'Don't you feel hot? I feel hot.'
The wench did not skip a beat in her pounding. The steady rhythm was soothing but at the same time damaging to his ego every second she chose to remain unperturbed by him.
'Wench,' he called out again nudging her knee spread wide as she straddled her work bench. 'I'm hungry, wench. Let's eat.' He nudged again.
Brienne sighed loudly before glaring at him and finally standing up without a word. He stood up and followed her eagerly with an ear to ear grin.
The wench shoved two sandwiches on his hands. 'Eat.' She growled.
He happily took the cold sandwiches and ate it with gusto still smirking at the wench who glowered at her own food. He was amused to watch her tear the measly meal in much fewer bites considered proper by polite society.
She was about to go back to her work place eager to step away from him when he held her arms quickly chewing the bread he bit.
'Something is seriously off with your temperature control.' He quipped. He wasn't saying this just to annoy her. The weather had turned really hot the past couple of days and the warehouse with no air-conditioning system had turned almost blistering. They had to resort into keeping the door wide opened but there was no breeze and the air is stale.
Margaery came by the other day and had raised an eyebrow at her friend for still wearing to him her usual work attire, a t-shirt under an overall jumper or sometimes cargo pants and her long-sleeved worn out shirts. Jaime for all the right thing in his head couldn't wrap his mind around the idea of how she survives the heat with such clothing. He had long forgone his shirt sleeves and even his t-shirt the past few days. He had been boiling hot most especially today and decided to go without a shirt at all. The sticky feeling of the stifling heat was lightly abated when he stripped the shirt but it was since then that Brienne had started glowering at him.
He's pretty sure it was the heat getting to her head just as well.
Margaery commented how blistery hot it was and quipped the peculiarity of her friend too clothed, too covered than her usual hot season preferences. Brienne just glared at her friend especially when he started inquiring about it too.
He'd been complaining about the hot temperature for days with her and he had been grumbling about her choice of studio. He had quipped about the studios he could find for her just outside of Mud Gate where sea breeze could immediately cool them off and without the city walls blocking air circulation. He had taunted her endlessly too for the fact that she said she did not care for ice cream and chose to just iced her coffee instead even when he tried his utmost to entice her for a scoop of Dorne peaches flavoured ice cream. He was flabbergasted that she was able to say no to it commenting about how much sugar and calories one spoonful was.
He laughed at the fact that she was quite particular about calories when she was the one who drinks a mug of hot cocoa every night. Jaime was pretty sure she was just about to clock him on the head for that but at the last second she huffed and stomped away back to her work bench.
'Wench, I will take no responsibility if you just collapse because of heat exhaustion. Don't blame me if I can't lift you up on the floor.' He said with a shrug. 'I don't know why you're being so stubborn with this. Do you have to be stubborn about everything?'
'Can you give me a break, Jaime?' Brienne shrugged his hold and all of a sudden she was furiously tugging at her shirt and pulling it off her. She threw the soiled shirt on the floor and hissed at him before marching away.
Jaime would have laughed. Gods, he would have laughed his arse off if only he could breathe properly sooner than later.
He watched the wench as she plopped down far from him still huffing. The wench sent him another glare for good measure when she was reaching for something behind her and finding him staring agape at her like a fool.
Brienne Tarth was sitting there glistening like the most delectable flesh he had ever seen in one lifetime too long. She was now sporting a black sports bra that was only hinted by her heavily soaked shirt before, it was a meager piece of clothing by her standards that he knew. The wretched piece of cloth, if it can be called as such, tauntingly exposed the wench's broad shoulders, toned abdomen and barely concealed pebbled nipples. How on seven hell's he saw that in the short glimpse he was rewarded he will congratulate himself later for.
Jaime felt his mouth dry up and a thirst he was unfamiliar with wrecked his senses as he stood there like a petrified boor that he was.
'Damn!' He hissed as he felt the very same stirring he can still vividly recall from not so long ago.
He wanted to look away but his body wasn't his own and truth be told there was another want in him more powerful than the supposed need to look away from the wench.
And so he looked, and so he stared.
Her long neck was made more alluring with the unobstructed line from her nape to her shoulder blades. The freckles he had mused about once or twice or hells more than that in the past were visibly displayed on her pale shoulders. They were dusted enticingly like crystalline sugar that his tongue wanted to taste.
Jaime's only idea of that part of a woman before was as something fragile under his hands but on Brienne it was a potent seduction. He gulped once or twice as he further traced the bare freckled skin with his eyes and imagining the time when his hands could caress the skin and taste it too. He could already see the redness his teeth and beard would leave on her lean back if he had his way with her. Among other things.
His feet unconsciously carried him closer to her which the wench just met with an unhappy glare.
'I said, begged, for you to give me a break.' She snapped.
He took the same seat he was occupying just a few minutes ago and sat there unceremoniously, his eyes still glued at Brienne.
'So, you were feeling hot.' He commented.
'It's a hundred degrees outside, Jaime. Go figure.' Brienne said tartly. He couldn't help but snigger at her admission.
'Then why did you stay fuckingly covered up?' He asked further.
Brienne glowered harder at the carving gouge she was holding, her long fingers with short nails gripping the handle tighter.
'There's company and I think it's not right manners to be...-indecently exposed.' She grumbled.
'Indecently exposed?' He laughed making Brienne pout like a petulant child. A child only if one tries to ignore the pebbled nipples, he mused with a gulped hidden behind his saving beard. He pulled his eyes away from that particular part of her and sought her eyes. 'How can you still think of that when it's boiling hot?'
'Well, I have, I have manners! Unlike some people,' she glared at him unwilling to be doubted as to who she was referring about.
'Nah, wench. I'm just not stubborn nor silly.'
'I beg to differ.' She huffed but did not continue any further to his dismay when she opted to go back ignoring him.
But there was no way she would let her do that. He had endured her silence long enough after that faithful night.
He knew the wench had forgiven him for all his exposed mistakes but after holding him that night, never letting go until they both woke up the following day she had curled back to her quiet civility with him. She had only said very little with him and that was with much prodding from him as it is.
Jaime had allowed it to continue for a week but he had just about enough. He realized that he was rather fond of hearing her voice more than the calming sound of her hammers and chisels.
'What is indecent with how I look?' He asked with a grin, purposely leaning closer to the wench. He nudged Brienne's knee which she just pulled away from him. 'Tell me, wench. Or are you just spouting words you don't mean?'
Jaime playfully flexed his arms he was quite gifted with. So what if she's just as fit? She was more pleasantly lean more than muscular he deduced as he obligingly perused her exposed body.
And he knew that she knew he was staring based on the goose bumps forming on her arms. He was inexplicably glad of the said unconscious reaction of her body to his stare.
It was during his downward gaze that he noticed a darker shade of white on her skin, a tip of an image just at the side of her rib, at the end of her sports bra.
'Wench, is that tattoo?' He pointed at the part of her body.
Brienne looked down to where he was looking and gave him a thrifty nod.
'What is it?'
'My family's sigil.' She said with a hint of pride.
'May I see?' He didn't wait for her ascent as he swopped even closer and lifted her arms away from her body.
'Jaime!' The wench voice was ignored as he traced the tip of it with a finger.
His curiosity got the best of him as he let himself be satisfied of knowing the full image of it.
'Jaime!' Brienne's voice was a notched higher when he slid the piece of clothing up her ribcage to expose a rippling shield with two crescent moons and two blazing suns, textured by waves that looked so alive on her pale skin. It was inked white a few shades darker than her own coloring.
'It's beautiful.'
He watched his hand traced the contour of it and heard a gasp from the owner of the tattoo that entrapped him.
When he looked up at Brienne, she was staring at him intently.
'What are you doing, Jaime?' She whispered.
'I don't know,' he answered and leaned in further until his breath bounced back to him off her body. 'I don't know.' He bridged the remaining distance and kissed the tattoo with much eager lips, his eyes never breaking contact with Brienne's.
His tongue took a life of its own and tasted her skin. It was salty and seven hell's delicious.