Dany knew she made the right choice when she requested to stay at Dragonstone. While it wasn't an ideal destination, it was quieter than the Red Palace and much more private.
She and Jon lounged on the settee of their simple room, sipping the chilled champagne that greeted them. The open windows let the cool night air in, a hint of sulfur on the breeze.
Her sweat-ruined makeup was gone, as well as the picture-perfect curls from the reception, returning to her proper state with the addition of a rich flush— one of alcohol, heat, and anticipation.
Her legs lay across his lap and she stared at him shamelessly. His smokey eyes, darkened to obsidian in the low light, framed by soft lashes, the bump in the ridge of his nose, and a pout she always wanted to steal kisses from. He occupied their little space with an attractive gravity, pulling her further in as his fingers toyed with the modest hem of her dress.
Snagged in Dorne, it appeared to be doing its job. A slip of red silk with delicate straps and high slits, it was eye-catching, head-turning, and for Jon's eyes only.
"What did you think of the Martells?"
"I think Arianne wanted to take a bite out of me," he confessed.
Dany snorted, "She looks at everyone that way."
They lapsed into a crackling silence.
"I change my mind," he spoke, still invested in drawing patterns along her shin.
"About what?"
"Red looks much better on you than blue."
Dany smiled at the memory of Lannisport. Two people fighting the free fall of love only to land safely on their feet.
"I have an ulterior motive for it," she confessed, reaching across Jon to set her glass down.
"And what might that be?" He took her hand, entwining their fingers and kissing her wrist.
The look in his eyes told her he already knew, he just wanted the satisfaction of hearing her say it.
"So you could take it off."
The statement broke their already feeble resolve, already worn through after a day of stealing touches. His lips crashed into hers, possessive and exciting as his tongue teased with the taste of champagne. A hand at her neck urged her closer and she shifted until she was on his lap.
His attention descended to her neck, hands drifting higher along her legs. The smooth, cool fabric trailed after, stopping with him at her bare hips.
She opened his shirt further, spreading her hands across the defined planes of his chest. His skin was hot beneath her touch.
"I love you," he murmured with a kiss to her throat.
Love. Easily said but not easily meant. But as Dany sighed it back, she knew it was true.
"Say it again," he urged, dark eyes trained on her raw lips.
"I love you," she whispered in his ear and kissed his neck as his hands tightened around her ass.
He tried to catch her but she ducked away, silently chastising his greed.
"I love you," she delivered to the other ear, rolling her hips.
His breath hitched and she slipped out of his reach again to say it one last time.
He captured her lips with an intensity that caused her heartbeat to stutter. She untucked his shirt and he slid out of it before gathering up more of Dany's dress. She started to slip the straps from her shoulders but he took her hands.
"Leave it on."
Heat flooded her already burning skin as the heedless craving for him swelled. Guiding hands laid her along the length of the settee and Dany stretched long and languid along the plush cushions. As Jon hiked the hem higher, pressed a kiss where the low neckline met her sternum.
Another kiss was pressed to her hip bone before he settled his face between her thighs. Her breath caught in anticipation, every nerve alight and holding its collective breath.
His tongue licked along her folds in a delicate stroke, as though testing the waters. Dany sighed his name, softening into her plush surroundings and giving him all the confirmation he needed.
Every lick, nip, and pull was full of determination, as though it was just as enjoyable for him as it was for Dany. Her hips canted at him and he threw an arm across them, a gesture so casual it was cruel. Dany tightened her grip around the intricately carved wood along the back of the sofa, the other finding purchase in his unruly curls.
A devilish thought crossed her mind and she gently pulled on the locks between her fingers. An enthusiastic groan rumbled against her.
His tongue traveled upward to her clit, his finger occupying the space left behind. Dany whined and ground against him, chasing the pinnacle of his attention. Every thought centered on his efforts, unable to escape the delicious fog clouding her brain. She tossed her head to the side and cried out to whatever God dared to listen.
He wasn't letting her off easy. A hand pressed her thigh away, knee digging into the sofa's soft cushioned back as Jon doubled his efforts. Another finger joined the first and his tongue flicked faster over the bundle of nerves.
Finally, as though her desperate and aimless prayer fell on attentive ears, the tension in her snapped. A thousand dizzying stars, the heavens themselves, danced behind her eyelids. She was suspended. No force could move her.
Slowly, her eyes fluttered open, seeing only the dimly lit ceiling above them as her breath returned. The silk dress clung to her damp skin, a result of their activity as well as the island air. Gentle hands stroked under the fabric but they pricked instead of soothed. Glancing down, she was greeted with a sight tempting enough to wind her up again.
Jon, with his head resting against her thigh, gazed at her with such longing Dany never wanted to look away. Desire ghosted across them. Desire and love and all the huge feelings they once denied.
His wet lips met hers in a heady rush, sinking her back into the haze she still recovered from. She wanted him again… and again… and again.
He scooped her up from the sofa bridal style.
"Oh, you are ridiculous," she laughed, kissing his jaw.
The cheesy gesture, and his resonant laughter, made her heart flutter. He let her down at the foot of the bed and Dany reached for the straps of the clingy dress. Jon stopped her again, hands skimming down her arms as he held her against him.
"I thought you wanted me to take it off?" His voice was low and breathy in her ear, sending a chill down her spine.
"Better hurry," she replied, trying to disguise the desperateness in her voice.
Jon didn't, however. He was determined to take his dear, sweet time in removing the silk from Dany's glowing skin. The slow trailing of his fingers only served to heighten the excitement coursing through her. Gentle kisses followed in the wake of his touch across her collarbones, the thin straps of the dress falling from her breasts.
She stood and the dress pooled at her feet, cast away with an unceremonious kick. She was much more interested in getting Jon undressed.
His rumpled shirt was easy enough to manage, same with the belt as he rose to help her. Dany followed his briefs and dress pants to the floor, remaining on her knees after he removed them.
She felt a strange sense of surrender as she knelt before him. She was always the instigator— the one in charge. She knew the moment she was anything other than the aloof seductress— commanding and controlling— they would try to take advantage of her. But she knew Jon would never assume her place was like this. She could be vulnerable and tender and still be his equal.
There was a slight shake in her hands as they ghosted along the well-toned lines of his thighs and she glanced up only briefly, knowing she would lose her nerve if she saw how his gaze bored into her.
His cock stood at attention before her, rosy and just as desperate as she was. She took him in her hand and pressed a kiss to the head. Before she could take him into her mouth, Jon caressed her jaw. She looked up.
"Dany—" he said softly.
"I want to," she assured him and he said no more.
She licked along the underside of his cock before taking him between her lips. A heavenly moan left him, his idle hands finding their way into her hair. She hummed around him, stroking the length of him not in her mouth.
"Fuck, Dany," he sighed.
She glanced up, watching face contort with reverence. With one hand braced on his hip, the other deftly palmed his balls bringing another beautiful throat sound from him. The sweet, coiling pressure between Dany's thighs grew, demanding to be answered but it would have to wait.
She was focused on Jon and relishing in the noises he made. When she hollowed her cheeks or teased with her tongue, he answered her. The sound of her name on his lips, his hands in her hair, the way his thighs tensed as he tried not to thrust into her mouth— it all drove her wild, leaving her to drown in a touchless pleasure.
Jon pulled out of her mouth and knelt down to her, kissing her hard. They were breathless and hot but far from done. She pulled him down on top of her.
The rug scratched her bare, burning skin but she didn't care, she wanted him now. Jon felt the same. She knew from the way he wasted no time in entering her. Even with her arousal, the stretch is a delicious ache.
Dany cried out, arching against Jon's chest and gripping his shoulders. He found a slow, deep pace to start. But his reserve melted away into something rough and unrelenting, roused by Dany's nails digging into the flaming skin of his back and her leg wrapped around his waist to bring him impossibly closer.
His weight pressed her into the floor. Already alive from the nonstop attention, her orgasm tore through her in a blaze of white light and overwhelming relief, leaving her a heaving mess underneath him.
Jon buried his face into her shoulder as he came. Dany clutched him to her and thought, a bit wildly, that she wouldn't mind if they never went back to Winterfell. So long as she could have him.
The morning light stretched brilliantly across the airy decoration of the room, covering everything in its insistent brightness and making the room glint as though it were the heavens. Outside, the sparse hills of Dragonstone stretched, soaking in the warm sun before it turned scorching, and just beyond the sharp line marking the island's coast, were the sparkling grey waters of the bay. The island breeze whipped through the thin curtains and brought whispers of the salt and humidity on the fresh air.
As enticing as the world outside tried to be, it couldn't beat the scene inside the quaint room.
Jon was surrounded by the pristine white of ruffled sheets, chest rising and falling in the unbothered pattern of sleep. His face was free of the usual furrowed brow, an echo of the boyhood he lost and Dany would never know. Her eyes traced every line bared to her, trying to commit to memory as though he could disappear at any moment.
If someone told her four months ago she would fall head over heels for a man she was all but forced to marry, she would've laughed herself into hysterics. How strange to think of the turn her life took. She didn't know who to praise— the Gods of those Braavosi tabloids… her brother? Not likely.
Her fingers inched across the sheets— closer to him. She wanted to trace every angle, follow the veins to their source. At her delicate touch, Jon hummed, drawing her into his warm embrace.
Dany laughed, "And here I thought I actually woke up before you."
"Not likely." He pressed a kiss to her forehead.
She snuggled closer, his heartbeat thrummed in her ear.
"We don't have to leave, do we?"
"No. We've got all day."
"Never were words so sweet."
"Oh, a poet are we?"
"You love it."
"Hm, I do." She kissed the hollow of his throat, "And I love your curls, have I ever told you that?"
She toyed with one in her reach, bringing a smile to Jon's face.
"No, I don't think you have."
"You must get them from your mother," Dany wondered, "You never talk about her."
He tensed.
"I don't mean to—"
"It's alright." He smoothed a tendril of hair away from her face. "I don't know her."
"Really?"
"She's one of the only topics my father won't discuss with anyone. Ask him anything, from politics to weather, and he'll gladly tell you his opinion but the moment it comes to my mother, he shuts down. I couldn't describe her if I tried."
"Well, you can have mine, if that helps you any."
Dany chuffed after she said it. It was a silly thought but Jon laughed all the same.
"I don't know what she looks like either, I'm afraid."
"I hardly remember. I've only seen her face in photos and my dad stopped talking about her a few years after she passed. Don't get me wrong, I'm very grateful to have what I do, but—"
"It's still unfair."
"Yeah."
"I get it."
"Everyone says I look like her. Especially in the eyes."
"I love your eyes."
"She would've liked you."
"I'm sure she was a lovely woman."
"She was. The people loved her too from what I've heard. Everyone took her death really hard."
She glanced at the scars on her arm. Jon noticed, of course, and brushed his fingertips across the raised crescents.
"Viserys was the baby until I was born so, naturally, he wasn't too fond of me," she started, then took a breath.
"But I was closer in age so we were together all the time. He was always a little too aggressive but our nannies chalked it up to 'boys being boys' and all that. But as we got older…"
Dany remembered well the precursors to the big event. Minor but not harmless incidents that flew under the radar of their watchers. Hair pulling, breaking toys, and general roughness. There were never any cuts or bruises, only tears and hurt feelings.
When Elia came to live at the palace, she took it upon herself to ensure their complete separation. It was easier with Dany attending an all-girls private school and all her extracurriculars but a perfect storm was brewing.
Viserys finished secondary school that spring and had no plans to attend university despite Aerys' best efforts. He preferred to spend his nights at clubs and his days sleeping off whatever drug and alcohol cocktails he mindlessly consumed the night before.
Given that it was summer, Dany was also at the palace more and she was busy with preparations for her society debut. After days of dance lessons and rehearsals of the overzealous ceremony, Dany finally had a little time to herself so she headed to the library.
She had a summer reading list she wanted to get ahead on but she wouldn't mind getting sidetracked if something else caught her eye. Philosophy was a mystery she wasn't ready to investigate, she preferred her arts and histories. Tucked into a back croner, she poured over a broken-in copy of Valyrian poems— a version with little illustrations sprinkled in.
The library was large, easy to get lost in and eerily quiet, so when the door opened the sound reverberated through the whole room. Dany got up from her spot and looked around the corner.
"I know you're in here!" Viserys' voice echoed and Dany shrank back, hoping the towering bookcase would hide her.
"Where are you?"
The smaller door required her to cross the room, putting her directly in his path. The thought crossed her mind to stay put but self-preservation won out. Her immature sense of immortality, somehow untouched by the loss of her mother, knew she could do it. He couldn't possibly hurt her— at least as he had before.
In that respect, she was gravely mistaken. She watched him disappear down the first aisle and tip-toed from her spot, her socked feet silent on the carpeted floor.
She held her breath as she ran past the sitting area. Desperate to free, she didn't see Viserys come around the corner. He blindsided her, sending the two of them crashing into an armchair.
Dany gasped but no air came, a sensation sharp and unforgettable. No sound left her, she could only wiggle away. It all blurred after that.
She remembered his knee in her back and unintelligible accusations, the relief of air rushing back into her lungs and her cries for help. Then, his grip on her arm, fingernails pinching the delicate skin. She swore she heard the skin break.
More voices came, loud but indistinct. Her arm was freed and she was shoved into the waiting arms of Rhaenys' nanny. The woman tried to distract her as Viserys was hauled away but Dany still heard.
Elia was livid. Aerys was a stickler for hierarchy and had evaded Elia's requests for a meeting since her arrival at court, but not that time. She went directly to Rhaegar and laid her plan before him. Unless Viserys was removed from the palace, Elia would take Rhaenys and Dany to Dorne until he was. The King was told the same thing, however, his reaction was much less compassionate.
Dany was in the room, of course, though she didn't need to speak— her bandaged arm and puffy eyes did that for her. But she listened as her father hurled slurs at Elia and threatened her. Never once did the future queen's face change. And when he had worn himself out, she said, "Call me whatever you like, Your Majesty, but Daenerys is your daughter and she is still a girl. She deserves to be safe in her own home."
Viserys was discreetly shipped to Dragonstone that night, with a modest host of guards and no return date.
"He died a year later, in a car crash outside the city. My father never recovered from the loss."
Dany stared at the sheer canopy overhead. Despite the tightness in her body, her eyes were surprisingly dry. She took a deep breath and sighed it out. Jon kissed her shoulder.
It felt good to tell him. To get it off her chest even though it didn't matter. It had never strained their relationship, never put a barrier between them. But now he knew a piece of her that not many did. Something that brought him closer and entrenched him deeper in her life.
"I know you don't want me to say it…"
Slowly, Dany turned to look at him. His heartbroken expression tore her. She wanted to hide, to run to the other side of the castle and avoid him, but the thought was fleeting.
No more running.
"But I am sorry that happened to you. It never should have."
Her throat tightened and with a shaking breath, the absent tears flooded her eyes. She buried her face into Jon's shoulder and let the sobs run their course. He stroked her messy hair and whispered sweet things as he held her. Reminding her that if she was nothing else… she was safe.