She turned, looking at him. “Well, are you certain, though? Because I know you wished to wait for our wedding night. I am going to be taking your virtue, after all—”
He kissed her mouth, cutting off her words. “We’re already married. It’s our wedding night now.”
She laughed. “Fitz, we arenotmarried.”
“Do you take me to be your husband?”
She laughed again.
“Say, ‘I do,’” he prompted, his eyes dancing.
“I do,” she whispered, feeling shy.
He kissed her again, a very thorough kiss.
She gasped. “And do you take me to be your wife?”
“I do,” he said, his smile fading into an expression of quite serious adoration. “So, then, you see. We are married, in every way that matters.”
“Except consummation.”
“Except that,” he agreed. “So, lead the way.” A pause. “Wife.”
She felt the word settle into her. “Oh, Fitz, I do so wish to be your wife. I dream of it. I have dreamed of it—”
“And now you are.” His voice was like velvet.
They kissed all the way to her bedchamber.
He pressed her face first against her wardrobe and kissed his way down her neck, down the notches of her spine as he undid the buttons of her dress, kissed her shoulders as he loosened her stays, told her in a husky voice that he had wished to see her, see all of her, for a very long time, that he had been slowly going madwith his desire for her, that she had reached into his insides and undone him somewhere.
And when she was pushing out of her dress, turning to look at him, she saw that he’d taken off half of his clothes already, too. He was only wearing his trousers. She was in her under layers, shift and petticoats. She’d only been entirely bare with a man once, her wedding night with the colonel, and she remembered that night as frenzied and hurried.
Would this be the same? Mr. Darcy had said he was going mad with desire for her.
She touched his bare chest. She ran her hands over his stomach, catching hold of the front of his trousers and pulling him to her. “Are you going to lose your head and take me in some hot rush of madness?”
“No, no,” he said, kissing her jaw, kissing her earlobe. “No, I seem to remember someone telling me that she could not fit me in her anything, so I have a feeling this will need to be slow and rather careful, a sort of easing.”
“Oh,” she breathed. “Yes, that sounds just exactly right.”
“So, first,” he told her, “I should like to look at you, every bit of you, and then I should like to take my time getting acquainted with all of you, all of the bits that are usually covered up, and then, only then, will we even take off my trousers.”
She giggled. “What if I want to see it again?” She tried to unbutton one of his buttons.
He batted her off. “None of that. You’ll see it soon enough.”
She giggled again, trying to get at his trousers again.
He lifted her arms out of the way and then gently, looking at her in her eyes, stretched them out above her head. He pinned them to the wardrobe with one of his hands, shaking his head at her.
“Am I too much of an eager hussy, then?” she breathed.
“Just exactly the right amount,” he said in a guttural voice. “But I shan’t let go of your hands until I have your promise that when I do, you will only do one thing with them, and that is to remove your shift and show me my pretty wife’s bare skin.”
“Oh,” she said, the words working through her in a wicked sort of way. She let out a little sigh, shutting her eyes. “Well, all right.”
“That’s not a promise, Lizzy.” He kissed her temple.
