The air was rank with the odor of sweat, candle smoke and indignity.

It wasn't the best scent, and definitely not one Jaime was used to be confronted with after sex.

Or at least not to that extent.

"Is it–" Brienne rather unnecessarily cleared her throat. "Is it always like that?" Her fingers traced the seam of their shared blanket. Under it lay what Jaime had dreamed of since he followed her back to the North. Maybe even before that, if the dream featuring a naked Brienne and a flammable sword was any indication.

At the moment most of her bare skin was concealed, but the look of her flesh hadn't left his memory. The heaving of her small breasts when he had thrust forward for the first time; the freckles on her torso, shaped like a flock of birds, leading to her navel. It was all ingrained in his mind, flashing before his inner eye.

And yet…

"No. It's not always like that."

More than twenty years filled with sexual trysts, and now this. Cersei had always desired him for his readiness at her command, had even been glad when he hadn't lasted long in his search for their shared climax. Now he wondered if she had ever found it with him at all.

Because five minutes of rutting was not enough to get a woman to orgasm!

At least that's what Bronn had jokingly insinuated before Jaime had stolen his bride away ere the vultures cried for a bedding. The briefness of his encounters with Cersei was apparently as much a known fact to the mob as the horrendous end of their dalliance, however that may have happened.

And now he was lying here, next to a woman too good, too kind, too honorable for the likes of him. Lady Brienne Lannister of Tarth deserved more than damnable five minutes and only bloody sheets to show for it.

What she got in the end were three minutes and a coin sized blood stain under her hips. Not to mention all the other fluids.

She had just been so perfect in her soundless gasping and the flutter of her eyelashes when he had told her how much he desired and loved her.

Not being able to hold back was supposed to be a problem of the young, not a seasoned deviant's. But here he was, the old fucker who had finished in his new wife after three bloody minutes.

The lady in question turned on her side, reaching for his hand. Flat out on his back like he was, it wasn't hard for her to get a grip on his remaining one.

"How else can it be?" she tentatively asked while he stared at the ceiling.

The humiliation thick on his tongue, he emphatically replied, "Longer, harder, more fulfilling."

Jaime didn't wait for the likely kindhearted and undeservedly reassuring answer she surely was about to give him. He half-turned to face her and looked straight into her blue eyes, which – for some reason – were now blown wide. He hurriedly tacked on, "The first time is always tamer, always shorter. I can do better by you." Lie, lie and wishful thinking.

Brienne's kiss-roughened mouth fell open. "Truly?" she breathed in the space between them.

"Yes."

A second later, he had a lap full of very naked wench.

"It can be even better?" she euphorically breezed, as high as her naturally deep voice could go. Ignoring his look of shock, she forcefully patted his chest. "Then what are you waiting for?" When she received no other reaction than an incomprehensible gurgle, her pats turned into little slaps.

That got him out of his stasis. Sitting atop him, she looked like a commander about to ride into battle and therefore tried to goad her trusty stallion into a gallop.

Now, who was he to refuse his wife?