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Alicent Hightower had been preparing for this moment all day.
That really isn’t truthful. In all honesty, she had been preparing for ages now. She had the plan in mind months ago, and only worked up the courage to enact it in the past few weeks, during which the “preparations” were more accurately her beating off her nerves with a metaphorical stick.
Today was not the first day she had gone without undergarments beneath her dress, but it was the first day she felt it might amount to something. The past few times - once in the Godswood on a peaceful afternoon, once at a raucous feast following a turney, another memorable time where she went to sleep fully in the nude - she had chickened out at the last moment. She decided ultimately not to lift her skirts for Rhaenyra beneath the weirwood tree, or guide her hand beneath her gown under the table, or call her to her chambers without a single stitch of clothing on her person.
She would not back down today. Her father and the king had hid themselves away with the small council after a short, tense luncheon. Queen Aemma had family visiting, and was preoccupying them in the gardens. For the first time in quite a while, Alicent found herself and the princess alone together, wandering the halls with their arms linked after their meal as they hadn’t had time to do in months.
When she determined them to be far enough from any occupied rooms to be discovered, she stopped suddenly and stilled Rhaenyra.
“Alicent?” the woman asked. She didn’t know how she should respond, what she might say to explain her intention without sounding as inexperienced as she felt. Her intention wasn’t to beg for Rhaenyra’s attention, but to gain it. To earn it. So rather than speak, she chose to act.
Slowly, as one might calm a wild mare, she let the hand tucked into Rhaenyra’s arm gently glide down, down until it rested along the back of the princess’ hand. Lightly intertwining their fingers, giving the other woman every opportunity to pull away. When she didn’t, she brought the hand she held to lie against her own stomach.
At first contact, though it was over the many layers of cloth, she gasped. She could feel her face warm instantly, light as it may be. She was meant to be doing the seducing, and here she was whimpering like a maiden before skin ever touched skin.
You are a maiden, a voice in her head whispered. She ignored it.
Leaving Rhaenyra’s hand resting on her stomach, Alicent moved to take hold of the skirt of her dress in each hand. Slowly, inch by inch, with a patience that only caused the ache she felt to grow, she lifted the cloth. She chastised herself in her mind, reminding herself that her goal was Rhaenyra’s interest rather than her own pleasure, and somehow forced her hands to slow further. She thought she heard a noise from the other woman as she did so, something sudden and choked off, but couldn’t be sure.
Eyes firmly on the floor, she gathered the fabric into one hand as best she could, and with the other returned to the one belonging to the princess, left resting on her stomach. Guiding once again, she brought their hands down. Over where her dress covered her lower ribs, her navel, over the fabric held above her hips. Down, down, down, over, and over until finally, she felt a hand other than her own come into contact with her skin.
This time the noise was let out by both, a sharp intake of breath overlapping with a shocked gasp as Alicent’s eye’s reflexively shot back fo Rhaeyra’s. Unable to parse who let out which, and unable to make room in her mind for anything other than Rhaenyra’s hand on her, she pushed the thought to the side.
“Alicent” she heard, and knew without a second thought who had said it. It certainly hadn’t been her, as she didn’t think she would’ve been able to speak had her life been on the line. “Alicent, what are you doing?”
She asked the question, but didn’t remove her hand. It was only resting on her pelvis, and while she didn’t think she’d ever truly stop feeling the heat of Rhaenya’s hand on her body, there was still time to stop. But all the time in the world wouldn’t change Alicent’s mind. At that moment she knew that this was exactly what she wanted.
“Would you not touch me, Rhaenyra?” She knew where the ensuing, sudden exhalation came from immediately, felt it against her skin as the princess, though still holding fast against any want to touch Alicent of her own accord, couldn’t resist burying her face in the other woman’s neck.
“Do you want me to?” The hand resting against her tensed, fingers curling slightly into her skin. She felt the cool air of the hall against her exposed lower half, all the more noticeable due to the contrasting heat of Rhaenyra against her. “I would certainly assume so, with the way you’ve bared yourself to the day and me both. But I would like to hear you say it yourself.”
Alicent felt her mouth fall open and took a ragged breath inward before attempting to answer. This was so far going exactly as she had hoped, but there was always a chance. Luck had never been in her corner before. Experience prevented her from assuming it would stay long.
“I would like for you to touch me, Rhaenyra. I think about it often. I thought about it often today alone, walking the halls in this dress alone.”
She had imagined Rhaenyra discovering her state in the Godswood and taking her apart under the weirwood tree. She nursed the thought of the princess slipping a hand beneath her skirt and gaining instant access to bare skin under the bustle of the feast. Or of her friend slipping into her chambers in the night, looking for an opinion on one thing or another, instead finding her companion in an unexpected state of undress and acting on it without thought.
These fantasies and musings she held back from repeating out loud. But either from the look on her face or the words she did speak or a combination of the two, the Targaryen heir must have known just what she was thinking.
Is this what it feels like to be set upon by one of those great dragons? That voice in her head said again. And then, you’ve become the prey here. And Alicent realized quickly that she had, but that she enjoyed it greatly.
Rhaenyra kissed her like she had something to prove. She kissed like she had done it many times before, and knew exactly how to win whatever battle she perceived it to be. Alicent, who had never kissed and never been kissed in return, resolved herself to sit back and enjoy it.
Finally, finally that hand continued its journey down, down, this time without Alicent’s help. She had thought the feeling of palm on skin alone was unimaginable heat, but nothing could have prepared her for this.
She had known Rhaenyra’s hands to be graceful for as long as she can remember. Long and lithe, she’d often encouraged the princess to lend them to a musical education. As she gasped into Rhaenya’s mouth, she felt assured now in having made that assumption. The princess’ touch was surprisingly gentle, and Alicent knew with a quick flush that it was for her sake.
You don’t want gentle, the voice said to her, and finally she found them to be in agreement. No. I don’t.
Reaching out with her newly freed hand, and keeping a tight grip on her skirts with the other, she threw an arm around her friend’s shoulders, pulling her closer. Steadying herself against the other woman, and squeezing her eyes shut, she ground down on the hand between her legs.
The noise that freed itself from her throat was not one she was used to. The few times she’d touched herself in any similar way, she was always careful to do so as quietly as possible. Alicent thought that if she tried to be quiet now she would die.
She ground down again, and then again, and continued to do so over and over. Rhaenyra’s hand had long since stilled where it lay against her cunt, though both were too preoccupied to notice - Alicent with chasing her own pleasure and Rhaenyra with watching awed as she did so.
The former felt herself nearing a tipping point and was struck with the urge to open her eyes, to look into those of the woman before her. When she did so, what she saw shocked her. The princess appeared to be enchanted by what she saw in front of her, and the look on her face was what finally pushed Alicent over the edge.
She did so with a moan somehow louder than her first. She thought that she might be embarrassed by her volume at a different time, under different circumstances, in such a public place, but at the moment she couldn’t find it in her to care. Instead she sagged against Rhaenyra’s body, hanging off of her by the arm around her shoulders. She had a vague sense of the other wrapping an arm around her waist to help steady her as she caught her breath.
“Rhaenyra,” she breathed out, brow furrowing as she leveled her gaze at her. Her friend mirrored the look, mouth turned slightly down at the corners. She regrets it, the voice taunted. She didn’t have it in her the to neither agree with nor dissuade it. She did, however, have it in her to realize just how far from her initial plan things had gotten. “Rhaenyra, that was supposed to be for you. ”
Her friend’s expression froze, and for a moment she feared she had said something entirely wrong. You ruined it.
But then the princess smiled, grinning so widely Alicent thought it looked almost painful. She let out a startled laugh, which grew until even when hiding it in the other’s neck it echoed through the hallway. Alicent found herself more confused now than ever; even the cruel voice in her head hesitated to comment.
“My dear lady, I promise you, I enjoyed every second of that. If it was meant as a gift for me, then it went perfectly.”
Alicent gaped at her for a moment, as the fog of confusion around her head slowly began to clear. And then she too let out a startled laugh, until they both dissolved into giggles, still standing in the hall. Alicent let her skirts fall from her hand, but kept her arm Rhaenyra’s shoulders, who in return kept both hands exactly where they had been throughout.
Apparently, the seduction had worked just as well as it could’ve.