Page 27 of Penned by Mr Darcy (…By Mr Darcy #3)

He kissed her again. He moaned against her lips as her hands threaded through his hair.

He had never kissed a woman before, for he had lain with so few and kissing had always seen a far greater intimacy than anything else.

He knew, one way or another, Elizabeth Bennet would be the only woman he kissed in all of his life.

He tore his mouth away from hers, peppering desperate kisses along her jaw, her neck, anywhere he could reach. His hands roamed too, tracing up the silhouette of her body. She sighed breathlessly, a music he would savour forever, her fingers still knotted in his hair.

“Oh,” she sighed, her body arching against his as he took her earlobe between his teeth. “What are you doing to me, sir? I have forgotten myself.”

“I love you,” he whispered into her ear. “I do not care if you feel nothing for me. If you hate me when we part, then let me believe you loved me for a moment.”

“You do not love me,” she whispered back. “You cannot.”

“Do not tell me what I feel,” he said, tearing himself away from her and staring at her. “It is absurd enough to my own ears, but you must believe me. You must.”

“Absurd because you cannot stand me! Perhaps you have been overtaken by lust, Mr Darcy, for I know I feel quite dizzy with it myself. I have told myself I hate you, and each word I read both confirmed what I suspected of you and somehow…somehow…”

“And what of you? You read my closest thoughts for your own entertainment. Tell me, Elizabeth, did you laugh at me? Did you share it around with your sisters? Let’s all laugh at Mr Darcy, who can seldom speak to a woman yet possesses the most detailed fantasies? Tell me, was it amusing?”

“I have read no fantasies.”

“What?”

“These fantasies you speak of…I do not understand. I didn’t see anything like that in the diary itself, only the discarded page.”

“Have you read the whole thing?”

“No. I must confess I wished to read it in the daylight, which was why I was taking it out with me. Something about reading by candlelight was too intimate.”

“Too intimate?” he laughed hollowly. “You hold my mind in your hands and now you fear its intimacy? I do not think such a thing is possible, Miss Elizabeth.”

“I know it sounds silly. And I know I was wrong! I have never once protested my innocence or said that I was right in what I did. You are quite right to be angry at me! You can hate me for the rest of your days; I certainly think it would do you more good than the love you claim to feel for me.”

“You presume to tell me what I feel,” he said, voice low and tight. “You did not read carefully enough, Elizabeth. Since you know me so well - would you care to hear the fantasies that have kept me sleepless and half-mad with longing?”

She froze.

He stepped closer - not touching, not yet - but the nearness was deliberate. Calculated. He stood just behind her, so close that the warmth of her body pulled at him like gravity. If she leaned back even a little, she would find what his willpower strained to hide.

Still, he held himself still. Barely.

He dipped his head, his breath stirring the loose curls near her ear.

“Tell me to stop,” he murmured. “Tell me that you hate me. That you have no desire to know what terrible, sinful things I have thought of you.”

She said nothing.

“Tell me.”

“I…” her words ceased, her breath fast. “I want to know.”

“Then I could send you away,” he said softly. “Hand you back the diary and let you discover it alone.”

“No,” she said quickly. “Tell me.”

He drew a sharp breath through his nose, steadying himself. His entire body felt strung tight with restraint. And when he spoke next, it was in a voice he barely recognised as his own - low, raw, and hungry.

“One night,” he began, “I could not sleep. You were only rooms away, and I was restless with thoughts of you. I wondered if you were asleep. I pictured your curls spread about you, like a goddess. And then I imagined - God help me - I imagined I was in your room. That I had come to you not with words, but with my hands, my mouth. That I might kneel beside your bed and press my lips to the space just above your breast. It has often haunted me, for your skin looks to be impossibly soft.”

She sucked in a breath.

“I imagined your voice, quiet and breathless, whispering my name - not in anger or mockery, but in invitation.”

He paused, trembling from the effort it took not to reach for her.

“I imagined the feel of your skin beneath my hands. The sound you would make when I kissed the base of your throat. I allowed myself that indulgence today, and I was right. I have imagined too much, Elizabeth. Far too much. I long to know what else I was right about in my dreams.”

“I dreamt of you.”

“Of me?”

“I did not want to,” she said softly, turning to face him. “It was entirely against my will.”

“When?”

“The first time was at Netherfield.”

“Would you tell me?”

His hand strayed to her waist. She placed her own hand on top of his, keeping him there.

“What is it that makes me feel this way?” she said softly, her eyes fixed upon his. “I have lost my senses, lost my mind. There is nothing that should endear us to one another, Mr Darcy. Nothing at all.”

“Nothing?”

“You despise me.”

“No, I do not. I never did. I did not understand you. And, I think, you did not understand me.”

“I understand you a little better now, I think.”

Her hand still gripped his, and he longed to feel the softness of her skin beneath the gloves she wore. Boldly, he lifted her hand between them. As she stared at him with those dark, intoxicating eyes, he slowly peeled the glove from her. It fell to the ground between them.

The touch of their skin felt like fire, a spark that sent shivers through him.

They stayed like that for some time, hands clasped as they stared at one another.

“I must go,” she said eventually, her hand slipping from his. “Forgive me, sir.”

She bent down, picking up the diary from where it had fallen, discarded without care as they had grown lost in one another. She held it out to him, and when he did not take it, she proffered it more forcefully.

“Here.”

“Finish it,” he said. “There is little left to incriminate me now. It is a terrible thing to leave a book unfinished.”

“I…”

“Do not claim hesitation now, Miss Elizabeth. Take it, and if we never share another moment like this for the rest of our days – you will have a piece of my heart.”

“And now?”

“My heart is yours, an unwilling captive.”

“Unwilling,” she said, her eyebrow raising. “You really are a most peculiar sort of man. You kiss me like that and protest that you are acting entirely against your own will.”

“Marry me.”

“What?”

“Marry me.”

“Sir, I…”

The reality of what had just passed between them slammed into him at once. He had been unguarded and truthful, at the sake of his own pride and sensibilities. He had kissed her, touched her as though it were his right to do so…and now, she rejected him.

Not the words, not yet. But the hesitation in her voice, the flicker in her expression - was it revulsion? Embarrassment? Whatever it was, it was not welcome.

He straightened, his features hardening with the return of pride.

“Good day to you, Miss Elizabeth,” he said, his voice clipped. “I shall not trouble you again.”

“No, Mr Darcy, you misunderstand.”

But her protest faltered as he turned from her, already walking away, back towards Netherfield, back towards solitude. He left his diary behind, and with it, every piece of himself he had dared to offer.