Cum
The first storm of spring had broken over Dragonstone by the time she returned to her chambers. Lightning stitched the sky outside the high arched windows, wind howling against the ancient stone like something alive. The sea roared below, as if it had teeth. And still, none of it compared to the sound of Rhaenyra Targaryen’s breath when she saw her again.
“You stayed,” Rhaenyra murmured, voice low with something reverent.
The woman—her lover, her shadow, her sharpest edge turned soft—stood by the fire with nothing on but a shift, damp at the hem from rain and clinging to the shape of her thighs. Her hair had been half-pinned, then lost to wind. She looked undone. She looked beautiful.
“I told you I would,” she said.
Rhaenyra’s gaze dropped, slow as honey. “Then undress. Let me see what I’ve missed.”
The queen did not rush.
She undressed her as if unwrapping a gift too rare to tear open. Every knot of ribbon—gone with a flick of her wrist. Every layer—peeled with heat in her palms. Her lover stood still through it all, breath catching only when Rhaenyra’s fingers brushed too close, too light.
And when she was bare, lit only by firelight and the flicker of a storm-lit sky, Rhaenyra did not lay her down.
She sank to her knees.
Her mouth was not gentle. Not cruel, either—just deliberate. She kissed along the curve of her inner thigh with all the weight of a queen making an oath. Tongue slow, lips parted. Her hands—strong, ring-heavy—gripped the back of her lover’s thighs, pulling her in, tilting her forward.
The first taste was not a surprise. She had learned this body long ago. Still, she hummed against her like she’d been parched.
“You’re sweet tonight,” she said between licks. “Is it the rain?”
Her lover moaned, one hand curling in silver-blonde hair. Rhaenyra lapped at her, slow and wet and thorough. She didn’t move fast. She lingered. She savored. She traced circles and spirals with her tongue until the woman’s knees threatened to give and she had to cling to Rhaenyra’s shoulders just to stay standing.
And when she came—quietly, reverently—Rhaenyra did not pull back.
She drank.
All of it. Every drop.
Let it coat her mouth and chin. Let it smear across her lips. When her lover tried to retreat, legs trembling, Rhaenyra held her still—mouth still locked between her thighs—riding it out until there was nothing left but shivering breath and damp skin.
Only then did she rise.
Her mouth glistened.
Her lover reached for her, trying to pull her into a kiss, but Rhaenyra only smirked and caught her wrist mid-air.
“No,” she said, breath like smoke. “You’ll take what I give you.”
She brought the captured hand to her face. Tilted it. Pressed her tongue flat against her lover’s palm, smearing the slick residue from her own lips across skin.
“Taste yourself,” she whispered. “Know what I know.”
And she did.
She licked her fingers like they were honey-dipped fruit. Her own essence mingling with the warmth of Rhaenyra’s mouth. Eyes locked, breath uneven.
Rhaenyra’s fingers, meanwhile, trailed down her own stomach. Lower. Lower.
“I want you to see what you’ve done to me,” she said.
She sat on the edge of the bed, legs spread, shift bunched around her waist. Her fingers were already wet—dripping—from how long she’d held herself back. She sank two in with ease. Curled. Gasped.
Her lover watched with open hunger. Came to kneel before her. Let her thighs part around her face. Rhaenyra did not flinch when her mouth found her core—slick with her own release. She welcomed it.
“You’ll take my pleasure now,” she breathed, “and you won’t waste a drop.”
The storm outside cracked open again, thunder rolling like a dragon overhead.
Inside, their bodies were all shadow and glow—light from the fire playing off skin and sweat and the slow, messy slide of fingers and mouths and heat.
Rhaenyra came with a cry, loud and ragged and real.
And her lover drank her down just the same.
Later—much later—they lay tangled in sweat-dampened sheets. Rhaenyra’s hand idly played with a strand of dark hair, twisting it between her fingers. Her thighs were sticky. Their skin smelled of salt and rain and sex.
She didn’t clean it off.
She liked the scent. The claim.
“You wear me like perfume,” her lover teased sleepily.
“I want everyone to know,” Rhaenyra murmured, pressing her mouth to her lover’s temple. “You were inside me. I was inside you. That’s what it means to belong.”
⸻
The bath was already being drawn when they emerged from the bedchamber—Rhaenyra had sent the servants ahead between kisses, breathless and amused at her own impatience.
Now, she stood at the edge of the sunken stone tub, watching the steam rise. Buckets of boiled water sloshed in from the hearth, perfumed with crushed orange blossoms and myrrh. Dragonstone’s air was always damp, always salt-heavy, but here—between fire and water—the space thickened with heat. It clung to their skin like another layer of sweat.
Her lover eased in first, breath catching at the temperature.
Rhaenyra followed without hesitation.
They slid into the water together, knees brushing, limbs gliding. Rhaenyra did not sigh, did not relax—she watched. Her eyes dragged over every inch of wet skin, over the bruises she’d left, over the faint shimmer still coating her lover’s inner thighs.
“You didn’t clean it off,” Rhaenyra murmured.
“I thought you liked me messy.”
“I do,” she said, and leaned in, lips barely grazing the slick skin beneath her lover’s ear. “I like you ruined.”
In the bath, Rhaenyra took her time.
She ran her hands down her lover’s back, slow and strong. She lathered her shoulders, her neck, her arms. But she left the center of her untouched for a long, aching moment.
Instead, her fingers dipped into the water and brought it up to her mouth—tasting it. Tasting her. A mix of bath oil, sweat, and something deeper. Still there.
“You’re still in me,” her lover whispered.
“No,” Rhaenyra said, pressing her hand against her sternum, just above her breastbone. “You’re in me.”
She leaned in and kissed her again—this time deeper, wetter, as if trying to pull her apart from the inside. And when their mouths finally broke, a string of shared saliva still linked them.
Rhaenyra watched it stretch, then fall. She caught it on her tongue.
Her lover stared. Breathless.
“You’re mad,” she said softly.
“Yes,” Rhaenyra said. “For you.”
⸻
Before they had names for each other, before they knew what the sound of pleasure tasted like on the other’s mouth—there had been a council. A storm. A hearth lit too brightly.
And a cup of wine spilled on Rhaenyra’s thigh.
She hadn’t meant to laugh—but she did, genuinely, when the woman—just a steward then—knelt without thinking and tried to clean it.
“You’ll stain your honor, kneeling for me like that.”
The woman had looked up. Flushed. Then held Rhaenyra’s gaze as she wiped the red wine from her inner thigh.
“I don’t mind a stain,” she had said.
That night, Rhaenyra had summoned her under pretense.
And when she’d come, Rhaenyra didn’t speak. She only sat on the edge of her bed, slid her shift up, and said, “Taste where the wine was.”
She never meant to let it be anything more.
But when her legs were trembling and the woman’s mouth didn’t stop—and when her fingers cupped the back of her lover’s head and held her there, sobbing pleasure into her hair—Rhaenyra knew.
She would never let her go.
⸻
In the bath, they kissed again. And again.
The water cooled around them, forgotten. Their fingers curled around the rims of the tub, slipping. Their mouths never parted for long.
At some point, Rhaenyra straddled her.
Not to take. Just to cover.
She ground down slowly, slick again in seconds, the last of the bath oils mixing with the wetness between them.
Their skin shone.
Rhaenyra pressed her forehead to her lover’s. “I want to leave my scent on you.”
“You already have.”
“No,” she growled softly. “Everywhere.”
She reached between them and touched herself—coated her fingers in the slow, thick heat gathering there—then smeared it across her lover’s chest.
Over her breasts.
Down her throat.
“I want them to smell me on you when you walk through the halls.”
Her lover’s breath hitched.
“And if they look too long,” Rhaenyra whispered, her mouth at her collarbone now, “I’ll do worse than stain.”
Much later, they lay on the floor near the hearth—wrapped in nothing but a fur throw, still damp, half-asleep.
Rhaenyra’s hand traced lazy shapes against her lover’s stomach. Not words. Not glyphs. Just a rhythm. Circles. Spirals. Loops.
“I can still taste you,” she said dreamily. “I don’t think I’ll ever forget.”
“Then don’t.”
They fell asleep tangled.
The next morning, the handmaids would find sheets that smelled of sex, wine, and myrrh.
And Rhaenyra would spend the entire council session wearing her lover’s scent between her legs, uncleaned.
Because she didn’t want to forget either.