[Rating Warning: this chapter has some M-heavy material. As always, scenes start and end with a bolded line.]

If only… Rose twirled the pen between her fingers, which ached to scribble down the incessant thoughts and dreams she had been experiencing. The ones of what she pictured for her life after committing to leave with Jack on the Titanic. The paper in front of her was dotted in black ink from her reluctance; each time she would set the tip down, she would pick it up back. She had to stop thinking so hard, and just let her imagination run wild before it tore apart her sanity.

Taking a deep breath, she committed to unburdening her mind and didn't hesitate once her hand was pressed against the paper. We would be downing beers on the beach... Splashing salty ocean water in each other's faces… He'd pull me down onto the sand I'd never felt between my toes before and tell me he loved me…

"First impression of California. What do you think?"

With her one and only bag of possessions slung across her shoulder, Rose stepped out of the train station and into the blinding sun. Unlike the east coast, where the air was still chilly entering the spring, the weather was temperate and sunny, only a few fluffy clouds occupying the bright blue sky. Palm trees protruded from the dry ground, a peculiar sight for the Northeastern socialite who'd never been further west than Pittsburgh.

A dainty smile crossed her lips. "I absolutely love it."

Jack grabbed her hand and led her to a nearby inn, where they planned to stay for a day or two while searching for a place to live and work. When Rose dropped her bag on the ground of their room, her fatigue from the three-day journey also fell off her shoulders. "Can we see the beach and the pier?"

Jack looked into her eager eyes, bright with excitement, and her hands which were pleadingly clasped at her chest; and as exhausted as he was, he couldn't resist her invigorated spirit. "Sure." She clapped and headed straight for the door, practically skipping with elation. "But we'll come back here right after, right? You were just on the longest train ride of your life."

"Of course." Rose kissed his cheek and lingered near his ear. "But don't expect to get much rest tonight."

They walked towards the nearest pier, which wasn't difficult to spot given the towering roller coaster. Rose's hand gripped Jack's more tightly as they approached the place she'd been dreaming of since Jack spoke so fondly of his time here; he started pointing out the places along the boardwalk where he would sit to draw his portraits, which Rose drank in with hungry eyes. Breathing in the salty air and hearing the crash of the waves against the beach, she couldn't believe she had broken every chain that had been holding her back, and that she was actually in California without a single dollar to her name.

Despite it being the middle of a Tuesday, the pier was bustling with people enjoying the pleasant weather, and Jack stopped before joining the buzz. "Roller coaster," he said while gesturing to the wooden structure. "There's a stable far down there." He pointed south, where a couple of people could be seen in the distance riding horses on the sand. "Pub, across the street from the pier." He flashed her a cheeky grin. "There, you've seen it now. Can we head back to the room? Anymore walking and you're not going to get any of your fun…"

As much as Rose wanted to do everything they had talked about right then and there—riding the roller coaster until they threw up, drinking cheap beer, and riding horses on the surf—she knew that time was on her side now and she was free to do whatever she wanted. "All right," she said, blushing lightly. "Let's head back. I don't want you crashing on top of me…"

Back in the hotel room, Rose freshened up from the trip by washing her face and combing out her wild curls. She'd taken a bottle of perfume from home—mainly because the scent drove Jack over the edge—planning to use it sparingly for occasions like this, because God knew she wasn't going to be able to afford another bottle again. After dabbing some of the perfume on her neck and wrists, she stripped her clothes off and shimmied into a cheap robe provided in the bathroom.

Opening the door, she stood against the frame and played around with the sash preventing the robe from spilling open. Jack was already laying down on the bed, shirt unbuttoned but trousers still on. The devious smile on his face caused Rose's blood to concentrate between her legs, which started to throb. "Enjoy this act while it lasts," she said, referring to the robe that she'd untied and started to tease off her shoulders. "I didn't bring one with me, so next time, I may just come out naked…"

"Fine with me." Jack's voice was low, husky. The way his hungry eyes took in her body… She shivered as the robe dropped, and quickly searched to relieve the tension boiling under her skin by falling onto the bed and doing something she never would have dared try before: she straddled his hips, completely nude, and ran her hands over his warm chest, eventually finding their way to the waistline of his pants.

"Why are you making this harder for me?" she whispered seductively as she snuck under the fabric, pushing it down slightly.

Meanwhile, Jack's hands had found their way onto her body, leaving goosebumps behind as he delicately grazed the skin of her back, hips, waist, shoulders, and breasts. Rose picked up one of his hands that lingered on her chest and kissed the palm and wrist; she could feel a hardness starting to poke underneath her as she did so. She took control of both of his hands in her own and led them over the front of her torso before landing back on his pants. "Take them off."

It wasn't a request as much as a command. Rose rolled herself off, leaving her skin cold for the brief moment it took for him to tug his remaining clothes off and roll on top of her, immediately devouring her lips with his own.

"Jack," she moaned as he nipped at her bottom lip, and she basked in the warmth of his mouth as he buried his head in her neck. She gasped as his hand crept between her legs, knowing just where to knead with his fingers to make her groan.

Eventually, the building agitation and his kisses bruising her skin made Rose frantic, and she begged, "Please, Jack…"

His lips traveled up from her breast to her jaw. "I need you to say it."

Rose's stomach quivered as she said, "Take me to the stars."

Jack removed his dampened fingers and fulfilled her request, studying her face to make sure he wasn't hurting her. Ecstasy spread across her lips as his hips rode with hers; she grabbed one of his hands, pulling it onto the pillow under her head so that he had her wrist pinned down. He knew he had aimed at the right spot when she started to repeatedly cry his name, and he quickened the pace, not caring that it caused the headboard to knock on the wall.

With one final gasp, Rose felt the same way she did that first time in the Renault: like she had soared through the stars, and was now falling down from the sky encased in bliss. As she decompressed into the peaceful aftermath, she brushed aside his damp hair and placed soft kisses on his ear and neck.

Afterwards, they cuddled under the tangled sheets, both silent from awe and wonderment, with Jack eventually nodding off with his head on her shoulder as the pleasurable deed had taken the last bit of energy out of him. Rose entangled her fingers in his hair while staring at the bland white ceiling, playing out how perfect their life was going to be now that they had faced all the odds and were together.

"Miss Rose?"

Rose was startled out of her vivid imagination by Trudy at her door. The heat that had been growing in her pelvis moved to her cheeks, and she closed her journal as she addressed her friend. "Yes?"

"Dr. Clarkson is here for you."

"Thank you, Trudy. You can send him in."

She removed herself from the desk and sat on her bed, hands flat against her stomach as she waited and tried to shift her mind out of the intense scene she had imagined.

Tommy slammed three glasses of frothy beers onto the rickety table. "Drink up, you two. You deserve it."

Jack, Fabrizio, and Tommy were meeting up at the pub on their day off in an attempt to keep Jack's spirits up before he was to meet Rose at her house. Though Jack had been able to sneak back into his first job at the factory, he seriously considered finding something more flexible in order to try to see Rose more often; now that she was in a delicate condition, his anxiety amped up and he worried he needed to be easily available in case an emergency happened.

That...and he was also worried incessantly about running into Cal, knowing that he would be there. He didn't want to do anything that would put Rose in more jeopardy.

"What're you thinking, Jackie?" Tommy asked while Jack zoned out and left his beer untouched.

Jack grabbed the glass, if only to have something to do with his hands, and wiped the condensation off. "I'm just worried… This captor of hers, he's more than mean. He's brutal. I wanted this to happen more than anything, yet I'm surprised he said yes."

"Don't think too much into it, Jack," Fabrizio said. "You're going to see her. That's all that matters."

Jack nodded his head, though half-heartedly. To cheer up the sulking lad, Tommy thought then was the perfect time to give some good news. "I talked to the boss. He said if you've got bartending experience, we could use ya."

Get out of the factory? Jack's eyes widened. "Yes, of course. That would be great…" At least something was going certifiably well that day. "Thank you, Tommy."

"So it's just me then?" Fabrizio said as Jack gave him a guilty smile, but there were no hard feelings. Fabrizio knew that it was just a matter of time before he would get out of that horrendous work environment, too. He held his glass up. "Here's to the best for all of us." The three men clinked glasses and chugged down their beers, not caring that it was the afternoon.

With Tommy the first one to smack his glass down on the table, he said as the others finished, "Eh, I just had an idea. What do you lads think of this? What if we open our own pub someday?"

At first, Jack and Fabrizio looked at Tommy like he was crazy, but the more they processed it (and the more the alcohol concentrated in their bloodstream), the more they grew fond of the idea. "Cheers to that," Jack said as Tommy laughed, getting up to grab refills.

Later that afternoon, Rose paced the living room, a hand caressing her waist. Jack was due here any minute, and she wanted to be there when he arrived so he wouldn't be trapped with Lovejoy—or worse, Cal, who was hiding out someplace in the house.

For the most part, Cal expressed his strong desire to not be involved in this Dawson deal, but that didn't mean his anger was controllable. Rose couldn't promise that Cal wouldn't approach them during one of their meetings in a jealous rage.

Before Rose could ponder more on the worrisome topic, the doorbell rang. She sped off to the door and was there as soon as Lovejoy was allowing Jack inside. "Jack," Rose said in part-welcome and part-awe. Her eyes would have gotten lost in his all-consuming stare if it wasn't for someone clearing their throat.

"You two know the rules. I'd suggest you follow them accordingly," Lovejoy said as he locked the door behind Jack.

Rose nodded her head. "Yes, we understand," she said, though Jack had not been filled in on any of the decided-upon regulations. She then gestured for Jack to follow her to her room. "This way. The clothes are upstairs."

On Rose's bed, she'd folded a gardening uniform for Jack's disguise. "You won't need this today, really, since I'm still stuck inside. But it may be best for you to take it with you for next time you come."

The encounter was so formal, so forced, and so unlike them—but as soon as the door was closed, all of that melted away. Jack swept Rose into his arms and for a minute, just held her physical being and breathed in her sweet scent. "I can't believe we're doing this."

"I know," she said, some of her breath trapped between her corset by the extra compression of Jack's embrace. (She'd chosen a lighter undergarment to give her more air, otherwise she might have passed out by how thrilled and nervous she was feeling.) She pulled away to take him all in. "It's felt like a decade since we last saw each other."

"What's been happening?" he asked while Rose made herself comfortable on her bed; he fell down right beside her, causing her heart to flutter.

"I had my first check-up with Dr. Clarkson today," she said, her fingers lingering over her stomach. "As far as he can tell, everything is fine so far."

Jack placed a hand over her barely distended abdomen, grazing it softly; a light pink tinted Rose's cheeks. "Do you feel anything yet?"

Rose shook her head. "Not really. It's still as if nothing has changed, except for the nausea and bloating." Her eyes shifted downwards as her thoughts spiraled, avoiding Jack's admiring gaze. "It's surreal for me to think about sometimes..."

"I get it. Sometimes, I feel like this is some alternate reality, and I wonder what things would have been like if we were in Santa Monica right now."

Rose's blush deepened as she remembered some of the ideas she'd had earlier that day. "Me too…" Her hand entwined with his, and she caressed the callouses that roughened his skin. Such a simple gesture, to hold someone's hand, yet it lifted Rose's spirits from weeks of dread and grounded her to something she desperately wanted to keep alive. If Jack left, she'd be completely deconstructed, crumbling on the floor. Just the thought of him gone made her panic. "I thought I missed you before, but this... This is misery. I feel like I died and went to hell. None of this feels real."

Jack's palm traveled across her stomach to her waist, and he tightened his grip so he could pull her closer to him; he was nearly on top of her then. "I'm here, Rose. This is real, right now."

Her heart was pounding so that her blood was like thunder in her ears. Could he sense how she was feeling in that moment? The urge to confirm his physical being by having him pressed against her heightened, and she recalled the dream she had earlier, feeling nervous and charged at the same time. She brushed a loose strand of hair out of his face. Feeling the warmth of his body against hers and the reassurance in his crystal blue eyes, she forgot that she was under house arrest. As his fingers lifted the layers of her skirt, caressing her thigh, she forgot about anything or anyone that existed outside of the bedroom. She just wanted to enjoy him while she had him now.

She leaned forward to instigate what she hoped to be a passionate array of kisses, but he pulled away with a wink and instructed her to stay quiet with a single finger over his lips. Curious, she willingly gave herself to whatever idea Jack had concocted. His hands gripped her waist as he kissed down her belly, but he didn't stop there. Rose bit back a gasp as his head went lower, his mouth traveling over her inner thighs and towards—

At first, she didn't know how to feel or what to think. She had read a lot about sex and heard plenty of stories, but she couldn't recall an instance where someone's mouth went to places unseen. But the heavier her breathing became, the more it made sense to her that mouth or hand, it didn't matter as long as they worked the same kind of magic.

Jack returned to tenderly kissing her thigh before asking, "May I—"

"Yes," she said, breathless, before he could finish. She tugged at the hem of her underwear to suggest what she was agreeing to, and Jack aided in removing them before resuming the new experiment.

Rose shuddered as he continued. It felt just as pleasurable, if not more so due to its novel nature, and the only difference she could clearly make out was the contrast of the softness of his mouth to the roughness of his fingers.

As tension built up, she wanted to cry out, but then remembered how secretive they had to be about performing this risky act under current circumstances. Once Jack could feel her thighs trembling and hips tensing, begging to be released and pressed against his, he moved on top of her and settled between her legs, crashing his mouth onto hers.

It was odd at first, tasting herself on his lips, but it was erotic just the same. Though she and Jack had made love passionately before, there was something about now that was different: the frantic and forceful kisses that they both sought dominance for, her head fighting against his as he pressed her against the pillow. The added caution of the situation must have intoxicated them both, and Rose quickly made work of the buttons on his pants without a second thought.

Never had Rose wanted to scream as much as she did in that following moment: in the middle of a compromising act, both fully clothed, during the afternoon of the day, with a valet possibly listening in at the door. Jack fought a similar urge to not fulfill their aggressive fantasies by rocking the bed, but after the awful month they had been through, just the sensation of holding each other was enough to send them into ecstasy.

As their panting quieted and their heartbeats calmed down, they lost themselves in each other's eyes. Jack ended their impulsive act with one final kiss, delicately biting her bottom lip, before rolling away and pulling his pants up.

They laid down facing each other, simply enjoying each other's company and recovering from the thrill of what they had gotten away with. An hour had passed since Jack arrived, which meant their time together for that week was nearly up. As if to check if he was still real, Rose reached out to caress his cheek, and he grabbed her wrist, kissing it softly.

"I don't want you to go," she whispered, not intending for the tears that trickled down her cheeks.

Jack kissed her hand and then squeezed it. "We'll see each other next week. You know I would never leave without you."

"I know…" For the entire time that Rose had been consumed by Jack that afternoon, she'd forgotten about the circumstances that were keeping her here. "I just wish that we could do this without worry. No sneaking around, no backseat of a motorcar or floor of a barn… Only me and you, in a bed of our own. Living freely…"

Jack smiled as he wiped a couple of tears off her face. "We will one day, Rose. We just have to get through this and then we'll figure it out. I promise."

Get through this… Rose's hand draped across her belly, addressing the baby that had escaped her mind. I don't know if I can get through this.

But the comfort Jack provided with his presence might be enough to help her get by. She closed the gap between them and burrowed her head under his chin, trying to absorb as much of that solace as she could before she was left alone again.

Sooo was that too much? Just enough? I wanted to build off that contrast of dreaming of their worry-free freedom and the reality of being trapped still. I figured one way to show that contrast was through sexual intimacy, since I imagine them being alone together after being apart for so long would instigate a whole mix of feelings.

What do you think is gonna happen next? Is there something you'd like to see? I love hearing from you! xx