Chapter Text
The Tarth Pirates' closer gives up a game-winning two-run home run, cementing their seventh loss in ten games. Brienne throws a napkin at the TV screen. "Oh, come on."
From the far side of the couch, Jaime whistles. "Man. That hurts."
"You know what?" Brienne turns the TV off with a disgusted stab of the remote, chugs the last half of her beer, and pops the top off another one. "They can't hurt me anymore. I've evolved beyond having feelings about baseball. People who have feelings about baseball are rubes, and I feel sorry for them."
Jaime's grin slants across his face. "Are you telling me you're finally ready to try a real sport?" he asks.
Brienne wrinkles her nose; she walked right into that one. They've been having the same argument since college, when senior star forward Jaime Lannister had walked by her, a lowly sophomore, taking her hacks in the batting cages, and asked her that exact same question. She'd pointed out that it wasn't a good idea to make that kind of comment to someone who had a bat in her hand, he'd asked her why she was using baseballs instead of softballs, she'd told him she was a better hitter than any guy on the varsity baseball team, he'd challenged her to prove it, and after a couple of buckets of balls and several contraband beers (mostly his), she'd somehow found herself promising to meet him at the gym the next morning.
For the first year or so, she'd kept waiting for him to get distracted and attach himself to someone else, but four years later, here he still is. Even more so, actually, given that after he'd quit his father's company and disinherited himself in a blaze of glory, she'd taken him in to the second bedroom of her moderately shitty apartment and promised to help him navigate life without an unlimited credit card. She's a little surprised at how nice it's been to have him around the past several months, except for the times she wants to kill him, and except for times like this, when he's betraying her in her hour of need.
"I'm telling you," she informs him loftily, "that my girls' team is gonna be able to kick all those guys' asses." She waves her beer bottle in the general direction of the screen.
His grin goes almost unbearably fond and proud. "Well, you know there's no doubt in my mind about that."
A little glow kindles in her stomach, the kind she always gets when he offers her that unquestioning faith. She tips her head against the back of the couch, staring up at the water spot in the corner of the ceiling. She's got people--even the professors in her Sports Leadership Masters program--telling her every day that her dream of managing a professional women's baseball team is unrealistic and a waste of her time and talent. Having a roommate who not only believes she's going to do it, but believes she's going to be incredibly successful at it, has been helpful, to say the least.
"I just hope that when you're rich and famous, you'll still have time for a lowly bartender," he goes on, and she rolls her head to the side with a frown. Mostly, he's adjusted to his new world of second-hand furniture and having an actual budget, and the picture she'd framed of his first independent paycheck is still in his room to this day. But sometimes he gets that self-mocking twist to his mouth and she can almost hear his father's voice echoing in his mind, and she wants to go find Tywin Lannister and pummel his ruthless, toxic ass until he apologizes for all his years of messing with Jaime's head.
"Hey," she says instead, reaching out to nudge Jaime's shin with her toe. "You're a fucking awesome bartender, and I admire you way more for doing that than I would if you were making seven figures doing your dad's dirty work. Dirtier work, I guess," she amends, since Tywin is pretty dirty all on his own.
Jaime blinks at her; she could swear she actually sees his cheeks redden. "Aww, Tarth. My hero," he says, still with that ironic edge to it, but he utterly fails to hide his pleased smile in a gulp of his beer.
Watching him, a wave of affection and contentment rolls over her. She hasn't seen as much of him over the past several weeks, thanks to his intense dedication to having as much sex as possible with his beautiful girlfriend. But he and Taena had broken up a week ago, and tonight he's got a rare night off, and practice for the softball team she's coaching to help pay the bills had been called due to weather, so here they are, with nothing to do but bullshit and drink beer while the rain spatters the windows behind them.
"I missed this," she tells him on impulse, then quickly adds, "Not to guilt-trip you or anything, it's just nice to have…" She waves a hand between them. "This."
Jaime holds out his beer bottle. "To this."
"To this," she agrees, and clinks her bottle against his. After another drink, she's feeling cheerful and reckless enough to go on, "And I have to admit, though I'm sorry it didn't work out with you and Taena, I won't miss having to listen to your sexcapades."
Jaime barely avoids spitting his beer all over the coffee table. "My what?"
"You know exactly what I'm talking about." She makes her tone high and breathy. "'Oh, Jaime! Oh! I've never felt like this! Jaime, you're a sex god!" Which is, unfortunately for Brienne, a direct quote.
Something flickers across his face, quickly smothered by a smug grin, and he lounges back on the couch in a way that's frankly annoying. Insouciance, is what it is. Brienne had read that word in novels and never had occasion to use it before she'd met Jaime, but these days she thinks it easily once a week.
"What can I say?" he muses. Insouciantly. "I'm just that good."
She scoffs. "Oh, please. She was obviously faking. No one is that good."
His mouth drops open, and ha, now he's souciant as hell. "She was not faking. I'd know if she was faking."
"Men always think that," Brienne says pityingly. "Real life isn't porn, Jaime. People don't make those sounds without trying." She might have been something of a late bloomer sex-wise, but she's confident of that much.
Jaime narrows his eyes at her. "Are you questioning my sex god status, Tarth?"
"I'm just saying--"
"'Cause if you doubt me, I'd be happy to provide a demonstration."
She bursts out laughing. "Yeah, I bet you would."
"I would." His eyes are bright, and he's smirking again, but he's holding her gaze as steadily as he can, given the alcohol.
She ignores the quick rebellious flare of heat in her belly and declares, "You can't be serious."
He shrugs. "My honor has been maligned, I have to--"
"Your honor is in your dick?"
"Oh, it's not just my dick," he tells her, his grin going wicked. "It's also my hands, my tongue, my--"
"Stop." She waves her hands in front of her, trying to ward off the images that are suddenly flickering through her brain like a pornographic slideshow.
He crosses his arms over his chest, making his biceps bulge in a way that she's positive is intentional. "All I'm saying is that I bet I could get you screaming my name. And you obviously know I'm right, since you're too chicken to let me."
Ohhhh. Brienne grits her teeth. She is absolutely not going to fool around with her semi-drunk, rebounding best friend and roommate because he dared her to. She is not. She is--
"Fine," she snaps. "Give it your best shot."
After which she experiences a supremely satisfying few seconds, because he blinks and his mouth falls open a little bit and she knows that he didn't really expect her to call his bluff, and now he's either going to have to admit she's right or put his money where his mouth is. Or his mouth where his mouth is, or where her mouth is, or something, but either way, she's got him off-balance.
Then it catches up to her that she just agreed to let Jaime give her an orgasm, and she doesn't have any personal experience with it but she's fairly certain that best friends and orgasms go together about as well as fire and alcohol: both great on their own when properly contained, but when combined, dangerous for everyone involved. And she really doesn't want to have to find a different place to live.
Jaime sits forward, makes half a move toward her, then stops. "Are we still going to be friends after this?" he asks. There's a hesitance to it, a wince hovering at the corners of his eyes.
And with him looking at her like that, she can't answer anything besides, "Yes. Of course." Fire and alcohol don't have to be uncontrolled; they can burn short and warm and then fade away with no harm done. Right?
"Okay." He nods, almost to himself. "Okay. Good." With that, he drains the rest of his beer and sets it down on the coffee table with a decisive clunk that rings in Brienne's head like a warning bell.
But she doesn't do anything to stop him as he slides toward her so he can lean in slowly, eyes on hers until he's too close for her to see them anymore; he nuzzles against her neck, inhaling deeply as he does. For her part, she can smell the alcohol on him, slightly sour but oddly comforting in its familiarity, and even more so in its promise of future excuses. His arm stretches out behind her, his fingers tracing lightly along the line of her shoulder.
"Can I kiss you?" he asks, his breath warm and damp on her ear.
She swallows hard, which does absolutely nothing to lubricate her dry throat; she wishes her beer were close enough that she could reach. Or that she could move at all. Or breathe. "I assume that's what you usually do, right?" she forces out. "I should get the full experience, I guess. To make it fair."
He laughs low. "Exactly. Your dedication to fairness is a beautiful thing, Tarth. Is that a yes?"
Anything to get him to stop talking to her in that gravelly voice. "Yes, fine, you can kiss--" but before she can finish the sentence, his mouth is on hers.
Brienne has had her share of moments, over the course of their friendship, where she has very deliberately Not Thought about kissing Jaime, but somehow it's both everything and nothing like she hasn't thought about. He's gentle, and thorough in a way that makes her toes curl; he kisses her slow, with softly parted lips, the beginnings of his breakup beard rasping against her skin, until she can't take it anymore and opens to him, greedy for more. He makes a small noise and his fingers curl into a fist against her shoulder as she sweeps her tongue into his mouth, his other hand sliding up over her knee to rest on her thigh. Fairly high on her thigh, actually, but still not high enough, and she has to concentrate on keeping her hips in place and not just inching forward until his fingers are resting where she's aching for them.
He's doing more than well enough on his own, she isn't about to give him any hints.
Not that he really seems to need any, pulling his mouth away from hers to drag kisses along her jaw, the line of her neck, making everything go fuzzy around the edges in a completely different way than the beer had. The darkness feels like velvet around her, and she's floating, burning, like one of those funeral ships headed out to sea. Except it doesn't feel like the end of anything, it feels like just the beginning, the rising tide of everything she's tried not to want from him starting to slosh over the top of the dam she built years ago when it had seemed impossible that anyone would want her, much less Jaime Lannister.
His hand moves from her thigh to her stomach, fingers toying with the frayed edge of her t-shirt, the backs of them teasing against her skin as he does. "Can I touch you?" he asks into her neck.
"Yes," she answers, trying to keep her voice steady. Then she remembers that she has hands, too, but before she starts, she figures it's only fair to ask, "Can I touch you?"
"Yes," he breathes immediately. "Gods, yes," and she helps move his hand under her shirt, palm flat against the bare skin of her stomach, before running her own hand up his arm and around the back of his neck, dragging him to her for another kiss.
He moans a little into her mouth and then his hand is moving up, up over her abs until he's palming one of her breasts. He moans again, not so little this time. She arches into him before she can think about it, keeps her tongue busy with his so that she won't start saying anything ridiculous like how she's never felt anything quite like the pads of his long fingers tracing over her nipples. Because they're just fingers and they're just nipples but somehow it's unique, like the pattern of Jaime's fingerprints was somehow created specifically to devastate her, and oh, she's in so much trouble.
Before long, his breathing is going harsher and his kisses hungrier as she runs her hands over his shoulders, the strong planes of his back, up under his shirt so she can feel the muscle moving beneath his skin. "Can I touch you?" he repeats, hand back at her stomach again; she's about to say that she already told him yes, then he adds, "Can I make you come, Brienne?" and dammit, just him saying that gets her embarrassingly close.
She's not about to let him know that, though. "I don't know," she says instead, "can you?"
He laughs again, his fingers sliding underneath the waistband of her yoga pants, underneath her underwear and down between her folds and oh, fuck, it's so good and she's so mad that it's so good because this is a one-time-only deal and also, she really doesn't want to admit he was right.
"Fuck, you feel amazing," he pants, teeth blunted by her shirt as he sinks them into her shoulder. "You can keep quiet all you want but I can feel you--gods, you're so wet."
She'd be annoyed by her body's betrayal except he sounds as awed as he is self-satisfied and she doesn't mind that at all. Still, she's not going to give in, and practically chews holes in her lips as he explores her; he's a little clumsy thanks to alcohol and typical first-time awkwardness, but he still knows her well enough to sense the slightest response, and he's smart enough to use it to his advantage.
When he's found her rhythm and her hips are thrusting helplessly, urgent sounds barely contained inside her throat, he yanks up her shirt with his free hand and ducks down to suck her nipple into his mouth, caressing it with his tongue and then his teeth as he slips two fingers into her cunt. The dual sensation is too much and she can't help it; a short, sharp cry tears out of her, and he hums encouragingly against her breast, redoubling his efforts, letting her grind against the heel of his hand, rutting a little against her hip as he does. And it's that that does it for her as much as anything, the knowledge that he's clinging to the edge of control just like she is, and his mouth is so hot and his fingers are so perfectly rough and she sinks her hand into his hair and fists tight as she bows up and comes with a half-stifled yell.
While she's still coming down, she sees him sink his wet fingers into his mouth like they're some new kind of popsicle, cleaning them off, smearing his lips and tongue with her juices. Then he leans in to kiss her, hard, and she can taste herself in his mouth.
"See?" he says when he pulls away, eyes bright, face flushed with triumph. "I told you."
She's trying to get her breath back. "All I said was 'fuck.'" She's about ninety percent sure that's true. "Is that your name?"
"Well, you have called me that before," he points out, grinning.
"Only when you deserved it," She realizes that she's stroking the back of his head and can't seem to make herself stop. His hair is so soft, and her whole body feels like it's filled with some sort of sparkling fluff. He is way too fucking good at this.
When he closes his eyes and shifts, tilting his head to give her better access, his erection brushes against her thigh. She looks down at where it's tenting the front of his pants to a degree that she has to admit--to herself--is impressive. Her mouth waters a little.
"Double or nothing?" she asks, even though that's still nothing because they haven't actually bet anything.
He presses his head further into her hand like an insistent dog who wants her to scratch right… there. "Hunh?"
"I make you scream my name, I win," she says.
At that, his eyes snap open. "Yeah?" he says--too eagerly, and he obviously realizes it because she can see the corner of his mouth curl in amusement at himself.
"Well," she says, deliberately solemn, "you did mention my dedication to fairness."
"I did," he agrees.
"So, it's only fair that I get a shot." She's starting to slide down to the floor now.
He sounds distinctly short of breath when he says, "Definitely."
She uses her back to shove the coffee table out of the way, beer bottles clinking, and kneels between his splayed legs. His hands are resting on the couch; she can see them curl into fists. When she runs her own hands up over his quads--still overdeveloped even though he only plays soccer on the weekends now--he lets out a small, hungry noise and tilts his hips toward her. She looks up at him.
"You're already not doing a very good job of keeping quiet," she teases. He huffs out a laugh.
"A friend of mine told me that positive feedback is very important in encouraging young athletes."
She snickers; somehow she doesn't think her profs would be thrilled about their advice showing up in this context. "Is this a sport?" she asks, pulling his track pants down and discovering he's been going commando under them, which is very on-brand; when they'd first become friends, it had been a surprise to discover that Jaime wasn't, in reality, nearly as much of a slut as his general situation implies. Because it implies quite a bit.
"Yep," he gets out. "National blowjob championship on the line, here--we're all rooting for you."
Just for that, she wants to make him suffer for it first, though his dick is flushed and hard, leaking pre-come already. She stays still for a moment, taking the opportunity to look at him all spread out for her. Imagining the things she wants to do to him, in this dim liminal space where she actually can.
Then he says, "Brienne," low and hoarse and rich with want, "please," and she can't wait anymore, just closes her hand around the bottom of his shaft and takes him into her mouth.
Above her, he makes a strangled sound of relief and pleasure. "Fuck," he whispers when she bobs up to swirl her tongue around the head. When she sinks down as far as she can, "Fuuuuck, Brienne," comes out on a groan. Because of course Jaime can't be quiet about anything, ever, so the competitor in Brienne can't help smirking that this is going to be the easiest bet she's ever won; the rest of her, though, is too busy reveling in the silk-and-steel heat of him against her tongue, the way his thigh muscles flex against the hand she's got braced there. His fingers slide into her hair, and she has a second of reflexive worry that he's going to start shoving her around without asking and she's going to have to punch him in the dick, but it's Jaime, so of course he doesn't do that, just pets her head softly, his thumb tracing the line of her ear, making her shiver even as she hollows her cheeks and sucks harder.
He keeps talking, too, telling her how hot she is, how good she feels, just like that, Brienne, ahhh, suck me, please, and none of it is going to win this for her but it's hard to care when he sounds so raw and wrecked, like every move she makes is unraveling him one thread at a time. His scent is strong in her nose and his cock is heavy and thick and the slurping sounds she's making are an obscene soundtrack to his filthy monologue and it's so much that she has to moan, which just pushes him closer to the edge; too soon, he makes a desperate noise and gasps, "I'm gonna--agh, I'm gonna--" and she flattens her tongue and caresses his balls, taking him as deep as possible, urging him on until he comes in her mouth.
When he's stopped pulsing, she licks him clean, grinning around him as he jerks with each slide of her tongue. The hand on the back of her neck is shaking. When she's done, she rests her forehead against his thigh, trying to empty her mind, trying not to think about what happens next.
"Tie," she hears him say breathlessly after a moment, "but if it's any consolation, congratulations on the championship," and she laughs into his skin.
He tugs gently on the back of her collar until she looks up at him. He really is offensively handsome: bottom lip red where he's bitten it, cheeks flushed, glass-green eyes soft and sated. "Hey," he murmurs. "Still friends, right?"
All she wants to do is curl up on the couch next to him and fall asleep, but that's nowhere in any of the conditions of their bet, so she just nods and braces her hands on his knees, leaning up for one last kiss. "Goodnight, Jaime," she says against his mouth, then flees to her own room.
* * * * * * *
Late the next morning, Brienne is halfway through a bowl of yogurt and granola, scrolling through articles on her phone and not making sense of a word of them, when Jaime wanders into the kitchen, sleepy-eyed and damp-haired, like he's run wet fingers through it in an attempt to get it to behave. As with many things about Jaime, it's refusing to do anything of the sort.
He makes his typical wordless, pleased, hey, the coffee fairy was here sound when he sees the half-full pot and pads over to it on bare feet. When he's poured it out and turns around to lean against the counter, she can see that he's chosen the mug she'd given him for Sevenmas a few years back, the one that says hear me roar above the cartoon image of a lion looking much more pouty than threatening. It had reminded her so much of Jaime in the morning that she hadn't been able to resist buying it. For a week afterward, he'd laughed every time he'd seen it.
Now, though, she can't look at his fingers wrapped around the mug without thinking of how they've been inside her--inside her, holy shit, that had actually happened--and it's too much, in the cheerful daylight, in the kitchen they've shared for almost two years, and she turns her eyes quickly back to her phone.
She can still hear him, though, sipping his coffee. Sipping, and then slurping, increasingly loud and obnoxious until she has no choice but to glare at him.
"Jaime."
"Oh, sorry, does that bother you?" he asks innocently, but there's something in his face she doesn't know how to read. Which is an odd feeling, since after all this time, she would have sworn she'd seen his every expression.
Well. Most of them. She'd added a few more to her catalog last night. She can feel her own face heating at the memory--is this just going to be her life, now? Inconvenient sex flashbacks until she has to find somewhere else to live? Essos seems nice this time of year--and sees a small smile curve his lips as he watches her blush.
He takes another sip of coffee--a normal one this time, fortunately--and when he's swallowed it, he says, "So. Last night."
Shit. "Uh," she says, by way of answer.
"We were both pretty drunk," he continues, and Brienne's yogurt seems to curdle in her stomach.
This is good, she tells herself, just laugh it off and now things can go back to normal, you can just--
"And I can do better," Jaime concludes. He takes a gulp of his coffee this time, and winces, like he'd forgotten it was hot. "That is, if you'll give me another shot," he manages out of an undoubtedly painful throat.
She blinks at him for a long moment. On one hand, she's spent most of the morning telling herself that it had been a one-and-done deal and she needs to get it out of her head, so taking him up on this new offer feels like wandering into the wilderness without a map. On the other hand, she'd woken up before dawn thinking about his hands on her, and even a run and--eventually, as a last resort--some furtive masturbation in the shower had barely taken the edge off, so. While her brain might be having some issues with the idea, her body is wondering why she's not halfway across the kitchen already.
Either way, though, she has to at least pretend to be weighing her options, so she tilts her head to the side. "Same terms?"
He sets down his mug, resting the heels of his hands on the counter on either side of him, leaving his body completely open to her. His smile slides across his face. "Same terms."
She lifts a shoulder. "Only fake sports have ties anyway," she tells him, and just barely manages to get to him in time to smother whatever his comeback is with her mouth.
"--show you a fucking fake sport," he growls as soon as he can make enough space between them to do it, but he's laughing, wrestling with her like they've done a thousand times except this time there are tongues involved, and his hand is on her ass, and his cock is getting hard against her hip. And even if it's a little strange, doing this sober and in broad daylight, it's a lot less strange than it is hot, and Brienne has been wet for him since before she woke up, and she rolls her hips against him just to hear him groan.
He throws out an arm for balance and almost knocks his coffee mug off the counter. "Shit," he hisses.
"We should probably--" Brienne starts, because as tempting as it is to just strip down right here, the linoleum is old enough to probably never be clean again and there's an obstacle course of Jaime's dishes lying around anyway.
He's already nodding. "My room or yours?"
Given that his room had recently contained his girlfriend and she's not entirely sure he's had time to wash his sheets, "Mine."
He yanks her in for a comprehensive, knee-weakening kiss, then whispers, "Race you," shoves her away, and takes off before she can even fully process what he's said.
"So much for sportsmanship!" she yells after him, running around the corner into the hallway just in time to see him careen into the wall, overcome by his own momentum. "Ha!" she shouts triumphantly, but he still makes it into her room before she does, so that he's waiting for her, breathing hard and grinning as she pushes him toward the bed. "I should refuse to fuck you just for that," she tells him. "Cheater."
"Oh, relax, that one's not going on the scoreboard--I just wanted you to chase after me with those legs of yours," he says unrepentantly, and the fact that he's got his hands on the back of said legs and is tugging her to straddle him on the bed makes it a little more difficult to be mad at him.
Once she's balanced over him, she strips her t-shirt off and tosses it on the floor. "Shut up and… what?" He's looking at her strangely, a half-smile playing on his face.
He shakes his head. "Just enjoying the view." He runs his hands up her thighs, up her sides, until he's cupping what there is of her breasts. "I didn't get to look much last night."
When she'd started this, it was sort of her assumption that there'd be nudity involved, but having him just stare at her like that is making her blush, and knowing that she's blushing is just making her blush more. "You've seen me in a sports bra a million times," she points out, like logic is the best play, here.
"Yeah, and I'm not mad about that, believe me, but--" He rubs his thumbs over her nipples, and her eyes flutter closed before she can help it. "Kind of some crucial differences, here."
Forget logic; evening the playing field is clearly the way to go. "Off," she says, shoving his shirt up and backing off a little to leave him some room. He sits up, meaning that she gets a nice view of his abs flexing as he yanks his shirt over his head. He's far enough out of conditioning that he's lost some of the six-pack he'd had when they'd first met, but she finds that endearing, as is his tousled hair. Plus, he's still got all that golden skin and lean muscle just begging for her touch. She links her hands behind his neck and leans in so she can feel the friction of his chest hair against her nipples.
He sinks kisses into the juncture of her neck and shoulder, hands massaging her back as he plasters her torso against his. "Damn, Tarth, nice lats. What's your pull-up max these days?"
"Three sets of twenty," she tells him, distracted, and he makes a helpless sort of noise against her neck. "Are we really talking about pull-ups right now?"
"When you've got numbers like that, hell yes we are," he says, shifting his hips enough that she can feel how hard he is.
He's pressing right against her clit, and now it's her turn to whimper a little bit. "You're very weird," she informs him, though she can't get all her breath behind it.
He pulls back enough to cock his head. "That's not how you pronounce 'gorgeous and charming.'"
She smiles sweetly at him. "No shit." He laughs, and she kisses him down until he's lying flat again, reveling in the warmth of all his bare skin against hers, the fact that their hands and mouths are free to roam now that they've got plenty of room to maneuver, the fact that she's sober now and every sensation feels like it's sharper and deeper than the night before. They do both make their share of noises, but nothing with the right combination of syllables and volume, nothing to give either one of them an edge; they've shed their pants and underwear and are grinding naked against each other when the ache in her cunt gets overwhelming and she shoves him back a little. "Condom," she pants. "Bedside drawer."
"Yes, coach," he says, grinning at her as he wriggles over in that direction, and she wrinkles her nose.
"Ew, my kids call me that."
He's rolling the condom down his length now. "Yeah," he says, "but I, as you can clearly see--" and he gestures to his dick, because of course he does--"am an adult, and we're in the process of doing very adult things to each other, so."
"You'd better get that thing in me before I change my mind," she tells him, only she can't help angling her hips toward him as she says it, and he smirks and crawls over her.
"And they say courtly love is dead," he says into her ear, nudging the entrance of her cunt with his cock. She writhes against him; it feels like she's wet enough that he can just slide right in, and she wants him to, she wants him--
And then she has him, or at least the first few inches, and the stretch and burn is so good and he drops his head to her shoulder and his whole body shudders. "Fuck," he breathes.
"Yeah," she agrees. Gods, it's been too long since she's done this. Six months, she figures, doing the math in her head, until Jaime pulls out and thrusts in again, all the way in this time, and there's not much room in her head for anything but the way he feels inside her.
He goes slow for the first few strokes, dragging his length in and out of her at a maddening pace that must be for her benefit because she can feel the barely-leashed tension of it in his muscles as they shift under her hands. It's good--very good--but she can tell it could be better, so she wraps her calves around the backs of his thighs and pulls. "Come on, I'm not some delicate flower--if you want screaming, you're going to have to do better than that."
"Oh, challenge fucking accepted," he says, driving in hard on the word, hard enough that she can feel him hit a delicious new spot inside her, the shock reverberating as she arches her back and moans. His laugh is low and self-satisfied, but she'll let him have it given that she's on her way to being pretty satisfied, too.
It escalates fairly quickly from there, until their muscles are shaking from the effort, his breath rasping in her ear, his chest heaving. The sounds he's making are getting louder, too, which is revving her up even more, and somewhere out of the three remaining brain cells she can access, something occurs to her.
"You know," she tells him, leaning up to catch his earlobe between her teeth, "there was one time I didn't mind hearing you through your door."
The effect is immediate: his rhythm stutters and his breath hisses in through his lips. "Oh yeah?" He slips a hand down between them and starts rubbing at her clit, like he knows they might not have much time left.
She hitches her legs higher, locks her ankles behind his back. The new angle means she has to breathe through a stab of pleasure before she can go on. "Yeah. There was this one night a few months back that practice got cancelled and I went out for happy hour with Margaery and Sansa instead. I got home early, and you were in your room--alone--but I could hear you making these… noises." Noises not unlike what he's making now, which had been unmistakable even through the door. When she'd realized what he was doing, it had gone through her like lightning. "I knew I shouldn't be listening, but I was a little drunk and it had been a while for me and I… I wanted to hear you. So even though I kept telling myself I should go into my room and give you your privacy, I just… didn't."
"Oh, gods, Brienne," he groans, fucking her faster, harder, and it feels so good that Brienne's vision is swimming around the edges.
"Instead," she continues, her voice is going increasingly unsteady as he pounds into her, the current sizzling between the memory of that night and the reality of his cock in her now, "I went over to the couch and--"
"Fuck, Brienne, fuck--"
"I spread my legs, and I slid my hand into my underwear--" She still wasn't entirely sure what had possessed her, but she'd been so turned on, so desperate.
"Don't stop, Brienne, don't--" He's right on the edge, his fingers going clumsy on her clit.
"I jerked off to the sounds you were making, Jaime. It felt so fucking incredible, and--" He makes a noise like he's dying, and when she tells him, "I don't think I've ever come so fast in my life," that does it: he yells,
"Fuck, fuck, Brienne," loud enough to piss off the neighbors as he thrusts a couple more times, stiffens, and comes, buried as far inside her as he can get.
He's just barely finished shuddering before he mumbles, "Oh, screw you, Tarth," in a tone that's equal parts doomed and amused as he collapses over her, sweat-slick and clearly fully aware of what just happened.
She laughs and cards her fingers through his hair. "If it's any consolation, you did a pretty damn good job of screwing me just now." Never let it be said that she's not gracious in victory.
"Just tell me it was true," he begs, mouth open against the skin of her shoulder. "Tell me you didn't just make that story up to win the bet."
"A hundred percent true," she promises. At some point she might be sorry she told him about it because he'll probably give her shit until the end of time, but it had done the trick, and besides, he's clearly into it, and she's very into the fact that he's into it.
"Seven fucking hells and every demon in them, it was worth it." He bends his neck so he can tongue her nipple, his softening cock still inside her. Brienne is still on fire, restless energy sparking through her, and he focuses all his slowly-increasing attention on her breasts and nipples until she clenches around him and makes him gasp again.
"Sensitive," he explains, pulling out of her with a rueful look. "Sorry, I got distracted, there." He stands up to strip off the condom, and she enjoys the sight of his bare ass, the long lines of his back, while he tosses it in the trash. Then he kneels at the end of the bed, and thank every god old and new and yet to be discovered, because if Brienne doesn't have an orgasm soon, she might actually die. "This is technically part of the same sex act, right?" he asks as his hands drift from her knees along her thighs, spreading her wider. His thumbs come to rest just at the junctures of her legs and pelvis. "So a tie is still theoretically on the table."
"I'll allow it," she decides, as if she's not willing to say just about anything right now to get his mouth on her. And if it means he's going to really put in his best effort, so much the better.
"Sweet," he says, and dives in.
It's not unexpected, given the amount of exercise it gets, that Jaime's tongue is one of his more powerful muscles, but even having it in her mouth and on various places on her body hasn't quite prepared her for what it feels like to have it between her legs. Maybe his honor really is in there, if by "honor" he means "vibrator-like ability to bring her close to orgasm in a shockingly short amount of time." He's licking and sucking like he's going for a world record, and she's got both hands fisted in the sheets, and she feels like she's been five feet from the edge of this sex cliff for hours, and now she's finally almost there, just about to tumble over the edge into blissful clouds, when suddenly he pulls his mouth away.
"Jaime!" she shrieks, outraged, her eyes snapping open, which means that she can see his smug grin and the way he licks a finger and traces the line of a point on her inner thigh before ducking his head back down and getting back to work. "Aw, shit," she groans, but it feels too good for her to care right now, and she might as well get her money's worth, so she shouts his name as well as various curses and appeals to a selection of deities as he brings her right back to the edge and over.
Afterward, he wipes his chin off on the sheet and crawls up her body again, still wearing that unbearably smug pussy-eating grin, with the most unbearable thing about it being that he might actually have earned it.
"Cheater," she accuses him again. It's mostly on principle, though; she can't get much force behind it due to how she feels like she's floating somewhere near the ceiling. Maybe her righteous competitive indignation is actually stored in her cunt and he's temporarily licked it right out of her.
"Hey, we didn't specify a reason for the screaming--I was just making the most of my resources," he says, grin fully intact.
"Ugh," is all she can muster--he knows what he did--while he kisses her shoulder, then her neck, then her mouth.
"I'm gonna go get water, you want any?" he asks.
"Sure," she agrees. It will give her the chance to go pee anyway, and besides, she could use a minute or two to get her higher functions back online. She's never made a sex bet with her best friend before, so she's not exactly sure what happens afterwards; she's basically assuming he's going to drop off the water for her and then go on with whatever he was planning on for the day.
When she gets back from their shared bathroom, she meets him in the doorway. He's still naked, his face pink and shining like he's splashed water on it, and he's balancing two glasses of water and a bowl of the high-protein cereal he likes. He makes a small, disappointed noise when he sees that she's put on her t-shirt and a fresh pair of boxer briefs, but he only hands her one of the glasses, climbs back into her bed, and fluffs a pillow at his back.
She blinks. Okay then.
"Game's on soon, right?" he asks.
Brienne glances at the clock. "Yeah. First pitch is at 1:05."
"So are we gonna watch?" he asks when she doesn't move.
She shakes herself a little and then makes her way toward the bed. He's chosen the opposite side from her usual one--whether by choice or coincidence, she's not sure. "I don't know why you want to subject yourself to this," she tells him dryly, trying to get back to her normal rhythm.
He gives her a cheerful grin, and it occurs to her that he's clean-shaven, where he hadn't been the night before, and that's… interesting. "Because you're gonna watch the Casterly match with me tomorrow in exchange."
"Am I?" She gets herself settled comfortably and flips on the TV.
He answers around a mouthful of cereal, "Yup."
"If you spill cereal in my bed, you're washing the sheets," she warns.
He points at the screen with his spoon. "Hey, look, the game's starting."
By the end of the third inning, Brienne is surprised to find that it feels almost like a typical Saturday. During the breaks in action, she confesses her nerves about the final presentation she's got coming up for her Sports Ethics class; he regales her with a story about how the other afternoon after his shift was over, he'd told his friend and coworker Addam that there was a huge leak in one of the bathroom stalls that needed immediate attention, and when Addam had grimly suited up with his rubber gloves and mop, he'd found the giant leek that Jaime had left perched happily on the toilet. Brienne laughs so hard about that that her abs ache, and the only difference between this and a hundred other days they've had like it is that Jaime is naked, and Brienne's cunt is still throbbing a bit from his dedicated efforts. She doesn't mind either of those things, because at some point, presumably, Jaime is going to put some clothes on and the echo of his touch will fade and this strange sex detour of theirs is going to be well and truly over, and she's not sorry to hold off on that for a little while yet.
The Pirates manage to keep it close until the seventh inning, when the bullpen comes in and proceeds to give up six runs in rapid succession. After the last one, Brienne sinks down into the bed and pulls the covers over her head. "Whyyyyyy?" she moans. "Why do I do this to myself? Sports are terrible and no one should like them."
Jaime's laughter is shaking the bed next to her, but he makes a sympathetic noise and wriggles down until he's sharing her little blanket fort. "Hey, just one six-run home run and they're right back in this thing," he says, and she scowls and flips him off.
"Not helping."
His green eyes go brighter, and he grabs her hand and gently bites the end of her extended finger, then swirls his tongue around it to soothe the sting.
Brienne's pulse stutters and then starts to thud in her veins, until she can feel it right there in the pad of her finger, right there against his tongue.
"I bet I can make you forget about the game." His smile is slow. Slow and dangerous.
She swallows. Every rational instinct is telling her to nip this in the bud now, before anything has a chance to get weird or complicated. "I don't know," she finds herself saying. "This game really sucks."
One side of his mouth tilts up, and he catches the tip of his tongue between his teeth. "You like the sucking when I do it, though."
Well, she can't deny that, and it would be a shame to have a gorgeous, naked man in her bed and not take advantage of the mind-erasing possibilities of it, right? "That was terrible, but I could really use some distraction, so let's go," she tells him before she can talk herself out of it, and he's laughing when he pulls her over on top of him.
* * * * * * *
As an athlete, Brienne has been on her share of strict conditioning diets, and mostly, her willpower is pretty good: in college, during the season, she'd eaten some combination of poached cod and grilled chicken and steamed vegetables nine nights out of ten without complaint. (Jaime, on the other hand, had complained vociferously, but after seeing the results she was getting, he'd started showing up for dinner more and more often, even learning to cook things to her specifications along the way.) But there are certain things she just can't seem to find her self-control for, like the fact that she's pretty sure that if provided with an unlimited amount of tortilla chips and salsa, she would absolutely keep eating them until her stomach exploded or she shriveled into a salty husk, whichever came first.
Suddenly having the option to have sex with Jaime is, she's discovering, more or less the chips and salsa of her previously-disciplined life.
It's not entirely accurate to say that she finds herself thinking about it all the time, but on the other hand, seriously, she's thinking about it all the time. One problem is that the more they do it, the better they get at it, to the point where she can really see what Taena had been yelling about. Another problem is that Jaime is having just as much trouble maintaining focus as she is, so between the two of them, they're turning into degenerate gamblers with startling rapidity. He stops by her tiny office late one night while she's going blind on game tape, trying to figure out why her cleanup hitter has been late on the fastball recently, and somehow she ends up complaining about how she can't see the stars in the city lights and he ends up fucking her in the outfield on the promise that he can make her see stars. (He does.) He gets stuck working a double shift on a Saturday and when he wakes up bleary-eyed the next day, she's waiting with his favorite breakfast burritos and a bet that she can beat his personal best for orgasms in a twenty-four hour period. (She does.) He's also extremely determined to make her come just from penetration, even though she's never done it before; that one takes him several tries, but he finally gets to chalk up a point on their dry-erase scoreboard after he bends her over the back of the couch one afternoon, driving into her from behind at an angle that she's pretty sure gives her a vision of the face of at least one god, so. Apparently there's a first time for everything.
It's also a supremely useful arrangement sometimes, like the day when she's trying to study for her Economics and Finance final and he's bored and antsy and particularly Jaime-ish and she's genuinely worried that she's going to have to murder him and find some way to dispose of his beautiful body.
"Are you done yet?" he asks for the fifth time in as many minutes, stretching his arm across the kitchen table to her like he's in some kind of classical painting.
"Jaime."
"Brienne," he echoes dramatically. "Come on. It's a gorgeous day. Let's go do something."
"Like what?" she sighs, only half paying attention. Sometimes if she gives him just enough input to go on, he'll tire himself out like a spinning top.
"Bet you I can--"
That gets her full attention. "Jaime! I am not performing any sex acts with you outside in full daylight."
A lazy, leonine grin spreads across his face. "I like the way you say 'performing sex acts.' It sounds so dirty."
She rolls her eyes and then trains them on the page in front of her again, ignoring the growing heat between her legs. "You think half the things I say sound dirty. And I have a final in three days."
"Three days?!" he repeats. "That's so much time! Look, just take a break now and I'll help you afterward, I promise."
Brienne hesitates; Jaime's actually a shockingly good study partner, when he can focus enough to do it. Compensating for his dyslexia had taught him dedicated, structured habits, and he's quick to pick things up and see the big picture. But still, her habits dictate that she should be studying now, not fooling around with him, and--
"Come on," he wheedles, inching his chair closer to hers, obviously sensing a possible opening. "You know I'm not going to shut up otherwise."
Which is, apparently, the end of her rope: she closes her book with a snap. "I bet I can make you shut up," she tells him, and watches the lowkey horniness he always seems to have in his eyes these days go from a hopeful little candle to a full crackling fire.
"What did you have in mind?" His voice is in that gravel range that seems to drag over all of her nerve endings.
And she honestly hadn't had anything in particular in mind until just now, but she's been so annoyed, and he's so transparently turned on that she just kind of wants to destroy him a bit, so she jerks her head toward his bedroom. "Go lay down on your bed. Face-up."
He scrambles to obey her, and she's glad he does it fast enough that he won't see how much she's blushing. Yet.
She keeps her chin high as she stalks into his bedroom, stripping off her leggings and underwear as soon as she gets inside. He's waiting on the bed, as promised, and she lets the momentum of her frustration and anticipation carry her all the way up his body. She stops for a thorough kiss along the way, but ultimately she ends up straddling his shoulders, her bush hovering near his chin.
When she looks down to check on him, his pupils are blown wide and dark and he's practically drooling. No need to worry about whether he's still with her, apparently; he's even got his head positioned just below the pillow, like this is what he'd been hoping for. He slides his hands along her thighs, curves them around to grip her ass.
"Hey," she says. "Did I say you could touch me?" Testing it out, seeing how they both like it.
His hands drop back to his sides. "Sorry," he manages, hoarse, tongue flicking out to wet his lips.
"This is my bet, I'm calling the shots," she tells him.
"Yes, okay, whatever you want, yes." His eyes are bright and the muscles of his upper arms are jumping against the insides of her calves. And she has no idea what she's doing, really, but whatever it is, it's getting her so wet she's worried she's going to start dripping on his face, and he's looking up at her cunt like she'd look at a juicy fastball down the middle, so she figures she's doing all right.
He's got a thick mahogany headboard, a pain-in-the-ass heavy one that she'd helped him essentially steal from his childhood home, and she wraps her hands around the top of it. "I'm going to shut you up with my cunt, Jaime," she tells him. "That's what we both deserve, don't you think?"
"Yes," he answers, so pained it's almost a whine, "yes, please, Brienne, please, let me--"
She tilts her hips forward and down, until she can feel his rapid breaths against her pussy lips. "Good," she says, "time to put that mouth to use," and his groan is almost lost inside her as he eagerly devotes himself to the task.
The angle isn't what she's used to but she discovers that she kind of loves it: the control it gives her, the way he can lap at her folds and dip his tongue inside her without having to contort his neck to any odd angles. When she sinks down on him a little more, just to get a bit more pressure, the moaning sound he makes seems to vibrate in all her most sensitive places. She's slightly worried about smothering him, though he's strong enough to buck her off if necessary; still, "You can move your hands, if you want," she tells him breathlessly, just in case, and he immediately brings them to her ass to pull her even closer, fingers digging in hard enough to sting. She arches her back and grips the headboard hard, all but shoving her clit into his mouth, and he takes the hint, sucking hard and then flicking it with his tongue. Her legs are starting to shake.
"Good, Jaime," she tells him, "you're so good for me, gods, now every time I want you to stop talking I'm going to have to think about this. Do you have any idea what this is going to do to me?" She can feel his shoulders shaking with laughter, and her own half-agonized laugh ends in a sharp cry as he plunges his thumb into her all the way up to his palm. All she can hear is her own sobbing breaths and the sloppy sounds of him devouring her, all she can think is yes yes yes more yes, all she knows is that they are absolutely doing this again, and then he crooks his thumb just right and she's coming, shuddering and gasping as she soaks his face.
She feels all liquid and full of light, and she collapses forward against the headboard, trying to suck air into her lungs. He's panting, too, craning his neck up to give her a few last licks. She's distantly aware of his arm moving; the thumb that had been inside her disappears, followed by a rhythmic motion that's become very, very familiar. Sure enough, when she climbs sideways off him, she can see that his face is shiny with her juices and his eyes are hazy with lust, and he's got his jeans open and his hand is tugging at his cock, rough jerks like he can't quite get his motor skills together.
"Did I tell you you could do that?" she asks him, and it's a little more difficult now that she's looking him right in the face, but his response is worth it, the way his hand falls away immediately, and his neck makes a beautiful arch as his eyes squeeze shut with pleasure that's just on the right side of pain.
"Please, Brienne, I need to, please." His hips twitch helplessly into nothing, and he's full-on babbling now. She doesn't want him to actually lose his mind, so she crawls backward a little on her hands and knees.
"Shh," she soothes him, "shhhh, I've got you," and almost as soon as she closes her mouth around his dick, he tenses up and shoots down her throat.
Afterward, he strokes her hair mindlessly, murmuring "Gods, Brienne, fuck that was so hot, holy shit," aftershocks trembling through him. There's a sticky mess between her legs, and she figures his face must be feeling pretty much the same, so she pulls away long enough to stumble with shaky knees to the bathroom. After she's cleaned herself up a bit, she comes back with a warm washcloth, which she uses to wipe the worst/best of the evidence off his chin and neck, all while he looks at her with a slightly shell-shocked smile and shining eyes. She almost has to laugh that for once, she actually does seem to have worn out his tongue for a while. When she's done, she nudges him until he's lying diagonally, both of them clear of the not-insignificant wet spot, and curls up with her forehead pressed to his shoulder.
Everything they'd just done had been new to her, everything raw and intimate and pulled up out of fantasies that she's never dared to trust anyone with, even if she knows that people do much more adventurous things every day. But she doesn't do those things, usually, and she thinks that it should feel awkward, being so exposed to him. The thing is, though, that he's seen her ugly-cry after she'd dumped Hyle's useless ass, and he's seen her draped over the toilet after her first real night of drinking, and he's seen her laugh so hard she peed herself a little bit, so this feels like just one more mark in that column, one more way for them to know each other.
After a few minutes, he rolls over on his side, tugging her with him so that her arm is wrapped around his waist. "You've got to study," he says, in direct contradiction to what his body is telling her. "I'll help if you want."
The hair at the back of his neck is damp, the smell of his shampoo mixing with the lingering scent of sweat and of her. "In a while," she says, and pulls him closer.