DISCLAIMER: This story is entirely based on George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire

So long as I have this

Sandor was reaching his peak. Sansa could tell by the way he stopped caressing her to hold her tightly and because he moved his face, which had been hovering heavy-lidded and intense over hers, to bury it into her neck and her rich auburn hair.

"Little bird…" he breathed.

"Oh Sandor," she whispered to him. She wrapped her legs tightly around him now, locking her ankles together over his behind, and slid her slender hands down his broad back, feeling the scars and the tensing of his muscles. Their bodies were warm and covered in a fine glow of sweat in the chill of her chamber. She could see the flickering light of the fire in the hearth on the dark ceiling now that she could see over his shoulder. She closed her eyes and felt her breath come quickly as Sandor brought her to her own peak as well.

The slow, deep churning of his hips stopped and he thrust quick and hard and grunted from his throat until his breath hitched and his grunts sounded more like sobs to her ears.

"Yes, my love," she urged him passionately as she arched and pressed her body closely against his. A wonderful trembling and a rush of warmth flooded through her as she clutched his back and shoulder and she sighed.

"Gods, girl," he groaned and shuddered as he held her so tightly and pushed himself onto her so deeply that she flinched and gasped. She felt the strong pulsing of his cock as he spent himself inside her and then the trickle of his seed as he settled on her, panting.

"Come here," he rasped as he rolled off of her and pulled her close in his arms in one great motion that took all the bedclothes over to his side with them. Sansa felt the faint warmth of the dying fire on her back and the cooler air of the winter drafts that plagued Winterfell as she looked up at him from the crook of his powerful shoulder and arm.

"I love you, Sandor."

He heaved a sigh and never opened his eyes. "Sleep now, girl," he told her quietly and then nodded off himself.

Sansa tucked the furs around them and gazed at him in the dim firelight of her chamber, her heart filled with love and gratitude and all the things she wished to say to him. I know you love me too. I wish we could always be together like this. Surely he'll want to now, after this night of being so close. He had come to her as he had promised, loving her with a tenderness and fierceness that she remembered from their first nights together, before they reached Winterfell; and she felt a contentment that surpassed any she had felt since she had returned home.

So long as I have this with him, I can do what is needed; I can do anything.

She brushed the back of her hand against his scarred cheek, caressing the burns that had frightened her so much as a girl; then leaned in to gently kiss him before settling close to him and letting sleep take her.

When she stirred just in the hour before dawn, Sandor was gone.