Page 81

She took all of him and went still, and let out a long breath. "Oh," she said softly. "Oh. That is different."

"Does it hurt?"

"No." She shook her head, and her hair swung. "It does not hurt at all. It feels..." She moved her hips a very little, and her eyes went wide. "It feels better than anything in the world."

He could not answer.

She began to move. She was slow and uncertain at first. Then she found what she liked, and she was not uncertain at all. She rocked against him with her hands braced on his chest, and every movement burned through him.

He put his hands on her hips. He held her, and let her take what she wanted.

She is using me, he thought dimly. For her own pleasure. And I have never been so glad of anything in my life.

Six weeks ago he had sat in a chair at Netherfield with his hands in linen. He had thought that to be useful was the only way to be loved. Now he lay under his wife in the morning light, and she was taking her pleasure from his body. He had never been less useful, or more loved.

He slid his hand down between them. He found that sensitive place again with his thumb and circled it in time with her.

She gasped. Her rhythm broke. "Fitzwilliam. Oh. Do not stop."

"I shall not." He did not.

He watched her climb. He watched the flush spread from her cheeks down her throat to her breasts. He watched her eyes close and her mouth fall open. Her fingers dug into his chest.

When she broke, she broke around him. He felt every clench and flutter of her release. It went through him in waves of heat. He held on to her hips and gritted his teeth, and did not follow. Not yet. He wanted to watch every moment of it.

She sagged forward onto his chest, gasping and laughing at once.

"Twice this morning," said Darcy into her hair.

"You are very pleased with yourself," she said.

"I am."

"You may be." She kissed him, hard. "But you have not finished, sir."

"No."

She sat up again. He was still deep inside her, still hard, and she rocked against him slowly. Her eyes glinted. "Then finish," she said. "I want to watch you."

He could not have refused her if the house had been burning down around them.

He rolled her under him, gently, without leaving her. She laughed and wrapped her legs round his waist. He braced himself on his forearms and watched her face on the pillow.

He moved in her slowly. Long, deep strokes, as slow as he could bear. She watched him the whole time. She touched his face, and his mouth, and the scar on his ribs.

The pleasure built in him until it was a blaze. There was no pain in his hands as he gripped the sheets. There was no pain anywhere. There was only her, and the heat of her, and her eyes on his. "Elizabeth," he said. "I..."

"I know," she said. "I know. Let go."

He let go. His release tore through him, long and hard, and he heard himself cry out her name. He shook with it. She held him through every moment, her arms tight round his back and her mouth at his ear.

Afterward he lay with his face in her neck and could not move. The fire crackled in the grate. Gray light came round the curtains. Somewhere far below, a door shut and a voice called out.

She laughed softly against his hair, and he felt it all through her body under him. He rolled off her at last and drew her against his side. She settled her head on his chest, in the same place she had slept.

They lay a long while in silence. The fire had caught properly now. The room was warm.

He traced idle circles on her bare shoulder with his healed fingers. "I did not finish what I was saying," he said.