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Jaime tested the handcuffs. “Perfect.”
Brienne’s expression remained dubious. She crouched by Jaime’s side, the tops of her breasts and her cheeks already pinking. She reached out for a second time and tugged gingerly on the cuff locked around the iron headboard, traced the short chain to the cuff clasping Jaime’s wrist. Brienne’s fingers described the circumference of the metal circle, brushing Jaime’s wrist, barely shivering over the thin skin, the golden hairs. Jaime was certain she could feel his pulse, however light her touch.
Stretched over him to reach the headboard as Brienne was, her breast was almost within easy reach of Jaime’s mouth. He licked his lips but let Brienne finish her examination in peace. She was on the second pair of standard police-issue handcuffs now, her spare pair from work, brought only after much wheedling and teasing on Jaime’s part, alongside the well-worn pair without which Brienne never left home. Jaime had guessed correctly that his father would put them in one of the guest bedrooms furnished with an old-fashioned metal bedstead and a mattress with springs, in the misguided belief that this would discourage Jaime and Brienne from engaging in any bedroom activities during their visit to Tywin Lannister’s country estate.
Jaime smirked as he imagined his father’s face over breakfast tomorrow, after the old man had been kept up by the resonant metal twanging and cries of pleasure emanating from the guest wing. Serve him right for sending them an official invitation on thick cream paper, such as he occasionally extended to valuable political and business contacts: the lord of the manor indicating tentative acceptance of his son and heir’s choice of mate by offering to host them for a weekend, whether they wanted it or not.
Brienne withdrew her hand, clasped her hands demurely in her naked lap. “I still think we should have bought the padded kind,” she declared. “These were not made for comfort.”
Jaime grinned up at her, rattled the handcuffs against the metal headboard, like a ghost in a carnival fright house.
“These have sentimental value,” he twinkled, watched the beloved, predictable blush creep up Brienne’s chest and neck as she remembered a night when he’d made her sufficiently angry to handcuff him and offer to teach him a thing or two he hadn’t previously known about pleasure. For all that Jaime had called her boring more than once early in their acquaintance, life with Brienne had proved to be full of pleasant surprises, both in and out of the bedroom.
Jaime settled comfortably on the pillows and mattress, which already twanged a little under him. He licked his lips to make Brienne blush brighter.
“Lend me your mouth, lady,” he crooned with a glance at his half-hard cock, “and mount up. I’ve been looking forward to this all week.”
Brienne lifted her eyebrows, but then she licked her lips in turn, kissed Jaime quickly, a parting reassurance, and settled on her heels beside Jaime, his arms stretched above his head, his ribs painted gold and grey by the soft lamplight. Laid out for her perusal.
Jaime filled his lungs, air tasting delicious as Brienne licked around and around and over him, and finally sucked him slowly, drew it out and made him wait, enjoying the control he’d surrendered to her. The merest brush of her teeth, deliberate and careful, made Jaime hiss and lift his pelvis, knowing he should wait for what they had planned, wanting Brienne to take him in deeper, till he made the metal bedstead scream as he strained against it.
He glanced down his body and met Brienne’s eyes, shiny like the calm sea at noon. Jaime remembered the first time he’d seen her like this, how her cheeks had blazed and her hands had trembled. She had apologized profusely even as she’d stroked him, so convinced she wouldn’t be able to manage even the tip of his cock in her mouth, yet Jaime wouldn’t have swapped the feel of her shy, earnest lips around his cockhead for the world.
Brienne had shed most of that shyness in the interim. She dipped lower now, lipped thick, curly hair, her eyelashes concealing her eyes.
Jaime’s shoulders lifted off the mattress of their own accord, arms straining almost painfully against the heavy handcuffs, which were rapidly taking on some of Jaime’s body heat. He groaned, a low, resonant sound, equal parts ‘don’t stop’ and ‘fuck me now.’
“Enough,” was all he could manage. “Please.”
Brienne lifted her head from his lap, no trace of nervousness or wonder if she’d done something wrong on her face. Jaime sometimes missed how easy it had been to fluster her in the beginning, when everything had been so new to her, and to him with her. He did not, however, miss how arduous it had been to get around Brienne’s insecurities, how much reassurance she’d needed of Jaime’s desire for her and her ability to please him, only half convinced he hadn’t been playing or simply satisfying a physical need.
There was still a freshness, an innocent, delighted shock to Brienne’s pleasure. Every time he made her come, Jaime marveled at how completely she let it take her, no calculation in her, no weighing of one orgasm against another, how she felt against what she gave to Jaime. Every time was like the first time for her, even as she learned to ask, to tell him what she desired, to whisper in his ear how she wanted him while they walked home from a restaurant or a movie, so they ended up fucking on their couch almost as often as they made it into the bedroom. The cleaning bills for the upholstery were a source of perennial amusement to Jaime, residual blushing to Brienne.
She regarded him now with big, limpid eyes, her hand having drifted between her legs, still moving slowly as she waited for what Jaime would say next. Always so careful with him, with the two of them, even as he stared hungrily at her touching herself, and she bit her swollen lip, and her nipples turned red as berries with urgent want.
“Come here,” Jaime panted, his cock feeling lonely and cool without her, his whole body straining for her, the handcuffs scraping against the headboard. “Come here, like we practiced.”
Brienne couldn’t resist an eye-roll as she lifted herself into a crouch and squatted astride him, her big feet planted firmly on either side of Jaime’s ribcage. The mattress groaned in puzzlement under the novel movement. Brienne’s thigh muscles were clearly defined like an anatomical drawing under her freckly skin, her calves a masterpiece as she shifted minutely, finding her balance, her hands digging into the mattress by Jaime’s shoulders. Jaime almost wished he didn’t need to feel her so badly, so he could just go on marveling at her body, how easy it was in movement, how unselfconscious and full of coiled energy.
“Of course I can do squats, Jaime,” Brienne had said exasperatedly when he’d first floated the idea past her, the evening after they’d received his father’s summons disguised as an invitation to a weekend in the country. “Squats are a basic part of my exercise routine.”
“Ah,” Jaime had smiled mock didactically. “Doing squats in the police gym is one thing. Squatting on a bed with my cock inside you might prove more challenging.”
Brienne had raised her eyebrows at him, walked over to their bedroom wall, leaned her back against it, and slowly slid down into a low squat, her buttocks nearly touching the floor while her thighs had barely trembled in the shorts she’d chosen to wear for sleep. Just the tips of her fingers resting on the floor, Brienne had stood up smoothly, back still to the wall, then squatted again, and again, her eyes locked with Jaime’s, a slight smile revealing her teeth.
Jaime had sat on their bed with his mouth open, unable to take his eyes off her. Who’d have thought watching Brienne perform squats could be such a turn-on? Her demonstration finished, Brienne had looked almost smug, and Jaime’d told her to get her shorts off if she didn’t want them ruined, too proud to plead yet desperate to have her. Brienne had pretended to huff in outrage, but she’d got out of those shorts in a trice. She’d gone wet and plump while squatting for him, as Jaime’d discovered to his delight, lifting Brienne’s legs onto his shoulders, as quick and sweet a fuck as any they’d ever had, perfectly matched in their desire and its fulfillment.
Brienne squatted astride him now, found her balance, and rubbed against Jaime, smiling in nearly wicked delight as she teased him. Jaime hissed and rattled the handcuffs in impatience, and Brienne smiled widely, horsey teeth brilliant in the lamplight, and sank down on him easily, squeezing him and sighing with relief. She lifted to a low squat, toes gripping the sheets, heels pushing off the mattress, and let herself sink down again. And again, thighs trembling, hands gripping Jaime’s hip and the sheets.
Jaime loved having Brienne on top, loved being able to feel and watch her large body as she forgot all her burdens and just let herself feel, and enjoy, and come together with him. But this – this was something else.
Brienne rocked back on her heels, her freckles blazing dark, her nipples rosy and hard though neither was touching them, her face at once slack and enraptured with what they were doing, the sight of Jaime restrained and willingly, always so willingly taken by her. Brienne’s long, muscular legs were wide open and folded like butterfly wings, so Jaime could see them both even better than usual, their glistening flesh, her hair and his damp and tangling. Brienne panted in wordless pleasure, the sight of her almost better than the feel of her body gripping Jaime’s, how she made the bed shift and creak as she rode him.
Their moans, the sounds of the metal bedframe, the handcuffs, and the mattress filled the room, an orchestra playing out of tune. Jaime wanted desperately to touch Brienne, his right hand tugged hard against the handcuffs, pain lanced down his arm. He grunted, his left hand trying instinctively to rub his right wrist, and was rewarded with sharp pain in both arms.
Brienne slowed down, her eyes darting between Jaime’s straining arms and where his eyes were still intent on her, on them. She let go of his hip, her hand hovering so close, about to rub herself and caress him.
She didn’t touch herself. Jaime lifted his hips in the rhythm she had set, but Brienne stopped moving altogether. For a moment they hovered awkwardly, two inept acrobats on a high wire, straining against each other instead of moving together. Brienne’s face twisted in an abrupt grimace, and Jaime realized with a start that she was on the verge of tears, her face as red and ugly with misery as it must have been when she’d told him about her mother and brother’s deaths one night, in the dark, having insisted they kept the lights off while she talked.
“Brienne?” Jaime’s voice sounded thick, he was desperate to keep fucking her, desperate that she not cry, torn between confusion and terror that he’d done something to hurt her. But she’d been moaning with him and about to touch herself a second ago, what had he done?
“I can’t.” Brienne sounded tiny and tearful, although her eyes were dry. She was panting with their exertions, gulping air as if to prevent sobs from escaping her. She rested both hands on the mattress and heaved herself off Jaime, her limbs trembling as with a great effort.
“I can’t,” she repeated, her voice leveling off, still full of something wild and terrible. “Can’t do this to you.”
What…? Jaime drew breath to speak, but Brienne refused to meet his eyes as she reached for the handcuff keys on the nightstand. With practiced ease, she unlocked and took both pairs of handcuffs off Jaime’s wrists. She left the cuffs dangling from the headboard and retreated before Jaime could lift one of his numb hands to touch her.
Brienne escaped to the foot of the bed, where she sat with her thighs pressed to her torso, hugged her legs, and hid her face behind her knees. Between her crossed calves, Jaime could see her, still pink and wet for him, but everything else about her screamed ‘leave me alone!’
Jaime was still on his back, his wrists and hands slowly regaining sensation, his arms aching, while Brienne curled up and tried to disappear before his eyes. It wasn‘t the first time she’d panicked in the face of something intimate between them, but he’d never before seen her react so badly right when they were nearing the culmination, much to their shared pleasure.
Except she hadn’t seemed to want to enjoy it. Can’t do this to you.
“Brienne.” Jaime’s voice was rough as a pebble in his dry mouth. He licked his lips and picked his words with uncustomary care. “What exactly do you think you were doing to me just now?”
No answer. If she was crying, Jaime would want to jump clean out of their second-story window, feeling like a cur and a scoundrel.
“Using you.”
Jaime opened his mouth to address Brienne’s knees, her wrinkled forehead above them, knew that if demanded she explain herself she might never speak to him again. He couldn’t think of a different way to speak to her just then, so he waited, a feeling like red-hot needles jabbing under his fingernails.
“Using you,” Brienne muttered to her knees again, her voice curiously flat. “I wanted you to touch me, and you couldn’t because…” Her breaths were as wet as her voice was steady, as though she held it tightly in her fist.
“You might as well not have been there,” she said. “I could have been using a dildo, not been with you at all. I’m sorry.”
“Brienne.”
“I’m sorry.” And now she was definitely crying.
“Brienne!”
Her name burst out of Jaime’s mouth sharp as a gunshot, and Brienne’s liquid snort petered out into leaden silence.
Jaime heaved himself up and crouched beside Brienne, laid his tingling hands on her hunched shoulder, her tense arm. The bed muttered metallically under them. Brienne didn’t shrug him off or tense up even worse, which told Jaime nothing, so he kept his hands on her, kept them still though he wanted to touch her everywhere, as though checking her for physical injury. At least he was fairly certain she was no longer crying.
Brienne had never expected anyone to want to fuck her except to satisfy a temporary need or win a bet, had never thought to be anything but a hole someone would use and cast aside. Until him, Jaime, who’d shown her how good it all could feel, who let her fuck him with a strap-on sometimes when they both felt like it, and had insisted she handcuff him to a bed and ride him in order to embarrass his father, without a thought for how that might seem to Brienne. Jaime’d assumed she’d enjoy it, the power, the control. He’d told her what he wanted to do and she hadn’t said no. He should have seen it, her silent uncertainty, what handcuffing and ‘using’ him as a ‘fuck you’ to his father would look like to Brienne, who always worried that Jaime was all right and safe and enjoying himself, in everything they did together. Jaime may have shown her how a woman could feel, but Brienne was the one who’d taught him what neither his father nor his sister ever could: how it felt to have no need for wariness, to be wanted for himself, for the sheer pleasure of his company, not just the services or the fleeting enjoyment he might render.
Jaime ruffled Brienne’s hair, squeezed her hard, tense bicep. “You may be forgetting whose idea this was, Brienne. It was mine, my idea from start to finish. Don’t you apologize for doing what I wanted, how I wanted it, with my full consent.”
Slowly like the sun peeking over the horizon, Brienne’s eyes appeared above her knees. They were brilliant with tears, with reflected lamplight, with that inner light which always made Jaime’s heart skip. She watched him, a small, furry animal too wary to believe it would not be hunted and slaughtered in its own lair, where it should have been safe.
Jaime leaned in closer, idly noticing that he was still half hard, despite everything, cradled Brienne’s head in his hands and kissed the bridge of her crooked, twice-broken nose, his lips brushing wet eyelashes, a trembling, puffy eyelid. Tasting salt and skin, Brienne.
“Don’t cry,” Jaime murmured.
The response was still knee-muffled but clear enough. “I’m not crying.”
She sounded like an angry child clinging to its dignity. Jaime had to laugh a little, experienced a moment of relief, like a breath held and finally released, when Brienne inhaled, and snorted, and let her calves and shoulders relax fractionally, her arms still wrapped around her legs yet no longer gripping herself together like a bundle of dry sticks. When Jaime laid a hand on her knee, she immediately let her legs down, let him pull and nudge her till they were lying side by side, diagonally across the bed, Jaime’s arms loose around her, Brienne’s arms still clutching her torso, a shield of muscle and bone. She sniffed and rubbed her wet cheek on the sheets. Jaime’s breath dried the tears still clinging to her other cheek.
“I thought you were all right with it,” he said quietly.
“I thought I was too. I kept telling myself I was. And it was good. But then I just… couldn’t. It felt so wrong, like you were hardly there.”
“I was there, believe me, I was so there, but you are right: I needed to touch you, badly.” Jaime pressed his face to Brienne’s neck, inhaled her deeply. “Brienne, you didn’t do me any damage, not now, not ever. Far from it, so I don’t want you dwelling on it. When you start to freak out, you have to tell me. I’m not a mind reader.” Brienne was silent. “Was it the handcuffs that set you off? Or that we’re in my father’s house, on the single loudest bed on god’s green earth?”
Brienne laughed weakly, the way people did when they’d been crying, with relief that their upset was in the past, and embarrassment, and quiet exhaustion. “Both, I think,” she admitted. “I know it’s stupid, I used handcuffs that one time, but…”
Jaime nuzzled her. “But those were special circumstances, and my father scares you. It’s all right,” he added before she could respond. “He has that effect on me and the rest of humanity as well.”
Brienne’s arm slid over Jaime’s torso. They lay without speaking, just holding each other.
“I want to try this again,” Jaime announced. Brienne started to stiffen, and he talked on. “When we get home. No squeaky bed, no handcuffs. I’ll just hold on to the headboard. You looked magnificent, you know, and you felt even better. I’m not passing up the chance to have you like that again. Who knows: I might even touch you at just the right moment.”
Brienne watched him out of the corner of her eye, caught between skepticism and feeling flattered.
“I won’t push so hard in the future, if you’ll promise to tell me when you decide, after much thought, that you don’t want to do something. After much thought, Brienne. You never would have whipped out the handcuffs that first time, had you not been hopping mad with me.”
Brienne rolled her eyes, and Jaime relaxed. Safe. They were both safe.
“Yes, yes,” Brienne groused. “Don’t you think it’s a little silly that you’re preaching the benefits of forethought to me?”
Jaime grinned, pressed closer to her, grinding against her hip. She exhaled loudly when she felt him getting hard again.
“Do you want to?” Jaime whispered. “No bells and whistles, and the bed will still squeak.”
“Yes.” Brienne already sounded breathless. “Yes, Jaime, I want to. So much.”
They made quick work of getting each other ready, both eager for relief, comfort, and reassurance. Jaime intended to prop himself up, so he could touch Brienne and make up for what he hadn’t been able to do before, but his arms still hurt from fighting the handcuffs. When Brienne pulled him down to her, he let her, her nipples brushing his chest, their bellies meeting and parting, speeding up with their loins, their breaths. Brienne gasped his name again and again. Jaime never got tired of hearing her say it like that or responding with her name or feeling her hand slip almost shyly between them. He felt Brienne clench, her eyes hidden from him as pleasure took her. The metal bed twanged and plinked loudly while the handcuffs clanged against the bedstead and the wall, though not as loudly as Jaime cried out his pleasure, Brienne’s hands on his waist, his back and hips, holding him close as he twitched and groaned and relaxed. Jaime caressed Brienne’s flushed, sweaty face before he rolled off her and sprawled to catch his breath. Brienne took his hand, pressed her lips to the red, chafed skin on his wrist.
When he could focus on anything other than the warmth of Brienne’s body beside him and the pleasant looseness in his limbs, Jaime burst into laughter.
“Look!”
He laughed so hard his free hand shook as he pointed at the handcuffs hanging from the headboard. The wall behind the bed was scuffed where the handcuffs had banged against it, and the paintwork on the metal bedframe showed scratches.
“Oh man,” Jaime wheezed. “Tywin will be so annoyed.”
Another tidal wave of laughter seized him. When it subsided, Brienne was still holding Jaime’s hand and blushing warmly, her eyes intent on the damaged wall and bedstead.
“Maybe your father won’t notice,” she offered weakly.
Jaime snorted. “Fat chance. He’ll probably send us a bill for the repairs.”
Brienne looked at him in disbelief.
“The thing about rich people, Brienne, is that they’re incredible tightwads. My father firmly believes that a Lannister should always pay his debts.”
“But… a bill!”
“Oh yes, on Tywin Lannister’s personal stationery, I shouldn’t wonder. It’ll be waiting for us by the time we get back. I’ll have it framed and display it in the living room, and invite Father over for dinner so he can see it. Maybe hang our friend the strap-on and these selfsame handcuffs next to it. An art installation titled A Lannister Doesn’t Get Assfucked by Just Anyone.”
Brienne vacillated between laughter and outrage, settled on a bashful remark. “You know my father is coming to visit next month…”
“In that case, I will wait until after he leaves to assemble my art project, then invite Tywin over.”
Brienne giggled, her cheek resting on Jaime’s shoulder. “Jaime?”
“Ye-e-es?”
She pressed her lips to his ear and whispered.
Jaime returned the sentiment. The word ‘love’ was muffled by his lips on Brienne’s temple and eye, the word ‘too’ became a soft pop of air between their mouths. They kissed slowly and lazily and with all of themselves, without expectation of more, kissed just because it was late at night in a house where neither of them were entirely comfortable and it felt good to kiss, on a loud, twangy bed which, against the odds, they had made temporarily theirs.