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Chapter Three: Trying Not To Notice
She was trying to kill him. The Doctor had wondered before about his companion's intentions towards himself and now he knew for sure. For whatever reason, Rose Tyler was trying to kill him slowly and incredibly painfully. Being a Gallifreyan meant he had some advantages over human physiology. Being male meant that in some ways he had the same disadvantages as human physiology. One of these disadvantages was going to be the death of him. Like any stupid ape male, the Doctor had body parts that occasionally presented him with a conflict of interest. Gallifreyan or not he didn't have enough of a blood supply to keep blood flowing to all major organs at all times. At the moment as all of the blood in his body was pooled in the lower half of his body he was sure both hearts were going to give out and kill him. When this happened and he was sure it would happen soon, it would be all Rose Tyler's fault. He wondered if he could get that put on a tombstone. He knew he had at least four more regenerations left but with the way things were currently going he was sure he would have used them all by the end of the evening.
It had all started innocently enough. After he had set Rose's ankle and given her a shot for the pain he carried her back to her room. The plan as the Doctor saw it was to stay there with her to make sure he was close by if she had an adverse reaction to the medication he had given her. It wasn't as if he needed to sleep. He'd just stay in the chair by her bedside until he knew she'd be all right. It was a good plan and a smart plan. He'd tell her the plan when she opened her door. He'd put her in her room and then had come out into the hallway while she changed into sleepwear. When she opened the door to let him back into the room the Doctor's brain froze and the plan went straight to hell.
It wasn't that Rose's sleepwear was deliberately provocative. In nine hundred years he had seen some of the universe's finest examples of lingerie. The oversized white tee shirt she was wearing, didn't even come close. It was modest and completely appropriate for the situation. The fact that the tee-shirt hinted at the curves underneath it in a way that made his hands itch to go exploring those curves and made her legs look a mile long under the mid thigh hem, well that was just an added bonus. One that left no blood in the northern half of his body, but still just a bonus. "All-right then, Doctor?" Rose asked as she gingerly slid into the bed. Her ankle was still a bit stiff.
"Fine, Rose." The Doctor answered settling down into the dubious comfort of the comfy chair. Rose sat up to look at him and the tee shirt that had seemed so loose a minute ago became tight. The tee shirt must have had special properties because at the same moment, his jeans did the exact same thing. He wondered, for purely scientific reasons of course, if by removing her tee shirt his jeans would have cause to mysteriously vanish as well. It was an idea that certainly merited exploring later and in great detail, all for the greater good of the universe of course, no blatant self interest on his part, not at all.
"You sure you're all-right?" Rose asked again.
"Fine, just thinking about a TARDIS repair I'm going to need Jack's help on." He told her. Liar, liar, liar, his conscience chided him. What should I have told her, the Doctor asked himself, No Rose, I'm not all right because at the moment I have a burning desire to have you in my arms naked and shattering under me. Yeah, that would go over really well. Rose would demand to be taken home, undoubtedly causing him great physical pain first. His ship would mutiny, for the next hundred years or so and the worst torture of all he would have to face Jackie Tyler, even brave men knew when a mission was suicidal. Considering the slap she had given him when she thought he and Rose were sleeping together he was afraid to imagine the beating he would get if she had confirmation from Rose that they had indeed slept together. Not to mention Captain Biggles might decide to get overprotective and harm him as well. He really didn't want to have to defend himself from Jack. He'd undoubtedly kill the smart arse American and there weren't any planets nearby that he disliked enough to pollute them with Jack's body.
He just had to get his mind on something else. He was a genius after all, it couldn't be too hard, his conscience snickered at his choice of word. I meant difficult, he corrected himself testily. You meant hard, his conscience that he was really starting to despise, corrected him still snickering. Shut it, the Doctor thought nastily. He hadn't realized his inner self was such a wanker; it was more than a bit troubling, really. Determined to ignore his conscience the Doctor tried to think of anything other than the woman in the bed.
The problem with that was in many ways he was little more than a stupid ape, though he'd never tell Rose or Jack that. He would never live it down. Like any stupid ape, when he told himself not to think about something he thought about it more. So of course, when he told himself not to think of Rose, she was all he thought of in ways and situations that the Doctor was sure even the captain would be in awe of. Right, I am better at this than a stupid ape, I am a Time Lord and I can make myself think unsexy thoughts, The Doctor decided. He began to repeat a mantra in his head. Jackie in a bikini, Jackie in a bikini, Jackie in a bikini. Around the fifth time he'd repeated this his conscience decided to speak out again. Are you trying to kill us? His inner self demanded. The Doctor supposed his inner self had a point. He had merely been trying to cool his lust not render his brain into mush. Mickey The Idiot in a bikini, he tried instead. That was better. The image was horrifying yes, and prolonged exposure to the image might leave scar tissue but at least it wouldn't be fatal.
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The Doctor was being a git. Rose could hear from his shifting in the chair and the heaviness his breathing that he was uncomfortable and she knew he wouldn't do anything about it. Why did he have to be such a bloke? Rose wondered. For all his blathering on about being a superior species when compared to the stupid apes of Earth, he could be so frustratingly male, for lack of a better term it. He wanted to stay in her room and make sure she didn't have a reaction to the painkiller he had given her for her ankle. Fine, she had no problem with his staying. She actually thought it was rather sweet, but she didn't know why he didn't just join her in the bed. It wasn't as if he had never shared a bed with her before. True, he had never shared her bed in the carnal sense, damn her luck. The point was though that he had slept next to her before. So why was being such a prat now? Rose was going to fix this. After all for all his boasting about being superior to humans, he was still a man who she knew very well, including his weaknesses. Hoping that she wouldn't start laughing she called out to him. "Doctor."
Ah ha, success! Rose thought happily. The Doctor's eyes snapped open and in an instant he was sitting at the edge of her bed looking down at her. "Rose, you all-right." He touched her cheek tentatively. She almost felt bad for tricking him; he looked so worried, almost.
"Hurts a little still, that's all. Sit with me for a bit?" Oh she was good, Rose thought with a mental giggle. He immediately took off his boots and lay next to her on the bed. His stance was a little rigid and there was almost enough room for a third person between them but he was there, that had been her main objective.
She was killing him by inches, as the expression went. He was even closer to her now than he had been in the chair and it was even more torture. She was so close; he could reach out and touch her. Rassilon, he wanted to touch her. In his train of obscure thoughts something from a Monty Python movie had seen suddenly came back to him: "Brian, get away from that girl; don't really want to, Mum." At the time he had laughed at the stupid ape comment, now it seemed perfectly logical to him. He knew exactly where poor Brian was coming from. Here he was lying next to Rose, and he should have been in the chair across the room, a safe distance away. Bad Doctor! Get away from the girl, the Doctor ordered himself. The thought was immediately followed by the realization that he, like Brian, didn't really want to.
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Breathe, must breathe, Rose reminded herself. Calling the Doctor to her bed had seemed like a good idea when she was trying to get him to relax. Now she was the one was silently screaming in tension. Even with the amount of space between them he was close enough to affect her breathing. In the dark, she couldn't help but think about hours before when they had gone to the Speakeasy for dinner. The way he had looked at her when he kissed the back of her hand, the questions she knew he'd seen in her eyes and the answers she had been afraid to acknowledge in his. Why did she have to think about now? She wondered if she was unconsciously a masochist because that was the only possible explanation for deciding that the best time to be having sensual daydreams about an alien she needed to see nude as often as possible is while said alien is in her bed and close enough to kiss, fondle, touch, and any other erotic variation she can think of on the old fold, (She'd like that), spindle (That one she might have to train up for) and mutilate (Doesn't sound as promising unless scratching her nails down his back in the heat of passion qualifies as mutilation) Rose felt herself turning red at that thought even as heat pooled inside her making her nerves sing. Breathe, come on now, do it often enough and you might just get the hang of it, Rose encouraged herself mentally.
He had to leave the bedroom and he had to do it now, The Doctor realized. He had more senses than a human and right now they were all conspiring against him to drive him mad. For a being who was not entirely sure he was sane at the best of times it was a short trip. He could hear the hitching in Rose's breath as she lay next to him. Even in the dark he could see the blush that warmed her skin and from the tense way she held herself he knew the blush wasn't coming from embarrassment.
Rose, his Rose was teetering at the knife's edge of arousal. One touch, one word and she would go spiraling over the edge into a white-hot flame. It was an idea he knew he shouldn't encourage even in his own head, but he wanted to be the one who took her there, the one who made her twist every way. He wanted her under him shattering, he wanted her over him, her face a study in rapture. He wanted her, that's what it came down to; didn't matter whether he chose to acknowledge it or what label he gave it. He wanted her.
He could have her. This wasn't a smug self-serving idea on his part. It was simple fact. He might not have been as practiced at seduction as Jack, though to be fair he was sure there were entire galaxies of people who were not as practiced as the former Time agent, but he knew Rose was attracted to him. He had suspected it before but this evening when he had taken her hand in his own and raised it to his lips he had seen the attraction for him that she tried to keep hidden. It had burned in her eyes like a super nova before banking and being hidden. He could feel it coming from her now. She wanted him and while he wasn't Jack, nine hundred plus years of life had taught him enough that he knew when he burned he could have Rose right there with him shining. He could but he didn't do that with companions, that was his hard fast rule and he was afraid to change it.
So what was all that earlier then? The Doctor's inner voice asked him. The Doctor was wondering if it was possible to strangle his own conscience. His was certainly pissing him off. Were you trying to make Jack envious? The inner bastard, as the Doctor decided to call him, asked. Had he been trying to make Jack envious? No, he had very clearly told Jack where he stood when the former con man had come aboard the TARDIS. His early actions were all for Rose. When she had walked into the control room the Doctor had forgotten that anyone or anything existed outside of the woman in front of him. His world had begun and ended in Rose's eyes and her sunny smile.
Taking her hand and kissing it had been a foolish action perhaps but it had been a necessary one. When she had come into the room in that dress and an aura of sweetness and unconscious sensuality he had wanted to claim her. He had wanted to announce to the world that she had been created for him and him alone. He had wanted to touch the satiny flesh of her thighs. He had wanted to dip his fingers just below the line of the back of her almost backless dress and stroke the flesh there until she writhed against him. He had wanted to lick the back of her neck and listen to the broken sighs he was sure she would make in her pleasure. He had wanted to pull her tight against him and let her warm, small hands explore how alike his physiology was to her own while at the same time being incredibly different. He had wanted to slide the spaghetti straps of her dress off of her shoulders and kiss and tease the flesh bared to his gaze. He had wanted to find out if she was ticklish by using his lips and tongue. He wanted to see her eyes bright with passion and feel her holding him tight and hot. He had wanted so much that he had kissed her hand and touched it with the tip of tongue because that way he had at least one touch; he'd had one taste of her golden skin. It was like giving a dying man water in a desert and only giving him one cup. It was a taste that inflamed his senses more than sated them, but like the dying man in the desert the one touch, one kiss had given him a dream to dream.
Like the dying man in the desert, The Doctor wanted more. Dreams may have to last him when she was gone but at the moment he wanted more, needed more. He rolled onto his side so he was facing her in the darkness. He moved silently across the bed and smiled sensually at her gasp of surprise when he touched her arm, indicating how very close to her he now was. He wondered if she would gasp like that when he kissed her and he knew he was going to do so before his next breath.
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"What are you doing, Doctor? Did you decide to tell me a bedtime story?" Rose asked him archly. The hand on her arm shook so slightly that she thought she had only imagined it.
The Doctor spoke, his voice lower than she'd ever heard it. The tone was like velvet against her suddenly overheated skin. "No, but I realized something." He was closer to her now; she could only make out the faintest outline of his shape in the darkness and was unprepared for his warm breath on her neck when he spoke again.
"I realized you didn't get a good night kiss." He couldn't mean that he wanted to kiss her. She couldn't get that lucky. He had to be teasing her. Well, yes he was teasing her, Rose realized. She had just never expected him to tease her like this. His teasing was dark and sensual like whiskey and satin sheets.
"What are you going to do about that Doctor?" Rose asked feeling suddenly breathless. He had moved again and was even closer to her now; she could feel the wool of his jumper brushing across her arms and the scrape of the denim of his jeans brushing the outside of her thighs. She would have asked him to turn on the lights but the dark was more exciting it made the moment between them more intimate, in the dark they were just the Doctor and Rose, not anything more or less. The Doctor didn't answer her; instead he brushed one finger across her lower lip before pulling away slowly. Rose tried to follow his finger with her lips and moaned at the loss of contact. She craved the feeling of his skin on hers again.
"Let me?" The Doctor whispered into her mouth. Rose tried to nod, to speak, to find some way to tell him; yes whatever he wanted her to let him do, she would. She was his, and always had been. She didn't know how he knew it but he seemed to realize she was consenting because his lips were on hers.
His lips were cool and his kiss was soft. Rose felt him shift slightly and then he was tugging on her bottom lip, the sensation sent an immediate jolt of pleasure through her. Rose groaned at the contact and the Doctor took advantage of the groan to touch her tongue with his own. He put his hands on either side of her face, deepening the kiss. Rose was lost in the kiss. She wanted more. His kiss affected her in ways that no one's had ever affected her. Jimmy Stone, the monster with the pretty face had actually been a decent kisser but the Doctor's kiss left Jimmy's best efforts standing alone in the dust. He kissed her as if it was all he wanted to do. There was no trying to dazzle her with kisses so she wouldn't notice that his hand was on her body. He didn't kiss her roughly as if he expected a few hard kisses would make her want to take things further. He kissed her as if she was the only person in his world and this was what he had been waiting a lifetime to do and he wanted to do it right. It was an amazing feeling. Whatever she had done to deserve it she wished he would tell her because she would be happy to repeat the action until her dying day if he would just keep kissing her like this.
The Doctor wondered what he had ever done in any of his lifetimes to deserve the woman in his arms. Rose was so warm and giving. Her little groans and sighs were the sweetest of music to his ears and his hearts. She had her arms around him and her hands were burning the skin on his back through his jumper. When he had deepened the kiss he had been momentarily hesitant. He didn't want to scare her or rush her. Rose had responded with a passion that surprised him and matched his own. He loved holding her in his arms and kissing her but he wanted more. He needed to feel more of her against him. He took his hand from her left cheek and ran it down the back of her neck delighting in the way she arched into his touch. Rubbing his thumb on the back of her neck under her hairline he swallowed her sudden moan and pulled her closer. "On top now." The Doctor begged her.
"On top now." Three small words but they were to Rose the most erotic words she had ever heard. To finally see and experience the passionate Gallifreyan man hidden under the cold, clinical Time Lord façade was the most arousing sensation she had ever experienced. She could deny him nothing and wouldn't deny him this. Placing her hands on his shoulders for balance Rose allowed him to pull her until her body lay flush against his, her breasts pressed to his jumper covered chest and her hips cradled by his muscular thighs. The Doctor's lips are on hers again and while his kiss is still unhurried his talented fingers are doing incredible things to her body. His fingers are on the back of her thighs tracing her skin with light teasing touches that are evolving into long strokes. His other hand is on her back molding her to him. When he presses the small of her back and brings her hips into closer contact with his own they both moan at the pleasure of the contact. His touch is a little more intense now but still not rough. He uses one hand to keep her hips pinned to his and the other has moved from her thighs to the back of her neck. He rubs his thumb across the back of her neck in time to the strokes of his tongue in her mouth. The touch is so intense Rose thinks she might come without him having to touch in a more intimate way.
His control is hanging by a thread. Rose is so warm and responsive against him. He wonders idly what he has done to deserve her. He realizes he cannot think of a single thing he has done to warrant the angel in his arms but he's never letting her go. Rose grinds on his hips and it's all he can do not to flip her over pin her under him and divest of her of her clothing and bury himself into her sweet welcoming body. He cannot do that, not tonight at any rate. He doesn't want her to think he's going to treat this cheaply. He will become her lover, he knows this as surely as he knows his name but it will happen in the right way and the right time. He really should stop her. He really should, after one more kiss. Just one more kiss, he promises himself. Rose groans into his mouth as he slides a hand under the hem of her tee shirt and onto the warm skin at the top of her knickers and he is lost.
"Doctor." Rose says his name on a broken moan trying to tell him with just that one word how overwhelmed she feels, how his touch is too much and nowhere near enough. She wants, she needs more and she's unsure how to tell him, ask him, or beg him. At the moment she feels all three might be warranted. She wants him to touch her, her bare skin. She's afraid she will die if he doesn't. Rose is equally afraid she will die if he does. He's kissing her neck, scorching kisses that burn, it's not enough. She needs to see his eyes. She realizes the room is still dark but if she is looking at his face she'll feel as if she sees his eyes and that will be enough.
"Doctor," Rose tries again. He stills against her neck and brings his eyes to hers. Rose gasps even in the dark of the room she can see his beautiful eyes, they are glowing. In his eyes, Rose can see so many things, heat, passion and what almost looks like love.
"What is it, my darling?" he asked surprising her with the endearment. Rose feels suddenly shy about making her request. She's never actually been in this position and it's frightening.
"Doctor, touch me, please." Rose asks him keeping her eyes level with his despite her fear. The Doctor seems to understand just what she is asking and moves the hand under her shirt from the skin at the top of her knickers to the middle of her back. Rose responds instantly by arching into him and releasing a breathless cry.
"Better?" The question is a growl but it is all he can manage at the moment. He runs his hand across her back delighting in the sounds she is making into his kiss and the movements of her body against him. She makes him feel as if he's never been intimate with another person before and he acknowledges this feeling as only proper as there has never been some one like Rose.
"Doctor," As he moves his hand against her neck Rose tears her mouth away from his, his name a cry of ecstasy on her lips. Suddenly he needs to hear his Gallifreyan nickname from her lips.
"Theta." He breathes against her neck as he kisses her the line of her jaw and down her throat. Rose doesn't respond but he's sure she's heard him. When he lowers his head to kiss the skin at the edge of her tee shirt she clutches at his shoulders and whimpers.
"Theta, please." The sound is the most erotic he has ever heard. He's about to do as she asks, to lift the shirt off her body and use his lips and tongue to please her when the room shakes violently. Rose is thrown off of him and lands on the side of the bed she had vacated before with a thud.