Sansa was tired of Jon's excuses. He was a truly despicable husband. She had endured five months of marriage, and had fallen asleep nestled in the crook of his arm most nights, and yet he held true to this inexplicable vow.
"Do you miss the Wall?" she grumbles one night after things had gotten a little too hot and heavy.
He does not answer. He has the nerve to bop her on the nose with his finger. Then he rolls over and falls instantly asleep. She loathes him.
Things get much worse a fortnight before her fifteenth nameday. He is kissing her, just kissing her, his fingers laced through her hair. Her legs wrap around his thighs instinctually, and when he'd rolls on top of her the hard muscles of his thighs push against her. Something about it concentrates her attention wonderfully. It lasts just a moment before he shifts and it's gone once more.
She tightens her thighs around him again, and he shifts so more of his weight wis on her. His body seemed to want to give in to her even if her husband preferred to take long walks outside instead of finishing what they'd started.
As he presses her into the mattress he nibbled on her ear with his teeth. It didn't tickle like it normally did. It keeps going, just like that. She does most of the work, rubbing up against him. He buries his head in her hair and she can feel every one of his steady breaths against her neck. Pressure builds in her belly as she arches her back.
The only sound in the room was her ragged breathing, until the feeling comes apart and she exhales, "Jon."
Jon doesn't talk about it afterwards. Instead, he immediately excuses himself. As she lays there alone she wonders where exactly he'd gone until the realization hits her and a rush of excitement runs through her. Sansa had always thought a man taking himself in hand was gross, but now the image of Jon like that – because of her – flashes through her mind and her mouth goes dry.
Sometimes she would feel him pressed hard against her, but in those moments she'd been utterly distracted, consumed by kissing him. He was so very good at kissing. But she wondered if he'd let her slip her hands between them and feel it. Or…
When he comes back to bed she leans over and wraps her arms around him.
"You needn't have run off," she whispers into his ear.
"You'd be surprised what I needed."
She smiles and runs her fingers against his muscled stomach. That was her favourite part of him. She even liked his scars.
"I only mean, I would watch, if you let me."
Jon groans. "I don't think I could control myself with you watching, My Lady," he says, and Sansa thinks she may like that answer better than getting her way.
She is desperate to do it again, to feel the way the world could go quiet for a blissful moment. She is a wicked wife, she knows, for she finds she loves tempting him. Jon is merely trying to be an honourable man, a loving husband. Still, she pushes.
They do it again and again, and as she pushes herself into him she imagines his eyes hungry. She runs her hands up his shirt and leaves scratches on his back she can see the next day as he dresses for breakfast. He gives in, moving back against her. As the friction becomes nearly unbearable, she imagines him breaking down and ravishing her, taking her and not being gentle about it. Claiming her as his true wife and filling her with his hot seed.
He never does. And though she loves him all the more for it, it does nothing to stop her from wanting.
She finds she utterly hates him when just a week before her fifteenth nameday, he calls her into the library to meet with Sam. It would be utterly embarrassing with their old maester, but somehow this is worse.
"It's not ideal for a woman to fall pregnant before her sixteenth year," Sam tells her.
Jon looks away as he has his friends deliver the news. Coward, she thinks.
And though she loathes him, she still wants him desperately and loves him wholeheartedly. She is flummoxed.
"I won't get pregnant. I swear it!" she cries, and to her mortification her voice comes out much more childlike than she'd intended. She sounds like a little girl. Jon looks at her and she glares it him. He looks away sheepishly.
"You can't really control that," Sam says, as gently as he can.
"I've heard that if you do it the day after your moonblood you can't get pregnant," Sansa says, lifting her chin.
"An old wives tale," Sam said. "You can get pregnant at any time of your cycle. Even while you're bleeding."
Sansa sighs.
"Can I discuss this with my husband alone?" she asks Sam. Sam nods and leaves them to it.
She stares at him, waiting for him to explain himself. He pulls on the collar of his shirt. She sighs dramatically when she realizes he will not speak first.
"Do you truly mean to be this cruel?"
"Sansa."
"Yes, I know you have your reasons." She crosses her arms. "And I accepted them, but you're making this too difficult –"
"You have not accepted them, you make things difficult."
"I make things difficult? You just had your best friend tell me I won't be your true wife for another year."
Jon sighs. "Fine. Not a year. Six months."
Sansa's heart lifts. "Really?"
He smiles and she swears she loves him so much she may forgive him yet.