A/N: hopefully I've cleaned this up enough. Go on... ask me if I'm bovvered.
Part 7
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"You've gone all goose-bumpy," Donna commented as Peter re-joined her in the swimming pool and she laid a hand on his shoulder.
"It's fucking cold out there," he agreed. "Warm me up, wench," he joked, and pulled her close to his chest.
"You sod!" she protested with a token gesture of pushing him away.
Needless to say, he wasn't going to be distracted from his goal now, and he swayed their bodies together in time to the soft music that wafted in from the lounge on the other side of the door. "Let's warm each other up," he suggested, bringing his face next to hers and pressing their cheeks together. His hands slowly smoothed over the skin of her back, tracing unknown paths before heading southwards to tantalise her senses.
Donna let him coax her into trance-like state, held within his loving embrace, loving the way he made her feel and never wanting this moment to end. Lifting her head, she peered into his face and caressed a fingertip along his jawline. "You're very good at this. No wonder you earn a decent living as a magician. This is a lovely illusion," she gratefully murmured.
"Shit! Don't be like that," he tightly complained. "I know you won't believe it, but this means something to me; you mean something to me, Donna."
Inevitably she snorted her scorn.
"No, honestly you do," Peter insisted, ghosting his lips over hers. "I'm not going to suddenly propose, declare my undying love or anything; but this moment… This is special."
"Special?" she gently queried. "Special in what way?"
It was hard for him to not flinch away from the vulnerability in her gaze. Normally he would have run as far as he could from any women who demanded any emotional attachment from him; he just wasn't made that way. People come, and people go. It was a fact of life; especially with the way his life went. And they tended to hurt you if you let them. Yet here he was with a woman he had only met a few hours ago, drastically aware of a connection between them that could promise all sorts of treats and delights in the future if he let it; if she let it. They obviously both had their own trolley-load of personal baggage to cope with.
So he shrugged his shoulders in denial. "Fuck knows. But there's just something about being with you," he reluctantly admitted.
"I bet you say that to all the girls," she disparaged, smiling her resignation.
Indignation flared in him. He didn't want her thinking so little of herself; not now. "I've never said that to anyone before," he confessed; his voice barely above a whisper.
She batted at his shoulder. "Geroff! You'll be telling me next that you've fallen madly in love me."
That broke his resolve. He had to prove to her the truth of his words. "Never," he breathily repeated, and kissed her. "When I say I never have, I mean it. Only an arsehole would lie to you."
It started out as such a tender kiss, full of sweetness; and she happily accepted it. But having made one confession, his body was eager to add another one as it acted on his need for intimacy; and that need overwhelmed him. This didn't have to remain casual, this could go further, be more than a one night stand if he played his cards right. "I want you," he groaned out.
"Yes, oh yes," she moaned in agreement.
The water made barely a sound as he guided them back into the warm depths of the pool. They clung together, moving as one, hands smoothing over flesh, caressing, exploring, adoring in turn as their mouths touched in gasps and sighs.
"I do have one question," Donna stuttered out as Peter pressed enticingly into her body. "How are we going to avoid drowning?"
He groaned in frustration. "By turning into fucking fish. Are you saying that you want to take this into the bedroom?"
"I'm saying that it might be a safer idea if you want any other position," she retorted.
The saucy sod deliberately thrust in further. "Why? What were you offering?"
"Well," she considered thoughtfully, "if I go on top you'd end up breathing water at this rate."
"That's true," he conceded. "Let's go find ourselves somewhere more amenable. And then you can show me what else you had in mind. But first I want to..." He then backed her up against the wall of the pool, gripped her bottom with both hands, and rocked his hips fervently.
She clung onto his shoulders, digging her nails into his back and gasping for breath as he took possession of first her mouth and then her body. A whimper forced its way out as he urged her on.
The walls reverberated with their loud cries of passion.
~0~0~
The Doctor stood in the doorway and sniffed. He could still smell Donna but her scent trail was heavily masked by the odour of chlorine; the sort normally used in swimming pools. Surely there wasn't a pool this high up in a building? Then he heard the faint sound of splashing. She could be drowning, or being attacked, or both.
Frantic with worry, he ran towards where the sounds led, and his fear grew exponentially when he heard groans. Groans that seemed to be from pain and effort. Was Peter throttling her? Beating her up? Or even something far worse? He almost didn't want to push the door that had been ajar fully open and see the horrors within.
"DONNA!" he called out as his hand landed heavily on the doorframe.
The glass door slammed against the wall behind it, hoping to startle the occupants of the pool, but he was out of luck. All he saw was a single slipper floating on the surface of the pool, a large puddle with a trail of wet footsteps and an empty room. Where was she?!
Furious and frightened, the Doctor hurriedly decided to search each and every room. In fact he would have searched the whole hotel if it came to it in his quest to find Donna. Unable to cope with the swirl of emotions it evoked in him, he turned tail and stormed out to pace the living area. All the arguments to say something, do anything, to stop the images in his head and rationalise the scenario he had found, raced for attention as he gripped his hair in agitation.
~0~0~
Fervent kissing in the bedroom was suddenly interrupted by the sound of a man calling out a name. The couple hastily stopped fondling one another as soon as they realised it came from within the suite.
"What the fuck!" Peter reacted by dragging himself out of his bed to confront their intruder; but first he made sure Donna had on her dressing gown before donning a towel. There was no way he was going to give the bastard the satisfaction of being faced by a furious naked man, and nor would he allow them to see his woman like some pervy feature in a nude peep show.
Fury exploded out of Peter, but Donna was completely mortified to see the Doctor standing in the middle of Peter's lounge area looking extremely formidable. How the heck had he got in? Why hadn't he just knocked on the door? And whatever should she do now? Had she blown it with him forever?
Inevitably Peter glared at the man standing before him so confidently. "Fucking hell! Piss off out of it, you sick bastard! Who the fuck do you think you are?!"
To his annoyance, the man merely waved at him with a plastered on cheery grin.
"Hello! I'm the Doctor," he declared.
"And who the fuck might that be?" Peter angrily bit back.
"I'm the man who is taking Donna away from here," the Doctor explained, reaching out towards her, "and away from you."
Peter protectively stepped in front of Donna. "Oh no you fucking ain't! You can't just waltz in here and demand that people go with you."
"Peter, it's okay," Donna deliberately spoke softly, and tried to placate him with a gentle touch on his arm. "This is my friend, the Doctor. I told you about him."
He swung his attention onto her. "You didn't tell me this about him!" Peter spat at her. "I know there was all that business in the bathroom, back when we met, but…"
"What did you do to her?" the Doctor growled menacingly in a low voice as his imagination tried to go into overdrive concerning what the 'business in the bathroom' could be.
"None of your fucking business!" Peter yelled.
"Donna?" the Doctor queried, seeking some sort of confirmation, anything, to stop him worrying and take away his growing impulse to kill Peter Vincent on the spot.
"I erm…" She gulped nervously. "I found him in a bathroom, slumped on the floor, and I thought he was you."
"I'd been sick, if you really must know," Peter added with much disgust. He could feel himself being judged for his earlier actions. "It happens sometimes."
"Did he do that to your leg?" the Doctor cried out having noticed the gash that ran down below her knee.
"No, I'm okay. It wasn't him but one of those dinky things," Donna reassured him as he hurriedly knelt to closely examine the wound.
With gentle expertise, the Doctor ran his finger over the laceration and then pulled out his sonic screwdriver to scan it. "All signs of poison have gone," he commented; clearly impressed. "How did you purge the wound?" he wondered as he looked up at Donna, keeping a possessive hand on her knee.
"It was Peter who found a way. He had some holy water in his pocket and a crucifix."
Peter felt pride as she credited his involvement; and was also beginning to feel a little left out in this scenario as he watched the Doctor continue to kneel at Donna's feet and generally make himself look a fool. "I'm a vampire slayer," he supplied in explanation when the Doctor bothered to look at him. "The gear's part of the normal weaponry. This fucking little brown hot water bottle thing jumped out and bit Donna on the leg, so I stabbed it with a cross. It worked," he added with a satisfied smirk.
Highly irritated, the Doctor asked, "Why did you come here?"
Donna quickly answered in order to quell the anger she could feel radiating off him. "To recover and have a bite to eat."
"And the nakedness?" the Doctor queried, pointing to Donna's dressing gown.
"Oh! We erm… we had a swim. There's a pool in this suite. You ought to see it, Doctor."
"No thank you."
His face was blank; set in stone. It really worried Donna. "I'll get dressed and then we can go home." She hastily ran into the nearest bedroom. "Have you got a carrier bag I can carry my wet underwear in, Peter?" she nervously asked when she re-joined them less than a minute later.
He made no reply but started to search through various drawers and cupboards in the kitchen area of the suite.
Nothing had been said during her absence, but the Doctor in particular looked like thunder. "What happened to your underwear? Did it get ripped off?"
Trust him to worry so, she thought. "Don't be daft! It got soaking wet when we went swimming, of course."
"I see," he said tightly.
Peter reappeared with a bag that he handed to Donna whilst shooting the Doctor a cautious look. "Here you go. Is this it? Are you off now?"
"Yes." Donna looked quite contrite.
"Do I er... get to see you again?" Peter enquired, trying not to sound too hopeful in front of the Doctor.
"I don't know," she honestly answered. These things were always so uncertain.
The Doctor drew in a sharp breath. "I'll let you say goodbye, and wait for you outside by the lift, Donna."
"Thank you," she gratefully murmured. "Peter," she softly started to say once the Doctor had gone through the door. "It's been lovely knowing you, and I doubt that I'll ever forget tonight."
He stepped closer and held her within his arms. "But you're telling me this is it. Our time is over," he stated forlornly. Caressing her cheek, he dipped forward to kiss her one last time. "Goodbye, my angel," he whispered.
She smiled, and returned the kiss. "Goodbye Buffy."
~0~0~
