Chapter Text
“From the first moment I met you, your arrogance and conceit, your selfish disdain for the feelings of others, made me realize you were the last man in the world I could ever be prevailed upon to marry.”
A heartbeat. Two. A low rumble of thunder.
Neither spoke, neither moved. Rain clung to hair and eyelashes, rivulets ran over cheek and chin and mixed with the hot, angry tears in the corners of her eyes.
Lizzy was paralyzed. She couldn’t speak or move or think of anything other than him . Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy, standing in front of her, breaths coming shallow and expectant in his chest, eyes as stormy as the world around them.
Another heartbeat. He leaned closer.
His lips parted as if he meant to speak, and then snapped shut once more. His eyes darted across her face, found her tears, landed on her lips and stayed there.
An endless, crystalline moment passed, a moment in which she could have turned away.
And then he was there—lips pressed to hers, warm, surprised breath mixing with her own. They were softer than she could have imagined, those lips, yet firm and commanding as they settled squarely over hers and began to demand—demand she respond, or pull away, demand she do something rather than just stand there limp and lifeless.
Lizzy kissed him back.
She tasted more than heard his groan, felt one hand tangle in the wet hair at the nape of her neck and the other settle shockingly, possessively on the curve of her waist. His tongue pressed to her mouth, seeking entry, and she granted it.
With her acquiescence, the kiss quickly became something else. Tentative to ravenous, polite to carnal, Darcy pulled her closer, tightened his hold on her hair to tilt her just the way he wanted. And Lizzy, for her part, did not pull away.
She hated him, didn’t she?
Lizzy knew it should have been enough to have her put a stop to this. She should shove him off, flee back through the rain and mud to the Collins’ house and pretend it never happened
And his words. His arrogant, thoughtless, cruel words about her family. Those should have been enough to turn her to stone, rather than having her come to warm, vibrant life under the insistence of his kiss.
All of it should have been enough. It wasn’t.
Both Lizzy’s hands shot up to clutch at his hair, the wet strands clinging to her fingers as she pulled him closer.
Closer? Madness, all of this was madness. She hated the man, thoroughly hated him, and she could have no more pulled away than she could have stopped the beating of her heart or the rushed, heaving breaths she stole between clashes of their lips.
He pulled back suddenly, eyes wide and disbelieving, a question there she didn’t know if she could answer.
“Elizabeth,” Darcy whispered, brushing a thumb across the crest of one cheek, wiping away a raindrop.
She didn’t answer. She couldn’t. Lizzy found herself utterly incapable of doing anything than pulling him back to her, kissing him this time with an unpracticed ardor and desperation that drew gasps and moans from them both.
It was a whirlpool, the sensation which consumed her, something deep and dark and irresistible. His hand came up to cup her breast over the soaked covering of her dress, thumb brushing over her hardened nipple, and she arched into the touch.
“Lizzy?” a voice called out from the other side of the stone temple. “Lizzy? Are you here? Mr. Collins and I have brought the carriage to—oh!”
It was the surprised exclamation that finally made them spring apart.
The damage was done.
Charlotte and Mr. Collins stood agape just around the curve of the temple, just close enough to have seen. Lizzy swiped a hand over her mouth. Her cheeks were flaming, the full impact of what she'd just been caught doing slamming into her all at once.
“Mr. Darcy,” Mr. Collins said, voice stern and outraged. “Miss Elizabeth is a guest in my home, and this violation will not be overlooked. I shall report this to Lady Catherine and to—”
“There’s no need,” Mr. Darcy said in a tone that betrayed nothing of the storm that just passed between them. “Miss Elizabeth and I are to be married.”