Chapter Five #2
Not yet, he told himself. Do not taste her yet. He looked about the room for distraction, however, and he saw that Mr. Bingley and Caroline had seated themselves on either side of Jane, and the look in their eyes was eager and hungry.
None of them were going to be able to wait, it seemed, and it was still so early in the night, not even remotely close to the morning.
“After tonight, Miss Elizabeth, you will never see me again,” he said to her.
She gave him a look that was nearly wounded. “Oh, I see.”
“I am a monster, am I not?” he said pointedly. “Have you not said so yourself?”
“Yes,” she said, nodding. “Yes, good. It will be very good to be rid of you.”
He pulled her into his lap.
She squeaked.
“I know, but impropriety be damned,” he muttered, arranging her arm around his neck, giving him the access he wanted. He ran his nose up and down her neck, breathing her in. She was all soft flesh and warmth, and he was overcome.
“You kissed me before,” she said in a very small voice.
“Yes,” he growled and then he claimed her lips again, a deeper kiss than the time before, one that meant he delved in with his tongue to touch hers.
She made a noise of surprise but allowed him access, her body melting into his, her hand going to seize a handful of his cravat.
He broke the kiss but kissed her chin and then her forehead and then her eyebrow.
She sighed. “You… I suppose you aren’t human, so you can’t… couldn’t…”
He pulled away, so that he could look in her eyes. “Can’t what, sweet Elizabeth?”
“I am not to allow men to have such liberties,” she said. “I have been taught to resist, sir, but you… it is so difficult to resist, and I suppose the danger is only the way you wish to bite me, not, erm, anything else.”
He hesitated, because that wasn’t true. In fact, he was aroused again, his trousers straining to contain him. He wouldn’t do that to her, of course.
Well, he shouldn’t.
But then, he shouldn’t be biting her either or kissing her or having her in his lap either.
He was a monster, was he not? This poor girl had likely never known the touch of a man, and here he was, taking all of her firsts, things she might have liked to share with a human man, with a husband or a lover.
“I am sorry for not being careful with you, Miss Elizabeth,” he said.
“I seem to lose my ability to think when I am with you, which is not a good excuse, of course, but is the best I can do to explain myself. I shall leave you quite intact for your future husband. And do not forget, we shall all charm you before we set you free, and you’ll forget all of this, so when he touches you, it will be as if you are untouched. ”
She shook her head. “I don’t think I wish to forget,” she said.
He kissed her again, a long and lingering kiss. “No? Truly?”
“Anyway, I likely shan’t have a husband, in the end.”
He pulled back again, giving her a funny look. “Why would you say that? You are loveliness personified. Any man who wouldn’t want you is obviously an idiot.”
She smiled a small smile. “I think you are biased because of the sirensong business. You do not see me accurately.”
“Trust me, I do.” He traced her cheekbone with his forefinger.
She squirmed deliciously on his lap. “I haven’t a dowry, not really. And I am not a winsome or agreeable sort, I don’t think. Sometimes, I think I am too direct. You are wrong, anyway, men don’t want me, Mr. Darcy. You are the only one who ever has.”
“That is foolish, Miss Elizabeth. You are young and you don’t know what awaits you. You will be much pursued after I leave you, I assure you.” He kissed her again.
She moaned into his mouth.
He kissed her jaw.
She gasped.
And then—finally—he latched onto the pulse of her, that jumping little vein beneath her skin full of the intoxicating liquid that tasted of honey and cinnamon. He drank.
She moaned again, a long and low moan.
He clutched her to him. He might have driven his pelvis into her, into the rounded backside he’d pulled into his lap. He might have let his hands explore her. He might have touched her waist and her hips and her thighs and then cupped her bosom.
And he drank and drank and drank until she was gasping and limp against him and he knew he must stop if he didn’t wish to cause her actual harm.
But he didn’t let her go.
No, he kept her in his lap and kissed her and touched her, and she sighed and looked at him with half-lidded eyes of adoration, and he was a besotted fool.
How was he to manage giving her up?
How was he to leave her behind?
ELIZABETH AND JANE were put to bed before sunrise again, and Elizabeth was very tired, so she fell directly to sleep, dreaming of the evening she’d spent in a man’s lap with his hands and mouth all over her, with his teeth in her skin.
She was becoming, by degrees, more agreeable toward that man.
He was a vampire and he wanted to drink her and she could not trust him, but it felt so good, oh, so very good, and she was lost, she thought as she drifted off.
She awoke with a start to pain.
“Shh, no need for that,” said a voice next to her, a female voice. “Just stay resting there, poppet, it’s all right.”
The pain was in her neck. The voice belonged to Caroline Bingley. The vampiress was feeding on Elizabeth.
Elizabeth moaned, trying to struggle, because she was tired and weak and Mr. Darcy had taken quite a bit of her blood earlier in the evening, and it hurt to have Caroline taking even more, hurt badly.
When Mr. Darcy fed upon her, it was nothing but pleasure, but this wasn’t like that.
Her struggles were easily subdued by Caroline, however, and Elizabeth felt herself slipping away, a dark chasm opening up and swallowing her whole.
She would have thrashed, but suddenly her limbs were too heavy to move. And the pain she’d felt, it was gone too, replaced only by heavy darkness, like a weight that pulled her down, down, down.
She wanted to fight; it was too difficult.
And then there was nothing but endless black nothingness.