Author's notes:
A big Thank You to my reviewers, your support means a lot to me.
Chapter 6: Practicing
Since they both had no idea when the Hound was going to make his appearance, Betsy had prepared something she could keep warm over the fire and had busied herself with something or other in the kitchen, while Sansa had nothing to do but wringing her hands, replaying her conversation with Sibyl over and over and wait.
The long awaited entrance came after darkness had fallen.
After a stiff greeting, she informed him that dinner would be ready at once and he nodded and went upstairs to get rid of his armour and refresh himself.
There was a slight stagger to his steps as he walked upstairs, probably meaning he was drunk. He hadn't been for quite a long time, at least so far as she had noticed when seeing him, but maybe he didn't drink when he was on duty on principle. She had no idea what he did when he had time off. Well, aside from visiting brothels, that was.
Betsy was just done serving when he came back down again. Wearing just a light tunic and breeches, he still looked as big and intimidating as he did wearing full plate. While other men seemed considerably smaller when out of armour, the same couldn't be said about him.
He started on the food without preamble and manners and Sansa couldn't help but looking at him censoriously.
Clegane was a lord's son, had been around highborn people most of his life, so he knew how to behave properly, he just chose not to, in what felt to her like a calculated insult.
Noticing her stare, he looked up, still chewing with a half-open mouth.
"I am a dog, girl, I eat like one. Get used to it."
Gritting her teeth, she gingerly took up her eating knife and started to pick at her own food without much desire to eat anything at all.
"So, how was your day?" she asked in an attempt to start something resembling a conversation.
"Stop your chirping," he said around a mouthful of stewed mutton, not taking his attention away from his food. "I've no need for empty talk."
She fell silent, anger slowly creeping up inside of her. Well, she thought, let's make it less empty.
"Did you give the sheet to Joffrey?"
That, at least, got her his attention and he looked up at her sharply.
"Aye," he said, his eyes fixed on her face to gauge her reaction.
"Was he... pleased?"
'More pleased with the result than you were with producing it?' she added silently.
"Not so much," he answered.
Sansa was tempted to laugh. Apparently, she couldn't even get bleeding right.
"The small council decided to make some fuss about it though," he continued, still looking at her out of watchful eyes. "Blamed me for what happened."
Her stomach dropped. The small council had thought to intervene?
She had known the Hound had spoken to them about her situation before, she had received a couple of visitors who were mainly concerned that nothing "untoward" had happened. They looked at her wounds and listened to her story with compassion, but nothing had ever come of it.
Had she been precipitous in giving herself to Clegane during the very first night? Had she made a gigantic, irredeemable mistake?
He'd told her he would not have forced her; she had offered herself to him. If it turned out the small council would have helped her had they known about Joffrey's plans, she had no one else but herself to blame.
"Why do they care, all of a sudden?" she asked quietly.
Again he looked at her intently, as if deciding if and what to tell her.
"They have doubts whether or not Bolton's wife really is your sister."
Of course, she thought bitterly. It had to be about her claim all over again. It would've been too much to ask for them to just care about her being treated well.
A very small voice inside her piped up with the notion that now that she was ruined, she would never again have to worry about whether people just cared about her claim or her as a person. The thought was almost liberating.
"You don't look surprised," his rasping voice broke into her thoughts.
"I am not," she said honestly. "Arya is four years my junior, she is barely past her twelfth nameday right now. For her to have flowered and already born a child... I cannot believe it."
He nodded thoughtfully.
"Besides," she continued, suddenly needing to say it out loud to convince herself that her little sister couldn't be in the claws of that monster, "Arya would never just submit to being the bastard's wife. She would rather kill herself. She was... is... a lot stronger than me."
His gaze snapped towards hers, anger blazing at her, but soon enough his eyes went blank again.
After some more minutes of eating in silence, he leaned back in his chair and carefully wiped his mouth and hands clean with the wet cloth Betsy had provided.
Sansa stood, knowing the time had come to do her part.
Hiding her shaking hands in the folds of her dress, she walked over to him.
Even seated, he was but a head smaller than her, so she had to bend down not too far for her lips to reach the underside of his jaw to place a gentle kiss there.
He inhaled sharply, but she kept moving her lips slowly down his neck.
Find something about him that you like, Sibyl's voice echoed in her thoughts. Don't focus on what you don't, it'll only make things harder for you.
It hadn't taken her long to decide she liked the look of his neck, the only part of him besides his face and hands she had ever seen uncovered before last night's events. Liked the play of muscles and tendons underneath bronzed skin when he moved his head.
With her nose so near to his skin, she was reminded that she liked the smell of him as well. Having been close to him many times before, she would've recognized him amongst hundreds by his smell alone. Lye soap, horse and leather - wine, sometimes, although not today - and something that was unique only to him. A smell as clean as the man it belonged to. She'd never known anyone who was as meticulous about cleanliness as the Hound. With him, it certainly wasn't vanity, apparently he just liked it.
Which made what she was planning to do that much less daunting.
"Sansa what...," he said hoarsely when her lips had reached the edge of his shirt.
Going with what she had been told, she placed one hand on the inside of his thigh, slowly moving it toward his groin.
Out of the corner of her eye, she could see him reaching for the table top, gripping it as if he needed something to hold on to.
Moving closer to him, she was reminded of something else she liked: he was always warm. Right now, he was fairly radiating heat. Oftentimes after she had been stripped, or sometimes when Joffrey had found it amusing to have her repeatedly doused with ice-cold water, having him hold her afterwards was the only thing that brought a semblance of warmth back into her body.
Yes, she liked that a lot.
When her hand reached its goal, she found him already hard under the thin material of his breeches. And so huge she had to stifle a gasp.
Damn Sibyl and her inaccurate model! She was severely doubting that what she had practiced today would even work with something this size. But since backing out now was not an option, she cupped him a bit more firmly with her hand, eliciting a soft groan that vibrated against her lips where she had still pressed them to his throat.
Since it sounded as if he liked what she was doing, she started unlacing his breeches, only to be stopped by a large hand clamping around her wrist.
"What are you doing?" he asked in a whisper.
Reluctantly, she moved her lips away from his neck and sank to her knees between his legs, using her other hand to do what the now restricted one had done before.
"You can't tell?" she asked just as quietly.
He looked at her for a seemingly endless moment, but then closed his eyes, leaned his head back against the high backrest of his chair and let go of her hand.
Taking this as a sign to continue, she made quick work of the rest of the laces and finally freed him. Her insides quaked with remembered pain when she held his manhood in her hand, feverishly hot, hard and so big it was no wonder it had felt as if she was torn apart last night.
He had not meant to hurt her, she realized, he just couldn't have helped it.
No one can hurt her as I can.
Even in this, he had not boasted or lied.
For a panicked moment, she drew blanks on how she was to proceed, until scraps of advice started coming back to her.
Pay attention to the head, it's the most sensitive part ... never use your teeth... hold him tight at the base... stroke his balls... hollow your cheeks and suck... swirl your tongue
It had been quite a lot to remember and she soon was so occupied following Sibyl's instructions, that she almost missed the soft curses muttered above her.
Most men like it so much, it takes them no time at all to come.
Judging from the agonizing eternity it had taken last night, Sansa thought that a bit of hyperbole, until she noticed how rigid he had become, every muscle flexed, and his knuckles white where he still had a death grip on the table.
Their balls draw tight to their bodies when they are close and they are getting a bit bigger. By then you should be prepared to either swallow or have them come over your face, whatever you prefer.
Sibyl had only laughed when Sansa had told her indignantly that she preferred neither.
Now that the moment was there, she was sure the Hound wouldn't like the messier of the two choices, so - following Sibyl's words to the letter - she let him fill her mouth and then took a long swallow.
"Fuck!"
She wasn't quite done when he suddenly shoved her backwards, his manhood leaving her mouth with a plopping sound, while his seed trickled out of the corner of her mouth and down her chin.
He stared at her out of wide eyes, chest heaving with panting breaths and he looked... angry. Furious, even.
What reason she could've given him to be mad at her, having followed all of Sibyl's instructions so diligently, she had no idea.
"Go...," he panted, "go clean yourself."
She blushed and averted her eyes. She'd been right about him wanting to avoid a mess. Apparently, this was what he was angry about.
After washing and rinsing her mouth, she was about to slink back to the sitting room when a solid wall barred her way.
A solid wall of seven feet plus, very angry male.
He had his hands braced against the sides of the corridor, barely having to stretch his arms for that, and glared down on her.
"Where did you learn to do that?" he demanded, his voice strained as if he kept himself from shouting.
Sansa was taken aback at that request and somewhat reluctant to name her source. She didn't want to get Sibyl into any trouble.
"I..." she began haltingly, but was interrupted when he shoved his angry face closer to hers.
"And don't even start telling me that sucking cock was taught you by your septa somewhere between embroidery and polite conversation."
If she hadn't been so flustered by his irrational behaviour, the mental image would have made her smile.
"I went to the Street of Silk and asked..."
"A whore?" he barked, making her jump. "You went and asked a whore?"
Angry tears shot hotly into her eyes but she fought them down.
"Yes I did," she hissed back. "You were not satisfied last night, so..."
His eyes, angry slits before, rounded for a moment before narrowing in anger once again.
"You are not my whore," he grated, stabbing a finger in her direction. "And I won't have you act like one."
With that he turned abruptly and went upstairs.
"Then what DO you want from me?" she screeched after him, not getting an answer.
He came back down minutes later, fully attired and apparently set on spending another night away from his own house.
"Did you enjoy it?" she asked with forced calm when he opened the door.
He paused, hunching his shoulders as if uncomfortable in his armour, but didn't turn around to face her.
"You couldn't tell?"
...
Anger, Sandor found, was oftentimes too tame a word for what he felt. Right now, he was livid; a fire churning in his gut that he knew would only be quenched if he went and used his fists on something... or his sword.
He was spoiling for a fight so badly, he would've liked nothing better than to find some squalid fighting pit somewhere in Flea Bottom and beat some of the residing champions to pulp. Sadly, his reputation preceded him already, so he would find no opponents there.
There was not much left for him but wait for the morrow so he could let go of his frustrations in the training yard.
A whore!
He couldn't get past that thought and every time he came back to it, the flames in the pit of his belly roared up anew.
He knew that he shouldn't have said what he did last night, but how was he supposed to know she would think it was somehow her fault and therefore she had to try and remedy it?
How should he have foreseen in his wildest imagination that she would traipse through the city all by herself – risking gods knew what – to get the advice of a whore?
And by the seven hells, the girl had taken her lessons seriously!
He wasn't a man who lost control with a woman, ever. Even last night, he had to some extend been able to control the depth and force of his thrusts to spare her pain, even if at the expense of his own pleasure.
But tonight...
He cursed under his breath and Stranger sidled about nervously under him as if aware of his master's mood.
She had already impeded his ability to think straight when she had put her silky soft lips on his neck, softly snuffling at his skin like a curious cat. He had been so dazed, it had taken him way too long to see where this was going and by the time she was kneeling between his legs, hands on his cock and looking up at him with what he had thought was a plea in her eyes... how was a man to say no to that? Even one who had resolved to never touch her again, because all he ever seemed to do was put her in harm's way.
And how was he to call a halt to things once she had wrapped her mouth around him, all eager and hot, had stroked him with her tongue and fondled him with her dainty, soft hands - so unlike those of the women who usually performed the service for him?
Still, all the while he was determined to draw back in time, to not sully her with his seed, but then he had made the mistake of looking down, of seeing her sweet lips, the ones that had felt so heavenly on his skin, moving up and down on his cock.
He'd lost it then. Just for a short moment, mind, but it had been the one moment that had pushed him over the edge, had him spill into the mouth of one of the land's most highborn girls as if she was a common whore.
He'd always wanted to protect her from exactly this sort of debasement, had always done his best to threaten anyone who even as much as suggested it. Little did he know how spectacularly he would fail when it came to protecting her from himself.
She had to be thoroughly disgusted with him.
Hells, he had been disgusted with himself.
And damn him, but he should at least have apologized. But while she was gone cleaning herself, the question of where she might have learned to do what she had just done had wrought havoc on his ability to behave with some decency - again.
Had someone forced her to it while he hadn't been there to watch her? Or did she know it from a tryst with one of the handsome knights she used to adore? Who did he have to geld for shoving his prick into her mouth?
But once again, as it turned out, no other man was to blame for another bit of Sansa Stark's innocence going down the drain than he himself.
He had done such a fine job of ruining her in the timespan of only two days, Joffrey should be proud.
Cursing once again, he kicked Stranger into a gallop, the clatter of his horse's hooves ringing hollowly through the night darkened streets.
It would be a long wait until practice tomorrow.
...
tbc