“And mine was that you would be disappointed that I was going to live”—she paused—“and you would leave me behind when you returned to your real home.”
“I would be lonely and unhappy without you. I love you.”
“I love you,” she said firmly while taking hold of his face in her hands and pressing a kiss to his mouth.
When he traced her warm lips with his tongue, she parted them, and he eagerly reached his tongue in to touch hers. Elizabeth moaned into his mouth and pulled him closer, raking her nails through his hair while he wrapped her in a tight embrace. Her dressing gown slipped from one shoulder, and when he pushed it farther down, she leant away to slowly pull one arm and then the other from the sleeves.
“Fitzwilliam, I need to ask something.” His breathing was laboured after their kisses and at the sight of her nearly stark naked, but he nodded. She was pale and silent for a moment before the words burst from her. “I need to know if you loved me, then why did you kiss me and then leave my room with the excuse that we keep a chaste union?”
Darcy felt his cheeks warm, and he exhaled a soft wince as he understood the cause of her confusion and self-doubt.Have I truly done and said everything wrong?He took her hand and kissed her knuckles before pressing it over his heart. “Can you feel how fast my heart is beating?” Elizabeth pushed aside his open shirt to stretch a few fingersonto his bare chest before she nodded. “I fear my heart could burst from my chest at the mere thought of you.” Her eyes flew to his. He gave the hand on his chest a squeeze. “I left because I was afraid an amorous congress would tax your heart.”
She dropped her hand and looked away. Darcy’s shoulders fell. “I am sorry, Elizabeth. I loved you by then, and I certainly wanted to stay. You had said you did not want me to mention your illness, and it made you angry whenever I?—”
“No, no, it was perfectly reasonable not to forsake my health in favour of immediate passion, and I made it impossible for you to explain your motives.” She shrugged and dropped her voice. “I would have tried to dissuade you if you had.”
“It still led to such a misunderstanding that you thought I could not love you or want you in my bed.”
“I did not even consider such a reason as my health . . .” She hung her head and gave a wry, critical laugh. “I thought I had something more of quickness than that.”
“I have always thought you are a person of remarkable intellectual endowments. Even if you did come to the wrong conclusion after you read my letters and ledgers,” he added with a breath of humour. He meant to make her smile, to tease in the way he expected her to tease him.
However, she then shifted closer, took hold of his hand, and, to his great surprise, splayed it over her own chest. “My heart is already beating quick,” she said with a seductive smile, “but I have it on good authority that no physical exertion will damage it.”
Darcy was struck silent but smiled in return, but before he could act, she added, “I think my night shift makes it impossible for you to feel how rapidly my heart is beating simply from how you are looking at me in that adoring way.”
Darcy gathered the hem of her night shift and lifted it over her head. Elizabeth took it from him and, with a flick of her wrist, tossed it away. He was ready to die with desire from the sight of her. Her dark eyes were smouldering when he pulled her close to kiss her. His tongue plunged into her mouth and his fingers ran through her hair.When she later tore her mouth from his, they stared at each other, enthralled, the sound of their ragged breathing filling the silence of the room.
“Do you still think that spirit-stirring, passionate love can never happen?” Elizabeth asked archly as she curled her fingers under the end of his shirt, as though considering whether or not it should join her clothes on the floor.
“I never said it was impossible.” Darcy caught the tip of one earlobe between his teeth, and her breath hitched. “I said it was rare.” He brushed aside her hair, and Elizabeth turned her head, showing him her throat. His lips grazed her neck, and when he sucked harder, a hum of pleasure trembled against his lips.
He raised his head to return to her mouth, his breathing unsteady, when Elizabeth suddenly straddled his hips and tugged up his shirt. She was so eager that she had not bothered to unfasten the buttons at the cuffs, and for a long moment he was trapped in a tangle of linen while Elizabeth ran her hands over his chest, laughing lightly as he struggled to free his arms from the sleeves.
“I am still waiting for you to feel for yourself how quickly my heart is beating,” Darcy heard his wife say as he finally lifted his shirt over his head to fling it away.
Instead of answering, Darcy covered her mouth with his and slid his hands up to cup her breasts. Her fingers traced the breadth of his shoulders and down his back. Their kisses now were an unrestrained, blood-stirring tangle of lips, tongues, and teeth. Only after he heard her moaning against his mouth did he realise how roughly he was palming her breasts, but when he eased back, Elizabeth arched to press harder against his hands.
While he kissed her, she rocked herself against him, making him groan at how good she felt. He pulled away from her lips to watch her, enjoying the sight of her gratifying herself, her parted lips and her lidded eyes and her breath coming faster with each push of her hips, but he gasped when she stopped to wrap her fingers around him. Elizabeth’s lips were swollen from kissing, but he had to kiss her again while she stroked him with intensifying curiosity. It was not muchlonger until she unknowingly moved in a way to make his head fall back with a moan.
“Elizabeth,” he said through a sigh with his eyes closed. He ardently wished to join with her and asked if she was ready for the same.
Before he could open his eyes, Elizabeth surprised him by taking him in her hand, tilting her hips, and lowering herself. Her first hesitation cost his self-control dearly, and he fought against every base desire to thrust forward as hard as he could. Darcy ran his hands along the back of her thighs and finally settled on her hips, exerting just enough pressure so she knew he wanted her to stay.
It was neither quick nor easy for her, but he eventually won his way, with Elizabeth’s hands on his shoulders and her face buried against his neck. Darcy put his arms around her to hold her close. She gave a deep sigh, quite another tone than one of pain, but not nearly the same as the moans of pleasure she made before.
“I want to touch you,” he whispered into her ear.
Elizabeth raised her head to look down at them before giving him a saucy look. “I would say you already are.”
Darcy arched an eyebrow and moved his hand between them. Her teasing expression fell, and she gave quick, shallow breaths as he moved his fingers in a slow rhythm. She yielded to him with her head tilted back and a whisper of “I did not expect you to do that.”
Every vein in his body was circulating a liquid fire at both the thought of Elizabeth touching herself this way and imagining whatever she might want from him. While these lustful thoughts swirled in his mind, she shifted her hips and began to slowly lift and fall. He finally found his voice to ask, “Whatdidyou expect me to do?”
Elizabeth cupped her breasts and offered them with a long look at his mouth. He lowered his lips to her, to tease her, and himself, with long strokes of his tongue and the gentle slide of his teeth. Her loud cries and swifter actions told him that her pleasure was rising as the initial discomfort subsided. Each tug of his mouth made her grind harder against him.
“Oh, ’tis too much. No, don’t stop!”
His joys were more silent than hers, but the same pleasure wasbuilding in him. Eventually, her motions became too rapid to keep her balance and she threw her arms around him for support, her fingernails digging into him, and biting her own lip to stop from whimpering. He leant back to watch, and Darcy moved his hand from her long enough to brush a thumb across her lips.
