A/N: Final warning! This chapter contains strong sexuality and adult themes and is meant for mature readers only! Please do not read if you are offended or made uncomfortable by sexual situations/eroticism. I should note that I have tried to write this chapter as tastefully as I could without compromising any of the hotness. As a last word of advice, some of you may want to run a cold shower after reading!

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Chapter 3: A Promise Fulfilled

Sam walked as though in a trance, depending upon Rose to steer his way, for he felt that at any moment his knees might give way underneath him. He could feel the electricity that was running between them like wildfire and could interpret the signals she was giving off as plain as day. Of course, he knew in a practical sort of way how the night must necessarily culminate - hadn't Pippin dropped enough hints as to that already this day? But now that the time had arrived, he was desperately nervous in a way he could not have anticipated. His mind whizzed and whirred erratically as an array of emotions surged through him, emotions whose like he had never felt before. The blood that travelled in his veins flowed hotter than he could ever remember, yet he felt a trembling, crawly feeling dance across his skin that made his teeth want to chatter. He wondered if Rose was experiencing the same sensations, but the shadows that had gathered in the halls were too deep for him to read her face.

After what seemed an unusually long time, they found themselves standing in the bedroom where a low fire was crackling in the hearth. That'll be Frodo's doing, Sam thought to himself in a brief moment of clarity. Rose's hand was still pressed in his, and he suddenly grew concerned that his palms might be sweating in her grasp. She turned to look at him, and drew her eyebrows together slightly.

"Sam dear," she said, now taking his hand in both of hers and holding it against her chest. "You're shaking."

Sam swallowed thickly and managed a crooked half-smile.

"Er, well, I reckon I am," he stammered, running his free hand sheepishly through his curls.

"It's all right, Sam," Rose comforted. "There's naught to be afraid of. It's only me."

"Only?" Sam replied incredulously. "Only? Aye, only the lady of my dreams, only the lass that I've loved as far back as my mind can think to, only..." but Rose silenced his unfinished thought with a passionate kiss that sent tiny thrills all throughout him and got his heartbeat racing faster than before. He felt her arms wrap lovingly around his waist and he cradled her face in his hands, then let them slide down her neck. He felt the satiny fabric of her dress give way as he pushed down the sleeves and exposed her bare shoulders. He pulled back, astonished by his own boldness, and saw the firelight dance across the revealed skin, skin so white it seemed to gleam with an ethereal light that came from within. She looked up at him with her long, curled lashes which shaded her desirous eyes.

"Rosie," Sam said with sincere awe in his voice, "you are so beautiful." He gazed at her with profoundest love, a look that melted her heart and made her wish to reciprocate all that depth of feeling and more so that he might feel as special and as wanted as she did. "How did you ever fall for someone like me?" he asked aloud, wonderingly.

"How could I not?" Rose replied, touching a hand to the side of his face. "What maiden would not consider herself the luckiest in all the Shire to have someone as brave and as kind and as good as you for a husband? And so handsome," she added, her eyes raking over the features of his face. "I think I always knew, even back when we were still wee little things, that you were different from the other lads," she went on. "You had a gentleness about you, a sweetness that you seldom see in lads at such an age. It started out as an innocent fancy, but it grew into something more as I watched you grow and saw the hobbit that you were to become. Oh Sam, I've loved you so long now. So when you left the year before last without so much as a line in the post, I thought...well, I didn't know what to think. I was so worried that you might not come back, that I might not see you again," she said, casting her eyes downward.

"Oh Rose, I know how hard it was, and I hope you can forgive me for all I put you through. I had to go, you understand, but all that is done now. For I'm not going anywhere, not without you. I'm here now, right here with you, and that's where I'll stay always," he said. He pushed back her long tresses that cascaded down her front behind her ear and kissed her uncovered shoulder. His lips moved upward as he blazed a trail of kisses up the side of her neck, each one a spark of delight.

"Oh, that feels lovely," she said breathily. Sam's heart was pumping furiously now as his lips brushed against her earlobe. He saw her chest rise and fall more rapidly and heard her breathing come in quicker in little exhalations of bliss that were but a foretaste of the ecstasy still to come. He threw back his jacket, tugging the sleeves off of his arm impatiently as he lingered on the spot on her neck that she had reacted to most strongly and felt her hands at his shirt buttons. Everything became suddenly heightened as he heard each one being undone by her sure fingers with a hushed popping sound and perceived the fabric being parted like a curtain. He halted his kisses so that she could push the shirt off of his shoulders while his own fumbling fingers went to the intricate lacings of her bodice, but his excitement was so great and his hand so unsteady that he was utterly at a loss.

"My big clumsy fingers aren't made for these delicate things," he said by way of an apology. Rose gave a breathless laugh that was quite obviously tinged with the heat of her arousal.

"It'll get easier with practice," she said. "Let me give you a hand with that," she said, and assisting him with a few swift maneuvers, was unlaced and unclasped. All that was left was to remove the loose garment, and that she left to Sam. Carefully, he lifted it above her head and stood back, soaking in every detail of her. After a moment under his admiration, she stepped out of her skirts and he was overcome. Her took her into his arms, kissing her passionately on the mouth as the two of them sunk onto the bed. He unloosed his belt as her hands flew to the waistband of his breeches, pulling them down and off. He kicked at his pant-legs and felt himself being guided by a carnal instinct that he did not know that he possessed. His calloused hands lost all of their roughness as he touched his new bride, his awkwardness and uncertainty all but forgotten as he explored the curves of her body with his roaming palms. He kissed the line of her jaw, moving down to the hollow of her throat and the ridge of her collarbone. He paused just above the soft mounds of her breasts and, with an air of decision, moved his moist lips around their fullness and taking one of her nipples into his mouth, bathed it in the delicious wetness of his tongue. A groan of rapture sounded through her as he kissed and sucked luxuriously on the sensitive tip of her breast, then moved on to the one that had not been attended to, and the light of the fire glistened off the shining wet marks that his tongue traced on her flesh.

There was now such a maddening throbbing inside of them both begging to be satiated that the moment could not be delayed for much longer. Responding to the call, Rose wrapped her legs around Sam's back, crossing her feet lightly at the ankles and tilted her hips upward to receive him in full, opening for him like a blossoming flower. He moved in tentatively at first, and finding the warm, wet space that was aching to be filled, he pushed his hips forward and a small whimper escaped her lips.

"I'm not hurting you am I?" he said suddenly, bracing his arms and holding himself upright on the mattress.

"No, no, please, don't stop," she cried.

Emboldened by her reply he pressed his hips against hers as she arched her back, moaning in the throes of this unknown joy. He held himself inside her for a moment of exquisite pleasure as their bodies formed a tight seal. He felt the pink buds of her breasts sink into his chest, and she felt the soft tufts of hair and the work-hardened muscles meld into her as he pulled out slowly, agonisingly. She gasped at his slow withdrawal and, tightening her legs around his back, forced him forward again before he could pull out all the way. He slid in again, relishing in the glorious tenderness of her flesh, of the energy exploding within and between them. The ease and smoothness of his entry was such that the two began to move in easy rhythm with one another, the undulations of their hips perfectly synchronized. He could hear her breath quickening and realised his own was coming in heavier, more raggedly. He buried his face in the crook of her neck, kissing the spot behind her ear as her hips rocked beneath his.

He went slowly, never hurrying, holding back his release and prolonging their lovemaking to euphoric lengths. She pressed her hands flat against his back and clutched at his shoulder blades as he entered and reentered, over and over, so many times she could barely believe how long the moment of climax could be postponed. Oh, that such pleasure should be so boundless, so freely given! Every moment of her life before this night seemed only a prelude to this hour when her long-dormant passion was to be awoken, and she wanted to savour each and every minute of this blissful unification. She gripped his back tighter, sometimes placing an occasional tiny kiss on the broad expanse of his shoulder, sometimes raising her head to lock lips with him even as he moved inside of her.

Sam's moans drifted in her ear, matching her own, and she felt a certain urgency mounting in her and in him as well, for the two of them were of one body. He moved a bit faster, but only slightly, then a little faster still. Then, somehow reining himself in, he slowed and applied a firm, focussed pressure on her hips. His thrusts grew deeper, more purposeful. Their lovers' cries grew louder as he plunged ardently into her, her back curved into him as he pushed further and further than he had before, supporting the small of her back with a hand that drew her closer and allowed him to delve more deeply. At last, there was a moment of sublime tension as their bodies went suddenly rigid. Little did either of them know, Sam would lay a seed that night more precious even than the silver nut that he had planted in the Party Field that had been Galadriel's gift to him, and from it would grow a child more beautiful than the Shire had ever seen.

Their union consummated, Sam kissed Rose's forehead when he had given all of himself and collapsed next to her, their breath still coming in little hitches. The fire had long since died in the hearth, enveloping the room in a sea of silent and comfortable blackness. Sam pulled the covers up around them both all the way up to their shoulders and gathered Rose up in his arms, kissing her hair with its heady, fragrant scent. He cradled her body with his, one hand lying tranquilly in the dip of her waist, the other draped gently over her bosom.

"Are you all right, love?" he asked softly.

"Better than all right," she purred, a sense of utter fulfillment taking hold of her. "I cannot remember a time when I have ever been so happy."

"I love you, Rosie dear, I love you more than I could ever find words to say," said Sam, stroking her hair and planting another kiss on the back of her head.

"And I love you, Samwise Gamgee," she echoed, snuggling more deeply into him, delighting in the quiet strength of his arms, the softness of his middle pillowed against her back. "I am so glad that I waited - for you, my love, were every bit worth the wait."

"I promise, Rosie, that I'll never make you wait again as long as you live, not if I can help it. That's my solemn word, and don't think I'll go forgetting it."

"I am glad, Sam, for I could not bear to be parted from you for long now," she said, then flipped over on her other side to face him so that her lips could meet his. She pressed the length of her body against him and Sam made good on his oath to never again make his bride wait as they made love a second time with only the slanting moonlight to outline their naked and enraptured forms in the drowsy darkness.