A Dream of a Red Door Ch. 01

He knew when her begging was real, rather than impatience, and when her pleas for release had reached a feverish pitch, he lowered himself between her legs. Merely the feel of his breath upon her hips was almost enough to make her achieve release. Whimpers escaped her throat and she pulled helplessly against the ropes as Jon's tongue explored her inner folds until, at long last, he nimbly darted and rasped against the center of her pleasure while several of his fingers pressed deep within her.

The bliss that followed was overwhelming. Though she was ungagged, it made little difference as the scream caught in her throat as she convulsed and spasmed. Daenerys's back arched and she swore she could hear Drogon roar as a wave of pleasure crested and obliterated all conscious thought. By the time the wave had receded, and her thoughts had begun to return, Jon had already released her from the cuffs, removed the blindfold, and picked her up in his arms. She lay limp and nearly insensate in his grasp as he carried her nude, sweat-soaked body into a rather unusual room that, somewhat uniquely amongst all the exotic accoutrements in the royal tower, had actually been her idea. The mason and blacksmith had thought her daft when she had explained what she had wanted.

The stone room, little more than a closet really, had a foot-high divider of granite installed in the doorjamb, and the middle of the floor featured a small round hole. The floor gently sloped towards the hole, and from the ceiling protruded several closed pipes in which a number of very small, pinprick sized indentations had been drilled along the bottom and the sides . Not visible from within the air bath was the installation that had made the entire endeavor possible, an enormous copper tub of water stored near Drogon's perch, right beneath where he rested his extremely hot scaled body, and next to where he would occasionally roast his food. Depending on how lazy her dragon might be on any given day, the air bath's temperature ranged from tepid to scaldingly hot. She'd had the idea after seeing people bathe beneath warm springs on Dragonstone.

The air bath, of course, had the added benefit of not requiring any assistance to use. After all, it would not do for servants to possibly catch a glimpse of the marks which so often decorated her body.

Jon, even though he still carried her in his arms, triggered a cunningly designed mechanism set in the wall and water began to spray from the pipes above them. The copper tank typically had to be refilled every week, but as Daenerys bowed her head beneath the warm water and laid her silken, white-gold hair against Jon's chest, she felt that royal prerogative should give her the luxury of at least this one very lengthy session.

"Can you stand?" Jon asked her with a glint of humor in his eyes.

"I think my legs are working again," she replied.

No more ropes. No more punishment. No more lessons ... at least for the night. He set her down, and she tilted her head back and let the water cascade down her skin. The collar was still locked about her neck, but it felt looser, more of an ornament than a symbol. Jon wrapped her close and then craned his neck down to kiss her. There were no rules against her embracing him now, and she did so fervently, hugging him so close that it was though she wanted to merge their bodies into one. As they pressed against each other beneath the warm streams, she couldn't help but notice that his manhood seemed to be continuously jutting awkwardly into her waist.

She slitted her eyes and smirked as she reached down and wrapped her fingers delicately around him. Jon shuddered slightly, whispered her name, and he stroked the side of her jaw with his hand.

"Don't slip," she murmured as she doubtfully eyed the wet floor beneath their bare feet.

Needing no further invitation, Jon placed his hands beneath her still sore buttocks and raised her aloft. She spread her legs, welcomed him inside, then threw back her head and moaned at the nearly-too-exquisite ecstasy. He pressed her against the warm stone of the wall, and they moved together as one. Time stood still, and then Jon's movements grew more determined until, with a final thrust, she felt the fire of his pleasure deep within.

He's changing me, little by little.

For most of her adult life she'd despaired of having children, but as she felt a heat glide within her depths, she let a sparkle of hope glimmer. Maybe it would happen, maybe not, but what was life without hope?

Jon, still inside her, reached down, hooked his thumb just so, and caressed her slightly in that spot, and she joined him in climax. As opposed to the raging, monstrous eruption she'd experienced earlier that evening, this second paroxysm of bliss had a lingering, almost achingly tender aspect to it. She wrapped her legs around his back, held his head in her hands, and pulled him down to kiss her.

They lingered in the air bath for a time, using pumice from Dragonstone and scented soap from Lys to clean their bodies, then they reluctantly turned off the water and dried themselves with plain woolen fabrics piled on a nearby cabinet. Jon meticulously stored everything he'd used that evening within the chest, taking care to first clean anything that needed cleaning, while she retrieved a plain silk robe and slid it on. After he'd locked and slid the chest beneath the bed, he approached her, and she held her hair up once again, this time so that he could unfasten the collar and tuck it back within its hiding place.

Its removal from her neck seemed to generate an immediate wave of exhaustion. She climbed into bed and yanked a blanket over her body. Jon, shirtless and clad only in knee length smallclothes, blew out the candles in the room, opened the curtains to allow the sunlight to wake them in the morning, then he joined her beneath the blanket. As he pulled her close and she rested the back of her head against his chest, Daenerys wondered, not for the first time, how nobles could tolerate loveless marriages in which they shared neither a hearth nor a bed.

"I love you, my queen," Jon whispered.

"I love you," she whispered back.

Truth in all respects was what they had vowed. As Jon's arms wrapped around her chest, she knew that it was only by the barest of threads that their fates had not been spun in a different direction.

Years ago, Jon's hand had reached for her not with love, but with a dagger meant to end her life. He was convinced that she would be the ruin of Westeros, the Mad Queen who would prove the undoing of whatever remained of the Seven Kingdoms after the Night King's Wroth and the lunacy of the War of the Five Kings. He had turned away from his purpose at the last second, embraced her instead of murdering her, and they had tamed the worst impulses of each other.

Sleep came quickly to her that night.

Daenerys dreamed, as she often did, of a quiet house with a red door, a place where she could be at peace, and where a lemon tree grew beneath her window. Now, though, when the dream came, Jon would be standing in the door. He would hold it open for her, beckon for her to step through, and she knew she would not be alone.