Page 46 of Mr. Darcy’s Fiery Passion

He learned her. She was slick and hot and very soft, and she smelled of lavender soap and of herself. He listened to every sound she made. When she gasped, he did it again. When her hips lifted, he followed them. When her fingers clenched in his hair, he knew he had found the place, that small, tender bud at her center. He stayed there.

She was trying to be quiet. He could hear how hard she was trying. Her breath came in little broken rushes, and then in sounds she pressed into the sleeve of her wrapper. Her good leg slid over his shoulder. Her heel pressed into his back and held him there.

He was not going anywhere.

He was hard and aching, and his breeches had become a torment. Every sound she made stoked the ache in him. He ignored it. This was not for him.

"Fitzwilliam," she gasped. "Fitzwilliam, I do not... I cannot..."

He did not stop. He only gentled, and kept on, and let her climb.

When her release took her, it took her all at once. Her whole body drew taut in the chair. She turned her face into the wing of it and bit down on her sleeve. A long, muffled cry shook out of her. He felt every pulse of it against his mouth, and he held still and let it go through her.

She sagged back into the cushions, boneless, gasping.

He laid his cheek against the inside of her knee. His pulse was pounding. His palms throbbed inside their linen. His own body ached with wanting, hard and unsatisfied.

He had no hands. And he did not feel helpless at all.

For a long time neither of them moved.

The fire ticked in the grate.

Her fingers lay loose in his hair. After a while they began to move, slowly, stroking. "Oh," said Elizabeth faintly. It was all she said for some time.

She was looking down at him. Her cheeks were flushed, and her hair had half come out of its plait. Her nightgown was in disarray around her. She looked thoroughly undone, and astonished, and very pleased. "I did not know," she said. "Nobody ever told me."

"I should hope not."

She laughed, a weak, shaky laugh. She leaned down and rested her forehead against his. Her breath was warm on his face. He shut his eyes.

"Do husbands do that?" she whispered. "To their wives?"

"The fortunate ones."

"And the wives? Do they..." She stopped. He felt her cheek grow hot against his.

"The fortunate ones," he said again, and she laughed into his hair.

He would have stayed there all night. Her forehead rested against his, and her hand lay on the back of his neck. The fire was dying. It all felt very simple.

At last she drew back. She sat up and reached for him. Her hand slid down his chest toward the waistband of his breeches. Her fingers brushed the hard ridge beneath, and he hissed through his teeth.

He caught her wrist with his forearm, gently. It took everything he had. "Not tonight."

"But you..." She colored to the roots of her hair. "You have not..."

"Tonight was yours."

"That is very unfair of you."

"Yes," he said.

She looked at him with her eyebrows drawn down, half cross and half laughing. Her hair fell over one shoulder. The firelight was on her face.

And he knew.

He had told himself, a week ago, that he could love her. He had called it danger. He had thought it a road he might still decline to take.