Page 27 of Shadows Of Rosings Park: Part 2

Darcy swore under his breath.

"You may stop me," she said.

"That's not within my power."

She stroked him once, fascinated by the fracture in his expression. He caught her wrist and kissed her palm, then settled between her thighs.

"Elizabeth." His forehead pressed to hers. "There may be pain."

"I know." She traced the taut line of his jaw, felt the muscle jump beneath her fingertips. "Come to me."

He entered her slowly. The stretch became a sharp resistance that made her fingers bite into his shoulders. He stopped at once.

"Look at me," he said.

She opened eyes she had not realised she had shut. Concern warred with need in his face.

"Do you want me to withdraw?"

She tested the ache, then moved her hips beneath him. Pain softened into a fuller pressure.

"No. Slowly."

He obeyed. When he was fully inside her, he held still, trembling with the effort. Elizabeth drew him down and kissed him. Only when she moved again did he begin, each measured stroke easing the discomfort and feeding a new heat beneath it.

Soon measured was not enough. She wrapped her legs around him and drew him deeper. His control failed by degrees: a broken breath against her neck, a harder thrust, her name spoken like an oath. The bedstead struck the wall in an uneven rhythm. Elizabeth met him without modesty, asking for what she wanted with her hands and hips when words deserted her.

Pleasure rose again, slower and heavier than before. He slipped a hand between them and found the place his mouth had left tender.

"With me," he said.

She wanted to tell him that she belonged to no command. Then his fingers moved, his body drove deep, and the answer became a cry. The second climax clenched around him. Darcy thrust once more and went rigid above her, her name breaking in his throat as he spent himself inside her.

For a time neither moved. His weight held her to the mattress, not as a prison but as proof that he too had been rendered helpless. At last he shifted to spare her and gathered her against him. His hand travelled once along her back, almost tentative.

"Are you hurt?"

"A little."

He froze.

"Don't look as though I've accused you of murder. I was warned it might be so."

"I should have been gentler."

"You were. Until I asked you not to be."

He searched her face, and whatever he found there let him breathe again.

Later, she lay in the tangled sheets and listened to his breathing slow. His arm was around her waist. His face rested against her hair. She could feel his heart against her back, beating hard.

"This was real," he said. His voice was rough. Wrecked. "Whatever else you doubt — whatever calculation you attribute to me — this was real."

She lay still. His arm tightened in sleep, an involuntary clutch, like even unconscious he was holding something he feared might escape.

Elizabeth counted the shadows on the ceiling until wakefulness finally released her.

CHAPTER 10