After, lying drowsily in Jaime's arms, Brienne was amazed. She'd thought being with a man would be ugly and painful, from the way people talked about it. But it wasn't–it was giddy and dizzy and delicious. She could barely believe the things they'd done, or the way Jaime had gathered her close when it was over, puling her against him like a drowning man might hold a rope thrown from shore.

"Was it worth the wait?" Jamie finally asked, after their breath had settled into an even, companionable whisper. His voice was husky, and the warm, male smell of him was all around her.

Brienne was silent for a long moment. "How many women can say they lost their virginity to someone they love?"

"Very few, I should think." Jaime pressed his lips in the soft hollow of her shoulder, where a bear claw had left ghostly marks long ago. "Can you say it?"

Brienne was sore all over and heavy with exhaustion. But she was also warmer then anyone in the North had any business being, and pleasantly woozy–whether from all the wine she'd drunk that night or from the feeling of Jaime's body tight against hers. "I can."

Brienne was glad the room was dark, now that the fire had burned to cinders. She had just fucked him, this strange, beautiful, broken man, but she could still feel a blush creeping hot across her face at the intimacy of what she had revealed. There was no going back now. He knew.

A long silence, broken only by the hiss of snow against the window. The world outside felt a million miles away, as if it could never touch them again. Brienne thought Jaime was asleep long before he spoke again, his breath damp against the back of her neck, sending shivers racing up and down her spine. "What was your favorite part?"

"Everything." Alone with him in the near dark, she covered her eyes with her forearm before continuing, almost against her will. "The thing you did with your mouth."

"I quite liked that, too. No Dornish wine tastes better than you." His hand slid upwards to carefully cup her breast, gentle and tender. "My favorite part was looking at you above me. Looking at you is my favorite thing to do under any circumstance, but moving inside you, seeing you shiver with wanting me, I thought I could finally die a happy man."

"Shiver? It's quite cold in here, you know." Brienne would retain some dignity, no matter what the cost.

"Good people make terrible liars."

Jaime's other arm was stretched beneath her, and Brianne tentatively reached out to where his real human hand might have been, once. He pulled away. Her voice, a whisper she herself could barely hear. "Let me touch you."

"Cold Lannister gold. That's not me."

Brienne rolled over to face Jaime, still in the circle of his arms. "Take it off." Her lips against his, soft. Against her belly, she could feel him going hard again.

"I won't. For you, for this night, let me be whole." His beard rasped against her cheeks as he deepened the kiss, some of his earlier hunger returning.

"Your heart is the only thing I need of you." Somewhere in the back of her mind, Brienne thought she might be embarrassed when when the sun came up. But it was still night, and so she reached down to the secret place of him and took him in her hand.

"I can see there's another part of me you need, Ser Brienne."

Hours later, Brienne awoke to what seemed like the first sunny sky she'd ever seen. Jamie was sprawled out next to her in her bed, his unguarded, sleeping face hinting at the boy he once was.

The golden hand sat across the room, drenched in the sunlight streaming in through the window.