Page 38 of Shipwrecked with Mr Darcy

“No.”

“You are lying.”

“It does not pain me when you touch it. It pains me at other times. When you touch it, it is something else entirely.”

She traced the scar again, from his ribs to his hip. Her fingers continued past the scar to his taut stomach, and then lower, to the line where his trousers began. Her hand rested there, at the edge of his waistband. The pause was a deliberate question.

His physical desire was obvious. He had been aroused since she had first bared her shoulder. She was close enough to see it, and her hand at his waistline proved that she had. Her flushed, direct gaze offered no polite pretences.

Her hand moved lower, over the fabric of his trousers. She pressed her palm against him, finding his shape through the linen. His breath left him in a sudden rush. His hips moved against her hand involuntarily. He had always prided himself on his physical control, but she had undone it entirely with a single press of her palm.

“Elizabeth.” His voice was rough. He did not recognise it.

“Yes.”

“You do not have to.”

“I know I do not have to. I want to.” Her hand pressed again. Her fingers explored his shape through the fabric with a thorough, unhurried deliberation that nearly unmade him. “Tell me if you want me to stop.”

“I do not want you to stop. That is the problem.”

“I assure you, it is not a problem.” She stroked him through the linen—a long, slow movement. His head fell back against the stone wall and his eyes closed. He made a quiet, helpless sound, completely outside his own control.

He pulled her to him, capturing her mouth. With his hand in her hair and her hand still stroking him, their kiss became deep and uncoordinated. It tasted of figs and the raw desperation of two people who had finally abandoned all restraint. His free hand found her bare breast again, his thumb drawing across the nipple. She gasped into his mouth. Her hand tightened on him, drawing a rough groan from his throat.

They stayed against the wall for a long time. He kissed her breasts, her neck, and the sensitive skin below her ear. Her hand stroked him through the fabric, eventually finding the opening at his waist and slipping inside. The first touch of her bare hand on his bare skin emptied his mind of every thought except the devastating, precise rhythm of her fingers.

Eventually, he stopped her. He placed his hand on her wrist, gentle but firm. He was far too near the edge, and there was still so much left unexplored. Stopping her cost him more than any physical labour on the island.

“Not yet,” he said.

She looked at him. Her face was flushed, her lips swollen, and her dress was bunched at her waist. Her dark, bright eyes asked a silent question in the firelight.

“I want to touch you,” he said. “Will you let me?”

“Yes.”

He laid her down on the pallet, keeping his hand behind her head to ease her onto the sailcloth. She lay on her back, her breasts bare and glowing in the firelight. She watched him with an openness that was not vulnerability, but entire trust.

He kissed her mouth, then her throat. He kissed the warm valley between her breasts and the taut muscles of her stomach. He kissed the curve of her hip where the thin, salt-softened dress still covered her. His fingers gathered the fabric and drew it up slowly, exposing her thighs.

Her legs were bare, brown, and strong. A faint tremor ran through her muscles — pure anticipation. She parted her knees in a small, welcoming movement.

He placed his hand on the inside of her thigh, where the skin was softer and untouched by the sun. He moved upward slowly. Her breathing fractured, the even rhythm breaking into sharp pulls. When his fingers found her, she was wet, and the slick heat of her arousal destroyed his remaining composure.

“Oh,” she said, the syllable caught between breath and voice. He stroked her gently, finding the sensitive peak that made her hips rise. Her eyes closed, and her hands fisted in the sailcloth beneath her. The composure she had maintained all evening unravelled.

He watched her face. Her lips parted, and her brow drew together. Expressions moved across her features faster than she could control them: pleasure, surprise, and a sharp intensity when his thumb found the perfect rhythm and pressure. She was not quiet. Small sounds escaped her, caught between her teeth and her breath.

“There,” she said. “Yes. There.”

He maintained the rhythm, working his fingers while his mouth drew at her breast. The combination pulled a loud, uninhibited sound from her throat—a sound that would have mortified her in any English drawing room. To him, it was exquisite. He drew it from her again and again. On the third time, her back arched and her thighs clamped tight around his hand. She broke apart beneath his touch with a sharp cry that echoed off the stone walls, answered by nothing but the sea and the night.

Afterward, the fire burned low in the warm air. Elizabeth lay on the pallet, her dress still at her waist, her body entirely relaxed. The trembling was gone, replaced by the great stillness of the aftermath. He lay on his side beside her, resting his hand on her stomach, feeling it rise and fall beneath his palm.

She turned her head. Her eyes, when they found his, were dark, satisfied, and distinctly amused. It was entirely characteristic of her to find even this surrender at least partially humorous.

“I imagined,” she said, “that I would feel guilty.”