TRIGGER WARNING: Mention of the rape of Daenerys by Khal Drogo in Game of Thrones (Chapter II). References (not really very detailed) to physical, emotional, psychological abuse of the OFC by an ex. Some emotional angst for OFC because of it.

Fluffy romance, romancy fluff (and floof - because I gave him his REAL hair) for the first couple of chapters. Then smut/erotica/spanking/soft core porn ensues - but romancy porn, hopefully. :)

Also, when I started this, I didn't know that Tom had already seen Game of Thrones. This is sort of set when he gets home from filming Crimson Peak, but I gave him blonde curls because that's what I pictured.

Kayla MacIntosh looked down at her iPhone immediately when she heard that particular personalized text tone - the first few bars of the chorus from Bear Necessities, sung by the man himself.

G.o.T Season 1. My place. This Sunday - 7PM-ish?

Sweet lime, my honey pie! What's going on in that big, gorgeous brain of F yours? In the mood to waste some time, are we?

Time spent with you is never a waste.

Oh FFS, Tom, you can't possibly say shit like that to me - stop being so fucking nice! How the fuck am I supposed to reply to that kind of shit?

. . . with something lyrical and poetic?

BIG, GROSS SNORT How's that for lyrical and poetic, you little shit?

Well?

I'm thinking . . . do I have time to spend with one of my bestest friends, whom I haven't seen in a dog's age because he's been fucking working and looking glamorous in period costume and, much worse, has been hugging OTHER PEOPLE, who are, you know, NOT ME, and he didn't take me with him, either, the selfish fuck.

Let me see what's on my schedule. I don't know if I can squeeze you in (ehe he he he). You know what a whirlwind my social life is . . . I suppose I can move that dinner with the PM and tell Wills and Kate to fuck off . . .

Again? They'll deport you.

snicker Whaddya want for dinner - I'll cook?

. . . perk . . . Really?

Why do I even bother to axe? Lemme guess. Macaroni and cheese?

Right the first time!

Fucker. You are so damned predictable. Sigh. Fine. Damned good thing I love you.

You do? You could have said THAT instead of "BIG, GROSS SNORT", you know.

Nowhere near as fun. Say buh-bye, Thomas.

Buh-bye, Thomas.

Lub you.

Lub you, too!

He wasn't home when she got there, but she had a key and let herself in, carrying her crap for an overnight stay - which hadn't been confirmed, but which she wanted to be prepared for just in case, since that's what these things usually turned into, especially if they drank. He'd end up not being able to take her home, and he didn't like the idea of tucking her into a cab, either - his protective tendencies were definitely at the forefront with her. She dropped her stuff by the door when she shed her shoes, which Thomas preferred in his place, putting them on the pretty mat he had there for just that purpose. Then she put the heavy bags of groceries on his kitchen counters.

Not long after she got her favorite playlist going on his bluetooth speakers, to which she would cook, she heard the key in the lock and he came in, drenched in sweat from his run and still panting, and looking sexier than any man had a right to, especially in that condition. She would bet that disgustingly in shape fucker had taken the stairs again - all six flights of them. In direct contrast, if she had come into the building and found that the elevator wasn't working, she'd've turned around and gone home immediately. Fuck him - unless, of course, he agreed to carry her up all those stairs in his arms . . .

Which she wouldn't put at all past the annoyingly chivalrous bastard.

The first thing he said to her after all those months apart - minus the fast and furious emails, the texts containing pictures of silly things like what the top of Jim Beaver's balding head looked like (Jim had been sitting at the time and she was pretty sure was oblivious to the fact that Tom was even taking that picture) or whatever disgustingly healthy crap he was eating, and the more than occasional, raucous Skype session - was typical Tom. He'd noticed the groceries, still in bags on the counter, and frowned. "I'm sorry you had to drag those all the way up here. I would have brought them up for you."

As much as his touching politeness and courtesy usually grabbed her heart in its fist and squeezed painfully, Kayla barely heard what he said. She was having a hard time not just launching herself at him, but she fought with herself to squelch the impulse. Best friends did not throw themselves at each other, and that's what they were. She would have to keep repeating that to herself tonight, she knew, or she was going to do something deeply stupid that was going to get her expelled from his life entirely, she was sure, like fall to her knees and rip his pants - and underwear, if he was wearing any - off to take him into her mouth -

Or worse. Knowing her, the only reason she'd sink to her knees in front of him in that kind of situation was because she'd passed out from nerves.

Tom tilted his head at her, surprised she was still over there. Kayla was staring at him as if she desperately wanted to come to him, but was somewhat repelled by him, too, at the same time.

Then he remembered that he was awash in his own sweat - no wonder she was hanging back.

"I'm so sorry, love. Just give me five minutes to take a shower and then I want a huge hug, okay?"

But somewhere during his little apology for having the audacity to have become sweaty while he was running lord knew how far or how fast, she lost her battle to stay put.

It wasn't quite throwing herself at him, but it was too uncomfortably damned close for her conscience.

As she moved towards him, her arms open and walking into his immediately welcoming ones, she mumbled, "Puh-leeze. You're Tom Hiddleston. Your sweat smells like freshly baked bread and candy floss."

That got him laughing, which was what she was going for, so that he wouldn't notice just how desperate she was to be hugged by him. She didn't care if he'd just rolled in a vat of bait someone had left out in the sun for a year; she needed him to hug her like she needed to take her next breath.

As those wonderfully strong arms closed around her and she was enveloped against him - deliberately taking a big breathful of his unique smell, which was comprised of the remnants of the Dior Fahrenheit he'd probably put on this morning mixed with the clean, clear sunshine he always smelled of and pure, unadulterated man-scent. Her mind begged softly, helplessly, "Please kiss me, Thomas. Please just . . . kiss me once, like you mean it. I'll live on it for all the days of my life. I'll take it to my grave and die deliriously happy, really I will. I won't ask for anything more from you or anyone else, ever, ever, ever. I'll never accept any more birthday or Christmas presents from anyone, ever again. Please please please just one, real kiss."

But she knew she had to resign herself to being happy with what she could always count on from him - he was a marvelous friend, and she knew that was much more than she deserved in this lifetime, and that she should simply stomp out that tiny, whiny unsatisfied voice in favor of reveling in the fact that she could say that Tom Hiddleston was her friend (not that she ever said it to anyone, really, not being one to brag and not wanting to get into any awkward situations) - and that he'd actually not hesitate to say that of her, too. She had proof of this, because he'd introduced her that way to some of his other friends multiple times. So it wasn't a fluke.

And he hugged her. Frequently. Like, what was a lot even to her - not that she was complaining. But, as wonderful as they were, and they were fucking phenomenal, they were nonetheless almost carefully platonic.

She stepped back out of his embrace first. She always did, not wanting to seem . . . somehow greedy, she guessed. If he'd let her, she'd stay there all day, and the temptation was much too great to demand - or even just ask - so much more from him than he seemed interested in giving - to say nothing of the fact that she knew her bravado about what she wanted from him sexually was just that. If he ever did show any interest in her sexually (once she picked herself up off the floor), she'd probably turn and run miles away from him, certain that all of her old insecurities would put the kibosh to that very quickly.

Still, her heart - to say nothing of the rest of her - continued to long for him, for intimacies that she knew would render her what was certain to be a complete turn off to him - shy and hesitant and violently nervous. Regardless of what was sure to be the reality of the situation, she dreamt that he would be what her very soul knew he could be for her - the balm that would soothe away all the past hurts she'd suffered and make her whole for him, and him alone.

So Kayla swallowed down those rebellious feelings with some considerable difficulty and gave him a thousand watt smile that was only somewhat forced. He was still holding onto both of her hands, as if he was reluctant to let them go, but then he was a touchy-feely kind of guy. They often held hands when they walked together or he tucked her hand in the crook of his arm or looped his arm around her waist, and he encouraged her to be the same way with him.

But then, he was like that with all of his friends, so how he was treating her didn't mean she was anything all that special to him, she forced herself to remember.

As a result of the fact that she could keep an iron control over herself, so far, anyway, they had an easy, open camaraderie together that practically had Kayla in tears a million times when she was with him, but so far she'd been able to keep herself from fangirling too badly around him, which was what she desperately wanted to do - among other things.

Then she heard what she thought was a whimper, something she'd never heard from him before. "Bloody fucking hell - you cut all your hair off!" he yelled accusingly, holding her arm up over her head and twirling her with practiced ease around in front of him as if she was a ballerina. "When did you do that and why didn't you tell me, you little shit?"

"This past Friday."

His hand came up to within inches of it - which had her holding her breath in anticipation of how her body was going to try to implode at his touch, as it always did - but then he took it down again, squeezing her hands and saying, as he dashed off in the direction of his bedroom, "Give me a few minutes to make myself more presentable. I want another hug when I'm more socially acceptable, and I'm going to touch that hair when I get back, too." He didn't bother to shut the door as he began shedding layers of clothing on his way, and Kayla forced herself to discreetly turn her head away and walk into the kitchen, from where she would no longer have a view of him stripping before he stepped into the shower.

Instead she had to envision what that might be like in her head, of course. Why did she have to be so god'am honorable? she wondered. How many other women would look away from that sight? Not very fucking many, she imagined. Hell, lots of them would have simply gone and joined him and offered to scrub that broad back of his!

But that would never be her. Those were women who were pretty and rail thin and self-confident about their looks as well as their talents in the bedroom, none of which she would never be able to claim, she knew. Sighing heavily, she gave herself an inward shake and began to assemble dinner - making a béchamel sauce and then adding tons of excellent white cheddar cheese, in which she drowned some very good pasta she'd bought just for the occasion, along with some panko breadcrumbs she drenched in garlic butter and piled high on top of the casserole, leaving it atop the stove until they were both hungry and she could throw it into the pre-heated oven.

She'd cleaned up the kitchen as she'd worked, and only had a pot and some utensils to rinse and put in his dishwasher, which she did, then wiped down the counters. She was just bending down to throw away crumbs in his garbage can, which he hid where everyone else in the world did in the cabinets below his kitchen sink, when, just before she rose back up, she felt someone deliver a tremendous swat to her behind.

"Jesus fucking Christ, Tom! That hurt!" Her hand automatically went to her butt to try to rub away some of the residual sting, but it didn't seem to be helping in the least, she was horrified to realize. It also didn't help that her jeans were holey places and practically worn through in the seat, so she'd had little protection against his smack.

This was new. He'd never touched her there in any way, much less spanked her. What had gotten into him, she wondered.

Kayla tried to turn around, but he'd pressed himself up against her back, so that her stomach was trapped against the counter in front of the sink, his fingers insinuating themselves greedily into her hair. "Is this a perm?" he asked.

"No, I, also, have naturally curly hair. You can tell if you sniff it. If I'd had a perm, I'd still be off gassing that horrible perm solution smell, even though I washed it when I got home and again this morning."

As if he wasn't going to take her word for it, she felt his nose burrow into her hair, both hearing and feeling him take a deep breath from just behind her left ear that had her closing her eyes tightly against the wave of desire that gripped her privates at his actions, stifling - just barely - the impulse to press her head back against his nose and those inquisitive fingers.

"Mmmmm. I don't know," he said, leaning back a bit but not yielding so much as an inch to her so that she might move away from him. "These are beautiful, but I'm not sure they're worth the trade off of losing all of that lovely length." He continued to run his hands through her hair. "But your curls are so soft! Mine are . . . not," he ended somewhat abruptly, swiveling his hips to the side just as suddenly without removing his hands from her scalp.

"Lemme introduce you to a brand new concept, Tom - it's called conditioner."

He frowned down at her. "I conditioned my hair when it was longer and curly and it never felt like this."

"I think my curls are looser than yours and that makes them softer," she responded almost curtly. Damn, she'd forgotten what it was like to have someone running his hands through her hair, especially when it was short and her scalp got nicely massaged. "Okay, that's enough or I'm going to fall asleep before we even get to the first episode."

She turned around and he - with no small amount of reluctance, removed his hands from her hair, although they fairly itched to dive back into that beautiful auburn riot. But he was going to be good. He was going to be restrained, he repeated to himself like a meditation chant, as if that could make it so. She wanted a friend - nothing more than that - and he was going to do his damnedest to be that for her. But his body had other - much more prurient - ideas, hence the swat he'd been entirely unable to stop himself from giving her.

That was part of why he'd moved so precipitously away from her, too - so that she wouldn't feel how incredibly hard he'd gotten just at the sight of her standing in his kitchen, washing up, as if they were together in the most intimate meaning of the word and she did wonderfully loving things like that for him all the time. And then, when he'd smelled her shampoo and those baby soft tendrils had clung to his fingers . . . it was very nearly all over for him. He was that much in lust - and damned close to love - with her. His body betrayed him all the time when she was with him - in big and small ways. He was amazed that she hadn't noticed yet, but then he knew she wasn't looking for that kind of reaction from him, he reminded himself.

Kayla was his friend, and she did do warm, intimate things for him like this, and they touched each other a lot but they were both tactile people and yet there was no physical relationship between them, much to his dismay. She had been in a disastrous relationship a while ago and he knew that she was still smarting from having been betrayed by her husband in the most elemental of ways, as well as downright abused by him in others. It was a damned good thing he was unlikely to ever encounter the bastard, or the Internet was going to have to change its opinion of him as the perfect gentleman because he'd gladly smash the bastard's teeth down his throat for hurting his - Kayla.

He'd kind of lost track of what she was saying while he was trying to give himself that pep talk, and all of a sudden all he could see was the way she was holding his right hand up but well away from her, by the wrist with two tentative fingers, as if it was something completely alien to her and couldn't be trusted not to bite.

" - What is this thing made of, anyway, for fuck's sake? Jesus, that swat still hurts!"

"Good." His answer was automatic, and she gave him a thoroughly dirty look, but he just grinned unrepentantly.

Kayla made as if to leave, but he caught a hold of her wrist, saying, "I showered and made myself much more presentable. I want my other hug."

She gave him a look at his unusually demanding tone.

"Please," he added as an obvious - if earnest - afterthought. "Please may I have another hug?" He let go of her wrist and opened his arms to her for the second time in less than twenty minutes.

As if she would ever be able to resist that kind of invitation as long as there was breath in her body, the bastard! But she had remembered something she had wanted to bring from her place and went to fetch it while he waited somewhat less than patiently for her to come back, hands on his hips.

When he saw what it was, though, he laughed out loud, barely able to stifle it at her censorious look.

It was a small stepstool, not much bigger than the one a child might use to reach the potty or the bathroom sink. But it boosted her height just about perfectly, so that she was nearly eye level with him. "Much, much better," she sighed, wrapping her arms easily around his neck and again drowning in the scent and feel of him. "Now you don't have to bend your legs to hug me."

Tom had to chuckle. Leave it to her to notice something like that about him - which he did so automatically that he didn't even think about it - and come up with an innovative solution. It was kind of interesting to have her right there, rather than bending down, but, as he told her, "I don't mind bending my knees at all - especially not for you, my dear."

Her heart fluttered dangerously at his use of that endearment, but she ignored it in favor of the simple joy of being in his arms, letting her head rest on his shoulder, if somewhat gingerly, as if she was afraid of enjoying it a lot too much. He gave the best fucking hugs in the universe - just the best, hands down. He didn't shy away from full frontal body contact, regardless of who he was hugging; he squeezed just the right amount for the perfect amount of time, usually rubbing his right hand up and down the person's back, near their right shoulder, two or three times, then releasing. And, even if you were the very lucky recipient of his hug, you knew, somehow, just knew, that he'd closed his eyes while he was hugging you - as you had, because he was just that damned trustworthy. You knew he wasn't going to cop a feel - even if you were a woman who was naked in his arms. He was just going to give you the kind of hug that was going to ruin every other hug you ever got for the rest of your life - unless it was from him again.

When he let her go, keeping steadying hands on her forearms, Kayla just stood there with her eyes closed for a long moment. "Mmmmm. That was amazing. Have you been practicing? Don't answer that," she said, letting him help her down from her lofty perch, then bending down to retrieve the stool.

Tom noticed that it was pink and white and princessy, just like he thought of her in his mind, but he kept those thoughts to himself.

"I know you have been practicing, and on total strangers, per pictures on Twitter and Tomblr, etc. I am extremely jealous, I'll have you know."

Well, that was something, he supposed. "They're my fans. And they know I like to hug people."

She came back from putting the stool with her other crap by the door, which he immediately gathered up and brought into his spare room, where she stayed when she came over for a night like this, answering her question about whether or not she'd be staying overnight.

"How long till dinner?" he asked, returning to the kitchen.

"Any time your big heart desires, love. How about we watch some Game of Thrones first?"

At that he bowed low to her - although he was dressed in a manner that, for him, was casual so the gesture didn't fit quite as well as it would have if he had been wearing one of his many suits or - even better - a tux. He was in his favorite cardigan with a tight white t-shirt beneath it that clung lovingly to every muscle he owned, and a pair of obscenely tight black jeans. He made a dramatic sweep of his hand towards the living room, where he had a plasma TV that was about the size of a movie screen on one wall, which she had laughed at when he'd first shown her, because he was never home to watch much of anything. But the huge TV was just one of the reasons why they did this kind of shit at his place, not her tiny little cramped flat. "Shall we adjourn to the theatre, my lady?"

"Fuck yes," she said, making him chuckle as she put her hand on his arm and let him formally guide her to the big comfortable sofa that sat directly in front of the television.

But he didn't join her immediately. Instead, he danced attendance on her. "Would you like something from the bar?"

And he wasn't kidding about the bar. He had a fully stocked gorgeous one in the corner of the big room. "Are you?"

"Fuck yes." He didn't bat an eyelash.

She still had a hard time with filth coming out of that gorgeous mouth of his and in that lusciously posh accent, but she tried to stifle her giggle. "Yes, please."

"Tequila?" he asked, figuring he knew, and already headed for the bottle of Patron he kept on hand just for her.

"Nope - can I get a G & T instead? I brought limes and tonic water in case you didn't have any - and Beefeater . . . " She whispered the last, knowing he wasn't going to happy with her spending money on booze when he kept his bar fully stocked at all times.

"You bought gin, Kayla?"

A shiver went through her at his tone and she was glad he was across the room where he couldn't detect how her body betrayed her. "I did, because I wasn't sure whether you'd have it."

"That's bullshit. You know I have everything." Christ on crutches - and he was giving her the look! She was going to need to fan herself shortly or she was going to faint dead away and that wouldn't do at all.

"Yeah, well, consider it a contribution towards getting me polluted in the future."

"Mmm-hmmmm."

Tom was not happy. He knew she was in country on a shoestring, and he didn't like her spending her money unnecessarily - and he considered a lot of things unnecessary when it came to her. It was pretty much the only bone of contention between them - that he kept trying to buy her things, to help her out financially, and Kayla would have absolutely none of it. Sometimes the grocery fairy had visited her house, providing not only staples he knew she used - like decaffeinated Coke Zero and frozen mixed vegetables - but also treats he knew she would never buy herself, liked double stuff Oreos, bagel chips, and Brie. The petrol fairy often struck her car, too, and she was very vocal about praising him to Tom, whoever he might be, of course. Consummate actor that he was, Tom played innocent very well.

When the various fairies began arriving, it was on the tip of her tongue to take him to task for it, but then she realized that she did cook a lot of meals for the two of them when he was home - at his request - so she guessed it wasn't all that bad for him to contribute towards her coffers for that reason, and - because she refused to drive his Jag - she did take him places like the airport occasionally, so she excused the petrol fairy, too.

But when the bill fairy visited her once because she'd accidentally left a pile of overdue bills on the table when he was over, she had let him know that she was not at all happy with his visit, in no uncertain terms.

When she'd gotten a check in from her latest job, Kayla had searched all over for the stack of bills, but wasn't able to find it. That was not good. So she looked at the previous month's, called everyone to make a payment, and found out that she was already paid up and even ahead on some of them.

She was stunned - and livid, because she had a good idea who had come to her rescue. She was sure that he would see it that way, anyway.

She'd never been to his house uninvited before, but she didn't even think twice about it this time. She banged on his door, not giving a flying fuck if he was in the middle of trying to seduce some ingénue or finger fucking a pole dancer or whatever. He was going to have to put whoever she was on hold and deal with one very unhappy friend.

He was alone at eight on a Friday night - she was amazed, but didn't let it deter her or derail her righteous anger. Tom greeted her with outstretched arms but she had moved deliberately around them and into his flat to stand well out of reach, arms crossed defensively over her chest.

"If you ever do that again, Thomas William Hiddleston, you will cease to be my friend," she said flatly. "And don't you even think about trying to pretend you don't know what I'm talking about, you son of a bitch. I have never been so humiliated in all of my life. If I thought it could be reversed easily, I would make you do it. The invasion of my privacy was damned close to unforgivable." She had sworn to herself that she wasn't going to cry, but, as usual, that was a great idea, but not one that she was able to actually carry off, especially not in front of him. It was very upsetting to her to be mad at him - they never fought.

Tom took a step towards her, desperate to comfort her, arms still out wide, a plaintive look on his face, but she took a step back, her hands up to ward him off and, in the midst of her own misery, she missed the look of pain on his face when she rejected him so coldly.

His hands dropping to useless fists at his side that he clenched and unclenched nervously, he stood in front of her in an uncharacteristically narrow stance, legs together, as if he was at attention, somehow. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to do anything but help you -"

Her starkly angry look - tears and all - made him quickly reconsider the tack he was taking.

He cleared his throat and tried again, aiming to make her feel how anguished he was at having hurt her rather than trying to assuage his own guilt. "I'm very sorry. I didn't mean to impugn your ability to take care of yourself in any way. I didn't think it through." He paused, then looked up into her eyes, seeing a lessening of her ire there, but a big increase in tears that, drop by drop, were like acid dissolving his heart while it still lay in his chest. "I'm very, very sorry, Kayla, really I am. Please forgive me." All he wanted in the world was to wrap his arms around her, to hug and hold her. If she would let him, he would apologize to her to his dying day. He just couldn't lose her, not over something he'd done that was so stupid and unthinking.

She was fiercely independent and he loved that about her, but he'd seen several disconnection notices in that pile and had let his sometimes boneheaded cautionary tendencies, that were always in full force when it came her, rule his head and had somehow lost sight of how important it was to her to do this on her own, ending up hurting her badly.

Ninety-nine percent of her wanted to forgive him on the spot, but that last one percent was all ego, and it had been very damaged, as had her trust in him. Privacy was a personal bugaboo for her, too, and he knew that. He knew it, and yet he had gone ahead anyway and blithely done something he'd known she was going to be royally pissed about.

The more she'd thought about it, the less she even wanted to be in the same room with him just then, so she'd turned and left without another word.

He'd taken several steps towards her before she got to the door, but she hadn't acknowledged him in the least, and he would have sworn that the loneliest, most God awful sound he'd ever heard in his life was his door closing softly behind her and not really knowing whether he was ever going to see her again.

Several long, lonely unreturned text, unanswered phone calls, and unreplied to emails and days later, a check had arrived in the mail from her, in the exact amount that he had spent on her bills. And he'd cashed the motherfucker, too, not wanting to start that shit up again. He didn't need the money. She knew he didn't, but if it made her feel better to pay him back, then he was damned well going to accept it from her without so much as a peep.

The next day, he'd gotten a text from her and he felt his world go from black and white to color again in that instance.

You are a most extraordinary man, Thomas. I would love you more, though, if you don't have so fucking much money. Sorry to have gone off on you like that, my friend, when - as you said - all you were trying to do was to help me. It was a wonderful, generous impulse, really, and I'm sorry I'm not able to be more gracious about it, but don't ever fucking do that again. Please forgive me.

He thought about what he wanted to say in reply - something flowery and verbose, of course, apologizing to her again and reassuring her of his love. But instead he let his instincts have full reign for once.

Get the fuck over here and beg me, and maybe I will.

That rated an actual phone call. "You're a fucking bastid, Thomas. It'll be a cold day in hell before I ever beg you for anything." He could hear the laughter in her voice as she said it.

"This from the woman who just said, and I quote 'you are a most extraordinary man, Thomas'?"

"Yeah, well, it's the fucking bastid in you that I love the most."

"You do?" Hearing her say that she loved him got him from semi- to rock hard instantaneously.

"I don't just love you; I adore you, hunny-bunny."

He gave her a very familiar, long suffering sigh. "You know I hate it when you call me that." That was an out and out lie. He loved it when she used any kind of endearment with him, even the more outrageous, sappy ones she insisted on using, mostly because he let her think they bothered him.

"I do. Annoying you is fun. There's no profit in it, but there's a helluva lot of satisfaction."