Work Text:
Isn't it a little late?
Shouldn't you fly away?
Little dove with cigarettes
Show 'em that you can hold your breath
I heard about a girl
Buried her dolls and lost her curls
Painted on lipstick red
Grew herself up and then she'd
Walk into a smoke-filled room
Oh, no one could keep their eyes off you
Have a little drink or two
Oh, oh, how could you be that girl I knew?
-Smoke-filled Room by Mako
When Robb and Jeyne mention they’ve invited Jon out to the bar while she’s back home for summer break, Sansa peels herself off the old leather sectional in her parents’ basement.
“Can I come?” she asks, rubbing the back of her leg with a bare foot and chewing on her bottom lip.
The basement is where they’d all hung out as kids. Jon and Theon, too. It’s full of nostalgia–old ’90s toys, video games, and boxes of crafts and drawings with each of her siblings’ names scribbled on them.
Sansa finds it suffocating.
Robb and Jeyne exchange a look, and it’s her brother’s girlfriend who nods immediately. “Of course,” she says. “We told Jon and Theon nine, we can tell them later if you need more time.”
Sansa shakes her head, feeling both elated and embarrassed, like a little kid tagging around with her older brother, even though she's 22 now and hardly an annoying tag-along. “I just want to change my clothes. I’ll be ready.”
She’s halfway up the stairs to the kitchen above when her brother calls, “Don’t take forever primping, Sans, or we’ll leave you behind.”
At the top of the steps, she sees Jeyne elbow him, and Sansa flips him off with a glare.
She hasn’t brought any of her good clothes home from school, so Sansa stares into the recesses of her childhood closet, searching for something that says, “I’m not your friend’s obnoxious little sister anymore.”
She pulls out a few shirts and skirts before she fishes out an old white summer dress. Maine evenings, even in July, are cool; she should probably wear jeans, but something about wearing a short white dress with thin, barely there straps appeals to her.
Besides, I'll wear a cardi.
She changes out of her shorts and hoodie, then digs through the big suitcase that she still hasn’t unpacked, and finds her espadrille wedges. They have a cute little ribbon that ties up her calves.
In her cluttered bathroom, she shakes her hair out from its tie, frowning at the crease it leaves behind. She glances at the time on her phone. She has fifteen minutes, plenty of time for a quick blowout with her air-styler. Dampening the strands, she quickly twirls them around the stiff bristles, the high-pitched whine of the motor loud in her ears. She bounces on her feet, feeling anxious and fluttery, her tummy tied in knots of anticipation.
She hasn’t seen Jon since last summer, when they’d all gone to the lake house.
Memories of warm, wet skin and dark eyes make goose bumps prickle across her arms. She’s thought of Jon Snow more than a few times over the past year, especially after she broke up with Joffrey. She’s even thought of messaging him, finger hovering over his Instagram profile, before she talks herself out of it.
Hair done, she flips it upside down, then gives it a good spritz of hairspray. Standing, she fusses with the loose waves for a moment in the mirror. 8:25, she has maybe five minutes before Robb comes banging on her door like an ass.
She grabs her little purse from her bed–which is still covered in white and pink sheets, her old teddy bear front and center against the pillows–and dabs some pinkish lip gloss on. Turning, she studies herself in the long mirror near her bedroom door. It’s decorated with a bunch of flowers and rainbow stickers, and old polaroids of her and her high school friends. There’s one of Jon in there, at his and Robb’s graduation party, when Sansa was still just a sophomore. He’s pressed awkwardly against her side in a booth, not really smiling.
She smooths her hands over her dress as she watches her reflection. She wants him to think she’s pretty and grown-up looking. Mature. He is in his first year of grad school, so he’s probably surrounded by smart, beautiful women.
Marg had told her she needed a good summer fling, and maybe Jon could be that. Robb wouldn’t like it, but, well, she’d deal with that if it came to it.
She deserves something nice, and Jon Snow has always been nice.
They go to a bar that Sansa has never been to, and the air is chill and foggy as they show their ID cards outside The Rusty Anchor. The front door, per its namesake, is buttressed by not one but two rusty anchors. She pulls her thin gray cardigan tighter about herself and wraps her arms around her middle to suppress a shudder. Robb berated her in the car for her dress, and she isn’t going to give him the satisfaction of seeing her shiver.
The doorman takes an extra long moment between shining a black light on her ID card and squinting at her face, and Robb rolls his eyes while Jeyne sticks protectively to her side. Jeyne is great. Way too good for her annoying, stupid big brother. Eventually, the big bald man waves her through, and they step inside the warmth and noise of the bar.
The long, single room has dark wood paneling, low tin ceilings, and walls decorated with fishing buoys and lobster traps. The ceiling has beer flags and banners dangling from the roof. There’s an array of fishing rods hung above the bar, and the floor under her wedges is sticky with spilled beer. She takes a deep breath to steady herself–this isn’t the kind of place she and her friends went to at school on the weekends–and it tastes like stale ale and fried clams.
Robb and Jeyne peel off immediately so Robb can greet the bartender, whom he apparently knows. Leaving Sansa suddenly untethered and alone in the dull amber light of neon bar signs and electric candles in cheap red glasses. She looks around nervously and sees Jon and Theon in a booth toward the back of the room. Jon turns his head, lifting a beer bottle to his lips, and freezes when his eyes meet hers. Sansa’s heart skips, and she shoots him a little wave, her other arm still wrapped tightly around herself.
Confidence, Sansa, god.
Jon says something to Theon, who pokes his head further out of the booth as Jon gets to his feet. Theon gives her a big, cocky smile and chugs his beer as Jon tugs on the hem of his shirt before heading towards her.
He looks good. Really good.
He’s wearing darkwash denim jeans, a fitted black waffle-knit Henley with the sleeves pushed up to his elbows, and scuffed black boots with thick soles. The shirt makes his chest and shoulders look broad, and his hair is longer than when she last saw him, curling around his ears. He’s wearing a pair of thick-rimmed glasses that catch the light of the neon signs as he moves.
When he reaches her, he pulls her into a stiff one-armed hug. He smells like beer and laundry detergent and warm skin. Still cold from being outside, she wants to sink into that warmth.
“Hey, Sansa,” he says, and it's a deep rumble in his chest as he pulls away. “Robb didn’t say you were coming.”
She reaches up and tucks her hair behind her ear. “Is… that okay?”
His brow furrows as his eyes dip down her body a little before he seems to force them back up. “Of course.”
Then Theon descends on her.
“Hey, Sans! Looking good,” he pulls her in for a tight two-armed hug that Sansa returns hesitantly. She glances at Jon, whose jaw tightens as he takes a drag from his beer.
“Get off my sister, you creep,” Robb says, only half joking as he tugs at Theon’s shoulder and pulls him into a manly embrace. All thumping backs and stern jaws. Jeyne rolls her eyes.
“Hey man,” Robb says to Jon, and their hug is more… something. Sincere, maybe, as it lingers. Robb and Jon have been best friends forever. It should make her plan less appealing, but it doesn’t, not really. Jon is good and safe and smart and kind, and maybe he could be some of those things for her. Even if just for the summer.
Maybe it could be a secret. The idea makes a little shiver radiate up her spine, and she bites her lip.
Jeyne and Robb move away to greet another group of his old school friends who call him over.
“You want a drink, Sans?” Theon asks, standing too close.
Theon’s always been like that. He’s not really interested in her. He just likes to flirt. To push buttons. Jon shoves his hand in his pocket and looks pointedly away.
“Um, sure, a whiskey and coke, I guess?” She doesn’t even like whiskey, but there was no way she was going to order a bright pink mixed drink or something in front of her brother and Jon. Theon nods and makes a beeline for the bar, immediately chatting it up with a girl in a short black leather skirt.
Sansa steps closer to Jon, which seems to startle him a little as he blinks at her. He’s not much taller than her with her wedges. They are almost at eye level.
“How long have you been home?” she asks. She tries to sound cheerful. Fun.
“Uh, about a week,” he says, spinning the contents of his beer idly. He watches her from the corner of his eye.
“How's your mom doing?”
Someone brushes past her, making her stumble a bit on the uneven floor, and Jon braces her quickly with a hand, glaring at the guy who bumped her. The guy apologizes, leering a bit until his friends pull him away, taking Jon’s dark stare seriously.
“You wanna go sit?” he asks, his arm still at her elbow.
“Yeah, sure.”
He guides her through the bar, and it feels protective. Possessive. How a boyfriend might act. Not that she needs another boyfriend, but it's still nice.
When they reach the booth, Jon picks his flannel jacket off the seat and steps aside so she can scoot across the old, sticky vinyl. There’s a hole near her right side, the sharp edges of the plastic poking at her skin as Jon settles in, not across from her but right next to her. His thigh is flush with hers, pushing up the hem of her dress a bit as it catches between them. The heat of him radiates through the denim, and the contrast makes her wet her lips as she looks at him searchingly, trying to decide if he’s doing it on purpose. He settles his coat across his lap, palm splayed wide on the chipped wood table top.
Theon, Robb, and Jeyne appear then, Jeyne immediately sliding in close to Sansa in the curved booth as Theon snags a chair from one of the tables. He passes Sansa her drink with a wink.
Sansa presses even closer to Jon, with Jeyne smushed against her as her brother sits down, mid-argument with Theon. Something about sports, football probably.
Casually, Jon lifts his arm and rests it across the seat behind her, fingertips brushing the skin between the drooping collar of her cardigan and her neck. He’s just making more room. An accidental touch, nothing more. She takes a drink from her glass, forgetting what it is and almost chokes on it.
“Don’t like it?” Jon asks, nodding to the glass in her hand. Sansa tries to control her expression and fails as the whiskey burns a molten path down her throat.
“It-it’s fine,” she croaks, and he smiles. Just a quirk at the corner of his mouth.
A waitress passes them, and Jon flags her down as Theon gestures wildly, and Robb laughs at something he says.
“Can I get a gin and tonic with two limes?”
Sansa stares at him, stunned as the waitress nods and asks what tab to put the drink under.
“You remembered?” she asks when she walks away. Joffrey couldn't even remember her birthday.
He shrugs like it's no big deal. “Yeah, it's what you drank all last summer.
At the mention of last summer, her mind immediately jumps to the two of them in the entry of the cabin, wet and breathless–his hand resting on her bare hip, his eyes on her mouth, the flex of his fingers pressing against her skin.
Jeyne asks her something about school, and Sansa mentally pulls herself back into the conversation. Jon shifts, his arm stretching further along the back of the booth. His knuckles brush against the sensitive skin of her nape again; this time, the touch lingers. She squeezes both hands around the glass in her hands as he presses the rim of his beer bottle to his lips.
She makes herself take another sip of her drink, pulling a face, but she needs the liquid courage. She can be bold. She wants to try.
She waits until Robb is distracted and then lets her hands fall into her lap, hoping the dim light of the bar will shield her movements. Holding her breath, she places a hand on Jon’s thigh, three of her fingers sliding under the fall of his coat.
The muscles under her hand harden, and the fingers in her hair flex, catching on the strands in a delicious little sting of pleasure. She smiles, a hot rush of power swelling in her chest, and she nods and makes a joke about something Jeyne says. Meanwhile, she presses her fingers into his thigh a little harder, and he shifts in his seat, making a strangled sound that he covers with a cough.
“You alright, man?” Theon asks, his voice slurring a bit. It’s early, and he’s already half drunk. Pretty typical Theon behavior, but it makes her a little worried for him. He can be reckless and stupid sometimes.
“Yeah,” Jon says. “I’m good. Swallowed wrong.”
When Theon turns back to the conversation–football again– Jon turns his head, his mouth close enough that she can feel the wet heat of his breath on her ear.
“You’re dangerous.”
She ducks her head and bites her lower lip, knowing her face is probably beet red but hoping it won't be too obvious in the poor lighting. Just to show him how much trouble she’d like to be, she shifts her hand on his thigh higher, fingers just a few scant inches from his crotch. They’re pressed so close together that she feels his sharp inhale.
“Robb,” Jeyne whines. “You promised we’d play darts.”
Her brother rolls his eyes, but it's affectionate. “Okay, okay.” He looks between Jon and Sansa. “You guys in?”
“I’ll play as long as you bet real money this time,” Theon says and drains another beer, wavering slightly as he stands.
“I’m good, man,” Jon says. He raises a brow at Sansa as her drink arrives, the waitress sets it on the table, and Sansa takes it immediately.
“No, I’m good. I suck at darts,” she says to her brother in a chirpy little voice, willing him to go away. She stares down at the ice melting in her glass, avoiding his probing stare.
Robb frowns, eyes narrowing like maybe he’s missing something, and Jon tenses against her side. But then Jeyne starts shoving him out of the booth, and Sansa lets out a little breath. As she stands and adjusts her shorts, Jeyne shoots Sansa a wink through the fall of her dark hair. It might have been embarrassing if she weren’t so grateful.
As soon as they are gone, Jon sets his empty beer bottle away from himself deliberately. He leans back, his side pressing into her, and his hand at her neck shifts purposefully. Blunt finger tips trace the tendon of her neck, as he watches her from the corner of his eye. Like he’s afraid to look at her head on. Sparks fire where he touches her, and she feels dizzy, the little bit of whiskey and gin going straight to her head.
“How many have you had?” she blurts.
He peeks at her in confusion, still molded against her side, her hand still a brand of heat on his thigh.
“What?”
She tilts her head towards him and gestures with her drink at his empty bottle. “How many beers have you had?”
His brow is still knit when he says, “Just the one.”
She wets her lips, and his eyes follow the movement. He looks kind of drunk, his movements heavier, his reactions slower. Maybe it's a different kind of intoxication, which shoots another thrill of power through her. The idea that she can affect him like this.
“Okay, that's good,” she says, her voice barely above a whisper, hardly even aware of what she’s saying
He watches her seriously for a moment and then shifts his body towards her, pushing his glasses up a bit with the knuckles of his free hand. His fingers at her neck press with purpose against her skin, the rough pad of his thumb sweeping with firm pressure along her jaw, and her lips part in a small gasp. She wants to feel those hands other places. Those long, rough fingers against and inside her. Need pools like syrup between her thighs, and it makes her tremble.
“This okay?” he asks, face serious, voice rough. He’s moved closer, close enough that she has to tilt her chin up to keep eye contact.
She nods, and he looks between her lips and eyes as though warring with himself. Her brother yells something across the bar, not at them, she doesn’t think, and there is a room full of people who know Jon or her family, but Sansa couldn't care less. She hadn’t intended on making out with him in the bar, but now that she’s here, on the precipice, she’s more than ready to jump.
She barely remembers what it felt like, his lips on hers–just for a moment, a flash of lightning gone nearly as fast. She wants to feel it again. For the past year, all she’s wanted is more.
His other hand lifts to cup the side of her face. “Your boyfriend-”
“We broke up six months ago,” she says, immediately. The last thing in the world she wants to talk about is Joffrey.
He smiles then, white teeth flashing. Jon rarely smiles, so each one feels like a gift.
“Thank fuck for that,” he says in a gruff voice. His cursing like that, with need sharp and clear in his eyes, makes her want to do something insane, like crawl in his lap right in the middle of this dingy bar.
Instead, she grins back, and his hand shifts from her neck and down under her cardigan, pulling her closer; his eyes, behind the glare of his glasses, are fixed on her lips.
“What are you two losers doing?” Theon says, flopping clumsily into the booth across from them. They jerk apart, but Jon’s arm stays around her.
Theon sees Sansa’s abandoned whiskey and Coke on the table and snatches it up, draining it in several large gulps. Some of it leaks out of his mouth, staining the collar of his t-shirt.
Jon’s expression hardens. “I think you’ve had enough, Greyjoy.”
“Fuck off, Snow,” Theon says with a scowl, and then looks at Sansa and smiles, eyes drooping. “You should come dance with me, Sans. This place is boring as shit.”
Sansa tenses and Jon’s arm around her shifts slightly, and it feels more protective, his hand cupped against the circle of her shoulder. Theon watches this with clear annoyance.
“I don’t really feel like dancing,” Sansa says, trying to sound light and unaffected, but aggression is coiling in Theon’s murky eyes.
He stands up again, wavering like a tree in a storm, and pouts at her–lip extended and everything. “Come on, Sans, please.” He makes to reach for her, though she has no idea what he means to grab.
Jon catches his wrist before he can make contact, his grip tight. “She said no, Theon.”
Theon snarls, ripping his arm free, and stumbles back as if he means to square off with Jon right there, knocking over a chair in the process.
“Fuck you, Snow,” he repeats, face contorted with sudden rage. “Where do you get off, you-you fucking charity case.” People are looking at them, and she shrinks into Jon’s side. He slips his hand free of her shoulders and angles his body like maybe he’s trying to shield her.
Robb appears then, looking pissed. “Hey, shit head, chill out.” He grabs Theon’s shoulder, and Theon brushes him off violently, suddenly looking on the verge of tears. Theon’s home life has never been the best. It's why he’d spent so much time at their place as kids.
“Leave me alone, man,” he slurs and stomps off towards the exit. Robb sighs and glances at them as Sansa peeks out from behind Jon’s back.
“Looks like the party’s over, kids.”
“Jon can take Sansa home,” Jeyne says casually, pulling on her coat.
Robb looks between them. He sees Jon, tense and angry, still shielding Sansa with his body. Most brothers would see that as a warning sign. Robb just sees his best friend.
“Yeah,” Robb says, clapping a hand on Jon’s shoulder. “Good call. Get her home safe, yeah? I gotta go wrangle the idiot.”
Jon nods once. “Yeah, I got her.”
They walk away, Jeyne giving Sansa an encouraging smile, and Sansa thinks she owes her, like, dinner or something.
Jon deflates under her palms, which she’d pressed against his back. He lifts a hand and scrubs it over his face before he turns his head toward her. “Alright back there?” His voice is still tight.
She nods against him, and with only a little hesitation, she shifts her arm to wrap around his stomach. The muscles beneath his shirt tense and flex, and he inhales deeply as she buries her face against his back, cheeks burning at her own boldness. He covers her hand with his, pressing it more firmly against him and caressing her knuckles roughly with his thumb.
“You wanna finish your drink?” The words rumble through him and into her. It's intimate.
She shakes her head against his spine, feeling the heat of him and wishing she could be closer. She wants to feel his skin on hers.
God, he smells good.
“You…you want me to take you home?” he asks.
She shakes her head, and he huffs a laugh. He wraps his fingers around her hand and pulls her to her feet as he stands. His eyes are warm. Soft almost. The hunger is still there, but it's been tempered by something else. Something that makes her think that being with Jon wouldn’t just be a summer fling.
“Come on, let's go down to the pier. I’ll buy you some ice cream.”
She grins. “Okay.”
She threads her fingers through his.
He pulls her along behind him as he goes to the bar to cash out. Sansa feels jittery and eager and not at all sure how to act as she watches Jon scribble his name at the bottom of a receipt, keeping a firm hold of her hand.
Then he’s guiding her into the late evening fog, and she feels gangly on her wedges as the night envelops them. The smell of the ocean is strong, laden with fish, salt, and cooking meat from a steakhouse across the street. She snags one side of her cardigan and tugs it tighter around herself, trying to stave off the chill.
Jon glances back at her as they walk down the dimly lit sidewalk and then pauses to slip off his coat and drape it over her shoulders. It's stupidly romantic and gallant, and she pulls the collar of the coat up to her nose and inhales. He watches her and chuckles, but it's a dark sound, and he reaches out to tug her into him, there under a street lamp as cars drift by.
“You didn't tell me how your mom was,” she says, as his hand curves around her waist. His fingers tap against her, and she can’t see his expression clearly from the glare of his glasses.
“She’s good, still working.”
He sounds sad about it, and she gets it, or wants to at least. Her own mother is and always has been a housewife. Jon was raised by a single mom, and she’d always worked a lot of hours at the hospital. When he was too young to be home alone, he’d spent the night at the Starks, either with her brother in his room or down in the basement. He’d become kind of a fixture in their home, one she’d taken for granted…until last summer.
Robb told her once that Jon wanted to get a good enough job that his mom wouldn’t have to work anymore.
It's sweet and noble, and it's the thought of that more than anything else that has her wrapping her arm around his waist in turn and tipping into him. He’d always been good. Sticking up for people and working a job throughout high school to help his mom out. She hadn’t always appreciated his stoicism when they were teenagers. She’d been more interested in boys who smiled more and made romantic, empty speeches, but Jon has always been pretty damn attractive. Well built, with his lovely dark curls and wide, work-roughened hands. What he lacks in easy charm, he makes up for in smoldering intensity.
The kind of intensity he is directing at her right now.
He clears his throat a little. “Come on, let's get that ice cream. My truck is parked at the end of the boardwalk.”
“Alright,” she says, wondering if she’s going to be able to get him to kiss her or if she’s going to have to do it herself.
He’d kissed her the first time, dripping water on her as he leaned into her, crowding her space. But then Arya had come barreling into the house from the back door, and he’d all but fled back outside.
She could be the brave one this time.
Maybe.
She wants to be.
He keeps his hand around her waist, and she leans into his side as he guides her down the street, and they find a little cobble path to the boardwalk. The ice cream shop, Ben & Bill’s, is still open, and she gets a scoop of rocky road, and he gets chocolate. Growing up, sometimes her mom bought a container of it just for him.
He pays, and she feels bad for it. Maybe she’ll buy dinner for him, if he ever asks her out, that is.
“How’s school?” he asks as they walk side by side, eating their ice cream. The night is clear and breezy, the waves soothing as they crash against the shore below, and the half moon gleams out over the water.
“It’s okay,” she says with a little shrug that dislodges his coat, and he immediately reaches out and straightens it for her. “Jon?”
He swallows what's in his mouth. “Yeah?”
“How come you didn’t text me?”
He frowns a little, and it takes him a minute to respond. “Didn’t have your number.”
“We follow each other on Instagram.”
His mouth tugs up a bit, and he leads her down the pier instead of down to the end of the boardwalk, where his truck apparently waits. This seems like a positive sign. He’s not trying to get rid of her as soon as possible.
There are other couples on the pier, tourists, probably, at this time of year, enjoying the view of the ocean.
“Just… didn’t want to overstep.”
“You kissed me,” she reminds him. Saying it aloud makes it feel more real somehow. He chucks his ice cream into a trash can and rubs at the back of his neck as she follows suit.
“You had a boyfriend, Sansa.”
She rubs her arm back and forth with her hand. “A horrible one… and I made it pretty clear we broke up, you could have messaged me after.”
He frowns at her, mouth pressed into a flat line. “Is that what you would have wanted?”
She shrugs, her courage starting to fail her, and she pulls the sides of his coat closer around her. The scent of coffee and some residual cologne–musky, woodsy– wraps her in warmth.
“Maybe,” she manages. “I thought about you. About the kiss.”
He shoves his hands in his pockets, looking at her from under his brow for a second before holding a hand out to her. She puts her palm against his; it's warmer than hers, and he threads their fingers together again as he walks them further down the pier until they are alone enough to talk.
Sansa leans against the railing, forcing her to look up, and he steps into her space. The moon is gleaming silver in his hair and off the rim of his glasses, and her heart is racing in her chest from the way he’s looking at her. Want and uncertainty, and elation, all mixed together.
His throat bobs as he swallows. “I’d wanted to for a long time.”
She snags his shirt at his waist with her free hand as if to trap him, her mind a jumbled mess. “Wanted to what?” Her voice is breathy, and she ends on something like a plea.
Instead of answering, he threads his fingers into the hair at the base of her skull and kisses her.
It's not like that first kiss. Quick, sharp, desperate. This time, he kisses her like he’s trying to tell her something. Something he’s been trying to tell her for years, before she knew how to listen. She’s listening now.
His lips are tender as he holds her face gently in both his hands, stepping further into her space as the wind kicks up around them. He draws it out. His gentle assault, until she’s almost panting, her hands fisting in his shirt. She feels like she might melt down into the ocean and be swept away as he finally presses more firmly, head tilting as he taps his tongue against her lower lip.
Blood rushes in her ears, and she stands straight, curling her arms up around his neck to pull him closer as his tongue slips hot and eager into her mouth. She loses all sense of place and time as they find a rhythm that almost feels like sex. She’s never been kissed like this. It feels like he could kiss her for hours and never tire of it as his hands slip from her hair and smooth heavily down her lower back, where he presses her hips tightly against his.
She pulls away first, dizzy for air, and his mouth is instantly at her jaw and trailing down her throat. The contrast of the cold sea breeze makes her shiver, and her knees wobble as he groans her name where her pulse flutters against his lips.
She tugs at his hair, the thick curls cool and soft, until he lifts his head. His glasses are slightly askew, and he looks drunk, pupils blown wide. It makes her smile, luxuriating in the effect she has on him.
“Is your mom home?” she asks, nearly as wrecked as he is.
He blinks at her for a moment as he settles his weight back on his heels. “No, no, she’s at the hospital for the next two days.”
She nudges his nose with hers, her lips just brushing his. “Will you take me there?”
His fingers tighten against her hip, and he pulls a little away. “You sure that's what you want?”
Uncertainty is trying to claw its way back into her, and she bites her kiss-swollen lip. “I mean, if that’s what you want.”
He smiles like she’s said something funny and dips his head back in to steal a quick, hard kiss, before he’s dragging her back down the pier.
The energy in Jon’s small truck cab is charged and heavy as he navigates his way through downtown Bar Harbor. It’s an older Ford pickup, but he keeps it in good condition, and it smells like the vanilla air freshener hanging from the rear-view. His hands stay on the steering wheel, but his eyes keep drifting her way. Lingering, she notes, on her exposed thighs.
She pulls her phone out and sends her mom a quick text that she’s going to spend the night with a friend, which, objectively, is true. Jon is a friend. Then she tucks her phone away and glances at him, admiring his profile for a moment in the passing headlights.
“I’m sorry,” she says, “for what Theon said to you.” Talk about a mood killer, but it has been bothering her. Is that how Theon saw him? Is that how Jon saw himself?
He looks at her searchingly as they roll to a stop at a red light, the blinker loud in the silence. He quirks a smile. “It's okay. Theon says stupid shit when he’s drunk.”
Sansa shakes her head a little, hands clenching in her lap. “No, it isn’t. Okay, I mean. I hope you don’t think that.”
“That I’m a charity case?”
She purses her lips. “Dad and Robb love you. Our whole family does,” she says before she can think better of invoking her family as he presumably drives her to his childhood home so they can hook up.
Jon doesn’t look bothered, though, and his smile softens. “It really is okay, Sansa. Theon has a lot to deal with at home; it's not easy for him.”
She stubbornly folds her arms across her chest. “It's no excuse,” she insists, and he chuckles as they pull free of downtown and head further away from the coast. Jon’s mom still lives in the small house she bought when he was a baby. It’s on the opposite side of town from where her parents live, where the houses are smaller and built more closely together.
His hand drifts briefly to her thigh, touching bare skin in a shock of contact that has them both drawing shaky breaths. He moves it quickly back to the wheel and throws her an almost wolfish smile.
“Dangerous,” he insists, and she bites back a smile.
Five minutes later, they are pulling to a stop in the driveway of a modest, single-story ranch-style house. The blue vinyl siding is faded from years of salt wind, and the overgrown rhododendron bushes have narrowed the path up to the yellow-painted front door. It’s nothing like the sprawling estate she grew up in, but it's warm and simple and more real for it. Like Jon.
He hops out of the cab as soon as he clicks off the ignition, and then he’s at her door, helping her down from the truck. She doesn’t miss the way his eyes trail up from her ankles, tracing the ribbons, to where her dress rides high as she slips to the ground. He wets his lips and then guides her around the truck. As they approach the house, a motion sensor light switches on, blinding her a little, as Jon fishes his keys out of his pocket and unlocks the front door.
She’s been to Jon's house before, a few times, when they were kids. It looks mostly the way she remembers it, even if it's been years. The light above the sink in the kitchen is still on, and it casts a warm glow through the house. Cozy. Clean. She smells lemon and Lysol and something sweeter, like maybe his mom had baked cookies or something.
Jon steps inside, and she steps over the threshold, hoping he won’t change his mind.
“Do you want a drink of water or anything?” he asks, setting his keys down on the entryway table.
She opens her mouth to say no, but then finds she is desperately thirsty. “Yes, please,” she says, almost embarrassed.
She follows him across soft, if faded carpet and into the linoleum-tiled kitchen where his boots squeak.
“She’s only got the tap,” he says, fishing a plastic cup from a dark wood cabinet. It is one of the ones they’d drunk from as kids, with some Disney character fading from the plastic. Mulan maybe.
“That's fine,” she says, though she never drinks from the tap if she can help it, normally.
He fills the cup for her as Sansa pushes herself up on the counter, setting her purse down beside her. He hands the cup over, and she takes it, swallowing several deliciously cool mouthfuls. She offers it back to him with a raised brow, and he pushes himself off the counter where he’d been leaning, watching her. She crosses her ankles as he drinks, rocking back and stretching her legs in front of her, and he makes a noise into the plastic.
She stills. “What?”
His eyes are on her legs, and he gestures at them with the hand holding the cup, a muscle in his jaw flexing.
“Those shoes should be illegal.”
She looks down at her wedges, and a blush spreads across her chest and cheeks.
“Oh yeah?” she asks him with an arch of her brow that she hopes seems coy and not insecure.
He gives a stern nod and sets the cup aside, then crowds into her space, prompting her to part her legs so he can step between them. He braces his hands on either side of her thighs on the counter, and she loops her hands over his neck to keep from sprawling backward as he leans into her.
“You’re driving me insane, you know that?” he growls, and she shivers at the sound. God, his voice. He has such a sexy damn voice.
“For how long?” she asks, and it's a needy, pathetic little question. Not the sort of question that you ask a guy you just want to have a casual summer fling with.
He lifts his chin towards her, their lips almost brushing when he says, “It's hard to remember when you didn’t, Sansa.”
She kisses him then, her hand fisting in his stupid, sexy hair, and it's a desperate, messy thing that has him groaning into her mouth and sweeping her into his arms. She gasps when he palms her ass in both hands and lifts her off the counter, her ankles locking at his waist. His strides are long and fast as he carries her down the hall towards his bedroom, and she kisses his jaw, his ear, his neck, anything she can reach, his breath ragged in her ear.
He anchors her against him with one arm and shoves his bedroom door open, kicking it shut behind him as he half stumbles across the room to deposit her on his old twin-size bed that squeaks in protest when she lands. He helps her scoot up until she’s lying back against the pillows, and he’s hovering over her, arms braced on either side of her as he kneels. She thinks his comforter has planets on it, but it's hard to tell in the darkness.
She’s been in his room before, and the past overlays the present, but instead of making it weird or being a turn-off, a gentle, affectionate warmth seeps through her. Because this is Jon. The guy who’d helped her with her calculus homework and fixed her bike when Arya crashed it into the side of the house, and who always brings her mom her favorite chocolates when he comes to visit at Christmas.
She doesn’t want this to be a summer fling. Even if she doesn’t need a boyfriend. Even if they go to different schools. She wants him.
“Hey,” she says softly as she reaches around his neck again, pulling him down towards her.
He nuzzles her with his nose. “Hey, yourself.”
“Jon?” she asks, her voice wavering.
His eyes flash in the darkness, as hers adjust to the gloom. They center on her mouth. “Will you touch me?”
A shudder ripples through him as he huffs a warm puff of air against her lips. He reaches across her and switches on a lamp on the bedside table. The shade has stars and rocket ships on it. If the room is boyish and childish, the man who pulls his shirt over his head is anything but. Her mouth waters as her eyes trace the way his chest hair trails into a line of hair that disappears into his jeans. “I want to see you,” he explains, voice gravelly, and she nods eagerly, hardly aware of what she’s agreeing to.
With a smoldering smirk, he lifts one of her legs and places a kiss against her calf as he tugs on the laces of her shoes. God, she’s never been more turned on in her life, and he’s barely touched her.
He slips one shoe off and then the other with the same maddeningly slow care. She’s hardly a blushing virgin, but no one has ever treated sex like this with her. Like it's something to be savored. Her hands are gripped together across her chest as his hands smooth slowly and firmly along her calves and thighs, pushing up the short hem of her dress to run his fingers up under her underwear and across the curve of her ass. She moans and lets her eyes flutter shut. Can someone die of sexual anticipation?
But he’s too far away, she needs to touch him, and she pulls at his arms and shoulders until he’s caught between her thighs. His glasses are pushed further down his nose as he stares into her eyes at close range. The denim of his jeans rubs against the sensitive skin of her inner thighs, and she could feel the burning, hard press of his erection. He braces his weight on one hand and the other slips along her thigh, then brushes the heat of her through her underwear. It's a light tease that drives all the air from her lungs. His fingers press more firmly, and her knees fall further apart as she moans.
His breathing is hard and fast when he pulls her panties–green silk and lace–aside and dips his fingers where she is pulsing with need. They both moan as first one finger, and then another, slip easily inside of her. His elbow wobbles, and his head knocks against hers gently as his fingers sink deep.
“Fuck,” he groans, his eyes squeezing shut for a moment before he looks down between them, where his fingers are slowly breaking her into pieces. “You’re so wet, sweetheart.”
She whimpers in response as his thumb finds her clit and rubs tight little circles. It’s insane how close she is already, and she clutches his shoulders almost frantically as his fingers move inside her slowly and then faster, curling to hit a place inside her that has her body bowing beneath him.
It’s never been like this with anyone else. Normally, she has to fake it and take care of herself later. She doesn’t think that will be a problem with Jon as a trembling, toe-curling heat suffuses her body.
She’s babbling nonsense, mostly his name, and oh, god, please, and the skin of his back has become slick beneath her palms. He’s murmuring filthy words of encouragement, telling her how beautiful she looks like this, how long he's wanted to touch her like this, and she never wants this moment to end. The distant thought that they could have been doing this way before now will make her angry if she dwells on it for too long.
He kisses her then, tongue pressing into her mouth in the same rhythm as his fingers fucking into her, and the world outside them evaporates like a soap bubble as her orgasm crashes through her like a rip tide.
He works her through it, dragging it out until she’s shuddering and boneless beneath him. He kisses the tip of her nose, each of her eyes, and then her mouth. Soft, gentle, and it makes her heart swell. He slips his fingers from her, resting his hand on her outer thigh, where the wetness of herself cools against her skin.
“Good?” he asks, and she giggles a bit, the sound breathless, and she peels her heavy eyes open. He’s looking at her with such adoration and more than a little self-satisfaction that it makes her toes curl into the bedspread.
She swallows dryly, wishing she had that cup of water. “Do you have a condom?"
He freezes, expression falling, and lets out a long sigh. “I don’t.” He curses and pulls back from her a little. “Shit. I should have stopped to get some. I was-“
“Distracted?” She offers, and he smiles a little. It’s a gentle, affectionate expression before he looks towards the door with a furrow in his brow. He’s probably trying to decide if he should go out and buy some, and she nibbles at her lip for a moment before she pushes herself into a sitting position. He eases away from her, kneeling at the end of the bed, his hair sticking up and his lips swollen from their kissing.
“Go get my purse off the counter,” she tells him. He looks at her, confused for a moment, and she explains, “I have some condoms in there.”
He blinks at her for a moment and then untangles himself and hurries out of the room. She swings her legs over the side of the bed, her arms shaking a bit from the orgasm that has still left her tingly. His room is small and is primarily taken up by two massive bookcases filled to the brim with books, a few action figures sprinkled among the spines.
Jon returns a few minutes later, and he’s removed his boots and socks, bare feet nearly silent on the carpet. He’s holding her purse in one hand and the glass of water in the other, and Jesus, did he have to be so perfect?
She accepts the glass and drains half, sets it down on the nightstand, and then takes her purse from him and fishes out two condoms she’d slipped in before she left for home. Hopeful talismans, she thinks with a private little smile as she holds them out to him. He takes the little foil packets between two of his fingers, fingers that had been inside her a few minutes ago. He studies her a moment.
“We don’t have to if you don’t want to, Sans. You don’t owe me anything for…” he looks at the bed, trailing off.
“For giving me a mind-blowing orgasm?”
He blushes, and it’s insanely endearing. He also has an erection pressing stubbornly against the fly of his jeans. Sansa stands on weak knees, stepping across the small space until she has to tilt her head back to look at him, and reaches for the button of his jeans, working it open. Her fingertips sliding under the top of his briefs makes his stomach muscles jump.
She looks up at him, nervous again but determined. “I want you, Jon,” she murmurs, holding his gaze and watching as his chest rises and his eyes darken. He gives her another one of his decisive nods and then steps around her to put the condoms on the bedside table, and then takes his glasses off, tucking them behind the lamp.
“Then let’s get that dress off you.”
She reaches around herself to unzip the side closure as Jon pushes his jeans off his hips and steps out of them, leaving him in just his black briefs. He has nice legs, strong, covered in dark hair. He must go to the gym or something; she doesn’t imagine that grad school is very physically demanding.
He stops her before he can push her dress off and does it himself. He peels the straps down her arms, fingertips trailing, and she has a sense that this is something he’s been wanting to do…for much longer than she’d thought.
Her dress falls away to pool at her feet, and Jon’s hands rub up and down her arms as his throat bobs, eyes sweeping over her body, lingering on her breasts, concealed by a matching green bra that is mostly lace.
“You’re beautiful, Sansa,” he says, and something about the quiet of the room and the deep sincerity in his eyes undoes any lingering insecurity.
She reaches behind herself and unsnaps her bra, and then steps nearer as it slides down her arms. His hands move to gather her hair in a gentle fist, the other falling to her waist to tug her flush against him as his mouth claims hers.
The contact of her breasts against the rough heat of his chest makes her thoughts skitter and dissipate into sensation and need. She goes up on tiptoes, hands in his hair as his tongue presses into her mouth. God, he’s such a good kisser.
The hand at her hip presses upwards to cup her breast, his thumb rubbing across her nipple, and she moans into his mouth. He pulls away from the kiss, releasing his grip on her hair to wrap around her waist as he dips his head to lave a nipple with his tongue. Her hands instinctively grip his head as heat blooms low in her belly.
Jon lifts his head and angles her towards the bed. Before he can press her backwards, she turns them, nudging him till he falls back against the bedspread. He pushes himself on his elbows, looking at her like he’s not sure she’s real.
She shimmies her panties down her legs and kicks them aside, and grabs one of the condoms off the nightstand where the gold foil gleams. As she rips the packet open, he seems to get the message as he scrambles to shove his underwear down his hips. His dick bobs free, hard and… tempting. She’s never really looked at a man’s erection and salivated before, but Jon appears to be an exception.
He reaches out and takes the condom from her fingers while she’s distracted, ogling him, and she watches with a thready, building kind of desire as he grips himself by the base of his shaft and rolls the condom down the seeping head.
When he’s done, she presses first one knee and then the other on either side of his hips, balancing her hands on his shoulders as he presses himself upward to meet her. She cards her fingers into his hair as they study each other up close, the head of his dick just brushing where she desperately wants him. They are hovering on the precipice of something, and he slides a hand along her cheek to pull her down for a tender, slow kiss that builds to a kind of passion she’d started to believe was just a fairy tale.
As she starts to lower herself down, widening her knees as they slide apart on the bed, he grips his dick again to hold himself steady. Their eyes are locked as he slowly enters her, and it's the most intense experience of her life as she sinks inch by inch until he’s fully seated inside her and they're both panting.
“God,” he breathes as she rises a little and then sinks back down in a shivery burst of sensation. “Fuck, that’s so good, sweetheart,” he says, voice broken, his words melting together as he adjusts himself beneath her. His arm is a steely anchor against her back as she leans slightly away for better leverage.
They find a rhythm together, slow but building, and he angles her hips with his hands in such a way that her legs begin to tingle. She’s never in her life orgasmed during sex, and while she wouldn’t hold it against him if she doesn’t now, especially not after what he’d done with his fingers earlier, she suddenly, desperately wants to.
He nibbles at her neck, mouth hot and wet as she gains more confidence, guided by pure feeling and chasing the coiling tension that's starting to curl her toes.
“Please,” she begs, panting, her head tossing. “Please, Jon.”
He growls and grips her at the base of her skull, fingers pulling sharply, deliciously, at her hair as his other hand grabs her hip and he takes control, driving into her in hard, fast strokes. She’s crying out, can hear it distantly, and would be embarrassed by how loud she is if her mind wasn’t dissolving into warm foam.
Jon drags her mouth into a sloppy, desperate kiss, and his hips start to lose their rhythm. “I’m close, Jon, so close,” she babbles.
“H-hold onto me, sweetheart,” he grounds out, and she grips his shoulders as the hand at her hip slips between them to rub at her clit. Her hips stutter into a new mindless rhythm, and it's there, it's right there.
“Come for me, Sansa,” he begs, his head falling to her shoulder as he tries to hang on. “Please, come for me.”
Ever eager to please, Sansa tips forward into hot, all-consuming oblivion.
Jon eases her through the blissful haze before he flips them over in one fluid motion. He hikes her leg up under his arm and drives into her with hard, uneven thrusts, shocks of pleasure ricocheting through her boneless body. He comes hard, hips jerking, groaning her name against her sweaty neck. She pets him through it, mewling at him, until he flops to his side on the small bed, gasping and gleaming with sweat.
They both lie there breathing, the sweat cooling, and she turns her head towards him. His hands are flat against his chest as its rhythm slows, and he cracks an eyelid to shoot her a sweet, unaffected smile.
“I need to take care of this,” he says, voice rasping. He forces himself up with a grunt and pads back out of the room to dispose of the condom.
He has a nice ass, she thinks drunkenly, blissed out and sleepy with her legs dangling over the side of his tiny, childhood bed.
By the time he comes back, she’s come to her senses a bit more and pulled her panties back on and–after a very brief moment of hesitation–pulled his discarded shirt over her head. The sleeves are long, and she pulls them down over her hands.
He pads back in, still naked, and freezes a bit at the sight of her, sitting up at the headboard with her knees pulled up to her chest, wearing his shirt. He scoops his briefs off the ground and tugs them on.
He’s frowning a little, and it's a sign of nervousness, she realizes, which restructures a lot of her past assumptions of him. She scoots over to the far side of the bed and then pats the smushed pillow beside her. He smiles a little and then sits, hip to hip, just like earlier at the bar, but that felt a lifetime ago.
“What time is it?” she asks.
He stretches his legs out, crossing them at the ankle as he reclines back, head against the wall. “A little after 12:30.”
She nods. Not as late as she thought.
He could still take her home, and it wouldn’t be a big deal. But that isn’t what she wants.
“Could I have some of that water?”
He passes it over, watching silently as she drinks, his eyes more guarded now. He probably doesn’t know what to expect. Neither does she, really.
“The rest is yours,” she says as she passes it back. He drains the cup and sets it aside. He hesitates for a minute and then slings his arm around her, pressing them more tightly together.
“Are you working this summer?” she asks.
She feels him nod. “Yeah, at the cafe. Just a couple of times a week. Mostly to help out.”
Help out the cafe or his mother, Sansa isn’t sure, maybe both. Jon worked at a little bookshop cafe all through high school. They’d helped put him through college, so had her parents. Everyone likes Jon; everyone thinks well of him. If Jon wants to date her, Robb would get used to it, if that were what he wanted.
“What about you?” he asks.
“No, I’m just bumming around at my parents’.” She probably should get a job, but school has been hard since she and Joffrey broke up, and she’s lost so many of her friends. Maybe she’ll check around town. It would be good to do something with herself… especially if Jon is working.
He hums a little, and the silence that follows isn’t uncomfortable, exactly, but it feels full of unspoken things.
After a few quiet moments, his hand shifts on her shoulder, and he scuffs it along her arm. There’s a tension in him, corded through the muscles in his chest, like he’s steeling himself.
“Hey…would you maybe want to get dinner with me tomorrow night?” he asks, and she can tell he’s trying to sound confident, sure of himself, but there is a waver of concern threading through his words.
Her heart skips a little because she deserves something nice, and Jon is nice. But he’s also sweet, considerate, smart, hard working, and incredibly good at sex.
They could start with this summer, she decides, but she’ll be sure it doesn’t end there.
She smiles and tilts her head towards him. “Yeah… I’d like that.”