Chapter Text
Daenerys has worked with Jon Snow for nearly half a year before she learns three important facts about him: One, he purposely loses pool games to his friends; two, he wears jeans better than any man she's ever seen; and three, he is a really, really good kisser.
It's this last fact that should unnerve her. Not his kissing skills per se, but that she now knows firsthand just how skilled he is.
But as Dany leans against the wall in the shadowy hallway at the back of the bar she feels anything but unnerved. Electrified, turned on, giddy...
His hands are under her shirt, skimming along the hot skin at the small of her back, stroking her ribs, raising goose bumps despite the mugginess of the bar. Her own hands lay against Jon's jaw, his beard a soft prickle under her palms.
Anyone could walk back here and see them, but Jon kisses her as though they're completely secluded. There's no rush in the lazy slide of his lips against hers, no real sense of urgency, and Daenerys is pretty sure she's never wanted anyone more in her life. There's something in the way his tongue tangles with her own that makes her tingle all the way down to her toes, and she has no idea how something as simple as making out can feel this dirty.
Nothing about him at the office suggested that he would kiss like...this. There, he seems so buttoned up, so proper and stiff, almost shy. That's probably why Dany hadn't even recognized him at first. She'd noticed the group of guys at the pool tables near the back when she and Irri had first come in, but it wasn't until he'd walked up to the bar and Irri had nudged her shoulder with muttered, "Hello," that Daenerys has realized the hot guy in the Henley and jeans was Jon Snow.
Jon, the man she worked with twelve hours a day, five days a week.
Jon, who could've easily taken a higher position within her family's company, but who had, for some reason, settled for being her assistant.
Jon, who always remembered she liked her coffee scalding and that she preferred cheap ballpoint pens to the expensive ones her father and brothers had liked, but hardly ever said her name.
When Daenerys had told Irri just who it was she was ogling, her friend's dark eyes had gone wide. "That's Boy Friday?"
Dany had stabbed the lime at the bottom of her vodka tonic with her straw. "Don't call him that."
But Irri had just continued to stare at Jon, shaking her head slightly. "It's just...from the way you described him, I pictured a kid. Some grad student borrowing his dad's suit."
"I never said he was a kid," Dany answered defensively, but as she'd watched Jon move back to his buddies, a couple of beers in each hand, she'd had to admit that outside of work, wearing normal clothes, he looked a lot different. Older.
And later, when their gazes had met across the bar, she'd wondered if she'd looked different to him, too. She'd seen the way his eyes had skated over her, taking in her own jeans and tight black t-shirt, her hair loose around her face. She never wore it down at work, afraid it would make her seem girlish and immature. But there in the smoky bar, Jon Snow's eyes hot on her, she'd actually kind of liked feeling a little girlish.
When he'd come over, Dany had found herself sitting up a little straighter, fighting the urge to fidget with her drink.
But then he'd braced his hands on the table and quietly asked, "Do you want me to leave?"
It was such an unexpected question that Dany had just blinked at him.
"Why would we want that?" Irri had asked, leaning in closer.
But Jon barely glanced at her, keeping his gaze on Daenerys. "Just...if you wanted to blow off steam and feel weird having an underling around...,"
She'd laughed then, the sound a little forced. "You're not exactly an 'underling,' and besides, we're off the clock." Dany had no idea what had possessed her, but then she'd added, "We can just pretend to be different people tonight."
Something had sparked in his eyes and Dany had felt an answering pulse between her thighs. And then he'd smiled and said, "In that case, can I get you ladies a drink?"
He'd gotten them several, and after that, she and Irri had found themselves at the pool table with Jon and his friends, laughing, drinking, bumming smokes from the boys. And if Dany's stomach had jumped pleasantly when Jon lit a cigarette for her, so what? And if, when they made another trip to the bar, his hand rested lightly low on her back, was that really such a bad thing?
But those were little things, harmless flirtations.
Letting him kiss her like this? It feels a lot less harmless. It also feels so fucking good she isn't sure she can stop.
"Come home with me," he breathes against her ear, and Dany shivers.
"I can't," she pants, arching up against him. There's a company policy against "fraternization" between employees, although when Jon's hand skims her ribcage, thumb brushing the underside of her breast, she almost wants to laugh at such a priggish word being applied to what they're doing here in the back of this bar.
But it's not the policy that's keeping her from going home with him.
"I like you," she tells him, her voice dreamy as he begins to kiss her neck, lips sliding over her pulse point. She can feel him chuckle as he presses closer.
"Good."
"I mean it." Somehow, Dany's hand has found its way into his hair, and she lets her fingers tangle in his dark curls. Barristan is always muttering that she should ask Jon to cut his hair and maybe shave every once and awhile, and Dany hadn't realized until just now why she'd never done that.
"You're smart," she tells him, closing her eyes, letting her head tip back. "And loyal. And you make the best coffee, seriously."
Another laugh, and Jon lifts his head to look at her, his eyes hooded, pupils wide. "I have all kinds of skills."
Smiling, laughing, kissing, and now suggestive jokes? Dany is beginning to think Jon might be an entirely different person tonight, after all. And just for a moment, it's the most tempting idea in the world to pretend they are different, that she can go home with him tonight, and it won't make things awkward tomorrow morning when he's back to taking notes for her, arranging her schedule, reminding her of appointments.
But they're not different people, and with a sigh of regret, Dany lets her leg drop from his hip and straightens up. She keeps her fingers tangled in the hair at the nape of his neck, tugging slightly when she says, "I'm good at my job, I know that. But when it comes to guys, I've...I've fucked up a lot, Jon."
She can tell he's about to say something, but she raises up on tiptoes and kisses him again, softly, almost chastely. "I like you," she repeats as she sinks back to her feet, "And that means you can't be another fuck up for me. I just...I need this- us- to be un-fucked up, okay?"
Dany waits for him to argue or cajole, to make a joke about some fuck-ups being worth making. But instead, he searches her face, and she fights the urge to sigh when he tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. "Okay," is all he says, and Dany makes herself walk out of his arms and back out into the bar before she does something truly stupid like changing her mind.