A/N: Hello, my darlings. It's been so long since I've updated and I'm SO sorry. It's inexcusable! Life has been a bit rough and writer's block struck me hard but I'm back now. If anyone is at all interested, I will leave the link to my video chat with Victor Garber in my profile!
Please tell me what you think! It took a lot for me to keep my composure, haha!
Oh! And be warned, this Chapter is quite explicit so if you don't like love scenes, please skip this chapter! :)
13 April 1912
He was not a stranger to this.
He had had a lover in his childhood, Niamh, and both of them in their youth had been curious enough that he could equate his venereal awakening to her.
He had had a fiancée and then a wife and with her, a daughter. Thomas Andrews was not a stranger to the ways and joys of the flesh, what preceded it or what happened in the midst, and yet he had never kissed anyone nor had he been kissed by anyone as he kissed Rose DeWitt Bukater and as Rose DeWitt Bukater kissed him in return.
His wife had never been one for deviation, not from what was expected of her nor from what she expected from everything and everyone else. It was expected of her to be a complacent wife, to bear him children and rear them, and she expected him to conform to a contrived sort of conduct in what he felt should be free and spontaneous. She endured their lovemaking (if it could even be called such) simply because it was expected of her. She did not want it, she did not crave him and desire him as he felt one should desire their lover—as he had her in the early days of their courtship—but she knew her role and her duty and so she lay, unenthusiastic and unaffected, like an inanimate instrument for his pleasure simply because he was a man and men needed such things.
Even their kisses, so simple a task and so easy for two people in love, were monotonous. She would never kiss him first, but she always knew when he would kiss her even before he decided he would do it.
It would never last more than a second, for he could not bear the evidence of her disinterest, executed in the stillness of her lips against his, and she always knew when they would come; when he left the bed in the morning for the shipyards, after supper, when a considerable advancement on Titanic had been made, when Elba stood or walked or spoke an imitation of a word. It was all like clockwork; the kisses, the intercourse, the conjured words of affection.
It was all like clockwork when Thomas figured it should be instead two spirits bursting for freedom in enslaved bodies.
But this was different. It was passionate and deep; free from the naivety of youth and from the reticence that came from the upkeep of proper societal practices even as an adult.
It felt as though their lips would fuse, unable to ever part. Beneath the searing passion engulfing him, he could distantly feel his teeth being pressed against his flesh from the force, but he could not bring himself to even attempt to care, not when he finally had her in his arms and her mouth to his.
They parted for air at long last, loathe to be apart again and so they painted their breaths against each other's lips, just far enough away so that black eyes could gaze adoringly at the glazed turquoise irises that glimmered with a vivacious concupiscent allure to which he so quickly and willingly fell victim.
He reached a hand to her sternum, where the diamond had so recently made home, stroking his calloused thumb across the untouched skin. He felt the rise of the embonpoint of her chest upon her sharp intake of breath, and the sound brought with it a confidence so usually unheard of in him which rose in his veins like a plant bursting to life from the fertile earth. He ventured further still to the aiguille of her collarbones that stood softly protruding, the valley just below them shadowed from the light of the fire. She trembled under his touch, subtly at first but as his fingertips danced—a single thumb and then all five of his fingers, the kiss of a caress to a firm brush—it grew until it was evident in her breathing with every shaking inspire.
"Rose, you must stop me. Tell me to stop," his voice was croaking, the brogue of his homeland thick and compact on the back of his tongue.
She started beneath him and, without looking, he felt her eyes on him, confused and desperately questioning. "What? Why?"
"I'm a married man and you are a betrothed woman. I am old enough to be your father. I know all these things and yet I am driven senseless by my desire for you, and so I must leave it to you to stop me."
"You told me your marriage was all but over and that your wife doesn't understand you," at some point within their exchange of speech, he had found himself behind her, his body still inches distant, safe yet from the point of no return. His palm remained flat against her shoulder, his thumb brushing the pulse point upon her throat.
"It is and she doesn't," he replied, sucking in air as her head fell back to where her brilliant curls began to tickle against his waistcoat.
"Well, I understand you, Thomas," Rose gasped when the use of his Christian name, still so fresh a change between them, caused him to delve the tips of his fingers ever so softly into her flesh. "And you understand me, and I desire you just as you do me."
She did not understand. She did not understand and hence was intertwining the hands of their souls and guiding him further to an inescapable allurement against which his resolve was collapsing with each pound of her heart hammering against his thumb.
"Nevertheless, you must tell me to stop."
She did not, and, against his better judgment, he pulled her against him, her gossamer-adorned back pressed to his warm chest. Rose did not want to ignore the pounding just by her left shoulder blade which she knew to be his heart. Even hidden by three layers of clothing, it was unmistakable and she could not help but feel like an Olympian, and this evidence of his abrading resolution the gold medal around her throat, heavier and more conspicuous than the cerulean jewel. It thumped harder still as his palm, gentlemanly even in the face of their searing arousal, found itself on her half-clothed stomach. The tickle of the touch was done away with and even as her muscles twitched and goosebumps rose on her snowy arms, she pressed more firmly to him, a silent declaration of her building steadfastness as his own melted in the indecipherable space still between them.
"Tell me to stop," he repeated, almost as if begging her.
Rose kept her lips tightly fused and they did not fight her, for her logical and emotional mind, for once, were in tandem, poisoned with the sweet venom of desire spurned from true, unselfish love. Thomas wanted her just as she did him and she would not let him slip from her; she would sooner die by a sword wielded in her own hand.
And so, even as he squeezed her small hand in his sweltering fingers and pressed their mutual touch to her collarbones again, she did not speak.
"Stop me. Stop me now, Rose," It was so much less of a plea now, for his captivation and his undeniable appetence was nearly set surely within his bones; he whispered it upon her ear, close enough that she felt every rush of breath from every consonant and vowel.
Their fingers fondled the collar of the kimono and Rose followed his prompting, their grasps sharing in mutual touch, and they pulled it from her shoulder so it fell around her elbows, trapped from entire escape by his chest pressing it to her back. It was like his own final thread when she had just cut hers with the scissors formed from the sharp blade of their love, and she was damned if she was going to let him remain tied to what was no longer their reality. And so, Rose stepped forward slightly enough that he did not notice until she felt the breeze of free, tepid air upon her spine and the fabric fell to just before her bottom.
"Tell me to stop. Now, Rose," Thomas all but demanded in a low, rumbling growl upon her, the words fighting through the barriers of his clenched teeth, and Rose was amazed to still recognize the sheer kindness as if just behind the command was him saying in the voice she knew so well, I'm only doing this for you, Rose.
A gasp she had not felt form escaped her throat when his touch ghosted over her throat and his fingertips came to rest just beneath her jaw. Her arms were again free and, frustrated with his chivalry and humbleness beyond what the intolerant girl still residing in her soul could handle, she stomped forward and shoved with a rough jerk of her arms the robe entirely from her form until she was as naked as she had been just before, splayed on the divan beneath his artistic eyes. It was his turn to gasp before his breath settled into a defeated huff when she spoke, as steadfast as a rock squeezed in his hand.
"No."
And there was the quiet snapping against her ears again, only this time she noticed it, and she did so with a great feeling of triumph that she nearly laughed and would have, had Thomas's fingers not curled surely around her jaw and wrenched her face to his where he kissed her more roughly than she had ever known a kiss to be. And yet, the sensation, no matter how unexpected, was far from unwelcome. Theirs was a passion that reminded her of boiling water or angry steam, breaking from its bearings beyond what anything could suppress it. It was love, calm and assured, but the desire unanswered had become too impatient in both of them and the call to attention was one neither of them could ignore, even if they had desired to do so.
Rose wrapped her arms around his neck once more, feeling him yank her to him until no aperture remained between their aching bodies, and yet still it was not close enough for either of them. She allowed Thomas to maneuver her for, no matter how influenced her actions by ardor, she was still inexperienced on the ways of copulation having delayed Cal for so very long, and she did not protest when he began to walk them both, clumsily and into more edges of furniture than they cared to remember, to his desk, where he lifted her to sit, just before one of his esteemed blueprints. His desk, the foundation of all his wondrous ideas and creations since Titanic had set sail, and there she was, sitting on it as the genius Master Shipbuilder himself ravaged her lips as if they were his sustenance when he was near death.
It could have been hours that they remained there and Rose would not have noticed nor cared, his legs pressed firmly to hers, her hands clenching his waistcoat until her knuckles were white as ocean foam, stuck in their timeless utopia as they were, but Thomas tore them both from it with a cruel and dizzying shove when he ripped his lips away. When she regained her bearings, she saw his eyes regarding her, hooded and dense with the blackness of desire, so close it was nearly all that invaded her vision and she felt herself drowning in him all over again.
"I will only do this if you're sure, Rose," he rasped, leaning ever so slightly towards her which told her that he wanted to kiss her just as much as she did, and her confidence remained strong.
"I am sure," she whispered. "I've never been so sure of anything in all my life."
"You must know that this was not my intent. I did not plan this. I do not want to take advantage of you." He sounded nearly angry as he spoke; angry at himself for falling so deeply into their reverie or her for guiding him along the path to it, Rose could not tell.
"You're not, you're not! And I know you didn't, and neither did I! You are not taking advantage of me, Thomas. I want you to kiss me and touch me and...I want you to make love to me. Please, please, make love to me, Thomas."
The palisades built around the kingdoms of their respective souls were not just breached; Rose felt that with her words and the flash within his eyes in silent reply was evidence enough that they were destroyed in their entirety, never to be rebuilt, and they were finally free beyond mirage and hope. There was no more wishing for them, for all they had fantasized became reality in the very palms of their hands when she spoke, more candid than she had ever been with another person and more honest and true to herself than she could ever remember.
When Thomas kissed her again, like the sweetest punctuation and the embodiment of all they had denied themselves, she felt a new depth and a new passion which she figured had never become any two lovers ever before. No, this was their own.
His kisses found their way under her jaw and down her neck; it was a maneuver she was used to in Cal, but she was wholly unaccustomed to the gentleness that came with it from Thomas, and in response she dared to reach to his woolen waistcoat, warm from the touch of his body. With shaking fingers Rose unbound him from his bearings with each button until it hung, lifeless and useless about his shoulders, and it was like second nature that he freed his hands from about her and let her small palms smooth up the sinews of his chest as no woman ever had and slip it from him until it fell down his arms and to the floor unnoticed. The next threshold of many was therefore crossed.
Once free, Thomas lifted her as if she were air in his strong hands, and she shut her eyes and let the world rush around her in blind and dark gales as he carried her to his chamber, letting her fall gracefully to the mattress of his bed. Rose squirmed around and grasped at the sheets as if she were laying upon the softest cloud bound for Heaven and giggled, the angel choir to his heart and ears.
This beautiful girl, so young and vivacious, and she was before him, wanting him as burningly as he did her. He could hardly believe it and feared the dastardly minute he would awaken from his deep slumber and all would be revealed to have been a dream. Thus, he resigned himself to make the most of what could so quickly fade from his grip, and so he rushed forward and kissed her again.
"Mr. Andrews," she quipped when she released their lips with a soft pop. "If you don't undress yourself this instant I will scream until everyone on this ship comes to see what's the matter."
He did not laugh with her, for all too suddenly he was seized with an introversion and sheepishness which had not possessed him in a great many years, and the forefather of its return he had shoved away since the night they danced below decks.
When he was courting Helen, he stumbled over words and his own worth, doubting it at every pass, hardly believing she would return to him each time they parted. It crested when he proposed; he startled her so violently, scared her with his blunders and muttering and pacing until he felt she had accepted him merely out of pity. He sent her a letter the following day, apologizing for frightening her and offering her an out, telling her if she would like to change her mind, he would not be insulted. But she did not rescind her acceptance and so such feelings found themselves buried beneath his consciousness, hermits to his manifested self.
But now he sat before this woman, this young woman, so much younger than he, whom he loved so very much, who waited for him to bare himself to her just as she did to him. He distantly acknowledged the fact that Rose was used to the finest men, thick with muscle from riding and hunting and ruggedly handsome of face, suave and charming, genteel lure flowing from them like water. He was not one of them, he would never be, no matter how much Ismay or all the rest of the White Star Line executives and his First-Class peers wanted him to be. He was an Irishman and proud of it, of humble beginnings with noble names sprinkled across his family tree and not barrelled upon him as his only form of identity and self-worth. He was a shipbuilder when true First-Class gentlemen did not hold professions nor passions strong enough to sway opinions or dispositions, and he was bumbling in urbanity when the men who had surrounded him were taught the methodologies of it since infancy.
He was nothing to the lot of them, for even if he designed the most luxurious ship in the world and the largest moving object made by the hand of man, a lack of pristine cultivation meant his forever status as a misfit. He was nothing to them, but he wanted to be something to Rose.
And so he reached for his collar, untwining his necktie. He could not help but wonder if he should suffer the same fate as it; he could not help but wonder if when he was exposed as his true self, free from embellishments of any sort as his necktie was when it hung as one plane, plumb piece of fabric, he would transform to nothing, and be forgotten as easily as his parallel was when it slipped through his fingers to the floor and he felt not a thing for it.
But he could not think in such a way, he refused to. She was not Helen, she was not Ismay, perish the thought, she was not any of those out beyond his stateroom doors which saw him merely as a fabled figure, like he was a ghost haunting Titanic and they paid their dues and good graces to him simply to save themselves from being haunted.
They did not see a man with thoughts and feelings of his own, for fame had been brought unto him with his creation, and because of it was shoved into a life where feelings and opinions were denied and forbidden. They acknowledged the genius in him with indifference, as if it were a God-given birthright for them to experience and by which to be surrounded, as if saying as they conversed with him, "It's about time."
He worked his animate mind and capable hands for a thankless crowd, floating in a forsaken ravine like Titanic floating on the Atlantic, waiting without breath for someone who could only understand. And when Thomas met Rose, his lungs filled with precious air, and he knew.
She would accept him, she did accept him, she would and did love him. And so he willfully stripped himself of his outer layer, the layer beyond which no one else cared to see, and sat before Rose DeWitt Bukater in nothing but his union suit.
Beyond it, he could not look at her. He feared the second in which disgust would invade her eyes like a flood and he would be ripped from this, from her, with a ruder hand than a sudden awakening from a dream. But still his fingers worked, unbuttoning each button of his final layer, the substratum of protection against the world for his true, vulnerable self, as he had done so many times before but with so much less meaning, and soon the moment came upon him when there were no more buttons still enlaced, no more barriers physical or mental behind which to hide.
As he slipped it from his shoulders as if it were an armor suit of steel, she seemed to understand, and when he dared look at her again, only loving sympathy swam in the oceans of her eyes. Rose reached for him, taking his hands in hers, speaking an unheard speech of a selfless sort of devotion he had never known in a lover. She pulled him down, he looking on her with curious wonder flashing within his irises caught in the golden light, and he felt his very pattern of breath hitch and fail him as his fiery little conductor lifted the back of his palm to her lips, as he had done to hers before dinner, as all men of status did to ladies. And yet, it was different, as were all things in which the two of them found themselves engulfed, and as she trailed her lips up his arms and across his chest, he knew he could never again play the polite gentleman kissing the back of a lady's gloved hand without the image of Rose DeWitt Bukater, hidden within his chambers on the ship he forged with his own head, kissing his bare flesh barreling down upon his mind's eye until he was blinded to everything else.
Rose's assault of kisses continued down his torso, and by the time she reached his hips, poorly hidden by the pristine white sheets in which they had found themselves intertwined, he knew the meaning behind her lips every move more certainly than anything. There was love, pure and simple, in every single one of them, never failing or tiring, telling him in no uncertain terms that he was accepted, he was loved, he was perfect in her eyes. And so certain a feeling, one of which he had craved certainty for all his adult life, had tears welling just beneath his pupils against which his pride was no match. Pride, decorum and politesse had no place in their constructed sanctuary; he had no use for them anymore, not when her depth of feeling was so chasmic. No man outside the doors would ever dare with full willingness let a lady be so bold, and yet when she rose back to him and enveloped his face within her tiny hands and pulled him to kiss her, nothing had never felt more right.
But soon enough he could not bear the arousal, for it had risen again until it was impossible to ignore. Thomas wrapped his arms around her waist, trained to petiteness by years of tightly-laced corsets, and laid her as gently as his desire-driven hands would allow, letting her head drop to his pillow so her hair splayed into a halo of pure fire, matching perfectly the one that burned within her soul always, as well as the one raging just below his heart at the very sight of her.
He was so close now, their hips perfectly aligned, their respective heats flowing to each other violently enough for them both to tremble within one another's touch. His eyes rose to hers, begging for permission, offering her gallantly one last chance to recognize her folly and escape, but Rose only took her sumptuous legs and wrapped them around his waist in a show of pure carnal instinct, and she pulled him closer to her with artless, impatient arms.
"Rose," he could bear no shame now in the powerlessness of his voice. "What is something that makes you happy?"
Now she was positively confused. How on Earth did he figure now was the time for casual conversation?
"What? Thomas, I…"
"Please, Rose. Just tell me, what is something that makes you happy?"
You, she wanted to say, for beyond him, hardly anything in the reality of the universe in which she lived could be counted upon to make her happy. She settled on something she once hated but grew to love, the very thing which brought him to her. "T-Titanic."
And with her single word, he felt every modicum of prideful strength leave him in a gust, for suddenly he was certain he was dreaming, and he was to awake any second, just as the sweetest chapter had come upon him. He did not want to wake, he did not want this to be a conjuring of his own mind, and so he took Rose's arm from around his neck and slowly laced their fingers together, hoping with some distant thought that if he hung onto her as a lifeline he could be kept with her in this idyllic Eden.
"Tell me about it. Tell me everything you know about Titanic," he whispered.
She was bemused still, he could tell; utterly confused as to why he was pulling her with an insistent hand into a conversation at what seemed to be the most inappropriate time, but his eyes remained absolute and she fought him no longer.
"I-I know she is the largest moving object made by the hand of man in all of history, Ismay said so," He let forth a disgusted shudder at the mention of the man at such a time but he punctuated it with a loving chuckle. His Darling Girl. "I know you designed her, every inch of her. I know you put in a new type of davits that could have holded an extra row of lifeboats…"
Thomas allowed her to talk for some time, surrendered into his curious command, until he saw she had relaxed into the subject, thoroughly engrossed in the topic and searching every corner of her mind for her next thing to say. Then, and only then, he allowed himself to slip inside her, propelling himself until he could no more, bereft of hesitance and gradualness.
Rose cried out, Titanic a long-forgotten concern in the matter of a second and squeezed his hand with a strength that betrayed her small frame. He could not bear to see her in pain, no matter what pleasures it would bring, and he fell forward, stroking her silken hair with his free hand, pressing repeated kisses to her throat and cheek, and tried to ignore the ache of his heart when a single tear drifting down her face was caught between his lips.
"Oh, my darling Rose," he was breathless despite it all, unable to ignore the feeling of her surrounding him as she did. "That is the worst of it, I promise you."
"Now I know," she said between gasps as she shifted her hips in small, tight circles, trying to ease herself into comfort. "Why you made me talk."
He laughed a single note without breath against her neck, kissing her again, before falling to rest without weight upon her, the seconds he was forced to be still turning to agony, and he did not notice when he began to tremble violently atop her.
But he did notice when a small hand was pressed against his shoulder, pushing him gently back so brown and blue eyes met in their tandem, and Rose encased his face in both of her palms, caressing him in loving wonder, the pain gone and only curiosity remaining. He cried out softly when she touched him, turning his head and pressing his mouth to her palm, burying his face within her touch as would a cat, kissing her thumb as she discovered the curvature of his lips. He knew her to know almost nothing of what was transpiring between them beyond what slipped through the lips of the less scrupulous and from her own natural urge, and yet she displayed an experienced sort of wisdom as his eyes pleaded for her permission and Rose gave a single nod of her head that to him was like permittance to Heaven.
With it, he moved with a pull and thrust of his hips, and suddenly everything made sense. Every hardship of Titanic, every harrowing sleepless night and logical roadblock, every spitfire fight with Helen, all was perfectly sound when he found himself inside her. He could not help the moan of pleasure, relief, completion that bubbled from his throat and he nearly fell on top of her again with the weight of their shared sensations on his shoulders.
And Rose would have welcomed it, for this was her first step into something she had been taught by her mother to simply endure for the sake of her future husband, and yet she had not any words for the pleasure that surged through her until her veins burned. She clung to him as he fell into a steady rhythm, his hips never faltering nor tiring, slow enough that she felt every centimeter of him as he filled her and stretched her and still when he withdrew, teasing her with abandonment, unfailing with his every return.
"Oh, Rose..." she felt every hot breath and move of his lips pressed against the junction of her shoulder as he spoke. She delighted at how he said her name: a roll and a lurch of the tongue, a hiss of air through parted teeth, laced with Irish brogue and punctuated with breathless moans of pleasure.
On the occasion of his lovemaking with Helen, which were numerous at the beginning before shriveling and rotting into a thing of obligation, it was as if she were left bereft of all functions, in fear or disgust Thomas could never tell; but every time he found himself above her just as he was above Rose, Helen remained still, unmoving and accepting in a way he never knew he hated so very much until he had Rose's ludic legs wrapped around his waist, pulling him into his every thrust forward like yearning arms. She was nothing like Helen, nothing like the woman he had chosen by his own volition, coaxed by the idea of what he thought she had been and convinced he could become what she wanted him to be, to call his wife; not in looks, temperament, nor in her exhibitions and sounds which would have been considered by any other man, he was sure, to be wanton and promiscuous. But it could not be to him, not the way she mewled against his ear, the cool air and the judder seeping and bleeding straight into him like wine to a tablecloth, nor how her small, curious hands smoothed down his damp shoulders and his spine, kissing him and loving him through touch, and certainly not when she raised her hips from the bed and met his forward thrust halfway, slamming them together until pain would have been registered in both of them had pleasure not had the upper hand, invading their courses of thought and feeling like enemy flanks.
It was some moments of their mutual ministrations until he could not bear for any part of him to be untouched by her. He took his hand and stole one of her own from their paths across his back, lacing their fingers together tightly, until the tips of his fingers were splotched with pink and white, the blood beneath his skin displaced, just as was his reason or his consideration beyond anything besides the feel of her bracing around him, welcoming him with each renewed bury of himself in her warmth, until even Titanic itself was dethroned from his brain for the first time in four years.
Titanic had invaded his every thought since the idea of her was first conceived, the prospect of her still in infancy, and not even sleep could offer him respite as he was occupied by her even more than the most involved and fanatical parent. And yet, Rose DeWitt Bukater had driven him to distraction; from the expectations of Ismay, the condition of his marriage with Helen, of everything that had ever posed a bother to him, and with the consummation of their love, even the stone placed in the center of his mind, heavier than even his ship herself, was now eroded and broken to pieces.
Thomas pulled back to look at her, his beautiful Obstruction, her hair splayed about her, setting his silken white pillow aflame, untamed, her coral lips parted, granting entry and exodus to any and all sounds brought forth from the feelings given to her—given to her by him.
And she felt his eyes on her, for hers opened, hardly the blue-green he loved so much, ripped starkly through by the spheres of heated black, the turquoise nothing but an afterthought in the midnight forethought of desire. And those spheres only grew, dominating more of the self she was leaving behind, as she took his hand and placed it, bereft of hesitation, to her left breast, encouraging him with the whine she let forth thus to touch her freely.
He abandoned as much of the reserved gentleman which had been ingrained in him, singed like a branding to his intuition, as he took a calloused thumb and swirled it around her impossibly soft complexion before it came to rest atop her pert pink nipple, the pad of his fingertip dancing lighter than a feather. They moaned in tandem, just as they did most everything, their pleasures feeding off one another until they were both so overwhelmed that even just the slightest jerk of hips rendered them crying out to the quiet utopia embedded within the four walls he himself had designed.
His hand, guided with a liquid sort of confidence that flowed in his veins, fed and supplied by her every gasp and moan, slid from her breast and down the half-circle curve of her waist, to her hips before his fingers ghosted just above the place where they were so furiously joined. Just the sight, they truly and undeniably coalesced as only the most devoted lovers can be, was enough that he knew the end was nigh no matter how much he wished it away and this pleasure to overtake them every second remaining in their mutual lives, and so he took his thumb, more daring than he could ever have hoped to be within his head, and brought it to where he was sure no other man had ever touched her, and where he distantly and selfishly hoped no other man ever would again.
Rose cried out, her voice broken and shrill, shame and poise melted with the wax of the candlesticks surrounding them, bolts of sheer pleasure shooting up her every limb, bettered only by the thought of which she was constantly reminded of who it was giving it to her; Thomas Andrews, the shy man, revered by all but himself, was touching her where even she herself had been too afraid to venture.
She brought her fingers to his shoulders, her mind too fogged to realize her nails digging into his flesh until dainty little half-moons were imprinted on his skin, coated with blood. Her body spasmed, every muscle within her tightening until she trembled beyond her own pleasurable volition, and she grasped at Thomas with all the strength left in her little body as if he were salvation in the middle of the ocean and without him she would sink to her death.
He whispered words of encouragement, his flaming face buried within the junction of her neck and shoulder, words she could not remember a second after they were spoken as her throat gave a myriad of sounds to his ears alone. He fingered her hair, brushing the stubborn curls from their place matted to her face with sweat, brushing it back, and it was the sensation to which she hung until the fog of intense pleasure faded and she was once more among the living.
She panted for breath, melted like ice in his arms, and it was only when he gave his own moan of rapture and a stutter of his hips that she dared to touch him anew. Thomas groaned with every brush of her fingers on him and his body at last collapsed atop her, and yet she did not mind the weight and only held him tighter, kissing his hair in a comfort she had longed for all her life and of which she could think of no better way to give it than to Thomas as his own pleasure, fed and kindled by her love, came to a head.
He let the pleasure wash over him like ocean waves, trembling beyond what he could ever control, moaning louder than what was most likely safe. He spilled himself inside her, ribbons of warmth settling within her that made her gasp, and his thrusts soon faded to nothing. His hips pressed against hers, still, as their hearts raged against their breasts and their minds, thoughts permitted again, filled with nothing but each other.
Soon he regained enough of his strength that he pulled himself from her, a pain that was like severing a limb, and he brought his hand to her face, smoothing against the snow of her skin, her hair dripping and shining, the blue easing back to her eyes like the tide ashore. In what felt like a lifetime over he pressed his lips to hers, less fervent than the entire night preceding, slow in assured affection and pleasant exhaustion.
"You're trembling," she remarked with a tired titter, brushing his hair from his face.
"As are you, Young Rose," he replied, swiping his thumb along her cheek.
He wrapped a gentle arm beneath her shoulders, coaxing and pulling her gently until they were pressed together, he on his back and she curled into his side and her arm around his waist, the warmth of her falling upon him a pleasure to his heart even when he felt his body was so hot it would burn. His fingers began a waltz across her arm, her skin cool despite it all, and he pressed his lips to the crown of her head. Thomas touched her until he felt her trembles cease and her breathing even and he knew her to be asleep, finding himself alone but never more alive, feeling luckier than even he had when he was commissioned to design Titanic. It was a euphoria that was entirely alien to him, as if it had been locked in a vault inside him and Rose herself held the key in her hand. And with all unlocked sensations flowing and fading within him like steam, he wrapped his arm tighter around Rose until sleep took him over, too.
14 April 1912
"Rose," her name reached her ears like an echo down a long hallway, and the speaker hundreds of feet away from her, the addendum of a spoken word. "Young Rose, wake up."
She stirred, mumbling something she herself could not understand and turned from the offending sound which had pulled her from slumber.
"Young Rose," a gentle shake to her shoulder accompanied the word.
"What?"
"You must get up. The sun will be rising soon and you need to get back to your suite before dawn," she knew distantly in her mind that it was Thomas speaking and when he pressed a kiss to her cheek her eyes finally opened.
His room was still dark, the fire dying a slow death in the hearth, the candles worn and melted. Rose turned on her back, every movement feeling like a run of one-thousand miles, and saw him above her, dressed just as he was when the night had begun, smiling on her with tired eyes.
She sighed. "Must I get up?"
Turning again, she buried her face in his clothed chest and fisting his lapel in a silent plea.
"Yes, my darling, I'm afraid you must, and don't think it pleasures me to say so."
"I want to stay here with you."
"And I want you to stay here with me. But if Mr. Hockley or his man comes looking for you, we'll be in more trouble than a few more hours of sleep is worth."
She scoffed. "Don't say that name. Not now. He doesn't exist here."
"You're right," he kissed her cheek again, standing and walking to the door. "Come now and get up, Young Rose."
She grumbled like a small, defiant child, pulling her naked form from the sanctuary of his bed, the impenetrable sanctuary they had created, and found her kimono and coat upon one of the sitting chairs, carefully folded with precise care. A smile grew on her lips, knowing that Thomas had done so, and she pulled them over her form and hugged them to her with an appreciation she had never known herself to bear for them.
When she opened the door and found herself in the stateroom, he was sitting at his desk like a king on his throne, blueprints surrounding him like loyal subjects, his pen like a sceptre between his fingers. His brow was furrowed, his lips turned gently downward, the very picture of a man at work, scrutinizing his every thought. Rose could not help but giggle as she walked over to him, seeing him so lost in his reverie that he did not notice her until she spoke.
"I think you work yourself far too hard, Mr. Master Shipbuilder, darling."
He laughed freely, suddenly unrestrained by frustration as thus was her power, and kissed the back of her hand with warm lips, keeping her fingers in his hand as he stared down at them as if they were a miracle of God.
"You really should go, Young Rose, before someone catches you." He stood from his seat, gripping her arms, rubbing them up and down in a last effort to keep his touch in the forefront of her mind. "But I promise I will see you later."
Rose smiled, standing on her toes to kiss him, holding his face in her delicate hands so she may never forget how he felt. She could feel him smile against her lips as he pulled away, knowing in his heart of hearts that his resolve was weak yet and he would not be able to unhand her should she persist. He laced their fingers together, bringing her to the door and pressed his lips to hers one last time before he swung open the door, stroking her cheek in the kiss of a caress when she turned back to look at him, and closed the door with a contented sigh when she ran off down the hallway into the dying night.
Rose grinned, warm from the core of her soul even as she stepped from the safety of the ship into the bitter wind upon the decks, the dawn light still in its infancy.
Everywhere she looked upon this ship she saw Thomas Andrews, as if on every square inch was his name plastered in big letters just as Titanic's name was on her stern. Whether she looked at the rails or the funnels or the promenade deck, she saw him sitting comfortably just behind her eyes, ever-present and warm. As she gazed on everything there was upon which to be gazed, she imagined him sitting at a desk in Belfast, a half-finished blueprint in front of him, holding a pen before his puzzled face. She could see him tapping the back of the pen to his frowning lips, rubbing his calloused fingers across a tense temple or a furrowed brow, thinking as hard as one possibly could. And then, she could see the flame alighting in his beautiful noir eyes as he started in his stool, for the idea finally came to him; that enthusiastic, bright smile stretching on his lips as he leaned over to the paper and drew with vigor the plan for the next part of his ship that suddenly made sense to his ingenious mind, the very part that showed itself real before her.
Her Thomas was within this ship, as if he had ripped his very veins from his body and intertwined them in the soul of Titanic like wires to lights. And how lucky was she that this renowned genius, the god of this little universe, kissed her and her alone. Whatever service she had paid to the world to receive this golden man she would never understand. But if it was her suffering through a life for seventeen years which had never felt her own that was the pulling of the rope tied around his heart to hers, closing the distance, she would gladly live it again five-hundred lifetimes over if only she would find her way back to Thomas Andrews again at the end of it all.
Rose buried her cheeks, flaming even in the bitter cold, in the fur of her coat, pulling it tighter around her slight frame in hopes that she might cement his being, his love, to her body forever so that she may never be parted from him. As she walked carefully and slowly against this beloved ship that she loved more than anyone else save him, she observed the thin orange line wainscoting the horizon. First light was coming, and as she made her way back to the First-Class entrance she admired the strokes of God's paintbrush in dazzling pinks and oranges and yellows, the ancestor to the day's sun and blue sky. How beautiful it was! And such beauty was only heightened by the new sensations coursing through her of the night which preceded it.
She knew within an instant that it was the most beautiful sunrise she had ever seen.
But what she did not know, what she could not have known, was that it was the final time the RMS Titanic would bear witness to the dawn before darkness became her eternal friend.
A/N: I hope you enjoyed, my dears! Please, if you can, leave a review. It means so much to me, especially in these hard times of mine. They're the only pay I ask for! :) I will be back with you in a moment, my darlings. I won't leave you hanging like that again! :)