Jaime came awake when a shaft of sunlight penetrated the layer of snow caking one of the windows and tried to burn a hole through his eyelids. Grumbling, still half-asleep, he rolled to his side to avoid the sun's attempt to blind him and found himself pressed quite intimately against Brienne's back.
There was a split second before he recognized her, remembered what had gone on the day before— the night before— but when he did, his smile could not have been repressed even if he'd wanted to, and he tucked himself around her even more closely.
Fucking her had been incredible. Her shy enthusiasm, inhibitions sweetly yielding to her desire… it had been so good. He was not unaccustomed to his partners being very attracted to him, but Brienne was a different kind of woman. She didn't distribute her affections freely, of that he was certain. That she'd wanted him enough to ignore the apprehensions he knew she had was heady stuff. He felt like he'd earned her, somehow, and it made something primal within him lift its head and roar in satisfaction.
He had mixed feelings about having stripped down to his skivvies, before going out to find Leo. He hadn't missed her fascination; she'd inspected his body as if trying to decide which part she'd nibble on first, and in that moment, he'd known he had her. He'd experienced a heady rush of triumph but it quickly faded; he'd meant it as a joke, in response to her command to 'take it all off'. He'd have done the same to Tyrion, relishing his brother's eye-rolling and snarky demands not to make him nauseous.
But clearly Brienne had not seen the humor in it. He wasn't sure what about it had made such a peculiar, hurt expression take the place of her attraction, but… it had shamed him. Reminded him that there was more to her than just a potential fuck. He'd thought about that again and again while wading through the snow in search of Leo. By the time he'd found the dog, he'd been disgusted with himself and convinced she despised him, and rightly so. His fetching her suitcase from the car had been in blatant hope it would help her to forgive him.
And then he'd seen the light beaming from the cabin's porch, a beacon held by a woman that he deserved no part of. Looking around, he'd realized he'd been turning away from the cabin, not toward it, and likely would have walked right off the mountain's steep edge if he'd kept going another ten minutes.
Instead of despising him, Brienne had worried about him, enough to stand outside with a fucking lantern until she was half-frozen. When he'd finally dragged his tired feet onto the porch, had been able to look into her eyes and see the depth of her relief and longing, it had taken everything he had not to simply haul her against him for another kiss, something deeper and longer-lasting than the playful buss he'd dropped on her earlier.
And she kept being so damned sweet. He knew, as well as he knew his own name, that she'd have been out there looking for him, and why? For what reason? He'd like to think it was because she liked him that much, but… no. She was just that impossibly, unrealistically decent, and good, and honorable. She'd have believed it the right thing to do, so she'd have done it.
There was no way in any of the seven hells he was good enough for her.
Fortunately for Jaime, he'd never denied himself something only because he didn't deserve it.
He nuzzled into her hair, enjoying the scent of her: shampoo and woman, no less feminine than any other despite her face and build. Her skin, too, was as soft as any other woman's, he learned as he ran curious fingertips down her bare arm, just as satiny, with freckles that dared him to try to kiss them all.
He began touching his lips to her shoulder, her neck, with open-mouthed caresses, licking feather-light over her pulse and smiling against her throat when she murmured and leaned back against him.
"Jaime," she sighed, still asleep, and the fact that she knew it was him, that his name was on her lips even when she was half-conscious, had him hard— harder— in the space of a few seconds.
"Brienne," he said softly, right into her skin, punctuated with another kiss, and slid his hand around to her breasts. He gave first one, then the other, a firm squeeze, was pleased when her nipples stiffened into hard points that jutted against his palm. He teased one, pulling and twisting, until her breathing roughened and she began moving against him, arching her chest into his hand and her ass into the curve of his body around hers.
"Jaime," she said again, her voice less blurred with sleep this time. She rolled her head on the pillow, looking over her shoulder at him, and yet again he felt the force of her gaze like a blow. He switched to the other nipple, gave it a good pinch, and her mouth opened in a euphoric gasp.
He took advantage, covering her parted lips with his own. He'd expected to have to coax her to respond, as he had last night, but the morning seemed to find her done with anything like nerves or apprehension. She kissed him back, meeting his passion and stealing his breath.
They drew back for air, eyes wide, panting, and then dove at each other again, suddenly ravenous. Jaime ran his hand down her side, over her hip and inward. But he was going too slow for Brienne; she grabbed his hand and pushed it between her legs, filling his palm with the plump heat of her cunt. The hair was surprisingly silky, and he stroked through it to her clit, circling it with a fingertip and making her jolt against him before he journeyed below it, between slick, fragile inner lips to the soft wet opening he still recalled gripping him so beautifully only a few hours earlier. He wanted to be there again. Now.
He couldn't stop kissing her long enough to ask, but onlywithdrew his hand to slide it under her thigh, lifting it an inch.
"Hmm?" he asked into the kiss.
"Hmm!" she replied, and he drew her leg up and back, propping it on his own so he could get his cock into position. Her breath hitched when he sank into her, and then she shuddered so hard that their mouths detached.
"Oh!" Brienne exclaimed, head flung back. "Oh, gods!"
Jaime returned his hand to her cunt, cupping it, squeezing hard, and she shook in his arms. He slid a finger down to where they were joined, ran its tip around where she was stretched so tightly around him and she bucked, throwing her hips back to take him deeper. He rubbed the pad of his finger over her clit with every inward stroke and she cried out.
He wormed his other arm under and around her, bringing his hand up to lightly cup her jaw, pinning her between his grasp above and his pistoning hips below. Brienne began to writhe and keen, shaking in his embrace. Her climax made her flex and clench around him, and that was all he needed to come as well, straining against her, shouting hoarsely, eyes clamped so tightly shut as ecstasy wracked him that fireworks bloomed behind his lids.
Jaime came back to himself slowly, relaxed and blissed out, to find Brienne trembling in his arms, panting "oh, gods" over and over.
"Brienne?" he mumbled.
"Oh, gods," she gasped.
He untangled their limbs and leaned back, tugging until she flopped onto her back. "Are you okay?"
She gazed blankly up at him, looking absolutely thunderstruck. Her mouth worked, but no sound came out.
Jaime grinned. "You're fine."
It could take a person that way, sometimes, be so affecting that their mind was blown. He gathered Brienne against him and held her close. Her arms came around him and then he knew the answer to one of his early wonderings about her: how tightly could those arms hold him?
Very tightly, he learned; at one point, he thought his ribs were creaking but… he didn't mind. Kind of liked it, in fact. Sure, he'd have bruises the next day, but it was worth it.
When she had calmed and lay still at last, he ran a hand down the long, long length of her spine and asked, "Are you a breakfast person? Or a coffee-and-cigarettes person?"
She drew back to give him a hostile look. "I do not smoke." She looked so offended he laughed.
"Okay, okay, but my point stands: you want something to eat? Cereal, a bagel… we'd have to cook it over the fire, but there's also toast, eggs and… I think I have some sausages?"
She perked up. "Eggs and toast and sausages and cereal? That sounds good."
Jaime blinked. He'd meant one or the other of what he'd mentioned, but… "Sure?"
She practically bounced off the floor, but the moment she stood up, she remembered two things: she was naked, and her ankle was sprained. Down she went on the mattress, like a 20 kilo sack of flour, yanking the duvet back over her shivering form while muttering, "ow… cold… ow… cold…"
He laughed again and reached over her to grab where they'd flung their clothes the night before. It brought him looming over her, and when he looked down, she was looking up at him, her eyes limpid and clear. The garments fell from his suddenly-limp fingers and he froze, feeling pinned by her gaze. She looked young and impossibly sweet, and he was struck again by the dichotomy between her appearance and her nature.
Slowly, Brienne stretched up and met his mouth with hers. Her long pale lashes closed and her hands framed his face, holding him carefully as she moved her lips against his. Jaime did not close his eyes, though, watching her intently even as he kissed her in return. Knowing he'd teased out such passion and gentleness from such a huge, strong woman made his chest ache with tenderness.
It was not a kiss intended to lead to sex, and when it drew naturally to a close, Jaime could not keep from smiling. It seemed to surprise her, somehow, but she rallied quickly and smiled back, a shy and close-lipped thing at first, then widening until she was beaming at him in all her crooked-toothed glory. Then her stomach growled, and she tilted back her head and laughed.
Something sharp pierced his chest and lodged there, barbed. A feeling of panic flared to life within him but he clamped down on it. She'd bared herself before him, just now, far more than merely the nudity of her body, and if he jerked away, it would hurt her. But he had to have some time to himself.
It's times like these when a Lannister shines, he thought, glad for once of his ability to put on a good front, and used his lightest, most casual tone to say, "I need to wash. Everything is in the fridge, if you want to get started on breakfast." With a last quick peck on the mouth, he levered himself away and began to pull on the things he'd discarded the night before.
The cabin's interior was frigid, and more so the further from the fire he went. In the bathroom, the toilet seat lid was icy even through his sweatpants when he sat on it and buried his face in his hands, elbows on knees.
It was one thing to like her, to have sex with her, but Jaime absolutely would not let himself fall in love with her. He hadn't gone half-crazy extricating himself from his previous life, and building a new one, only to go right back to where he'd been before. The idea of returning to live in a city, which his father and Cersei would take as a tacit announcement that he was theirs to use and manipulate once more, made a frisson of panic ripple through him.
No.
They'd get the generator running, then he'd clear out the satellite dish and tell Tyrion to figure out a way to get Brienne from the cabin to the bottom of the mountain, or over to the next mountain, or anywhere else on the planet besides Jaime's cabin.
He stood and ran the tap, lathering up a washcloth with soap and frigid water, flinching when it touched his skin. He hurried through it and redressed— his fourth outfit of yesterday had hardly been worn so was practically pristine— then emerged to the main room to find Brienne had stoked the fire into a blaze that was already making inroads on the low temperature. Leo was nowhere to be found, so he assumed she'd let the dog out.
Dressed again in the things she'd borrowed from him the day before, she looked up from the cereal she'd been devouring to smile sheepishly.
"I wasn't sure how you wanted to cook everything, but didn't think you'd mind if I got started…" She gestured with the spoon toward the bowl. "I'm really hungry in the morning."
He couldn't hide his smile. "No, go ahead. I have a spider around here somewhere." He ambled to the kitchen and began digging in one of the corner cupboards.
"A… spider?"
"Came with the cabin," he said, halfway crawling into the cupboard before his hand grasped what it sought. Dragging it out with a series of clangs as it banged against other items, he finally extracted himself from the cupboard and held up his prize. "I use it when the generator's out, which is hardly ever, but it doesn't hurt to be prepared."
They both looked down at it. Cobwebs clung to the legs, there were several rust spots, and it looked like a mouse might have nested in it, at one point.
"It'll need a scrubbing," Jaime conceded, "but it'll get the job done."
"A good scrubbing," Brienne murmured absently, swiping errant cobwebs from his hair.
Jaime's hand clenched tighter around the spider's handle to keep from reaching for her, because he had a powerful urge to drop the three-legged skillet and kiss her and strip off her sweatpants; to lift her to the counter and wrap her legs around his head and lick her to a screaming orgasm. She'd still taste of him— as she should— and her hands would be in his hair, tugging as she writhed against his mouth and—
"Jaime?"
He blinked and realized she was watching him curiously. "Sorry. You made me think of something, is all." He angled the spider so it blocked her viewpoint of his groin. Bad enough he felt like a sex maniac, with her around; he didn't want her to think he was one, as well. "What were you saying?"
"That I'll go wash up, if you get breakfast started, and then if you show me where the chainsaw and tools and parts are, I can get going on the generator."
"Oh. By yourself?" At her surprise, he continued, "I thought I could at least hand you things, like a nurse for a doctor during surgery."
Now she looked more surprised, not less. "You'd do that?"
"…yes?" What sort of assholes was she used to dealing with, that would just abandon her to a big job like that? Especially with an injury?
She smiled at him again, that same big crooked smile that had made his heart twist, and it did it again, and Jaime knew that even if Tyrion had a helicopter arrive at that very moment, if she walked off his mountain and he never saw her again that— it would be too late.
Oh, hells.
