Wilting ♞ Sandor Clegane

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SHE BREATHED HIS name in a weary voice but the relief was evident in her expression and the way her shoulders sagged forward. He gripped onto her wrist and pulled her into his cabin. Sandor Clegane would never admit it, but seeing Anya Whent standing before him alive and unharmed was enough to make his heart clench and beat a little faster. He had feared the worst when they arrived at the Wall with only the Baratheon bastard there to greet them.

"I thought you were dead," she cried, though tears would not come. The panicked fear she had felt upon seeing Jon alone beyond the Wall seized her heart again. There had been no one else with him and she had let herself believe the worst. "It was just Jon."

Sandor grasped her face within his hands and pulled her gaze away from the wooden floorboards. "Aye, the fool stayed behind when the Targaryen girl came." Anya bit her cheek and nodded, a way to reassure herself that this was all real, not just some sick dream meant to torment her. She brushed away his hands and moved to the small table with two glasses and a flagon of wine. It was a strong red vintage, too bitter to be from the Arbor. It burned as it slid down her dry and scratchy throat but pooled in her stomach with warmth. "How is he?"

"Unthawing," came her ill-humored reply, but that was something she needed to do too. Her limbs were still sluggish. The cold hadn't left her bones yet, but there was little warmth to be found on a ship sailing through the cold northern waters.

Anya poured another glass of wine and downed it in two gulps before kicking off her heavy boots and fumbling with the ties of her damp breeches. "What're you doing?" He rasped, somehow, after all this time it still seemed odd that that woman would willing disrobe before him. "Getting out of these wet clothes," she replied, shrugging out of the leather and fur.

The wooden planks creaked under his weight. His hands fell onto her shoulders, stopping her before she could pull off the coarse tunic. She could feel his hot and uneven breath on the back of her neck. Anya turned to face him, rose to the tips of her toes, and wrapped her arms around his neck. He looked shocked for a fleeting second, though when it passed he bent down and caught her lips with his own. His hands slid from her shoulders to beneath the hem of the loose shirt.

He was all feigned cool detachment until he touched her skin. Then something not only stirred in him -it took over his thinking. The rest of his world became an unimportant blur that was banished into the far recesses of his mind. The only thing that mattered was touching her more, kissing her mouth, her stomach, her breasts. He tried being gentle with her, but it was hard. His hands were made for chopping wood and wielding swords, not caressing or tenderness.

Sandor pulled her tunic overhead without a word and laid her back onto the bed. He hovered over her, his weight braced on bent forearms. He took the opportunity to study her eyes. He'd labeled them grey, at first. If he was feeling particularly poetic, he might think they were silver. Neither word did them justice. They were solid, bright, the exact lustrous color of a polished shard of metal. If you looked closer, like he was just now, you'd see the swirls of glittering onyx black and tinges of blue at the edges. They weren't monochrome. That had simply been his terrible judgment. They were beautiful. She was beautiful, and he had never told her that.

"I'm not letting you out of my sight again," he told her. Anya looked at his scarred face and found there was no jest in his words nor expression. With the timidness of a virgin, she raised her hand and pushed aside the dark hair that had fallen in front of his drooping, scarred brow. He turned his head quickly and gripped onto her wrist, placing a single soft kiss to the center of her palm.

She felt him move his hand up along her rib cage, stopping to rub his thumb back and forth, just below her breast. He kissed her more fervently, moving down across her collarbone, his chest pressed and moved against hers.