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I never meant to hurt Sansa.
I knew she was virgin, that day in her empty dorm room.
I knew she was a virgin and she was giving herself to me anyway…
It scrambled my brain.
Everything about her keeps me under this thrall, this spell of enchantment. I know, I know. Big man talking about fairy magic and shit. I know it must sound strange, but there’s really no other way to describe it.
This woman is an enchantress. Plain and fucking simple.
And she smells like lemons. No! She smells like a whole god’s damned lemon orchard .
Or maybe that’s the fragrance from my office permanently embedded in my nose, I can’t be sure. But all I know is when I smelled her skin that day in the dorm I knew I was a goner. It was like she bathed in those damned lemon cakes she loves so much--with lemon zest in her hair and that sweet tart lemon icing spread over her soft skin. And all I wanted to do was lick it off.
Fucking hells, it’s enough to turn me into a buggering poet.
But that’s exactly what that day was--poetry. It was the day an entire year of fantasies culminated in getting the oldest Stark daughter under me in that bed; realizing she had a place embedded under my skin. I had no idea, still don’t f I’m being honest, of exactly when that happened or how long she had been there.
I thought I had a hold on my urges. I really thought I did.
I thought I could help her move, to pack her boxes down to my truck without succumbing to my urge to touch her; to smell her; to fucking ravish her on her stripped down bed.
But no--that was (obviously) a pipe dream. The darkly sensual and flowing nightmare of releasing all my inhibitions began the moment I looked up and realized she was folding itty bitty panties in plain sight while keeping up a string of conversation that suddenly began to sound more like white noise than actual words.
My thoughts went like this--Sansa in those panties. Sansa in nothing but those panties. Me taking off those panties, sliding them down her legs to reveal the part of her I craved most.
Fuuuck. This shit’s gotta stop.
She has been everywhere for the last two years. Everywhere I am, I mean. She’s there at company meetings, often sitting by me. She’s at those strange dinners her mom puts on where employees are allowed--even encouraged--to join in. And yes, she’s usually sitting near me. Plus she was just starting to do the marketing for the company and as CEO we worked together on projects intended to bring Stark ISS in the original direction Ned Stark wished it to go.
And all the while, she’s there; she’s with me even when she physically isn’t. Sansa is just all long legs and curves and lemons and everything else I just can’t get out of my mind... She’s just always there... even when she’s not. And all the while, she’s there.
Like in my dreams at night. Or my thoughts during the day. Or when I’m in the shower, or awake in bed late at night. Fuck me, it’s was hard having her around.
Hell, who am I kidding. It still is sometimes, hard to be around her...
I can’t say I hadn’t thought about finding work elsewhere, because I did. I even bought a few newspapers, if you can believe it--scanning ads for anything that I could do. Heavy labor jobs with high pay and little responsibility. Lumberjack. Working on a fishing boat. Hell, I’d shovel shit on a cow farm if I thought it would eradicate the fucking lemon fragrance that seems embedded in my nose hairs.
Fucking lemons. That is quite the story.
(If you haven’t guessed it yet, no--I did not find other employment. I’m still with the Starks, and will be probably until I die.)
Anyway, lemons.
I knew it was her.
I think for the first couple of weeks I wondered what the hell she was doing going into my office while I wasn’t there, and staying long enough that that damned scent she wears would infiltrate the surfaces and disperse throughout the air. It was almost like she was sleeping there on the leather couch in the corner, although that idea was absurd. Still, the thought of Long Legs Lemon spread out on that mahogany couch, reclining like a Dornish girl posing for an erotic painting got my blood pumping.
Hell, it’s pumping now.
Red hair strewn over her shoulder and the arm rest, cascading across her bare chest.
Legs crossed lightly, maybe one slightly higher than the other and leaning against the smooth back cushion of the couch.
Dim recessed lighting illuminating the curve of her belly and the soft, supple thighs.
Fuck me sideways, I’m gonna need a drink if I keep thinking about that.
Where was I. Right--lemons.
I found the first cotton ball in the third week and realized what was going on as soon as I picked it up. I could smell the fragrance stronger and knew immediately it wasn’t just some homeopathic, natural mumbo jumbo bug trap Catelyn had set out. It smelled like I was holding Sansa in my hand.
I put it back and didn’t say anything to her, though I watched her when we were together to see if she was going to give anything away.
She didn’t, and I knew she was testing me as much as I was testing her.
After a few days a second ball showed up, tucked into the crease at the back of my chair, where the back met the seat cushion. Again, I left it.
A month into the lemon joke and I realized I needed to do something that would up the ante and throw her off, so I took one of those thrice damned cotton balls and rubbed that shit all over my neck. Then I put it back where I got it--beneath my desk, just behind the leg and out of sight--before heading out to that big combined family/employee dinner; and I made damn sure I sat next to Sansa.
And fuck, it was worth it. Her blue eyes widened as soon as I sat down and although she smiled at me with her mouth open and teeth showing, I could see her chest rise as she inhaled through her nose, despite the ever polite expression on her face.
Then I leaned towards her and asked if she could pass the dinner rolls.
I don’t know how many times that night she looked at my damned neck. I swear, if no one else had been in the room she might have leaned over to smell me--maybe even taken a taste.
I gotta say, I let myself get close to her back then. I mean, probably not too close. Not Inappropriate Coworker Behavior close. But just close enough that the difference between how I treated her and how I treated everyone else didn't raise red flags to her, especially since I have always made it a habit to stay aloof and apart from my colleagues. But there was something about Sansa Stark that made me feel… at ease. Relaxed. Maybe even a little welcome.
No, welcome is the wrong word. It’s more like, she made me feel like I belonged. Maybe that I belonged near her . Not necessarily with her, not necessarily in a relationship or as part of her family or in any way relationally linked to her. But… fuck, she completed me. There was something about Sansa that made me feel as though she was that last rope needed in a wind storm to tie me down, to hold me in one spot. And shit, did it feel great to feel like I had a place in the world.
Ned and Catelyn--they’re great. All her siblings are polite, and even fucking Arya--little shit that she is--have given me a place in their homes and their hearts. I’m fucking CEO of their company, for fuck’s sake.
But Sansa.
But, Sansa.
That’s just it... Sansa.
No explanation needed. That this woman is a force unto herself, and I gravitate towards her.
I didn’t realize how strongly I felt tied to her (using the rope analogy again; see what I did there?) until she asked me to help her move out of her dorm.
Of course I said yes. Of course I asked around to see if she had asked anyone else yet--she hadn’t. Of course that made me feel a hundred fucking feet tall.
Who are we fucking kidding? By that point she was my life and I was just too damned blind to see it.
Blind, that is, until she brought out those panties.
Fucking hell. Those panties.
It was all over after that. I think I finished the food I was eating--or maybe not. I think I set the plate down after making sure nothing was going to fall onto the floor--or maybe not. But I do know I came up behind her and began sniffing her like the dog that I am because I felt like a hound ready to mate and she was the wolf I’d had my eye on for the better part of two years.
What followed was heaven.
Man, I found heaven in a college dorm room.
It’s almost laughable.
Or rather, I found heaven in the form of Sansa Stark’s body--her scent, her sounds, her movements, and the way she responded to every fucking thing I did.
I’d be lying if I said I didn’t know how to please a woman. I’ve been in a couple decently long-term relationships. But I gotta say, I have never felt with a woman what I felt that day in her fucking dorm room.
I felt, actually, like a college kid having my first go at a woman’s body and I wanted all of it--from her head to her toes, everywhere in between, I wanted to show her I knew what I was doing, that everything I was doing was no less than she deserved, and that when we parted ways (because we never made any promises), that this experience was going to be embossed on her brain in such a way that she would never forget what it felt like to be worshiped.
And fuck me, if it didn’t happen exactly the other way around.
All those sounds she made? Her wandering hands? The way her breasts trembled with shaky breaths and how her legs twitched when I touched her in exactly the right way?
Yeah, they made me feel worshiped. I shit you not, I walked away from that day with an ego the size of Westeros. Fucking hell. I have never experienced anything like it in my life, and I know I never will again.
Now, I know what you’re thinking. I know you all have read that post she put up about the Sevenmas party. Yeah, yeah, you can all roll your eyes as much as you want.
But you see, I might be close to seven feet tall, built sort of like one of those bears you find north of the Wall, with scars that send little kids running to their mommies. But even the biggest of men can suffer from attacks of low self esteem.
Don’t you fucking laugh at that, either.
Like I said, Sansa and I never made any promises to each other. I knew I took her virginity that day. I knew I had the best sex of my life, and obviously I had given her the best--okay, only --sex of hers. But when we parted ways it was almost as though what had transpired between us was the most mind blowing handshake of the century. We were friends, and it seemed like it was going to stay that way.
So when I invited the client’s daughter--Milly? Mulva? I can’t remember her name--to the party, it was just because I thought Sansa wouldn’t have given me the time of day if I approached her with anything other than a marketing dilemma or a question about what Catelyn was making for dinner.
And fuck me, but Mabel was handsy . She wouldn’t stop fucking touching me, as though we’d been dating forever and she had free reign of my body. There I was trying to talk to some guys about an issue they were having and she was all rubbing my chest and acting like a cat in heat.
Sorry, Molly. I prefer wolves.
She even tried to kiss me, can you believe that shit? We had never been on a date before, had only met in passing a couple of times, and she tried to fucking kiss me at the Sevenmas party. That was a narrow miss and later on she asked me why my beard smelled like lemons.
As if I’d tell you , I remember thinking.
It was around then that I noticed Sansa looking in our direction, but when I turned towards her she looked away, which at the time I thought was odd. Then after that I noticed her still watching, though never outright. If I looked, she was talking to someone else or looking the other way.
Finally when Mia’s hand wandered to my belt and I felt a finger tuck into the small space between it and my slacks, I leaned down to whisper into her ear to please back off the touching. I swear I said it nicely enough and quietly enough that no one else would have thought anything untowards was happening between us. But she immediately backed off, and from that point on she was sort of… icy.
Icy, when I was finding myself suddenly wishing it was fire I was holding onto, instead of this frozen, nameless blonde at my side.
I watched Sansa at the empty bar over Melanie’s head, seeing her engrossed in the glass she had in her hand--a glass which I noticed never seemed to be empty, no matter how many sips she took from it. And when the call went out for everyone to take a seat I led what’s-her-name to the table where she drained a glass of champagne and took possession of the one that was supposed to be mine. It too when down her gullet.
When next I looked back at Sansa she was looking at me, and it was like her gaze reached in through my skull and down into my chest, where she gave my heart a good, hard squeeze.
It was like she shoved her crest into the melted wax that sealed the envelope of my feelings.
Poetry.
She marked me.
Yep, I was hers. No doubt about that shit. I would either be single for the rest of my life or, if she ever decided to change the accusatory expression in her eyes to one of adoration, I would worship the ground she walked on until the end of our days. It left me in a perpetual state of wonder--which one was it gonna be?
But fuck, she was staring at me across the party. I remember, it felt so funny because I really, actually pretty desperately wanted her to unfurrow her brows, to soften her lips, and to loosen those knuckles that held onto the edge of her bar stool. My heart was going to beat out of my chest if she didn’t break that eye contact, and I had no idea what was going on.
As unlikely as it was, Arya was the one who came to my rescue. As soon as she directed Sansa’s attention towards her and off of me, I looked away.
But… those eyes .
In that moment all I could remember was how they had looked at me that day in the dorm room, how full of desire they were and how it made me feel to be looked upon by them. Working with her had steadily gotten harder, yes, but being with her, smelling her, my body physically aching for her at all hours of the day--it was becoming unbearable.
I was steadily ignoring Melissa and was focused instead on the droplets of condensation sliding down the glass of my ice water when I heard Sansa’s name from up on stage, and what followed was by far the strangest, most eye opening, embarrassing-even-to-me moment that I have ever experienced, and it held me captive until the moment Arya once again rescued me from the unbreakable stare I was giving Sansa as she spilled her heart out in an acceptance speech for Best New Employee.
It started with her expression--she obviously knew how ridiculous it was that she had been deemed the Best New Employee, seeing as how she was the only new hire Stark ISS had taken on that year. I was fairly certain I saw Sansa’s eyes roll as she stepped up onto the small stage.
She thanked her parents, hiccupped a bit and fidgeted with the neckline of her dress before placing her palm flat on the lectern as though grounding herself. It was then that I realized her glass had probably had more alcohol in it than she’d realized.
This is gonna be fun , I thought dryly.
“This might have been my first time-- year --” she corrected herself fast, but not before glancing at me, “--but it has been fantastic.” She swallowed, eyes scanning the crowd as though unwilling to land on anyone but most assuredly not willing to land again on me.
“If there was ever an opportunity to come again…” She trailed off, her chest rising and falling with a deep inhale as though she had just realized what she’d just said--though I was certain no one but she and I realized exactly what she was referring to. And let me just say, by that time I was so damned hard it was fucking ridiculous. I couldn't believe she was talking about that in her acceptance speech.
Although I had to give her credit--no one else would have any idea what was going on. Everything she was saying was relevant to her position in the company.
“If there was ever an opportunity to come again, I would do it in a heartbeat, and that’s because the connections I have made--” here she slurred a bit, and I thought I heard her add in the company , but I couldn’t be sure, “--mean more to me than any previous job experience.”
She laughed, more of a hiccup but there was a laugh buried in the twitch of her shoulders and the way the corner of her mouth turned upwards.
“Because, I mean, I have zero previous job experience,” she said, to a round of polite yet mildly surprised laughter, “But years of personal, hands-on practice.”
If I had been drinking in that moment it would have shot straight out my lemon-scented nostrils, I’m telling you. The vixen looked right at me , though I don’t think she knew what she was doing. It was painfully obvious--to me, to everyone else, and yet probably not to her--that she’d had too much to drink.
I glanced over at a table towards the front where Ned and Catelyn were sitting, only to see a stiff smile on Catelyn’s face and an amused expression on Ned’s. It was impossible to tell if they were understanding the innuendos anymore than anyone else in the room.
Sansa was about to go on when Arya came up on stage, dramatically clapping out at the audience in order for them to take the cue and to begin the round of applause for Sansa, who then smiled, nodded, and stumbled a bit as she left the stage. She didn’t look at me again, but everything she said--the implications of what she’d said and what it meant for how exactly her brain was processing that one mind-blowing day between us--had turned my world upside down, and I didn’t know what to do about it.
That was a month ago, and it sat heavily on my mind as everything returned to normal at the company. Sansa was back to work the following day, as was everyone else. But she was different, whereas everyone else just went back to their duties as though nothing had happened.
But Sansa would walk past and I would stare at her, willing her to stop and talk to me. She avoided me and it was noticeable. After those first couple of mostly normal days, she began to sit across from me at the table instead of beside me for dinner. Then she stopped coming altogether. I heard she was eating dinner in her office or something, claiming to have a lot of work and she liked the solitude. I wanted to call bullshit. Sansa is a social creature and she loves her family, loves conversing with the employees and obviously gets her kicks out of making me reek of lemons.
And yet she was gone, though no one else seemed concerned.
• ℘ •
After two weeks, I can tell you I had had enough. She was avoiding me--Sansa Stark, Long Legs Lemon, my nemesis in pranks and my daytime dream world. My only true friend. And I wasn’t about to let it go on any longer.
It’s not that I had forgotten the speech--how could anyone forget that? --but I wanted answers. I cornered her in the parking lot by my truck but all she wanted to tell me was some shit about needing to work longer hours to make up for the holiday season or some crap like that.
I remember taking a deep breath, stepping closer, and touching her for the first time in six months--just a finger under her chin to make her look at me. She raised her eyes to me and was looking directly at me when I called her a liar.
Then I saw the fire--indignation in her gaze, affront that I would be so bold, and challenge . She knew I was challenging her, waiting to see if she would rise to the occasion. And boy, did she ever.
“I’ve been jealous and I want to kiss you and you’re all I think about--”
Bam. That was it. Affirmation followed by ignition, and the next thing I know I’m kissing her like we’re not in her parents parking lot and we’re not coworkers and we’ve haven’t only ever done this once before, horizontal, in a dorm room, naked. She was even speaking when my mouth moved over hers at first, but not for long. She gave in pretty quickly--so quickly, in fact, that affirmation turned into confirmation and I was--as I have always been--a total goner where Sansa Stark is concerned.
Then she pulled back, which was a bit difficult since I had her sandwiched between me and the side of my tall truck, and our chests were mashed together and we were both breathing hard. But she had enough breath to ask, “What about Blondie?”
She had admitted to being jealous, and when I realized then exactly who she was talking about, I couldn’t help but smile wider than I had probably since I was a child before I got burned.
“You named her?” I asked, and then--oh gods, I laughed. I laughed so hard because all this time Mandy or whatever her name was, hadn’t even crossed my mind. Two weeks since Sevenmas and this whole time Sansa had been chewing on the thought of me with another woman, and fucking hell, if I didn’t again feel a hundred feet high!
With the cutest fucking pout I’ve ever seen, Sansa explained, “I couldn’t call her what I really wanted to call her, so I named her something that wasn’t a bad word.”
Then she pressed her lips closed as though she’d said too much, but it was too late for her to take it back. My heart--my thrice damned, bleeding, fucking soft-as-a-teddy-bear-for-Sansa-Stark heart--was already split wide open, ready for her to crawl in and make a home for herself.
I couldn’t help it. I chuckled just as I bent to kiss her again, and I felt like a million gold dragons when she melted against me and kissed me back.
Having her in my arms again was a dream come true, and it was a moment I wanted to savor for the rest of my life. I kept thinking to myself, this is the beginning of forever . Because that’s what she is--the kind of woman you chain to your side and do whatever it takes to not let her break that chain. Like I told you guys earlier--I knew I would worship the ground she walked on if she said she would be mine, and she had all but said as much.
I kissed across her cheek, down her neck and back up to her ear, where I simply whispered, “I needed a date.”
Sansa stilled and pulled back, just enough that we could again be eye to eye. But we were so close, and it felt right. It felt like this was where she needed to be, where I needed to be. Together.
“She’s the daughter of a client and I knew she’d say yes if I asked.”
My hands wouldn’t stay still. If I didn’t move I knew I would do something reckless, so I swept my thumbs over her sides, feeling the way her waist curved inwards before flaring out to her gorgeous hips. I watched this small move make her breath hitch in her throat, and was gratified immensely that I had that effect on her.
“I wanted to ask someone else,” was my admission, “But she was giving me the cold shoulder.”
“Me?” she squeaked in response, and I nodded, smiling.
Softly, I added, “Only you.”
In those words were everything I wanted her to know, but what she said in reply wasn’t anything I had expected her to say.
“Why did you leave me?”
I vowed then never to hurt this woman. I vowed never to do anything that would chase her away, that would give her any reason to gripe about me to her family, or wish she knew what the grass on the other side was like. Because those words crushed my heart so badly that, knowing I had already failed her once, I was smart enough to know never to do it again.
“Because I’m a damned fool.”
And to prove it, I lifted her between me and the truck, and pressed myself into her as she wrapped her limbs around me. Then she kissed me as passionately as I kissed her, leaving not a trace of doubt in my mind nor in hers that I would never fuck up as badly as that ever again.
• ℘ •
I know it’s been only two weeks, but a couple days ago I went in and talked to Ned. He was surprised to find out that his CEO was in love with his daughter, and even more surprised when I asked his permission to marry her. Not right away, of course, since we had only officially been together for just less than two weeks. Not right away, that is, unless Sansa wanted it. Then, I explained to Ned, I would do whatever it took to make her happy, whether Ned and Catelyn agreed with it or not.
Because after all, Ned has always told me he values honesty above all else.
Sansa almost found out that Ned had given his blessing--with the promise that Catelyn would come around eventually--when I accidentally helped her up into the passenger side of my truck and had to swipe the velvet jeweler’s bag from her and tossed it into the glove box. I’m sure she knows, but that’s okay. It’s not like I’ve made it a secret that I want her at my side for the rest of our lives.
Plus I saw a receipt on her desk the other day for a silicone ring that I’m pretty sure is in a size way too big for her finger. It seems my Long Legs Lemon is still pulling her pranks.
She’ll find out soon enough, seeing as how she said this guest blog post could go up without her editing prior to publication. She’ll probably read it tomorrow. Late tomorrow, since I’m planning on keeping her up late tonight.
So in other words, don’t wait up for her response blog. It’s not a secret. I know she calls me the Hound on here, and that she’s my wolf. And if you must know, we have all sorts of fun finding out what hounds do to wolves.
I can make her howl, and she can make me growl.
Grrrr.
She’s gonna kill me knowing I wrote that here.
Signing off.
- Sandor Clegane