Chapter 9 #3
His fingers reached a place no one had ever touched. An instinctive shame made me turn my head away.
He came back up to my face at once.
His fingers moved slowly.
The sensation took my breath away. It was neither painful nor entirely pleasant at first. Too intimate. Too new.
Then he began again.
My body understood before I did.
My hips shifted slightly beneath his hand.
The heat spread, deeper, more insistent. I didn’t know what he was seeking, only that each caress brought me closer to something I couldn’t name.
I gripped his arm.
“Fitzwilliam…”
“I’m here.”
His fingers didn’t stop.
I let myself be guided by the rhythm he set, by his mouth on mine, by the breaths that escaped me unbidden.
The tension became almost unbearable.
“I don’t understand…”
“Don’t try to understand.”
He kissed me.
“Let go.”
I closed my eyes.
The wave took me suddenly.
My body arched, my fingers closed around him, and his name left my lips in a muffled cry. Pleasure coursed through me with a force that made me lose all awareness of the room, the candles, Pemberley.
When I came back to myself, Fitzwilliam was still above me.
He was kissing my cheek, my temple, my eyelids.
I hid my face against his neck.
His hand caressed my back slowly.
I breathed in his scent—sandalwood and the warmth of his skin—until my breathing found its rhythm again.
Then I felt his arousal against my thigh once more.
I stiffened slightly.
He noticed.
“Look at me, Elizabeth.”
I raised my eyes.
“What comes next may be painful at first. I’ll go slowly.”
I nodded.
“I still don’t know what I should do.”
“Stay with me.”
He gently brushed aside a strand of hair stuck to my cheek.
“That’s all.”
Fitzwilliam positioned himself between my legs. I let them open, even though every new instinct urged me to close them.
He kissed me.
Then I felt pressure.
A sharper burning followed.
My fingers dug into his shoulders.
Darcy stopped immediately.
“Elizabeth?”
“Wait.”
He didn’t move.
His forehead rested against mine. His hand moved slowly up and down my hip, not trying to go further.
The pain pulsed for a few moments.
Then it lessened.
I caught my breath.
“A little more,” I murmured.
He moved forward with agonizing slowness.
The sensation remained strange, too full, but his mouth on mine and his arms around me kept me from losing myself in the discomfort.
When he was fully inside me, he held still.
I felt his body trembling above mine.
“Fitzwilliam?”
“Yes.”
“You can move.”
He barely withdrew, then returned.
My fingers clenched.
“Slower.”
He obeyed.
Each movement stayed slow. Careful. I didn't yet know how to move with him. I simply lay beneath him, my arms around his neck, aware of the sensations slowly shifting.
The pain receded.
A gentler warmth took its place.
My body stopped resisting. My hips responded clumsily to one of his movements.
Fitzwilliam let out a ragged breath.
“Like that?” I asked.
“Exactly like that.”
He asked no more of me.
He continued to guide me, his rhythm slow enough for me to follow. I began to understand not through thought, but through the pleasure that returned each time our bodies met.
“Lizzy…”
My nickname on his lips overwhelmed me.
I held him tighter.
The pleasure rose again, less sudden than before, deeper. It mingled with the pressure of his body, his lips on my skin, the way he breathed my name.
I couldn't say when I stopped following and started seeking.
My hips rose toward his.
He quickened slightly.
I buried my face in his neck as the wave passed through me a second time. Slower, deeper. My body trembled against his.
Fitzwilliam spoke my name.
His movements lost their rhythm. Then his body tensed above me and he buried his face against my temple.
We stayed like that, entwined and breathless.
I still didn't know exactly what had just happened.
I only knew I regretted nothing.
He lifted himself carefully.
“Did I hurt you?”
“At first.”
His expression shuttered immediately.
I placed my hand on his cheek.
“Then it wasn't the same.”
He pressed his lips to my palm.
“I would have spared you even that.”
“I know.”
He withdrew slowly, then lay beside me and drew me immediately against him.
I rested my head on his chest.
His hand caressed my back with a gentleness that contrasted with everything I'd just felt.
“I don't know what to say,” I murmured.
“You don't have to say anything.”
“This is an unusual situation.”
A low laugh vibrated beneath my cheek.
I smiled against his skin.
“You're mocking me.”
“Never tonight.”
I raised my face.
He looked at me as no man ever had, and he no longer tried to hide it.
“I love you,” he said.
He hadn't planned the words. I knew it from his voice, which broke mid-sentence, and from the way his hand stilled on my back, as if he feared, after all we had just shared, that I might still say no.
This man had taken a year to say these three words to me. He spoke them quietly, in the dark, with no one to hear, to a woman who had refused him once.
I placed my hand on his heart.
“I love you too.”
Fitzwilliam kissed me slowly.
This time, I didn't wonder what I should do.
I closed my eyes and let myself be loved.