Page 70 of Mr. Darcy’s Fiery Passion

He did.

His fingers found the heat of her. She was slick already, and she heard him groan at it, low in his chest. He touched her slowly, with great care. He circled the pearl hidden there until her knees went weak. When the bad ankle buckled, he simply held her up. She let him take all her weight.

She found the buttons of his breeches. Her fingers were clumsy with cold and with wanting. He let her do it, and he shook while she did.

She closed her hand round his length. He was hot and hard against her palm. He said her name in a voice she did not know.

For a while there was nothing in the world but his hand and hers. The old leaves rustled under their feet. A rook went over and neither of them heard it.

She wanted more. She wanted all of it. She drew her good knee up against his hip and pressed close. She felt him there, blunt and hot at her thigh. "Fitzwilliam," she said. "Please. Here."

He went utterly still. For a long moment she thought he would. She felt his whole body want to.

Then he drew a long breath and set his forehead against hers. "Not here," he said hoarsely. "Not against a tree in December, with your ankle and the frost."

"I do not care about the frost."

"I do. I want a fire, and a bed, and the whole of a night." His hand moved on her, slow and deliberate, and she gasped. "I have waited a month to use my hands on you. I mean to take my time."

"That is very unfair of you."

"Yes." He kissed her. "Let me be unfair a little longer."

He was. He took her up and up until she had to hide her face in his coat. Her release took her standing there against him, and he held her through every shudder of it.

She found him again with her hand, and this time she was not clumsy at all. He lasted only a few moments. He turned his face into her hair at the end and groaned her name into it. He caught his release in his handkerchief, and then laughed, breathless, at himself.

They stood a long time inside the greatcoat without speaking. Her cheek was on his shirt. His heart was going very fast under it.

"This morning," said Elizabeth, "I was very cheerful."

His laugh shook them both.

Her hair had come half down. She could feel it heavy on her neck. She took her hairpin from her glove, where she had tucked it, and twisted up the loose coil. She pushed the pin home.

He watched her do it. "There is still one thing my hands cannot do," he said.

"You will have to learn it," said Elizabeth. "I shall give you lessons. Every night."

They walked home by the lane, slowly, with the crutch under her arm and her hand through his.

"Lean on me," he said.

"Gladly," said Elizabeth, and did.

He would not tell her why he had called on her father. "Ask him," was all he said. "It is his to tell." She asked twice more and got nothing.

The lane ended at the back of Longbourn's home wood. They went through the trees in the gray light, past the woodpile and the old swing. At the garden gate the house came into sight. Its new roof was bright slate above the bare apple trees.

He stopped at the gate and looked down at her. "Does your ankle hurt?"

"It is nothing," said Elizabeth.

"You are lying."

She looked up at him. She thought of the library, and his split palms. In the dark she had been the one to say it, and he had been the one to answer.

"Yes," she said. "Carry me the rest of the way."