Chapter Fourteen
ELIZABETH SENT HER letter off to Jane and received one in return.
Her sister was dolorous, still seemingly pining over Mr. Bingley.
Elizabeth asked Mr. Darcy about it, and he said it was possible that she simply needed someone to charm her to forget her sadness and pain.
Of course, there was no one there to charm Jane, as the vampires had left that part of the country.
Elizabeth wondered about asking her sister to join her there in town, especially since Mr. Darcy was still so insistent that they be separated during the day.
She knew at some point he thought he would trust himself enough to have her with him, but even so, she thought that she might grow tired of the idea of being trapped there with him every day.
Having Jane with her as a companion appealed more and more to her as the time went on.
She and Mr. Darcy went to a dinner held by the Earl and Countess of Matlock, where Elizabeth met all of the Matlocks, and where she was once again in the company of Colonel Fitzwilliam, who seemed to go out of his way to spend time with her.
She found him amiable and pleasing. She found herself looking for ways to encourage that smirk of his, the one that seemed to transform his countenance into something handsome. On the heels of this, she was horrified at herself, for she did not understand why it was happening.
She began to wonder if it had something to do with the fact that Mr. Darcy had refused to deflower her.
It was January now, and they had been married for over a month.
She began to fixate on the idea. Yes, she was a bride who had been married but not fully claimed, and certainly, once this was undertaken, she would fully commit to Mr. Darcy and never find another man attractive ever again, especially considering her husband was so very ancient and powerful that no other man should possibly seem appealing.
One evening, after dinner, she began to pace in the sitting room, trying to work up the nerve to ask him to do it. She felt embarrassed of it, however, and surely, it was not something a woman ought to have to beg from a man, surely, he should do it voluntarily.
She paced.
He noticed. “What is it, my love?” he asked.
She only shook her head and would not answer.
Time passed.
He asked again. She did not answer again.
Finally, he got up and moved into her path. “You are beginning to worry me, Lizzy,” he said.
She exploded. “I cannot wait forever. I know time is nothing to you, but I am not like you, and you keep asking me to wait and wait. But we are not even really married if we have not done it, and you will not do it, and you have been taking only a bit of my blood now for weeks and when shall we finally come together as a husband and wife should?”
He raised his eyebrows, a little smile playing at his lips. “Oh, this is what you are thinking of?”
She put her hands on her hips. “I get the strong impression you are laughing at me, husband.”
“Apologies,” he said. “It is only that is usually the other way round, I think, husbands running after their wives, begging them to acquiesce.”
“I well know this.” She glared at him.
This made him laugh.
She wanted to shove him. She might hate him, in fact.
“All right,” he said. “I am easily convinced of this. You can’t think I don’t wish it, after all. I am lying in bed all day thinking of you, hard as stone.”
She glared at him.
“Where would you like to do it? Here? My bed? Yours?”
“I don’t know if I even wish to touch you right now,” she said, shaking her head, ever so very angry.
He thought this even more funny, and she fled the room for she was moments away from running at him and pounding her fists against his chest. She stopped herself from this not because she thought she would actually hurt him but because it was highly improper to fly into such a passion. She would not do so.
He came after her and caught her by the shoulder.
She turned to look at him, her eyes flashing and all the thunderousness of her anger came together in one point, as she focused on his mouth. She leaped on him, practically climbing him, and she kissed him with all the force of her anger, her frustration, her worry, her panic.
Being with this man was maddening, after all.
He caught her, one hand banded around her waist, the other supporting her bottom as she wrapped her thighs round him.
He held her up like she weighed nothing and kissed her back, gasping against her mouth that he was going to do his best not to bite her.
“Must keep you alert and strong enough, after all,” he said.
“I am alert,” she gasped. “I am strong.”
“You are,” he agreed and carried her all the way to his chamber, where he pressed her into the wall and kissed her senseless, still holding her aloft, but using the wall to pin her there as his hands spanned her hips and thighs, as they explored and squeezed.
Eventually, he carefully extricated her, setting her feet on the floor, backing away and gazing at her intently.
He never broke the gaze as he began to remove his clothing.
He stared at her and untied his cravat. He stared at her and undid his jacket buttons and his waistcoat buttons and then started in on the shirt beneath.
She watched, remembering the look of his bare body, remembering the tantalizingness of seeing him hard and eager for her. She wanted to see him again, but—
“You must help me with my clothes,” she interrupted, turning to face the wall. “I cannot reach my buttons so easily as you.”
“Ah, indeed not,” he said in a thick and affected voice. “Let me undress you then, my pretty wife.” He was there, pressing against her, and she could feel that part of him, pressing into her, and she wriggled into it and they both gasped.
His fingers were deft on her buttons, then on loosening her stays, then on pulling everything out of the way. He had her down to nothing but stockings in no time, and he didn’t remove those, just looked her over, his expression destroyed and lost.
His fangs were protruding from his mouth.
His hair was hanging in his face, and he was only wearing his waistcoat, unbuttoned, over his half-undone shirt, which showed off a tantalizing sliver of his bare chest. He was panting, his gaze settling on first at the swells of her bosom and then at her hips and then to the place where her stockings met her bare skin.
She let out a tiny noise because it she could feel it through the bond, his mad desire for her, and it was turning her inside out.
He closed in on her, nose against her throat, breathing her in. He dragged the tips of his sharp teeth against her sensitive skin.
She moaned.
He grunted, peeling off his shirt and waistcoat together. “No, no, can’t bite. Look, don’t bite, that’s all.”
You can bite me, she tried to say.
But he was kissing her roughly, his tongue nudging thrills through her entire body.
She clutched his now bare shoulders, making noises against his mouth, muffled pleasure noises.
His mouth left hers and he went down to taste the tips of her breasts.
“Someday, I’ll bite you here,” he said, licking the sensitive parts of her, and she cried out at the sensation and the promise.
And then he was on his knees, between her thighs, licking her there.
“And here,” he groaned. “Someday, I’ll bite you just here.
” He flicked his tongue over the place where her pleasure was concentrated.
She gasped. “But,” he said, “no biting today. Just this. Just…” He licked her again, licked the sensitive place, and he started licking her in circles, like he’d done before with his palm.
She fell apart on his tongue rather quickly.
He whispered praise into her slippery sex, saying she was such a sweet and responsive wife, that it was just exactly right for her to enjoy her husband’s mouth on her there, that he was so pleased at how slick she was growing here, that she would need all of that for the way he would be intruding on her soon.
“So wet, Lizzy,” he said, raining gentle kisses on the dark hair of her mound.
“Such a good wife to get so very wet for me.”
And this sort of talk made her twitch and clench harder, even in the wake of her climax. She was a shivering, moaning mess against the wall.
He stood up and pulled her into his arms, kissed her mouth, and she tasted herself there (and this made her twitch between her thighs also) and then he walked them to the bed and lay her down there.
He stood over her, looking at her body, as he removed his trousers.
She reached out to touch that part of him, that hard part of him, but he stopped her, lifting her hands up above her head and pinning them to the bed as he settled between her thighs.
“No, no, Lizzy, I want the first thing I feel to be that lovely wetness you’ve worked up for me, as I slide all the way inside, deep inside, and join us. ”
She shuddered. “Please,” she whispered.
“You should not have had to beg for this,” he said, kissing her. “I am sorry. I am such a failure of a husband.”
“No,” she said, shaking her head.
He was reaching between them, adjusting himself, and she was slippery, and she gasped as his thickness began to slide into her, because it was an intrusion.
It was a pleasant one, and he was moving in quite easily, but he was taking up rather a lot of space, and there was a stretch, Lord, he was filling her entirely up, was he not?
She shuddered again.
He bared his fangs again, throwing back his head.
She gasped once more.
His hips jutted into her, piercing her deep inside, and it cut through her, a sensation of sheer and intense pleasure.
She moaned.
He still had his head back, his fangs glinting, and she had to admit he looked dangerous like that, dangerous and wild and untamed.
He seized her hips and began to thrust in wild abandon, quickly in and out of her, as if he was a man possessed.
He made no noise at all, and he shut his eyes, and he just focused on it, on working himself forcefully in and out of her.
She was making all sorts of strange and unbridled noises, she realized. She sounded like some kind of wounded thing, lost and overtaken. Am I prey? she thought again.
His eyes opened in slits, and his fangs glinted, and she thought that he was going to strike at her, tear at her as he had that other time, drink her and drink her again.
But instead, she felt his hardness jerk inside her and a tremor seemed to go through his whole body.
He let out a long, low groan and he seemed to relax.
His fangs disappeared and then he was gentle, laying his body against hers, kissing her softly and carefully, as if she were now something fragile he could break when he’d been going at her a moment before as if he could not stop himself from ravaging her.
She kissed with her eyes open, still gasping for air, for several moments, until she, too, began to relax, feeling soothing sensations coming to her through the bond, and she wrapped her arms around his neck and let out a few soft moans.
He kissed her chin. Her jaw. Her earlobe. “Mmph. Still want to bite you.”
“Bite me, then,” she said softly.
“No.” He opened his eyes to look down at her. “No.”
She bit down on her bottom lip and searched his gaze.
“Was I too rough with you, love?” he said.
She shook her head. “No, no, not at all. I am quite all right.” She put her hand on his chest. “And now I’m yours.”
“You’ve been mine, Elizabeth,” he growled.
She smiled. Yes, she had, she supposed. She truly had.