PLEASE READ THIS NOTE FIRST
First, the following has a LOT of mention of underage people having sex.
Now, this is not actually the next chapter in the story. If you decide this isn't for you, definitely skip it. You're not missing out on the actual story. I'll be posting the real next chapter…well, when I do.
To pacify my inner troll, I've written an out-of-story AU one-shot that is like, the most smutty non-smut thing I've ever done. In last chapter, you might recall Ash thinking she'd have suggested a threesome with Ned if she didn't know he'd be horrified at the idea.
So, premise here is…what if Ned wouldn't be horrified at the idea of a threesome? (Before you get too excited: this isn't actually a full on threesome smut scene. It's very sex-related, but it's also non-explicit.)
Again, this is AU and does not happen in the "canon" of my fic. And because this is AU, Ned will be slightly out of character. It only works if he is. Canon (and my fanon) Ned would never agree to a threesome, so we're all going to do some mental gymnastics here.
Also, Lynesse isn't married to Jamie, but is just one of Cersei's ladies-in-waiting.
PLEASE READ AUTHOR'S NOTE FIRST
"Did you enjoy sailing this morn?" Ned asked into the pillow.
Ashara hummed her assent as she worked her thumbs into Ned's knotted shoulders, the cinnamon oil slippery and warming on her hand. He was lying prone on his stomach while she sat on his back, kneading the muscles sore and stiff from the tension of the small council meetings.
"I'd forgotten the feel of a sea breeze on my neck," she said, for it had been years since they had last travelled to White Harbour. After all these years, Winterfell was home, but some mornings she still woke to the rushing of the Torrentine lapping at her ears, the smell of lemons and salt spray filling her nose.
"And Oberyn? He is…he is well?"
Ashara tried to wipe the smile from her voice, remembering again Ned's thunderous face from the evening before.
"Oh yes," she said. "Quite well." She ought to tell him of Oberyn's determination to hunt the Mountain, but later. Both their bodies were warm and the air around them hummed, and she did not wish to bring serious talk into bed at present.
She paused, working at a particularly tight spot with her elbow, wondering if she should relay more. As she was doing rather a lot of work at the moment, she decided she deserved some amusement.
"By the by, you were not wrong last evening," she said.
"Hm?" His voice rumbled against her hand.
"About Oberyn. And his intentions," she said, her voice deliberately light. "He's always said I have an open invitation to his bed."
Ned's whole body went rigid, and again Ashara tried not to laugh.
"Did you not say just last night that you were like a sister to him?"
"Well, I am. I said the same to him this day when he reminded me his invitation still stood."
"And?" he ground out.
"And he reminded me of the Martells' Targaryen blood."
A ruffled silence. Ned coughed, but she was certain he was choking down a reluctant laugh.
"Ah, but he truly is well," said Ashara. "It brings me so much joy to see him find a ray of happiness after so long."
They had written hundreds of letters over the many years, but it took seeing Oberyn to be assured that there were more lines at the corners of his eyes than between his brows. He could not put aside his thirst for vengeance, but at the very least it did not consume him whole. Domestic life of a sort suited him, and his daughters had all been delightful.
"He has been with his lover for many years now, has he not?" he asked after some moments.
"Yes. The four youngest girls we met at Sunspear are Ellaria's."
"And does he…I mean, does she just…if he was still making overtures to you, then…" He couldn't seem to finish his thought, and Ashara could almost hear his curiosity warring with the indignant shock in his mind. She could not wipe the smile from her face. He knew she loved Oberyn, and so did not wish to speak ill of him, though it was clear that he was beginning to frown with disapproval.
"Do you mean to ask if he regularly strays from her?" said Ashara. "And if she simply bears it?"
"He is a prince. And they are not married. It would not be dishonourable."
Oh, Ned truly was a bad liar.
"No, it would not be, but…" She leaned close to him so that cinnamon filled her senses. "Well, I believe they often enjoy more than each other's company in bed."
For a moment he stilled, and then Ned jerked his head and shoulders back so quickly that he threw her off balance, tumbling her sideways against the pillows. Ashara laughed as he caught her arm just as she was slipping off the side of the bed, and in the nick of time she pushed the jar of cinnamon oil back onto the chest.
"Surely that is not shocking to you," Ashara said, still laughing as they settled back into the pillows. Her braid had come loose, and she propped herself up to bind her hair once more. "You cannot expect me to believe Robert did not tell you of his exploits when you were young."
"No but—for Robert, they had been whores. I did not expect that women actually liked…" his voice died like smoke. Of course he knew that she had been with women in her youth—that women enjoyed one another's bodies as two men might. It was only that he likely never thought through such things, and watching his realisation dawn jogged some old fantasies locked away in her mind.
"Oh, we do," she said slowly, meeting his eyes and refusing to look away. "You usually have no interest in hearing such things, but if you do not object…I can tell you that I have done this at Sunspear. More than once. And enjoyed myself."
His eyes narrowed in consideration, and Ashara could see the reluctant fascination take hold.
"With…"
She lifted a shoulder.
"With a man and a woman. With two men. With two women. Whatever and whomever…felt good to me, really."
Ashara bit her lip, wondering if this was wise, for once she spoke she could not take things back. Yet, how strange it was that he knew the darkest crevices of her pains and fragility, yet about this cursory history of easy pleasure he had never asked, and she had never shared.
"Do you…object? To my telling you some of the things from my youth?"
For long moments he considered her, then something shifted in his gaze. Slowly he shook his head.
"Go on then. I'm afraid you've made me curious."
She looked down at his chest then, rubbing some stray lines of oil into his skin.
"You have met Ser Myles Manwoody," she began, and already could sense his frown beginning, for she had pointed Myles out during their visit to Sunspear as the boy who had been her first. She forged ahead.
"I did not tell you...that while I gave him my maidenhood, I had Symon Santagar's tongue in my mouth and on my breasts."
She felt the air rush from him beneath her hand, and snuck a look up at his face, worrying her lip. The frown was not so deep as she'd feared, and she thought there was a hot sort of intent in his eyes that had not been there before.
She pressed said breasts into his arm now.
"Shall I continue?"
A thick pause. "Yes."
She studied her hand again, for it was somehow easier like this.
""If I am honest, most of that evening I did not know which one of them was the one moving in me. They were both fifteen and untried, and not very skilled, all told. Symon was good with his hands though, and what he did with them was rather...lovely. That I do remember, and I told my friends.
And so, the following sennight, Jynny and I went to Symon's room—"
"This is Jynessa Manwoody?"
Ashara raised a brow.
"Yes."
"The sister of Myles?"
Ashara couldn't help smiling.
"Yes. She found it beyond hilarity that I thought Symon a better lover than her brother. I had to beg her not to tell him I said so."
There was a ghost of a returning smile on Ned's face.
"As if I needed more evidence you were always trouble," he said. Ashara gasped in mock indignation.
"Oh, I was not! You've been listening to Yli's stories too closely!"
"So you did not make a habit of riding off into the mountains all alone as a child? Did you not tell me just this morning that you used to sneak off from lessons to go sailing with Oberyn?"
She sniffed.
"Well, perhaps I was spirited is all."
He lifted her hand to kiss her palm, inhaling the cinnamon on her fingers.
"Aye, spirited is one word for it." Ned's voice was rougher than usual.
She decided to be the bigger person and not argue.
"Well, regardless, Jynny wished to know if I had been right about Symon and his hands, so she and I slipped into Symon's room one night. He was so shocked that we decided it would be fun to stun him further."
She hesitated then, the ideas from earlier again resurfacing. Perhaps, if Ned did not seem averse to this story...She caught his eye, watching to gauge his reaction.
"We told him he could watch all he liked, but he could not touch either of us until we determined the time right."
A thick pause.
"Watch?"
"...Yes."
His eyes were the colour of a stirring storm.
"And what exactly...did you show him?"
"We...started off kissing. Stroking one another. Gently, at first, but, well, Jynny always was a good kisser. I don't know how much of her you remember, but she has lips that the gods made, surely. And she treats your whole body like something to be savoured, so I lost my robes rather quickly. I wanted her mouth on my skin. I remember wanting that as if it happened but a week past."
Ned's breath had hitched, and now it came uneven and shallow. Ashara snaked her hand along his chest, pressing closer.
"Shall I continue?" she whispered.
He nodded.
"We must have been kissing a long while, her hands all over my breasts, pinching my nipples, stroking along my back and neck. And it was so...delicious, and even more so because I could feel Symon's eyes on us the whole while. Hunter's eyes. Hungry eyes. The Santagar sigil is a spotted leopard, did you know?
When Jynny pushed me against the bed I remember thinking Symon was going to need new sheets because I was dripping between my legs and she'd barely even touched me there."
Ned made a strangled sound, and now there was that unmistakeable darkening in his eyes she could recognise even in her dreams. Ashara's own skin felt flush from the memories and the new knowledge that perhaps her husband was not immune to the fantasies of so many other men.
"I peaked the first time that night just rocking against her leg, and I remember feeling Symon's gaze as if it were another pair of hands on me. There is something about that...being watched with desire. Something dark and wild and powerful."
She locked her eyes with Ned's and slid her hand to his shoulder, the cinnamon oil there still slick on her palm. She worked her hand down his chest, swirling her fingers around a nipple.
He groaned.
"Is that warm? The cinnamon?"
"Aye." For a moment he closed his eyes and sighed, sinking into the pillows. Then he reached for the jar of oil, tipped a few drops onto his hand, and mimicked her swirling fingers on her own nipples.
The sensation was shimmering and bright, and the callouses of his hand caught at the sensitive skin there, making her shiver.
"Hmmm. That's wonderful."
She kissed him lazily, achingly slow, and his tongue stroked over hers, then caressed along the roof of her mouth. It tickled, warm in her belly. She made a gratified sound, half laugh and half sigh against his lips.
"Jynny taught me to do that," she breathed. "Did I tell you? When I first showed you at Harrenhal?"
She slipped her tongue into his mouth and did the same in return, lapping at the hot skin and feeling his trembling hand skim along her stomach.
They kissed for a long, sweet while, then, before they had heated their blood too far beyond control, Ned drew back and tucked her hair behind her ear. Ashara watched the candlelight flicker in his irises, wondering if...
"What is it?"
"You have not finished your tale."
Ashara ducked to hide her smile. So, she had been right.
"I don't know that I can remember too much more. It's been so very long."
He studied her, his hand making lazy circles on her thigh.
"Did you really enjoy it so much? Having a man watch you while you made love to another woman?"
She laughed. "He was hardly a man, and we were no more than girls, but yes. Yes I did, and I daresay Jynny did as well."
"And this Symon Santagar. Did he…"
"Enjoy it?"
"Mm."
She brushed his cheek with her thumb.
"Very much, if memory serves. But you did not need me to tell you that, did you?"
Her own voice sounded hoarse and thick, and her heart was racing in her ears.
"Do you think you'd enjoy it, Ned? Watching me make love to another woman?"
For a heartbeat, he froze, and then a ragged breath seemed ripped from his throat.
"Yes. Gods help me but I think I would."
Ashara smiled, her teeth sinking into her lip, seeing Ned's gaze flicker down to her mouth before finding her eyes again.
"And after? Do you think…you might like our sharing her touches and her body? Do you think you'd like to fuck me while you watch her suckle my breasts?"
"I..." He swallowed, the words seeming to stick in his throat, but she held his gaze and saw the fire there. He nodded mutely.
"I like watching too, husband," she whispered, her throat going dry. "I want to watch you fuck another woman while her tongue is between my legs. I want to slip my fingers inside myself, watching her put her mouth around your cock."
"Oh gods, Ash," he said, rising above her and pinning her shoulder into the mattress. She hummed as he bit lightly at the base of her neck, then her earlobe.
"Truly?"
She brought his hand to her thighs, guiding it up along the soft skin that had grown slippery and hot from her arousal, shuddering all the while. He was panting in her ear by the time he reached the little nub that drove her mad.
"See what the very thought of it does to me?" Her voice was trembling.
He groaned in response.
"So…" She drew back and held his gaze, biting her lip once more, and he returned an incredulous look, lidded with desire.
"You'd really want to do this then?"
"I've wanted to for some time. Only, I did not think until tonight that you might agree."
She watched him swallow, his eyes darkening.
"Then yes. Yes, alright."
Laughter bubbled in her throat, incredulous too, then she kissed him hard, pressing her aching core into his arousal.
He groaned again, and his fingers did not stop, slipping between her folds, teasing her. She gasped, then buried her face where his neck met his hard shoulder, keening, riding out the storm. It was a long while before either spoke again.
000
Some evenings later, Ned and Ashara lounged in their solar, waiting for Lynesse Hightower.
She might be one of the queen's ladies, but it was not as if they were bringing her into their confidence. In the end, she had been an easy choice. The way her glowing eyes had blinked up at her from her doorway in Winterfell was still vivid in Ashara's mind, and she did not think any man who enjoyed a woman's body could say that Lynesse Hightower was undesirable.
She had invited the woman to break her fast one morning, and it had taken just a few choice hints for her to understand Ashara's meaning.
"Oh, I rarely take men into my bed, but did you not notice my staring at your husband too, Lady Stark? A man who can induce someone like you not to stray would surely be a marvel behind chamber doors."
Ashara had laughed. She did not know if Ned was a marvel or not. It was incomparable, his lovemaking and that of the other men she had been with, because they had only ever disturbed the surface of her body while every touch of her husband's was a ripple into the deep core of her.
But she did not say so much to Lynesse. Instead, she smiled, gratified.
"He is a most considerate lover. I think you will not regret this."
Now Ashara rose to stoke their fire, then came back to sit on Ned's lap. She wore her day gown still but had let her braids loose, and Ned buried his nose in her hair, then nibbled at the ticklish spot just behind her ear, drawing a giggle.
"Did you ask her to stay the night," he asked, sipping wine from her goblet. Ashara raised an eyebrow.
"Of course. How rude would it be, to make her leave in the middle of the night."
Ned laughed, the rich sound rippling over her like cream.
"I suppose you and your scheming mind have come up with a way to avoid talk?"
It was Ashara's turn to laugh.
"I don't know that it's all too scheming, only that the guards will have changed shift by sunrise. And if we keep her up here until late morning…" She shrugged, peering at him from beneath her eyelashes. "Who is to say she did not come early to break her fast with me again?"
A soft knock came from the door then, and Jacks' perplexed voice rose from the other side.
"Milord, milady? Lady Lynesse Hightower is here. Says she's got urgent business?"
Ned cleared his throat.
"Send her in," he called, eyes still locked with Ashara's. "And clear the floor and the ones below when you leave, Jacks. We have sensitive matters to discuss with the lady."
The door opened and shut softly, and Jacks' footsteps faded down the steps. They both rose to their feet. Lynesse Hightower stood in a long cloak the colour of forest moss, her blue-green eyes glistening like turquoise pebbles in the light. She drew her hood back, and Ashara sighed as her honey hair spilled loose about her shoulders.
Lynesse smiled, undoing her cloak to reveal her sheer gown beneath, and Ashara heard her own breath catch. She really was a most lovely woman, like an exquisite bird or jewel wrought by a master goldsmith.
"Good evening Lady Stark. Lord Stark."
"My lady." Ned bowed, slightly stiff, though Ashara was pleased that he, too, seemed entranced by her.
Lynesse laughed lightly, walking slowly to join them at the little table. Ned turned, retrieving the empty goblet.
"Wine, my lady?"
Lynesse had taken Ashara's hand, and Ashara was twirling a soft curl of her hair around her finger. They both looked at Ned then, and Lynesse reached out to lay her other hand on Ned's arm.
"I would like wine, Lord Stark," she said, then slid her eyes back to Ashara. "Only, I fancy that it would taste better from your wife's pretty mouth."
O~O~O~O~O
Ned did not know when sleep overtook him, but when he became aware, his dreams were laced with the warm glow of a cavernous feast hall, and in his ears echoed the imprints of minstrels and laughing men and the clanking of goblets. Where was he, Ned wondered, but when he turned to the high table to see the silvery, scowling head of a long-ago king, he knew.
He waded through the Harrenhal Great Hall as if through water, and all around him were familiar faces from that false spring of his youth. That false spring whence he knew pure, crystal joy for the last time. He turned to see Howland Reed, achingly young, observing the table with interest, while beside him was Benjen, yawning, and across from him…Lyanna, beautiful as a wild rose, brilliant and brimming over with life.
Ned turned again, sparkling purple catching his eye, and on the floor cleared for dancing, Arthur Dayne was lifting Ashara up by the waist in time to a volta. Both were laughing, and the look in Ashara's eye as she spun in and out of her brother's arms was so filled with adoration and joy that it made his head light.
"Ned!"
At the booming voice, so terribly familiar, Ned whipped his head around only to be engulfed in a bear's embrace. Brandon, he thought, and his older brother half squeezed the air from his lungs and lifted him off the ground.
"Hells, you've gotten tall since I last saw you, almost as tall as I am," he was saying, and Ned did not know if Brandon saw him as he was at eight and ten, or now, after two decades, with a few strands of hair turning grey and lines etching his forehead.
It did not matter. Brandon would forever be twenty, laughing and flipping Ned's hair to the side.
"I'm proud of you, little brother," he said, clapping an arm around Ned's shoulder. "I didn't think you'd have it in you."
"What are you saying, Brandon?" Ned asked, though at Brandon's smug smile he could not help smiling back so hard that his cheeks ached.
"Your wife, Ned. Your wild, beautiful wife." He lifted his brows in an expression that bordered on the indecent, smirking all the while.
"I did tell you to keep your mind unlatched, did I not? And how your eyes have been opened." Brandon laughed again, great and booming, and the full timbre of it spun and echoed in Ned's chest.
000
Ned woke the next day to morning sun pouring through the gaps in their chamber curtains. In the red dark behind his closed eyelids, Brandon was still grinning at him. A fever dream, surely.
As he did every morning, he turned to rest his hand on Ashara's waist, and for a moment, he was bewildered to find her side of the bed empty, until he came back to himself and the previous night emerged into his mind. Gods, he had never been so drunk on pure, rousing desire.
The end of the bed shifted. Ned propped himself up on an elbow, squinting at the brightness. The first thing he caught sight of was honey gold mingled with midnight black, and when his vision cleared he saw Lynesse perched above his wife, kissing her as her hair tumbled about the sheets and tangled with Ashara's. They rocked slowly into one another, their soft moans mingling, and for some moments Ned did not know if he was still dreaming.
Their hands were interlocked very close to his foot, and Ned watched with keen fascination as Ashara's slender fingers pressed little half-moons into Lynesse's translucent skin.
His wife made that soft, delighted gasp that was at once so familiar yet so novel, then hummed and flipped them over so that she was the one kneeling on the bed. The sheets slipped from her body, sliding over her creamy shoulders and giving him a glimpse of her perfectly rounded breast. Ned watched her nipple skim over Lynesse's chest and felt all the blood rush straight to his groin once more.
Nothing could have prepared Ned for the erotic revelation of seeing his wife tangled in the arms of a woman, of hearing her moaning at another's touch as she hooked her bewitching gaze to him. And the sight and incandescent pleasure of Ashara kissing Lynesse Hightower right over his aching cock...he was hard again, and despite himself, he gave a strangled groan.
Ashara laughed, breathy and full, and sat back on her heels to smile down at him, her hard nipples peeking out from behind her hair.
"Good morning, husband."
Lynesse had sat up too, her hand still tangled with Ashara's.
"Sleep well, Lord Stark? You'll have to pardon me. Your wife did not wish to disturb your sleep, and I only wished to keep her company."
"I—good morning, my lady. Ash…"
Ashara laughed again, her voice like bells, then slid her hot hand up his leg and along his stomach, drawing out another moan. She drew towards him, sensuous and slow, and pressed a decadent kiss against his neck.
"Do you remember what I said last night? That it's best if Lynesse leaves late in the morning? Well, 'tis early yet, Ned. I do hope you've rested well."
000
Ned hurried along the empty halls of the Red Keep, walking as fast as he could but not wishing to break into a run lest he alarm the guards. He had received a summons from the king with no information save the order to come to his solar at once. Robert had urgent news, it seemed, and it could not wait.
The guards outside his door gave Ned stolid nods as he entered, and he made sure to shut the door firmly behind him. Yet when he turned, he had but a moment to register the blur hurling towards him before he was knocked near to his knees by a wall of doublet and beard and Robert Baratheon.
"Wha—what the bloody hells—"
"Ned! You sly fucking bastard, I can't believe you've finally done it!" Wherever Robert's voice was coming from, it pounded painfully against his eardrums.
Robert's thick hands yanked him upright once more, and he found himself staring at the flushed face of his friend. His blue eyes shake with that familiar old mischief, and suddenly Ned had an inkling of what he spoke.
Still, he let his bewilderment show.
"Your Grace, what are you talking about?"
"Oh, don't give me that 'Your Grace' horse shit. You can't hide from me." Robert pressed him down into a chair, sloshed wine into a goblet, and looked down at him, wiggling his eyebrows. Suddenly, Brandon's face from his dream floated to the surface of his mind, the expression overlapping perfectly with his friend's.
Oh, gods. How did he know?
"Well Ned," Robert said now, downing his wine, then pouring a goblet for Ned. "Let's hear it, eh? How does it feel to finally be a man?"
Don't be like Ned and Ash, kids. Use a condom when having threesomes with strangers. A huge part of why canon Ned would never agree to this is because he'd never risk getting some other woman pregnant, and then there are all those STIs that are so elusive in Westeros. So. Protection is important.
So, while this scene is AU, Ashara's sexual history...that stuff is 100% canon to my fic. I had a little too much fun there. I sort of imagine Sunspear during Ashara's teenage years as almost a small high school of sorts? I have no idea if this was the way of things, but I imagine that a lot of second sons and daughters were invited to stay and learn at Sunspear as the Martells' way of increasing Dornish unity. And if you've ever been to a small high school—like yeah, it was just a musical chairs situation of dating and sexual relationships.
Thanks to CMedina for suggesting this and coming up with half the ideas and helping me troubleshoot. Basically, this wouldn't exist without them. Which….you know, it's sort of their fault it exists at all, so if you're a little shook, like, I'm not entirely to blame? Did I just try to throw my beta reader under the bus?