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The first thing Sansa registered as she shrugged off the trappings of sleep was unexpected warmth. Even at the best of times, brief as they had been, Joffrey was never inclined to actually share a bed unless they were in the act of fucking, pushing her away soon after, and in her prior experiences she had never had the luxury of resting with a bedmate. The sensation of a body wrapped around her was then entirely new. The arm flung across her hip was unfamiliar, and it took a few moments before the dark forms twisting over it made sense, coalescing into the patterns she recognized from the night before.
She’d been surprised at the amount of ink she’d uncovered taking off his shirt, the arcane shapes wrapping around shoulders and most of his upper and lower arms to just short of where they’d be visible if he rolled his sleeves up. Then again, it explained why she’d never seen him in anything less than a long sleeved shirt, buttoned nearly all the way, almost always accompanied by a jacket, even in the most obnoxious heat. The fancy suits helped form the façade of respectable businessman, concealing the evidence of an undoubtedly misspent youth written clear across pale canvas. The more she learned of him, the more likely it seemed that the tattoos were just another layer he wore to conceal, masks beneath masks. His chest, by contrast, was mostly bare; the long, thick scar burrowing through skin remained the focal point of the lightly muscled flesh scattered with hair that made up his torso and abdomen. She wasn’t sure if it represented more of who he really was, or less. It had made the act of undressing before him easier, though, knowing her partner had imperfections to match her own. The bruises in stages of yellow and blue were less permanent marks than his, but somehow more damning, the few scars scattered between them from when her supposed love had gotten careless almost buried beneath them. If he had minded, he hid it well beneath lust. The rough brogue that tickled her ear and travelled lower when he’d whispered all the profane things he’d wanted to do to her, with her, was so different to the neutral, deferential tone she’d heard him employ for others, seeming more true to his humble origins, but again, she didn’t know if either or none were really him. She surprised herself with how much she wanted to figure it out.
This had been a mistake, a glorious one, but not worth the price she may yet pay. She’d expected the sex to be good, considering his reputation, but what she hadn’t anticipated was the intensity of it, of him. He’d gone after her like a man dying of thirst in a desert, eagerly touching and tasting every inch of her body as if he were committing it to memory. He hardly seemed to blink when he was inside her, and the unrelenting eye contact was a heady mixture of unnerving and arousing. She felt sore in places she’d never even considered before, and as she moved her limbs she felt burns on her thighs that mystified her before deducing their source, remembering the way his moustache and beard had felt against her sensitive skin as he’d devoured her. Absurdly, a quip she’d heard Margaery issue at a party popped into her head—no man with that facial hair ever had good intentions. His had been as dark and sinful as she’d expected, having felt his eyes burning over her body for some time now, most often at his club when she accompanied Joffrey with his horrible entourage. They hadn’t spoken often, but he’d been nothing if not polite and solicitous on those few occasions; he’d actually seemed interested in what she had to say, a rarity for the crowd she found herself mired in. She’d wondered if anyone else noticed when the singular focus of his attention on her tipped over into inappropriate, as she felt it even from across a crowded bar. Tonight had been the first time she’d taken him up on the unspoken invitation, seeing the chance to break free from her malicious keepers, slipping away when Joffrey picked yet another asinine fight over a girl that was not his fiancé.
She had taken something for herself, but now she had to figure out how to not pay for it in blood, her own, or that which meant more to her. Her dorm would be the first place Joffrey’s men looked. She might be able to call a cab get to her parents’ house in the city, as her father was likely still embroiled in the investigation he’d told her about yesterday, and her mother had gone up to Winterfell with her younger brothers. Arya would likely be home but asleep, as it was late even for her wanderings. There would be questions she couldn’t answer in the morning though. She could attempt to sneak back into the Lannister compound, as Cersei would be well into her cups at this time of night, and likely not rise until quite late in the morning. She might have called Tyrion for help if she hadn’t been sure he’d be as pissed or hungover as Cersei, as he was still trying to seek new depths of oblivion since his recent breakup with Shae. Joffrey would hopefully still be occupied with the slut he’d been parading around in front of her. She couldn’t account for her deliberate escape from the body guards, however. She tried to think who would be taking the morning shift; if it was the younger Clegane, he’d cover for her. He seemed to have a soft spot for her which she was very willing to exploit. Either way, she couldn’t be found here, with him. She reached for her cell phone in the pile of clothing on the floor beside the bed, or tried to.
“Where are you going?” A voice rumbled into her ear.
She’d been so worried about the logistics of her getaway that she hadn’t noticed the arms around her tightening, pulling her back to the man behind her, hands wandering to her breasts and between her legs. She turned to meet the sharp gaze of Petyr Baelish, smirk already in place. Despite ruffled graying hair, he was entirely too composed for anyone to be at four in the morning, and it didn’t look like he’d slept at all. She must’ve said it aloud, for his smirk deepened.
“How could I waste time sleeping with you here?” He pressed a growing erection into her backside, fingers curling to find the places that had made her shatter beneath him only hours before.
“Were you watching me sleep?” She brushed a finger over the chessboard wrapping around his bicep, imagining she could push the black knight perched there along its allotted spaces toward the fallen white king before it.
“Yes,” he freely admitted, unrepentant.
The prospect wasn’t as unsettling as it should have been, but she wasn’t going to let it go unremarked. “Nobody ever told you it’s creepy?”
She felt more than saw him shrug. “I haven’t watched anyone sleep before. Though if it bothers you that much, I’ll be sure to ask for permission next time.”
She doubted this man had ever sincerely sought permission for anything in his life, or respected boundaries enough to comply. She let the presumption that there would be a next time slide for the moment. “I have to go. Joffrey can’t find me here.”
His arms tightened more, if anything. “He won’t be conscious for hours yet, much less lucid.”
She could feel the smugness in his voice, and it irked her. It was far too late (or was it early?) for the games he liked to play. “What are you talking about?”
“The girl I sent to him will make sure of that.”
So she was vindicated in thinking the woman a whore. She took the small victories where she could. Still, it only solved half her problem. “His bodyguards—”
“All the dogs that followed you tonight were mine as well.” The palpable self-satisfaction in his voice and body reached new heights, and she found herself quicken to an anger she wasn’t expecting.
She turned, pushing him away to stare incredulously at him. “You planned this.”
“Of course,” he admitted lazily, thumbs pressing persistent circles into her hips, seeming content to submit to an interrogation as long as he could still touch her.
“Why?” She wasn’t sure why his manipulations bothered her so much; perhaps it seemed to cheapen the risk she had taken for her rebellion to claim a small bit of freedom.
“Isn’t it obvious? I want you.” He pressed his mouth to hers, retreating when she didn’t respond beneath it. The supercilious sneer he always wore broke for the first time as he huffed in annoyance, brow furrowed and lips in a thin line. “Had I but known your preference for foolhardy spontaneity over careful planning I’d have changed tactics and just taken you over the bar. It would have been considerably shorter and a great deal messier, though.”
The nonchalant attitude he currently displayed was a sharp contrast to the care he’d clearly invested in arranging their illicit meeting. His words suggested an interest in continuing an affair that was likely to get them both killed, and his dismissal of the danger it represented as irrelevant confused her. “But you work for them.”
Seeing her distraction, he took the opportunity to roll on his back, pulling her atop to straddle him with an ease that his slender frame belied. “I work for myself alone. Occasionally it coincides with what they believe to be their interests.”
She had trouble believing he would risk his position in the operation, not to mention his life, just to get off with the tarnished leavings of the lord mayor’s wretched spawn, and told him so.
He laughed. “You sell yourself short, my girl. Or is it concern for young Baratheon and his family’s prospects? Do you care for your intended that much?” His voiced mocked her as he kept one hand at her hip, the other rose slowly up her abdomen to cup a breast. She felt her rage flare again; doubling with the knowledge that she’d given him the response he’d sought.
“Do you think I haven’t wanted to kill him? I’ve been so tempted, every night I think about twisting that goddamn knife he plays with straight into his eye socket, but I can’t. Not unless I want to see my family tortured and slaughtered in front of me. They own everything and everyone.” She’d never been this open in her life, and it scared her shitless, but she couldn’t seem to bury it any longer. She didn’t trust him, but she could be certain if anyone found out what they were doing they’d hang together.
“They don't own me.” His eyes flashed slate beneath her, and he began pressing his still erect cock against her in expert circles. “I will help you destroy them, if that is your wish.”
“Why would you do that? You don’t know me.” The maelstrom of feeling he was stirring in her threatened to compromise her focus, but she needed to know more. She would never walk unseeing into anything ever again.
“I’ve been watching you for a long time. They think you’re just a plaything to bat about the lion’s den, but I know better. You’ve always been a wolf hiding among them. They’re blind to the sharpness of your little teeth and claws, and it can be their undoing, if you will it.” His grin now was honest and savage, his eyes promised death, though not for her.
“What’s in it for you?” There had to be something. Life had shown her nothing was ever done for free.
“Perhaps many things. Money, power, the opportunity to see the pompous cunts laid low.” His breath was ragged now, and she began to realize the power she might hold over him.
She narrowed her eyes at him, running her fingers down the ropy texture of the scar bisecting the chest beneath her. She’d been more than a little delighted to discover how sensitive it was. “It must be more than that.”
He shivered. “I’ve already told you but you seem reluctant to believe it.” His belly rippled as he sat up, the hand on her waist attempting to position her hips over his that he might bury himself in her once again, but she resisted. The hand not occupied with his scar clutched the short hair at nape of his neck as her eyes searched his. He met her gaze unflinching, their faces almost too close. “A good man might have taken you home safe to your mother. For better or worse, I am not that man.”
She shook her head. “My family can never know. They would try to fight, and they wouldn’t even know what they’d be up against. The Lannisters would destroy them.” There were a million reasons why this was the worst kind of lunacy, many of them beginning and ending with the man between her thighs. She held no illusions as to what he was; a monster, a crooked, poisonous thing who could turn on her at any moment. She could not rely on whatever affection he professed, and she was sure it was rooted in his twisted, enduring obsession with her mother. This couldn’t end well for either of them, but as long as her enemies met their demise first, it wouldn’t matter. She made her choice. The hand on his abdomen followed the line of scar tissue to its logical conclusion and she gripped his erection to position it as she sank down around him, capitulation and covenant both in the same motion.
“We’re going to eat them alive, little wolf,” he groaned into her ear, licking her neck before nipping it lightly. His considerable size stretched her already tender flesh to a deliciously painful edge. She closed her eyes as he began to move yet again. She only registered that he’d foregone a condom much later, when the liquid warmth of his come filled her as he bit into her shoulder, growling her name and dragging her over the precipice with him once more. She would chastise herself for being careless when she could muster the energy. For now, she let him pull her against his body once again, and relaxed into his hold as sleep took them both.