a proper step. For one instant you think the chill has won entirely at last, driven you hollow as a reed. Then the opposite declares itself. Beneath the frozen shell of you there is heat, rank and sudden, boiling up from somewhere deep enough to feel borrowed. Your joints flare. The fire jumps sideways, and the ground with it.

You pitch forth. Duncan catches you before your face can find the ash. One moment there is earth and fire and indignity rushing up together, the next there are his arms, quick as a gate swung shut. He makes a rough low sound and hauls you back between his knees so your shoulders come up against his chest.

His body is a wall with a heartbeat in it. It receives you whole: his thighs bracket yours, one arm bands hard across you under the ribs, the other at your shoulder, holding you with an ease that makes your own weight feel paltry and treacherous. Fever makes a mock of distance, and suddenly there is no guessing left in size. He had always looked vast. Like this, kept in the cradle of him, you feel the full measure of it. There is so much Duncan to lean against that your body seems to go loose with relief, as if it has found something built to bear it.

“You’re burning,” he says. Not alarmed yet, only plain with it. “Since when?”

“I don’t know.” The answer sounds thin to your own ears. You stare up at him, or where he ought to be, his face blurring and swimming at the edges. There is so much heat in him it seems wasteful not to reach for it. Your palms nearly lift, wanting his cheeks, his throat, any part of him that might give itself over warm. Instead he lays the back of one hand to your forehead and sucks in a breath.

“Fever,” he mutters. His palm goes from your brow to the back of your neck, lower then, finding the sweat under your layers. His frown deepens. You can feel it without seeing it proper. “We’ve to cool you down,” he mutters, “get these things off you and see what the fever’s made of.”

A whine of protest catches in your throat. “No.”

“Yes.”

You try to twist away and manage hardly anything. His hold changes into a firmer thing, one that means he has handled frightened animals and relentless burdens and knows the shape of resistance well enough.

“Do not fight me,” he says, and there is something new in his voice, steel under all the sleep and roughness. “You’ll kill yourself for foolishness, and I’ll not have it. Do you hear me? I do not want a dead boy on my hands.”

Boy.

That ought to help. Instead it hurts strangely.

“I can’t die yet,” you whisper. Your eyes glass over. The world keeps slipping. “I’ve too much left to tell you.”

His arm tightens, involuntary as breath. “What d’you—”

You do not hear the end of it. Darkness comes up soft and black and merciful, and takes you before the sentence can.

Dunk’s seen stubbornness in humans and beasts alike, and in himself only when he believes it truly matters. Which is seldom where other folk put the weight of things. They’ll make a whole fight of pride, of manners, of who stood where and who said what sharp. Dunk has no great use for such things.

He had let your own stubbornness pass for the same sort—filed you away as distant, odd in your habits, close with yourself and no real harm in it (only a small one in him). Now though, the distance can cause absence, and this is where Duncan draws a line, because now you seem weak and innocent enough to him for the knight to step up. Whatever anger you mean to hold after, whatever secrets you think worth keeping, he will have you living first.

He takes your bedroll back out and spreads his own atop it for thickness. The grass underneath has a spring to it that will do little good, though it feels better than bare ground. He lowers you there as careful as he can, flat on your back, then bunches a burlap sack under your neck to lift your head a little. Your lashes flutter. Mouth moves.

“Duncan,” you mumble.

“Hush now. Wee thing, hush. Don’t spend.”

Your head turns weakly at the sound of him. He gets more wood on the fire first, enough to make a steady heat of it, for there will be a soaking through before the day is done and he will have to get you dry after. Then he goes to Thunder, takes the blanket from his back, and brings it over ready. Your sack comes next. He rummages through with quick, guilty hands and finds what looks nearest clean—a shirt, a spare pair of hose, a piece of linen.

Then, the stripping. He goes for the gloves first. The laces are mean with cold and your fingers lax inside them. His own hands shake some from hurry and vexation. On the second knot he mutters, “Bugger you,” under his breath and gets it loose with his teeth. One glove. Then the other. Your hands spill out damp and chilly, the knuckles blanched with it.

Your boots next. He has to brace your calf under one arm and tug. The first comes with a wet little sound. The second fights him harder. When it gives, he sees the bruise spread across the top of your foot, brown with old blood, ugly as rot under the skin.

“Seven hells,” he says. “How long have you been walking on that?”

You say nothing. Your breath runs shallow and quick.

He gets the cloak from under you with a gentle wrench and sets it aside. The leather comes after. Buckle at the throat. Straps at the side. His fingers know harness and tack well enough; even shaking, they find the order of things. He works you out of it inch by inch, lifting your shoulders, drawing the weight free. Your body lolls with every touch of his hand, and each time something in his gut drops lower.

By then your shirt is soaked through and sticking to you in ways that turn Dunk queasy with the knowing of it. He reaches for the hem already half-certain, and that half-certainty nauseates him worse than surprise would. Suddenly it hits him how stupid he has been. A dozen little things his mind had taken for other things because he had let it. Your soft face. Your round mouth. The smallness he had put down to youth. Your weirdness over bathing and dressing and every small touch between. All of it there to be read, and him reading every bit wrong.

He pauses with the cloth in his fists, feeling his gorge lift. Then, he pulls the shirt up.

No boy.

A woman. And a grown one.

Dunk stares, sick with the force of his own stupidity. He had looked straight at you for weeks and seen only what he had been told to see.

He sits back on his heels with the linen bunched in his hands and feels the whole road behind him shift its shape. Relief hits first and strange with it, quick as light under a door. So there was a reason. So all your flinching and distance and refusals had a body to them after all. Then the hurt comes up hard behind it. A lie this large. Carried under his nose for four weeks and more. The old sore place in him opens; one that says people keep truths from him because they take him for slow, or simple, or too oafish to spot what is before his face.

“You stupid little wretch,” he mutters, voice gone rougher still. “Insolent thing. You ought to have said. You ought to—”

You do not hear him. Your head rolls weakly on the sack. Sweat beads along your lip.

Dunk swallows all the rest.

The binding has to come off. He fumbles with the knots, cursing them too, cursing you, cursing the day, until at last it loosens enough for him to unwind it. The cloth peels back slow, and what it has held down rises dark-pressed and marked with its pattern, skin ridged where the weave bit deepest. Gooseflesh prickles you all over. The cold has tightened you, made you firmer to the eye.

Dunk is a man that denies himself, but a man all the same. Hidden things gather force in hiding. Beauty does too. He stares a beat in a kind of dumb astonishment, then lets his knuckles graze the side of your ribs as if they might tell him what his eyes have missed all this while. Pressure is under the surface and he tries to not indulge it. How in Seven hells did this escape him. You draw one thin, freer breath even insensible, and that alone steadies him to the work.

He reaches for the water. There is no art to him beyond what any man on the road knows. Cool the body. Shade the head. Get the wet things off. Keep the breathing easy. He soaks the strip of cloth and wipes you down as decent as he can—forehead first, then throat, under the jaw, the wrists, the hollows under your arms where the heat gathers fiercest. The cloth comes away warm almost at once. He rinses it and does it again. Your skin flinches under the touch though your eyes stay shut.

“All this and walking on a bruised foot besides,” he says, quieter now. “Madness. Pure madness.”

He dries what he can with another scrap, gets the clean shirt over you with clumsy care, lifting you by the shoulders to work the sleeves through. The blanket from Thunder he tucks round you after, close but not smothering, leaving room for the heat to leave. The damp rag goes on your brow. Another at the back of your neck. He pours a little water onto his fingers and wets your lips when they dry.

Lingering. This is the most you have ever let him touch of you, though letting has nothing to do with it now, and the thought sours in him even as his hands stay careful. For one beastly moment he wonders whether he ought to be so gentle when you have hurt him plain. He goes about with his heart beating out through his ears to every soul he meets, and still you did not trust him. Not to do what? To force himself on you? To laugh in your face? To turn you off the road? The more he thinks on it, the more cross he gets. When he blinks and looks down, he finds his thumb rubbing across your mouth, as if to quiet words you are not saying.

By then the gut-wrench has settled properly in him. It sits low and stern. Part fear for you. Part anger. Part the new knowledge of your body under his hands, and the shame of having learnt it this way.

Dunk sits and looks at you. “You wait till you wake for this,” he says. “I’ll have words out of you if I have to drag them one by one.”

Your mouth moves again. He leans in before he can help it. “My Duncan,” you murmur.

He stills. Fever has pared your voice down to almost nothing, but that little scrap of it catches under his ribs and stays there. His hand plants by your head. For one moment he lets himself have the nearness of you and bends till his face rests to yours, cheek on cheek, close enough to breathe you in proper. The sickness is thick on you, sharp with sweat, yet under it your own scent runs steady. He knows it. Has known it these weeks past on wool, river-water, the inside of your gloves, and let it pass without once understanding why he liked it.

He drags in a breath and lets it out against your skin. “Don’t you dare die,” he says to your cheek, rough and low. “Not before I’ve told you off.”

For the rest of the time, Dunk exists in a purgatory of thought and touch. You have a body on you that would be perfect to quench him when he is taken by his own sort of fever. Kinder than his hands. Kinder than the others he has had too. He is reminded of it every time your mouth parches and the linen pales on your forehead. The whole of the last month has rewritten itself in his head.

He’s compressed with it—feels the ire in him fermenting, changing shape fast from exasperation through outrage till it lands in the sore scorn of hurt. The cycle closes and opens again. He keeps the cloth damp. Coaxes a little water into you. Watches for the fever to break. Thinks too much. Looks too much. Feels guilty for that. Gets angrier because guilt and hurt tangle badly in him.

Then the sickness eases a little. He knows it first by the change in your scent, the sweet acrid tang of fever giving ground. There comes a shift in your breathing after, and then the flutter of your eyelids. Dunk braces, though when you move at last he finds something in his chest lighten. He comes nearer.

At first your face is soft with waking. Then it twists. You gasp and sit bolt upright, kicking the blanket off as your eyes drop to yourself. “What have you done?” you rasp.

His mouth goes hard. He looks down between his legs where he’s sat on bare ground, wedges his heel into dirt, and mutters, “Kept you living.”

Your hands fly to your chest, grasp the shirt. You pull at the collar and peek under, where Duncan knows you will find nothing but skin. He watches your face move through shock to horror to repulsion and, like a plague, it infests him too. “You undressed me,” you say, right when he is already more fixed on your ingratitude than on how frightened you must be.

“Aye. You were burning through your clothes.”

“Without my leave!”

Duncan stands so abruptly his knees creak. Furious, though he does not know with what exactly. With how oddly you are behaving. With the fact that your voice is raised at him when he has done nothing wrong, and it is all you that did the wrongs. “You were near witless with fever,” he tells you, his throat straining not to shout outright.

You stand too, clench your jaw, and bark, “You had no right.”

He takes a step forward and straightens, letting his size hold him up rather than undignifying himself with screaming. “I had every right to stop you dying.”

Your face twists. “Bastard.”

“Aye!” And there he loses hold of himself. You are ungrateful. Half-naked, saved by him, and ungrateful, speaking to him as if he were some dog that had fouled your shoe. The fever seems to have passed its worst work, but you are still witless. Weak too. Your chest heaves unevenly and your thighs tremble beneath you as if anger alone is keeping you upright. Duncan knows trembling thighs on a woman from other times, and the thought sickens him with its own untimeliness. After it comes one of Ser Arlan’s old lessons on what a man does with insolent little things such as yourself. Before the hand he imagines can fall and meet flesh bent over the knee, his voice raises instead, full-force, and he’s spitting onto his own face. “That bastard hauled your boots off, found you walking on a foot black as rot, cooled your skin, changed your shirt, and sat by whilst you sweated half the fever out. You may curse me now only because of that!”

“I did not ask you to touch me.”

“No,” he says. “You only lied to me.”

Your eyes sharpen. “What?”

“You heard.”

“I was sick,” you say, eyes down.

Duncan lets out a hard, hollow breath. “You were lying long before that. You think this some little thing. A jest. A queer road trick,” he says. “It is not. You travel with a man, sleep by his fire, take his food, ask his sword between you and trouble, and say nothing of what you are. I ought to have known. I gave you no cause to mistrust me.”

“Mistrust you?” you say, and the weakness in you only makes you more ferocious. “What should I have done? Told you plain, and then what? Trusted in your good knight’s heart? Let you take me by the hair and drag me back where I came from?” The shape of your voice turns his knighthood into mockery, and the rest of it goes where you must know he will feel it most.

Dunk jolts at that. “No.”

“No?” You laugh once, grisly and breathless. “No sermon? No noble duty? No returning stray women to their proper stalls?”

“I’d not have dragged you anywhere,” he argues.

“How would you know what you’d do?”

“I know myself.”

“You know yourself.” Your voice goes sharp as flint. “You do not know what it is to live in a body men think they may use. You do not know what it is to have no road open that does not end in someone else’s hand shut round your neck. You do not know what it is to be a woman. You do not even know what it is to be ordinary.”

“Aye,” he says, bitter as gall. “With that you’re right. I know little enough of ordinary.”

And some of the little he does know sits wrong in him now. Any other man he has known would have let anger carry him simpler. There would be shouting, mayhaps a shake, mayhaps worse. Instead here he stands feeding both of you through the quarrel—keeping your fever from climbing, taking your spite, feeling the hurt of it and, to his own disgust, something hotter mixed through. The danger of that turns his stomach.

“I hope you’re proud of it,” he says. “A fine feat. Fooling a big thick oaf like me. A badge to pin up somewhere.”

“You fooled yourself,” you tell him. “Saw what suited you.”

All right. He can bite a little too. “What is this then?” he says. “Some woman’s fancy? The boy they meant for you not to your taste, so off you run with a head full of nonsense and lies for every man you meet?” Then, he turns his back on you as if that might keep his temper in bounds.

You grunt and take a step. “Say it again, Dunk.”

“It is Ser Duncan for you.”

Something cold and slimy strikes the side of his neck and dribbles under his collar.

“Ser Duncan.”

“You insolent wen—” He wheels round and the word dies as another handful flies. “Ah—” Mud catches him across the jaw. He throws up a hand against the next. “Enough. Get back under the blankets, you stupid—cover yourself, else you’ll be sick again.”

“Make me!” you screech, feet sliding in the grass. “You undressed me just fine.”

He gets through the barrage by brute patience more than grace. One throw he ducks. Another bursts against his shoulder. A third spatters his chest in brown streaks. You are backing away all the while on those wonky legs, fury holding you up where strength cannot. The shirt swings long on you, catching between your thighs as you stumble. He spares it one glance, then sees your muddy feet about to tread straight onto his bedroll and takes one long step in.

His hands close on your shoulders.

Your fists hit him at once. Dirty and small and bitter all the same. They land in his chest, his arm, once at the point of his neck. Each one finds him sore already. He ought to hate that. He does hate the shame of answering to it. Blood jumps in him, quick and humbling. The old bodily knowledge comes up with it, foul as warning: heat beginning where no heat should be, his skin too tight, his temper turning bright and blinding. Duncan feels the start of it and recoils from the feeling even whilst it is his own.

“Stop it.”

You do no such thing. You strike again, breath rattling in your throat, and he gives over trying to catch your wrists one by one. He closes his body round yours instead. His arms shackle yours and pin them to your sides, gathering you in till you cannot swing proper. Still you fight. You stamp at his feet. He grunts when your heel catches bone.

“Cease.”

“Let me go!”

“Not till you’ve got hold of yourself.”

You writhe against him. The closeness spreads in him like bad drink. He feels every point of contact too keenly. Your ribs working. Your knees knocking his. The weight of you shifting in his arms. A feverish woman and a quarrel ought to make for pity, anger, common sense. Instead his body gives him this. A hateful stirring low in him, the threat of ache and solitude and pain if it takes hold. He huffs once through his nose, effort cloaking disgust.

“I do not understand you,” he grates.

What comes next hits him worse than any fistful of mud or otherwise bared hand could. Your brazen mouth on his. A contemptuous little jest of a kiss, yet he takes it like a haggard fool. Your lips are softer than they look. Your tongue, nowhere near as bitter as he had expected, and the worst of it is that he knows now he has been expecting it. He stammers into it. His whole body staggers and unwinds and mistakes it for kindness where there is none, only because he has gone so starved for a touch like this. Starvation makes an idiot of him. The places you struck burn brighter. Unaware of it, he cinches you in tighter. Crowds you. Devours you.

Until you decide to devour him back.

Teeth, cruel and sharp, sink in his lower lip and clamp until he tastes blood. Duncan feels like he’s been set on fire. His body’s logic is crude and opportunistic. It tells him to bite your tongue off and claim it for his own. He is at the point of real hurt when he realises he is holding you so tight your chest has no room to rise. The knight steps back in.

He shoves you off and you go down hard on your arse. Your lips are reddened with him. Even when he shuts his eyes he is not rid of the sight. He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, turns, and walks toward the stream.

dunk paces around his room. this is his dream. this is his fucking nightmare. half an hour. you'd said you wanted half an hour to go back to your place and get changed. that meant he had half an hour to get himself to calm down. but instead of clearing his head, he just felt more and more nervous. and, well, hard. he'd been fighting a boner ever since you walked in on him in just his boxers and setting up to film. he'd put up a valiant effort and had managed to keep his cock mostly under control. but then when you offered to film with him...so sweet, such a good friend...when you suggested he...he...

spank you.

fuck, he'd gone hard as a rock and had to hide it with a blanket over his lap that, somehow, you hadn't spotted. probably because you were too busy planning. dunk was more than happy to let you decide everything. he'd not had much blood going to his brain right then anyway.

you're probably going to be back any second now. he checks the clock on his phone.

three minutes. it had only been three minutes since you left.

he's got an eternity to go and yet no time at all.

right. focus. breathe. first thing he needs to do is get rid of his raging hard-on. if he gets hard while...spanking you (oh gods)...., well, he'll apologize, but it seems like something to be expected and that you'd hopefully forgive. you're beautiful and if you let him touch you like that, well, his body doesn't know it's all for show. it's just reacting. so long as he minds his manners, remembers you're just being a good friend and helping him out, he doesn't think you'd be angry with him for it. but if you were to come back and find him sporting a boner when you've not even gotten the camera going yet, well, that might be disrespectful.

he turns his shower on the coldest possible setting. so cold it hurts. but that's what dunk needs to distract from the rush of heat. he spends a solid ten minutes just stood under the freezing water until he's shivering and mostly in control of his thoughts again.

he's still got time to kill. there's nothing more to set up around the bed. he ought to get some water ready. maybe a snack. this isn't sex. it's...performance. business. fake. but dunk still wants you to feel looked after and cared for. you must feel safe with him to even offer something like this. he needs to prove he's worthy of the trust you've put in him.

he rummages through his pantry for something to eat. he spots a plate of cookies on the table. those aren't his? but then he sees the toolbox sat beside it, and realizes, you'd made him cookies to thank him for letting you borrow some tools. and his heart goes all soft thinking how nice you are and good to him and sweet, sweet like the sugar dusting the cookies, and...oh, for fuck's sake, he's groaning as he realizes he's getting hard again.

it's probably not medically advisable to put an ice pack over his covered crotch, but desperate times call for desperate and questionable measures.

maybe he ought to call it off. maybe he should text you right now and...

there's a knock at the door.

he takes a deep breath, tries not to feel sick, and answers the door.

you step in wearing a long coat and carrying a bag.

"you alright?" you ask.

"yeah. yeah, you?" dunk asks, feeling his voice hitch nervously.

you set the bag down next to the cookies and go to take off your coat. dunk instinctively moves to be a gentleman and take it from you, but stops dead when he sees what's underneath. a sundress, so pretty and feminine and adorable, but hugging you just right and too short to be decent. and with matching knee socks.

"i didn't know what you'd want me to wear," you explain.

dunk's too busy staring to answer you.

you lift up the bag you brought with you.

"i brought other options if you wanted something else—"

"no! no, this is—" he's struggling to get his brain to work. dunk likes what you're wearing. more importantly, he doesn't think he could handle seeing you try on different outfits for him. "you look nice."

he feels his face go hot and knows he must be red all over.

you smile, pleased. you really don't know what you do to him, do you? he should do the right thing and tell you this has gone too far. that he can't see you like this, much less...touch you...in a strictly professional manner. but he's weak and says nothing.

***

it's sweet, actually, how dunk seems more nervous than you. somehow that makes you feel more at ease. you know dunk would never hurt you. you sit on his bed across from him.

"we should probably talk rules and comfort levels and things," you suggest.

"right," dunk says.

you wait a few seconds. it's his onlyfans, after all. he's the one with experience (one video, but still, that's more than you). but he just looks at you expectantly so you take that as confirmation you're in charge.

"i don't want my face in it. or name," you start. "people are better about this sort of thing than they used to be, but it can still go really badly if someone's identity gets leaked. especially for a woman." you look down at your outfit. "i've got what i'm comfortable with on show. i don't want to take anything off. well, uh—"

your confidence falters a second, but you press on. you have to be able to talk about this. it'll only be awkward or get complicated if you go in without being open and communicative first.

"it's...it's spanking, right? so if at some point you want to lift up my skirt to reach my ass better, or show it off, that's ok. i checked how much you could see of me in these panties and it's an amount i'm ok showing. just don't, you know, take it off. so just to confirm that's dress stays on, but skirt can come up, but underwear stays on. ok?"

dunk nods.

you'd managed to say that much. somehow, it felt easier now.

"for touching, i guess..." you think a few seconds. "ass is fine. obviously. thighs, hips, back are all fine. nothing more...intimate, over or under panties."

dunk coughs.

"do you need some water?" you ask.

he shakes his head.

"we don't have to," you add. "it's ok if you want to cancel."

"d'you want to?" he asks, bright blue eyes on you.

you think a few seconds then shake your head. you smile. "i think it'll be fun."

***

how are you so calm about this? able to talk about it so confidently and easily? meanwhile, dunk feels sweaty and clumsy and like his brain can't quite keep up with what you're saying, no matter how hard he tries. he knows why it's important to listen but fuck if he isn't struggling.

but then you're smiling and saying you want this and it'll be fun and...oh that makes him melt a little.

"we can stop whenever we want," you continue. "we can have a safe word. what do you think?"

he realizes you're prompting him to suggest a word.

"um...'stop'?" dunk offers.

you shake your head.

"no, should be something else. maybe 'red light'?"

dunk nods. he can remember that.

"how do i—" he tries to ask but falters. his head ducks down to avoid eye contact, but it just makes it worse, because then his gaze is on the way your pretty dress rides up to reveal your thighs. "how do i do this so i don't hurt you?"

"i was thinking over your knee. if that's okay. if your angle is size kink, it makes the most sense—"

"no, i mean. the actual...contact...don't want to hurt you."

"you mean how hard should you hit?" you ask.

dunk nods and rubs the back of his neck, feeling how hot his skin is right up into his hairline.

"we can do a test run," you suggest. "before we start filming."

dunk hardly has a chance to register that you're laying yourself across his lap when you suddenly jolt back.

"fuck, dunk, you're freezing!" you hiss.

oh. right. he hadn't fully warmed up yet from putting the cold pack on his junk.

"i, uh, took a shower" he shrugs.

"yeah, well, you're not spanking me with hands that cold," you say and grab his hands, rubbing and blowing on them. again, you're just so sweet to him and he feels his heart going all soft even as the rest of him is struggling not to get hard.

you try draping yourself over his lap again. dunk's hand instinctively goes to the back of your thigh to steady you. he can't believe this is actually happening. that he's got your ass, all round and soft and barely covered by your short dress, ripe and waiting for him.

he barely pats your left cheek.

you turn to look at him.

"dunk, you have to go harder than that."

he swallows and tries again, only a tiny bit harder.

"....dunk," you shake your head and sit up.

"i don't want to hurt you!" he says.

he couldn't forgive himself if he did.

"well, let me show how hard is ok, then."

"what? like, me turn over?"

you laugh and shake your head.

"no, this'll work."

you bring your hand down to smack his thigh, hard.

"ow! i—fuck, really?" he pants. you want it that hard?

you grin.

"i can take it, dunk. i know you won't hurt me. and if i want to stop, i'll tell you to stop. just like how you'll tell me if you want to stop. right?"

dunk nods.

"uh uh," you say and shake your head. "verbal responses."

"right," dunk answers.

"just relax. it'll be fun. and be confident. please, dunk, i promise, if you just don't overthink it and go for it, it'll be so sexy," you say, all breathy and whiny in a way that has dunk's immediate attention. "for the viewers, i mean."

right. for the viewers. he can do that.

"dunk?" you ask, voice suddenly a bit quieter. flustered. squirming a little. "can i call you 'sir'?"

***

you stand behind the tripod to make sure dunk's phone is filming and at the right angle. you give dunk a thumbs up. you stand just out of frame. you hardly breathe from the anticipation, waiting on dunk.

just as you'd agreed, he reaches out to grab your wrist and pulls you into frame.

"c'mere," he growls, voice all low and sexy like you'd suggested.

dunk spreads his legs and manhandles you over one knee, your body angled with your ass to the camera and your face pointed away. you whine.

"none of that. now be still," he orders.

you squirm.

"i said, be still," he repeats, one hand digging into your hip and locking you into place.

you nod and allow him to angle you as he wants. he pushes on your back gently, directing you to arch more, and you push your ass back and up to present for him.

"you goin' to be good and count f'me?" he asks.

"yes, sir," you whine, with only slightly exaggerated breathiness.

you'd agreed on ten and then you'd see how things went from there. you wait expectantly, but the blow doesn't come. seconds go by. you jump a little when you feel dunk's hand at your ass, but it's not a slap, he's just...rubbing your ass, all soft and soothing.

even on camera, he's still dunk, and either nervousness or concern for you makes him hesitate to strike.

you hang your head and whine, "please".

his hand freezes on your ass.

you hadn't discussed that. you're already going off script.

"what was that?" he asks.

"please, d— sir!" you quickly correct.

"you want this?"

you nod.

"uh uh. verbal responses," he says, and you grin at the way he uses your own words against you.

"yes, please."

"say it."

"i want it."

his hand lands against your ass.

"oh, fuck! one!" you cry out.

smack! smack!

"two! three!"

as discussed, you start squirming on the fifth slap. actually, it was meant to be the seventh, but you couldn't help it. you squirming gives him a reason to grip your hips and drag you back into place, which you'd said his audience would love. nothing at all to do with the way his strength makes you pant with need. and if you squirm, even kick, a little more than perhaps dunk was expecting, so he has to try harder to put you in your place, well, you're just thinking of the viewers.

"quit that. you're going to stay there and take it," dunk says through strangled voice.

his next two slaps are harder as punishment. you love it.

"eight! nine!" you cry out as the next ones land.

but ten doesn't arrive.

he's holding out on you again.

you whine in frustration.

"what's the matter, pretty girl? you want it?" he asks.

"i want it" you say in a quiet voice and wiggle your hips invitingly.

"louder."

"please, sir, i want it!" you moan out and gasp when the tenth blow strikes the centre of your rear.

dunk rubs your ass soothingly. he leans in towards your face, like he's kissing your hair, but he whispers so the camera can't hear, "do you want to stop?"

"no" you whisper back.

"can i keep spanking you?"

"yes!"

"can i lift up your skirt?"

"yes!" you say, probably a little too eagerly that you're worried the camera caught it.

dunk presses a real kiss to your hair then straightens again.

"let's get this pretty little skirt out the way" dunk says and slowly hikes up the fabric, revealing your pretty matching panties.

"ah, fuck" dunk groans, and it somehow sounds different from the controlled voice he's been using. he soon recovers.

"you wear this f'me?" he asks.

"of course, sir."

"good girl."

you keen, rutting your ass back and into his hand. something in dunk snaps and he starts bringing his hand down against you, hard. he alternates cheeks. his other hand grips your thigh to hold you in place and make you take it. oh fuck, it feels soooo good.

oh fuck, you can feel you're wet. shit. fuck. you're fucked. you squeeze your thighs shut to try to hide it. if dunk hasn't noticed already. but it just adds a delicious friction between your legs. dunk lifts his knee and adjusts you, but it inadvertedly pushes your mound firmly into his thigh. you rock forward, pretending dunk was spanking you so hard that it was jolting you, but it wasn't, you were just grinding your needy cunt against him.

his knee and hips jerked up, practically bouncing you on his lap. he bunched up the back of your dress and pulled you back into place. he didn't resume spanking, just gripped your dress in one hand and ran soothing circles over your ass with the other.

"there...there, that's enough now," he panted.

you could have thrown an absolute fit. you didn't want to be done. you wanted to be fucked, camera or no camera.

but there was a camera and this was all pretend and was time to wrap up. so you force yourself to instead mewl out a last, "thank you, sir."

you smirk as you hear dunk groan. you like to think maybe that noise was real.

dunk gently, but firmly, guides you off of him. he reaches over you and turns off the recording.

"how're you?" he asks, polite, concerned, hands folded in his lap.

only dunk could look so sweet and innocent after spanking you. it frustrates you even more.

"i'm fine," you swallow your annoyance. it wasn't fair to be angry at dunk for leaving you horny. "you?"

"g-good!"

"could i use your shower?" you ask. "i'm a little sweaty."

"course! yeah, course, anything you need," dunk offers.

anything but what you need most.

you don't say much else before heading into the bathroom. you curse at the first stream of fucking freezing water. gods, how cold of a shower did dunk take? you quickly got it hot and steamy. you cover your mouth with one hand and with the other reach down to rub your clit. eyes closed. replaying the scene over and over.

***

dunk's grateful you wanted to use his shower. it gives him a chance to change out of his sweatpants before you notice the rapidly growing wet stain and realize he'd came.

***

it only takes you a minute or two to cum. you rest your head against the tile and breathe deeply, trying to get yourself back under control. you take a few more minutes to enjoy the spray and the soothing pressure on your slightly sore ass.

you step out and wrap a towel around you. there's a knock on the door.

"yes?" you ask.

dunk sticks his hand in, holding out a hoodie and sweatpants.

"if you wanted to change," he offers.

your heart goes all soft at his thoughtfulness. you smile and take the clothes from him.

the sweatpants you've no hope of wearing, but the hoodie covers about the same as your dress had. you step out and find that dunk's changed clothes too. he's got water, your plate of cookies, and pillows arranged on his bed.

"thought you might need to sit. or, maybe not sit. you can sit, right?" he asks.

you laugh.

"i'm fine, dunk. you didn't go that hard."

"would...i dunno...hot water bottle?"

you shake your head.

"i could order pizza."

"....that would be nice, actually."

"right. you just relax and i'll take care of it."

***

dunk's laying in bed later that night, staring up at the ceiling, unable to sleep. had today been real? had he really...had you really....

his phone buzzes.

you let yourself in with the key dunk had lent you. you'd borrowed some tools to put a desk together and were bringing them back now, along with a plate of cookies to say thanks. you put the toolbox and plate on the table.

there's a crashing sound, followed by an "ah, fuck!"

"dunk?" you call. "you alright?"

"what? no no no DON'T—"

but it's too late. you're already pushing his bedroom door open to reveal dunk in just his boxers, a knocked over ring light, and a tripod with a camera pointed at his bed.

"holy shit!" you say, ducking your head and putting a hand in front of your eyes. "shit...fuck...sorry!"

"what're you doin?" dunk asks, embarrassed, panicked, grabbing a pillow and using it to hide his junk.

"i told you i'd be back at—"

"right!" he says, suddenly remembering.

"so i'm back and— what are YOU doing?"

"nothin'! i'm—" dunk looks at the tripod facing his bed. "this isn't what it looks like!"

"you were expecting someone else?" you offer in suggestion.

"no! no, 'course not. just you," he's fumbling to think of a way out of this.

"...right...", you draw out, sceptical.

what exactly had dunk been thinking he would get in return for you borrowing his tool box?

"no!" he's quick to interject. "god, no, not that, i— look, just let me put on some clothes, so i can think again?"

you nod and squeeze your eyes shut behind your hand, to give him extra privacy. you hear dunk stumbling about and another crash and more swearing. probably dunk tripping over the fallen ring light. a few moments pass before dunk gives you the go ahead to look. you do, and see him sat at the end of his bed, pulling a hoodie down, hiding the quick glimpse you got of a happy trail.

"completely forgot you were comin' over. i'd been so stressed out over all this—" he starts, with a wave around the room.

"what exactly is this, then?" you ask.

dunk hesitates.

"look. ya can't tell anyone, right? nobody knows. 'cept raymun and rowan."

"tell anyone what, dunk?"

he looks at you a long moment before answering.

"...you know what onlyfans is?"

"shut up!"

he groans and hides his face in his hands. you sit down on the bed beside him.

"you're on onlyfans?" you ask.

"no! well, yes," dunk's voice is muffled by his hands. he forces himself to sit up but can't bring himself to look at you. "look. i could use a bit of extra cash. and rowan makes good money off of it and said there'd be a market for a ...man of my size. so i gave it a go and didn' think much of it, but fuck, the video did well. like, crazy good. and rowan said if i really wanted to do well, i needed a tripod and a light and all this stuff, but i'll be damned if i can get everything workin' right. angles all wrong, or i knock it over, and even if i can get everything set up, i don't even know what to do..."

he sounds so miserable and you can't imagine you walking in had made things any easier for him.

"i won't tell anyone. but i don't think you need to be embarrassed," you say. "most everyone watches porn, so it's silly and hypocritical to judge the people who make it. and if you're...doing well...that just means lots of people...appreciate you."

"appreciate me?"

"you know. find you hot."

"oh, um, right" dunk stammers, flushing.

"and the first upload did well, right?" you ask.

dunk nods.

"so maybe do that again. whatever you did in the first video," you suggest.

"right," dunk answers.

you're quiet a few seconds, struggling to resist asking, but finally give in.

"so....what was the first video?"

"oh. um. 'solo work' —that's what rowan calls it."

right. you can work out what that means. you feel your face get hot from the thought of dunk touching himself. you shift slightly, restless.

"if you're worried about not knowing what people want to see, I could always, uh, give advice."

"what?" he asks, looking at you, blue eyes wide with surprise.

"i mean, your audience is mostly women, right?"

"yeah."

"so i could give some insight on the female perspective. if it would help."

dunk thinks a moment.

"yeah...actually, it would," he says finally.

now it's your turn to think before speaking.

"how do you sound?" you ask.

"sound?" dunk repeats back.

"yeah. what kind of noises do you make when you're...you know..."

dunk rubs the back of his neck.

"i dunno. i guess i try t'keep it down. i, uh, get sensitive fast—"

"don't."

"what?" dunk asks, confused.

"don't keep it down," you answer. "it's hot when a guy is loud." you wait a few seconds, uncertain, before deciding to throw caution to the wind. "you should start out real tough guy about it. kinda...grunting. really deep and low. then moaning, like it just feels so good. and right before the end, whine, like you've gone all weak and desperate for it."

"i...right—" dunk nods along.

"you're a big guy and..." you break off, suddenly picturing it and getting flustered. you shake your head to dispel the dirty thoughts. you're just helping a friend, that's all. no need to get excited. it was just business. "it's just really nice when a man starts out all controlled and is needy by the end. but honestly, any kind of noises or talking would really help."

"talking?" dunk asks.

"yeah. maybe you could position the camera so it's at a low angle and talk to it like it's your partner going down on you. tell them to go faster, that they're doing a good job, making you feel so good, that sort of thing. being vocal is a huge thing for women. sometimes even more than visual."

"really?"

"absolutely. that's why lots of women listen to smut rather than watch porn. you can picture whatever you want and the voice just...guides you. i mean, i—" you break off suddenly, pause, then fake a cough to cover.

fuck, you'd almost told dunk about your preferences. how you liked listening more than watching your porn. though if dunk was making videos on onlyfans...of course, no, absolutely not, you would never watch. he's your friend and that would be inappropriate. this isn't about your desires. or the fact that you're insanely horny right now. no, this is all about helping dunk be more confident, that's all.

"so that's, um, just something to keep in mind. you could always try making audios instead if you felt more comfortable off camera," you suggest.

dunk shakes his head.

"don't think i 'talk proper' enough for that," he dismisses.

"are you joking?" you ask. "dunk, you have a really nice voice."

"oh, um, thanks," he says, the tips of his ears going red.

"i just think it's something to think about. only if you wanted, of course."

"right."

"is this helping? or am i making you uncomfortable?" you ask. dunk hasn't looked at you for more than about three seconds at a time so far. "i can go—"

"no! no, please. it helps. 'm just nervous. but 'm less nervous talking to you about it than if i was tryin' to figure it out on my own." he says, rubbing his hands up and down his thighs. you try not to remember what he looked like in just his boxers.

"okay. good," you say. "do you have an angle for your channel?"

"yes! uh...d'ya know what a 'size kink' is?"

"i've heard of it!" you answer, probably a little too quickly and too breathy to be entirely nonchalant. as if you hadn't wanted that big, strong man to pick you up and fuck you from the moment you met him.

"rowan suggested it'd be a good niche for me. i'm bigger than most men."

"oh?" you ask, nearly salivating.

"taller! i meant taller," dunk corrects.

you bet he was bigger, too. nice, pretty, thick cock, that would be such a delicious stretch.

"do you think you'll just do solo work, then?" you ask, voice hitched up an octave, as you try desperately to sound casual and unaffected. "or would you want a, um, collaborator?"

"i, ah—" dunk stumbles and laughs nervously. "don't know if i'd want to do everything on camera. maybe. maybe some stuff. yeah, some stuff. if i even had someone to film with. but i dunno how i'd even go about asking someone—"

"what if—" you start before realizing you're speaking aloud and immediately go quiet.

"what?" dunk asks, eyes suddenly intense and on you.

you stand up and pace around his room, nearly tripping over the damn ring light as you do.

"look, if i've overstayed my welcome, just tell me. it's none of my business. just want to help. you know, if it helps. if it's not helping—" you ramble.

dunk's staring at you. waiting.

welp. you were dumb and horny and opened your big mouth, so now you've got no choice but to see this through and finish your thought.

"what if i helped you. not sex. just...sexual things."

dunk looks like he's about to fall off the bed.

"maybe i should go," you suggest.

"no! no, don't go," he reaches out to grab your arm. "i want to." he looks at you and you swear there's a hunger there. "i mean," he swiftly breaks eye contact and lets go of you. "could be good for the channel. and maybe i'd feel less stupid than when i'm filming alone. if you'd be comfortable."

"of course!" you answer with more eagerness than you probably should. "we'd talk boundaries and everything—"

"right," he agrees.

"and it's your channel so what you want on it—"

"but what you're comfortable with matters most—"

"you're a sweet guy, dunk."

it's quiet a moment as you both think over what you've agreed to.

"what...would you want to do?" dunks asks in a strangled voice.

so. many. things.

breathe. think. it's not about what you want dunk to do to you. it's what would be good for his onlyfans. purely professional arrangement.

"size kink, yeah?" you ask.

dunk nods.

that certainly lends itself to an array of tempting scenarios. but you aren't sure how much dunk would be comfortable with. is suggesting you suck him off, as a friend, too much?

wait. you've got an idea.

"i'm just thinking about what might be good for that angle," you say, like you're thinking with your head right now and not your needy cunt.

"uh huh," dunk says.

"what viewers with that interest might want."

"right."

"and no judgement, right? if it's too weird, just say so, and the whole thing's off. pretend it never happened."

"right," dunk repeats.

you're not breathing and it looks like dunk isn't either, leaning in, gaze fixed on you.

He purses his mouth involuntarily when a girl sitting in front of him on the bus has her hair gathered in a ponytail that reveals the nape of her neck. She’s wearing a thin chain necklace that pulls on the tiny hairs. His hands itch to brush the skin and untangle the mess carefully, then place the whole breadth of his palm there, from tendon to tendon, to ease the sting. Before he gets to live his life’s most torrid affair, the girl yanks on the chain viciously, plucking out singular strands with a small hiss, and gets off the bus.

When he falls in love again, he is disastrously unready for the prospect of permanence. Handshakes and congratulations muttered over keys passed to the flat next door have far too much of long-term arrangement about them for his peace of mind. Duncan’s beloved of today is wearing paint-stained dungarees, the knees pushed out and sagging with age. Her hair is messy and her cheek smudged with dust. Her socks do not match either. She’s thanking the building manager with glassy eyes and a smile pulled so wide she looks about to cry.

The manager delivers one last pat to her back, then reveals Duncan’s presence by bidding him a quick, “Morning.” Duncan nods once, then keeps his head down as he passes by. Before descending the staircase, he allows himself one last glance: you sigh, pause, and step into your flat. Certainty floods him cold: he’s in love with his neighbour.

He spends the day at work trying to reason with himself. You are only one girl who happens to live on the other side of his bedroom wall. Duncan hardly ever sees the other neighbours as it is. For all he knows, you keep odd hours and spend weekends elsewhere and have a boyfriend already hanging pictures in that flat in his head. If luck is willing to show him some mercy, he will not be sentenced to pine after the girl next door. By lunch he has bargained himself into a kind of peace. By the end of the day, he almost believes it.

Then he comes home.

Your door is ajar. Passing by, Duncan catches through the crack the beginning of a new life. The hallway yawns open to the room beyond, where a mattress—not nearly wide enough for two—lies on the floor with its sheets crumpled up in a twist. There is a mug sitting on the windowsill with a teabag string dangling over the rim. A charger. A few cardboard boxes hunch by the wall, half-opened and all of it kills him a bit with tender, domestic ache. You’re really here, starting from scratch.

From deeper in the flat comes your voice, frayed by an argument with a consultant. It grows louder. Nearer. Duncan finds what is left of his wit and slips past as quietly as he can, key already in hand. He is through his own threshold and turning the lock on a held breath before you come into view. A second later, your door slams shut hard enough to carry through the wall. He hears you thank someone over the phone tightly and end the call. Then, he catches the cutest little growl of frustration he’s heard in his life. When he closes his eyes he can see you again in all your disarrayed glory and decides the girls from cafés and pubs and buses may as well pack it in, and Duncan is in trouble.

He wakes the next day hoping the universe will spare him permanence, only to get sucker-punched by the sight of you fighting your post box in the main hall. The same girlish growl he already knows leaves you when the box will not budge (despite you asking it very nicely by rattling the lock with the key stuck inside it). He tries to disguise his gasp and it comes out as a dumb, hiccuped chuckle, which, of course, gets your attention.

“Is something funny?” you ask, face dangerously frowned, yet still the prettiest thing Duncan’s ever seen.

“N-no. No,” he gulps, loudly. “You have to, uh… bully it a bit. Here—can I?”

His hands come out and you step away at once, making Duncan wonder whether it is because you believe his good intentions, or is it merely his intimidating size.

He leans in, presses on the little door and turns the key between his fingers until it clicks.

Your eyes are on him, bewildered. “That’s ‘bullying’ in your world?”

Duncan shrugs. “I mean…”

“Good to know.” Before he realises what is happening, your palm is out and disappearing in his, and he learns your name, and from this moment he will remember it forever. “Thirteen C,” you add, as if he has not noticed.

“Duncan,” he says. “Fifteen C.”

“Yeah, I know,” you say, smiling.

“So, err… how’s it going?”

“Alright. Just getting to…” Your eyes drag to the post box, then back to him. “—you know. Oh, um… it might get a bit”—your fingers pinch together to present what a bit means—“loud over the weekend. I’m having furniture delivered and I have to assemble it.”

That is it. Duncan’s heart behaves as if it has somehow acquired a brain of its own and is currently attempting an escape by slicing his chest open, lest he say something normal. Words pour out of his mouth and, to him, they sound like begging.

“D’you need a hand? I could—” As he speaks, you go still. Your eyes drop, and Duncan falters at once. “Unless you’ve that sorted already,” he says. “I only meant—I’m good with carrying, is all.”

After a beat, there’s a nod. “Yes,” you say, and Duncan realises you are nervous. “God, okay, yes. I’ve no one. I’m not even going to pretend I’m competent, or that it’s an easy job. My delivery company insists that we’ve agreed on a downstairs drop-off and it’s a ton of bookshelves. If you were just being nice, that’s absolutely fine though. God, sorry,” you mumble, holding your throat. “Moving is stressful.”

He has never seen awkwardness to match his own packed into someone so lovely. He feels an impossible urge to hug you, but knows that could make his affair fleeting, and suddenly finds himself wanting the opposite. “I wasn’t. I mean—I was. I’d gladly help. I’ve the weekend off.”

“Wicked,” you say, a shy curve on your mouth. “They come at eight on Saturday. That works?”

“It does. Yeah,” Duncan says, nodding once, then again, as if the second one might make him sound less like a man who has just been handed a winning lottery ticket in broad daylight. “That works. I’ll, uh… catch you later.”

He turns on his heel and starts back upstairs like a fool.

“Weren’t you heading out?” you ask.

He stops so abruptly he nearly misses the next step. “Right,” he says, and clears his throat. “I was actually—” Jerks a thumb towards the front door, then has to come back down past you with what dignity he can gather. “Going to work.”

Your smile does something unhelpful to his insides. “Thought so.”

“Yeah.” He gives a small nod. “So. Saturday.”

“Saturday,” you echo.

“Deadly.” The word slips out on its own. Duncan feels his ears burn. “I mean—good. Grand. I’ll see you then.”

He goes before his tongue can betray him any further, out through the front door and into the morning with his heart beating high in his throat, having managed to turn a straightforward goodbye into a full display of personal deficiency in under thirty seconds.

And deadly he is. You’re left smiling and so struck, it takes you another thirty seconds to clock that you are wearing an absurdly torn T-shirt, pyjama shorts and mountain climbing boots (classic just going to check mail assembly). Then another five to release a breath.

You were a bit too overwhelmed by the sight of your own four naked walls and a slice of floor to sleep on when you first saw him to assess him properly. Now, though—eyes, first and foremost. Huge, and blue and with lashes that belong on a doll rather than on a grown-up man. Proportional to the rest of him, which is also huge in a way that makes you feel safe and taken care of, not hunted.

Then his voice, which sits warm in your ear after he is gone, low and soft and careful with every word. His face: freckles over the bridge of his nose and across his cheeks, hair that cannot decide whether it is dark blond or ginger, and a blush that rises so easily it almost seems unfair on a man built like that. And his arms—Christ on a stick. They look as if they could hug any worry clean out of you. Crowning all of it is the most endearing smile, all crooked teeth, which he seems to reach for whenever the colour in his face becomes unbearable. Absolutely dear lad.

And he has agreed to spend the weekend with you, playing adult Lego with IKEA bookshelves. An offer you probably shouldn't have accepted, but he’s a sweetheart who, by all rights, ought to take up space more confidently than he does. Instead he ducks his head, fumbles his goodbye and flees, leaving you with your lip bitten raw.

You know damn well it is entirely unwise to develop a crush on your neighbour. Nevertheless, the tiny voice in the back of your head is already chanting, please don’t be a psycho, please don’t be a psycho.

The rest of the day you spend pointlessly cleaning the space that will get obliterated by dust and cardboard come weekend anyway, then listening to his footsteps through the wall in the evening. Saturday, you realise, while you have been busy making goo-goo eyes at him, you completely forgot to give him any actual logistics. Where are you meant to meet? Who carries what? How much time does he have?

You knock on his door at 7:45 a.m. and might as well just kiss the doorknob. Nothing. Try again, and still nothing. By the time the phone starts vibrating in your hand with an unknown number, your stomach has already dropped low enough to bruise. The delivery driver is downstairs. They are waiting for a signature. You swear, apologise, swear again and hang up feeling like an absolute clown for ever believing a kind stranger was something that just happened to you.

When you get down to the main hall, Duncan is already there. Waiting. In jeans and a white T-shirt with paint stains set so deep into it they look permanent. The sight of him hits you hard enough to wipe your mind for a second. Broad shoulders. Sleep still clinging somewhere about his face. Hair not fully decided yet. He turns at the sound of you coming and your heart gives one awful, hopeful kick.

“I thought you, uh—hi,” you say.

“Morning,” he says, straightening. There is a crease between his brows, like he has been wondering where you got to. “Sorry. I went down when I heard the van.” His eyes flick over your face quickly, then away. “You all right?”

That lands badly enough in your chest that you have to clear your throat before answering. “Yeah. Yes. I just thought you’d changed your mind.”

The blush comes up at once, easy as breath. “No,” he says. “No, I’m here.” His eyes flick to the heap of boxes crowding the entrance, then back to you. “And thank God, it seems. How many bookshelves d’you need, anyway?”

You shrug, already flustered. “I have a lot of books?”

Something in his face gives. Worse than a mockery—a smile. “Right.”

The delivery men are in no mood for inept romance. They want signatures, directions, confirmation that yes, all of this misery belongs to you. Duncan takes the handheld scanner from one of them before you can fumble it, passes it back, then bends to the first box with the ease of a man picking up a child’s toy. You stand there a second too long watching his forearms jump under the weight and have to jolt yourself back into usefulness.

So, it’s carry the lighter things. A flat-packed desk. Narrow boxes of shelves. Bags of fittings that clatter and bruise your shins. Duncan gets the proper monsters: the long boxes that seem designed to take out the ankles of whoever dares lift them, the thick ones packed with boards, the pieces that turn every staircase into an insult. By the second trip, his white T-shirt is sticking to the middle of his back. By the third, you have learned that the muscles there move under cotton in a way that ought to be regulated. He goes up the stairs with a box balanced on one shoulder and one hand free for the rail, and every time he turns sideways to clear the landing, you get some fresh reason to stop believing in a merciful god.

“Sorry,” you mutter for the fifth time, wrestling a carton through your front door.

“What for?”

“For owning things.”

He ducks under the doorframe with another box. “Bit late for that.”

You laugh despite yourself. He smiles without looking at you, sets the load down exactly where it needs to go and is gone again before you can decide whether to stare at his back or his hands.

Eventually, the entrance hall gets empty, so the one outside your flat can look as though a Scandinavian warehouse has exploded. Inside is worse. Cardboard everywhere. Thick white foam. Plastic corners. Long, baffling pieces of wood in shades with names no tree has ever deserved. You are sweaty and breathing through your mouth. Duncan wipes the back of his wrist across his forehead and leaves a pale streak through the dust there.

You lean against the wall and attempt a joke through your lungs. “If you’re fed up, I can probably handle the rest alone.”

His head comes up at once. “What, you’re kicking me out before the best part?”

“You think this is the best part?”

The blush arrives with such force it nearly does him an injury. “I meant—” He huffs a laugh at himself and looks down. “The building. The shelves.”

“Right,” you say. “The shelves.”

“Mm.”

You let him suffer for one beat longer than strictly kind, then rescue him. “Tea?”

He looks at you with real gratitude. “Go on, then.”

The kettle buys you both a little grace. For a while, it works. He tears through cardboard, stacks the big pieces, gets the general logic of things faster than seems fair. He is excellent at the parts requiring weight, reach or brute confidence. When you come back with two mugs though, Duncan is crouched in the middle of your floor among split boxes and hardware, reading the leaflets with an expression usually reserved for bad news from the doctor.

You pass him a cup, and he mutters an absent, “Ah, thanks, luv,” making your stomach twist. Goes back to frowning. Squinting, while holding the paper a little further away. Then further still, arm almost fully extended. His eyes narrow into slits. He turns the page one way, then the other, like Satan himself may be written on the back in clearer print. Under his breath, he whispers, “Shite.”

You are beginning to enjoy yourself immensely. “Everything all right there?”

“Mm.”

That is plainly a lie. His jaw sets, and finally he reaches into the pocket of his jeans. Out comes a pair of glasses so practical and slightly old-fashioned they look as though they have been with him longer than some friendships. He puts them on with the air of a man making a grave concession to weakness.

You nearly go through the floor. The lenses give him the most ridiculous, endearing bug-eyes. Not distorted exactly, but gentled, opened up. Softer, somehow. Boyish in a way the rest of him does not allow. He glances up and catches you looking.

“What?” he says, already half-defensive.

“Nothing.”

“Liar.”

“I’m not lying.” You set your mug down very carefully. “You just look…”

He waits. There are a hundred things you could say and none of them are survivable. Dear. Ridiculous. So lovely it hurts. You land on, “Serious.”

Duncan snorts, unconvinced, and looks back at the paper. “This thing was written by the devil.”

You kneel beside him and lean in. The leaflet rustles between you. Up close, his shoulder is warm. So is the line of his thigh where it nearly touches yours through old denim. He smells of soap and sweat broken by honest work.

“I thought it was the best part,” you say, forcing your gaze onto the tiny drawings instead of his glasses.

Duncan glances up. “Best part’s the company,” he says, and with those huge eyes behind wire frames, your crush leaves the realm of manageable things entirely.

He doesn’t really know what he’s doing. This, leastways, feels natural: helping. And it gives him enough space to push through anxiety and have something like a conversation with you. Nothing that would make his ridiculous in-love feeling flee has happened yet, so Duncan allows it to persist. At least as long as he gets to spend time with you assembling bookshelves.

That goes as expected: he’s tormented by your hands brushing his whenever you pass him a screw. Then by his own indignity at being unable to work with the smaller bits, where you step in—much too close for safety—with your nice-smelling hair and cute jokes. “Whatever would you do without me, hm?” you say, turning the smallest Allen key Duncan’s ever seen.

He clears his throat. “Uh… let’s see. Watch telly? Go down the pub for a game? Go running?”

“How utterly boring,” you mutter, focused on the task.

Duncan nearly rests his chin in one hand. “I know. I consider myself saved.”

You smile. Huff at the key refusing to go any further and deem your job done. “Alright,” you say, then deliver one more nail to his coffin. Your hand comes up to lift the hair off the back of your neck and cool off. He immediately goes to judge the kissability of it. Duncan, who in his lifetime has inspected necks’ napes in abundance, considers himself an expert on the matter. The verdict: yours is everything-able. Grabbable. Lickable. Kissable, and when he focuses enough he can imagine it smells heavenly too. Before he can blink himself out of it, you turn and ask, “Hungry?”

“Always,” Duncan says, and curses internally at how breathy he sounds. “Where d’you want these?” he asks, pointing at the whopping four assembled bookshelves, which currently create a little maze in your living room/dining room/bedroom—a room serving as all three.

“Oh, wherever you think,” you say, already scrolling through the food ordering app. That one hits him square in the gut, being allowed to do something domestic in the home of a girl he’s known for not even a week and is still deeply, hopelessly fallen for.

When he’s put everything where it looks best, you reappear with two beers in hand. He’s managed to find himself a spot on the floor where he’s sitting cross-legged, fully engrossed in the manual of the furniture already assembled, and your mind briefly goes to what it would feel like to wedge yourself onto those thighs.

You pass him a bottle, plop down next to him, and say, “Got us pizza. Fastest.”

“Grand,” he says. Leans back, trying to find something to stare at that is not your feet. “So—” The bottles clink. “How’s it feeling?” he asks, then pauses to watch you down half of yours in approximately five greedy gulps and chuckles, all helpless.

“Jesus, sorry.” You stop when you catch him staring like you have grown horns. Wipe your mouth. “It’s, um… less echo-y. Weird. But good. Like I’m starring in a rom-com. Oh shi—”

One of the shelves tips and starts falling face-flat. Duncan is up before you can properly register him moving, catching it with one hand.

“Got it. Got it. Yeah, the floors.” He wedges a folded bit of cardboard underneath to keep it straight. “They’re round as the earth.”

You blink, then slam the bottle onto the floor so hard some beer erupts from the neck. “Fuck, so I was right all along? It does feel like I’m going downhill from that corner.”

“Seems you were,” Duncan says, sitting back down. “Got to screw those to the walls, or you might get flattened in the night.” He points out the trajectory of it. If it went, it would go straight for the mattress. “We can do it tomorrow?”

“Two days in a row? Guess I bought you dinner, so everything’s by the book,” you mutter, and Duncan chokes on his beer. “Sorry. God, sorry. It’s the beer, I promise I’m not an obnoxious neighbour.”

He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. “If that’s obnoxious, I’d say I’m managing.”

You blink at that, then smile fully, teeth and all, and Duncan counts them before licking the backs of his own in a poor imitation of what it might be like to kiss you.

You turn towards him and lower your voice. “So you’re saying I should keep plying you with pizza and lager?”

There is a crust of dust in the corner of your eye. A strand of hair curled at your temple. The hinge of your jaw, where he would gladly suck a pretty pale bruise, just so you’d remember him as a man who leaves souvenirs. The collar of your T-shirt is darkened with sweat, and he can smell it and wants to press his nose there. On the floor between you, your hands point towards each other, fingers a hair’s breadth apart. He has half a mind to lean in.

The buzzer goes off roaring so suddenly you jump.

“God, that’s… loud,” you say. “One minute.”

The pizza arrives in a flurry of apologies, change, the brief humiliation of you having to shoulder the sticking front door with your hip. By the time you come back, Duncan has schooled his face into something he hopes resembles a man here for neighbourly reasons and not because he is one missed interruption away from pressing you into a wall so you can learn another purpose for all this strength.

You sit on the floor to eat because there is nowhere else to do it. The box goes between you. Grease blooms through the paper. Your knee knocks his once and stays there just long enough to keep his heart misbehaving.

The conversation comes in starts. Where you moved from. Whether the building is always this loud. How many books is too many books. He tells you he works mornings more often than not; you tell him this move has already shortened your life by a year. He laughs when you do impressions of the delivery men. You laugh when he tells you the names of the shelves sound like obscure illnesses. It should feel awkward. It does, a little. It also feels good enough that Duncan keeps forgetting to be shy until his own voice brings him back to himself.

He does not want to go. He knows he should. So he puts on the fakest yawn of his life, stretches his arms over his head for effect and says, “Right. Better leave you to it.”

Your face falls so slightly he almost calls it back.

“What time d’you want me tomorrow?” he asks, before he can stop himself.

That brings you back at once. “Whenever works for you.”

Duncan nods like a man with options. “I could do ten?”

“Ten’s perfect.”

“Good.” He gets to his feet and brushes nonexistent dust from his jeans. “I’ll see you then.”

When he leaves, it is with pizza marrying lager in his stomach, your laugh in his ears, and the growing suspicion that the universe has no intention of sparing him permanence at all.

He lies awake in bed, acutely aware that you are just behind the wall, and snorts helplessly into his pillow when a loud Fuck! follows a loud bang—presumably a toe fallen victim to one of the corners in the dark.

There is something insanely erotic to Duncan about a girl who lets him in and allows him to see the raw bones. No objects yet to hide behind or define yourself with; all he gets is your personality, stripped right down, and the version of you made intimate by imperfection. The one whose socks are nearly brown on the soles from cardboard dust, whose fingernails are dark beneath the crescents from handling metal bits all day, who stops herself from downing a whole bottle of beer only because he, in his dumbness, looked at her sideways.

And it feels nothing like his other crushes, which lived in perfect sealed-off vignettes, girls caught on their way somewhere else. You are going nowhere. Better: you are trying to stay. And Duncan has the honour of watching and helping it happen.

On Sunday he is ready at ten sharp and knocking on your door. His hair is still wet, and he is standing there with two coffees because he has no idea whether you have managed to unpack the coffee pot yet. That is the only reason.

Your voice comes muffled from inside. “Coming! One sec—”

He hears fumbling. Water running. Something hits tile and you hiss, “Shit!”

When you open the door, you look like you have only just dragged your shirt down over your back. Your hair is lifted with static. Your feet are bare, and Duncan has to force his eyes up from them. There he finds the corner of your mouth whitened with a trace of toothpaste.

“Hi. Sorry, I overslept,” you say, flattening your hair down with both palms.

“D’you want me to come back later?”

“No! No,” you say. “I’m up, promise. Also, is that for me?” Your finger points at the cups.

“No, luv. Brought them so I could drink two coffees in front of you.”

He presses one into your hands. You snort, then step out of the way. The hallway is narrow enough that he has to turn sideways to get through, and your stomachs still brush faintly. Duncan stops dead, points at his own mouth. “You’ve got a little—”

Your hand flies up and scrubs at your mouth with alarming force. You huff, embarrassed. “Sorry. I don’t drool, it’s just toothpaste.”

“Thank God.” A smile, unguarded and crooked and just so dear you want to squish his cheeks. 

He steps in fully and is met by the sight of the place properly gutted this time. Boxes split open. Books in tottering stacks. Fragile things wrapped in newspaper. Clothes half-freed from bin bags. He crouches over one of the boxes nearest to him, whistles low, and lifts out a hardback thick enough to stun a horse.

“What have we here? Remember how we talked about how many books is too many books yesterday? This—”

Then he leans further into the box, and mind leaves your body.

His shirt rides up over his loins. The muscles there rise in two thick ridges either side of his spine. They deepen the groove between them, pull his waistband tight, make a gap between skin and denim that would fit a flat palm perfectly. Fucking biteable, is what they are. Unbearably hot. You could live there, happy and fed and entirely unbothered, your cheek resting in the well of his back. It doesn’t help at all that his butt is as round as your floors which are as round as the earth.

It takes him a second to turn. When he does, he looks almost pleased with himself. “This is too many books, lass,” he announces. The lass does not help either. His brow pulls in. “Hey. You good?”

“Hm?” you hum, and bury the lower half of your face in the coffee cup in a futile attempt to hide the heat of it. “Yeah. Hunky-dory. And there is no such thing as too many books, Duncan.”

“You can call me Dunk. Friends do.” He stands then, book still in hand, and your body takes that as fresh bad news. “Right,” he says. “You ready?”

“As ever. Are you? I see no glasses.”

Something bright flickers across his face. He sets the book down, reaches into his back pocket and produces the case with a little flourish. Flips the arms open with both thumbs and settles the glasses on his nose like a man about to perform surgery.

“There,” he says. “Happy now, lass?”

“Very.” You clear your throat. “Okay. What should I do?”

He looks round your flat, glasses low on his nose, taking stock. “Might be better to clear some of this first,” he says. “Leave the drilling till later. We’ve the desk still, don’t we?”

Yes, unfortunately. So you unpack the desk while Duncan deals with the cardboard. He breaks boxes down with an efficiency that ought to be illegal, folds them once, twice, then stamps them flat under one boot. It should not do what it does to you, that sound, that force, that careless certainty of a body built to make stubborn things give way, but it does. Repeatedly. By the time he hauls the broken-down mountain downstairs, you need a moment so badly it arrives without asking.

You end up spread flat on the floor, muttering, “Fuck, fucking fuck,” into the air, heels of your palms pressed into your eyesockets hard enough to make your vision exist only in shades of black.

The front door opens quietly. A few steps, and: “Tired already?” Duncan asks.

Off with your head, then. When you look up, he is standing over you with the ceiling nearly on his shoulders. Not really. It only feels that way. A sigh. “Just… regrouping,” you say.

His mouth twitches. He puts a hand out. “C’mere, wee thing. It’s nearly done.”

It stirs your lower belly hot. So does the sight of his hand waiting for yours, broad and open and patient. You give him your arm because the other option is to reject it and scramble yourself up in an entirely undignified way. His palm closes round your elbow. Instead of yanking, he lifts steadily, calmly, as if you simply have no weight. The pressure of him stays even once you are upright. He is still holding you when you straighten fully, and for one daft second you let him.

“Right,” you say, smoothing your hands down your jeans. “I just need some water. Do you want some?”

He nods and follows you into the kitchen.

You reach up for the glasses from the top cupboard. There are only two unpacked. Duncan notices that at once. Notices, too, the way your shirt rides with the stretch and catches there above your hip, folded back on itself, leaving a strip of stomach bare. He feels it clean in the chest. Affection and neighbourly feelings that somehow have managed to fester into want, plain and greedy. He wants a lot, he realises. And he’s certain he’s obvious as daylight in it, and so engrossed in his own inadequacy things elude him.

What he misses is that you are no less obvious, only quieter. The way you hand him the glass so your fingers drag against his and stay a fraction too long. The way you drink from yours fast, quenching thirst that water has nothing to do with. The way your eyes travel down the line of his jaw to his throat as he swallows, unabashed for a second before you blink and pull them back.

Thank god he cannot read minds. Yours is all clatter. He looks right in here. In your kitchen, such as it is. A bit sweaty. A bit messy. Big enough to crowd the room without trying. The flat already warmer and more lived in for having him inside it. And you want him to stay so badly it makes your palms damp round the glass. Spoken aloud, it would sound ridiculous. Inside your head, it has already settled into fact.

You clear your throat and look anywhere but at his mouth. “Right,” you say. “If we stand here much longer, that desk will build itself out of spite.”

That gets a smile out of him. Small. Crooked. Ruinous. “Can’t have that.”

So, the desk gets built. The shelves end up arranged into a final, satisfying shape which, if everything goes to plan, will make a small home library. Duncan measures them up, shifts them by inches, squints, steps back, shifts them again, makes them line as evenly as the old building allows and does the bulk of the work with the drill. You end up his nurse, passing him sleeves and screws when he asks, holding things steady where he tells you, fetching the bits that roll away.

At one point he grunts and squints at the wall with such offence in his face that you ask, “Did BILLY say something rude?”

He snorts. “No. But I might need your hawk eyes here, luv.”

“I see,” you tease. “I’ll tell you a secret. Can’t see shit from afar. I suppose that makes us one properly sighted person between us.”

The prospect of making something whole with you is so enticing Duncan nearly misses the fact that you have slipped under his arm and then between his biceps. From there he gets your neck again. The shape of the space behind your ear. The little hollow where he decides his fingers would sit perfectly, cradling your head while he kissed you stupid. He puts all his strength into pressing the shelf to the wall while you screw the tiny bits in, holds his breath and prays for his body to behave. The space between his stomach and your back is so narrow he could close it in one step. Then he could bury his nose in your nape. Then—

He blinks against the thought so hard something scratches his eyeball. “Bloody fu—” he mutters, trying to wipe his face against his shoulder.

You feel the shift and turn your head a little. “You all right?”

“Yeah, just… something in my eye. Dust, I—”

You crane your neck first, then turn in the cage of his body. Set the screwdriver down. Dust your hands off on your jeans. “Hold it,” you say. “Come here.”

Dear Lord above.

Your hands reach for him. One finds the bridge of his glasses and pushes them up till they catch in his hair. The other comes to his cheek. Then both of them are there, cool skin, cradling his face as you pull him down to your height and look straight into the ruined eye. Duncan goes still from boots to teeth.

“D’you see it?” he chokes out.

“Yeah. Just an eyelash. Long one,” you mutter.

Your knuckle comes to his lid and draws it down gently. The eyelash—a brown curved thing, outrageous in its prettiness, like he has put a bloody curler to it—works itself loose, catches him once more for spite, then blinks far enough free for you to pinch it between thumb and forefinger. You hold it up in front of him, forgetting he likely cannot make out a thing without his glasses.

“There,” you say. “Better?”

“Can’t see it, but I believe you,” Duncan breathes.

He stays bent over you, close enough that the freckles show one by one. You could count them if given the time. You want the time. All day, if possible. Or a year. All year to count them and then find out whether they continue elsewhere. He licks his lips once and then keeps very still, save for the faint trembling in the arms.

You pull him a fraction lower. Then another.

Duncan looks like he wants to say something and rejects each option in real time. His mouth opens. Shuts. When he thinks you are about to kiss him, you slide his glasses back down onto the bridge of his nose and he makes the smallest wounded sound in his throat, near enough a whine to count. But you keep coming. Closer. Closer. He can feel your breath wash warm over the tip of his nose, over his upper lip. Then your mouths are there, set together already, the contact made and held. Soft and dry with the day. Neither of you moving. Both of you letting the other back out if they want it badly enough. There are no takers. 

Duncan closes his eyes. His voice comes out low and strained. “C’mon, girl. Give me something.”

“This?” you say, and then move. And god, what a movement that is. He feels it everywhere. In his toes, where you step on them to lengthen your reach, and he welcomes that weight. On his scalp, where your fingernails scratch him so deliciously a shiver skitters down his spine, making his hips move forth. On his upper lip that gets framed by both of yours and then his mouth opens and his tongue slips out and Duncan is so trustful of his own work his palms finally leave the shelf. They come to gather what there is of you. He wraps you all tight and around in his arms, sets his hands on your waist and hip and with it you lift a little, and in that lift Duncan’s kissing his neighbour.

His glasses get skewed. He steps away from the bookcase and to the nearest wall, where he presses you in. One tug, and your legs know exactly what to do—they cinch him, ankles crossed in the small of his back, and you’re airborne, clutching his neck, thighs supported in his grip. He keeps kissing, because this is simply impossible and if there is news about to be broken to him that permanence is not an option he’d rather receive it later than sooner.

“Wait,” you mutter. “God, I’ve been trying not to do that.”

“Y-you?” he stammers. “Why?”

“Because you’re my neighbour,” you say, swiping hair off his forehead. For once, your faces are level. He’s so damn gorgeous it’s nearly absurd for him to be unaware of it. Angular where it matters, soft where it’s unexpected. You can think of another arrangement where height will not exactly come into play, but first—

You’re overcome with need to glue yourself to him, so you hug him into a full-body shackle: tighten your arms and legs where they keep you up, and bury your face into his neck to mumble a wishful, “You’re not a player, are you? You don’t go around calling women lass like you know what it’s doing, right?”

His palms twitch on your thighs. Face moves towards you, then stops, held there by caution so naked it shreds. He lets out a breath that is a quizzical chuckle. “Jesus, no,” he says. “I can barely talk to you.”

A laugh breaks out of you, and then out of him too. He tips his forehead to yours for a second, still holding you up like it costs him nothing.

“Are you?” he asks, quieter. “A maneater?”

The thing is, you were struck with him from the start. There was lust in it, greedy enough to startle you with your own nerve. But the rest has come on slower and worse. Out of use. Out of kindness. Out of watching him take the weight of things without making a show of it. Out of seeing him go soft-faced with concentration, seeing how badly he wants and how carefully he handles the wanting, as if it is something that could do damage if let loose carelessly. You have known him three days and already the flat feels rearranged around his presence. Maybe this is what blessing looks like in real time. Proximity. Repetition. Two people getting an unfairly clear look at each other too quickly.

You lean back enough to see him. “Do I look like one?”

His eyes go over your face as though the answer might be written there if he studies hard enough. “No,” he says, with such immediate certainty it almost hurts. Then, because apparently that is not enough for him: “You look pretty. And kind.”

A smile tries to happen. Your throat goes tight around it. “That so?”

He nods once. “Yeah.”

You smooth your thumb over the heat in his cheek, the rasp of ginger stubble there. His glasses are still crooked. His mouth is still open the slightest bit from the last kiss. Entirely too dear. Entirely too much.

Oh, and does he. The second time it comes with all his better judgement buried alive beneath it. He gets his mouth on yours like he has finally understood the point of having one. Bolder now. Hungrier. Your lower lip catches between his teeth and there is nothing neat about the way he bites it, only care and the lack of enough care, both at once. Crooked teeth bite just fine, you learn. Better than fine. He mouths you until your breath goes thin, then drops to your neck and inhales so deeply it feels dragged out of the soles of his feet. Nibs, and whatever was warming in you goes past that. Burning now. Clean through.

“Bed,” you mutter, fingers twisted up in his shirt.

Duncan had no idea that was even possible, that one word from you could turn his whole body into a set of orders barked and obeyed in the same second. He does what he is told. Walks with you held high on him, your weight gathered tight and easy, and when he reaches the mattress on the floor he goes down with care, one knee first, then the other, until your back is sinking into bed that is still only a mattress and a fitted sheet half-pulled loose at one corner. He stays over you, breathing hard enough to show it, one hand planted by your head, the other still hooked under your thigh.

“You sure?” he asks.

You nod too fast, then colour. “Yeah. Sorry. I’m just…” Your face does something shy and pained. “Sweaty.”

Duncan looks at you. Thoughtfully. Like this is a thing worth considering from all angles. Weren’t he the biggest sweetheart god ever let loose on the public, that look might be labelled as menacing, too.

“I know,” he says. Then, lowers his face to your belly.

Words leave your body. That is all. They just go. He presses his mouth to you through the shirt first, then rides it up with both hands, bunching cotton inch by inch until your arms have to lift. The chance is taken: his hand slides to your wrists and sets them above your head. Your breath catches so sharply it nearly cuts. Duncan’s nose goes to your skin and he smells you like he means to learn something useful. Belly first. Then higher. He drags slow through the middle, mouth open now and then, breathing in. Your chest. The damp little hollows under your arms, where the tickle of his breath makes you squirm and laugh helplessly. Higher still, until he reaches your throat. He sweeps your hair aside with his cheek to get a clean stripe of skin and settles there, breathing you in as if he has come home to it.

“I like the way you smell,” he says against your neck. His voice roughens on the last word. “Bloody maddening, if you ask me.”

It does something murderous to your insides. You twist under him, wrists flexing in his hold, just to get closer. His grip tightens by a hair from pure absorption. Nose traces the line under your jaw. Another small bite. Your heel drags against the sheet.

“Duncan,” you say, and it comes out wrecked enough to make him lift his head.

Hair is falling into his eyes. Glasses sit crooked on his nose. His mouth is wet and pink from kissing you, cheeks spill red all over his skin and you wonder if that blush exists below the T-shirt too. Sensitive. There is a look on his face like he is trying very hard to keep being good while every part of him is begging for permission to stop.

“Yeah?” he says.

You swallow. Feel his thumb resting on the inside of your wrists. The whole blunt weight of him held off you by restraint alone.

“More,” you tell him.

Lances him clean through, that one. Duncan’s eyes drop to your mouth, then lower, as if he means to be sensible about it and catalogue the options. “Where?” he asks, voice thick. “Tell me where, lass.”

You could laugh at how decent he is, kneeling over you in a state that ought to excuse much worse, still asking like the answer matters more than his own pain. Instead you lift your wrists a little in his hand and he understands. Lets them go. Your palms land on his shoulders and stay a second. On the impressive spread of him and the hard work of holding himself up. “Everywhere,” you say, then, because he looks like he may pass out from being too good, “Start with here.”

You guide him back to your neck. The instruction is taken with shameful gratitude—he might go down as a man who leaves souvenirs after all. Mouth finds the place he’s already put some mind into, perfecting the bruise with focused lips, then the edge of his teeth, then the flat of his tongue to soothe what he has done. Then, he shifts—nose wedging the collar of your shirt aside, finding skin hidden all day under cotton and sweat. Every new inch offends him with how little of it he had before.

Sounds get born in his throat and die into a hiccup every time your body speaks up. There are fingers in his hair. Little gasps. Movement under his groin is particularly unbearable when your leg brushes him. No matter how old and stretched, jeans were simply not made to contain a boner, and Duncan learns is the literal hard way.

“You’re doing me in,” he says into your throat.

It bounces off your pulse. “You seem alive enough.”

He laughs, a breathy little snort. Lifts his head just far enough to look at you. His face is flushed down to the neck. He reaches between your bodies with obvious reluctance and catches the hem of your shirt in both hands. Stops there. “Can I?”

You nod. It still does not satisfy him.

“Mm. And now can you tell me that I can?” he says.

“Yes, you can,” you tell him. “Take it off.”

He strips you with the care of a man undoing bandages. Your shirt goes up in stages, dragged over your ribs, your bra, your face, until it is gone. He stares long enough to make your stomach jump. It’s slower than everything—than a quick skim of current wants or broad hungry looking. Almost dazed. Like each small part of you has to travel the whole way through him before he can move to the next one. His thumb runs along the underside of your breast through the bra, testing nothing more scandalous than weight, and his eyes close briefly at the feel of it.

“Jesus,” he says under his breath.

“What?”

He opens his eyes. “You’re…” Then stops, mouth twisting, unhappy with every word available. “A lot.”

You grin before you can help it. “Good a lot?”

His answer is to lower himself and press his face between your breasts, right into the warm cleft through the bra, as if language is a thing failed beyond repair. The sound you make at that goes straight to his hips. Duncan exhales hard, rubs his cheek on the lace, then wedges his fingers between your back and the mattress, to the clasp at your back with more hope than skill. The first try gets him nowhere. The second worse. He pulls away far enough to glare at your tits like they have personally insulted his family.

“Need help?” you ask.

He looks embarrassed for exactly one second. “Need a miracle.”

You laugh. Arch and bend and press your belly out and your arms briefly make it look like you’ve grown small wings. That is worse for him somehow, watching you undo your own bra for his benefit. When it loosens he sighs like he is the one being let out of it. He peels it away, lets it fall wherever, then just looks again. His hands come up and hover, huge and uncertain, before settling on your ribs. Warm. Shaking faintly.

“Still alright?” he asks.

“Yes.”

You find him. Guide him higher. The effect is immediate. Duncan’s breath leaves him in one stunned pull. Then, it’s roughness on skin. Palms large enough to divide equally, a tit per one. He holds you and smiles like an absolute goof.

“There,” you murmur. “That’s better.”

His mouth opens. Nothing useful comes of it. Which, really, fair.

You slide one hand down from his neck to the hem of his T-shirt, bunch it in your fist and tug. It lifts enough to show a strip of stomach, warm and furred and indecent in its ordinariness. A man’s body right there in your hands. “Can I take your shirt off, Dunk?”

That sobers him by half a shade. Makes his eyes search yours. “Yeah,” he says. Then, because permissions have to be balanced: “You can.”

You peel it up and over him. Duncan helps in the last second, ducking his head, pulling one arm free and then the other. The shirt lands somewhere by the mattress and suddenly there is too much of him at once. Chest broad enough to lay a proper grievance on. Shoulders built for carrying things that have no business being carried by one person. A scatter of pale freckles over the tops of them, which feels like information the public should not have access to. Hair dusting through the middle and down his stomach, where it disappears under the waistband of his jeans and leaves your mind to finish the route unsupervised.

“Oh, Jesus,” you say before deciding whether you mean to.

The colour in his face deepens. As you suspected, it bleeds down: stains that bloom like bruises sketch his neck and lower. “What?”

“Nothing,” you lie. Your hand goes out, palm to his chest, just to see. Warm. Slightly damp. Hard and alive under skin. His heart is going like a thing trapped. “You’re very…”

He watches you try to land it. Offers, “Big?” and somehow even that comes out apologetic.

“Hot,” you say, and the laugh that breaks out of him is so helpless it nearly kills you.

You kiss him to put him out of his misery. Or yourself. Or deepen it. Hard to say. His hands wake up after that. One stays on your breast, thumb dragging over the nipple until your back leaves the mattress. The other travels down your ribs, your waist, the notch of your hip, then lower still until he reaches the button of your jeans and stops there like someone brought up against a locked gate.

His forehead drops to yours. “Can I?”

“Yes.”

The button goes. The zip next. Duncan’s fingers slip below and the sound you make at the first pass of his knuckles is enough to make him shut his eyes. There’s no rush in it, just checking. He decides one yes about bottoms is probably enough, so instead of cramming a palm into denim, he hooks both hands over the waistband and slides your jeans down to your knees. You kick the rest off.

A quick examination of conscience later, Duncan realises he is the victim of the mysterious ways the universe works. One day he sees a girl in a corridor and thinks all the unhelpful thoughts about her. The next, he offers to help because he’s built like that. Now the same girl lies below him, naked as day, clearly wanting him back if he’s learnt anything at all about why girls get wet between the legs. This is the part he wasn’t prepared for. Pining over a face with no name to it is one kind of torture. Being desired is another, because desire asks something back.

He runs a hand the whole length of you, ankle to knee to thigh, until it lands there. The skin is damp, curls glossy, and when he squints hard enough through those goddamn stupid glasses he can see your muscles clenching, impatient. Impatient for him. Your hands get impatient too: they come for his buttons, shake there a little. He lets you fumble a bit, even allows one clumsy tug, until, inevitably, his trousers stay locked round his thighs.

“We in a hurry?” he asks.

“N-no, I just—” Your brows furrow; throat bobs. You inhale, then sigh out, “want you.”

His mouth pulls crooked with it, because the sweetness of being wanted hurts him a little. He comes down next to you, onto his side, one arm sliding under your neck so your head has somewhere proper to go. He kisses your temple once, warm and brief, then the corner of your eye.

“Soon, lass,” he says.

You only huff at that, offended on principle. The offence does not survive long. His hand drops between your legs and one finger presses inside with all the patience he has got, and your whole body gives a startled little jump.

“Oh—”

“Good oh?”

“Best fucking oh,” you say, and a cute smile blooms on him.

He works it slow, watching your face with such naked concentration it ought to count as indecent. The glasses are slipping again. He nudges them up with his shoulder, fails, gives up, so you help by plucking them off. His thumb finds the place above and your breath leaves you in strips. He swallows, looks faintly green around the gills with the effort of saying the next thing, then says it anyway.

“You got a condom?”

“N-no, but—” A sharper thrust of his thumb splits the thought clean in two. “Fuck—I’m on the pill.”

Something truly frightful must cross his face, because you rush to fix it.

“Nothing whorish, I promise. Just health reasons. I’m all alone like a country dunny otherwise.”

Duncan shuts his eyes for half a second and bows his head, not out of judgement but because the opposite has arrived too hard and fast. A blessing to him, that. A crime, otherwise. He gets half a mind to entertain the daftest thought alive—that maybe it was always meant to go this way. You, alone like a country dunny. Him, not much better.

Second finger joins the first. You make a sound into his throat and the silly thought dies happy.

He works you open by degrees so thoroughly you start wondering if there’s going to be a follow up to that condom question. Not that his fingers don’t feel good—the fucking do, almost too much. But from where you’re cradled you can see exactly the way his cock is jerking in his underwear, still framed by the fly of his jeans. Simultaneously you know he’s the kind of guy who’d close your trembling legs after you come, then cuddle into your neck until he softens, because this is not about him. So you try again.

“Duncan,” you breathe. “Enough, I—”

“You’ll need more than that for me,” he says. Abashed. I’m sorry that my cock’s too big to fuck you right away and there will be no quickies in our life kind of embarrassment. It’s unbearably sweet. Insanely hot. Blood pumps your cheeks plump and warm already, and then Duncan nearly ends you by saying, “Need to sort you out first.”

And it’s the first time in your life a man has told you his size might be a problem while making it sound like care came first and ego didn’t show up at all. He’s everything but swagger. Your heart does something daft and soft around the edges while the rest of you clenches hot around his fingers.

“Okay,” you say, cupping his face. “Okay, one more. Just—” A swallow. “Fair warning, I might come.”

It startles a grin out of him. Mean by his standards. Lovely by any other. “How’s that a bad thing?” he asks. Kisses you once, hard enough to shut you up for a second, then gives you that remedy for a cock-too-big problem of his and your vision bleaches.

God, you’re full. If girth blesses every part of him evenly, you may indeed be doomed. You would be already if he wasn’t this thoughtfully slow. You can feel in real time how your muscles adjust round him, then take a second to unclench when he withdraws to the first knuckle.

“You alright?” he asks, and his own voice tells on him. Tight. Thinned out with strain. You look so pretty it’s becoming unendurable. Hair dragged wrong, mouth open, eyes gone bright and glassy in a way that makes him so hard it’s difficult to think with any dignity.

Your nails dig into his nape. “I’m so good I’m gonna lose my mind in a second,” you breathe. A swallow. “Can you please take your pants off?”

He nods, nose brushing yours. “Alright,” he says. “If anything hurts, you tell me, yeah?”

Then he has to do the humiliating bit. First, he drags the shoes off his feet by pressing a sole to each heel. Then, shimmies out of the jeans, dragging the underwear down with them. Kicks that off too, and one leg catches, stubborn, round his ankle. By the time he joins you in nudity, he is red right up to the ears and flat on his back, camped next to you in all his difficult truth, cock heavy on his stomach.

Your eyes drop and your breath does an audible hiccup. You can feel his stare burning a hole through your forehead. He lies there tense, arms pinned to his sides like they are itching to cover himself up. God, what a waste that would be. It hits you then that he is boyish in random places so he can be an exaggeration of a man in others, and somehow all of that adds up to just a lad.

And since the opportunity has presented itself, you take it.

He is large enough that the head reaches near his navel, and yes, the girth is something to reckon with—but haven’t you just been worked open for this exact occasion? There is something insanely lovely about a man who would have half a locker room struck dumb standing for verdict, only to lie there with tension standing out in his forearms like he expects to be judged instead of wanted. He is not carved out of marble either, thank god. There is softness to him. Hair lies over his chest in an even, soft spread and trails down his stomach, which has the smallest give to it, a swell around the navel that looks made for a cheek to rest there. A vein runs the whole length of his cock, and with the pulse inside it he twitches, lifts off his stomach and falls back again. Heavy thing. Solid. Human. Entirely too much and, for that very reason, exactly right.

You put a palm on his arm. Murmur, “Come here,” and squeeze till he gets the message.

Duncan rolls back onto his side to face you, still halfway looking like he might apologise for the state of himself. You hook a thigh over his hip and pull him in until your groins meet. The contact draws a raw little grunt out of him. Good. Let him suffer a bit too. You kiss him—once, slow enough to make it stick, then again with your mouth smiling into his.

“I like you,” you whisper. His face does a helpless thing around the eyes. “Come on,” you say, nudging his nose with yours. “I’ll take it easy on you.”

“Will you?” he asks, while suffering internally. Both a promise of bliss and a difficult animal before him, he fists himself at the base and lines up. Your lips kiss the crown. Arms yoke his neck until noses flatten against each other. He can feel where your thigh, the meat of it, spills over his hip bone, quivers and settles heavier than he’d suspect it can. First inch, and he’s breathing hard. A bit more, and you join him.

“Shit,” you mutter. “Keep… keep going.”

He does, but so slowly it nearly stops counting as movement. Your body loses the line between pain and pleasure. There is excruciating sweetness in his hand. He manages to hold man’s favourite handle (your ass) while rubbing his thumb in compassionate strokes. Mouth hums and lashes tickle your cheek, eyes search for signs of sore that’s unwanted. The stretch he delivers burns, the opening is downright rude in its bluntness, but Duncan remains gentle, and that’s what turns this whole thing so total.

Underneath the turmoil, deeper, stranger, comes fullness that puts your musings about fingers to shame. There’s weight to it, length to it and, fundamentally, intent that makes your body waver between flinching from it or gathering it closer, so it tries both.

Duncan sees the whole war pass through your face and stops dead. “Too much?”

“N-no,” You breathe through it. Feel the wait in the whole of his frame. “Stay a minute. Just let me—”

He goes still at once. By force of patience, and by that old art he has been made to practise all his life and still has not mastered. A man built like Duncan does not get much leave to move through the world carelessly. People take one look at the size of him and hand him a part before he has opened his mouth: lift this, carry that, mind yourself, do not crowd, do not startle, be gentle. So he learns slowness. Learns to take the edge off himself before it reaches anyone else.

Now all of that gets spent on holding still while your cunt drags on the little of him already inside, hot and slick and so tight round the crown and upper body of his cock it feels like a clean seizure. He had let himself think of this in useless scraps. The sight of it. The permission of it. The prospect of being taken in where he has wanted to be since that first day. The actual feel is another beast entirely. The yielding comes by increments. The muscles take him, think better of it, grip again. Heat packs close enough to border on pain. If this much is enough to strip every spare thought out of his head, Duncan has no idea what shape he will be in when you let him deeper.

When your hips start making little lawless attempts at settling further onto him, he asks, “What’re you doing, hm?”

You huff at him. “Bouncing on it crazy-style, what does it look like?”

Insane, is what you are. He lets out a full snort, then another, and it all breaks into a boyish giggle. “Have I got a mad girl, then?”

“Yeah, I’m fully bonkers,” you grin. Sweat breaks on your forehead and it looks pretty. “Probably should’ve told you before—” The angle shifts, minutely. You sink deeper. Moan tears your mouth open and Duncan’s cock jerks inside you. “Oh fuck, it’s getting good. Oh, there—”

“There?”

“Yeah, right there,” you say, hugging him tighter and speaking into his mouth. “Oh God, you’re precious. You were right.” A swallow. “With that sorting-out thing.”

He kisses the corner of your mouth. “You tell me,” he says. “Tell me if I’m being a bastard.”

“Impossible,” you whisper. “No chance. Fuck, Duncan—”

One of your hands comes loose from his neck and slips between your bodies. You press it low on your belly first, just above where the softness gives way to strain, and when you sink carefully again you can feel it there if you mean to. A hard shape. Buried enough that the knowledge of it makes your face go hot all over.

“Christ,” you breathe.

Duncan’s brow pulls in. “What?”

You catch his wrist and drag his hand from your hip to your stomach. Flatten it there. Make him feel it. Then, because the thing asks to be proved twice, you rock down on him again and pin his palm in place.

“Look,” you say. “Look what you’re doing to me.”

There he is, a proof of blood under flesh—filling you so completely it overspills. His fingers flare over your stomach, press, and Duncan can touch his own cock through the membrane of skin. His mouth falls open. Red surges up his throat so fast you nearly laugh.

“Jesus,” he says, stunned. “Lass.”

You do it once more, slower, both of you feeling for it. “That’s me,” he says, dazed.

You nod against his cheek. “That’s you.”

His eyes shut. One beat. Two. Then he makes a sound into your mouth that is pure loss of it. His forehead presses to yours. “Girl,” he says, thumb twitching over your belly, “you keep doing that and I’ll be no use to either of us.”

“It’s your turn,” you say, wrapping your arm back where it belongs. Wrapping him all over with your limbs until he’s shackled and happy about it. “Fuck me. Please.”

“Okay,” Duncan says. Swallows. “Okay, just—can you tell me again? Please,” he says, hoping you’ll catch the meaning. That’s it’s not about smugness, but for a big bastard like him, needing to hear it twice before he believes someone truly wants him this bad.

“Come on, Dunk. Fuck me.” There’s a kiss on his forehead. “Nice and slow until you come, yeah?”

Before he knows it, he’s nodding like a daft thing, and his hips start moving. Gentle thrusts, deep, fat rolls of pelvis until a smile pulls your lips. “Just like that,” you tell him. “You’re doing so good. God, you feel good, fuck—”

“Take it easy on me, lass,” he breathes. “You promised.”

He holds you, or himself onto, the dip of your hip. Kisses you through it, badly at first because neither of you can keep the rhythm of your mouths and bodies straight, then better, then worse again when the feeling climbs. The heel of his palm presses on your stomach where he bulges you out and the fingers he keeps pointed down so they can brush you whenever you decide a twitch from your side is due. Crude little arrangement, but effective.

“Shit,” you grunt. “How you doing, hm?”

"Barely," he says. "You?"

The truth of it is written all over him. The tremor in his thigh and the way his breath snags. The slow loss of that thoughtful caution he has worn like a second skin all day. He is trying, still, to be good. It only makes the strain of it show more plainly.

"Close," you tell him, feeling your own spine prickling with it. "Fuck, so close. Will you come inside me?" 

His whole face changes around it. “Jesus, luv,” he says, nearly bitten off. Wedges his nose into your neck. Then, lower: “Yeah. God, yes.”

You can tell exactly how sore you are going to be tomorrow and expect your insides to have a different shape starting now. But your body has already made up its mind about him. It is learning him in real time and keeping the record. From the look of him, he would let himself be kept if asked, so you have a growing feeling that this must be the place. And then another thought comes, equal parts romantic and foul: that if he finished there, if he gave you all of it, the ache might turn kinder.

And Duncan, god—he's truly barely holding. He tries to think of neutral things but whenever his lids part your mouth is there, blurred and lovely, and you smell so good skin is about to melt off his cheeks. His balls ride up a notch, tense, and go hard with the strain in the sack, and the whole of his length burns so bright he feels it in his temples. It’s hard to keep his thigh from quivering and his hand from misbehaving. Fingers dig where he holds you and there’s a growing worry he’ll leave you with a palm-shaped bruise on your ass. He hopes you’ll forgive him.

“F-fuck,” you grit. “Duncan—”

You tighten like you mean to choke the soul out of him. Everything—arms, legs, cunt—seizes around him. The skin goes taut under his touch and you stare him dead in the eye from under eyelids so fuck-drunk he’s never been granted a sight like this in his life.

In this entanglement of trembling thighs and shoulders working so hard they seem knocked senseless, he feels it pulled out of him by force. Comes, and keeps coming, with his face pressed into yours, panting, and muttering yes, girl, yes, until his toes go cold and Duncan realises he’s way too long for your mattress and his feet kept touching the floor the whole time he’s been making love to you. 

He blinks and feels the resistance of skin against his eyelashes. Learns that he’s crushed you in a bear hug so tight your breath has gone shallow. His arms loosen. Face comes up to scan for damage and instead of asking if you’re alright, Duncan hears himself saying, “I’ve been half gone on you since the hallway.”

Your eyes are glassy. Your mouth does that helpless pull that’s a smile around something overwhelming. One that happens when people burst out laughing instead of crying.

“I hope I lived up to expectations,” you say. “Because I’ve been half gone on you since the post boxes and now I’m fully.”

“My girl,” Duncan says, swiping hair off your forehead and disbelieving his own boldness. “Are you my girl?”

You nod and hold your arms out for him. It does something quiet and final to his face. Duncan folds himself back down into you, gathers you up proper, then draws back just enough to look. His hand runs the line of your side, careful and searching.

“I didn’t hurt you?”

You shake your head. “No.” A laugh, weak and warm. “I’ve learnt a thing or two, though.”

That gets one out of him too. He ducks his head, grinning into your cheek, then lifts it again with some practical thought arriving behind the eyes. “Hold on a sec.”

You blink at him. “Why?”

He glances down at the mattress, the sheet, the general state of things. “Because that bed’s poor enough without me making a full show of it,” he says. “I don’t see another in here, so I’m trying to save you the mess.”

You do hold on. Arms and legs go round him at once, locking him in place so completely it startles a pleased little huff out of him. Duncan plants a palm behind him and gets to his feet with you wrapped round him. The lift goes through his whole body. A hard breath. A tightening in the jaw. One small adjustment of grip when your weight shifts. Then he is up, broad and warm and breathing a touch harder than before, and you are still exactly where you want to be.

Still, you ask, “I’m sorry, and what exactly are you going to do? Pull out over a bin?”

Duncan looks mildly offended. “You strike me as a lady,” he says. “I had the shower in mind. If you’ve one of those.”

You smile into his mouth. “I’m tempted to say no only to make you march us like this to your flat.”

He fixes his grip by hitching you once higher on him. There’s a small girlish yelp. His nose rubs along yours, playful and mean and soft and—

“Will you take it easy on me, lass?”

You nod with your face still tucked close to his. “Will you?”

He will, or lightning may as well strike him where he stands. Because Duncan is in love with his neighbour, and this one is not going anywhere.

Ashford Meadow had become a small city.

Colorful pavilions stretched across the field, banners snapping in the warm wind as horses stamped along the picket lines and squires hurried past with helms tucked under their arms. At the center of it all, the lists waited, freshly marked and already drawing crowds eager for the first tilts of the tourney.

You had slipped away not long ago.

Your family’s pavilion stood among the royal tents at Ashford, raised as soon as your party arrived—your father, Prince Baelor, insisting it was the most practical arrangement. Practical, however, also meant watchful servants and the quiet expectation that a princess ought never wander where no one could account for her.

Unfortunately for them, that had never been a rule you followed particularly well.

If anyone was to blame for your younger cousin’s wandering habits, it was probably you. Aegon had spent far too many afternoons in your company not to learn how easily one might slip out and disappear for a while.

You only hoped he and Daeron would arrive safely soon. They had not yet reached Ashford, and the tourney grounds felt strangely incomplete without them.

In the meantime, it was far too lively to remain indoors waiting.

You had chosen the simplest dress you owned before sneaking out—plain enough, if not quite so plain as you might have liked—to pass through the crowds without notice.

A light cloak hung over your shoulders, its hood pulled loosely over your head. You lacked the silver hair most expected of Targaryens, favoring your father’s darker coloring instead—though that alone was hardly enough to hide who you were from those who knew your face.

Still, the disguise served well enough. Most people paid you no mind, save for the occasional vendor who noticed you beneath the hood and offered a quiet nod or soft “Princess” before looking away.

You simply smiled and moved on.

For a while you wandered through the encampment, watching the bustle with open curiosity. The banners of great houses flew above the tents—lions, towers, apples, stags—bright cloth billowing over the crowd.

Soon your wandering carried you farther. The ground sloped gently toward the road that led away from the tourney field, where a narrow bridge crossed the shallow stream running along the edge of the grounds.

The bridge itself was busy, with travelers moving steadily back and forth between the town and the meadow.

That was when you noticed them.

The man himself was enormous. Even among the movement of the crowd he stood out—broad-shouldered and towering over anyone nearby, standing almost as tall as the horse at his side.

You slowed without quite meaning to, curiosity catching you there for a moment as you watched. 

He held a shield awkwardly against his arm while a small bald-headed boy beside him leaned in, tugging stubbornly at the leather fastenings. You could only see the back of the boy’s head, shaved smooth and pale in the sunlight as he leaned forward, over the knight’s arm.

“Hold still.” 

“I am holdin’ still!”

“You keep moving.”

“That’s because you keep pokin’ me.”

The boy gave one last tug, then straightened. He lingered for a brief moment with his back still turned before reaching for the mare’s reins.

“Well,” the boy said abruptly, “I should see to the horse.”

“What horse?” the knight asked.

“This one.”

Before the knight could protest, the boy was already leading the mare across the bridge.

“You just finished brushing her,” the knight called after him.

Within moments, both the boy and the mare had disappeared down the road beyond the bridge, leaving the tall knight standing alone at the edge of the tourney grounds.

You waited a moment longer, watching after them. Once the path was clear, you crossed the grass toward him.

He was still looking down the road when your shadow stretched across the ground before him.

At the movement, he turned and blinked, surprise flickering across his face at the unexpected sight of you.

Up close, he seemed even larger than he had from a distance—sun-tanned skin, rough hands, and earnest eyes that lingered for a moment on you before he gave a small, awkward nod. It occurred to you then that he was rather handsome, in a plain and honest sort of way.

“M’lady,” he said, dipping his head in greeting. “Beggin’ your pardon.”

The words seemed to leave a small pause between you, just long enough for your gaze to travel upward once more.

“You are very tall,” you said at last, rather abruptly.

A faint flush crept up his cheeks. “I get that a fair bit.”

“I imagine you do.”

For a moment, your eyes lingered on the worn armor strapped over him.

“You’re riding in the lists?”

“If they’ll have me,” he said. “Name’s Ser Duncan…the Tall.”

You echoed it softly, and a small laugh escaped you before you could stop it. 

He blinked at you.

“Somethin’ funny, my lady?”

You shook your head quickly, though the smile was still there.

“No, no. It is simply… very direct.”

“Direct?”

“Yes.” You tilted your head slightly, amusement lingering in your eyes. “Most knights seem to favour grander titles.”

He rubbed the back of his neck. 

“Well… it weren’t meant to be grand.”

“I gathered that.” Your smile widened just a little. “But I do appreciate the honesty of it. It’s accurate, at least.”

He looked faintly flustered by that and for a moment he only looked at you, as though uncertain whether he had been praised or gently made fun of.

“And you, my lady?” he asked after a beat. “Might I know your name?”

You gave him your first name and nothing more.

“Truly?”

You laughed softly. “It has been known to be true, yes.”

His ears went a little pink. “No, I only meant—” He stopped himself, seeming to realize he was only making it worse. “It’s just… someone mentioned it earlier. That’s the same name as the Targaryen princess.”

You only smiled. “Yes, I am aware.”

He looked at you as though he knew there was something in that answer he ought to understand, but before he could find hold of it, you tilted your head and went on lightly. “It is a very fine name. You need not look so stricken over it.”

That drew a crooked, embarrassed smile from him. Your gaze moved over him again, taking in the plainness of him, the worn tunic and the lack of any bright finery such as the other knights wore.

“You don’t look like the other knights here,” you said.

He gave a crooked half-smile. “That bad, is it?”

“Not bad…different.”

“Well… I reckon that’s about right.”

A small smile touched your lips. “I shall watch for you in the lists.”

“You will?”

“Perhaps. I do like to see how the stories turn out.”

“What stories?”

“The ones where princes and champions discover they are not the only ones worth watching.”

He blinked, clearly not expecting that. A faint flush crept up his neck as he tried—and failed—to think of something clever to say in return.

“Good luck, Ser Duncan the Tall.”

With that you turned, letting the movement of the tourney grounds carry you away again as you disappeared between the colorful tents.

Behind you, Dunk remained where you had left him, staring after you for far longer than he ought to have. The crowd moved around him, but he scarcely noticed. He looked plainly flustered now, a faint color still at his ears, as though the sight of you leaving had unsettled him more than your words had.

Eventually, he scrubbed a hand over the back of his neck, still looking toward the place where you had vanished.

“That was somethin’.”

Long after the cheers had faded and most of the folk had settled into drink and laughter, sleep refused to come.

The night air carried distant sounds of celebration, voices rising and falling, the faint strain of music, and the occasional burst of laughter drifting across the darkened field.

Near the center of the grounds, a small crowd had gathered around a puppet booth.

You lingered at the edge, half watching the painted puppets dance while the players recited some tale of Florian and Jonquil in voices grander than the figures themselves. Laughter moved through the crowd while a few children shrieked with delight whenever the wooden dragon appeared.

It was entertaining enough.

But not nearly as entertaining as the day had promised.

You had not seen him ride. In fact, you had not seen him anywhere all day.

Which was why the familiar shape standing a short distance away caught your attention at once.

He lingered near the edge of the crowd, his broad shoulders unmistakable even among the press of people, the firelight catching on the rough edges of his worn tunic.

He seemed wholly absorbed in the puppet show, gaze fixed on the little stage while laughter rose and fell around him.

Before you could think better of it, you stepped forward. He noticed you more quickly this time, turning at once, his brow furrowing before recognition settled across his face.

“M’lady?”

You stopped beside him, the faintest smile touching your mouth.

“Ser Duncan.”

“I was not expectin’ to see you again tonight,” he admitted, still sounding a little surprised.

“Should I take it you were hoping not to?”

“No, no that’s not— I only meant—”

He broke off, rubbing the back of his neck as he searched for a better way to put it. A small laugh slipped from you.

“I am only teasing you, Ser Duncan.”

That earned a short, sheepish huff of laughter from him, and some of the tension left his shoulders, though the color on his cheeks remained.

“I ain’t always the quickest with that sort of thing,” he muttered, glancing briefly toward the stage again.

“So I see,” you said with quiet amusement.

“What brings you out tonight?” he said after a moment.

“I was bored,” you said simply.

“It was entertaining for a time,” you added, nodding toward the tilts outside. “But not nearly as entertaining as the day had promised to be.”

His brow lifted slightly. “You mean the tourney?”

“I had hoped to see a certain knight ride today.”

“Well… there were plenty of them,” he said.

A quiet chuckle slipped from you at that.

“Yes,” you agreed. “There were.”

You let the words sit for a moment, studying him in the dim light.

“But I didn’t see you ride,” you said.

His expression shifted, the faintest hint of embarrassment touching his face.

“Well… you wouldn’t have.”

“No?”

“No.” He rubbed the back of his neck again. “They’ve got the tilts set by rank. Knights with banners and proper standing go first.”

“Ah. Yes, that’s right.” You had known that, of course, it simply hadn’t occurred to you earlier.

“And Ser Duncan the Tall?” you asked.

He gave a small shrug.

“Still waiting his turn, looks like.”

“What a shame.”

Your gaze drifted past him then, toward the lantern-lit press of tents and pavilions beyond the crowd.

“Are you thirsty, Ser Duncan?”

“Thirsty?”

“Yes.”

“I… suppose so.”

“Good,” you said, already turning toward the glow of the tents. “Come along.”

He hesitated.

“M’lady—”

You glanced back over your shoulder. “Do you often protest refreshments so solemnly?”

He looked caught between caution and confusion. “It’s only…ought I to be goin’ anywhere with you?”

That made your smile return. “To get wine from a tent across, Ser Duncan. Not across the Narrow Sea.”

The answer seemed to fluster him more than it should have. His eyes flicked once toward the crowd, then back to you.

“I did not mean—”

“I know you did not,” you said lightly. “Are you coming?”

“Well… I suppose one drink couldn’t hurt.”

You had led him easily through the movement of people until the stag banners of House Baratheon came into view.

Their pavilion was lively.

Laughter spilled from within, where a group of knights argued loudly over some point of honor that had clearly become less important with every cup of ale.

Ser Duncan slowed beside you, but before he could begin protesting again, you slipped through the pavilion’s open flap. Inside, the air smelled of roasted meat and spilled wine and ale. 

A passing squire paused long enough for you to take two cups of wine from the tray he carried. You handed one to Duncan who accepted it slowly, still looking faintly uncertain.

“You do this often?” he asked.

“Drink wine?”

“Walk into lords’ tents like you belong there.”

You took a small sip.

“Only when I do.”

That earned a quiet laugh from him.

One cup turned into a second, then a third. Another cup that neither of you quite remembered accepting as time slipped by in easy conversation and careless amusement.

You had him talking about the road and the places he had seen. Ser Duncan answered honestly, and the more you laughed at his stories, the more his earlier awkwardness began to fade.

When he tried to ask after you in return, you offered only vague replies just enough to satisfy him, and not nearly enough to reveal anything about yourself you did not mean to.

At some point you shed your cloak, the warmth inside making it unnecessary. Most of the people around you were far too occupied with drink and laughter to notice who you were without it anyways.

The same could not be said for the tall knight beside you.

He tried very hard not to stare when the cloak slipped from your shoulders, revealing the close fit of your dress beneath. Still, his eyes betrayed him more than once as the evening wore on, catching where the fabric followed the line of you before darting guiltily away. You did not seem to notice—or if you did, you gave no sign.

Before long, someone began playing a fiddle.

A few people cleared space between the tables, feet thumping against the ground as they dragged friends into the circle. Someone caught Duncan by the sleeve before he could refuse, and soon enough you found yourself pulled into the same lively chaos of spinning bodies and clumsy steps.

He looked horrified for all of two seconds.

Then he laughed.

The music swept you both along over the packed earth as voices rose all around. You spun once, nearly losing your balance before Duncan’s hand found your waist. The span of it seemed to cover an absurd amount of space there, broad enough to steady you in an instant. A startled grin broke across his face when you looked up at him.

“Careful,” he said.

“You’re the one who stepped on my foot.”

“That was not intentional.”

“You did it twice.”

The rest of the evening seemed to run together. More dancing. More drinks. 

Eventually, the air inside grew too warm. You stepped out through the flap into the cool night and paused there a moment, letting the breeze settle over you after the heat and noise behind you.

Behind you the canvas rustled, followed by a familiar voice. “I was beginning to think you’d escaped.”

You turned at the sound to find Ser Duncan stepping out after you, one hand still holding the edge of the tent. 

“What? You didn’t think I’d leave you to suffer alone, did you?”

He snorted softly. “Would’ve been a cruel fate, that.”

Candlelight from within caught him for a moment as he stepped out beside you before the flap fell closed again, leaving the two of you in the quieter dark.

He came to stand beside you then, close enough that his arm nearly brushed yours. When you looked up, you found him already smiling down at you—faint and easy in a way you had not seen before. After a moment his gaze drifted past you, lifting toward the night sky overhead.

The wine had left a pleasant warmth in your limbs, at odds with the cool breeze tugging lightly at your sleeve. For a moment you simply watched the stars overhead before speaking.

“You’re not what I expected,” you said quietly.

At that, Dunk turned his head to look at you, a slight frown touching his brow. “What were you expectin’?”

“I’m not sure.”

“That’s not much of an answer.”

“No,” you agreed, your voice light as you turned to him. “But I do know this.”

He waited, watching as you faced him, his attention now fixed wholly on you.

“You are not much like the others here.”

“The others?”

“The knights. Most of them spend half their time trying to sound grander than they are.”

“And me?”

“You don’t.” A small smile touched your mouth. “It’s rather refreshing.”

He only looked at you, uncertain what to say.

“Perhaps that is why I noticed you at all,” you added.

“Because I wasn’t talkin’?”

“Because you weren’t trying so hard.”

The corner of his mouth twitched. “That’s a generous way of sayin’ I’ve got no talent for showin’ off.”

“No,” you said softly.

You stepped a little closer, tilting your head back to meet his eyes.

“It is a generous way of saying I prefer you as you are.”

He didn’t answer right away. His breath caught, faint but visible, and something in his expression softened before caution settled over it again.

“M’lady,” he said carefully.

“Yes?”

“You’re standin’ very close.”

Your smile was small. “Am I?”

He nodded once, though his eyes had not left yours. “Aye.”

“And is that a problem?”

A quiet breath left him, almost a laugh. “It might be.”

“Why?”

His gaze dipped briefly to your mouth before lifting again. He hesitated, as though reaching for the safest answer and finding none.

“Does your family know you’re out here?” he asked instead.

“No.”

Dunk glanced back toward the lantern glow of the tents. “You should probably head back before they start lookin’.”

You tilted your head slightly. “Are you sending me away, Ser Duncan?”

“I’m tryin’ to do the right thing.”

You glanced up at him through your lashes, a small smile curving your lips, brow raised as if to challenge him to explain.

He rubbed the back of his neck. “Rememberin’ who I’m talkin’ to.”

“And who is that?”

“A noble lady,” he said simply. “And me… a hedge knight who ought to know better.”

Your voice softened. “So that’s all it is? Your better sense?”

“No.”

You held his gaze.

“Then what are you afraid of?”

He was quiet, the faint music from the pavilions drifting through the dark. When he finally spoke, his voice had gone lower.

“That I might forget my place.”

Something in that made your chest tighten.

“Perhaps,” you said, your hands lifting almost without thought to rest lightly against his chest, “you have been worrying over that all evening.”

He went still beneath your touch, breathing a little harder, his gaze fixed on your lips.

You leaned closer—slow enough that he could have pulled away.

He didn’t.

Then it happened all at once. His hand closed around your waist and he pulled you forward, kissing you before either of you could think better of it.

The kiss was brief and careful, almost hesitant, as though he still meant to stop himself. When he drew back, it was only far enough to search your face, his hand still warm at your waist.

“You’ve had wine.”

“A devastating observation, Ser Duncan.”

That drew a quiet chuckle from him despite himself.

“At this point,” he murmured, “you may call me Duncan. Or Dunk, if it please you.”

Then the amusement faded, and he looked at you more carefully.

“I mean it,” he said, quieter now. “Is your head clear enough for this?”

You held his gaze. The warmth of the wine still lingered pleasantly in your veins, but there was nothing uncertain in your thoughts.

“Yes.”

Your hand slipped from his chest to rest lightly at his waist, fingers curling against the fabric there.

“And you?” you asked softly. “Is your head clear enough, Dunk? Is this what you want?”

He drew a slow breath. His eyes dropped to your mouth for a moment before lifting again.

“Since this mornin’ I’ve wanted little else,” he said.

Your smile was small, but it undid him completely. His grip tightened at your waist, and when he kissed you again there was no care left in it, only heat.

Your fingers knotted in his tunic as his mouth worked over yours, teeth catching briefly at your lower lip before his tongue slid against yours, warm and insistent, touched by the faint taste of ale.

His hand slid lower, closing over the curve of your arse as he squeezed, pulling a breathless sound from you that vanished into his mouth. He groaned softly in answer when your fingers slipped into his hair, tugging him closer, and he drew you firmly against him.

The full length of him pressed close, stealing your breath as the kiss deepened, until the evidence of his arousal was impossible to mistake.

The world seemed to narrow until there was nothing left but the warmth of him. Then laughter rang out from the tent behind you, sharp enough to break the spell and drag you back to where you stood.

You pulled back just far enough to catch your breath, lips tingling and pulse racing, but Duncan scarcely let the distance form. His mouth found your jaw at once, then the side of your neck, leaving slow, heated kisses in its wake that made your breath hitch. 

When his teeth grazed the spot just beneath your ear, a shaky breath slipped from you. His hand slid higher, thumb brushing the underside of your breast through the fabric, and your knees nearly gave at the touch.

“Duncan,” you breathed.

He answered with a low hum against your skin and kissed lower, lingering at the base of your throat.

“We’re… out in the open,” you whispered, fingers threading into his short, sun-streaked hair. “Anyone could see.”

The words seemed to reach him slowly, dragging him back from whatever had overtaken him. He let out a low groan like the effort of stopping pained him, then went still, his breath warm against your neck as a soft sigh slipped out before he finally pulled away.

His pupils were blown wide in the dim light, mouth parted and expression rough with want, only barely wrestled back under control. Gone was the flustered knight who had stumbled over your teasing. What looked back at you now was all hunger, held in check only by the thinnest thread.

His gaze drifted past you, searching the dark between the tents as though weighing something. Then without a word, he caught your hand.

You let him lead you.

He moved quickly, leading you away from the brighter noble pavilions and around the backs of the smaller tents near the edge of the grounds, where the light thinned and the noise of the feast faded to a distant hum. Out there, the night felt closer, broken only by the soft stir of horses and faint music drifting on the wind.

Duncan stopped in a narrow gap between a supply wagon and a stack of casks tucked beneath a canvas awning. The wagon’s tailboard hung open, its worn wood faintly pale in the dark, and the space behind it lay deep in shadow—hidden from the lantern light of the nearby tents.

When he turned back to you, he looked no calmer than before. If anything, the short walk had only sharpened whatever had taken hold of him. Still, a brief, crooked smile touched his mouth at the sight of you waiting there.

“You are not so steady now,” you murmured.

His brow lifted slightly. “I was never steady.”

“You were trying very hard to be.”

He gave you a look that was almost pained. “You are enjoyin’ this far too much.”

“Perhaps.”

“Cruel thing.”

A quiet laugh slipped from you—cut short as he moved. One moment you were standing, the next his hand was at your waist, the other sliding beneath your thigh as he lifted you with startling ease and set you on the lowered tailboard of the wagon.

You barely had time to catch your breath before he stepped between your knees, broad and solid, close enough to steal the rest of your thoughts.

His mouth found yours again, slow at first, then deeper as his hands tightened around you. When he finally drew back, it was only far enough for his lips to brush the corner of your mouth before drifting along your jaw.

“This is no place for you,” Dunk muttered, his words rough and half-spent between kisses, the warning meant as much for himself as for you. “You ought to be in a proper bed…”

His mouth pressed briefly to your skin again.

“Not out here with me losin’ what little sense I’ve still got.”

You smiled against the brush of his mouth, fingers curling tighter into the rough weave of his tunic at his shoulders.

“Then perhaps,” you breathed, catching his lower lip gently between yours before speaking again, “you should stop trying to make sense of it.”

A low, unsteady sound escaped him, almost a laugh but roughened by the way he kissed you harder. His tongue brushed yours while the hand braced high against you tightened. The other slid lower, gathering your skirt in his fist and dragging it upward inch by inch, rough fingertips grazing the bare skin of your thigh.

“That’s poor counsel, m’lady,” he rasped against your mouth. “If I don’t stop now… I don’t know that I shall.”

His fingers slid higher beneath your skirt, tracing the sensitive skin along the inside of your thigh, pausing just short of where you ached for him to go.

“Tell me if I ought not,” he murmured right against your lips, barely breaking the contact.

You laughed softly, the sound swallowed by his next kiss.

“You ask that now?”

A flush climbed high on his cheeks, visible even in the dim lantern spill, though his hand stayed where it was—warm and possessive, trembling just enough to betray how hard he was holding himself in check.

“Aye,” he said, voice gravel-rough. “Now.”

You tipped your head, brushing your mouth over his once, twice, slow and teasing.

“No,” you whispered against the seam of his lips. “Do not stop.”

His breath left him in a rush. You eased yourself back across the open tailboard, drawing away just enough to shift farther onto the wagon. Dunk followed at once, climbing up after you, one hand catching the edge of the board before he leaned over you again.

As he settled above you, his free hand found the lacing at the front of your dress, thick fingers working the knot with surprising gentleness. The cord loosened with a soft hiss, and the fabric slipped from your shoulders to gather at your elbows, baring you to the night—and to him.

His mouth found your neck once more, lingering at your pulse long enough to steal your breath. The faint scrape of his stubble sent a shiver through you before he moved lower, following the line of your throat and collarbone until he reached the soft swell of your breast above the loosened neckline.

He kissed you there with parted lips, his mouth lingering as his breath warmed your skin, his tongue tracing the curve in a slow, deliberate stroke. The low sound he made against you sent a tremor through your ribs, your breath catching at the sensation.

Duncan drew in a rough breath, pausing only a moment as if steadying himself, before lowering his head again. This time his mouth closed over the sensitive peak, firmer, more certain. Your fingers slid into his hair and tugged him closer, urging him on.

He answered with a deeper pull, his tongue moving in slow, firm circles as his lips held fast.

A sharp jolt of pleasure shot down your spine, and your hips lifted instinctively, hooking around him as you drew him closer. The hard length of him pressed flush against you through his breeches and the thin barrier of your shift.

He groaned against your breast, the sound muffled as he sucked deeper. His hips rocked forward in answer, grinding that rigid heat along your core in a slow, heavy slide.

Without pause he shifted, his mouth finding your other breast with the same hungry care. The change drew a sharp arch from you, your back lifting off the sacks as a ragged sound slipped from your throat.

Then Duncan’s mouth left you with a slow, wet pop, the sudden loss of warmth sending a shiver through you. He pulled back just enough to ease the press of his hips against yours, and the absence of him drew a soft, needy whine from your throat before you could stop it.

“Easy, I’ve got you,” he murmured. One large hand settled on your thigh, his thumb brushing once in reassurance.

He began shifting lower, sliding down your body with careful strength. Broad shoulders rolled as he settled between your legs, hands finding the backs of your knees as he guided them gently over the wide span of his shoulders.

The motion raised your hips, and you gasped softly at the sudden shift, the cool night air brushing the damp linen between your legs before his warm breath chased it away. 

Duncan paused there. The tip of his nose grazed the soft skin of your inner thigh. He looked up once more, eyes dark and unguarded—raw hunger mixed with something close to reverence.

Then he dipped his head.

His mouth found you through the thin shift first. A slow, open-mouthed kiss pressed directly to your center. The fabric turned wetter beneath his tongue as he dragged one long, firm lick upward, tasting you even through the linen. A low groan rolled out of his chest and thrummed straight into you.

He hooked one finger under the hem of your shift, tugging it aside with careful slowness until bare skin met his lips. Your hips jerked up toward his mouth, a broken moan slipping past your lips. 

Then he kissed you there properly, warm and unhurried, tongue parting your cunt with gentle insistence. The first slow swirl sent pleasure flashing sharp and bright through you, your thighs tightening instinctively around his head, heels pressing into his broad back.

Duncan hummed softly in answer and set to work with hunger as his large hands held your thighs open and steady over his shoulders.

His mouth never faltered—tongue moving in slow, deliberate circles around your clit before sliding lower, tracing the slick seam of your entrance and gathering wetness before returning to that swollen bud with firmer pressure, lips sealing around it, sucking lightly in time with the slow lap of his tongue.

One of his hands slipped from your thigh, fingers trailing warm along the inside until they reached your core. He paused only long enough for his thumb to brush once where his tongue had been, before they lowered until his fingers found your entrance.

He pressed one thick finger inside you with aching slowness, letting the stretch bloom into pleasure before adding a second. His tongue never faltered as his fingers curled gently upward, searching until the pad brushed that sensitive place deep within.

Your hips jerked sharply upward, a broken cry spilling from your lips.

Duncan groaned low against your cunt at the sound, the rough vibration rolling straight through you and the noise seemed to unravel something inside you. Your fingers flew to his hair, burying themselves in the thick strands and gripping tight before giving it a sharp tug.

The action pulled another ragged sound from him, his shoulders shuddering as his groan deepened into something more desperate, muffled against your slick folds as the pull on his scalp sent pleasure arrowing down his spine.

The twin sensations built fast and sure, fingers sliding in and out with even rhythm, curling deeper each time to coax every shudder from you as your body began to shake.

You slowly felt the coil draw tight low in your belly, winding higher with every measured pump and every wet swirl over your heat. Your heels pressed into his broad back, thighs trembling around his ears, fingers knotting in his hair.

He sucked harder then, fingers driving faster, curling with exact precision against that spot until pleasure broke over you in sharp, pulsing waves. Your release crashed over you,  thighs clamping around his head as you cried out, back bowing off the grain sacks, every muscle pulled taut and quivering.

He stayed with you through it, tongue easing to soft laps, fingers slowing gradually until the final tremor passed and you melted boneless against the sacks. Only then did he slip his fingers free and press one last gentle kiss to your mound before lifting his head.

For a long moment neither of you spoke. The wagon creaked softly beneath you, and somewhere beyond the tents the distant hum of the tourney grounds drifted through the night.

Then the corner of his mouth tipped upward. A small, crooked smile appeared—almost sheepish, as though he still could not quite believe he was kneeling there before you like this.

You smiled back, soft and easy, before your gaze slipped lower.

His breeches were straining tight now, the thick line of him pressing so hard against the laces it looked almost unfair how much space he took up even there. You sat up and reached out without a second thought, fingers brushing the worn leather until they found the ties.

His gaze dropped to your hands as your fingers worked at the ties, rough and worn beneath your touch. The crooked smile faded into something quieter, more intent, the last trace of humor slipping from his face as he followed every small movement.

His shoulders rose and fell with a slow breath.

You worked the knot loose, then tugged the laces free one by one. The fabric parted as you eased it down just enough, and he sprang free, the sight of him stealing the breath from your lungs.

He was thick and long, flushed dark at the tip, veins standing proud along the shaft. Not shocking in the way that surprises, not truly, not when the rest of him towered so large and broad, but still the sight of it made your fingers curl instinctively around him, testing the heat and the solid weight. Your thumb traced a slow line up the underside, feeling him twitch in your grip.

Duncan let out a low groan, his head dipping for a heartbeat before his eyes found yours again. His hands stayed planted at his sides, knuckles whitening where they clenched into tight fists, every line of him drawn taut.

“Gods,” you whispered. “You are big everywhere.”

A faint, crooked smile tugged at his mouth despite the flush climbing higher along his neck. He watched as your hand closed more firmly around him, moving once from base to tip in a slow, testing stroke.

The touch drew a shudder from him. His hips jerked forward a fraction before he caught himself, breath leaving him rough and uneven. His eyes never left your face—dark and heavy, fixed on every flicker of your expression as you explored him.

“Forgive me, m’lady,” he said hoarsely. “But I can’t wait a second longer.”

Before the words had fully settled between you, his hands found your shoulders. He pressed you back with eager strength—not rough, but urgent enough that your back met the rough weave of the sacks in a soft rush of straw.

Surprise stole your breath for half a heartbeat, and then his mouth claimed yours again, fierce and deep, the kiss carrying the faint taste of yourself.

You opened beneath him at once, your hands sliding up to fist the soft strands at the back of his neck and pull him closer as a startled sound escaped into the kiss.

All at once he tore his mouth away, breath coming rough and uneven. He shifted his weight, one knee nudging your thighs wider as his hand moved between your bodies. His fingers closed around himself, guiding the thick head to your entrance. You felt the blunt pressure there—hot and insistent—parting your slick folds just enough to tease.

A smirk curved your lips despite the sudden rush of heat pooling low in your belly.

“Ser Duncan,” you began, voice low and teasing, “are you always so—”

He answered by pushing forward in one slow, steady thrust.

Your words died on a sharp gasp as he filled you, stretching you wide and deep in a single burning glide. Your back arched, fingers digging into his shoulders as he sank to the hilt and stilled there buried fully inside you, every thick inch of him pulsing against your inner walls.

Duncan let out a broken sound, forehead dropping to rest against yours. His arms trembled where they caged you, breath coming in harsh pants against your mouth. 

“Gods,” he rasped. “You feel… better than I dreamed.”

He did not move yet, giving you time to adjust to the overwhelming fullness, though the effort cost him visibly—muscles locked, jaw tight, eyes squeezed shut as though holding himself in place took every scrap of will he possessed.

The fullness of him stole every thought, leaving only the heavy throb where your bodies joined. You felt every ridge, every pulse, the way he stretched you to the edge of too much and yet exactly right. Your walls fluttered around him, drawing a fresh groan from deep in his chest.

Slowly, you rocked your hips, testing the stretch and coaxing him deeper still though he was already seated to the root. The small movement sent sparks racing up your spine.

Duncan’s eyes snapped open at the motion. The blue had gone near black with hunger as a low growl rumbled through him.

“If you keep that up I won’t last long,” he managed, voice rough.

You smiled through the haze of pleasure, your fingers sliding from his shoulders to thread into the damp hair at his nape.

“I want to feel you lose yourself,” you whispered against his mouth.

The words seemed to snap whatever last thread of restraint he held.

He drew back in a long, deliberate pull before driving forward, the motion pulling a sharp breath from you. Your body answered him too eagerly, hips lifting to meet him as your heels pressed into the small of his back.

Soft sounds slipped from your lips with each movement—encouragement he could not ignore.

​​His pace quickened. The wagon creaked with the motion, his face burying against your neck, breath growing harsher. One broad hand slid beneath your hip, lifting you slightly so each plunge struck deeper, harder, finding that place inside that made stars burst behind your eyelids.

You clutched at him, nails scoring lightly down his back through the linen, urging him on. “Dunk,” you breathed, the name a broken prayer. “Yes…like that.”

He answered with a rough thrust that jolted you both. His mouth found yours again, messy and desperate, swallowing the next cry that tore from your throat. The rhythm turned wilder, less controlled, the wet slide of him inside you echoing into the quiet night.

“Gods,” he growled against your mouth, voice raw and broken between harsh breaths. “So fuckin’ tight…”

Your walls spasmed hard around his thick length in helpless answer, gripping him so fiercely he hissed through clenched teeth. His hips snapped forward harder, punishing, relentless, the grain sacks shifting and rustling beneath you with violent force. 

The wagon groaned under the onslaught, wood creaking in protest as he fucked into you with hungry need. You clawed at his back, nails raking down through wool and linen, leaving stinging trails that only seemed to spur him on. 

He buried his face in the crook of your neck, teeth scraping over your pulse, then biting down—not enough to break skin, but enough to mark. A low, animal sound rumbled from his chest as he sucked hard at the tender spot, tongue laving the sting while his hips never slowed.

He snarled against your throat, hips pistoning faster, harder, the wet slap of skin on skin filling the air. One massive hand shoved under your arse, lifting you higher so he could pound into you at a brutal new angle. Each thrust ground the base of his cock against your pearl, sparks exploding behind your eyes until you could barely breathe.

Pleasure coiled vicious and tight, almost too much. Your body shook, thighs trembling violently around him, walls fluttering wildly as release barreled toward you.

“Duncan—fuck—I’m—”

He slammed in one last time, grinding deep, hips rolling in filthy circles that dragged every thick inch against your fluttering walls. His thumb found your clit again, pressing hard, rubbing fast and rough.

The world shattered.

Your release ripped through you in violent, pulsing waves. You screamed his name, back bowing off the sacks, nails gouging crescents into his shoulders as your cunt clamped down like a vise, milking him with desperate, rhythmic spasms. Tears pricked your eyes from the sheer force of it.

Dunk broke with a guttural roar. His hips jerked erratically, burying himself to the hilt as he came hard, flooding you with hot, thick spurts that seemed endless. His whole body shuddered violently, muscles locked and trembling as he ground against you through the aftershocks, wringing every last drop deep inside while low, wrecked groans spilled from his throat.

He collapsed over you, heavy and spent, his breath coming in slow, heavy pulls against your neck. For a long while neither of you moved. The wagon creaked softly beneath you while, somewhere beyond the tents, faint music and distant laughter drifted through the night air.

At last he lifted his head. His eyes were still dark, though softer now. Sweat had plastered strands of his hair to his brow. He brushed his thumb across your swollen lower lip and then pressed a slow kiss there.

“Gods forgive me,” he murmured hoarsely. “I meant to be gentler.”

You smiled, lazy and sated, fingers tracing the fresh red marks you’d left on his neck. “Don’t you dare apologize, ser. I wanted every brutal inch of you.”

His crooked grin returned. He kissed you again, slow and lingering, then pressed another soft kiss to your forehead and stayed there a moment longer.

Suddenly, a voice cut through the quiet.

“Ser Duncan?”

The call was young and uncertain, carrying from somewhere between the rows of pavilions.

Dunk went rigid over you. 

You both went still as the quiet rustle of canvas and footsteps moving through the grass reached your ears. Someone was weaving between the wagons and tents, drawing closer with each step.

“Sevens help me,” he breathed under his breath.

“Ser Duncan!” the voice called again, closer this time.

He pushed himself upright at once, running a hand through his hair before realizing exactly how disheveled it must look. His eyes flicked to you, wide with sudden panic.

You were already scrambling upright, dragging your dress back over your shoulders and fumbling with the loosened laces. Dunk turned halfway away out of instinct, hastily tugging his breeches back into order and retying the cords with clumsy fingers.

The footsteps came closer followed by another rustle of grass.

Dunk glanced once toward the edge of the wagon, then back at you, his eyes still wide with embarrassment and disbelief.

You were just finishing with the laces of your dress when approaching footsteps sounded beside the wagon, then came to a stop. A small head appeared over the edge first, dark eyes squinting into the dim light.

“There you are,” the boy said with clear relief. “I’ve been looking every—”

He broke off mid-sentence.

Dunk sat stiffly near the edge of the wagon, looking only slightly worse for wear, though his hair refused to settle no matter how many times he tried to smooth it.

For a moment, the boy only frowned at him—then something behind Dunk caught his eye.

You had pushed yourself upright on the tailboard, sitting a little straighter as you gathered the last of your composure.

The boy’s gaze shifted past Dunk, and his eyes widened.

You froze the instant you recognized him.

“Aegon?”

He blinked at you in disbelief. “…Cousin?”

Between you, Dunk slowly turned his head, confusion spreading across his face.

You lifted a hand to your hair, fingers catching in the thoroughly tangled strands, and winced slightly. “What in the Seven Hells happened to your hair?” you asked, squinting down at him.

Aegon’s mouth fell open. “What happened to my—” He stopped himself, staring up at you more closely as suspicion crept across his face. “What happened to your hair?”

“Wait,” Dunk cut in, raising a hand slightly. “Hold on a moment. You two know each other?”

Aegon blinked at him, but Dunk was already frowning, glancing between you again. “How do you know my squire?”

Your head snapped toward him. “Your squire?”

Dunk nodded slowly, still trying to piece it together.

You stared at Aegon, then back at Dunk, disbelief slipping into your voice. “Your squire is the son of Prince Maekar.”

Dunk’s brow furrowed. “Prince—”

Aegon folded his arms with a small, miserable sigh. “…Yes.”

You gestured toward him helplessly. “Aegon Targaryen. My cousin.”

Dunk went very still.

Slowly, almost mechanically, his head turned toward you.

Aegon followed his gaze with grim satisfaction. “And you,” he said, looking back at Dunk, “are currently with the Princess—”

You sighed softly.

“Daughter of Prince Baelor,” Aegon added. “You know… Hand of the King. Next in line to the throne.”

The color drained from Dunk’s face.

For a long moment, he said nothing.

Then he shut his eyes briefly.

The afternoon had carried the promise of a heavy rain in the air, and despite his enthusiasm for the massive elm in the clearing and the soft bed of grass and pale blue forget-me-nots you had found yourselves in - you had doubted the canopy’s breadth when it came to a true storm.

It’d taken a good portion of your afternoon, a fair amount of filthy arguing over the card table, and almost all of your stags , but it had all been worth it to see the look on his face right now. ”Oh,” You answer breezily, “Found it. Wasn’t wanted, something about a tear?”

Dunk smiles then - soft and bright as his fingers trace the seams, “Well that is lucky.”

“We can fix that,” He turns to the young boy, with his own matching needle, “Can’t we?

It’s only then that Egg’s eyes lift from the tent - smart creases still marked from a long journey, wrapped up tight in a chest. Thunder rumbling overhead, fat drops of rain slipping off the black and purple waxed canvas.

“Lucky.” The boy echoes, with a grin.

Yours matching it.

Luck indeed.

Your fingers twist the loaf of bread, later - breaking it first in two, and then three, in the torchlight. A cup of mead half-drunk, tucked between your boots on the seat of the bench and elbows digging into your thighs.

Hunger had nipped at you, after the length of time it had taken to set up the tent. Needing to source branches from the nearby forest for poles. It had not been a large thing - you are certain a squire will be tucked amongst the stables tonight for shelter - but it was enough for three bedrolls and a canopy to cover the fire pit.

But now, it sits like a stone in your stomach.

Egg joins you, weaving through the crowd. Perching by your side on the wooden table - still drawn to the puppets, though this is the second time you’ve seen the show.

For him, it must be at least the fourth.

The stories had seemed much more fun, before you’d noticed the way Dunk seemed to linger. Caught on the pretty Dornish puppeteer, and as much as it makes your heart ache - you couldn’t blame him.

She swirls on the stage, as Egg takes the portion you offer him - turning the loaf over twice before taking a too-large bite.

“He’s going to ask for her favor.” It’s mumbled out, around a mouthful of bread.

“So I’ve heard.” A sigh slips from you, as you try to rally, “They suit each other. Make a fine match.”

It’s easy to imagine how it would go. Mumbled, earnest words and a fine piece of teal silk fixed about his gorget on the morrow. He’d been lost without Ser Arlan, despite your efforts, and even youknew it was easier to fight when there was someone worth fighting for.

And how a heart might soften, under a kind smile and kinder words.

Egg’s face tips your way, nose scrunched and eyes narrowed.

“Well?” He drags the word out, “Aren’t you going to tell him?”

That catches your attention. You’d forget sometimes, how much the boy saw. Observations that even you sometimes missed, and opinions of someone far older and wiser.

But it doesn’t mean that you’re not clever on occasion, as well.

“Tell him what?”

Egg blinks up at you, brows raised.

“I’ve seen the way you look at him.” He says simply.

The stone in your stomach rolls.

“How’s that?”

His head dips towards the stage, knowing, “Like the way he looks at her.”

The tug of your lips is wry.

Of course, you’d been obvious. So used to Dunk not getting it - seeing you - that you’d become careless. Forgetting that someone’s eyes might find you, all while yours were long drawn somewhere else.

You still try to pivot - your brows rising this time.

“Aren’t you a little young to notice those things?” Egg’s frown is indignant, “I’m nine.”

A laugh slips from you, unbidden. Unable to help it, even as you sigh. If something were to happen, it would have been long ago.

You’d missed your chance, and as much as it ached - as much as you hated to lose - you wouldn’t stand in the way of his happiness.

Not after everything.

“No,” It’s almost wistful, “I’m not going to tell him.”

Silence lulls, swept up in the music and the bright stream of fire from the puppet. Even after two it still makes you jump, the heat wafting back through the rows.

Egg shifts beside you, as applause comes in waves from the crowd in front of you.

“Well, are you going to tell him about the tent?”

And again you glance down, tongue tucked between your teeth.

“And what would you know about that?”

You knew you hadn’t been followed. Slipping out while the other two dozed in the warm sunlight. Buying your way into one round of cards and then another. Finding patterns with a sharp mind and clever fingers, all while while those around you were lost to ale. Making sure you came out ahead no matter the cost, like you always did.

A tucked-away secret that had kept food on the table for months with Ser Arlan and Dunk.

“It had House Dondarrion colors,” Egg points out, helpfully, “Brand new, it was.”

You hum. A hand raising at the blue eyes that search for you in the crowd. Unable to help softening at the smile and the way he parts the crowd.

Sparing a quick, sideways glance at his squire, just before Dunk reaches you.

“I know you must have secrets of your own, little lord.” You murmur, the edges of your lips curving at the way Egg’s widen.

“Best you keep yours, and I’ll keep mine.”

Dawn pours over the horizon, inky indigo fading into grey.

The tent held true in the storm - the breadth of Duncan’s back blocking the brunt that slipped in through the front flap. Leaving you and Egg tucked away, warm in the back.

His eyes open to find yours, soon after you’d risen. Head lifting to peer behind you, as your head shakes.

“Practicing with Thunder.”

Even as careful as the boy was, you had still stirred at the shift of fabric and the cool, early-morning breeze, “Be a while, yet.”

They make a fine pair as well, in their own way. Equally earnest, Egg’s chin jutting out when you had caught him lifting lances in the clearing - as if daring you to stop him.

Another secret you were happy to keep.

Dunk hums. Shifting onto his back - the worn blanket dipping to expose the bare curve of a shoulder, a damp shirt shucked off in the night. You’re content to trace the contours of muscle in the quiet - to slip back into sleep - before he’s adding, “You think I can do it?”

A mark deepens between your brows, “Win the tournament?”

He could. You’re sure Dunk could do anything he set his heart to.

His expression changes, unease slipping into dread, “Seven hells. That too.”

You push yourself up on an elbow, missing the way his eyes snag on the loosened collar of your tunic - the shadow of curves beneath.

“Well, what do you mean?”

A hand scrubs over his face.

“I thought I’d-, I meant to-“ He tries, a frustrated groan muffled into a palm.

You’d always been able to read him.

“Tanselle.”

“Yeah.” Something like relief floods his features, “You… you think I should? Ask her?”

Those eyes find you - bright blue as a cloudless, summer afternoon. Bouncing back and forth between your own.

Your own slide away, fingers twisting in the foot of grass that separates you, “You going to run off with her, Dunk?”

“No.” His head shakes - emphatic, with his furrow of his brow, “I’d never leave you. And we’ve got Egg now. Just thought maybe if she wanted-, for a night, I mean.”

His eyes linger on you for a beat too long, almost of waiting desperately for something. A breath, before his head turns. Caught on the pale printed stars above.

“Just… don’t have much experience,” He admits, “Any, really. You know that.”

A long-held sigh released, “Ahh, probably make even more a fool of myself.”

Something glimmers like a jewel, hope perhaps, and you’re snatching it without thinking.

“I could show you.”

It slips from you, even as your heart grows to stone. You own favor, if he wishes so badly for another. Selfish and greedy, but you’d grown up scrounging to survive. Learned how to take anything you could get, even if you have been trying to do better lately.

Ironic that the man in front of you was the cause of that.

The mark between his brow eases, your eyes caught on the way Dunk’s tongue peeks between his lips to wet them.

“You’d do that for me?” It comes slowly, almost hopeful. ”Sure,” You breathe, “I mean, you’d owe me. Of course.”

You’d do - had done - anything for him. This would be everything and nothing, all at once.

“’Course.” He echoes, as if that made sense. As if you hadn’t dreamed about this, him, for ages.

A knight to you long before Ser Arlan bestowed it. Taking up far too much of your heart.

Shifting onto his side again, as you inch closer. Leaving your bedroll for his - his arm automatic in the way he lifts the blanket for you to slip under. Nights before spent the same to keep warm, yet none quite held the charge of this one.

Turning still as stone, as you settle against him. Chest rising and falling with the cadence of his breath, waiting for you to take the lead.

Eyes going half-lidded, and then closed, as he waits. A sharp breath as your hand slips along his jaw to angle him down - Gods, is he big - before your lips tilt to press carefully against his.

You have a handful of experience - stolen kisses and fumbling touches in the stables of King’s Landing, a handful of bawdy songs from the road - but you still don’t expect the groan that rumbles in his chest.

How he leans into you immediately - a hand slipping to curve against your hip, already bruising. How his lips part the second you add pressure, the way he melts as your fingers twist into his golden strands.

Another moan as your tongue dips out to lick into his mouth. How he eagerly follows, letting you taste him before he becomes bolder. Leaning into the growing hunger, tugging you closer as he deepens the kiss - each press of his lips less clumsy than the last.

Always was a fast learner, when it was something he found worth doing.

“Good.” You murmur, heat coiling in your belly, “Just like that.”

Embers coaxed into a fire, with way he fits against you. It has your heart pounding as you press your chest to his, then your hips. Rubbing yourself up against something thick and hard that presses into your belly, and there’s a desperate, wounded sound that slips from him.

You find yourself flat on your back a second later. A hand planted by your head as your thighs spread to make room for him. A startled gasp that he swallows, as he rocks down, his thick length rutting against your hip. Shifting until he rubs against your core, and a sweet sound pulls from your lungs.

“Feels so good.” It’s slurred out - rough and low, already drunk on you. Another press of his lips and a curse gritted out, when your legs hook around his hips.

The kiss breaking so your tongue can drag against the curve of his jaw. A shiver running down his spine as your nails bite into his shoulders.

He eclipses you. The painted stars blurred out by the breadth of his shoulders. The hand at your waist slipping up until they’re curved around your ribcage - hesitant.

“Can I-?“

The question sends a rush of relief. The small flicker of second-guessing slipping away with the way he groans when you nod. Tugging at the strings of your top when you move too slow for him. The sound turning ragged when the fabric pools away - a large palm curving around your breast, the peaked flesh pressed into his skin.

“Gods, you’re-.” Dunk’s hips jerk, his words rough against your skin, “Perfect. Just perfect-“

Your own hunger swells. Dripping and slick between your thighs, hips moving until he’s catching up - learning himself, matching your rhythm. His weight keeping you pinned against the bedroll and it’s bliss, your body moving on its own and his following.

Grinding, panting. His forehead pressing to yours, eyes bringing in the storm with the way they darken. Something winding tight inside you, your small clothes damp with your need.

“Is this good?” He husks, even as he’s ruining you. Mindless in the way his clothed cock nudges against your core. Grinding against your clit, as his mouth maps your throat.

Testing the edge of his teeth, before kissing the burn away.

“Yes,” You coo, “Can kiss me anywhere, Dunk. Anything you want.”

There’s a sharp exhale of breath, as he presses more kisses like you had. To your jaw, and then lower. Collarbone, shoulder. Propping himself on a forearm, shifting down until his lips drag against the curve of your breasts and the valley between.

Peppering kisses against soft skin, cataloging the places that make goosebumps rise.

Your moan is throaty and you feel the way his cock jerks, caught behind the thin fabric. How his hand bunches in the loosened fabric at your thigh, as if anchoring himself. Fingers flexing, unconscious of how they stroke against skin.

So close to where you ache, and it’s that deep throb that has you adding, “Can touch me, too. If you want.”

The heated look he gives you is the same as when you brought the tent to the camp. Like he can’t believe his luck, palm slow as he moves to cup between your thighs. To feel the heat of your core pressed snug against his palm.

Forgetting himself as his fingers slip beneath the loose cloth, the rough exhale of breath when he finds you slick and soaking.

“Is this for me?” There’s a hesitance to the way Dunk touches you. Slow and reverent, lingering at the spot that makes your hips jerk into his touch. Coming back to rub the tips of his fingers over it, again and again.

“Not a bad kisser.” It comes out breathless. It’s morethan that but it’s enough - his mouth finding yours again with the low huff of his laugh, eager to please. Letting your fingers drift down to map his. Pressing and circling until the movement feels familiar.

Your own fingers begin to wander. Over his chest and across the trail of golden hair that leads down. Finger curving around the thick press of him over his trousers, massive as he is - and it sends a shudder of thrill down your spine. His hips bucking into your touch, even as he hisses.

“Don’t.” He croaks, as your hand lifts. “I’d be done in a second.”

You want to see him finished. Want him a mess like you are, but perhaps he already is - the fabric damp and dark near the ties of his breeches.

All for you. You let yourself pretend, as he winds you higher and higher, until everything threats to break inside you.

The world narrows. The elm, the tent. Him.

“Oh Gods,” You pant, clinging to him, “Dunk, please-“

He’d stay here forever, if you asked. Rhythm stumbling with the way his hips move against yours, matching the press of his fingers. Catching up again when you whine, aching to hear his name on your lips again.

Bringing you to the edge as you curl into him, and then suddenly - tumbling over.

Stars burst behind your eyelids, your sounds bitten back and caught between clenched teeth. But he still hears the sigh he’s been desperate for, and the way you tremble in his arms - and then, he’s right there with you.

Face buried in the crook of your neck, a moan drawn out with the rut of his hips. Panting as his cock jerks, pressed snug against your thigh and spilling into his breeches - an arm curled around you, keeping you held close.

Your pulse thunders, as you cling to him. It was unlike anything you’d felt before, the way you fit beneath this mountain of a man so perfectly.

A low groan as he shifts, easing you both onto your sides - though neither of you make to part.

“She’ll be happy with that, I expect.” You’re first to break the silence. Stacking your walls neatly back into place, donning your own armor.

“Gods, I wish it were you I was learning this for.” It’s murmured out in reply - in the soft afterglow when words often slip, unbidden.

A heartbeat before he’s catching himself. Those blue eyes opening as his expression turns stricken, and your heart catches.

“What do you mean?” You breathe, “You do?”

But he’s never been one to lie to you. Not even now.

“Course I do.” It’s so quiet, you almost miss it. His eyes won’t meet yours, even this close.

“It’s just, well, some things you know you can’t have.” He tells the false stars above, “So you don’t even put your mind to it.”

You’re left staring at him, scarcely able to believe. Voice soft, when you can finally answer.

“You really are daft, sometimes.”

A hurt look crosses his features, but then you’re closing the space - lips pressing hard against his again, his palm molding you to his chest.

“I’ve wanted this for a long time. You.” It’s confessed, between stolen kisses, “Thought I couldn’t have you, either.”

His answer comes roughly.

“Always been yours.”

It’s like a weight has been lifted. That mark between his brow worn smooth. Those blue eyes growing stormy once more, when they sweep over you. Less than half-dressed and disheveled, and the look he gives you tells you he’s thought of a few more places he’d like to kiss.

“Maybe,” Dunk hedges, “Maybe there’s a little more you can show me. If you wanted to.”

The ache inside you has eased to something molten. Your answer something hushed, as you close the space again, “You’d still owe me.”

“’Course.”

You can feel the curve of his mouth against yours. A groan rumbled out with the sigh of his words, as he hauls you to straddle his hips. How they lift - seeking you out already.

“Anything for you.”

That afternoon, when Ser Duncan the Tall and his squire made for the tilt, everyone in the crowd could see the crown of woven forget-me-nots nestled against his brow.

You’ve seen the glint in his eyes when you snap at a servant after a particularly long day, when you roll your eyes when Daeron stumbles into dinner with all the grace of a drunkard, when you even go as far to tell him off.

You know your husband. You know he needs to release all the anger that is endlessly swimming behind his eyes, find reprieve from the constant pressures of court. The human expectations of a dragon.

“You are a dragon,” You hum, hands smoothing the wrinkles of his deep velvet tunic. You know just what to say to gain his silent approval. “you’re a Targaryen, a prince of the realm. You are no mere man, and a beast is not to tame.”

“Make your point.” He snaps lightly, hand reaching for his goblet. He is not angry yet, but his patience wanes quick.

You smile, fingers moving to massage him gently. He tenses, as if to overcompensate for how it disarms him.

“A dragon does not submit.” You affirm. You lean down slowly, thumb brushing the back of his neck. You place your lips close to his ear. “But a dragon is made to be ridden, my prince. ‘Tis what they are gloried for.”

His head tilts subconsciously towards where your breath fans his skin, his sharp jawline brushing your chin. You lean back a slight, your eyes meeting his own. He looks at you almost incredulously, but there’s an underlying curiosity behind his irises.

“The rider is the one who gathers the glory.” He argued. His voice is quieter now. “It is no small feat to ride a dragon.”

Your lips tilt higher. “A rider is nothing without her dragon. The glory is his.”

At that, his eyes flick back the hearth—watching the flames as they dance.

He hums in his chest, hesitant now to deny you. He’s considering it. Anything but a doubtless decline is a yes from your husband.

Victory greets you.

The sight before you is shameless.

You lips curve up into a satisfied smile, feeling accomplished in your pursuit. Your eyes don’t stray from Aerion’s face.

The expression he wears looks almost pained. His brows are pinched together, his violet eyes narrowed in concentration, bottom lip pulled so tight between his teeth that blood has spilled between the gaps. He looks furious — likely because he is. With you, with your hips that are relentless in how they grind down against his, pushing him deeper into your cunt with each movement. With himself, for allowing this to go as far as it has. For enjoying it.

He is trying to hide it, but you’ve adapted to have a keen eye for his body language. That way, you can always decipher his mood. And right now, it’s beyond doubt — Aerion is liking, no, loving this.

The chair creaks beneath the two of you as you push your hips down harder, and a grunt punches out of his chest, pale lashes fluttering. He tries to swallow the moan that follows. It rumbles in his throat.

He’s looking up at you like you’ve grown a second head. Disbelief and anger swirls behind his pupils, and his fingers tighten where they hold the flesh of your hips, nails digging in so deep that blood droplets emerge in their wake. You gasp at the feeling. He shudders.

You are his undoing. The only woman in the Seven Kingdoms who has ever, and will ever, have the privilege of seeing him like this. Vulnerable, weak, human. He briefly wonders whether you’re a sorceress sent to destroy him, manipulate his will until he is no more than a man.

Your cunt flutters around him, and he chokes, his thoughts interrupted. You breathe a laugh, finding his surrender thoroughly entertaining. Frustration flares inside him, wanting to regain control of the situation, of you, but he finds he can’t move so long as you keep dragging your cunt off of his cock, then dropping again. And again. And again. The white tuffs at his base are matted against his skin with the mix of yours and his arousals, and he feels utterly humiliated. Betrayed, even. You’ve gone against his wishes, vanquishing his dignity. He could have your head.

Instead, all he wants is more of your pussy.

“Do you like that?” You whisper, voice shaky and breaths coming harsh with the labour of riding him. Still, your lips are curled in an everlasting toothy grin, self-satisfied and almost mocking.

He doesn’t reply. His fingers momentarily tighten against you. His eyes clamp shut, as if to will away the sound of your choice—the twitching of his cock.

You won’t have that. Your hand that was settled at the base of his neck move to glide through his pale hair, fingers gently moving through the locks with reverence—enough to make him sigh with relief. Then, your fingertips tighten and meet in a fist, and you tug his head back, relishing the wince that crosses his features, and the flash of fury in his eyes as he glares up at you. Murderous. Needy. His throat catches on a sound closer to a whimper than a moan.

“Careful, wife.” He spits the word at you, brows furrowing and breath coming in ragged gasps. His tongue darts out to lick his lips. “You are.. riding a dragon, not some…” His words are lost to a strangled, unwilled noise when you tug again. He snarls at you. A true beast.

“Am I?” You fire back. Your voice is strained as you slow the pace, hips moving more sensually against his, silkily and smooth. He growls in his chest. He’s not used to the gentle wisp of gentleness, much preferring the blazing hard thrusts you were gracing him with earlier. You frown at him, feigning disappointment. “Good dragons obey their riders.”

His frown grows ever deeper. His breath catches. His lip curls into an angry grimace. “Is this not obeisance?” He snaps with self-disgust. His body tenses, offence flaring in his gut. “You are lucky to be-”

“I would be lucky to have a dragon worth claiming,” you snarl, tugging his head further back until the back of your hand digs into the cool wood of the chair. “It seems you’re not so much the dragon you style yourself to be, husband.”

The glint in his eyes grows murderous. His arms strain as if he considers throwing you off of him. Perhaps into the fire. Watching you burn, dead and still wet from his cock, ought to make the point.

He is a vessel for the ancient magic of his house. Fire and blood. It all courses through him as one.

His hand snaps from your hip to your arm, the one holding him by the hair, nails digging into your flesh as if to rip the bone itself from its place. He says nothing. The hardness of his breath as it heaves from his lungs are enough to convey his fury.

You stare back at him, ceasing your movements altogether. Despite the coolness of your glare, fear flares in your stomach, inevitably taking root. You’d taken it too far. Insipid, it was—allowing yourself to be roped into the moment, thinking him not as likely to be provoked in such an intimate setting. You swallow, anticipation consuming you, waiting for him to thrash you, throw you to the floor, perhaps even push you onto his dagger if he’s feeling angry enough.

The air between the two of you is electric, not just with the lingering need of desire, but now the unpredictable nature of his wrath. His eyes don’t stray from yours as his grip grows impossibly tighter around your arm. You try not to gasp.

You fail.

At the small sound that emits from your agape lips, triumph fills his gaze. His hips snap up against yours with such force that you’d nearly gone flying from the chair, if not for his free arm wrapping around the back of your waist. He rags you against him, your chest flush as against his, and he slams his lips against yours.

You kiss him with a fervour that rivals his, need erupting once again as his hips meet yours roughly, his cock hitting all the spots inside of you that make you see stars. The arm that’s wrapped around you shifts to your ass, and begins to manually move you back and forth against him.

It’s his silent way of approving—allowing you to claim him.

Your hips move again, with doubled vigour, and his lips break from yours to let out a groan. His lips remain open now, careless in the way that noises tumble from them.

His eyes stay on yours as you grind against him with all the elegance of a needy maiden, cunt growing impossibly more slick around him as you feel your peak become more imminent.

Aerion watches you with sick fascination. The hand that was gripping your arm moves to grab at your own hair, the way you’ve held his, and he sinks his own fingers in deep to mirror yours. The moan he lets out when you pull at his hair is guttural.

The sounds of his cock sinking in and out, and in and out, and in and out again are incredibly lewd—wet and loud, enough to make a whore blush. It twitches inside of you, and Aerion lets out a groan loud enough to rival the volume of the Laughing Storm himself.

The arm on your back slides around to your front, experienced fingers deftly finding your clit amongst the frenzy of your joined movements. He rubs your bundle of nerves in tight circles. The moan you let out is surely heard all the way to The Wall.

He grunts in response, brows pinching together as he twitches inside you again. And again. He’s close—and if not for how close you were, you’d relish in the fact that he’s reached the edge quicker than usual. Likely due to his buried need for a position such as this.

He snaps your name, and your eyes flick open to meet his. They’re glossy, slightly unfocused and pupils blown so wide his eyes appear almost black. His fingers tug at your hair again, before pulling you into him.

“Come.” He whispers against your ear, words harsh and breaths fanning your skin with such force it almost scalds your skin. “Now.”

You gasp, chest heaving for air as your cunt clamps down on him. Your forehead falls against his, eyes clenching shut as you surrender to the feeling of his tip meeting that spot inside of you over and over and over.

He moves, nose brushing your temple. His tongue darts out, licking your cheekbone, nipping your ear. “Come.” He repeats, voice becoming high-pitched and desperate.

And who are you, if not a dutiful wife?

Your orgasm hits you like a bull—vision practically abandoning you as you melt against him, hips growing uncoordinated and forced as your peak washes over you like a monsoon. Your eyes roll back into your skull as your cum coats his already soaked cock.

Over the ringing of your ears, you briefly hear the whine of your name that he garbles out. You can somewhat feel how his nails scratch at your scalp from where he digs them into your hair so deep. You definitely feel his cum spurting into you, filling you so thoroughly that it drips from your cunt and onto his thighs, and the poor chair that sounds as if it’s a second from collapse.

Your chests rise and fall together as you both catch your breath, both going limp in each other’s hold. Your hand leaves his damp hair, falling over the back of the chair. Your skin is wet, sweat gathering at your hairline, the hearth still ablaze behind you.

Your head shifts, nose nudging his cheek as your eyes flutter open. His are still closed, processing his position as his cock softens inside you. Utterly spent. Utterly yours.

Your gaze traces the rest of the room. They land on the grand bed a few paces behind him.

You smirk. His eyes open blearily to glare at you.

“How’d you like to be claimed on the bed?”

It’s not for a lack of trying. You’ve been on the apps, swiping left and right until the system embarrassingly tells you that it’s time to call it a day. You’ve been to singles parties when you have time, meeting more weirdos than not and making a beeline for the exit ten minutes into the event. You’ve even had many of your friends set you up with their friends, but it all ends the same. 

At some point, perhaps you have to admit that the problem lies with you. 

“It is with you. The problem, I mean,” Lois grumbles under her breath. 

You frown at her, displeased that you have to take accountability for your current predicament. The two of you are trudging side by side, you trying to scooch past aggressive fast-walkers and Lois elbowing anyone who gets in her way. 

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means the reason why you can’t seem to be interested in any of these men you are seeing is because you keep comparing everyone to Clark.”

Oh dear. Embarrassed is an understatement for how you feel every time yet another new person outs you for your crush. While Lois is long-time in-the-know, catching wind of it the moment you turned your googly-eyes on him over two years ago, many others have been quick to point out your obsession with the journalist. 

It’s getting to the point where you’re convinced the entire office knows.

“The entire office definitely knows,” Lois deadpans again. Are you saying all these things out loud? “Yes, you are. You wear your heart — and clearly your thoughts — on your sleeve, it’s a wonder you’ve been able to keep this from Clark for so long.”

Pressing your lips together, you shoulder your way through the rotating doors of The Daily Planet and grunt when it doesn’t budge as fast. Lois gives it a good shove on the other side of the glass door so that you can stumble your way through. 

“It’s not my fault,” you pout, “also, it can’t be the entire office that knows.”

Cue your conversation with Perry as he summons you straight into his office the moment you walk through the doors after a very nice lunch break. You give a little uh-oh to Lois who only shrugs, nudging you in that direction. 

Perry rotates the Rubik’s Cube on his desk. It seems like he hasn’t made much progress since you were last in here. He only toys around with it when he has a critical topic to discuss. You wonder if your benefits run to the end of the year if he fires you right before the holidays; maybe you can finally dub him the real-life Grinch. 

“You’re not firing me, are you?” You blurt out. “Because I don’t think I can handle being unemployed over Christmas. I still have to buy gifts for my little cousins, then I also have a couple of nieces and nephews. Gosh, not to mention my mom wants a new toaster oven for—”

“You’re not getting fired,” Perry interrupts with a resigned huff. He presses his fingertips against the pulsing vein on his forehead and you clamp your lips shut. “I have two questions for you. Well, the first one comes with plenty of follow-ups.”

“Shoot.”

Your name rolls off his tongue like a desperate plea. “How long is it that you’ve been working here?”

You do the mental math, counting backwards from this very day, this very minute. “Two years, five months… six days… and, I don’t know, like three hours? We started my first day pretty late because of the fire alarm, so it’s kind of hard to say—”

Perry’s hand in the air silences you. Your lips seal closed again. “And how long have you been in love with Clark Kent, one of our very own?”

A squeak escapes you as you count the hours again in your head. “Um, two years, five months, six days, and an hour and thirty minutes.”

“Thought so,” Perry says with yet another deep sigh. You swear he’s sprouted more white hair since you last saw him yesterday. The rate at which he is aging appears to correlate with the number of conversations he has with you. 

“Do you think everybody knows?”

“Yes.” No hesitation. The answer is quick.

“Do you think Clark knows?”

This one he pauses for, but he still responds, “Yes.”

“Well,” you begin again with a sigh. “This is quite troubling then, isn’t it?” Perry only looks at you exasperated. “Why are we discussing my love life — or lack thereof for that matter?”

“Because I need you to get a grip on it. Because I need both you and Kent to work on the senator’s stripper scandal. Draft by tonight. He has most of the research, but I trust you to be more delicate about the situation in the piece.”

You only manage to nod. Working with Clark. Working on a very important, very heavy piece for the Planet. Working until very late. Working just the two of you. You can do this. Sure, it’s not as if you haven’t worked with him before. It’s not as if you want to blurt out how much you love his crooked glasses or his curly hair or his big, beefy chest every time you see him. You just have to remind yourself to shut the hell up whenever that urge arises. 

“Are you still breathing?” Perry prompts warily.

“Barely,” you wheeze. 

“Well, you better start figuring that out soon. Better yet, invite that man out for a drink, he looks like he never lets loose. Since he’s the exclusive rep for Superman, he has been working nonstop. While you’re at it, you might as well tell him that you want to marry him and have lots of babies with him.”

Your jaw drops as you admonish Perry with heat crawling up your neck. “This has got to be an HR violation on so many levels, I’m going to have a talk with Mel about your nosiness.”

“Yeah, then we can talk about that year-end bonus.”

That promptly shuts you up. Another HR violation! You should keep a notebook on everything Perry’s doing against your career at this point. 

“Don’t even think about doing whatever the hell you’re concocting up in that head of yours.” 

“How do you know I want lots of babies?”

“You don’t want a lot of babies. You want a lot of babies with him.” 

All this time, have you laid all of your cards out on the table? Open for the world to see. It seems everyone has been reading you like a book today. You feel like a novel stripped bare of its cover, down to the spine. 

He’s not wrong per se. It’s not like you have a particular fondness towards children; heaven knows you have enough nieces and nephews to drain your savings every year. But thinking about Clark and how soft he is and how gentle, how he could be so, so good with children, has you thinking about all sorts of circumstances in which you and he could raise a whole pen of children. 

But first, you must create the child. In order to create the child, you must perform coitus. To perform coitus, your feelings must be reciprocated. Now, this is where it gets challenging — if you want your feelings reciprocated, you need to at least let him know of your feelings. 

And that’s something — after two years, five months, six days, and an hour and thirty-five minutes — you cannot even begin to imagine doing. 

Luckily, before you can spiral into your bottomless pit of despair, Perry waves you out the door as he returns his attention to the article he’s redlining. “Let Clark know. I want that on my desk by tonight.”

“Tonight? I thought you were joking,” you gasp, “that’s so—”

“Tomorrow is the holiday party, which means nobody will be productive in the office. I want that piece out in two days. Ergo, I need the first draft in my inbox by tonight. It doesn’t matter what time.”

“Can you like just go to sleep, please?” 

Perry gives you another pointed look, reminding you that he is in fact a demon that does not need a wink of sleep. He flicks his fingers towards the door like he’s tired of your presence at this point. You have no other choice but to skulk back to your desk with a deep, deep sigh. 

Apparently, it’s a deep enough sigh that Clark perks up from his desk and rolls out on his chair towards you. Clark doing this also attracts Lois and Jimmy’s attention. Great, now you have a full party.

While the latter two are only being nosy, wondering what on earth Perry wanted with you, Clark offers a look of genuine concern. The cute puckering of his brows, his ocean blue eyes tinged with a melancholy meant to sympathize with you, and a pout of his lips that makes you want to kiss him silly. 

He is in his grey suit today, the one that’s a little oversized even for him. You wonder if it’s a hand-me-down from his dad, because Clark would be the type to have a suit from his dad, even if he is adopted. He pushes his glasses up on his face as he looks at you in earnest.

When he stares at you like that, how are you supposed to not fall in love with him? How is it even possible to resist how adorable he looks when he’s so sweet and—

“So what did Perry want?” Lois’ voice drags you straight out of your dreamy haze, her eyes dancing with an obvious sort of mirth that indicates she knows exactly what you had been thinking about. 

“Uhm,” you begin, eyes flicking to Clark, “we need a draft to Perry on the senate strippers by tonight.”

“It was multiple strippers?” Jimmy asks.

“No, it was one senator and two strippers, I think,” Lois corrects, stroking her chin.

“You’re both wrong, it was a senator at the strip club with two and a half strippers,” Clark piles on. “But tonight? Really? We have three hours of daylight left.” 

You groan, dropping your head onto the desk with a loud thud, almost missing Jimmy’s question of what the hell is half a stripper. Clark had moved fast in your periphery but not fast enough because you feel the sting of that petulant act on your temple. When you pick up your head again, he’s leaning closer now, having risen to his feet in concern. 

His hands move around awkwardly, like he wants to reach out and check on you, but also refuses to cross any lines that could make you uncomfortable. It’s endearing and you can’t help but smile. You can hear Jimmy and Lois’ disgusted groans behind you, but it’s not the first time you’ve ignored them. 

​​“We should be fine. We’ll be fine,” Clark tries to reassure you, a soft smile on his face as he offers up a look of confidence. “It’ll take some time because we need to properly build out the timeline and piece together the interviews, but we should be able to get it done tonight.” He winces, shooting you an apologetic look, “We may need to stay a bit late to sort it all out, so I hope you don’t have any plans tonight?”

You’re about to respond that your calendar is free and open for the taking when it comes to him, the embarrassing words nearly spilling from your lips when Lois thankfully interrupts you. Though, jury is still out whether you should be grateful when she asks, “No hot date tonight?”

Her sharp eyes glimmer as she singsongs the question, each syllable laced with humor that only Jimmy seems to understand. She knows exactly what she’s doing. She knows you have no hot date tonight, nor have you had a hot date in a very long time, because your love life — currently missing, it’s been hiding from you since college — is in shambles. How can you have a hot date when the only hot date you want isn’t even aware that he is the only man that you want to hot date?

Your own gaze flicks over to Clark briefly. A look crosses his keen blue eyes, one that slips in and out too quickly for you to catch. “No, no hot date,” you say almost pitifully. Clark’s face melts just a little bit; the only reason you see it is because you have a tendency to notice everything when it comes to him. Just like you, he tends to wear his heart on his sleeve.

“And you better hope Superman isn’t needed tonight,” Lois notes as she pins Clark with a pointed look.

They share words without saying a thing. A conversation happening right before your eyes without a peep. You’ve always been a little jealous of their bond. They started this job before you did, locking in a couple of years of friendship under their belt before you even knew Clark Kent existed. Rumors say that they even gave the romance thing a go for a bit. It makes you envious that Lois has probably seen and experienced parts of Clark that aren’t even present anymore, parts you wish you had been there to witness firsthand.

Clark pushes his glasses up again, clearing his throat. “I’m sure there are other heroes who can handle any emergencies that come up.”

This time, it’s you who chimes in. “He has been quite busy, hasn’t he? Which means you have also been chasing him all around town. I don’t know how you manage to always catch him. Does Superman have a phone? If he doesn’t, maybe a Nokia, something indestructible.”

A snort escapes his lips. “That’s good advice. I’ll be sure to let him know next time I see him.”

Afterwards, the two of you hunker down at your desks for a while. You work off Clark’s for a bit as you build the timeline together and frame the storyline before you even begin to chip away at the article. He’s patient and gentle as you wring your fingers through your hair in frustration every time a piece doesn’t immediately fall into place. He coaxes you through the stress, kindly offers up solutions without mansplaining anything. The temptation to drop down to one knee and propose to him is extremely strong today.

By the time the giant clock announces that it’s officially seven, the office is deserted. Nobody here gets paid overtime, which means nobody is sticking around past five this close to the holidays. It’s only suckers like you and Clark who get roped into writing ground-breaking, media-stopping pieces a week before Christmas. When you look up from your screen, eyes a little blurry from staring too long at the screen, there is not a single soul left aside from you and Clark.

“This is brutal,” you mutter under your breath. “I’m sorry you got stuck with me on this.”

With a shake of his head, he offers a comforting smile. “Don’t be sorry. Plus, I’m happy that it’s you here with me.”

If you hear that loud thud, that’s the sound of your heart slipping past your insides to your feet. Now that simply isn’t fair. How is it possible that he could say something so sweet so casually? How can he say such sweet nothings with a curl flopping down on his face, his glasses slipping on the bridge of his nose again, and his cheeks flushed a pretty shade of pink?

Even worse, then he smiles and his dimples carve themselves into his cheeks and into your aching, bleeding heart on the ground.

“You’re a sweetheart,” you sigh dreamily.

Clark blushes an even deeper red and turns away to look at his computer, feigning business to avoid looking directly into your eyes. “Are you hungry? Should we grab some food before we continue?”

The two of you end up trekking to a burger joint down the street. A couple of greasy sandwiches, some well-seasoned fries, and the extra dose of caffeine and sugar from your sodas, and you’re both back in business. You’re a lot more peppy now that you have some food in you as you skip all the way back to the office. Clark trails behind you at a safe distance.

Metropolis a week away from Christmas is an absolute dream. Lights have been woven between the leaves and the branches, twinkling like stars within your reach. Storefronts are made festive with splashes of reds and greens with sprinklings of glitter and gold. Winter kisses your skin as you look up at the skyscrapers sparkling above you; the forlorn office workers stuck at their desks, the homebodies cozied up in bed, and all of those in between joined in the camaraderie of an evening days away from the greatest time of year.

These are the times that make you appreciate the city you live in. Barring the surprisingly frequent alien invasions and the occasional billionaire’s attempt to infiltrate foreign powers, the city is a wonderful place to be. It comes alive with its people, with everyone in high spirits, creating a community grounded in the spreading of holiday cheer.

Clark’s long legs allow him to catch up to the cloud you’re drifting on. “You seem much more chipper now,” he murmurs, unexpectedly close enough to your ear.

The proximity catches you off guard, your feet tripping over each other on the very flat sidewalk. Thankfully, Clark is there to save the day when his hand wraps around your bicep, swiftly steadying you. It’s almost dizzying how easy that was for him. How strong he is. You try to ignore the tingling between your legs at that new bit of information.

When you look up to thank him, you realize how close his face is. He seems to register this too and immediately stumbles backwards a little bit to give you some space. His eyes are blown wide in surprise, showcasing more of those green flecks in his blue irises. With his cheeks reddened — partly from the cold and partly from you, he whispers a quick apology.

“You saved me, why are you apologizing?” You poke his arm to show him how unserious you really are, despite the fact that your heartbeat has skyrocketed to astronomical levels. Your doctor’s going to want to have a serious conversation with you on your next annual about your blood pressure.

“I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable,” he says sweetly.

Just when you think you’re done falling more in love with him, he manages to prove you wrong. “You could never make me uncomfortable,” you honestly respond and he seems encouraged by that. “And to answer what you were saying earlier about my mood. I was just thinking, what a time to be alive. We may be miserable right now while Perry is probably at home with his family drinking hot cocoa, while we’re chugging root beer to stay alive, but at least we are getting things done. In a city like this, where we want to believe the good in people, we can be the change we want to see. People put a lot of trust in journalism to bring justice to those who need it. So, in spite of our current suffering, we’re at least doing something good. Something worthwhile. These are nights where I question whether this is really what I want to do with the rest of my life, but times like these also remind me why this job is part of the reason why I get out of bed every morning.”

You look up at him again when he doesn’t say anything for several beats and you find that he’s already looking at you, except his eyes have thawed into puddles of blue. Like a still lake amidst the chaos. Clark has always been beautiful, there’s no doubt about it, but something about the look of awe on his face has your heart stuttering against your ribcage.

“You have a lot of faith in the world, in people,” he says quietly. It’s a statement that presents itself as a question. Why do you have a lot of faith in the world?

“We have a lot of cynics around us, it’s nice to have some blissful ignorance around,” you smirk.

“Not ignorance, just… hopeful,” Clark corrects. “The world is in a tough place enough as it is, so it’s nice that you still hold onto some of that positivity.”

“Well, some of us have to,” you grin, nudging him with your shoulder.

The next two hours are spent pulling all the puzzle pieces together, working side by side, elbows bumping when you draw a little too close, sharing shy glances before you keep moving. Once you glue all the parts together, it’s practically a perfect picture ready to be delivered to Perry. The last period you type has you finally slumping back in your chair, sighing at this document and that blasted blinking line.

When you finally hit that send button, it feels like Christmas is officially back on. You’ve been released from the shackles of capitalism and justice — at least for the remainder of the night.

“Alright, I don’t want to spend another minute in this place. I think I’m starting to hear voices and it’s Perry’s, which is not a voice I want to be hearing at ten.” The echo of your boss’ words in your ear has you shuddering.

“It’s quite late. How are you getting home?” Clark frowns at the clock then at you as he slips the strap of his bag over his shoulder.

“I’m not too far. A fifteen-minute walk from here so I’ll just do that. That burger really did a number on me so some fresh air will do me some good.” Groaning, you give your stomach a little apologetic pat. The indigestion is already kicking in; grease is never a good combination with a whole lot of sitting down.

Clark’s forehead creases and you resist the urge to smooth it down with the pad of your thumb. “That’s not very safe. I can walk you back.”

That has you shaking your head aggressively. “No, no. Don’t even worry about it. The city is safe—” he raises an eyebrow, “—well, safer from your day-to-day crime. I can’t predict extraterrestrial attacks but statistically speaking, they hit more often in the afternoon, which is the perfect time for us to be sent home for safety by the way. Then you don’t have to worry about whether you should be coming back to the office. Whereas morning attacks are the worst! The least they can do is launch an invasion when I’m still at home, that way I can stay in bed.”

Clark blinks at you and that is when it sinks in how crazy you sound. Humiliation sprawls fast through your entire being, like a disease that swallows you whole. Instead of addressing whatever nonsense you just spewed, you tuck your work bag to your side.

Clearing your throat, you continue, “Anyways, it’s a short walk. I do it all the time, even at night, so I’ll be perfectly fine. Pinky promise.”

He looks far from convinced but he doesn’t say a word so you assume he relents. The two of you step out into the brisk outdoors, the wind whipping you straight in the face as you wave at him one last time and begin heading out in your direction.

It becomes apparent that Clark is not letting the matter go when he starts walking alongside you. Not behind you, not even trying to hide in plain sight. No, he is walking right next to you.

You stop on the side of the sidewalk and purse your lips. “Clark Kent.”

That was a mistake because then Clark lets your full name roll off his tongue in the same tone, except his voice is deeper, sexier, and he has a ridiculously handsome smile on his face that you just want to smooch.

Your cheeks feel warm despite the cold. “Please. I promise I’ll be fine. I’ll even message you when I’m back.”

“You’re not too far from where I live so we’re headed in the same direction.”

Narrowing your eyes at him, you shake your head. “First of all, you’re a horrible liar. Never try to lie again. Better yet, I’m never telling you my secrets because you’d give them away in an instant. Second of all, how would you know where I live, stalker?” You tease, giving him a firm jab to his chest.

His very firm chest. His very firm chest that doesn’t budge a bit even with the force of power you press into it.

You almost squeak out an oh no out loud, because you are in very big trouble with this new piece of evidence logged away into the Clark file in your head.

Clark steps forward, your finger turning into your palm flattening on his chest. Another oh no sits on the tip of your tongue when he smiles softly at you. His hand wraps around yours, the heat engulfing your cool skin.

“Let me do this for you,” he says and his voice is gentle, “it’s the least I could do.”

You hate to be an inconvenience but Clark isn’t looking at you like one, isn’t treating you like one. It’s incredibly sweet of him. It’s an incredibly Clark thing to do.

So you cave. Clark Kent isn’t someone you say no to. “Only if it’s not too much trouble then.”

“I don’t think it could ever be troublesome to keep you safe,” he says right back, doe eyes and cheeks flushed. You wonder how he can say such sweet things with a straight face, but you suppose it comes naturally to him. As easy as breathing.

He’s always the most helpful one around the office. Even when Steve is being a pain in the butt, he still helps him write his articles. Even when the mail room girls are only batting their eyelashes at Jimmy, he still helps them reach the highest shelves. Even when Lois is giving him — pardon your French — shit, he always takes it in stride.

The golden ray of sunshine in this otherwise very gloomy, very dreary office.

As you begin walking again, you try to keep him entertained, chattering away about all the nothing going on in your life. Clark doesn’t seem to mind; in fact, he seems intrigued. He asks you detailed questions, laughs at your poor attempts at humor, and validates you before you even ask whether he wants to hear all this.

When a comfortable silence settles in between you, Clark clears his throat, which piques your interest.

“So, uhm, are you still… dating?” He starts, the weight of awkwardness sitting on every word.

Your mouth dries. That was unexpected. Out of all the things you expect him to ask, your dating life certainly isn’t top of the list. You’re not entirely sure how you could even begin to formulate a response. On one hand, it’s worth stating that you are still dating to show some interest in him, hinting at the possibility if that is the direction he wants to take it in. On the other hand, the number of dates you have been on and failed to convert into a relationship is almost too embarrassing to say.

While you’re stuck in your mind on a simple yes or no question, Clark takes this as you being offended, so he quickly retracts. “Sorry, I don’t mean to pry. I know this is the sort of thing you probably talk about with Lois. You don’t have to answer. I don’t know—”

“Yes,” you blurt out, “I mean no. Yes, I am still dating. No, you’re not prying.”

“Oh.”

“It’s just— it’s complicated.”

Clark stares at you curiously. “Your relationship status is complicated?”

“No, no. I am very much single.” Well, put your foot in your mouth, why don’t you? What a sorry thing to say in that very moment. It’s not that you’re embarrassed that you’re single, it just sounds like you’re throwing yourself a little pity party that Clark never signed up to attend. “I mean, I am… not seeing anyone seriously at the moment. But I am… looking, I suppose. It just hasn’t been working out so well.”

“Why do you say that?”

Because of you. Because every single person I date cannot even begin to compare to you. Because when I go on dates, I sometimes see you in the background, at the same place, like you’re reminding me that I’m still in love with you, and I’m wasting my time with all these other people. Because you make me think that I have a chance with you.

“I suppose I’m a believer in love at first sight. Cheesy, I know. So when that doesn’t happen or it doesn’t work out, it can be discouraging.”

Clark’s lips form a circle in surprise. “Have you ever fallen in love at first sight?”

Your lips twitch into a ghost of a smile. “Yes, once.”

“How did that go?”

“I haven’t quite worked it out yet,” you respond vaguely, then quickly add, “and right now, I just haven’t found anyone else my type.”

Clark looks even more engaged now, pressing closer. “What’s your type?”

You, you almost say. “Haven’t found my type either,” you smoothly say.

“Oh,” he deflates, “well, I hope you find someone you like soon.”

You want to grab him and scream that you already have found him, and it is him. Instead, you say, “I don’t even know how to start with that.”

“Well, maybe you don’t have to look too far. Sometimes, what you’re looking for can be right in front of you.”

There is a ringing in your ears and you can’t tell if it’s in your mind anymore. His words swirl in your head, words rearranging themselves as if you’re trying to interpret another meaning from the combination of letters. It almost sounds like he’s— but it can’t be, because how could it be— there’s no way, right? Right? You must be hearing things.

By the time you reach your tiny townhouse, your brain has fizzled out into ashes. The adrenaline from the day has worn off and this conversation has exerted the last bit of your energy. Clearly, you need to get your body, ears, and head checked if you’re starting to think Clark Kent could even be remotely interested in you.

“Well, this is me,” you say weakly. “I hope your travel back home isn’t too far. I really hope I didn’t inconvenience you too much.”

“Not an inconvenience, trust me. I liked walking you home,” Clark simply says, a small smile playing on his lips. “We don’t get to chat as much like this in the office. Just the two of us, I mean.”

Drat, there’s that silly little thing again — hope. So you play it off with a smile. “That’s because our colleagues are incredibly nosy and Perry would have our butts if he sees us slacking off for too long, probably threaten our year-end bonus,” you sigh with a shake of your head.

“And we barely make enough,” Clark huffs a laugh.

“Tell me about it. Capitalism wins again,” you smile. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Clark. Thanks again for walking me home.”

“Thank you for the company. See you tomorrow.”

–

The great, big unfortunate thing about your teensy (read: massive) crush on Clark is that everyone knows. Everyone in the office is aware that you have heart eyes for the journalist across the room from you. It is apparent in the way the two of you always eat lunch together with everyone else. It is obvious in the way you choose to sit on his desk when you’re idling around and making conversation with everyone else.

Keeping that in mind, this crush of yours should be plain as day to the man of the hour himself. It can be debated, of course; perhaps Clark wouldn’t be as immodest as to consider that one of his colleagues is absolutely head over heels for him. However, assuming that Clark is aware — as previously stated by your dear old boss — and given the fact that he has not indicated in any way whatsoever that he is interested in pursuing something with you, there can only be one conclusion.

He’s just not that into you.

And that’s fine. Your heart can break into millions of shards, but it’s fine. Rejection is a part of life and you just have to suck it up and move on.

If your attraction is not something that Clark plans to reciprocate, you simply have to deal with it. He is free to like whoever he likes, even if it’s not you. He is free to be nice to whoever he wants to be nice to, which is apparently everyone. You’re not exactly remarkable for getting special treatment for Clark; if everyone gets special treatment, then is it really still special?

But that’s the thing about hope. Even if you don’t feed it, even if you don’t nurture it or turn to it, the slightest bit of light is all it takes to keep it going.

Like yesterday, for example. Clark’s words cling to your sleep-addled brain in the morning as you drift listlessly around your kitchen to prepare your first dose of caffeine. They stick with you even as you do your short journey into the office, passersby ramming into you in your befuddled state and you don’t even have it in you to care.

By the time you reach the office, you’ve fully convinced yourself that you were concocting the implication of his words. He was just being nice. He has never otherwise shown any interest in you, so why would he now?

The office is teeming with life. There’s a giddy buzzing in the air, like bees in a massive field of flowers. Even Lois is smiling — smiling! What a time to be alive. There are staff members beginning to put up decor on the walls, strips of garlands hanging from the ceilings, lights strung in patterns high above. While many newcomers were skeptical about hosting a holiday party where they work, more than a handful of you have seen the masterful craft of the event planners. They are experts in turning this dreary space into a holiday hurrah.

By the time it hits four, Perry is well aware that nobody is working anymore. Everyone’s already fussing about what to wear, when to get here, whether to pregame (they shouldn’t, it’s an open bar). You and Lois have agreed to go back to yours first to get ready, much to her vexation. She isn’t interested in dressing up but you convinced her that it’s the one time she gets to actually dress up and have fun. When else in her life would she be able to have a nice, drunk, adult prom?

You tell her the same schtick every year. It works every year. It really is the open bar that does it for her. Also, the opportunity to see her colleagues do the most embarrassing things that she can then bring up year-round until the next party, where she will replace those stories with new material.

You wind your scarf around your neck as Lois leans towards your desk, asking if you’re ready to go. Jimmy is twiddling his thumbs, trying to avoid making direct eye contact with the mailroom girls who keep giggling at him. Clark perks up when he sees the two of you stand.

“Are you leaving already?”

“We’re going to go get ready at mine,” you grin, “I’m going to put Lois in a dress.”

“You will not,” she huffs. “I let her think she is so she’ll drop it.”

You harrumph. “Bold of you to think you can resist my feminine wiles. I will get you in that dress.”

Clark chuckles softly at the two of you before shifting his gaze to you. “What will you be wearing?”

As you open your mouth, Lois wraps her arms around one of your own, which promptly shuts you up. “That will be a surprise. But I will say that I have seen the dress and I know she will look ravishing.”

The compliment has you looking sheepishly away. “I should be flattered that you have that much faith in me, but honestly, I’m too embarrassed to even look at you right now.”

“Oh, come on, don’t be shy. Clark, tell her.”

You see Clark jolt from the corner of your eye, his bright eyes shining in surprise. You can see more of the blue when his eyes open up like that. His lips fumble over the words as he tries to respond. “Right. Yes. Of course. I’m sure you will. Look ravishing that is.”

Lois is the worst. How are you supposed to act normal when Clark calls you ravishing? Or at least expects you to look it. Now the pressure is on.

“Alright, let’s get going before you pop a blood vessel,” Lois smirks. “We’ll see you both later!”

Thankfully, Lois manages to drag your frozen self out of there. You feel rude for not responding to Clark, but at the same time, how can you even begin to form words with your mouth when your tongue feels like lead inside it? Lois pokes fun at you the entire fifteen-minute walk home, which reminds you that you also last did this walk in this direction with Clark the previous night.

“Clark walked you home?”

You wince, “Yes. I insisted he didn’t have to but he was really thoughtful.”

“Yep, that’s Clark for you. Thoughtful. Completely selfless. Not a single bone in his body is doing things just because he really wants to do it for his own personal gain.”

“What are you on about?”

“Nothing. Shall we?”

Because Lois absolutely hates your classic Top 40 pop songs, you put that exact playlist on loop on full blast the entire time you’re primping yourself. This is the one time every year you allow yourself to put in a bit more time on yourself. Work is work, and it’s hard to care about your appearance when you’re about to overdose on caffeine, jump over walls, chase down bad guys, all for the sake of a story. You opt for some professionalism but ultimately comfort.

Tonight? Tonight, you choose pain because beauty is pain.

The swipe of your red lipstick, the dusting of your eyeshadow with some glimmer, the sharp strike of your eyeliner, the thickening and curling of your lashes. You even do your hair, which usually sits in a nest all year. When you look at the clock, you realize that you’ve perhaps spent a little too much time getting yourself ready.

“Shit, Lois—”

“Don’t worry, you know most people arrive fashionably late. Steve, less on the fashionable, more on the drunk.”

You groan as you eye your dress on the hanger. “Okay, let me just slip into this and we can get going.”

As you’re struggling to twist your arms at odd angles to figure out how to zip up your dress, Lois swoops in to save the day. Her fingers brush yours off as she drags the metal up until it reaches your lower back.

It’s a bold dress. One you never thought you would wear but one that had you falling in love the moment you set your eyes on it. So maybe you lied to Clark — you’ve fallen in love at first sight twice.

“If Clark doesn’t sweep you off your feet tonight, I can think of a dozen other people ready to do so,” Lois smiles, giving you the surge of confidence you need.

By the time you shove Lois into her own dress and spritz on your favorite perfume, the two of you are sufficiently an hour past the starting time. You hope Perry hasn’t done his annual speech yet; he may really fire you if you miss out on it. The taxi pulls up outside The Daily Planet and the two of you slip and squeeze past the throngs of people to get to the front door.

The venue is a wonder the second you step in. The ceilings twinkle with a smattering of lights and silvery strands that shimmer under the lights. A disco ball hangs up high, speckling the dance floor with shifting spotlights. The DJ has the crowd going with upbeat melodies, throwbacks to a better time. The bar is expectedly where most people are concentrated still waiting on their drinks. 

Your eyes immediately land on Clark who also finds you when you step through the doors. Your heart jumps to your throat at the sight of him. He looks devastatingly handsome with an actually fitted navy suit that brings out the blue in his eyes. Even from this distance, you can see those sapphire irises shine. His broad shoulders stretch out the velvet fabric and his fingers are delicate as he fixes his cuff links.

You thought the black suit last year was bad enough. You actually whimper with this one.

“Alright, before you turn into a pumpkin looking at Clark all night, let’s drop off our coats and go in.” Lois tugs you in the direction of coat check.

When the thick fabric slides off your shoulders, the cool air immediately engulfs your body. You give a little shiver as the air conditioning slides a breeze over your bare shoulders. Lois pulls you back towards the front and Clark’s eyes land on you again.

Only this time, you can see the smile wipe off his face, his mouth opening, and the heat of his gaze traveling over you.

You look like you’ve been poured into this stunning red dress. A ruby number that hugs your curves in all the right places. The sweetheart neckline emphasizes a delicious, yet still work-appropriate, amount of cleavage. While the dress falls all the way to your feet, nearly hiding your matching blood-red stilletos, you can feel the air kissing your spine where the dress is held together by thin strings going criss-cross over your exposed back.

Your heart is hammering against your chest as the two of you slip through the crowd to find Clark and Jimmy. When they’re in sight, you realize that Clark’s been staring at the two of you this entire time. His expression of pure shock has not moved; instead, it only deepens when you approach.

However, as you come near them, Cat steps in and wrangles the two of you into a hug. “Oh my god, you ladies look amazing. Lois, you in a dress. Stellar as always. You — my god — look at this dress.” She even twirls you around which makes you giggle.

You swear you hear someone inhale sharply behind you and, when you finally go full circle and see Clark again, he looks like he’s been struck by lightning.

As Cat slinks back into the crowd, Lois elbows you gently, smirking.

Clark opens his mouth but, before he can utter a word, Jimmy is clamping his hands around Lois’ arm. “Fuck, that girl — Jenny, Jessie — keeps following me around. Lois, come on. We need to escape to the dance floor before she comes back.”