My Clarity

Chapter thirty-four

Waking the next morning, it felt as though an endless dream had occurred. Once which she struggled to wake up from. Her body ached in new places. Her legs still trembled from the pleasures. Her skin tingled and felt hot and achy. There had been blood; Jack had taken her innocence away. Then, a small smile crept across her face. Jack had made love to her. The empty space within her stomach which had always been there now felt full somehow. The dull ache had gone and was replaced with a constant jittery flutter. Endlessly.

Kicking back the covers, she realised that she was without any clothes at all, but for once in her life, aside from when she bathed, she exposed herself to the coldness of the room. The fire had long since gone out in the grate. The maid had not yet come to light one. Jack was absent from the bed; perhaps working. Perhaps he had never come to her bed after riding back from the river. She had been far too exhausted to recall.

As she stood, goosebumps appeared across her skin; from her arms down to her legs. She noticed how her nipples tightened as they were exposed. How they were red from the attention Jack had given to them. The aches deepened as she walked to the window to inspect just what type of morning it was and as she glanced out to the gardens, she found a truly wonderful spring day. Trees in bloom, the breeze gently shaking the branches awake. Pale palette pastels painted the sky and the blossoms and the sun reflected from the window, causing a golden glow inside the room. Parting her lips, she inhaled slowly. Why did today feel so cleansing? Not caring that she was naked, she pressed both of her palms to the flat of the window and felt how warm the sun had made it. No one could possibly be walking through the gardens so early, even though the sun was up, it couldn't be too late

That was when she heard the door. It clicked open and then closed and she didn't feel the need to close knowing just who was the one approaching. She heard his breath. Knew the rise and fall of his chest. Knew how he would feel as he came to lean against her.

Two hands came to the curve of her hip to rest and she leant back, fully trusting him and his presence. Her hair tickled against his chest as she realised that he, too was completely without clothes. Turning on a gasp in his arms, she was met by the sight of him and with a wonderful smile which was borderline seductive.

"Have you walked the corridor without anything to cover yourself?"

"I was bathing." He reassured her. "Were you enticing all of Boston by standing naked in the window?"

Laughing softly, she caught his hands settled at her waist and threaded her fingers with his own. It was silent for a minute or so, just the sounds of their breathing and with bright, shining eyes they just stood and watched the world go by. It was almost a daze as they stood, with the back of her pressed up against his chest.

"I was thinking about how I thought I had dreamt last night. How I thought I would wake up, in Pennsylvania and be how I was before I boarded Titanic."

"And now you're disappointed, right?" He kissed the smoothness of her shoulder and she laughed.

''No, I could never be disappointed. Not now.'' Not now that everything which she had felt for him before was now truly magnified.

Turning to face him, she found herself drowning in pools of blue. Those eyes which she had cherished from the very first moment were now upon her entire body and there was nothing which she could do to stop him from absorbing up the way he watched her move. It was intense and fierce. As she parted her lips to respond, instead she found her mouth was pressed to his. Suffused with pleasure, Rose groped for his hair, finding acute satisfaction in the slide of heavy silk through her fingers. As he felt her touch him, he gave a low mutter of encouragement. The pattern of his breath changed, roughened, his kisses turning hard and languorous. She felt a jolt of heat, her blood igniting, and then she could no longer withhold her own heart from beating. She reached up into his hair, touching his ear and then followed the taut skin down to the edge of his collarbone. His breath roughened, his tongue penetrating in silken demand. Supporting her with one hand, he cradled her face with the other.