Page 41 of Shipwrecked with Mr Darcy

“Elizabeth.”

“I am well. Move.”

He moved again. He began with a slow, careful rhythm, his body learning hers. The initial discomfort gave way to friction, and then to a pleasure that built in escalating waves. She held his shoulders tightly. Her fingers dug into his skin; she was not gentle, and he did not ask her to be.

They found their rhythm. The cadence settled into something mutual and deeply instinctive — she had expected awkwardness, and found instead that she knew. Her body rose to meet his without instruction, her legs wrapping around him, her heels pressing into the small of his back.

He groaned—a low, rough sound against her neck. The formal, meticulous Fitzwilliam Darcy would never have made such a sound in any other circumstance. It undid her.

“Harder,” she said. The direct demand in her own mouth surprised her. It surprised him too; she felt it in the momentary stutter of his rhythm. Then he complied, his hips driving deeper and faster. The powerful thrusts sent a shock through her that tightened every muscle in her body.

The pleasure built in intense, breathless surges. His mouth was on her neck, and his hand moved between them, his thumb finding the sensitive peak he had discovered the night before. The combination was overwhelming. She heard herself cry out his name in a fractured gasp.

She came apart. The release was a powerful wave that began where his thumb pressed and spread outward through her hips and thighs. She clenched around him in a hard, involuntary spasm, her body seizing with a pleasure that obliterated all rational thought. She cried out loudly, the uncontrolled sound echoing in the stone tower.

He followed her immediately. His remaining control cracked on a final, deep thrust. His hips stilled, and his forehead dropped to her shoulder. His body shuddered violently against hers as he spilled into her, releasing a heavy groan that she felt reverberate against her own ribs.

Silence returned to the tower, broken only by the crackle of the fire and the unchanged rhythm of the sea beyond the archway. Through the gap in the roof, the stars shone bright and indifferent.

They lay tangled on the pallet. His head rested on her chest, his breathing slowly steadying against her skin. She tangled her hand in his hair, her fingers moving through the damp strands in a gesture that was idle, possessive, and wholly new. His arm lay heavy and warm across her waist. He was a man who had finally let go of every rigid structure that held him upright, resting wholly upon someone else.

Her body was tender, and sore in a particular, unfamiliar way. She knew she would feel it more keenly on the morrow, but she did not regret it. The soreness was physical evidence that she had chosen this path, and that her choice was correct.

“I did not know,” she said.

He raised his head. His firelit face was close to hers. The formal composure that had been his defining feature was gone altogether. It was replaced by something raw, open, and much younger than the severe man she had danced with at Netherfield.

“What did you not know?”

“Any of it. What it would feel like. That I was capable of this. That you were.” She traced his jaw with her finger, feeling the rough stubble that had grown over the past two weeks. “I feel awake. I said that last night, and it is still true. I feel as though I have been living at half measure, and suddenly I am wholly alive.”

“I feel,” he began, then stopped. It was a characteristic pause—the hesitation of a man whose deep feelings outpaced his vocabulary. “I feel as though I have been carrying a heavy weight for a very long time. I have finally set it down, and I cannot even remember what it was.”

She kissed his forehead. The tender, domestic gesture belonged to a relationship that had not existed an hour ago. Yet it existed now, and it was as real as the stone beneath her back and the sound of the sea outside.

“The stars are out,” she said.

“Yes.”

“The roof is still leaking.”

“Yes.”

“We should fix it with stones.”

He laughed against her chest, his body shaking with the warm, close sound. She held him while he laughed. The embrace was a new thing—a depth of affection she had not known she was capable of. Such holding required great trust, and trust required risk. She had risked everything tonight, and the reward was far greater than she could have imagined.

The fire burned low, and the stars turned overhead. The island held them, and the sea held the island. They had crossed every line, and they were not sorry.

For the first time, they were home.

Chapter Eighteen

Darcy discovered, in the days that followed, that Elizabeth Bennet hummed when she worked.

It was not a tune he recognised. It was a low, absent melody she produced while gutting fish, sorting figs, or scrubbing the flagstones. The sound emerged from her naturally, without intent, as a consequence of some internal process that required no audience. He had not heard it before. Either she had only just begun to hum, or he had previously not been close enough or quiet enough to notice.

He was learning her. The project had no end date. He approached it with the same methodical attention he brought to the management of Pemberley: he observed, he catalogued, and he remembered. He was well aware that this intense study was a form of devotion masquerading as method.