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“Goodness, you’ve gone feral.”
Sansa laughs as she takes Margaery’s hands in her, kissing her friend’s cheeks. “Have I?”
Pursing her lips, Margaery holds Sansa at arm’s length, studying her, no doubt taking in her sun-pinked skin, her legs bare under a short tunic that slips off one shoulder, her hair a wild tangle down her back.
“I know,” Sansa says airily, stepping out of Margaery’s grasp and gesturing the other woman into the villa’s atrium. “I look an absolute fright.”
“You look happy,,” Margaery counters, even as she shakes her head. And when Sansa flops down onto one of the dining couches littered about the candlelit room, Margaery arches a brow and adds, “Happy and well fucked.”
That makes Sansa laugh again, tucking her legs up under her and nodding to one of the servants to fill their wine goblets.
Margaery lowers herself onto one of the couches with considerably more grace than Sansa had, carefully arranging the folds of her green and gold stola before taking a fig from the tray laid before them.
“Is that why you came to Capri?” Sansa asks, tossing a handful of hair over her shoulder. “To counsel me against hedonism?”
Smiling, Margaery takes a bit of her fig. “As hedonism is one of my favorite pastimes, no. No, I came to Capri for the same reasons everyone else does. Rome is hot and dreadfully dull, and I wish to take in the healthful salt air.”
“Is that all you wish to take in?” Sansa asks with a saucy grin, and Margaery tosses a grape at her.
“You were once a fine Roman lady!” she teases. “And now look at you, a half-naked trollop making dirty jokes.”
Giggling, Sansa settles deeper into the couch. “I have become something of a trollop here,” she confesses, and Margaery leans forward, propping her chin on her hand.
“Details, please.”
A bloom of heat rises from Sansa’s chest as she thinks of the past few weeks. Her life in Rome is so rigid, so…proper that even the afternoons she has spent in Jon’s cell have felt almost scheduled. But here, in her tiny villa by the sea, only a handful of servants, no Joff, no watchful court, no whispers and schemes, every day bleeds together in a sensual haze. To be able to sleep next to Jon every night, to make love with him any time and any place she desires…oh, it’s been a heady freedom, and one she has taken every advantage of.
She could tell Margaery about the nights she and Jon have spent in the deep bath in her bedroom, or the time she bore him down onto the sun-warmed tiles of her patio, moving over him under the bright blue sky. Sansa could also regale her friend with the afternoon they swam to a tiny island not far offshore and Jon licked the saltwater from her skin while Sansa twisted and writhed on the hot sand.
Sansa has dozens of stories, it seems, things she and Jon have done that are both salacious and sweet, filthy and divine all at once.
But she finds she cannot share them, not even with Margaery. They are hers and his, and to speak them aloud might diminish the memories.
So Sansa merely sighs and takes a sip of wine. “I can’t,” she tells Margaery. “It would…,” Trailing off, she shakes her head. “He is private.”
Margaery makes a moue of disappointment, but shrugs it off. “I would say that an honorable man makes a tedious lover, but as your skin could nigh on light this entire villa, I suppose that isn’t true.”
Impulsively, Sansa reaches across the low table and takes Margaery’s hand. “I have missed you, you know.”
“Oh, no you haven’t,” Margaery says with a little wave. “You’ve been too busy letting some gorgeous man have his way with you.”
Sansa smiles, but before she can say anything else, she hears a door open and the heavy footsteps that can only be Jon’s.
When she calls his name, he appears in the doorway almost immediately, smiling at her in that way he has, that way she has seen so much more often since they’ve been here.
But that smile vanishes almost immediately when he sees Margaery, replaced with a wary gaze that makes Sansa’s heart ache. No matter what they are playing at here in Capri, Rome still hangs over them, waiting, and Margaery is clearly a reminder of that for Jon.
Wishing to ease him, Sansa holds out her hand, keeping her voice light. “Jon, come here. I want you to meet Margaery.”
Jon walks into the room, but he doesn’t take Sansa’s hand, and his eyes fall from Margaery to the tiled floor.“Domina,” he murmurs, and Sansa frowns.
Margaery looks back and forth between them before simply nodding at Jon and taking another fig.
Rising onto her knees, Sansa takes Jon’s hand and tugs him onto the couch with her, prodding him to sit with a hand at his shoulder. She can feel the tension coiled there, a tension that grows tighter when she presses herself closer to him, settling his arms around her.
Margaery watches them, and Sansa thinks of how Jon must look to her eyes. Like Sansa, his skin is also darker from the sun, but where hers has gone rosy, his has turned a deeper gold, making his eyes look lighter. Likewise, his hair is tangled and curling from the swim they’d taken earlier that afternoon. His arms are bare, and Sansa can see Margaery’s eyes follow Sansa’s fingers as they trace the curve of Jon’s bicep, feeling a strange satisfaction in the obvious admiration in Margaery’s gaze.
“I must ask you, Jon,” Margaery says, leaning back onto her couch. “Do you approve of Sansa’s new style of dress? I admit she looks quite fetching, but I can’t help thinking such a look will never catch on in Rome.”
It takes Jon a moment to reply, no doubt surprised by both Margaery’s use of his proper name and the friendly tone she takes with him. But after a beat, Sansa feels some of the tension drain out of Jon and he replies, “I approve, although I fear I’ll never get this tunic back.”
Both women laugh and the rest of the evening is spent pleasantly enough, eating, drinking, exchanging light pleasantries and amusing anecdotes. And through it all, Sansa stays in the circle of Jon’s arms, willing him to feel what’s in her heart. That he is hers, not as a slave or a possession, but hers in the truest sense. That she has chosen him and they are equals here, no matter what the rest of the world might think.
It’s late when Margaery finally rises, and Sansa trails her to the door after admonishing Jon to stay put. (“I have plans for you and this couch,” she’d whispered as Margaery had fussed with her palla and pretended not to hear.)
Margaery turns in the doorway, the warm, scented night air tugging at her skirts. Her hand is also warm and sweet as she presses it to Sansa’s cheek. “You play with fire, my darling.”
Covering Margaery’s hand with her own, Sansa leans closer. “He’s worth it.”
That gets a smile from Margaery and a fond pat. “I do not doubt it. Now get back to him and do all manner of depraved things on that couch that you won’t tell me about.”
Returning to the atrium, Sansa finds it nearly dark, the candles guttered low. Her servants have conveniently disappeared, so there are no eyes on her but Jon’s as she pulls first one arm, then the other through the sleeves of her silken tunic, leaving it to pool around her feet.
From his place on the couch, Jon gives a deep sigh, his eyes roving over her. “You will be the death of me,” he tells her as she walks slowly towards him. “Sod tridents and swords, it will be you and this cursed villa that does me in.”
She usually hates talk of the arena, but such jests from Jon are rare, and this one makes her smile as she straddles his lap, letting her fingers laces behind his head. His lips taste like wine, and his tongue tangles languidly with hers, his hands hot on her back. “Cursed?” she breathes when they part, and Jon kisses her again.
“Blessed,” he amends, and Sansa rewards him with a slow press of her hips over his lap, making Jon suck his breath in a hiss.
“There is no place in this house I won’t have you,” she tells him, winding closer, moving more steadily while his hands flex on her back. “No room where you will not have been inside of me.”
Jon’s eyes are impossibly dark now, his lips slightly parted from the force of his breathing, and Sansa can feel him hard beneath her, only the simple linen of his tunic keeping them apart. “No place,” he agrees, nuzzling under her chin. “No room.”
She knows they are both thinking the same thing; that once the summer is over, they will never be here together again. That memories are all either of them will have left of this villa.
Of each other.
But that is a worry for later, and for now, she is his, and he is hers.