Elizabeth's thoughts scattered before she could catch them, language abandoning her when she needed it most.Everything her body did, everything it wanted, defied twenty years of understanding herself.Her tongue refused to form proper sentences and meanwhile Darcy's expression shifted, understanding breaking across his features like dawn over a battlefield.
"You're presenting.You're an omega."
She rejected it with a sharp shake of her head."I'm a beta.Always have been."
"No—Christ, Elizabeth—" He cut himself off, jaw working as he fought for control.His hands tightened on her arms, then released as if burned."I can smell—you're in heat.You're presenting."He took a step back, then another, but she followed, drawn by something she didn't understand."Get away from me.Now.Go back to your room before—"
The urgency in his words cut short as Elizabeth's knees gave way.He caught her—no choice in it, she was already falling—and the contact ripped gasps from them both.His arms around her answered some fundamental question her body had been screaming.This.Yes.The only correct thing in hours of wrongness.She pressed closer, seeking more of that perfect rightness, while he stood frozen.
"Let go."The command came out destroyed."Elizabeth, you have to let go."
But she couldn't.His arms around her answered every wrong thing about the evening, made sense of the chaos.Necessary—that's what his embrace felt like.The missing piece that made everything align.
"Please—what is happening—Darcy, please—"
"Damn it."His control shattered for just a moment, his face dropping to her hair, breathing her in with a shudder that ran through his entire frame.Then he wrenched himself back, features twisted in something close to agony."You don't understand what you're—if someone found us—"
He cut himself off—suddenly she was in his arms, her feet leaving the ground entirely."Christ.Christ, what am I—" The words came out fractured as he strode down the corridor.
A door,hisdoor—she knew from how his dark chocolate and autumn leaves grew dense enough to taste.He shouldered through, kicked it shut, and dropped her like she was on fire.The distance he put between them happened so fast she nearly fell again.
"Fuck."The profanity escaped before he could catch it.He stood with his back pressed to the door, chest heaving, staring at her like she was both salvation and damnation.His hands clenched and unclenched at his sides.
He looked around his own bedchamber as if seeing it for the first time.Horror dawned across his features.
"I just—I brought you to my—" He dragged both hands through his hair, destroying whatever order it had possessed."This is worse.This is so much worse.Your scent is going to be everywhere.In my rooms.God help me, what have I done?"
Her body moved without permission, drawn toward him by invisible threads that pulled at every nerve.Elizabeth had prided herself on independence, on clear thinking, yet here she stood—swaying like a drunk toward Fitzwilliam Darcy.He was the answer to a question she hadn't known to ask.
"Please," she heard herself whisper, horrified at the naked need in her own voice.
He stumbled backward, couldn't as he was already at the door, and his hands flew up between them."Don't.Elizabeth, you don't know what you're asking."His words came out strangled, each one seemingly dragged from him."You're not in your right mind."
Lies.She'd never felt more certain of anything—though what that anything was remained frustratingly beyond reach."Make it stop."The plea tore from her throat, pride be damned."Whatever this is.Please make it stop."
She watched him swallow hard, his carefully constructed walls crumbling as he stared at her with something between hunger and horror.
She watched something fundamental fracture behind his eyes—that iron indifference finally, finally breaking.
"Forgive me," he breathed, already moving.
His hands found her face between one heartbeat and the next, fingertips against her temples, thumbs brushing her cheekbones with reverent desperation.The first touch of his mouth to hers felt like coming home after being lost for years.
Elizabeth heard herself make a sound—relief, recognition, raw need—and fell into him completely.Every careful wall she'd built since Hunsford crumbled at the press of his lips, the heat of his palms against her skin.Her body knew his instantly, fundamentally, singing yes yes yes as she rose on her toes to meet him.He groaned into her mouth—a broken, beautiful sound that she felt in her bones.
The kiss broke with violent suddenness.Darcy tore himself away, stumbling backward until his shoulders hit the door with a dull thud."Forgive me.Christ, forgive me.I should not have—that was unpardonable—"
But already the brief relief was fading, that moment of rightness slipping through her fingers like water.The heat returned with vengeance, crawling beneath her skin, setting every nerve ablaze.Her wrapper had come loose—when had that happened?—and the cool air against her throat didn't alleviate the heat, only prickled her skin because it wasn't Darcy.
Elizabeth didn't think.Couldn't think.Her body moved of its own accord, crossing the space between them in three unsteady steps.She reached for him, arms winding around his neck, pulling herself up against him.Her mouth sought his with desperation.
"Please."The word came out broken against his jaw when he turned his face away."Darcy, please.I need—I don't know what I need but it's you.Please."
Her fingers tangled in his shirt, pulling at the fabric, trying to eliminate any distance between them.She pressed closer, closer, her body knowing what her mind couldn't grasp.The shame of begging barely registered against the overwhelming wrongness of not touching him.
His hands caught her wrists—gentle but inexorable—holding her away even as she strained forward.The denial ripped a sound from her throat that she'd never made before, raw and wounded.
"Elizabeth, stop.Listen to me."
