Chapter 7
CHAPTER SEVEN
Darcy turned to face her.
The candlelight turned him into something mythic.
Elizabeth's heat-fevered gaze traced the harsh planes of his face, the shadow beneath his jaw, the way his chest rose and fell with barely contained restraint.
He looked nothing like the proper gentleman who'd sat across from her at dinner.
This was something else entirely—primal, barely human, carved from hunger and darkness.
Every line of his body screamed tension—shoulders rigid, hands clenched at his sides, the muscles in his jaw working as though he fought some internal war.
His eyes weren't the composed brown she knew.
They'd gone black, pupils blown wide, wild with something that made her pulse race even faster.
He looked—God, he looked dangerous. Like a wolf that had slipped its chain and hadn't quite decided whether to flee or feast.
"I'm sorry," Elizabeth whispered.
"Don't." His voice came out harsh, scraped raw. His coat hit the floor. Then his waistcoat, fingers working the buttons with violence.
Elizabeth whined—a sound she'd never made before, would be mortified by tomorrow—because he stood too far away. The space between them felt like an ocean when she needed him like air.
Darcy approached the bed with controlled purpose, each step measured despite the wildness in his eyes. Not the careful restraint of previous nights but something darker, hungrier.
Her gown ceased to exist. One moment she was wrapped in layers of fabric, the next she wasn't—the transformation so swift she might have imagined the garments had ever been there at all.
The dress went first, buttons yielding to his impatient fingers.
Then the chemise, pulled over her head in one fluid motion that left her gasping.
No gentle coaxing, no tender unveiling. When his palms met her bare skin, they were rougher, less careful, leaving trails of fire wherever they touched.
Elizabeth wanted to tell him to slow down, to look at her, to stop treating this like some terrible duty to be dispensed with as quickly as possible.
But the words wouldn't come. Because beneath his cold efficiency, she could feel it—the barely leashed hunger in the way his knuckles brushed her collarbone, the infinitesimal pause when her chemise caught on her hips before he tugged it free.
He was racing against his own restraint, and they both knew which would win.
She gasped at the contact, and he paused—just a heartbeat.
"Tell me to stop if you need to."
That was all. Then his mouth crashed down on her breast and Elizabeth's world narrowed to sensation.
The careful gentleman of last night had vanished entirely.
When his teeth found her skin, Elizabeth's body bowed upward, a broken sound escaping that belonged to neither pleasure nor pain but some wild place between them.
He gathered her wrists together, trapping them above her with one broad palm while his free hand moved with purpose between her legs.
Where she needed him most. Elizabeth twisted—
"Don't move."
Not a request. A command that brooked no argument. Elizabeth whimpered but obeyed, her body trembling with the effort of stillness while he destroyed her with touch alone. The pleasure built too fast, too intense, crashing over her before she could prepare.
He didn't let her recover. His mouth replaced his fingers and Elizabeth nearly sobbed at the overwhelming sensation.
Too much—it was too much—her oversensitized flesh couldn't take more.
She tried to pull away but his hands gripped her hips, holding her immobile while his tongue worked mercilessly.
Another climax tore through her, then another, until she was begging incoherently.
She tried to form his name but it fractured into syllables that meant nothing, scattered like pearls from a broken string.
Everything she'd ever known about herself unraveled with each pass of his tongue, until Elizabeth was just sensation wrapped in skin, burning from the inside out.
Her mind went white, then gold, then some color that didn't exist outside this room.
Elizabeth heard someone crying out—high, desperate sounds that might have embarrassed her if she could still connect them to her own throat.
But that required thought, and thought had abandoned her completely, leaving only the endless loop of tension and release, building and breaking.
When he finally pulled back, his breaths came in harsh pants. He stripped away his shirt, his breeches, with haste. Fully naked for the first time before her. Elizabeth stared—he was magnificent, all lean muscle and masculine power, and clearly, undeniably aroused.
He positioned himself between her thighs and Elizabeth tensed, understanding dawning. This was different. He was going to—
But he didn't enter her. Instead, his hard length slid against her wetness without penetrating, the friction maddening. Elizabeth's legs wrapped around him, trying to pull him closer, without conscious thought from her.
Nor was her tongue working under the command of her mind.
"Darcy, please—"
"No." The word came out harsh, desperate.
His control was iron and awful and hateful. Each stroke had him dragging directly over her entrance, the blunt pressure making her hips cant upward instinctively, seeking more, but he kept his angle shallow, denying them both what they wanted.
She needed, she needed.
Every ridge of him dragged against her swollen flesh, and she wanted—God, she prayed—he was seconds from snapping.
His forearms trembled—actually trembled—as they held his weight above her.
His breath came hot and ragged against her neck, more animal than man now.
That perfect jaw of his locked tight, unlocked, locked again as he moved.
It wasn't enough.
"Please," she begged again, the word torn from somewhere deep and desperate. "I need you. Need all of you. Please."
Darcy made a sound like a growl, low and threatening. "Quiet."
But his body betrayed him—pressed harder, slid almost to her entrance. Almost. The blunt head of him caught there, just barely breaching, and Elizabeth's entire being narrowed to that single point of contact. So close. He was so close to giving her what every cell in her body screamed for.
"I don't care." She was beyond shame, beyond reason, beyond anything but the consuming need that had her clawing at his shoulders. "Please. I need—"
Darcy cut her off with a bruising kiss, teeth and tongue and barely leashed violence. When he pulled back, his teeth grazed her throat—not biting, just pressure. A warning that sent lightning straight through her core.
Elizabeth's reaction was instant and primal. She arched beneath him, keening, her head tilting back to expose more of her throat. The submission felt right, necessary, as fundamental as breathing.
"Please, alpha, pleasepleaseplease—"
Darcy snapped. Elizabeth saw it happen—watched the last thread of his control break like a rope under too much strain. When he reared back, his eyes were black, purely animal, nothing human left in them at all. A low growl rumbled from his chest, vibrating through her bones.
Then he was positioning himself at her entrance, no warning, no preparation beyond what they'd already done.
"Mine," he snarled, and thrust into her in one brutal stroke.
She couldn't comprehend the incomprehensible thing he'd just said and then it was too late.
The pain was sharp, burning—her untried body stretching to accommodate him all at once.
Elizabeth cried out, fingers digging into his shoulders hard enough to draw blood, but Darcy didn't stop, couldn't stop.
His hand wrapped around her throat—not choking, but holding, possessing.
The weight of his palm against her pulse made her dizzy with want, with need, with the burning stretch between her legs.
His thumb forced her jaw up, making her meet his wild eyes.
"Look at me," he demanded, his voice barely human, all growl and command. "Look at me while I take you."
He began to move, deep, relentless thrusts that drove the breath from her lungs.
Each stroke burned and ached and somehow still sent sparks of pleasure shooting through her overwrought nerves.
Elizabeth couldn't look away from his face—savage, beautiful, completely undone.
This wasn't the cold, proper gentleman who'd sat across from her at dinner.
This was something else entirely, something that belonged to darkness and instinct and the wild places between heartbeats.
And she belonged there with him.
The burn between her legs shifted—still there, still sharp, but something else bloomed alongside it.
Pain blurred into heat, into pressure, into—oh.
Oh. Hot. Urgent. Wrong in how right it felt.
She gasped, couldn't stop gasping, each breath shallow under the weight of his palm.
The stretch of him inside her bordered on too much, but her treacherous body softened anyway, welcoming each brutal thrust. His fingers flexed against her throat—not squeezing, just there, heavy and possessive—and she couldn't look away from his black eyes even as tears pricked at the corners of hers.
The solid weight of him pressed her into the mattress, surrounded her, consumed her.
Everything narrowed to sensation—the drag of him inside her, the ache that sparked into something electric, the way her body opened for him despite the burning stretch.
She tasted copper where she'd bitten her lip, felt sweat beading between her breasts, heard the obscene wet sounds of their joining.
His hand branded her throat, thumb stroking over her rabbiting pulse while he watched her face.
Each thrust punched little "ah, ah, ah" sounds from her that she couldn't hold back, didn't want to hold back.
The room filled with harsh breathing, skin against skin, the creak of the bed frame protesting their violence. Elizabeth's world contracted to this—to him inside her, his hand at her throat, his black eyes boring into hers.
"Who am I?"
She heard herself keening—high, desperate noises that belonged to someone else entirely.
"Alpha," she managed between gasps. "Alpha, alpha, alpha—"
He growled—pleased, possessive—and somehow found a way to push even harder into her.
There—pressure building at her entrance. Swelling. Stretching her wider still. She understood without thought what it was: Darcy's knot forming. What it would mean. Bodies locked. Her fate sealed and them sealed as one.
She wanted it more than anything—almost anything.
"Bite me." Hot tears mingled with sweat as she sobbed for his mark, for the belonging that would make this complete. "Please, alpha, bite me, claim me, I need it, please—"
Elizabeth arched her neck back further still, surrendering utterly, presenting the vulnerable junction of shoulder and throat. The spot that belonged to his claim. The spot that belonged to him.
Darcy bent toward her, the hard press of his teeth finding her throat. Sharp canines dimpled her skin, a promise of all she ached for.
Yes. Finally. They would belong to each other.
No more cold mornings, no more distance.
Just this—them, together, forever. Her heart soared even as her body burned.
All the desperate omega instincts that had driven her so far fell away, and what remained in that moment was purely Elizabeth—Elizabeth who loved him, who wanted him not because her body demanded it but because her soul did.
She wanted to wake beside him. To argue with him over breakfast. To be his.
"Please," she whispered, the word carrying everything she couldn't say. I love you. Choose me. Keep me.
Darcy snarled—a sound of pure anguish—and jerked away.
He pulled out of her abruptly, the loss so sudden and shocking that Elizabeth cried out, reaching for him. Empty. She was empty and he was—
Darcy took himself in hand, and with a roar that shook the walls, spilled hot and copious over her most intimate flesh. His seed coated her entrance, her thighs, marking her without claiming her.
The relief was immediate and terrible. Her body cooled, the burning need retreating like a tide pulling back from shore.
But with it came understanding, sharp as glass.
He'd given her everything except what mattered.
His control had held. Even lost to his own instincts, even with her begging beneath him, he'd denied them both the bond.
Elizabeth lay stunned, his spend cooling on her skin while he knelt between her legs, chest heaving.
His knot had already begun to subside—wasted, useless, meant for her but spent alone.
The mark on her throat throbbed where his teeth had pressed but not broken skin. Another almost. Another not-quite.