Hope Hightower is headed north in hopes of winning the starks over to her sister Alicents side. But damn Jace got there first.
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"Your guard is up and I know why. The last time you saw me is still burned in the back of your mind."
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HOTD x Lega...
"You have my old sketchbook." hope remarked and he put it down quickly closing it up she walks closer taking the old leather bound book from his lap. "My uncle he took a knife and he carved the symbol and to all of my sketchbooks."
"I never understood the sigil." he admitted.
"Mikaelson, my mother. Hayley Mikaelson..."
"Thats right." Cregan agreed tracing over the letter M. "Everyone only talks about your fathers Hightower side." Hope shrugged. "Did you learn to paint from him?"
"Yes it is in my jeans my mother was said to be creative but my uncle Klaus told me taught me how to... Painting made me feel closer to him made me feel closer to my mom." Hope agreed.
"Thats beautiful." Cregan agreed.
"Which painting captivated your mind?" Hope pondered.
"I don't know what you're talking about I was just perusing your old work." Cregan offered
"That is complete and utter bullshit and you know it." Hope corrected. "I was standing in your door for five whole minutes.''
''I can't believe you stood still for five whole minutes.'' he countered "You were never that patient." Hope smirked sitting closer to him on the bed and she heard his heart race slightly.
"You're right it was like a minute but you were intensely staring so which one was it?" She flipped to the book and again he looked embarrassed. "Did I draw something provocative here and forget about it?" She teased he took the book carefully from her and flipped it open finding the page his favorite page.
"This one." He remarked turning the book back around. Hope stared down at it, she remembered. She remembered drawing this she remembered loving him she remembered them running around the grounds naked before getting to the coldest little Hot Springs she had ever felt she remembered him saying he always wanted to remember this moment so she drew it. She's forgotten entirely about it until right now and all those memories flooded back again.
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"we never talked about it... not really at least." Cregan remarked. Hope put the book down. "I want to. "
"I'm sorry Cregan."
With a deep breath, his broad chest expanded, pulling his shoulders back. He grew before her eyes into the man that never failed to make her beg. As fast as his eyes softened, something else replaced it, something almost arrogant and dark.
Despite being in the midst of their worst fight ever, their fight that had extended to fortnights and seemed to come up at the most inopportune times, when Cregan brought up their past it was like a switch was flipped in his brain and he remembered that he was mad at her. Yet those dark eyes made her body heated.
"Show me," he commanded, but he was too distracted by his power to understand. When she took too long to answer, he clarified. "Show me you're sorry." Cregan demanded as he stood up and Hope rose with him.
Her mind flew through what he could want, unsure of the exact next step. The doubt and pain faded from his body, but it still lingered in the shadows, waiting to be addressed. Moving on instinct, she closed the gap with hesitant steps and reached out her arms. Before they could wrap around his strong body, his hand snapped out and caught her chin, lifting it high while his eyes commanded she not look away.
"That's not what I meant," he said, looking down his nose at her. The cool tone of his voice crept down her spine. He sounded angrier now than ever before. Yet, something about it stroked her skin, bringing it to life. As if her body figured out what her mind couldn't, her nipples pulled tight, and her cunt clenched. Swallowing hard, she asked him simply.
"What do you want from me?" She had laid herself at his mercy, begging him to believe her when she told him he was enough. When his lips twitched, and his grip tightened, she knew he planned to prove to both of them that he was more than that.
"Everything." He answered.
"Everything." She whispered her voice barely a rasp.
"I wanted the right to hold you. To be with you." To be everything he thought some other man got to be for Hope.
To have her, not just for a convenient distraction, but who she was. The woman he so easily fell in love with. And fell in love with again and again every time he looked at her.
"You have no idea how many times I wanted to ask you to stay. Beg you to stay and we could work things out." Cregan remarked.
"You dont know how much I wanted to stay." Hope agreed.
Cregan stared back at her and for the briefest of moments she thought he was going to tell her to leave but he kissed her, until her heart raced and her body felt weak, until she was panting for air and locked tight against him. Something thudded in her heart, it was full and expansive and a tiny little part of her whispered that she was getting too close. She would hurt him again, she didnt want to hurt him again.
Letting her walls down when she needed to run away. She hadn't felt like this in a long time, overwhelmed and desperately wanting more.
"Then stay, please, stay, dont leave me." He kissed her again, until her hands wrapped tightly around him never wanting to let go. Until he had pried away the doubts and uncertainty of the future and the past of who she was and let her believe they could work it out, that she deserved a second chance, even though she didnt deserve it and yet she was left only wanting more of him.
