Speaking Silence, Epilogue (part 1)
Consciousness came slowly to Rose. The first thing she was aware of was the feeling of warmth, followed by the comforting smell of...something-no! someone-familiar. It didn’t feel like her bed, though, and the lighting was wrong for her room...and yet she could hear the hum of the TARDIS, so she was still on the ship.
Memories from the night before hit her with the force of a wall of cold water. Arguing with the Doctor. Being locked in the tuxedo wardrobe. Going through the contents of his pockets by candlelight. Strawberries and champagne. Chips. Formal attire. Dancing.
Kissing.
Her eyes popped open and she winced in the bright light of the room. She quickly scrunched them shut again before slowly opening them once more, this time allowing for the brightness. She was staring at the ceiling of the room, and she recognized the distinctive lighting and colour of the tuxedo room (it made her think of gentlemen’s clubs from old novels. Not that she’d ever been in one, but it was how she imagined they would look.). She turned her head, trying to get a feel for where she was and what she was lying on-and was startled to see a pair of warm brown eyes not a foot away, the Doctor laying on his side and staring at her. She flushed.
A surreptitious check revealed she was still clothed, and that was a disappointing relief-if they’d done anything, she’d hope to have remembered it. As it was, all she remembered was snogging-lots and lots of snogging. Her lips curved in a gentle smile at the memory, and she noticed the corners of the Doctor’s eyes crinkle in response.
“Good morning,” he said, voice warm and soft. His lips were quirked at the corner, the smile lurking more in his eyes than his lips.
“Good morning back,” she replied, equally warmly and softly.
They stared at each other in silence for a short time, neither in any rush to break the moment. Rose was just beginning to worry about going cross-eyed from staring at the Doctor-did the man never blink?-when he broke the silence.
“Sleep well, then?”
She paused to consider before answering. “Yeah, actually. And you?” He gave her a pitying look. “Ah, right, guess not. “ She rolled on to her side, to better converse with the Doctor, and was surprised when his tuxedo jacket slid off of her and pooled in between them. She looked at him quizzically; he tried to appear nonchalant.
“You looked cold.” He averted his eyes, suddenly very interested in whatever was over her shoulder. She wasn’t certain, but she was pretty sure that all that was behind her was the back of the divan or whatever they were both laying on. Her head on her right hand, she reached over with her left, gently touching the Doctor’s chin to guide his gaze back to her. There was a surprising amount of vulnerability in those fathomless eyes.
“Thank you.”
He burst into a grin, and she couldn’t help but once more grin in response. The silence returned.
Rose took advantage of it this time, taking note of the Doctor’s state of dress. He was still in his dress shirt, the collar unbuttoned and showing the delicious length of his neck and a tantalizing bit of chest. His sleeves were rolled up to the elbow, and she thought she noticed a streak of grease on the arm which propped up his head. She slid her left hand down to grasp his right, running her thumb along the back of his hand; he glanced down to their joined hands briefly before returning his gaze to her face.
“Did you get a lot of tinkering done, then?” She asked. She had noticed his right hand still had the faint feel of oil on it-a dead giveaway, even if the grease on his left arm wasn’t.
“A bit. Not much to do, oddly enough.”
Rose “hmmmed” in noncommittal response, her eyes drifting down to where his shirt was buttoned. Her memories of the night before were becoming clearer as her mind woke up, images flooding her memory as her eyes remained locked on the Doctor’s chest. The TARDIS had given him an escape route but he’d ignored it, choosing instead to lean down and give her the most remarkable kiss of her admittedly brief experience. Her head had spun, and she’d finally had to push him away to catch her breath. The Doctor being the Doctor, he’d misinterpreted her actions as rejection, and she’d had to spend quite some time kissing him back to convince him she was doing anything but rejecting him.
At some point, the TARDIS had started playing music again-more Gershwin, of whom Rose was becoming quite fond-and she and the Doctor had spent hours dancing, taking breaks to kiss some more, or sip some of the excellent champagne which the TARDIS managed to keep at the perfect temperature. She’d become quite giddy as the night progressed, drunk on kisses and champagne, and although she’d grown more and more tired she hadn’t wanted the night to end. At some point, the divan had appeared-she thought it might have been after the third bottle of champagne-and she had very fuzzy memories of curling up on it, snuggled against the Doctor’s chest. Clearly, she had fallen asleep there.
It had been a magical night, and she was just wondering what the morning after would bring when her musings were interrupted. Her eyes still focused on the Doctor’s shirt, she didn’t notice when he leaned his head in, when he gently removed his hand from hers and brought it to her waist. She only noticed the change when his head moved into her line of sight and he gently pressed his lips to hers.
It was as heavenly as she remembered, and she savoured the feeling of the Doctor once more kissing her. She was just losing herself to the sensation when he stopped; she opened her eyes-when had they closed?-and found the Doctor looking intently at her. She met his gaze, and she felt...something...pass between them. Whatever it was, it seemed to answer the question the Doctor had. He leaned back in, kissed her again, this time with more force. She met his onslaught, her free hand wiggling between them and up to his face, tracing along his neck up into his hair. She felt him sigh, and a wave of heat passed over her in reaction.
He must have felt her response because next she knew, the Doctor had rolled her onto her back. Still kissing her, he ran his hand lightly down her side before dragging his knuckles back up, over her ribs, just along the side of her breast, up until his fingers twined into her hair. He pulled back once more, and she opened her eyes to one of the most delicious sights she’d ever seen. The Doctor was above her, weight still propped on his left elbow while his right hand caressed her hair. His eyes were the darkest she’d ever seen them, and his fair skin was flushed pink from his forehead down to the bit of chest she could see. His lips were red and slightly swollen, and she felt the uncontrollable urge to nibble on his pouty lower one.
She raised herself just enough to do just that, and nearly giggled when the Doctor moaned appreciatively. He really was just a bloke, alien or not.
Both of her hands were buried in his hair by the time he pulled back once more. Her hands slid down to rest on his chest, while his remained braced on either side of her head; they stared at each other. The Doctor kept looking at her; her eyes, down to her lips, back to her eyes, over to the side of her head, back to her lips...he didn’t seem to know what to do with himself. For her part, she wasn’t quite sure what to do, either. Did she really want to shag him? Well, yes, of course she did. But here and now? A niggling voice inside her head said ‘no.’ As this was the same voice that had gone conveniently missing when she brought up the condom the night before, she thought it might not have much credibility left.
The condom. She had assumed he didn’t; the past minutes and hours had given her an excellent reason to reconsider that assumption. The question now was if he did, how did he? She chewed her lip as she considered the question, her eyes lingering on that delicious bottom lip of his.
“Problem, Rose?” His voice was laced with humour, and called her back to the present. His eyes were now closer to their normal colour, and the corners were once again crinkled in amusement.
She blushed. “No! No problem.” Her voice practically squeaked, and she cringed; the Doctor pounced.
“Are you sure? You seem to be trying to solve the Vrombox Proof. If I’m distracting you, I could stop....” He leaned down and whispered the last, sending a shiver up her spine. She’d always assumed his flirting was down to his cluelessness, but she was beginning to seriously suspect he was just a terrible tease.
“No, no, no need.” She turned her head, trying to capture his lips with hers; he pulled back with alacrity and gave her a naughty smile. She pouted. “There was no problem. No proof. No need for you to stop.”
“Are you sure? You certainly looked like you were trying to work something out.” He punctuated his statement with several light kisses along her jaw; he once again evaded her when she tried to kiss him in return.
This would never do. Time to call his bluff. “I was trying to figure how things would work if we...well, you know.” She felt her cheeks blush scarlet, but forced herself to meet his eye. He looked gobsmacked.
“You what?” He leaned back, staring at her in disbelief.
“I was trying to figure out if you...well, if we...were...you know.”
He shifted so he was sitting on his knees, staring at her as though she were some strange and exotic creature. She sat up and scooted so her back was against the corner of the divan; perhaps being forward had been the wrong plan of attack. She once more began to chew on the corner of her lip.
“Are you saying-am I meant to understand-that you were trying to figure out how things would work if we shagged?” The Doctor’s voice was laced with disbelief.
Rose hadn’t thought it possible, but she flushed an even darker shade of red. Bashfully, she nodded her head, her eyes looking down towards the Doctor’s knees.
“Rose Tyler. You naughty minx.” The Doctor’s voice was far lower, far more intense than she had expected. She raised her gaze in shock, and found the Doctor’s eyes had once more gone dark. She stilled, hypnotized by what she saw. She felt like prey, pinned under a predator’s gaze, and she swallowed.
Even though she was looking right at him, she didn’t see the Doctor move. She just knew he claimed her mouth with his own, his torso pressed against hers, his hands grasping her upper arms, trying to pull her closer. Lost in the passion of the kiss, she was startled by the suddenness of his release, although his hands were still grasping her arms, and he pulled back far enough to gaze quite seriously at her.
“I want very much to show you. How things would work. But...” He looked down at her lips, then back up to her eyes. He raised a hand to her cheek and lightly brushed his cool knuckles against her searingly hot skin; her eyes closed involuntarily. “But....”
She opened her eyes to find him still looking at her-but his gaze had shifted. Where it had been full of passion when she’d closed her eyes, it was now filled with uncertainty. She took his loose hand in both of hers, turned it over, lightly ran her fingers over the palm. His eyes closed, and she could see the tension in his shoulders relax. He sighed, and she brought his palm up to lay a gentle kiss in it. “But you’re not ready, yeah?”
He opened his eyes, looked at her, and gave her a rueful grin. “That’s one way of putting it, yes.”
She sighed. He shifted, moving to sit beside her, bringing an arm around her and pulling her in close. She snuggled against him. “We could, you know. But I need...I need...”
“...more time?” she finished. The irony apparently wasn’t lost on her, either.
He brushed a light kiss over her hair, breathing in the scent as he squeezed her to him. “More time. It takes some time for my biology to build to that. I could kiss you until the proverbial cows come home-oh, how I could do that-but one day of it isn’t enough. Consider it...” He paused, and as she looked up at him, she could have sworn he blushed. “Consider it extensive foreplay.” He rushed the words out.
She gawped; he shifted under her scrutiny. “What? Time Lords. Lots of time. Our bodies are biologically geared to that.”
“How extensive is this foreplay?”
He paused, thinking. “Oh, I don’t know. It’s been ages since I’ve had to find out. Not much point when you can’t just go for a quick shag, you know.” Rose blinked, and tucked her head back against his chest. He squeezed her to him again, before whispering, “Rose.”
She looked up at him; he had the nerve to look bemused. “What?”
“I wasn’t a monk, you know. I’ve always been foxy; it would have been a crime to let that go to waste.” He winked at her, his cheekiness causing her to laugh. Of course he’d have been randy; nine hundred years was a long time for exploring and dancing.
“Right, so how long is this foreplay thing?”
“Weeks, I should think.”
“Weeks?!”
“Weeks. Weeks of kissing,” he placed a gentle kiss on her lips, “and dancing, and drinking strawberries and eating champagne....” She giggled. “Drinking champagne and eating strawberries, that is. And more kissing.” He leaned down and gave her a proper snog; she felt dazed when the kiss finally broke. “And who knows. It may not take weeks at all. There’s only one way to find out. “He leaned down, and the two of them set to working out exactly how long it would take.
At some point during the exploration, he had the most brilliant idea. “You know-my biology-is geared toward-needing time,” he remarked, around the exchange of lingering open-mouthed kisses with tantalizing hints of tongue. “But your biology-is quite-quite-ready.”
“Are you-trying to talk to me?” managed Rose, because she wasn’t in the best state to have a conversation. At some point she had ended up sprawled fully underneath him, and the whisper of his weight, not quite descending upon her but close enough for her to sense, was as distracting as the kisses he was now giving her. Nine hundred years: He was not just a good kisser; he was phenomenal.
He actually laughed and rubbed his nose against hers. “I’m giving you a biology lesson, Rose.”
“Oh, are you?” she inquired, archly, lifting an eyebrow at him. “I never had a biology lesson like this in school.”
“How shockingly boring was your school?” He smiled and kissed the tip of her nose, before shifting slightly to leave a line of soft, devastating kisses along her jaw.
“Mind you-“ She was never going to get tired of losing her hands in that hair, she thought, on a sigh of pleasure as he pressed his tongue against her racing pulse point, gauging it, and she closed her eyes and arched her neck toward him. “I’d’ve stayed and got my A-levels in this type of biology. Mmm,” she murmured, almost involuntarily. He was no longer so much kissing her as he was nuzzling at her skin, breathing out words that were ghosting over her, heat chasing in their wake. She couldn’t catch what he was saying. But she wasn’t trying very hard.
“Rose,” he mumbled, and he did kiss her now, kissed the curve of one breast, as low as he could before the material of her gown interfered with him. “You see, I’d very much like to…” He dipped his tongue as far as it would go into the crease between her breasts, while his hands wriggled his way underneath her and worked at the zipper, just a tad. Just enough so that when he tugged at the dress, her breasts popped free. “Ah,” he said, pleased with himself as he surveyed them. “No bra. Did you suspect how the evening would end?” He waggled his eyebrows at her.
Rose had opened her eyes at the rush of air on her breasts. She lifted her head slightly so she could see him. “I couldn’t wear a bra. My bra had straps, and the dress was strapless.”
His face fell in what looked like genuine disappointment. “Really? So practical? I was hoping you weren’t wearing any knickers, either. Wellll, next time, right? Next time I take you dancing to Gershwin, no knickers, Rose, do you promise?” He blew playfully on her nipple, watching in what looked like clinical interest as it tightened even more.
Her breasts were aching to be touched by him, but his hands were resting just beneath them, feeling the expansion and contraction of her ribcage as she breathed, and he kept his lips hovering just out of reach. She moved unthinkingly, focused on getting closer to him, to getting his hands or his mouth on her. She was aware he knew exactly what she wanted, which made it infuriating when he leaned over, stuck out his tongue, and, with the very merest tip and a look of utmost concentration on his face, touched it as briefly as possible to her nipple.
The swearing went on in her head but she thought he heard it anyway, because he looked up at her and smiled. “Are you thinking uncharitable thoughts about me?”
“Yes,” she gritted, between her teeth.
“Oh, Rose,” he chided, still smiling. “How unkind of you.” He looked back down at her breasts, surveying them with eyes that she could tell were dark with approval. She bit back a groan of sheer frustration. “Just when I was thinking such lovely thoughts about you,” he said before he dipped his head and swirled his tongue around the nipple he’d just been torturing.
Rose did groan then, and closed her eyes, her world narrowing to the pinpoint of the Doctor’s very brilliant tongue and hands, nipping and sucking and stroking and fondling, and her blood went skipping through her veins, riotously happy. Her hands closed around clumps of his hair, and she moved restlessly underneath him, arching toward him. He was mad to take them down this path, she thought. Mad or reckless or clueless. She wanted more of him. She wanted all of him. Immediately. Now.
“Oh, but, Rose,” he said, biting her above her right breast and then soothing it with his tongue. “Patience is a virtue.”
Her eyes shot open, and she lifted her head, looking down at her hands closed in the Doctor’s messy brown hair, as his mouth wandered a leisurely path across her chest. “Did I say that out loud?” she asked, suddenly fearful.
She sensed his mouth curve into a smug, self-satisfied grin against her skin. “Yes. I take it you’re thinking happier thoughts now?”
Rose didn’t answer. She dropped her head back against the divan, mortified.
“Do you know what I’ve wanted to do since seeing you in this dress?” He licked a pattern onto her left breast. A letter? A ‘D’? Really? She thought.
For some reason, she found that adorable. She stroked fondly at his hair, combing her fingers through it, and smiled at the sensation of the Doctor’s breath on the underside of her breast, which she had never really allowed herself to imagine before. “Knowing you? A lecture on the particular planet where this rare brand of silk was manufactured?”
He chuckled. He was moving down her body now, planting a warm, wet kiss on her abdomen through the fabric of the dress. “Guess again.”
Rose moved restlessly and tried to keep her mind on his wordplay instead of his foreplay, especially as his head was now positioned directly over the juncture of her thighs. “Uh, tell me how many yards of fabric it took to make the skirt?” she said, desperately, and, because he was driving her mad just hovering over her, she arched toward that teasing mouth.
His hands on her hips pushed her back into the divan. “Uh-uh,” he said, slowly. “I wanted to crawl right under this skirt.” He moved down the length of her, gathering up silk and pushing it up and out of his way, toward her waist. She wriggled a bit to help him, grabbing the bunched up layers to keep them off her legs. “Better,” he murmured, bending to lick at her kneecap. “I wish I could explain to you-” He planted another kiss, a shade higher than the first one. “-what you taste like to me.” Another kiss. He was crawling upward by degrees. She made a small, strangled sound of frustration. If he didn’t hurry up and touch her, she wasn’t sure what she’d do in desperation. “The fact that you want me,” he continued, on his inexorable path, “you’re drenched in that taste, you know. I’m getting drunk on it. I may never be able to stop tasting you.” And then, when she least expected it, when she was focused on the excruciating upward movement of his mouth as he spoke, his fingers brushed over her knickers, the merest hint of contact, and she said, “oh,” in surprise and rose to meet him but he had already withdrawn.
“And the sound of you,” he went on, as if he’d done nothing at all. Rose heaved at oxygen, quivering with anticipation for another touch. “I can hear your blood, thundering through your veins.” Scrape of teeth against the inside of her thigh, so close now that she made a sound like a sob and felt a shiver run through her. “And your heart, galloping. You’re deafening, Rose.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “You’re all I can hear. You’re all that there is.”
She felt his breath, tickling along her skin, and she waited. “Knickers,” he said, then, his voice suddenly loud after the whisper he’d just spoken in. “Must get them out of my way.”
He was a tease, she thought, furiously, as he nonchalantly hooked his thumbs into the waistband of her knickers and pulled at them, and as soon as his bloody biology kicked in, she was damn well going to give him a taste of his own medicine.
“Ah,” he said, satisfied. She saw the knickers get thrown off the divan, and the Doctor sounded for all the world as if he were ready to undertake a rather interesting experiment, which was not at all how she’d envisioned this. It seemed ungrateful, but she wanted him as hazy and mindless with passion as she was. Could the Doctor even get that way? The whole thing seemed so very unsatisfying if he was going to stay so very detached.
“Stop,” she whispered, but it sounded like a shout to her ears.
Maybe to his as well. His head popped up, comically, from the froth of silk that blocked her view of her lower body. His eyes were dark and dazed, which was at least something, but now he looked anxious, which wasn’t at all what she had intended. “Right,” he said. “Right. Sorry.” He was speaking so quickly that the words were tumbling over each other. “Didn’t mean to-Should have asked, of course-I mean, for permission-to-” He rolled out from between her legs and sat on the edge of the divan. “We should maybe have breakfast,” he said, as if he hadn’t just tossed her knickers over his shoulder.
“The only thing you’re having for breakfast is me,” she told him, severely, which struck him speechless and he blinked at her in astonishment. “I just need…” She twisted off the divan, standing not quite steadily and tugging at her zipper. He watched as if unsure what was going on. She turned to him in frustration. “Take the dress off me,” she said, and leaned over and began unbuttoning his shirt.
“I’m sorry?” he squeaked out.
“You heard me,” she said, fingers working over the buttons. “What did I tell you? That I wanted you now, immediately, all of you? Maybe you can taste me and you can hear me, but I can’t do the same to you, not without doing this.” She pulled the shirt off of him. He seemed too shocked to be able to think to help her. And then she pressed her face into the centre of his chest, which she had done so many times when he had been dressed in a hundred or so layers but never skin to skin, and she breathed him in and felt him tremble in reaction. “See?” she murmured. “Now I can hear you.” And she could, the comforting double beat of a heart on either side of her head. “Your hearts,” she smiled. “They’re galloping, Doctor.” And then she pressed a kiss over first one and then the other.
He moved closer to her, so he could reach behind her for her zipper, as she nipped and nuzzled at his chest, and he was taking quick, unsteady breaths, his fingers moving clumsily, so that it took an age for him to get the zipper down and she wanted to tell him just to rip it. She finally felt the bodice loosen, stepped away for a moment and out of it, and tried to move back into his embrace-
But he scrambled off the bed, standing in front of her, arms out to keep her from moving closer, and ran his eyes up and down the length of her several times. Rose blushed wildly, worse the longer he kept looking. “Stop it, would you?” she hissed at him.
“No,” he said, softy. “I want to remember.”
Well, two could play at that game, she thought, studying his chest, the smattering of brown hair that swirled toward his navel. She smiled. “You look just like a human.”
“What do you mean?” he asked, sounding suspicious.
“You even have a belly button,” she said, and, because she really couldn’t resist, she leaned down and dipped her tongue into it.
He lifted his hands into her hair, and she felt him brush a kiss over the top of her head, which made her breath catch in her throat. “Oh, see,” he rasped out. “Now, you’re cheating.”
“You play dirty in bed,” she told him. “Trainers off.”
“I do no such thing,” he retorted, shocked, hopping as he toed his trainers off.
“Socks, too.”
“What difference-“
“If I’m going to be naked, you are, too.”
“You’re into equal opportunity sex,” he remarked, as he balled his socks up and tossed them out of the way.
“Absolutely,” she laughed, working at the button on his pants.
“You’re really wasting your time down there. Trust me,” he said, as she scraped the zipper of his fly down.
“Always,” she assured him, honestly. “But I’m into equal opportunity-” She cut herself off abruptly,
as she let his trousers drop. And then she looked up at him. “You don’t wear any pants?” she asked, in a shocked whisper.
“Er, no,” he answered. “Is that a problem?”
She stared into his bewildered brown eyes. “Never?”
He smiled winningly. “Nope.” He popped the “p.” “Never, ever.” He paused, the smile fading. “Is that a problem?” he asked again, plainly anxious about it.
But she suddenly poked the tip of her tongue out of the corner of her mouth, watching his eyes darken as they focused on it, and she grinned full-fledged. “You’re such an alien,” she teased him.
“As they come,” he said, absently, clearly thinking other thoughts.
“So you’re sure nothing I could do could…?” She trailed off meaningfully, on a blush.
“No. I’m meant to respond to activity. I mean, my activity. Passivity is not going to help. Passivity is the enemy of Time Lord arousal. Used to have that in fortune cookies. Welllll, our equivalent of fortune cookies. You get the point. Except not as much fun to play the ‘in bed’ game with, because when it’s already clearly talking about being in bed, then adding ‘in bed’ doesn’t add anything at all. ‘Passivity is the enemy of Time Lord arousal in bed.’ Well, of course it is. Where else would it be? Not that Time Lords really used beds, so the ‘in bed’ thing is really kind of-” He realized that she was staring at him as if she couldn’t believe he’d chosen this moment to start to babble. Maybe less talking was called for, he thought. “Anyway. I need to be snogging and other things and how long has it been since I’ve kissed you?”
“Much too long,” she said, as she launched herself on top of him.
Memories from the night before hit her with the force of a wall of cold water. Arguing with the Doctor. Being locked in the tuxedo wardrobe. Going through the contents of his pockets by candlelight. Strawberries and champagne. Chips. Formal attire. Dancing.
Kissing.
Her eyes popped open and she winced in the bright light of the room. She quickly scrunched them shut again before slowly opening them once more, this time allowing for the brightness. She was staring at the ceiling of the room, and she recognized the distinctive lighting and colour of the tuxedo room (it made her think of gentlemen’s clubs from old novels. Not that she’d ever been in one, but it was how she imagined they would look.). She turned her head, trying to get a feel for where she was and what she was lying on-and was startled to see a pair of warm brown eyes not a foot away, the Doctor laying on his side and staring at her. She flushed.
A surreptitious check revealed she was still clothed, and that was a disappointing relief-if they’d done anything, she’d hope to have remembered it. As it was, all she remembered was snogging-lots and lots of snogging. Her lips curved in a gentle smile at the memory, and she noticed the corners of the Doctor’s eyes crinkle in response.
“Good morning,” he said, voice warm and soft. His lips were quirked at the corner, the smile lurking more in his eyes than his lips.
“Good morning back,” she replied, equally warmly and softly.
They stared at each other in silence for a short time, neither in any rush to break the moment. Rose was just beginning to worry about going cross-eyed from staring at the Doctor-did the man never blink?-when he broke the silence.
“Sleep well, then?”
She paused to consider before answering. “Yeah, actually. And you?” He gave her a pitying look. “Ah, right, guess not. “ She rolled on to her side, to better converse with the Doctor, and was surprised when his tuxedo jacket slid off of her and pooled in between them. She looked at him quizzically; he tried to appear nonchalant.
“You looked cold.” He averted his eyes, suddenly very interested in whatever was over her shoulder. She wasn’t certain, but she was pretty sure that all that was behind her was the back of the divan or whatever they were both laying on. Her head on her right hand, she reached over with her left, gently touching the Doctor’s chin to guide his gaze back to her. There was a surprising amount of vulnerability in those fathomless eyes.
“Thank you.”
He burst into a grin, and she couldn’t help but once more grin in response. The silence returned.
Rose took advantage of it this time, taking note of the Doctor’s state of dress. He was still in his dress shirt, the collar unbuttoned and showing the delicious length of his neck and a tantalizing bit of chest. His sleeves were rolled up to the elbow, and she thought she noticed a streak of grease on the arm which propped up his head. She slid her left hand down to grasp his right, running her thumb along the back of his hand; he glanced down to their joined hands briefly before returning his gaze to her face.
“Did you get a lot of tinkering done, then?” She asked. She had noticed his right hand still had the faint feel of oil on it-a dead giveaway, even if the grease on his left arm wasn’t.
“A bit. Not much to do, oddly enough.”
Rose “hmmmed” in noncommittal response, her eyes drifting down to where his shirt was buttoned. Her memories of the night before were becoming clearer as her mind woke up, images flooding her memory as her eyes remained locked on the Doctor’s chest. The TARDIS had given him an escape route but he’d ignored it, choosing instead to lean down and give her the most remarkable kiss of her admittedly brief experience. Her head had spun, and she’d finally had to push him away to catch her breath. The Doctor being the Doctor, he’d misinterpreted her actions as rejection, and she’d had to spend quite some time kissing him back to convince him she was doing anything but rejecting him.
At some point, the TARDIS had started playing music again-more Gershwin, of whom Rose was becoming quite fond-and she and the Doctor had spent hours dancing, taking breaks to kiss some more, or sip some of the excellent champagne which the TARDIS managed to keep at the perfect temperature. She’d become quite giddy as the night progressed, drunk on kisses and champagne, and although she’d grown more and more tired she hadn’t wanted the night to end. At some point, the divan had appeared-she thought it might have been after the third bottle of champagne-and she had very fuzzy memories of curling up on it, snuggled against the Doctor’s chest. Clearly, she had fallen asleep there.
It had been a magical night, and she was just wondering what the morning after would bring when her musings were interrupted. Her eyes still focused on the Doctor’s shirt, she didn’t notice when he leaned his head in, when he gently removed his hand from hers and brought it to her waist. She only noticed the change when his head moved into her line of sight and he gently pressed his lips to hers.
It was as heavenly as she remembered, and she savoured the feeling of the Doctor once more kissing her. She was just losing herself to the sensation when he stopped; she opened her eyes-when had they closed?-and found the Doctor looking intently at her. She met his gaze, and she felt...something...pass between them. Whatever it was, it seemed to answer the question the Doctor had. He leaned back in, kissed her again, this time with more force. She met his onslaught, her free hand wiggling between them and up to his face, tracing along his neck up into his hair. She felt him sigh, and a wave of heat passed over her in reaction.
He must have felt her response because next she knew, the Doctor had rolled her onto her back. Still kissing her, he ran his hand lightly down her side before dragging his knuckles back up, over her ribs, just along the side of her breast, up until his fingers twined into her hair. He pulled back once more, and she opened her eyes to one of the most delicious sights she’d ever seen. The Doctor was above her, weight still propped on his left elbow while his right hand caressed her hair. His eyes were the darkest she’d ever seen them, and his fair skin was flushed pink from his forehead down to the bit of chest she could see. His lips were red and slightly swollen, and she felt the uncontrollable urge to nibble on his pouty lower one.
She raised herself just enough to do just that, and nearly giggled when the Doctor moaned appreciatively. He really was just a bloke, alien or not.
Both of her hands were buried in his hair by the time he pulled back once more. Her hands slid down to rest on his chest, while his remained braced on either side of her head; they stared at each other. The Doctor kept looking at her; her eyes, down to her lips, back to her eyes, over to the side of her head, back to her lips...he didn’t seem to know what to do with himself. For her part, she wasn’t quite sure what to do, either. Did she really want to shag him? Well, yes, of course she did. But here and now? A niggling voice inside her head said ‘no.’ As this was the same voice that had gone conveniently missing when she brought up the condom the night before, she thought it might not have much credibility left.
The condom. She had assumed he didn’t; the past minutes and hours had given her an excellent reason to reconsider that assumption. The question now was if he did, how did he? She chewed her lip as she considered the question, her eyes lingering on that delicious bottom lip of his.
“Problem, Rose?” His voice was laced with humour, and called her back to the present. His eyes were now closer to their normal colour, and the corners were once again crinkled in amusement.
She blushed. “No! No problem.” Her voice practically squeaked, and she cringed; the Doctor pounced.
“Are you sure? You seem to be trying to solve the Vrombox Proof. If I’m distracting you, I could stop....” He leaned down and whispered the last, sending a shiver up her spine. She’d always assumed his flirting was down to his cluelessness, but she was beginning to seriously suspect he was just a terrible tease.
“No, no, no need.” She turned her head, trying to capture his lips with hers; he pulled back with alacrity and gave her a naughty smile. She pouted. “There was no problem. No proof. No need for you to stop.”
“Are you sure? You certainly looked like you were trying to work something out.” He punctuated his statement with several light kisses along her jaw; he once again evaded her when she tried to kiss him in return.
This would never do. Time to call his bluff. “I was trying to figure how things would work if we...well, you know.” She felt her cheeks blush scarlet, but forced herself to meet his eye. He looked gobsmacked.
“You what?” He leaned back, staring at her in disbelief.
“I was trying to figure out if you...well, if we...were...you know.”
He shifted so he was sitting on his knees, staring at her as though she were some strange and exotic creature. She sat up and scooted so her back was against the corner of the divan; perhaps being forward had been the wrong plan of attack. She once more began to chew on the corner of her lip.
“Are you saying-am I meant to understand-that you were trying to figure out how things would work if we shagged?” The Doctor’s voice was laced with disbelief.
Rose hadn’t thought it possible, but she flushed an even darker shade of red. Bashfully, she nodded her head, her eyes looking down towards the Doctor’s knees.
“Rose Tyler. You naughty minx.” The Doctor’s voice was far lower, far more intense than she had expected. She raised her gaze in shock, and found the Doctor’s eyes had once more gone dark. She stilled, hypnotized by what she saw. She felt like prey, pinned under a predator’s gaze, and she swallowed.
Even though she was looking right at him, she didn’t see the Doctor move. She just knew he claimed her mouth with his own, his torso pressed against hers, his hands grasping her upper arms, trying to pull her closer. Lost in the passion of the kiss, she was startled by the suddenness of his release, although his hands were still grasping her arms, and he pulled back far enough to gaze quite seriously at her.
“I want very much to show you. How things would work. But...” He looked down at her lips, then back up to her eyes. He raised a hand to her cheek and lightly brushed his cool knuckles against her searingly hot skin; her eyes closed involuntarily. “But....”
She opened her eyes to find him still looking at her-but his gaze had shifted. Where it had been full of passion when she’d closed her eyes, it was now filled with uncertainty. She took his loose hand in both of hers, turned it over, lightly ran her fingers over the palm. His eyes closed, and she could see the tension in his shoulders relax. He sighed, and she brought his palm up to lay a gentle kiss in it. “But you’re not ready, yeah?”
He opened his eyes, looked at her, and gave her a rueful grin. “That’s one way of putting it, yes.”
She sighed. He shifted, moving to sit beside her, bringing an arm around her and pulling her in close. She snuggled against him. “We could, you know. But I need...I need...”
“...more time?” she finished. The irony apparently wasn’t lost on her, either.
He brushed a light kiss over her hair, breathing in the scent as he squeezed her to him. “More time. It takes some time for my biology to build to that. I could kiss you until the proverbial cows come home-oh, how I could do that-but one day of it isn’t enough. Consider it...” He paused, and as she looked up at him, she could have sworn he blushed. “Consider it extensive foreplay.” He rushed the words out.
She gawped; he shifted under her scrutiny. “What? Time Lords. Lots of time. Our bodies are biologically geared to that.”
“How extensive is this foreplay?”
He paused, thinking. “Oh, I don’t know. It’s been ages since I’ve had to find out. Not much point when you can’t just go for a quick shag, you know.” Rose blinked, and tucked her head back against his chest. He squeezed her to him again, before whispering, “Rose.”
She looked up at him; he had the nerve to look bemused. “What?”
“I wasn’t a monk, you know. I’ve always been foxy; it would have been a crime to let that go to waste.” He winked at her, his cheekiness causing her to laugh. Of course he’d have been randy; nine hundred years was a long time for exploring and dancing.
“Right, so how long is this foreplay thing?”
“Weeks, I should think.”
“Weeks?!”
“Weeks. Weeks of kissing,” he placed a gentle kiss on her lips, “and dancing, and drinking strawberries and eating champagne....” She giggled. “Drinking champagne and eating strawberries, that is. And more kissing.” He leaned down and gave her a proper snog; she felt dazed when the kiss finally broke. “And who knows. It may not take weeks at all. There’s only one way to find out. “He leaned down, and the two of them set to working out exactly how long it would take.
At some point during the exploration, he had the most brilliant idea. “You know-my biology-is geared toward-needing time,” he remarked, around the exchange of lingering open-mouthed kisses with tantalizing hints of tongue. “But your biology-is quite-quite-ready.”
“Are you-trying to talk to me?” managed Rose, because she wasn’t in the best state to have a conversation. At some point she had ended up sprawled fully underneath him, and the whisper of his weight, not quite descending upon her but close enough for her to sense, was as distracting as the kisses he was now giving her. Nine hundred years: He was not just a good kisser; he was phenomenal.
He actually laughed and rubbed his nose against hers. “I’m giving you a biology lesson, Rose.”
“Oh, are you?” she inquired, archly, lifting an eyebrow at him. “I never had a biology lesson like this in school.”
“How shockingly boring was your school?” He smiled and kissed the tip of her nose, before shifting slightly to leave a line of soft, devastating kisses along her jaw.
“Mind you-“ She was never going to get tired of losing her hands in that hair, she thought, on a sigh of pleasure as he pressed his tongue against her racing pulse point, gauging it, and she closed her eyes and arched her neck toward him. “I’d’ve stayed and got my A-levels in this type of biology. Mmm,” she murmured, almost involuntarily. He was no longer so much kissing her as he was nuzzling at her skin, breathing out words that were ghosting over her, heat chasing in their wake. She couldn’t catch what he was saying. But she wasn’t trying very hard.
“Rose,” he mumbled, and he did kiss her now, kissed the curve of one breast, as low as he could before the material of her gown interfered with him. “You see, I’d very much like to…” He dipped his tongue as far as it would go into the crease between her breasts, while his hands wriggled his way underneath her and worked at the zipper, just a tad. Just enough so that when he tugged at the dress, her breasts popped free. “Ah,” he said, pleased with himself as he surveyed them. “No bra. Did you suspect how the evening would end?” He waggled his eyebrows at her.
Rose had opened her eyes at the rush of air on her breasts. She lifted her head slightly so she could see him. “I couldn’t wear a bra. My bra had straps, and the dress was strapless.”
His face fell in what looked like genuine disappointment. “Really? So practical? I was hoping you weren’t wearing any knickers, either. Wellll, next time, right? Next time I take you dancing to Gershwin, no knickers, Rose, do you promise?” He blew playfully on her nipple, watching in what looked like clinical interest as it tightened even more.
Her breasts were aching to be touched by him, but his hands were resting just beneath them, feeling the expansion and contraction of her ribcage as she breathed, and he kept his lips hovering just out of reach. She moved unthinkingly, focused on getting closer to him, to getting his hands or his mouth on her. She was aware he knew exactly what she wanted, which made it infuriating when he leaned over, stuck out his tongue, and, with the very merest tip and a look of utmost concentration on his face, touched it as briefly as possible to her nipple.
The swearing went on in her head but she thought he heard it anyway, because he looked up at her and smiled. “Are you thinking uncharitable thoughts about me?”
“Yes,” she gritted, between her teeth.
“Oh, Rose,” he chided, still smiling. “How unkind of you.” He looked back down at her breasts, surveying them with eyes that she could tell were dark with approval. She bit back a groan of sheer frustration. “Just when I was thinking such lovely thoughts about you,” he said before he dipped his head and swirled his tongue around the nipple he’d just been torturing.
Rose did groan then, and closed her eyes, her world narrowing to the pinpoint of the Doctor’s very brilliant tongue and hands, nipping and sucking and stroking and fondling, and her blood went skipping through her veins, riotously happy. Her hands closed around clumps of his hair, and she moved restlessly underneath him, arching toward him. He was mad to take them down this path, she thought. Mad or reckless or clueless. She wanted more of him. She wanted all of him. Immediately. Now.
“Oh, but, Rose,” he said, biting her above her right breast and then soothing it with his tongue. “Patience is a virtue.”
Her eyes shot open, and she lifted her head, looking down at her hands closed in the Doctor’s messy brown hair, as his mouth wandered a leisurely path across her chest. “Did I say that out loud?” she asked, suddenly fearful.
She sensed his mouth curve into a smug, self-satisfied grin against her skin. “Yes. I take it you’re thinking happier thoughts now?”
Rose didn’t answer. She dropped her head back against the divan, mortified.
“Do you know what I’ve wanted to do since seeing you in this dress?” He licked a pattern onto her left breast. A letter? A ‘D’? Really? She thought.
For some reason, she found that adorable. She stroked fondly at his hair, combing her fingers through it, and smiled at the sensation of the Doctor’s breath on the underside of her breast, which she had never really allowed herself to imagine before. “Knowing you? A lecture on the particular planet where this rare brand of silk was manufactured?”
He chuckled. He was moving down her body now, planting a warm, wet kiss on her abdomen through the fabric of the dress. “Guess again.”
Rose moved restlessly and tried to keep her mind on his wordplay instead of his foreplay, especially as his head was now positioned directly over the juncture of her thighs. “Uh, tell me how many yards of fabric it took to make the skirt?” she said, desperately, and, because he was driving her mad just hovering over her, she arched toward that teasing mouth.
His hands on her hips pushed her back into the divan. “Uh-uh,” he said, slowly. “I wanted to crawl right under this skirt.” He moved down the length of her, gathering up silk and pushing it up and out of his way, toward her waist. She wriggled a bit to help him, grabbing the bunched up layers to keep them off her legs. “Better,” he murmured, bending to lick at her kneecap. “I wish I could explain to you-” He planted another kiss, a shade higher than the first one. “-what you taste like to me.” Another kiss. He was crawling upward by degrees. She made a small, strangled sound of frustration. If he didn’t hurry up and touch her, she wasn’t sure what she’d do in desperation. “The fact that you want me,” he continued, on his inexorable path, “you’re drenched in that taste, you know. I’m getting drunk on it. I may never be able to stop tasting you.” And then, when she least expected it, when she was focused on the excruciating upward movement of his mouth as he spoke, his fingers brushed over her knickers, the merest hint of contact, and she said, “oh,” in surprise and rose to meet him but he had already withdrawn.
“And the sound of you,” he went on, as if he’d done nothing at all. Rose heaved at oxygen, quivering with anticipation for another touch. “I can hear your blood, thundering through your veins.” Scrape of teeth against the inside of her thigh, so close now that she made a sound like a sob and felt a shiver run through her. “And your heart, galloping. You’re deafening, Rose.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “You’re all I can hear. You’re all that there is.”
She felt his breath, tickling along her skin, and she waited. “Knickers,” he said, then, his voice suddenly loud after the whisper he’d just spoken in. “Must get them out of my way.”
He was a tease, she thought, furiously, as he nonchalantly hooked his thumbs into the waistband of her knickers and pulled at them, and as soon as his bloody biology kicked in, she was damn well going to give him a taste of his own medicine.
“Ah,” he said, satisfied. She saw the knickers get thrown off the divan, and the Doctor sounded for all the world as if he were ready to undertake a rather interesting experiment, which was not at all how she’d envisioned this. It seemed ungrateful, but she wanted him as hazy and mindless with passion as she was. Could the Doctor even get that way? The whole thing seemed so very unsatisfying if he was going to stay so very detached.
“Stop,” she whispered, but it sounded like a shout to her ears.
Maybe to his as well. His head popped up, comically, from the froth of silk that blocked her view of her lower body. His eyes were dark and dazed, which was at least something, but now he looked anxious, which wasn’t at all what she had intended. “Right,” he said. “Right. Sorry.” He was speaking so quickly that the words were tumbling over each other. “Didn’t mean to-Should have asked, of course-I mean, for permission-to-” He rolled out from between her legs and sat on the edge of the divan. “We should maybe have breakfast,” he said, as if he hadn’t just tossed her knickers over his shoulder.
“The only thing you’re having for breakfast is me,” she told him, severely, which struck him speechless and he blinked at her in astonishment. “I just need…” She twisted off the divan, standing not quite steadily and tugging at her zipper. He watched as if unsure what was going on. She turned to him in frustration. “Take the dress off me,” she said, and leaned over and began unbuttoning his shirt.
“I’m sorry?” he squeaked out.
“You heard me,” she said, fingers working over the buttons. “What did I tell you? That I wanted you now, immediately, all of you? Maybe you can taste me and you can hear me, but I can’t do the same to you, not without doing this.” She pulled the shirt off of him. He seemed too shocked to be able to think to help her. And then she pressed her face into the centre of his chest, which she had done so many times when he had been dressed in a hundred or so layers but never skin to skin, and she breathed him in and felt him tremble in reaction. “See?” she murmured. “Now I can hear you.” And she could, the comforting double beat of a heart on either side of her head. “Your hearts,” she smiled. “They’re galloping, Doctor.” And then she pressed a kiss over first one and then the other.
He moved closer to her, so he could reach behind her for her zipper, as she nipped and nuzzled at his chest, and he was taking quick, unsteady breaths, his fingers moving clumsily, so that it took an age for him to get the zipper down and she wanted to tell him just to rip it. She finally felt the bodice loosen, stepped away for a moment and out of it, and tried to move back into his embrace-
But he scrambled off the bed, standing in front of her, arms out to keep her from moving closer, and ran his eyes up and down the length of her several times. Rose blushed wildly, worse the longer he kept looking. “Stop it, would you?” she hissed at him.
“No,” he said, softy. “I want to remember.”
Well, two could play at that game, she thought, studying his chest, the smattering of brown hair that swirled toward his navel. She smiled. “You look just like a human.”
“What do you mean?” he asked, sounding suspicious.
“You even have a belly button,” she said, and, because she really couldn’t resist, she leaned down and dipped her tongue into it.
He lifted his hands into her hair, and she felt him brush a kiss over the top of her head, which made her breath catch in her throat. “Oh, see,” he rasped out. “Now, you’re cheating.”
“You play dirty in bed,” she told him. “Trainers off.”
“I do no such thing,” he retorted, shocked, hopping as he toed his trainers off.
“Socks, too.”
“What difference-“
“If I’m going to be naked, you are, too.”
“You’re into equal opportunity sex,” he remarked, as he balled his socks up and tossed them out of the way.
“Absolutely,” she laughed, working at the button on his pants.
“You’re really wasting your time down there. Trust me,” he said, as she scraped the zipper of his fly down.
“Always,” she assured him, honestly. “But I’m into equal opportunity-” She cut herself off abruptly,
as she let his trousers drop. And then she looked up at him. “You don’t wear any pants?” she asked, in a shocked whisper.
“Er, no,” he answered. “Is that a problem?”
She stared into his bewildered brown eyes. “Never?”
He smiled winningly. “Nope.” He popped the “p.” “Never, ever.” He paused, the smile fading. “Is that a problem?” he asked again, plainly anxious about it.
But she suddenly poked the tip of her tongue out of the corner of her mouth, watching his eyes darken as they focused on it, and she grinned full-fledged. “You’re such an alien,” she teased him.
“As they come,” he said, absently, clearly thinking other thoughts.
“So you’re sure nothing I could do could…?” She trailed off meaningfully, on a blush.
“No. I’m meant to respond to activity. I mean, my activity. Passivity is not going to help. Passivity is the enemy of Time Lord arousal. Used to have that in fortune cookies. Welllll, our equivalent of fortune cookies. You get the point. Except not as much fun to play the ‘in bed’ game with, because when it’s already clearly talking about being in bed, then adding ‘in bed’ doesn’t add anything at all. ‘Passivity is the enemy of Time Lord arousal in bed.’ Well, of course it is. Where else would it be? Not that Time Lords really used beds, so the ‘in bed’ thing is really kind of-” He realized that she was staring at him as if she couldn’t believe he’d chosen this moment to start to babble. Maybe less talking was called for, he thought. “Anyway. I need to be snogging and other things and how long has it been since I’ve kissed you?”
“Much too long,” she said, as she launched herself on top of him.