Sansa's indignation flared, though the tremble in her hands betrayed her. She planted her palms against his chest and shoved, it was like trying to move the Wall itself.
"Fine!" she huffed, her voice a sharp, whispery spike of feigned annoyance. "If you're going to be a thick-headed Northman about it—if you'd rather tease me like a common tavern wench than treat me like a Lady—then you can just go back out the way you came!"
She tried to wiggle out from under him, her face turning a shade of red that rivaled the Tully auburn of her hair.
"I was going to be kind. But you're being impossible. Get out, Alaric! Go climb back down your ivy. I'm going to sleep, and I hope the frost bites your nose."
Alaric didn't move. Instead, as Sansa tried to roll away from him in a huff of silk and indignation, he shifted his weight with a fluid, predatory grace. He let her turn onto her side, but only so he could press himself flush against her back.
The contrast was stark: his cold, leather-hewn strength against the yielding softness of her velvet-clad curves.
He draped a heavy arm over her waist, pinning her to the furs, and buried his face in the hollow where her auburn hair met the pale column of her neck.
He didn't speak. Instead, he pressed a slow, lingering kiss just below her ear. His stubble grazed her skin, a rough friction followed immediately by the searing heat of his lips. He moved lower, tracing the line of her tendon with his mouth, breathing the scent of lavender and warm girl into his lungs.
Sansa's lecture died in her throat. Her spine arched instinctively, pressing her hips back into his, and a soft, broken moan escaped her lips before she could catch it. The sound was small, but in the silence of the room, it felt like an admission of total defeat.
"I thought you told me to leave, Little Dove," Alaric murmured against her skin, his voice a vibration she felt deep in her chest.
The spell of the moment broke just enough for Sansa to remember her pride. She twisted her head back to look at him, though the effect was ruined by her heavy-lidded eyes and the flush creeping up from her collarbone.
"I did!" she hissed, though she made no move to dislodge his hand from her waist. "You are a truly infuriating, dumb man, Alaric Thorne. Why are you still here? I gave you a command! A Lady's command!"
She tried to push at his arm, but her fingers ended up curling into the sleeve of his tunic instead.
"Do you ever listen? Honestly, the higher you climb, the more your brains seem to leak out of your ears," she whispered, her voice trembling between a scold and a plea. "I told you to go back to the ivy. So... why aren't you moving?"
Alaric nipped lightly at her shoulder through the linen of her shift, making her gasp again. "Because," he whispered, his grip tightening possessively, "we both know you'd be miserable if I did. And a good guard never leaves his Lady when she's in such a... restless state."
He turned her slowly in his arms until she was forced to face him, his dark eyes searching hers.
"Now," he said, his thumb brushing her lower lip. "Are we going to keep arguing about my lack of manners, or are you going to start that lesson?"
Alaric didn't wait for her to find her voice. He shifted upward, his large frame casting a shadow over her that blocked out the flickering hearthlight.
Sansa's breath hitched as he moved his attention from her lips to the swell of her chest, rising and falling rapidly beneath the sky-blue velvet. He leaned down, his face pressing into the soft dip of her cleavage, the heat of his breath soaking through the layers of fabric.
When he pressed a firm, open-mouthed kiss against the velvet covering her breast, Sansa's hands flew to his hair, her fingers knotting into the dark strands.
"Alaric—" she gasped, her voice cracking.
He ignored the warning, his tongue tracing the embroidery of the bodice before he took the curved peak of her breast into his mouth through the heavy velvet and the linen beneath. The sensation was dampened by the cloth but somehow more intense for it—the friction of the fabric against her sensitive skin sent a jolt straight to her core.
Sansa's head hit the pillow, her eyes rolling back. She let out a sharp, needy sound that she immediately tried to swallow.
"Keep... keep your head down," she panted, her voice a frantic, airy thread. "The velvet... it's too thick, you're going to ruin the silk sash..."
But Alaric was relentless. He moved to the other side, his hands sliding up to cup her, squeezing the soft weight of her through the dress with a possessive strength that made her feel small and entirely claimed.
He bit down gently through the blue cloth, a playful, sharp nip that made her entire body jump.
"You talk too much for a teacher, Little Dove," he grumbled against her chest, his voice muffled by the finery. "Less scolding, more learning."
He looked up at her then, his eyes dark with a hunger that made the "lessons" in her books seem like children's fables. His hand moved to the silk sash at her waist, his fingers tugging at the knot.
"Is the Lady going to help me with these layers," he whispered, "or am I going to have to tear them off?"
Sansa's breath caught in her throat as his fingers toyed with the silk knot. The arrogance in his voice—the sheer, unyielding confidence of a man who no longer feared the shadow of her father—sent a thrill of terror and devotion through her.
"You'd like that, wouldn't you?" she whispered, her eyes meeting his with a sudden, fierce spark.
"To tear my finery like a wildling? But a Lady chooses..."
Before she could finish the thought, and before Alaric could pull the sash loose. The blue screen of the System didn't just flicker this time; it turned a violent, alarming crimson.
[DING!]