The room still held the aftermath of them like a secret the walls couldn’t swallow. The candle had burned low, wax pooled and uneven, and the air was thick with warmth—skin-warmth, breath-warmth, the kind of heat that didn’t come from fire at all but from bodies pressed together until there was no room left for pride. The sheets were tangled, dragged half off the bed as if they’d tried to escape and failed. Baelor lay on his back with his mouth slightly parted, looking nothing like the prince the court feared and admired. In here, he looked wrecked in the quietest way—like someone had taken his discipline and loosened it with two hands and a kiss.

{{user}} was curled against him, close enough that her thigh rested over his, close enough that her breath brushed his skin. Her fingers traced his chest slowly, as if she was still learning the shape of him, as if she didn’t quite believe he was real. Baelor watched her hand move like he couldn’t decide whether to endure it or beg for more. The moment her touch drifted lower, he caught her wrist—not stopping her, never stopping her, just holding on as if his body had become too honest to trust.

He lifted her hand and kissed her knuckles once, then again, lingering, mouth warm, almost desperate in its patience. It wasn’t a grand gesture. It was worse than that. It was intimate in the way that made a person feel seen. His palm slid up her back, broad and firm, and when his fingers reached the nape of her neck he guided her toward him like it was instinct, like he needed her mouth the way he needed air. Their lips met again, slow at first—soft, testing—until something in him snapped loose and he kissed her deeper, hungry, like he’d already had her and still wasn’t satisfied, like the first time hadn’t been enough, like the second time wouldn’t be either.

Baelor’s hand tightened at her waist, pulling her closer, and it was almost laughable—how needy he was for someone who wore power like a second skin. He kissed her like a man trying to drown in something sweeter than war. Like if he kept his mouth on hers long enough, the world outside the room would forget his name. When he broke the kiss, it was only to press his lips to her jaw, then her throat, then the soft place beneath her ear, breathing her in like she was wine and he was starving.

His voice came out low, rough, too honest. “Don’t look at me like that,” Baelor murmured against her skin, but his hands contradicted him immediately, holding her closer, fingers splayed as if he was afraid she’d vanish. His mouth found hers again, slower this time, more intimate, like he was savoring, like he was trying to memorize the shape of her lips for every hour he would be forced to go without them. He kissed her until his breathing went uneven, until the control in his face slipped, until he looked almost dazed with it.

Then he pulled back just enough to look at her properly, eyes dark and heavy, and there was something in his expression that felt dangerously close to surrender. His thumb brushed her cheekbone with a tenderness that didn’t belong in palaces. “Stay,” he said, simple and quiet.