#macyaudenstarr

Seeing no point in postponing the inevitable, Sansa walks totheir bed on quiet feet and sits down with a sigh. Until this moment she hadnot realized just how tired she is,her feet stiff and sore inside the pinched, tightly-laced shoes her Septainsisted are all the rage in the south. She has been so nervous today – so fullof nerves and pent-up energy – that she’s scarcely remembered to breathe allday, let alone reflect on how utterly exhausted she is.  

But now, finally awayfrom the prying eyes that have been on her since dawn and alone with her newhusband, Sansa lies back on the extravagant bed and stretches her weary limbs.An involuntary sigh slips out of her as she relaxes into the soft mattress.

“You can have half.”

They’re the firstwords Jon’s spoken in nearly half an hour, and he says them so quietly that atfirst Sansa’s not certain she’s heard him properly. 

She props herself upon her elbows and looks at him. He stands by the door to their chambers asthough rooted to the spot, his face slowly going the color of an underripetomato.

“I can have half ofwhat?” She raises a quizzical eyebrow at him.

Jon swallows audiblyand chances a glance at her. Their eyes meet, Jon’s face reddens further, andthen he looks away again, this time at an invisible spot of nothing just beyondher right shoulder. 

He coughs into hishand. “You can have half of the bed,” he clarifies.

At that, Sansa sitsup. “What are you talking about?” she asks, truly puzzled now. “Half ofthe bed? Do you mean to say we will not… um… that you do not wish to…” 

Her lady mother neverprepared her for the possibility that her new husband might not want to touchher tonight. Her stomach twists uncomfortably at the very idea.

Jon shakes his head vigorously, cutting her off. He looksutterly miserable. “It’s not that. It’s not that I don’t want to, Sansa. I just… I did not want to presume – Imean, not tonight, anyway.  And…”

Oh, seven hells. He's as nervous as I am. Maybe even more than I am, Sansa thinks to herself with somesurprise as Jon continues his nervous babble. She is glad, and not for thefirst time, that her Septa is not privy to the coarse language that sometimesgoes through her head when she is frustrated by a situation.

“Jon,” she says,loudly and firmly enough that it shuts him up. She stands up from the bed andapproaches him slowly, the way she once saw Arya approach a wounded andfrightened animal out in the godswood. 

She takes Jon’s facein both of her hands and presses a gentle kiss to his lips. Her new husband istrembling beneath her palms, but to Sansa’s relief he does not pull away fromthe kiss until she does.

“I will never force youto do anything you don’t want to do,” he says, so earnestly it breaks herheart.

Sansa steels hernerves, and, her mind made up, she nods, as much for her own benefit as forJon’s.

Wordlessly, Sansatakes Jon’s hands and places them over her breasts before covering them withher own hands. His fingers twitch a little, reflexively, against the fullnessof her curves, and his breath catches in his throat.

Emboldened by hisreaction to her body, and with her heart pounding in her ears, Sansa kisses himagain. Harder, this time.

“You won’t be forcingme,” she murmurs earnestly against his lips. The thrum of anticipation thatcourses through her when he leans forward at last and kisses her backmakes her feel drunk, and wild, and burning hot.  And she likes it. “Ipromise.”