#doubts

The restaurant is sophisticated enough, you decide, for the time being. Cream draperies lazily drawn against the overarching windows are giving the illusion of the space being bigger than it is actually. There are a cozy few tables around you, all clustered apart in intimate, small sections. There’s no invading scent of someone else’s food, not like the places you have been more used to inhabiting. It’s sophisticated, you decide. Cut out for this exact purpose. You’re bored out of your fucking life at this. Still, like a comically bad actress at an awful play, you act out your part.

You sit seemingly comfortably with your back carefully arched. You’ve made sure to sit at the side of the table where the sunlight would make an arch on your figure and the slope of your neck and shoulders and breasts would be purposefully graceful. You’re careful about this.

The man sitting in front of you—draped in expensive perfume and immaculately cut robes—is also careful. His clear green eyes are fixed on you and he’s smiling, almost. Not quite. You have never seen Tywald Lannister smile before. You doubt you’ll see it today.

“And there's the matter of…” He dwindles on the next word, you can tell that he’s doing it for the theatrics rather than hesitance. He doesn’t strike you as a man of hesitance. 

“Matter of what?”

He smiles politely. “Optics.”

“Optics?” you echo the word. Not altogether embarrassed, but not very comfortable either. “Because of my father's incarceration?”

“Because of your recent, very public affair with Valarr Targaryen.”

Your heart thumps obnoxiously loud against your ribcage. So loud, you’re sure Tywald has heard it. 

You knew it was coming, of course you did. And you have prepared yourself, stilted and thawed on the tall mirror of your bedroom. You aren’t supposed to make any unwarranted comment or expressions with the mention of this very obvious assault. In the mirror, your expression was aloof, even slightly amiable. But now you try your best to mask the surprise and smile carelessly.

“Not public.” Has he heard that your voice cracked? 

“Quite a few pieces in the social pages.”

Yes, articles. Speculations, insinuations. Pictures of you and Valarr eating ice-cream with him holding your hand in the middle of London. It’s a good picture at least, Valarr had said before throwing the newspaper in the fireplace. You nodded at the fire, watching the flames lick up the words too slow. The title, a question: The Heir's Heir… seriously? More on page five.

You hadn't gone to page five. Not right away.

“It wasn’t public,” you try again. “Not intentionally, anyway.”

“Well, it was quite serious, wouldn’t you say? He introduced you to his family.”

“It was six months ago. And it was a chance meeting at a charity event, not anything important.” Even as you lie, you can feel the hot shame grueling in your stomach. It was a company party, his coronation party. And you had been lurking in their periphery, unsure about everything and all of yourself, trying to look calmer than you felt, trying to let them see subtly that you weren’t just another social climber, like the gossip columns said. It was Valarr who—like all the other times—finally saved you. Come meet my family, he whispered in your ear before guiding you. The air changed when he introduced you, his mother’s blue eyes went still, painfully cautious.

You would still have convinced yourself that it was alright, that this is how all meetings go, if not for—

“Still. That’s a history.”

“Is this an issue? Should I leave? Because I can’t change my past with Valarr no matter how you may spin it.”

This changes something in him. His eyes darken. For the first time in the day, he looks intrigued.

“I heard he proposed.”

The people have suddenly stopped talking. Or is it your imagination? Hasn’t the world gone still, disastrously still, around you? This is the focus of all the gravity, your heart, beating frantically. This is the eye of the storm.

“He didn’t.”

“Oh,” he mumbles. “That’s a shame.”

You stare at your plate. The smell of the shrimp is making your stomach lurch. You gulp down your disgust.

“You want to order something else? You’ve hardly eaten anything.”

“No, I don’t—no.” You can’t think of opening your mouth in front of him—his greedy, entitled fucking eyes.

“You haven’t even had champagne.”

“I don’t want champagne.” Because this isn’t a celebration. This is survival, at best. This is a terrifying compromise.

“Do you want to see my apartment?”

You stare incredulously. “Don’t you think it’s a bit forward? It’s our first date.”

“It’s enough. I waited for this for a long, long time.”

You smile politely, as if it doesn’t bother you. You twirl the flower-shaped charm of your bracelet. “Why? Because I was with Valarr first?”

He smiles. “Why not? I like beautiful things. And any sane man would like to inspire jealousy to a man as precise and powerful as Valarr Targaryen. I am only honest about my intentions. I will show you a good time.” 

Somehow you can’t disagree with him. His arrogance, his disdain, his pride in his own cruelty. Ages ago, Valarr had warned you about men like him—men from his world. He said that Lannisters were hunters by nature and they hadn’t quite let go of their basest instincts. You smile instead of answering, letting the stale rejection hang in the air.

But it doesn’t bother him. It doesn’t make him stutter. He pretends that he hasn’t heard it at all.

“So how about we go back to my place? I have a great wine collection, we can talk some more. And if you’re willing to, we can…say”— he lowers his voice in a coarse, leering way—“rip this pretty dress off of you.”

And you don’t mean to say it, you don't. But the thought of it, him in his mansion, him with his entitled, leering eyes is enough to make you vomit. And the disgust for yourself, that you have allowed yourself to be in this position, is even greater. It makes your skin crawl.

Somehow, you lean in and say, with the steely calmness of a blade, “You know something? I’d rather slit my wrists than do that.”

An hour later, you arrive at Summerhall and you smell him in the living room before you see him. The charred up fireplace, sweet, cloying smell of old newspapers, cherry, musk and cigarettes. Mint. His perfume. You take a turn to the end of the hallway and you find Valarr Targaryen looking back from the sofa, staring at you in soft surprise. He’s bending over the sprawled out files on his living room floor. That’s how he likes to work, you know. That’s how he likes to solve things—dismantling everything and stitching up pieces in the proper place. You used to wonder aloud if he liked doing the same thing to you too.

“You’re already perfect,” he answered simply when you asked. “I just want to see every part of you.”

He stands up now. And perhaps too surprised at seeing you, he doesn’t say anything. And you don't let him ask the question. You walk over in a daze and kisses him hard.

He picks you up on cue. You feel gravity condense, for a moment, before you fall on the sofa. Your combined weight makes a blunt noise as you lean in and deepen the kiss, feeling his smile stretch broader and broader, until he’s chuckling. You whine, breathing into him, clinging to him, pressing open mouthed kisses by the side of his mouth, his jaw, and down down, feeling his pulsepoint under your lips. Valarr catches onto your desperation, of course he does, and leans down on the sofa, moves your legs so that you’re straddling him—having access to more of him. You spread your hands over his shoulder, greedily marking the dip of his elbows, his collarbones, the veins of his neck. His body is stunningly familiar—you can recognise it in darkness, sleeping, in drunkenness and sobriety. The heat of it, palpable and so inviting, twists something inside you, like so many times before. You break away from the daze and pulls at his t-shirt and Valarr complies, he pulls it over his head and discards it on the floor.

A sharp and demanding meow startles the both of them before you could lean back in. Valarr laughs—properly laughs, dimples drawn, the row of his brilliant teeth on full display—and looks over your shoulder. You are still dizzy in the head to spare a glance at your cat. But the cat jumps over the couch and nudges at you persistently, eyes scrunched in need. You drop your head on Valarr’s naked shoulder. He has his arms around to steady you.

“Not now,” you say, gravelly, to the white ragamuffin. “I love you, but beat it, Vhagar.”

"He missed you,” Valarr says, his voice deep and homely. He draws your face to him to look at you earnestly. His eyes, the mess of ocean blue and onyx, are shiny, incredible. “I missed you, too.”

“I stayed here two days ago.”

“Mhmm. Two days.” He kisses your jaw. The silver streak of his hair grazes your cheek. “Exactly.” He kisses the side of your ear, the tip of your nose—each one more lingering than the other. When he finally tugs at your bottom lip with his thumb, your breaths are settling—more or less. He smells like how he always does—mint and cigarettes. Home. And the constancy of it—of him—through all the fascinating and excruciating inconsistencies of you rattles your. 

“That’s a pretty dress.” His fingers trace the lavender silk on your shoulder. “You all dressed up for me?”

He says it nonchalantly enough, but you flush anyway. Something sharp and painful scratches at your chest. The thought of that damned restaurant makes your throat heavy like lead. The guilt makes you clutch him tighter.

“Yes,” you whisper. “For you. You can tear it off of me if you like.”

“Mhmm, no,” he hums, eyes on you. “I’d hate to ruin something so pretty.”

Your heart stutters. Beside you, Vhagar makes a piercing demand again, but you are too busy kissing Valarr again. Marking every stretch of naked skin with your lips—somehow the blinding guilt is making you lose your gravity. Your chest burns and you pull him closer, closer till tyoure’s no air between you, no space for secrets or lies. You grind on his length and the friction of his trousers on your panties is enough to make you gasp.

Valarr lets you do as you please, returns your kisses, sneaks his one hand down to press against your wet panties and you shiver to his touch. He doesn’t ask anything. You knew he wouldn’t—because you’re familiar to him too. Familiar like secrets and shadows, like moonlight. You are someone who comes and goes out of his life in the unholiest of hours. And he stays, always, he lets you breeze past and take what you need. 

“You’re stressed,” he mumbles. “Let me make you feel good.”

You nod and he pushes his fingers into your cunt. You moan shamelessly, arms circling his shoulder, palm digging into his hair. You grind on his hand as he pumps in and out of your, sending shots of electricity all over your. He moves up his other hand to squeeze your breast over your dress. Your ear is ringing, and through the rush of blood, you can just make out his gravelly encouragements. 

“Yes, good girl. My girl. Come.”

He presses his thumb on your clit and you do—you come almost silently. Your breath hitching and trembling, collapsing your weight over him. Bluntly, you feel a bead of sweat roll over from your hairline. Valarr is staring at you with familiar wide eyes, pupils dilated so much it almost covers his entire eyes. A little breathless, too, like you. You shiver when he pulls out his fingers from your cunt and puts the whole glistening digits inside his mouth. You stare lazily as he licks it all up. 

It takes you a while to get down from your high and ask him to take you up to his bedroom. And when you do, the smile that makes your heart squeeze desperately tight lights up his face. The thought comes to your mind again, for the thousandth time, unbidden, irrevocable. You love him—everything about him. His desire and his smile and his hands. His eyes, the separate colours. That deep, dark onyx and irreplaceable blue in him. His heart. His heart.

How can you ever let go of him?

Hmmm any guesses as to why the reader is acting so desperately?? :)))

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