Chapter Text
“Mum! The makeup is for the costume. It’s a costume party,” Sansa insisted, feeling very put upon and frustrated with her mother. Really, she was fifteen. She should be allowed to wear makeup every day if she wanted to. Margaery was allowed, and always had eyeliner and mascara on at school. Only babies didn’t wear makeup these days. Why didn’t her mother understand that?
“I don’t know what kind of costume requires all that eyeliner…” her mother said sceptically, a crease between her brows and her arms crossed over her chest.
“A slut costume?” Arya suggested cheekily, brandishing the bow that came with her Robin Hood getup.
“Arya! Apologise to your sister at once! I will not tolerate language like that under my roof.”
“Sorry,” Arya said with an exaggerated roll of her eyes before bounding off to bother someone else.
“I’m going as a cat,” Sansa said stubbornly, “and all the girls my age wear makeup like this.”
“You don’t need it, darling,” her mother sighed, “you’re so beautiful without any of that stuff on your face.”
“You wear makeup!” Sansa argued resentfully. Her mother was being deliberately unfair and impossible. It didn’t matter that she had a pretty face if she couldn’t join in the conversation about the best products and most fashionable colours to wear with the other girls. She hated feeling left out and looked down on for not knowing the difference between cosmetics brands.
“Well, I’m getting old. I need a little help to cover up the wrinkles,” her mother said self-deprecatingly.
In the end Sansa was allowed to keep the makeup on, but her mother insisted she wear a top underneath her skin-tight catsuit, so that even if she zipped it down it wouldn’t reveal too much cleavage. She pretended to be annoyed about it, but was secretly relieved. She still felt a little shy about her breasts. She’d had them since she turned thirteen - they had seemed to just grow overnight - but they had been getting bigger recently, and she had needed to go shopping for proper bras with underwires a few months ago. She had even bought one with a little padding, (Margaery always wore bras with padding) and when she put it on she felt like her breasts were practically pushed up to her chin. Tonight was the first night she had dared to wear it. She was hoping Joffrey might notice. Margaery wouldn’t be around to steal all of his attention, so Sansa figured her odds were pretty good.
Robert, her father’s best friend, had been throwing a costume party at this time of year since before Sansa could remember. He always invited the Starks, the Arryns, the Lannisters and his own brothers. The adults tended to sequester themselves away from the kids, though one or two grown-ups usually stayed with the younger generation to keep an eye on them. There were games, and sweets, and last year Sansa had even been allowed to try some bubbly. It had been a little different to go to the party ever since Robb and cousin Jon started to stay with the adults instead of playing, and Sansa and Joffrey were both reaching an age where they were less interested in playing with the younger kids, and more interested in pretending to be too cool for the ‘silly’ games. Last year Sansa had spent most of the party in Joffrey’s room, listening to him brag about his prowess in some computer game. She hadn’t minded. Sansa had been convinced that she would eventually marry Joffrey since she was about five years old. He was perfect. Handsome and blonde like a prince out of a fairy tale…
“Nice costume,” Joffrey said when they had escaped from the adults and the rowdy kids.
Sansa blushed and thanked him prettily. He was dressed as a famous spy, and looked very dashing and suave. She went on about how wonderful he looked at length and Joffrey gave her a smirk for her effort. The smirk started her heart beating faster and set off the butterflies in her stomach, and she was glad for the layer of foundation she was wearing because it might be disguising her continuous blush a little.
“I’m going to go swipe us a bottle of Champagne,” Joffrey said casually once the subject of their costumes was exhausted.
“Sure, okay, I - I’ll wait here,” Sansa said timidly, not really sure if he wanted her to come with him. But he wasn’t even listening to her, already walking off.
Sansa looked around the large, decorated room in boredom while she waited. Most of the furniture had been moved out of the way to make sure there would be room for the kids to run around without breaking anything, but there was a table full of sweets, soda pops and various refreshments in the corner, and a couple of sofas pushed up against a wall for when anyone wanted a rest.
Suddenly Arya ran past and snatched at Sansa’s hair, taking the headband with the cat ears with her.
“Hey!” Sansa objected, “give that back!”
“You’ll have to catch me!” Arya gloated, already turning a corner.
Sansa stomped her foot in frustration and let out an irritated huff, but decided to give chase. Her costume just didn’t make any sense without the ears.
She ran flat out so that she would have some chance of catching up to her quick sister, turning the corner almost without slowing down. Unfortunately someone had been standing on the other side and Sansa collided with him at full speed. She probably would have rebounded and fallen to the floor if he hadn’t steadied her with his arms; causing them to end up in an odd, short-lived embrace. It all happened so fast that Sansa was unable to comprehend anything except how very hard the body she was suddenly pressed up against was -- almost like metal. She took a breath and her nose was filled with a sharp, fresh scent that reminded her of lemons and sandalwood, and it was a little like how her dad smelled when he was fresh from a shower, so she breathed deeply, feeling strongly attracted.
All too soon the hands that had caught and steadied her were pushing her to stand a respectable distance away from the very, very hard body, and Sansa looked up to see who had made sure she hadn’t fallen and bruised her backside.
“You should watch where you’re going,” he grumbled, scowling at her.
It was Stannis, the middle Baratheon brother. Sansa wasn’t sure she had ever even spoken to him, although she liked his little daughter Shireen. She wasn’t bothered by the scowl as she had never seen Stannis without a scowl on his face. It seemed to be his natural expression.
“Are you wearing armour?” she asked without thinking, blinking up at him owlishly. He didn’t look as if he were wearing a costume, but maybe it was something subtle that she wasn’t getting?
“What?” He looked baffled and annoyed. Obviously he wasn’t wearing a costume, then. Sansa felt herself go crimson as she realised that all that hardness she had felt was just… him. His muscles. She felt a wild urge to run away and hide, while simultaneously wondering if she could find an excuse to get him to take his shirt off.
In a trance, she reached forward and poked his stomach with a finger. It was like touching a brick wall.
A sensation that she had only felt a handful of times in her young life flowed through her like molten lava, making her feel uncomfortably like she had just wet herself a little. Heat pooled between her legs, and she could have sworn that she was throbbing with the need for… something.
“Sansa!” he barked, swatting her finger away. She snapped out of her dazed state, glancing at his face in a panic and noticing to her surprise that he was flushed red. He looked embarrassed.
“I’m sorry,” she hastened to apologise, biting her lip and widening her eyes in the way she always did to get out of trouble with her father. “I didn’t mean to be rude, please forgive me,” she added, fluttering her eyelashes and trying to seem as innocent as she could while thinking about how much she wanted something to press firmly between her legs.
Stannis’ scowl seemed to become even more pronounced, but he nodded. “It’s fine,” he said brusquely, moving to pass her by.
She didn’t try to stop him, and stood still for a long while, trying to get her heart to slow down.
***
Sansa couldn’t sleep. Her thoughts were all over the place, and she still felt a little dizzy from all the Champagne she had been drinking with Joffrey back at his house.
Joffrey had kissed her.
Joffrey had kissed her, and it hadn’t made her feel a fraction of what she had felt after running into Stannis. She was supposed to be in love with Joffrey, and yet she had only felt the usual butterflies when he had smushed their mouths together wetly. She hadn’t felt any heat.
What was wrong with her?
Feeling guilty, she pressed a pillow in between her thighs, rocking against it and thinking about a heady, masculine scent, and how it had felt to be pressed against a strong, hard body. She rolled onto her stomach and thought about what it might feel like to have the weight of such a body pressing her against the mattress, and had to stifle a moan at the idea. Her face felt like it was burning with embarrassment and something else, the heat spreading down from her face and all over. The friction from the pillow was wonderful and she could feel pleasure building and coiling low in her body, a swell that was promising to break in the most delightful way.
Sansa whimpered when she came, almost disappointed that it was over already, but too sensitive to continue.
She felt guilty again when she realised she hadn’t thought about Joffrey or his kiss once while she had been… doing what she had been doing.
Maybe that was normal? Maybe she wouldn’t get all hot from Joffrey’s kisses until they had managed to practise some more? It had only been her first kiss, after all. Maybe she hadn’t done it right?
Sansa was finally becoming sleepy, so she decided to postpone further thoughts on the subject until the morning.
***
Sansa was seventeen and tired of the sympathetic looks her parents kept shooting her.
Yes, Joffrey had dumped her.
Yes, he had started dating her so-called friend.
No, she wasn’t upset.
Joffrey was an arse. He had been an arse all along, but it had taken her more than a year to see it. By then she had made such a fuss over being ‘Joffrey’s girlfriend’ and gained so much status at school for being ‘Joffrey’s girlfriend’ that she hadn’t been able to bring herself to break it off. Margaery’s underhanded way of swooping in and making out with him at the end of year school formal had been a blessing, really.
“Oh, I’m so sorry, Sansa!” Margaery had said with a sympathetic look in her eyes, “Joffrey told me you were already broken up...”
“It’s fine, I hope you two are happy together,” Sansa said, trying to suppress the urge to smile brightly. She had a feeling that someone who had just been dumped ought not be smiling like a loon. She wouldn’t have to keep fending off Joffrey’s attempts to have sex with her. She had never really been all that invested in saving herself until marriage until she realised she was in a relationship with a boy she never, ever wanted to have sex with. It had been a convenient excuse, and it had worked for a long time. But then Joffrey had stopped being satisfied with handjobs and the occasional blowjob and started to want her to watch porn with him, and she had noticed that almost all of the films he wanted to watch had anal sex in them, and he had started to make offhand comments and giving her ‘subtle’ hints. Apparently anal sex didn’t ‘count’ and it was something one could do without ‘technically’ losing one’s virginity.
Yeah, right.
She hoped Margaery would have fun fending him off. Or maybe she wouldn’t mind letting him have sex with her? She had heard that Margaery had already lost her virginity to some college guy, a friend of her brother’s. Oberyn something? That’s what Sansa had heard, anyway.
“Do you want me to set you up with someone new? I feel so terrible about this. I know my brother Willas isn’t seeing anyone…”
Sansa just shook her head and smiled. She did not need a pity date with Margaery’s brother. They both dropped the subject, and never mentioned it again.
It had already been a few weeks, and her parents seemed to be very worried that Sansa was having a hard time being around Joffrey on the first beach trip of the summer. Robert had a private beach that he regularly invited the Starks to enjoy with him and his family, and it was so much better than going to the public beach and having to fight over a stretch of bare sand with all the tourists. Sansa also felt less self-conscious about her pale skin when she was on Robert’s beach. No matter what she did she was unable to get a tan. At most she just turned red for a while and then went right back to being lily-white. She really enjoyed lying in the sun, however, whether she was reading a book or just daydreaming and soaking up the warm rays, it was just lovely.
Sansa didn’t care about Joffrey and Margaery, though. They were off playing in the surf, taking pictures of each other’s perfect bronzed bodies and being adorable. She was more interested in Stannis. He was the only other person other than herself who did not seem to wish to frolic in the waves. Even her parents had eventually stopped giving her worried looks and gone off to have a swim.
She wondered why Stannis wasn’t taking his shirt off. From what she could recall - she blushed at the memory - he had nothing to be ashamed of. And yet, there he was, sitting in the shade, wearing long shorts and a loose-fitting T-shirt in dark colours, watching his daughter intently as she built a sand castle just where the sand changed from being dry and powdery to being wet from the surf. The tide was low, so she was in no danger of getting caught in a wave.
Still contemplating the mystery of Stannis and his insistence on wearing a shirt, she started to re-apply sunblock to her skin, wanting to avoid the whole ‘turning red’ bit that tended to happen if she left herself out in the sun for too long. She was flexible enough to be able to reach most of her back, but a daring, reckless part of her wanted to see if she could get Stannis to do it for her.
“Stannis?” She said his name at a regular volume as Stannis wasn’t sitting very far away.
He looked at her and raised an eyebrow, looking surprised that she would address him.
“Could you please come over here a second?” she asked, making her voice as sweet as she possibly could. She suppressed a gleeful squeal when he silently got to his feet and crossed the short distance that had been separating them. It would be been rather odd if he had stood over her, so she was glad when he sat down on her big picnic blanket. (She disliked lying on a towel.)
“What?” he asked in a clipped, almost rude, tone of voice. He was glancing frequently at Shireen, but seemed to relax slightly when Myrcella and Tommen bounded over to his daughter and started to help with the construction work.
“Could you do my back?” she waved the bottle of sunblock in the air to help explain what she meant.
Stannis tensed up like an angry cat, but more interestingly, his face started to redden.
“Please? It’s so awful when I miss a spot and I burn,” she fluttered her eyelashes the way she did when she really wanted something from her dad or her older brother.
Stannis glanced nervously at the ocean, obviously searching for her dad. “Couldn’t someone else…?” he said reluctantly, trailing off when he realised that everyone else was occupied. He looked at her again, and she redoubled the effort behind her pleading look, adding a bit of a pout on a whim.
He blew out an exasperated breath and accepted the bottle from her.
She gave him her most dazzling smile and moved to turn her back to him. She heard him pop the cap of the bottle open, and squeeze some of the product out. He still hadn’t touched her when she had a slightly wicked idea. It would require her to be rather brazen, but she found herself curious about what his reaction would be.
“Wait, I just remembered! The material of my top stains so easily, I need to untie the straps, hold on,” she said as casually as she could, pulling on the simple bows that held her top to her body at the back of her neck, and under her shoulder blades. They came loose instantly, and she had to be quick to keep the triangles of fabric that were preserving her modesty from falling away from her chest.
“Oops, I had better lie down,” she said lightly, glancing over her shoulder to gauge Stannis’ reaction. He had clenched his jaw shut very tightly, and he was a little flushed, but otherwise he looked much like he always did. She gave him another smile, and got herself comfortable on her stomach, making sure to sweep her long hair out of the way for him.
She had apparently missed a stray lock, however, as the first thing Stannis did was to carefully brush it aside, his touch featherlight and careful -- almost as if he were afraid of hurting her. He cleared his throat uncomfortably and she felt his other hand, the one that had been holding a dollop of sunblock for a little while, come down on the middle of her back, the product in his hand a comfortable temperature. He started to rub the sunblock into her skin brusquely, and she was disappointed that he wasn’t being as gentle as he had been when he had moved her hair.
“Is that how you do it for Shireen? She must have bruises.” Sansa complained, unable to help herself. She heard him sigh in annoyance, but his touch became gentler, and she hummed happily in response.
“Mm, that’s better.”
And it was better. It was a little too good, actually. She felt blood rush to her cheeks, and a familiar sensation of heat coursing through her, pooling between her thighs and making her want to squirm around for some friction. She wished she needed sunblock between her legs.
The idea of his gentle touch there forced her to bite her lip in order to prevent a moan from escaping.
He was very methodical, and she was sure that he covered every inch of her exposed back with a layer of sunblock. She was incredibly glad that he seemed to be taking his time, and doing it properly, because she was relatively certain this was the most erotic touch she had ever felt and she never wanted it to end.
But eventually - sadly - it did end.
“Thank you,” she said, the words coming out in an embarrassing moaning sort of way. She opened her eyes and rose up as much as she could without flashing him so she could see his face.
“Do you want me to do you?” she offered without thinking, realising a little too late that what she had said could easily count as a double entendre. She felt herself flush bright red, but couldn’t make herself look away from Stannis. He was looking very flushed, too.
“Ah, no. I’ll - I’ll keep my shirt on,” he stammered, looking a little terrified and tongue-tied.
“Are you sure? I’ve read that soaking up the sun is the best way to get a good dose of vitamin D,” she babbled, unable to stop her mouth from moving.
“Yes, I’m sure. Thank you.” The ‘thank you’ was tacked on as an afterthought, but she appreciated that he was trying to be polite all of a sudden.
“Shy?” she teased, unable to understand where her bravery was coming from.
He narrowed his eyes at her, but didn’t say anything. Instead he busied himself with closing the bottle of sunblock and putting it away in Sansa’s beach tote.
“I’m pretty sure you have no reason to be shy,” she continued, words spewing forth without her brain’s permission.
He blinked at her, both eyebrows raised in a look of perfect surprise. She tried to look as innocent as she could, but could feel that she was still blushing violently.
“Er… I’m just going to… I think Shireen needs me. Excuse me.”
Sansa giggled nervously to herself, closed her eyes tightly and turned her face downwards, hiding it from the world.
***
Stannis yawned and tried to read the sentence on the screen in front of him for the third time. It wasn’t sinking in. He was too tired, and too distracted. For the past ten minutes his thoughts had kept drifting back to Robert’s beach and to the stunning little redhead that had wanted him to put sunblock on her back; almost flashing him in the process, too.
He groaned and scrubbed at his eyes, trying to make himself think about something else. Anything but the sound Ned’s daughter had made when he had gentled his touch to almost a caress, his fingers gliding smoothly over her pale, flawless skin, with absolutely no barriers getting in the way. He was sure her pleased little hum of approval, and that purr of a ‘thank you’ she had given him would haunt his dreams. Did she know how sexual she had sounded? Had she done it on purpose?
He was almost sure she had been flirting with him after he had finished groping her in the name of protecting her from the sun, her comments about him having nothing to be ashamed of most likely referencing the other occasion on which he had been extremely inappropriately aroused by her. She had seemed quite taken with his musculature when he had caught her running around in a skin tight catsuit a couple of years back. He could vividly remember how she had actually poked his abdomen, looking rather fascinated and innocently curious.
”Do you want me to do you?”
Had she really said that?
Gods. She was underage. She was still underage. Even thinking these thoughts bordered on pedophilia.
He needed a distraction. Or a shower.
… A very cold one.